This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jean-Audejal and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 17th of April, these are our main stories.

US and European ministers meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine in their highest-level talks in weeks.

A BBC investigation finds that in the Russian-occupied

Ukrainian city of Maripol, thousands of homes have been seized illegally. Gaza's Hamas-run

civil defense agency says the latest Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 37 people.

Also in this podcast?

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because this is one of the longest standing questions in the history of science.

Are we alone?

A telescope picks up the strongest signs yet

that there may be life on another planet and how our

ancestors managed to outwit Neanderthals by using sunscreen.

For European leaders who've been shaken by the dismissive, even hostile rhetoric of the Trump administration about the transatlantic alliance that has long ensured peace on their continent, there's a lot at stake in today's high-level talks in Paris.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Wickoff, are meeting President Macron and ministers from other European nations to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

And the Ukrainian foreign and defence ministers have also flown into the French capital.

The Europeans will be looking to see if the American president is going to get tougher with Russia after it rejected

a US ceasefire proposal provoking some rare, if mild, criticism from Mr Trump. The talks will also

include the US's recent attempts to broker a deal on Iran's nuclear program and the situation

in the Middle East. I asked our diplomatic correspondent,

James Landell, how significant it was that these talks were happening at all.

It's interesting and significant simply because the Americans thus far have been pretty

...