The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed to a landmark deal aimed at “resetting” their post-Brexit relationship, easing restrictions on travel and work for hundreds of millions of people on the continent.

The pact, agreed at a summit in London on Monday, followed months of negotiations between Downing Street and Brussels. It includes agreements on defense, migration, work and travel — and leaders on each side of the Channel will hope it leaves behind years’ worth of tensions.

“This is a historic moment,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as they unveiled the deal on Monday. “We’re turning a page. We’re opening a new chapter in our unique relationship.”

“Britain is back on the world stage,” Starmer added following the meetings at Lancaster House.

But the deal has already threatened to open old wounds; Starmer has been criticized by leaders on Britain’s resurgent populist right, who have claimed the deal weakens the UK’s sovereignty.

Here’s what you need to know.

Slashing ‘red tape’ for trade

The two sides have struck a deal to ease trade between their two markets — one of the most contentious areas of the long-running Brexit negotiations.

Downing Street announced in a statement that it has agreed to reduce the “red tape” currently burdening British businesses exporting food and drink to the bloc on an indefinite basis. Part of that agreement will include the complete removal of some routine checks on animal and plant products, it said.

Starmer’s office added that it hoped the changes would ultimately “lower food prices and increase choice on supermarket shelves” but was resolute that they do not cross certain “red lines” central to the government’s vision of Brexit, including remaining outside of the EU’s single market and customs union.

The trade partners have decided to move toward “a common sanitary and phytosanitary area,” von der Leyen told reporters on Monday. “That means more certainty, more stability for farmers and food producers, and fishermen and fisherwoman, on both sides of the Channel.”

In any case, changes to the trading rules between the two sides are significant: The EU is the UK’s largest trading partner, with the bloc accounting for 41% of Britain’s exports and more than half of its imports last year, according to official figures covering both goods and services. The UK is also a top trading partner for Brussels, and was the second-largest destination for EU goods exports in 2024, Eurostat data shows.

The deal also included commitments to give the EU fishing boats access to British waters for a further 12 years beyond the current agreement, which is set to expire next year. Europe will also open up its electricity market to the UK, a move that von der Leyen praised as a step toward boosting energy security and lowering prices.

The agreement comes as US President Donald Trump’s barrage of tariffs have wreaked havoc on the global trading order. In a joint statement released Monday, the EU and UK said they shared a “commitment to free, sustainable, fair and open trade.”

A new defense pact

The two sides have worked increasingly closely on defense since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that unity has only grown since the Trump administration threatened to pull its security guarantees for Europe and leave Kyiv to fend for itself against Moscow.

It made defense one of the least controversial aspects of the negotiations, and Monday’s deal saw a formal handshake on a new UK-EU defense partnership. The UK now will gain access to a Europe-wide defense program, allowing British companies to bid for security contracts alongside European rivals.

“This joint procurement will increase our readiness, will close military gaps that we have,” von der Leyen said.

Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have emerged as the leading voices advocating for Kyiv on the global stage, and the two leaders have pushed their European counterparts to boost military spending and join a European bulwark against Moscow’s advances.

What will change for Brits and Europeans?

The two sides will work toward a youth mobility scheme that will allow under-30s to travel and work between the UK and Europe. Starmer has taken pains to insist there is no return to full freedom of movement, a benefit Britons enjoyed when it was a member of the EU, but European officials have stressed that a deal would prove mutually beneficial.

British students are also set to once again have access to Europe’s Erasmus scheme, which allows them to study abroad in other European countries. The two sides agreed to find an agreement on that scheme. “This will allow the next generation to once again live and study in each other’s countries. This will build friendships that will last a lifetime,” von der Leyen said.

And one visible impact of Brexit will disappear: Britons will now be able to use e-gates at European airports when they travel on vacation, joining EU passport-holders in the streamlined queues.

Will the deal open old wounds?

Starmer is striking a deal in a unique political environment. Public sentiment is broadly behind him; Britons increasingly regret the decision to leave the EU, and prize an agreement with the bloc over a similar deal with the US, opinion polling suggests. But the country remains weary of the heated, years-long arguments that engulfed Westminster after the 2016 Brexit vote, and Downing Street is treading carefully to avoid re-opening those wounds.

It may be wishful thinking. The prime minister, whose government is unpopular as it approaches one year in office, is also wary of the threat from the right. The populist Reform UK party is leading opinion polls, and its leader Nigel Farage — the chief architect of the Brexit movement — has already sought to frame Monday’s deal as a surrender to Brussels.

A decision to extend the EU’s favorable access to British fishing waters until 2038 — 12 years longer than the current agreement — provides Farage and other critics ample bait. “We’re becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch complained.

But Starmer will be desperate to set another narrative: that Monday’s deal finally closes a contentious chapter in British politics. “It’s time to look forward,” he said. “To move on from the stale old debates and political fights to find common sense, practical solutions which get the best for the British people.”

France is planning to build a brand new high-security prison in the Amazon rainforest, near the site of the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony that inspired the 1973 movie “Papillon,” starring Steve McQueen.

Speaking on Sunday during a visit to French Guiana, a French territory that borders Suriname and Brazil, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said the facility would house drug kingpins and radical Islamists.

The prison will be built in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, on French Guiana’s border with Suriname, with space for 500 inmates, including 60 maximum-security prisoners.

Speaking to journalists, Darmanin said the new jail would help to ease prison overcrowding in French Guiana, as well as responding to the growing threat of drug trafficking in the territory.

French Guiana is a major transit point for South American cocaine on its way to markets in Europe, he said.

“Citizens in overseas territories must be able to have the same level of security as those in mainland France,” Darmanin said.

According to the minister, high-ranking criminals are able to use their illicit earnings to corrupt officials, and some are able to continue to run their operations from inside prison..

There are already 49 high-level drug traffickers in custody in French Guiana and other French overseas territories, Darmanin said, adding that these “extremely dangerous” prisoners are not being kept in adequately secure conditions.

The complex, which will also house a court, will cost a total 400 million euros ($451 million), Darmanin said in a post on Facebook on Sunday.

For some, the announcement of the planned facility brought back chilling memories of the penal colony of Cayenne, commonly known as Devil’s Island, which housed French prisoners until 1953.

Devil’s Island became infamous for its inhumane conditions, to the extent that it lent its name to a 1939 film starring Boris Karloff, as well as inspiring the novel “Papillon,” which was subsequently made into two movies.

“The root causes of the conflict.”

These were startling words from a man purportedly on the path to peace.

But it is the nub of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position of what must be solved for peace, after two weeks, or three months, depending on how you count, of mounting pressure for an immediate unconditional 30-day ceasefire. Unbothered, taking this most consequential of calls at a music school on the Sochi coast, the Kremlin head has returned to the start – to his false narrative about this war of choice being sparked by NATO expanding too fast.

Five other, different words emerged hours before, that may have echoed in Putin’s ears while he spoke to US President Donald Trump for two hours.

“It is not our war,” said Vice President JD Vance earlier. Reprising his role as the harbinger of very bad news for European security, Vance held out again this remarkable non-threat: that the United States might pull out of the war – presumably from both diplomacy and aid to Ukraine – unless Russia takes steps toward a peace deal it adamantly does not want. Washington backing off is exactly what Russia yearns for, and to earn this dream outcome, it seems Putin has to do absolutely nothing, bar continue to wage a brutal war.

Moments after the call, Trump already sounded like a man stepping back from the fray. Five days earlier he had been the febrile intermediary, the peacemaker willing to bridge the enmity between Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for a meeting in Turkey. But after his Monday call with Putin, he simply said Ukraine and Russia must talk directly, “as only they can.” He even passed the task to the home of the new American Pope, the Vatican, as a possible venue. The United States may not be out of the process entirely, but it talks like it wants someone else to lead it.

The last 10 days have been a vivid reminder of how little Putin really needs POTUS or his approval. And the logic is simple.

For the best part of three years of war, Russia’s state media has been lecturing its audience they are not only in conflict with Ukraine, but also with all of NATO, including the United States. The presidency of Trump has created a small window in which the Kremlin might talk its way into a better position, or even alleviate the pain of some Western sanctions. But it does not change the central calculation or message of the Kremlin: this is an existential war, about re-establishing their pre-eminence in their near abroad. So much pain and loss has been inflicted on the Russian people through staggering war casualties that delivering middling to poor results might significantly limit the longevity of Russia’s leadership. This isn’t a war they can be seen to have lost.

The limits of what the United States can offer Russia at the moment, in terms of leverage, are visible from space. Yes, the US could escalate sanctions, even, as Trump mulled last week, adding “secondary sanctions” against Russia’s financiers, the oil purchasers of India and China. But that would cause another trade-like rift with world powers that Washington has just made good with. The US could alternatively ease sanctions to coax Russia into concessions. But those kid gloves would irk their European allies, and likely falter without Europe’s practical support.

Any further steps to cause Moscow pain would likely mean Trump had gone further to punish Russia than his predecessor Joe Biden did. That is not the MAGA geopolitical gameplan. It would deepen US involvement in a war where there is, frankly, no end in sight, until one side falters, or sees drastic change in political leadership.

Ukraine in 2025 is a bleak prospect. But the central tenet of European policy was the best choice in a world of ghastly options: Moscow could only be forced into reducing its goals if it saw an infinitely united NATO before it. Its economy, reserve wealth, manpower, or hardware might falter – only one needs to for the war machine to stutter. It is bleak, but Europe is left with little choice. Ukraine has no choice at all.

Trump felt he has a choice. His business acumen sees no merit in a long-term investment in a conflict with an enemy you’d prefer to get along with, the best outcome from which is to return Europe to the peace it knew before. There is no deal to be made here. Putin is not buying anything; he seeks to conquer and take. Trump has nothing to sell, bar the United States’ backing for its traditional allies. There is no way Putin and Trump can both win and retain their stature.

American leadership has for decades been built around something other than good, small deals. Its benevolence toward allies, vast soft power, and military hegemony, has left it the biggest economy on earth, with an undefeatable currency – itself a very good and huge deal.

But Trump sees America’s role as smaller. This may be the moment Trump finally understood Putin as someone who really doesn’t seek his approval or allegiance, and stepped back. If it is, the United States too has stepped back from decades of calling the shots, admitted the limits of its focus and power, and left the most important peace deal since the 1940s to a Hail Mary pass at the Vatican.

The first flight carrying migrants who chose to self-deport from the United States as part of a new Department of Homeland Security initiative offering free flights and $1,000 stipends has landed in Honduras.

A group of 38 Hondurans arrived at Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport on Monday afternoon after applying through a mobile app provided by US Customs and Border Protection, Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio García said.

“There was a bit of everything. There were mothers with children. Each one was given $1,000, including the children,” García told reporters at the airport, saying that up to 19 children had arrived.

At least four of the children were born in the US and one was born in Mexico. They left the US with their Honduran relatives to avoid family separation, according to Honduran Migration Director Wilson Paz Reyes.

“In this case, the US makes the decision, along with their families, that they return to the country so that family disintegration does not occur,” he said.

One of those deported, Wilson Sáenz, said that after he requested to be removed, authorities flew him to a hotel in Houston, Texas, and from there, he was dropped off at an airport and provided food before his flight home.

Another, Kevin Posadas, said that after applying for self-deportation, officials messaged migrants telling them when to present themselves, and “depending on what state they’re in, they move them to a place that’s closer to send them to Honduras.”

The flight carried 64 people, according to a Homeland Security official. It is expected to continue to Colombia to drop off the remaining migrants who opted for self-deportation, García said.

“Today, DHS conducted its first Project Homecoming charter flight of 64 individuals who voluntarily chose to self-deport to their home counties of Honduras and Colombia,” Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said. “If you are here illegally, use the CBP Home App to take control of your departure and receive financial support to return home.”

The US Department of Homeland Security announced on May 5 that it would offer undocumented immigrants financial and travel assistance to facilitate their return home through the CBP Home app, through which people can notify the government that they intend to leave the US voluntarily.

Any undocumented immigrant who uses the app to self-deport will receive a stipend of $1,000, to be paid after they confirm their return home through the app, according to the DHS.

The DHS says the initiative will cut deportation costs, which it says currently average more than $17,000 per case.

Those who sign up for self-deportation through CBP Home will also be deprioritized for detention and removal, “as long as they demonstrate they are making meaningful strides in completing that departure,” according to the DHS, which portrays the procedure as a “dignified” and safe way to leave.

“If you are here illegally, use the CBP Home App to take control of your departure and receive financial support to return home. If you don’t, you will be subjected to fines, arrest, deportation and will never be allowed to return,” Noem said.

The app was previously called CBP One and was used by Customs and Border Protection to schedule arrivals for people seeking asylum during the Biden administration.

The self-deportation initiative is part of a $200 million DHS ad campaign pressuring undocumented migrants to leave the US and “stay out.”

British police arrested a third man in an investigation into a series of arson attacks in north London, including a fire at a house belonging to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

A 34-year-old man was arrested on Monday morning in Chelsea, southwest London, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Two other men — 21-year-old Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych and a 26-year-old man who has not been named — have also been arrested.

Lavrynovych was charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life over the three fires, which took place last week.

British police were called last week to the blaze at Starmer’s property in Kentish Town, north London — the constituency he represents. No one was injured, but the entrance to the home was damaged.

Starmer lived at the Kentish Town address with his wife and two children before moving into his official 10 Downing Street residence when he became prime minister last July.

Police are also investigating two other incidents — a fire at the entrance to an apartment block in nearby Islington and a fire involving a car, a Toyota RAV4, in Kentish Town, each taking place on separate days.

The car and both the properties were linked to Starmer, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard on Friday when Lavrynovych appeared in court.

Counter-terrorism police have led the investigation into the fires given the prime minister’s involvement.

Starmer has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for.”

Authorities in El Salvador have arrested a prominent attorney critical of President Nayib Bukele, in a move criticized by rights groups who say it reflects an increasing trend of “authoritarianism” in the country.

Ruth Eleonora López, the head of the Anti-Corruption and Justice Unit of the rights organization Cristosal, is accused of collaborating in the “theft of funds from state coffers,” the Attorney General’s Office of El Salvador said.

“According to the investigations and information gathered during the raids carried out … her active participation in the acts of which she is accused has been identified,” the Attorney General’s Office said.

Speaking at a press conference alongside the leaders of Cristosal on Monday, López’s mother and husband said the arrest was part of a recurring pattern in which activists are detained, denied contact with their families, and their whereabouts concealed.

They alleged that authorities appeared at her home “under false pretenses,” claiming there had been a traffic accident to lure her outside. She was then detained and not allowed to see a warrant, they said. They added they still do not know the formal charges beyond what the Attorney General’s Office posted on X.

“This sends a message that the government is willing to repress, to violate human rights – and at this point, it’s barely trying to hide it. It’s practically admitting it,” said Abraham Ábrego, director of Strategic Litigation at Cristosal.

The organization labeled the move as a “short-term forced disappearance,” as it does not know where López, a lawyer and university professor, is being held. It has asked authorities to allow López’s lawyer to meet with her.

López has led criticism of the Bukele government’s lack of transparency, denouncing abuses allegedly committed by the state during an ongoing state of emergency to crack down on crime, as well as the increase in public debt without detailing its investment or the use of public funds to purchase Bitcoin. She has also criticized the government’s decision to endorse mining, among other things.

López, who in 2024 was recognized by the BBC on a list of 100 influential and inspiring women, was previously an adviser to the former president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Eugenio Chicas, between 2009 and 2014.

Chicas faces criminal proceedings after being arrested last February for alleged illicit enrichment to the detriment of public administration, a crime to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Since taking office in 2019, Bukele has enacted controversial measures to stem the crime and gang violence that has plagued the country for years.

In 2022, with the support of lawmakers, he declared a state of emergency which allowed the government to temporarily suspend constitutional rights, including the right to legal defense provided by the state. The measure was intended to last 30 days but has been extended dozens of times and continues to this day.

In the three years since it was declared, security forces have arrested nearly 87,000 people nationwide, or more than 1% of the Salvadoran population, according to authorities.

The government insists the crackdown has made the country safer, but critics say it has violated people’s rights and resulted in countless wrongful detentions.

International groups including Amnesty International condemned López’s arrest in a joint statement on Monday, saying that the state of emergency in El Salvador “has not only been used to address gang-related violence but also as a tool to silence critical voices.”