Thousands of people have defied social distancing rules to march through the streets of central London - mostly in protest against COVID regulations including face masks and potential vaccine passports.

At least 10,000 demonstrators have been marching through the capital in the Saturday sunshine, according to Sky's home affairs correspondent Mark White, who was there.


A march initially said to be part of the "Kill the Bill" movement against laws granting greater powers to police was seemingly usurped by those protesting about coronavirus.

Mark White said: "The vast majority of people who are here are actually protesting against the rules around COVID, against vaccination, against the rules around masks.

"Lots of other concern as well about the potential for vaccine passports."

Perhaps the most pressing matter today for advocates of freedom is the prospect of the Left completing the institution of a totalitarian state. There is no other way to read the multiprong approach and the political maneuverings that political operatives are taking to rule under "Biden." I put "Biden" in quotation marks here because the current president of the United States is not a singular person named Joe Biden. It is a central executive committee consisting of party rulers and advisers, plus corporate-state apparatuses. Make no mistake, the power grab that the Left is undertaking poses the most grievous threat to liberty in recent history, regardless of its effects on the Republican Party.

The signals could not be any clearer. In addition to the swath of executive orders, clearly composed by executive committee members and aimed at either ingratiating and expanding the Democratic Party's base or extending federal power, the Democrats have initiated a growing body of laws which would, if passed, ensure uniparty rule for the foreseeable future.

These include especially H.R. 1, or the For the People's Act, passed by the House. Should it pass the Senate (with the eradication of the filibuster), H.R.-1 would grossly favor Democratic candidates in federal elections. Notwithstanding the expansion of the Democratic base through various means, including overriding existing voter ID laws in many states and mandating that all states allow mail-in ballots without IDs, it would further centralize federal election oversight and, according to the Institute for Free Speech, "[e]xpand the universe of regulated online political speech (by Americans) beyond paid advertising to include, apparently, communications on groups' or individuals' own websites and e-mail messages."

The legislative maneuverings include the ''Judiciary Act of 2021,'' which would simply expand the Supreme Court to twelve members plus the chief justice. This move, which would amount to adding four Democrat-approved justices, would essentially effect a legislative takeover of the Supreme Court, as the Democratic-controlled Supreme Court would increasingly "legislate from the bench" and likewise expand the power of the Democratic-controlled legislative and executive branches beyond official perimeters. The odds of its passage, as is, are slim, but the overture is indicative of an attempted power grab not seen since FDR.

But the most conspicuous sign of the nearing consolidation of totalitarian government is the effective merger of corporate and state functionaries, with corporations and other organizations acting as appendages of the government and enforcing corporate-state desiderata. The indications of this merger are so many and sundry that any exhaustive recounting of them would entail a book-length treatment.

A mother in Gwinnett County, Georgia, demanded her local school board lift its mask requirement for young children in an emotional speech at an April 15 board meeting.

Courtney Ann Taylor appeared to nearly cry while speaking to the board. Her voice cracked several times and her passion brought applause and cheers from some of the assembled guests.

The powers of the Swiss government to curtail public life due to the pandemic is on the agenda for a nationwide vote in June. A citizens' group has brought a referendum against the so-called "Covid law", approved by parliament and implemented last September.

The campaign is driven by concerns over the current prominent role of the national executive in the country's federalist and direct democratic system, as well as scepticism about the government's vaccination policy.

Switzerland is the first country worldwide to grant its citizens a say over the legal basis for handling the Covid crisis. The vote is scheduled for June 13, along with four other issues.

The president's annual address, given to members of the two houses of Russia's parliament, plus members of the cabinet, regional governors, and various distinguished guests, outlines his views on the state of the nation, and establishes guidelines for the country's foreign and domestic policy in the year to come.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to Russian lawmakers and officials on Wednesday, with this year's speech lasting 78 minutes, and dedicated to a broad range of issues including foreign and defence policy, the economy and social policy, the coronavirus and climate change.

Sputnik has collected the speech's highlights. A complete readout of the address can be found here.

Crowds of New York activists took to the streets to celebrate ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin's murder conviction, but many marchers insisted the verdict didn't go far enough, demanding the outright abolition of law enforcement.

Protesters gathered outside the Barclays Center area in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, hours after Chauvin was found guilty on three counts linked to the death of suspect George Floyd in custody last May, who perished after spending more than nine minutes on the ground pinned under the former officer's knee.

According to Brooklyn-based photojournalist Issa Khari, the protesters broke off into two groups, one of which remained at the arena to demonstrate, while the other marched down Flatbush Avenue, over the Manhattan Bridge and beyond into New York. Khari described the two factions as "reformists" and "abolitionists," respectively, with the latter referring to activists pushing for more radical change to the criminal justice system and the complete elimination of police departments as they currently exist in the US.

Around the time a Minnesota jury declared an ex-cop guilty for last year's death of George Floyd, a 16-year-old black girl was fatally shot by police in Columbus, Ohio, sparking another Black Lives Matter protest.

Columbus PD officers responding to a 911 call about an "attempted stabbing" around 4:45 pm Eastern time on Tuesday. The caller said a female was trying to stab them, and hung up, police said, according to local media. One person was wounded in an "officer-involved shooting" and transported to hospital in critical condition, where she died at 5:21, police said.

"This afternoon a young woman tragically lost her life," Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther tweeted, urging residents to "remain calm" and allow the Bureau of Criminal Investigations to "gather the facts."

Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all counts - second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter - in the death of George Floyd.

The jury returned its verdict on Tuesday afternoon after just 10 and a half hours of deliberation.

As the verdict was read out Chauvin looked on with no visible emotion in the Hennepin County courtroom, where jurors spent three weeks listening to testimony about the day Floyd died - under the weight of the 45-year-old officer's knee - during an arrest on May 25, 2020.

Judge Peter Cahill thanked the jury on behalf of the state of Minnesota for not only jury service but 'heavy duty jury service'.

The state moved immediately to have Chauvin's bail revoked pending sentencing, which will happen in eight weeks. Judge Cahill did so and Chauvin was remanded into custody, and taken from the courtroom in handcuffs. On Tuesday night he was transferred to Oak Park Heights, Minnesota's only maximum security prison.

Chauvin faces a minimum sentence of 12.5 years and maximum of 40 years if he serves terms for each charge concurrently.

If served consecutively, he faces between 29 and 75 years.

France has become the first country in Europe to embrace a "digital coronavirus travel certificate" system - a controversial electronic vaccine passport similar to those that have surfaced in Israel and parts of the US.

The TousAntiCovid app is slated to debut next Thursday, a year after the concept was devised in Brussels to serve as the root framework for a contact-tracing program and immunity passport for France. Going forward, it will be expanded to include vaccine data as well, with the relevant information stored on users' smartphones.


During the trial, travelers will be registered as they pass through connection points in Corsica and overseas departements (similar to counties) in France. Paris hopes the design will not just confirm the positive or negative test status of users, but also track their vaccination status.


Starting on April 29, the trial system can be used to verify whether the carrier has been vaccinated or not, an official told Le Monde on Tuesday. The system will subsequently serve as one part of a "reinforced, consolidated, and standardized" pan-European system, according to Minister of Digital Transition Cedric O, who has been in contact with other countries and major airlines in an effort to set up a functional, glitch-free system going forward.

Canada - "True North, strong and free," according to its anthem - is in thrall to transgender ideology. On Friday, a father was sent to prison. His crime? Speaking out against the medical transition of his 14-year-old daughter.

The man complained about doctors giving puberty blockers to the 14-year-old, and referred to the child with the pronouns 'she' and 'her', in defiance of a court order. He was sent to prison for six months for contempt of court.

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen denounced his behaviour as outrageous contempt of a court order imposed to protect the girl's identity. He handed down a "strong denunciatory sentence" on the man for "blatantly, wilfully and repeatedly" defying publication bans.

But what else could a father do when his daughter suddenly decided that she was a boy, and was then promptly affirmed by a psychologist before being referred to an endocrinologist for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones?