Day: May 6, 2022

By Sophie Louet and Ingrid Melander PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron enjoyed no respite on Monday as, hours after he won re-election by defeating the far right’s Marine Le Pen, political opponents called on voters to deny him a parliamentary majority. If he fails to score another victory in the June 12 and 19 parliamentary elections, the pro-European, centrist president will struggle to advance with his pro-business agenda, including unpopular plans to push back the retirement age. “Voting isn’t over, the legislative elections are the third round,” said Jordan Bardella, a clo…

A Liam Neeson action-thriller where he demonstrates his particular set of skills yet again tops the DVD releases for the week of May 3. “Blacklight”: Neeson stars as Travis Block, a shadowy government operative who does clean up work for the FBI, getting agents that are deep undercover out of sticky situations. “Director Mark Williams (the 2020 Neeson thriller ‘Honest Thief’), who also co-wrote the script, pays lip service to our current political climate with references to ‘the millennial soapbox crowd’ and ‘gotcha moments on Twitter,’ but it’s basically the same Neeson in slightly different …

By Andrew MacAskill and Michael Holden NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME, England (Reuters) – John Jones is the sort of voter that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cannot afford to lose – but already has. Jones, who backed Johnson’s Conservatives at the national election three years ago when the party swept to a landslide victory, regrets his decision after the prime minister broke his own coronavirus lockdown laws to attend alcohol-fuelled gatherings in his Downing Street office. The 75-year-old retired hospital supplies manager said he won’t vote Conservative again until Johnson has gone. “I am absol…

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Jordan on Friday to release twelve political prisoners detained without due process since February. “We are concerned by the continued detention in Jordan of peaceful activists arrested in February and March under the Law of Crime Prevention and the Cybercrime Prevention Law, in what appears to be part of a deliberate campaign to silence dissent,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani wrote in statement on Friday. The UN body highlighted that those detained did not have “effective access to due process and fair …

By Dominique Vidalon and Noemie Olive PARIS (Reuters) -Police fired tear gas to push back black-clad anarchists who ransacked business premises in Paris on Sunday during May Day protests against the policies of newly re-elected President Emmanuel Macron. Thousands of people joined May Day marches across France, calling for salary increases and for Macron to drop his plan to raise the retirement age. Most were peaceful but violence broke out in the capital, where police arrested 54 people, including a woman who attacked a fireman trying to put out a fire, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said …

By Dan Lyons He said he was “just throwing ideas out,” but believes the FBS leagues should break away from the rest of the NCAA for football. View the original article to see embedded media. A break-up of big-time college football and the NCAA isn’t a new idea, but it continues to pick up mainstream support. One very influential athletic director, Ohio State’s Gene Smith, openly discussed the possibility while speaking to ESPN at the Big Ten’s spring meetings. Telling Heather Dinich that he was “just throwing ideas out,” he proposed that the 10 FBS leagues move under the College Football Playo…

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Representative Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, asked the chair of the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday to preserve its records related to Elon Musk’s pending acquisition of Twitter Inc. The request indicates that Jordan may investigate the FTC’s merger review. Jordan expressed concern about statements by the Open Markets Institute, which he called “an extreme left-wing political advocacy organization,” and its call for the FTC to stop the deal. “We are concerned that OMI – where you were previous…