During his 15 years in power, Hungary's Viktor Orban (pictured above) has become the model for other would-be authoritarian strongman leaders, including Donald Trump. Driven by a conservative nationalist agenda, his Fidesz party has transformed Hungary into a self-declared "illiberal state". But now Europe's longest-serving premier is "facing the toughest political challenge to his rule", said Bloomberg.

What did the commentators say?
"Orban's power is indeed now under threat but not in the way – or from the people – one might expect," said BBC Budapest correspondent Nick Thorpe.

Peter Magyar is a former Fidesz insider who emerged as a surprise challenger in early 2024, after he spoke out against a child sexual abuse cover-up that led to the resignation of the Fidesz president. Since then, the 44-year-old conservative has toured the country, calling out rampant nepotism and corruption, while highlighting the perilous state of the economy and declining public services.

The key to Magyar's appeal, said law professor Maciej Kisilowski in The Japan Times, is that, although he "broke with Orban's authoritarian 'mafia state', he did not abandon many of the conservative values that Orban represents". Boosted by his savvy and, at times, irreverent use of social media, Magyar represents an emerging "far right-lite" in Europe, in the mould of Italy's Giorgia Meloni – one which minimises its "most harmful geopolitical, economic and environmental" policies, while still playing to the "deeply entrenched nativist and anti-intellectual sentiments of today's conservative voters".

This strategy appears to be paying dividends. Recent polling has Magyar's Tisza Party surging to a massive 15-point lead over Fidesz, said Bloomberg, up from a nine-point lead in March. Orban's "formula of bashing gays, migrants and the European Union seems to have stopped working", said The Economist, for the time being at least.

What next?
Orban is still expected to seek a fifth term in parliamentary elections due to be held in April 2026. But, for the first time, he has broached the topic of succession – until now "largely taboo within Fidesz circles", said Bloomberg. "When the time comes, we'll manage", he told pro-government newspaper Magyar Nemzet on Monday, adding that the notion that only he could lead Fidesz is a "myth".

The first instalment of "The Retrievals" was a "tough listen", said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. It explored a scandal at the Yale Fertility Center where a nurse with an addiction had been stealing drugs, leaving women undergoing medical operations with no pain relief. "They said that they were in agony, but no one believed them."

Season two takes the central issue of women's pain being ignored and "discovers it somewhere else: childbirth". This time, reporter Susan Burton tells the story of Clara Hochhauser, who was not given the proper painkillers before undergoing an emergency Caesarean. Despite her screams of pain, the procedure continued, with her feeling everything.

Towards the end of the first episode, Burton "drops the bombshell": each year in the US, 100,000 women experience significant pain during a C-section. What Clara went through was an "aberration", but "cultural norms" around pregnancy prevented her from being able to get the help she needed. Childbirth is "shrouded" by the assumption that significant pain is "all part of the deal".

"Not everything about the season lands," said Nicholas Quah in Vulture. It would have been good to get further insight into the "institutional cultures that shape" obstetrics, and the decision to present the story like a TV medical procedural feels "peculiar" and "distracting" at first. But, as the story goes on, it pulls you in, forcing you to "actively try to channel that experience".

The rest of the series dives into potential solutions to this "appallingly common injustice", said The Observer's Sawyer. It is, "again, essential listening."

The pendulum has swung too far on risk
Rachel Reeves in the Financial Times
I've announced the "widest ranging set of changes to financial regulation in over a decade", writes chancellor Rachel Reeves. I promised to change our approach and "we have delivered on that promise". We've been "held back by an unpredictable regulatory system that has a disproportionate attitude towards risk". This was "bad for businesses, bad for growth and bad for working people". Britain can now become "a magnet for investment" once again.

As a working parent, even spending £1,000 on childcare this summer wouldn't be enough
Will Gore in The i Paper
Children are "licking their lips in expectation" of the summer holidays but "many parents will be in the throes of despair", writes Will Gore. The long break is a "logistical nightmare" – especially for working parents. The average cost of holiday childcare is over £1,000 per child and sessions at most summer camps are shorter than a full working day. I say, "Let's hear it for schools and look forward to September."

We have to do more to shelter our glorious trees
Alice Thomson in The Times
When the Sycamore Gap tree was "felled" by "hooligans", I was among the many who "made the pilgrimage to the stricken stump", writes Alice Thomson. "This country treats our living trees appallingly": "successive governments" have broken promises to "stop desecrating our woodland" and "ancient trees have no automatic protection". Trees provide a link to our history and "benefit our mental health". Ministers, farmers and housebuilders must do more to protect the nation's "shelter and shade".