Polls have closed and votes are now being counted in Ecuador’s general election, where 16 candidates are vying for the presidency, including incumbent Daniel Noboa and his main political rival Luisa González.

According to Ecuador’s Constitution, a candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to win the first round outright, or 40% with a margin of at least 10 percentage points over the next closest candidate.

If these conditions are not met, the two candidates with the most votes will face each other in a second round, which is provisionally scheduled for April 13.

Sunday’s vote will decide if the country will stick with Noboa’s tough crackdown on crime or seek an alternative voice in González.

Noboa, who won the 2023 snap election to finish the term of his predecessor Guillermo Lasso, has presided over a series of crises in his term.

He has declared numerous states of emergency, deployed military units to tackle gang activity in the country’s streets, and began construction on a new maximum-security prison after an infamous criminal leader escaped from custody last year.

González, who was the runner-up in the 2023 race, is a close confidante of former leftist President Rafael Correa, a dominant figure in Ecuador’s politics.

Running on a campaign to “Revive Ecuador,” González has pledged to tackle the drug trade just as vigorously as Noboa.

The main challenges the next government will face when it takes office in May are security, the economy, a nationwide energy crisis and international relations.

The Aga Khan IV was laid to rest on Sunday at a private ceremony in Aswan, Egypt.

The death of Prince Karim – the 49th hereditary imam of the Shiite Ismaili Muslims – was announced Tuesday by the Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili religious community. His son, 53-year-old Rahim Al-Hussaini, has been named as the Aga Khan V, the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims, in according with his father’s will.

On Saturday, a private funeral service took place at the Ismaili community center in Lisbon attended by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Spain’s King Emeritus Juan Carlos and Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

The Aga Khan is considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and is treated as a head of state.

The governor of Aswan welcomed Prince Karim’s family at the southern Egyptian’s provinces airport on Saturday.

“When his will was opened, it was found that he had requested to be buried in Aswan near his grandfather, Sultan Muhammad Shah, and his grandmother, Om Habiba,” said Maj. Gen. Ismail Kamal.

Ismaili mourners marched as bells rang during the burial ceremony in the country’s southern Aswan province, as Prince Karim’s body was taken in a van.

They carried his body, draped in a white shroud, and placed it on a yacht on the Nile River.

Prince Karim, 88, was given the title of “His Highness” by Queen Elizabeth in July 1957, two weeks after his grandfather, the Aga Khan III, unexpectedly made him heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

The late Aga Khan evolved over decades into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly with ease.

He was a defender of Islamic culture and values, but also widely regarded as a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the West.

The Aga Khan Development Network deals mainly with issues of health care, housing, education and rural economic development.

It says it works in over 30 countries and has an annual budget of about $1 billion for nonprofit development activities.

Ismailis lived for many generations in Iran, Syria and South Asia before also settling in east Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as Europe, North America and Australia more recently.

They consider it a duty to donate up to 12.5% of their income to the Aga Khan as steward.

Two rare black wolves, likely siblings, were spotted on camera crossing a stream in a Polish forest, a conservation organization said Sunday.

The unusual sighting, captured last year on a video camera set up by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland project coordinator Joanna Toczydłowska, has prompted the organization to collect scat (droppings) in the forest in the hopes of learning more about the black wolves’ genetics.

“It’s something new and unusual,” Toczydłowska told The Associated Press.

Toczydłowska initially placed the camera to study beavers. When she noticed she was recording wolves instead, she kept the camera there and collected the black wolf footage a few weeks ago.

In one clip, a black wolf and a gray wolf slowly crossed a stream in the forest, the water nearly up to their bellies, before they leap onto the bank. A second clip, taken last fall, records two black wolves and a gray wolf fording the same stream.

Most of the 2,500 to 3,000 wolves in Poland are gray with red or black accents. Black fur comes from a genetic mutation that was likely in domesticated dogs thousands of years ago. The dark fur is rare in Europe due to a reduced genetic diversity, but at least half of the wolf population has black fur in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

Because wolves travel in families and both black wolves were around 30 kilograms (66 lbs) — roughly the size of a German shepherd — Toczydłowska said they were likely siblings and roughly a year old. At least one is male.

The conservation organization, which has been monitoring wolves in Poland for 13 years, is not disclosing the forest’s location to keep the wolves safe from poaching and prevent misinformation about wolves from spreading.

Wolves were essentially extinct in Poland by the 1950s, but the population has returned in recent years, especially in central part of the country in the early 2000s. Toczydłowska and her colleagues teach other the public how to safely live in areas inhabited by wolfpacks.

“For people, it is a new phenomenon,” Roman Gula, head of the organization’s wolf monitoring project, told the AP. “Education is one of our major, major goals.”

The conservation fund announced the sighting last week on Facebook and asked for financial support to pay for the scat’s genetic testing to learn more about the black-fur mutation.

The families of the three Israeli hostages released Saturday have spoken out about their loved ones’ ordeal in Hamas captivity, saying they hope their suffering provides impetus to efforts to free all those still in Gaza as soon as possible.

Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy appeared gaunt and frail as they were paraded by the militants on a makeshift stage in Gaza before they were handed over to the Red Cross.

Their appearance was condemned as “shocking” by Israel, which has said the scenes will “not go unaddressed.”

‘Nothing prepared me for those pictures’

Ella Ben Ami, daughter of Ohad, spoke of her horror at watching Hamas parade her father on the stage.

“I had many pictures in my mind of my dad, but nothing prepared me for those pictures of him on that stage in Gaza. I was sure that I would be strong, but I fell on the floor and screamed, ‘I’m sorry,’” she said.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Ella Ben Ami said her father “went through hell” in Gaza and noted that the remaining Israeli hostages are suffering the same conditions her father did.

She called on the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “find a way” to bring them all home.

“We have to keep going to Phase B, and have to bring everybody back,” she said referring to the second phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, which is supposed to see the return of the remaining hostages and was expected to be discussed in a “a security-political cabinet meeting” held by Netanyahu this weekend.

‘He wasn’t the same Or’

Or Levy’s brother Michael said when he saw his brother on Saturday for the first time in 16 months, he wasn’t the same person who left home on October 7, 2023.

“He came back in poor physical condition. Anyone who saw the pictures and videos couldn’t ignore it. For 16 months, he was hungry, barefoot and in constant fear that every day can be his last,” Michael said, according to the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters.

After his release, Or received the heartbreaking news that his wife Einav had been killed in the October 7 attack.

“The hardest blow was yesterday when Or discovered that Einav, the love of his life, was murdered on that terrible day. For 491 days, he held onto hope that he would return to her,” Michael said.

He went on to call for the immediate release of the remaining hostages, saying, “Or’s return is a miracle, but we can’t rest until every single one of them is back with their families.”

‘Every second could save lives’

Eli Sharabi’s brother Sharon described the return of the three hostages as a victory for the Israeli people but said the government must work with a sense of urgency to save the other hostages, the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said.

Yossi, another brother in the family, was also taken hostage by Hamas but he subsequently died in Gaza.

“Every moment that passes, every second could save lives from Hamas tunnels, from this cruel enemy that has massacred us since October 7,” Sharon said.

Hamas has now released a total of 16 Israeli hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, of a total of 33 promised at staggered intervals during this stage. Eight of those 33 are dead, according to the Israeli government.

Following the release of the three hostages on Saturday, Hamas and its allies still hold a total of 73 people taken from Israel on October 7, 2023, of 251 initially taken. Three additional hostages, held captive since 2014, are still in Gaza.

For a man who’s spent his career battling to make France more pro-business, Europe’s prospects on artificial intelligence are worrying: an oversight that could cost the bloc dearly.

“We need an AI agenda,” he said, “because we have to bridge the gap with the United States and China on AI.” The French leader added that he fears Europe becoming merely an AI consumer, losing control over the future direction and development of the technology.

That’s part of the impetus behind this week’s AI summit in Paris — the latest effort by Macron to put France at the heart of the debate and decision-making on international questions of the day.

Macron regularly touts the prospects of Paris-based company Mistral, widely considered OpenAI’s European competitor, which launched a new app on Thursday.

The company boasts of its ability to rival its US competitors, by getting the same results with less computing power needed, although the surprise arrival of lower-cost Chinese competitor DeepSeek has put pressure on the French firm.

Europe ‘must do much better’ on financing

With its nuclear-heavy energy portfolio making France a net energy exporter, the country is in an enviable position for the creation of power-ravenous data centers.

France is set to unveil what its government boasts is Europe’s largest supercomputer by fall 2025, outside Paris.

The Mont Valerien site will be a military facility, bringing AI capabilities at scale to help solve design and engineering questions, like the architecture of France’s next aircraft carriers. AI will also be used to improve future military technologies and practices, like anti-drone jamming, according to the French Ministry of Defense.

That’s the exception. With Europe holding a mere 3-5% of global computing power, Macron said he hopes this surplus power will open doors to Europe’s AI future. He has his sights on building 20% of the world’s data centers.

But financing — especially from the United States and the Gulf Arab states — will be key, according to Macron.

It’s where Europe “must do much better,” Macron said.

Finding cash within the continent could be an unwitting boon if President Donald Trump’s tariff threats against European allies come to a head.

“From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly,” Trump told the World Economic Forum in January, later threatening to levy tariffs against the bloc after slapping — and then rescinding — stiff import taxes on Canada and Mexico.

Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariffs on China still went into effect, and the president said he will announce new so-called reciprocal tariffs next week that could hit all corners of the world.

Trump has railed against the US trade deficit with the European Union, which increased by $26.9 billion to $235.6 billion in 2024, according to US government figures.

Macron pushed back against this, arguing the trade deficit ignores Europe’s significant spending on digital services, which is often excluded from such calculations.

In response to potential tariffs, Macron said Europe must look to protect producers against American and Chinese competition and, crucially, ease regulation on investments to stem the “leaking” of European savings to the United States. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen mirrored that resolute stance last week.

Staying in the race

“I will fight for AI,” he said, calling for a business environment that makes Europe more competitive. “I will fight for more defence and security answers as Europeans. And I will fight for the maximum level of ambition on all these issues.”

February and March will bring announcements and a roadmap of reforms around AI startup regulations, Macron said, in an effort to rival the United States and China’s AI agenda.

“We have to focus on killing some crazy regulations, simplification of the current environment,” Macron said. “Europe has to simplify its rules, make it much more business friendly and synchronize with the United States.”

He hopes, for AI at least, this week’s summit will be a “wake up call” for Europe.