CNN
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The European Union will delay the implementation of its trade countermeasures against the United States from Monday until early August to allow more time to negotiate a deal.

At a news conference on Sunday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, referenced the letter the United States sent to the bloc Saturday, which threatened to impose a 30% tariff on European goods exports on August 1 absent a trade agreement.

“We will therefore also extend the suspension of our countermeasures till early August,” she said at the briefing in Brussels. “At the same time, we will continue to prepare further countermeasures so we are fully prepared.”

“We have always been very clear that we prefer a negotiated solution. This remains the case, and we will use the time that we have now till the 1st of August (to negotiate),” von der Leyen added.

In mid-April, the EU said it was suspending until July 14 its planned countermeasures on €21 billion ($25 billion) worth of US exports, unveiled earlier in retaliation for the 25% tariff Washington slapped on all steel and aluminum imports.

The bloc has also been preparing additional countermeasures in response to further tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump. On Sunday, von der Leyen said the 27-nation bloc had “developed a second potential list of countermeasures” and has sought to diversify its trade relationships, citing a “big and important” free trade deal with Indonesia.

According to the US Trade Representative’s office, EU member countries are together America’s largest trading partner at nearly $976 billion in two-way goods traded in 2024.

Von der Leyen noted that the EU prefers to negotiate a trade solution with the United States.

“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she said on Saturday.

CNN
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Ukraine’s Security Service said Sunday they had killed Russian special service agents suspected of gunning down a fellow officer in Kyiv earlier this week, saying it believed Russia’s Federal Security Service was responsible.

SBU officer Ivan Voronych was shot dead in Kyiv on Thursday morning in what authorities told CNN was an apparent assassination.

The suspects – a man and a woman – tried to “lay low” after the shooting, the SBU said in a statement Sunday.

However, SBU and National Police officers established their whereabouts in the Kyiv region, the statement added.

The head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, said; “As a result of covert investigative and active counterintelligence measures, the enemy’s lair was discovered.”

He continued, “During their arrest, they began to resist, there was an exchange of fire, and the scoundrels were eliminated.”

“I want to remind you that the only prospect for the enemy on the territory of Ukraine is death!” he said in a video, which was apparently filmed in front of the suspect’s bodies.

According to the SBU, the two had been ordered to trail their target to establish his daily routine. They were then directed to a safe house where a pistol with a silencer was waiting for them.

The SBU is Ukraine’s main security service, responsible for both internal security and sabotage operations against Russia. Among others, it was responsible for Ukraine’s audacious drone attack against Russian airfields last month.

Voronych’s killing comes at a time when Russia has been escalating its attacks on Ukraine – this week saw both the largest and second largest drone attack of the conflict, now into its fourth year.

CNN
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Rudy Guede, the only person definitively convicted of the brutal 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, will be back in court this fall facing charges of sexual assault and violence against a former girlfriend.

Guede, a 38-year-old Ivory Coast native who has lived in Italy since the age of five, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for Kercher’s murder in October 2008. His sentence was reduced on appeal before he was released early for good behavior in 2021.

The case sparked a media frenzy, spawning more than two dozen books and three films.

More than 100,000 photos, thousands of chats and audio messages between Guede and the unnamed victim are among the evidence to be considered in the trial, according to the investigating magistrate Rita Cialoni, who ordered Guede to stand trial in a preliminary hearing in Viterbo on Friday.

The two began dating while Guede was still in prison and ended their relationship in 2023 when the woman pressed charges against him, according to Italian media.

American student Amanda Knox, who was Kercher’s roommate at the time she was killed, and Knox’s then-boyfriend Italian Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in tandem for their alleged role in Kercher’s murder in 2009, but were fully exonerated by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2015 following a topsy-turvy legal battle.

Knox, remains convicted of slander for accusing her former nightclub boss Patrick Lumumba of Kercher’s murder in 2007.

Guede’s new indictment and trial stems from 2023 accusations of sexual assault, mistreatment and stalking, by a 25-year-old woman Guede dated from Viterbo, where Guede worked first on work release from prison and then after his release. His first hearing will be held November 4 in Viterbo.

His lawyer Carlo Mezzetti told CNN his client was innocent and feared he would not get a fair trial given his previous conviction.