Monday Links - Part 2

As a warm sunny Monday at the end of June hangs around, here are some more things going on:

From Free West Media, the French party National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, wins big in some municipal elections.

From EuroNews, five takeaways from the French municipal elections.

From France24, left-wing French greens also do well in the municipal elections.

From RFI, operators prepare to shut down France's oldest nuclear power plant.

From El País, Spain plans to close half of its coal-fired power plants.

From The Portugal News, more than 80 percent of Portuguese health professions infected with the coronavirus have gone back to work.

From SwissInfo, the Swiss government blocks 88 foreign online gaming sites.

From Euractiv, Italy is no longer in E.U.'s top five countries for asylum seekers.

From the Malta Independent, according to an astrophysicist, light pollution in Malta is getting worse.

From Malta Today, Maltese police arrest 11 migrants in connection with a riot at the Hal Far detention center.

From Total Slovenia News, hotels on Slovenia's coast see a high demand, mainly from Slovenes, Austrian and Germans.

From Total Croatia News, eight airline return to the Zagreb, Croatia airport this week.  (If you read Croatian, read the story at Croatian Aviation.)

From Independent Balkan News Agency, Montenegro issues 41 warrants for continuous tracking of people and legal entities.

From Balkan Insight, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci offers to resign if the war crime indictment against him is "confirmed".

From Ekathimerini, authorities in Piraeus, Greece arrest two suspected drug traffickers and seize over 11 kilos of pure heroin.

From the Greek Reporter, a homesick Greek student at Aberdeen University in Scotland rides his bicycle back to Athens.

From Novinite, at least 60 people at a car parts factory in Smolyan, Bulgaria test positive for the coroanvirus.

From The Sofia Globe, the number of foreign visitors to Bulgaria for this past May was 87.3 percent lower than a year earlier.

From Radio Bulgaria, musicians perform on Wednesdays at Sofia's Borisova Gradina Park.

From Romania-Insider, a former Romanian politician is indicted for abuse of office.  (If you read Romanian, read the story at G4Media.)

From Russia Today, the Afghanistan "bounty" story by The New York Times is not about Russia but about domestic U.S. politics.

From Sputnik International, Russia's space agency Roscosmos reveals the cost of its heavy-lift rocket Angara.

From The Moscow Times, a look at Russia's environmental disasters in the Arctic.

From Daily News Hungary, Hungary could not stop the Trianon, even with military success.  (If you read Hungarian, read the story at 24HU.)

From Hungary Today, the Hungarian roots of the Liverpool soccer anthem You'll Never Walk Alone.

From About Hungary, the Hungarian government offers further support for couples who have children.

From The Slovak Spectator, a painting by Miroslav Matuščin at the Tricklandia gallery in Starý Smokovec, Slovakia changes before your eyes.

From Radio Prague, the Czech Republic will open consular offices in Burgas, Bulgaria and the Croatian cities of Rijeka and Split for this summer.

From Polskie Radio, the Polish presidential election appears to be headed for a runoff.

From the CPH Post, Denmark's Crown Princess Mary is appointed president of her country's branch of the World Wildlife Fund.

From Deutsche Welle, according to an opinion column, religion is still relevant in Germany even as its churches lose members.

From the NL Times, a suspect in the death of a Rotterdam teenager claims to not remember events from the last day he was seen alive.

From Dutch News, the Dutch tourist board promotes "hidden gems" to visit for post-coronavirus tourism.  (The article's picture is from the city of Delft, which I visited in 2017.  See this blog's archives for May of that year.  If you read Dutch, read the story at Het Parool.)

From VRT NWS, 400 people show up at the Menin Gate in Ieper, Belgium despite a ban on spectators for the city's Last Post ceremony.  (I visited Ieper and its Menin Gate in 2005 during my trip to Belgium.  It built by the British to honor their 55,000 troops who died in and around Ieper during World War I.)

From The Brussels Times, the Ancienne Belgique concert hall in Brussels will resume holding concerts in September.

From the Express, 36 cities and counties in the U.K. that could face a new coronavirus lockdown.

From the Evening Standard, researchers at Glasgow University develop a new low-cost ventilator.

From the (U.K.) Independent, a local lockdown is imposed in Leicester, England.

From the (Irish) Independent, new Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin defends his appointment Dara Calleary as Deputy Government Whip.

From the Irish Examiner, Calleary was reportedly "angry" that he was not appointed to a ministerial position.  (For some reason, both the Irish Examiner and the Independent have omitted the accent over the "a" in the Taoiseach's first name.)

From The Conservative Woman, a website known as the Vault will record the vandalism in the U.K. during 2020.

And from Snouts in the Trough, the U.K. police show that kissing rear end does not earn respect.