Extinction Rebellion trial delayed after defendant dons pink eye mask & GLUES HIMSELF to courtroom table

The trial of climate change activists accused of blocking a roadway last year in Hertfordshire took an unexpected turn, after one of the defendants glued his hand to the dock and began lecturing the presiding judge.

Liam Norton and five other Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists have been charged with using vehicles and large bamboo structures to obstruct roads near the Newsprinters printing works in Broxbourne in September. The disruptive protest halted the delivery of an estimated 3.5 million copies of newspapers. The Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Times are all printed at the site. XR UK defended the civil disobedience, accusing the press of dividing and distracting people during a "climate emergency". Extinction Rebellion said it had specifically targeted Rupert Murdoch's newspapers because they were "polluting the national debate on climate change" and obfuscating other important issues, such as the refugee crisis.

At the opening of the case at St Albans Magistrates' Court, the 36-year-old put on a pink eye mask and began filming the proceedings on his iPhone.

"I would like to make clear that what's going on in this courtroom today is completely absurd," he said.

District Judge Sally Fudge called for his phone to be confiscated, to which Norton responded that it was glued to his hand. He had apparently glued his other hand to the table at which he was sitting, for good measure.

Despite protests from the judge, the activist continued with his speech, claiming he was compelled to disobey the court due to "decades" of "organised criminality in this country".

He further accused the UK government of showing "contempt for the planet", and challenged the judge and prosecutors to stop serving and defending "criminality".

After Norton had lectured the courtroom for about a minute and a half, a security guard appeared. Moments later, the phone was knocked from his hand, suggesting the glue had either not been very effective, or was non-existent.

The adhesive he had used to bind himself to the table seemed to have done a better job. According to the BBC, it took police two hours to remove him before the trial could continue.

The judge later condemned Norton for his "particularly disruptive" behavior and expressed her concern that he would likely try to halt proceedings again were he allowed back in court.

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The death toll from Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza exclave rose to 65 by Wednesday night, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said.

"Sixty-five Palestinians died in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the past two days, including 16 children and five women, while 365 others were wounded," he said.

Israel has reported seven deaths, including a soldier and a six-year-old. It responded to barrages of rockets fired from Gaza by pounding Gazan cities with airstrikes and leveling three high-rises.

Israel and Palestine's Hamas have exchanged hundreds of rocket strikes since cross-border violence erupted on Monday night. It was sparked by days of clashes in East Jerusalem and the eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the disputed city.

Tensions that have been simmering during the holy month of Ramadan boiled over after Israeli police and Palestinian protesters clashed at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. Separately, an Israeli court sparked anger when it backed Jewish settlers' legal effort to evict several Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem.

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Gas stations along the Southeast coast are being slammed by panic buying and long lines amid the shutdown of the biggest oil pipeline in the US from a crippling cyberattack believed to be orchestrated by a Russia-based criminal group.

The closure of the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which carries more than 100 million gallons of fuel from Texas to New Jersey each day, has stretched into its fifth day.

It sparked wild scenes of panic buying across Georgia, Florida, Virginia and South Carolina — with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp even declaring states of emergency in their areas. Kemp also issued an executive order suspending Georgia's gas tax through Saturday to help offset the costs of higher fuel prices.

"I DON'T HAVE ANY GAS AND THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA DOESN'T HAVE GAS!! WHAT IN THE 2021 IS GOING ON !!" one panicked driver tweeted.

Yasheeka Wiggin told CBS News that the "unbelievable" lines in Marion, S.C., left her thinking "it was a catastrophe coming!"

"I've seen all these cars waiting and I was like, 'OMG. I have to fill my tank up!'" Wiggin told the network.

Many motorists took to social media to share shocking scenes of massive lines at gas stations — often just to find no gas left.

Others shared images of panic-buyers filling up several gas canisters at once, with memes comparing it to the rush to buy toilet paper at the start of the coronavirus lockdown last year.

Tallahassee Democrat journalist Alicia Devine posted video of an "insane" line of cars waiting for gas in the Florida state capital — one of the few she found that even had any.

"I've visited five gas stations this morning and the Costco one is the first to have gas," she wrote.

"A Costco employee just told a car trying to get in line 'you'll have to find the end of the line. I don't know where that is.'"

In South Carolina, Greg Suskin of WSOC9 posted a video of cars waiting at a gas station that had completely run dry, saying that "people here told me they'd been to other stations and found the same."

When he finally found some, he said a station worker stuck an "out of gas" sign on his pump as he got the very last of its supply.

"Everyone's panicking," Citi Stop gas station worker Jessica Alcocer told the Citizen Times of the store in Asheville, N.C., that ran out Monday afternoon.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) said that the biggest problem was actually panic buyers draining supplies.

"People hear something and panic," Tiffany Wright, spokeswoman for AAA Carolinas, told the Citizen Times, insisting supplies were otherwise normal.

Still, one TikToker wrote, "They will try telling you that there is no gas shortage. NC, SC, FL, AL, AR, TN, KY, GA, and VA disagree."

[...]

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Melinda Gates met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alongside her husband, Bill, in New York City and soon after said she was furious at the relationship between the two men, according to people familiar with the situation.

The previously unreported meeting occurred at Epstein's Upper East Side mansion in September 2013, on the same day the couple accepted the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award at The Pierre hotel and were photographed alongside then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

The meeting would prove a turning point for Gates' relationship with Epstein, the people familiar with the matter say, as Melinda told friends after the encounter how uncomfortable she was in the company of the wealthy sex offender and how she wanted nothing to do with him.

Gates' friendship with Epstein — who for years was accused of molesting scores of underage girls — still haunts Melinda, according to friends of the couple who spoke to The Daily Beast this week in light of the pair's divorce announcement, which had been weeks in the making.

[...]

One associate in the technology world who's attended the same events as Epstein, including a TED conference in Monterey, California, was surprised Gates had considered cultivating philanthropic ties with the late pedophile.

"I can't make the claim that so many are claiming," the person told The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, referring to people in Epstein's orbit who've said they had no suspicions of Epstein's abuse. "If you ask Bill Gates, he'll say, 'Oh I had absolutely no idea he wasn't up to anything of the highest moral character.' But I seriously doubted Epstein's moral character."

"The people around him," the person added, referring to Epstein, "had a varying spectrum of what they knew and what they didn't know and how they rationalized it."

This person wasn't surprised that Melinda Gates was put off by Epstein, saying "a lot of people were uncomfortable with Epstein, completely independent of his" sexual misconduct. "He just was an obnoxious guy. He almost made a point of having bad manners, not paying attention at dinner... I could see how anybody, even without suspicions, would not want to be around him."
[...]

Epstein also reportedly had a habit of bragging that he was an unofficial adviser to Bill Gates — a claim the Microsoft founder's representatives denied. One Times report indicates Epstein claimed to be a tax consultant for the tech magnate.

After his initial meeting with the financier, the billionaire philanthropist told Gates Foundation staff in an email: "His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me." Asked about this message, Gates' spokeswoman said he "was referring only to the unique decor" at Epstein's Manhattan mansion and "Epstein's habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates."

The rapport between Gates and Epstein seems to have fizzled in the fall of 2014, sometime after Gates donated $2 million to MIT's Media Lab. The lab's former director Joi Ito, in an internal email unearthed by The New Yorker, claimed Epstein facilitated that donation. As the Times investigation noted: "Mr. Epstein complained to an acquaintance at the end of 2014 that Mr. Gates had stopped talking to him, according to a person familiar with the discussion."