The vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday to limit Donald Trump’s authority to continue his war in Iran will not bring that conflict to an end. But it does represent a symbolic setback for the U.S. president on an issue — the Middle East — that has become, both domestically and in foreign policy, the most painful stone in the shoe of his return to the White House. Meanwhile, the weeks go by and, with the peace deal with Tehran stalled, it seems clear that Washington has no idea how to extract itself from a quagmire of its own making.
A few months ago, at a center for malnourished children in the remote Darfur region of Sudan, an orphaned baby who had arrived days earlier on the brink of death gripped Tom Fletcher’s finger with surprising strength. The United Nations’ humanitarian chief says those seconds eased his frustration at international inaction and the “anger” he feels over cuts to aid at a time when needs and conflicts are rising around the world.
The confirmation of a case of the New World screwworm (NWS) in Texas set off alarm bells across the United States, marking the return of a pest that had been eradicated from the country more than half a century ago. The discovery comes at a particularly sensitive time for the livestock industry, which is facing the smallest cattle herd in 75 years and record-high beef prices, raising concerns about the potential economic consequences of a spread of the parasite.
In September 2017, just as Abner Román and Karla Ly Quiñones were about to open the doors of Café Comunión in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
At a time when tens of thousands of people flock each night to see Bad Bunny in Madrid and share millions of videos capturing his every move, it feels strange to think that on this very day, exactly 50 years ago, a concert took place that was likely attended by fewer people than those dancing each night in the Puerto Rican star’s casita— and yet may have changed popular music forever.
When Justo Betancourt, 55, was released from Alligator Alcatraz on May 14, after nearly six months in detention, he had lost 22 kilograms (48.5 lb) and could barely walk. Two days later he was admitted to hospital, on the verge of a diabetic coma. While in detention, he did not receive the insulin doses he needed, suffered strokes, and during one episode, he fell and lost a tooth. He has been left with neurological after-effects: his right hand trembles, and to climb a step, he lifts his leg from behind the thigh. “Sometimes I have to grab it and push, because it doesn’t respond,” he says on the ground floor of the apartment building where he lives, in Miami’s Little Havana. This week, President Donald Trump dedicated a message to him on Truth Social: “Welcome home to Justo Betancourt, whose Daughter, Arianne, fought very hard to free her father from Alligator Alcatraz. Enjoy your Freedom together!!!”
The ceasefire that has never truly stopped the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah followed the same dynamic on Thursday after being extended in a new round of talks in Washington.
He takes this newspaper’s call on a train bound for Hamburg, home of St. Pauli, continues by car and says goodbye almost an hour later in his office at the headquarters of the modest club, which he has chaired since 2014. Oke Göttlich (Hamburg, Germany; 50) is also one of the 13 vice presidents of the DFB, the German Football Association. And earlier this year, amid threats from Donald Trump’s administration to invade Greenland, Göttlich, a trained journalist, said enough was enough. “What reasons justified the boycotts by certain countries of Olympic Games in the 1980s?” he asked, referring to Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, in the Hamburger Morgenpost. “In my view, the current threat is greater than back then, so we must have this discussion; a footballer’s life is not worth more than the life of any of the people being directly or indirectly attacked by the host country of the next World Cup.”
Used to hearing Antony Beevor detail troop movements at Stalingrad, the siege of Berlin, the Normandy landings, the paratroopers’ effort at Arnhem or the Panzer offensive in Hitler’s last stand in the Ardennes, it is surprising to hear him talk about Rasputin’s penis. In truth, he adopts the same look of intense concentration he brings to his usual military topics. “Rasputin’s penis… is an object of interest, certainly,” he says when his interlocutor mentions that, during an afternoon of astonishment and vodka, he saw on display in a St. Petersburg museum the appendage shown as such in a glass jar. “Yes, it is said to measure 13 inches, about 33 centimeters, but I don’t know that it’s something to take seriously. My father-in-law, the historian John Julius Norwich, used to explain that his father, Duff Cooper, the first British ambassador to France after the Liberation and also a historian [and father of the notable writer Artemis Cooper, Beevor’s wife], was convinced that part of Rasputin’s sexual success and magnetism lay in his member and his muscular control, but there is no historical record that it was cut off after his murder. Today it is impossible to assert that what is on display is his; I don’t believe any DNA test has been done.” In fact, some say it is a horse’s penis, or, if not that, a dried sea cucumber, as has also been suggested. Beevor recalls, in any case, that at the time in Tsarist Russia, Rasputin was credited with extraordinary sexual potency and caricatures circulated showing his organ, in reference to the monk’s influence over the Tsarina Alexandra and, through her, Tsar Nicholas II, with the legend: “The rod that rules Russia.”
The journalist Roxana Berenice Guzmán was inside her home when armed men showed up and smashed the door. Like in a nightmare, they did not succeed immediately: they broke the glass and then began hammering at the lock. Blow after blow, up to a dozen. A man inside asks them to wait, but one of the attackers silences him, sticking a rifle through the broken glass and taking aim. They begin to kick at the door. The kicks are combined with the hammer blows. The man inside the house pleads again: “There’s a baby, calm down!” But, as in nightmares, the squad finally manages to break a piece of the door and enter the house. “Get on the floor!” one of the hooded men shouts, before grabbing the phone that is recording him. There are no images after that, but the attackers took the founder of the local media outlet Pulso Informativo del Sureste. The recording has shaken a country used to attacks on its journalists.
The National Assembly of Venezuela, controlled by Chavismo, has taken a step toward ending the state monopoly over the electricity service, which has been in crisis with blackouts and other problems for two decades. A draft reform to the Organic Law of the Electric System and Service was approved in first reading; it is aimed at opening the field to private capital within a framework of long-term concessions.
A potential response to cancer is written — on a microscopic level — in its very tumor cells. For decades, treatment and prognosis of the disease has been largely determined by the organ, the anatomical location in which the cancerous mass is located. But now, science has placed a spotlight on something more ambitious: learning the tumor’s signature, or rather, the molecular alterations that characterize its malignant cells. The latest meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which took place last weekend in Chicago, has given further impetus to precision oncology and highlighted how cancer biology, those microscopic genetic characteristics that define it, are playing an increasingly important role in determining therapeutic approach, and even predicting prognosis.
Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a ceasefire, a tripartite statement from both governments and the U.S. State Department announced. The cessation of hostilities is conditional on the Lebanese fundamentalist militant group Hezbollah completely halting its attacks and withdrawing its operatives from south of the Litani River. If implemented, the pact would open the door to relaunching peace talks between the United States and Iran.
Abelardo de la Espriella surprised many with his first-round victory in Colombia with 44% of the vote. The leader in the polls had consistently been left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, with the far-right candidate appearing in second place. However, those polls showed Cepeda hovering around 40% of voter intention — and he received just that. They also reflected a significant rise for the far-right candidate in recent weeks, as well as a loss of appeal for traditional right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia. In those surveys the two of them together polled roughly between 35% and 40% of voting intention. In the end, De la Espriella reached 44% and Valencia managed only 6%.
In December 2024, the Eagle S., an oil tanker flying the Cook Islands flag that had sailed from a Russian port, was detained by Finnish police. It was accused of damaging an electric cable and four other data cables on the floor of the Baltic Sea with its anchor. It may have been an accident, but repeated incidents prompted NATO the following month to launch a military operation, Baltic Sentry, deploying surveillance aircraft, ships, and drones to confront the undersea threat. Suspicions pointed to the so‑called Russian ghost fleet, with which the Putin regime is evading EU sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Brazil’s relationship with the United States has swung up and down like a roller coaster. It has been improving slowly and only through intense Brazilian diplomacy, but at any moment it can deteriorate rapidly again with a new blow from Washington. “We cannot accept the way the United States has treated Brazil this week,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared on Wednesday at a cabinet meeting in Brasília. Lula was referring to the Trump administration’s threat to impose new tariffs days after the U.S. designated two Brazilian criminal gangs as terrorist organizations. The left-wing president has again wrapped himself in the national flag and accused the Bolsonaros — former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro and his son, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro — of being traitors to the homeland for encouraging Trump’s interference.
Former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador reappeared on the public stage on Wednesday with a message in which he harshly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s pressure on Mexico under the guise of combating “narco-terrorism” and illegal immigration. López Obrador, who retired from politics after leaving the presidency in 2024, has given his full support to his successor Claudia Sheinbaum against Washington’s interference and its attempt, as he put it, to weaken Morena, the leftist political party and movement he founded and which the current president continues to lead.
Despite all the difficulties, as numerous as they are, something is moving in the Strait of Hormuz. Even before the United States and Iran agreed to reopen it, the world’s most important energy shipping lane has shown signs of a slight loosening. Despite the double blockade — imposed first by Tehran and then by Washington — the number of ships managing to transit has grown in recent days. Some — the majority — do so with the permission of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Others are escorted by the U.S. Navy. A few take the risk on their own.
California Democrats’ bid to retake control of Congress through redistricting efforts to include more of their voters in heavily Republican areas is running into its first barrier in a race in a district east of Los Angeles. Preliminary counts put two Republican candidates in the top two spots, which would set up a contest between them for the seat in the November midterm elections. In other races that Democrats consider key, their candidates have advanced to a November runoff.
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