Globe Trot: Protests begin following Macron’s win

FRANCE: The left’s Emmanuel Macron won by a decisive margin over far right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in a presidential runoff on Sunday, becoming at 39 the youngest French president.

Macron will take office next week, and already anti-Macron protests are underway, even as he joined outgoing President François Hollande for celebrations today commemorating the end of World War II.

Perhaps one reason Macron won.

NIGERIA Boko Haram released 82 girls kidnapped from their boarding school in northern Nigeria, the second time the government has negotiated with the terrorist group for the Chibok girls’ freedom—this time involving a prisoner swap for some of the 276 mostly Christian girls captured by the group in 2014.

SYRIA: U.S. officials are taking new—and questioning—interest in proposed safe zones in Syria. “The devil’s always in the details, right? So we’ve got to look at the details,” warned U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

NORTH KOREA has detained another American, taking into custody on suspicion of “hostile acts” Kim Hak-song, who worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The regime holds four Americans, likely leverage as it faces more pressure from the Trump administration to end its nuclear buildup.

VENEZUELA: The mass starvation underway in Venezuela is … just heartbreaking. Three of four Venezuelans say they have lost 19 pounds, on average, in the past year as the country, once one of the wealthiest in South America, sinks under the failed socialist policies of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro.

YEMEN: At least 570 cholera cases have spiked in recent weeks as Yemen joins the ranks of world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

CHINA: Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump continue to benefit from their stake in Kushner Companies’ real estate business and other investments, despite stepping back from its operations to work in the White House. Journalists were barred from a weekend Kushner event in Shanghai where potential investors stood to receive special U.S. immigrant visas.

UNITED STATES: There’s a reason to be skeptical of the Comey effect on last year’s presidential election.