Hard Numbers: Israelis want war to end, “Czech Trump” wins elections, China-India flights resume, The Free Press goes mainstream
35: Billionaire populist Andrej Babiš, often called “the Czech Trump” won the Czech Republic’s election, taking 35% of the vote. Babiš, who was PM from 2017-2021, is expected to form a government with two smaller ultra-euroskeptic parties, raising concern about whether Prague’s staunch support for Ukraine will continue. See our recent piece on Babiš here.
5: Direct flights between China and India will resume for the first time in five years, as the two billion-strong Asian powers continue to thaw their relationship. Flights were suspended in 2020 after a long-simmering border clash in the Himalayas erupted into open conflict. The move comes as India, long a partner of the US, looks for new allies in the wake of Donald Trump’s massive new tariffs and visa restrictions.
150 million: US media giant Paramount, which owns CBS, has officially purchased the upstart opinion and investigative journalism website The Free Press for $150 million. As part of the deal, Free Press founder Bari Weiss will be installed as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Spiritual counsel from Czech writer Ivan Klíma, who died at 94 on Saturday. Klíma, who survived a Nazi concentration camp as a child and later insisted on remaining in communist Czechoslovakia to publish clandestinely rather than flee into exile, was one of the 20th century’s greatest critics of totalitarianism. Čest jeho památce 🕊️