Republic of Ireland boss Stephen Kenny has called on his players to produce the performance of their lives after their Euro 2024 qualification hopes were left dangling by a thread. A 2-0 Group B defeat in Paris on Thursday evening means Ireland have taken just three points from their first four games, and realistically they need to beat the Netherlands in Dublin on Sunday to stand any chance of progressing. Speaking in the bowels of the Parc des Princes after an energy-sapping night at the hands of the mesmeric Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele, Kenny said: “We’ve just got to get ready for Sunday now. “We knew that if Holland beat Greece tonight and we beat Holland, we’re level on Sunday. We’ve got Greece at home and Gibraltar away in October, so it’s that big for us. We know it’s that big for us. “The energy of the home crowd has been special, it’s been electric at home and we need that again on Sunday to pull out the performance of our lives. That’s what we’ve got to do.” Ireland arrived in Paris knowing they were up against it because of the quality of both the opposition and the heat, and while they battled manfully throughout, the gulf in class – Didier Deschamps was able to bring Champions League winners on from his bench while one of Kenny’s substitutes, James McClean, is currently playing his football with League Two Wrexham – eventually told. Aurelien Tchouameni blasted the French into a 19th-minute lead as Ireland once again conceded from distance, and the side ranked second in the world never looked back against opponents rated 53rd by FIFA. I can't fault my players. I thought they gave everything really in the match. We were beaten by a better team for sure Stephen Kenny They increased their lead three minutes after the restart through substitute Marcus Thuram, a first-half replacement for the injured Olivier Giroud, and although it took a good save by Mike Maignan to keep out Chiedozie Ogbene’s header, the Republic had to defend for dear life to ensure the margin of victory did not stretch beyond 2-0. Kenny said: “To be fair, obviously France are a world-class team, a really top-class international team, one of the best teams in the world, if not the best. “But I can’t fault my players. I thought they gave everything really in the match. We were beaten by a better team for sure. For a lot of the players it’s the best team they have played against. “Of course we could have done better at times, for sure, but everyone gave everything of themselves.” France boss Didier Deschamps admitted his team could have been more clinical, but was largely satisfied. He said: “We could have done more, but broadly speaking I’m very satisfied with the result and the performance of the players. “Kylian did good things, even if he didn’t score. It’s not always Olivier Giroud or Kylian Mbappe supposed to score. It’s more about focussing on the goal, to qualify. “We had many chances to score, especially from outside the box. We were expecting a good team from the Irish team. With their three defenders, they were very present. “They created some difficult situations for us, especially if you remember the game in Dublin which was a bit risky for us. It’s a team that plays very deep and there were some difficulties.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Michael O’Neill bemoans Northern Ireland defending in costly defeat to Slovenia Rob Page expects Wales to take positives from stalemate into crunch Latvia clash James Maddison grew up loving Gascoigne ‘cheekiness’ and ‘feisty’ Wayne Rooney

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Elon Musk has been criticised for seemingly attempting to resurrect the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory, “Pizzagate”. Pizzagate was an anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory promoted on 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and other platforms in the final days before the 2016 US presidential election, and is seen as a precursor to the QAnon movement. Believers accused then presidential hopeful Ms Clinton and other senior Democrats of running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a Washington DC pizza restaurant. The conspiracy theory led to a shooting at the restaurant – which turned out not to have a basement. On Tuesday the billionaire tech entrepreneur shared a meme from from the US television comedy The Office on his social media platform X on Tuesday, which accused the “experts” that had debunked the theory of themselves being paedophiles. The post, which was not labelled with a correctional “community note”, made reference to former ABC journalist James Gordon Meek who pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse image charges earlier this year. “Does seem at least a little bit suspicious,” Mr Musk wrote, also linking to an article about Meek’s guilty plea. Other X users suggested that Mr Musk had fallen for a fake New York Post headline which was circulated on the platform that associated Meek with the debunking of Pizzagate. The former journalist was not involved in the exposing of the conspiracy theory, according to a fact check by the Reuters news agency. “So... Community notes? He’s just wildly transparent,” wrote one user. Another added: “Man who controls Twitter/X and, while we’re on it, a majority of the earth’s satellites, among other things, sharing a *wildly* debunked conspiracy theory. “We don’t just have "experts" – we *know* it was invented on 4chan. This is flirting with some incredibly dangerous stuff.” Shayan Sardarizadeh, of the BBC Verify team, wrote in response: “The meme shared by Elon Musk about the pizzagate conspiracy theory is itself based on the completely false claim… “... that James Gordon Meek, a journalist who recently pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, had debunked pizzagate. Meek never reported on pizzagate.” Another BBC disinformation journalist, Alistair Coleman added: “Your regular reminder that Pizzagate was created as a joke on a 4Chan message board, but spread because far too many people on social media aren’t particularly good at critical thinking. And here we are.” By Tuesday lunchtime Mr Musk had apparently deleted the tweet. It comes shortly after another online post by Mr Musk that attempted to link the founder of Media Matters – a left-leaning non-profit group that has accused X of promoting adverts from global companies alongside pro-Hitler content – to the owner of the Pizzagate restaurant. Earlier this month, a slew of big brands, including Disney and IBM, decided to stop advertising on X after a report by Media Matters said ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts. Mr Musk boosted a post rehashing the claims of links between the company and the restaurant owner by replying to it, with the one-word phrase: “Weird.” Self-described “free-speech absolutist” Mr Musk has also come under fire on multiple occasions recently over content promoting antisemitism on the site, sparking outrage over his own posts and comments which have promoted antisemitic content. On Wednesday November 15, Mr Musk described a post that said a post, had appeared to push the “great replacement” conspiracy theory on X, was “the actual truth”. The post claimed that Jewish communities “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them”. “You have said the actual truth,” Mr Musk wrote, a response which earned him praise from white nationalist Nick Fuentes – and accusations of antisemitism from dozens more, including the White House. He later responded to the accusations of antisemitism, insisting “nothing could be further from the truth”. Following the controversies, Mr Musk visited Israel on Monday, where he toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and held talks with top leaders. The billionaire met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who scolded him over content on his platform, and joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a tour of the Kfar Azza kibbutz, a rural village that Hamas militants stormed on 7 October in a deadly assault that launched the war. “The platforms you lead, unfortunately, have a huge reservoir of hatred, hatred of Jews and antisemitism,” Mr Herzog told him. Read More Elon Musk amplifies Pizzagate conspiracy theory Trump says Pence trying to ‘curry favour’ with DoJ over Jan 6: Live House has two days to respond to official motion to expel George Santos Trump says Pence trying to ‘curry favour’ with DoJ over Jan 6: Live House has two days to respond to official motion to expel George Santos Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service to be attended by Jimmy and fellow first ladies

A whistleblower who claims that the US government has been operating UFO retrieval research in secret has reportedly said that UFOs have been responsible for the deaths of humans. David Grusch worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and was involved with the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. He claimed that some of the “non-human intelligences” discovered have malevolent intentions and have killed people. Speaking to NewsNation [via the Daily Mail], he also reportedly claimed that the US is in a race with Russia and China to study extraterrestrial life. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “I think the logical fallacy there is because they’re advanced, they’re kind. We’ll never really understand their full intent and that’s because we’re not them. But I think what appears to be malevolent activity has happened.” He added: “That’s based on nuclear site probing activities and witness testimony. Grusch was then asked if UFOs had ever killed humans and he replied: “While I can’t get into the specifics because that would reveal certain US classified operations, I was briefed by a few individuals on the program that there were malevolent events like that.” The 36-year-old also suggested that the US government would go to extreme lengths to keep secrets covered up, saying: “At the very least, I saw substantive evidence that white-collar crime was committed… unfortunately. “I’ve heard some really un-American things I don’t want to repeat right now.” Grusch previously claimed that the US government has a "non-human origin" in-tact craft that they're keeping from the public. Speaking to NewsNation, Grusch said: "These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it a spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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