International
This will be the choreography of the European election night, from the polls to the results on 9J
When the massive European elections conclude this Sunday night, which call more than 370 million people to the polls in 27 countries, it will be time to know the first data on the composition of the European Parliament for the next five years and what coalitions can be formed.
More than a thousand journalists have been accredited to follow the results of the elections from the headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels, whose hemicycle will be transformed into a huge press center to follow the data at the continental level on participation, seats and representation of the parties, both at the national and European levels.
All the polls give a roomy victory to the European People’s Party, which will maintain approximately the same number of seats as in the outgoing European Parliament, while the groups that have supported the Von der Leyen majority, social democrats (S&D) and liberals (Renovate Europe), will remain second and third respectively.
Even if they maintain their positions, the Social Democrats will do so with a few fewer seats than in 2019 and the liberals could lose up to 20% of their current seats.
To the right of the EPP, the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the ultra-right Identity and Democracy (ID) will increase their number of MEPs, although with a limited influence due to their fragmentation, while the Greens/European Free Alliance will lose seats until they are sixth force and the Left will remain stable.
The official results will not be known until 11:15 p.m. and no country can publish official results before 11:00 p.m., since Italy does not close the polls until then.
During the afternoon, estimates published by the European Parliament will be known based on polls and polls at the ballot box, which will contain more information as the polling stations in each Member State close.
The first series of country estimates will be known around 6:15 p.m. Two hours later, Parliament will make a first projection of the composition of the European Parliament based on national estimates, pre-election polls or polls at the foot of the ballot box.
The second official screening of the night, at approximately 11:15 p.m., will be the first to contain official results, but not from all countries; some, such as Italy, will just close the polls at that time and others will make a slower count.
The last screening of the night will be published around one in the morning on Monday, June 10, but it is likely that it will take days to know the final result.
The projections published by the European Parliament, however, are based on the groups that existed in the legislature that now concludes; these can be maintained, disappear, win seats or lose them.
On election night, the “cake” of the hemicycle will have an important portion unallocated to any group, corresponding to those national parties that were not in the current European Parliament or that have not reported which groups they will join for the next legislature.
Negotiations to form groups, which bring together MEPs from different countries with similar affinities, can begin on the same day 10 in the morning. To form a group, at least 23 MEPs from a quarter of the Member States must meet; that is, a minimum of seven countries.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links
A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”
The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
International
Miyazaki’s style goes viral with AI but at what cost?
This week, you may have noticed that everything—from historical photos and classic movie scenes to internet memes and recent political moments—has been reimagined on social media as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral thanks to ChatGPT and the latest update of OpenAI’s chatbot, released on Tuesday, March 25.
The newest addition to GPT-4o has allowed users to replicate the distinctive artistic style of the legendary Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away). “Today is a great day on the internet,” one user declared while sharing popular memes in Ghibli format.
While the trend has captivated users worldwide, it has also highlighted ethical concerns about AI tools trained on copyrighted creative works—and what this means for the livelihoods of human artists.
Not that this concerns OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has actively encouraged the “Ghiblification”experiments. Its CEO, Sam Altman, even changed his profile picture on the social media platform X to a Ghibli-style portrait.
Miyazaki, now 84 years old, is known for his hand-drawn animation approach and whimsical storytelling. He has long expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation. His past remarks on AI-generated animation have resurfaced and gone viral again, particularly when he once said he was “utterly disgusted” by an AI demonstration.
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