Amazon is creating 10,000 permanent jobs in the UK as the company bolsters its workforce in response to the pandemic boom in online shopping.

The company, which has also announced it intends to hire 75,000 workers in the US and Canada, is opening a parcel centre in Doncaster and four fulfilment warehouses in Gateshead, Swindon, Dartford and Hinckley this year to keep up with shopper demand.

The new jobs include a wide range of roles at its corporate offices, such as engineering, fashion, video production and cloud computing, in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Cambridge. There will also be opportunities at its growing Amazon Web Services division, which offers internet services to third parties, and at the new centres opening as part of its operations network.

Victims of the FBI's constitutionally dubious raid say they've been told to come forward and identify themselves if they want their stuff back.

Dagny discovered that the FBI had seized the contents of her safe deposit box — about $100,000 in gold and silver coins, some family heirlooms like a diamond necklace inherited from her late grandmother, and an engagement ring she'd promised to pass down to her daughter — almost by accident.

She'd been asked by a friend to recommend a convenient and secure location for keeping some valuables. Dagny searched Yelp to find the phone number for U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills facility where she'd rented a safe deposit box since 2017. That's when she saw the bad news.

"Permanently closed."

After a brief moment of panic, some phone calls, and several days, Dagny and her husband Howard (pseudonyms used at their request to maintain privacy during ongoing legal proceedings) figured out what happened. On March 22, the FBI had raided U.S. Private Vaults. The federal agents were armed with a warrant allowing them to seize property belonging to the company as part of a criminal investigation — and even though the warrant explicitly exempted the safe deposit boxes in the company's vaults, they were taken too. More than 800 were seized.

Howard tells Reason there was no attempt made by the FBI to contact him, his wife, or their heirs — despite the fact that contact information was taped to the top of their box. Six weeks later, the couple is still waiting for their property to be returned. (Both individuals are supporters of Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.)

The FBI and federal prosecutors have "no authority to continue holding the possessions of some 800 bystanders who are not alleged to have been involved in whatever USPV may have done wrong," Benjamin Gluck, a California attorney who is representing several of the people caught up in the FBI's raid of U.S. Private Vaults, tells Reason.

Legal efforts to force the FBI to return the items seized during the March 22 raid have so far been unsuccessful, but at least five lawsuits are pending in federal court.

The Treasury department has issued its spending and revenue report for April 2021, and it's clear the US government is headed toward another record-breaking year for deficits.

According to the report, the US federal government collected $439.2 billion in revenue during April 2021, which was a sizable improvement over April 2020 and over March 2021. Indeed, April 2021's revenue total was the largest since July of last year when the federal government collected 563.5 billion following several months of delays on tax filing deadlines beyond the usual April 15 deadline. (Not surprisingly, in most years, April tends to be the federal government's biggest month for tax collections.)

In spite of April's haul, however, the federal government managed to spend much more than that, with spending topping $664 billion during April. This means the federal government ran a sizable deficit in April of 225.6 billion. This was a middling sum compared to other monthly deficits this fiscal year (which began on October 1), but deficits are adding up fast.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will pardon anyone in the Sunshine State charged for not wearing masks or socially distancing — breaking the news live on air to a gym-owning couple who were facing jail time for defying coronavirus safety recommendations.

The Republican governor made the unexpected announcement on Fox News Wednesday as he decried county officials penalizing people.

"It's a total overreach," he told Laura Ingraham. "These things with health should be advisory, they should not be punitive."

He broke the news of his pardon directly to Mike and Jillian Carnevale, who faced up to 120 days in jail for repeatedly allowing people to forgo masks at their gym in Plantation in Broward County.

Nearly one in five pregnant women in the UK were forced to wear a face covering during labour, according to research by a charity, despite official health guidance saying they should not be asked to do so.

Women described feeling unable to breathe, having panic attacks or even being sick during labour because they were made to wear a face covering.

The research was carried out by the charity Pregnant Then Screwed, who surveyed 936 women who gave birth during December. It found that 160 of those who went into labour were made to wear a face covering. This goes against current joint UK guidance, published in July 2020 by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Jordanian security forces used tear gas to repel a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who were heading towards the border with the West Bank amid a flare-up between Israel and Gaza, a report says.

Witnesses told Reuters that Jordanian police fired tear gas and shot into the air as they dispersed a group of about 500 young people, who broke away from a scheduled route designed to allow protesters to express solidarity with the Palestinians along the border.

According to Reuters, the protesters were 5km (3 miles) away from a border bridge opposite the city of Jericho in the West Bank.

A train company has apologised for not being inclusive after a conductor welcomed passengers on board with "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls".

The London North Eastern Railway issued a grovelling apology after passenger Laurence Coles complained.

Coles tweeted: "'Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...' so as a non-binary person this announcement doesn't actually apply to me so I won't listen".

Laurence's friend Charlotte Monroe, 28, also contacted the company, saying: "I was sat with Laurence when this tweet was sent. Both of us are non-binary, and we were both alarmed and uncomfortable by the lack of inclusion."


LNER responded saying: "I'm really sorry to see this, Laurence, our Train Managers should not be using language like this, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.


"Please could you let me know which service you are on and I will ensure they remain as inclusive as we strive to be at LNER.

Ireland's health authority said Friday it had shut down its computer systems after experiencing a "significant ransomware attack", a week after the largest US fuel pipeline network was also targeted.

The Irish attack was blamed on international criminals and was said to be targeting healthcare records.

Officials said patient safety was not at risk however the Health Services Executive (HSE) said it is currently unable to make referrals for coronavirus testing.

Government minister Ossian Smyth told RTE it is "possibly the most significant cybercrime attack on the Irish State", calling it an "international attack" but "not espionage".

"These are cyber criminal gangs, looking for money," he told Ireland's state broadcaster.

Shut down all IT systems

The HSE said it shut down all its IT systems as a precaution but said the country's coronavirus vaccination programme was unaffected, as were emergency service calls.

But the referral system used to book Covid-19 tests was down.

Last week, the Gateway Pundit reported about the emergency meeting that was called by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, after the County was reportedly unable to provide passwords to the auditors performing an audit of the county's 2020 Election results. They also did not provide access to the routers which were requested in the audit as well.

On Wednesady afternoon, it was discovered that "the entire database" showing the "Results Tally and Reporting" for the 2020 election had been deleted from the Maricopa County voting machines!

100 Percent Fed Up reports- President of the Arizona Senate Karen Fann has written a letter to Chairman Sellers, demanding answers.

The Zoom forum for the first televised Democratic primary mayoral debate didn't stop the rival candidates from slinging mud across their computer screens, prompting leading candidate Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to declare at one point, "Ohhh they're feisty!"

Here are some of the sharpest barbs from the showdown for the June 22 election :

"Don't get me involved in your daddy's problems," City Comptroller Scott Stringer told former Obama housing director Shaun Donovan, whose rich father has given millions to an outside group supporting his son's long shot bid.

**********

"With all due respect Ray, no one has that experience of really making sure we come back specifically from a crisis that you helped create in the Great Recession," Donovan told former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, who shot back that he had "zero to do with anything involved in the mortgage crisis."

McGuire then cited his 13 years as the head of Citi's corporate and investment banking unit. "You know what they call that in my neighborhood? They call that receipts. He has blank checks," McGuire blasted back at Donovan.