What happened
The White House has confirmed that there are “no plans” for US President Donald Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “in the immediate future”, calling off a proposed summit in Budapest that Trump had said would take place within two weeks. The decision follows the growing divergence between Washington and Moscow over conditions for ending the war in Ukraine. A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was also cancelled after what officials described as a “productive” phone call.

Who said what
Trump recently backed a ceasefire along current battle lines, saying: “Let it be cut the way it is … stop fighting, stop killing people.” The Kremlin rejected that idea, with Lavrov insisting that peace required “the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops” from the Donbas and “long-term, sustainable” guarantees. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, supported by European leaders, has reiterated that Kyiv cannot surrender its remaining territory.

What next?
Trump and Putin last met in Alaska in August during a “hastily organised” summit that “yielded no concrete results”, said Laura Gozzi on the BBC. While the White House gave no reason for the cancellation of the Budapest meeting, the decision “may have been an attempt to avoid another similar scenario”.

What happened
A third abuse survivor has resigned from the national inquiry into grooming gangs. The exit follows the resignations of two other survivors on the panel; Fiona Goddard (pictured above) and Ellie-Ann Reynolds, both of whom have waived their right to anonymity.

Who said what
The as-yet-unnamed individual said the process felt like “a cover-up”, with the outcomes “scripted and predetermined” – a situation she said “left many of us questioning whether our voices truly matter, or whether we are being used to legitimise decisions that have already been made”. Justice Minister Sarah Sackman said: “I want to reassure victims that we will stop at nothing to ensure that they get the justice they deserve.”

The inquiry has now been “left in turmoil”, said The Guardian, with the resignations coming on the heels of other well-publicised difficulties over finding a chair and setting the scope of the investigation.

What next?
One of the two candidates to chair the inquiry, former senior social worker Annie Hudson, has reportedly withdrawn. The Conservatives have said the chair should be a senior judge in order to “guarantee impartiality and restore faith in the process”, according to the BBC.

Spain’s leading matador “stunned the bullfighting world” last week by “symbolically cutting off his ponytail in the ring”, said The Times.

The gesture by Morante de la Puebla in Madrid’s Las Ventas – after a “triumphant” performance – signalled the retirement of “one of the greatest ever bullfighters” at the age of 46. His departure, which astonished even his own team, is “a blow to the tradition as public sentiment is turning against it”.

Bullfights have been held on the Iberian Peninsula for at least 900 years and are synonymous with Spanish culture. In the 1930s, dictator Francisco Franco declared it the “national fiesta”. Today, bullfighting still enjoys protected status as part of Spain’s cultural heritage.

There has always been some level of opposition, but since the explosion of pet ownership in the 1990s, interest in animal welfare has been growing and these days increasing numbers of Spaniards view bullfighting as “an archaic practice involving unacceptable cruelty”.

Now “there is a legislative war afoot”, said EuroWeekly News. In February the popular campaign no es mi cultura (it is not my culture) garnered more than 700,000 signatures calling for the government to remove bullfighting’s protected status. But last week Spain’s ruling Socialists abstained from a vote to debate the petition as a citizens’ initiative, saying they “neither prohibit nor promote” bullfighting.

As “it’s hard to envision a Spain” that isn’t governed by either the Socialists or the conservative People’s Party, “it may be even longer before there is a real national debate about whether bullfighting should stay or go”.