Donald Trump has doubled down on US plans to take over Gaza in a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House.

The meeting came the day after the president said he would withhold aid to Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries if they refused to take in people forcibly displaced from Gaza.

King Abdullah’s “steadfast position” – as he laid out on X after the news conference – was “against the displacement of Palestinians.”

He said Jordan, which is already home to millions of Palestinians, will take in 2,000 children who have cancer or are otherwise unwell.

But on taking in more Gazans, he stressed a solution that was “good for everybody” – including Americans, the “people in the region” and Jordanians – was his priority.

However, the King sat quietly as Mr Trump reiterated his plans to displace two million Palestinians, which he said was a “very small number of people”.

Mr Trump also said he believes there will be “parcels of land” in Jordan, Egypt and “someplace else” where Palestinians will live “happily and very safely”.

“They only want to be in the Gaza Strip because they don’t know anything else, they’ve never had an alternative,” Mr Trump said.

“They are being killed there at levels that nobody has ever seen – no place in the world is as dangerous as the Gaza Strip.”

He claims – contrary to what Gazans have said – that “not one person” wants to stay in Gaza.

Asked to respond to the widespread view among experts in international law that his plan amounts to ethnic cleansing, Mr Trump said: “We are moving them to a beautiful location.”

However, Trump appeared to ease off his previous threat to withdraw aid to countries that refused to take in people from Gaza.

“Well, I don’t want to say that… we don’t have to threaten that, I do believe we’re above that,” he said.

In the same news conference, Mr Trump said the US won’t buy Gaza, it will simply “have it”.

“We don’t have to buy, there’s nothing to buy,” he said.

“It’s a war-torn area, we’re going to hold it, we’re going to take it… Gaza the way it is, civilisation has been wiped out in Gaza. It’s going to be a great economic development.”

He declined to answer how that would work – and how he can avoid spending US taxes running it.

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“We’re going to run it very properly and eventually we’ll have economic development at a very large scale”, he said, promising “peace in the Middle East”.

“With the United States in control of that piece of land… you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time.

“The Palestinians, the people who live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location.

“They are going to be living safely – they’re not going to be killed, murdered and having to leave every 10 years.”

Trump added that he is 99% sure he will work out a deal with Egypt.

An American teacher sentenced to 14 years in a Russian jail has been released and is flying home to be reunited with his family.

Marc Fogel, 63, was pictured on a flight to the US on Tuesday – more than three years after he was arrested in Moscow for drug smuggling.

He was detained after travelling with what his family said was medically prescribed cannabis. In December, the US government designated him as wrongfully detained.

Mr Fogel left Russia with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in what officials said could help bring about talks to end the Ukraine war.

US national security adviser Mike Waltz said: “President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisers negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians”.

“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” he added.

Moscow has so far not commented and it is unclear what concessions the US might have made.

“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” the family said in a statement.

They said their time apart had been “the darkest and most painful period of our lives”.

Mr Waltz said the deal was “a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine”.

Donald Trump said last month his administration was involved in “very serious” talks with Russia about the future of the conflict.

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Mr Fogel’s release comes six months after he was excluded from the biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War.

That historic deal won the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, among others.

Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov was among those released from Western prisons in exchange.

However, US-Russian national Ksenia Khavana remains locked up after getting a 12-year treason sentence in August related to a $52 donation to a charity benefiting Ukraine.

Former Trump ally Steve Bannon has pleaded guilty to fraud after donors who gave money to help build a wall on the US border were duped.

The 71-year-old will avoid jail after getting a three-year conditional discharge as part of a plea deal.

Bannon had been accused of falsely promising donors that all money given to the We Build the Wall campaign would go towards a wall on the US-Mexico border.

But prosecutors said hundreds of thousands of dollars were diverted to enrich him and others involved in the project.

Bannon, Donald Trump‘s former chief strategist, pleaded guilty to one scheme to defraud count on Tuesday, but as he left the New York court said he felt like “a million bucks”.

He’d called the case, which was due to go to trial next month, a “political persecution” and now wants US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate those who pursued him.

In November, a judge said prosecutors could show the jury an email they said showed Bannon was concerned the fundraising was “a scam”.

An email from him allegedly said: “Poor Americans shouldn’t be using hard-earned money to chase something not doable.”

But last month his lawyers asked the judge to throw out the case, dismissing it as an “unconstitutional selective enforcement of the law”.

Bannon initially pleaded not guilty in September 2022 to a state court indictment charging him with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

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The We Build the Wall campaign was launched in 2018 after Bannon was fired by Mr Trump during his first presidency.

It raised over $20m and built a few miles of fencing but ran into trouble with officials and was criticised by Mr Trump himself – despite a border wall being one of his main policies.

Bannon was originally facing a federal prosecution but Mr Trump pardoned him at the end of his first stint in the White House.

Two others involved in the project, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, admitted federal charges and went to prison. A third defendant, Timothy Shea, also got a jail term.

Bannon last year served four months in an unrelated case – for defying a subpoena in the investigation into the US Capitol riots – but was released in October.