Canadians “weren’t impressed” by the decision of the UK government to offer Donald Trump an unprecedented second state visit to the UK, the country’s prime minister has told Sky News.

Sir Keir Starmer handed the invitation to the US president during a visit to the Oval Office.

The newly elected Liberal leader Mark Carney said that the invitation “cut across clear messages” that the Canadian government was trying to send to the White House in response to their threats against Canada’s sovereignty.

“I think, to be frank, they [Canadians] weren’t impressed by that gesture… given the circumstance. It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty.”

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It comes as the Canadian prime minister has invited the King, who is Canada’s head of state, to open its parliament later this month in a “clear message of sovereignty”.

It is the first time the sovereign has carried out this function in nearly 50 years and Mr Carney says it’s “not coincidental”.

“All issues around Canada’s sovereignty have been accentuated by the president. So no, it’s not coincidental, but it is also a reaffirming moment for Canadians.”

The former Bank of England governor was re-elected after a campaign fought on the promise of standing up to American threats to Canadian statehood. He had refused to speak to Mr Trump until Canadian sovereignty was respected.

It followed Mr Trump threatening to make Canada the 51st state of the US.

Mr Carney justified making his first foreign trip as prime minister to the White House by stating Mr Trump had changed his intentions to annex Canada from an “expectation to a desire”.

“He was expressing a desire. He’d shifted from the expectation to a desire. He was also coming from a place where he recognised that that wasn’t going to happen.

“Does he still muse about it? Perhaps. Is it ever going to happen? No. Never.”

The high-stakes meeting in the Oval Office was not confrontational, with Mr Carney praising the president’s approach as “very on top of the essence of a wide range of issues” and “able to identify the points of maximum leverage, both in a specific situation but also in a geopolitical situation”.

A King’s tension between allies

Samantha Washington

Fractured geopolitical relations have produced an interesting phenomenon: two Commonwealth nations both deploying their head of state, King Charles, to manage the vagaries of Donald Trump.

For Canada, and its new prime minister, Mark Carney, the King is being unveiled at the opening of Parliament in Ottawa later this month as an unequivocal spectacle and symbol of sovereignty.

For the UK, Sir Keir Starmer is positioning the monarch as a bridge and has proffered a personal invitation from King Charles to the president for an unprecedented second state visit in order to facilitate negotiations over trade and tariffs.

This instrumentalisation of the crown, which ordinarily transcends politics, has created tension between the historically close allies.

Canadians view the UK’s red carpet treatment of a leader who is openly threatening their sovereignty as a violation of Commonwealth solidarity, while the British seem to have no compunction in engaging in high-level realpolitik.

The episode is emblematic of how pervasive disruptive American influence is and how extreme measures taken to combat it can aggravate even the most enduring alliances.

Since the meeting, tensions between the two countries have abated.

Further negotiations on trade and security are expected soon.

Given the deep economic integration of the two nations, neither side expects a deal imminently, but both sides concur that constructive talks have led to progress on an agreement.

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With greater goodwill between the two North American neighbours, Mr Carney also expressed optimism about Mr Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.

The prime minister confirmed his view that the president was an “honest broker” and that his counterpart had been “helpful” in bringing momentum to a 30-day ceasefire between the warring nations.

Despite a reset in relations between the United States and Canada, Mr Carney remained circumspect.

His motto is: “Always plan for the worst.”

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And to that end, nothing is being taken for granted: “We do plan for having no deal, we do plan for trouble in the security relationship. We do plan for the global trading system not being reassembled: that’s the way to approach this president.”

A judge has reduced the Menendez brothers’ murder sentences – meaning they are eligible for parole.

Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, received life sentences without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.

Last year, the then Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon asked a judge to change the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County superior court Judge Michael Jesic did so, paving the way for the brothers’ parole and possible release.

The ruling capped off a day-long hearing in which several relatives, a retired judge and a former fellow inmate testified in support of efforts to shorten the brothers’ sentences.

‘I killed my mum and dad’

The brothers appeared at the proceedings in Los Angeles County Superior Court via video feed from prison in San Diego.

“I killed my mum and dad. I make no excuses and also no justification,” Lyle said in a statement to the court. “The impact of my violent actions on my family… is unfathomable.”

Erik also spoke about taking responsibility for his actions and apologising to his family.

He said: “You did not deserve what I did to you, but you inspire me to do better.”

The brothers did not show any apparent emotion during much of the testimony but chuckled when one of their cousins, Diane Hernandez, told the court that Erik received A+ grades in all of his classes during his most recent semester in college.

Anamaria Baralt, another cousin of the brothers, told the court they had repeatedly expressed remorse for their actions.

“We all, on both sides of the family, believe that 35 years is enough. They are universally forgiven by our family,” she said.

‘They have not come clean’

Los Angeles County prosecutors argued against the resentencing, saying the brothers have not taken complete responsibility for the crime.

The current district attorney Nathan Hochman said he believes the brothers were not ready for resentencing because “they have not come clean” about their crimes.

His office has also said it does not believe they were sexually abused.

“Our position is not ‘no’. It’s not ‘never’. It’s ‘not yet’,” Mr Hochman said. “They have not fully accepted responsibility for all their criminal conduct.”

Path to freedom?

“I’m not saying they should be released, it’s not for me to decide,” Judge Jesic said. “I do believe they’ve done enough in the past 35 years, that they should get that chance.”

After the judge’s decision, the brothers now have a new path to freedom after decades in prison.

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They are now eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law because they committed the crime while under the age of 26.

The state parole board must still decide whether to release them from prison.

While this decision is made, the brothers will remain behind bars.

During the original trial, prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance, although their defence team argued they acted out of self-defence after years of sexual abuse by their father.

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The brothers have maintained since they were first charged with the murders that their parents abused them.

A Netflix series and subsequent documentary about the brothers thrust them back into the spotlight last year.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former girlfriend Cassie has told his sex-trafficking trial that “freak offs” with male escorts became like a job, as the music mogul allegedly abused and sexually exploited her for years.

The musician and model, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, did not look at Combs as she took to the witness stand in court in Manhattan, New York.

Over about six hours, the 38-year-old, who is eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, at times became emotional as she alleged she was degraded by her former partner during their 10-year on-off relationship.

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Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty and strenuously denied allegations of sexual abuse. His lawyers argue that although he could be violent, he never veered into sex trafficking and racketeering, and that all sexual encounters were consensual.

Ms Ventura, who is the central witness in the prosecutors’ case, began by telling the jury how Combs was violent to her over the course of their relationship, giving her black eyes and bruises.

The hip-hop star became increasingly controlling, she said, and was allegedly abusive over the smallest perceived slights. “You make the wrong face, and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she said.

Ms Ventura was 19 when she signed to his label, Bad Boy, she said, and 22 when, during the first year of their relationship, Combs first proposed a “freak off” – a sexual encounter with a third party. Her “stomach churned”, she said, and she was “confused, nervous, but also loved him very much” and wanted to please him. She described him as “charming” but “polarising”.

‘There was no space to do anything else’

Throughout her time on the stand, she gave graphic details of these drug and drink-fuelled encounters with male escorts, saying Combs would watch and masturbate, and often record the encounters and watch the videos back.

They could last for hours or even days, she said – telling the court the longest went on for four days. They ended up becoming weekly events and took priority over her music career, jurors heard. While she had hits with singles Me & U and Long Way 2 Go in 2006, and signed a 10-album deal with Bad Boy, jurors heard she only released one album.

“Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again,” Ms Ventura said. Each time, she added, she had to recuperate from lack of sleep, alcohol, drugs “and other substances”, and “having sex with a stranger for days”.

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Alleged violence detailed in court

Ms Ventura told the court she began feeling as if she could not say no to Combs’s demands because “there were blackmail materials to make me feel like if I didn’t do it, it would be held over my head in that way or these things would become public”.

She was also worried about potential violence, she told the court. When asked in court how frequently Combs became violent with her, Ms Ventura responded: “Too frequently.”

The rapper “would mash me in the head, knock me over, drag me, kick me”, she said. “Stomp me in the head if I was down”.

Ms Ventura also told the court that Combs kept cash, jewellery, guns and “sometimes tapes from cameras” in safes at several properties in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Alpine, New Jersey.

“The guns came out here and there. I always felt it was a little bit of a scare tactic,” she told the court.

Towards the end of her first day of evidence, a surveillance video made public last year, which showed Combs allegedly beating Ms Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, was played to jurors in court for a second time.

“How many times has he thrown you like that before?” prosecutor Emily Johnson asked her.

“Too many to count,” Ms Ventura replied.

On Monday, prosecutors in their opening statement told the court that while Combs’s public persona was that of a “charismatic” hip-hop mogul, behind the scenes he was violent and abusive.

His defence lawyers argued that the case is really about nothing more than the rapper’s sexual preferences, which they said should remain private, and do not make him a sex trafficker.

The trial is to last about eight weeks.

Ms Ventura is set to continue giving evidence on Wednesday.