Free Republic

Lucy, like most 18-year-olds, has been enjoying her new freedom as lockdown has eased. She has started gathering with friends in the park in North London. But unlike teenagers from a previous generation she doesn't smoke, and only drinks occasionally. Instead, she is a frequent user of nitrous oxide — or laughing gas — which she and her friends inhale from balloons. She has been since she was 15. 'Almost every party I've been to, people have been doing it or I have done it,' she says nonchalantly. 'It makes me laugh and feel light-headed and sort of light in...

TONY Blair has urged Boris Johnson to ditch Huawei from Britain's 5G network to save our security relationship with the US. The former PM said No 10 should prioritise trans-Atlantic ties over saving money by using the Chinese telecoms giant. He said: "We need to make a call and it's got to be pro-US in the end. America feels very strongly about this and for good enough reasons. "It's very hard for us not to be with the US on anything that touches US security." Mr Blair said it was "extraordinary" that the West had allowed China to gain "superiority"...

Angela Merkel announced Britain will have to “live with the consequences” of a distant relationship with the European Union in the event of a no-deal exit. Unlike his predecessor Theresa May, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has scrapped the idea of maintaining close economic ties with the EU after the Brexit transition period ends on December 31. The UK recently rejected a EU deal surrounding environmental and consumer protections and workplace rights, and Mrs. Merkel has now hardened her stance as Germany prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the EU. The German chancellor told the media on Friday:...

While the pandemic and political unrest have taken center stage in the U.S. and Europe, some major policy developments in Eastern part of the world have gone unnoticed. Among those is the big fossil fuel push by India and China. India, in particular, has gone public with its intentions to open new coal mines and increase coal production. It has even celebrated the decisions publicly. These are huge developments that are likely to have a lasting impact on the global energy scene and the politics surrounding the controversial and restrictive Paris climate agreement. They most probably will also impact future...

Three people are believed to have been stabbed to death in a hotel stairwell in Glasgow city centre. Armed police shot the suspect, who is also understood to have died. The Scottish Police Federation have confirmed a police officer was stabbed. Armed police remain at the scene outside the Park Inn in West George Street.

Six foreign criminals a day are being released from prison on to Britain’s streets instead of being deported, figures show. A total of 2,152 offenders — including killers, sex attackers, robbers and drug dealers — were freed into the community last year after finishing jail sentences. The figure is up 70 percent in just four years. In total, a record 8,497 foreign-born criminals were living in the UK at the end of March instead of being forced out of the country — up 68 percent from 5,053 in 2015. Home Secretary Priti Patel has promised “tougher action” to speed up...

Officials in southern England have declared a "major incident" after thousands of people flocked to local beaches. Bournemouth and Sandbanks, in Dorset, were hit particularly hard as crowds came to enjoy the hottest day of the year so far, according to a statement released Thursday by local authority Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council. Despite advice to stay away from the area, it was overrun with cars and sunbathers, leading to gridlock, illegal parking and anti-social behavior. By Thursday morning, more than 40 tons of waste had been removed from the coastline. Rubbish crews also suffered abuse and intimidation as...

A night of unrest in Madison, Wisconsin, left two statues destroyed, windows smashed and a Democratic state senator hospitalized after he was attacked by a group of protesters near the state Capitol. State Sen. Tim Carpenter said he had been heading into work late Tuesday when he stopped to take a video of protesters gathered outside the Capitol. ‘I don’t know what happened … all I did was stop and take a picture … and the next thing I’m getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head,’ Carpenter, 60, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

England is in the middle of a profoundly disturbing social experiment. For the first time in a mature democracy, a Government is waging a campaign of aggressive discrimination against its indigenous population. In the name of cultural diversity, Labour attacks anything that smacks of Englishness. The mainstream public are treated with contempt, their rights ignored, their history trashed. In their own land, the English are being turned into second-class citizens.

Khairi Saadallah, the Libyan refugee who has been detained on suspicion of perpetrating the knife attack in Reading, was released early from prison, was enrolled in the government’s Prevent deradicalisation scheme, and is believed to have been known to the UK’s security services as a possible terror suspect before the attack. Saad­allah had been sentenced in October 2019 to 25 months and 20 days in prison for breaching a suspended jail term, racially motivated assault, criminal damage, and affray (public fighting) — yet only served 17 months and 20 days behind bars. In March, the Court of Appeal decided to...

“This is a highly offensive image, it is also reminiscent of the recent murder of George Floyd by the white policeman in the same manner presented here in this medal,” added Tracy Reeve, the petition’s creator. “We the undersigned are calling for this medal to completely redesigned in a more appropriate way and for an official apology to be given for the offense it has given.” Buckingham Palace did not reply to the newspaper’s request for comment prior to publication.

Waters, the cofounder of Pink Floyd, said in an interview with the pro-Hamas Shehab News Agency that Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody last month because of "a technique invented by" the Israeli Defense Forces. "That is an Israeli technique, taught to the militarized police forces of the United States of America by Israeli experts, who the Americans have been flying over to the United States, to teach them how to murder the blacks because they've seen how efficient the Israelis have been at murdering Palestinians in the occupied territories using those techniques," Waters said. "And they're proud of it."

Two large sculptures celebrating mass migration will be unveiled in London next year, the Guardian has revealed. It was announced Monday, on the UK’s second ever ‘Windrush Day’, that works by artists Thomas J Price and Veronica Ryan will be erected in London’s Hackney borough in 2021. Windrush Day commemorates the beginning of the modern mass migration era in Britain in 1948, and was instituted in 2018 after some members of that original generation of post-war migrant arrivals were detained and deported because of government error, causing a significant scandal.

Japan has given Britain just six weeks to sign up to a post-Brexit trade deal or face disruption to its imports and exports. UK negotiators also face the prospect of being being bounced into a deal on unfavorable terms, as countries like Japan seek to use the reopening of deals to gain further concessions against the UK. "To avoid a gap in January, we must pass this in the autumn session of the Diet [the Japanese parliament]," Hiroshi Matsuura, Tokyo’s chief negotiator, told the Financial Times. "That means we must complete negotiations by the end of July." ... The European...

A U.S. Army soldier has been charged with giving classified information to a white supremacist group based in Europe, according to law enforcement and military officials. The soldier is accused of providing information about troops stationed overseas to the Order of Nine Angles, a satanic neo-Nazi group, the officials told NBC News. The charges are expected to be announced Monday afternoon. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Order of Nine Angles as "an enigmatic Satanic occult group." Its most extreme adherents "promote human sacrifice, Nazism and Fascism and Aryan myths, and have been reported to praise Adolf Hitler and...

Police in Manchester, England said that it was “unachievable” to safely shut down an illegal ‘quarantine rave’, where two people were subsequently shot dead. In the early hours of Sunday, two men, a 36-year-old and a 21-year-old were gunned down at an illegal ‘quarantine rave’ that took place in Moss Side, Manchester. City police said that while a Black Lives Matter event had taken place in the same area earlier in the day, that authorised event had concluded before the later “unplanned event” took place in the evening.

Does the Government have a policy for coronavirus? Indeed it does. In fact, it has several. One for each month of the year, all mutually inconsistent and none of them properly thought through. Sometimes, governments have to change tack. It shows that they are attending closely to a changing situation. But this crisis has exposed something different and more disturbing: a dysfunctional Government with a deep-seated incoherence at the heart of its decision-making processes. The root of the problem is the uncomfortable relationship between the Government and its scientific advisers. The Government has repeatedly claimed to be ‘guided by the...

n Italian infectious disease doctor believes the coronavirus has become less dangerous — and could disappear on its own without a vaccine. Dr. Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital, said the virus appears to have become less potent, possibly due to genetic mutations, the Sunday Telegraph reported. “The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,” Bassetti told the outlet. “In March and early April the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen...

An American man was among the three victims stabbed to death in a park in the English town of Reading that is being treated as a terror attack, the U.S. ambassador to Britain confirmed Monday. Ambassador Woody Johnson offered his “deepest condolences'' to the families of those killed in the attack on June 20. A 25-year-old man who is believed to be the lone attacker is in custody but officials said the motive for the carnage was unclear. “Our thoughts are with all those affected,'' Johnson said. “We condemn the attack absolutely and have offered our assistance to British law...

The lone attacker who was arrested in a terror-related stabbing rampage in Reading, England, has been identified as 25-year-old refugee, according to a report. Khairi Saadallah, who is from Libya, was detained by police in Forbury Gardens on Saturday evening after witnesses said he approached a a group of middle-aged men and began attacking them, the Telegraph reported. Personal trainer Lawrence Wort said “one lone person walked through, suddenly shouted some unintelligible words and went around a large group of around 10, trying to stab them.” “He stabbed three of them severely in the neck and under the arms, and...