Flagship

Russia accused of chemical weapon use

Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine, violating international bans, the US said. Washington sanctioned three Russian state entities, accusing Moscow’s forces of using chloropicrin, a choking agent, and riot control gasses “as a method of warfare.” The use was “not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions,” according to the US. Kyiv said one Ukrainian soldier died suffocating on tear gas. Meanwhile, a Finnish airline ceased flights to an Estonian city due to an ongoing GPS jamming attack, apparently controlled from Russia: Tallinn accused Moscow of another breach of international law.

Heightened terror fears

Western security officials are increasingly concerned over the threat of extremist attacks, fears elevated in part by Israel’s war against Hamas. The conflict has focused anger against Western countries for their support of Israel, and security officials worry about terrorist groups leveraging that ire. The US FBI director told NBC News that concerns had “gone to a whole other level” after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which sparked the ongoing war. European officials are focused on threats this summer against the Paris Olympics and Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Germany. “These days the West has largely turned away from the long ‘war on terror’,” The Economist noted. “But extremists are on the march again.”

China-friendly leader in Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands’ China-friendly former foreign minister will take over as the Pacific nation’s leader. Jeremiah Manele’s selection as prime minister follows an election last month in which no party won a parliamentary majority, sparking weeks of horse-trading. Manele spearheaded the Solomon Islands’ 2019 switch of diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing, a key success in China’s campaign to court Taiwan’s international allies. That move ultimately led to a security pact between China and the Solomon Islands which has raised worries in Washington over Beijing’s increasing sway in the Pacific. Manele’s selection came as an Australian think tank warned that China and Russia coordinated a disinformation campaign during the election to discredit the US.

MTG takes aim at Johnson

Republican hardliners in the US House of Representatives promised to force a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would do so next week, saying Johnson had given the rival Democratic Party “everything they want” in votes on the budget and aid for Ukraine. The move revealed divisions among congressional Republicans: One told Semafor’s Kadia Goba that he would back Johnson even if it meant paying a political price. The effort is expected to fail — only two representatives have signed MTG’s motion, another told Kadia that the move was “just two people being dumb and hurting the whole team,” while Democrats are expected to support Johnson.

Salvini struggles

Italy’s deputy prime minister — once a far-right icon — is facing growing discontent ahead of European Parliament elections next month. Matteo Salvini was seen as a likely future Italian leader, but he has fallen from grace as his party has been overtaken by fellow right-winger Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Salvini’s decline reflects fissures in Europe’s nationalist, anti-immigration right where parties disagree on issues ranging from LGBTQ+ rights to the response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Still, polling indicates right-wing groups may win a majority of seats for the first time in the history of the European Parliament and, even if they differ on individual policies, they could form “issue-based alliances,” one expert noted.

Argentina lawmakers back Milei reforms

The lower house of Argentina’s Congress approved reforms proposed by Javier Milei, signaling that the president is finding common ground with lawmakers. The radical libertarian leader has so far relied on executive power to enact the austerity and deregulation program that is at the core of his agenda, as his right-wing coalition controls a minority of seats in Congress. However positive economic signs and a softening in Milei’s rhetoric — he previously referred to opposition legislators as “traitors” — have helped parties to reach consensus.

Bird flu probably spreading

Likely mammal-to-mammal transmission of H5N1 bird flu raised concerns over a possible jump to humans. A new paper documented how cats on a Texas farm likely caught the virus by drinking untreated milk from infected cows: The cows mostly recovered, but more than half the cats died. The US Food and Drug Administration also detected genetic traces of the virus in 20% of commercial milk samples, which should not be a risk to humans thanks to pasteurization, but suggests that bird flu has spread widely among US dairy farms. The Department of Agriculture has detected H5N1 in 34 herds in nine states since it was first detected in cattle on March 25. Since 2022, bird flu has been detected in mammals including seals, dolphins, bears, and raccoons.

Fallout of surging cocoa prices

Farmers in Uganda have begun hiring gunmen to protect their cocoa plantations. Floods and droughts in some of the biggest cocoa-producing nations — notably Ghana and Ivory Coast — have sent prices to their highest level in more than a decade, which has in turn set off a race elsewhere to plant the cacao trees that yield cocoa: Ecuador is expected to add 100,000 hectares of plantations this year, while farms in Peru, Colombia, and Brazil are ramping up production too. If you’re a farmer, “what are you going to plant in the ground? You’re not going to plant yams for Christ’s sake. You’re going to bloody well plant cocoa,” a former employee at Barry Callebaut, the world’s biggest chocolate maker, told the Financial Times.

Chile’s mountaintop telescope starts work

The world’s highest astronomical observatory began operations after three decades in planning and construction. The University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory, 3.5 miles above sea level on the summit of Cerro Chajnantor, a mountain in northern Chile, is studying the universe in the infrared spectrum: The clear skies and dry atmosphere make Atacama ideal for watching the stars. The observatory contains two main instruments, one for studying galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centers, and one looking for organic chemicals in the dust clouds between stars, hoping to shed light on the origin of life.

BASIC turns 60

The programming language BASIC celebrated its 60th birthday. Mathematicians in New Hampshire in the US ran the first program using the Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code language on May 1, 1964 on the Dartmouth College mainframe. Several generations of enthusiastic young programmers have learned with the language, writing simple games and other programs: Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak both used BASIC as a starting point while creating their own early operating systems, Ars Technica reported. It’s a reminder of how long the computing age has been with us. Many of the first BASIC programmers are now grandparents.

• Former US President Donald Trump’s hush money trial resumes in New York.
• Londoners go to the polls to vote for the city’s mayor.
• Enlightenment, a novel about love, faith, and astronomy by Sarah Perry, is published.

The number of writers jailed globally in 2023. The figure reflects an increase of over 100 compared to 2019, with crackdowns on freedom of expression notably worsening in Israel and Russia, which both placed in the PEN America Freedom to Write Index’s top 10 for the first time ever over their jailing of writers. China topped the overall list with 107 writers detained, followed by Iran with 49, and Saudi Arabia and Vietnam each holding 19. Israel was fifth with 17 and Russia was tied with Belarus for sixth with 16. “The jailing of a writer goes beyond the silencing of one voice,” a PEN official warned. “It is an assault on everyone’s free expression and human rights.”

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is now the site of the world’s largest projection mapping show with a nightly after-dark display on its towers. Tokyo Night & Light stretches 28 stories high from the 4th floor to the 32nd, covering about 150,000 square feet and marking a new Guinness World Record. The mappings are created by local and international artists, reported Time Out Tokyo, with one of the latest featuring the legendary monster Godzilla.

• China declines to meet with the US on nuclear arms control.
• FTC clears Exxon-Pioneer deal — but with a twist.
• Amazon researchers propose ways to get rid of bad AI data.