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'Taxpayer's money shouldn't be spent on political stunts': London mayor Khan blasted for spending £2.3M on pro-EU New Year extravaganza

Matt Dathan
The Sun
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 17:34 UTC
London 2019 New Year fireworks
The display featured songs from European musicians and The London Eye was even lit up to resemble an EU flag
London mayor Sadiq Khan has been blasted for spending £2.3million on his pro-EU New Year extravaganza.

The London Eye was turned into the EU flag by blue and yellow fireworks.

The slogan "London is Open" was repeated over loudspeakers in seven languages, with Remainer Mr Khan saying he wanted to highlight our ties with Europe.

Songs such as We Are Your Friends, Stay and Don't Leave Me Alone accompanied the fireworks.

Critics last night said the money should have been spent tackling violent crime in the capital, which has soared under Mr Khan's watch.

Tory Charlie Elphicke warned: "Sadiq Khan needs to respect the referendum and move on to focus on London's spiralling crimewave.

Comment: Well Khan has certainly made it even more obvious that Brexit is a farce intended to pacify the masses whose opinions and needs are clearly unimportant:

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Pistol

New mayor of small Mexican town assassinated shortly after swearing in ceremony

Niv Ellis
The Hill
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:31 UTC
Mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago
Aparicio became mayor at midnight and took the oath of office at a public event at 10 a.m. He was interviewed by reporters and spoke with citizens before the shooting, which happened at 12 p.m.
The new mayor of a city in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca was killed shortly after being sworn in Tuesday, the state's governor confirmed.

Alejandro Aparicio Santiago, the new mayor of the small city Tlaxiaco, had just been sworn in and was on his way to a meeting at city hall when gunmen opened fire, fatally injuring him and wounding four others, the Associated Press reported.

Santiago died after being taken to a hospital,

Oaxaca Gov. Alejandro Murat condemned the killing in a tweet, and said a suspect was already in custody.

Comment: Running for office in Mexico is a risky venture, but even ordinary citizens are threatened where organized crime and drug cartels take control:

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USA

Kanye West jumps back on the Trump train in his first 2019 tweets


RT
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:43 UTC
Kanye West
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
Kanye West's on-again, off-again love affair with US President Donald Trump seems to be on again for 2019, as the controversial rapper redeclared his support for the president in a New Year's Day tweetstorm.

"Trump all day," West wrote in the first post, adding a series of green dragon emojis and following it up with a tweet that read: "Just so in 2019 you know where I stand."


Comment: See also:

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Attention

Police use tear gas to quell protests against women entering Hindu temple


RT
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:16 UTC
tear gas cops
© Reuters/Stringer
Police deployed tear gas at protesters in the Indian state of Kerala. Outrage grew after two women - backed by a landmark court ruling - entered a shrine which has historically been forbidden to females of menstruating age.

Clashes between police and demonstrators broke out simultaneously in several towns throughout the state, including a large-scale conflict in front of the state parliament in Thiruvananthapuram. The traditionalist Hindu protesters gathered in anger after it became public that the women had entered the Sabarimala temple dedicated to the celibate God Ayyappa.

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Pistol

Injuries follow New Year's celebratory gunfire across the US


RT
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:05 UTC
New Year's celebration
© Reuters / Amr Alfiky
The time-honored, if illegal, tradition of firing guns into the air to celebrate the New Year led to a rash of injuries on the first day of 2019 as stray bullets lodged in innocent bystanders - and even the shooters themselves.

A Cleveland, OH man shot himself in the leg trying to return his 9mm to its holster after firing it off in celebration in the middle of a field. After he was taken to the hospital, police added insult to injury by charging him with illegally discharging a firearm... and causing injury to a person. Ouch, indeed.

A Kansas City, KS man shot himself in the stomach after setting his .22 down on his couch. He hadn't even fired off the celebratory gunshot yet. No word on if he's been spared the indignity of criminal charges.

It's easy to laugh at these types, because they're only hurting themselves, but a 6-year-old girl in Oakland, CA hit in the head with a stray bullet from "celebratory gunfire" while playing in her backyard serves as a sober reminder that what goes up must come down. She is in stable condition, as is the 9-year-old Atlanta, GA boy who caught a bullet in the stomach while setting off fireworks in his front yard with his family.
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Whistle

Actress Jane Curtin wants the Republican party to die in 2019


RT
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 15:51 UTC
Jane Curtin
© Reuters / Fred ProuserJane Curtin
Actress and comedian Jane Curtin has sparked some fresh 2019 Twitter drama by announcing that her resolution for the year ahead is to "make sure that the Republican party dies."

Curtin revealed the somewhat unorthodox resolution during a New Year's Eve broadcast on CNN, prompting both praise and indignation from viewers, who eagerly shared their thoughts on social media.

One viewer loved it so much he inquired as to how he could turn the sound bite into his ringtone, while one blue-ticked journalist felt the moment was so impressive that he hailed Curtin the "first hero" of 2019.
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Russian Flag

New German book compiles Putin's biting criticisms of the West

Tom Winter
Fort Russ
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 12:08 UTC
putin
© Sputnik / Mihail Klimentьev
Fischer Verlag, best known in academe for scholarly/scientific publications, has published Thomas Römer's book presenting the actual unexpurgated words of Vladimir Putin, with Römer's commentary, with the legend "Know the Facts, then judge for yourself!"

Thomas Römer is principal author in Anti-Spiegel, and his essays have often appeared in our English translation here at Fort Russ. There is even a video trailer:

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Stop

'We are not robots': Amazon warehouse employees demand better work conditions

Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 12:06 UTC
Amazon warehouse workers protest
As Amazon's workforce has more than doubled over the past three years, workers at Amazon fulfillment center warehouses in the United States have started organizing and pushing toward forming a union to fight back against the company's treatment of its workers.

Amazon's global workforce reached more than 613,000 employees worldwide according to its latest quarterly earnings report, not including the 100,000 temporary employees the company hired for the holiday season.

Just a few months after Amazon opened its first New York-based fulfillment center in Staten Island, workers announced on 12 December the launch of a union push with help from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
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Snakes in Suits

Judge dismisses lawsuit over Google's controversial facial recognition program

Lucas Nolan
Breitbart
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 12:06 UTC
google
© Reuters / Chris Helgren
A Chicago judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought against tech giant Google over its use of facial recognition technology.

Engadget reports that a Chicago judge has granted Google's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought against the company over their use of facial recognition technology. The company was accused of violating Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act by gathering biometric data from users photos without their express permission.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit ruling that the plaintiffs were unable to demonstrate "concrete injuries" from the facial recognition software used to collect biometric data by Google. The suit was filed in March 2016 with the plaintiffs seeking $5 million to compensate state residents, with $5,000 each for purposeful violation of the Biometric Information Privacy Act and another $1,000 for unintentional violation.

Comment: Here is more from the official ruling:
"The Seventh Circuit has definitively held that retention of an individual's private information, on its own, is not a concrete injury sufficient" to establish standing, the 28-page opinion states.

Further, there are no allegations that hackers have stolen the plaintiffs' information or that there has been other unauthorized access to the Google Photos accounts.

"Plaintiffs cannot show - and do not argue - that Google 'intruded into a private place' by receiving photographs of plaintiffs voluntarily uploaded to Google photos" by themselves or others, Judge Chang said.

He added, "Plaintiffs do not offer evidence to dispute that their faces are public - just that their facial biometrics are. This is consistent with Fourth Amendment case law that rejects an expectation of privacy in a person's face." (Emphasis in original.)


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Cow

'Go vegan or we die': Activists block Toronto intersection to protest Brazil's new president


CTV News
Tue, 01 Jan 2019 06:02 UTC
vegan protest toronto
© Jenny HenryAnimal rights activists protest the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's new president, in Toronto on January 1, 2019.
Animal rights activists blocked traffic at a major Toronto intersection on Tuesday, staging a "die-in" to protest the inauguration of Brazil's new far-right president and his proposed environmental policies.

Organizers say nearly 50 people participated in the protest at the intersection of Bay and Bloor streets outside the Brazilian consulate. Some activists held signs urging President Jair Bolsonaro to "go vegan or we die."

"We challenge President Bolsonaro to sign up for Veganuary," Anita Krajnc, an organizer with the Toronto Climate Save and Extinction Rebellion told CTVNews.ca, referring to a movement that urges people to try living on a plant-based diet for the month of January.

Comment: So rather than focus on the legit environmental problems the protesters take issue with, they make the ridiculous demand that the Brazilian president go vegan. Can we see why so many people think vegans are idiots?

See also:

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