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Negotiations over the U.S. debt limit are intensifying as the deadline for a deal approaches. President Biden has agreed to have his staff meet directly with Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s aides, and the chances of getting a deal to increase the borrowing limit now seem higher. Republicans have demanded that any deal must include stricter work requirements for social safety net programs, which has drawn a backlash from liberal congressional Democrats. If Congress does not increase the debt ceiling, the government may run out of money as early as June 1, potentially defaulting on its debts and sending the financial markets and economy into chaos.

The Pentagon has significantly reduced its estimate of the value of weapons it has sent to Ukraine, freeing up at least $3 billion to supply Ukrainian troops with arms. The Biden administration has faced intensifying pressure to explain how it intended to continue supporting Ukraine without asking Congress to replenish its budget.

In other news, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is expected to attend an annual summit of Arab leaders for the first time in 13 years. He was shunned for brutally suppressing in 2011 his country’s Arab Spring uprising, which morphed into a grinding civil war. The Biden administration has made it clear that the U.S. has no plans to re-establish relations with Syria, and Human Rights Watch has urged the Arab countries normalizing ties with the Assad government to at least push for accountability and reforms.

The U.S. debt limit deadline is looming, and the consequences of not reaching a deal could be dire. The Biden administration is also facing pressure to explain how it intends to continue supporting Ukraine without asking Congress to replenish its budget. Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is making a remarkable comeback, attending an Arab summit for the first time in 13 years. It is a reminder of the complex political crosscurrents at play in the world today.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is set to attend the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan this weekend. This audacious trip halfway across the world is intended to win commitments for continued arms and aid from the world’s wealthiest democracies. Zelensky is also hoping to demonstrate the stability of his own government and to make it more difficult for other nations to remain reluctant to support Ukraine. The backdrop of Hiroshima serves as a reminder of the catastrophic costs of war, and Zelensky is confident that he will accomplish his task of maintaining international support and communication for Ukraine.

The Group of 7 leaders are meeting this week in Hiroshima, Japan, to celebrate the success of a novel effort to stabilize global oil markets and punish Russia. The Biden administration proposed capping the price that Moscow could command for every barrel of oil it sold on the world market. Since the price cap took effect in December, official and market data suggest it has achieved its twin initial goals. Russia’s oil revenues have dropped, forcing budget choices that administration officials say could be starting to hamper its war effort. Drivers in America and elsewhere are paying far less at the gasoline pump than some analysts feared. The success of the price cap is a source of relief for President Biden as high inflation continues to hamper his approval among voters.

Four days after Cyclone Mocha made landfall in Myanmar, aid groups are still awaiting approval from the junta to deliver much-needed supplies to survivors. The death toll is estimated to be over 450, and is expected to rise without swift aid. Survivors are facing food shortages, disease, a lack of clean water, and the threat of unexploded land mines. The junta has not publicly addressed its decision to block international aid groups from affected areas, and the military is reluctant to let outsiders into the area. Activists are worried about the risk from military land mines and unexploded bombs exposed by the storm. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has asked for unrestricted access to affected communities, and for the junta to relax travel authorization requirements and expedite customs clearances for commodities. Without swift aid, the number of deaths could climb, as was the case after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and began a war in eastern Ukraine. In recent weeks, Russia has launched a series of missile attacks on Kyiv, while Ukraine has responded with a campaign of sabotage against Russian supply lines and infrastructure in Crimea. On Thursday, a train derailment in Crimea was the latest in a series of explosions hitting the railways and supply lines of Russia’s war machine. Ukrainian officials did not claim responsibility for the incident, but it was seen as part of a push to handicap Russia’s war machine and sow instability ahead of a widely expected Ukrainian offensive. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air defenses shot down dozens of Russian missiles in the skies above Kyiv, casting flaming debris over the Ukrainian capital. The missile attack and the explosion in Crimea come as both Russia and Ukraine are preparing for a Ukrainian offensive aiming to retake occupied land.

Ukraine’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Vsevolod Knyazev was arrested on corruption charges on Thursday, as prosecutors indicated that a high-level bribery case was expanding to include a wider circle of judges. Knyazev is accused of accepting a bribe of $1.8 million to influence a case in favor of a Ukrainian oligarch, Kostyantyn Zhevago. A lawyer was also apprehended with Knyazev in the act of handing over part of the bribe. At least three other Supreme Court judges have been implicated in the case, with investigators finding thousands of dollars in currency marked by investigators.

The case has shocked and dismayed members of Ukraine’s judiciary, and is seen as a sign that Ukraine’s anti-corruption law enforcement is proving its resilience even during a war. President Volodymyr Zelensky has made a show of cracking down on Ukraine’s endemic corruption, with numerous officials dismissed in January. Anti-corruption organizations have welcomed the investigation, but have called for Parliament to reinstate the system of declaration of assets by public officials.

The fight against corruption is seen as second in importance only to bringing Russia to justice for the war, and citizens are putting strong pressure on leaders to take action.

This week saw a flurry of diplomatic activity, with the G7 summit in Japan and China’s inaugural China-Central Asia summit. At the G7, leaders will address China’s growing assertiveness, while China is seeking to deepen its influence in Central Asia. Meanwhile, Meta publicly released its latest A.I. technology, LLaMA, as open-source software, and OpenAI unveiled a new version of ChatGPT for the iPhone. In Myanmar, the military regime is stalling aid efforts after Cyclone Mocha made landfall, and in Ukraine, Russia attacked Kyiv for the ninth time this month. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Andy Warhol was not entitled to appropriate someone else’s photo of Prince into a portrait series, and Montana’s governor signed a bill banning TikTok from operating inside the state. Finally, don’t miss the Mini Crossword, the Wordle, and the Spelling Bee.

For more than two weeks, search-and-rescue teams in Colombia have been scouring the Amazon rainforest for four children who were aboard a plane that crashed on May 1. On Wednesday night, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, announced that the country’s armed forces had found the four children alive. However, the nation’s child-welfare agency, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, later confirmed that the military forces had not yet been able to establish official contact due to adverse weather conditions and difficult terrain.

Adding to the confusion, the director of the child-welfare agency said in an interview with local news media that the children were, in fact, “fine” and under the care of an Indigenous community that had helped with the search. A spokesperson for the child-welfare agency told The New York Times that the director and the head of the civil aviation authority were traveling to the remote area to investigate.

The discovery of the four children alive would raise a number of questions, including how children so young managed to drink, eat and take care of themselves alone for so many days. The Colombian air force and military, as well as Indigenous communities in the region, have been tirelessly searching for the children, members of the Huitoto Indigenous community, who had been traveling with their mother and an Indigenous leader from the tiny Amazon community of Araracuara, Colombia.

Singapore has executed a man for trafficking less than 3.5 pounds of marijuana, its second execution in three weeks for a crime that carries a much lighter sentence in most of the rest of the world. The man, 36-year-old Muhammad Faizal Bin Mohd Shariff, had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2019 for possessing about 1.6 kilograms of cannabis. Human rights groups have condemned the punishment as grossly excessive, but Singapore has long taken a harsh stance toward drugs, showing little flexibility.

Most death row inmates in Singapore are tied to drug crimes, and last year, the country executed 11 people for drug-related offenses. Opponents of Singapore’s drug policy also say that it has disproportionately hurt marginalized ethnic minorities. Despite this, the argument to abolish the death penalty for drug crimes has not gained much traction in Singapore, as the public is still largely pro-death penalty.