👋 Kamusta!*
Welcome to Friday, where Keir Starmer officially becomes prime minister after a huge Labour victory, at least 89 migrants are dead after a boat capsizes off Mauritania, and a 75-year-old American goes for a swim in the Seine. Meanwhile, Feda Ziyadh in Arabic-language independent digital media platform Daraj offers a first-person reflection on the meanings of “house” and “home” amid displacement and destruction in war-torn Gaza.
[*Tagalog, Philippines]
✅ SIGN UP
This is our daily newsletter Worldcrunch Today, a rapid tour of the news of the day from the world's best journalism sources, regardless of language or geography.
It's easy (and free!) to sign up to receive it each day in your inbox: 👉 Sign up here
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Elections in the UK resulted in what many — including the Daily Telegraph — defined as a “landslide” victory for the center-left Labour party. Coming back to power for the first time after 14 years, the winning party secured 411 seats as of this morning, more than doubling its performance at the last legislative elections in 2019. The big losers, in turn, is the Conservative party, which currently stands at 121 seats, 251 less than in 2019.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Starmer pledges to stabilize UK as Labour wins huge majority. Keir Starmer has officially been confirmed by King Charles as the UK’s new prime minister. The 61-year-old Labour party leader vowed to rebuild Britain after a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, ending 14 years of Conservative government. The center-left Labour won an overwhelming majority in the 650-seat parliament.
• Iranians return to polls to pick new president amid voter turnout concerns. Iranians have returned to the polls for a presidential run-off that pits centrist Masoud Pezeshkian against hardliner Saeed Jalili in the race to succeed Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. The second round on Friday comes as neither candidate secured an outright majority in last week’s first round. Read this recent article in Kayhan-London about frontrunner Saeed Jalilil, translate from Persian by Worldcrunch.
• Optimism on possible ceasefire as Hezbollah and Hamas meet. Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was meeting today with top Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya as hopes rose at reaching a ceasefire with Israel. This comes as clashes continued in Gaza, and after Hezbollah launched over 200 rockets on Thursday at several military bases in Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its senior commanders.
• At least 89 people dead as boat capsizes off Mauritania. The migrants and refugees were reportedly attempting to reach Europe when the accident occurred, with dozens still missing, off the coast of Mauritania. The news only circulated Thursday, though the fishing boat capsized on Monday about 2.4 miles from the West African country’s southwestern coastal city of Ndiago.
• Brazil's Bolsonaro formally accused over Saudi gifts. Brazil’s Federal Police have indicted former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association in connection with undeclared diamonds the far-right leader received from Saudi Arabia during his time in office.
• Man who stabbed South Korea opposition leader gets 15 years in jail. A man who stabbed South Korea’s then-opposition leader Lee Jae-myung in the neck in January has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The attacker was charged with attempted murder and election law violations after the stabbing, which was carried out before the April 10 parliamentary elections.
• A 75-year-old American swims in the Seine to back Paris mayor. A 75-year-old American swimmer braved the murky waters of the Seine River to highlight the French government’s efforts to clean up the river for the Olympic Games. It came as regional authorities released improved water quality data in the river, raising hopes it can host Olympic swimming events after all. Joel Stratte McClure said he was impressed with the progress made in cleaning up the river, but still had concerns about its safety.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
58
Chicago-born competitive eater Pat Bertoletti won this year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, which is held in Coney Island every July 4, after eating 58 hot dogs in 10 minutes. This year’s edition was marred by controversy, as Bertoletti’s arch rival, Joey Chestnut, was barred from this year’s edition over a partnership with a plant-based meat company. To protest the ban, Chestnut (who holds a record 76 hot dogs and buns at Nathan’s contest) set the goal to eat more hot dogs and buns than the winner of this year’s Nathan’s contest, in half the time. With 57 in 5 minutes, Chestnut fell just one hot dog short.
👓 WORLDCRUNCH MAGAZINE
Our weekly digital magazine is live — Check it out: full access for subscribers!
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Gaza diary: Searching for “my home” after war destroys the house
After nine months of war, most Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced multiple times. Often that leaves the sense of being at home, even a destroyed home, fading from their consciousness, reports Feda Ziyadh in Arabic-language independent digital media platform Daraj.
🇵🇸 It’s about 50 days in my new shelter. It’s my fifth displacement to a house, another home that it’s not mine, in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. I woke up with a great desire for that other house: my home. The Arabic language is very compassionate to include the possessive pronoun (my) — my home. It makes you feel as if you own the whole world, and can walk proudly from here to there.
💬 In Rafah, I was thrown off by the local dialect, when the woman who owned the house there decided to open her closet for me in the days of extreme cold. She said with a smile, which was later repeated in Khan Younis: “but in any case, the house is your home.” She used "your" as if my anxiety was exposed to her so the display of the jackets would give me some comfort to defeat the cold around me. All that I was saying at the time — despite my deep feelings of gratitude — was that this closet and this wide house wouldn’t give me the warmth of (my) home.
⏱️ Today I stand at the door in shame. I want to break the desire and urgency of longing, the longing that might push me to cry and collapse to the ground. There is no luxury for that. We are constantly on the run, fleeing within a space that changes rapidly, every three minutes it seems. This is war. It forces you to face the fact that anything can happen at any moment. Time is made of stone and rubble that suddenly lands on your head. Yes, you have to give up that luxury of crying. Now.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
✉️ Want to receive all Worldcrunch articles by email? Subscribe to The Latest here (and check our other — free! — newsletters while you’re at it!)
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“I do not need a mandate as I do not represent anything.”
— Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who will also hold the rotating Presidency of the EU for the next six months, is in Moscow for a state visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an event that is raising eyebrows around the bloc. Orbán claims to be in Moscow for a “peace mission,” after visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this week. EU leaders in Brussels have quickly distanced the Union and its positions from Orbán’s decision, with EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell writing on X that the visit “undermines interests of the European Union.”
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Edward Said vs. Arafat & Co.: Time For A New Paradigm Of Palestinian Rule — AL-MANASSA
• Teenage Letter From A Russian Jail: "Don't Let Putin Scare Us" — HOLOD
• Cosmeticorexia: The Risky Trend Of Teens Using Anti-Aging Skin Products — CLARÍN
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Fabrizio La Rocca
Let us know what’s happening in your corner of the world!