What began as a festive campaign march quickly turned into a scene of terror in the Mexican state of Veracruz on Sunday night when a mayoral candidate was gunned down alongside three other people.

A Facebook live stream captured the horror of that day. It showed Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez greeting residents as she paraded through the streets of Texistepec, surrounded by a caravan of supporters.

The crowd was seen smiling and chanting before gunfire suddenly rang out off camera, drowning out their cheers. About 20 gunshots were heard in the video, which was still available on Lara’s Facebook page the following day.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the attack during her morning press conference on Monday and said she had no information yet about the motive. She added that her government is in coordination with Veracruz state officials and offered federal support if necessary, including contact with the state attorney general’s office.

“We’re coordinating, particularly with the Secretary of Security, and with all the support needed during this electoral period from Veracruz and Durango,” she said, referring to the upcoming June 1 elections in the two states.

The mayoral candidate, a member of Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party, was among four people killed in the shooting, according to the state attorney general’s office. Another three people were wounded.

Authorities are still investigating the matter and are promising justice.

“No position or office is worth a person’s life,” Veracruz Governor Rocío Nahle said on X. “We will find those responsible for this cowardly murder of the Morena candidate and supporters in Texistepec.”

Attacks on political candidates are common during election cycles in Mexico.

Last year, the country saw a record number of victims from political-criminal violence, with Data Cívica, a human rights organization, reporting 661 attacks on people and facilities. Many of the victims either held or were running for municipal-level positions.

In May 2024, a mayoral candidate was killed during a campaign stop in the southern state of Guerrero, in a shooting that was captured on video.

Days later, the mayor of Cotija in Michoacán state was shot dead as she was walking from a gym back to her house with her bodyguard.

In October, the mayor of Guerrero’s capital Chilpancingo was killed less than a week after taking office.

Britain will toughen its requirements for legal migrants and extend the wait for newcomers to claim citizenship, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, announcing a slew of policy changes as he resists a political barrage from the country’s emboldened populist right.

Immigrants will now have to wait up to 10 years before they can seek to become British citizens – raised from five years – and requirements surrounding their skills level and proficiency in English will be raised, Starmer said, policies aimed at finally reversing a years-long increase in legal migration to Britain.

“This plan means migration will fall – that’s a promise,” Starmer said, declaring an end to what he called a “one-nation experiment in open borders.” He chastised the previous Conservative government for its record on migration, saying “the damage it has done to our country is incalculable.”

His intervention accompanied a long-awaited white paper on migration, but its timing was no coincidence; it comes less than two weeks after a round of local elections that were decisively won by Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party, an anti-immigration bloc, reflecting a sustained increase in support for the party in opinion polls.

Starmer adopted a tone more commonly associated with Farage during his Monday morning press conference in Downing Street, saying Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tough reform.

More than 700,000 more people entered the UK legally than left it last year, according to government figures for the year up to June 2024, a figure strikingly higher than either dominant party in British politics had ever intended to allow. The increase has added to the already high demand for housing and on Britain’s public services, but it has also created an avenue for foreign workers to staff the country’s chronically undermanned health care system.

Under the new plans, Starmer sought to toughen rules without shutting off those pipelines. The number of years before a migrant can apply for citizenship was doubled to 10, but people who contribute significantly to society, such as doctors, nurses and engineers, could be fast-tracked through the process.

A higher level of English language skills will be required for all immigrants, and graduates will be allowed to remain in the UK for 18 months after their degrees end, down from two years.

Overseas recruitment of social care workers will also end, a move that brings with it the threat of disruption to a sector that successive governments have tried and failed to modernize.

Farage criticized the announcement on Monday, calling Starmer “a hypocrite who believes in open borders.”

But the government will hope its proposal takes the sting out of a surge in support for the right-wing party, which is taking away votes from both Labour and the Conservatives with a sharply anti-migration message.

Starmer has separately attempted to toughen his party’s rhetoric on illegal migration, but the number of people crossing the English Channel on small boats is higher so far this year than it was in 2024, a political gift to Farage’s party.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was almost certain to be elected mayor of his home city by a landslide on Monday, unimpeded by his detention at the International Criminal Court on charges of murder as a crime against humanity.

With 80% of votes counted in an unofficial tally, Duterte, who was brought to The Hague in March over his bloody “war on drugs” that killed thousands of people, was winning the Davao mayoral contest with eight times more votes than his nearest rival.

The victory during nationwide midterm elections is testament to the 80-year-old’s enduring influence in the southern city, owing to his reputation as a crime-buster that earned him the nicknames “Duterte Harry” and “the Punisher.”

Duterte’s old Facebook account was flooded with congratulatory messages from supporters, with some calling for his return to serve his people.

“Congratulations, Tatay (father) D! Let’s bring him home,” read one of the comments.

Duterte could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial at the ICC.

His surprise arrest by Philippine police at the request of the ICC caused outrage among his army of supporters, who called it a kidnapping at the behest of a foreign court.

He has defended the anti-drugs crackdown and his legal team says his arrest was unlawful. The ICC maintains it has jurisdiction to prosecute alleged crimes committed before Duterte withdrew the Philippines from its founding treaty in 2019.

Despite the ICC’s case also including alleged killings of criminal suspects by a “death squad” in Davao while Duterte was mayor – which he has denied – analysts have said his arrest has only hardened support for him and his family, in Davao and beyond.

The former president’s two sons were also set to win posts on Monday, one reelected congressman and the other winning the contest for Davao vice mayor and likely to serve in his father’s absence.

The family’s political resilience and dominance in Davao could prove pivotal as Duterte’s popular daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, faces an impeachment trial that could see her banned from politics for life if convicted, killing off any hopes of a presidential run.

Asked earlier on Monday about her father’s likely victory, she said plans would be made for him to be sworn in as mayor.

“The ICC lawyer said once we get proclamation papers, we will discuss how he can take oath,” she said.

In his first interview since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire Saturday, Dar said Islamabad “had no choice” but to launch strikes in “self-defense” following India’s May 7 cross-border attacks.

Last week’s escalatory tit-for-tat strikes marked the worst fighting between the two nuclear-armed nations since 1971, killing dozens and deepening fears of a wider conflict.

Dar referred to India’s strikes as a “war” and a “wishful attempt to establish its hegemony” in the long-disputed Kashmir region – but said that the nuclear option was never on the table.

“There are certain times when you have to take very serious decisions,” he said, “We were very sure that our conventional capacity and capabilities are strong enough that we will beat them both in air and on ground.”

Following several days of fighting, Islamabad and New Delhi agreed to a US-brokered truce on Saturday, as explosions reportedly ripped through parts of Kashmir over one final burst of strikes.

“We still hope sense will prevail,” he said.

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that India has “only paused our responsive attack on Pakistan’s terror and military hubs.”

“Operation Sindoor has drawn a new line under the fight against terrorism – this is a new phase, a new normal,” he said, adding, “If there is a terror attack on India, we will give a jaw-breaking response.”

“India will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail,” Modi cautioned.

The Indian leader asserted the ferocity of his country’s attacks pushed Pakistan to look for “ways to save themselves” by reaching a ceasefire deal.

“They were calling the world to reduce tensions after being completely destroyed,” he said.

“(The Indians) had seen what happened in the sky,” he added. “They could see how serious the damage was.”

There was no direct contact between Indian or Pakistani officials, Dar said, contradicting a previous assertion made by India’s director general of military operations, who reportedly received a message from his counterpart in Pakistan during the talks.

Instead, Dar said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio passed on the message that India was ready to stop the fighting.

Rubio said in a Saturday statement that he and US Vice President JD Vance had spoken to the political and military leadership in India and Pakistan to secure agreement before the situation deteriorated further.

Calls for ‘self-determination’ in Kashmir

The Muslim-majority region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

Dar pointed to Kashmir as “the root cause of this regional instability” and called for the region’s “future self-determination.”

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups in Kashmir that conduct attacks across the border against Indian security forces, a charge Islamabad has rejected.

India launched its cross-border strikes last week in the wake of a tourist massacre in the Indian administered part of Kashmir in April.

Dar reiterated that Pakistan was not behind last month’s rampage, saying, “We condemn terrorism in all forms and all manifestations.”

He added that he believes US President Donald Trump supports Pakistan’s antiterrorism efforts.

“If they didn’t believe (in our efforts), they would not have cooperated the way (that they did),” Dar said, pointing to Trump’s social media post on “finding a solution” to the Kashmir conflict.

However, Dar warned that the already precarious ceasefire could be threatened “if the [Kashmir] water issue is not resolved” in the coming talks, referring to ongoing disputes of access to water from rivers in Kashmir. Pakistan’s proposed solution involves reversing India’s decision to block three vast Kashmir rivers vital to Pakistan’s economy.

Failure to resolve the water issue “will amount to an act of war,” he said.

Taiwan on Monday test-fired for the first time a new US-supplied rocket system that has been widely used by Ukraine against Russia and could be deployed to hit targets in China if there is a war with Taiwan.

The United States is Taiwan’s most important arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties. Taiwan has faced increased military pressure from China, including several rounds of war games, as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims over the island.

Taiwan has bought 29 of Lockheed Martin’s precision weapon High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, with the first batch of 11 received last year and the rest set to arrive by next year.

With a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles), they could hit coastal targets in China’s southern province of Fujian, on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, in the event of conflict.

The US-trained Taiwan military team fired the rockets from the Jiupeng test center on a remote part of the Pacific coast.

Officer Ho Hsiang-yih told reporters US personnel from the manufacturer were at the site to tackle any problems.

“I believe that this rocket firing shows our people the military’s determination to protect the country’s security and safeguard our beautiful homeland,” he added.

HIMARS, one of Ukraine’s main strike systems, has been used multiple times during the war with Russia. In March, Australia said it had received the first two of 42 HIMARS launcher vehicles.

The test came a day after Taiwan said it had detected another “joint combat readiness patrol” by China’s military near the island, involving warplanes and warships.

Taiwan’s democratically-elected government rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

The United Nations mission in Libya called for de-escalation Monday after fighting erupted in the North African nation’s capital.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) is “alarmed by the unfolding security situation in Tripoli with intense fighting with heavy weaponry in densely populated civilian areas,” it said in a post on X late Monday.

“The Mission calls on all parties to immediately cease fighting and restore calm, and reminds all parties of their obligations to protect civilians at all times,” UNSMIL added.

“Attacks on civilians and civilian objects may amount to war crimes.”

Gunfire was heard in Tripoli as reports emerged that a prominent commander, Abdulghani Kikli of the Support Force Apparatus SSA, one of the capital’s most powerful armed groups, was killed, Reuters reported. The Support Force Apparatus SSA is a state-backed security institution affiliated with the Presidential Council, according to its website.

Libya has been embroiled in a political conflict since long-time dictator Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, leading to the emergence of several armed groups.

While a 2020 ceasefire brought some peace, the country remains fragile and divided, with the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) ruling in Tripoli and the northwest and the Government of National Stability ruling in Benghazi in the east.

Armed clashes have occasionally been reported, with major factions vying for control over Libya’s substantial oil and gas reserves.

Amid reports of violence, the GNU’s health ministry told local hospitals and medical centers in Tripoli to prepare for emergencies, according to a post on its Facebook account.

The GNU’s interior ministry called on citizens in a short statement to stay at home “for their own safety,” according to Reuters.

The University of Tripoli Presidency also announced on Facebook the suspension of all studies, exams, and administrative work until further notice.

The administration appeared to be moving forward with those plans as recently as Wednesday, when migrants believed to be bound for Libya sat for hours on a bus before abruptly being returned to a detention facility. The White House declined to comment on those flight plans.

A court in Paris on Tuesday found French actor Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021 and handed him an 18-month suspended prison sentence.

In one of the highest-profile #MeToo cases to come before judges in France, Depardieu, a towering figure of French cinema, had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. But judge Thierry Donard said Depardieu’s explanation of events had been unconvincing.

One of the two plaintiffs, Amelie K, a set decorator, had told the court the actor had groped her all over her body as he trapped her between his legs and made explicit sexual comments.

“He touched everything, including my breasts,” she told the court. “I was terrified, he was laughing.”

The presiding judge said two witnesses corroborated her account whilst Depardieu had been contradictory in his own accounts.

The #MeToo protest movement over sexual violence has struggled to gain the same traction in France as in the United States, though there are signs that social attitudes towards sexual assault may be changing.

This is a developing story and will be updated.