The World’s Most Powerful Women: July 5

Another one of Britain’s top female politicians has officially joined the race to replace David Cameron. Andrea Leadsom, the energy minister who backed Brexit, announced her bid to become leader of the Conservative party by taking a strong stand on immigration, saying, “freedom of movement will end” as a result of the historic vote.

But Leadsom, a former banker who’s been endorsed by former London mayor Boris Johnson, has faced criticism after the Mail on Sundayreported she said in 2013 that exiting the EU would be “a disaster.” She explained the comments to the BBC by saying that since then, she has been on a “journey” to determine whether the bloc could be reformed. Since it is “just not reformable,” as she put it, she claims her views have changed.

Leadsom is the second woman after Home Secretary Theresa May to enter the contest. Three men–current and former cabinet members–are running as well. Conservative party members will start voting on the five candidates today, when the least popular one will be eliminated, and will whittle down the field to two over the next week.

Political pundits predict the last ones standing will be Leadsom and May. That means Margaret Thatcher could finally get some much-needed company.

Laura Cohn

@laurascohn

EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA

Lagarde's silver lining
Christine Lagarde sounded a refreshingly optimistic note about Brexit. The head of the International Monetary Fund said, without Britain at the table, reforming the EU may be easier.
Financial Times

Sturgeon's great hope

Nicola Sturgeon's bid to keep Scotland in the EU got a lift from a key player. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the bloc would take Scotland if it left the U.K., which Scottish First Minister Sturgeon took as a positive sign.

The Times

Pouring over beer

In non-Brexit news (yes, there is some), European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager is examining Anheuser-Busch InBev to determine if it has "abused its dominant position" in the Belgian market. Specifically, she said she is looking at whether the world's largest brewer was "keeping out cheaper imports of its beer from neighboring countries," since that would be against consumer interests.

Financial Times

THE AMERICAS

Trump's tweet

The Twitter fight between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton heated up again, this time raising eyebrows at the Anti-Defamation League. Trump tweeted, and then deleted, an image of Clinton next to a red Star of David that said "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" Which the news site Mic said was from a movement linked to white nationalism. The campaign re-sent the image without the star, which it claimed was the kind a Sheriff would wear, and replaced it with a circle.

Coins2Day

Ivanka calls her dad a feminist

Ivanka Trump has rushed to her father's defense once again, taking on critics who claim he mistreats women. In an interview with the Sunday Times, she said her dad, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a "feminist" who "has employed women at the highest levels of the Trump Organization for decades."

Time

Clinton's email interview

Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI about her private email server over the weekend, in a sign that the agency is nearly done with its investigation. The interview followed an impromptu meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch at an airport in Phoenix, which critics said raised questions about political influence over the probe.

Time

ASIA-PACIFIC

Rising women Down Under

It looks like Australia's election over the weekend resulted in more women being elected to the country's House of Representatives. Once the final results are in, there could be between 42 and 48 women in the body, ABC reports, up from 40 in the last parliament.

ABC

China's Airbnb

Meet Melissa Yang, the female co-founder of Tujia, China's answer to Airbnb. Yang, whose company has tens of millions of clients and is valued at over $1 billion, is a rarity in Chinese business.

OZY