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Incumbent Emmanuel Macron will face far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen in a winner-takes-all runoff for the French presidency, after they both advanced Sunday in the first round of voting in the country’s election to set up another head-to-head clash of their sharply opposing visions for France, Associated Press reported.

But while Macron won t heir last contest in 2017 by a landslide to become France’s youngest-ever president, the same outcome this time is far from guaranteed. Macron, now 44, emerged ahead from Sunday’s first round, but the runoff is essentially a new election and the next two weeks of campaigning to the April 24 second-round vote promise to be bruising and confrontational against his 53-year-old political nemesis.

Savvier and more polished as she makes her third attempt to become France’s first woman president, Le Pen was handsomely rewarded Sunday at the ballot box for her years-long effort to rebrand herself as more pragmatic and less extreme. Macron has accused Le Pen of pushing an extremist manifesto of racist, ruinous policies. Le Pen wants to roll back some rights for Muslims, banning them from wearing headscarves in public, and to drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.

On Sunday, she racked up her best-ever first-round tally of votes. With most votes counted, Macron had just over 27% and Le Pen had just under 24%. Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was third, missing out on the two-candidate runoff, with close to 22%, according to the Associated Press.

Macron also improved on his first-round showing in 2017, despite his presidency being rocked by an almost unrelenting series of both domestic and international crises. They include Russia’s war in Ukraine that overshadowed the election and diverted his focus from the campaign. 

With polling suggesting that the runoff against Le Pen could be close, Macron immediately started throwing his energies into the battle.

Addressing supporters Sunday night who chanted “five more years,” Macron warned that “nothing is done” and said the runoff campaign will be “decisive for our country and for Europe.” 

Claiming that Le Pen would align France with “populists and xenophobes,” he said: “That’s not us.”

“I want to reach out to all those who want to work for France,” he said. He vowed to “implement the project of progress, of French and European openness and independence we have advocated for.”

The election outcome will have wide international influence as Europe struggles to contain the havoc wreaked by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Macron has strongly backed European Union sanctions on Russia while Le Pen has worried about their impact on French living standards. Macron also is a firm supporter of NATO and of close collaboration among the European Union’s 27 members, Associated Press reported.

Macron for months had looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But National Rally leader Le Pen, in a late surge, tapped into the foremost issue on many French voters’ minds: soaring costs for food, gas and heating due to rising inflation and the repercussions of Western sanctions on Russia.

To win in round two, both Macron and Le Pen now need to reach out to voters who backed the 10 presidential candidates defeated Sunday. 

For some of the losers’ disappointed supporters, the runoff vote promises to be agonizing. Melenchon voter Jennings Tangly, a 21-year-old student of English at Paris’ Sorbonne University, said the second-round match-up was an awful prospect for her, a choice “between the plague and cholera.”

She described Macron’s presidency as “abject,” but said she would vote for him in round two simply to keep Le Pen from the presidential Elysee Palace, according to the Associated Press.

“It would be a survival vote rather than a vote with my heart,” she said.

Le Pen’s supporters celebrated with champagne and chanted “We’re going to win!” She sought to reach out to left-wing supporters for round two by promising fixes for “a France torn apart.”

Rajasthan Royals defeated Lucknow Super Giants by three runs in an Indian Premier League match on Sunday, The Indian Express reported.

Electing to bowl, LSG produced a fine bowling effort before Shimron Hetmyerstruck a fluent fifty to help RR post 165 for six.

Hetmyer remained unbeaten on 59 off 36 balls to take RR to the total after they were at 67 for four at one stage, according to The Indian Express.

Krishnappa Gowtham (2/30) and Jason Holder (2/50) shared four wickets between them for LSG.

Chasing the total, RR restricted LSG to 162 for eight, The Indian Express reported.

Sri Lanka’s doctors have warned they are almost out of life-saving medicines and say the country’s economic crisis threatened a worse death toll than the coronavirus pandemic, The Guardian reported.

Weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel and pharmaceuticals have brought widespread misery to Sri Lanka, which is suffering its worst downturn since independence in 1948.

The Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) said all hospitals in the country no longer had access to imported medical tools and vital drugs.

Several facilities have already suspended routine surgeries since last month because they were dangerously low on anaesthetics, but the SLMA said that even emergency procedures might not be possible very soon.

"We are made to make very difficult choices. We have to decide who gets treatment and who will not,” the group said on Sunday, after releasing a letter it had sent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa days earlier to warn him of the situation. “If supplies are not restored within days, the casualties will be far worse than from the pandemic.”

Mounting public anger over the crisis has seen large protests calling for Rajapaksa’s resignation, according to The Guardian.

Thousands of people braved heavy rains to keep up a demonstration outside the leader’s seafront office in the capital of Colombo for a second day.

Business leaders joined calls for the president to step down on Saturday and said the island nation’s chronic fuel shortages had seen their operations haemorrhage cash.

Rajapaksa’s government is seeking an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to help extricate Sri Lanka from the crisis, which has seen skyrocketing food prices and the local currency collapse in value by a third in the past month, The Guardian reported.

Finance ministry officials have said sovereign bond-holders and other creditors may have to take a haircut as Colombo seeks to restructure its debt.

The new finance minister, Ali Sabry, told parliament on Friday that he expected $3bn from the IMF to support the island’s balance of payments in the next three years.

A critical lack of foreign currency has left Sri Lanka struggling to service its ballooning $51bn foreign debt, with the pandemic torpedoing vital revenue from tourism and remittances.

Economists say Sri Lanka’s crisis has been exacerbated by government mismanagement, years of accumulated borrowing and ill-advised tax cuts, according to the Guardian.

As Ukrainian forces dug in on Sunday, Russia lined up more firepower and tapped a decorated general to take centralized control of the war ahead of a potentially decisive showdown in eastern Ukraine that could start within days, Associated Press reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Sunday in his nightly address to the nation that the coming week would be as crucial as any in the war, saying “Russian troops will move to even larger operations in the east of our state.” 

He also accused Russia of trying to evade responsibility for war crimes in Ukraine.

“When people lack the courage to admit their mistakes, apologize, adapt to reality and learn, they turn into monsters. And when the world ignores it, the monsters decide that it is the world that has to adapt to them,” Zelenskyy said.

“The day will come when they will have to admit everything. Accept the truth,” he added.

Experts have said that the next phase of the battle may begin with a full-scale offensive. The outcome could determine the course of the conflict, which has flattened cities, killed untold thousands and isolated Moscow economically and politically, according to the Associated Press.

Questions remain about the ability of Russia’s depleted and demoralized forces to conquer much ground after their advance on the capital, Kyiv, was repelled by determined Ukrainian defenders. Britain’s Defense Ministry reported Sunday that the Russian forces were trying to compensate for mounting casualties by recalling veterans discharged in the past decade.

In Washington, a senior US official said that Russia has appointed Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, one of its most seasoned military chiefs, to oversee the invasion. The official was not authorized to be identified and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Until now, Russia has had no central war commander on the ground.

The new battlefield leadership comes as the Russian military prepares for what is expected to be a large, focused push to expand control in Ukraine’s east. Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region since 2014 and declared some territory there as independent, Associated Press reported.

Dvornikov, 60, gained prominence as head of the Russian forces deployed to Syria in 2015 to shore up President Bashar Assad’s government during the country’s devastating civil war. US officials say he has a record of brutality against civilians in Syria and other war theaters.

Russian authorities do not generally confirm such appointments and have said nothing about a new role for Dvornikov, who received the Hero of Russia medal, one of the country’s highest awards, from President Vladimir Putin in 2016.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” played down the significance of the appointment.

“What we have learned in the first several weeks of this war is that Ukraine will never be subjected to Russia,” Sullivan said. “It doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint.”

Western military analysts say Russia’s assault has increasingly focused on a sickle-shaped arc of eastern Ukraine — from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the north to Kherson in the south, according to the Associated Press.

Nepal reported four new Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 740 swab samples were tested today, of which four returned positive. 

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 48 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 592 active cases in the country.

Shanghai reported nearly 25,000 locally transmitted Covid-19 infections on Sunday, as residents of China's most populous city voiced complaints over food and basic supplies and concern spread that more cities may soon be in the same situation, Reuters reported.

Streets of the locked-down financial hub of 26 million people remained as curbs under the city's "zero tolerance" policy allow only healthcare workers, volunteers, delivery personnel or those with special permission to go out.

Shanghai's case numbers are small compared to some cities globally, but it is battling China's worst Covid outbreak since the virus emerged in the central city of Wuhan in 2019. Of the local cases Shanghai reported on Sunday, 1,006 were symptomatic while 23,937 were classed as asymptomatic, which China counts separately.

The city has become a test bed for China's elimination strategy, which seeks to test, trace and centrally quarantine all Covid-positive people to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The curbs have sharply squeezed supplies of food and other essentials. Many supermarkets have been shut and thousands of couriers locked in. Access to medical care has also been a concern, according to Reuters.

Online videos show residents struggling with security personnel and hazmat-suited medical staff at some compounds in recent days, with occupants shouting that they need food.

Executives for e-commerce giants JD.com and food delivery service Ele.me attended the city's daily briefing, seeking to convince residents that bottlenecks would ease.

JD.com vice president Wang Wenbo said he understands concerns about delivery speed and that the company is focussing on basic foodstuffs and baby care items. Ele.me senior vice president Xiao Shuixian said his company had brought 2,800 more delivery workers in over the past week.

Citizens in several cities expressed anxiety in social media groups that their cities might also go into lockdown, with screenshots shared of maps showing various highways closed across the country, Reuters reported.

Many of the closures may be due to local governments implementing their own measures.

On Saturday the Ministry of Transport said it met with other government departments to work on standardising highway pandemic checkpoints as restrictions at the local level were causing congestion for critical supplies, the ministry said.

A video circulating on social media appeared to show lorries departing Shanghai being scanned with-hand held detectors to make sure no one was trying to leave the city hidden inside. Reuters was not able to confirm the video's authenticity.

Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo has apologised after he appeared to knock a mobile phone out of a supporter’s hand following his side’s 1-0 defeat at Everton on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Footage emerged on social media of Ronaldo appearing to swipe his hand towards the ground as he walked off the pitch and headed for the tunnel at Goodison Park. Eyewitnesses said the 37-year-old had knocked a fan’s phone out of their hand and it smashed to the ground.

Ronaldo took to Instagram to apologise for the incident, according to Reuters.

“It’s never easy to deal with emotions in difficult moments such as the one we are facing,” Ronaldo said. “Nevertheless, we always have to be respectful, patient and set the example for all the youngsters who love the beautiful game.

“I would like to apologise for my outburst and, if possible, I would like to invite this supporter to watch a game at Old Trafford as a sign of fair-play and sportsmanship.”

The club have told Reuters they are looking into the incident.

The defeat left United seventh in the Premier League standings and they face the prospect of missing out on qualification for next season’s Champions League as they are six points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, Reuters reported.