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The Trump administration has put an “anti-fraud expert” temporarily in charge at the Social Security Administration, long a politically untouchable source of government spending, the White House confirmed Tuesday after the previous chief resigned in an apparent clash with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team.The reported departure of acting commissioner Michelle King was the latest abrupt resignation of a senior official confronted with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as the billionaire takes a scorched earth approach to federal spending.The details of her exit were not clear, but The Washington Post, which first reported the story on Monday, said it came after officials from DOGE tried to access sensitive data at the Social Security Administration.US media said King had been made acting commissioner in January as President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the agency, Frank Bisignano, was vetted for the post. The Trump administration expects Bisignano “to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks,” according to White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields. “In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner,” he told AFP when asked for confirmation of King’s resignation.The Post and other US media named that expert as Leland Dudek, who had previously headed up Social Security’s anti-fraud office.Trump has directed Musk and DOGE to identify fraud at the agency, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has said. “They suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people receiving fraudulent Social Security payments,” she told Fox News. Musk has also referred to potential fraud, without providing evidence.But experts have warned that Social Security data is hugely sensitive, raising concerns about Musk taking a sledgehammer to the agency. “SSA has comprehensive medical records of people who have applied for disability benefits. It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more,” warned Nancy Altman, president of the left-leaning advocacy group Social Security Works.”There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is. And my understanding is that it has already occurred,” she said. Musk’s DOGE has come in for widespread criticism since Trump took power last month as it rampages through the federal government, slashing staff and programs that it argues are fraudulent and do not align with the president’s agenda.But the drive has run into resistance. The top civil servant at the Treasury Department, David Lebryk, also resigned in January after refusing to give DOGE access to the government’s vast payments system. And the Washington Post reported Tuesday that a federal prosecutor stepped down after refusing to comply with a White House move to rescind $20 billion in grants awarded by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, for climate and clean energy projects. Republicans have long sought to privatize Social Security and other US entitlement programs such as Medicare, complaining of the massive costs and government oversight involved.But the programs are hugely popular with voters, making any attempts to reform them potential political suicide. 

A US federal judge ordered the Trump Justice Department to appear in court Wednesday to explain its extraordinary decision to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a move that triggered a wave of protest resignations.US District Judge Dale Ho, who is presiding over the case, ordered the embattled mayor of the largest US city and Justice Department prosecutors to attend a 2:00 pm (1900 GMT) hearing in Manhattan to discuss the reasons for dismissing the charges.In asking last week for the case against Adams to be dropped, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the prosecution was restricting the Democratic mayor’s “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime.”The unusual request prompted allegations that it was a quid pro quo in exchange for Adams agreeing to enforce Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — a claim denied by the mayor.”I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case,” he said.Adams, who pleaded not guilty in September to charges of fraud and bribery, has been under growing pressure to resign.On Monday, the head of New York’s city council called on the mayor, who is facing reelection in November, to step down and four deputy mayors announced that they were resigning.Governor Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, was meeting with “key leaders” on Tuesday to discuss what she called a “path forward with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”- ‘Fool’ or a ‘coward’ -Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney in Manhattan, a Trump appointee, and assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten who brought the case against Adams, resigned last week along with several Justice Department officials in Washington to protest the order to dismiss the charges.Scotten, the lead prosecutor, in a blistering letter to Bove, said only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply with the Justice Department demand to drop the case.In ordering Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Ho, citing previous rulings, noted that the government has “broad discretion” in deciding which cases to prosecute. But the court, in considering a request for dismissal, “must have sufficient factual information supporting the recommendation.”The Justice Department, which Trump has accused of unjustly prosecuting him, has been the target of a sweeping shakeup since the Republican took office and a number of high-ranking officials have been fired, demoted or reassigned.More than 800 former federal prosecutors released an open letter Monday condemning recent actions by Trump’s Justice Department that are not based on “the facts and the law” but appear intended “to serve solely political purposes.”Among those who signed the letter was Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought two now-abandoned criminal cases against Trump — for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and for mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.

US director Richard Linklater and long-time collaborator Ethan Hawke have teamed up again for “one-scene” musical drama “Blue Moon” which premiered at the Berlin film festival on Tuesday.Set in 1943, it sees Hawke play love-lorn and troubled Broadway writer Lorenz Hart, whose credits include “The Lady Is a Tramp” and the song that gives the film its title. The dense, lyrical script sees Hawke take centre stage for almost the entire 100-minute movie, which unfolds like a theatre production inside a hotel and bar on the opening night of the musical “Oklahoma!”.”It’s basically filmed as one scene. It starts and all the dominoes fall in one gesture,” Hawke told journalists in Berlin on Tuesday alongside on-screen love interest Margaret Qualley (“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”).Linklater said he had “always loved this period so much — the 1930s and 40s musical theatre, the craftsmanship of it”. The aim had been to produce a film that echoed the songs written by Hart and his composer partner Richard Rodgers, played in the film by Irish actor Andrew Scott (“Fleabag”, “All of Us Strangers”).”Our goal with this movie was if it could be like a Rodgers and Hart song too. If it could be beautiful and kind of sad and funny, all at the same time,” Linklater said. The 64-year-old director is back at the Berlinale festival 11 years after winning the silver bear award for Best Director, the second-top prize, for his epic “Boyhood” film, which also featured Hawke.- Politics -The duo shot to fame with their work together on the 1995 romantic drama “Before Sunrise”, the first instalment of their “Before” triology.   “Blue Moon” is one of the most star-heavy contenders in the main competition at this year’s Berlin film festival, which showcases independent arthouse movies and documentaries from across the world.Last year’s event was overshadowed by a political row in Germany caused by criticism from actors and directors of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.The festival’s new director, Tricia Tuttle, vowed beforehand that the Berlinale would not “shy away” from current events but she hoped the news agenda would not eclipse the on-screen stories.The jury, helmed by US director Todd Haynes, is set to hand out its awards on Saturday evening.The day after, Germany goes to the polls for a national election, with the far-right AfD surging in the polls and earning enthusiastic backing from Donald Trump’s US administration. In an interview with AFP this week, Haynes urged Hollywood to resist Trump and warned about the danger of being “contaminated” by the radical changes underway in the United States.”It is an appalling moment that we’re in right now, that will take every bit of energy to resist and revert back to a system that, flawed as it is, is something that we’ve taken for granted as Americans,” he said.

The passenger plane that crashed in Toronto appeared to hit the runway hard before bursting into flames and flipping upside down, new video showed Tuesday. A fire ball and thick plumes of black smoke engulfed the Delta Air Lines plane as it skidded to a halt on its roof, but none of the 80 people on board were killed.The airline said in a statement on Tuesday that “21 injured passengers were initially transported to local hospitals. As of Tuesday morning, 19 have been released.”Paramedic services told AFP on Monday that three people had been critically injured, including a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s.The flight with 76 passengers and four crew was landing in the afternoon in Canada’s largest city, having flown from Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota.Todd Aitken, the airport’s fire chief, said late Monday that it was too early to determine the cause of the crash.”It’s really important that we do not speculate. What we can say is the runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions,” he told a news conference.The video posted to social media and verified by AFP was taken from the cockpit of another jetliner waiting on the tarmac.It showed the moment the Delta plane hit the ground. “Oh no no no no no,” the pilot is heard saying in the video that laced with expletives. The aircraft came in for what looked like a normal landing when it slammed into the ground, bounced and slid forward in a roll to the right, with its wings sheared off before it stopped on its back.Flames are seen shooting out from the fuselage the moment it hit the ground, along with billowing black smoke.Rescue services quickly responded, spraying water at the jet, whose underside was scraped and blackened.Toronto airport authority chief executive Deborah Flint said the incident did not involve any other planes.A massive snowstorm hit eastern Canada on Sunday. Strong winds and bone-chilling temperatures could still be felt in Toronto on Monday when airlines added flights to make up for weekend cancellations due to the storm.Canada’s Transportation Safety Board has deployed a team of investigators to the site of the crash.They will be assisted by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which also sent a team to the scene, according to US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.Officials at the airport were expected to provide an update on Tuesday.

Lofty rhetoric and frank acknowledgements of a new world order have not been in short supply from European leaders since the new American administration of Donald Trump took office, but it will take an immense leap to translate such sentiments into reality, analysts and observers say.Trump spoke over the heads of not only Europe but also Ukraine by declaring he was ready to negotiate with Russia to end the three-year war, while his Vice President JD Vance left seasoned policymakers dazed with a withering attack on the European Union at the Munich Security Forum.”It’s really a ‘make or break’ moment,” said a European source, asking to be named, adding: “while the war continues, (…) things bigger than Ukraine are at stake in Ukraine, starting with our security.”The shock switch in policy from the United States prompted European leaders to vow to ramp up defence capacities through higher spending and even to consider sending troops to Ukraine to enforce an eventual ceasefire.Emergency talks of key European leaders called Monday by French President Emmanuel Macron were aimed at showing a united front, but immediately exposed tensions with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying he was “a little irritated” by suggestions, from the likes of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, that troops should be deployed.In the most concrete sign that the United States has brought Russia back from the cold, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with American counterpart Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia later Tuesday.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters in Paris: “Everyone at this meeting is aware that transatlantic relations, the NATO alliance and our friendship with the United States have entered a new phase.”NATO chief Mark Rutte said the Europeans were “ready and willing” to step up, while EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called for a “surge” in defence.- ‘Clock ticking’ -The chairman of the Munich Security Forum Christoph Heusgen, after the annual conference was shocked by Vance’s speech, went as far as to say: “We have to fear that our common-value base is not that common anymore”.As if to emphasise his point, some accounts on social media edited his speech to show him weeping when he said this, although in fact his emotion came after he thanked his team over his last year in charge.”This unfortunately shows again how the mechanisms of disinformation work,” Heusgen later said on social media.Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, said that while the west is “perilously close to the worst-case scenario on Trump and Ukraine”, Europe should have seen the trouble coming.”The European reaction seemed stunned — which is just as worrying,” he said.For Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at the HEC Paris business school, the Paris meeting showed “major differences” among European countries over committing peacekeeping troops to Ukraine and funding a massive defence investment push. “At least the debate is now in full swing across capitals and beyond but the clock is ticking,” he said.The potential challenge of finding unity within the EU were underlined by the stance at the Elysee Palace meeting of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who arrived conspicuously late and echoed concerns about troop deployments.Sending troops was “the most complex and the least effective” way of securing peace in Ukraine, she said according to reports confirmed by an Italian government source to AFP.Meloni, who revels in her cordial ties with Trump and his advisor the X and Tesla owner Elon Musk, also said the meeting should not be an “anti-Trump” initiative, the source added.- ‘Question of political will’ -Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, whose country shares a border with Russia, said that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there had been much talk in Europe about increasing defence spending, but “our capabilities are not enough”. “I’m afraid that, after a couple of days, after strong statements, we will somehow relax, will relax again, and we will go back to business as usual,” he said after the Munich meeting.While the informal Paris talks were not aimed at forging an accord, many leaders agreed that one key step for the European Union was to relax its strict fiscal rules to allow higher defence spending by member states.For former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who was present in Munich, the United States is “no longer happy to be the main guarantor of security in Europe” and “does not see the EU as it once did”.”Europe is technically fully able to adapt and rise to this challenge, but the question remains one of political will, or the lack of it. Indecision will lead in only one direction, and it won’t be pretty.”

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company unveiled on Monday the latest version of its chatbot, Grok 3, which the billionaire hopes will find traction in a highly competitive sector contested by the likes of ChatGPT and China’s DeepSeek.The launch comes as the world’s richest man is deploying the enormous powers granted him by US President Donald Trump to restructure and dismantle federal agencies.The unprecedented cost-cutting drive has raised conflict-of-interest questions, given that many of those agencies have regulatory oversight on elements of Musk’s sprawling business empire.”Grok is to understand the universe,” Musk said at the start of the Grok 3 launch presentation.”We’re driven by curiosity about the nature of the universe — that’s also what causes us to be a maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct.”Musk has promoted Grok 3 as “scary smart,” with 10 times the computational resources of its predecessor that was released in August last year.The flagship product of his xAI company was trained on synthetic data and employs self-correction mechanisms that avoid errors –- known as “hallucinations” -– that plague some AI chatbots and lead them to process false or misleading data as fact.”Grok 3 has very powerful reasoning capabilities, so in the tests that we’ve done thus far, Grok 3 is outperforming anything that’s been released, that we’re aware of, so that’s a good sign,” Musk said in a video call last week with the World Governments Summit in Dubai.Grok 3 will be made available first to Premium+ paid subscribers of X — formerly Twitter, which Musk acquired in 2022 — before rolling out to other users.The upgraded chatbot enters a crowded field with countries racing to introduce more sophisticated — and cost-effective — AI products.Chinese startup DeepSeek shocked the global AI industry last month with the launch of its low-cost, high-quality R1 chatbot — a direct challenge to US ambitions to lead the world in developing the technology.Grok 3 is also going up against OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT – pitting Musk against collaborator-turned-arch rival Sam Altman.Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015. Created as a counterweight to Google’s dominance in artificial intelligence, the project got its initial funding from Musk, who invested $45 million to get it started.Musk left three years later, and then in 2022 OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT created a global technology sensation — one that did not feature Musk at its center and which made Altman a star.Their relationship has become increasingly toxic and litigious ever since, with Open AI’s board last week rejecting a Musk-led offer to buy out the company for close to $100 billion.- Trump and tech -Trump has put technology front and center of his new administration. Tech billionaires featured prominently at his inauguration and he has announced a number of major AI infrastructure initiatives from the White House.Musk has become a key figure in the administration, as one of Trump’s closest advisers and the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has begun a radical overhaul of the US government bureaucracy.Critics warn that Musk’s proximity to the president poses a major conflict of interest as he guides Trump on laws and regulations around artificial intelligence –- just one sector in which he has a substantial commercial stake.According to Bloomberg, xAI has been canvassing potential investors for a roughly $10 billion funding round that would value the company at about $75 billion.Musk, who also acts as boss of SpaceX and Tesla, launched the xAI company in July 2023, shortly after he signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of powerful AI models.

The death toll from powerful winter storms in the central and eastern United States has risen to at least 14, officials said Monday, after floods, gale-force winds and bitterly cold temperatures swept the region.The National Weather Service (NWS) warned on Monday of a winter storm system carrying arctic air that would cause “record cold,” with wind chill expected to hit as low as -60 degrees Fahrenheit (-51 degrees Celsius) in Montana and North Dakota.”I’ve got more tough news. The death toll in Kentucky has now risen to 12,” said Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in a social media post on Monday, raising the toll from eight a day earlier.West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey said on Monday his state had also seen at least one death from the weather.”We have one confirmed fatality at this time,” he told a press briefing, warning that further flooding was expected. “There are still several people who are missing.”In addition, one person died in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia. The victim was killed when an “extremely large” tree fell on his house early Sunday, fire official Scott Powell told local media.Most of the dead in Kentucky, Beshear said in an earlier news conference, drowned when trapped in their vehicles by fast-rising floodwaters. The victims included a mother and her child.The governor urged people to stay off roads across the state, where local and federal authorities have declared a state of emergency.Beshear said more than 1,000 people had been rescued by first responders within 24 hours.In its Monday advisory, the NWS warned that the cold weather system would impact a vast area, sending temperatures tumbling in the central plains, the eastern seaboard and as far south as the Gulf coast. “A bitter cold arctic airmass is expected to continue impacting the north-central US while also spreading further south and east over the next few days,” the advisory said.Power to thousands of homes had been restored by Monday, but more than 50,000 customers remained without electricity in the states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to monitoring website poweroutage.us.

A Delta Air Lines jet with 80 people onboard crash-landed Monday at Toronto’s main airport, officials said, flipping upside down and leaving at least 18 people injured but causing no deaths.Endeavor Air Flight 4819 with 76 passengers and four crew was landing in the afternoon in Canada’s largest metropolis, having flown from Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota, the airline said.No explanation of the cause of the accident, or how the plane ended up flipped with its wings clipped, has been provided.”It’s very early on. It’s really important that we do not speculate. What we can say is the runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions,” said Todd Aitken, the airport’s fire chief.He confirmed that 18 people had been injured in the accident, with no fatalities. Earlier, paramedic services told AFP three people were critically injured — a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s. All of the wounded, including those with minor injuries, were taken to area hospitals either by ambulance or helicopter, said the paramedic services’ Lawrence Saindon.Dramatic images on local broadcasts and shared on social media showed people stumbling away from the upside down CRJ-900 plane, shielding their faces from strong gusts of wind and blowing snow.Fire crews appeared to douse the aircraft with water as smoke wafted from the fuselage and as passengers were still exiting the plane.Toronto airport authority chief executive Deborah Flint told a news conference the incident did not involve any other planes.Emergency crews were “heroic” in their response, she said, “reaching the site within minutes and quickly evacuating the passengers.”Some of them “have already been reunited with their friends and their families,” she added.The airport suspended all flights after the incident, before resuming them at around 5:00 pm local time, more than two hours later. It said passengers should expect long delays.- ‘It’s upside down’ -Facebook user John Nelson, who said he was a passenger on the flight, posted a video from the tarmac showing the overturned aircraft and narrated: “Our plane crashed. It’s upside down.””Most people appear to be okay. We’re all getting off,” he added.Delta said the flight operated by its subsidiary Endeavor had been “involved in an incident.””Initial reports were that there are no fatalities,” the airline said through a spokesperson’s statement.”The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport,” Delta chief executive Ed Bastian said.A massive snow storm hit eastern Canada on Sunday. Strong winds and bone-chilling temperatures could still be felt in Toronto on Monday when airlines added flights to make up for weekend cancellations due to the storm.”The snow has stopped coming down, but frigid temperatures and high winds are moving in,” the airport warned earlier, adding that it was “expecting a busy day in our terminals with over 130,000 travellers on board around 1,000 flights.”Federal Transport Minister Anita Anand confirmed there were 80 people on the flight. “I’m closely following the serious incident at the Pearson Airport involving Delta Airlines flight 4819 from Minneapolis,” she posted on X.Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was “relieved there are no casualties after the incident.”Canada’s Transportation Safety Board deployed a team of investigators to the site of the crash.They will be assisted by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which also sent a team to the scene, according to US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.The crash comes after other recent air incidents in North America including a mid-air collision between a US Army helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington that killed 67 people, and a medical transport plane crash in Philadelphia that left seven dead.

The head of New York’s city council on Monday called for the resignation of Mayor Eric Adams, days after the US Justice Department moved to dismiss a corruption case against him. Adams, who pleaded not guilty in September to charges of fraud and bribery, has denied allegations he asked for the case to be dropped in exchange for enforcing President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.The Democratic mayor of the country’s most populous city has been under pressure on a number of fronts, with some members of his own party criticizing him for cooperating with Trump. On Monday, four deputy mayors for the city of New York indicated they would be resigning, plunging local politics into further chaos. “With the resignation of deputy mayors, it has become clear that Mayor Adams has now lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government, and New Yorkers,” City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (no relation to the mayor) said in a statement. “He now must prioritize New York City and New Yorkers, step aside and resign.”The four resigning deputy mayors cited the “extraordinary events” of recent weeks as a reason for their departure, The New York Times reported, citing a letter issued by the officials.”Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles,” they said.In a statement, Adams said he was “disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision.” Earlier, several prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who brought the charges against Adams resigned over the Justice Department order to drop the case.The most recent was assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten, who said Friday only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply.Scotten’s boss, acting US attorney Danielle Sassoon, submitted her resignation to the country’s Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday. Several members of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which handles corruption cases, also quit this week after refusing to dismiss the Adams indictment.The Justice Department motion seeks dismissal without prejudice — meaning the case could still be prosecuted in the future and would hang over Adams’s head as he runs for reelection in November.

European leaders at an emergency meeting in Paris Monday were divided on how to respond to US President Donald Trump’s dramatic policy shift on Ukraine, with France and Britain pushing for security guarantees and Germany bristling at suggestions troops could be deployed.With European policymakers still reeling from US Vice President JD Vance’s withering attack on the European Union at an annual security conference in Munich, key leaders attended the meeting at the Elysee Palace called at the last minute by President Emmanuel Macron.European leaders worry that Trump will freeze them out of peace talks with Moscow that will also exclude Kyiv, fears that were heightened by a rare meeting expected Tuesday in Saudi Arabia between the top diplomats from Russia and the United States.European leaders in Paris weighed measures including ramping up defence spending to be less dependent on the US, providing security guarantees to Kyiv, and sending troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of a ceasefire.Macron held telephone talks with both Trump and Zelensky, he said early Tuesday, calling for “strong and credible security guarantees” for Ukraine so that a peace deal does not end up like the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements that failed to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky said he and Macron shared a “common vision” for how to achieve peace, including that “security guarantees must be robust and reliable,” he said on social media after the call. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “prepared to consider committing British forces on the ground alongside others if there is a lasting peace agreement.”But he insisted Washington had to be involved, saying “there must be a US backstop, because a US security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.” But after the talks, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that any debate on sending peacekeepers to Ukraine was “completely premature” and “highly inappropriate” while the war is ongoing.- ‘Ready and willing’ – There was no joint statement or major announcements after the Paris meeting, which participants said needed to be left for forums like the EU or NATO. “Everyone at this meeting is aware that transatlantic relations, the NATO alliance and our friendship with the United States have entered a new phase. We all see that,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said “Ukraine deserves peace through strength” and this should be “respectful of its independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, with strong security guarantees”.”Ready and willing,” was how NATO chief Mark Rutte described Europe’s position after the meeting. “The details will need to be decided but the commitment is clear.”Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government was “open-minded” on the issue of troops but warned a key question was if the United States was “going to back up on Europe” if troops were sent.Russia is “threatening all Europe now”, she added, warning the US against attempts to agree a “fast” ceasefire that would give Russia the chance to “to mobilise again, attack Ukraine or another country in Europe”.- ‘No division of security’ -Macron has described Trump’s return for a second term in the White House as an “electroshock” but also warned against any peace deal that could amount to “capitulation”.French newspaper Le Monde said the rupture between Europe and the United States was “historic”, but added that Europe had to show its capacity to ensure its own defence.”European blindness came to an abrupt end in Munich. From now on, the security of the continent depends essentially on the Europeans themselves, and on their ability to maintain their unity,” it added.The Paris talks come as Washington said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday would meet a Russian delegation including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh, ahead of a future meeting between Trump and Putin in the Saudi capital.”There must be no division of security and responsibility between Europe and the United States,” Scholz said in Paris.”NATO is based on us always acting together and sharing the risk, thereby guaranteeing our security. This must not be called into question.”