While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, July 5
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Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria arriving to cast their votes at a polling station in London, on July 4.
PHOTO: AFP
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UK’s Labour to win massive election majority, exit poll shows
Keir Starmer will be Britain’s next prime minister with his Labour Party set to win a massive majority in a parliamentary election, an exit poll on July 4 indicated, while Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are forecast to suffer historic losses.
The poll showed Labour would win 410 seats in the 650-seat parliament, ending 14 years of Conservative-led government.
Mr Sunak’s party were forecast to only take 131 seats, down from 346 when parliament was dissolved, as voters punish the Conservatives for a cost-of-living crisis and years of instability and in-fighting which has seen five different prime ministers since 2016.
The centrist Liberal Democrats were predicted to capture 61 seats while Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK was forecast to win 13.
US sees ‘breakthrough’ in Israel-Hamas talks
REUTERS
Hamas made a pretty significant adjustment in its position over a potential hostage release deal with Israel, a senior US administration official said on July 4, expressing hope that it would lead to a pact that would be a step to a permanent ceasefire.
“We’ve had a breakthrough,” the official told reporters on a conference call, adding there were still outstanding issues related to implementation of the agreement and that a deal was not expected to be closed in a period of days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden on July 4 he has decided to send a delegation to resume stalled negotiations on a hostage release deal with Hamas.
French far right likely to fall short of absolute majority
EPA-EFE
France’s far-right National Rally party is set to fall short of an absolute majority in a July 7 parliamentary election run-off, an opinion poll showed on July 4, suggesting efforts by mainstream parties to block the far right might be working.
It was the second survey in as many days to show Ms Marine Le Pen’s RN winning more seats than any other party, but also missing the 289 threshold required for an absolute majority.
This suggested that a “republican front,” by which more than 200 candidates across the political spectrum pulled out of three-way second rounds over the past few days to clear the path for whoever was best placed to defeat the RN option in their district, seemed to be yielding results.
British teacher jailed for sex with schoolboys
A British teacher who had sex with two teenage students and had a baby with one of them was sentenced on July 4 to 6½ years in jail.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, was on police bail for sexual activity with one victim, identified as Boy A, when she began having sex with the second, Boy B, by whom she became pregnant.
Sentencing Joynes, a judge said she had been a “high achiever” who had thrown her career away and had her baby taken away from her through her own actions.
Tearful Murray suffers losing start to Wimbledon farewell
Andy Murray suffered a losing start in his farewell to Wimbledon on July 4 when he and brother Jamie were defeated in the first round of the men’s doubles before the former champion wept openly on Centre Court.
Murray, a two-time Wimbledon singles champion, and his brother lost 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 to Rinky Hijikata and John Peers of Australia.
The 37-year-old is not finished yet with the tournament as he is scheduled to play mixed doubles with Emma Raducanu.
