Péter Magyar will ask Judit Polgár to become president of Hungary

Later. The Guardian reports that Judit Polgár has said she will decline this offer:

Polgár, 49, said later in a Facebook post that she was grateful to ‌be asked but added: "I do not feel enough strength within me to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, ​so I am unable to accept the request."

Judit Polgár, widely regarded as the strongest ever woman chess player, is to to be offered the presidency of Hungary. 

The Guardian reports that the Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar will meet Polgar to discuss the matter on Monday:

"Our country needs unity, peace and a president that all Hungarians can be proud of," he wrote on social media. "Judit Polgár's name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades."

The announcement by Magyar follows a months-long standoff between the newly elected leader and Tamás Sulyok, the president appointed during former leader Viktor Orbán’s time in power.

Since his landslide victory in April, Magyar has repeatedly called on Sulyok to step down, accusing him of being an Orbán "puppet" who had failed to stand up for the country as Orbán’s rightwing, nationalist Fidesz party was criticised for weakening democratic institutions and undermining the rule of law.

Last week Hungary’s parliament – where Magyar’s Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority – voted to back a constitutional amendment that included an immediate end to Sulyok’s term.

In the video above, the inimitable American grandmaster Ben Finegold takes us through three characteristic wins by Polgar. It seems it's impossible now to turn off the subtitles in an embedded video, so please watch it on YouTube if they distract you.

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Rowan Thompson introduces his new book on the Air League, the Navy League and organised militarism in Britain between the wars: "To foster sea- and airmindedness among the nation’s youth, the leagues were active in schools and universities, while they also formed their own uniformed youth branches – the Sea Cadet Corps and Air Defence Cadet Corps."

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"Travelling to Russia to meet the head of a government under EU sanctions, which has disregarded the territorial integrity of another state, is unprecedented. Doing so in the week Hungary has taken over the rotating Council presidency is bulldozing the norms of the presidency as set out by the EU treaties." Armida van Rij says Viktor Orbán is using Hungary’s EU Council presidency to bulldoze EU norms.

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"Having just stepped into public life, Magyar is still unknown and somewhat of an enigma. On the one hand, he is extraordinarily self-possessed, sharp, tough, articulate, and strikingly patriotic. On the other hand, he often comes off as idealistic and naïve. Like an escapee from Plato's cave, only slowly adjusting to the light and coming to recognize the extent of his previous illusions, Magyar is a man who still doesn’t fully understand the nature of the political regime he's turned his back on." H. David Baer asks if Péter Magyar is the leader the Hungarian opposition has been looking for.

Jonathan Haidt argues that we underprotect children in the virtual world and overprotect them in the real one.

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