Zelenskiy to attend G7 in person as leaders prepare new Russian sanctions | First Thing

Ukraine’s president will attend Hiroshima meeting on Sunday as leaders prepare to target exports to Russia. Plus, humanity’s first record of kissing

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The G7 group of major economies will unveil further sanctions and export controls targeting Russia over its war against Ukraine, as it was announced that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, would attend the Hiroshima summit in person.

What will be discussed during the summit? Japanese media said that the leaders’ communique was expected to include a call for countries to stop providing weapons to Russia to prosecute its war in Ukraine. Citing unnamed Japanese government officials, the Asahi Shimbun said discussions would focus on how G7 countries could close loopholes to strengthen sanctions against the Kremlin.

What else is on the agenda? China is expected to be discussed and disagreements on how to address China’s growing global influence could overshadow the summit, with a senior French official warning that the meeting should not turn into an “anti-Chinese G7”. On Friday, the European Council president, Charles Michel, said it was in the EU’s interest to maintain “stable and constructive” cooperation with China.

What does the lawsuit say? “Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” it said.

What has Austin Knudsen, Montana’s attorney general, who is named in the lawsuit, said? Emily Flower, a spokesperson for Knudsen, said the state was ready for lawsuits. “We expected a legal challenge and are fully prepared to defend the law,” she said.

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US airline ‘sincerely apologizes’ to family over Puerto Rico passport error

Spirit Airlines agent refused to let Puerto Rican family board plane from Los Angeles, even though passport is not required

Spirit Airlines refused to allow a Puerto Rican family to board a flight from Los Angeles to Puerto Rico because they did not have a passport for their two-year old child.

Speaking to CBS, Marivi Roman Torres, who was traveling with her husband, Luís, and son, Alejandro, said the problem occurred at the ticket counter.

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‘No one saw this level of devastation coming’: climate crisis worsens in Somalia

Torrential rain, coming on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades, has forced 250,000 people to leave their homes

Jamal Ali Abdi has seen flooding in Beledweyne before but never on the scale witnessed earlier this month when the Shabelle River burst its banks, causing devastation to the central Somali town and displacing almost the entire population.

As water gushed through the streets, Ali’s home was soon surrounded by murky brown flood water.

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Pentagon error overvalued US weapons aid to Ukraine by $3bn

‘Inconsistencies in how we value equipment’ could lead to more weapons being sent to Kyiv to defend against Russian forces

The Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by about $3bn, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.

The error was the result of assigning a higher-than-warranted value on weaponry that was taken from US stocks and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defense officials said on Thursday.

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Israeli nationalists march in celebration of capture of East Jerusalem

Thousands waved blue and white flags while some in the parade chanted racist slogans such as ‘Death to Arabs’

Thousands of Israeli nationalists, some of them chanting racist slogans, have paraded through Jerusalem’s Old City in an annual celebratory day for Israelis that became one of humiliation for Palestinians living under occupation.

The marchers, mostly male Orthodox teens and young men, were celebrating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. The crowd waved blue and white Israeli flags and chanted slogans such as “Death to Arabs” and “We will burn your village”.

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US risks rift with European allies over hesitancy to supply F-16s to Ukraine

UK and Netherlands want to create ‘international coalition’ to procure US-made fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots and crews

Washington risks opening a rift with European allies over its reluctance to contemplate supplying F-16 fighters to Ukraine, with the issue likely to crop up at the forthcoming G7 summit in Japan.

This week, after Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Europe, the UK and the Netherlands said they would create an “international coalition” to procure the US-made F-16s and train Ukrainian pilots and crews.

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‘No one is untouchable’: Montreal mob-related killing sparks worry of gang war

Claudia Iacono, who was married to son of the late boss Moreno Gallo, was shot dead in her car outside the spa she owned

The brazen daylight shooting death of a Montreal mob boss’s daughter-in-law suggests “no one is untouchable”, said an organized crime expert, as the city braces for potential retaliation.

A woman’s body with several gunshot wounds was found in car on Tuesday. Local reports named the victim as Claudia Iacono, 39.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Storm Shadow missiles used in Ukraine, says UK defence minister – as it happened

This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

The FT today has a piece by Felicia Schwartz in Washington and Henry Foy in Tokyo casting forward to later in the year, and raising the spectre that European allies worry about the longevity of US support for Ukraine. They write:

Washington has been Ukraine’s dominant source of weaponry and US officials say sufficient preapproved funds remain to sustain Kyiv for about five more months, covering a crucial counter-offensive planned for the coming weeks.

But European allies are increasingly uncertain about whether the US will come close to matching its existing $48bn package, adopted in 2022, particularly as it requires a vote in Congress this autumn against the backdrop of more partisan debate on the war.

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Italy’s disasters suggest the climate crisis is at the gates of Europe

This week’s floods are latest weather disaster to hit country, as policymakers finally begin to respond to crescendo

This week, parts of northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region received half their average annual rainfall in just 36 hours. Rivers burst their banks and thousands of acres of farmland lie submerged. By Thursday evening, an estimated 20,000 people had been left homeless and 13 were confirmed dead.

It is just the latest weather disaster to hit the country. Six months ago, 12 people died on the southern island of Ischia in a landslide triggered by torrential rain. Eleven more were killed last September by flash floods in the central region of Marche.

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Bruce Springsteen criticised for not cancelling Italy gig after deadly floods

Fans describe decision to go ahead as ‘outrageous’ and call on US star to reschedule Emilia-Romagna event

Bruce Springsteen has been criticised in Italy for going ahead with a concert in Ferrara on Thursday evening after the northern Emilia-Romagna region was hit by deadly floods.

Fans of “The Boss” urged him on social media to reconsider out of respect for the dead and homeless after torrential rains caused landslides and made rivers break their banks.

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Developing country voices will be excluded at UN plastic talks, say NGOs

Limits on numbers at Paris summit mean some of those ‘most needing to be heard’ will not be in attendance

Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.

Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.

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Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut

High-resolution satellite imaging of city in eastern Ukraine lay bare its destruction after months of bombardment

High-resolution satellite images published by Maxar provide stark insights into the destruction of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, caused by months of bombardment and fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

The images show Bakhmut from above in May 2022 and May 2023.

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Death toll mounts in Italy’s worst flooding for 100 years

Older and disabled people trapped in homes as rescuers battle harsh conditions in Emilia-Romagna region

Older and disabled people were trapped in their homes as rescuers worked under pounding rain throughout the night to save people in the most catastrophic flooding to affect Italy in 100 years.

The floods in the northern Emilia-Romagna region have claimed 13 lives as of Thursday evening. An estimated 20,000 have been left homeless in a disaster that caused 23 rivers to burst their banks and 280 landslides, engulfing 41 cities and towns.

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Jeep maker Stellantis demands billions to keep battery plant in Canada

World’s fourth biggest carmaker threatens to move production to US unless government matches incentives offered to Volkswagen

Jeep maker Stellantis has threatened to shift a planned battery plant from Canada to the US unless it receives billions more in state subsidies offered to a rival, in the latest manoeuvre by a big manufacturer in the international battle over green incentives.

It comes as the world’s fourth biggest carmaker, which also produces Vauxhall/Opel, Fiat, Citroën, Peugeot, DS, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Abarth vehicles, leads a campaign in Europe for the UK and EU to renegotiate tariff rules in the Brexit deal.

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Imran Khan and Lahore police remain in tense standoff

Since ex-PM was released from custody he has only left his residence once, citing fear of being re-arrested

Imran Khan and the police have been locked in a tense standoff in Lahore, with Pakistan’s former prime minister holed up in his residence claiming he was about to be arrested and officers barricading the surrounding roads and accusing him of harbouring “terrorists”.

Since Khan was released from police custody on Friday, after his arrest in a corruption case was declared illegal, he has repeatedly expressed his fear of being re-arrested and has only left his residence once, to attend court with his wife on Monday.

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Syria’s Assad to attend Arab League summit as west opposes rehabilitation

Western leaders and Gulf states clash over return of Syrian president after years of war against his own people

The Syrian president is to attend his first Arab League summit in 13 years on Friday as the west and Gulf states clash over his rehabilitation after more than a decade of war against his own people.

Bashar al-Assad will take his seat in Jeddah in a move engineered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that has already led to objections in Washington and London, which say the Syrian leader has shown no contrition for the millions who have been killed and displaced by his forces since pro-democracy protests started in 2011 and no willingness to change his brutal behaviour. The UAE appears to have also deliberately challenged the west by formally inviting Assad to attend the UN Cop28 climate change conference in Dubai in November, which would be his first global summit since the beginning of war.

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Lesotho orders indefinite curfew after radio journalist is shot dead

Murder of Ralikonelo ‘Leqhashasha’ Joki prompts crackdown in southern African nation amid warnings of threat to media freedom

Lesotho has imposed anationwide curfew after the killing of a prominent radio presenter in the capital, Maseru, this week.

Ralikonelo “Leqhashasha” Joki, who worked for Ts’enolo FM radio station, was shot at least 13 times by unknown assailants as he left the studio at 10pm after his Sunday evening show.

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Rishi Sunak arrives in Japan to announce defence pact

PM also says Japanese businesses have invested £18bn in UK as he visits country for G7 summit

Rishi Sunak has arrived in Tokyo to announce a new defence partnership with Japan and support £18bn of private business deals, ahead of the G7 summit aimed at addressing the threats of Russia and China.

Before the gathering of world leaders in Hiroshima on Friday, Sunak is meeting Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to discuss more defence cooperation in the face of China’s increasing belligerence towards Taiwan.

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US China hawks to press UK minister for tougher line on Beijing

Republican-led group expected to lobby Ben Wallace at informal lunch meeting during Westminster visit

A Republican-led group of China hawks from the US Congress will visit Westminster on Friday where they are expected to meet the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for lunch and press for the UK to take a tougher line on Beijing.

The 11-strong delegation is led by the Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs a high-profile, newly created China committee. Some fear a strident anti-Beijing tone will alienate centrist and left-leaning politicians in the UK.

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Injectable HIV-prevention drug to be made in South Africa for the first time

Indian drug company to make cheaper generic version of CAB-LA, potentially protecting millions of people in Africa from the virus

An affordable version of a groundbreaking HIV-prevention drug will be made in South Africa for the first time, potentially giving millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa access to a two-monthly jab that can almost eliminate their chances of contracting the virus.

The Indian drug company Cipla confirmed that a generic version of the prophylaxis, long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), would be manufactured at its plants in Benoni, near Johannesburg, or Durban.

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