The top section of a giant television tower in Kharkiv has crashed to the ground after the structure was hit by a Russian missile, a Ukrainian official says.

Video circulating on social media shows the moment the top of the mast broke, rotated through 180 degrees, and fell to earth. Smoke could already be seen billowing from the structure where it had apparently been struck by what Kharkiv prosecutors said was a Kh-59 cruise missile.

Subsequent videos also posted on social media show the mast lying where it fell, surrounded by trees at the foot of the tower.

The structure – which stood more than 240 meters high – was erected in the early 1980s, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration, said staff at the tower had been in the shelter at the time of the attack and no one had been injured. The digital TV signal in the city was “suffering interruptions,” he added.

Kharkiv – located just 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border with Russia – has seen a big increase in Russian strikes since the start of the year.

A month ago, the city’s main power plant was destroyed in a Russian strike, along with all electricity substations in the city, according to the mayor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a phone conversation with his US counterpart Joe Biden, during which he told the American president about the attack on the TV tower, said Russia was trying to “make the city uninhabitable.”

These almost daily barrages on Ukraine’s second largest city are one of the reasons Kyiv has made air defenses among its top priorities for new US military aid.

The US Senate is expected to vote this week on legislation worth $60 billion after it was approved in the House on the weekend.

The Pentagon has said it can get materiel moving “within days” of receiving the green light.

The Israeli military intelligence chief has resigned over his “leadership responsibility” for the Hamas-led October 7 attacks into southern Israel, which led to the killing of 1,200 people and another 250 kidnapped.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva is the first senior military figure to step down over the Hamas attacks on October 7, which was the deadliest day for Israel since its founding.

“It was decided that MG Aharon Haliva will end his position and retire from the IDF, once his successor is appointed in an orderly and professional process,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Monday, thanking him for his 38 years of service.

In October, Haliva admitted to an “intelligence failure” by his unit in not alerting the Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

“During my visits to IDF Intelligence bases over the last 11 days, I have repeatedly said that this war began with an intelligence failure. The Intelligence Directorate, under my command, has failed to alert this terror attack launched by Hamas,” Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva said then in a letter to IDF’s intelligence personnel.

“We didn’t fulfil our most important task, and as the head of the Intelligence Directorate, I take full responsibility for this failure.” These were Haliva’s first comments since the attack.

They came after Israel’s top domestic security official took responsibility on for the attacks.

Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar wrote in a statement then that, “despite a series of actions we carried out, we weren’t able to create a sufficient warning that would allow the attack to be thwarted,” adding, “The responsibility is on me,” according to Israel’s Army Radio station.

The attack was widely seen as a major Israeli intelligence failure, with a number of top defense and security officials coming forward in October to take responsibility to some extent for missteps that led to the attacks.

In December, a report from the New York Times claimed Israel obtained Hamas’ plan for the attack more than a year in advance. The report said Israeli officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, and deemed it too complex for the group to carry out. Other outlets, including Israeli newspaper Haaretz, have also reported the claim.

Soon after the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received sharp public criticism after he accused security chiefs in a later-deleted social media post of failing to warn him about the impending attack.

China has accused the United States of “stoking military confrontation” with the recent deployment of a powerful missile launcher capable of firing weapons with a range of up to 1,600 kilometers to exercises in the Philippines.

The US Army’s Mid-Range Capability (MRC) ground-based missile system arrives in a region on edge following a series of dangerous Chinese-Philippine face-offs in the South China Sea, during which Philippine ships have been targeted with water cannons, injuring several Filipino sailors.

It’s the first-ever deployment of the MRC missile system, also known as the Typhon system, to the Indo-Pacific theater, and it comes amid a series of US-Philippine military exercises, including the largest-ever edition of the annual bilateral Balikatan drills beginning Monday.

The US Army has not said how long the Typhon system will remain in the Philippines, but its involvement in the series of joint exercises between the two treaty allies, the first of which began on April 8, sends a signal the US can put offensive weaponry well within striking distance of Chinese installations in the South China Sea, the southern Chinese mainland and along the Taiwan Strait, analysts say.

The Typhon system is capable of firing the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), a ballistic missile defense munition that can also target ships at sea at a range of 370 kilometers (230 miles), according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

It also can fire the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, a maneuverable cruise missile with a range of 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles), according to the CSIS.

According to Beijing its presence in the region increases the risks of “misjudgment and miscalculation.”

During a regular news briefing last week, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian accused the US of seeking a “unilateral military advantage,” and underscored Beijing’s strong opposition to the deployment.

“We urge the US to earnestly respect other countries’ security concerns, stop stoking military confrontation, stop undermining peace and stability in the region, and take concrete actions to reduce strategic risks,” Lin said.

The US Army is calling the deployment, which began April 11 for the Salaknib exercise, a “landmark” in its regional capability.

Diplomatic fallout

The apparent diplomatic fallout comes as attendees from 29 countries, including the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, attend a two-day Western Pacific Naval Symposium, which began in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao on Sunday.

The attendees will discuss “maritime peace, maritime order based on maritime security cooperation and international laws, and global maritime governance,” according to Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.

Those are the same rules Washington and Manila accuse Beijing of ignoring with aggressive Chinese actions that have injured Filipino sailors and damaged vessels around disputed features in the South China Sea.

The 1951 mutual defense treaty between the US and the Philippines – the oldest such US pact in Asia-Pacific – stipulates both sides would help defend each other if either were attacked by a third party.

China’s missile advantage

Analysts say the deployment of the Typhon missile battery is the first signal of US plans to address what has long been an advantage for Beijing in the region.

“This in some way ‘equalizes’ the prior situation where (Chinese) missiles have threatened US forces along the First Island Chain (which includes the northern Philippines, Japan and Taiwan), and even further eastward along the Second Island Chain centering on Guam,” said Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

A 2021 report for the US Army’s professional journal Military Review puts the current missile advantage of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) in stark terms.

“The conventional arm of the PLARF is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough antiship missiles to attack every US surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defense,” Army Maj. Christopher Milhal wrote.

While the Typhon can’t bring those kinds of numbers into play for US forces, its mobility represents a problem for Chinese mission planners — giving it important deterrent value, analysts say.

In announcing the Typhon deployment, the US military noted how the system was delivered to the Philippines via an 8,000-mile, 15-hour flight from Washington state by a US Air Force C-17 cargo jet.

Analysts don’t expect the Typhon system to be permanently based in the Philippines, but Koh said the ability to move the batteries to a range of “pre-surveyed launch sites” around the region on short notice increases their survivability and challenges relatively new and untested Chinese intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and targeting capabilities.

Whether the Typhon’s likely temporary status mitigates the fallout remains unknown. but China has previously reacted furiously to missile deployments in what it sees as its backyard.

Writing in the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance Blog, analyst Rupert Schulenberg noted that in 2016, when South Korea agreed to the deployment of a THAAD defensive missile system on the Korean Peninsula, “Beijing responded with an unofficial economic boycott that cost South Korea’s economy $7.5 billion in 2017 alone.”

The current deployment of the Typhon was something that would not have even been an option for the US military until 2019. Development of ground-launched missile systems of the type were banned under the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union.

But the US formally withdrew from the treaty in 2019, with then-President Donald Trump “citing Russian noncompliance and concerns about China’s intermediate-range missile arsenal.”

Balikatan exercises begin

Meanwhile, the US and the Philippines kicked-off the largest of their series of joint exercises Monday, with the three-week Balikatan drills — Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder — involving thousands of military personnel.

A report from the official Philippine News Agency said Manila would use the annual exercises to showcase its military’s most advanced systems, including a missile frigate, light fighter jets, close-combat support aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters.

Philippine officials previously indicated the naval portion of the exercise would for the first time extend beyond the 12-nautical-mile limit of Philippine waters — and into the country’s exclusive economic zone, some 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from Philippine shores, though no exact route has been provided.

It will also include French naval participation in a group sail from Palawan Island, according to Philippine officials.

Palawan, which sits between the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea, is about 200 kilometers from Second Thomas Shoal, a contested feature in the Spratly Islands that has been the site of numerous face-offs between Philippine and Chinese coast guard vessels.

This story has been updated.

This is Bill Weir’s fourth letter on Earth Day to his young son. His new book, “Life As We Know it (Can Be),” is available now in stores.

Dear River,

This is your fourth Earth Day, and so much has happened in your little lifespan that what started as an annual record of anger and regret has grown into a book full of hopeful solutions.

There are still dark days to be sure, and since you love animals so much, I can’t bring myself to explain just how many of your favorites are on extinction’s brink.

But so much has happened that I wake with more wonder than worry; when disasters strike, I remember the advice of Mister Rogers, who taught me that every time there is a scary event on TV, “Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.”

And while technology in the hands of the soulless can divide us, it can also connect the helpers in ways that can save entire ecosystems.

So, on this Earth Day, kiddo, let’s focus on a win.

I recently stumbled upon an Earth repair success story in the wilds of South America. It stars a family of little monkeys with big white hair. They were snacking on fruit and nectar, bouncing through the forest overstory when we first locked eyes.

“You guys have no idea how lucky you are,” I muttered at the Dr. Suess faces peering through my long lens.

Cotton-top tamarins are known locally as titis, and while only a few thousand remain in the shrinking forests of northwest Colombia, the family I saw is among the safest in the world thanks to one woman watching them with affection from below, hundreds of helpers watching monitoring them through a satellite from above, and a very long series of fortunate events.

The fate of the titis really began to turn when a woman I met in the jungle began her career as landscape architect, was hired to help build a zoo in Barranquilla and first fell in love with the cotton-topped titi. “I mean, how could you not?” Rosamira Guillen laughed, gesturing up at the family above.

When she learned that the illegal pet trade and slash-and-burn cattle ranching were erasing a species that lived only in her homeland of Colombia, her architect mind suddenly shifted from building zoos to rebuilding forests.

And River, it didn’t take long to understand that this job could not be done by dropping seeds from drones. It would take shovels and sweat and an intimate acre-by-acre knowledge of the ecology. It would take community organizing and youth education and economic development so the titi’s human neighbors wouldn’t need to cut down trees and poach animals to survive.

But to connect enough fragmented habitat for the remaining gene pool to thrive, she would need land. And the cooperation of cattle ranchers who do not share her love for toy-sized primates.

“I would be happy to just hang out with the monkeys and in the forest than to have to interact with people,” she laughed as we bumped over dirt roads in her worn pickup, and described how wanton deforestation can change water cycles and trigger ecosystem crash.

“In a country like Colombia, where there’s so many challenges, people don’t realize that if you screw up the forest we’re all going to be screwed. The ranchers see us as romantic,” she laughed with grim resignation.

But still, Rosamira wanted to be a helper, and in a search for funding met an American super-helper named Charlie Knowles.

As the scion of a family that invented the small microphones used in everything from Apollo spacecraft to Richard Nixon’s office to the iPhone, Charlie went into software and made enough of a fortune to retire at 34. Inspired by the story of biologist Laurie Marker who sold all her possessions and moved to Namibia to save cheetahs, Charlie told me he felt the same calling but knew that he had none of the skills required.

“What are my core competencies?” he asked himself. “I’m really good at throwing parties and raising money.”

With a cheetah borrowed from a petting zoo as a conversation starter, his first party raised $5,000, and with kindred souls from Silicon Valley, he set out to disrupt the world of nature philanthropy. “I became really frustrated by the lack of transparency,” Charlie told me. “I didn’t feel I knew where my money was going or what the impact it was having.”

So – alongside Akiko Yamazaki, John Lukas – Charlie co-founded the Wildlife Conservation Network and instead of telling donors to simply write a check and trust the process, WCN set out to create venture capital for animals like the titi and helpers like Rosamira.

They created expos to connect philanthropists in wealthy American suburbs with data-proven, wilderness-restoring, boots-on-the-ground conservationists. And they helped those folks make their operations more efficient and effective and often expanded their original vision of what was possible.

More than 20 years later, Charlie tells me that WCN supports hundreds of projects around the world with raves from the likes of Jane Goodall and a rare perfect score of 100 from the watchdog Charity Navigator.

One million-dollar donation funded over 200 scholarships for kids to study conservation. Another donor personally installed over 50 solar power arrays around the world. And at an expo in 2006, the fate of the titis turned for the better when the Vargas family walked in.

“I told my 12-year-old daughter, Kira, to go interview all the conservationists at the expo,” Chris Vargas told me. As another successful tech entrepreneur with a heart for wildlife and some money to give, he was searching for maximum bang for his buck.

“And on the drive home. I said, ‘Who is your favorite?’ Mine was Rosamira. She’s Steve Jobs and Jane Goodall all wrapped into one. Her energy, her passion, her clarity of purpose and her just sheer ingenuity,” Chris said. “But I wanted my daughter’s vote, without missing a beat she goes, ‘Daddy, you know that that woman from Colombia? Rosamira? She was my favorite’. So we high fived.”

For 18 years, the Vargas family would support Rosamira as she revived her corner of Colombia, one tree at a time. But when she needed $1.2 million to buy nearly 1,000 acres of neighboring ranchland, Chris needed to find more helpers.

“We thought, ‘Why don’t we just build a website? And build a technology that lets anybody in the world click on a map, pick an acre, pick ten acres, pick 50 acres, and get all that feedback one exactly what happened with your money.’”

Combining the eyes of a satellite and the hearts of nature lovers, Chris began an experiment in crowdsourced conservation he called ReWorld.

For a one-time donation of around $1,200, he promised to secure two-and-a-half acres of degraded Colombian forest, bring it back to life and preserve it for the titis forever. Thanks to real-time images from the satellite, the donors would be able to watch their hectare grow from scrub brush and dirt into trees that look like broccoli tops from the sky.

I just got word that Rosamira signed the papers today.

“It may take a day to cut a hectare of forest,” she told me as we hiked past her plantings and into a meticulous greenhouse. “But to rebuild it, it takes about 20 years.”

What happens now? Well, Charlie and Chris are hoping the developed world will build trustworthy and verifiable carbon and biodiversity credit markets to help fund operations like Project Titi, though they both admit it will be incredibly complicated.

Still, River, when days get dark and I feel that need to look for the helpers, I sometimes flash to the series of fortunate events that gave almost 1,000 acres of forest to the titis — and I imagine all the spots that need similar love.

With enough helpers, what else is possible?

President Joe Biden travels to Triangle, Virginia, Monday to mark Earth Day, where he’ll unveil $7 billion in grant funding for solar power under the Inflation Reduction Act and announce new steps to stand up his administration’s American Climate Corps – a program popular with youth climate groups.

The announcements come days after the Biden administration made several significant conservation announcements, including barring oil drilling on nearly half of the national petroleum reserve in Alaska.

Under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All program, the administration will announce funding awards to states territories, tribal governments, municipalities and nonprofits “to develop long-lasting solar programs that are targeted towards the communities and people who need them most,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe told reporters.

Per McCabe, the funding will enable nearly one million households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from solar power, saving more than $350 million in electric costs annually and more than $8 billion over the life of the program for overburdened households.

Biden will also announce new action on the federal Climate Corps – a workforce training and service initiative aimed at preparing young Americans for jobs in clean energy and climate resilience. The government will ease Climate Corps members’ transition to other federal jobs after they graduate from the program.

He also plans to announce a new partnership between the administration and TradesFutures, the non-profit arm of the North America’s Building Trades Unions, allowing Climate Corps members to access some of the union’s apprenticeship programs.

He’ll also tout an announcement from three states — Vermont, New Mexico and Illinois — launching their own state-based climate corps. Climate corps programs will employ people doing conservation work, as well as work constructing renewable energy like wind and solar.

Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks in Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, a site developed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, on which the American Climate Corps is modeled.

“In the midst of a depression, President Roosevelt called on the American people to come together, to take on the challenge and unlock the opportunity that sat inside of that– the opportunity to heal, to lift folks up, and to move America forward,” White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said Friday. “President Biden will talk about how the United States, in the face of a climate crisis fully manifest to the American people in communities all across the country, is also an opportunity for us to come together.”

Heavy rains hammered southern China on the weekend, flooding homes, streets and farmland and threatening to upend the lives of tens of millions of people as rescuers rushed to evacuate residents trapped by rising waters.

At least 11 people are missing, six of whom are from the town of Jiangwan near Shaoguan city in the province’s mountainous north, where heavy downpours have triggered landslides that injured six people, state-run news agency Xinhua said Monday.

Days of rainstorms have lashed Guangdong province, an economic powerhouse home to 127 million people, bringing widespread floods that have forced more than 82,500 people to be relocated, state media reported, citing the local government.

Since April 16, sustained torrential rains have pounded the Pearl River Delta, China’s manufacturing heartland and one of the country’s most populated regions, with four weather stations in Guangdong registering record rainfall for April.

The Pearl River basin is subject to annual flooding from April to September, but the region has faced more intense rainstorms and severe floods in recent years as scientists warn that the climate crisis will amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent.

Last year, China encountered “more intense and extreme” downpours during the flood season than in previous years, with 72 national weather stations registering record daily rainfall and 346 stations breaking monthly records, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Since last week, at least 44 rivers in the Pearl River basin have swelled above the warning line, threatening to burst their banks, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

On the Bei River, which flows into the Pearl River, authorities have warned of a “once a century” flood expected to reach 5.8 meters (19 feet) above the warning limit. The tributary had already burst its banks on April 8, marking the earliest arrival of its annual flood season since records began in 1998, according to Guangdong authorities.

Aerial footage aired by CCTV on the weekend showed villages inundated by murky flood waters, with only roofs and treetops visible in some places.

In Guangning county, Zhaoqing city, footage shared by residents on short video app Douyin shows muddy brown water gushing through village streets and sweeping away cars. In Shaoguan, a man is seen pushing his scooter through shoulder-high flood waters. And in Qingyuan city, social media footage shows strong gales and rain felling trees and flipping over motorcycles.

Authorities raised the flood control emergency response for the Pearl River Delta to level 2 on Sunday – the second highest in a four-tier system.

Many cities have suspended schools and hundreds of flights have been canceled in the metropolises of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

More than 80 houses have either collapsed or been severely damaged, resulting in a direct economic loss of nearly 140 million yuan ($20 million), Xinhua reported.

In 1987, Faris, a pilot in the Syrian Air Force, spent eight days in space with the Soviet Union’s Interkosmos spaceflight program. Faris flew with a Soviet crew to Mir space station becoming the first and only Syrian astronaut and second Arab to make it to space.

Syrians gathered to watch the moment when the former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, father of current President Bashar, spoke with Faris during a phone call broadcast live on state TV, while Faris was in space, and asked him what he could see. Faris responded, “I see my beloved country, I see it wonderful and beautiful as it truly is.” These words, though seemingly innocuous, marked the beginning of his downfall.

In a 2023 documentary aired on news network Al Jazeera, Faris revealed he had chosen not to read a pre-written speech during the live phone call and ad-libbed instead, irking the Syrian dictator who was not used to sharing the limelight with another Syrian.

Upon his return to Syria, Faris was celebrated as a national hero by tens of thousands of Syrians. However, Hafez al-Assad took a different view. During a medal ceremony, where the protocol was for the president to hang the medal around the recipient’s neck, Faris was instead handed the medal in a box.

Faris said in an interview in his later years that he had asked the president to fund a national space program to help educate more Syrians to follow his footsteps into space, but Assad refused because – according to Faris – he was not interested in helping his countrymen to develop themselves.

Faris said the “curtain fell” in his dealings with Hafez al-Assad during their last meeting attended by Saudi astronaut Prince Sultan bin Salman. Assad reminded Faris of a moment during takeoff when he exclaimed “Ya Allah”, which literally translates as “Oh God” but in colloquial Arabic is akin to saying, “let’s go,” which Assad claimed was offensive to the Russians. Faris countered, “The Russians were not upset; it was a normal thing for them.”

Faris lived a quiet life in Aleppo following his return to Earth. Following Hafez’s death and the ascension of his son Bashar al-Assad to the presidency, Faris was supportive of the Syrian revolution that started in 2011.  Faris decided in 2012 to defect and publicly oppose the Syrian regime, putting his family and himself in life-threatening danger.

“When we decided to leave Syria, I scattered my children in different neighborhoods of Aleppo to meet at a particular point. We left in a car with the person who helped us escape,” Faris told Al Jazeera in 2023.

“There was a helicopter overhead, but as soon as we entered a town where the Free Syrian Army had machine guns, they withdrew,” Faris added.

Days later, Faris moved to Turkey to live as a refugee. He became very popular among the Syrian refugee community in Istanbul. In 2020, Faris was granted Turkish citizenship, as reported by the Turkish state broadcaster TRT.

Faris, who had lived in Russia between 1985-1987 for training in the closed Star City in the Moscow region ahead of his space journey and was later awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, was critical of Russia’s support of the Syrian regime. In a March 2016 interview with AP, Faris said he regretted Moscow propping up the dictatorship in Syria, saying: “I am very sorry about the Russian interference, which has stood on the side of dictator Bashar al-Assad, and has begun to kill the Syrian people with their planes.”

More than 13 million Ecuadorians are expected to head to the polls Sunday for a referendum dominated by security issues, in a vote that could shape the political future of President Daniel Noboa and his tough-on-crime agenda.

Noboa, the son of a banana tycoon, swept into office last November as the youngest president in Ecuador’s history on the back of a promise to rein in the rampant crime that has transformed the once tranquil country into one plagued by violence and turf wars between drug cartels.

Since then he has embarked on an uncompromising agenda in which he has declared “war” on more than 20 criminal gangs he has labeled as “terrorists,” declared a 90-day state of emergency, and authorized a highly controversial raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito to capture a fugitive Ecuadorian former vice president accused of corruption.

Experts say Sunday’s vote will reveal a lot about how much public backing there is for Noboa and the decisions he’s made in the past six months and could well be a deciding factor in whether he seeks another term when his current one ends in May 2025.

The referendum will ask 11 questions, five that will modify the Constitution if approved and six that are advisory. More than 13 million of Ecuador’s population of nearly 18 million are eligible to vote – and in Ecuador, voting is obligatory.

Among the biggest proposals are measures to allow the military to patrol with police to combat organized crime (something that can currently only happen under a state of emergency, which has a 90 day limit); to allow the extradition of Ecuadorians (currently prohibited by the Constitution); and to raise the penalties for those found guilty of violent crimes.

“We require urgent reforms that allow us to protect our security,” Noboa told a military event in March. “This process can only continue, it can only be sustained, if we give the National Police and the Armed Forces the clear and firm support that we are proposing in the referendum.”

Descent into violence

Ecuador, home to the Galapagos islands and a tourist-friendly dollar economy, was once known as an “island of peace,” nestled between the world’s two largest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia.

But the country’s deep ports have made it a key transit point for cocaine making its way to consumers in the United States and Europe. Rival criminal organizations are locked in a battle to control these trafficking routes.

This violence is increasingly spilling over into the public sphere in brutal fashion. According to figures by the Ecuadorian National Police, the murder rate in 2016 was 5.8 homicides per 100,000 people. By 2022, it had spiked to 25.6, a similar level to that of Colombia and Mexico, countries with a long history of drug cartel violence.

It was Ecuadorians’ growing discontent with the deteriorating security conditions that led Noboa’s predecessor Guillermo Lasso to call a snap election last year.

Noboa, a relative political novice at the time, won that election in a run-off vote with a tough-on-crime message that gained further resonance when anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated at a campaign event.

Just a few weeks into Noboa’s term, he declared a nationwide state of emergency after the security situation deteriorated in spectacular fashion following the escape of the notorious gang leader Adolfo Macias, also known as Fito, from a prison in Guayaquil, the country’s biggest and arguably most dangerous city.

In response to the escape, the government deployed more than 3,000 police officers and members of the armed forces to find Fito. It was unsuccessful.

Criminal groups then responded by embarking on a wave of violent attacks – including taking over a TV station that was broadcasting live on air – in a show of strength meant to discourage the crackdown.

Hours later, Noboa took the unprecedented step of declaring an “internal armed conflict” and ordered Ecuador’s armed forces to “neutralize” the members of more than 20 gangs, which he labeled as terror groups.

Embassy controversy

Noboa burnished his credentials as an uncompromising enforcer this month when he ordered police to raid the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who was facing embezzlement charges and had been seeking asylum there. Glas has denied the charges, which he claims are politically motivated.

The raid made waves internationally as, under diplomatic norms, embassies are generally considered protected spaces.

Mexico decried the raid as “an outrage against international law,” and has since severed diplomatic ties. Various other Latin American countries have rallied around Mexico while the United Nations has also voiced concern.

Noboa, on the other hand, claims to have no regrets, saying the security crisis in Ecuador called for “exceptional decisions,” and that he could not allow a convicted criminal to escape justice.

What else is on the agenda?

In an open letter published recently, Noboa tied the embassy raid to the upcoming referendum, claiming “a vast majority of Ecuadoreans” would defend his decision with their vote.

It’s unclear though if support for Noboa will be blunted by an energy shortage that has led him to order 8-hour nationwide power cuts and a complete shutdown of the private and public sector for a two-day period.

The crisis has been sparked by low reservoirs levels, as Ecuador relies largely on hydropower. However, without showing evidence, Noboa has blamed “saboteurs” and says he has ordered an investigation.

Beyond security, other proposals in the referendum include measures that would enable companies to hire workers on hourly wages and the recognition of international arbitrage to resolve investment disputes.

The referendum has met opposition among some groups who claim the matters can be dealt with in the National Assembly.

All proposals can be approved or rejected individually.

The total solar eclipse has come and gone, but sky-gazers have reason to keep looking up — a meteor shower will peak this week right before a full moon rises. The bright orb may steal some of the Lyrids’ thunder, but experts have some tips on how best to view the celestial spectacle.

The Lyrid meteor shower will be most active Sunday night through the early morning hours of Monday, according to the American Meteor Society. And April’s full moon, also known as the pink moon, reaches the crest of its full phase at 7:49 p.m. ET Tuesday.

During the Lyrids’ peak, onlookers typically catch a glimpse of up to 18 meteors per hour, but this year the moon’s brightness will interfere with the sighting of faint meteors. The shower will be most visible to folks in the Northern Hemisphere, said Ashley King, a postdoctoral researcher of planetary sciences at London’s Natural History Museum. The Lyrids’ radiant, or the point the meteors appear to originate from, will not rise high enough in the Southern Hemisphere’s night sky for high rates of meteors to be seen, he explained.

How to catch sight of a Lyrid meteor

Night owls aiming to view the Lyrids will need to let their eyes adjust by going outside at least 10 to 15 minutes before trying to spot a meteor, King added. Since meteors can appear all over the sky, experts don’t recommended using a telescope or binoculars due to the devices’ small fields of view, according to NASA.

“The best time to go out (to see a meteor) is kind of the very early morning before the sun comes up,” King said. “If you can get somewhere dark and possibly get up high, so you can see lots of the sky, that’s ideal.”

The Lyrids are not known for being the fastest or the brightest meteors, but the shower could still provide a worthwhile celestial light show — and there is always a chance for surprises.

“You never know quite what you are going to see, and seeing a meteor is such a really nice way to see what’s going on and see that the solar system is active,” King said. “In a way, (by seeing a meteor) you’re looking at … some of the oldest materials that formed in the solar system.”

Look to the sky for the pink moon

The pink moon will be visible to everyone across the world, since Earth’s natural satellite will appear to be full for a couple of days.

Despite its name, this full moon will look like any other, said Paul Hayne, a planetary scientist with the University of Colorado Boulder. Any full moon may occasionally take on a reddish hue when near the horizon, due to light passing through Earth’s atmosphere.

The pink moon actually got its moniker due to its annual appearance not long after the start of spring, much like its namesake, a hot pink wildflower called Phlox subulata that blooms in early springtime, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

It’s best to view the full moon with binoculars, or even just the naked eye, as it might be too bright to view through a telescope, Hayne said.

“Our closest celestial neighbor has played a starring role in both human mythologies and the evolution of life on Earth. It’s also one of the most beautiful sights in the night sky that is visible without a telescope,” Hayne said in an email. “Looking up at a full moon is a great opportunity to be reminded of the vastness of space and our connection to the cosmos.”

More full moons this year

Of the 12 full moons in 2024, the September and October lunar events are set to be supermoons, according to EarthSky.

Definitions of a supermoon can vary, but the term generally denotes a full moon that is closer to Earth than normal and thus appears larger and brighter in the night sky. Some astronomers say the phenomenon occurs when the moon is within 90% of perigee — its closest approach to Earth in orbit.

Here are the remaining full moons of 2024:

• May 23: Flower moon

• June 21: Strawberry moon

• July 21: Buck moon

• August 19: Sturgeon moon

• September 17: Harvest moon

• October 17: Hunter’s moon

• November 15: Beaver moon

• December 15: Cold moon

Meteor showers of 2024

Sky-gazers can look forward to a multitude of meteor showers still to come this year, according to the American Meteor Society. Here are the dates when meteor events are expected to peak.

• Eta Aquariids: May 4-5

• Southern delta Aquariids: July 29-30

• Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31

• Perseids: August 11-12

• Draconids: October 7-8

• Orionids: October 20-21

• Southern Taurids: November 4-5

• Northern Taurids: November 11-12

• Leonids: November 17-18

• Geminids: December 13-14

• Ursids: December 21-22

Solar and lunar eclipses

While the most highly anticipated of 2024’s eclipse events was the total solar eclipse on April 8, an annular solar eclipse will occur on October 2 over parts of South America. In this type of eclipse, the moon is at the farthest point from Earth within its orbit as it passes between our planet and the sun, so it can’t completely block the fiery orb. Instead, an annular solar eclipse creates a “ring of fire” in the sky as the sun’s light surrounds the moon.

Meanwhile, a partial lunar eclipse will appear over Europe and much of Asia, Africa, North America and South America between September 17 and 18. During this event, Earth moves between the sun and the full moon in an almost perfect alignment, causing Earth’s shadow to obscure a portion of the lunar surface for those in the eclipse path.

On a slice of the ocean front in west Singapore, a startup is building a plant to turn carbon dioxide from air and seawater into the same material as seashells, in a process that will also produce “green” hydrogen — a much-hyped clean fuel.

The cluster of low-slung buildings starting to take shape in Tuas will become the “world’s largest” ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant when completed later this year, according to Equatic, the startup behind it that was spun out of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The idea is that the plant will pull water from the ocean, zap it with an electric current and run air through it to produce a series of chemical reactions to trap and store carbon dioxide as minerals, which can be put back in the sea or used on land.

It’s a compelling vision of a potential solution in the face of a worsening climate crisis that has fueled unprecedented heat and devastating extreme weather. Efforts to rein in global heating remain hugely off track, and many scientists are now warning that, in addition to rapidly reducing fossil fuels, the world will also need to remove carbon pollution humans have already pumped into the atmosphere.

This Singapore plant is one example of a slew of recent projects that are looking to the oceans, which already absorb almost 30% of humanity’s planet-heating pollution, as a tool to do this. Other projects include sprinkling iron particles into the ocean to stimulate CO2-absorbing phytoplankton, sinking seaweed into the depths to lock up carbon and spraying particles into marine clouds to reflect away some of the sun’s energy.

But carbon-removal projects are controversial, criticized for being expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuels. And when they involve the oceans — complex ecosystems already under huge strain from global warming — criticisms can get even louder.

How it works

Equatic’s technology, which has been tested in small pilot projects in LA and Singapore, requires three main ingredients: seawater, rocks and electricity.

It works like this: The plant pumps in seawater and runs an electric current through it, separating it into four components: two liquids, one acid and one alkaline, and two gases, hydrogen and oxygen.

The acidic water will be mixed with crushed rocks to get the pH back to the same levels as seawater and then sent back into the ocean.

Fans will pump air through the alkaline stream, which causes carbon dioxide to form solid calcium carbonate, the material from which seashells are formed, which will look like a fine sand, as well as dissolved bicarbonate.

The solid and dissolved minerals, which Equatic says can lock up carbon for at least 10,000 years, will be returned to the ocean or used on land. The seawater will also be sent back into the sea, ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

None of the processing happens out in the open ocean, said Gaurav Sant, an Equatic founder and professor of sustainability at UCLA, “this is important because it allows you to measure everything that you’re doing perfectly.” This includes the electricity the plant uses as well as the amount of carbon locked away.

The $20 million facility will be fully operational by the end of the year and able to remove 3,650 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, said Edward Sanders, chief operating officer of Equatic, which has partnered with Singapore’s National Water Agency to construct the plant. That amount is equivalent to taking roughly 870 average passenger cars off the road.

The upfront costs are high but the company says it plans to make money by selling carbon credits to polluters to offset their pollution, as well as selling the hydrogen produced during the process.

Equatic has already signed a deal with Boeing to sell it 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen, which it plans to use to create green fuel, and to fund the removal of 62,000 metric tons of CO2.

Fragile oceans

For some critics, however, the risks far outweigh the benefits.

Lili Fuhr, the deputy director of the climate and energy program at the Center for International Environmental Law, criticized the use of “speculative technology” at a time when “climate change is already killing our oceans.”

The process could also potentially disrupt the delicate balance of ocean chemistry, Niffenegger said. While there is plenty of research into the negative impacts of ocean acidification, there is much less on what might happen if the ocean becomes more alkaline.

There are indications the impacts may be low, he added, but “we’re not going to be able to understand the potential of this solution until we start actually deploying this kind of thing.”

Then there are the energy requirements — as the world moves away from fossil fuels, the demand for clean energy is increasing  exponentially. “Moving seawater would require vast amounts of renewable energy that would be better used to displace fossil fuels in the first place,” Fuhr said.

It’s a point echoed by Gatusso, who said “justice must be considered when precious electricity is used to remove carbon rather than providing it to populations in need.”

Equatic said it filters the seawater to ensure marine life does not enter the system, and that water discharged back into the ocean will have the same composition as normal seawater and will comply with Singapore’s environmental guidelines.

The company also said the production of hydrogen, which could be used to power the process, means its overall energy use is lower than other carbon removal methods.

Equatic’s project encapsulates a broader debate among those who fear rushing into geoengineering could unleash untold damage on ecosystems, versus those who believe the climate crisis is so acute this technology must be an option.

It’s clear which side Equatic is on.

“Inaction is not a climate strategy,” said UCLA’s Sant, adding that it’s vital to be able to make decisions with uncertainty. “If we’re serious about mitigating the trajectory of climate change,” Sant said, “we need to be willing to move, and move quickly at scale.”