Flagship

Nationalist wins Poland election

A nationalist boxer-turned-historian backed by US President Donald Trump narrowly won Poland’s presidential election. Karol Nawrocki’s victory is a blow to Poland’s centrist, pro-Brussels Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has sought to loosen abortion restrictions, pass a civil-partnership law, and reverse legislation that the European Union said politicized the judiciary — efforts the new head of state could veto or slow. The campaign focused on security and migration, issues closely tied to Poland’s relationship with Ukraine. But while both presidential candidates pledged to maintain support for Kyiv, Nawrocki was more critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and took a harder line against Ukrainian refugees in Poland, accusing them of taking advantage of Polish generosity.

Mexico holds judicial election

Mexico became the first country to elect its entire judiciary in a vote marred by low voter turnout and accusations of fraud. Just 13% of 100 million eligible voters turned out, the electoral body reported, with many of those who did using government-issued lists to select among the candidates for the 2,600 posts, including to the Supreme Court. Critics say the ruling party’s move to introduce judicial elections threatens Mexico’s democracy, potentially allowing it to gain power over the only government branch it doesn’t control, and that the vote opens the door for cartels to place lackeys in positions of power. “The high cost of terminating the independent judiciary can’t be overstated,” The Wall Street Journal’s Latin America columnist wrote.

Ukraine-Russia talks resume

Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia will meet today in Istanbul for a second round of peace talks, even as both sides hammer each other on the battlefield. Moscow said it shot down 162 Ukrainian drones overnight, hours after Kyiv carried out an audacious attack in which it claimed to have destroyed 41 Russian planes using drones smuggled across the border. Kyiv, meanwhile, accused Moscow of firing nearly 500 drones and missiles, with one strike killing 12 Ukrainian soldiers at a training ground. The upsurge in fighting underscores the challenges of reaching any deal, despite persistent US pressure on both sides to agree a truce: “For now,” Kyiv’s former foreign minister wrote in Foreign Affairs. “a ceasefire in Ukraine is impossible.”

White House says tariffs here to stay

Stocks fell as US-China trade tensions ratcheted up and the Trump administration said recent court rulings would not stop it from imposing sweeping tariffs. Beijing today accused Washington of undermining a pause in economic hostilities agreed last month, days after the US made similar claims against China. The US commerce secretary, meanwhile, told Fox News that “tariffs aren’t going away,” as several top officials insisted that court battles over trade policy would not deter the White House. Indeed, Trump himself said Friday he would double existing duties on steel imports, while JP Morgan economists project that the effective US tariff rate is more likely to rise than fall.

EU to curb Chinese access

The European Union is poised to curb Chinese access to the bloc’s medical-device market, dealing a blow to relations ahead of a major EU-China summit. The decision would block Chinese firms from bidding for public contracts, and mark the first use of new rules allowing Brussels to restrict non-EU companies from selling into its market, a law seen by many as targeting Beijing. The move comes at a fraught geopolitical moment, with the EU wanting to improve ties with China as it faces trade tensions with the US. Today’s decision, however, “could reduce the chances of Brussels and Beijing reaching some sort of trade détente” when their leaders meet next month, the analyst Noah Barkin wrote.

OPEC+ ramps up supply

The world’s major oil producers agreed to increase output for the third month in a row, despite sagging prices. The decision by OPEC+ likely owes to pressure from US President Donald Trump to drive down the cost of oil and a desire by oil exporters to beat back American shale producers who struggle to produce at lower prices, while also punishing some bloc members who stand accused of cheating on their quotas. Oil prices rose on the decision — the supply hike was lower than some traders feared — but analysts retained their longer-term projections: ING expects Brent crude to fall to $59 a barrel by the year’s end, from about $65 now.

S. Africa markets surge

South Africa’s stock market hit record highs, providing a reprieve for the government amid escalating trade tensions with Washington. Boosted by a jump in revenues for the country’s largest listed company, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was on pace for its best month in nearly a year, during which it has outperformed the markets of both the US and peer countries. It comes as investors have piled into South African bonds as they seek alternatives to US assets. However, the country’s governing coalition still faces huge economic challenges: Youth unemployment is among the highest in the world, while the economy is expected to expand just 1% this year, far below the continental average of 3.9%.

Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani will be in Cannes to cover media and marketing’s biggest annual gathering, where many of the most powerful people in media come to make deals, rub shoulders, win awards, and sip Aperol spritzes on the Côte d’Azur.

Starting June 16, they’ll deliver news, scoops, and insights on the year ahead in media — with all its deal-making, gossip, and pretentious grandeur, from one of the industry’s true epicenters.

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New summer heat efforts

Japan unveiled tougher legislation forcing companies to protect staff from heat waves, ahead of what experts fear could be unprecedented summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere. The ruling, which threatens higher fines for employers if they fail to adequately protect their workers, follows 30 heat deaths in workplaces last year, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia — which experienced almost 1,300 heat-related deaths during the Hajj in 2024 — unveiled a raft of policies to avoid similar tragedies, including planting 10,000 trees as it prepares for more than a million people to arrive for this year’s pilgrimage. Forecasts show temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere are expected to be well above recent summer averages.

Paris chaos after soccer triumph

Two people died and more than 500 were arrested in Paris after celebrations marking a European soccer victory turned violent. Clashes broke out after Paris Saint-Germain thrashed Italy’s Inter Milan in the Champions League final, leading to almost 700 fires across the French capital despite thousands of police officers being deployed, Le Monde reported. The violence was the latest in a spate of soccer-related incidents in France, including skirmishes with Israeli fans at the Stade de France last year. “It is unbearable that it is not possible to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs,” the country’s interior minister said.

Dior picks new creative director

French luxury label Dior named a Northern Irish designer as creative director for both its women’s and men’s collections. Jonathan Anderson’s ascent is the latest in a string of changes at the top of major global fashion houses, including Donatella Versace stepping down as creative director at her eponymous brand. The appointment of Anderson, formerly creative director at Loewe, also comes at a difficult time for global luxury brands: Dior’s sales fell in 2024 after years of bumper revenue growth. But it has in recent months overhauled its leadership and “now appears to have everything in place for a revival,” Vogue noted.

• Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko begins a three-day visit to China.
• South Korea’s presidential candidates make their final pitches to voters ahead of Tuesday’s general election.
• The International Publishers’ Association will announce the winner of the 2025 Freedom to Publish award, the Prix Voltaire.

Deep cut

US President Donald Trump and his supporters frequently rail against the “deep state,” but by culling large tracts of the government apparatus, the president may be building a shallow state: That’s the case made by the political scientist Daniel Drezner. Eliminating huge numbers of official roles “will obviously have serious long-term effects on US state capacity — but in many cases the private sector will also be hit hard,” Drezner writes. One example: Slashing jobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will make it harder for businesses to get insurance.

A shallow state will also hit Trump himself, with a withered government apparatus only able to enact his policies in a shallow manner, leaving itself open to lawsuits and pushback. “MAGA’s war on the ‘deep state’ will succeed in creating a shallow state that does no one much good,” Drezner noted, “including, ironically enough, the current MAGA occupants of the executive branch.”

Story telling

A recent investigation by a Chinese outlet illustrates the challenges facing the country’s media. South Reviews, a Guangzhou-based magazine, last month published a feature recounting alleged sexual harassment by a high school teacher for over a decade: The teacher was able to move between jobs unimpeded, administrators dismissed credible claims against him, and the courts did nothing. South Reviews interviewed three of the teacher’s alleged victims, and “offered a rare and detailed account of a problem recognizable and relevant to many Chinese readers,” Lingua Sinica recounted. “But within days, it had vanished from the South Reviews website.”

China’s media is heavily censored, but as one former South Reviews editor told Lingua Sinica, “it’s not impossible to write about such topics,” though “no one knows exactly where the red lines are, nor why certain pieces get deleted.” The teacher’s victims banded together and detailed their suffering on a public microblogging account, but received little engagement. No other outlets have run stories on the issue. “The deletion of the South Reviews article… illustrates the narrow space for reporting on sexual harassment in China.”

Book burning

This August will mark 33 years since Sarajevo’s National Library was shelled by Bosnian Serb forces, causing a fire which destroyed almost 2 million books, among them rare Ottoman-era manuscripts and drawings. When firefighters sought to put out the blaze, they were targeted by sniper fire. The building itself could not be rescued but at least some of its contents could: Enter librarian Aida Buturović. When Buturović initially got the job at the library, she told her sister that she was, “socializing with wonderful colleagues and wonderful books.” She was among those who sought to save works from the fire, losing her life in the process..

Citing historians, the writer Elif Shafak noted that “libraries and archives have been deliberately destroyed, again and again… And it is still happening, today.” Shafak continued: “How do we grow literature and love, knowledge and empathy, connectedness and humanity, against the flood of ignorance, hatred, apathy, division, destruction, hyper-information and dehumanisation? By remembering Aida, and those who, just like her, did everything they could to nurture collective memory, coexistence, peace and the art of storytelling.”

The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward. This debut novel follows twin sisters whose lives have taken drastically different paths — one a glittering novelist, the other working an administrative job — after being adopted into separate families following the death of their mother: “Elegant and unpredictable in the best possible way,” Kirkus wrote in its starred review. Pre-order The Catch at your local bookstore.