President Biden has become the 13th U.S. president to meet Queen Elizabeth II, holding a private visit Sunday at Windsor Castle.

After being greeted under a covered dais in the castle’s quadrangle, the president and first lady Jill Biden stood with the queen as the U.S. national anthem was played. Biden then inspected the guard of honor, returned to the dais, and watched a military march before heading inside for tea with the queen in the State Apartments at Windsor Castle.

Audiences with the queen are entirely private, with no recordings or written transcripts made. But presidents usually reveal snippets of what was discussed.

“She was very gracious,” Biden told reporters on the tarmac at London’s Heathrow Airport after their meeting. “She reminded me of my mother.”

Biden said the queen asked him about world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. She also asked what life in the White House was like. ” ‘We could fit the White House in the courtyard’ ” of Windsor Castle, Biden recounted telling her. Biden said he extended an invitation for the queen to visit the White House.

According to CNN, Sunday’s meeting was the first time the queen has met privately with a world leader since the coronavirus pandemic stopped private audiences and state dinners.

Sunday’s meeting at Windsor Castle came at the conclusion of the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, where world leaders agreed to work together to combat the coronavirus, climate change, and the rising influence of China. The queen greeted arriving foreign dignitaries at an opening reception Friday.

“Are you supposed to be looking as if you’re enjoying yourselves?” the queen asked as the dour-faced world leaders posed for photos. That reception was the first time Biden met the queen as president.

Audiences with the queen are carefully choreographed events, with plenty of opportunities for gaffes. Biden’s visit appeared to proceed smoothly, unlike that of his immediate predecessor, who kept the queen waiting and walked ahead of her — both royal no-nos.

The 95-year-old monarch first began meeting with U.S. presidents when she was just a 25-year-old princess. On a trip to Washington in 1951, then-Princess Elizabeth met President Harry Truman, sharing a limousine with him as they traveled to Blair House.

During her first meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower hosted in the states, in 1957, Queen Elizabeth saw her first American college football game — and met former President Herbert Hoover on the same trip.

Eisenhower sampled the queen’s drop scones on a 1959 trip to Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Eisenhower must have liked the drop scones — like a pancake, except smaller and thicker — because seeing a newspaper photo of him in front of a barbecue reminded the queen that she had never sent him the recipe.

“I now hasten to do so, and I do hope you will find them successful,” the queen wrote in her handwritten letter, sent a few months after his visit — along with a typed recipe.

Queen Elizabeth II even went horseback riding with President Ronald Reagan, when in 1982 he became the first U.S. president to stay overnight at Windsor Castle. “I must admit, the queen is quite an accomplished horsewoman,” Reagan wrote in his memoir.

The Justice Department secretly subpoenaed Apple in February 2018 for account information of then-White House Counsel Don McGahn, as well as his wife, and secured a gag order barring the company from telling them about it, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It is unclear what the Justice Department was investigating or whether prosecutors actually obtained any of McGahn’s account information, the individual said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Apple informed the McGahns of the subpoena last month after the gag order expired. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.

It is highly unusual for the Justice Department to subpoena the records of a sitting White House counsel. The news of the subpoena, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes days after it emerged that the Trump-era Justice Department had also subpoenaed Apple for communications metadata of at least two Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee, as well as current and former staff and family members as part of a leak investigation.

Those seizures are now under review by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The two lawmakers who had their data seized were Reps. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, and Eric Swalwell.

Both Schiff and Swalwell were outspoken critics of former President Donald Trump, and both served as impeachment managers against the former president during his two impeachment trials in the Senate. Schiff presided as a manager during Trump’s first impeachment in 2020; Swalwell during the second impeachment trial earlier this year.

McGahn left the White House in late 2018, but during his time in the counsel’s office he was a central figure in Trump’s orbit and in the investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

While the Mueller investigation concluded in 2019, McGahn was called earlier this month to testify before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee following a protracted two-year legal battle. Testimony from that appearance was made public last week, and revealed the degree to which McGahn felt he was being pressured toward wrongdoing by Trump.

McGahn told the committee he was made particularly uneasy by Trump’s repeated requests that he facilitate the dismissal of Mueller, who had been tasked with investigating possible ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Top Democrats in Congress are now calling on former Attorneys General William Barr and Jeff Sessions to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the subpoenas — calls that are all but certain to grow louder following the revelations about McGahn.

“The revelation that the Trump Justice Department secretly subpoenaed metadata of House Intelligence Committee Members and staff and their families, including a minor, is shocking,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a statement on Friday. “This is a gross abuse of power and an assault on the separation of powers.”

For the first time in more than a decade, Israel is poised to welcome a new prime minister. Naftali Bennett was on the verge of being sworn in on Sunday after a new coalition unseated longtime Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newly elected prime minister was appointed by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in a 60-59 vote, with one minister abstaining.

The ejection of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister was made possible by a band of unlikely allies from across the political spectrum, brought together by the shared belief that Netanyahu had to go. The new coalition government is made up of eight parties, all of whom have agreed to hold off on major decisions surrounding controversial issues, like the future of the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu, 71, was first elected prime minister in the late 1990s and then again in 2009. Over the last 12 years, he has used his time in office to allow the growth of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, frustrated Palestinian aspirations for statehood and aligned Israel with right-wing leaders internationally.

Among his loyal supporters — he’s seen as a strong defender of Israel who made the country an economic success and oversaw an effective battle against the coronavirus. But the former prime minister also faces corruption charges including bribery, fraud and breach of trust — allegations Netanyahu denies. A trial is already underway.

Over the last two years, Netanyahu’s support waned and he struggled to stay in power by prompting repeated elections, leading to inconclusive votes.

But earlier this month, Netanyahu’s opposition came to a complicated agreement to form a majority. Yair Lapid, former finance minister and head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, led the charge against Netanyahu and joined with the right-wing Bennett.

The right-wing Bennet is Netanyahu’s former chief of staff. Under the coalition agreement, he will serve for two years before passing the torch to Lapid for the latter half of the four-year-term. Despite Lapid’s party holding more than double the seats in the Knesset, he agreed to let Bennett take the first term to maintain political solidarity. Together they helped bring together a diverse government body, including a party representing Arab citizens for the first time in the nation’s history.

Netanyahu took to Twitter in the days leading up to Sunday’s vote in hopes of eroding trust in his opposition. “Bennett has broken all his commitments to his constituents to become prime minister at all costs,” he Tweeted Thursday. “This is the scam of the century!”

With some of the former prime minister’s words echoing that of former President Donald Trump—a close ally of Netanyahu’s while in office—the Likud party also took to social media and tried to pressure members of the new coalition. But, the coalition held its small majority.

Israel also elected a new president last week, Isaac Herzog, following in his late father’s footsteps. He is the first son of an Israeli president to be elected president. But the presidential role is primarily ceremonial and formal in nature. He is still the head of state, however, the prime minister is the head of the executive branch.

A commercial lobster diver says he escaped relatively unscathed after nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, in a biblical-sounding encounter that whale experts describe as rare but plausible.

Michael Packard, 56, said in local interviews and on social media that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up.

“I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out,” Packard later wrote on Facebook. “I am very bruised up but have no broken bones.”

The Cape Cod Times reports that Packard was pulled out of the water by his crewman and rushed back to shore, where he was transported to Cape Cod Hospital. He walked — albeit with a limp — out of the hospital that afternoon.

While he’s still recovering from soft tissue damage, Packard told the newspaper he’ll be back in the water as soon as he heals.

What Packard says

Packard told WBZ-TV that he was about 45 feet down in the water when he suddenly felt “this huge bump and everything went dark.” He initially feared he had been attacked by a shark.

“Then I felt around, and I realized there was no teeth and I had felt, really, no great pain,” he said. “And then I realized, ‘Oh my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth. I’m in a whale’s mouth, and he’s trying to swallow me.’ “

Packard was still wearing his scuba gear and breathing apparatus inside the whale’s mouth, which he said was completely dark. Fearing he wouldn’t make it out alive, he thought about his wife and sons.

After about half a minute, the whale rose to the water’s surface and began shaking its head from side to side.

“I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water,” Packard recalled. “And I was free, and I just floated there … I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I got out of that.”

What witnesses say

Crewman Josiah Mayo said he saw the whale burst to the surface and toss Packard back into the sea, according to the Cape Cod Times.

Lobster divers typically go out in pairs, with the crewman tracking the diver’s movements underwater by following their air bubbles.

Packard told Boston’s WCVB-TV that his mate “came right over to me and got another guy to help pull me aboard.”

That other man was Joe Francis, a charter boat captain who happened to be nearby.

“I saw Mike come flying out of the water, feet first with his flippers on, and land back in the water,” Francis told WBZ-TV. “I jumped aboard the boat. We got him up, got his tank off. Got him on the deck and calmed him down and he goes, ‘Joe, I was in the mouth of a whale.’ “

While the two men witnessed Packard’s escape, Packard noted that they didn’t see the whale scoop him up in the first place because “he ate me when I was down on the bottom.”

What whale experts say

Two researchers told NPR that interactions between humpback whales and humans are rare, and said the whale most likely engulfed Packard by accident as it was opening its mouth to feed on small fish.

Iain Kerr, the chief executive officer of the Massachusetts-based conservation nonprofit Ocean Alliance, explained that humpback whales are known for lunge feeding, in which they open their mouths, accelerate and “take in 10 SUVs worth of water and fish and then everything else.”

Whales are typically very aware of their surroundings, Kerr said. But in this particular case, he said it’s entirely possible that as the whale lunged toward a school of fish, “it’s a one-in-a-million shot that [Packard] just got rolled into the mouth.”

Because humpback whales have a small esophagus, Kerr doubts that Packard could have actually fit in the whale’s throat. Still, he said, he’s lucky to be alive.

“With the type of forces that are involved here with animals this large, it could have gone 20 different ways that could have killed him,” he said.

For example, had the whale closed its mouth out of fear, it could have broken Packard’s neck or back.

“To be clear, the whale did not want him in its mouth,” Kerr added, comparing the situation to an open-mouthed biker accidentally inhaling a fly.

Dr. Jooke Robbins, the director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, wrote in an email that the whale would have had to open its mouth and potentially use its tongue to push Packard out.

Such events are extremely rare, both experts stressed.

Kerr recalls hearing about one incident in which a person survived being caught in a humpback’s mouth off the coast of South Africa in 2019, and Robbins said she is not aware of any comparable stories.

She added that she doesn’t expect to hear about any more encounters anytime soon, but advises swimmers and boaters to pay attention to their surroundings and keep a safe distance from any wild animals.

Plus, Kerr said, whales don’t generally want to interact with people either.

If you ever did happen to fall into the water near one, he said, “I would just stop moving and enjoy the experience, because what an opportunity.”

“As humanity looks ever more to the oceans for resources, recreation, agriculture, whatever, I think we’re going to have more and more interactions with these animals,” he added. “But generally speaking whales are gentle giants, and I think all they ask from us is a little bit of respect of their time and space.”