While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 17

France, Germany, Italy and Romania are all in favour of Ukraine receiving "immediate" official candidate status to join the European Union, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Kyiv on Thursday.

"All four of us support the status of immediate candidate for accession," he said at a joint news conference with Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian premier Mario Draghi and Romanian leader Klaus Iohannis who all arrived by train in the Ukrainian capital earlier on Thursday.

Since Russia invaded on Feb 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for Ukraine's rapid admission into the EU and he has demanded an answer on its candidacy before the end of this month.

"We are ready to work for our state to become a full member of the EU," Mr Zelensky said ahead of an EU leaders summit on June 23-24 at which Kyiv's application to become a candidate for membership is likely to be given a green light.

The Netherlands said on Thursday it had stopped a Russian spy posing as a Brazilian intern from infiltrating the International Criminal Court, which is investigating war crimes in Ukraine.

The Russian, identified as Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, 36, flew to the Netherlands in April using an elaborate deep cover story that he had built up over the past 12 years.

But Dutch authorities said they saw through his fake identity as 33-year-old Brazilian citizen named Viktor Muller Ferreira, and unmasked him as an agent of Moscow's GRU military intelligence.

Former president Donald Trump pressured his vice-president, Mike Pence, to overturn his 2020 election defeat despite being told repeatedly Pence had no authority to do so, aides to Pence told the congressional committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol on Thursday.

Members of the Democratic-led House of Representatives select committee said Trump continued his pressure campaign even though he knew a violent mob of his supporters was threatening the Capitol as Pence and lawmakers met to formally certify President Joe Biden's victory in the November 2020 election.

The nine-member committee has used the first three of at least six public hearings expected this month to build a case that Trump's efforts to overturn his defeat amounted to illegal conduct, far beyond normal politics.

A New York City subway rider died on Thursday after his pants became caught in the doors of a Q train late on Wednesday night as he exited, causing him to be dragged along the platform and then onto the tracks, the police said.

The episode took place just before midnight at the Avenue M station in Midwood, Brooklyn, and the man, who the police said appeared to be in his 30s and whom they did not identify, was taken to Maimonides Medical Centre.

The police said that it was not clear if the man was struck by a second train that entered the station shortly after his fall.

Cue up the celebratory tweets: A new Beyonce album is coming.

On Thursday, Beyonce updated her social media accounts to indicate that a new project called Renaissance, apparently with the subtitle Act I, would be released on July 29.

Renaissance will be Beyonce's first solo studio album since Lemonade in 2016.