ISLAMABAD: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will sit down Sunday with Donald Trump to seek the US president&rsquo;s stamp of approval for a new proposal to end the nearly four-year conflict with Russia. The 20-point plan, which emerged from weeks of intense US-Ukraine negotiations, lacks Moscow&#39;s approval, and the face-to-face in Florida comes in the wake of a massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv. The meeting, hosted by Trump at his opulent Mar-a-Lago residence, will be the pair&#39;s first in-person encounter since October, when the US president refused to grant Zelensky&#39;s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles. During a stopover in Canada on Saturday, Zelensky said he hoped the talks would be &quot;very constructive&quot; and said Russian leader Vladimir Putin had shown his hand with the latest assault on the Ukrainian capital. &quot;This attack is again, Russia&#39;s answer on our peace efforts. And this really showed that Putin doesn&#39;t want peace,&quot; he said. Europeans vow supportWhile in Canada, Zelensky held a conference call with European leaders who, according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, pledged their full support for his peace efforts. Russia has accused Ukraine and its European backers of trying to &quot;torpedo&quot; a previous US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, who participated in the conference call, said the European Union&#39;s backing for Ukraine would never falter and vowed to maintain pressure on the Kremlin to come to terms. Trump has so far been non-committal on the new peace proposal. Zelensky &quot;doesn&#39;t have anything until I approve it,&quot; the president said in an interview with Politico on Friday. &quot;So we&#39;ll see what he&#39;s got.&quot; The talks will address a plan that would stop the war along its current front lines and could require Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, allowing the creation of demilitarized buffer zones. As such, it contains Kyiv&#39;s most explicit acknowledgement yet of possible territorial concessions. But is does not envisage Ukraine withdrawing from the 20 percent of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls -- Russia&#39;s main territorial demand. Trump has made ending the Ukraine and Gaza wars the centerpiece of his self-proclaimed second term as a &quot;president of peace.&quot; But the Ukraine war has, by his own admission, proved far harder than he expected, and the president has repeatedly voiced his frustration with both sides for failing to secure a truce. Security guaranteesIn Canada, Zelensky told reporters that security guarantees would be a key focus of the talks in Florida. &quot;Security guarantees must be simultaneous with the end of the war, because we must be confident that Russia will not start aggression again,&quot; he stressed. &quot;We need strong security guarantees. We will discuss this and we will discuss the terms.&quot; Ukraine insists it needs more European and US support in terms of funding and weaponry -- especially drones. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who met with Zelensky during his stopover on Saturday, announced CAN$2.5 billion (US$1.82 billion) in fresh economic assistance to help Ukraine rebuild once the war ends. The latest Russian attack, which saw 500 drones and 40 missiles pummel the Ukrainian capital and its infrastructure, knocked out power and heating to hundreds of thousands of Kyiv region residents during freezing temperatures.

This files combination of pictures created on February 25, 2025 shows US President Donald Trump (L) on February 24, 2025, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) on February 23, 2025.

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The meeting, hosted by Trump at his opulent Mar-a-Lago residence, will be the pair's first in-person encounter since October, when the US president refused to grant Zelensky's request for long-range Tomahawk missiles.

Zelensky looks to close out Ukraine peace deal at Trump meet

NEW YORK: A man believed to be behind both a mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor has been found dead after a days-long manhunt, authorities said Thursday. The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was a 48-year-old Portuguese national who had once studied physics at Brown, officials announced at press conferences in Providence and Boston. There was no immediate indication of a motive in the twin shootings at two of the top universities in the United States, which rattled the elite New England campuses. The shooter&#39;s body was found at a storage unit in New Hampshire along with two firearms. He died by suicide, Providence police chief Oscar Perez said. Neves Valente, who had been a permanent US resident since 2017, is believed to have acted alone. &quot;Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little bit easier,&quot; Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters. On December 13, the shooter burst into a building at Brown, an Ivy League school in Rhode Island, where students were taking exams, and opened fire, killing two and wounding nine. The victims were Ella Cook, vice president of Brown&#39;s Republican Party association, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, originally from Uzbekistan, who had hoped to become a neurosurgeon. Six of the wounded were still in hospital in stable condition, and three have been released, university president Christina Paxson said in a statement late Thursday. Then on December 15, Nuno Loureiro -- a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- was fatally shot in his home in Brookline, in the greater Boston metro area. For days, investigators appeared to have little to go on, releasing images of a person of interest and an individual who was seen standing near that person in an effort to trace them. Officials had given daily media updates at which they voiced increasing frustration with the fruitless manhunt. But then the case blew open thanks to a trail of financial data and video surveillance footage gathered at both scenes. &#39;Hiding his tracks&#39;&quot;The groundwork that started in the city of Providence...led us to that connection,&quot; Perez said. In Boston, federal prosecutor Leah Foley, the US attorney for Massachusetts, explained how Neves Valente had been &quot;sophisticated in hiding his tracks.&quot; He switched the plates on his rental vehicle at one point and was using a phone that investigators had difficulty tracking, but eventually the pieces started falling into place. Authorities initially detained a different man in connection with the shooting but later released him. The university has faced questions, including from President Donald Trump, about its security arrangements after it emerged that none of its 1,200 security cameras were linked to the police&#39;s surveillance system. There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot. Attempts to restrict access to firearms still face political deadlock. &quot;Nothing can fully bring closure to the lives that have been shattered by last weekend&rsquo;s gun violence,&quot; said Paxson, Brown&#39;s president. &quot;Now, however, our community has the opportunity to move forward and begin a path of repair, recovery and healing.&quot;

University Hall on the campus of Brown University, days after a December 13 mass shooting in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 15, 2025. (Photo by AFP/Bing Guan)

The man believed to be behind a mass shooting at Brown University that left two people dead and wounded several others has been found dead.

Brown University shooting suspect found dead

SOUTHPORT: A mass shooting that shattered the evening tranquility of a seaside town in North Carolina was a &ldquo;highly premeditated&rdquo; attack that left three people dead and five injured, police said Sunday. The suspect accused of carrying out the attack at a waterfront bar was in custody. Nigel Edge, 40, of Oak Island, is accused of opening fire Saturday night from a boat into a crowd at the American Fish Company in Southport, a historic port town about 30 miles south of Wilmington, Police Chief Todd Coring said. At a press conference Sunday, Coring said the location was &ldquo;targeted,&rdquo; but did not elaborate. Authorities said Edge piloted a small boat close to shore, where bars and restaurants line the waterfront, stopped briefly and fired before speeding away. About half an hour later, a US Coast Guard crew spotted a person matching the suspect&rsquo;s description pulling a boat from the water at a public ramp on Oak Island. The person was detained and turned over to Southport police, officials said. Edge is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He could face additional charges, Coring said. The weapon used was an assault rifle, though Coring did not specify the type. &ldquo;We understand this suspect identifies as a combat veteran. He self-identifies. Injured in the line of duty is what he&rsquo;s saying. He suffers from PTSD,&rdquo; Coring said, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder. Edge is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, District Attorney Jon David said. He is being held without bond. Among the five people hospitalized with injuries, at least one &ldquo;is now clinging for their life,&rdquo; David said. Some of the victims were vacationers from out of town. Oak Island Police Chief Charlie Morris said the suspect was known to police as someone &ldquo;who frequently hung out on our pier&rdquo; and had filed lawsuits against the town and police department in recent years. He did not elaborate. David said Edge had &ldquo;minor contacts&rdquo; with police in the past, &quot;but nothing significant in his past which would give us any indication that he was capable of such horror.&rdquo; It was not immediately known whether Edge has an attorney. No attorney was listed on court documents, and a call to Legal Aid in Brunswick County went unanswered Sunday. Investigators from multiple agencies, including the State Bureau of Investigation and the Coast Guard, remained on the water and at the scene on Sunday, collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses. Officials did not release the names of the victims.

Police officers on the scene in front of the American Fish Company following a fatal shooting that occurred here the night before

A mass shooting that shattered the evening tranquility of a seaside town in North Carolina was a 'highly premeditated' attack that left three people dead and five injured, police said Sunday. The suspect accused of carrying out the attack at a waterfront bar was in custody.

Articles tagged with "usa"

Zelensky looks to close out Ukraine peace deal at Trump meet

Brown University shooting suspect found dead

‘Highly premeditated’ North Carolina shooting leaves 3 dead, 5 injured