England find themselves on the wrong side of another controversial Snicko decision after Jake Weatherald is given not out despite there appearing to be a murmur on the Snicko technology, as the ball passes the bat – with Weatherald on 16 and Australia 33-0, chasing 160 to win the fifth and final Ashes Test in Sydney.
A man protests the opening of Shein’s first physical store in BHV building in Paris on Nov. 5. On Friday, a Paris court declined a government request to suspend the website’s operation in France. File Photo by Teresa Suarez/EPA
Dec. 19 (UPI) — A Paris court denied an effort by the French government to suspend the fashion website Shein from operating in the country after it was found to be selling “childlike” sex dolls.
The court called the three-month suspension “disproportionate,” but said the site must implement strong age-verification protocols to sell any “sexual products that could constitute pornographic content.” It said the fine for each breach would be $11,700.
Shein, based in Singapore, issued a statement on Nov. 4 saying it had removed the dolls and permanently banned “all seller accounts linked to illegal or non-compliant sex-doll products.”
The court noted that the company removed the items and that the issue was only for a small number of the hundreds of thousands of items on the site.
A Shein spokesperson told Euro News that the platform will not reopen in France right away. It’s doing an internal audit to find weaknesses in its marketplace operations.
Paris senator Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée of the conservative Les Républicains party told Euro News that “the issue with Shein or Temu goes far beyond these specific products. It is an entire business model that violates consumer rights, destroys our companies and jobs, and tramples on human rights, including environmental protection.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office has begun a criminal investigation and assigned it to France’s Office for the Protection of Minors. It includes other online retailers, including AliExpress, Temu, Wish and eBay.
The company opened its first-ever brick-and-mortar store in Paris on Nov. 5, soon after the controversy began. The store opened to chaos, as shoppers lined up to get in and protesters shouted at them, “Shame!”
The European Commission has requested information from Shein but hasn’t launched an investigation. It has begun investigating AliExpress and Temu.
Former President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Citizens Medal to Liz Cheney during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on January 2, 2025. The Presidential Citizens Medal is bestowed to individuals who have performed exemplary deeds or services. Photo by Will Oliver/UPI | License Photo
The controversy on the second day follows Alex Carey being given not out on Wednesday, when England reviewed a caught-behind decision with the Australia wicketkeeper on 72.
He was given not out because the spike which appeared on the technology was out of sync with the pictures, but that was later revealed to have been an error by the operator.
The first incident on day two occurred in the 44th over, with England 149-5.
Australia appealed for a catch after a ball to Smith looped to Usman Khawaja at slip and the on-field umpires sent the decision to the TV umpire to check if the ball had carried.
TV umpire Chris Gaffaney then deliberated over various replays, first checking whether the ball had hit Smith’s glove or helmet.
Again the technology appeared inconclusive but Gaffaney deemed the ball had hit Smith’s helmet.
The hosts’ fielders were visibly disgruntled and one Australian was heard saying “Snicko needs to be sacked” over the stump microphone.
In any case it appeared the ball did not carry to Khawaja.
More contentious was the second decision, which ultimately resulted in Smith’s dismissal.
He attempted a pull shot to Pat Cummins but Australia appealed confidently for a thin snick.
Smith appeared certain he had not hit the ball and was ready to review the decision had it been given out on the field.
Again on-field umpire Nitin Menon suggested he was not sure if the ball had carried so sent the decision for Gaffaney to review.
As the players came together to await the decision, Nathan Lyon was heard asking non-striking batter Ben Stokes if he heard anything.
Gaffaney said “there is nothing obvious there” after viewing an initial replay but Snicko showed a rough spike within a frame of the ball passing the toe of Smith’s bat – the leeway allowed in such scenarios.
Smith was given out. Both he and Stokes seemed frustrated with the decision.
U.S. senators peppered Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr with questions during a wide-ranging hearing exploring media censorship, the FCC’s oversight and Carr’s alleged intimidation tactics during the firestorm over ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s comments earlier this fall.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee following the furor over ABC’s brief suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” amid social media backlash over Kimmel’s remarks in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.
Walt Disney Co. leaders yanked Kimmel off the air Sept. 17, hours after Carr suggested that Disney-owned ABC should punish the late-night comedian for his remarks — or face FCC scrutiny. Soon, two major TV station groups announced that they were pulling Kimmel’s show, although both reinstated the program several days after ABC resumed production.
Progressives were riled by the President Trump-appointed chairman’s seeming willingness to go after broadcasters in an alleged violation of their First Amendment rights. At the time, a few fellow Republicans, including Cruz, blasted Carr for suggesting to ABC: “We can do this the easy way or hard way.”
Cruz, in September, said that Carr’s comments belonged in the mob movie “Goodfellas.”
On Wednesday, Carr said his comments about Kimmel were not intended as threats against Disney or the two ABC-affiliated station groups that preempted Kimmel’s show.
The chairman argued the FCC had statutory authority to make sure that TV stations acted in the public interest, although Carr did not clarify how one jumbled sentence in Kimmel’s Sept. 15 monologue violated the broadcasters’ obligation to serve its communities.
Cruz was conciliatory Wednesday, praising Carr’s work in his first year as FCC chairman. However, Democrats on the panel attempted to pivot much of the three-hour session into a public airing of the Trump administration’s desire to punish broadcasters whom the president doesn’t like — and Carr’s seeming willingness to go along.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Wednesday’s Senate committee hearing.
(Associated Press)
Carr was challenged by numerous Democrats who suggested he was demonstrating fealty to the president rather than running the FCC as an independent licensing body.
Despite the landmark Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC, the agency isn’t exactly independent, Carr and fellow Republican Commissioner Olivia Trusty testified.
The two Republicans said because Trump has the power to hire and fire commissioners, the FCC was more akin to other agencies within the federal government.
“Then is President Trump your boss?” asked Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). The senator then asked Carr whether he remembered his oath of office. Federal officials, including Carr, have sworn to protect the Constitution.
“The American people are your boss,” Kim said. “Have you ever had a conversation with the president or senior administration officials about using the FCC to go after critics?”
Carr declined to answer.
Protesters flocked to Hollywood to protest the preemption of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after ABC briefly pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely over comments he made about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The lone Democrat on the FCC, Anna M. Gomez, was frequently at odds with her fellow commissioners, including during an exploration of whether she felt the FCC was doing Trump’s bidding in its approach to merger approvals.
Trump separately continued his rant on media organizations he doesn’t like, writing in a Truth Social post that NBC News “should be ashamed of themselves in allowing garbage ‘interviews’” of his political rivals, in this case Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
Trump wrote that NBC and other broadcasters should pay “significant amounts of money for using the very valuable” public airwaves.
“Without a doubt, the FCC is leveraging its authority over mergers and enforcement proceedings in order to influence content,” Gomez said.
Parts of the hearing devolved into partisan bickering over whether Democrats or Republicans had a worse track record of trampling on the 1st Amendment. Cruz and other Republicans referenced a 2018 letter, signed by three Democrats on the committee, which asked the FCC to investigate conservative TV station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group.
“Suddenly Democrats have discovered the 1st Amendment,” Cruz said. “Maybe remember it when Democrats are in power. The 1st Amendment is not a one-way license for one team to abuse the power.
“We should respect the free speech of all Americans, regardless of party,” Cruz said.
