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Ursula von der Leyen treads narrow path to second term

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Ursula von der Leyen treads narrow path to second term

Ursula von der Leyen became president of the European Commission five years ago with a razor-thin parliamentary majority of just nine votes.

Securing a second term may be even more fraught, hinging on uncomfortable choices and backroom deals that must navigate the EU’s rightward shift in elections on Sunday.

While her centre-right European People’s party parliamentary group won the election and secured 185 seats in the 720-strong assembly, von der Leyen’s other centrist allies have fared worse, while the hard right surged from a fifth to nearly a quarter of seats.

“She has options, which is better than only having the hard right to turn to,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali. “But that doesn’t mean it will be easy to choose which option works.”

For a second five-year term at the helm of the EU commission, Brussels’ most powerful job, von der Leyen needs both the backing of the EU’s 27 leaders and a majority of the newly elected parliament. The latter has long been more of a concern.

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In addition to the EPP, the other two groups that backed her in 2019 — the centre-left Socialists and Democrats and the liberal Renew — are projected to command around 402 seats in total according to preliminary results on Monday morning.

Her projected majority gives her a narrower space for manoeuvre compared with 2019, when the three groups together should have secured a 68-vote majority. But because many lawmakers voted against her and the ballot is secret, she passed by just nine votes.

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In a vote expected on July 18, analysts forecast that von der Leyen would lose as much as 15 per cent of that coalition, which would leave her short of the majority she needs.

That means she and her team would need to reach out to other parties, officials said, including the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists, led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the Greens.

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But the jeopardy is that by expanding her coalition, she risks losing votes from the other side of the political spectrum. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, has warned against a pact with Meloni — and so has French President Emmanuel Macron’s party.

Bas Eickhout, one of the Greens’ two lead candidates for the election, said he was in touch with von der Leyen but that no formal negotiations had started. “I always had difficulties in understanding exactly how a coalition with ECR would work,” he said. “I’ve always seen the only reliable, stable democratic coalition possible is with the Greens.”

A person briefed on the discussions said: “You would not be surprised to know how many conversations have taken place between the EPP and the Greens in recent weeks.”

Seeking Green support would put von der Leyen in a complicated position given her retreat from a swath of climate legislation in recent months to fend off protests from farmers and rightwing parties. Embracing Meloni would be likely to involve a tougher stance on migration that could alienate her liberal supporters.

Ursula von der Leyen speaks to Giorgia Meloni
Ursula von der Leyen with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at an EU summit in April © Omar Havana/AP

Von der Leyen will spend the next two weeks in a series of meetings with EU national leaders, including during an EPP conclave on Monday, the G7 leaders’ summit in Italy starting on Thursday and the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland next weekend.

She will seek both their personal backing at an EU summit on June 27 and for their parties’ backing in parliament.

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“She needs to get the 27 [leaders] both comfortable with her vision for the next five years, but just as importantly, convinced she’s got the numbers in parliament,” said an EU diplomat involved in the preparations for the summit. “It would be a disaster for them to endorse someone who gets rejected by the MEPs. So she can’t approach it as two separate processes. They run in tandem.”

Von der Leyen’s pitch will be threefold: that she is the only available candidate who can win support from leaders and negotiate a deal to win a majority in parliament; that she steered the EU through the twin crises of Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and that it would be folly to change leadership in the middle of a war in Europe and with the potential return of Donald Trump as US president.

“We won the European elections. We are by far the strongest party. We are the anchor of stability and voters acknowledged our leadership,” von der Leyen told the party faithful on Sunday night to cheers of “five more years”.

She said she was “confident” of winning a second term, and that on Monday she would begin negotiating with the S&D and Renew groups, “building on a constructive and proven relationship”. When asked about coalition partners, she said she was open to talks with “those who are pro-European, pro-Ukraine, pro-rule of law”.

Viktor Orbán arrives to cast his vote for European parliament elections at a polling station in Budapest
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch von der Leyen critic © Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

Among the lawmakers who supported her in 2019 were MEPs from Poland’s ultraconservative Law and Justice party and Hungary’s far-right Fidesz, the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch von der Leyen critic.

EPP officials on Sunday expressed confidence in her winning a second term.

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“There is no alternative being discussed in the party. And there’s a plurality of EPP leaders around the summit table. So she has nothing to worry about there,” said a senior commission official close to von der Leyen. “And so the question to the parliament is: if you are going to shoot a hostage, do you have a plan for afterwards? Because if they don’t, they’re voting for chaos.”

So far, only party leaders of the EPP and S&D have openly said they would back von der Leyen.

“At the end of the day the members of parliament are basically kids with guns,” said a senior EU diplomat. “So, really, who knows?”

How will the European parliamentary elections change the EU? Join Ben Hall, Europe editor, and colleagues in Paris, Rome, Brussels and Germany for a subscriber webinar on June 12. Register now and put your questions to our panel at ft.com/euwebinar

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Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid

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Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman, yesterday. Multiple observers captured the shooting on video, and community members demanded accountability. Minnesota law enforcement officials and the FBI are investigating the fatal shooting, which the Trump administration says was an act of self-defense. Meanwhile, the mayor has accused the officer of reckless use of power and demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis.

People demonstrate during a vigil at the site where a woman was shot and killed by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman on Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as President Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government’s allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents “bullshit,” and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis.

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  • 🎧 Caitlin Callenson recorded the shooting and says officers gave Good multiple conflicting instructions while she was in her vehicle. Callenson says Good was already unresponsive when officers pulled her from the car. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims the officer was struck by the vehicle and acted in self-defense. In the video NPR reviewed, the officer doesn’t seem to be hit and was seen walking after he fired the shots, NPR’s Meg Anderson tells Up First. Anderson says it has been mostly peaceful in Minneapolis, but there is a lot of anger and tension because protesters want ICE out of the city.

U.S. forces yesterday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain after a two-week chase. The tanker was originally headed to Venezuela, but it changed course to avoid the U.S. ships. This action comes as the Trump administration begins releasing new information about its plans for Venezuela’s oil industry.

  • 🎧 It has been a dramatic week for U.S. operations in Venezuela, NPR’s Greg Myre says, prompting critics to ask if a real plan for the road ahead exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the U.S. does have a strategy to stabilize Venezuela, and much of it seems to involve oil. Rubio said the U.S. would take control of up to 50 million barrels of oil from the country. Myre says the Trump administration appears to have a multipronged strategy that involves taking over the country’s oil, selling it on the world market and pressuring U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday that focus on promoting whole foods, proteins and healthy fats. The guidance, which he says aims to “revolutionize our food culture,” comes with a new food pyramid, which replaces the current MyPlate symbol.

  • 🎧 “I’m very disappointed in the new pyramid,” Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert who was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tells NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Gardner says the new food structure, which features red meat and saturated fats at the top, contradicts decades of evidence and research. Poor eating habits and the standard American diet are widely considered to cause chronic disease. Aubrey says the new guidelines alone won’t change people’s eating habits, but they will be highly influential. This guidance will shape the offerings in school meals and on military bases, and determine what’s allowed in federal nutrition programs.

Special series

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Trump has tried to bury the truth of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. NPR built a visual archive of the attack on the Capitol, showing exactly what happened through the lenses of the people who were there. “Chapter 4: The investigation” shows how federal investigators found the rioters and built the largest criminal case in U.S. history.

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Political leaders, including Trump, called for rioters to face justice for their actions on Jan. 6. This request came because so few people were arrested during the attack. The extremists who led the riot remained free, and some threatened further violence. The government launched the largest federal investigation in American history, resulting in the arrest of over 1,500 individuals from all 50 states. The most serious cases were made by prosecutors against leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. For their roles in planning the attack against the U.S., some extremists were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Take a look at the Jan. 6 prosecutions by the numbers, including the highest sentence received.

To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.

Deep dive

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don’t already have an underlying problem. The group said it’s reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:

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  • 💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there’s no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
  • 💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
  • 💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.

3 things to know before you go

When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.

When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.

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  1. Young, terminally ill ants will send out an altruistic “kill me” signal to worker ants, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications. With this strategy, the sick ants sacrifice themselves for the good of their colony.
  2. In this week’s Far-Flung Postcards series, you can spot a real, lone California sequoia tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Napoleon III transformed the park from a former landfill into one of the French capital’s greenest escapes.
  3. The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its “sensitive materials” book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

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Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting

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Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting

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Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota slammed the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent. President Trump said that the agents had acted in self-defense.

This morning, we learned that an ICE officer shot and killed someone in Minneapolis. We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt. Just yesterday, I said exactly that. What we’re seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict. It’s governing by reality TV. And today, that recklessness cost someone their life.

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Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota slammed the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent. President Trump said that the agents had acted in self-defense.

By Jiawei Wang

January 8, 2026

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U.S. to exit 66 international organizations in further retreat from global cooperation

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U.S. to exit 66 international organizations in further retreat from global cooperation

The symbol of the United Nations is displayed outside the Secretariat Building on Feb. 28, 2022, at United Nations Headquarters.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.’s population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the U.S. further retreats from global cooperation.

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies, and commissions, following his administration’s review of participation in and funding for all international organizations, including those affiliated with the United Nations, according to a White House release.

Most of the targets are U.N.-related agencies, commissions and advisory panels that focus on climate, labor, migration and other issues the Trump administration has categorized as catering to diversity and “woke” initiatives. Other non-U.N. organizations on the list include the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and Global Counterterrorism Forum.

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“The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from organizations that foster cooperation among nations to address global challenges comes as his administration has launched military efforts or issued threats that have rattled allies and adversaries alike, including capturing autocratic Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and indicating an intention to take over Greenland.

U.S. builds on pattern of exiting global agencies

The administration previously suspended support from agencies like the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. It has taken a larger, a-la-carte approach to paying its dues to the world body, picking which operations and agencies it believes align with Trump’s agenda and those that no longer serve U.S. interests.

“I think what we’re seeing is the crystallization of the U.S. approach to multilateralism, which is ‘my way or the highway,’” said Daniel Forti, head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group. “It’s a very clear vision of wanting international cooperation on Washington’s own terms.”

It has marked a major shift from how previous administrations — both Republican and Democratic — have dealt with the U.N., and it has forced the world body, already undergoing its own internal reckoning, to respond with a series of staffing and program cuts.

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Many independent nongovernmental agencies — some that work with the United Nations — have cited many project closures because of the U.S. administration’s decision last year to slash foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Despite the massive shift, the U.S. officials, including Trump himself, say they have seen the potential of the U.N. and want to instead focus taxpayer money on expanding American influence in many of the standard-setting U.N. initiatives where there is competition with China, like the International Telecommunications Union, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.

The latest global organizations the U.S. is departing

The withdrawal from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is the latest effort by Trump and his allies to distance the U.S. from international organizations focused on climate and addressing climate change.

UNFCC, the 1992 agreement between 198 countries to financially support climate change activities in developing countries, is the underlying treaty for the landmark Paris climate agreement. Trump — who calls climate change a hoax — withdrew from that agreement soon after reclaiming the White House.

Gina McCarthy, former White House National Climate Adviser, said being the only country in the world not part of the treaty is “shortsighted, embarrassing, and a foolish decision.”

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“This Administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies, and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country,” McCarthy, who co-chairs America Is All In, a coalition of climate-concerned U.S. states and cities, said in a statement.

Mainstream scientists say climate change is behind increasing instances of deadly and costly extreme weather, including flooding, droughts, wildfires, intense rainfall events and dangerous heat.

The U.S. withdrawal could hinder global efforts to curb greenhouse gases because it “gives other nations the excuse to delay their own actions and commitments,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.

It will also be difficult to achieve meaningful progress on climate change without cooperation from the U.S., one of the world’s largest emitters and economies, experts said.

The U.N. Population Fund, the agency providing sexual and reproductive health worldwide, has long been a lightning rod for Republican opposition, and Trump cut funding for it during his first term. He and other GOP officials have accused the agency of participating in “coercive abortion practices” in countries like China.

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When President Biden took office in January 2021, he restored funding for the agency. A State Department review conducted the following year found no evidence to support GOP claims.

Other organizations and agencies that the U.S. will quit include the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group.

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