WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The day's other headlines begin in France, where a court found far right politician Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement and barred her from running for office for the next five years.

Le Pen abruptly left the Paris courtroom before the judge even finished reading her sentence.

This effectively dashes Le Pen's 2027 presidential hopes.

She had her eyes set on what would have been her fourth election bid.

Reacting on French TV this evening, Le Pen said the verdict violates the rule of law.

MARINE LE PEN, National Rally Party (through translator): What she is doing here is, the judge is saying, I'm going to make you ineligible straight away and I'm doing it precisely to stop you from being able to be elected president.

If that's not a political decision, I don't know what it is.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It's unclear how the ruling will affect voters, and Le Pen vowed to repeal it.

But it paves the way for her heir apparent, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, to represent the National Rally Party in the next election to succeed Emmanuel Macron.

In the Middle East, the Israeli military ordered sweeping new evacuations today in the Southern Gaza City of Rafah.

Residents there packed up and headed north.

The order indicates Israel may launch another major ground operation in Rafah after resuming its war against Hamas earlier this month.

Meantime, our producer in Gaza captured this video of a funeral for several of the 15 emergency responders who were killed last week by Israeli fire.

Israel says their vehicles were acting suspiciously and that several militants were killed in the attack.

Three U.S. soldiers have been found dead in Lithuania after four went missing last week during a training exercise.

The remaining soldier is still missing.

The Army said the bodies were inside their armored vehicle submerged in a swamp near the Belarus border.

The recovery was part of a massive six-day effort by U.S., Polish, and Lithuanian troops and emergency responders.

How the incident happened is still under investigation.

Back here at home, heavy storms are in the forecast from the mid-Atlantic to the Gulf Coast tonight.

It's a one-two punch of turbulent weather after deadly thunderstorms barreled across the nation this weekend, killing at least five people in Oklahoma, Indiana, and Michigan.

Three of the deaths, all in Michigan, were children.

The Great Lakes also saw a much different type of storm, freezing rain.

Crews worked today to clean up down trees and power lines that had taken out electricity for nearly half-a-million customers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana.

On Wall Street, stock seesawed today before finishing mixed.

The Dow Jones industrial average rebounded to gain 1 percent today, while the Nasdaq dropped by a meager 24 points.

The S&P 500 also bounced back from sharp losses early in the day to finish slightly up.

And speaking publicly for the first time since returning from their unexpectedly long stay in space, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore said they would fly again aboard the Boeing spacecraft that could not bring them home last year.

BUTCH WILMORE, Starliner Test Flight Astronaut: Because we're going to rectify all the issues that we encountered.

SUNI WILLIAMS, Starliner Test Flight Astronaut: We're going to fix them.

We're going to make it work.

Boeing's completely committed.

NASA is completely committed.

And with that, I would get on in heartbeat.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It was Elon Musk's SpaceX that eventually did bring Williams and Wilmore home after their original Boeing craft returned to Earth empty because of technical issues.

Both astronauts said they owed part of the blame for what became a 286-day mission and that they still want Starliner to succeed.

Still to come on the "News Hour": Elon Musk's efforts to influence a Wisconsin Supreme Court election; leading figures in science and technology denounce the Trump administration's dismantling of research; and Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political headlines.