Sources say Trump set to endorse Jordan for Speakership

Just In News | The Hill 

Former President Donald Trump is expected to endorse Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to be the next House Speaker, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) claimed in a post online.

After the House removed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a historic vote Tuesday, several names have floated around as his replacement. Jordan, the Judiciary Committee Chairman, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) each has declared candidacy.

Trump initially dismissed the idea of becoming speaker but later said he would step into a short-term position “if necessary.”

On Thursday, Nehls posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he “just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speakership race.”

“He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Nehls wrote online. “I fully support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.”

Sean Hannity also reported that just prior to his Fox News broadcast Thursday, he had “direct sources telling me that former President Donald J. Trump is very close to endorsing Jim Jordan very soon for Speaker of the House.”

Trump has yet to make any further comment about the Speakership race, or if he will be endorsing Jordan.

​House, News, House Republicans, Speakership vote Read More 

Hundreds defy Paris protest ban a week after riots

Hundreds of protesters defied a ban on Saturday to march in central Paris against police violence, a week after riots sparked by the killing of a teenager in a Parisian suburb.

Police dispersed the crowd from Paris’s huge Place de la Republique, sending several hundred people towards the wide Boulevard Magenta, where they were seen marching peacefully. Two people were arrested, Paris police said after the demonstration.

The Paris police department said in a decision published on its website that it had banned the planned demonstration, citing a “context of tensions”.

“We still enjoy freedom of expression in France, but freedom of assembly, in particular, is under threat”, said Felix Bouvarel, a health worker who came to the gathering in spite of the ban which he called “shocking.”

Authorities also banned a demonstration in the northern city of Lille on Saturday, while a march in Marseille took place with a changed trajectory, ordered out of the city centre.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week that more than 3,000 people, mostly teenagers, had been arrested in six nights of riots that ended a week ago. Some 2,500 buildings were damaged.

People attend a march in memory of Adama Traore in Paris

[1/7]People attend a march in memory of Adama Traore, a 24-year-old Black Frenchman who died in a 2016 police operation, organized by his relatives, in a new context of mobilisations against police violence and inequality, following the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed by a French police… Read more

The riots were triggered by the June 27 fatal shooting by a police officer of 17-year-old Nahel M at a traffic stop. A police officer is under investigation for voluntary homicide; his lawyer says he did not intend to kill the teen.

Saturday’s demonstration was called by the family of Adama Traore, a Black Frenchman whose death in police custody in 2016 has been marked by annual protests since. Organisers had sought to move it central Paris after it was banned in Beaumont-sur-Oise, the Paris suburb where Traore died.

French authorities and politicians including President Emmanuel Macron have denied institutional racism within the country’s law enforcement agencies.

The French foreign ministry denied on Saturday that the country’s legal system is racist, a day after the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called for France to address “the structural and systemic causes of racial discrimination, including in law enforcement”.

“Any accusation of systemic racism or discrimination by law enforcement in France is unfounded”, the foreign ministry said.

Prime Minster Elisabeth Borne said on Saturday the government would ban the sale and personal use of fireworks on the Bastille Day holiday next Friday after they were widely used by protesters last week, leading to fires and injuries.

Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Juliette Jabkhiro and Antony Paone; Editing by Alexander Smith, Peter Graff and Mark Potter