The Commission on Elections proclaimed on Thursday, May 19, 46 groups that won in the party-list elections. Their nominees will occupy 59 seats in the House of Representatives starting June 30. Regional party Ako Bicol topped the list with 1.66 million votes or 5.14% of total votes cast for the party list. It got the maximum 3 seats allowed. 11 organizations got two seats each, while 34 other organizations got a seat each.

Read more about the party list winners on Rappler.

After the May 9 elections, the country’s Senate has 5 newcomers, 3 reelectionists, and 4 former senators. One of the closest allies of President Benigno Aquino III topped the list of 12 new senators proclaimed by the Commission on Elections Thursday, May 19, with 18.6 million votes. After him was Joel Villanueva, who headed a government agency that oversaw technical and vocational courses, and who got 18.46 million votes. Other new Senate winners included boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and former Philhealth director Risa Hontiveros.

Read more about the rest of the winning senators on Rappler.

Former Cabinet secretary and businessman Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez has accepted the position of finance secretary under the administration of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte. He initially declined the offer because his family is already in the US. Dominguez had previously served as agriculture secretary under the Cory Aquino government. Meanwhile, Duterte’s fraternity brother and classmate at the San Beda Law School, Vitaliano Aguirre II, has been asked to be justice secretary. A private prosecutor, he is known for being the lead counsel of Hubert Webb in the Vizconde murder-rape case.

Read more about the appointments of Sonny Dominguez and Vitaliano Aguirre on Rappler.

The mysterious crash on Thursday, May 19, of an EgyptAir plane in the Mediterranean headed to Cairo from Paris could have been caused by a terror attack, experts said. Egypt’s aviation minister Sherif Fathy told a news conference it is “too early” to rule out either an attack or a technical failure as cause of the crash. The chances however of a mechanical fault are slim, experts said, considering that the aircraft is relatively new. Both France and Egypt have been leading targets for Islamist extremists in the last few months.

Read more about what the experts said on Rappler.

Two e-commerce shops, a mobile technology provider, and a social news network are in Forbes Philippines’ list of leading startups by gross revenue. In its May 2016 issue, Forbes ranked Lazada E-Service Philippines Incorporated, Yondu Incorporated (Entertainment Gateway Group), and BF Jade E-Service Philippines Incorporated (Zalora) as the top 3 in terms of gross revenue. Also joining the list of top startups are I-Remit Incorporated, Xurpas Incorporated, Chikka Philippines Incorporated, Level Up! Incorporated, Rappler Incorporated, and MetroDeal Incorporated. Starting on Facebook in 2011, Rappler had become the country’s 3^rd most popular news website by 2013.

Read more about the rest of the tech startups on Rappler.

US President Barack Obama has nominated US Special Representative to North Korea Sung Kim as his country’s next ambassador to the Philippines. In a statement released Thursday, May 19, the White House said Kim, a career diplomat, is also deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs at the State Department. He has held the two positions since 2014. Kim will replace Ambassador Philip Goldberg, who has been envoy to the country since 2013.

Read more about the new US envoy on Rappler.

Senator-elect and boxing champ Manny Pacquiao vowed on Thursday, May 19, to do his best to regularly attend sessions at the Senate. Known for his many absences in the House of Representatives where he served for two terms as Sarangani congressman, Pacquiao was reported to have attended sessions in 2014 only four times. A newbie in national politics, the 37-year-old Pacquiao got the 7^th highest number of votes at 16.05 million.

Read more about Pacquiao’s vow on Rappler.

Victims of the atomic bombings in Japan want an apology from US President Barack Obama when he visits Hiroshima next week. He will be the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima where the first atomic bomb was dropped August 6, 1945, killing about 140,000. Nagasaki was hit by another bomb days later, killing 74,000. The secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, Terumi Tanaka, also a survivor of the Nagasaki explosion, urged Obama to apologize “to those who died, bereaved families and parents who lost their children.” Obama will attend the Group of Seven summit and visit Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park on May 27.

Read more about the US position on Rappler.

A Singaporean court on Thursday, May 19, stopped the execution of a convicted Malaysian murderer for the second time just hours before he was scheduled to be hanged. 31-year-old Kho Jabing was granted a stay of execution after a last-minute application by his lawyer who exploited a legal loophole. Kho was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing a Chinese construction worker in a robbery incident in 2008.

Read more about the details of the reprieve on Rappler.

Uber unveiled its first self-driving car Thursday, May 19, announcing it had started testing a vehicle in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Still in the early days of self-driving efforts, Uber said it is focused on “getting the technology right and ensuring it’s safer for everyone on the road – pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers.” It will be using a hybrid Ford Fusion that will gather mapping data and will have multiple sensors, including radars, laser scanners, and high resolution cameras to map details of the environment.

Read more the car of the future on Rappler.