First Thing: Biden attacks request by ICC prosecutor for Netanyahu arrest warrant

The US president said there was ‘no equivalence’ between Israel and Hamas, for which arrest warrants were also requested. Plus, how big oil firms’ climate pledges are failing

Good morning.

President Joe Biden has lambasted the request by the international criminal court for arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, along with senior Hamas figures, as “outrageous” and said there was “no equivalence” between the country and the militant group.

In Biden’s most pro-Israel statements in months, he vowed to stand by the US ally, saying: “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

In a speech on Monday evening during the White House’s annual Jewish American Heritage Month celebration event, Biden also said civilian casualties in Gaza were “heartbreaking”, and that his administration was working for a two-state solution.

Other than Netanyahu, who is the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, pursuing warrants for? Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, over actions in Gaza. In Hamas, it is Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh over the 7 October attack.

Trump trial continues after judge admonishes key defense witness

Donald Trump’s hush-money trial will on Tuesday resume the cross-examination of lawyer Robert Costello, whom the defense has used to discredit the former lawyer and longtime Trump ally Michael Cohen.

Cohen, who testified for four days, claimed Trump instructed him to bury the adult film actor Stormy Daniels’s account of an alleged sexual liaison, telling him to “just take care of it”. Trump is charged with falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to Daniels.

The prosecution rested its case on Monday, and Trump’s defense began theirs, ending the day with the Costello, whom Cohen met with after officers raided his hotel room and home in 2018. Cohen claimed that Cohen allegedly told him: “I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.”

How did Costello come across? His behavior – including instructing someone to strike a question, which only the judge can do – led to a fierce rebuke from Judge Juan Merchan.

Ukraine ‘urgently’ needs more air defences, German foreign minister warns

Ukraine urgently needs to more air defences to protect itself against constant Russian attacks, Germany’s foreign minister has warned.

Annalena Baerbock made the statement in a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as more than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine overnight, leaving several people reportedly injured in the eastern Kharkiv region.

“The situation in Ukraine has once more dramatically deteriorated with the massive Russian aerial attacks on civilian infrastructure, and the brutal Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region,” she said.

Her intervention came as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, repeated pleas for allies to send more air defence and fighter jets to protect the country’s skies in the war’s third year.

What did Zelenskiy say was needed? He said Ukraine needed “at least 120, 130 planes” to resist Russia’s 300 on Ukraine’s territory.

In other news …

The trial of a group of far-right conspiracists who allegedly plotted to overthrow the German state will begin on Tuesday amid high security.A total of 26 people are on trial in three cases.

Authorities in Delhi have ordered schools to close early with “immediate effect” for the summer holiday, after temperatures in the Indian capital reached a blistering 117F.

A pro-Palestinian boycott of a UK music festival’s sponsorship has led more than a third of acts to pull out of the event. Bands Boycott Barclays (BBB) accused the bank of “laundering its reputation” via the event, which it denied.

OpenAI has removed a voice option from ChatGPT with an uncanny similarity to Scarlett Johansson’s after the actor spoke out against the company, which she had declined to work with.

Stat of the day: Mexico’s government estimates up to 90% of guns seized come from the US

Mexico pays a heavy price for the US gun trade: among traceable guns that were seized after being used in a crime in the country, Mexico’s government estimated 70-90% came from the US. The US recorded about 45,000 firearms deaths in 2019, while the rest of the world had a total of about 200,000 – of which 34,000 took place in Mexico.

Don’t miss this: I fell for a Ukrainian rocker – but was I just a groupie?

While on a year abroad in Russia in 1993, Viv Groskop fell for a guitarist in a Ukrainian band that were desperate to make it out of St Petersburg’s sweaty dive bars and on to the western stage as “Ukraine’s answer to the Red Hot Chili Peppers”. The period has given her “a fleeting but fascinating window” into how women who are “with the band” are treated.

Climate check: Top oil firms’ climate pledges failing on almost every metric, report says

The climate pledges made by large international oil and gas companies do not hold up, a study has showed. The research and advocacy group Oil Change International analyzed the climate plans of the eight largest US and European-based firms and found none were in keeping with limiting global heating to below 1.5C.

Last Thing: Irish children’s rap video goes viral

It’s official: the song of the summer has dropped. The infectious tune with a drum’n’bass beat is called the The Spark and was recorded by a group of children in Ireland in just one day on a shoestring budget. Since it launched last week, it’s racked up 8.6m views, with the producer Garry McCarthy saying: “The kids’ energy and positivity has inspired people.”

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