Monday Briefing

South Africa rejected the party that ended apartheid

The African National Congress lost its political monopoly in South Africa for the first time since vanquishing the country’s last white-led regime 30 years ago.

When votes were counted on Saturday, the A.N.C. received only about 40 percent of the vote, a steep drop from the nearly 58 percent that the party won in the 2019 election and far short of winning an absolute majority.

The party, which rose to international acclaim on the shoulders of Nelson Mandela, will now have two weeks to cobble together a government with one or more rival parties. Without an absolute majority, the A.N.C. can no longer handpick the country’s president, and President Cyril Ramaphosa may not have a second term.

One major question is whether the A.N.C. will embrace or shun Jacob Zuma, its former leader, who resigned as president in 2018 because of corruption charges. A party he formed just six months ago won 15 percent of the vote. Here’s what could happen next.

Mexico poised to elect its first female president

Mexican voters awaited results in an election yesterday that will almost certainly conclude with the country electing its first female president.

The two main candidates were women: Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist representing the ruling party led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Xóchitl Gálvez, a businesswoman on a ticket made up of opposition parties. The contest showcased the immense strides that women, who weren’t even allowed to vote in Mexico until 1953, have made in the country’s politics.

Biden’s cease-fire plan pressured Netanyahu

President Biden’s proposal for a truce in Gaza has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a bind.

With Israel facing growing diplomatic isolation, Netanyahu appears to face a choice between the survival of his hawkish government and a deal to bring hostages home. Hard-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have said they will abandon it if he accepts the cease-fire before Hamas is destroyed, while centrist leaders have threatened to withdraw their support without a clear path forward.

Starlink, the satellite internet service, has brought the web to the Marubo, an Indigenous tribe that lives in remote villages in the Amazon rainforest.

The Marubo and other Indigenous tribes, which have resisted modernity for generations, are now confronting the potential and peril of the internet all at once, while debating what it will mean for their identity and culture. See this video from my colleague Jack Nicas.

Lives lived: U Tin Oo was a former military leader in Myanmar who turned against his country’s oppressive government and led a pro-democracy movement. He died at 97.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

SPORTS NEWS

Real Madrid 2, Borussia Dortmund 0: Analysis from the Champions League final.

Las Vegas Grand Prix: Officials predict a smoother race this year after the problems of the inaugural race in 2023.

Franz Kafka’s online afterlife

A century after his death, Franz Kafka has become a TikTok star. Known for nightmarish stories like “The Metamorphosis,” the writer serves as a shorthand for a generation’s growing sense of alienation, my colleague Amanda Hess writes.

“The internet, the very place where we are now expected to craft a self, is also an identity-destabilizing machine,” Hess continues. “When Kafka wrote ‘I have hardly anything in common with myself,’ he could have been describing the experience of confronting one’s own online persona.”

P.S. The Times released “Animal,” a six-part audio series in which the writer Sam Anderson engages with different creatures.

You can reach Dan and the team at [email protected].