Brazil’s Fernando Collor de Mello. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Elderly former Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello, who was jailed last week for corruption, will be allowed to serve his sentence under house arrest for “humanitarian” reasons, a judge said Thursday.

Brazil’s first democratically-elected president after a decades-long dictatorship last week began serving a nine-year sentence for taking bribes while a senator between 2010 and 2014.

The 75-year-old, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was convicted of taking 20 million reais ($3.5 million) in bribes to arrange contracts between a construction company and a former subsidiary of Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras.

Mr Collor was jailed in a prison in the northeastern city of Maceio, where he has a residence.

His lawyers had asked that he be allowed serve his sentence at home.

Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered him to prison, agreed to the request, citing Collor’s “serious health situation…his age and the necessity of special treatment.”

Mr. Collor will have to hand in his passport and wear an electronic ankle bracelet, Moraes added.

Mr. Collor resigned as president in 1992, after less than three years in power, to avoid being impeached by parliament for corruption.

He is not the first former Brazilian leader to fall foul of the law.

Far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to stand trial over an alleged coup plot after losing elections in 2022.

And left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who served two terms between 2003 and 2010, spent a year-and-a-half behind bars for bribe-taking and money laundering before having his conviction annulled and winning a third term in October 2022.

As all cabinet members on Wednesday were heaping praises on President Donald Trump as his administration crossed the first landmark of the first 100 days, Attorney General Pam Bondi went overboard as she said Trump has saved 258 million lives, which is equivalent to 75 per cent of the US population. The claim stunned many social media users but they pointed out that vice president JD Vance, who was sitting beside her, was equally bewildered by her claim.
“President, you first 100 days has far exceeded that of ANY other presidency in this country. Ever. Ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you,” Pam Bondi said.
“34,000 kilos of fentanyl, since you’ve been – your last 100 days. Which saved, are you ready for this media? 258 million lives,” Bondi said. Kids are dying every day because they’re taking this junk, laced with something else they don’t know what they’re taking. They think they’re buying a Tylenol or an Adderall and a Xanax and it’s laced with fentanyl and they’re dropping dead and no longer because of you, what you’ve done,” Pam Bondi said. On Tuesday, she wrote on X that the fetanyl seizures had seven over 119 million lives.
Pam Bondi provided a formula to The Daily Beast for how she arrived at the figure. “3,400,000 grams of fentanyl multiplied by the “current purity level” of .1518, divided by .002, the lethal amount per gram. The result: 258,060,000,” the report said.
But JD Vance’s facial expression said it all, social media users noted, as JD Vance was seen doing mental math when Pam Bondi announced the figure.
“The US population is 340.1 million people, ~33 million are under 10. So he save the lives of ~84% of those of us over 10 years old,” one wrote.
One X user pointed out that Pam Bondi did not say American lives and by the volume of the fentanyl, she was correct.
“Vance realizing some MAGA math happened somewhere,” one person commented. “You can see whats left of JD’s logical brain fighting for its life,” a second person wrote.

A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven persons dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two persons on Thursday (May 1, 2025), officials said, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources
| Photo Credit: AP

A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven persons dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two persons on Thursday (May 1, 2025), officials said, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources — a move that could enable continued military aid to Ukraine.

The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which struck a market in the town of Oleshky, killed seven and wounded more than 20 people, Moscow-appointed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.

“At the time of the attack, there were many people in the market,” Mr. Saldo wrote on Telegram. After the first wave of strikes, he said, Ukraine sent further drones to “finish off” any survivors.

Meanwhile, a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa early Thursday killed two persons and injured 15 others, Ukrainian emergency services said.

Regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said the barrage struck apartment buildings, private homes, a supermarket and a school.

Videos shared by Kiper on Telegram showed a high-rise building with a severely damaged facade, a shattered storefront and firefighters battling flames.

A drone struck and ignited a fire at a petrol station in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia sent 170 exploding drones and decoys into five Ukrainian regions in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Thursday. It said 74 of them were intercepted and another 68 were lost. Russia also launched five ballistic missiles.

Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had ignored a U.S. proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire for more than 50 days.

“There were also our proposals — at the very least, to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the sky, at sea, and on land,” he said. “Russia has responded to all this with new shelling and new assaults.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that air defenses shot down eight Ukrainian drones overnight.

The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire next week in Ukraine to mark Victory Day in World War II as the U.S. presses for a deal to end the 3-year-old war.

The Kremlin said the truce to mark Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 — the country’s biggest secular holiday — will run from the start of May 8 and last through the end of May 10.

Ukraine, which has previously agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, dismissed Putin’s move. In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for an immediate ceasefire lasting “at least 30 days.”