标签： North America

BOGOTA – Colombia’s 2026 presidential election has moved to a runoff contest after the first round of voting on Sunday delivered a split result that put a far-right independent and a leftist incumbent coalition candidate at the top of the ballot count. According to preliminary official data released by Colombia’s National Civil Registry, independent candidate Abelardo de la Espriella – linked to the far-right Defenders of the Homeland movement – and Ivan Cepeda, nominee of the ruling left-wing Historic Pact coalition, secured the two highest vote shares to advance to the second round.

With 97.58 percent of all ballots cast across the country already processed, de la Espriella holds a narrow lead over Cepeda, capturing 43.77 percent of the vote compared to Cepeda’s 40.88 percent. Right-wing contender Paloma Valencia, running for the opposition Democratic Center party, finished in third place with 6.91 percent of the total vote, falling well short of the support needed to earn a spot in the runoff.

More than 41.4 million registered Colombian voters were eligible to participate in Sunday’s election, which tasked the electorate with choosing a president and vice president to serve the 2026-2030 presidential term. Votes were cast at roughly 13,000 polling stations spread across the South American nation, with polls opening at 8 a.m. local time and closing at 4 p.m. local time.

Under Colombia’s constitutional electoral rules, a candidate must win an outright majority of more than 50 percent of the first-round vote to claim the presidency immediately. Since no candidate in the 2026 race crossed that threshold, the two top finishers will compete in a head-to-head runoff election scheduled for June 21. The winner of the runoff will be inaugurated to take office on August 7, marking the start of the four-year presidential term.

A $1.8 billion compensation initiative launched by the second Trump administration has ignited fierce political backlash, with former Vice President Mike Pence—who was on site during the 2021 US Capitol attack—joining a growing chorus of bipartisan critics condemning the plan as unacceptable and legally questionable.

The fund, branded by the Trump White House as an “anti-weaponization fund” designed to compensate so-called “victims of lawfare” targeted by previous administrations, has stirred particular outrage because hundreds of people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot have already signaled they intend to file claims for payouts. Pence, who was serving as vice president when the riot unfolded, was forced to flee for safety as rioters—many of whom echoed then-President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—stormed the Capitol building and threatened his life. After law enforcement cleared the building, Pence returned to fulfill his constitutional duty to preside over the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

In an interview with NBC News, Pence left no room for ambiguity about his stance, calling the fund a “bad idea from the start” that should be scrapped entirely. “It’s deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalised the Capitol on January 6,” Pence said, adding that he believes this view is shared by a majority of Republicans and American voters overall.

Official data from the US Department of Justice shows that nearly 1,600 people have faced criminal charges linked to the riot, with around 175 of those defendants facing charges for using deadly or dangerous weapons or inflicting serious bodily injury on law enforcement officers. Roughly 140 officers were injured during the attack, and Trump issued a full blanket pardon to all riot-related defendants on his first day back in office after winning the 2024 presidential election.

The unusual origins of the fund trace back to a legal settlement between President Trump and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump filed a lawsuit against the IRS after his personal tax records were leaked, and he agreed to drop the suit in exchange for a formal apology from the agency and the creation of the $1.8 billion compensation fund.

The plan has drawn opposition from high-profile lawmakers across both major parties, many of whom were themselves forced to hide from rioters when the mob overran Capitol offices in 2021. Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune has said he is not “a big fan” of the initiative, while former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell labeled it “utterly stupid.” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a member of Trump’s own party, went even further, calling the plan “stupid on stilts.” Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has already announced he will introduce legislation to block the fund from being enacted entirely.

A small faction of Republican lawmakers have voiced support for the plan, however. Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville claimed the fund would compensate “hundreds” of “innocent patriotic Americans” who he argued were wrongfully imprisoned over what he called a “made-up witch hunt” tied to the January 6 investigations.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has defended the fund, arguing in a memo to skeptical Republican senators that the $1.8 billion allocation is justified because “literally tens of millions of Americans were subjected to improper and unlawful government targeting.” He also emphasized that eligibility is open to all Americans, regardless of partisan affiliation, saying “Democrats can submit claims, too.” Lawmakers from both parties have demanded more transparency from Blanche about which claimants would be eligible to receive payouts.

Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the fund from being established, pending a court hearing scheduled for June 12. In a statement responding to the ruling, a Department of Justice spokesperson said officials remain “extremely confident in the legality of the anti-weaponisation fund which is supported by ample precedent.” The spokesperson added: “We will not allow the policy preferences of judges to interfere with our efforts to provide restitution to victims of lawfare.”

The political clash over the fund highlights ongoing deep divisions within the Republican Party over the legacy of the January 6 attack, as well as Trump’s continued efforts to reshape the party’s stance on the event that disrupted the peaceful transfer of presidential power three years ago.

A planned celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary of independence has been thrown into disarray after a wave of artist cancellations tied to the event’s affiliation with the Trump administration, prompting former (current) President Donald Trump to call for the entire concert series to be scrapped and replaced with one of his signature political rallies.

The controversy centers on the Great American State Fair, a 16-day event series scheduled to run from June 25 to July 10 on Washington DC’s National Mall. Organized by Freedom 250, a group launched last year by the Trump administration to mark the historic milestone, the event has become a flashpoint for partisan tension just weeks ahead of its planned launch. When the full lineup of nine featured performers was announced Wednesday, less than a week later only three acts remained confirmed, after four high-profile artists pulled out citing undisclosed political ties they say were hidden from them when they signed on.

Among the dropouts are country music star Martina McBride, who was set to open the series, 1980s hip-hop icon Young MC, legendary funk group The Commodores, and Poison frontman Bret Michaels, who was scheduled to perform on July 3, the eve of Independence Day. Young MC shared in a social media post that artists were never informed of the event’s political links to the White House, noting he would gladly perform in DC in the future at an event unconnected to partisan politics. McBride echoed that sentiment in a statement on X, writing that she was initially led to believe the event was nonpartisan, a description that ultimately proved misleading.

Not all performers have pulled out, however. Rapper Vanilla Ice, who is scheduled to perform on June 26, pushed back against claims of partisan polarization around the event, telling his Instagram followers “This is not a political platform. This is celebrating America’s birthday.” Fab Morvan, one half of the duo Milli Vanilli, also confirmed he will keep his June 26 performance slot, though the original vocalists behind the group’s iconic work have confirmed they will not appear. Rapper Flo Rida also remains committed to his July 2 performance.

The fallout from the mass cancellations came quickly, with Trump announcing in a Truth Social post over the weekend that the event should be called off entirely. Trump slammed the remaining and departing performers as “overpriced” and “boring”, quipping that the artists had gotten “the yips” — a golf term describing sudden, involuntary performance anxiety — ahead of the event.

Not content to let the planned National Mall dates go unused, Trump said he is actively exploring replacing the concert series with a “Make America Great Again” political rally, to be held at the same location and on the same opening date of June 24. “I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, DC, same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited,” he wrote, adding that he is the “Number One Attraction anywhere in the World” and draws far larger crowds than Elvis Presley at the height of his career. He later doubled down on the proposal, arguing that a massive partisan rally would be a far better fit for the anniversary than the struggling concert series.

Freedom 250, which was created through an executive order signed by Trump last year to deliver what the White House called “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion”, has maintained that the event is nonpartisan. The organization’s CEO is directly appointed by Trump, and the group confirmed just one day before the wave of cancellations that Trump would headline the fair’s opening ceremony, calling him the “visionary behind the Great American State Fair” in a statement from spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez.

The Trump administration’s parallel anniversary effort is not the only official commemoration of the US semiquincentennial. A decade ago, Congress established an independent, bipartisan organization called America250 to oversee national celebrations. That group, which includes appointees from both the Democratic and Republican parties, is hosting its own events across the country, including large July 4th celebrations in New York City, Philadelphia and California, alongside community block parties in every region of the country.

In addition to the troubled Great American State Fair, the Trump administration’s Freedom 250 has planned a slate of other high-profile anniversary events, including a UFC fight hosted on the White House South Lawn and a Grand Prix motor race in Washington DC scheduled for August. The administration also confirmed this year that it will issue a limited run of commemorative anniversary passports that feature an official portrait of Trump.

For decades, the annual physical examination of the sitting U.S. president has evolved into far more than a routine health check—it is a tightly choreographed political ritual that sits at the intersection of public accountability, national security, and perceptions of executive power.

Today, amid the election of two of the oldest presidents in American history back-to-back, public and political scrutiny of these check-ups has reached a fever pitch. The conversation traces back to a long-running tradition: every modern U.S. president makes the short trip from the White House to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a yearly physical, a practice as much about projecting political vitality as it is about tracking personal health. “Americans historically have wanted masculine, vigorous presidents,” explained Dr. Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. A clean bill of health, released publicly, is one of the most visible ways a commander-in-chief can demonstrate they are physically and mentally capable of holding the most powerful office on Earth.

This dynamic has been central to former president Donald Trump’s public image, even as he approaches his 80th birthday. Just weeks out from turning 80, Trump completed his 2026 annual physical, and the White House subsequently released a memo from his personal physician declaring the president in “excellent health” with strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function. The document confirmed Trump is “fully fit to carry out all duties of the commander-in-chief and head of state”, though it did include a recommendation that he increase regular exercise and adjust his diet to lose weight. The memo also publicly released Trump’s full vital statistics: standing 75 inches (191cm) tall, he weighs 238 pounds (108kg), has a resting heart rate of 73 beats per minute, and a blood pressure reading of 105/71 mmHg. It addressed recent public speculation about visible bruising on Trump’s hand, attributing the marks to minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and his daily aspirin use for cardiovascular prevention, and noted Trump’s lifelong abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. Shortly after the results were released, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “everything checked out perfectly.”

Even so, questions about the transparency and reliability of presidential health disclosures have persisted for more than a century, long before the current era of advanced age in the Oval Office. Unlike many public officeholders, U.S. presidents face no legal requirement to release full medical records, and they are protected by the same federal health privacy laws that apply to all American citizens. This has allowed for deliberate concealment of serious health crises throughout history: in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a devastating stroke that left him largely incapacitated for the final year of his term, with his wife effectively stepping in to make major presidential decisions while his physician and staff covered up the full severity of his condition. Decades later, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s paralysis from polio was consistently downplayed by White House officials, who hid his reliance on a wheelchair from the public until his death in office in 1945.

It was not until the 1960s, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, that any U.S. president formally publicly announced the results of a routine physical. That shift came in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and amid rising Cold War tensions, when questions about a leader’s fitness to govern took on new urgency. In the 1970s, President Gerald Ford went a step further, overruling his own physician’s objections to release partial medical details to the public. “I feel fit as a fiddle. Getting healthier every day,” Ford told reporters after his 1976 check-up, noting he swam daily to maintain his physical condition. Still, gaps in transparency have continued to spark controversy decades later: President Ronald Reagan only publicly announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis five years after leaving office, leading to widespread ongoing speculation about his cognitive state during his second term in the White House.

Medical ethicists argue that even modern disclosures cannot be taken at face value, because presidents are free to select which information to release to the public. “If I were the public, I would ignore that information (released by the White House) entirely,” said Dr. Jacob Appel, a medical ethicist at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and presidential health historian. “The president can cherry pick what looks good, and what doesn’t look good.” Beyond political posturing, Appel notes that full transparency also carries national security risks: any health details released to the American public are also accessible to foreign adversaries, giving potential opponents insight into a sitting president’s vulnerabilities.

In recent years, the conversation around presidential health has been drastically amplified by the trend of older leaders holding office. After a generation of relatively young commanders-in-chief—Bill Clinton was 46 at inauguration, George W. Bush was 54, and Barack Obama was 47—the U.S. has elected two of the oldest presidents in its history in rapid succession. Trump was 70 when he first took office in 2017, and 78 when he began his second term in 2025. Joe Biden, who held office between Trump’s two terms, was 78 when he was inaugurated and 82 when he left office, making him the oldest sitting president in U.S. history. During his 2024 annual physical at age 81, Biden joked with reporters, when asked if there were any concerning health issues the public should know about: “Well, they think I look too young.”

That era of older presidents has “turbocharged” public interest in annual physical results, Dallek said. “The scrutiny of Biden and Trump because of their age operates in a totally different plane. The concerns in the media, in the public, the debates that happen about whether they’re fit to serve, those debates get intensified.” Biden’s declining fitness became a central issue during the 2024 presidential campaign, ultimately forcing him to drop out of the re-election race. After Trump took office for a second term, Trump and congressional Republicans seized on a new tell-all book that alleged Biden White House staffers covered up the true state of Biden’s health to push claims of a deliberate cover-up. A Biden spokesperson pushed back at the time, arguing “evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.”

Now, Trump faces the same level of public scrutiny over his own advancing age. Polling conducted before his 2026 physical shows a majority of Americans harbor doubts about his health and cognitive fitness. A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll released in early May found that 59% of respondents do not believe Trump has the mental acuity to serve as president, while 55% doubt his physical health is sufficient for the role. A separate poll from the Economist and YouGov found that nearly half of all Americans believe Trump is too old to hold the Oval Office.

At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue security summit held in Singapore, defence leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia made a landmark announcement for their AUKUS trilateral defence pact: the three nations will jointly develop next-generation uncrewed undersea vehicle (UUV) technology, a project designed to safeguard critical undersea infrastructure and expand collective military capabilities. Scheduled to deliver functional technology by 2027, the initiative marks the first flagship collaboration under AUKUS’s Pillar 2 framework, which focuses on advancing cutting-edge military technologies beyond the alliance’s nuclear submarine program.

UK Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed that London will commit £150 million ($201 million) to the UUV development effort, while the total overall cost of the project has not been publicly disclosed. The announcement comes amid widespread criticism that AUKUS has failed to deliver tangible progress on its commitments since the pact was first established in 2021. Addressing these concerns directly, Healey acknowledged that “for too long in Aukus, we talked too much and delivered too little”, but stressed that the current governments of all three nations have shifted the alliance into action.

Since its founding in 2021, AUKUS has centered on two core pillars. Pillar 1 focuses on developing nuclear-powered attack submarines for the Royal Australian Navy, a historic agreement that will see Australia become only the second nation after the UK to gain access to U.S. advanced nuclear propulsion technology. Pillar 2, meanwhile, is dedicated to collaborative development of advanced military capabilities, including long-range hypersonic missiles, artificial intelligence, and undersea robotics. The new UUV project is the first major program to launch under this second pillar.

According to a joint statement from the three defence ministries, the UUV program will develop cutting-edge payloads and supporting systems for autonomous underwater vehicles that can carry out multiple core missions: protecting critical seabed infrastructure such as undersea cables and pipelines, conducting intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, supporting logistics operations, and even carrying out offensive strikes. Healey added that the project will also develop custom sensors and weapons systems for the drones, enabling rapid deployment of advanced battle technology to allied forces, while strengthening deterrence across the Pacific, Atlantic, and High North regions.

The push to protect undersea infrastructure comes amid growing concerns among Western nations over potential threats to subsea cables, which carry an estimated 99% of global intercontinental data traffic and underpin modern global communications and commerce. Just one month before the Singapore summit, Healey publicly accused Russia of conducting covert operations targeting undersea cables and pipelines in waters north of the UK – an allegation Moscow has repeatedly denied. In late 2024, the UK and Norway signed a dedicated agreement to coordinate monitoring and countering Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic to protect these critical assets. British officials report that Russian naval presence in UK territorial waters has increased by 30% in recent years, with the UK connected to global communications via around 60 undersea cables.

Beyond Russian activity, Western officials have also raised concerns over Chinese-linked activity near undersea cables. Chinese vessels have been suspected of damaging cables in waters surrounding Taiwan and off the coast of Sweden, and multiple unexplained cable damage incidents have been recorded in the Baltic Sea in recent years. When asked by reporters at the summit whether the UUV project is specifically intended to counter undersea activity by Russia and China, the three defence ministers declined to comment. They also did not respond to repeated questions about whether AUKUS’s overall pace of progress is sufficient to address emerging security threats.

For the alliance’s flagship Pillar 1 nuclear submarine program, leaders also pushed back against growing criticism over long delivery timelines. The first purpose-built AUKUS nuclear submarines for Australia are not scheduled to enter service until the 2040s, leading to concerns that Australia will face a capability gap as its existing ageing conventional submarines retire before the new vessels are ready. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, speaking ahead of the summit, noted that there is no “plan B” for the program, and that the alliance remains committed to moving forward.

At the summit, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the planned rotation of U.S. and UK nuclear submarines through Australian ports remains on schedule, with the first contingent of U.S. Navy personnel set to arrive in Australia by the end of 2025. Marles added that HMAS Stirling, the Royal Australian Navy base in Western Australia, will be fully upgraded to host the rotational submarine force by the end of 2027, and construction work on a dedicated submarine building yard in South Australia is progressing at the required pace to meet delivery targets for the locally built AUKUS submarines.

A high-stakes meeting at the White House’s Situation Room, convened for U.S. President Donald Trump to finalize a proposed 60-day ceasefire extension framework with Iran, wrapped up Friday with no clear announcement of next steps, leaving diplomatic efforts between the two longtime adversaries in limbo. The gathering of Trump and top national security aides came one day after U.S. officials confirmed the two sides had reached a preliminary memorandum of understanding, pending formal approval from both Trump and Iran’s supreme leadership.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump laid out three non-negotiable red lines he said any agreement must meet: Iran must make a permanent commitment to never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon, the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical global energy chokepoints — must be fully reopened to unrestricted, two-way commercial shipping, and all naval mines deployed in the waterway must be permanently destroyed. He also added that Iran must grant U.S. teams authorization to remove and destroy the country’s existing stockpiles of enriched uranium, adding that no financial sanctions relief would be exchanged until those conditions are met, noting that less contentious provisions have already been agreed by both negotiating teams. In a social media post earlier Friday, Trump also said he was prepared to lift the U.S. blockade of the strait to allow stranded vessels to begin departing for their home ports.

But Iranian officials have pushed back sharply on many of Trump’s stated terms, directly contradicting the U.S. version of the draft preliminary agreement. Iran’s state-aligned Fars News Agency reported that no provision requiring the destruction of Iranian nuclear materials was included in the memorandum of understanding, and labeled Trump’s latest comments as “a mixture of truth and lies.” Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei reiterated Iran’s longstanding position that the country will not enter any negotiations over its sovereign nuclear program, saying Tehran’s sole focus is on ending the ongoing armed conflict that began in February. Iran has repeatedly maintained its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful energy and medical purposes, and denies it has ever pursued a nuclear weapons capability.

Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf added Friday that the country places no trust in U.S. verbal guarantees, only tangible action, saying “No action will be taken before the other side acts” and warning that “The winner of any agreement is the one who is better prepared for war the day after.”

The current ceasefire between the two nations has been in place since April 8, after a sharp escalation of hostilities that began when the U.S. and Israel launched large-scale coordinated strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure on February 28. Iran responded with missile attacks on Israel and U.S. military assets across the Persian Gulf, and moved to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supplies pass — sending global crude prices soaring in the weeks that followed.

In recent days, both sides have repeatedly accused one another of violating the fragile truce. Just this week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a missile attack on a U.S. air base in Kuwait, which it said was the staging ground for earlier strikes on Bandar Abbas, a strategic Iranian port city adjacent to the strait. U.S. Central Command condemned the attack as an “egregious ceasefire violation.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters Thursday that negotiators from both sides were still ironing out a handful of remaining sticking points, most notably language related to Uranium enrichment, an issue at the core of decades of tensions between the U.S. and Iran. “We’re not there yet, but we’re very close and we’re going to keep on working at it,” Vance said. A senior White House official confirmed the conclusion of Friday’s meeting to reporters after it adjourned, but declined to share any further details on the internal discussion or a timeline for future talks. For weeks, Trump has repeatedly publicly claimed that Washington and Tehran are close to reaching a historic deal, and that negotiations are progressing smoothly, but as of yet no substantive final agreement has materialized.