Month: February 2022

Mask Mandate on London Public Transport Scrapped

Passengers using public transport in London will no longer be required to wear masks from Feb. 24, Transport for London (TfL) has announced. The transport body said it has “considered a variety of factors including the shift in the government’s approach towards living with the virus and decreasing infection rates in London.” The announcement came…


Home Ownership Turning Into Pipe Dream for Many Americans

A combination of a shortage in homes for sale and rising prices is turning home ownership into an unattainable dream for many Americans, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Home prices have risen by almost 30 percent since 2019, making the typical house roughly $80,000 more expensive than prior to…


Amsterdam Apple Shop Hostage-Taker Sought 200M-Euro Ransom

AMSTERDAM—A gunman who held a hostage for hours in the Apple Store in Amsterdam demanded a ransom of 200 million euros (more than $226 million) in cryptocurrencies before he was run over by police as he chased his hostage out of the shop, police and prosecutors said Wednesday. The tense, five-hour standoff paralyzed one of…


Government to Withhold Classified Information Justifying Emergencies Act From Parliamentary Review Committee

The government will not allow a committee of parliamentarians tasked with reviewing the application of the Emergencies Act to access the classified information it is using to justify keeping the measures in place, senators heard as they debated the motion to maintain the public order emergency on Feb. 22. The Senate began debating on Feb….


Missing Actress Jaida Benjamin of Netflix’s ‘Family Reunion’ Found Safe

A 27-year-old actress who went missing in California over the weekend was found safe on Tuesday in a Los Angeles neighborhood, according to reports. Jaida Benjamin, best known for her work on Netflix’s “Family Reunion,” was located by the Los Angeles Police Department in Studio City, Fox News reported. “She was located this morning at…


Nigeria: Paramilitary Groups Grapple with Spreading Lawlessness in Yoruba States

By dusk on Jan. 30, 2022, Motunrayo Shittu, 30, held her infant and fretted that her husband, who had phoned an hour earlier, hadn’t returned as promised. After several hours, she took her worries to bed with her three children. The next morning, her cell phone lit up with a call from hubby: the politician…


CPAC—This Time It’s Serious

Commentary If this is Thursday, it must be CPAC. Well, sometimes it appears that way because the conferences of the Conservative Political Action Committee seem to roll around with surprising rapidity. I’ve attended maybe a half-dozen of them over the years, starting around 2006, when I spoke on behalf of the fledgling Pajamas Media (now…


Barclays Suspends Jes Staley’s Share Bonuses Amid Investigation Into Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein

Barclays has suspended millions of pounds in bonus share awards to former boss Jes Staley amid an investigation by British regulators into his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Staley announced in November that he was stepping down from his role as head of the multinational banking group after Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced preliminary conclusions…


The Responsibility of Intellectuals 2.0

Commentary Part of the astonishing power of Noam Chomsky’s 1967 essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” (New York Review of Books) was his courage to name names of top intellectuals who enlisted their main talents in service of ruling-class duplicity and social destruction at the hands of the Garrison State. I’m not going to do that,…


Biden Orders More US Troops to Eastern Europe as Russia Evacuates Embassy

The Biden administration on Tuesday ordered more troops into Eastern Europe amid fears Russia will invade Ukraine. In a speech, President Joe Biden said he would send American troops already based in Europe to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Poland. “Biden directed Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III…