Joe Biden has called one of the heaviest Russian airstrikes on Ukraine since the war began “a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”, amid widespread international revulsion at Monday’s attacks and as Nato leaders gathered to announce new measures to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences.

The government of Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared Tuesday a day of mourning after at least 38 civilians were killed in a series of attacks where targets included Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, leaving an unknown number trapped under the rubble in Kyiv. Four of the dead were children, the Ukrainian president said on Tuesday.

“It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression,” the US president said in a White House statement, adding: “We will be announcing new measures to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences to help protect their cities and civilians.”

The president’s statement came on the eve of a Nato summit in Washington that marks the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic alliance and which will bring together Zelenskiy and leaders of countries that have provided Kyiv with tens of billions of dollars in military aid.

On Tuesday Zelenskiy said rescue operations continued throughout the night after Monday’s attacks on Kyiv, as well as the cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro. He said 190 people were injured and 64 hospitalised. “I am grateful to everyone who is rescuing and caring for our people, to everyone involved, and to everyone who is helping,” he posted on X.

More than 100 buildings were damaged. “The Russian terrorists must answer for this,” Zelenskiy said, adding: “Being concerned does not stop terror. Condolences are not a weapon.”

Images beamed around the world showed parents holding babies in the streets outside Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. Windows had been smashed and panels ripped off, and hundreds of Kyiv residents were helping to clear debris.

The strike largely destroyed the children’s hospital toxicology ward, where patients with severe kidney issues were being treated. Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers joined the effort to clear the debris and search for survivors. Officials and emergency staff said it was not immediately clear how many doctors and patients – dead or alive – remained trapped under the rubble.

All surviving patients had been transferred to other medical institutions, Zelenskiy said on Tuesday. A maternity centre in the capital was also hit. Zelenskiy was in Poland at the time of the attack before heading to Washington DC.

The government called a day of mourning on Tuesday for what is one of the worst air attacks of the war, adding that Monday’s strikes showed the urgent need to upgrade its air defences.

Zelenskiy, addressing a news conference in Warsaw on Monday alongside the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, called on Kyiv’s western allies to give a firm response to the attack.

“We will retaliate against these people, we will deliver a powerful response from our side to Russia, for sure. The question to our partners is: can they respond?” Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy has for months said his country does not have enough air defence systems and has requested at least seven more Patriot batteries in addition to those already donated by the US, Germany and the Netherlands. Russia has exploited the gaps in Ukraine’s air defences to carry out devastating strikes on civilians and infrastructure, and to pummel Kyiv’s troops on the frontlines.

Observers expect Nato members to pledge at least four additional Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine at the conclusion of this week’s summit.

The package put forward by Nato countries has been presented as “historic” and is widely seen as an attempt to “future-proof” continued aid to Ukraine – but it may not fully satisfy Kyiv.

The UN security council is set to meet on Tuesday at the request of Britain, France, Ecuador, Slovenia and the US.

In response to Monday’s attack, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, condemned “attacking innocent children” as the “most depraved of actions”, while the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, called the missile strike a “war crime”.

A spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said he strongly condemned the “particularly shocking” strikes against the children’s hospital and another medical facility.

The UN rights chief, Volker Türk, condemned the Russian strikes as “abominable”. France’s foreign ministry called the bombardment of a children’s hospital “barbaric” and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, described the attack as “abhorrent”.

Russia, which has targeted civilian infrastructure throughout the war, denied responsibility for the deaths on Monday. In a statement, the defence ministry attributed the incident, without directly referencing the hospital blast, to Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, despite visual evidence that appeared to point to a Russian strike.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, shared an image on X that appeared to show a Russian missile over Kyiv moments before it struck a hospital, identifying it as a Kh-101 cruise missile. Ukraine’s security service said it found wreckage from the cruise missile, which flies low to avoid detection by radar, at the site.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

After one of the worst Russian missile strikes against Ukraine in recent months, Nato leaders will sit down in Washington this week to announce the details of a hard-fought aid package that will include crucial air defense systems meant to protect Ukrainian cities.

The package put forward by Nato countries has been presented as “historic” and is an widely seen as an attempt to “futureproof” continued aid to Ukraine – but it may not fully satisfy Kyiv, which has been facing unprecedented attacks against civilian sites and infrastructure.

The resumption of large-scale missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase the sense of urgency around the discussions among 32 Nato leaders. Images from Kyiv showed children at a pediatric cancer hospital covered in blood and dust after the strike on Monday which a Biden administration official described as “horrific, tragic, senseless”. There were believed to be bodies still trapped under the rubble of the hospital.

“This is a fully deliberate action, specifically designed and approved by … Putin. On the eve of the @Nato summit. As a slap in the face to the alliance,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential administration. He called it an “informal signal” that “even the outright murder of children will not make them [the Alliance] take all the necessary decisions. And that is why we continue to attack.”

Observers expect Nato members to pledge of at least four additional Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine at the conclusion of this week’s summit. Zelenskiy had previously asked Nato for seven batteries, telling Nato members that Putin “must be brought down to earth, and our sky must become safe again … And it depends fully on your choice … [the] choice whether we are indeed allies.”

It is expected that the four Patriot missile systems will likely be delivered by the US, Germany, Romania and a Dutch-led multinational effort. Spain, Greece and Poland also field Patriot missile systems but have so far not pledged to supply any batteries to Ukraine. Another system could be provided by Israel, which now employs the Iron Dome and other air defense systems to protect against rocket and missile attacks.

“It’s clear that allies need to step up and provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems, precisely in order to be able to prevent types of tragedies that we’ve seen today, but sadly that we’ve seen time and again, month after a month since the beginning of this brutal and senseless war,” said Michael Carpenter, senior director for Europe at the US National Security Council.

The new military aid package to Ukraine is expected to include a joint commitment from Nato members to spend at least €40bn ($43bn) in 2025 on aid to Ukraine.

“Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Allies have provided €40bn in military support to Ukraine each year,” Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, said last month. “We must maintain this level of support as a minimum, and for as long as it takes.”

Stoltenberg had asked for a multi-year pledge from the 32 Nato member states but it did not appear that they had come to an agreement on the eve of the summit.

A European official said that the idea of a multi-year pledge was “still being discussed because some allies including here are uncomfortable with the idea of a multi-annual pledge because of their legal and institutional limitations, so I think we still have to wait”.

One way around that issue, the official said, would be to “just make an annual pledge and then to recommit summit after summit”. Next year’s Nato summit is set to take place at the Hague.

But that could take place after the re-election of Donald Trump, who has threatened to cut aid to Ukraine or make it conditional on starting talks with Russia.

“The big orange elephant in the room for the Nato summit is that everything good that’s going to be said about Ukraine comes with a big caveat,” said Camille Grand, a former Nato assistant secretary general who is now at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It is will this all hold if Trump is elected? And I don’t believe in bureaucracies … because it has been agreed at the Nato summit that the Trump administration would follow that.”

Nato members are expected to announce the establishment of a new military command in the German city of Wiesbaden which would coordinate military aid and training for Ukraine, effectively replacing the US-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group. That would in effect move the onus of supplying Ukraine from the Pentagon to Nato, in what US officials have said would be a “bridge to membership” preparing the country to be ready to work with the alliance when it is admitted “on day one”.

The new effort is also seen as a way to “Trump-proof” future aid to Ukraine if he is elected in November by “institutionalising” aid to Kyiv.

Carpenter also said that there would be announcements concerning the provision of F-16s to Ukraine. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have pledged to provide Ukraine with about 80 US made F-16 fighter jets between them, but the program to get the planes in the air has been hit by delays in delivery and training. The first F-16s are expected to arrive this summer.

On the eve of the summit, diplomats said there was still “no consensus” on Nato issuing an invitation to Ukraine at the summit to join the alliance. “Some allies are reluctant in that direction, but we are discussing languages to at least showcase that Ukraine’s path to membership is irreversible, that there is no there is no way back,” said a European official.

A Biden administration official declined to directly discuss the language of the final communiqué because it was “still being negotiated”, but said that the summit declaration “will include very strong signals of Allied support for Ukraine on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration. And it’s going to also underscore the importance of Ukraine’s vital work on democratic, economic and security reforms.”

Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.

Beryl left more than 2m people without power after making landfall near Houston as a category one storm, after having rampaged through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165mph, killing 11 people.

There has never been a category 5 Atlantic hurricane this early in the year before, with most major storms forming closer to September. Beryl, however, rapidly accelerated from a minor storm to a category four event in just two days.

This deadly intensification was aided by unusually hot ocean temperatures along much of Beryl’s path, scientists say, with seawater heated by the climate crisis helping provide the storm with extra energy over the past 10 days.

“Beryl would be astounding to happen anyway, but for it to form in June is completely unprecedented,” said Brian McNoldy, a climate scientist at the University of Miami. “It’s just remarkable to see sea temperatures this warm.

“I don’t think anyone would expect an outlier like this to happen, it exceeded expectations. With a climate-change influenced ocean, we are making extreme storms like this more likely to happen.”

While ocean temperatures around the world have been steadily marching upwards as the planet heats due the burning of fossil fuels, the past year has been “off the charts”, according to McNoldy. Last year was the ocean’s hottest on record, with marine heatwaves sweeping 90% of the globe’s oceans. This surge in heat has barely paused, with sea surface temperatures records tumbling every single day for 12 months in a row until March.

A slice of the tropical Atlantic stretching from central America to Africa called the main development region is the main spawning area for most hurricanes and this stretch has been “amazingly warm” in recent weeks, McNoldy said. In places across the northern Atlantic, temperatures have been as much as 5C (9F) above normal in the past month.

Ocean temperatures in the region typically peak in September or October but the extra heat has delivered such conditions unusually early this year. “In the Caribbean Sea it has actually been warmer than its usual peak since mid-May, which is absolutely crazy,” said McNoldy. “If the ocean already looks like it’s the peak of hurricane season, we are going to get peak hurricanes.”

Temperatures across much of the Gulf of Mexico, meanwhile, are “essentially as warm as bathtub water,” said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane expert at AccuWeather. “Those warm waters are at the surface, and they extend hundreds of feet down. Warm waters act like jet fuel for hurricanes, and it won’t take long for temperatures to rebound in the wake of Beryl.”

The persistently elevated ocean temperatures portend a potentially disastrous hurricane season, with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration forecasting eight to 13 hurricanes until November, up from the usual seven. The onset of the periodic La Nina climate conditions could further propel such storms. “Beryl is a worrying omen for the rest of the season,” McNoldy said. “This won’t be the last of these storms.”

While climate change isn’t necessarily increasing the overall number of hurricanes, scientists have found evidence that storms are now becoming fiercer, gaining in strength quicker and even moving more slowly. Hurricanes are drawing their power from warmer oceans, while also unleashing more severe bouts of rainfall due to the extra moisture held in the Earth’s atmosphere due to global heating.

Rising ocean heat poses new threats in terms of damaging hurricanes – some scientists want a new “category 6” classification to be added to storms above 192mph – but also to the vast network of life, including humanity, which depends on the marine expanse that covers 70% of the planet.

Oceans are soaking up vast quantities of human-created emissions and heat, which is shielding people on land from even worse temperature rises but also warping fish populations, dissolving away coral reefs and shellfish, robbing the seas of oxygen and potentially upending foundational ocean currents.

Such dramatic changes to the oceans will have an extraordinary legacy beyond individual human lifespans, scientists warn. “The time scale of the oceans is not as fast as the atmosphere,” Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said earlier this year. “Once a change is established, I would say it’s almost irreversible in time scales that go from centennial to millennial.”

Donald Trump will host a rally in the Miami suburb of Doral on Tuesday night and break a relative – and uncharacteristic – silence over the turbulent aftermath of June’s presidential debate that raised questions about Joe Biden’s candidacy.

A Trump campaign source and some political opponents say the former president’s strategy has been to sit back and let Democrats tear into each other following Biden’s dismal debate performance, intensifying calls for him to drop out of November’s general election.

“We’re trying something new and shutting up,” an anonymous campaign insider told ABC News last week, a position effectively confirmed by Trump’s decision to largely avoid public appearances since a prearranged rally in Virginia the day after the 27 June debate – and to limit his posts on his Truth Social platform.

Though Trump did appear on Monday on Fox News to rail about immigrants and crime, despite the FBI reporting a major drop in violence in the first months of the year, the former Republican congressman Steve Stivers told the Hill: “When your opponent is blowing himself up, don’t interrupt. There’s no reason to insert yourself in that conversation.”

In Florida on Tuesday night, before a loyal crowd at the Doral golf club he owns, and in the first of two rallies he is staging this week, the presumptive Republican nominee is expected to revert to his usually voluble self – at least if messaging from inside his campaign is a guide.

Trump’s media office did not respond to a question from the Guardian seeking confirmation that the campaign was deliberately avoiding talking much about Biden’s shaky debate performance. But in a statement, Trump acolytes attacked the president’s “flailing candidacy” and urged him to stay in the race.

“Please keep doing these interviews,” said Jake Schneider, rapid response director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), referring to Biden calling into MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday and insisting “I am not going anywhere.”

Only in Biden’s mind, the statement said, “is his defiance helping his case as a steady drip of Democrats call for a change at the top of their ticket”.

Some senior Democrats also have thoughts on the former president’s silence, including David Axelrod, a senior adviser for the Obama White House, whose relationship with Biden has been fractious.

“Trump’s not talking much about Biden’s bad debate. Trump’s campaign is not blitzing ads about it. And Lara Trump [RNC co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law] said last week it would be an affront to democracy if Biden were not the nominee,” he wrote Monday on X.

“Why do you think they are uncharacteristically holding fire?”

It is also possible that Trump is more concerned about advancing his own campaign, notably who to choose as his running mate one week before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee will confirm his third run at the White House as a Republican candidate.

Among those who will attend Tuesday’s rally is Marco Rubio, a senior Florida US senator, believed to be one of the leading contenders for Trump’s vice-presidential pick. A failed challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, when Mike Pence emerged as Trump’s running mate, Rubio said on CNN on Sunday that he had “heard nothing”.

“Donald Trump has a decision to make. He’ll make it when he needs to make it. He’ll make a good decision,” he said.

Speculation has grown that the Doral event will provide Trump the perfect opportunity to unveil Rubio, particularly as Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told Fox News on Monday that a decision was imminent.

Trump will also rally Saturday at Pittsburgh’s Butler Farm Show, close to Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio, where JD Vance – another understood to be on the shortlist – is a senator.

Vance, on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, also attempted to dampen expectations. “I have not gotten the call,” he said.

“Whoever his vice-president is, he’s got a lot of good people he could choose from, it’s the policies that worked and the leadership style that worked for the American people.”

Miller’s comments, meanwhile, hinted that Trump might also choose to wait to see if Biden drops out before declaring his hand.

“I look ahead as a campaign strategist to what does that vice-presidential debate look like,” he said, citing the hypothesis that Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice-president, would replace him at the top of the ticket.

“We don’t know if that’s going to be Kamala, or maybe they swap her out for someone who’s even more liberal, more extreme, although that might be tough to do.”

The Trump campaign’s announcement of the Doral rally, meanwhile, gave little indication of what he will talk about, other than how the Biden administration was “having catastrophic consequences on Floridians”, economically and in terms of immigration.

“Florida is a place near and dear to president Trump’s heart as his home state,” it said, referring to his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach.

Trump holds a solid 10-point advantage over Biden in Florida, according to fivethirtyeight.com’s average of polls.

Donald Trump is expected to launch a new legal battle to suppress any damaging evidence from his 2020 election-subversion case from becoming public before the 2024 election, preparing to shut down the potency of any “mini-trials” where high-profile officials could testify against him.

The plans come after the US supreme court last week in its ruling that broadly conferred immunity on former presidents opened the door for the US district judge Tanya Chutkan to hold evidentiary hearings – potentially with witnesses – to determine what acts in the indictment can survive.

In the coming months, Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that the judge can decide whether the conduct is immune based on legal arguments alone, negating the need for witnesses or multiple evidentiary hearings, the people said.

If prosecutors with the special counsel Jack Smith press for witnesses such as former vice-president Mike Pence or White House officials to testify, Trump’s lawyers are expected to launch a flurry of executive privilege and other measures to block their appearances, the people said.

The plans, which have not been previously reported, are aimed at having the triple effect of burying damaging testimony, making it harder for prosecutors to overcome the presumptive immunity for official acts, and injecting new delay into the case through protracted legal fights.

Trump has already been enormously successful in delaying his criminal cases, including by succeeding in having the supreme court from taking the immunity appeal in the 2020 election subversion case in Washington, which was frozen while the court considered the matter.

The delay strategy thus far has been aimed at pushing the cases until after the November election, in the hope that Trump would be re-elected and then appoint as attorney general a loyalist who would drop the charges.

But now, even if Trump loses, his lawyers have coalesced on a legal strategy that could take months to resolve depending on how prosecutors choose to approach evidentiary hearings, adding to additional months of anticipated appeals over what Chutkan determines are official acts.

A Trump spokesperson declined to comment, saying they would not preview confidential legal strategy.

Trump’s lawyers are not expected to make any moves until the start of August, the people said, when the case is finally returned to the jurisdiction of Chutkan after the conclusion of the supreme court’s 25-day waiting period and a further week for the judgement to formally be sent down.

Once Chutkan regains control of the case, lawyers for Trump and for the special counsel have suggested privately that they think she will quickly rule on a number of motions that were briefed before the case was frozen when Trump filed his immunity appeal with the supreme court.

That could include Trump’s pending motion to compel more discovery materials from prosecutors. If Chutkan grants the motion, Trump’s lawyers would insist on time to review the new materials before they started sorting through what acts in the indictment were immune, the people said.

In the supreme court’s ruling on immunity, the justices laid out three categories for protection: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts that carry no immunity.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue the maximalist position that they considered all of the charged conduct was Trump acting in his official capacity as president and therefore presumptively immune – and incumbent on prosecutors to prove otherwise, the people said.

And Trump’s lawyers are expected to suggest that even though the supreme court contemplated evidentiary hearings to sort through the conduct, they are not necessary, and any disputes can be resolved purely on legal arguments, the people said.

In doing so, Trump will try to foreclose witness testimony that could be politically damaging because it would cause evidence about his efforts to subvert the 2020 election that has polled poorly to be suppressed, and legally damaging because it could cause Chutkan to rule against Trump.

Trump’s lawyers have privately suggested they expect at least some evidentiary hearings to take place, but they are also intent on challenging testimony from people like former vice president Mike Pence and other high-profile White House officials.

For instance, if prosecutors try to call Pence or his chief of staff Marc Short to testify about meetings where Trump discussed stopping the January 6 certification, Trump would try to block that testimony by asserting executive privilege, and having Pence assert the speech or debate clause protection.

Trump’s lawyers would argue to Chutkan that any privilege rulings during the investigation that forced them to testify to the grand jury were not binding and the factual record needed to be decided afresh.

Meanwhile, witnesses such as former Trump lawyer John Eastman or former Trump campaign official Mike Roman would almost certainly be precluded from testifying because they have valid fifth amendment concerns of self-incrimination, as they have been separately charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Fulton county, Georgia.

Federal police investigators have claimed that a criminal group, allegedly involving Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, tried to illegally siphon off and sell luxury gifts from foreign leaders worth at least $1.2m.

The new claims came on Monday, three days after police formally accused the far-right politician of embezzlement, money laundering and criminal association and suggested he face criminal charges. If Bolsonaro is charged and convicted, those alleged crimes could reportedly land him in jail for a total of 25 years.

The Brazilian media has dubbed the scandal “O Caso das Joias”, which roughly translates as Jewellery-gate.

On Monday, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes authorised the publication of the 476-page federal police investigation into the alleged criminal group, the existence of which came to light in the months after Bolsonaro left power following his 2022 election defeat to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The report, seen by the Guardian, claims investigators found evidence of “a criminal association geared towards the embezzlement of high-value gifts received as a result of the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro’s office and/or by Brazilian government delegations that were acting in his name, during international trips … which could later be sold overseas”.

Investigators also claim “the sums obtained through these sales were converted into cash and incorporated into the ex-president’s personal patrimony, through intermediaries and without using the formal banking system, in order to hide the origin, whereabouts and ownership of those sums”.

The sums involved in the alleged racket are substantial and potentially politically damaging for the army captain-turned-president who has – despite longstanding suspicions and allegations of corruption – spent years promoting himself as an incorruptible and upstanding citizen. The police report is peppered with photographs of extravagant gifts from foreign governments that were allegedly misappropriated including a Chopard rollerball pen worth $20,000, a pair of ear-rings worth more than $126,000 and a special edition Rolex watch valued at nearly $74,000.

Investigators claimed it was possible that the fruits of the alleged criminal scheme were used to bankroll Bolsonaro’s activities in the US after he flew there in the final hours of his four-year presidency, on 30 December 2022.

The Donald Trump-admiring South American populist has yet to comment on the latest allegations against him but has previously denied wrongdoing during his time as president.

Speaking at a rightwing conference in south Brazil this weekend, Bolsonaro claimed he was happy to subject himself to a live, two-hour grilling by the press “about anything”. But he has yet to fully address the allegations, or other claims against him, including suspicions that he helped incite the January 2023 rebellion in Brasília. Argentina’s rightwing leader, Javier Milei, who also spoke at the conservative conference, claimed his Brazilian “friend” was the victim of “judicial persecution”.

Brazilian investigators allegedly believe they have uncovered strong evidence that Bolsonaro was aware of, and benefited from, Jewellery-gate.

One compromising screenshot, included in the inquiry, purportedly shows a WhatsApp conversation between Bolsonaro and his aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, who was allegedly responsible for selling numerous luxury gifts in the US.

The screenshot appears to show that, in February 2023, Lt Col Cid sent his boss a link to an online auction in which a selection of items made by the Swiss watch and jewellery maker Chopard were set to be auctioned, for an anticipated $120,000-$140,000.

The US auction company describes the items – a 2021 gift to Bolsonaro from Saudi Arabia – as “a unique proposition for the man who has everything”.

“Selva,” Bolsonaro responds to Lt Col in Portuguese – a military expression in Brazil which is a form of greeting someone or saying “OK”.

Tony Blair has warned Keir Starmer to “close off the avenues” of the populist right by keeping tough controls on immigration.

The former prime minister said the new government should tackle parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK by dealing with people’s grievances while sticking to the centre ground to hold Labour’s electoral coalition together.

However, he said he believed that immigration should be celebrated for the good it had done the country, adding that the Conservative party’s “mad” approach to the issue had damaged the economy.

In his first interview since Labour won power last week, Blair also urged Starmer to “be realistic” about how tough it could be to hit his climate targets, and he predicted that the UK would ultimately have join a “regional grouping” with European neighbours to compete on the world stage.

The Tony Blair Institute is holding its Future of Britain conference in London on Tuesday at which Blair will also argue that public sector adoption of artificial intelligence could realise £12bn in savings a year by the end of this term.

But it was his comments about how to tackle the rise of the radical right that will hit a nerve inside the new Labour government, after Reform UK won five seats in last week’s election and took 14% of the votes cast.

Blair told the Guardian: “Progressives should be thinking about the answers, but you’ve got to understand what the populist does. The populist usually doesn’t invent a grievance, they exploit the grievance. If you want to close off their avenues for increasing support, you’ve got to deal with the grievance. That’s why Keir is absolute right in saying you’ve got to have controls on immigration.

“That doesn’t mean to say we don’t celebrate the good that immigration can do, because it does an immense amount of good for this country, but you do need to have controls.”

Starmer, who has said he will stave off the populist right by making a material difference to people’s lives, has just diverted tens of millions of pounds from the Rwanda scheme to set up the new Border Security Command as part of plans to tackle illegal migration.

Blair said the government should also take law and order “really seriously” and be “really careful” on cultural issues that were being exploited by the right, saying: “Labour has got a coherent [electoral] coalition, provided you pitch things in the centre.”

The former prime minister, who campaigned for remain in the EU referendum, said he understood Starmer’s caution towards a closer relationship with Europe after the party’s 2019 election disaster. “You’ve got to take this carefully,” Blair said. “I totally understand the reason for caution. You’ve just got to take this step by step.”

While he could not predict whether the UK would ever rejoin the single market or customs union, he said: “The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that Britain will need to be part of the political family on its own continent.

“Now quite what form that takes, I don’t know. But the absolutely essential thing for a country like Britain to realise, because we have become very inward looking as a country, is that within the next two decades you are going to have three giants in the world – America, China, probably India. And the only alternative all other countries will have is to be in regional groupings that give you collectively what you won’t have individually.”

He said the decision, as a result of Brexit, to cut off migration from Europe had been the “most mad thing”, as it meant swapping young people working in hospitality for high levels of immigration from Asia and Africa.

Blair, who said he sat up until 1am on Thursday night to watch news of Labour’s election victory, said he was in regular contact with Starmer. “I don’t really offer advice but if he wants to talk about things, we talk about things,” he said.

“I was so happy that the Labour party has finally come back. If it’s not in power, it can’t do anything. He’s taken the party from its worst ever defeat to one of its greatest ever victories. In some ways it’s the greatest victory, given the challenge.”

He was cautious about the government’s plans to treble solar capacity, double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind as key milestones towards achieving net zero emissions by 2030. “I’m 100% in favour of Labour doing everything it can to meet its targets, so don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “It’s just one thing I think Labour should be very open about is the Tories on this, as in so many other areas, have left a complete mess.

“The gap between what they promised we would be in a position to do and where we are now is massive, and you’re talking about quadrupling renewable energy … with the best will in the world its going to take some time. It’s not that I think Labour should give up on its ambitions. It’s just it should be realistic about how tough it’s going to be.”

Ahead of the conference, Blair suggested that AI was the 21st century’s equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and the government should grip its potential to improve public services and cut costs. “I don’t think people have really grasped that it’s going to transform literally everything,” he said. “People still say: ‘Yeah, maybe, but it’s all a bit science fiction,’ but you’ve got to look at what’s coming down the track.

“What I will say to people about this is, people were scared of the Industrial Revolution. But one of the things that you learn when you study history is that what is it invented by human ingenuity is not just disinvented by human anxiety. It’s a fact. The most important thing for policymakers right now is to understand it is a fact. And it’s going to accelerate.”

Blair has proposed digital identity cards to help people access services such as the health and benefits systems, but this has been rejected by ministers.

“The civil liberties arguments are important until you realise the amount of information you give to Amazon, Netflix, your local supermarket,” he said. “You can put very strong protections in place, and should, of course, but the important thing is not to see it as a control mechanism for government.”

Tony Blair has warned Keir Starmer to “close off the avenues” of the populist right by keeping tough controls on immigration.

The former prime minister said the new government should tackle parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK by dealing with people’s grievances while sticking to the centre ground to hold Labour’s electoral coalition together.

However, he said he believed that immigration should be celebrated for the good it had done the country, adding that the Conservative party’s “mad” approach to the issue had damaged the economy.

In his first interview since Labour won power last week, Blair also urged Starmer to “be realistic” about how tough it could be to hit his climate targets, and he predicted that the UK would ultimately have join a “regional grouping” with European neighbours to compete on the world stage.

The Tony Blair Institute is holding its Future of Britain conference in London on Tuesday at which Blair will also argue that public sector adoption of artificial intelligence could realise £12bn in savings a year by the end of this term.

But it was his comments about how to tackle the rise of the radical right that will hit a nerve inside the new Labour government, after Reform UK won five seats in last week’s election and took 14% of the votes cast.

Blair told the Guardian: “Progressives should be thinking about the answers, but you’ve got to understand what the populist does. The populist usually doesn’t invent a grievance, they exploit the grievance. If you want to close off their avenues for increasing support, you’ve got to deal with the grievance. That’s why Keir is absolute right in saying you’ve got to have controls on immigration.

“That doesn’t mean to say we don’t celebrate the good that immigration can do, because it does an immense amount of good for this country, but you do need to have controls.”

Starmer, who has said he will stave off the populist right by making a material difference to people’s lives, has just diverted tens of millions of pounds from the Rwanda scheme to set up the new Border Security Command as part of plans to tackle illegal migration.

Blair said the government should also take law and order “really seriously” and be “really careful” on cultural issues that were being exploited by the right, saying: “Labour has got a coherent [electoral] coalition, provided you pitch things in the centre.”

The former prime minister, who campaigned for remain in the EU referendum, said he understood Starmer’s caution towards a closer relationship with Europe after the party’s 2019 election disaster. “You’ve got to take this carefully,” Blair said. “I totally understand the reason for caution. You’ve just got to take this step by step.”

While he could not predict whether the UK would ever rejoin the single market or customs union, he said: “The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that Britain will need to be part of the political family on its own continent.

“Now quite what form that takes, I don’t know. But the absolutely essential thing for a country like Britain to realise, because we have become very inward looking as a country, is that within the next two decades you are going to have three giants in the world – America, China, probably India. And the only alternative all other countries will have is to be in regional groupings that give you collectively what you won’t have individually.”

He said the decision, as a result of Brexit, to cut off migration from Europe had been the “most mad thing”, as it meant swapping young people working in hospitality for high levels of immigration from Asia and Africa.

Blair, who said he sat up until 1am on Thursday night to watch news of Labour’s election victory, said he was in regular contact with Starmer. “I don’t really offer advice but if he wants to talk about things, we talk about things,” he said.

“I was so happy that the Labour party has finally come back. If it’s not in power, it can’t do anything. He’s taken the party from its worst ever defeat to one of its greatest ever victories. In some ways it’s the greatest victory, given the challenge.”

He was cautious about the government’s plans to treble solar capacity, double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind as key milestones towards achieving net zero emissions by 2030. “I’m 100% in favour of Labour doing everything it can to meet its targets, so don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “It’s just one thing I think Labour should be very open about is the Tories on this, as in so many other areas, have left a complete mess.

“The gap between what they promised we would be in a position to do and where we are now is massive, and you’re talking about quadrupling renewable energy … with the best will in the world its going to take some time. It’s not that I think Labour should give up on its ambitions. It’s just it should be realistic about how tough it’s going to be.”

Ahead of the conference, Blair suggested that AI was the 21st century’s equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and the government should grip its potential to improve public services and cut costs. “I don’t think people have really grasped that it’s going to transform literally everything,” he said. “People still say: ‘Yeah, maybe, but it’s all a bit science fiction,’ but you’ve got to look at what’s coming down the track.

“What I will say to people about this is, people were scared of the Industrial Revolution. But one of the things that you learn when you study history is that what is it invented by human ingenuity is not just disinvented by human anxiety. It’s a fact. The most important thing for policymakers right now is to understand it is a fact. And it’s going to accelerate.”

Blair has proposed digital identity cards to help people access services such as the health and benefits systems, but this has been rejected by ministers.

“The civil liberties arguments are important until you realise the amount of information you give to Amazon, Netflix, your local supermarket,” he said. “You can put very strong protections in place, and should, of course, but the important thing is not to see it as a control mechanism for government.”

Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.

Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.

Biden had also expressed determination to continue in an unscheduled phone interview with the MSNBC politics show Morning Joe.

But in a clear sign such messaging may be falling on deaf ears, Smith suggested that sentiments of voters that he was too old to be an effective candidate and then president for the next four years was clear from opinion polls.

“The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith, a congressman from Washington state, said in a statement.

“Since the debate, the president has not seriously addressed these concerns.”

He said the president should stand aside “as soon as possible”, though he qualified it by saying he would support him “unreservedly” if he insisted on remaining as the nominee.

But his statement’s effect was driven home in a later interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the two moderators in the 27 June debate with Donald Trump in which Biden’s hoarse-voiced and frequently confused performance and demeanour plunged his re-election campaign into existential crisis.

“Personally, I think Kamala Harris [the vice-president] would be a much better, stronger candidate,” Smith told Tapper, adding that Biden was “not the best person to carry the Democratic message”.

He implicitly criticised Democratic colleagues – and Biden campaign staff – who were calling for the party to put the debate behind them as “one bad night”.

“A lot of Democrats are saying: ‘Well let’s move on, let’s stop talking about it’,” said Smith. “We are not the ones who are bringing it up. The country is bringing it up. And the campaign strategy of ‘be quiet and fall in line and let’s ignore it’ simply isn’t working.”

Smith joins the ranks of five Democratic members of Congress who publicly demanded Biden’s withdrawal last week. He was among at least four others who spoke in favour of it privately in a virtual meeting on Sunday with Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House.

Having the ranking member of the armed services committee join the siren voices urging his withdrawal may be particularly damaging to Biden’s cause in a week when he is to host a summit of Nato leaders in Washington.

The alliance’s heads of government and state will gather in the US capital on Tuesday for an event that is likely to increase the international spotlight on Biden, who is due to give a rare press conference on its final day on Thursday, an occasion likely to be scrutinised for further misstatements and evidence of declining cognitive faculties. Unscripted appearances have been rare in Biden’s three-and-a-half-year tenure.

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last Friday, Biden stressed his role in expanding Nato’s membership and leading its military aid programme to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion as a key element of his qualification to continue as his party’s nominee and be re-elected as president.

In the surprise interview with Morning Joe on Monday, Biden put the blame for his current predicament on Democratic elites, an undefined designation which he may now expand to include Smith.

Two France international rugby players have been arrested following an allegation of sexual assault during Les Bleus’ South America tour. French Rugby Federation president Florian Grill told reporters in Buenos Aires that if the facts are proven they are “incredibly serious”.

The two players – 20-year-old Pau lock Hugo Auradou and La Rochelle flanker Oscar Jégou, 21 – are set to be taken from the Argentinian capital to Mendoza, where the alleged incident happened. Mendoza staged the first Test between Argentina and France on Saturday, when Auradou and Jégou both started.

“An investigation is under way,” Grill said, in comments reported by L’Equipe. “If the facts are proven, they are incredibly serious. “We must already have a thought for the young woman. If, once again, it is proven, it is the opposite of everything that rugby does. I have no details. I cannot say what happened. An investigation is under way. It is important to let it take place.

“We are in contact with the authorities. We are trying to support everyone. We have also notified the French authorities, because this is a potentially very important case.”

In a post on X, the French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said: “If the investigation establishes the alleged facts, they constitute an unspeakable atrocity. Thought for the victim. Thanks to Florian Grill for his right words and his emotion that everyone shares this morning. I remain in contact with the federation and our embassy there.”

In a statement on the club’s official website, La Rochelle said: “Stade Rochelais was informed, through the press, of the arrest of Oscar Jegou in Argentina following an accusation of sexual assault. In the total absence of direct information on the ongoing procedure, the club will refrain from any comment for the moment.”

Pau, meanwhile, said the club had “learned this morning through the media of the arrest and serious accusations made against our second-row Hugo Auradou, currently on tour in Argentina with the national team. The club is awaiting more specific information from the French Rugby Federation and the initial conclusions of the ongoing investigation, which is essential at this stage.”

The France full-back Melvyn Jaminet was suspended from the tour on Sunday after a video surfaced online of the Toulon player making a racist remark. The video, in which Jaminet is heard making a remark, came from an Instagram story posted to his account. It has since been deleted, although copies of the video are on the internet.

The FFR condemned Jaminet’s comments in a statement and suspended him with immediate effect, while the player issued an apology shortly after his suspension was announced. France are due to play Uruguay in Montevideo on Wednesday, before Saturday’s second Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires.

Jury selection is starting on Tuesday in Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust film set in New Mexico.

The 66-year-old actor and co-producer of the movie was unsuccessful in his latest request to get the charges dismissed on grounds that prosecutors had allowed potentially “exculpatory evidence” to be destroyed. A judge last month ruled that Baldwin’s legal team had failed to prove state prosecutors had acted in bad faith, and allowed the controversial case to proceed.

The trial in Santa Fe is beginning nearly three years after the death on a film set sent shockwaves across the entertainment industry. On 21 October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing for the western on set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular location for Hollywood, when he pointed a prop firearm at Hutchins.

Baldwin, who faces up to 18 months in prison, has said he did not pull the trigger, but pulled back the hammer of the gun when it malfunctioned and fired. The single bullet killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.

This is the second criminal trial stemming from the tragedy, a rare fatal shooting on a film set. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, Rust’s chief weapons handler, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April after she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors alleged in her trial that she had put dummy rounds and at least one live round into the weapon, and that she had neglected to follow critical safety procedures.

Baldwin’s legal team is expected to cast blame on Gutierrez-Reed and continue to argue that he did not actually pull the trigger. The trial is moving forward after prosecutors had initially dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin last year when they said they needed more time to review evidence.

He was charged a second time after prosecutors said forensic testing on the gun revealed Baldwin had pulled the trigger. Baldwin’s team has cast doubt on the examination of the gun commissioned by prosecutors. The FBI conducted initial tests on the gun to see if it could have accidentally discharged, but the process involved striking and damaging the weapon. A later forensic analysis required replacing parts that had been damaged.

Baldwin’s lawyers recently sought to have the case thrown out over the handling of the gun during the investigation, but the judge sided with prosecutors.

Legal experts have said that Baldwin’s guilt may be harder to prove after Gutierrez-Reed was deemed responsible in the last trial. Prosecutors have sought to also draw attention to Baldwin’s role as a producer, and Baldwin previously faced scrutiny for his comments to a detective acknowledging how films try to cut costs and keep on a tight schedule.

But a judge ruled Monday that Baldwin’s producer position was not relevant to the trial, siding with defense lawyers and saying evidence related to his secondary role on the film would not be allowed.

After Hutchins’ death, it was reported that there had been two accidental firings of blank rounds on set before she was killed, and that some crew members had resigned the day prior partly due to worries about safety.

At jury selection for Gutierrez-Reed’s trial, prosecutors raised concerns about the challenges of seating a jury when so many potential candidates had been exposed to media coverage of the case.

Baldwin has a right to testify at the trial, but it is unclear if he will.

Last month, the actor and his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, announced the launch of a new TLC reality show chronicling their family.

A United Airlines jet lost a landing-gear wheel during take off from Los Angeles, but was able to land safely in Denver, its planned destination, with no injuries, the airline said.

“The wheel has been recovered in Los Angeles, and we are investigating what caused this event,” United said in a statement on Monday. It was the second such incident for the airline this year.

The aircraft involved in Monday’s incident was a nearly 30-year-old Boeing 757-200, according to FlightRadar24 data, which was carrying 174 passengers and 7 crew members. Boeing ended production of the 757 in 2004.

In March, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 jet headed for Japan lost a tire mid-air after takeoff from San Francisco, landing safely at Los Angeles International Airport.

The wheel landed on a car in an airport employee parking lot, breaking a car window, but no one was hurt.

Monday’s incident was the latest in a string of incidents involving United Airlines planes. One aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at Los Angeles international airport in March due to an issue with its hydraulic system. Elsewhere that month, another flight was attempting to land in Houston when it rolled off the taxiway and into the grass.

Also in March, a flight carrying 167 passengers made an emergency landing in Houston, after bright flames burst out of the engine of the United flight 1118, a Boeing 737-900 en route from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida.

US flight issues were catapulted into the headline in January, after a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 in mid-air, shortly after it took off from Portland Oregon, forcing it to make an emergency landing. Several people were injured.

In April, United Airlines blamed a $200m (£161m) hit to its earnings in the first three months of the year on the incident, saying the mid-flight blowout on rival Alaska airlines forced it to ground many of its Boeing planes, contributing to the losses.

With Maya Yang, Jack Simpson, Reuters and Associated Press