能源危机推高油价 全球电动车销量普遍增长

2026年6月2日 16:41 / 联合早报

图为4月26日北京国际汽车展览会（Auto China）上展出的比亚迪海鸥电动车（BYD Seagull EV） （路透社）

（东京讯）由于中东战争推高燃油价格，消费者转向使用成本较低的汽车，全球电动车销量在多地明显上升。

标普全球汽车数据显示，在150个国家中，有37个国家在3月或4月创下电动车单月销量新高，其中28国在3月刷新纪录，九个国家在4月再创新高。3至4月期间，91%国家销量高于去年同期，为近两年首次出现如此广泛增长。

韩国、东南亚和欧盟市场增长明显，韩国销量同比激增140%，东南亚增长40%，电动车在当地市场占比升至16%。欧盟市场也回升40%。日本销量增长50%，但市场份额仍仅2%。

中国与美国则分别下降8%和20%。在两大市场拖累下，全球电动车销量仅增8%，但除中美之外地区增长达50%。

From reality TV to city hall? Trump-backed Spencer Pratt soars in LA mayor race as Californians vote

2026-06-02T04:00:09-04:00 / Fox News

Spencer Pratt responds to Newsom’s Bass endorsement, calls them ‘alleged criminal partners’

Kayleigh McEnany discusses Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s controversial Los Angeles homelessness program, highlighting reports of $418 million spent with only 10% effectively getting people off the streets. Spencer Pratt criticizes the alleged corruption, calls out the abuse of dogs on Skid Row, and details his faith-driven mission to make Los Angeles a safer city for mothers and children. Pratt’s mayoral campaign is surging in recent polls against Bass.

Republicans are aiming to break longtime losing streaks by taking first steps toward winning elections for governor and Los Angeles mayor as voters in Democrat-dominated California head to the polls on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s clout over the GOP will once again face a ballot box test, in a gubernatorial showdown in Iowa, while the Hawkeye State’s Democratic Senate nomination is the latest battle between the establishment and progressive wings of the party.

California and Iowa are two of the six states holding primary contests from coast to coast during the first week of June, in elections that will impact November’s midterms, when the GOP’s slim Senate and razor-thin House majorities will be up for grabs.

The election arguably grabbing the most headlines nationally is in Los Angeles, where it’s been three decades since a Republican won a mayoral contest in the nation’s second most populous city. Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star and online influencer-turned-mayoral candidate, is gaining traction, thanks in part to his populist pitch and viral videos.

THE CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS BOOSTING SPENCER PRATT IN THE LOS ANGELES MAYOR SHOWDOWN

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt hosted a campaign “block party” event on May 20, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Pratt, a Republican running as an independent in the left-leaning city, is backed by Trump. His rise is also fueled in part by his well-known status as one of the victims who lost their homes in last year’s devastating wildfires, when over 17,000 homes in Los Angeles County were destroyed, as well as his right-leaning focus on homelessness, crime and government accountability in a city long run by Democrats.

“I keep saying I become the mayor because of moms. Moms are getting me elected. Moms do not feel safe in Los Angeles. Not just feel safe, they are not safe. Nobody’s safe really in LA unless you’re the drug dealer. The drug dealers and the people giving them the needles, the city, our taxpayer money, the needle givers, they’re safe, the meth pipe givers. They’re safe. Everyone else is not safe in LA,” Pratt argued this past weekend in an interview on Fox News’ “Saturday In America with Kayleigh McEnany.”

Pratt is targeting Mayor Karen Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman seeking a second four-year term steering Los Angeles. Bass, who has been endorsed by former Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California senator and state attorney general, as well as the state’s two Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, last week landed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s backing.

IS THERE A ‘GROWING REVOLT’ AGAINST CALIFORNIA’S ONE-PARTY RULE?

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass campaigns ahead of Tuesday’s primary election as she seeks a second term in office.(Louise Barnsley for Fox News Digital)

Bass is attempting to fend off challenges from the right from Pratt and on the left from progressive City Council member Nithya Raman. If no candidate tops 50% in Tuesday’s nonpartisan mayoral election, the top two finishers will face off in November.

In the race for governor, a whopping 61 candidates are running to succeed Newsom in steering the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest-economy.

But heading into the jungle primary, where all candidates regardless of party affiliation appear on the same ballot, with the top two finishers advancing to the general election, only a handful of contenders have a good chance of making the cut.

Among them are Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton.

Becerra, a former longtime congressman and California attorney general who later served as a Cabinet secretary in former President Biden’s administration, would become the first Latino Golden State governor in modern history. Steyer, meanwhile, is a billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental activist who unsuccessfully ran for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB

Hilton is a one-time British political strategist turned American conservative commentator and former Fox News Channel host who is backed by Trump.

Also in the race is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. Hilton and Bianco are both hoping to become the first California Republican win a gubernatorial election since then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 re-election two decades ago.

Bianco has argued that he’s the most conservative candidate in the race.

But Hilton, in an interview on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show,” reiterated his argument that “Chad is just too far behind. He can’t make it into the top two. So every vote for him actually helps the Democrats. We have got to make sure of this. We can’t let this opportunity for change slip away.”

Democratic candidates former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, are among the other better-known contenders.

Democratic candidates Antonio Villaraigosa, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra and Republican candidates Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco participate in a California gubernatorial debate at East Los Angeles College Auditorium in Monterey Park, Calif., on May 5, 2026, ahead of the June 2 primary elections.(Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla mulled launching Democratic bids for governor, but both last year announced they would take a pass. That resulted in the lack of a clear Golden State gubernatorial frontrunner for the first time in more than a quarter century.

And the race was overshadowed for much of last year, as the devastation from the LA wildfires and Trump’s immigration raids grabbed headlines in California.

But the showdown for governor entered the spotlight earlier this year when one of the leading candidates, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, dropped out of the race and then resigned from Congress following a political implosion after facing multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct that he continues to deny.

Swalwell’s exit from the race opened the door for first Steyer and then Becerra to rise in the polls. Steyer shelled out more than $200 million of his own money to blanket the airwaves and the internet with ads.

Bianco, who launched his campaign for governor in April of last year, was among the top contenders in the race until Trump’s endorsement of Hilton in early April blunted his momentum.

Iowa showdowns

In Iowa, the retirements of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst along with the rough political midterm climate facing Republicans, have Democrats optimistic they can flip the seats in a one-time battleground state that turned red the past decade.

Trump, who carried Iowa by 13 points in his 2024 presidential election victory, last week weighed in on the competitive GOP gubernatorial primary,

The president endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra in a race that also includes entrepreneur and private school co-founder Zach Lahn, who is backed by the influential conservative group Turning Point USA, state Rep. Eddie Andrews, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former state administrative services director Adam Steen.

President Donald Trump, right, last week endorsed Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary in Iowa.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Cody Scanlan/The Register/USA Today Network)

The winner will face Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand, who is unopposed in his primary. Sand is the only Democrat currently elected to statewide office.

The brute force of the president’s endorsement power and the immense grip he has on the Republican Party has been on display in GOP primaries the past month, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas.

Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa is the overwhelming frontrunner to secure her party’s Senate nomination in the race to succeed retiring Ernst.

Hinson, a former TV news anchor who is in her third term representing Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, is facing a long-shot challenge from former state senator and former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Carlin. Hinson is backed by Trump, Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the campaign arm of the Senate GOP. Hinson, who in 2020 flipped a Democratic-held seat that covers the northeastern portion of Iowa, is seen as a rising star in the party.

Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa sits for a Fox News Digital interview in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, 2025. She is running in the 2026 race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Joni Ernst.(Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)

The Republican-controlled seat in Iowa is a top target for Democrats and the race is one of about a dozen crucial showdowns in this year’s midterm elections that will determine whether the Republicans hold on to their current 53-47 majority in the chamber.

Hinson will face off in the general election against the winner of an expensive and contentious Democratic Senate primary between state Rep. Josh Turek, a Paralympian, and state Sen. Zach Wahls.

Wahls, a progressive who Republicans have likened to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has the backing of liberal champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Turek, the more moderate Senate contender who flipped a GOP-held Iowa House seat in 2022, is backed by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He also has the tacit support of longtime Senate Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. And VoteVets, an establishment-aligned outside group, has spent big bucks on behalf of Turek.

Primaries in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts will set up general election showdowns in crucial GOP-held seats that Democrats are aiming to flip.

Other showdowns

It’s the same story in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, another purple seat Democrats are eyeing as they try to regain the House majority.

The Republican incumbent, Rep. Tom Kean Jr., has been in the national headlines after being absent from Congress and the campaign trail for three months due to a “a personal medical issue.”

In New Mexico, the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is taking top billing.

Former Rep. Deb Haaland, who served as Interior Secretary in former President Joe Biden’s administration and made history as the nation’s first Native American woman to serve as a Cabinet secretary, who’s to make history again as the first Native American woman elected as governor. She faces off against Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman. Three major Republicans are seeking their party’s gubernatorial nomination.

Montana voters will select nominees in Tuesday’s primary to replace departing Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines.

Former U.S. District Attorney Kurt Alme is running for the GOP Senate nomination in Montana, in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Steve Daines.(Alme Campaign)

The senator and Trump are backing former U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, who jumped into the race in March immediately after Daines announced his retirement just ahead of the state’s filing deadline, in what appeared to be a carefully choreographed move. Alme faces two longshot rivals for the nomination.

Former state Rep. Reilly Neill appears to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the solidly Republican state.

The Republican and Democratic nominees will face off in the general election against former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar, who is running as an independent and has outraised everyone else in the race.

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In GOP-dominated South Dakota, Gov. Larry Rhoden faces a crowded and competitive field as he seeks a full term as governor.

Rhoden was lieutenant governor in early 2025 when he assumed the top job after then-Gov. Kristi Noem stepped down to become Department of Homeland Security secretary in the Trump administration.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.

Tuesday’s wild races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor, and other elections to watch

2026-06-02T09:00:07.862Z / CNN

• Six states hold primaries Tuesday, including races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor.
• Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt is hoping to advance in LA’s mayoral race against incumbent Karen Bass and progressive Nithya Raman.
• Democrats hope to expand their Senate map in Iowa and Montana despite challenging political terrain.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

Six states will hold primaries on Tuesday: California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Here’s what we’re watching for when the results start rolling in Tuesday evening.

It’s been one of the wildest races in recent memory. First, a procession of big-name Democrats like former Vice President Kamala Harris declined to run. Then, it looked like the state’s unusual top-two primary system could produce two Republicans in the general election. Then, front-running Democrat Eric Swalwell dropped out following allegations of sexual assault that he has denied, sharply recasting the race.

On Tuesday, we see what it all means. And it’s possible we could learn who’s likely to be California’s next governor.

The latest polls show three candidates atop the field: two Democrats — former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Tom Steyer — and Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host.

Becerra surged after Swalwell’s exit, seemingly in part because he was viewed as a steady pick with a solid political resume.

The top two finishers regardless of party will advance to November. Hilton has in recent days urged Republicans who support Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to unite around his candidacy, arguing a two-Republican race is no longer possible.

That’s notable because Hilton would seem to have little chance of becoming governor but for a two-Republican race. He seems to be more focused on just making the general election, in other words.

If Hilton does make the general election, the Democrat he faces would be a heavy favorite. If it’s two Democrats, then it’s game on.

This might be, even more so than the governor’s race, the one where Republicans have dared to dream.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, whose campaign has focused on dissatisfaction over Democratic Mayor Karen Bass’ response to devastating recent wildfires and the city’s homelessness crisis, is all the rage in national Republican circles and on conservative media.

The question now is whether he can make the general election against either Bass or Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist. The three of them are running close to one another, with a recent UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll finding Bass at 26%, Raman at 25% and Pratt at 22%.

Of course, making the final two and becoming mayor are two very different things.

Pratt will hope for a matchup against the unpopular Bass. But this is still heavily blue Los Angeles, and the poll showed 57% of likely voters disliked Pratt — the same as Bass’ unfavorable rating.

In a hypothetical runoff, Pratt trailed Bass by 18 points and Raman by 17. With a number of respondents undecided, both Democrats were held below 50%, which is remarkable. But Pratt would still face an uphill battle.

Given the tough Senate map they face, Democrats would badly like to expand it. And Tuesday’s primaries feature two states where that could at least plausibly be the case.

The bigger one is Iowa, which will hold an open-seat race with GOP Sen. Joni Ernst retiring. Paralympian and state Rep. Josh Turek and populist state Sen. Zach Wahls are battling for the right to face GOP favorite Rep. Ashley Hinson.

Wahls has, notably, been campaigning hard against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

President Donald Trump carried Iowa by 13 points in 2024, but Democrats hold out hope that his tariffs might cost the GOP votes in a farming-heavy state that used to be more competitive.

Montana is more of a wild card. There, some prominent Democrats would seem to prefer to have a weaker nominee in order to rally support behind independent Seth Bodnar, the former president of the University of Montana.

Rallying behind independents has become an increasingly common strategy in states like Nebraska where Democrats stand little chance of winning, and Bodnar’s campaign has ties to Democratic former Sen. Jon Tester.

So some are trying to elevate little-known Democrat Alani Bankhead, while other Democrats, such as former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, are backing former state Rep. Riley Neill, a better-funded candidate.

Democrats were inflamed after GOP Sen. Steve Daines announced his retirement at the last minute in a gambit intended to foreclose a strong Democratic nominee and to anoint Republican Kurt Alme, a former US attorney, as his replacement.

The governor’s race in Iowa might be even more interesting. That’s because Democrats have high hopes for State Auditor Rob Sand and think he could one day be a national contender — and also because governor’s races tend to be less partisan.

Perhaps recognizing that, Trump on Friday inserted himself into a crowded and contentious Republican primary, endorsing Rep. Randy Feenstra over businessman Zach Lahn and others.

That should make Feenstra the favorite. But a key factor to watch for is whether any of the five candidates gets 35% of the vote. If nobody does, the nominee would be chosen at a state party convention.

With so many states voting, it can be difficult to pick which House primaries matter most. But here are a few to keep an eye on:

• In California’s 22nd District, the question is which Democrat makes the general election against GOP Rep. David Valadao in a very competitive district — establishment favorite state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains or political science professor Randy Villegas, a favorite of the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the party.
• In California’s 40th District, Republican Reps. Young Kim and Ken Calvert are battling for the same House district after state Democrats redraw maps last year.
• In California’s 13th, does Democratic Rep. Adam Gray face Republican businessman Vin Kruttiventi or GOP former Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln in a Democratic-leaning district?
• In California’s Democratic-leaning 45th, who on a crowded GOP side faces Democratic Rep. Derek Tran?
• In California’s 11th District, we’ll start to learn who will succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who recently backed Democratic San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan.
• In New Jersey’s 7th District, Democratic former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett appears to be the favorite to face GOP Rep. Tom Kean, who has been missing from Congress for months with little explanation. But she faces some well-funded opponents. (Kean might have faced primary trouble, but he is running unopposed on the GOP side.)

It’s quite possible in South Dakota.

Gov. Larry Rhoden got promoted from lieutenant governor last year when Kristi Noem left to become Trump’s homeland security secretary.

But he’s got a dogfight on his hands with other GOP candidates like Rep. Dusty Johnson, businessman Toby Doeden and state House Speaker Jon Hansen.

As in Iowa, the 35% threshold looms large. If none of the four candidates gets there, the top two would go to a runoff on July 28.

专家警告：即便停战 原油供应年底前难完全恢复

2026年6月2日 17:21 / 联合早报

专家警告：即便停战 原油供应年底前难完全恢复

伊朗学生通讯社（ISNA）周一发布照片显示，伊朗人在阿巴斯港面向霍尔木兹海峡的岸边戏水。美伊谈判仍僵持不下，海峡继续封闭。 （法新社）

（维也纳／东京综合电）石油业专家评估，即使霍尔木兹海峡迅速重开，海峡关闭造成的供应阻断影响仍将持续至今年底。

石油业顾问和分析师星期一（6月1日）出席石油输出国组织及盟友（OPEC+）在维也纳总部召开的技术会议。两名出席者向彭博社透露，专家们在会上警告，石油生产还需多个月才能回到美伊冲突爆发前的水平。

这个评估与阿布扎比国家石油公司（Adnoc）的看法一致，Adnoc首席执行长贾比尔（Sultan Al Jaber）称，即使美伊冲突立即结束，中东的原油产出直到明年都不会完全恢复。

OPEC+星期二（2日）召开经济委员会会议，技术专家向各产油国部长分析市场情况，部长会议将于星期天（7日）召开。

消息人士告诉路透社，OPEC+部长到时预计将同意进一步上调7月的目标产量，即便美伊冲突至今已导致几个成员国的产量无法达到之前几个月所协议的产量增幅。

延伸阅读

中国允许部分民营炼厂减产 显示北京更有信心应对石油供应冲击

霍尔木兹海峡持续封锁 全球原油库存料降至不足100天需求量

来临的会议若再度达成增产协议，意味着即便在霍尔木兹海峡关闭和阿拉伯联合酋长国在5月突然宣布退出的情况下，OPEC+仍维持着“一切如常运作”的态度。

OPEC+的七个核心成员，也就是沙特阿拉伯、俄罗斯、伊拉克、科威特、阿尔及利亚、哈萨克斯坦和阿曼，此前在4月至6月份共将日产量增加近60万桶。不过实际上，它们的整体石油生产已因波斯湾产油国的出口被切断而崩盘。根据OPEC数据，相对于2月份战争爆发前的4277万桶，4月份的总日产量已减至3319万桶。

消息指，OPEC+预计会将7月份的日产量提高约18万8000桶，与6月份一样，都是考虑了另一核心成员阿联酋退出后，从原本的20万6000桶相应调减。

高市再呼吁伊朗让所有船只通行

日本首相高市早苗星期一与伊朗总统佩泽希齐扬第三次通电话，再度呼吁让“所有船只，包括属于日本和其他亚洲国家，都可尽快获准自由与安全地在霍尔木兹海峡通行”。

高市早苗过后向媒体透露，她表达了希望伊朗可继续展现最大的灵活性，尽快与美国达成协议。

佩泽希齐扬过后一度在社媒X贴文说，伊朗将确保日本船只可“更容易及没有问题”地通过海峡，并说主要的问题源自美国限制了伊朗的船只和贸易。不过这则贴文从周二上午即消失，并不清楚是否被删除。

伊朗学生通讯社（ISNA）周一发布照片显示，伊朗人在阿巴斯港面向霍尔木兹海峡的岸边戏水。美伊谈判仍僵持不下，海峡继续封闭。 （法新社）

（维也纳／东京综合电）石油业专家评估，即使霍尔木兹海峡迅速重开，海峡关闭造成的供应阻断影响仍将持续至今年底。

石油业顾问和分析师星期一（6月1日）出席石油输出国组织及盟友（OPEC+）在维也纳总部召开的技术会议。两名出席者向彭博社透露，专家们在会上警告，石油生产还需多个月才能回到美伊冲突爆发前的水平。

这个评估与阿布扎比国家石油公司（Adnoc）的看法一致，Adnoc首席执行长贾比尔（Sultan Al Jaber）称，即使美伊冲突立即结束，中东的原油产出直到明年都不会完全恢复。

OPEC+星期二（2日）召开经济委员会会议，技术专家向各产油国部长分析市场情况，部长会议将于星期天（7日）召开。

消息人士告诉路透社，OPEC+部长到时预计将同意进一步上调7月的目标产量，即便美伊冲突至今已导致几个成员国的产量无法达到之前几个月所协议的产量增幅。

延伸阅读

中国允许部分民营炼厂减产 显示北京更有信心应对石油供应冲击 霍尔木兹海峡持续封锁 全球原油库存料降至不足100天需求量

来临的会议若再度达成增产协议，意味着即便在霍尔木兹海峡关闭和阿拉伯联合酋长国在5月突然宣布退出的情况下，OPEC+仍维持着“一切如常运作”的态度。

OPEC+的七个核心成员，也就是沙特阿拉伯、俄罗斯、伊拉克、科威特、阿尔及利亚、哈萨克斯坦和阿曼，此前在4月至6月份共将日产量增加近60万桶。不过实际上，它们的整体石油生产已因波斯湾产油国的出口被切断而崩盘。根据OPEC数据，相对于2月份战争爆发前的4277万桶，4月份的总日产量已减至3319万桶。

消息指，OPEC+预计会将7月份的日产量提高约18万8000桶，与6月份一样，都是考虑了另一核心成员阿联酋退出后，从原本的20万6000桶相应调减。

高市再呼吁伊朗让所有船只通行

日本首相高市早苗星期一与伊朗总统佩泽希齐扬第三次通电话，再度呼吁让“所有船只，包括属于日本和其他亚洲国家，都可尽快获准自由与安全地在霍尔木兹海峡通行”。

高市早苗过后向媒体透露，她表达了希望伊朗可继续展现最大的灵活性，尽快与美国达成协议。

佩泽希齐扬过后一度在社媒X贴文说，伊朗将确保日本船只可“更容易及没有问题”地通过海峡，并说主要的问题源自美国限制了伊朗的船只和贸易。不过这则贴文从周二上午即消失，并不清楚是否被删除。

消息：欧盟拟放宽财政限制 允许成员国推出能源补助措施

2026年6月2日 17:55 / 联合早报

计划一旦落实将可让各成员国政府为家庭和商家推出紧急能源补助时不会受限于欧盟的赤字顶限条规，免于被欧盟罚款的风险。 （法新社）

知情人士透露，欧盟委员会正准备放宽财政限制，让成员国可推出能源相关的暂时性支出，舒缓中东冲突造成的能源价格高涨压力。

《金融时报》星期二（6月2日）引述欧盟官员报道，布鲁塞尔正在探讨计划，让成员国可将相当于国内生产总值（GDP）0.3%的开支用于能源相关措施，这部分开支不算在欧盟规定的3%财政赤字顶限内。

拟议中的计划一旦落实将可让各成员国政府为家庭和商家推出紧急能源补助时不会受限于欧盟的赤字顶限条规，免于被欧盟罚款的风险。

豁免措施一旦落实，也将是欧盟不到两年内第二度调整它的财政框架。去年，布鲁塞尔启动了一个“脱身条款”，允许成员国每年可将相当于GDP1.5%的开支用于国防，最多可达四年，而不须担心会触犯欧盟的财政条规，作为欧洲各国重建军备的整体措施之一。

欧盟官员透露，最新计划的0.3%能源缓冲将属于1.5%国防开支豁免比率的一部分。

计划一旦落实将可让各成员国政府为家庭和商家推出紧急能源补助时不会受限于欧盟的赤字顶限条规，免于被欧盟罚款的风险。 （法新社）

知情人士透露，欧盟委员会正准备放宽财政限制，让成员国可推出能源相关的暂时性支出，舒缓中东冲突造成的能源价格高涨压力。

《金融时报》星期二（6月2日）引述欧盟官员报道，布鲁塞尔正在探讨计划，让成员国可将相当于国内生产总值（GDP）0.3%的开支用于能源相关措施，这部分开支不算在欧盟规定的3%财政赤字顶限内。

拟议中的计划一旦落实将可让各成员国政府为家庭和商家推出紧急能源补助时不会受限于欧盟的赤字顶限条规，免于被欧盟罚款的风险。

豁免措施一旦落实，也将是欧盟不到两年内第二度调整它的财政框架。去年，布鲁塞尔启动了一个“脱身条款”，允许成员国每年可将相当于GDP1.5%的开支用于国防，最多可达四年，而不须担心会触犯欧盟的财政条规，作为欧洲各国重建军备的整体措施之一。

欧盟官员透露，最新计划的0.3%能源缓冲将属于1.5%国防开支豁免比率的一部分。

Fourth-century coin and mysterious inscriptions found under Notre Dame cathedral: “Dig of the century”

June 2, 2026 6:44 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Wilting in the summer sun, a line of tourists waits to climb Notre Dame cathedral and meet its gargoyles.

Four meters (13 feet) beneath them, a team of archaeologists is digging the other way – straight down and back in time, to Roman Paris 2,000 years ago.

In 2019, fire brought Notre Dame’s spire crashing down as the world watched. The cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in late 2024, and now Paris wants to soften the hot, bare square in front of it with trees and shade.

But in a city this old, the soil cannot be turned until what lies beneath it is excavated, in case it is damaged during works.

So a slice of Notre Dame’s forecourt has become an excavation site – an open pit ringed by barriers and crossed by a wooden walkway, a few steps from the line-up.

A modern Da Vinci Code

French media have dubbed it the “dig of the century.”

“It’s a rare opportunity for us to work on something that’s tangibly going to make a difference to the history of Paris,” Lucie Altenburg, a conservator with the Paris archaeology unit, told The Associated Press.

Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.

A fragment bearing an inscription is photographed among artifacts discovered during excavations outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Monday, June 1, 2026. AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga

“It makes Notre Dame feel alive again,” said Emily Carter, 34, a tourist from Manchester waiting in line with her two children. “You come to see the cathedral, then realize there’s another city under your feet. That’s almost more moving.”

The first traces appear 50 centimeters (20 inches) down; 4 meters (13 feet) lower, the team is still pulling up the past. Some days they fill 15 crates – from ground that has lain untouched for decades.

Ancient cities have archaeologists monitoring digs

This is the bargain in every old city: The past is not in a museum down the street – it is under the street.

Cities rise. Each age builds on the rubble of the last, and the ground climbs with it; in Rome, it has risen about 9 meters (30 feet) since the empire fell in the fifth century AD.

When Athens built its metro for the 2004 Olympics, it set off the largest excavation in Greek history and turned up tens of thousands of objects, now shown in the stations themselves. Paris is no different.

It all comes from the island in the Seine, the Ile de la Cite, where Paris began.

Centuries later, Notre Dame rose on the same ground.

At the cathedral’s birth in 1163, the entire square was packed with medieval houses, split by a single street, said Camille Colonna, the archaeologist leading the dig.

Archaeologist Lucie Altenburg shows a coin discovered during excavations outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Monday, June 1, 2026. AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga

Digging down, her team has reached their cellars – and therefore also the time in history they represent.

Below them lie Merovingian and Carolingian grain pits, from the sixth to the 10th centuries; below those, darker and deeper still, a dense Roman quarter from the fourth and fifth centuries.

Twenty centuries are stacked in 4 meters (13 feet) of earth – or about the height of two-and-a-half Napoleon Bonapartes standing on top of one another.

“Here you can see the layers – medieval Paris, Roman Paris, maybe even before that,” said Yasmine Benali, 22, an archaeology student watching from behind the barriers. “It makes the city feel less like a postcard and more like something still being discovered.”

Coins, ceramics and mysterious markings

The richest finds here come from the foulest place: the deep pits beneath the medieval houses, old latrines that doubled as rubbish dumps.

Out of them the team keeps lifting whole jugs and cups – thrown away centuries ago, yet still intact – among the broken plates and animal bones.

It’s “rare to find complete ceramics,” said Valentine Breloux, an archaeologist with the unit.

Archaeologist Valentine Breloux, holds ceramic fragments discovered during excavations outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Monday, June 1, 2026. AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga

Here the soft waste cushioned them, and centuries later they miraculously came up whole.

Then some other objects came that confounded experts. As conservators cleaned what looked like ordinary medieval pottery, they found faint reddish writing painted on the inside – the same mysterious markings on shard after shard.

What they mean has yet to be deciphered.

Of everything she has cleaned from Notre Dame, Breloux said, these are the most “astonishing.”

Coins can help date the layers

The coins came up as black discs, eaten by rust. But under an X-ray, a face returned: it was Constantine, the Roman emperor who ruled in the early 300s AD.

Such objects also “can be invaluable in giving us the date of the (underground) layer,” Altenburg said.

The Roman finds are the ones the archaeologists value most – the deepest, oldest and least understood. In Roman times, the town was called Lutetia, and its center lay across the river, on the Left Bank.

As the Roman empire collapsed, people pulled back to the Ile de la Cite, where Notre Dame would later rise, and fortified the island with walls of stone taken from earlier buildings.

Colonna’s team found some proof: a Roman doorstep found in the dig, taken from a much bigger building, carried over, turned upside down, and laid in a road as paving.

“A huge archaeological store”

Every find leaves the pit and travels north, to the city’s archaeology center – what Colonna calls “a huge archaeological store,” a treasure house of Paris.

For archaeologists, the cathedral dig is a rare treat. In France, like elsewhere, they work only where building work is about to begin – a bit like how industrial quarry workers end up unearthing dinosaur remains.

“This only happens because the city of Paris decided it wanted to beautify the area,” Altenburg said.

The new square should be mostly finished by 2028: a kind of woodland clearing, with 160 new trees and a thin film of water sliding over the stone to cool it in summer – part of how Paris is bracing for ever hotter summers induced by global warming.

The tourists who now wait in the bare sun beneath the gargoyles will, in a few summers, line up in the shade.

The old underground parking lot will reopen as a visitor center looking onto the Seine.

Until then, the Notre Dame team wants to go deeper still – past the Romans, toward whoever came before them, the Gauls who gave the city its first name.

“The hope is that we are able to go back in time even further than we’ve ever been before,” Altenburg said.

“Completely preserved” ancient tombs

In 2022, several tombs and a sarcophagus likely dating from the 14th century were uncovered by archaeologists at the cathedral.

Among the tombs was the “completely preserved, human-shaped sarcophagus made of lead,” France’s culture ministry said at the time.

The coffin might have been made for “a senior dignitary” and likely dated from the 1300s — the century following the cathedral’s construction.

As well as the tombs, elements of painted sculptures were found just beneath the current floor level of the cathedral, identified as parts of the original 13th-century rood screen — an architectural element separating the altar area from the nave.

In 2023, scientists confirmed that Notre Dame was the first Gothic cathedral in which iron staples were used extensively throughout construction. The 2019 fire exposed iron staples used to hold the cathedral’s stone blocks together. Some appeared in the frame of the building, others fell smoldering to the ground in the heat of the blaze.

contributed to this report.

Here’s what to watch for in today’s key primaries

June 2, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. EDT / The Washington Post

Early Brief

Here’s what to watch for in today’s key primaries

Analysis by Dan Merica and Matthew Choi

In today’s edition … Big Trump administration folks head to Congress … We ask you about the future of the Iran war … but first …

Jake Tapper: Jill Biden’s rosy if not blindfolded ‘View from the East Wing’

2026-06-02T10:00:07.806Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/02/politics/jill-biden-book-jake-tapper

In her new memoir, former First Lady Jill Biden defends her husband’s mental fitness during the 2024 campaign.
But Jake Tapper says her account omits key details about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline witnessed by Democratic insiders.
Tapper says she failed to adequately grapple with questions about his ability to run for president, to win the campaign, and to serve as president.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

“If you knew Joe Biden well, you’d know that if he actually got to the point where he wasn’t capable of doing the job, he would step down,” former first lady Jill Biden writes in her new memoir “View from the East Wing.” “Certainly, if he exhibited cognitive impairment, I would not hesitate to say so. His staff would not hesitate to say so. But he was nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024.”

All of that is very difficult to believe, if not just downright false.

First of all, this nation’s history is full of examples of politicians who considered themselves selfless and self-aware who refused to give up power, former President Joe Biden just being the most glaring example.

Second, Biden’s closest advisers, nicknamed the Politburo by lower-level Biden aides, are to this day insisting he could have beaten Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and is capable at this very moment of serving as president.

But most glaring in the above paragraph is Jill Biden’s desire to have you believe in her integrity while also subtly — perhaps subconsciously — acknowledging that there’s more going on.

Why the specific assertion that he was “nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024”?

How about the fall of 2024? How about 2025? How about today?

Discussing the admirable ability of her husband to survive any number of horrors life has thrown his way, Jill Biden quotes Ernest Hemingway: “‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’… I believed that was true of Joe,” she writes. “For all he’d been through, he was stronger.”

It is telling that Mrs. Biden doesn’t include the full Hemingway quote, which is about mortality and the end of life. The full quote, from “A Farewell to Arms,” continues: “But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

The full quote is of course the least of what the first lady leaves out in this book.

After the November 2024 election, Axios reporter Alex Thompson and I spoke with more than 200 Democratic insiders, officials, campaign staff, and more — all of whom supported Biden — to find out how much of what we saw on that debate stage on June 27, 2024, had been seen before that night behind the scenes. The answer was: quite a bit. Our book, “Original Sin,” detailed mental acuity issues that got much more pronounced in 2023 and 2024 but had reared their heads before then. None of them are in her book, of course.

She centers her discussions about her husband’s fitness in a section centered on his decision to run for president in 2020. “To me, Joe was definitely aging, but he was not exhibiting signs of dementia or senility,” she writes. “Joe was the same man I’d always known.”

Again, this comes when discussing him running in 2020. Not 2024.

After that passage, she yada yadas to the 2023 decision to run for reelection. After an anecdote in which a visitor sees Biden — in 2019 or 2020 — “hop(ping) into his green 1967 Corvette Stingray, rev the engine, and screams down the highway” (“That is sure not the guy they portray on television,” the unnamed visitor gushes) — she suddenly hops to 2024:

“Even if he had slowed down in the years before his election bid, I believed in my heart that he was still good enough and wise enough and capable enough to govern,” she writes. “He never wavered from his values, the same ones I grew up with. I believe that if his health had ever deteriorated to the point where he was no longer able to serve, he would have had the humility to admit that.”

There is enough space in between those lines for a 1967 Corvette Stingray to travel.

The issue was never about whether he was good, wise, or had the same values. It was about his ability to run for president, to win the campaign, and to serve as president.

The best she says about that is that he would be “capable enough.”

Capable enough?

Also please note that she leaves the decision about whether he couldn’t do the job entirely up to him. As if a person mentally deteriorating would necessarily be up to that task.

Thus, she stands by her decision: “For the good of the country, I knew that I, for one, would rather Joe have a second term than not.”

Again, that’s not the question.

“Given what terrible things Joe’s opponent guaranteed he would do, the choice seemed clear,” she writes.

But the choice wasn’t Trump vs. Biden. It was Trump vs. which Democrat would be best.

“I felt that Joe was a far, far better option than his opponent — who, by the way, was only three years younger than Joe,” she writes.

It wasn’t about the number.

In her own book, “107 Days,” former Vice President Kamala Harris describes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection this way: “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized…it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition.”

But as Jill Biden tells it, in 2023, “the best Democratic minds hadn’t thought” anyone else other than Joe Biden could beat Trump and “they implored him to run.”

They did? Who? Which best Democratic minds implored him to run?

The most charitable interpretation of Jill Biden’s book, particularly the parts dealing with her husband’s aging, is that she’s having difficulty accepting what’s been happening to him for years. The less forgiving version is that she’s been enabling it and is now seeking to try to find an excuse for what we all saw, while also suggesting here and there that there’s much more than maybe even she’s willing to admit to herself.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/13/politics/video/jake-tapper-book-joe-biden-declining-health-george-clooney-digvid

‘The only thing I want to hear from Jill Biden is I’m sorry’: Top Dem reacts to the former First Lady’s recent comments
4:02 • Source: CNN

Of course she repeats a lot of the same arguments Democrats made before his terrible, troubling performance in the June 2024 debate — and the failure to immediately prove that the debate had been an anomaly — revealed something much worse was going on than had been acknowledged.

She talks about her pitch to voters in February 2024: “at eighty-one, he does more in an hour than most people do in a day.” Well, yes, that’s true of all presidents given the powers and responsibilities of the office. But it doesn’t acknowledge his preferred shortened schedule of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., whenever possible, or his inability to campaign vigorously.

(In her book, Kamala Harris writes that “his inner circle, the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far, and that in its rigors, he’d be perpetually, increasingly, unavoidably exhausted.”)

Heading into the debate, Mrs. Biden says, “Joe seemed tired — overly tired. He was pushing too hard, traveling too much.” Yes, we know. That’s part of the job of the president of the United States. She repeats that he didn’t feel well. Then comes the debate. And that first, awful answer.

“Is he short-circuiting? I thought. Is this a stroke? It felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching. Has he been drugged? Oh God — will people watching assume that this is how he is all the time?… Was he having a medical emergency?”

Then she writes:

“Joe did improve in the course of that debate, but not enough to reassure me or anyone watching that he was okay. He clearly wasn’t. So what was wrong? Nothing explained what I was seeing. I’d never seen that look on his face before in my life.”

And the mystery, for her, continues:

“To this day, I still don’t know what happened. Why wasn’t he making any sense? It was inexplicable to me… Had he taken something on the plane for his cough, something at the hotel to sleep — codeine cough syrup of Ambien? I’d been on the campaign trail and hadn’t been with him, so I had no idea. I only wish I had the answer.”

The book begins with the former first lady faulting the White House physicians for not testing the president in office for the Stage IV cancer that is currently, sadly, wreaking havoc on his body.

“I’m a doctor,” one woman says to the former president in 2025 on a Delaware beach. “How did your doctor not pick up this cancer diagnosis earlier?”

The answer Jill Biden provides — that the American Urological Association doesn’t recommend routine Prostate-Specific Antigen screening for men older than 70, given that life expectancy in the US is 76 — doesn’t really make sense given that Biden turned 76 in 2018, two years before he was elected president, which is, of course, also kind of why he might have been an exception.

The first lady takes the time to consider why her husband didn’t get a PSA test — but still doesn’t seem willing to scrutinize, or be honest about, another health issue that we all saw live on TV on the night of June 27, 2024.