Tag: united kingdom

Prehistoric henge reveals centuries-old sacred site in Lincolnshire

Archaeologists from Newcastle University have unearthed evidence for an evolving sacred landscape spanning centuries in Crowland, Lincolnshire. The study is published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.

Crowland today is dominated by the ruins of its medieval abbey. However, local tradition holds that the area was the site of an Anglo-Saxon hermitage belonging to Saint Guthlac, who died in the year 714 and was famed for his life of solitude, having given up a life of riches as the son of a nobleman.

When his uncorrupted body was discovered 12 months after his death, Guthlac was venerated by a small monastic community dedicated to his memory. Guthlac’s popularity while he was alive, and the success of this cult and the pilgrimage it inspired, were key factors in the establishment of Crowland Abbey in the 10th century to honor the saint.

Early historical sources for Guthlac’s life exist, mainly through the Vita Sancti Guthlaci (Life of Saint Guthlac) written shortly after his death by a monk called Felix. Although there is little other evidence about his life, it was believed that Guthlac created his hermitage from a previously plundered barrow, or burial mound.

For years, archaeologists have tried to find its location, and while Anchor Church Field was widely held to be the most likely site, the lack of excavation and the increasing impact of agricultural activity in the area have prevented a comprehensive understanding of the area.

The team, which also included experts from the University of Sheffield, excavated Anchor Church Field and, to their surprise, found a much more complex and older history than they expected.

The first discovery they made was a previously unknown Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age henge, a type of circular earthwork and one of the largest ever discovered in eastern England.

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NHS hippy crack heists: Hospitals are warned thieves are now stealing nitrous oxide ‘laughing’ gas to order – after law change made the canisters illegal

Nitrous oxide suppliers have warned the NHS to review their security after a spike in incidents of thefts since the gas was banned and reclassified as a class C drug.

BOC, the UK’s leading supplier of medicinal gasses, sent a letter to NHS staff revealing they have ‘received a number of reports of thefts related to medical nitrous oxide cylinders in recent weeks’.

The firm warned: ‘In light of the recent reclassification of nitrous oxide under the Misuse of Drugs Act, we feel it is important to draw your attention to the possibility that legitimate users of medical nitrous oxide may become a target of further thefts.’

In the letter, which MailOnline has seen, the supplier urged NHS hospitals and their customers to review their medical gas cylinder security to deter any potential misuse or theft.

It comes after a new law introduced in November classified nitrous oxide as a Class C drug and made it illegal to possess it for the purpose of getting high.

But youngsters were undeterred and vowed to carry on using it, with their demand now fueling cannister thefts from NHS hospitals across the country.

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Transgender judge seeks leave to intervene in UK court case over legal definition of ‘woman’

The UK’s first transgender judge is seeking leave to join the litigation in a crucial supreme court case that could significantly affect legal protections for transgender women, the Guardian has learned.

Victoria McCloud, a senior civil judge who became the youngest person appointed as master of the high court in 2010, will make an application to intervene in the supreme court appeal brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland about the legal definition of “woman”. Interveners can put a case without being among the main parties to the litigation.

For Women Scotland is challenging whether Scottish government legislation aimed at improving gender balance on public boards should include transgender women.

The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 has been the subject of a long-running court action by the group, which most recently resulted in a ruling by Lady Haldane at the court of session that it was lawful to extend the definition of “woman” to transgender women with a gender recognition certificate.

McCloud, who transitioned in the late 1990s and subsequently changed her legal sex under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, is supported in her application by the Good Law Project.

She is concerned about the effect of a successful appeal – which would affect the whole of the UK – on her legal recognition.

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JUST IN: Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Will Not Be Extradited to US for Now

A UK court ruled on Tuesday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States for now.

The UK court is requesting assurances from the US around Assange’s First Amendment rights, and that he would not receive the death penalty by the US government for leaking classified documents.

This is strange, since the Biden family can hold and release classified material to business associates but not Julian Assange?

If the US fails to give assurances, Assange, an Australian citizen, will be able to appeal his extradition in May.

CBS News reported:

A U.K. court has ruled that Julian Assange will not be immediately extradited to face charges in the United States, giving the U.S. government three weeks to “offer assurances” that the American justice system will abide by several specific tenets in its handling of the WikiLeaks founder’s case.

The British court said Assange “has a real prospect of success on 3 of the 9 grounds of appeal” he has argued. Specifically, the court demanded that U.S. justice officials confirm he will be “permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which protects free speech), that he is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen and that the death penalty is not imposed.”

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UK’s National Health Service – literally costing an arm and a leg – hundreds of them

From here:

UK Hospitals Have “Mistakenly” Amputated Over 100 Limbs in Just Three Years – The Alarming Cost of Socialized Medicine Exposed! – Liberty Resolve

“In a shocking display of incompetence, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) hospitals have become hotbeds for “accidental” amputations, showcasing the dire consequences of government-run healthcare systems. Over the past three years, an appalling number of 105 patient limbs have been “mistakenly” removed by British doctors due to what can only be described as medical negligence.”

Yikes!

The article also points out “The incompetence doesn’t stop at scheduled surgeries; U.K. emergency rooms are also guilty of “mistakenly” severing limbs.”

The article does not detail the reasons for these “mistakes” – communication, language, influence of drugs and alcohol, overwork, language translation errors, criminal acts, administration errors, incompetence etc, but it does list the worst “Health Trusts”.

  • York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Sheffield Teaching Hospitals,
  • George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust,
  • East Kent Hospitals University Trust,
  • Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
  • North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

But wait, there’s more!

“Adding insult to injury, another 15 NHS Foundation Trusts have also been implicated in similar negligent acts leading to accidental amputations. However, these organizations have shrouded their exact numbers in secrecy under the guise of “confidentiality concerns.” It’s estimated that among these 15 trusts alone, at least 82 patients suffered unnecessary amputations:”

115 plus 82 = 197 amputations, and probably more.

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Scientists Have Traced the Lost Journey of Stonehenge’s Mysterious Megaliths

Stonehenge hasn’t given up all its mysteries just yet, even though scientists are working to cut them away one by one. The latest scientific effort has been pointed towards identifying the origin of a pair of unidentified sarsen stones—numbers 26 and 160—that don’t neatly fall into past identification efforts.

The results may stretch our understanding of Stonehenge a bit—76 miles southeast, to be more precise.

In a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, researchers employed X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of 54 sarsen stone fragments culled from the 5,000-year-old site. This allowed the team to show that stones located at England’s Stonehenge have a more diverse provenance than previously believed.

Over the past few years, scientists have traced the origins of many of the remaining 52 stones at the site. These stones fall into a variety of differing categories, some grouped together and others standing solitary. The bluestones of the inner circle come from the Preseli Hills in Wales, and a variety of the sarsen stones (made of silcrete sandstone) were traced in 2020 to roughly 19 miles from Stonehenge. That site, known as West Woods and located in the southeast Marlborough Downs, was a key source of stone for Neolithic people—both because of the widely available supply and natural access points.

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Anger As Shakespeare Plays Infested With Trigger Warnings

Productions of Shakespeare plays in the UK have had “content guidance” trigger warnings placed on them, prompting a backlash.

Recent productions of Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London have seen audiences being forewarned that the plays contain “depictions of suicide, and scenes of violence and war.”

The warnings have also prepared audiences to expect “misogynoir references,” a made up mashed together term for misogyny and discrimination against black people.

Theatre goers have blasted the move as ridiculous.

Actors Ralph Fiennes and Ian McKellen both recently slammed the trend, noting that people shouldn’t be mollycoddled when it comes to theatre.

Fiennes recently noted “There are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth, terrible murders and things, but I think the impact of theatre is that you should be shocked and you should be disturbed. I don’t think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young we never had trigger warnings before a show.”

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Woman Threatened With Prosecution For Putting Gender Critical Notices On Her OWN FRONT DOOR

A 68-year-old woman in London has been threatened with fines by her local council after she put up posters expressing gender critical opinions on her own property.

The pensioner was served with a Community Protection Notice (CPN) and threatened with a £2,500 fine by Hammersmith and Fulham Council after just eight complaints, including someone claiming the material is ‘transphobic’.

The Daily Mail reports that Una-Jane Winfield, who felt “a duty to speak out,” pinned an A4 sized photograph of a women displaying scars from breast removal surgery, next to an advert for the book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce  of the campaign group Sex Matters.

The report notes that the council ordered Mrs Winfield to remove the material, which she refuses to do. She will go to court next month to challenge the CPN.

She also says “The police came to have a look at my door on two separate occasions.”

“Thankfully they understood that expression of gender-critical views is protected under the law. But the council has ignored the police,” Winfield adds.

She continues, “In a letter I was told my ‘persistent and continuing conduct’ was having a ‘detrimental effect on the public and the LGBT community’.”

The council claims that the image in question is “provocative and graphic,” and features “nudity prominently displayed on a very busy public section of walkway in plain view.”

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Government Funded Study Claims Shakespeare Made Theatre ‘Too White, Male And Cisgender’

A study funded by the British government to the tune of almost a million pounds claims that William Shakespeare, one of foremost the literary icons in history, has been disproportionately represented and has enabled “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives” to dominate theatre.

The study, by academics at the University of Roehampton, was funded by the government’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and essentially claims that Shakespeare is not diverse enough.

The Telegraph reports that the overseer of the study, Andy Kesson, complains that “masculinity and nationalism were crucial motivating factors in the rise of Shakespeare as the arbiter of literary greatness” adding that “[w]e need to be much, much more suspicious of Shakespeare’s place in contemporary theatre”.

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Newly Released Emails Show Biden White House Officials Met With and Communicated With Pro-Censorship Group

America First Legal (AFL) has published emails revealing more ties between the Biden White House and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) – a controversial group originally based in the UK that’s believed to be involved in censorship pressure around the world.

The emails originate in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of State and refer to using US assets designed to counter domestic terrorism to work with CCDH, the non-profit has announced.

AFL – which positions itself as a counterpoint to ACLU – has filed several lawsuits concerning various government bodies’ involvement in collusion with private tech companies, aimed at promoting censorship.

AFL now notes that the Biden administration from the very beginning of the current president’s mandate “embraced” various initiatives leading to curtailing speech, and to censorship, and was not shy to enlist the national security apparatus, either.

The administration at one point said that in order to “maximize” understanding of domestic terrorism, it should back “and making appropriate use of the analysis performed by entities outside the government.”

CCDH is one of those entities, AFL says, and the documents now released concerned how the group worked with the White House to suppress speech in the US on topics like vaccine mandates and the questioning of the integrity of the 2020 presidential election – all the while trying to fit that within the concept of domestic terrorism.

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