Make no mistake, the real battle in the Ukraine war right now isn’t in the skies over Kyiv or Dnipro where Russian drone strikes have intensified, dramatically, in recent days.

Nor is the slow, grinding progress being made by the Russian army on the brutal frontlines of eastern Ukraine how the conflict, now in its third year, will be decided.

No, the crucial fight being slugged out between the warring parties and their allies is for the ear of US President Donald Trump, who seems increasingly frustrated with efforts to broker peace.

And that’s why his phone call, expected to take place with Russian President Vladimir Putin later today, may be of such pivotal importance.

Moscow and Kyiv are both vying to demonstrate it is the other who is the real obstacle to peace, hoping to swing Trump’s changeable opinion, at least for a while, their way.

European officials say they will also be speaking to Trump ahead of his call with Putin, amid concerns that Trump’s view on the conflict may be shaped by whom he speaks to last.

Just last month, after speaking to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at Pope Francis’ funeral, Trump made some of his most critical remarks towards Putin, condemning the Russian leader for launching a missile attack on Kyiv, adding he couldn’t say for sure whether the Russian leader was serious about ending the war.

As long as Monday’s call lasts, Putin – who has refused to accept a 30-day ceasefire demanded by President Trump and agreed to by Ukraine – will have that presidential ear all to himself. He could pour into it whatever business inducements, flattery or poison Putin calculates will work best.

Trump and Putin already seem to share an unshakeable conviction that it is them alone who have the personal authority and skills to settle the Ukraine war, while the Europeans and the Ukrainians themselves will ultimately do as they are told.

Underwhelming talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul last week – the first directly between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators for years – seem to have underlined President Trump’s own sense of centrality to a deal. It has encouraged him to reinsert himself, by calling Putin directly, into peace efforts from which he had only recently threatened to walk away.

The big Ukrainian fear is that the two leaders will cook up their own peace plan over the phone with President Trump – who says he’ll call his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky afterwards – then potentially seek to impose Putin’s terms under a renewed threat of withdrawing vital US military and economic aid.

President Trump has leverage on Russia, too, if he chooses to use it. With mounting casualties and a strained economy, the Kremlin undoubtedly wants to avoid pushing an angry and rebuffed Trump towards restoring and possibly redoubling US support for the Ukrainian war effort.

As ever, the problem remains that neither Russia nor Ukraine is currently willing to accept each other’s minimum terms, to compromise enough to satisfy the other side.

That doesn’t mean talks – whether direct, face-to-face, or on the phone – are pointless. If nothing else, they can highlight how far apart the two sides really are.

But what may mean is that, even under US pressure, even after a direct phone call with President Trump, both Moscow and Kyiv may still choose to fight on.

The murder of a 22-year-old model and influencer in Colombia has sent shock waves through the country and drawn parallels to the killing of a Mexican influencer last week, highlighting the high rates of femicide in Latin America.

Maria Jose Estupinan, a university student in Colombia’s northeastern city of Cucuta, close to the Venezuela border, was killed on May 15, according to Magda Victoria Acosta, president of the National Gender Commission of the Colombian Judiciary.

Speaking at a news conference, Acosta said the suspect, disguised as a delivery man, shot Estupinan in her home when she opened the door.

“She was a young, enterprising woman with a whole life ahead of her, but those dreams are cut short like the dreams of many women in this country,” Acosta said.

Estupinan had been the victim of a domestic violence case and was about to receive compensation for it, Acosta added. She said the commission “very strongly” condemned the crime and would work to deliver justice.

Estupinan’s Facebook page showed photos of her travels and daily life, including trips to New York and California, and of her posing by the pool or at the gym.

The case has been covered widely by local media and spread on social media, with many comparing it to the May 13 shooting of 23-year-old beauty influencer Valeria Marquez in Mexico. Just days before Estupinan’s death, Marquez was killed during a live stream at a salon by a male intruder.

Officials in Mexico’s Jalisco state said they are investigating Marquez’s death as a suspected femicide – the killing of a woman or girl for gender-based reasons.

While not all homicides involving women are femicides, many are. In 2020, a quarter of female killings in Mexico were investigated as femicides, with cases reported in each one of the country’s 32 states, according to Amnesty International.

Acosta did not say whether Estupinan’s death was a suspected femicide – but her killing has highlighted the sheer scale of violence against women in Colombia.

Gender-based violence in the country is widespread, including by armed groups, according to non-profit organization Human Rights Watch. Survivors face many obstacles in seeking care or justice, and perpetrators are rarely held accountable, the group noted in its World Report 2024.

Colombia’s National Gender Commission has logged thousands of cases of gender and domestic violence, including high rates of sexual violence, neglect, abandonment and psychological violence, Acosta said.

Some 41 women were reported missing in Colombia between January and August last year – with 34 cases in Cucuta, where Estupinan lived, Acosta said. Many of the women were minors.

Northeast Colombia has been particularly volatile in recent months, with a sharp rise in fighting between militant factions. Escalating violence in the Catatumbo region displaced tens of thousands of people in January, many of whom flocked to Cucuta, where Colombia’s military deployed thousands of soldiers and special forces.

Israel launched an extensive ground operation in Gaza Sunday in addition to an intense air campaign that health officials in the territory say killed over 100 people overnight and shuttered the last functioning hospital in the enclave’s north.

The Israeli military’s ground operation in northern and southern Gaza comes as international mediators push for progress in ceasefire talks.

Hamas and Israel began indirect talks in the Qatari capital Doha Saturday, with senior Hamas official Taher Al-Nunu confirming that “negotiations without preconditions” had started, according to Hamas-run al Aqsa TV.

While there is some optimism around the talks, a breakthrough is looking uncertain. Israel on Sunday indicated its openness to ending the war in Gaza if Hamas surrenders, a proposition the militant group is unlikely to accept. Hamas has said it will release all of the Israeli hostages if there are guarantees Israel will end the war.

“If Hamas wants to talk about ending the war through Hamas’s surrender, we will be ready,” an Israeli source said.

Hours later another senior Hamas leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, denied and contradicted that proposal, posting a statement on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV Telegram: “There is no truth to the rumors regarding the movement’s agreement to release nine Israeli prisoners in exchange for a two-month ceasefire.”

He went on to say, “We are ready to release the prisoners all at once, provided the occupation commits to a cessation of hostilities under international guarantees, and we will not hand over the occupation’s prisoners as long as it insists on continuing its aggression against Gaza indefinitely.”

The Israeli military has claimed that their new military campaign – called “Gideon’s Chariots,” a reference to a biblical warrior, and announced late on Friday – has brought Hamas back to the negotiating table. And due to the “operational need,” Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday that the country will allow a “basic amount of food” to enter the Gaza Strip, to prevent a hunger crisis in the enclave, which Israel says would jeopardize the operation.

The campaign was launched “to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza, including the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

“During the operation, we will increase and expand our operational control in the Gaza Strip, including segmenting the territory and moving the population for their protection in all the areas in which we operate,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Effie Defrin said on Sunday.

But analysts and officials say it’s more likely that Hamas agreed to restart the talks following a visit from US President Donald Trump to the Middle East.

This past week, Netanyahu directed the Israeli negotiating team to head to Qatar for talks, but made clear that he is only committed to negotiating a proposal put forward by the US’ Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, which calls for the release of half the hostages in return for a temporary ceasefire. That proposal did not guarantee an end to the war.

Trump was in Doha Wednesday as part of a Middle East trip that skipped Israel. Trump said this month that he wanted an end to the “brutal war” in Gaza.

He also bypassed Israel twice this month in reaching bilateral deals with regional militant groups. Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage last week, and the Houthis agreed to stop firing at American ships in the Red Sea while pledging to continue fighting Israel.

Trump, however, denied that Israel had been sidelined. “This is good for Israel,” he said. But on Thursday, he said he wanted the US to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone.”

“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good, make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,” Trump said from Qatar.

While in the Gulf, Trump also acknowledged that people are starving in Gaza and said the US would have the situation in Gaza “taken care of.”

Entire families killed

Meanwhile, the UN and prominent aid organizations are raising the alarm over Israel’s new offensive in Gaza, saying it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the assault.

Entire families were killed while sleeping together, according to the health ministry.

As the bombardment continues and the death toll rises, Gaza’s healthcare system is being pushed further to the brink.

Over the past week, the Israeli military has carried out strikes near several hospitals across the enclave, including the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, the last remaining functioning medical facility in northern Gaza, rendering it out of service.

On Sunday, Al-Sultan told British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) that the hospital is “completely besieged,” that nobody is able to reach it, and that its intensive care unit was also being hit.

“We are deeply helpless,” he said, adding that the situation is “beyond alarming.”

Northern Gaza’s Al-Awda hospital saw a “harrowing night” with bombing in the vicinity of the hospital, the facility’s director Dr. Mohammed Salha told MAP on Sunday.

Salha said the hospital’s medical systems – oxygen for ventilators, electricity and water supplies– were severely damaged. Quadcopters flying over the area hampered the movement of medical teams in and out of the hospital, and a shortage of medical supplies and fuel was making it difficult for the hospital to continue providing essential care.

On Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that “all public hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip are now out of service.”

Famine risk in Gaza

Prior to Israel announcing Sunday that it will allow a “basic amount of food” to enter the Gaza Strip, the UN warned the enclave’s entire population of over 2.1 million people is facing a risk of famine following 19 months of conflict and mass displacement, exacerbated by Israel’s 11-week blocking of aid.

A controversial American-backed organization, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), tasked with delivering aid to the enclave, welcomed the Israeli announcement about allowing food aid into Gaza as a “bridging mechanism” until the group is fully operational.

The non-profit was set up at the urging of the American government to help alleviate hunger in Gaza, while complying with Israeli demands that the aid not reach Hamas.

In a statement, the group’s executive director Jake Wood said, “Today’s announcement marks an important interim step. We expect GHF’s new aid mechanism—including the establishment of four initial Secure Distribution Sites—to be up and running before the end of the month.”

The new organization has come under criticism from top humanitarian officials, who warn that it is insufficient, could endanger civilians, and even encourage their forced displacement. The initial sites only being in southern and central Gaza could be seen as encouraging Israel’s publicly stated goal of forcing Gaza’s population out of the north, the UN warned.

But the foundation says it has asked Israel to help set up distribution points in the north. The UN also warned that the Israeli military’s involvement in securing the sites could discourage aid recipients.

Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, called the Prime Minister’s Office’s aid decision a “serious mistake,” asserting that any aid entering Gaza would “certainly fuel Hamas.”

The number of people killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks now exceeds 53,000 – the majority of whom are women and children, the health ministry said Thursday.

Despite the resumption of talks in Qatar, Omar Qandil, whose brother, sister-in-law and 4-month-old niece were killed in an overnight airstrike in central Gaza, said he feels the world has turned a blind eye to their suffering.

“They were all asleep… all targeted in their bedroom,” he said.

“I don’t know what we (can) say anymore, we (have) spoke a lot. There is no one looking at us: not Arabs not Muslims, no one.”

The IDF on Sunday said its new offensive in Gaza is happening “in full coordination” with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and that the military is trying to prevent harm to the remaining hostages; but the forum has decried the operation saying it would endanger those still held captive in the enclave.

“The current policy is killing the living and erasing the dead. Every bombing, every delay, every indecision increases the danger. The living hostages face immediate mortal danger, and we risk losing the deceased forever,” said Hagai Levine, the head of the forum’s health team, who the group said co-authored a report about the dangers the latest Israeli operation poses to the hostages.

On a windswept plateau high above the Arabian Sea, Sena Keybani cradles a sapling that barely reaches her ankle. The young plant, protected by a makeshift fence of wood and wire, is a kind of dragon’s blood tree — a species found only on the Yemeni island of Socotra that is now struggling to survive intensifying threats from climate change.

“Seeing the trees die, it’s like losing one of your babies,” said Keybani, whose family runs a nursery dedicated to preserving the species.

Known for their mushroom-shaped canopies and the blood-red sap that courses through their wood, the trees once stood in great numbers. But increasingly severe cyclones, grazing by invasive goats, and persistent turmoil in Yemen — which is one of the world’s poorest countries and beset by a decade-long civil war — have pushed the species, and the unique ecosystem it supports, toward collapse.

Often compared to the Galapagos Islands, Socotra floats in splendid isolation some 240 kilometers (150 miles) off the Horn of Africa. Its biological riches — including 825 plant species, of which more than a third exist nowhere else on Earth — have earned it UNESCO World Heritage status. Among them are bottle trees, whose swollen trunks jut from rock like sculptures, and frankincense, their gnarled limbs twisting skywards.

But it’s the dragon’s blood tree that has long captured imaginations, its otherworldly form seeming to belong more to the pages of Dr. Seuss than to any terrestrial forest. The island receives about 5,000 tourists annually, many drawn by the surreal sight of the dragon’s blood forests.

Visitors are required to hire local guides and stay in campsites run by Socotran families to ensure tourist dollars are distributed locally. If the trees were to disappear, the industry that sustains many islanders could vanish with them.

“With the income we receive from tourism, we live better than those on the mainland,” said Mubarak Kopi, Socotra’s head of tourism.

But the tree is more than a botanical curiosity: It’s a pillar of Socotra’s ecosystem. The umbrella-like canopies capture fog and rain, which they channel into the soil below, allowing neighboring plants to thrive in the arid climate.

“When you lose the trees, you lose everything — the soil, the water, the entire ecosystem,” said Kay Van Damme, a Belgian conservation biologist who has worked on Socotra since 1999.

Without intervention, scientists like Van Damme warn these trees could disappear within a few centuries — and with them many other species.

“We’ve succeeded, as humans, to destroy huge amounts of nature on most of the world’s islands,” he said. “Socotra is a place where we can actually really do something. But if we don’t, this one is on us.”

Increasingly intense cyclones uproot trees

Across the rugged expanse of Socotra’s Firmihin plateau, the largest remaining dragon’s blood forest unfolds against the backdrop of jagged mountains. Thousands of wide canopies balance atop slender trunks. Socotra starlings dart among the dense crowns while Egyptian vultures bank against the relentless gusts. Below, goats weave through the rocky undergrowth.

The frequency of severe cyclones has increased dramatically across the Arabian Sea in recent decades, according to a 2017 study in the journal Nature Climate Change, and Socotra’s dragon’s blood trees are paying the price.

In 2015, a devastating one-two punch of cyclones — unprecedented in their intensity — tore across the island. Centuries-old specimens, some over 500 years old, which had weathered countless previous storms, were uprooted by the thousands. The destruction continued in 2018 with yet another cyclone.

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, so too will the intensity of the storms, warned Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the study’s lead author. “Climate models all over the world robustly project more favorable conditions for tropical cyclones.”

Invasive goats endanger young trees

But storms aren’t the only threat. Unlike pine or oak trees, which grow 60 to 90 centimeters (25 to 35 inches) per year, dragon’s blood trees creep along at just 2 to 3 centimeters (about 1 inch) annually. By the time they reach maturity, many have already succumbed to an insidious danger: goats.

An invasive species on Socotra, free-roaming goats devour saplings before they have a chance to grow. Outside of hard-to-reach cliffs, the only place young dragon’s blood trees can survive is within protected nurseries.

“The majority of forests that have been surveyed are what we call over-mature — there are no young trees, there are no seedlings,” said Alan Forrest, a biodiversity scientist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s Centre for Middle Eastern Plants. “So you’ve got old trees coming down and dying, and there’s not a lot of regeneration going on.”

Keybani’s family’s nursery is one of several critical enclosures that keep out goats and allow saplings to grow undisturbed.

“Within those nurseries and enclosures, the reproduction and age structure of the vegetation is much better,” Forrest said. “And therefore, it will be more resilient to climate change.”

Conflict threatens conservation

But such conservation efforts are complicated by Yemen’s stalemated civil war. As the Saudi Arabia-backed, internationally recognized government battles Houthi rebels — a Shiite group backed by Iran — the conflict has spilled beyond the country’s borders. Houthi attacks on Israel and commercial shipping in the Red Sea have drawn retaliation from Israeli and Western forces, further destabilizing the region.

“The Yemeni government has 99 problems right now,” said Abdulrahman Al-Eryani, an advisor with Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based risk consulting firm. “Policymakers are focused on stabilizing the country and ensuring essential services like electricity and water remain functional. Addressing climate issues would be a luxury.”

With little national support, conservation efforts are left largely up to Socotrans. But local resources are scarce, said Sami Mubarak, an ecotourism guide on the island.

Mubarak gestures toward the Keybani family nursery’s slanting fence posts, strung together with flimsy wire. The enclosures only last a few years before the wind and rain break them down. Funding for sturdier nurseries with cement fence posts would go a long way, he said.

“Right now, there are only a few small environmental projects — it’s not enough,” he said. “We need the local authority and national government of Yemen to make conservation a priority.”

A Venezuelan mother who was initially deported from the US without her 2-year-old daughter says being reunited with her child this week felt like a “miracle.”

“Many times, I doubted that my daughter was going to come,” said a tearful Yorely Bernal in an interview with Venezuelan news outlet La Iguana TV on Thursday. “But that miracle they gave me yesterday was something that there are no words to explain.”

Bernal was deported from the United States in March without her daughter Maikelys, who remained in foster care in the US. When Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores personally handed Maikelys Espinoza to Bernal at the presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday, it put an end to nearly a year of separation between the two.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Maikelys spent most of her time in the US in foster care under the custody of the US Office of Refugee Resettlement before being returned to her mother under court order.

DHS claims that the separation was for the child’s safety, alleging that Bernal and her partner, whom the US deported to the high-security CECOT prison in El Salvador earlier this year, are members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua – something both parents deny.

“The child’s mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution for Tren de Aragua,” DHS alleged in a statement on May 14. The US government has not provided specific evidence for this allegation, and both Bernal and Espinoza say they have no affiliation with Tren de Aragua.

Bernal told La Iguana that US authorities cited Bernal’s upcoming immigration hearings at the time when they took first her daughter into custody last year.

Nearly a year of separation

Bernal entered the United States with Maikelys and her partner Maiker Espinoza on May 14, 2024. All three were swiftly detained by US immigration authorities, Bernal told La Iguana, and Maikelys was removed from their care five days later.

Months would pass before Mikaelys – who was just over a year old when they crossed the border – was able to see her mother again through a video calling app under immigration authorities’ supervision, according to Bernal.

At that point, the toddler no longer recognized her, she says.

“They allowed me a video call once a week for thirty minutes,” Bernal told La Iguana. “That’s when I was able to see her. I knew it was her. But she didn’t recognize me anymore. It had been about five months until I was able to see her again.”

Eventually, Bernal and Espinoza were able to see their daughter in 30-minute in-person visits, she says. In a February affidavit filed in federal court, Espinoza said that this was around October 2024.

Now reunited with her child in Venezuela, Bernal told Venezuelan media that she’s still hopeful that her partner would eventually be set free from CECOT and join his family in Venezuela.

“I know that he is going to be here, because he promised me,” she said.

In the gripping game of thrones of Philippine politics, voters have delivered former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte a sweeping mayoral victory in his hometown stronghold of Davao – predictable for a family that has held the job for more than 20 years.

But this latest landslide win creates a predicament for the Philippines, as the mayor-elect is thousands of miles away behind bars awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague accuse the 80-year-old political patriarch of carrying out a brutal war on drugs that killed possibly thousands of people, including many innocents and bystanders. Though he openly boasted about the crackdown, Duterte has long denied accusations of human rights abuses and has repeatedly said he will not kowtow to a foreign court.

His next hearing is in September, but before then experts say he faces a new, complicated legal battle between the ICC and Philippine jurisdiction over whether he will be allowed to take the oath of office.

Duterte can potentially be sworn in by proxy or in absentia – possibly by a video call, but only if The Hague-based court allows it, experts say.

If he’s allowed to assume the role, questions will be asked about how he could administer the southern city from a detention center in another time zone, where he has access to a computer and phone calls to family, but no internet.

Under Philippine law, day-to-day duties could fall to his youngest son, Sebastian Duterte, who was elected as vice mayor of Davao City.

If the senior Duterte isn’t allowed to take the oath, experts say the role of mayor could fall to election runner-up Karlo Nograles, of the Nograles political dynasty, longtime Duterte rivals in Davao, where both families tussle for influence.

Ramon Beleno, a political analyst and former professor from Ateneo de Davao University, said handing the job to Nograles could trigger a separate legal challenge from the Dutertes.

Duterte’s ‘last hurrah’?

Duterte remains a powerful yet divisive figure in the Philippines. In Davao City, where he served as mayor for over two decades before becoming president in 2016, fervent supporters credit his iron grip over the city with bolstering law and order.

Duterte’s lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, was quoted by Philippine news outlet ABS-CBN as saying the “overwhelming” support for Duterte in the 2025 midterm elections showed the public’s “total rejection” of the national government’s “attempt to stamp out” the former president’s legacy.

Beleno said voters saw this election as Duterte’s “last hurrah” and cast their ballot as a final tribute to the aging former strongman leader. Duterte’s arrest had only galvanized voters, he said.

Support for Duterte extended to his family, who re-emerged in the vote with sweeping control of their political stronghold.

All five Duterte family members who ran in this election won by a landslide. Duterte’s son Paolo was re-elected to congress and two of Paolo’s sons also won public office: Omar won as congressman for Davao City’s second district and Rodrigo II, who goes by the nickname “Rigo,” was elected as first district councilor.

Sebastian Duterte, the vice mayor-elect – who could be mayor in his father’s absence – is not as outspoken as the elder Duterte and a lot of political responsibilities are already weighing against him at home, Beleno said.

Is he allowed to be mayor?

The main legal hurdle Duterte faces, despite his landslide mayoral win, is whether he would be allowed to swear the oath during his enforced absence.

All elected public officials are supposed to take their oath within 30 days of their supposed assumption of office on July 1, according to Joel Butuyan, an ICC-accredited lawyer and president of human rights NGO CenterLaw.

Unable to be sworn in at home, Duterte would need to take the oath in the presence of a Philippine ambassador or consul in The Hague, which seems unlikely, Butuyan said.

“I don’t think he’s going to be allowed to get out just to take office because it’s not in the enumerated rights of an accused (person) in the ICC,” he said.

If the ICC grants Duterte permission, the oath will be recognized in the Philippines, but he “will not be able to perform his functions because he’s out of the country and he’s in detention,” Butuyan said.

“It’s not ideal at all,” Butuyan added, of the election result. “It does not serve the interests of the people of Davao that they voted for someone who will not be able to perform his functions as a city mayor.”

The mayor is the face of the city, with administrative tasks such as attending meetings and functions, signing documents and authorizing payrolls – all difficult to do effectively if Duterte is sitting halfway across the world, said Beleno, the political analyst.

Even before the final votes were cast, Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, said that her father’s ICC lawyer and Philippine legal team were discussing how he can take the oath.

“The ICC lawyer said that once we get proclamation papers, we’ll discuss again how former President Rodrigo Duterte can take the oath,” she said.

In a court filing to the ICC earlier this month, Kaufman said there is no legal basis for the case against Duterte because the Philippines is no longer a member of the Rome Statute.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC, but under the court’s withdrawal mechanism, it keeps jurisdiction over crimes committed during the membership period of a state – in this case, between 2016 and 2019, when the country’s pullout became official.

A political stalemate

The closely watched midterm election was considered a proxy battle between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Duterte-Carpio as ties disintegrate between the former allies turned enemies.

The vice president is facing impeachment complaints in the House of Representatives amid allegations of corruption, which she denies. A two-thirds vote in the Senate is required to convict her, remove her from public office, and ban her from seeking any public post.

To stay in office, Duterte-Carpio needs nine of 24 senators to vote for her acquittal. And neither the Marcoses nor the Dutertes dominate the Senate after the May 2025 vote.

The race yielded a three-way stalemate between Marcos-endorsed candidates, Duterte-allied politicians, and liberal-leaning figures, said Maria Ela Atienza, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines.

“The vice president has more breathing room now … but she should also be careful with how the public perceives her,” Atienza said. “Her popularity ratings have recovered a bit … but we have seen she can make mistakes that can affect the sentiments of the people.”

In reality, the Filipino public is also becoming impatient with the drama in high places, Atienza said. “They’re getting tired of having the Dutertes always fighting with the Marcoses,” she said.

For now, political bickering is in gridlock. But Rodrigo Duterte’s stronghold still stands and his supporters long for the day he is officially declared mayor and comes back to serve his home country.

Austria won its third Eurovision Song Contest after a glittering grand final in neighboring Switzerland, with singer JJ earning the continent’s votes for the operatic pop anthem “Wasted Love.”

The song, which showcases the classically trained Austrian-Filipino singer’s remarkable vocals and was staged in a dramatic style that evoked a shipwreck, dazzled the crowd in Basel and saw Austria triumph for the first time since Conchita Wurst’s victory in 2014.

Israel came second in the leaderboard, with Yuval Raphael – a survivor of Hamas’ October 7 attacks – winning support for her performance of “New Day Will Rise.” Estonia was placed third, while San Marino earned the last-place spot.

“I had a pretty tough year, and I wanted to write about my personal experience with wasted, unreciprocated love,” he said, adding that if he won Saturday’s final, he would “probably break down, start crying and then call my family.”

The Eurovision grand final is a defining event on the LGBTQ+ calendar and attracts interest across the continent, showcasing some of Europe’s most talented, eccentric and varied performers.

Taking to the stage on Saturday were a Latvian ethno-pop six-piece, whose bewitching track melded a folk chant with fairytale imagery; a Ukrainian glam rock-inspired group; a gimmicky Estonian artist who caricatured Italian coffee culture; and an Albanian double act whose haunting track “Zjerm” became a fan favorite.

A rumored appearance by Celine Dion, who won Eurovision for Switzerland in 1988 and who, along with ABBA, is the contest’s most celebrated alumni, failed to materialize.

Though organizers insist Eurovision is an apolitical event, the contest has long been embroiled in the continent’s tensions. Russia and Belarus were banned following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and the participation of Israel has been opposed by segments of the fanbase due to the country’s ongoing war in Gaza.

The Israeli contestant Raphael — who was attending the Nova music festival when Hamas launched its cross-border attacks in October 2023 — sang to an arena where Palestinian flags were flying, following a rule change by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

As a missionary and bishop in Peru, the future Pope Leo came face-to-face with one of the most serious and far-reaching scandals in the church in Latin America.

For years, there were allegations of abuse within the hugely influential Catholic society Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), which had deep ties to Peru’s powerful and wealthy.

The scandal came to a head in 2015, the year after Leo, then known as Robert Prevost, was appointed bishop in the northern city of Chiclayo. A book written by one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, with journalist Paola Ugaz, “Half Monks, Half Soldiers,” described alleged beatings, humiliation and sexual assault in stark detail from 30 anonymous victims that enflamed the country.

A secret brotherhood

When Oscar Osterling formally joined SCV in 1992, he was instructed not to tell his parents about his loyalty oath – a secrecy that appealed to the then-teenager. He would go on to spend more than two decades with SCV, only breaking out in his mid-thirties as the first allegations began to surface.

Founded in 1971 in Peru as a lay group, the Sodalitium was politically driven as a fight back against the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, a radical movement which began in the 1960s and focused on supporting the poor. The society controlled several communities and ran religious schools in the southern part of the country, its members and students mostly drawn from the country’s elite.

At one point, SCV had 20,000 members across South America and parts of the United States – and went on to develop strong ties with Denver and Colorado, including links with conservative Catholic media.

But hearing the others’ accounts, Osterling says he realized the strangeness of his own experience; he alleges that Figari would film him and other young converts standing in their underpants in the middle of the night during a spiritual retreat.

“In my case it did not escalate to a full sexual assault,” he says. He now believes he and his cohort were being groomed.

While dozens of young Peruvians have alleged they were victimized or bullied by Figari and other senior members of SVC, the topic remains taboo in ultra-Catholic Peru, and only a few have chosen to make details of their allegations public.

Prevost, who lived in Peru as a missionary in the 1980s and the 1990s, would have heard about these accounts while serving as Bishop of Chiclayo starting in 2014, especially following the publication of Ugaz and Salinas’ bombshell book.

Ugaz and Salinas also accused José Antonio Eguren, an archbishop in the coastal diocese of Piura – where Prevost worked as a young priest and which neighbors his diocese of Chiclayo – of protecting the SCV despite knowing about alleged abuses within it.

Eguren fought back with a defamation lawsuit alleging this was untrue and harmed his honor and reputation, though he later dropped the case.

According to Ugaz, who has faced a long campaign of legal actions and death threats around her reporting on the Sodalitium case, she received a message of solidarity during this time from Prevost and two other bishops.

A shocking report

In 2017, a probe ordered by SCV revealed stunning allegations. The group, which had already begun a series of internal disciplinary actions, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear,” and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report alleged.

The next year, more than a dozen alleged victims of the SCV from across Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, held a meeting with five high ranking prelates at the Peruvian Episcopal Conference in Lima. Prevost was one of the meeting’s organizers; according to Ugaz, he acted as a “bridge” between the victims and the SCV and helped secure financial settlements.

When the meeting finally took place, Orbegozo recalls, “Prevost recognized me immediately. ‘You are the guy from the email!’ he told me.” “He wanted to know everything about our correspondence …and showed real empathy,” Orbegozo said.

Osterling and Ugaz recall that the bishops they met agreed to write a letter to the Vatican, pushing to investigate the alleged crimes and asking for the personal involvement of then-Pope Francis. But higher church officials declined to move the case forward.

Ugaz, who first met Prevost in 2018 and remained in contact with him, said the stalled outcome of the meeting caused Prevost “great frustration” although she added “his character is not one to burn down the house. He accepted what had happened, made his frustration clear.”

Though that meeting initially seemed to lead to little, Orbegozo and Osterling believe it was the first crack in a wall destined to crumble.

“(Prevost) knew — he knew about many things — but he couldn’t act because he had people above him. So much so, that as soon as he could, he did — when they made him prefect,” says Osterling.

A cascade of action

Everything seemed to accelerate in early 2023 after Prevost was named prefect of the influential Dicastery of Bishops – a role that suddenly catapulted him into a much more powerful position than the archbishop next door in Piura.

The job gave him a crucial role in the appointments and oversight of bishops, holding regular meetings with fellow cardinals and Pope Francis to discuss episcopal nominations.

It’s hard to say exactly what happened in the halls of the Vatican after Prevost moved to Rome. But the next year, two top investigators from the Vatican were finally sent to Lima to establish what had happened within SCV – a probe that led to the expulsion of 14 members of the society, including Figari.

Archbishop Eguren also resigned in April 2024 at the age of 67 – several years before the normal retirement age of 75 – without specifying the reasons.

Eguren has denied Prevost’s involvement in his resignation, emphasizing that he offered his resignation directly to Pope Francis. After stepping down, the archbishop also said in a statement that he rejected Ugaz and Salinas’ allegations, and had “sought to fulfil the mission entrusted to me with justice, honesty, and fidelity to the teachings of the Church, with special concern for the well-being of the poorest and most needy.”

Another expelled member was Alejandro Bermúdez, founder of the Denver-based Catholic News Agency, who was found by the Vatican investigation to have committed “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”

Bermudez, known for a combative style on social media, has countered that he was kicked out for simply “telling the truth.” More recently, he worked as a contractor with “Catholic Vote,” an organization which sought to bolster support for US President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. (The group’s president Brian Burch is President Trump’s pick to be the next US Ambassador to the Holy See.)

The Sodalitium still retained powerful supporters. Following the news of the expulsions, the Archdiocese of Denver said it was “shocked and saddened” while an adviser to a former Archbishop of Denver wrote that “something is deeply wrong” with the “Rome’s latest treatment of the SCV (Sodalitium).”

Nevertheless, in early 2025, then-Pope Francis went even further, taking the very rare step of suppressing the society entirely.

The move was formally decreed on April 14 – just a week before Francis died. Afterwards, the SCV released a statement asking “forgiveness from the entire Church and society for the pain caused” and “forgiveness for the mistreatment and abuse committed within our community.”

Prevost has been accused of mishandling abuse allegations in two other cases, in Chicago and in Chiclayo, Peru. But in the case of the SCV, Ugaz says she is certain that Prevost “took action” to help ensure the Sodalitium was dissolved. She and Salinas met with him in the Vatican in October 2024, and she says he arranged their meeting with Pope Francis two months later.

After years of fighting to be heard, Osterling says he never lost his Catholic faith – but that Francis’s eventual crackdown reinvigorated it.

As Francis’ successor, Pope Leo seems to have left little doubt about his stance on the end of SCV. A few days after his election, Leo was photographed greeting Ugaz with a broad smile, as she handed him a box of chocolates and a Peruvian scarf from the country he called home for years.

Leo XIV, the first ever American pope, will be formally inaugurated as the 267th pontiff Sunday during a special Mass in St. Peter’s Square attended by world leaders, royalty, and thousands of believers.

The May 18 service will be rich in symbolism and include the formal bestowing on Leo of the symbols of office including the pallium – a lamb’s wool vestment symbolizing his pastoral care for the church and role as shepherd to his flock – and the fisherman’s ring, which symbolizes the Pope’s authority as the successor of St. Peter, a fisherman by trade and who Catholics hold to be the first pope.

Among those expected to attend Sunday’s two-hour long liturgy include US Vice-President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, the leader of the country where Pope Leo served as both a missionary and a bishop for several decades. Countries from across the globe will be represented, with the Vatican hosting delegates from more than 150 nations.

The 69-year-old Chicago-born pontiff is expected to greet delegations from different countries after his inauguration Sunday, a Vatican spokesman said.

Although Leo was elected as pope on May 8, the official beginning of his papacy begins on May 18, with his first general audience with the public scheduled for May 21.

In his first Mass as pontiff on May 9, Leo called on the clergy to show humility, has made repeated appeals for peace and explained his choice of name. Later in the week, he used his first Vatican address since his election to call for peace in Ukraine and Gaza, saying “Never again war!”

The first American pope, who is an avid tennis player, has also met with journalists and men’s tennis number one seed, Jannik Sinner.

Symbols of office

On Sunday morning , Pope Leo will use the popemobile for the first time and greet people in St Peter’s Square before heading inside the basilica for the Mass.

He will be joined by leaders of Eastern Orthodox churches for the first part of the service as he descends to pray at the tomb of St.Peter. The pallium, the ring and a book of the gospels will then be taken by two members of the clergy towards the altar in the square.

The scripture readings at the Mass will largely focus on the figure of St. Peter and the central passage from John’s Gospel, a text seen as foundational to the pope’s ministry as St. Peter’s successor.

Following this reading, three cardinals will then present the pope with the symbols of office.

Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, who announced the news that Leo had been elected, will place the pallium over the new pontiff. Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will say a special prayer. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines will present Leo with the signet “ring of the fisherman,” which was traditionally used to seal official documents but is now ceremonial.

The Vatican has released details of the ring, which has an image of St. Peter on the outside band, with “Leo XIV” and the pope’s coat of arms engraved on the inside.

All bishops wear rings to show their bond to the local church they lead and the ring of the Pope, as Bishop of Rome, symbolises his “betrothal” to the entire church.

After receiving the symbols of office, representatives of ordinary Catholics from across the world will show their “obedience” to the pope, something that in the past was done by cardinals. The decision to include non-cardinals in this part of the service shows the pope’s commitment to a church which seeks to deepen the involvement of Catholics who are not part of the hierarchy. The inclusion of ordinary Catholics in the ceremony is also a nod to Leo’s intent to continue reforms started by his predecessor, Pope Francis.

During the Mass, Pope Leo will also give a homily, where he will likely set out some of the key themes of his pontificate, something he would have spent time considering carefully.

After the Mass ends, the pope will lead the Regina Caeli, or “Queen of Heaven” prayer before meeting the international delegations inside the basilica.

Papal inauguration ceremonies have changed over the years. For centuries it also involved a “coronation,” which included placing the papal tiara on the new pope’s head. The last papal “coronation” was of Paul VI in 1963. He however, decided to sell the tiara and give the proceeds to charity. Catholics in the US bought that tiara, which is now on display at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.