Seven hours is a long time in US politics.

At 10am, Donald Trump accused Russia of posing a threat to America’s national security.

By 5pm, Mr Trump said there was a “good prospect” of him meeting Vladimir Putin “soon”.

There had, he claimed, been “great progress” in talks between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.

It’s difficult to gauge the chances of a meeting between the two leaders without knowing what “great progress” means.

Is Russia “inclined” towards agreeing a ceasefire, as Ukraine’s president now claims?

Is Mr Putin prepared to meet with his Ukrainian foe, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too?

The very fact that we’re asking those questions suggests something shifted on a day when there was no expectation of a breakthrough.

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Mr Trump repeatedly vowed to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.

On day 198 of his presidency, he might, just might, be one step closer to achieving that.

There was always a heavy hint of charade in the company of “Arthur Knight”.

It was hard to square the man presenting as a bumbling aristocrat in Glasgow’s west end with one of America’s most wanted. And yet, there were always clues.

Like his knowledge of Kay Burley. On the day I first arranged to interview him, he told me that TV was a mystery to him and that he never watched it.

Then he said he hoped he wouldn’t be nailed to the wall by Kay – our then Sky News colleague and presenter.

How did he know Kay if he knew nothing about television, I wondered.

He also asked how we would “chyron” him, an American term for an on-screen title that I was unfamiliar with (and I’m in the business).

There was also the matter of the plasma TV screen on his front room wall – he knew TV, alright.

Such was the international interest in the story of “Arthur Knight” – real name Nicholas Rossi – there was no escaping the attention of TV and everyone else.

His was a tale lifted from the pages of a fictional thriller – a fugitive pursued halfway across the world and discovered only when he had the misfortune to catch COVID and leave his tattoos exposed on a hospital ward.

Medical staff at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital did the eyes-on execution of an international manhunt.

As careful as he was, Rossi left a digital footprint that US authorities followed to a flat in Glasgow.

When we first arrived, he had been arrested but was out on bail.

It was dark inside his flat, and there wasn’t much floor space.

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It made movement difficult for Rossi because he was in a wheelchair.

When physical movement demanded finesse, like in lifting him into a car, his wife Miranda manoeuvred him Sumo-wrestler style.

Quite the spectacle.

We sat down for a number of interviews with Rossi and his wife, Miranda. Always, he addressed my questions with the busy eyes of concentrated deceit.

Once, he insisted on sitting with his back to a bookcase. It featured the tome Machiavelli, prominently in shot.

It made me wonder how much of him was enjoying this.

He was a performer, certainly, and I suppose he’d been thrust centre stage.

He claimed to be an Irish orphan, but he never did get the accent right.

It was like a comedy fake when he wrapped an Irish lilt around gravelly tones.

He would suddenly start to sound Irish when you reminded him that he was, eh, Irish.

Not that he had the paperwork to prove it.

There was no birth certificate, no ID for his parents, no idea of exactly where in Ireland he’d been born.

He was the boy from nowhere because he knew he had to be – give any journalist a place to go looking for confirmation and therein lies a trail to ruin.

So “Arthur” kept it vague – his freedom depended on it.

When he did commit to detail, he ran into difficulty.

He told me he’d been raised in homes run by the Christian Brothers in Ireland, and I asked him which ones, specifically.

His reply was: “St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart.”

A quick check with the Christian Brothers revealed they have no facility named Sacred Heart in Ireland, and anything called St Mary’s wasn’t residential.

Of course, it was never going to last for him.

The extradition court in Edinburgh had fingerprint and photographic evidence, and there was a tattoo match, too.

Next week sees the start of his latest trial.

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He is accused of raping a woman to whom he had been engaged.

The allegations offer a duplication for Rossi’s crime modus operandi – isolating women, refusing to leave their company, and engaging in sexual assault.

“Evil,” is how he was described by Brian Coogan to me. Brian is a former state representative in Rhode Island who, at one stage, was on the verge of adopting the young Rossi.

He was warned off by the adoption judge, who refused to let it happen, having seen the file on the young man.

Violence in childhood duly extended into adulthood, and Rossi was convicted in 2008 after sexually assaulting Mary Grebinski on a college campus in Ohio.

A DNA sample from that attack is what linked Rossi to rape in Utah, and it’s what caused the long arm of the law to reach as far as Scotland.

The footnote to the story concerns Miranda, Rossi’s wife, whom he married in Bristol in 2020.

Rossi faked his death in 2020, and his “widow”, a woman by the name of Louise, ran around telling people he’d passed away.

Father Bernard Healey, of Our Lady of Mercy Parish Church in Rhode Island, took a call from an English woman – sounding like “Hyacinth Bouquet”.

She said Rossi had died and asked if he would hold a memorial mass.

The priest agreed, but when the invitations started going out on social media, he took a call from the police telling him to cancel the arrangements, as Rossi wasn’t dead – he’d faked it and was in hiding.

The voice that rang round reporting news of Nicholas’ demise was familiar to anyone who has heard his wife Miranda. The two voices sound identical, indeed.

How much was Miranda involved in the deceit? It remains an open question in a story about to enter a new chapter – this time, set in an Utah courtroom.

Aid sites run by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group in Gaza “have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty”, leading to crowds of people being shot, a charity has said.

In a new report, MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) locations have become scenes of “orchestrated killing”.

Raquel Ayora, one of the general directors of the charity, which provides medical aid in the besieged enclave, said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.

“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”

MSF has called for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme, the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism, and has urged governments as well as private donors to “suspend all financial and political support for the GHF”.

In a statement, the GHF said: “MSF’s accusations are both false and disgraceful – amplifying a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Hamas-linked Gaza health ministry. They know better.

“By repeating these lies, they’re not aiding civilians, they’re aiding Hamas. Despite that, we’re proud to continue lending them a hand, just as we’ve done on multiple occasions to help transport and safeguard their medical supplies and medicines from the elements.”

Sky News has also contacted the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) for a response to the report.

In an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, an IDF spokesperson claimed some accounts of shootings at aid sites are “fake news”.

“I think that is completely false,” Nadav Shoshani told presenter Jayne Secker.

MSF said it received 1,380 casualties at two of its clinics near GHF aid sites between 7 June and 24 July.

Of those, 28 were dead and 71 were children treated for gunshot wounds – 25 of whom were under 15.

Among them were five young girls, including an eight-year-old who had been shot in the chest, and a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed through his stomach.

‘We’re being slaughtered’

MSF said 11% of gunshot wounds seen at its al Mawasi clinic were to the head and neck, while 19% were to the chest, stomach, and back.

People arriving from a distribution site in Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, were more likely to have gunshot wounds to the lower limbs.

“The distinct patterns and anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests the intentional targeting of people within and around the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire,” said the report.

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One patient at al Mawasi, Mohammed Riad Tabasi, is quoted as saying: “We’re being slaughtered. I’ve been injured maybe 10 times.

“I saw it with my own eyes, about 20 corpses around me. All of them shot in the head, in the stomach.”

The MSF report also said the charity has treated 196 patients injured during scrambles at the aid sites, including a woman who died of asphyxiation likely caused by a suffocating crush.

Others have been beaten and robbed by other desperate people after receiving food, it added.

‘Global inaction is baffling’

The GHF has been primarily responsible for aid since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip in May, but has faced criticism from charities and the UN.

Sky News analysis has previously shown how aid distributions by the GHF are associated with a significant rise in deaths, with the UN branding them “death traps”.

UN experts this week described it as an “utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”.

They have called on Israel to allow charities and UN aid workers to deliver aid into Gaza. MSF has also called for the dismantling of the GHF scheme, and for the US to suspend support.

Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said: “Despite the condemnations and calls for dismantling it, the global inaction to stop GHF is baffling.”

‘No limit of aid’, says IDF

In his Sky News interview on Wednesday, the IDF’s Mr Shoshani insisted “there is no limit of aid getting into Gaza”, adding: “Every day, hundreds of trucks go into Gaza.”

Israel has said they are a solution to UN aid being stolen by Hamas fighters, and ensure supplies reach civilians.

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff visited one of the sites last week, with the US president having declared: “We’re putting up money to get the people fed.”