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Nuns walk at St. Peter's Square, ahead of the conclave, at the Vatican, on May 6, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Betting markets swirl as conclave commences, North Carolina judicial election nears end, Moscow shuts airport due to reported drone attack, US trade deficit sets new record, Trump campaign manager tries to Make Albania Great Again
26: The conclave of 133 cardinals will gather in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the process of electing a new pope via secret ballot. To win the job with a puff of white smoke, a candidate must garner the support of two thirds of the conclave, plus one. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a veteran Vatican diplomat, is the favorite, per Polymarket, which gave him a 26% chance of winning.
182: Some 182 days on from the 2024 election, and North Carolina has still yet to certify state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ reelection victory. The Tar Heel State did move one step closer to affirming the result on Tuesday, though, after a federal judge narrowed the number of votes that were under dispute. Last November, Riggs, a Democrat, defeated Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast.
4: All four major airports in Moscow were ordered to shut after the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on the Russian capital. There were no casualties in the reported attack, which came days before Russia holds a celebration to mark the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s triumph over Nazi Germany.
14%: The US trade deficit jumped 14% in March, setting a new record of $140.5 billion as American consumers and businesses rushed to buy foreign goods like pharmaceuticals and computer accessories ahead of President Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs in early April. Some economists believe US firms were still frontloading purchases well into April.
18,500: An estimated 18,500 Sudanese have crossed the country’s western border into Chad over the last two weeks alone, per the United Nations, with many severely malnourished. Nearly 800,000 Sudanese have fled to Chad since Sudan’s civil war began two years ago. For more on why one of the world’s deadliest conflicts continues, see here.
>$1 million: Chris LaCivita, who ran Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign last year, is reportedly earning more than $1 million to advise Albania’s former Prime Minister Sali Berisha. LaCivita is rehashing the MAGA message, only with “Albania” replacing “America.” Berisha, who faces corruption allegations, is hoping to lead the Balkan country again after the parliamentary elections on Sunday.Members of the M23 rebel group stand guard at the opening ceremony of Caisse Generale d'epargne du Congo (CADECO) which will serve as the bank for the city of Goma where all banks have closed since the city was taken by the M23 rebels, in Goma, North Kivu province in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, April 7, 2025.
Does the Congo truce portend peace? Or a potential civil war?
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and an alliance of militias led by the notorious M23 rebels announced a ceasefire on Thursday after talks in Qatar and, after three years of violence, said they would work toward a permanent truce. Meanwhile, Congo will reportedly sign a broad declaration of principles on a minerals deal with Rwanda on Friday in Washington, DC. The UN, US, EU, and other governments accuse Rwanda of using M23 to control valuable mines in Congo, but Washington is in the midst of talks with Congo to secure access to those same minerals, for which a deal with Rwanda is a necessary first step.
M23 recently seized the two principal cities in northeastern Congo, Goma, and Bukavu. At least six previous ceasefires in the long-running conflict have failed, turning hundreds of thousands of people into refugees and exposing them to violence, hunger, lack of shelter, and pervasive sexual exploitation.
Poorly trained and equipped Congolese troops have proven ineffective at fighting the rebels, and UN peacekeepers in the region are widely distrusted — even hated — by locals. A South African-led multinational force that held Goma for over a year was surrounded and pushed back in January; by March, they had completely withdrawn.
With Congo’s military situation in such disarray, a truce may be President Felix Tshisekedi’s only option, but his former ally-turned-archrival Joseph Kabila is proving a thorn in his side. Kabila, who ruled the DRC as president from 2001 to 2019 before going into exile in 2023, has reportedly been spotted in M23-controlled Goma. He has long accused Tshisekedi of mishandling the M23 situation — and we’re watching whether he uses this opportunity to launch a play for power.Burkina Faso’s junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore attends the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niamey, Niger, on July 6, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Burkina Faso foils coup effort, Trump dents democracy rating, Spain to hit defense-spending target, Musk to reduce his DOGE hours, Migrants arrested while fleeing US, Japan rids foreign debt, Tourists killed in Kashmir
40%: Burkina Faso’s ruling military recently foiled an attempted coup aimed at removing junta leader Cap. Ibrahim Traoré, the country’s security minister said on Monday. The Sahel nation has had to deal with widespread insurgency in recent years, with rebel jihadist groups reportedly controlling around 40% of the country’s land mass.
55: US President Donald Trump made a dent in American democracy almost as soon as he won the 2024 election, according to a survey of 520 political experts. The Bright Line Watch benchmark gave US democracy a rating of 55 in February, down 12 points from where it was on the day of Trump’s election victory and 14 points from where it was in October 2024. It’s the country’s fastest drop since the survey began in 2017.
2%: Our globally minded readers will immediately recognize this figure as the proportion of gross domestic product that NATO member nations are encouraged to spend on defense. Under pressure from the Trump administration and its European allies to expand its military, Spain said Tuesday that it will finally hit that figure again this year, after falling short for over 30 years.
130: Elon Musk is DOGE-ing himself. The Tesla CEO says he will cut back his role in the government after his electric vehicle company reported a massive profit drop. Musk says he will spend just one to two days each week on DOGE following accusations that he has let his focus on Tesla slip. Regardless, temporary government employees like Musk are normally limited to working 130 days a year, which would expire at the end of May.
8: So much for the Great Escape: From January through April, US authorities arrested eight undocumented Dominican migrants in Puerto Rico who were trying to return to their home country. The arrests raise questions over the Trump administration’s stated goal of encouraging undocumented migrants to leave of their own accord.
$20 billion: Trump’s tariffs have Tokyo in a selling mood. Japanese investors said sayonara to more than $20 billion of foreign debt early this month. The selloff shows how Wall Street jitters can ripple across the Pacific. It’s not clear which foreign debt Japanese investors unloaded, though they are the largest holders of US Treasuries of any country worldwide, so their investment choices are observed hawkishly.
26: Outrage is rising after gunmen killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on Tuesday. Several other victims remain critically injured. The Resistance Front – believed to be an offshoot of Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba – has claimed responsibility.
A displaced Sudanese woman looks on as she sits next children at “Abdallah Nagi” shelter camp, which houses people mostly displaced from the capital Khartoum, in Port Sudan, Sudan, on April 15, 2025.
Sudan’s forgotten Civil War reaches grim milestone
While the world is flooded with bad news, nowhere is it worse than Sudan, where the civil war hit the two-year mark on Tuesday.
Due to the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, 13 million people have been displaced, over 150,000 are dead, a genocide is reportedly unfolding in Darfur, and reports of famine and rape being used as a weapon are widespread throughout the country.
While SAF regained control of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF is brutally consolidating the Darfur region in the West. In recent days, they launched a fierce offensive in el-Fasher, aiming to capture the last remaining state capital in Darfur still under SAF’s control by setting ablaze refugee camps that are home to half a million people.
Desperation times. The war pits two leaders of the 2021 Sudanese coup — SAF Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — against each other. Each has foreign backers keeping them stocked with weapons, but neither appears ready to lay down arms. Nevertheless, the UK hosted ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart peace talks.
The critical question: With global attention on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, diplomatic engagement with Sudan has fallen by the wayside. What would it take for the world to respond to the Sahel state with the urgency it demands?South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, pictured here addressing the press in 2020.
South Sudan’s vice president arrested, country on brink of civil war
Alarm bells are ringing ever more loudly in South Sudan, as Vice President Riek Machar — chief rival to Prime Minister Salva Kiir — was arrested late Wednesday in an operation involving 20 armored vehicles at his compound in Juba. He was placed under house arrest, a move that is fueling fears that the country will soon descend into civil war.
“We strongly condemn the unconstitutional actions taken today by the Minister of Defense and the Chief of National Security,” Machar’s SPLM-IO party said. The ex-rebel group added that the arrest effectively annulled the 2018 power-sharing deal that brought peace to the nascent nation — it withdrew from the security aspects of the agreement last week.
The public is reportedly in a state of panic, with violent clashes this week displacing some 50,000 people from their homes. Kiir pledged on Wednesday not to return the Upper Nile state to war, while SPLM-IO deputy leader Oyet Nathaniel Pierino urged the public to remain calm.
Wishful thinking: But calls for calm may reflect more hope than expectation. Kate Johnston, an associate fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a regional expert, called the arrest “a pretty fundamental undermining of the peace agreement” and warned of the dangers of civil war for the sub-Saharan state.
“Seventy-five percent of the population is already on food aid,” said Johnston. “A civil war would be catastrophic for the population.”
Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building in the capital Khartoum, Sudan, on March 26, 2025.
Khartoum falls to the Sudanese Army, but war rages on
The Sudanese Army says it has captured full control of Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group it has been battling in a brutal civil war for over two years. The army has seized key locations, including the presidential palace and the airport.
Regaining control of the capital marks a major triumph for the army and could provide a strategic advantage in the ongoing conflict.
Since the war began in April 2023, the RSF had held most of Khartoum but has steadily lost ground to the Sudanese Armed Forces in recent months. A military spokesperson confirmed that the army has now secured Manshiya Bridge — the last bridge previously under RSF control — as well as a military camp in Jebel Awliya, the group’s main stronghold in southern Khartoum.
Is this the nail in the coffin for the RSF? Not quite. The war is far from over. Although the RSF is retreating from Khartoum, it still maintains control over nearly all of the Darfur region in western Sudan. Meanwhile, foreign powers continue to supply both sides with weapons, fueling the conflict, while international efforts to broker peace have failed.
FILE PHOTO: Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport before the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, in Beijing, China September 3, 2024.
US sanctions Sudanese leader
The United States on Thursday imposed financial sanctions on Sudan's army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The move came a week after Washington imposedsimilar sanctions on the leader of the rebel Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, whose militia has been warring with government forces for the past 18 months, ina conflict that has killed up to 150,000 people,displaced 11 million, and caused 26 million to go hungry.
Why sanction both sides? US officials said Thursday that the Sudanese army deployedchemical weapons against the RSF at least twice, and there are concerns they may use them in populated areas in the capital, Khartoum. They have also committed humanitarian violations and used starvation as a weapon of war.
As for the RSF, on Jan. 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the group ofperpetrating a genocide against the non-Arab Masalit people, killing boys and men and committing sexual violence against women and girls because of their ethnicity.
Washington doesn’t want to pick sides but to pressure them into a ceasefire. The RSF currently controlshalf of Sudan, including almost all of Darfur, Khartoum, and southern regions, and there are concerns thata partition of the country would lead to “state disintegration,” provoking an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
Syrian armed opposition fighters control the city of Maarat al-Numan after seizing control of most parts of Idlib.
Rebels in Syria seize strategically important city of Hama — set sights on Homs
On Thursday, rebel fighters in Syria continued their startling advance by entering and seizing the city of Hama, according to both the rebels and the Syrian government. Hama has been under the control of Bashar Assad’s government since 2011. Last weekend, fighters of the Islamist group Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, broke through government forces to capture the city of Aleppo.
The advance into Hama brings the insurgents to within 120 miles of Damascus, Syria’s capital. Syrian army forces backed by Iran and Russia are in retreat, and the rebels have now turned their attention to Homs, another strategically important city on the road to Damascus.
As of Friday, the rebels were reportedly within striking distance of Homs, and tens of thousands were fleeing the city, Syria's third-largest.
This surprise offensive comes at a bad time for Assad’s major allies. Iran is fully occupied with protecting what’s left of its chief regional proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as potential direct threats from Israel. Russia’s military is focused on its current offensive in Ukraine.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, in an exclusive interview with CNN published Friday, explained that the militants intend to remove Assad from power. “When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” said Jolani.