US to announce'substantial' Russia sanctions The US government will impose a substantial pickup in sanctions against Russia as the fighting in Ukraine continues, according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Bessent's comments came just before Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due at the White House, in which he said he hopes to discuss how to deliver Trump's vision of peace in the conflict. Earlier in the day, Rutte said he believes that Trump is the only one who can get this done. At least seven people were killed, including two children, during intense Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine - just hours after Trump said plans for a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Budapest had been shelved. Bessent provided no further details on the incoming sanctions, but said they would be announced either after the close this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning.

There is an eerie emptiness at the seat of US economic power. The US Treasury is in shutdown like much of the federal government. Most staff are furloughed as the world's finance ministers and bankers jet in for the International Monetary Fund annual meetings a few blocks away, their delayed flights handled by a small number of unpaid air traffic controllers. There is, however, one clear message the Trump administration is notably keen to get out, not so much for its domestic audience but for the bewildered world outside. And they delivered it in the middle of last week to a small number of people ushered into the Treasury and what is said to be the finest room in Washington DC, the ornate and marbled Cash Room, which hosted the inaugural reception for post-civil war president, Ulysses Grant.

Is Chicago the violent crime capital of the US? How did India-US relations decline so fast? A Ukrainian drone attack killed two women in the village of Golovchino in Russia's Belgorod region, Russia's state TASS news agency reports. A man who was seriously injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia's Belgorod region in April has died in hospital, TASS reports. TASS also reported that Russian forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones in a 24-hour period.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent kicked off Michael Milken's annual financial bash in Beverly Hills by doubling down on President Trump's economic policy of trade reform, tax cuts and deregulation -- promising the "America First" agenda would be "the blueprint for a more abundant world." The former hedge fund manager, in a brief speech Monday that opened the Milken Institute Global Conference, said that all three elements of the policy must be taken together in order to be understood. "They are interlocking parts of an engine designed to drive long-term investment in the American economy," he said, in remarks at the Beverly Hilton. "Tariffs are engineered to encourage companies like yours to invest directly in the United States. Hire your workers here, build your factories here, make your products here. You'll be glad you did, not only because we have the most productive work force in the world, but because we will soon have the most favorable tax and regulatory environment as well," he said.