36 h. ago GMP enforcing new police powers with five men sent to prison

Five men have been sent to prison as a result

Events

9 d. ago Met Police bans loud noises and spinning images in PowerPoint presentations

The force has issued guidance banning loud noises during presentations, in case they trigger a heart attack.

Events

1 week ago Police issue important Highway Code reminder on issue that frustrates motorway drivers

Laws introduced in 2013 give police officers the power to hand out on-the-spot fines of £100 and three penalty points

Transport

2 w. ago The great crypto crackdown: Police have frozen up to £6MILLION of digital currencies since getting powers to stop criminals funding terrorism and laundering ill

Criminals have been increasingly using digital currencies such as Bitcoin to launder money, dodge taxes and fund terrorism. Ministers last April launched a crackdown on the 'emerging threat'.

Economics

2 w. ago Don’t just blame Trump – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdown | Musa al

Both parties are responsible for the mess facing Columbia and other institutions. It’s time for their leaders to take a standDonald Trump trying to cow higher education institutions into submission using the power of the purse. The administration has withheld $400m in federal funds from Columbia University and has vowed to remove even more if its demands are not met.Columbia has an endowment of $14.8bn and an annual operating budget of $6.6bn. The cuts amount to roughly 6% of its annual budget – a non-trivial share. In order to keep it, Columbia was instructed to adopt a number of illiberal measures: it must put its Middle East, South Asia and Africa Studies department into academic receivership; change its admissions policies to reduce admits of people from those regions and admit more Jewish students;and grant campus police more power to surveil, detain and remove people from campus without following the usual due process. It must accept permanently heightened restrictions on camp...

Politics

2 w. ago This government has one last chance to take a progressive path. Otherwise, we’re at the point of no return | John McDonnell

In her spring statement, I urge Rachel Reeves to look beyond short-term economic stability – and towards tackling long-term inequalityIf someone read out the following list of policies, which party would you think was in power? Depriving 2 million pensioners of the winter fuel allowance. Refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap to lift nearly half a million children out of poverty. Raising tuition fees for students by more than the rate of inflation. Cutting overseas aid to the poorest people across the globe by half. Cutting £5bn from benefits for disabled people. Introducing a new round of cuts to government department spending and laying off 50,000 public sector workers.I very much doubt even 12 months ago you would have thought that this would be the Labour party in government.John McDonnell is the independent MP for Hayes and Harlington. He was shadow chancellor for Labour from 2015 to 2020 Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong’s rule of law

The moves that barred the media mogul’s choice of lawyer are immune from legal challenge, giving the national security committee what one expert called ‘the powers of a police state’The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been described as “death by a thousand cuts”. Critics have been jailed, elections have been transformed into “patriots only” affairs, journalists have been harassed and hundreds of thousands of people have left.This week, an obscure legal development has, in the eyes of some legal experts, inflicted another cut on the city’s once revered legal system. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Columbia agrees to Trump demands on campus antisemitism to win back $400 million federal funding

School reportedly agreed to stepped-up police power over students, banning masks, and reorganizing a major department

Economics

3 w. ago Columbia agrees to Trump demands on campus antisemitism to win back $400 million federal funding: report

School reportedly agreed to stepped-up police power over students, banning masks, and reorganizing a major department

Economics

3 w. ago Heathrow airport resumes some flights after fire closure leaves thousands stranded worldwide

Counterterror police investigate blaze that caused power cut, upsetting travel plans of up to 300,000 passengers

Society

4 w. ago Mahmoud Khalil’s case is setting up an epic first amendment battle with Trump

Trump administration’s interpretation of immigration law paves way for high-stakes legal clash after activist’s arrestThe Trump administration is relying on an obscure provision of immigration law to justify deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, setting up a high-stakes legal battle between the first amendment and what the government claims are its foreign policy powers.Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who became a leader of pro-Palestinian protests on the campus, was arrested on 8 March by immigration agents. After his arrest, immigration officials said they were seeking to deport him under a provision of federal law that gives the US secretary of state, currently Marco Rubio, the power to deport someone if their presence in the country is deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”. Continue reading...

Politics