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Thieves steal entire bridge in Ohio
17 Dec, 2021 15:38
© Facebook / Akron Police Department
Police in Akron, Ohio are baffled by the theft of an entire 58-foot bridge. The bridge had been sitting in a field awaiting restoration, but the bandits managed to make off with the entire structure over several days.
Once used by pedestrians to cross the Cuyahoga River in Akron’s Middlebury Run Park, the bridge had sat unused in a nearby field since 2004, when a wetlands restoration project got underway in the park. However, police discovered in November that someone had cleared the brush that had grown around the bridge and made off with its treated lumber deck boards, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
A week later, the entire structure – 58 feet long, 10 feet wide, with six-foot sides – was gone.
What motivated the thieves is a mystery. Police spokesman Lt. Mike Miller told Fox 8 that as the structure is made out of almost all polymers, it would have little value on the scrap market.
However, Miller said that the bridge was mostly held together with bolts, meaning anyone with a basic socket set and the time and inclination could dismantle and steal it. The bridge could then “be used for a variety of different things to include as simple as landscaping or they could use it for some other engineering project, some other large scale project.”
The city of Akron wasn’t planning on reinstalling the bridge over the Cuyahoga. Instead it was due to be used in a parking lot project in aid of a battered women’s shelter. City officials say that the bridge was valued at between $30,000 and $40,000.
The cops have appealed to the public for help finding the bridge. Among other lines of inquiry, they are quite literally looking for someone with a bridge to sell.
Civil servant tasked with investigating No. 10 parties
'held own party'
17 Dec, 2021 21:16
© Reuters / Toby Melville
British Cabinet Secretary Simon Case will no longer investigate a series of alleged lockdown-breaching Christmas parties at Downing Street, after it emerged that a festive gathering was held in his office over the same period.
Case had been investigating a number of alleged festive gatherings held last winter at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Downing Street office, as well as a party at the Department of Education. These events, at least one of which was attended by Johnson himself, reportedly took place in breach of the government’s own coronavirus restrictions.
However, Case stepped down on Friday after it was revealed that a lockdown-defying party was held in his own office on December 17 last year. First reported by the Guido Fawkes gossip blog, the party was attended by around 15 people. Invites were sent out and the event featured “copious booze and music.”
"To ensure the ongoing investigation retains public confidence, the cabinet secretary has recused himself for the remainder of the process,” read a statement from Downing Street on Friday.
A government spokesperson downplayed the party, describing the event as a “virtual quiz” attended by half a dozen staffers in person in the cabinet secretary’s private office, but in which Case played no part. However, they said he walked past partiers on the way out of the building, indicating he was at least aware of the event at the time.
"No outside guests or other staff were invited or present. This lasted for an hour and drinks and snacks were bought by those attending. He also spoke briefly to staff in the office before leaving,” the spokesperson told the BBC.
The investigation will be taken over by senior civil servant Sue Gray. Gray ran the 2012 ‘Plebgate’ inquiry that led to the resignation of minister Andrew Mitchell, oversaw several cabinet reshuffles, and investigated MP Damian Green for sexual harassment in 2017.
Opposition MPs were scathing in their criticism of the turn of events on Friday. "Boris Johnson as prime minister has set the tone for the civil service and the rest of government,” said Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner. "With each new revelation there is growing evidence of a culture of turning a blind eye to the rules.”
Ian Blackford, the Scottish National Party’s leader in Westminster, was more succinct. "This is a government that stinks of corruption and stinks of sleaze," he told the BBC.
Witches executed 300 years ago to be posthumously pardoned
19 Dec, 2021 14:41
Thousands of people, mostly women and girls, who were accused of witchcraft in Scotland hundreds of years ago are set to be pardoned following a two-year long campaign by the Witches of Scotland activist group.
The women’s alleged crimes were reportedly as varied as causing hangovers to meeting with the Devil — and more than half of those accused under the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736 were executed. According to estimates cited by the Sunday Times, some 85% of the victims were female.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s administration has reportedly backed a bill proposed in parliament which calls on the government to posthumously clear the victims’ names. The likely pardon comes after a two-year long campaign led by a group named ‘Witches of Scotland’.
Activists Claire Mitchell QC and Zoe Venditozzi launched a petition on International Women’s Day 2020, demanding that the authorities pardon, apologize, and memorialize those killed as witches in Scotland. On September 1, a parliamentary committee agreed to pass the issue on to the Scottish government.
The bill granting the pardon could be passed as early as summer 2022, according to media reports. Natalie Don, a Scottish National Party lawmaker, told the Sunday Times that it was right that “this wrong should be righted, that these people who were criminalised, mostly women, should be pardoned.”
Religion and superstition-fueled witch-hunts were not unique to Scotland, with similar practices seen in west Germany, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland, and what would later become the US. Tens of thousands of women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake or hanged over a span of several centuries.
And while in the West, the prosecution of witches ceased by the late 18th century, elsewhere in the world witchcraft is still considered a crime. Saudi Arabia, for example, established an anti-witchcraft unit in 2009 and accused women have even been put to death. Similarly, the Central African Republic doles out extremely harsh punishments to those accused of being witches.
I expect some actually were practicing witches, but likely a very small number.
