CBS News
Poland picks Donald Tusk as its new leader, bucking Europe’s trend to the far right
Berlin – Poland has a new prime minister, and with his clearly pro-European Union, pro-NATO stance, Donald Tusk marks a stark change from the country’s outgoing, right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
With his election victory, Tusk, a 66-year-old former European Commission president, has also become a new bearer of hope for European progressives and centrists at a time when many nations on the continent are showing increasing affinity for far right-wing populism.
Political analyst Wojciech Przybylski, who heads the Visegrad Insight think tank, told CBS News that Tusk’s election was “a moment of empowerment and excitement” for Poland.
“It woke up the silent majority that oftentimes allows for slipping into autocracy by being silent,” Przybylski said, attributing Tusk’s win to the politician’s “leadership and stubborn, direct campaigning and coordination with other leaders. That’s a way to win, and rule.”
Tusk wants to improve his country’s relations with the EU, and addressing lawmakers Tuesday ahead of his swearing in, he said anyone who questions Poland’s place in the bloc was damaging its interests.
Tusk said Poland — which has been a vital backer of its neighbor Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — would be a strong member of NATO and a strong ally of the U.S. as it seeks to gain a leading position among its European neighbors.
Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
In a clear effort to distinguish himself from his nationalist predecessor, he warned that an isolated Poland would be exposed to greater geopolitical risks.
Below is a look at some of the recent political changes across Europe that show how, with Tusk’s election, Poland appears to be going in another direction.
The Netherlands and Geert Wilders
The most recent example of Europe’s swing to the right is the Netherlands, where right-wing, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders’ party won a sweeping victory in November’s parliamentary elections.
Migration and asylum proved to be decisive issues in the election. Wilders had been a prominent figure on the fringes of Dutch politics for years, but his strident anti-Islam rhetoric — manifested now in plans to have mosques, Islamic schools and even the Quran banned nationally — helped put him in position to lead the next government, assuming he can build a coalition with other parties.
Since his party won and he started looking for coalition partners, Wilders has pledged to lead the country for “all Netherlanders.”
“Sometimes I will have to withdraw proposals and I will do that,” Wilders told Dutch lawmakers this week. “I will show the Netherlands, the legislature… anybody who wants to hear it, that we will adapt our rules to the constitution and bring our proposals in line with it.”
Frans Timmermans, who leads a center-left alliance in the country’s Parliament, made it clear with his reply that he doesn’t trust Wilders to make good on that vow, telling him: “I consider your ideas a threat to the democratic rule of law,” according to The Associated Press.
Italy and Giorgia Meloni
In September 2022, Italians voted in the country’s most right-wing government since World War II. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is the country’s first female leader.
As CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay reported, given Italy’s disastrous history the last time a hard-right party rose to power — under dictator Benito Mussolini ahead of World War II — it was a stunning victory for the Brothers of Italy, which, only a few years earlier, had existed only as a party on the fringes of the country’s politics.
Meloni heads a coalition government with two equally far-right parties and frames herself as a family-focused Christian battling a left-wing ruling elite, and often points at migration as the root of many socioeconomic challenges facing Italy.
Not leaders, yet, but tail winds for the far right
In Switzerland, the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party was the clear winner in October’s national elections. Switzerland is led by a seven-member Federal Council, the members of which are elected by the Parliament. In the October elections, the People’s Party bounced back from losing seats four years earlier to enhance its position as the biggest party, by seats held, in the Parliament.
In Germany, the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is riding high in the polls, currently trailing only former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party (CDU).
Germany’s national Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist organization, after various members made remarks deemed unconstitutional, including antisemitic comments and calls for violence against the current government.
The AfD’s increasing vote share, however, has forced a lively debate within parties like the CDU over how willing they should be to enter future coalitions with the far right.
In April 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron decisively won a second term, beating his far-right-wing opponent Marine Le Pen.
But the ability of Le Pen’s National Rally party to capture 40% of the vote was a wake-up call for French liberals and centrists that her anti-EU, anti-NATO views have gained traction as the continent struggles to emerge from the economic pain of the coronavirus pandemic amid a spiraling immigration crisis.
In Austria, where a new Parliament will be elected next year, the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) is ahead in the polls. The populist, anti-EU party has been a part of governments in Austria several times over the last 25 years, but it has yet to win enough seats to lead one.
CBS News
As sunscreen misinformation spreads online, dermatologists face real-life impact of online trends
With the holiday weekend in full swing, the anti-sunscreen movement’s recent spike is worrying dermatologists.
“It was not like this before,” Dr. Jeanine Downie, a board-certified dermatologist with her own practice in New Jersey told CBS News Confirmed. “I see easily six patients per week that are anti-sunscreen, where it used to be maybe one every other week or one a month. And now it’s just gotten crazy.”
Downie says in the last two weeks she’s diagnosed three squamous cell and two malignant melanomas, both of which can turn cancerous if not caught early. “And that’s me, just one little dermatologist,” she said.
This movement picked up steam in June, with creators on TikTok telling followers in no uncertain terms “stop wearing sunscreen.” At first, the posts received tens of thousands of views and likes. Dermatologists on the platform then began sharing their own reactions, with those videos gaining even more views. And more recently, influencer Nara Smith went viral sharing an at-home sunscreen recipe to her 8 million followers that dermatologists say does little to protect wearers from sun damage.
Dr. Shereene Idriss, a New York dermatologist who has amassed more than a million followers on her social media channels, is trying to leverage that influence to educate users about sunscreen and sun protection.
“It’s becoming more and more difficult, I think, as a consumer, to try to weed through the noise,” Idriss told CBS News Confirmed.
This misinformation reflects the surprising reality of how some young Americans view sun safety. A study by the Orlando Health Cancer Institute in March found that 1 in 7 adults under the age of 35 say daily sunscreen use is more harmful than direct sun exposure. “I tell my patients, if you want your face to look like a leather bag later, then that’s up to you,” Downie said. About 6.1 million adults are treated each year for basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas according to the CDC. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the country.
“They only want the natural things,” said Downie. “But I tell them all the time, sitting in traffic here in the tri-state area, the level of pollutants in the air on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is significantly more toxic than any chemical they’re going to rub into their skin with sunblock.”
While there’s no evidence that sunscreens are unsafe, the FDA is currently investigating potential concerns. It’s called for more data on 12 ingredients often found in U.S. sunscreen. After conducting its own study into how certain ingredients are absorbed into the bloodstream, the FDA has called for more research into potential health effects on the body.
However, beachgoers on the Jersey Shore this week told CBS News that sun safety is top of mind this summer. CBS News Confirmed looked at Google Search trends and saw terms like “sunscreen” and “what does skin cancer look like” are at an all-time high since tracking began in 2004.
“You know what gets them to start wearing sunblock?” said Downie. “Young kids and young adults, Gen Z, Gen X, they hate pores. And once they hear that they’re going to have big pores that look like potholes, they put that sunblock on.”
The dermatologists CBS Newsspoke with say there is no such thing as a healthy tan. To best protect yourself this summer, they say to use sunscreen and reapply often; wear UPF clothing or UV visors; and avoid being outside during peak UV index between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
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Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.
Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state in the country. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.
A vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election.
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images
Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.
But Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and a looming U.S. election that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk.
The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.
Government officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted a higher participation rate as voting got underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centers across the country.
However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.
The election came amid heightened regional tensions. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.
Iran is also enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so. And while Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.
The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if former President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, won the November election. Iran has held indirect talks with President Joe Biden’s administration, though there’s been no clear movement back toward constraining Tehran’s nuclear program for the lifting of economic sanctions.
More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6 p.m. but was extended until midnight to boost participation.
The late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protégé of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader.
Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.