Who is winning the room? Who is winning the region? Joe Biden has inflation and an uphill battle to the midterms back home, but that is no bother for Indo-Pacific allies. Monday saw the launch of a regional trade partnership and plans for a partnership to stare down maritime threats. Tuesday will see a Tokyo summit of the Quad, which despite its denials, looks more and more like the far east's answer to NATO. The alliance brings together the leaders of the US, Japan, India and Australia.

After becoming the first French president in two decades to win re-election, Emmanuel Macron now has to convince enough voters to once again give him a mandate in next month's legislative elections. A centrist who this time has to face an unusually united left, Macron has to persuade the electorate to stick with free-market reform, while shedding his "too clever for his own good" image.

He is not a lone wolf. The 18-year-old who travelled to Buffalo, New York to livestream a shooting spree targeting Black shoppers had the complicity of an "anything goes" internet where hate can spread at the speed of light, and a "land of the free" mantra where he could buy assault weapons over the counter.

It never happened during the entire Cold War. But all these years later, Russia's border with NATO is about to double in size. Finland remains unmoved by threats out of the Kremlin over its bid to join the US-led alliance. The same goes for neighbouring Sweden, which is so concerned by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine that it is ready to call time on two centuries of neutrality.

Enter the twilight of the world's longest reign. The 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II missed what is arguably the highlight of any British monarch's calendar: the reading of the government's parliamentary program instead delivered by her son, the crown prince. The importance is mostly symbolic, since the Queen's Speech is written by the prime minister. However the optics of the exercise beget the question: what United Kingdom will Charles inherit?

In the end, there was no big reveal on Moscow’s Red Square on May 9. But is the devil in the detail of Vladimir Putin's Victory Day speech? In commemorating 1945 win over the Nazis, the Russian president did not declare war on Ukraine or announce a mass mobilisation, defying some expectations. He did however single out the perceived aggression of ''America and its minions”.

Is it a sign that Northern Ireland is ready to overcome old divides, or of new troubles ahead? For the first time ever, Unionists could find themselves in the minority when ballots are counted in regional assembly elections. Under the Good Friday Agreement, the DUP would still share power with Sinn Fein, who could trigger a referendum on a united Ireland.

What surprise will he spring on May 9th? All eyes are on Vladimir Putin ahead of what has become on his watch the most sacred day on the Russian calendar. Victory Day in World War II means remembrance of the estimated 26 million who lost their lives while turning the tide in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War.

It was only a leak of a draft. Yet punches have already been thrown outside the US Supreme Court in the first standoff over Justice Samuel Alito's 98-page argument in favour of overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised abortion in the United States. We ask whether the document leaked to Politico is a turning point for more than just reproductive rights.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions others displaced since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Having failed to capture Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, Moscow has been focusing its military efforts on crushing resistance in southern and eastern Ukraine. Towns in the east are currently facing intense Russian bombardment.