The handwritten message was reportedly found by his former cellmate after an earlier suicide attempt
A US federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein, nearly seven years after the disgraced financier died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The note was reportedly found in July 2019 by Epstein’s then-cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, after Epstein was discovered injured in what officials later described as a failed suicide attempt. Tartaglione, a former police officer later convicted of quadruple murder, said he found the note tucked inside a book and gave it to his lawyers.
“They investigated me for months – found nothing!!! So 15-year-old charges resurface,” the barely legible handwritten note appears to read.
BREAKING
A federal judge has unsealed a purported suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein, which was reportedly found by his former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, after Epstein’s July 2019 suicide attempt.
The document was kept under seal in Tartaglione’s court file until a federal judge ordered its release following a petition by the New York Times. Prosecutors reportedly supported making the note public, arguing that transparency is vital.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August 2019. His death was officially ruled a suicide, though it has continued to fuel public scrutiny and conspiracy theories because of his connections to wealthy and politically powerful figures.
While his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted of sex-trafficking offenses, none of his other high-profile contacts have been charged with any crimes in connection with Epstein’s case.
The US president has threatened to resume bombings at much higher “intensity” unless Tehran agrees to a deal
The US military has fired on and disabled an Iranian-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after President Donald Trump threatened to resume the bombing campaign unless Tehran agrees to end the war on Washington’s terms.
US Central Command said the unladen tanker, identified as the M/T Hasna, was attempting to sail toward an Iranian port on Wednesday in violation of Washington’s naval blockade, which remains in force despite the president’s abrupt decision a day earlier to pause Project Freedom, a military operation to move ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
US forces issued multiple warnings before an F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from the USS Abraham Lincoln fired several 20mm cannon rounds at the vessel’s rudder, preventing it from continuing toward Iran, according to CENTCOM.
The strike came shortly after Trump issued a fresh ultimatum to Tehran, warning that the “already legendary Epic Fury” would end only if Iran accepted the terms he claimed had already been agreed.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump remained optimistic, telling PBS later on Wednesday that there was “a very good chance” the war could end before his planned trip to China. He reiterated, however, that if it did not, the US would “go back to bombing the hell out of them.”
Washington and Tehran are allegedly closing in on a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would end the war and open a 30-day period for more detailed negotiations, according to Axios sources. The proposed framework would reportedly include an Iranian moratorium on uranium enrichment, enhanced inspections, a gradual lifting of US sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds, and the phased easing of restrictions on shipping.
An RT source in Pakistan said progress in the peace process remains “somewhat slow,” with several unresolved issues still under discussion.
Tehran has yet to formally respond to the US proposal. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the text was still under review, warning that negotiations require “good faith” and must not amount to “dictation,”“deception,”“extortion,” or “coercion.”
Iranian military officials also struck a defiant tone before reports of the tanker incident emerged. Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces, warned that if Washington used talks as a cover for further aggression, Iran would respond decisively and deliver a “humiliating defeat.”
Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II Karim has attended the consecration ceremony at the St. George Cathedral in Al-Hasakah
St. George Orthodox Cathedral in the Syrian city of Al-Hasakah has reopened its doors following a four-year restoration.
The reconstruction of one of the largest Syriac Orthodox churches in the region began in June 2022, after surveyors identified structural damage caused by a combination of age, weather conditions, and years of war. The restoration project included repairs to the walls and ceilings, as well as the cathedral’s roof, interior and exterior decorative elements, electrical systems, and sewage systems, according to Syria’s SANA state media outlet.
Patriarch Mar Ignatius Aphrem II Karim attended the consecration ceremony on Tuesday, cutting the ribbon to officially reopen the cathedral. Addressing attendees, including both clergy and laity, he noted that “Christians have resided here on their ancestral lands for thousands of years.”
“Despite mass migration and the community’s declining numbers, Christians will continue to live here, restore churches, and build new ones, as it is our duty to send a message to our children that we are here to endure,” the Syriac Orthodox patriarch said.
“There is also a message to the world reflecting the resilience of the Syrian people in preserving life, demonstrating that life will always triumph over death,” the senior cleric stated.
Home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities, Syria had an estimated Christian population of approximately 2.5 million, or 10% of the total, before the conflict broke out in 2011 and quickly escalated into a devastating regional war.
In the intervening years, the Christian community in the Middle Eastern country has fallen victim to targeted terrorist attacks and massacres at the hands of Islamist militants, including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda offshoots. Multiple churches and temples have also been deliberately destroyed. As a result, many members of the community have fled the war-torn country, with some estimates indicating that the number of Christians has fallen by more than 80%.
Cabinet members in Antigua and Barbuda took office under amended oath rules that removed references to the royal family
Antigua and Barbuda has sworn in a new government under revised constitutional rules that for the first time removed allegiance to the British monarch from the official oath of office.
The twin-island Caribbean state gained independence from Britain in 1981 but remained a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth, with the British sovereign serving as head of state.
Tuesday’s swearing-in followed a constitutional amendment approved by Parliament late last year removing references to King Charles III and his heirs from the oath of allegiance. Under the revised wording, elected officials now pledge loyalty to Antigua and Barbuda, its constitution and its laws.
The ceremony came days after Prime Minister Gaston Browne secured a fourth consecutive election victory, extending his party’s more than decade-long hold on power. The election was called nearly two years ahead of schedule by Browne to seek a fresh mandate amid global economic uncertainty and resulted in a landslide victory for his Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, which secured 15 of the country’s 17 parliamentary seats.
Antigua and Barbuda remains part of the Commonwealth, with British monarch retaining the role of head of state despite the revised oath.
Fifteen out of 56 countries in the Commonwealth still recognize the British monarch as sovereign. Barbados became the most recent Caribbean nation to become a republic in 2021 while remaining within the Commonwealth.
Debate over the monarchy’s future has also intensified in Britain. A 2025 British Social Attitudes survey found support for the institution had fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1983, with just 51% in favor of keeping it.
Welsh childcare workers have been urged to contact police over suspected racist hate incidents involving children
Childcare workers in Wales have been told to call police on children as young as three if they are suspected of “racist” behavior, according to a new official guidance backed by the Labour government.
The document, produced by Diversity and Anti‑Racist Professional Learning (DARPL), an organization that has received over £1.3 million ($1.7 million) from the Welsh government, advises childcare workers to assess whether a child’s behavior could be deemed a “hate crime” and, if so, to call authorities.
The guidance applies to children aged 12 and under, even though the age of criminal responsibility in Wales is ten. Staff are told to record whether the alleged racism is “child to child,”“adult to child,” or “systemic.” Workers are also encouraged to assess their own “white privilege” and audit toys, books, dolls, posters and even snacks to ensure an “anti‑racist stance is visible.”
The guidance is part of the Welsh government’s wider plan to make Wales an “anti-racist nation” by 2030. Other projects under the initiative have included spending £10,000 ($13,500) to “decolonize” Welsh cakes and museums.
The call to report toddlers for “hate crimes” comes amid growing outrage with the British government’s years-long crackdown on free speech. Critics, including US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, have accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of authoritarian overreach, censorship, and establishing a “police state.”
Last year, the Times reported that some 12,000 Brits were being arrested each year for social media posts deemed to be potentially “offensive” or threatening. This has included a number of high-profile arrests such as of comedy writer Graham Linehan for posting gender-critical tweets last year.
Meanwhile, British authorities have continued to release violent criminals over fears of being labelled racist. In February, a public inquiry revealed that mental health workers had released Valdo Calocane, a violent paranoid schizophrenic, over concerns related to the “over-representation of young black males in detention.” In 2023, Calocane went on to stab three people to death and ran down several pedestrians in a stolen vehicle.
Keir Starmer’s approval rating has plummeted to the second lowest in modern British history, with the gap between disapproval and approval exceeding 50 points. The Labour Party has also been losing voters over its continued failure to combat the flow of illegal boat migrants into the UK, address grooming gangs, and deport migrants who commit serious crimes.
The Ukrainian leader had promised lawmakers to stop sanctioning the country’s nationals yet walked away from the deal, an opposition lawmaker has claimed
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has broken a promise he gave to lawmakers late last year to stop using sanctions against the country’s nationals in exchange for backing the draft budget, opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak has claimed.
Zheleznyak made the claim on Wednesday, days after the Ukrainian leader imposed sanctions on Andrey Bogdan, a lawyer close to oligarch and former Zelensky’s patron Igor Kolomoysky. Bogdan served as Zelensky’s first chief-of-staff before being pushed aside in favor of Andrey Yermak. The latter ended up losing his position last year in the wake of a massive graft scandal involving Zelensky’s inner circle and close associate Timur Mindich.
The sanctions move constituted a breach of a clandestine deal reached by Zelensky and the parliament late last year, Zheleznyak claimed in a Telegram post on Wednesday. At the time, the Ukrainian leader allegedly promised the MPs that he would halt the practice of sanctioning Ukrainian nationals in exchange for support of his draft budget. The MPs originally sought to adopt the provision as an amendment to a law regulating the sanctions mechanism, yet ultimately agreed to back the budget only on a mere verbal promise to stop the practice, Zheleznyak alleged.
Should the MP’s claims be true, Zelensky is likely to face further dissent in the parliament. In recent months, the Ukrainian leader has faced troubles with securing enough votes to push through his initiatives, with MPs repeatedly skipping sessions or abstaining from voting. Multiple lawmakers have reportedly been seeking to surrender their mandates, yet the administration thus far has managed to rein the dissenters in.
Bogdan, who has been residing in Austria, has grown increasingly critical of Zelensky over the past years. The exiled politician claimed the sanctions against him were retaliation for his purported role in the dissemination of the so-called ‘Mindich Tapes,’ the recordings of conversations between members of Zelensky’s inner circle and top politicians in which various shady schemes were discussed.
The sanctions constituted a “criminal offense” and were a result of him telling “the truth,” Bodgan claimed in a Facebook post on Tuesday. He promised to launch his own private investigation into the move.
“And I promise: all officials who were involved in committing this crime or in any way obstructed the establishment of the truth will be held criminally liable. Sanctions it is – we’re waiting,” Bogdan stated on Facebook.
Pussy Riot and FEMEN’s Venice Biennale protest showed the version of Ukraine the EU knows how to consume: obedient and stripped for export
Yellow and blue smoke rose, and out of it appeared a pair of breasts with “RUSSIA KILLS” written across bare skin. The performance was optimized for the press preview circuit, providing free self-pleasuring material for the Ukrainian-flags-in-bio crowd and their patriarchy-fighting-for-easy-body-access comrades alike.
The Venice Biennale! A handful of balaclava-wearing half-naked performance artists from Pussy Riot and FEMEN barricaded the Russian pavilion for all of 30 minutes to protest against its opening in support of Ukraine. Nadya Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot’s greatest hits machine, grumbled that she had to sneak in under an assumed name because the organizers wouldn’t book her table. Mission accomplished: the world’s most pretentious artsy crowd got another virtue-signal photo op – cheeky dose of solitary-viewing fuel for the right hand included. It would be best described as museum-grade thirst. A brief deliberate detour into bedroom-Pulitzer territory.
Watching organizations that claim to fight the patriarchy deploy the patriarchy’s oldest currency is quite ironic. Their weaponry doesn’t consist of arguments, intellectualism or difficult work of political thought: they offer up bodies for display, courting the male gaze they claim to loathe. Whether there is a slogan written across naked breasts or not, the ask is the same as it always has been: look at me, look at my flesh. The patriarchy, being neither stupid nor ungrateful, obliges.
Here is what makes this specifically funny, if you have the stomach for it. FEMEN was founded in 2008 after its founder became aware of Ukrainian women being duped into going abroad and sexually exploited. Its original slogan was “Ukraine is not a brothel.” It protested sex tourism, trafficking, and prostitution – the industries that were consuming Ukrainian women’s bodies for foreign money. That was the mission. Fast forward to Venice 2026, and we’re observing the same movement stripping for the cameras of foreign journalists at a European art fair, making sure the lighting is good, giving the gentlemen of the international press something to look at.
Tolokonnikova, for her part, took the logic to its natural conclusion. In 2021, she opened an OnlyFans account selling subscriptions to images of herself for $10 a month. It is, by any functional definition, what FEMEN was founded to fight: a woman selling access to her body to men, for money, on a platform owned by Leonid Radvinsky, born in Odessa, who acquired OnlyFans in 2018 and steered it deliberately toward pornography, extracting hundreds of millions in annual dividends from the arrangement before dying in March of this year.
Though to call this a fall from grace would be to misread the CV. Before Pussy Riot there was art collective Voina: a pregnant Tolokonnikova among couples having sex in a state biology museum days before the 2008 presidential election – the action titled F*ck for the Heir Puppy Bear. Then a supermarket chicken, inserted into a vagina in protest at the police state. Then a giant phallus, painted on a drawbridge in St Petersburg directly opposite the FSB headquarters. The body, provocative; provocation through the body, the body as the only argument ever really being made.
The Ukrainian feminist scholar Oksana Kis noticed, back in 2012, when this was all still nascent. “Femen has nothing to do with feminism whatsoever,” she said. “When public nudity becomes the only way to deliver a message, it’s more than strange. And the message itself seems to get lost while media focus on their nakedness.” She would probably need stronger language now. No one is subverting the patriarchy by giving it what it wants and calling the transaction resistance. You are on your knees, sisters. The pink smoke is a nice touch, though.
While FEMEN was founded in Kiev, it is now headquartered in Paris. Pussy Riot’s most prominent members have lived in the West for years. The people staging Ukraine’s grief for the Biennale cameras left Ukraine or Russia long ago and have been performing it for Western audiences ever since. This week’s Biennale delivery was a service rendered to the European cultural establishment, which requires regular injections of morally legible suffering to justify its own self-image.
The Biennale lost €2 million in EU funding after refusing to reverse the participation of Russia, which has owned its pavilion in Venice since 1914. An on-brand move for the EU: Brussels money always comes with Brussels politics, and Brussels politics require that culture be weaponized on schedule, without nuance or complications.
What no one is asking is whether any of this has anything to do with Ukraine, and whether this really is the representation the Ukrainians – and especially Ukrainian women – want.
Before we get to politics, there is the simple matter of sociology. A Razumkov Centre survey found that 83% of Ukrainians believed a woman’s most important task was caring for home and family, while 78% thought women were more likely than men to be guided by emotions in decision-making. As recently as 2026, the belief that a man should fully provide for his family remained the one gender pillar still supported by a majority across all Ukrainian age groups – at 69%. World Value Survey data from 2022 found that only 10% of Ukrainian women in couples reported being the breadwinner – a strong sign of conformity to traditional gender roles. The “Berehynia” – a folkloric hearth mother, protectress of the home – has gained considerable symbolic traction in post-Soviet Ukrainian identity, with the Orthodox Church actively reinforcing traditional gender roles alongside it. This is the portrait of a country whose grief is being performed in Venice.
The actual polling data grows more embarrassing the further in you go. As of 2023, 39% of Ukrainians opposed civil partnerships, with only 28% in favor. 42% opposed same-sex marriage legalization outright. The civil partnership bill has sat stalled in parliament for three years, blocked not by the Russians but by Ukrainian legislators who answer to Ukrainian voters. The constitution, unchanged since 1996, defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Ukraine put an EU accession roadmap on paper in May 2025 and included LGBTQ legislative targets in it, because that is what you do when Brussels is writing the cheques. Can we really say that the Ukrainian people freely subscribed to the Western vision of a liberal future? Have they been tricked into an ideological box where any jailbreak points are considered high treason? We already have the examples of Hungary and Poland, countries constantly being punished by Brussels for listening to their citizens’ conservative preferences.
Ukraine as a state was already fractured, corrupt, linguistically schizophrenic after Maidan. Then the people in power in Kiev doubled down, deciding at some point in the 2010s that the path forward was to become a copy of somewhere it was never going to be: it scrubbed Russian from schools and streets, toppled statues, memory-holed anything that smelled of the old neighborhood, embraced the shiny simulacrum of unattainable Western cool while the villages and the churches and the actual 70% Orthodox majority quietly kept their traditional script. The identity cosplay spiraled into the very war the virtue-signalers now use as their white horse. Abandon your roots, import the fruitiest aesthetics money can buy, start poking the bear, and act shocked when the bill comes due.
The result is a country at war not only with Russia but with significant portions of its own past, its own population, its own internal complexity.
Brussels loves this version of Ukraine because it demands nothing in return. The exported Ukraine – topless, sloganeering, OnlyFans-adjacent, eternally photogenic in its suffering – requires only that you feel good about your flag emoji and hit subscribe.
Meanwhile the Biennale president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, held his ground with the only argument that should have mattered – that art is a neutral space – but he forgot that nothing is neutral when the Western establishment controls the invoice.
The pink smoke cleared. The journalists filed their copy. The right hands have been satisfied. Tolokonnikova did not hear back from the Biennale. Somewhere in Ukraine, the war continued. The bodies there do not have slogans written on them. They are just bodies.
The protesting women have lived in Paris for years, and the country they claim to represent is fighting a war that was at least partly produced by the decision to treat its own cultural complexity as a problem to be eliminated rather than a reality to be navigated. What we saw at the Biennale was European moral ‘high-ground’ display, funded by European money, performed by people who left, for an audience ready to flee to the next big thing.
The desecration in southern Lebanon follows earlier incidents in which Israeli troops were accused of damaging Christian sites
A photograph appearing to show an Israeli soldier placing a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in southern Lebanon has sparked outrage online.
The image, which surfaced on Wednesday, was reportedly taken in the predominantly Christian village of Dibil, near the border with Israel, and uploaded to social media by IDF soldiers.
In a statement to RT, the IDF said it views the incident “with utmost severity” and that the soldier’s conduct “completely deviates” from its values. The IDF added that the photo was taken several weeks ago and that “command measures” will follow a formal probe, stressing that it respects all holy sites and religious symbols.
It is the latest in a series of actions widely seen as showing disregard for Lebanon’s Christian community.
In April, video from the same village showed an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ in the face with a large mallet during the ongoing ground operation in southern Lebanon. The crucifix was later photographed with its face destroyed alongside the biblical quote, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” posted on the town’s official page.
The IDF later confirmed that two soldiers had been withdrawn from combat duty and jailed for 30 days after footage of the vandalism went viral.
Christian communities have reported a string of incidents at religious sites in recent years involving Israeli forces. In 2023, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza hit a building next to the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, the enclave’s oldest Christian shrine, killing at least 18 people. In 2025, shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell damaged Gaza’s Holy Family Church, the territory’s only Catholic parish, killing three.
Last month, a Catholic nun was assaulted in broad daylight in Jerusalem, in what Church officials described as part of a pattern of harassment against Christians in the Holy Land.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 2,700 people have been killed and around 1.2 million displaced since March 2, when Israel launched combat operations in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, amid the wider US-Israeli war against Iran. Despite a US-mediated ceasefire that began on April 16 and was later extended until mid-May, Israeli troops have continued military operations north of the Litani River, expanding a ‘buffer zone’ that stretches around 10 km into Lebanon.
Russia would respond should Kiev go ahead with its “terrorist plans” to disrupt the upcoming Victory Day celebrations
Moscow has formally warned all diplomatic missions and international organizations about a potential large-scale retaliatory strike on Kiev, urging them to leave the Ukrainian capital immediately, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
Earlier this week, the Russian Defense Ministry announced a two-day ceasefire on May 8–9 to mark the end of World War II in Europe, urging Kiev to follow suit and warning of a potential large-scale retaliatory strike on Kiev. The ministry pointed to comments made by Vladimir Zelensky earlier in the day, which it said contained threats to target Moscow during the Victory Day celebrations.
Moscow’s warning must be taken with the utmost seriousness, Zakharova said in a statement on Wednesday. The spokeswoman revealed that the Foreign Ministry had sent a formal note to all diplomatic missions and international organizations accredited in Russia, urging them to withdraw their personnel from the Ukrainian capital ahead of a potential retaliatory strike.
“The Foreign Ministry urgently calls on the government of your country/the leadership of your organization to treat this statement with the utmost seriousness and to ensure the timely evacuation from the city of Kiev of the personnel of diplomatic and other missions, as well as civilians, in view of the inevitable retaliatory strike by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on Kiev, including against decision-making centers” should Ukraine proceed with its “criminal terrorist plans,” the note reads, as quoted by Zakharova.
Russia is “well-aware” of the Western attitude toward Victory Day and the efforts to “rewrite history” and “systematically destroy Soviet memorial heritage,” Zakharova stated. “As they continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, they are acting as accomplices in the criminal plans hatched by the Kiev regime. However, the instinct for self-preservation should not fail them,” she added.
It still remains unclear whether Kiev would actually heed Moscow’s call and observe the May 8–9 ceasefire. After the Russian Defense Ministry’s announcement, Zelensky branded the truce “unfair” and claimed that “no one officially suggested anything” to Kiev. Hours later, he unilaterally declared a ceasefire starting at midnight on the night of May 5–6, adding that Kiev would “act reciprocally” to Moscow’s actions.
Russia produced no official response to Zelensky’s announcement. While media reports indicated that the intensity of long-range strikes launched by both sides had somewhat waned, the hostilities continued. Despite the lack of any confirmation coming from Russia about its adherence to the Zelensky-proposed truce, the Ukrainian leader has accused it of violating the supposed ceasefire nearly 2,000 times throughout Wednesday and choosing “an obvious spurning… of saving lives.”
Throughout the Ukraine conflict, Russia has repeatedly declared ceasefires during major holidays. The pauses have proven to be successful to varying degrees , with both sides accusing their opponents of numerous violations. Last month, for instance, Moscow declared an Easter truce, which the Russian military said was violated by the Ukrainians more than 6,500 times within just 32 hours.
PM Pedro Sanchez has called on Brussels to shield the International Criminal Court from US pressure over its war crimes case against Israel
The European Union should shield the International Criminal Court from US sanctions linked to its case against Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said.
In 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged atrocities against Palestinians in the enclave by the Israel Defense Forces.
The ICC’s jurisdiction is currently recognized by 125 countries. However, the US and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Statute.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Sanchez wrote that “sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk.”
“The EU cannot remain idle in the face of this persecution,” the prime minister charged, adding that he had asked the European Commission to “activate the Blocking Statute to protect the independence of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, and their actions to end the genocide in Gaza.”
US President Donald Trump first introduced sanctions against the ICC in February 2025, accusing the Hague-based court of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
These were followed up last June and August, with Washington restricting more ICC judges and prosecutors from access to the US financial system.
Spain has been among the most vocal EU critics of Israel. Commenting on Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon last month, Sanchez described the IDF’s actions as “intolerable,” and accused Netanyahu of displaying “contempt for life and international law.” Madrid also called on the EU to suspend the bloc’s association agreement with Israel.
Spain has also criticized the US-Israeli war against Iran, denying Washington permission to use its joint military bases. In response, Trump threatened to suspend all trade with Madrid.
Sanchez, however, doubled down on his condemnation of Washington’s actions, stating in March that his country was “not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world simply out of fear of reprisals.”
A rat-borne pathogen has killed three people and sparked a public health panic
A hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean has caught global media attention and triggered a lot of COVID trauma. The Dutch-flagged passenger ship the MV Hondius was cleared on Wednesday to dock in the Canary Islands, after three passengers were evacuated at Cape Verde.
Seven people aboard the MV Hondius have fallen ill with hantavirus since the vessel left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1: three people have died, one is critically ill, and at least three others have symptoms, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Those evacuated at Cape Verde will be taken to the Netherlands for treatment. Two are suffering acute symptoms, while the third was in close contact with a passenger who died last week. Suspected cases of hantavirus have cropped up in France, Germany, and Switzerland, all among patients who left the ship at earlier ports of call, or had contact with passengers.
What is hantavirus?
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses that cause disease in humans, usually hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HPS). They are named after the Hantan River in Korea, where scientists first identified the pathogen when UN troops deployed along its banks fell ill with HFRS.
The ‘Andes strain’ circulating aboard the MV Hondius is typically found in Argentina and Chile, and causes HPS, rather than the less-deadly HFRS.
What are the symptoms of hantavirus?
Patients suffering with HPS may exhibit flu-like symptoms, including fever, extreme fatigue, muscle aches, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or shortness of breath. As the disease progresses, patients can develop an elevated heart rate, irregular heartbeat, hypertension, and buildup of fluid in the lungs and chest cavity.
How is hantavirus spread?
Hantaviruses are carried by rodents, and spread to humans through contact with their droppings, urine, or saliva. Different species of rodents carry different hantaviruses: in the case of the Andes strain, it is carried by the long-tailed pygmy rice rat.
According to the WHO, the Andes strain is the only hantavirus that can be transmitted from human to human. “When it occurs, transmission between people has been associated with close and prolonged contact, particularly among household members or intimate partners,” the organization stated on Wednesday.
How did the virus get on the cruise ship?
Argentinian officials have told the Associated Press that they believe a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird watching at a landfill site in Ushuaia before boarding the ship. As an investigation is ongoing, the officials insisted on remaining anonymous.
According to the ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, there are a total of 149 passengers and crew on board the vessel. This figure includes 23 British citizens, 17 Americans, and 13 Spaniards. One Russian and five Ukrainians, all crew members, are aboard the ship.
Hantaviruses infect between 10,000 and 100,000 people globally per year, according to the WHO. Fatality rates vary from strain to strain: so-called ‘old world’ European and Asian strains kill less than 1% of those infected. ‘New world’ North and South American strains kill up to 50%. The Andes strain has a fatality rate of 40%.
Have hantavirus outbreaks happened before?
Hantavirus outbreaks rarely make the news in Asia and Europe, where fatalities are relatively rare. However, ‘new world’ strains have caused panic ever since they were first identified in 1993. After a “mystery flu” caused 33 cases – 17 fatal – of HPS in the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, scientists established that hantaviruses in the western hemisphere are far deadlier than their ‘old world’ cousins.
A 2012 outbreak in California’s Yosemite National Park infected 10 people and killed 3; a cluster of cases in California and New Mexico last year killed four people, including Betsy Arakawa, wife of Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman; and localised outbreaks are common in Argentina. There were 86 confirmed hantavirus cases in Argentina last year, leading to 28 deaths.
Unlike the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no evidence to suggest that the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius originated in a research laboratory. However, hantavirus samples have escaped a lab before. In 2011, more than 300 vials of Hantavirus, Hendra virus, and Lyssavirus went missing from the Queensland Public Health Virology Laboratory in Australia.
The “major biosecurity breach” was not acknowledged by the lab until 2023, and an investigation was launched the following year. Australian Health Minister Tim Nicholls said at the time that it was unclear whether the samples had been “lost or otherwise unaccounted for,” and the investigation is ongoing.
Is there a hantavirus vaccine?
There is currently no widely available hantavirus vaccine. While vaccines against two strains of the virus that cause the less deadly HFRS exist in China and Korea, none have been approved in Europe, and testing on a vaccine against HPS-causing strains is in its infancy.
Researchers in the US have developed a DNA vaccine against the Andes strain, which they say proved “safe and induced a robust, durable immune response” in human trials in 2023. British government scientists are also working on hantavirus vaccines in an effort to prevent a future pandemic from what they ominously call a “Disease X.”
There is no specific treatment or cure for hantavirus, and hospital care mostly focuses on managing symptoms and improving patients’ chances of survival by providing oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or dialysis in severe HFRS cases.
Should I be worried about hantavirus?
No, at least according to the WHO. At this stage, “the risk to the rest of the world is low,” WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Wednesday. Hantavirus spreads slower than Covid-19, making containment easier, and scientists believe that people who are infected but asymptomatic do not easily transmit the virus.
As of Wednesday afternoon, everyone remaining on the boat is asymptomatic, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia told reporters. Once the MV Hondius reaches the Canary Islands, anyone not showing signs of illness will be repatriated, she added.
Canada brings minerals, energy and rhetoric as Brussels chases post-American relevance without a clear strategy of its own
The EU’s latest summit of its leaders had one objective: to show how the rest of the West is moving on while the US under President Donald Trump is neck-deep in a relationship drama. Right now it’s with Iran, but before that it was Venezuela. And it looks like Cuba may be next.
Until now, the EU has been acting like they’re in an on/off relationship while still keeping their toothbrush in Trump’s bathroom because it wasn’t quite ready to make a clean break. It still isn’t. But now it’s found one of America’s exes willing to come hang out at slumber parties so they can dish to each other about him on the down-low. About how they’re all working together now as besties and leaning on each other to move on without him, making him big mad.
Enter Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said at the EU meeting in Armenia that the “international order will be rebuilt… out of Europe.” It would be helpful if he, or someone, anyone who thinks they’re in the driver’s seat of this so-called world order, could actually define it for the rest of us. Because the paying public wouldn’t mind knowing exactly what we’re financing. Granted, there’s no better way to assure compliance than to avoid defining any terms.
It was just a few months ago in Davos that Carney was saying that the international order was a scam. “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim,” Carney said to rapturous applause from the exact same people who had, until that moment, treated the notion as gospel.
Better late than never. But what’s taking its place now? What Carney – the former head of British and Canadian central banks and the G20’s Financial Stability Board in the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown – is suggesting sounds like something close to late Roman or Hegelian political metaphysics: “Ordo mundi in me consistit.” Or “the order of the world rests in me.” And the EU seems keen to hop aboard that float without checking where the parade is actually going, letting Carney lead the way in defining this new world order that he has yet to spell out.
So Carney became the first non-European leader to be invited to an EU political community summit. Where he was promptly mugged by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola with a request to speak to the EU parliament almost before he could disembark onto the tarmac. Because the EU can’t organize pints in a pub, never mind a coherent strategy. So it would be great if he could do some of the heavy lifting as everyone else nods while leaning over their laminated briefing papers.
Carney is smart enough to go along with it. He’s walking around with all the air of a chick with double D’s preaching unity and moral values while European leaders nod and drool over the assets. Because everyone knows what’s under that modest turtleneck and demeanor: sweet, sweet energy and minerals.
“Bound by a shared history and common values, Canada and Europe are natural partners,” Carney said at the summit. Whatever, bro. Get that bag! No one’s looking at your values. They’re just being polite.
But Carney knows that, too. He’s Pamela Anderson running along the Baywatch beach in slow motion, knowing that people aren’t tuning in for the plot. Which is why his office’s readout cut to the chase: “The leaders discussed deepening collaboration in priority areas such as secure supply chains, critical minerals, energy, and digital technologies. Prime Minister Carney emphasized Canada’s competitive advantages in these sectors.”
Trade diversification for Canada away from the US is long overdue, and it’s clear that Carney sees a rare opportunity to leverage the EU’s rupture with both the US and Russia to cash in. It’s about time.
But the concern for Canadians is that he gets a little too chummy with their ideology while he’s at it. We’re talking here about the same guy who published an opinion piece in a Canadian national newspaper during the Freedom Convoy protests against Liberal government Covid restriction overreach (officially admonished by the courts), and suggested they were stooges of foreign interests – a bold assumption later officially denied by Canadian intelligence.
So the concern is that Carney is still too easily prone to bandwaggoning. And the EU is just one giant nonstop ideological tailgate party. For instance, what exactly does Carney mean by “digital services” cooperation with the EU? It’s not a stretch to imagine moves toward a digital panopticon that controls movement, resources, and behavior, when Covid already gave governments a trial run for that kind of social management – particularly in an era of increased dissent as a result of misguided leadership and institutional corruption and self-dealing.
That said, Carney also seems capable of using globalist language and agenda points as a convenient cover. Like when he announced, in meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Armenia, that Canada would pledge $270 million more “for Ukraine” in the form of munitions. The EU cheered, while the reality is that it’s also a tidy way for Canada to boost GDP and manufacturing jobs making this ammo. Specifically, Canada has the minerals and the joint ventures at home with the US (via General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Quebec) and the Czech Republic (via the Colt CZ Group’s Colt Canada) to produce it. But wrap anything in a Ukrainian flag and enough summit delegates will applaud before reading the fine print.
Here’s hoping that Carney can at least show the EU how to use globalism as rhetorical cover while still pivoting toward the self-interest of its own people. Otherwise, it serves no practical purpose at all. It’s an abandoned shopping mall with flickering fluorescent lights still flickering, escalators still humming, muzak still echoing through empty corridors. Carney should be leading the charge in slipping out the back carrying whatever value remains – to prepare it for the wrecking ball.
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