First Thing: Charity aid vessel sails from Cyprus as Gaza on brink of famine

The UN secretary general said international humanitarian law ‘lies in tatters’. Plus, LAPD officer shoots dead boy, 15, holding gardening tool

Good morning.

A charity ship that has been docked in Cyprus for close to a month finally set sail for Gaza, taking almost 200 tonnes of aid in a pilot project to open a new sea route for humanitarian assistance to a population on the brink of famine.

The boat is towing a barge containing flour, rice and protein as well as water and medicines – provisions that are now desperately needed in the besieged coastal strip amid reports of famine spreading among its 2.3 millions strong Palestinian populace.

The mission, mostly funded by the United Arab Emirates, is being organised by the US-based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), while the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms is supplying the ship.

Meanwhile, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has reiterated his calls for an end to hostilities in Gaza and the increased delivery of aid, describing international humanitarian law as in tatters. He told the media a “threatened Israeli assault on Rafah could plummet the people of Gaza into an even deeper circle of hell”.

Elsewhere, airstrikes carried out by the US and UK have hit port cities and small towns in western Yemen, killing at least 11 people and injuring 14 in attacks aimed at Houthi militants, Reuters reports.

How long is the journey? The 210 nautical mile journey usually takes about 15 hours but officials said the heavy tow barge could make the trip in the region of 50 hours.

Why is a maritime corridor needed to relieve hunger? International frustration and pressure has built on Israel for blocking the arrival of aid by road from southern Gaza, leading President Joe Biden to announce US troops will build a makeshift port to deliver aid by sea as well as airdrops already under way. Air and sea aid are interpreted by some as a failure to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to fully facilitate land routes.

What is the humanitarian cost of the war so far? After Hamas attacked Israel and killed about 1,200 people and took a further 200 hostage, Israel’s invasion of Gaza has killed more than 31,100 Palestinians and injured in excess of 72,750, according to Gaza health officials.

California officer shoots and kills boy, 15, holding gardening tool

A sheriff’s deputy in southern California shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who was holding a gardening tool, officials said.

The San Bernardino county sheriff’s department was responding to a 911 call on Saturday from a family reporting that a boy, identified as Ryan Gainer, was attacking his family at their home in Apple Valley, east of Los Angeles.

The department said he was holding a 1.5-metre (5ft) gardening tool and approaching the first deputy who arrived at the scene when the deputy shot him. Gainer was taken to a hospital, where he died.

A lawyer for the family said Gainer was a cross-country runner who had autism, adding that the fatal shooting did not appear to be warranted.

This is what the lawyer representing Gainer’s family said: “There are great questions as to whether it was appropriate to use deadly force against a 15-year-old autistic kid who was having an episode,” said DeWitt Lacy, a civil rights attorney. “We need to see the video and the moment of the shooting … but it doesn’t seem like anyone was in imminent danger of death or great bodily injury.”

Here’s how the shooting fits into a pattern of LAPD shootings: In recent years, LAPD has repeatedly shot individuals holding ordinary objects that police either mistook for weapons or claimed could be dangerous. That includes two shootings of people carrying cellphones; two cases where men had lighters; and shootings of people holding, alternatively, a bike part, a car part and a wooden board.

And here’s how it fits into the national picture on gun violence: There have been 3,055 people killed in gun-related deaths so far in 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive, 271 of them under-18s. In 2023, a total 18,854 people were killed.

Donald Trump ‘will not give a penny to Ukraine’ if he wins, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán says

Donald Trump “will not give a penny” to Ukraine if he is re-elected US president, the far-right Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said after a controversial meeting with Trump in Florida.

“Therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that Ukraine can not stand on its own feet,” Orbán told state media in Hungary on Sunday. According to the prime minister, Trump had a “detailed plan” to end the Ukraine war, which began two years ago when Russia invaded.

Trump, long seen to demonstrate deference towards and enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has recently suggested that if re-elected he would encourage Russia to attack US allies he deemed not to contribute enough to the Nato alliance.

In other news, overnight a fleet of Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s Oryol and Nizhny Novgorod regions, causing explosions and fires at fuel refineries, cutting electricity supplies and reaching Moscow and beyond, according to Russian authorities.

Why did the two populist politicians meet? The Orbán-Trump’s meeting in Mar-a-Lago is part of the Hungarian prime minister long-running effort to become a central figure in an international conservative movement, and comes before Trump is likely to secure the Republican nomination for presidential candidacy despite facing 91 criminal charges. Both have expressed their disdain for democratic institutions.

What’s the latest from the war’s front line? The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Monday that the situation along the lines of the war with Russia was the best it had been in three months, with Moscow’s troops no longer advancing after their capture last month of the eastern city of Avdiivka.

In other news …

The Indian government said on Monday it was implementing a citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims. The law extends citizenship to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who entered India before December 2014 but denies it to Muslims.

Joe Biden revealed his $7.3tn budget proposal for 2025 on Monday, offering tax breaks for families, lower healthcare costs, a smaller federal deficit and higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

The embattled Haitian prime minister, Ariel Henry, has issued his resignation, Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, announced on Monday, after a gang insurrection against the Haitiangovernment.

The largest donor to the UK’s ruling Conservative party sparked an outcry in Britain, after the Guardian revealed he said the UK’s longest-serving black lawmaker, Diane Abbott, made him “want to hate all black women”.

New European Union laws designed to improve the rights of gig economy workers contracted to companies such as Uber have been saved from oblivion, after they won the majority backing of EU member states.

The online influencer Andrew Tate was arrested for 24 hours in Romania on a British warrant, on allegations of sexual aggression dating to 2012-15. He denies the allegations.

Don’t miss this: The Guardian’s imaging team on the royal photo’s 20 telltale signs of editing

The UK Mother’s Day photo from Kensington Palace was intended to silence online speculation about the health of Catherine, the Princess of Wales. Instead, it was withdrawn by news agencies over apparent manipulation – which Catherine says was by herself – and added further gasoline to the fire of online conspiracy theories. The Guardian imaging team has identified evidence of multiple frames, and spotted 20 potential issues.

Climate check: Radioactive waste, baby bottles and Spam – how the deep ocean became a dumping ground

The ocean’s depths are not some remote alien realm but are in fact intimately entangled with every other part of the planet, writes James Bradley in this long read adapted from his upcoming book Deep Water: The World in the Ocean. When the explorer Victor Vescovo arrived at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2019, he found a plastic bag and sweet wrappers. Researchers have documented the presence of tyres, fishing nets, sports bags, mannequins, beach balls and baby bottles spread out across the sea floor at thousand-metre depths.

Last Thing: World’s ‘tallest jockey’ has competition as two 6ft 4in riders compete at Cheltenham

Jack Andrews, a 25-year-old from England, rose to fame last year when he was billed as the tallest jockey in the world – at 6ft 4in – during his appearance at the UK’s Cheltenham horse racing festival. But at this year’s festival, which begins on Tuesday, Andrews has competition for that title. Thomas Costello, a 22-year-old from Ireland, is also 6ft 4in. Costello said he had often been four or five inches taller than most of his fellow riders. “When I first walked in the weighing room they looked at me like I had four heads,” he added.

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