Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made an unannounced visit to Lithuania, a key ally of Kyiv as it battles Russia’s invasion.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said in a statement he was welcoming Zelensky to his country, where the two leaders would discuss the war and Ukrainian “integration into the EU and NATO.”

Zelenksy said the issue of “cooperation on electronic warfare and drones” would also be on the agenda, following sustained Russian air strikes on Ukraine in what has been a bloody start to the new year.

Zelensky arrived Wednesday at the airport in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, on a plane bearing the Ukrainian coat of arms. He will then visit the other two Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, he said on Telegram, without giving a timeline.

Support for Ukraine in the Baltics has remained resolute while it has wavered in Washington. Ukraine in December received its last package of military aid from the United States until a divided Congress approves the Biden administration’s funding request, which seeks to steel Ukraine as it prepares to enter its third year of war.

The Ukrainian president last visited Lithuania in July 2023 to attend the annual NATO summit, where he pushed for a clear path for his country to join the alliance and a timeline for its accession.

Ukraine did, however, secure a streamlined path to future membership. NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said the bloc had changed Ukraine’s membership path “from a two-step process to a one-step process,” by removing the Membership Action Plan – a burdensome program of economic, defense and security reforms other recently admitted countries had to go through before joining the bloc.

Zelensky received a hero’s welcome from the Lithuanian public when he gave a speech in Lukiskes Square during the summit. Addressing thousands on a stage decked out with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag, Zelensky said that “Ukraine will make NATO stronger.”

Lithuania was the first country to leave the Soviet Union, splitting from the bloc in March 1990. Lukiskes Square once featured a huge state of Lenin – and large crowds gathered to celebrate its removal in 1991. Many in the country retain deep historical resentment towards Russia, which has fueled its staunch support for Ukraine.

Arriving in Vilnius Wednesday, Zelensky once again expressed his “gratitude” towards Lithuania. Writing on X, he thanked his ally for its “uncompromising support for Ukraine since 2014 and especially now, during Russia’s full-scale aggression.”

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which monitors and ranks countries’ financial support for Ukraine, Lithuania has committed around 1.4% of its GDP in aid for Ukraine – the second-highest amount among Kyiv’s allies, behind only Norway.

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has made his first court appearance from the Siberian penal colony he was moved to late last month.

Posting on X, Navalny’s team said he appeared via video link from the IK-3 penal colony in relation to a lawsuit he has filed against the prison administration.

The opposition figure is suing the prison authorities over the conditions of his detention.

Fears for Navalny’s wellbeing mounted last month after his team could not reach him for a fortnight in December. On December 25, his team said that they had finally managed to locate him at the Siberian penal colony in Kharp, to which he had been transferred.

The hearing comes after Navalny provided an insight into life at the remote penal colony, commonly referred to as “Polar Wolf,” in a highly sarcastic social media post Tuesday.

The Russian politician said he was sentenced to seven days in a punishment cell for allegedly failing to “introduce himself according to the format,” not responding to “educational work” and not drawing “appropriate conclusions for himself.”

Navalny provided some details on his routine in the punishment cell, which sees him forced to take his daily walk in freezing temperatures at 6.30am in the morning.

“Few things are as refreshing as a walk in Yamal at 6:30 in the morning. And what a wonderful fresh breeze that blows into the courtyard despite the concrete fence, it’s just wow!,” Navalny remarked.

The Russian politician also shared a picture of his supposed “walking yard” that stretches “11 steps from the wall and 3 to the wall.”

He joked that it is still possible to walk in the -13F temperatures, provided one has “time to grow a new nose, ears, and fingers.”

Kharp, in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, is almost 2,000 miles from Moscow, where Navalny had previously been held.

Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, said after the transfer was discovered that the IK-3 colony was “one of the northernmost and most remote colonies.”

“The conditions there are harsh, with a special regime in the permafrost zone. It is very difficult to get there, and there are no letter delivery systems,” Zhdanov wrote on X.

Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August last year after being found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities and numerous other crimes. He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies.

Supporters of Navalny claim his arrest and incarceration are a politically motivated attempt to stifle his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Astrobotic Technology, the company that developed the first lunar lander to launch from the United States in five decades, said it is abandoning an attempt to put its Peregrine spacecraft on the moon less than 24 hours after the vehicle took flight.

The spacecraft has suffered “critical” propellant loss from a fuel leak, according to the company.

Just hours after the vehicle launched from Florida toward the moon early Monday morning, Astrobotic announced the mission was in jeopardy. The lunar lander, dubbed Peregrine, was unable to place itself in a position facing the sun, likely because of a propulsion issue, according to Astrobotic. That wayward orientation prevented the spacecraft from charging its batteries.

The battery issue was later resolved, but Astrobotic was not able to correct the apparent issue with the Peregrine lander’s propulsion system.

In a statement late Monday evening, the company said a fuel leak is causing the thrusters of Peregrine lander’s attitude control system — which are designed to precisely align the 6-foot-tall box-shaped lander while in space — have had to “operate well beyond their expected service life cycles to keep the lander from an uncontrollable tumble.”

Astrobotic added that the thrusters could likely only operate for 40 more hours at most.

“At this time, the goal is to get Peregrine as close to lunar distance as we can before it loses the ability to maintain its sun-pointing position and subsequently loses power,” according to the company.

That means a potential moon landing, which had been slated for February 23, is off the table.

Astrobotic had already warned just after 1 p.m. ET that a “failure within the propulsion system” was draining the vehicle’s fuel. But the company worked for hours Monday to attempt to stabilize the issue and assess options.

At one point Monday afternoon, Astrobotic also shared the first image of the Peregrine lander in space. The photograph showed that the outer layers of insulation on the vehicle were crinkled.

The distorted material was “the first visual clue that aligns with our telemetry data pointing to a propulsion system anomaly,” the company said in a post on the social media platform X at 4:12 p.m. ET on Monday.

From launch to a lunar trajectory

The lunar lander, called Peregrine after the fastest bird in the world, appeared to have a wholly successful first leg of its trip after lifting off at 2:18 a.m. ET atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket developed by the joint Lockheed Martin and Boeing venture United Launch Alliance.

It was the first ever flight of a Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle from ULA designed to replace its older lineup of rockets.

The company confirmed just after 3 a.m. ET that the Vulcan Centaur performed as expected, delivering the Peregrine lunar lander into a trans-lunar injection orbit, according to ULA. That involves a precisely timed engine burn that pushed the Peregrine lander onto a path in Earth’s orbit that should allow it to sync up with the moon some 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) away.

The Peregrine lander was then expected to fire up its own onboard thrusters, using up to three maneuvers to pinpoint its path.

In a statement, Astrobotic said that Peregrine successfully began communicating with NASA’s Deep Space Network, activated its avionics systems, and “the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected.”

“After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state,” the company said.

It was after that, however, that the Peregrine lander experienced the “anomaly” that left the vehicle pointed away from the sun and unable to charge its battery.

Mission controllers then “developed and executed an improvised maneuver to reorient the solar panels toward the Sun,” according to Astrobotic.

They accomplished that goal.

“The team’s improvised maneuver was successful in reorienting Peregrine’s solar array towards the Sun. We are now charging the battery,” the company said in an update posted at 12:34 p.m. ET.

Still, Astrobotic said it must correct the underlying propulsion issue. The spacecraft would need to use its onboard thrusters — and have enough propellant left over — to make a soft touchdown on the moon.

Peregrine mission stakes

Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic Technology developed Peregrine under a $108 million contract with NASA. The vehicle was designed from the outset to be relatively cheap — aiming to fulfill NASA’s vision to reduce the cost of putting a robotic lander on the moon by asking the private sector to compete for such contracts.

“This really is like a 50-50 shots on goal kind of an approach — where it’s really more about the industry succeeding, not any specific one mission,” Thornton said.

Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, issued a statement Monday, saying, “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow. We will use this lesson to propel our efforts to advance science, exploration, and commercial development of the Moon.”

“It’s certainly going to have some some impact on our relationships and our ability to to secure additional missions in the future,” Thornton said. “It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the business, but it would certainly be challenging.”

Abandoning its lunar landing attempt marks a major loss not only for Astrobotic, but also for NASA and other countries and institutions with payloads aboard the Peregrine lander.

The company will not be able to test a landing maneuver, which — in previous lunar landing attempts made by various countries and corporations — has proven an exceedingly difficult step in the journey.

On board the Peregrine vehicle are five scientific instruments from NASA and 15 other payloads from a variety of organizations and countries. The commercial payloads on the lander include mementos and even human remains that customers had paid to send to the lunar surface.

Norway could become the first country in the world to push ahead with deep sea mining after it voted Tuesday to open its waters for exploration, provoking an outcry from environmental groups.

In a major step towards kicking off commercial deep sea mining, the country’s parliament formally agreed to allow the exploration of around 108,000 square miles of Arctic seabed, an area bigger than the United Kingdom, between Norway and Greenland.

The deep ocean, one of the world’s last untouched habitats, has long been eyed for its vast trove of resources — including copper, cobalt, zinc and gold — which are needed for the green economy, used in everything from wind turbines to electric vehicle batteries.

A Norwegian study last year found a “substantial” amount of metals and minerals on the seabed of the country’s extended continental shelf.

Proponents of deep sea mining argue that extracting these raw materials from beneath the ocean will allow a faster transition to a low-carbon economy and could come at a lower environmental cost than terrestrial mining.

But scientists say very little is still known about the depths of the world’s oceans — only a small fraction of which humans have explored — and many are concerned about the impacts on these ecosystems already affected by pollution, trawling and the climate crisis.

The deep ocean in this region is home to a huge number of marine species, from krill to whales, as well as deep sea animals, many of which have not yet been discovered by humans. “We do not know what we risk losing for the exact reason that we do not know what the deep sea holds,” Pleym said.

The Norwegian government has said that seabed minerals offer an exciting new industry and “extraction will only be permitted if the industry can demonstrate that it can be done in a sustainable and responsible manner.”

But other countries have urged caution, including the United Kingdom, which last year announced its support for a moratorium on deep sea mining.

In November, more than 100 European politicians wrote an open letter to the Norwegian parliament, urging it to vote against deep sea mining. The letter referred to the risks to marine life and the potential for accelerating climate change by disturbing the carbon locked up in the sea floor.

Another open letter, signed by more than 800 scientists from around the world, has called for a pause in deep sea mining, saying it risks causing losses “that would be irreversible on multi-generational timescales.”

In December, Norwegian politician Baard Ludvig Thorheim told Reuters that the environmental bar for deep sea mining had been set high. “We believe, and hope, it will become the international standard for this activity,” he said.

It remains unclear how fast a deep sea mining industry might spring up in Norway. It may be a matter of months before exploration starts, Pleym said.

But parliament will still need to approve the issuing of mining licenses to begin extraction. “There will be another vote before actual mining begins,” said Kaja Lønne Fjærtoft, WWF-Norway’s deep sea mining expert.

It’s a concern shared by the European Academies of Science Advisory Council, an association of national academies of science. “The narrative that deep-sea mining is essential to meeting our climate targets and thus a green technology is misleading,” Michael Norton, EASAC environment director, said in a statement last year.

Norway’s decision to greenlight deep sea mining comes in the context of a wider debate about whether international waters should also be opened up to the practice.

The International Seabed Authority, the UN-affiliated body which regulates seabed extraction, is expected to finalize rules on mining in international waters next year.

Gabriel Attal, the 34-year-old French education minister, has been named the country’s new prime minister, a history-making appointment by President Emmanuel Macron as he looks to jumpstart his government’s flagging popularity.

Attal will be France’s youngest-ever prime minister and the first openly gay man to serve in the post – making him one of the world’s most prominent and powerful LGBTQ politicians.

Attal, a rising star in Macron’s Renaissance Party, has served as minister of education and national youth since July. During his tenure, he enacted a controversial ban on the wearing of the abaya in French public schools and has worked on raising awareness of bullying in schools.

“I know I can count on your energy and your commitment,” Macron said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the announcement.

Attal, like the French President, was aligned with the center-left Socialist Party before he joined Macron’s centrist political movement. In recent years his politics have drifted at times to the right, though he has maintained a shape-shifting political identity in the mold of his boss.

Attal was the government spokesman during the pandemic, which immediately boosted his profile among the general French public. His political career has since progressed at lightning speed for a man of his age. During Macron’s second term, Attal was tapped to lead the ministry of public works and public accounts before becoming education minister.

As prime minister, he will be charged with forming a new government and ensuring the passage of legislation that advances the president’s agenda. Most power, however, lies with the French presidency.

He replaces Elisabeth Borne, who resigned from her post on Monday after a tumultuous 20-month tenure marked by unpopular retirement reforms and the urban riots last summer that followed the police shooting of a teenage boy of Algerian descent.

“Throughout these years, throughout these months, I have never backed down from any obstacle. I have never backed away from any reform. I carried out the projects that seemed right and necessary for our country,” Borne said at a handover ceremony alongside Attal on Tuesday. “I am proud of the work accomplished during these almost 20 months.”

Borne became the first female prime minister in three decades when Macron named her to the post in May of 2022, shortly after his reelection. Her party then failed to win an absolute majority in parliamentary elections the following month, which ended up stymieing her government’s ability to pass new laws.

On more than 20 occasions, Borne resorted to using a constitutional clause that allowed the government to push through bills in the lower house without a vote, including raising the age of retirement. Borne’s repeated use of the tool led to accusations of anti-democratic behavior and earned her the nickname “Madame 49.3,” a reference to the clause itself.

Most recently, Borne’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, spearheaded a controversial immigration reform bill that, among other things, gave local prefects more authority in dealing with undocumented workers while also limiting the welfare benefits they can receive.

The legislation’s proponents said the reforms proposed are popular with the French public, pointing to recent surveys, while its detractors argued that it included too many concessions to the far-right, such as restricting how birthright citizenship can be obtained. Longtime far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen called the bill an “ideological victory” for her political party.

Borne’s departure was unsurprising, as it came ahead of a long-anticipated cabinet reshuffle. Macron and his government have been lagging in opinion polls, while Le Pen and the far-right are enjoying an unprecedented level of support.

The French president is likely looking for a political reset ahead of this summer’s European elections and the Olympics in Paris. Surveys show that Attal is one of the more well-liked members of Macron’s government.

Le Pen said on X that the French can expect “nothing” from their new government and called the cabinet reshuffle a “childish ballet of ambitions and egos.”

“The path toward turnover starts June 9,” she said, referring to the upcoming EU vote.

NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon this decade amid a renewed international push for lunar exploration, is facing some lengthy delays, the space agency has announced.

The Artemis III mission, planned to hit the the crucial milestone of landing humans on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program, will not take off until at least September 2026, NASA officials said at a news conference Tuesday. The journey had previously been slated for 2025.

The primary reasons for the delay include SpaceX’s outlook for developing Starship, the gargantuan rocket and spacecraft system that is expected to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon’s south pole. Two Starship test flights in 2023 ended in explosions.

SpaceX has a long road ahead in developing its lunar lander. Even after Starship demonstrates the ability to make it safely to Earth’s orbit, the company must hash out how to get the vehicle enough propellant to travel out to the moon, a feat that is expected to involve at least 10 refueling flights, according to Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vice president of customer operations and integration.

“We must be realistic. … We’re looking at our Starship progress and need for propellant transfer, the need for numerous landings,” NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free told reporters Tuesday.

Jensen said SpaceX could be ready — and receive the necessary regulatory approvals — for its third Starship test flight by February.

NASA officials added that they are also expecting delays in engineering the spacesuits astronauts will wear while on the moon’s surface. Both SpaceX’s Starship development and the spacesuits were factors that government watchdogs, including NASA’s inspector general, have cited as potential factors that could cause delays for the Artemis III mission.

That delay is linked in part to issues with the Orion crew capsule that will be home to the astronauts during the mission. The space agency previously disclosed that the spacecraft’s heat shield, which keeps Orion from burning up as the vehicle reenters the Earth’s atmosphere, became charred and eroded in an unexpected way during the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, according to Amit Kshatriya, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program.

There is also still much work to do on the Orion crew capsule’s life support system and valves that failed during testing, Kshatriya said. NASA officials indicated that they expect the lift support systems to take the longest to prepare for flight.

A new space race

NASA is still targeting 2028 for the launch of its Artemis IV mission, which will aim to send astronauts to a forthcoming space station that will orbit the moon, called Gateway.

The altered timeline and mission shuffling marks a major realignment of expectations for the Artemis program, which is NASA’s current flagship human space exploration effort.

The Artemis program’s underlying goal is to establish a permanent human presence on the moon as rival nations, including China, chase similar ambitions.

China has already led a robotic return to the moon in the 21st century, launching the first uncrewed lander ever to touch down on the moon’s far side, and plans to put its own astronauts on the lunar surface by the end of the decade.

“I really do not have a concern that China’s gonna land before us,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday. “I think that China has a very aggressive plan. I think they would like to land before us … but the fact is that I don’t think they will.”

The announcement of delays for NASA’s crewed Artemis missions also comes as the space agency’s robotic lunar exploration program, called CLPS or Commercial Lunar Payload Services programs, suffered a setback.

The space agency has partnerships with four companies to develop landers that can carry science instruments and other cargo to the moon — and the first of those landers to launch, the Astrobotic Peregrine lander, failed in the hours after it took flight on Monday.

The company is currently assessing how it will dispose of the vehicle as it runs of out of propellant en route to the moon.

A German-Iranian citizen arrested in Iran in 2020 has been granted a temporary release, on the condition she wear an electronic ankle monitor, according to her daughter.

“I am pleased to announce that my mother Nahid Taghavi was this morning released temporarily on furlough. Unfortunately, Nahid has to wear an electronic ankle tag during the furlough,” Taghavi’s daughter Mariam Claren wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.

Taghavi, now in her late sixties, was detained in Tehran on October 16, 2020, “solely for peacefully exercising (her) human rights,” according to the human rights organization Amnesty International statement in 2021.

In August 2021, Iran’s Revolutionary Court convicted Taghavi of national security-related charges which she denied, and she was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison, Amnesty said.

Her lawyer Mostafa Nili said she had been sentenced alongside a British-Iranian citizen, Mehran Raouf, on charges related to “participating in managing an illegal group” and “propaganda against the regime.”

Human Rights Watch has previously accused Iranian authorities of targeting foreign and dual nationals with vague charges in an attempt to gain leverage over other countries.

Taghavi’s release from Tehran’s Evin prison comes amid concerns over her health. Amnesty has warned Taghavi was at increased risk of severe illness or death if she were to contract Covid as she has diabetes and high blood pressure.

Her fellow prisoner at Evin, the Nobel Peace Prize winning Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, warned on Instagram in June that Taghavi’s life was in danger.

Following Taghavi’s release, Claren posted a photograph of her mother sitting on a yellow sofa with a gentle smile.

The photo also shows Taghavi wearing an electronic monitor on her ankle.

“Nahid’s movement will be restricted to 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) from her apartment in Tehran. This makes her release more comparable to house arrest,” Claren wrote, adding, “However, we hope this furlough is an important first step for her unconditional release.”

Germany’s senior diplomat Ambassador Christian Buck on Tuesday welcomed Taghavi’s release, which he said was on medical grounds.

“This is an important first step. We continue to work tirelessly to ensure that Nahid Taghavi is reunited with her family,” he posted on X.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has declared an “internal armed conflict” in the country, ordering security forces to “neutralize” several criminal groups accused of spreading extreme violence in Ecuador.

The decree came shortly after hooded and armed men interrupted a live television broadcast – one of several violent incidents playing out across the country on Tuesday. Local media outlets also reported armed individuals at a hospital and a university in the city of Guayaquil.

Ecuadorians were stunned as they watched the takeover of the Guayaquil-based network’s live broadcast. The assailants were seen forcing the staff of TC Television onto the floor of the studio as shots and yelling were heard in the background, social media video showed of the incident at the state-owned network.

Ecuador’s police later said they had arrested all the armed men, members of the media outlet had been evacuated, and all staff and hostages of the network were alive.

At least four firearms, two grenades, and “explosive material” were recovered and 13 people apprehended, César Zapata, General Commander of the National Police said. He added that the perpetrators would be brought to justice for their “acts of terrorism.”

Police earlier had posted pictures of multiple individuals faced down with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

The situation has struck fear among many Ecuadorians. One woman, who lives outside Guayaquil and was told to go home early by her boss, described the chaotic traffic on her drive home. “Cars were going the wrong way; everyone was just trying to get through,” she said.

“The scariest part was seeing the desperation, seeing businesses shutting down, desperate people, including children and women, running frantically in avenues only meant for cars.”

The country has been rocked by explosions, police kidnappings, and prison disturbances since Noboa on Monday declared a nationwide state of emergency after high-profile gang leader Adolfo “Fito” Macias escaped from a prison in Guayaquil.

The state of emergency will last for 60 days and mobilize the police and the armed forces to control disturbances to public order. It includes a curfew, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., to restrict meetings and actions that may threaten public order. Noboa’s beleaguered predecessor, former President Guillermo Lasso, instated several states of emergency with limited success.

Since it was announced, at least seven police agents have been kidnapped in three different cities, according to a post on X by the National Police.

The spiraling violence is the most extreme test yet for the new president, who won last year’s run-off vote with promises to tackle soaring crime.

The country’s worsening security situation is largely driven by rival criminal organizations, which have been meting out brutal and often public shows of violence in the country’s streets and prisons in their battle to control drug trafficking routes.

In one of the kidnappings this week, in which three agents were taken, an explosive device had been “placed and detonated” in a vehicle the officers were moving in, police said.

In Esmeraldas, in the northwest of the country, two vehicles were set on fire with one causing a blaze at a gas station.

In the capital Quito, the police found a burned vehicle with traces of gas cylinders inside. Residents reported on social media that they had heard a loud explosion in the area.

Police also said they had received reports of an explosion at a pedestrian bridge outside Quito and attended “over 20 emergencies during (Monday) evening and overnight (Tuesday) in different parts of the country. There are currently no known casualties related to the explosions.

Prison chaos

Ecuador’s penitentiary service, the SNAI, said that at least six incidents took place inside prison facilities Monday, including disturbances and retention of penitentiary agents. This situation in the prisons, they say, has not been controlled.

Meanwhile, another alleged gang leader, Fabricio Colon Pico, escaped from a prison in Riobamba in the last few hours, according to the city’s mayor Jhon Vinueza.

Ecuador’s Armed Forces said they carried out control operations Monday night and early Tuesday in the most conflict-ridden areas.

On the political side, Ecuador’s National Assembly is holding an emergency meeting to “generate concrete actions in face of the national commotion and multiple acts that threaten public peace.”

The search for Adolfo Macias, more popularly known by his alias “Fito,” continued as more than 3,000 police officers and members of the armed forces have been deployed to find him, the government said on Sunday. Ecuador authorities said they have not yet pinpointed the exact time and date that Macias escaped prison.

Macías is the leader of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador’s most feared gangs, which has been linked to maritime drug trafficking to Mexico and the US in coordination with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and the Oliver Sinisterra Front in Colombia, according to the Insight Crime research center.

He was jailed after being convicted of drug trafficking. Before his assassination, the late Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio said in July that he had been threatened by Macías and warned against continuing with his campaign against gang violence for the leadership.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow.

When retired postman Rodney Holbrook set up cameras to try to find out who was tidying his shed almost every night, he found an unexpected helper scurrying around his workbench.

The black-and-white, night-vision footage revealed that a tiny mouse was behind the mysterious tidying, helpfully moving objects left on the workbench into a box.

“At first I noticed that some food that I was putting out for the birds was ending up in some old shoes I was storing in the shed, so I set up a camera to see what was going on,” Holbrook, who lives in Builth Wells, a small town in central Wales about 60 miles north of the capital city Cardiff, said in a statement.

Footage from that camera captured the mouse carrying objects like screwdrivers, clothes pegs or pieces of cable in its mouth and clambering into boxes almost as tall as itself.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the mouse was tidying up, he moved all sorts of things into the box, bits of plastic, nuts and bolts,” Holbrook said. “I don’t bother to tidy up now, as I know he will see to it.”

Some objects seem easier for the miniature Marie Kondo to move than others; a long cable proved especially challenging to fit inside the box.

“It really was amazing to see the footage, some of the things that it tidies away are really unusual, I think he would tidy my wife away if I left her in there!” Holbrook said. “It’s happened practically every night now for two months.”

Remarkably, this isn’t the first time that Holbrook has encountered a house-proud mouse. He told the BBC that he installed a night-vision camera for a friend in 2019, which revealed another mouse keeping his friend’s shed organized.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa on Monday declared a state of emergency for the South American nation after a notorious gang leader escaped from prison, heightening security fears as authorities struggle to control the bloodshed of a bloody criminal turf war.

José Adolfo Macías Villamar, leader of the feared Los Choneros drug cartel better known by his alias “Fito,” escaped from prison in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Sunday, according to authorities. More than 3,000 police officers and members of the armed forces have been deployed to search for him, the government said.

The state of emergency will last for 60 days and imposes a nightly curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., Noboa said Monday, adding it grants security forces “all the political and legal support for their actions.”

“The time is over when drug trafficking convicts, hitmen, and organized crime dictate to the government what to do,” Noboa said in a video announcement. He did not mention Fito’s escape.

Noboa, the son of a banana tycoon, became president in November following an election driven by concerns over rising violence and a worsening security situation in the Latin American nation just months after the high-profile assassination of another presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio.

On Monday, Noboa said he had authorized security forces to retake control of Ecuador’s restive prison system, which he said, “has been lost in recent years.”

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

But Ecuador’s deep ports have made it a key transit point for cocaine making its way to consumers in the United States and Europe. And its dollarized economy also makes it a strategic location for traffickers seeking to launder money.

Fito was sentenced in 2011 to 34 years in prison for crimes including drug trafficking and murder, according to Reuters.

Authorities accuse the Choneros of controlling Ecuador’s main prisons, which have long been the main theater of violence in the country. Security forces have struggled to confront the gangs inside overcrowded prisons, where inmates often take control of branches of the penitentiaries and run criminal networks from behind bars, according to authorities.

Following Fito’s escape, Ecuador’s prison agency on Sunday reported “incidents” in at least six prisons in different provinces.