Colm Keena writes in today's Irish Times about the presidential election, and asks "what if someone is elected to the highest office in the land with a popular mandate to oppose Government policy?"

Meanwhile, the Fermanagh Herald reports that councillors in Fermanagh and Omagh have clashed over the merits of a four-day working week after reviewing a report on the first English council to permanently adopt the policy.

In the UK, trade unions Unite and the GMB continue to lock horns in a dispute that has seen 37 bin workers in Sheffield on strike for more than a year, while  the Indo reports that "hundreds of thousands" of people took part in anti-austerity protests across France yesterday, "urging president Emmanuel Macron and his new prime minister Sebastien Lecornu to acknowledge their anger and scrap looming budget cuts."

Elsewhere, the Guardian has this coverage of reaction to the suspension of late night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel.

Your Zen this morning was prompted by a conversation this week with my pal Paddy Cole in Siptu. We're both fans of Stewart Lee, who is due in town next year. He has a gift for dismantling fevered egos and rank hypocrisy, an underrated super power these days. The tune is very much in the spirit of the late Tom Lehrer.

Have a great weekend.

NS