Deceptichum

An estimated 1 million Gabonese citizens head to the polls on Saturday to vote in the country’s first presidential election since an August 2023 coup ended the 55-year Bongo family dynasty. For Brice Nguema, the junta leader turned civilian head of state, it could be a chance to cement his democratic credentials.

Last November, 860,000 registered voters approved a referendum for a new constitution with two seven-year presidential terms and an amnesty for participants in the removal of Ali Bongo, who had succeeded his father in 2009. Officials are yet to release data on the updated voters’ register but previously said they expected an additional 300,000 new registrations, including from those who have recently come of age.

Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday in a vote seen as a referendum on a “war on drugs” offensive that has led to numerous human rights violations, as the incumbent Daniel Noboa faces the leftist Luisa González in a tightly contested runoff.

Noboa, 37, edged out González, 47, in the first round in February by just 16,746 votes (0.17%) from a 13.7 million electorate.

Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday that Russia was recruiting Chinese citizens via social media and that Chinese officials were aware of the efforts. He added that Ukraine was trying to assess whether the recruits were receiving instructions from Beijing.

“If it requires military, we’re going to have military,” Trump said. “Israel will obviously be very much involved in that. They’ll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us, but we do what we want to do.”

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (Ministry of Commerce – MOFCOM) has placed a total of eleven US drone companies on the Unreliable Entity List (UEL), a blacklist of companies with which no import and export relationships may exist. This was announced by MOFCOM, as reported by the Chinese state media Global Times on Friday. The decision could have a major impact on drone manufacturing in the USA, which relies on imports of Chinese components and raw materials.

Mexico City, Mexico — A three-year-old girl has become Mexico’s first human fatality from H5N1 bird flu, health officials said Tuesday.

The girl from the northern state of Coahuila died of multiple organ failure after infection with the virus, health secretary Eliud Aguirre said, adding that there were no other known cases of infection.

The European Union will have to commit to buying $350 billion of American energy to get a reprieve from Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, the U.S. president said late Monday, dismissing Brussels' offer of "zero-for-zero" tariffs on cars and industrial goods.

Trump's comments at a White House press conference were in response to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying earlier Monday that the EU had offered to drop the bloc's tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the U.S. if Trump reciprocated.

Asked by a reporter whether the offer was enough for him to back down, Trump said: "No, it's not."

A species of wolf that died out some 12,500 years ago lives again as the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal,” according to Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences.

Colossal scientists have created three dire wolf pups by using ancient DNA, cloning and gene-editing technology to alter the genes of a gray wolf, the prehistoric dire wolf’s closest living relative, the company announced Monday. The result is essentially a hybrid species similar in appearance to its extinct forerunner.

Four sources told the Washington Examiner that Rubio’s protective detail is under severe strain and has been stretched to a near-breaking point by senior leadership. One source provided explicit examples of how resource stretches have led to vulnerabilities in protection. One State Department employee observed that “shift supervisors [on Rubio’s detail] have an incomprehensible workload. They are responsible for all the agents under them, scheduling, evaluations and a preposterous amount of admin work [as well as] performing the actual shift work. They work 6 to 7 days a week. I truly believe this [incident] was the result of incomprehensible strain [the agent] was placed under and, at the very least, [Diplomatic Security Service] owes [the agent] a very fair evaluation of these circumstances in their totality – looking deep into [DSS’s] own role [in what happened].”