• The ICC's decision to charge Israel and Hamas leaders was made with help from Amal Clooney.
• Clooney joined of team of experts analyzing evidence of suspected crimes against humanity.
• Netanyahu and Biden condemned the ICC's decision; neither country recognizes the court's authority.

Human rights attorney Amal Clooney was part of the team that convinced the International Criminal Court to charge both Israeli and Hamas leaders with war crimes.

Clooney said the ICC's prosecutor asked her over 4 months ago to join the team analyzing evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza, she wrote in a post on the website of Clooney Foundation for Justice, which she co-founded with her husband, actor George Clooney.

The findings from Amal Clooney and other experts led the ICC to announce on Monday that it was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, along with several others from both sides of the conflict.

"We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence," Clooney wrote on CFJ's website.

"We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination," Clooney continued.

The team of experts, including Clooney, wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times on Monday, calling the ICC's decision to seek arrest warrants "a milestone in the history of international criminal law."

"As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child's life has less value than another's," Clooney wrote on CFJ's website. "I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law. So I support the historic step that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine."

Though the ICC — a global criminal court based in The Hague, Netherlands — has the power to prosecute world leaders, it relies on member countries to enforce its rulings. Both the US and Israel do not recognize the ICC's authority.

In a video statement, Netanyahu called the ICC's decision to seek warrants against Israeli leaders a "moral outrage of historic proportions" that would "cast an everlasting mark of shame on the International Court."

US President Joe Biden also weighed in, calling the ICC's decision "outrageous," adding that the US "will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."

• Josh Hawley is writing his fourth book — while running for a second term in the Senate.
• It's called "The Awakenings: The Religious Revivals that Made America—and Why We Need Another One."
• The Missouri senator has written books about masculinity, Big Tech, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Sen. Josh Hawley is running for reelection this year. He also happens to be in the middle of writing a new book.

The Missouri Republican is working on a new book entitled "The Awakenings: The Religious Revivals that Made America — and Why We Need Another One," his publisher confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Hawley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hawley signed the agreement with Regnery Publishing in October 2023 and is set to deliver a manuscript no later than January 2025.

The conservative book imprint has published Hawley's previous two books, including "Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs" in 2023 and "The Tyranny of Big Tech" in 2021.

The latter book was previously set to be published by Simon and Schuster, but the publisher cancelled the deal after Hawley led the objection to Pennsylvania's electoral college results in 2020.

The Missouri senator also wrote a book about President Theodore Roosevelt in 2008, while working as a clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Hawley, who has positioned himself as a future presidential contender while pushing the GOP in a more populist direction, has long been an advocate for Christianity in the United States. His previous book, "Manhood," drew heavily on Biblical references.

In February, Hawley published an essay in the religious journal "First Things" arguing that the United States is a fundamentally Christian nation.

"America as we know it cannot survive without biblical Christianity," Hawley wrote at the time. "The rights we cherish, the freedoms we enjoy, the ideals we love together — all are rooted in and sustained by the tradition of the Bible. Christianity is the electric current of our national life."

The Missouri senator's annual financial disclosure, filed last week, indicated that he made $127,500 from book royalties in 2023. It is unclear whether that sum includes an advance for Hawley's forthcoming book or also includes composed of royalties from the senator's previous books. In 2021, Hawley made $467,000 in book royalties.

Books have long been a way for senators — particularly those with high profiles — to make extra money on the side. In 2022, six senators made more than their $174,000 salaries via book advances and royalties.

That included Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who made the largest sum of any senator in 2022 — $655,000 — while also embarking on a book tour months ahead of his high-stakes reelection race.

• Microsoft's Build keynote kicks off at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
• CEO Satya Nadella is expected to give updates on Microsoft's generative AI products.
• Microsoft leaned further into its AI agent Copilot with new Copilot+ PCs announced on Monday.

OpenAI and Google may have held the AI spotlight last week, but now it's Microsoft's turn.

The annual Microsoft Build developer conference keynote begins at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday, and CEO Satya Nadella is expected to unveil Microsoft's latest generative AI offerings.

That technology is anticipated to be the dominant theme, as it was on Monday when Microsoft held a press event and unveiled its new Copilot+ PC lineup, starting with the AI-infused Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. Focusing on hardware yesterday should give the company plenty of airtime to focus on AI software and features during Tuesday's keynote.

Copilot, the AI assistant tightly integrated with the company's Microsoft 365 software suite, competes against Google's Gemini AI for Google Workspace. Google last week had plenty to show off about the latest model, including a prototype of its impressive Project Astra AI agent, so don't be surprised if Microsoft trots out some rival demos.

Microsoft has also invested billions into OpenAI, which helped power the "new Bing" search product. We might hear some updates on that partnership, as OpenAI's latest GPT-4o AI model is already available in preview with text and image capabilities to Microsoft's Azure AI cloud customers.

Business Insider will be liveblogging Microsoft's Build keynote, so scroll on for the latest highlights.

• College athletes should be leveraging LinkedIn more, say athletes and experts.
• Student-athlete Sabrina Oostburg described the success she's had using LinkedIn to promote herself.
• NIL Athlete of the Year Chase Griffin also said even high-school athletes should be on LinkedIn.

The name, image, and likeness business has changed the game for college athletes who now need to self-promote on social-media platforms like Instagram and TikTok if they want to make money from NIL.

LinkedIn is another often-overlooked platform where student-athletes can promote themselves and score brand deals, athletes and experts told Business Insider.

The professional network has leaned into creator content and grown in recent years as a platform for influencers of all kinds.

Some student-athletes who have found success building their brands on LinkedIn include Tanner Maddox, a freshman football player from Villanova; Sabrina Oostburg, a track and field athlete from Belmont University; and Connor Printz, a former basketball player from Claremont McKenna College, according to Out2Win, an athlete-marketing-intelligence platform, which tracked the frequency of student-athletes posting on LinkedIn.

While Instagram and TikTok are crucial for athletes to showcase their creativity and build an audience, LinkedIn is better for connecting directly with brands, said Jack Adler, founder of Out2Win.

"LinkedIn is a better platform for actually connecting with those businesses because that's where a lot of the marketers spend their time," Adler said.

Oostburg and Printz told BI they've used LinkedIn to secure NIL brand deals and connect with agents or other professionals they want to work with.

College athletes have used LinkedIn to get brand deals and sign with talent agents

Oostburg said she landed two sponsorship deals through LinkedIn, including with the Nashville Zoo and a startup called Backhat. One of the partnerships was paid and both offered free products. She's also connected through the platform with social-media managers and business owners — and even her current agency, Raymond Representation.

Oostburg said some of her peers have laughed at her for using LinkedIn and don't see the value in it.

"I'm like, 'What are you guys laughing at?'"she said. "They don't see the vision of how you can use that for NIL."

Printz, meanwhile, has used LinkedIn to help build his personal brand and prepare for a sports career after college. Two months ago, he posted on LinkedIn his story about gaining over 100 NIL deals and over 1 million followers across social media. He said the post opened a lot of doors for him.

"It kind of went a little bit viral on there and people were reaching out to me every single day just wanting to talk," said Printz.

While Printz hasn't used LinkedIn to get NIL deals, like Oostburg, he found his agent through the platform while seeking NIL representation about six months ago.

"When I was looking for an agent, I just posted on there and had many, many people reach out," he said. "Luckily, that's how I connected with my agent."

Samantha Green, who founded the Athlete Con convention and works directly with student-athletes, said she advises athletes to post about their current NIL deals and contact brands on LinkedIn for opportunities.

"If you think about it seriously, anybody that's a head of influencer marketing at any brand is often on LinkedIn," she told BI.

Green said athletes can also make more of a name for themselves on LinkedIn than on other platforms.

"There are a million athletes on TikTok. There are a million athletes on Instagram. But who are the ones actually putting a business presence forward and building a brand as a professional while still being a college athlete?" Green said. "Few and far between are on LinkedIn, so you'll really stand out."

Chase Griffin, a UCLA quarterback who was named the 2022 NIL Male Athlete of the Year by NIL Summit and Opendorse, is also proof of the opportunities athletes can get on LinkedIn. Griffin, who's scored more than 30 NIL deals during his career, landed his first through LinkedIn. 

He advises any athlete in college or high school to create a LinkedIn profile because it can set them up for future success. 

"LinkedIn can play a huge role in making sure that you have a network vesting while you're still in college," he said. "That way, once you leave your campus, you're still tied to your network, and you've been able to put your accomplishments and accolades out in front of the companies that you're going to work for."

Griffin said his LinkedIn presence has helped shape his early career, and he plans to continue building his audience and content on the platform.

 "If you're doing NIL or not, as a college athlete, you're also a college student," he said, "and LinkedIn is the spot to be for college students."

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon isn't particularly worried about the plight of millennials and Gen Z.
• He predicted young people will work less, live longer, and be healthier than past generations.
• The billionaire banker flagged gaping wealth inequality as a far more pressing problem.

Many young people feel distraught at the state of the world, priced out of owning a home or having kids, and worried that artificial intelligence will steal their jobs.

They've also weathered a pandemic and are now dealing with historic inflation and the highest interest rates in two decades — when they've had less time than previous generations to build wealth and prepare for those challenges.

Jamie Dimon, the billionaire CEO of America's largest bank, has little sympathy for them. He made that clear during JPMorgan's investor day on Monday, per a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

"I don't feel so bad for Gen Z and millennials," Dimon said, noting his grandparents were Greek immigrants who arrived in the US with nothing but "a shirt on their back."

"Let's put things in perspective a little bit," the Wall Street titan continued. "They're going to be working probably 3.5 days a week. They're going to live to 100. They're not going to have cancer. They're going to be in pretty good shape, provided the world doesn't destroy it all with nuclear weapons, which is the biggest risk in the world."

Dimon also emphasized that in the decades ahead, younger generations will inherit trillions of dollars and benefit from mammoth investments in healthcare, education, and other areas.

Research suggests 25-year-olds are outearning the past six generations at that age, Gen Z owns homes at higher rates than millennials and Gen X — and they're set to spend a smaller percentage of their incomes between the ages of 22 and 30 on basics like rent and utilities than millennials did.

Money matters

However, Dimon did bemoan the plight of the bottom 20% of earners in the US.

"They've gotten a raw deal," he said. "They're dying 10 years younger. They have less medical insurance. They drive through crime in their neighborhoods. Their schools are failing those kids. Half the kids don't graduate in inner-city schools and stuff like that. What the hell did we do as a society?"

Dimon called out the drastic inequality and its potential consequences in his shareholder letter this year.

"I do believe this is tearing at the social fabric of America and is among the root causes of the fraying of the American dream," he said.

Dimon clearly sees the gap between the rich and poor as a far more pressing problem than the differences between the old and the young, who have plenty to celebrate in his book.

• Rents in New York City rose more than seven times as fast as wages last year.
• A new report says tech workers earning $135,089 annually could only afford 35% of rentals in the city.
• As tech workers flood into the city, housing supply and high costs strain affordability for all.

Housing costs in New York have long been unaffordable. But the Big Apple is breaking the worst kinds of records these days.

Rents rose more than seven times as fast as wages last year. Plus, more than half of New Yorkers are rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their before-tax income for housing. One in three tenants spend more than half of their income on rent, while homelessness has spiked.

Things are so bad that even tech workers, who make some of the highest salaries of any profession, are feeling the crunch. Tech workers earning the industry's average salary of $135,089 a year could only afford — defined as spending up to 30% of gross income on housing and upfront costs — 35% of rentals on the market in New York City last year, according to a report published on Tuesday from the rental platform StreetEasy and industry group Tech:NYC.

Almost 90% of NYC's tech jobs are located in Manhattan, where rents are steepest. In that borough, the median asking rent last year was $4,000 — and $3,500 for studios and one-bedrooms. Entry-level tech workers made an average of $75,262 in 2023, and could only afford 2.1% of studio and one-bedroom rental apartments in the city, StreetEasy found. In Manhattan, that number drops to 0.6% of studios and one-bedrooms.

"The crunch around housing is incredibly widely felt," Julie Samuels, the president and executive director of Tech:NYC, told Business Insider. "If these tech employees can't afford housing, then who can?"

Tech workers — defined in the report as those in computer and mathematical occupations — make the third-highest average annual wages among occupational groups in the city, according to the New York State Department of Labor.

Meanwhile, those who work in management positions could afford 71.5% of rentals on the market last year, while those in legal jobs could afford 64.7% of rentals.

New York City has seen a surge of growth in tech jobs over the last decade-plus, encouraged in part by government programs designed to boost tech education and welcome tech companies into the city. Despite many remote workers leaving New York during the pandemic, tech workers have resumed flooding into the city, including from hubs like San Francisco, in part to enjoy New York's lively social scene. But even as New York City has created 800,000 new jobs in the last 10 years, it's only built 200,000 new homes.

Samuels said she hears from tech companies concerned that many of their younger employees, particularly those who have kids, can't afford to stay in the city. "People who work in tech really want to live in New York," she said. "That drives the companies here as well, so that they can hire those people who want to live there. But if the people who want to live here can't afford to live here, that cycle gets messed up."

Of course, lower-income New Yorkers are being hit much harder by the housing crisis. The average tech worker makes 52% more per year than the average worker in New York City, the StreetEasy report noted.

New Yorkers who make the city's average wage could afford fewer than 5% of rentals on the market last year, according to the StreetEasy report.

Those in healthcare support jobs and food serving and preparation could afford the fewest homes. Half of the 22 occupation groups measured in the report could afford fewer than 1% of rentals on the market.

"Essential workers earning average wages in their occupations — for example, firefighters, transportation workers, nurses, and homecare aides — they could afford less than 1% of the rentals in the city in 2023," Kenny Lee, a senior economist at StreetEasy and the author of the report, told Business Insider.

Moving within the city is out of the question for many. To begin with, there are shockingly few homes even on the market — the city's home vacancy rate is just 1.4%, the lowest in over 50 years, according to a recent city report. And if someone is lucky enough to find a rental they can afford, up-front costs — including brokers' fees, security deposits, and first months' rent — have also soared. The average New Yorker moving homes spent $10,454 on upfront costs last year, not including hiring movers.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul have declared the housing affordability crisis a central priority for their administrations. But neither has had much success in implementing solutions so far. Hochul's plan to encourage the construction of about 800,000 new homes across the state failed in the state legislature last year. It was brought down in part by local leaders in New York City's suburbs, who strongly oppose building more multi-family housing in their extremely low-density communities.

But Hochul has managed to find agreement with the legislature on a new version of her housing proposal that excludes the suburbs, but loosens restrictions on home construction and boosts protections for tenants.

Adams last year unveiled his "City of Yes" plan, which calls for a slew of zoning reforms to incentivize more and denser housing construction — and would create 100,000 new homes for 250,000 New Yorkers over 15 years. In its report, StreetEasy and Tech:NYC endorse Adams' plan, and call for even looser restrictions on housing density.

• Mykola Sokalskii, a Ukrainian film producer, is being enlisted to fight against Russia.
• He is also one of the powerful moderators of r/Ukraine — a huge clearinghouse for news of the war.
• The subreddit grew more than tenfold during the war — and gave  Sokalskii a vivid insight into the fight he's joining.

A man who spent two years moderating one of the internet's most influential sources of information on Ukraine is being called up to fight against Russia.

Mykola Sokalskii, a 39-year-old film producer from Kyiv, started live-streaming on Reddit in 2020 after the pandemic began.

Then, a few months before Russia invaded in February 2022, he joined r/Ukraine as a moderator, one of the users empowered to help shape the subreddit's conversation.

Speaking to Business Insider, Sokalskii said the subreddit "skyrocketed" in popularity on Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, swelling from 80,000 members to 906,000.

It became a key source of information on the war, often breaking news of major events and featuring gritty combat videos that mainstream journalists scrambled to confirm.

It was also a community — a strongly partisan one — coordinating fundraising efforts to get equipment and aid to soldiers on the front line.

Sokalskii — who uses the username "JesterBoyd" — said he uses Reddit to convey what he sees as "objective truth" about the war to its members, predominantly in the US, UK, and Germany.

A shift in perspective

His days as a moderator are filled with reviewing heartbreaking posts detailing the tragedies in his country. He monitors the responses — giving him a unique perspective on how the West is viewing the invasion.

He is often struck by how fickle the support can be, but also the huge power he has to show the reality of war to so many people.

"We can see how the public opinion shifts and transforms based on the information they consume, and the responsibility we have is to give information that is objective," he told BI.

"When you travel through a war-torn landscape, you will see one house that will be completely obliterated, and then the neighbor's house will be pretty much fine — and it's kind of unfair in a way," he said.

"But that's just the way things are, and that's also the way you can portray war. You can focus on one house, or you can focus on another, or you can try to give a wider, more general picture and try to convey some kind of objective truth."

Ukraine's weakness

One issue often discussed on the subreddit is Ukraine's need for more troops.

Ukraine has recently stepped up its efforts to replenish soldiers. It lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25, eliminated some draft exemptions, and created an online registry for recruits.

Ukraine's parliament also passed a bill earlier this month that would allow the country's military to recruit prisoners to fight.

That effort now includes drafting Sokalskii.

The need is clear — US estimates have suggested Ukraine has already lost some 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers, The New York Times reported.

Skolskii knows it better than most. He said he had long been thinking about what would happen if he went to the frontline.

Writing in a thread in April, Skolskii said he'd been served a drafting notice, and was going through the process of getting ready to serve.

One person asked: Wouldn't he be more valuable to Ukraine helping run the subreddit?

"In a perfect world, I could do both more effectively by being in the army," he said. But the world isn't perfect.

"In reality, an army is an army and I expect it to be exceedingly difficult to post content regularly without endangering anyone and still being informative and engaging enough to make a difference," he said.

Flaws in Ukraine's conscription process

Sokalskii spent a long time thinking about the country's conscription process, which has been plagued by corruption. He said he believes it would work better as a lottery where "everybody has to suffer equally" — with the option to trade with a family member or friend willing to take your place.

In August, Zelenskyy fired all of Ukraine's military recruitment chiefs after an investigation revealed they were accepting up to $10,000 in bribes to help people avoid being drafted.

"I think everyone should be equal… I don't really care whether you are a CEO or a plumber," Sokalskii said.

Sokalskii declined to share specifics on enlistment, citing that he was still going through the process.

But he said working as a moderator helped to set basic expectations for war.

"My mom is very worried and wouldn't want me to go. What can you do?" he said.

Some Reddit users offered well-wishes, while others, who appeared to have military experience, offered advice on survival.

"Keep a safe distance from your buddies when out in the open. And stay dry — this is a survival thing: being miserable grinds people down mentally so they make stupid decisions," one person wrote in the thread he started.

Another wrote: "If I might offer one piece of advice as a combat vet myself, make sure you have plenty of dry socks."

"I know this may sound stupid to a lot of people, but it is arguably the most important piece of kit you'll have," they said. "It's hard to fight when the skin on your feet is rotten and falling off in chunks."

Sokalskii said the support he has received from the subreddit community has made him "proud to be a part of it."

• A Colorado man pleaded guilty to killing a family by setting their home on fire in 2020.
• He wanted revenge after his iPhone was stolen, but targeted the wrong house, investigators said.
• Five people, including two young children, were killed in the fire.

A Colorado man set a house in Denver on fire in 2020, thinking he was avenging the theft of his iPhone. But he targeted the wrong house.

He pleaded guilty last week to killing an innocent family who lived there.

Kevin Bui, 20, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder last Friday, Denver's District Attorney's Office said in a post on X.

Bui, who was 16 at the time of the fire on August 5, 2020, was prosecuted as an adult.

According to an arrest affidavit, Bui's iPhone was stolen during a drug deal.

Investigators said in the affidavit that Bui, seeking revenge against those who robbed him, intended to set fire to their house.

According to testimony in the trial, NBC News reported that Bui had used an app to track his stolen iPhone.

However, investigators said in the affidavit that Bui somehow identified the wrong property, and instead set alight the home of a Senegalese immigrant family.

The fire resulted in the deaths of five people, including a 21-month-old child and a six-month-old baby.

According to NBC News, as part of a plea deal, Bui had 60 other charges, including first-degree murder and arson, dropped.

He now faces 60 years in prison, Denver's District Attorney's office said, with sentencing scheduled for July 2.

Bui is the last of three people to enter a plea in connection to the fire.

Dillon Siebert, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder under a plea deal, was sentenced last year to three years in juvenile detention and seven years in a state prison program for young inmates.

Gavin Seymour was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to a count of second-degree murder in March, according to The Denver Post.

The Washington Post reported last year that while apps like Find My can be incredibly accurate, they're not entirely reliable.

In addition to the house fire incident, a SWAT team in Denver mistakenly raided the home of a 77-year-old woman in 2022 while searching for a truck with stolen guns and an iPhone.

According to the Post, a lawyer for the woman stated that police relied on the Find My app, which ultimately led them to the wrong address.

In March, the woman was awarded $3.76 million by a jury for the bungled raid.

• Donald Trump will not testify at his New York criminal hush-money trial.
• The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
• He has relentlessly attacked the case against him as a political "witch hunt" and "sham."

Donald Trump will not take the witness stand in his own defense at his historic New York trial on criminal charges related to a hush-money payment made to a porn star.

The GOP frontrunner's plans were made clear outside the jury's hearing on Tuesday morning.

The defense rested just after 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Trump's final decision follows weeks of speculation. Last Thursday, lead defense lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge that the defense team still needed time to "think through" whether Trump would take the stand.

The first-ever criminal trial of a former American president is now nearing its end after several weeks of witness testimony.

Without any testimony from Trump, the trial is on track to wrap up next week. The judge has told prosecutors and defense attorneys that he expects jurors will hear closing arguments next Tuesday, after a long Memorial Day weekend.

Trump has relentlessly attacked the case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office as a political "witch hunt," "scam," and "sham."

Nearly every morning and afternoon since the trial opened on April 15, the former president has fumed to the press gathered in the hallway of the 15th-floor downtown Manhattan courtroom that there was "no crime" and that the charges against him should have never been brought.

Trump, while in the courtroom hallway, has also repeatedly slammed New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, as "totally conflicted" and "corrupt."

In some of those hallway appearances earlier in the trial, Trump has told reporters that he planned to testify. But in more recent weeks, as more witnesses testified against him, Trump has ignored questions from pool reporters in the hallway asking if he would still take the witness stand.

Trump's legal team put only 2 witnesses on the stand

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors allege Trump illegally disguised records reimbursing his attorney-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush-money payment made to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election.

The prosecution called 20 witnesses to testify during the trial. Trump's defense attorneys put only two witnesses on the stand in his defense.

One, Robert Costello, is a criminal defense lawyer who met with Cohen in 2018. At the time, Cohen was in his own legal trouble after being the subject of an FBI raid. He later pleaded guilty to an array of crimes, including violating campaign finance laws by making the hush-money payment.

Costello backed up arguments from Trump's lawyers that Cohen — not Trump — drove the scheme to silence Daniels. He told jurors that Cohen told him that Trump didn't know anything about the payments. Cohen, for his part, testified earlier that he didn't trust Costello and misled him, viewing him as a "backchannel" to Trump because of his closeness to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.

During his testimony in court Monday afternoon, Costello acted dismissively toward the judge's rulings, heavily sighing and audibly muttering "jeez" and "ridiculous" when Merchan upheld objections from prosecutors against questions from Trump's attorney Emil Bove. At one point, Merchan ordered the removal of journalists from the courtroom and dressed down Costello, threatening to hold him in contempt.

"If you don't like my ruling, you don't give me side-eye, and you don't roll your eyes," Merchan told Costello before he cleared the room.

Trump's lawyers also called Daniel Sitko, a paralegal working for lead defense attorney Todd Blanche, to serve as a custodial witness so that jurors could see records of phone calls between Costello and Cohen.

The Trump team had also intended to call former Federal Elections Commissioner Brad Smith to the stand, where he would serve as a pricy expert witness racking up $1,200 an hour to testify about campaign finance law. But on Monday, Merchan ruled that Smith's planned testimony would have little relevance, deeming that, as the judge, he's the final arbiter of how the law should be applied.

On social media Monday night, Smith called Merchan "biased" and the trial "a farce." He told The Washington Examiner that he would have testified about past applications of campaign finance law, and that he did not believe that a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels to silence her ahead of the 2016 election using a non-disclosure agreement amounted to a campaign expense.

"My personal belief is that clearly paying hush money, or paying for a nondisclosure agreement, does not constitute a campaign expense," he said.

During the trial, jurors heard testimony from both Daniels and Cohen, key witnesses for the prosecution.

Cohen wrapped up his testimony on Monday. He told jurors how Trump approved of his payment to Daniels, and knew he was reimbursing Cohen for the hush money in 2017.

Much of Cohen's most damning testimony came when he quoted what he described as Trump's own words.

Trump "wasn't thinking about Melania — this was all about the campaign," Cohen told jurors. 

• Russia's S-400 air-defense system is feared.
• But Ukraine has been able to destroy some, including, it seems, with older weapons.
• Experts say it's still a formidable system, but the West could learn from Ukraine's wins.

The performance of the Russian military's top air-defense system in Ukraine has shown it's vulnerable to even some older Western missiles, and wins against it could give the West new ideas on how to defeat it, experts say.

The Russian S-400 is considered one of the world's most advanced air-defense systems, but in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, multiple units have been destroyed, including by older Western weapons the system should be able to handle.

Experts told Business Insider the system is clearly very capable, but it does have some weak points that Ukraine has been able to exploit.

Fredrik Mertens, an analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, said "we clearly know that Ukrainian missiles are getting through and at rates that they really pose a problem for the Russians."

A flagship system

Russia's S-400 Triumf, known to NATO as the SA-21 Growler, is a long-range, road-mobile surface-to-air missile system and the successor to the older S-300 system.

It was designed to target missiles and aircraft, but it can also be used for surface-to-surface strikes. Russia has used it to hit Ukrainian cities.

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the International Institute for Strategic Studies called this weapon "one of the world's more sophisticated" air-defense systems.

It first became operational in 2007 and is considered Russia's equivalent of the US Patriot system.

The head of Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned military company that oversees most of Russia's military exports, in February called it the "best long-range air defense system in the world."

While losses have been relatively rare, especially compared to other systems like Russian tanks and armored vehicles, the system has not always lived up to the hype.

John Hoehn, a researcher at the RAND Corporation with a specialism in air warfare, told BI its international popularity shows that it's seen as "one of the best air defenses that was available."

"Overall," he said, "I think the Ukrainian Air Force has viewed it as a substantial threat." But, Hoehn added, Ukraine has also found ways to counter S-400s and even destroy some of them.

Ukraine is hitting S-400s

Ukraine has destroyed multiple S-400 systems in its fight.

Ukraine in September said it destroyed two Russian S-400 batteries in Crimea, a region annexed by Russia in 2014. There were only five S-400s there before Russia invaded, Forbes reported.

Ukraine shared a video of one of the hits.

It said that one of these attacks used a modified Neptune anti-ship missile, a Ukrainian-made missile derived from an older, Soviet missile.

The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, said the attack may signal Russia's air defenses in Crimea may suffer from "systemic tactical failures."

Ukrainian intelligence also said that an S-400 system was damaged within Russia's borders in a September drone attack, and in April this year, Ukraine said that it destroyed or at least critically damaged four S-400 launchers in Crimea.

Some of Ukraine's hits have been by weapons older than the S-400s that should be in its threat envelope.

Foiled by older weapons

The British defense ministry said in a November intelligence update that Ukraine likely destroyed at least four of the systems in a week, with Russian media saying three of them were in Ukraine's Luhansk region.

Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which claims sources in Russia's police and military agencies, said that ATACMS were used in the attack. ATACMS, tactical ballistic missiles developed by the US, have been in service since 1986.

Mertens said the S-400s appear to have "troubles in intercepting ballistic missile targets," something that the US-made Patriots have proved they can do, even against advanced missiles like Russia's overhyped Kinzhals.

A video in February also shows what Ukraine said was a Storm Shadow missile, also known as a SCALP missile, flying unimpeded over an S-400 in Crimea.

Mertens described it as "incredible footage" that likely serves as a "terrible indictment" of the system. He said that Russia may have been unlucky with the system being passive at that moment, saying if so, "it can be forgiven, but still it's painful for Russia."

He said Ukrainians "have been hitting targets in the Crimea with depressing regularity for the Russians."

Hoehn said it was possible the system hadn't been set up, so its radar was not properly functioning yet, or that Ukraine used electronic warfare against it.

Ian Williams, formerly the deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last year the S-400s "seem to have struggled against Storm Shadows, but without better insight into intercepts, it's hard to assess with certainty."

Ukraine's wins come, as with most of this war's developments, with the caveat that there is no objective proof of how many systems Ukraine has hit compared to how many it has targeted or how many times the S-400 has been successful.

Mattias Eken, a missile defense expert at the RAND Corporation, noted Russia has kept much about the system a secret, and neither country has been fully open about their loss rates.

Rajan Menon, the director of the Grand Strategy program at the US think tank Defense Priorities, described the S-400 as Russia's "top-of-the-line air defense system."

But, he said, "the performance of the S-400 has been mixed in the sense that although it's talked up as this super air defense system, the Ukrainians have been able to take out not a few of them."

Ukraine has figured out how to hit some

Mick Ryan, a retired major general in the Australian Army and a military strategist, described the S-400 as a "very capable system," but one that Ukraine has figured out how to sometimes foil.

"The way you take down these highly capable systems is you take a systems approach. It's not 'just fire a weapon against it,' you've got to unpick all the things that defend it, whether it's sensors or other weapons systems, other air and missile and drone defense systems."

Doing that "is very hard. It's expensive, and it's a big targeting challenge."

But Ukraine has repeatedly been able to do it, something Ryan described as "a very impressive feat."

He said Ukrainians, aided by help from NATO nations and the alliance's joint targeting doctrine, have "become far more systematic and sophisticated in how they undertake the very complex and systemic taking down of highly capable Russian systems."

And he said Ukraine has been better at protecting its own missile systems than Russia has.

"They use deception, they move them frequently, they use dummies," he said. "There's a whole range of operating modalities around having their sensors on and off. And the Russians haven't been as good at this."

Air-defense systems typically work as part of a layered network rather than in isolation, with different systems working to detect an incoming attack and neutralize it, as well as protect the most valuable systems in the network, like the S-400.

Hoehn said Ukraine may be able to hit some S-400s because of flaws in Russia's network, with it perhaps not being set up adequately, creating gaps because other systems like the Pantsir missile system, which hasn't really lived up to expectations either, are not playing enough of a role to protect and support the S-400s.

Hoehn said that Ukraine has been able to "come up with some very creative tactics to be able to engage and destroy some of these sophisticated Russian systems."

"I don't know if this is higher or lower than what expectations might've been, but certainly they've changed how they have gone and tried to attack these systems before the war versus what we're seeing now."

Eken described the S-400 as "highly capable but not impervious to attack."

He said "the Ukrainian air force is still cautious and keeps a safe distance from the front lines due to the threat of the S-400 and other Russian SAM systems."

But, he said, it "is not invulnerable, particularly if it is not adequately protected. Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to destroy S-400 systems farther away from the front lines, such as in Crimea."

Older Western weapons seem to be performing better

Some of the experts said the S-400's performance, its troubles in particular, stands out compared to the Patriot, the system it was built to rival.

Patriots are older and had a somewhat chequered record before being used in Ukraine. But they have been hailed as a huge success in this war, and none of these have been confirmed lost, though there have been claims and rumors.

Menon said of the S-400 systems defending Crimea, "if you compare it to the Patriot, for example, it doesn't seem to have worked as quite as well."

But Ukraine has been running low on Patriot and other air defense missiles, as well as the long-range missiles it uses to target Russian equipment like the S-400, after support from the US stopped for six months.

And the S-400s remain a threat.

Hoehn said any F-16s Ukraine is due to get from allies this summer that get into the range of S-400s will be targets.

He said trying to destroy Russia's air defense systems could be a priority for Ukraine's F-16 pilots, but doing so against S-400s will be a big challenge as those are the jets' "most capable" threat.

Mertens said that while the S-400s should not be underestimated, it seems they "have a few potentially glaring deficiencies that could make them vulnerable against a capable and advanced opponent like the United States or NATO, which will be a very serious cause for concern for the Russians."

Ryan said that Ukraine's success against some S-400s helps its allies in the West and NATO learn how to defeat the system in the future, explaining that "the reality is this is a significant opportunity for Western military and intelligence organizations to collect on the capability of the Russian military across the board."