For over six decades, the world has regarded the beautiful and peaceful city of Vienna with a certain apprehension. Austria, a country far removed from the fossil fuel imagery, is nonetheless the seat of power in the world’s largest commodities market. There, a stone’s throw from its imposing neo-Gothic City Hall, the energy ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meet month after month to decide how much production to withhold from the market in order to keep prices high, effectively steering a marketplace that resembles a modern bazaar more than a free market.

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Data on the Venezuelan economy had been kept under wraps. But after roughly a decade of statistical silence — interrupted only occasionally by partial releases — the fog has begun to lift in recent weeks as the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) updates historical series on several key indicators. This measure is crucial amidst the economic recovery efforts undertaken by Delcy Rodríguez’s government since the U.S. military intervention. The newly published figures show that inflation reached 32% in January, 14.6% in February, and 13.1% in March. The year‑on‑year rate last month stood at 649.5%.

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In 2021, Rubén Rocha vehemently denied any connection to organized crime in Sinaloa. He had just won the gubernatorial election, but election day had been a disaster. Local media documented that several election workers — mostly from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), but also from Morena, his own party — had been kidnapped, beaten, and threatened by criminals. Some candidates withdrew from the race, and armed groups looted ballot boxes full of votes. Rocha, who emerged victorious amidst the chaos, said that he and Morena had been victims of the violence and claimed that the PRI, which had governed the state for years, had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel. Now, the United States indictment alleges that this criminal organization helped Rocha win the election in exchange for political protection.

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The indictment of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, a senator, and eight other high-ranking officials from that Mexican state for alleged drug trafficking conspiracy has triggered a major political crisis in Mexico. The accusations from the United States against one of the governors from the ruling Morena party have pushed the relationship between Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration and the Trump administration to the breaking point.

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The dismissal of the 22 members of the National Science Board by the Donald Trump administration is an “unprecedented” move, explains Yolanda Gil, one of the ousted advisers, in an interview with EL PAÍS. Gil, who has a long scientific career in the United States, confirms that all members of the board were dismissed “effective immediately” last Friday by email, with no explanation of the reasons.

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The United States dealt a major blow to its bilateral relationship with Mexico on Wednesday by formally accusing Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa, of having ties to drug‑trafficking organizations. According to a filing made public by the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York alleges that several state officials conspired with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to import large quantities of narcotics into the U.S. in exchange for political support and bribes. Among those charged is Senator Enrique Inzunza, who is a member of the ruling Morena party.

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The Trump administration’s policy of detaining most migrants facing deportation without bail has just suffered a setback in court. A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the administration cannot broadly apply mandatory detention by classifying nearly any undocumented migrant as an “applicant for admission,” even if they have been living in the United States for years.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark achievement of the civil rights era. In a 6-3 decision, in which the conservative bloc used its supermajority, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs who challenged the State of Louisiana for creating a second majority‑Black district to comply with Section 2 of the law.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is now in its fifth year and shows no signs of ending. The strain on the militaries on both sides of the border has increased both countries’ reliance on recruiting thousands of foreigners, who are primarily sent to high-risk operations on the front lines. Several governments have warned against this practice and urged their citizens not to fall for the lucrative offers, which are often deceptive. A new report published on Wednesday by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and two other organizations analyzes the recruitment of foreigners in Russia and documents Moscow’s campaign to target vulnerable populations through misleading strategies.

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Rome received an unprecedented visit this week that has triggered an unexpected butterfly effect across the Atlantic. Two Ayoreo Indigenous leaders traveled from the Gran Chaco — their forest, and the second‑largest in South America — to denounce before the Italian government, Parliament, and the Vatican that it is being illegally cleared with bulldozers. And that their people, who live inside this Paraguayan forest, are being displaced. All for a reason they find utterly absurd: producing leather for luxury car brands.

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For centuries, along the entire northern border of the Roman Empire, local inhabitants coexisted with Roman citizens and their slaves, as well as the legionaries who guarded the Roman Limes, the imperial frontier. But there is no evidence that they mixed extensively. However, everything changed with the fall of Rome: a study of bodies buried in some 20 cemeteries in Germania shows that, without the rule of lex romana, local inhabitants, citizens, slaves, and legionaries began to intermingle. The study, published in Nature, also describes the families of these groups, their life expectancy, and the prevalence of orphanhood among young children at the beginning of the Middle Ages.

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On the morning of April 25, the Nicaraguan writer and poet Gioconda Belli received an alert from Managua: customs officials had banned the entry of her latest novel, Un silencio lleno de murmullos (A Silence Full of Murmurs), into the country from which she is in exile. The book joins other titles by Nicaraguan authors whose sales have recently been blocked by the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo. “The dictatorial power fears the truths that literature illuminates. That is why they expel us, exile us, and imprison us. This happens and has happened to writers throughout history,” Belli reacted. The censorship of her work is the latest chapter in a systematic offensive that has outlawed 81 cultural institutions in the country, confiscated festivals, and replaced independent creative work with an official offering controlled by the presidential family.

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