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Europe's rightward nudge, Israel's shakeup and Trump's probation chat

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Far right ekes gains in EU elections, rocks France

What happened
Far-right parties gained seats in European Parliament elections held in 27 countries, Green parties lost ground and the main center-right and center-left parties won the most votes, according to exit polls and preliminary results released Sunday.

The far right saw its biggest gains in Germany, where the scandal-plagued Alternative for Germany (AfD) party edged past Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats to take second place, and France, where Marine Le Pen's National Rally party crushed Emmanuel Macron's pro-business Renew party so badly, Macron dissolved Parliament and called surprise snap elections.

Who said what
"The center is holding," European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen said Sunday night. She called her center-right coalition, projected to win a plurality of 184 seats in the 720-seat Parliament, an "anchor of stability" and urged the "parties of the center" to govern together. The center-left Social Democrats won 139 seats, while Renew took third with 79 seats.

"For all the drama in Berlin and especially Paris, the projections of a broader hard-right takeover of the EU" failed to materialize, The Economist said. And in many countries the far right "performed short of expectations." Still, since the last elections in 2019, the "once-fringe hard-right parties have entered the political mainstream in Europe," The Washington Post said.

What next?
The "first test of the weaker centrist majority" will be to elect a new European Commission president in July, The New York Times said. Von der Leyen is expected to seek a second five-year term.

 
 
Today's MIDEAST story

Centrist Gantz quits Netanyahu war cabinet

What happened
Benny Gantz, a centrist Israeli opposition leader who joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's newly created war cabinet after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, publicly resigned Sunday, citing frustration with Netanyahu's Gaza war management. Gantz postponed his announcement from Saturday because of an Israeli commando raid that rescued four Israelis held hostage by Hamas and left 274 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza health officials. 

Who said what
Netanyahu is making "empty promises" of a "total victory" over Hamas, "preventing us from achieving real victory" that "puts the release of the hostages above political survival," Gantz said in televised address.

Gantz, a popular former military chief, told Netanyahu three weeks ago he would quit on June 8 unless he articulated a plan for ending the Gaza war and what comes next. Netanyahu told Gantz on X he should not "abandon the campaign."

What next?
Gantz's departure is "unlikely" to oust Netanyahu, whose right-wing coalition has a slim majority in the Knesset, but it "dealt a blow to the appearance of unity" and legitimacy Netanyahu marshaled early in the conflict, The New York Times said. 

 
 
Today's NATIONAL Story

Trump scheduled for probation hearing

What happened
Donald Trump is scheduled to meet remotely Monday with a New York City Probation Department official for a mandatory interview before his sentencing for 34 felony convictions. In an unusual arrangement, Trump and his lawyer Todd Blanche will participate via secure computer conferencing software from Florida, NBC News and The Associated Press said.

Who said what
The probation officer could ask Trump about his personal and criminal history, and "what occurred that led to the charges against him," The New York Times said. The hearing is "also a chance for a defendant to say why they think they deserve a lighter punishment," the AP said. The officer's report is supposed to help Judge Juan Merchan determine a just sentence.

At a rally in Nevada on Sunday, Trump called his four criminal indictments a "disgrace" but otherwise said "next to nothing about this recent conviction," The New York Times said. "Still, a number of people at the rally wore shirts reading 'I'm voting for the convicted felon.'"

What next?
Merchan will sentence Trump on July 11, with punishment ranging from probation to four years in jail

 
 

It's not all bad

It was a weekend of remembrance and celebration for 100-year-old World War II veteran Harold Terens, who traveled to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day and married his fiancée, Jeanne Swerlin, 96. Terens, a former U.S. Army Air Forces corporal, met Swerlin in 2021. "No love affair ever, fictional or otherwise, that's better than ours," he told The Washington Post. Following their symbolic ceremony, the couple attended a state dinner in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and President Joe Biden.

 
 
Under the radar

Radical changes to air travel are expected after a passenger died of a heart attack when a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore hit severe turbulence last month. Scientists say climate change will increase turbulence in the decades ahead. "Terrified" airline bosses are already taking steps that could make air travel a more restrictive and expensive experience, said The Times of London. 

Because of climate change, the "upper atmosphere is warming faster in the tropics than in the polar regions," said turbulence expert Isabel Smith in a research paper published last year. This temperature difference between low and high latitudes "increases wind shear in the jet streams," which "enhances the formation of turbulent patches of air." 

Fatalities caused by turbulence are unusual, and while rocky air currents have occasionally caused airplanes to crash, most of those tragedies were before modern analysis techniques made flying safer. Singapore Airlines has announced it will take a "more cautious approach to managing turbulence." The carrier will suspend the hot drink service when the seatbelt sign is on, for example, and meal services will be paused during bumpy conditions. 

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA is lobbying for a ban on children under the age of 2 traveling on a parent's lap. Passengers "may also notice the seatbelt light being illuminated for longer periods than before," said The Telegraph. And pilots might begin to reroute to avoid rocky jet streams, meaning "longer flights and more fuel," coming at a "greater cost for the passenger."

 
 
On this day

June 10, 1692

Bridget Bishop became the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. She was falsely accused of bewitching five women and sentenced to death after an eight-day trial. An additional 19 people were executed for witchcraft during the trials. Bishop wouldn't be officially exonerated until 2001, more than 300 years after her death.

 
 
TODAY’S newspaperS

Before returning to the U.S. from France on Sunday, President Joe Biden "honors war dead with a cemetery visit," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Monday's front page. The Boston Globe says "Biden pushes to pluck votes from GOP strongholds" through grassroots efforts in battleground states. The Miami Herald teases a poll that shows "Biden is in striking distance of Trump in Florida," not considered a swing state recently. But the Biden with more front-page coverage is Hunter, whose trial on gun registration charges resumes Monday. At that trial, "the attention is on women," The New York Times says; the Los Angeles Times singles out one of them as "Hunter Biden's rock — and perhaps his secret weapon." His late brother "Beau still looms large" over the trial, too, The Washington Post adds.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Chain mail

A Colorado man survived a brush with death when his 10mm-wide silver chain necklace stopped a bullet from penetrating his neck. The victim had been embroiled in an argument when the shooting took place but walked away with just a puncture wound from the attack. "We'd say he really dodged a bullet," the Commerce City Police Department said in a Facebook post, "but in reality, he lodged a bullet."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harold Maass, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images; Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images; Eric Thayer for The Washington Post via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images