Corax
Third of staff quit as software company Basecamp refuses to let internal work tools become platform for political activism and shuts down employee committee formed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion
World
Britain to sail a Type 45 destroyer and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate to the Black Sea in May amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, aiming to show solidarity with Ukraine and Britain's Nato allies, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth will stand ready to support with RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters
US State Department announces new guidelines encouraging engagement between US and Taiwan government officials in federal buildings or Taiwan’s de facto embassy in New York, following the Trump administration’s elimination of old hampering guidelines
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledges to work on global corporate minimum tax rate among more than 140 countries, with German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz now hoping to put an end to worldwide race to the bottom in taxation and the Biden administration wants to raise minimum corporate tax from 10.5% to 21%
Russia bewildered after US Secretary of State unveiles an export ban on defense articles and defense services to the country, despite Moscow not receiving any US arms since the lend-lease program during World War II in 1945
Denmark first European nation to tell Syrian migrants to return home after deeming Damascus and surrounding area safe, stripping 94 Syrians of residency permits and sending them to deportation camps, saying country has been clear from the start that the residence permit is temporary
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says US must pay if it wants to keep the two-decade-old troop deployment agreement, when speaking to military troops, adding that it is a shared responsibility, but the US share of responsibility does not come free
6,500 Honduran migrants in caravans trying to cross the border into Guatemala heading north to the US, less than a week before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, whose aides have expressed concerns about growing numbers of migrants seeking to enter the country in the early days of his administration
Miscellaneous
Walter Mondale dies at 93, was US vice president under Jimmy Carter but became most known as presidential candidate in 1984 and for the huge margin with which he lost, 13 electoral votes against 525 for Ronald Reagan
Spock is not rational but terrible at making predictions, 83% of things he says are impossible happen and the more confident he is the more wrong he is, says Julia Galef after analyzing all Star Trek episodes and films
3,400-year-old golden city of Luxor discovered by archaeologists in Egypt containing stunningly preserved remains, built by 18th-dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III and abandoned by his son Akhenaten, archaeologist Salima Ikram says it’s a snapshot in time like an Egyptian version of Pompeii
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has died, was married to Queen Elizabeth II for more than 70 years and became the longest-serving consort in British history
Media
Facebook freezes Nicolás Maduro's account for 30 days for repeatedly stating that carvacrol works as a miracle medication against COVID-19, Facebook's spokesman comments that they follow WHO's guidelines saying there currently is no medication to cure the virus
Donald Trump will return to social media in 2-3 months with his own platform which is going to completely redefine the game, has been having high-powered meetings with various teams and numerous companies have approached the former president, according to his advisers Jason Miller
CNN hemorrhages viewers since Donald Trump left office, dropping 49% since Inauguration Day from 3.1 million primetime viewers to 1.6 million and 58% among key demographic of adults age 25-to-54 most important to advertisers
Indian authorities threaten to jail local Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter staff if companies don't abide to government requests to remove information on protests over agricultural bills which have drawn thousands of farmers to rally in the Indian capital
Disney slaps The Muppet Show with offensive content disclaimer, warning viewers the show features stereotypes and mistreatment of people or cultures and that "these stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now", wanting it to "spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together"
Facebook blocks pages from domestic and international news organisations as well as state governments in Australia in escalation of dispute with the government over law to require it to share news revenue with news outlets, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Facebook is as arrogant as they were disappointing
Rush Limbaugh loses battle against lung cancer at age 70, was foremost star of talk radio and for three decades one of the most influential individuals in US politics
China bans BBC World News claiming it seriously violated broadcasting regulations, saying BBC’s relentless fabrication of lies of the century in reporting China runs counter to the professional ethics of journalism, comes a week after Chinese state channel was kicked off Britain's TV screens
Politics
Japan prime minister Abe Shinzo resigns due to health concerns, recently became the longest sitting prime minister in the post world war two era, Abe has a brief stint as prime minister between 2006 and 2007 when he was also forced to resign due to chronic illness which was later claimed to have been successfully medicated
National Justice Party founded in US by members of alt-right, front man Mike "Enoch" Peinovich says in speech that freedom is a European concept and can not be upheld without European people, new party will work for rights of whites in US and the world
Orthodox Church locks horns with Montenegrin government over new anti-ecclesiastical legislation, law gives state leave to seize ecclesiastical property from churches who cannot produce ownership titles notarised before 1918, thousands march through streets of Podgorica amid clerical hymn chants decrying "[the State] ... snatching people's souls", gloves come off as President Milo Djukanovic attacks the Orthodox Church for undermining Montenegrin independence, The Church has 12 million followers in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro
Greta Thunberg throws down the gauntlet at Bristol climate rally, rain-soused teenagers bellow "The ocean is rising and so are we" and other equally stirring slogans, Greta—donning her iconic yellow mac—attacks political complacency in face of impending climate apocalypse
Sweden's foreign ministry summons Chinese ambassador with the intention of demanding immediate release and consular access to Gui Minhai, apprehended and detained by Chinese authorities in 2018 for sale of literature vilifying the Chinese state apparatus
Donald Trump's adviser and confidant Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months' imprisonment, found guilty on five counts of obstructing House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump retweets Tucker Carlson segment calling for pardon, request for retrial filed by Stone's legal team
Arts Council England (ACE) threaten to withold public funding for museums and arts organisations who don't implement diversity quotas, appalled ethnic non-whites should be so woefully underrepresented in arts, report unearths a number of unnerving statistics - only 6% of workforce disabled as opposed to 21% in the national labour force
EU arch-bureaucrat Josep Borrell tells Munich Security Conference the European Union must learn to embrace its oft-derided hegemonic structure by "developing an appetite for power", the EU must throw equivocation, dawdling and prudence to the winds and learn to act, a conciliatory EU won't be able to challenge U.S. dominance in global politics
Opinion
Matthew Crawford: When science is elevated to authority to rule society it is distorted into a scientistic religion, manipulation becomes necessary to make public opinion conform to official intepretation of research results, leads to unstable regime which provokes stronger and more militant counterreactions
Peter Hitchens: The West pushes for war with Russia, which is a broken former superpower with the economy of about the same size as Italy's, imagine how US would act if Soviet had won the cold war, engulfed the former Nato nations into the Warsaw Pact, encouraged Texas and California to form an independent Spanish-speaking nation hostile to the US and based troops along the American border
Peter Hitchens: Scotland Yard’s raid on Polish Church of Christ the King in Balham during Good Friday devotions proof of revolution where much we used to know and believe is being insistently destroyed, with Johnson Government’s contemptuous indifferent to how insulting their actions are to those who acknowledge a power higher than them, but if the police had come in with Communist emblems on their cap-badges the Poles probably would have thrown them out, but free countries are incredibly easy to turn into despotisms, because nobody can believe what is happening
Kevin Karp: EU press Northern Ireland’s onerous post-Brexit arrangement as key for the Good Friday Agreement, while using it as a political prop to claw the rest of Britain back into the EU regulatory straitjacket, whatever the damage this causes to peace in Northern Ireland, spurring the recent sectarian violence and validating EU’s condescending disregard for British interests
Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Political exploitation of Covid-19 frighteningly successful, the state kills and makes ill more people than it saves with protective measures, at the same time local leaders are given opportunities to challenge central power and the critical importance of decentralized decision making is demonstrated
Ricardo Duchesne: White men are the most resented group because they are responsible for almost 100% of the greatest achievements in all fields of human endeavor in all of history, created all fields of academic study, were the foremost thinkers, artists, statesmen and explorers
Peter Hitchens: The lockdown and destruction of statues show the pillars of freedom and civilization are rotten as police chiefs and political leaders kneel like conquered slaves to the new gods of woke, and while the Left controls every lever of power, ignorant armies seek the final abolition of Britain as we face nothing less than a regime change
Europe
Priti Patel appoints Robin Simcox as Britain’s new commissioner for countering extremism, the appointment is controversial as he has claimed islamophobia is a word used to limit free speech, violent extremism is a dreamed up way to avoid saying ‘Islamic‘ och ‘Islamist‘ extremism, the definition of hate crime is far too broad and Extinction Rebellion, Unite Against Fascism and the far left need monitoring
Czech Republic expells 18 Russian diplomats identified as secret service personnel over suspicions Russian intelligence services GRU were involved in the ammunitions depot explosions in Vrbětice in the Zlín District in 2014, killing two employees of a private company
French officials in Morez find five gold bars and 1,000 gold coins valued at €600,000 in an old three-storey building in the town centre, when the last of four brothers and sisters, all without children, who had lived in the building died the town hall bought the house, Morez, like many other towns in France, buy up and renovate old buildings to attract families back to its emptying centre
Julian Assange supporters demanding his release hold vigils outside the Ecuadorian embassy, at Westminster Magistrates' Court and at Belmarsh prison in London on Sunday to mark two years since Assange was imprisoned after being dragged out of the embassy
AfD party conference in Dresden backs resolution rejecting wearing masks in day-care centres and schools and ending disproportionate lockdown measures, co-leader Jörg Meuthen says AfD wants to show there is no need for the country's orgies of prohibition, imprisonment and lockdown madness
Ursula Von der Leyen left without a seat during summit in Turkey as her colleague Charles Michel and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan grab the only two available chairs, leaving her to perch on a nearby sofa for two and a half hours of talks on Turkey's relations with EU
TV host and singer Slavi Trifonov's party There is Such a People and two other anti-establishment parties win a total of over 31% of the vote in Sunday's general election, leaving Prime Minister Boyko Borissov's party GERB with a forecasted 25.2% pleading for a coalition government focused on bringing EU cash to the country
European Commission's scientific expert arm to deem nuclear power a green investment, saying there's no science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm than other electricity production technologies, part of EU's assessment of which economic activities can be labelled as sustainable
North America
Hollywood elite school Harvard-Westlake introduces Diversity, Equality and Inclusion programme where children are being groomed in wokeness and which teaches students they are racists and oppressors because they are white, with one mother saying she would rather be called a murderer in Hollywood than a racist
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors buys a $1.4 million home in an upscale mostly white enclave in Los Angeles, residents of Topanga Canyon are 88% white and 1.8% black, Cullors founded BLM with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013 and assumed leadership of the Black Lives Matter Global Network in the summer of 2020, BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issues executive order banning government-issued vaccine passports statewide, saying vaccinations against Covid-19 cannot be government-mandated and state residents’ choice to not receive one should not prevent them from going about their lives
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa fatally shoots ten people at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, officers arrive within minutes and shoot the suspect in the leg, no motive for the shooting has been publicly released
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issues order forbidding local authorities penalizing residents not wearing masks and removing restrictions on businesses in counties without a high number of hospitalizations as of March 10
Texas Justice of the Peace Tomas Ramirez and three women arrested on 150 counts of voter fraud in the 2018 Medina County Primary Election, involves allegations of vote harvesting at assisted living centers, Ramirez was elected justice of the peace in 2018 and was suspended after his arrest
US House of Representatives passes USD 1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, including a new metro station near Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district and a minimum-wage increase from USD 7.25 to USD 15, with only 9% going toward fighting the virus according to Republicans
While Florida ensured restaurants been able to operate at minimum half-capacity and businesses haven't been fined for defying Covid-19 orders they have yielded very similar development in number of infections and deaths as California, which has implemented stringent rules including lockdowns
Latin America
At least 79 inmates die in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as two rival gangs were trying to gain criminal leadership within the detention centres and an escape attempt, with 800 police offices helping to regain control of the facilities
32-year-old Mexican doctor goes into convulsions within 30 minutes of being injected with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, remains in intensive care after suffering from encephalomyelitis, an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, has a history of allergic reactions
91% of seats in Venezuelan legislature claimed by government allies after opposition boycotts election, the US and EU has disavowed elections as manipulated by Maduro regime
Argentina’s government is considering a one-off tax on the super-rich, the tax would start at 2% and rise depending on wealth starting at a fortune of 2.7 million USD affecting about 12 000 people
The Cuban government has turned 72 state-run shops into "dollar stores", shelves, unlike many regular supermarkets dealing in local currency, are well stocked with basic food and hygiene products but must be paid for in USD, the government denies the new stores are part of a "dollarisation" process turning the USD into the official currency as has happened in Panama, Ecuador and El Salvador
Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for covid-19, is said to have mild fever and receiving treatment including hydroxychloroquine and azitromycin
Asia
China sends twelve fighter aircrafts into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Wedenesday in stepped-up show of force around the island, Taiwan’s foreign minister Joseph Wu says they will fight a war if needed and defend themselves to the very last day
A Beijing divorce court has ordered a man to compensate his wife with 50 000 yuan for the housework she did during their marriage, the ruling was made according to the new civil code in the country, which came into effect this year, the presiding judge said housework constitutes intangible property value
Aung San Suu Kyi to appear in court on Wednesday over charges of illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios, brought against her by the new Myanmar military junta, according to her lawyer
Tibetan activist Tashi Wangchuk released after five years in Chinese prison, according to tweet by his Chinese lawyer, Wangchuk was arrested in 2016 after giving an interview about his work protecting Tibetan language and culture, was tortured and suffered degrading treatment during the early days of his detention
MIDDLE EAST
Saudi Arabia officially bans Turkish products, the Saudi government has been reported to contact individual businesses and order them not to trade with Turkish companies or buy any products made in Turkey, it has also launched a campaign to discourage its citizens from travelling to Turkey
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab set to announce the resignation of his government after the explosion in Beirut which killed at least 163 people and has stirred public outrage and spurred a string of ministers to step down
At least 10 dead and hundreds wounded in a massive explosion at Beirut's port, General Abbas Ibrahim said it appears the explosion was caused by highly explosive material confiscated years ago stored in a warehouse
Southern Yemen separatists Southern Transitional Council announces having seized government facilities and military bases on the main island of Socotra, Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi condemns the action as a full-fledged coup, Socotra governor Ramzi Mahroos accuses coalition leaders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of turning a blind eye
Egyptian military in North Sinai kills 21 jihadi terrorists planning attacks later in May, the Armed Forces says 126 terrorists have been killed earlier this month in 22 raids and 12 operations in Central and North Sinai
19 Iranian sailors killed and 15 wounded when Iranian frigate Jamaran accidentally strikes support ship Konarak with a missile during an exercise in the Gulf of Oman
UAE-backed Yemeni separatists Southern Transitional Council declare state of emergency and say they will self-govern southern provinces, the Saudi-backed government says the move violates the November Riyadh agreement where the respective sides were to join a new national cabinet and place all forces under governmental control
Africa
Guinea declared new Ebola outbreak on Sunday when tests came back positive after three people died and four fell ill in the southeast, in first resurgence there since the 2013-2016 outbreak which killed at least 11,300 people
More than 270 elephants have mysteriously collapsed and died in Botswana since early May, poaching has been ruled out while Covid-19 has not, the country is home to around 130,000 elephants which is a third of Africa’s total
Opposition activists in Zimbabwe say torture and sexual abuse is used by state security services to discourage protests, MDC members claim to have been arrested at roadblock and subjected to humiliating treatment for two days before being released
Libyan government forces retake eight cities west of Tripoli from militias loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar, secure the road from the Tunisian border to the Abu Grein area, more than 1,000 government soldiers killed by Haftar's forces since last April
Economy
Royal Dutch Shell is acquiring ubitricity the owner of the UK’s largest public electric vehicle charging network, for an undisclosed amount marking the oil giant's expansion into the fast-growing on-street EV charging market
Idaho legislators introduce House Bill 7 allowing state funds to be held in physical gold and silver to help secure state assets against the risks of inflation and financial turmoil, South Carolina and Wyoming are considering similar measures
Record sales of Christmas trees in Australia leads to tree farms closing earlier than planned, four-year production cycles cause difficulties balancing supply and demand when sales peak
Scandinavian airline SAS signs SEK 3.3 billion three-year revolving credit facility agreement where 90% is guaranteed by the Swedish and Danish states approved by the European Commission, the company says it will further its dialogue with the Norwegian government regarding NOK 1.7 billion state guaranteed funding and that it will seek additional governmental support to ensure its providing of critical Scandinavian airline infrastructure
Japan decides on USD 930 cash handout for every citizen to lessen the economic Covid-19 blow, originally planned on giving 300,000 yen to qualified households that had lost income but changed that as the payments were seen as too complicated and too small
Bill Gates resigns from boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, states intention to focus more on philantropic efforts, remains involved in Microsoft which he founded 45 years ago and where he remains a top shareholder with 1.36% of shares
Bank of England bid to thwart Covid-19 recession drives Euro Zone banks index .SX7E 1.5% higher by kindling hope of ECB following suit, precarious 6% gain dashed as U.S. stock market opens sharply lower, British minister of finance say he will do "whatever it takes" to protect the UK economy, BoE gives UK banks provisional leave to tap capital reserves
Technology
Third of staff quit as software company Basecamp refuses to let internal work tools become platform for political activism and shuts down employee committee formed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion
Valve will not allow Super Seducer 3: The Final Seduction to be released in any form on Steam citing it does not ship sexually explicit images of real people, the first two games remain available on Steam, the game revolves around the art of pickup artistry
Apple develops car and plans to start production in 2024, started designing the vehicle from scratch in 2014 and project lead is Doug Field who previously worked for Tesla, key component is unique battery technology which is said to be less expensive and increase range
Lockheed U-2 remains leading spy plane after 65 years in service and now gets 30 years extension after beating modern planes and drones in competition for development resources
Segway ends production of iconic self-balancing transportation device which was hailed as revolutionary but remained a curiosity, brand name lives on as well as thousands of patents used in e-scooters, hoverboards and other successor technologies
Science
Method for blocking sunlight developed by balloon test over northern Sweden although first version will not disperse darkening particles, Harvard scientist are behind project which is controversial as it may decrease interest in cutting greenhouse gas emissions
Sharing bed with dogs beneficial for length and quality of sleep say researchers who surveyed 962 American women, dogs disturb less than human bed fellows and give stronger feelings of comfort and security, cats as disruptive as humans and the least comfort inducing of the three species studied
Previously unknown whale species discovered in waters west of Mexico, US marine biologists were looking for beaked whales when they notice individuals with unusual teeth placement and unique calls, water samples taken in hope of doing DNA analysis
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus, which essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis
The Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Roger Penrose for the discovery that black hole formation is a prediction of the general theory of relativity and to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy
Hundreds died or developed heart failure in Britain as result of not seeking treatment for their heart attack due to Covid-19 fears, with 5,000 fewer admissions with heart attack than expected by the end of May, according to University study published in The Lancet
22-year-old Grey parrot outperforms 21 Harvard students and 21 6- to 8-year-old children in complex version of shell game where participants needed to track locations of fluffy pom-poms hidden under cups that swapped places an increasing number of times
Magnetic north pole shifting with increasing speed from Canada toward Siberia due to changes in underground blobs of molten iron, blob under Canada split in two about 20 years ago and largest part is now shifting toward corresponding blob under Siberia
Female mosquitoes carrying the microbe Microsporidia MB are protected from being infected with malaria, 295 out of 4270 mosquitoes in Kenya tested postitive for the microbe while none were of these were infected with malaria study published in Nature Communications says, seen as potential for controlling spread of disease to humans
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