👋 Ia Orana!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where continued Israeli airstrikes on Rafah kill at least 16, just as Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognize a Palestinian state; Belgium vows to help Ukraine militarily, and an 81-year-old gets arrested for slingshot shenanigans. Meanwhile, Ana da Cunha in news website Mensagem focuses on how an initiative in Lisbon aims at fighting gentrification and bringing people back to the capital’s historic center.
[*Tahiti]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Lima-based daily Diario Correo dedicates its cover to Peru's attorney general filing a constitutional complaint against President Dina Boluarte, accusing her of corruption related to luxury watches, including Rolexes and a Cartier bracelet. This could lead to her removal if Congress acts on the complaint. Boluarte, whose popularity is low, denies the accusations, claiming the items were loans from a governor. Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen criticized the complaint as improper and politically motivated.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel continued airstrikes on Rafah on Tuesday, killing at least 16 Palestinians. It continued to press its offensive in Gaza's southern city despite international condemnation of an attack that sparked a blaze in a tent camp for the displaced, killing at least 45 people. Meanwhile, Spain, Ireland and Norway will officially recognize a Palestinian state today, despite an angry reaction from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after seven months of conflict in Gaza. Read more on the future of Rafah in this article translated from Arabic into English.
• Ukraine and Belgium sign a 10-year bilateral security agreement. Volodymyr Zelensky was in Brussels today to sign the deal with Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, which involves Belgium sending 977 million euros in military aid to Ukraine. It is the 11th country to sign such a deal, along with Spain, the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland and Latvia. This comes one day after the Ukrainian president’s trip to Spain, where he signed the security agreement with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
• Argentine President swaps cabinet chief in a major government shakeup of his five-month-old administration. Javier Milei accepted the resignation of cabinet chief Nicolas Posse amid strains over major economic reforms pitched by the government. The cabinet shuffle comes at a delicate moment for Milei, a far-right libertarian economist, as his signature reform bill is facing obstacles in congress, and a market rally for government bonds and the local currency appears to be stalling. Read more about Milei’s policies in this article by Brazilian media Agência Pública, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
• Papua New Guinea is evacuating thousands more amid fears of a second landside. Days after Friday’s landslide, which buried more than 2,000 people, the ground in the area of Mount Mungalo is still unstable, prompting concerns that the disaster could worsen. Relief teams in the Pacific nation have been arriving in the difficult-to-access northern Enga region, although officials said the odds of finding survivors were slim.
• Pope Francis used a homophobic slur during a meeting with Italian bishops. The Italian press reported late on Monday that the 87-year-old pontiff made the derogatory remark in a private meeting a week ago, when he was asked whether gay men should be allowed to train for the priesthood provided they remained celibate. Some present reportedly thought that the Argentina-born Pope, whose first language is Spanish, did not realize how offensive the Italian term he used was.
• Rafael Nadal’s record-breaking French Open career came to its likely end on Monday. The 14-time champion lost in the first round against Alexander Zverev. Nadal, who turns 38 in June, went down 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 to world No. 4 seed Zverev, suffering only his fourth loss in 116 matches at Roland Garros since his 2005 title-winning debut.
• An 81-year-old man who terrorized a Southern California neighborhood for years with a slingshot has been arrested. While conducting an investigation, detectives found that for the past 9-10 years, dozens of citizens were “being victimized by a serial slingshot shooter,” the Azusa Police Department said in a statement. The man is suspected of breaking windows and car windshields and of narrowly missing people with balls shot from a slingshot.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$6 billion
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has secured $6 billion in a Series B funding round, valuing the company at $24 billion. Launched less than a year ago, xAI's notable product is Grok, a large language model (LLM) for premium users of Musk's social platform X. xAI aims to develop advanced AI systems for humanity's benefit. Despite challenges with X's value, xAI is central to Musk's strategy to revitalize the platform.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Lisbon has a plan to fight gentrification and mass tourism: Bring back the locals!
The “Return to the Neighborhood” program aims to recover vacant houses in order to create affordable rentals that will allow former residents to return to Lisbon's historic center, reports Ana da Cunha in news website Mensagem.
🏘️ For now, Return to the Neighborhood is just an idea, but one that the president of the Parish Council, Miguel Coelho, has been fighting for for several years: to recover vacant municipal houses in order to bring back those who have been pushed out of the neighborhood. While neither the Parish Council nor the Lisbon City Hall has any say about the vacant buildings, Coelho knows what the city has noticed. "We've lost a lot of social fabric, and a lot of authenticity," he said, adding that the program is "a way of fighting gentrification."
📉 According to voter registration data, the Santa Maria Maior district lost 28% of its population between 2013 and 2024. Along with the population loss, came a decline in the number of houses available and more vacation accommodations. "At the very least, there is a very big coincidence between the districts in which there was a greater drop in population, and a greater drop in family housing, and alojamento local rental activity," said demographer and researcher Alda Botelho Azevedo.
💰 For now, Coelho has suggested testing the model with a pilot project of 20 houses. Working with the City Council, the idea is to allocate money to renovate the homes, which would then be offered at an affordable rent. To be eligible for this selection process, potential tenants would have to show that they have been the victims of eviction, real estate bullying or an unaffordable rent increase in the past 15 to 20 years.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
"This horror must stop."
— “There is no safe place in Gaza,” United Nations Secretary-General Antònio Guterres stated, condemning the Israeli airstrikes on Rafah that have killed dozens of Palestinians and injured hundreds. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described the strike, which targeted a tent area for displaced people, as a “tragic accident,” and he emphasized the importance of protecting civilians. He asserted, however, that Israel’s war against Hamas would continue until all goals were achieved, despite international criticism. The UN Security Council is set to hold and emergency meeting today to address the incident. Read more about Netanyahu's apology here.
👉MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Ukraine: Will Kharkiv Become The Symbol Of Western Capitulation? — FRANCE INTER
• Why Milei's Attacks On Abortion Rights Are A Risk For Women Beyond Argentina — AGÊNCIA PÚBLICA
• Her Two Babies? French Women Founders Balance Motherhood And Startup Life — LES ECHOS
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Cory Agathe
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