The World’s Most Powerful Women: June 6

June 6, 2017, 7:07 AM UTC

If campaigning for re-election wasn’t tough enough, two British MP candidates are running in the U.K.’s snap election on Thursday with newborns in tow.

The BBC has a profile of Labour candidate Emma Reynolds and Conservative Andrea Jenkyns, who are canvassing their constituencies along with their baby boys.

Jenkyns had a C-section to deliver her son Clifford some nine weeks ago. She was still recovering when Prime Minister Theresa May called for the snap election on April 18, but started campaigning as soon as she was physically able.

“All bets are off with maternity leave,” she said. “You’re fighting for your job, really.”

Reynolds’s seven-week-old son Theo was born just four days before May announced the surprise contest, and she says she relied on her husband for help with her re-election bid because she was so exhausted.

Both women say people on the campaign trail have responded positively to their sons.

“They’re often very surprised but they often want to have a peek at his gorgeous face,” says Reynolds.

But having a baby on the campaign trail does produce unique challenges from time to time. Jenkyns’s son Clifford got sick in her hair just moments before she was set to meet May during the prime minister’s visit to Jenkyns’s constituency.

“I had to try and and mad dash to get it cleaned up before I went and met Theresa May,” Jenkyns recalls

If nothing else, Reynolds says her experience proves that wanting a family is not necessarily incompatible with working in politics. “You can do both,” she says. “It is possible.”

—@clairezillman

EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA

Scotland's splitScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made a bold prediction in a new interview: Scotland will be independent from the U.K. by 2025. "I think Scotland will be independent, yes, but, you know, that's a choice for the Scottish people," she told ITV. Sturgeon renewed her longstanding call for Scottish independence after the Brexit vote, but U.K. Theresa May has rebuffed her request, promising in her Conservative party's manifesto to block a second vote "unless there is public consent for it to happen.”Fortune

Doesn't check out

Natalya Sharina, head of Russia's only state-run Ukrainian library, was convicted yesterday of inciting hatred against Russians in a case that she compared to a Stalin-era political show trial. Armed, masked police arrested Sharina in October 2015, confiscating books that the authorities called illegal anti-Russian propaganda. Library staff testified that they had seen police officers planting the books, a claim investigators rejected. Sharina has vowed to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if an appeal is unsuccessful.

Reuters

Zone defense

The La Chapelle district of Paris has become a sort of "no-go zone" for women because street harassment there is so bad. The disturbing trend has split the neighborhood, with some arguing that the abuse is due to a growing population of migrants and others saying such complaints are motivated by xenophobia.

Guardian

THE AMERICAS

Making waves

The U.S. Navy is naming a warship after former Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D–Ariz.) who was the victim of an assassination attempt in January 2012. Next weekend, the 418-foot Gabrielle Giffords will be commissioned in Galveston, Tex., and prepared for regular duty, making it the first Navy warship to be named after a living women since the cutter Harriet Lane—named after the niece of President James Buchanan—was commissioned in 1857.

New York Times

To the tune of

Ariana Grande's benefit concert, which also featured pop stars like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, raised more than £2.35 million—or more than $3 million—according to the British Red Cross. With Grande's help, the organization's relief fund, We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, has raised a total of $12 million.

Fortune

ASIA-PACIFIC

The high road Down Under

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop hosted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Sydney yesterday where she was asked about President Donald Trump's recent behavior toward leaders of ally countries and his provocative tweets. "In relation to Twitter, I understand that it has a maximum of 140 characters," Bishop said. "So we deal with the president, with his cabinet, and with the U.S. administration on what they do, what they achieve, what their strategies are, and how we can work together in close and deep cooperation to uphold that international rules-based order."

Buzzfeed

Down with dowries

Last year, Muslim leaders in three Indian districts started a campaign against the collection of wedding dowries since late payments sometimes elicit extreme responses—driving some brides to commit suicide or resulting in their murder by irate husbands or in-laws. The campaign has gained traction, with some families even returning dowries paid years earlier.

Guardian

Covering their bases

In Japan, where train travel can be perilous for women, men are increasingly taking out "false groping accusation" insurance plans in case they are accused of sexual harassment on public transit. The plans cover legal costs for policy-holders who find themselves on the wrong end of such a charge.

Japan Today