Migrants Burned Down Paris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0J4u_5bAEI
'Lead federal prosecutor in James Comey seashells photo case steps aside
Matthew Petracca, a former Republican county committeeman, was the rookie federal prosecutor who brought the highly criticized case to a federal grand jury.
A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.
Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.
Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom W. Ellis Boyle, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges.
Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a Justice Department employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department and did not respond to an additional request for comment Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo is now heading the Comey case. Petracca did not handle a recent interaction with Comey’s defense team, which instead communicated with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Aubart.
A two-count indictment was brought late last month and suggested that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells, arranged to spell out “86 47,” as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”
The indictment doesn’t spell out what the numbers mean. The term “86” is widely considered to be restaurant slang for being out of something in the kitchen, and the 47 was thought to be a reference to the 47th president.
It was the second time the Justice Department has tried to indict the former FBI director, a longtime target of Trump’s. The first, over an allegation that Comey lied to Congress five years ago during remote testimony via Zoom, was dismissed by a judge who ruled the federal prosecutor had been improperly appointed.
Trump has said he wants the Justice Department to go after his political enemies; acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has argued that those now targeted by the Justice Department themselves used the law to go after the president.
Some legal experts — including several conservatives who typically defend the Trump administration’s actions — criticized the case and expect it to be dismissed long before it gets to trial.
“As one of his longest and most vocal critics, I would frankly prefer to crawl into one of Comey’s conversant shells than write this column,” wrote scholar Jonathan Turley. “However, here we are. This indictment is unconstitutional and will not likely survive constitutional challenge.”
After the indictment was announced, Trump said of Comey: “Comey is a dirty cop. He’s a very dirty cop. He’s a crooked man.”
Comey’s attorney has said he was going to file a motion arguing the case was a vindictive prosecution.
There are scores of T-shirts, hats, buttons, bumper stickers and posters for sale that read “8647,” including some that are made with seashells.
Blanche said on “CBS Mornings” that he had “no idea whether there was an investigation into the other times that that post has been made and whether that investigation yielded different results.”
“This investigation that we undertook resulted in a two-count indictment,” he said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/lead-federal-prosecutor-james-comey-seashells-photo-case-steps-rcna345342
Platner's campaign confirms he sent sexual texts to women while married
Graham Platner exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women while married to his wife, Amy Gertner, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO on Saturday, the latest scandal he has faced since launching his Maine Senate campaign last year.
In a statement, Gertner slammed a former friend for spreading “malicious gossip” in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that she had informed her husband’s campaign of the texts in late August.
“I confided deeply personal details about my marriage to someone I considered a friend,” she said. “In the months since, I have had to watch as she spread malicious gossip to anyone who would take her call. I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind — and I am deeply hurt by her betrayal and the invasion of our privacy.”
While Gertner did not name the friend in question, Genevieve McDonald, a former senior campaign staffer who shared a screenshot of her texts with Gertner with The New York Times, responded by telling POLITICO that “the Platner campaign confirmed these events occurred.”
Gertner, who is paid by the campaign as its volunteer coordinator, said the pair’s relationship is “stronger than ever before.”
“We did the hard work that marriage requires,” she said. “We went to counseling. We were honest with each other in ways that weren’t easy. And we came through it, not in spite of how much we’ve been through, but because of how much we love each other and the life we’ve built.”
Platner launched his upstart campaign last August. The oyster farmer almost immediately saw his stock soar, with glitzy profiles and endorsements from progressive standard bearers including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. When Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Senate primary in April, Platner became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But his candidacy has been marred by a string of near-constant scandals.
In October, CNN reported that he’d advocated for using violence to effect social change and referred to himself as a “communist” in now-deleted Reddit posts. That same month, Platner revealed on a podcast that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi Totenkopf. He expressed regret and then got the tattoo covered up, posting a video with the new one on social media last year.
“I know who Graham is,” Gertner said. “I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another high-profile Platner backer, reiterated his support in a post on X Saturday. The two will campaign together at an event in Maine next week.
“I am proud of @grahamformaine for having the character to stand up against the war in Iran, against genocide, and against an unfair & lopsided economy,” he wrote, reiterating his intent to stump alongside him next Friday. “I am proud of him for having a vision for a new deal for our time.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/30/platners-campaign-sexual-texts-00943720
Colombians, weary of violence, send strikingly different candidates to runoff in high-stakes election
Millions in Colombia headed to the polls on Sunday to cast their vote in a high-stakes presidential election that is now headed to a runoff between two strikingly different candidates.
With polls officially closed, far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella and far-left Senator Iván Cepeda are advancing to a runoff on June 21.
Polls showed that the race between the 14 candidates on the ballot had narrowed down to three names, though two dominated. Cepeda, candidate of the ruling Pacto Histórico party and the heir to President Gustavo Petro's policies, and Espriella, a lawyer who has modeled his rhetoric and optics after President Trump and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele. Right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia, backed by former President Álvaro Uribe, had positioned herself as a center-right candidate.
With 98% of the vote counted on Sunday, Espriella was ahead with 44% and Cepeda in second with 41% — an overperformance from Espriella based on the most recent polling headed into election day. Valencia was in a distant third with 7%.
An AtlasIntel poll published last week, based on 4,531 interviews, put Cepeda leading the first round with a razor-thin margin at 38.7%, over de la Espriella's at 37.3%, while both candidates more than doubled Valencia's 14.3%. Moderate presidential candidate and former mayor of Medellin, Sergio Fajardo, trails far behind in the first round. All three candidates, according to the poll, would defeat Cepeda in the runoff.
read moar:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colombia-presidential-election-ivan-cepeda-abelardo-de-la-espriella-paloma-valencia/
U.S. team arrives in India for 4 days of trade talks
The US team will be led by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch. India's chief negotiator is Darpan Jain, who is an additional secretary in the Department of Commerce.
The chief negotiators of the US and India will begin four-day talks here on Monday on finalising the details of the interim trade pact, whose framework was agreed upon in February.
The US team will be led by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch. India's chief negotiator is Darpan Jain, who is an additional secretary in the Department of Commerce.
The two sides are "proposed to finalise the details of the interim agreement and take forward the negotiations under the broader BTA on multiple areas such as market access, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, investment promotion, and economic security alignment," the commerce ministry has said.
On February 7, India and the US issued a joint statement finalising the contours or framework of the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA) or an interim trade agreement. Now, both sides will have to finalise the legal text for that deal.
The framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader India-US BTA negotiations.
According to that framework, the US had agreed to reduce tariffs on India to 18 per cent from 50 per cent. It had removed the 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods for buying Russian oil and was to cut the remaining 25 per cent to 18 per cent under the pact.
But, on February 20 this year, the US Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump's sweeping reciprocal tariffs, which were imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
After that, the US President announced the imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on all countries for 150 days, starting February 24.
In light of these changes, a meeting between the chief negotiators of India and the US scheduled for February was postponed. The two sides then met in Washington in April, when the Indian team, headed by Jain, visited America from April 20-23, 2026.
To carry forward those discussions, the US team is visiting India from 1-4th June.
As the tariff landscape has changed in the US, both sides may wish to revisit the agreement's framework.
Under the agreed framework, India proposed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.
New Delhi has also expressed its intentions to purchase USD 500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next five years.
This meeting will be important, as India enjoys a comparative advantage over its competitor countries. Now, with all US trading partners facing a uniform 10 per cent tariff, the pact requires recalibration.
Further, in March, the US Trade Representative (USTR) also launched two unilateral Section 301 investigations against a number of countries, including India, over excess capacity and failures to eradicate forced labour in global supply chains.
India has strongly rejected allegations made by the US Trade Representative in those two investigations and has requested that the probes be initiated, as the initiation notice has failed to provide a cogent rationale to substantiate the claims.
The US was the second-largest trading partner of India in 2025-26. India's outbound shipments to the US grew marginally 0.92 per cent to USD 87.3 billion
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/top-india-us-negotiators-to-hold-4-day-trade-talks-in-delhi-from-tomorrow-11571770
Pete Hegseth says New Zealand is 'freeloading' off US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AYrwh7Tm74
Random Standard Wi-Fi Routers Can Scan Your Body to Identify Exactly Who You Are, Alarming New Research Finds
f you were paranoid about digital tracking before, you might want to think twice about reading any further.
New research out of Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that the types of Wi-Fi routers we all have in our homes come with a major privacy vulnerability that can be used to identify any human body that comes within their range.
The study, flagged by Gizmodo, used machine learning systems to identify individuals with an accuracy rate of 99.5 percent. To do so, the researchers exploited a vulnerability in a process known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), which was introduced to allow routers to focus Wi-Fi signals on connected devices, as opposed to the older approach, which is to blanket an entire area in coverage.
While BFI is great for network connectivity, it has a major downsides for privacy. For starters, devices connected to a router using beamforming need to send constant feedback in order to be found. As routers send out and receive network feedback, the signal is inevitably impacted by real world factors like pets, walls, and people.
That gap, between the signals routers expect to receive and the distorted feedback they actually get, allowed researchers to extrapolate the identities of 161 individual participants based on BFI data which inadvertently mapped their physical characteristics. Even when individuals changed their gait or carried objects like backpacks and crates, the system registered an accuracy rate between 50 to 60 percent, the KIT team wrote.
“This works similar to a normal camera, the difference being that in our case, radio waves instead of light waves are used for the recognition,” study coauthors Thorsten Strufe said in a press release.
Making matters worse is the fact that this data is basically wide open for anyone to grab — not only is that feedback data unencrypted, it can also be accessed without ever connecting directly to the router.
“We have shown robust identity inference with common-of-the-shelf hardware which is already in widespread adoption in many homes and public areas,” the team wrote in their paper. “With this hardware making its way into millions of homes, the privacy concerns are severe.”
The KIT findings contrast to other Wi-Fi tracking systems, like one developed by researchers at the Sapienza University of Rome. That method, called “WhoFi,” uses channel state information, which is much harder to access on consumer hardware, but can still identify people through walls with an alarmingly high accuracy rate.
That WhoFi study made a point to highlight the anonymity factor: the idea that the sensing system can detect people’s presence, but not identify them. The KIT team refutes that framing outright, arguing that Wi-Fi-sensing technology poses major privacy risks regardless.
“While there maybe legitimate use-cases, we explicitly consider identity inference via Wi-Fi sensing a privacy attack,” they write. “This view reflects the serious risks associated with the ubiquity of Wi-Fi networks, their ability to sense through walls and in non-line-of-sight scenarios, and the fact that this would likely happen without explicit consent.”
While more research will be needed, the researchers don’t mince words about the implications of their initial findings. In their conclusion, the KIT team writes that regulators and companies moving to standardize Wi-Fi sensing should “strongly consider adding effective privacy protection,” or else “abandon beamforming entirely.”
https://futurism.com/future-society/wifi-routers-scan-body-identify-research
Africa CDC Says Over 1,100 Suspected Ebola Cases In DR Congo And Uganda
More than 1,100 people were suspected of having contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighbouring Uganda, the head of the African Union's health agency said on Sunday in a commentary for the Financial Times.
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director general Jean Kaseya said there were 263 confirmed cases in both countries as of Saturday, with 43 confirmed deaths.
More than 1,100 suspected cases were still being investigated, he wrote in the editorial. On Thursday, the Africa CDC said there had been 246 suspected deaths from the virus.
"We must move at the speed of the epidemic," added Kaseya, criticising Africa's dependence on outside financial support.
The health ministers of the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan recently adopted a $319-million response plan to the outbreak.
"That momentum must now expand across the continent," Kaseya said, calling the latest Ebola outbreak a "serious test" for the Africa CDC and the African Union.
"This outbreak will not be the last," he added.
The outbreak was declared on May 15 in Ituri, in the northeast DR Congo, which is home to more than 100 million people and is one of the poorest countries in the world.
The virus, which can cause a deadly haemorrhagic fever, has been detected in three Congolese provinces as well as in Uganda.
No vaccine or approved treatment is available against the Bundibugyo strain of the virus and efforts to contain its spread rely mainly on preventative measures.
The World Health Organization has triggered an international health alert but the true scale of the outbreak is not yet known.
International health authorities believe that current figures are likely an underestimation.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continued a visit to Ituri province on Sunday and has pledged support to local communities affected by the outbreak.
"You are not alone in this. We are here, we are with you and we will see this through together," he said after arriving on Saturday.
https://www.barrons.com/news/africa-cdc-says-over-1-100-suspected-ebola-cases-in-dr-congo-and-uganda-373233af
Iran’s president offers resignation, citing total takeover by IRGC commanders
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted an official letter of resignation to the Office of the Supreme Leader, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International.
In the letter sent on Sunday, Pezeshkian stressed that the president and the government have effectively been excluded from major and vital decision-making processes in the country, and that the vacuum created by this situation has enabled hardline factions within the IRGC to take control of affairs, the source said.
Pezeshkian added that under such circumstances he is unable to run the government and carry out his legal responsibilities, and for that reason has requested to step down immediately.
It is not yet clear whether Mojtaba Khamenei will accept the president's resignation, but the contents of the letter point to a deep and unprecedented rift at the highest levels of power.
This comes after months of tensions between the government and the Islamic Republic’s military-security institutions. Iran International previously reported that the IRGC had gradually restricted many presidential powers and effectively taken control of key parts of the government.
According to informed sources, the situation has left Pezeshkian’s administration trapped in a political and executive deadlock, preventing diplomatic negotiations from moving forward and the completion and implementation of desired changes to the cabinet structure.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202605312204
Robert F. Kennedy Jr
@RobertKennedyJr
Not bored with snakes yet? I caught this Timber rattler during a Colorado River trip with my Dad in 1967. My cousin Maria Shriver is to my left.
https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/2061205549643956546
The FCC Wants Warning Labels for Shows With 'Transgender' Content
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering new content ratings for TV shows that depict or discuss gender identity. Doing so would be well outside the FCC's legal authority, and some free speech organizations warn that such a request could constitute a violation of the First Amendment.
At the direction of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, broadcasters developed content ratings for TV shows, patterned after the ones for movies. The TV ratings span TV-Y (appropriate for all children) to TV-MA (mature audiences only), plus more specific content labels for suggestive dialogue, bad language, sexual content, and violence. They also established the TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board (TVOMB) to administer the new ratings.
The government now suggests those warnings are no longer sufficient.
"Recently, parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children's programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents," per a public notice the FCC filed in April. "Specifically, the industry guidelines that parents rely on are rating shows with transgender and gender non-binary programming as appropriate for children and young children, and doing so without providing this information to parents, thereby undermining the ability of parents to make informed choices for their families."
As a result, it continued, "We seek comment here on any changes that can or should be made to the current ratings system to ensure that it is responsive to the issues that parents confront today."
There are several problems with the memo—starting with the fact that the FCC lacks the authority to create or require new content labels.
The 1996 law did call for the government to create a "television rating code" and an "advisory committee," unless the private sector "established voluntary rules" to do so within a year of the law's passage. As the FCC acknowledged in its April memo, "Industry representatives chose to set up their own voluntary system, and the Commission in 1998 found that industry's approach met the relevant statutory criteria."
Even setting that aside for the moment, the memo's phrasing also suggests any "transgender [or] gender non-binary" content is potentially inappropriate for children—after all, why else would it matter if parents were sufficiently warned about it?
This broad scope has First Amendment implications. "If what the Commission is in substance proposing is that any program featuring or discussing transgender and gender non-binary persons be flagged with a content warning, that is the stigmatization and marginalization of an entire segment of the population through the machinery of the ratings system, and it is the kind of viewpoint targeting forbidden by the First Amendment," according to comments filed to the FCC by The Future of Free Speech, a nonpartisan think at Vanderbilt University.
"The FCC's notice is so vague that it is impossible to determine what programming would actually trigger the kind of labeling the agency appears to be contemplating," adds Ashkhen Kazaryan, a senior legal fellow at The Future of Free Speech who wrote the comments filed to the FCC. "That lack of clarity is itself a serious First Amendment problem because it invites arbitrary enforcement and political pressure around protected expression."
"The agency's fishing expedition here clearly sets out to eliminate or discourage specific content, invoking incurable First Amendment concerns," advocacy group Free Press agreed in its FCC filing. "By inviting comment from the public over programming that purportedly 'include[s] or promote[s] […] controversial gender identity issues,' the FCC insinuates that such programming may be obscene, indecent, or profane material. This is a misguided and false attempt to wedge alleged parental concerns into these limited categories that the agency can regulate to some small degree."
Supporters say there is no First Amendment violation because the proposal would not dictate a show's content; it would simply label it. "Gender ideology programming could still be broadcast without restrictions. It would just carry a label that would allow parents to spot it at a glance and filter it out of their homes," Angela Morabito wrote at the Washington Examiner. "The FCC's proposal would simply give parents more information to make choices about what is best for their children. Anyone who wants to rob parents of that opportunity does not have children's best interests at heart."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/fcc-wants-warning-labels-shows-110002439.html
Leaked documents link Chinese firms to IRGC missile fuel network
Iran International has obtained documents indicating that a Chinese company, working with firms in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, helped Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) acquire chemicals used in the production of ballistic missiles.
The documents, obtained by the hacker group Prana and shared with Iran International, suggest Chinese entities also played a role in facilitating the transactions through a network of companies designed to navigate US sanctions.
The documents also link the deadly explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port in Bandar Abbas on April 26, 2025, to a shipment of sodium perchlorate, a chemical used in solid missile fuel production.
According to the documents, the blast and existing sanctions made it increasingly difficult to find vessels willing to transport such cargo to Iran.
Central to the network described in the documents is Haokun Energy, a company that for years acted as an intermediary in the sale of IRGC oil to Chinese refineries and was sanctioned by the United States four years ago for financing the IRGC's Quds Force.
A source familiar with the matter told Iran International that the company still owes the IRGC more than $1 billion in oil revenues.
In one document, Haokun refers to an agreement with a company called Golden Globe Demir Celik (GDCP) concerning the supply of chemical products for special equipment. The document states that, to preserve confidentiality, export-related permits were issued through classified channels.
In another section, Haokun says it established a company called Mosta to obtain bank guarantees. The company is reportedly controlled by GDCP because, for sanctions-related reasons, no Iranian national can serve on its board of directors.
Haokun says that, in coordination with Chinese customs authorities, activities were conducted through confidential channels and requested that its Iranian counterpart prevent any disclosure of information.
Elsewhere, Haokun says it planned to ship 2,000 tons of sodium chlorate and 10,000 tons of sodium perchlorate to Iran through GDCP. The documents indicate that quantity would be sufficient to produce solid fuel for roughly 2,500 ballistic missiles. The shipment was valued at $43 million.
GDCP is registered in Turkey, but leaked emails from the company were signed by an Iranian national, Mohammadreza Sadr. In its correspondence, Haokun identifies GDCP as belonging to the Islamic Republic. One of the leaked emails included a Haokun letter addressed to “Commander Mohammadzadeh.”
The individual appears to be Ahmad Mohammadzadeh, the former deputy coordinator of the IRGC Navy and a former governor of Bushehr under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iran International previously reported that he was among the key figures in the Pourjafari Headquarters, an IRGC oil-sales network that used a complex structure to import gold in exchange for oil exports.
The documents also link GDCP to other figures associated with the IRGC’s commercial and procurement networks. According to the documents, the company is responsible for procuring raw materials used in ballistic missile fuel and for selling oil on behalf of the IRGC.
One document shows GDCP preparing to sell two million barrels of oil from Kharg Island to Fortune Company in the United Arab Emirates. Another records a transfer of roughly $3 million in cryptocurrency to GDCP, while a separate document indicates the funds were deposited into an account at the Borj-e Aseman branch of Tourism Bank in Tehran.
According to the documents, a significant portion of oil-sale revenues is being used to purchase sodium perchlorate from China. Haokun, which brokers the transactions, is attempting to repay hundreds of millions of dollars owed to the IRGC through the sale of weapons, missile-fuel materials and other goods.
A year ago, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported that, as part of an oil-for-goods barter arrangement, Haokun sold two Airbus A330 passenger aircraft to the Islamic Republic for $116 million, despite their market value being estimated at roughly $60 million.
Reports of sodium perchlorate shipments from China to Iran have surfaced repeatedly over the past year.
On March 7, The Washington Post reported that two sanctioned vessels linked to the Islamic Republic had departed China's Gelaowan Port bound for Iranian waters carrying sodium perchlorate, a key component in solid missile fuel. On April 3, The Telegraph reported that five ships carrying sodium perchlorate had arrived at Iranian ports.
Neither Beijing nor Tehran has publicly confirmed such shipments. The documents reviewed by Iran International provide what appears to be the clearest documentary evidence to date linking Chinese entities to efforts to supply the IRGC with materials used in ballistic missile fuel production.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202605312204
Pro-Trump presidential candidate wins spot in Colombian runoff
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Tough-on-crime lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and peace-builder Iván Cepeda were leading the vote count in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday, and are to face off in a runoff in the South American nation later in June.
De la Espriella — a newcomer known as “El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has sought to portray himself as a supporter of President Donald Trump, vowing to crack down on criminal groups.
He leads the race with nearly 44% of the votes, Colombia’s electoral authorities said late Sunday, but fell short of the 50% needed to win in the first round.
Second is Cepeda, a progressive senator and an ally of Colombia’s outgoing President Gustavo Petro who has promised to carry on a fraught push for “total peace.” Cepeda scooped up just under 41% of the vote.
Paloma Valencia, a candidate for Colombia’s establishment party who pitched herself as a centrist, got less than 7% of the vote.
While Cepeda coasted comfortably ahead in polls throughout the campaign, he was neck-and-neck with de la Espriella on Sunday night, which is likely to spell trouble for the June runoff, where de la Espriella is likely to scoop up many of the voters that threw their support behind Valencia.
De la Espriella and his supporters celebrated on Sunday night at their campaign headquarters in the coastal city of Barranquilla.
“In 21 days we’re going to change the history of Colombia,” he said triumphantly.
Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.
The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.
The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.
On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort of trying to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Trump’s vision for Latin America.
On the other side, de la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, following in a similar vein as El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in his war on gangs, which has fueled accusations of human rights abuses.
“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”
The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — was seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.
The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Petro’s government to make territorial gains.
That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.
Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump, though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo, indicating that conservative voters are turning away from more traditional political parties in favor of Bukele and de la Espriella’s punitive populism.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/31/pro-trump-presidential-candidate-wins-spot-in-colombian-runoff-00943942
Sri Lanka's top monk suspended over alleged child sex abuse
Sri Lanka's Buddhist hierarchy suspended on Saturday (May 30) a senior monk accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, in a high-profile case that has shocked the religiously conservative nation.
In a rare disciplinary move, 71-year-old Pallegama Hemarathana was stripped of his responsibilities as the chief custodian of a highly venerated ficus grown from a sapling of a tree believed to have sheltered the Buddha.
"The Council of Monks of the Malwatte Chapter decided today to suspend Ven. Hemarathana until the conclusion of the legal proceedings against him," a statement issued by the chief priests said.
Police arrested Hemarathana on May 9 over allegations that he had sexually abused an 11-year-old girl in 2022 at the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi temple in Anuradhapura, 200 kilometres north of Colombo.
The monk has since been granted bail while a court has barred him from travelling abroad.
The temple draws thousands of people daily who pay homage at the tree Buddhists believe is closely connected to the same ficus that sheltered the Buddha when he attained enlightenment.
Hemarathana's suspension came on the same day Sri Lanka celebrated Vesak, the anniversary of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing.
There have been several cases of clergy abusing children in Sri Lanka, but Hemarathana is the most senior monk to be accused of such a crime.
In a separate case, a group of 22 monks arrested in April with 110 kilograms of cannabis have remained in custody pending prosecution, but not suspended from the priesthood.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/sri-lankas-top-monk-suspended-over-alleged-child-sex-abuse-6151796
Bet you never seen a baby squirrel.
Rob Schneider endorses Spencer Pratt
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/2061285126944837668