Die Linke finished first in Berlin's state election today (~25%) with a 13-point surge, led by Elif Eralp, a 45-year-old lawyer of Turkish origin.

If she becomes governing mayor, she'd be Berlin's first Turkish-origin mayor, Germany's first female state leader with a migration background, and the first Linke politician to lead the capital.

Her campaign was compared to New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's. Her team actually exchanged ideas with Mamdani's campaign. Media have called her "Berlin's Mamdani."

Housing drove the vote.

85% of Berliners rent and advertised rents have doubled since 2014.

Her central promise is implementing the 2021 referendum to take ~240,000 private apartments into public ownership.

Coalition talks will determine whether she actually governs — a Linke-Greens-SPD bloc or a CDU-Greens-SPD coalition are both mathematically possible.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meets with Jake and Logan Paul.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel:

The AfD is clearly the new people's party in Germany.

We have overtaken the CDU, and people want a change of policy.

The CDU, with Friedrich Merz, with a weak chancellor, cannot continue.

In Russia’s State Duma elections, exit polls showed the ruling United Russia party leading with 49.4% of the vote in a VCIOM survey and 52.8% in an INSOMAR poll.

The Communist Party was second on 14.2%-14.8%, followed by the LDPR on 9.9%-10.7%, New People on 8.6%-9.7% and A Just Russia on 5.5%-6.6%.

Voter turnout was reported at more than 56%.

Russia's Medvedev:

The United Russia party performed with dignity.

And the citizens of our country maintain trust in our leading political force and consider it possible to entrust it with further governance at various levels of state power.

Zelensky:

I just spoke with President Trump. It was an important conversation, and we managed to discuss many things.

We agreed to meet in New York, and this meeting could bring about significant changes. There is a diplomatic dynamic at play.

NEW: The Trump administration is preparing sweeping sanctions against the International Criminal Court that could severely restrict its access to the global financial system.

The measures would ban most transactions with the ICC after a six- to seven-month grace period and could prevent it from conducting U.S.-dollar transactions.

The move would go much further than existing sanctions on individual ICC officials and follows the court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Marco Rubio has said the U.S. could dismantle the court “brick by brick,” arguing that prosecutions of officials from nonmember states threaten U.S. sovereignty.

A decision could come as soon as this week around the UN General Assembly.

Source: WSJ

French President Macron:

We must work together with Canada to secure our energy supplies and keep fuel prices under control — an extremely sensitive issue for France today.

Canadian liquefied natural gas projects can contribute, are important for our Europe, and will help open new prospects between our two countries.

European intelligence officials are warning that Russia could test NATO within “months, not years,” potentially through drone or missile attacks, false-flag provocations, influence operations or even a limited incursion into NATO territory.

However, Baltic intelligence officials say they do not currently see signs of an imminent Russian attack and warn that excessive public alarm could itself serve Moscow’s goal of spreading fear and uncertainty across Europe.

The officials nevertheless expect Russian sabotage operations to intensify. They say Moscow is increasingly shifting from random acts of disruption toward more specific targets, including railways, infrastructure supporting Ukraine and European defense companies.

Source: The Guardian

Canadian PM Mark Carney:

There are only four countries at the forefront of AI: France, Canada, China and the United States.

We must join forces to ensure an appropriate framework so that AI is safe and effective.

Canadian PM Mark Carney:

To be sovereign goes beyond being able to feed, fuel and defend ourselves.

It requires secure access to artificial intelligence, to space, semiconductors, critical minerals, clean energy.

And it’s in this context that Canada and Europe will build an alliance for the future that will strengthen our collective resilience.

Canadian PM Mark Carney:

Only a few kilometers separate Canada and France at their closest point.

Our values are even closer.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on Russia:

Ukraine has destroyed, it is estimated, between 30% and 40% of Russia’s refining capacity.

So if Ukraine, practically without an air force — because it does not have the operational capability to fly over Russia, for example — was able to achieve that, then I told the Russians, partly as a deterrent: watch out, because we have more combat aircraft than you do.

So if you do what nobody wants you to do, we are not going to sit there and do nothing. We will respond both defensively and offensively.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on Russia:

I do not know of a case in which terrorizing the civilian population produced the desired political effect. Usually, the effect is the opposite.

Please note that because of Russia’s various acts of sabotage, we now have public support for a high defense budget.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on Russia:

We know what it is like to live under Russian domination, and we know what it is like today to live under Russian occupation.

Five million Ukrainians live under Russian occupation, and we know what happens there: concentration camps, the theft of children, forced conscription into the army, police terror, expropriation and a few other things.

And we will defend our freedom.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski:

What kind of Poland do they want? Atlantic, democratic and sovereign — they keep talking about sovereignty — or under Putin’s boot?

That is exactly the choice Ukrainians are fighting over.

And the question is: do we want Putin’s tanks in Dorohusk and Medyka, or would we rather they remain in the Donbas? The farther from our borders, the better.

So Ukraine is our functional ally in keeping Putin away from our borders.

Host: I wouldn’t want East Germany to become "central Germany." I am from Szczecin, so I would like Szczecin to remain Polish.

Sikorski: Then push back against the AfD.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on AfD:

I personally saw in the European Parliament how our right-wingers and their fellow AfD MEPs were practically eating out of each other’s hands during debates, united in that anti-EU and anti-European frenzy.

And now, thank God, there seems to be some reflection that a rearming Germany and German nationalism may not be a particularly good combination, and that a party whose leader refers to East Germany as "central Germany" is not necessarily the most pro-Polish party.

If you become nationalists, there is always a risk that you will find imitators, and that imitation can be very dangerous for us, because nationalists in different countries have very different interests.

It is better to reach agreements within the European Union than to wage wars against one another.

A source familiar with the Trump-Zelensky call told Axios that Trump repeatedly urged Zelensky to stop Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, arguing they were pushing up global diesel prices.

“The word diesel came up many times during the call,” the source said.

Source: Axios

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang:

I was the best bus boy of any bus boy that ever bussed tables.

You know, I brought enthusiasm to almost every job that I had. It didn’t matter what it was.

An Israeli-Jewish comedian told ZDF (Germany's public-service broadcaster) she's worried German TV will water down what she says about Gaza.

During the interview she told the crew that Germany's Israel debate is too cautious and that she doesn't know what she can say on German television without it being changed or cut.

The interviewer asked why they would cut anything.

Then it happened.

In her original English she says "that children get killed" — referring to German tax money and Gaza.

The German voice-over translates this as "dass Kinder in Gaza verhungern" — that children in Gaza starve.

As of today, ZDF hasn't issued a correction or acknowledged the discrepancy.