Hello, this is Anna breaking down today's news for you.
A joke of magnitude - John Oliver’s comedic parody of a children’s book about a gay bunny has reached the top spot on Amazon, outselling the lite, ‘non-gay’ version featuring US vice-president Mike Pence’s pet rabbit. The satirical book, entitled Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, was released by the TV host a day before Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President - written by Pence’s daughter Charlotte and illustrated by his wife, Karen - was available. Within two days of its release, Oliver’s Marlon Bundo had sold 180,000 copies on Amazon and become the bestselling book on the site.
More scandals - Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that worked on the Donald Trump election campaign, was offered material from Israeli hackers who had accessed two top politicians’ emails, witnesses told the Guardian. Multiple sources have described how senior directors of the controversial firm, including its chief executive, Alexander Nix, gave staff instructions to handle material provided by computer hackers in election campaigns in Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis.
Marxist lights - The hometown of communist intellectual Karl Marx is celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth with a new set of pedestrian lights. The philosopher and author of The Communist Manifesto was born in Trier in western Germany on 5 May 1818. The new set of traffic lights were unveiled on Monday and see Marx lit up in green and red.
Taking Russia on - British Prime Minister Theresa May will encourage European leaders to expel Russian spies from their own countries as an attempt to challenge the Kremlin’s networks across Europe, warning that the bloc faces a serious and long-standing threat from Vladimir Putin. May will ask European leaders to examine Britain’s response to the use of a nerve agent against a Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury and to increase their own measures when they meet in Brussels on Thursday.
French strike - Thousands of train drivers, teachers, nurses, air traffic controllers and other public sector staff are striking across France and are holding street protests against Emmanuel Macron’s latest reforms. Macron has managed to escape large strikes and trade union action since becoming president a year ago, but today’s strike marks a new era of trade union action and is the first protest against Macron that has brought together civil servants and railway staff. The strikes will see train cancellations, schools closed, 30% of Paris flights cancelled, airport disruption in the south and some 150 protest marches across the country.
‘I’m sorry’ - Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the social network ‘made mistakes’ when handling millions of Facebook users’ data that was exploited by a political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica. The London-based firm is accused of improperly using the data on behalf of the US President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. In a statement, Zuckerberg said a ‘breach of trust’ had occurred. In an interview with CNN he also said that he was ‘really sorry’, and pledged to take action against ‘rogue apps’. He added that he was ‘happy’ to testify before Congress ‘if it's the right thing to do’.