Donald Trump says a US-UK trade deal can be done “very quickly”, and suggested Britain might be spared from tariffs after meeting Keir Starmer in Washington yesterday. The president said a Ukraine ceasefire was “very achievable” but refused to guarantee American military support. Trump also accepted an invitation from King Charles to make an unprecedented second state visit to the UK. The BBC has apologised for “serious flaws” in a documentary depicting the lives of children in Gaza after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator was the son of a top Hamas official. More than 500 media figures, including Gary Lineker and actor Riz Ahmed, signed a letter criticising the broadcaster’s decision to remove the show from iPlayer. Seven planets will line up in the sky tonight in a rare form of syzygy (an alignment of three or more celestial bodies) known as a planetary parade. Stargazers will easily be able to see Venus, Jupiter and Mars, but Mercury and Saturn will be harder to spot, and Uranus and Neptune will only be visible with a telescope.

Starmer’s diplomatic masterclass

Mr Starmer goes to Washington sounds like some straight-to-video offering you’d find in the bargain bin at a jumble sale, says Madeline Grant in The Daily Telegraph. Still, here we were at the White House yesterday, with the least predictable leader in the West meeting a prime minister who gives the impression he “uses a ruler to measure out his toothpaste”. The PM came across as a “nerd trying to cosy up to the school bully”: nodding along gamely as Trump slagged off the EU, interrupting his host’s many monologues only with “squeaks of agreement”. But he did have an ace up his sleeve: the formal invitation from King Charles inviting Trump for an unprecedented second state visit. “Trump was enamoured of the monarch’s enormous Sharpie-pen signature, which he declared ‘very beautiful’ before making sure that Sir Keir didn’t take it back home with him.”

In terms of what was actually achieved, says Steven Swinford in The Times, Starmer didn’t secure the US security guarantees he wanted for any future Ukraine peacekeeping force. But the PM did win some “significant concessions”. Trump backed his controversial Chagos Islands deal, and said tariffs might not be “necessary” for the UK, praising Starmer for driving a hard bargain: “He earned whatever the hell they pay him over there.” On a personal level, the “bromance” between the two appeared real. Trump spoke of the PM’s “beautiful” wife Victoria; Starmer patted his host’s shoulder “in a show of bonhomie”. The whole meeting appears to be a vindication of Starmer’s strategy “not just to avoid confrontation with Trump but to go out of his way to charm him”. He will return from Washington with “good reason for optimism”.