The authoritarian world’s hottest young thing – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele – has won a Congressional supermajority.
Bukele, who won a landslide reelection last month, will control a staggering 54 of 60 seats in the Central American country’s legislature, empowering him to do … whatever he likes.
What might that be? Hard to say. He’s already jailed nearly 2% of the adult population as part of a ferocious crackdown on gang violence, and he already got a friendly court to rule he could flout term limits. His allies even openly say he aims to “dismantle” democracy.
And … his success at slashing the murder rate to pieces has made him incredibly popular. That’s true not only at home but also abroad, where some in other violence-wracked Latin American countries – Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile – are increasingly enamored of Bukele.
Not so fast, say experts. El Salvador is a tiny country (6 million people) whose gangs – fearsome as they are – pale in comparison to the size and firepower of the transnational cartels running amok elsewhere in the neighborhood. Bukele’s model plays well at home, but it might not – for now at least – export as well.
Microsoft is advancing its efforts to eliminate single-use plastics across its global packaging portfolio through material innovation and design changes across products like Surface and Xbox. By rethinking how packaging works—from cushioning to coatings and structural components—the company is reducing waste and demonstrating how design decisions at scale can deliver meaningful sustainability impact. Last week, Microsoft marked a key milestone in reducing single-use plastic in its packaging to just 0.07%, reflecting significant progress toward its broader commitment to become a zero-waste company by 2030. Read the full story here.
Trump and Cuban Americans are calling 2026 the year of liberation. Historian Michael Bustamante says the reality on the ground tells a very different story.
The latest assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday shines yet another light on the rising level of political violence in the United States.
Malian soldiers stand near a truck during a patrol following the attack on Mali's main military base in Kati, Mali, on April 27, 2026.
Jihadist insurgents and Tuareg secessionists assassinated Mali’s Defense Minister Sadio Camara at his home in Kati during coordinated attacks across the West African country on Saturday.