British and US forces have launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, “raising fears of a broader escalation of conflict in the region”, says the FT. The defensive strikes came in response to the Iran-backed group’s repeated assaults on commercial ships in the Red Sea, which began in November. Israel has a plan to “destroy” Gaza that comes from the highest level of state, the UN’s top court has heard. The claims, which the Israeli government rejects as “baseless”, were made by lawyers for South Africa, which is accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. A valley of lost cities has been discovered in the Amazon after being buried for thousands of years. The settlements in the Upano region of Ecuador upend theories about how Amazonians used to live, with evidence of complicated urban societies including an “astounding network of roads and canals”.

Ecuador’s collapse into violence and lawlessness

Ecuador has become the “deadliest country in Latin America”, says The Economist. On Tuesday, masked gunmen stormed a TV studio during a live broadcast, pistol-whipping staff to the floor and taking selfies in front of the camera. The same day, an armed mob raided Guayaquil University, taking students hostage and firing at police. The violence came after guards at one of the biggest prisons in the country discovered that the head of the Los Choneros gang had escaped. As other gangsters got wind of the news, riots kicked off in at least six other jails. “Some guards were hanged.” When President Daniel Noboa then declared a two-month state of emergency, mobsters took to the streets, “detonating bombs, burning cars and kidnapping policemen”.

Just four years ago, Ecuador was one of the safest countries on the continent, with a homicide rate (6.7 per 100,000) comparable to that of the US. By last year, that rate had grown more than six-fold, to 45 per 100,000. The reason, of course, is drugs. After Colombian ports tightened their security in 2009, Guayaquil became an important hub through which cocaine could be shipped to the US and Europe. And when Colombia’s government signed a peace deal in 2016 with the guerrilla group FARC, which had monopolised the narcotics trade, rival gangs “poured in to fill the power vacuum”. Mexican groups funded Ecuadorian ones; the Albanian mafia expanded its operations in the region. President Noboa has tried to take an “iron fist” to these gangs. So far, it’s not doing much good.

The Sun has backed the eventual winner of every UK election in half a century, says Stephen Daisley in The Spectator. So why is Rupert Murdoch’s flagship red-top so down on Keir Starmer? Lazy critics of the Murdoch empire will chalk this up to partisan allegiance to the Tories, “but that is not how Murdoch operates”. He wants to be seen as leading public opinion, so he “follows public opinion and then takes credit for it”. Given the Tories haven’t led a single opinion poll since December 2021, The Sun’s “relentless hostility” to Starmer makes no obvious sense. Unless for some reason Murdoch, who has an undeniable feel for the public’s true mood, “doesn’t believe Starmer is a winner”.

This video of the subjects of old portraits being given silly facial expressions has racked up more than 12 million views on X (formerly Twitter). Watch the whole clip here.

Why do progressives want Taylor Swift to be gay?

It never ceases to amaze me what The New York Times will devote thousands of words to,” says Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. But the Gray Lady’s “criminally verbose” piece analysing why Taylor Swift might be bisexual or a lesbian really takes the biscuit. Over a truly insane 4,764 words, Times writer Anna Marks goes on a “yucky wild goose chase”, plucking out supposed “hairpins” – coded messages for queer identity – in the pop star’s music videos and concerts. Yes, that’s right: a major newspaper ran a “creepy, irresponsibly speculative” effort to out “a famous woman who has a famous boyfriend”. What is this, the 1980s?

It’s bad enough that the whole thing feels like “a conspiracy theorist’s basement with walls plastered in a celebrity’s photos and scribbled-on newspaper clippings”. Supposed bombshells include the fact that Swift once dyed her hair the colours of the bisexual pride flag, and that she often wears rainbow outfits. Quick – “call the Pulitzer committee”. Worse is that, as is so often the case in these snooty papers, the “trashy whispers” are framed as “important and intellectual” discourse. You might have thought a progressive outlet like The New York Times would be impressed by a strong, independent woman who has just been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, and grossed more than $1bn in ticket sales for her latest tour. Sadly not. “They just wish she was gay.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, being a world leader isn’t great for your health, says The Economist. A 2015 study which looked at elections in 17 rich countries, going back as far as 1722, found that the winners went on to live for an average of 4.4 fewer years than the losers.

It’s an artist’s impression of a floating swimming pool proposed for New York City’s East River. The so-called +Pool would be 9,000 sq ft, with the ability to filter and then take in the surrounding water. A 2,000 sq ft test version is set to be installed this summer.