https://apnews.com/article/egypt-gaza-activists-march-blocked-rafah-sinai-917954d224c95b12f2550f5bde7f92af

https://apnews.com/article/egypt-gaza-activists-march-blocked-rafah-sinai-917954d224c95b12f2550f5bde7f92af

President Donald Trump's administration is pushing a "deliberate destruction of education, science, and history," wrote Adam Serwer in a scathing analysis for The Atlantic published on Tuesday — and it recalls the "Dark Ages" that followed the fall of the Roman Empire.

"Every week brings fresh examples," wrote Serwer. For instance, Trump "is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression."

One of the most prominent of these attacks is on Harvard University, which the administration today announced will have all its remaining grants canceled, he said. That matter is currently the focus of legal action as Harvard fights back, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

This purge is already snuffing out free thought across the country, wrote Serwer: "Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical."

The result of all this will be to "undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us," he warned. "Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power."

And the harm done to America's ability to conduct basic research to improve our lives and advance technology is hard for lay people to comprehend, he continued.

While private companies do a lot of innovation themselves, he continued, "the research that leads to that invention tends to be a costly gamble — for this reason, the government often takes on the initial risk that private firms cannot." For instance, "commercial flight, radar, microchips, spaceflight, advanced prosthetics, lactose-free milk, MRI machines — the list of government-supported research triumphs is practically endless." And even when private companies do their own research, it takes a back seat to profit — after all, "Exxon Mobil knew climate change was real decades ago, and nevertheless used its influence to raise doubt about findings it knew were accurate."

As the Trump administration burns down America's capabilities in the pursuit of destroying "forbidden ideas," Serwer concluded, history could be on track for a grim repeat: it "will dramatically impair the ability to solve problems, prevent disease, design policy, inform the public, and make technological advancements. Like the catastrophic loss of knowledge in Western Europe that followed the fall of Rome, it is a self-inflicted calamity. All that matters to Trumpists is that they can reign unchallenged over the ruins."
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Trump threatens new 'Dark Age' with policy of 'deliberate destruction': analysis - NewsBreak

^NewsBreak

At least 26 people have been killed, and scores have been injured, near a US-backed aid distribution site near Gaza's southern city of Rafah, according to medics and residents.

A local Palestinian journalist told the BBC that thousands of Palestinians had gathered near a humanitarian aid distribution centre when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.

The incident reportedly took place to the west of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, and the injured are being treated at one of Gaza’s few functioning hospitals in Khan Younis.

Israel denies firing at civilians after Hamas-run ministry says 31 killed in Gaza aid centre attack

The Hamas-run health ministry says more than a hundred people were injured in the attack. The aid distributor said the reports were "false".

^{BBC News}

China has dramatically curtailed its lending in recent years. Now, it's emerging as the largest debt collector for many of the world's poorest nations — a shift that threatens to undermine poverty reduction efforts and fuel instability, according to a new report.

Lending for China's Belt and Road Initiative — which includes funding for a massive series of new railways, ports and roads in the developing world — began winding down before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Peak repayment: China's global lending, released this month by Australia's Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think tank. The report points to diplomatic pressure within China to restructure unsustainable debt and to recover outstanding debts from abroad for the change.

Peak repayment: China’s global lending - Lowy Institute

Soaring debt repayments and collapsed lending have flipped China role in development countries from capital provider to debt collector.

^{interactives.lowyinstitute.org}

Right-wing opposition presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki has won Poland’s presidential election, official results show. With 100% of districts having reported results, Nawrocki won 50.89% of the vote against 49.11% for his centrist, government-aligned rival, Rafał Trzaskowski.

Turnout stood at 71.63%, which is a record for a Polish presidential election, beating the 68.23% seen in 1995. It is also the second-highest turnout among all post-1989 Polish elections, behind only the 74.38% at the 2023 parliamentary election.

The outcome represents a remarkable victory for Nawrocki, a political novice who had never previously stood for elected office and trailed Trzaskowski in the polls for virtually the entire campaign. It will also have a huge influence on how Poland is governed during his five-year term.

Trzaskowski, who is deputy leader of Poland’s main ruling party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), would have worked closely with the ruling coalition of PO Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

However, Nawrocki, technically an independent but whose candidacy was supported by the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, is likely to wield his veto and other presidential powers to stymie the government’s agenda, just as the current PiS-aligned incumbent Andrzej Duda has done.

Trzaskowski, a multilingual former minister for European affairs and member of the European Parliament, would also have favoured closer relations with Brussels while Nawrocki – who was endorsed by the Trump administration during the campaign – is a eurosceptic who favours strong ties with Washington.

Sunday’s run-off vote came two weeks after Trzaskowski and Nawrocki had emerged as the top two candidates among 13 who stood in the first round two weeks earlier.

The initial exit poll, published immediately as voting ended at 9 p.m., placed Trzaskowski narrowly ahead, on 50.3%. However, with a margin of error of around 2 percentage points, that poll made the result too close to call.

Updated versions of the exit poll published later on Sunday and in the early hours of Monday – which also included the first official results as they began to filter through – showed a reversal of the situation, with Nawrocki now leading on 50.7%. That led many analysts to call the win for Nawrocki.

Among the first to congratulate Nawrocki on Monday morning was Duda, whose second and final term in office ends in August this year.

“It was a difficult, sometimes painful, but incredibly courageous fight for Poland, for how the affairs of our homeland are to be conducted,” wrote Duda, who endorsed Nawrocki during the campaign. “Thank you for this heroic fight until the last minute…Thank you…for the victory! Bravo!”

Duda, who himself defeated Trzaskowski at the 2020 presidential election, also thanked the losing candidate for his “determination in the fight for the presidency…[and] willingness to take responsibility for Poland”.

Neither Nawrocki nor Trzaskowski have yet commented on the result, but the first foreign leader to issue congratulations to Nawrocki was Petr Pavel, president of the neighbouring Czech Republic.

“I believe that, under his leadership, Poland will continue to develop its democratic and pro-Western direction and that our countries will continue their mutually beneficial cooperation,” wrote Pavel.

The final election results must also be confirmed by the Supreme Court’s chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs.

However, that process is shrouded in controversy because the chamber – which was created as part of the PiS party’s judicial reforms when it was in power – is regarded as illegitimate by Tusk’s government.

An attempt by the ruling coalition to change the way that the presidential election results are validated by the Supreme Court was vetoed in March this year by Duda

Sunday’s run-off vote comes at the end of a months-long campaign that has seen the interrelated issues of security and migration at the forefront.

The war in neighbouring Ukraine has seen both candidates pledge to continue efforts to bolster Poland’s defence capabilities through expansion and modernisation of the armed forces.

Nawrocki, however, has taken a much tougher line regarding Ukraine itself, including signing a pledge not to ratify its accession to NATO if he becomes president. Tusk, as well as Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, criticised that decision, saying that it echoed Russian demands.

Both candidates have also pledged to clamp down on immigration and on the support given to immigrants already in Poland, though again Nawrocki has taken tougher positions.

Trzaskowski, meanwhile, has pledged that, if he were to become president, he would seek to sign bills liberalising the abortion law, introducing same-sex civil partnerships and undoing PiS’s judicial reforms.

Nawrocki, by contrast, holds deeply conservative views on social issues and has pledged not to sign any bills ending the current near-total ban on abortion.

During the final stages of the campaign, Nawrocki was hit by a series of scandals. It came to light that he had lied about only having one apartment. Not only did he own a second, but various questions came to light over how he had come to possess it and how he treated the elderly, disabled man living there.

Subsequently, a leading news website, Onet, reported that Nawrocki had helped procure prostitutes for guests at a luxury hotel where he worked as a security guard. Nawrocki denied the claims – based on testimony by anonymous former colleagues – and pledged to sue Onet.

Meanwhile, Trzaskowski faced questions after it emerged that hundreds of thousands of zloty had been spent on Facebook adverts supporting him and attacking Nawrocki.

The provenance of that money remains unclear, but there is a chance it came from abroad, which would be illegal under Polish election law. Trzaskowski has insisted that he and his staff had no involvement in or knowledge of the campaign.

https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/06/02/right-wing-opposition-candidate-nawrocki-wins-polish-presidential-election/