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A second term for Ecuador’s millennial tough guy

On Saturday Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s rich 37-year-old president, will be inaugurated for the second time. He first won a snap election in November 2023 and was re-elected last month. His rise reflects Ecuador’s rightward turn in the face of spiralling gang violence.

The murder rate in Ecuador rose from about 7 per 100,000 in 2019 to about 46 in 2023. Similarly to Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, Mr Noboa has responded with an iron fist—and a slickly produced social-media blitz of him locking up bad guys. He is building maximum-security prisons, has sent Ecuador’s military onto the streets and called for soldiers from America, Europe and Brazil to join them.

Unlike many in the region, Mr Noboa is pro-Trump. Critics say abuses of state power are increasing. And, after a dip, the murder rate has soared again. Ecuadorians must hope that he makes real progress on security in his new term without aping the authoritarianism of Mr Bukele.

The culture wars reach America’s military academies

On Saturday Donald Trump will address graduates of West Point, the US Army’s elite academy. The speech comes amid a war between his administration and America’s higher-education institutions: on Thursday the government said it would ban Harvard from enrolling foreign students; it has already cancelled federal funding. West Point has been spared the threat of budget cuts, but Mr Trump has meddled in its teaching.

An executive order Mr Trump issued in January prohibited military academies from promoting “un-American” concepts like “gender ideology” or the notion that the country’s founding documents are “racist or sexist”. Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, has long complained that diversity initiatives undermine combat standards. The US Naval Academy chucked nearly 400 titles—about racism, the Holocaust and sexuality, among other topics—from its library ahead of a visit from Mr Hegseth in April. And earlier this month the New York Times reported that West Point professors dropped from their curricula unpleasant chapters from American history.

A groundbreaking exhibition on sexual violence 

The Imperial War Museum in London was founded in 1917. More than a century later, it is for the first time staging an exhibition on one of the most devastating aspects of war. “Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict” is the first such show in Britain, and possibly the world.

There were roughly 2m instances of rape committed by Soviet Union’s Red Army after the defeat of Germany in 1945, for example. But as the exhibition demonstrates, sexual violence comes in other, less obvious, forms. Drawing on the museum’s huge collection of objects and visual records, the curators include, for instance, the sexual and physical abuse of child evacuees in Britain during the second world war. The sexual humiliation of Iraqi male prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison by American guards is also recorded. “Unsilenced” ends by showcasing the work of four NGOs seeking to bring perpetrators to justice in contemporary conflicts. It is distressing, but necessary, viewing.

Rugby’s new superstars 

France is the dominant force in European rugby union. Teams from the country have won the Champions Cup, the continent’s premier club competition, the past four seasons. And a French side, Union Bordeaux Bègles, are favourites to win this year’s final against Northampton Saints, an English club, in Cardiff on Saturday too. Bordeaux’s squad boasts one of the sport’s finest prospects: Louis Bielle-Biarrey, a pacey 21-year-old winger who is already breaking scoring records.

Still, Northampton have a young superstar of their own. A year ago Henry Pollock was watching the club’s matches as a fan in the stands. Now the 20-year-old is one of the side’s most important players and an England international. What’s more, he was recently picked for the British & Irish Lions, a squad of the best English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh players that goes on tour every four years. Winning such a call-up is among the sport’s greatest achievements. Mr Pollock made it look easy.

Weekend profile: Aron D’Souza, the brash brain behind the “doping Olympics”

Aron D’Souza frames the future in epic terms. Last year, at a conference in Oxford on human enhancement, the lawyer and entrepreneur reminded the crowd that seemingly timeless institutions and norms, whether the United Nations, liberal democracy or human rights, “are the creation of men, not gods”.

His critics might accuse him of playing God. The trim, 40-year-old Australian is founder and president of the forthcoming Enhanced Games, which have been dubbed the “doping Olympics”. Athletes will be able to earn up to $1m for breaking world records using the sorts of drugs that would normally disqualify them. The first games, it was announced this week, are planned for Las Vegas in 2026.

He relishes battling critics who predict that the games will be dangerous or unfair. He points out that conventional athletics is rife with secret and unsafe doping practices.

His style is less that of a CEO than that of the founder of a movement. He sees the games as a catalyst for changing the very trajectory of humanity and altering the boundaries of what it means to be human. He wants people to expect to improve themselves beyond what would be possible in nature, describing it as a human right. The games are just the first step. They coincide with rising interest in consumer-health, longevity and enhancement products. Many worry, though, that this sort of shift in consumer and sporting behaviour will push young people to make ill-informed choices about their bodies.

If Mr D’Souza’s bravado sounds straight out of Silicon Valley, that is no coincidence. While a law student at Oxford, he met Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire and one of the founders of PayPal. He boldly asked how he could help Mr Thiel solve his biggest challenge. That question changed Mr D’Souza’s trajectory: he led the litigation in what became a landmark privacy case against Gawker, a scrappy media outlet that had outed Mr Thiel as gay. Mr Thiel is now a prominent backer of the Enhanced Games. (So is Donald Trump junior, the president’s son.)

Despite superhuman ambitions, Mr D’Souza admits that travel and jet lag take their toll on him. During sleepless nights in anonymous hotel rooms he wonders whether he is doing the right thing. He muses that he could be at home in a swanky part of London with his new husband, or perhaps driving his Ferrari. But he believes it would be “a moral failure” if he opted not to use his gifts “to advance humanity”.

Israel’s rift with its allies

A trickle of aid should enter Gaza on Thursday. Whether it will reach needy people is another matter. After two and a half months of blockade, Israel allowed five lorries of aid to enter on Monday and another 93 on Tuesday. They carried essentials, including baby formula, flour and medicine. But the UN says that Israel’s army did not give it permission to collect the supplies from the border. They stayed, undelivered, on pallets.

Worsening hunger in Gaza has widened a rift between Israel and some allies. Britain suspended free-trade talks; Canada and France have also threatened “concrete actions” if Israel does not stop the war. Such measures probably won’t compel Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to accept a ceasefire. That would require pressure from America. Donald Trump is said to be frustrated with the war, which overshadows his other plans in the Middle East. But he has not yet told Mr Netanyahu to end it.

America: the world’s first cryptocracy?

Congratulations to Justin Sun! The entrepreneur, who once bailed out a Trump crypto company, has won an audience with Donald Trump on Thursday. He topped a leaderboard of $TRUMP holders by buying $19m-worth of the meme coin. It might just be his best news since the Securities and Exchange Committee, a regulator, asked a judge to pause a case against him in February (Mr Sun denies wrongdoing). Twenty-four runners-up will also attend the “ultra-exclusive private VIP reception”; 195 more will get a gala dinner with America’s president.

Naysayers contend that paying for presidential access smells faintly of corruption. Others suspect more prosaic grifting: Trump-associated companies hold 80% of all $TRUMP and make money on transactions of the coin. One senator has launched an investigation. The White House says Mr Trump is “abiding by all conflict of interest laws”. But the meme coin’s website seems aware it may look dodgy: it urges $TRUMP-holders to check their spam folders for their invites.

A battle between theme-park giants

On Thursday Comcast, the parent company of Universal, opens Epic Universe, a $7bn theme park in Orlando, Florida. Just 20 minutes drive away from Walt Disney World, it is Comcast’s latest attempt to challenge Disney’s dominance in the sector. The park includes five themed “lands”, with attractions based on popular franchises such as “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Super Mario”. Comcast hopes the park’s sheer scale will keep guests on its property longer—and spending more.

For Comcast, the launch kicks off an aggressive growth push. It will open a horror-themed attraction in Las Vegas in August and a children’s resort in Texas next year. A big park in Britain is also in development. Disney is expanding too, with plans for a new site in the Middle East. Theme parks are already lucrative business for both firms. A cooling American economy could keep visitors away. But for now bookings are strong—and the battle for Orlando is on.

Europe’s economy braces for impact

Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil makes economic data volatile. That makes it hard for policymakers to reach conclusions about the state of the economy. European firms are trying to plan for a world of changing tariff rates, cancelled orders and supply-chain disruptions. That can cause erratic swings in activity. New data from the purchasing managers’ index for the euro zone, released on Thursday, could illustrate that inconsistency.

In April the survey for manufacturing showed that output, surprisingly, reached a 37-month high (while services disappointed). But May’s figures could be gloomier. Morgan Stanley, a bank, expects a decline in industrial output, citing real-time data on shipping volumes and electricity use. Still, the picture is mixed. Consumer sentiment rose in May, despite the economic chaos. The European Central Bank, scheduled to meet in early June, will have to hope for more consistent data in order to judge the economic outlook.

The siren song of the super-rich

In Greek myth, sirens are beguiling creatures who lure sailors with song. In “Sirens”, a dark comedy released on Netflix on Thursday, the seductresses are a metaphor for America’s mega-rich. The mini-series follows Devon (Meghann Fahy) to an extravagant island estate where her sister (Milly Alcock) has developed a strange relationship with a bird-obsessed billionaire (Julianne Moore, pictured).

The rich lure in viewers, too. “Sirens” has echoes of previous television hits: the sunshine and NDAs of “The Perfect Couple”, a glitzy drama released last year; the yatter and yachts of “The White Lotus”, Mike White’s satirical anthology. Yet the new show’s pithy comic script and clever plot stop it feeling repetitive. And, rather than simply skewering the rich, Molly Smith Metzler, the show’s creator, probes troubled relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters. The setting’s opulence might entice viewers, but the show’s tale of seduction and power is what will keep them watching.

Another Arab League gabfest

The Arab League will convene in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, on Saturday for a summit focusing on Gaza. It comes after a week in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s ferocious bombardment of the enclave. Arab leaders will surely demand a ceasefire and the entry of aid: Israel has blockaded Gaza since March 2nd and food is running out. But their repeated denunciations will do little to influence Israel.

Even if the summit itself is repetitious, the guest list has provided some drama. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian president, had been invited but decided to skip the event because of threats from pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. His foreign minister will attend instead. Iran is still bitter about the fall of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally, in December. Mr Sharaa had better things to do this week anyway: his meeting with Donald Trump in Riyadh was far more productive than an Arab League gabfest.

AI’s human side

From toning down harsh accents to shunning cutlery in favour of finger food, humans frequently adapt to match the company they are in. It seems that large language models, which attempt to replicate human conversation using artificial intelligence, do the same, according to a new study.

Researchers from Britain and Europe put 24 popular LLMs into repeated conversations with one another. They found that AI agents quickly formed universally accepted conventions (such as agreeing on specific words) without explicit instructions to do so.

But fitting in can cause problems. Collective biases quickly emerged in some of the groups. AI’s interactions can also be swiftly thrown off-track: a minority group of intentionally disruptive AI agents could alter established conventions, provided they reached a critical proportion, sometimes as low as 2%. The findings show how human-like the technology is, the academics say—and how easily it can be swayed.

The new realities of women’s basketball

The Women’s National Basketball Association returns this weekend for its 2025 season. The WNBA is going through a period of rapid transformation. In 2024 total attendance at matches rose by 48%, social-media video views jumped by more than 400% and merchandise sales soared by 600%.

The league’s growing profile is changing things on the court. The owners of New York Liberty, the reigning champions, are spending $80m on a new training facility in Brooklyn; a similar amount is going toward a complex in Indianapolis. But not everyone is on board with the rising investment required to keep a team competitive. Last year fans were outraged to learn that the Connecticut Sun shared their practice court with a two-year-old’s birthday party. This week reports emerged that the team’s owners, the Mohegan Tribe, are considering selling the franchise. Having bought the Sun for $10m in 2003, they are in line to make a tidy profit: last year the team was valued at $80m.

The Eurovision song contest returns

In 1956, as Elvis Presley flogged “Heartbreak Hotel” across America, Switzerland held the first ever Eurovision song contest. Its entry—Lys Assia’s French-language ballad, “Refrain”—was hardly rock’n’roll. But it won. These days, the winning country gets to host the next year’s competition. Unluckily for the Swiss, that rule was introduced in 1958. They had to wait until 1989 to throw the party and announce the winner on live TV. (Céline Dion, with another ballad in French, was the 1988 champion.)

On Saturday they will have the honour again. At the final in Basel Switzerland will cheer on a gentle French tune. That may be a good tactic, going by the country’s past winners. But the favourite for 2025, according to Spotify, is Sweden, which shares with Ireland the record for the most Eurovision wins (seven). For the outright lead and musical bragging rights, Sweden will field three male vocalists, an accordion and a song about saunas.

Weekend profile: Casey Means, the nominee for America’s surgeon general embracing the “woo woo”

“Women are lunar beings who exist on a 28-day moon cycle, inherently reflecting the cycles and patterns of the cosmos.” So said Casey Means, Donald Trump’s nominee to be America’s surgeon general, after she watched the Disney movie “Moana”. Yet, she continued in her weekly newsletter, the modern world “rejects, even demonises,” these cycles: “it demands constant productivity, endless yang energy, and punishing speed.”

In some respects, Dr Means is typical of Donald Trump’s appointees. She lacks some conventional credentials. The 37-year-old does not have an active medical licence. She graduated from Stanford Medical School and embarked on a five-year residency to train as a surgeon. But she quit just months before finishing. Mr Trump has even said he does not know much about her.

In interviews and a best-selling book, “Good Energy”, Dr Means has recounted a classic Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) awakening. She describes a dawning realisation “that every institution that impacts health—from medical schools to insurance companies to hospitals to pharma companies—makes money on ‘managing’ disease, not curing patients”.

Her brother, Calley Means, with whom she wrote the book, has said he quit lobbying for the food industry after a similar Damascene conversion. He is now a senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy junior, the MAHA poobah who is secretary of health and human services. On Mr Kennedy’s recommendation, Mr Trump nominated Dr Means on May 7th after credentials claimed by his previous nominee came under challenge. She must be confirmed by the Senate.

After giving up her residency, Dr Means embarked on a search for the underlying reasons for why people get sick. It led her to conclude that “everything is connected”. She warns that rising rates of all sorts of maladies, from cancer to Alzheimer’s to erectile dysfunction, stem from plastics and chemicals in the food chain, over-medication, needless surgery, bad lifestyle choices and disregard of nature.

Dr Means, who co-founded a company to help people monitor their glucose levels, has built a career as a wellness adviser, recommending dietary supplements, skincare products and other choices. She has called vaccine mandates “criminal” and the childhood vaccine schedule “insane”. But some MAHA adherents, suspicious that Mr Kennedy is prioritising food quality over the anti-vaccine policies they long for, find her scepticism too mild.

When it comes to overseeing Americans’ health, the post of surgeon general, once significant, is a vestigial organ. What authority it has left is not regulatory but hortatory. Mr Trump could do worse than appoint someone concerned that Americans take too many pills and eat too much lousy food, or even that society puts quarterly profits ahead of “sustainable living”. But Democrats should worry that Mr Trump, having already co-opted some of their economic policies and their working-class constituency, may make off with their yin energy, too.

Will Putin show up in Turkey?

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, will visit Turkey on Thursday. He can expect to be greeted by the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and an empty chair that had been reserved for Vladimir Putin. Russia’s dictator seems not to have taken Mr Zelensky up on his offer of a meeting in Turkey. And he has defied calls by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

Several members of the European Union have agreed to impose new sanctions against Russia as a result of Mr Putin’s intransigence. Donald Trump, however, has leaned on Europe to give the talks in Turkey a chance. Mr Trump, who is visiting the Gulf, suggested that he might go, too, if Mr Putin had attended. “I know he would like me to be there,” Mr Trump told reporters on Wednesday. Now things are up in the air—except Mr Putin’s plane.

Mexico’s economy struggles between Trump and Sheinbaum

Although inflation is rising, on Thursday Mexico’s central bank, Banxico, is still expected to cut interest rates by half a percentage point. That is because Mexico’s slowing economy is beginning to worry officials. Yes, there have been some positive signs recently. Figures released earlier this week, for example, show that industrial production contracted less than expected in March.

But Latin America’s second-largest economy faces uncertainty. Although Donald Trump has delayed many of his tariffs on Mexico, America’s economy (on which Mexico’s exporters rely) is wobbling. There are many obstacles at home, too. A controversial judicial reform is about to transform the rule of law in the country. Such concerns have pushed down consumer consumption and slowed private investment. Banxico has lowered its growth forecast for 2025 from 1.2% to 0.6%. Others are more pessimistic: in April the International Monetary Fund forecast a recession later this year, making Mexico an outlier among emerging markets and in Latin America.

Birthright citizenship comes to SCOTUS

On Thursday America’s Supreme Court will reckon with one of Donald Trump’s most contentious policies: his order rescinding birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary-visa holders.

Three courts have held that the order violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for everyone “born or naturalised” in America and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and blocked it nationwide. After losing again in the appellate courts, Mr Trump turned to the Supreme Court, which is hearing a rare oral argument on the emergency plea.

Trump v CASA asks whether lower courts have the authority to issue such “universal injunctions”. Mr Trump argues that judges can block the executive order from applying only to the babies represented in each case, not the “hundreds of thousands” of others across America who may be affected. But CASA, an immigrant-advocacy group, warns that this approach—with different rules for babies born in different states—would cause “chaos and confusion”.

Can Bangladesh reform itself?

In August 2024 a massive student-led uprising in Bangladesh toppled the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina. Since then Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate who was appointed interim leader, says he has been trying to “fix everything that has been destroyed”. One step has been for the electoral commission to ban the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina’s party, from contesting elections.

In September Mr Yunus embarked on a reform agenda, setting up commissions to look at several topics, including elections and the constitution. Now work is under way to sift through the commissions’ ideas and generate a national “charter”. Starting on Thursday a National Consensus Commission will help the political parties to find common ground. But disputes have already emerged on several fronts (for example, the inclusion of the term “pluralism” in the new constitution). Still, the reformers are optimistic. They hope that the scars left by the previous regime, which were felt by all opposition parties, will now unite them.

Golf’s unlikely star tees up the PGA Championship

Several years ago Bryson DeChambeau, an American golfer, was a contender for the least popular player on the circuit. Traditional fans and his fellow pros were sniffy about his efforts to bulk up in the gym to clobber the ball further than anyone else. They were further affronted when he reportedly accepted $125m to defect to the Saudi-funded LIV Golf league in 2022.

But more recently, Mr DeChambeau has won over some of his doubters. He launched a YouTube channel in which he sets himself semi-serious challenges, often with famous guests. Mr DeChambeau is funny and self-deprecating. His channel has also been a hit with young fans, a demographic golf is desperately keen to chase. Nor does it appear to have done his golf any harm. He won his second major at the US Open last year. He begins today’s PGA Championship as third favourite, behind the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, and the winner of this year’s Masters, Rory McIlroy.

Trump’s gilded Arab summit

President Donald Trump arrives in Riyadh on Tuesday to begin a tour of Arab Gulf monarchies that promises fat contracts but mixed diplomatic gains. For the second time Mr Trump is beginning a presidential term with a trip to Saudi Arabia. Expect deals with Saudi, Qatari and Emirati royals worth trillions of dollars in investments and contracts for American firms—and maybe the gift of a jet from Qatar.

But Mr Trump’s hope for a normalisation of Israeli-Saudi relations is receding as the Gaza war rages on. Nor does a nuclear deal with Iran seem imminent. Mr Trump may ease sanctions on Syria amid reports of a meeting with its ex-jihadist leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa. He may also fly to Istanbul for mooted peace talks between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, though the Kremlin has so far ignored demands for an immediate ceasefire. Meanwhile, talks with Hamas led to the release of Edan Alexander, an American hostage in Gaza. Excluded from Mr Trump’s tour, Israel worries it is being ignored by its best friend.

What now for India and Pakistan?

After days of escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, some semblance of normality is returning. A ceasefire, announced by America on Saturday, has held—despite allegations of violations from both sides in its early hours. On Monday stockmarkets in both countries jumped and airports reopened. Indian and Pakistani military officials spoke to each other, but details of their discussions have not been made public.

The two countries will continue to wrangle. India and Pakistan are both claiming victory, and have made big claims about the damage they inflicted on the other country. America wants to bring them together for talks, but there has been no indication that this will happen. Any negotiations would be fraught. India wants Pakistan to end its links to jihadist groups, while Pakistan will want to talk about control of Kashmir, which is claimed by both countries. Fighting has stopped for now, but tension remains high.

Turbulence ahead for America’s economy

The latest batch of American inflation data, published on Tuesday, will be a curious mix. The figures cover the month of April, and will be the first to reflect the turmoil from Donald Trump’s tariffs. Economists think that inflation remained at 2.4% year on year, a notch above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

But tariff announcements usually take a few months to show up in price data. Therefore Tuesday’s numbers will probably reflect the 10% and then 20% tariffs on China announced in February and March more than the broader set delivered on “Liberation Day”.

Otherwise, most prices will not yet have been seriously affected by the turmoil. Thus the inflation figures are also a window into America as it was before the White House’s tariffs wars. The economy that had yet to beat inflation but was making good progress. How far that story has been derailed will become clearer in several months’ time.

Boom times for Germany’s defence giant

On Tuesday Rheinmetall, a German weapons maker, will hold its annual general meeting. It has much to celebrate: demand for the wares of European defence firms is the highest it has been since the end of the cold war. Rheinmetall is profiting in particular from a €100bn ($111.4bn) off-budget defence fund announced by Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor at the time, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On Thursday Rheinmetall reported strong first-quarter results. Sales of military kit rose by 73% year on year, while total group sales increased by 46% to €2.3bn. Defence made up 78% of total sales, offsetting weaker results in the firm’s civilian car business. Rheinmetall confirmed its forecast of an increase in sales this year of 25-30% and operating margins of around 15%. It expects the boom to last until at least the end of the decade.

A lawsuit against Donald Trump’s tariffs 

On Tuesday a court in New York City will hear arguments in a lawsuit alleging that Donald Trump’s tariffs violate federal law and the constitution. Five businesses claim that tariffs will have “dire consequences” for their operations. Although on Monday America and China agreed to temporarily lower their respective tariffs, American businesses may still suffer because levies on trading partners are higher than they were before.

Mr Trump says that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enacted in 1977, empowers him to impose tariffs to reduce America’s “large and persistent” trade deficits. The plaintiffs respond that such deficits do not meet the IEEPA’s standard of an “unusual and extraordinary threat”.

America’s Supreme Court will probably have the last word. The outcome may hinge on whether the conservative majority hews to two principles it used to rein in the Biden administration. First, the major-questions doctrine, which requires explicit congressional authorisation for significant executive actions. Second, the non-delegation doctrine, which prevents Congress from handing its constitutional duties to the executive branch.