London

(in mini europe, brussels)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19675702

> > About 1,000 London buildings including the Houses of Parliament and the National Gallery could soon be warmed by low-carbon heat sourced from the River Thames, London Underground and sewer networks. > > > >Plans to develop the UK’s biggest heat network to supply decarbonised heat to buildings across Westminster were set out on Wednesday by the government as part of its pledge to back seven heat network zones with more than £5m of public funding. > > > > The plan will involve a network of pipes constructed to carry excess heat captured underground to power hot water and central heating systems in the area. > > > >The £1bn scheme will be developed by a joint venture – between heating specialists Hemiko and Vital Energi – known as the South Westminster Area Network partnership, designed to save the area about 75,000 tonnes of CO2 each year, the equivalent to planting 1.2m trees.

> A north London man has been found guilty of various terrorism offences after collecting instruction manuals of how to create 3D-printed firearms. > >Abdiwahid Abdulkadir Mohamed, 32, was a member of various extreme Islamist groups and was first stopped by counter-terrorism officers at Heathrow Airport in September 2022. > > Officers questioned Mohamed and released him but kept the digital devices he had in his possession for closer examination. > >As well as Telegram accounts showing his allegiance to extreme Islamist groups, the probe also showed a number of documents that appeared to be instructions on how to create and build 3D-printed firearms. > > Officers found that he had set up a private channel, which was only accessible by his account, and that he was using the channel to send and then effectively store the documents without being saved directly to any of his own devices. > > ... > > This was also examined and officers found further evidence of his extremist mind-set, and that he had also carried out a search for 3D printers on eBay. > >He was charged with six counts of possessing documents likely to be useful for committing or preparing an act of terrorism and found guilty last week.

> A statue of Daniel Kaluuya in his hit film Get Out has been unveiled in London’s Leicester Square but has already sparked a debate about the choice of moment being represented from the horror movie. > >Kaluuya, was chosen from a poll of 5,000 British film fans as the actor people would most like to see recognised with a new statue in Leicester Square, winning one fifth of the vote. > > The Judas and the Black Messiah actor will join a collection of figures, including Harry Potter, Batman, Mr Bean, Wonder Woman, Mary Poppins and Gene Kelly as part of the “Scenes in the Square” trail. > >Despite the obvious prestige of a young Black British actor being acknowledged in such a manner, the actual choice of scene from the 2017 Oscar winning film has raised eyebrows. > > The scene depicted is when Kaluuya’s character Chris is hypnotised and figuratively falls into a dark void called the "sunken place". Although the moment is visually stunning, it is arguably not as well remembered an image as when Chris is sitting in an armchair with tears running down his face. > > ... > > Some were slightly more complimentary with one person joking: “Good for him. Getting honoured next to Paddington and Mr Bean is about the most an Englishman can hope to do in the arts these days.”

> Daniel Kaluuya will be honored with a statue in his home city of London celebrating the actor’s breakout role in 2017 hit “Get Out.” > >The Oscar-winning star, now considered one of the U.K.’s finest on-screen talents, was chosen from a poll of 5,000 British film fans as the actor people would most like to see as part of the “Scenes in the Square” trail in Leicester Square, landing one fifth of the vote. His statue — depicting the famed ‘Sunken Place’ scene in “Get Out” in which Kaluuya’s character falls into a hypnosis-induced suppressed metaphysical abyss — will be unveiled in October. > >Kaluuya joins an eclectic array of statues on the trail from the past century of cinema, including Harry Potter, Batman, Wonder Woman, Mary Poppins and Gene Kelly. These figures were unveiled 4 years ago and have since seen additions such as the “Game of Thrones” iron throne, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Indiana Jones temporarily gracing the Square. Kaluuya’s statue will reportedly represent modern cinematic success and homegrown talent.

The jail sentences handed out today seem completely insane to me, not least considering the overcrowding of jails that's been reported. Even if they had tons of space it seems like madness.

I can well understand people's reservations about JSO's general tactics but at the same time, what alternative is offered by their detractors?

Personally I don't feel as though Labour or the Democrats stateside are doing, or planning on doing, anything close to enough to tackle our impact on the climate.

What do you think?

> Local daily to close.” Ultimately, that is the truth. From today, London’s Evening Standard is indeed ceasing to appear every weekday, as it has for almost 200 years. Yet you don’t have to have worked there for more than 15 years, as I did, to regard it as so much more than just a local rag. > >It will live as a website, with a once a week print edition, the London Standard. But it’s certainly a moment. The reach of the Standard as we have known it was huge, if implicit. Though its print edition was largely restricted to the capital, it used to be referred to, without irony, as “the influential London Evening Standard”. How long ago that seems. > > ... > > The web indulges everyone. They don’t need to buy a paper and skip the pages they don’t like. If they don’t like grazing, they can go straight to the horoscope, or whatever. That atomisation may be a good thing but, just as we don’t all watch the same TV any more, it does mean we’re all getting further and further apart. > > Whether you liked it or not, the Standard, like the church, the pub and the library, connoted community. The new weekly version will be a London version of the New Yorker. It has illustrious shoes to fill.

> London landlords are selling up their buy-to-let properties at record rates as anticipated tax hikes from the U.K. Labour government add further pressure to the once lucrative investment sector. > >Almost one-third (29%) of homes currently for sale in the capital were previously rented out, data published on Thursday by property portal Rightmove showed. > > The spike mirrors a wider uptick in rental property sales across the U.K., where 18% of all nationwide listings were previously tenanted, according to Rightmove. > >Rightmove said it was not yet clear that the figures pointed to a "mass exodus" by landlords, but rather to a gradual decline in the appeal of the buy-to-let sector. The previous five-year average of former rental listings for sale was 14%, while the proportion of ex-rental properties on the market in 2010 was 8%, Rightmove said. > >It highlighted that it expected tax hikes in Finance Minister Rachel Reeve's forthcoming Oct. 30 Autumn Statement — including a possible increase in Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — to become a "potential driver" of the increased sales.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17062102

> > An explosion near the O2 Arena which sparked bomb fears was staged by a convicted child abuser for a bizarre film stunt, it has been claimed. > > > >Dozens of calls to 999 were made after a fireball blast at a construction yard across the river from the East London venue sent smoke billowing into the sky and was heard from miles away on Saturday. > > > >People nearby said it sounded like a ‘bomb going off’ or an ‘earthquake’, and those looking from a distance could see vehicles and a shipping container on fire. > > > > ... > > > > A video shared on social media suggests sex offender Jacky Jhaj, 38, was heavily involved in the shoot. > > > >He was jailed for four years for sexual activity with two 15-year-old girls he groomed while posing as a film producer. > > > >The footage appears to show him completely naked walking in front of a lorry trailer bearing BBC branding and a prop police van, which suddenly explodes. > > > > ... > > > > It’s thought the fire got out of control, forcing the crew to call emergency services. > > > > Jhaj had hired the crew under the name ‘Toby’, wearing a prosthetic ‘villain mask’ on set which concealed his identity, according to a MailOnline report. > > > > One of the cast was said to have recognised him when he removed his mask, prompting the crew to pull out. > > > > In addition to being pictured in media reports of his conviction, Jhaj has repeatedly made headlines since his release for staging bizarre scenes which put him in close contact with children. > > > >In November last year, some 200 children and young women were reportedly hired to play fans at a fake film premiere in London’s Leicester Square where Jhaj appeared on a red carpet to greet them. > > > >In April it emerged he was behind a £10,000 fake funeral at a west London church and used a well-known casting website to hire child actors to play some of the mourners. > > > > Although the funeral was staged, it was held in the name of a real drowning victim and the presiding priest was led to believe it was real – only halting proceedings after realising it was being filmed mid-way through.

This is a really disturbing story. Baby Elsa is one of three full siblings who were all abandoned shortly after birth in a time span from 2017 to 2023.

So I finally got to ride one and wow they can really go. My favourite feature is probably the worst feature and that's that you can leave them anywhere. However what I didn't realise until actually riding one, is that the app asks you to take a picture of where and how you parked the bike when you're finished and then potentially punishes people who don't park the bikes properly. They can clearly enforce that more. But now I'm of the opinion that the local councils need to provide more bike parking. One or two parking spots at the end of every road would be enough. Being someone that lives in a hilly area, I don't really bother with bikes, but with the electric motors on the Lime bikes, I would ride everywhere and happily switch from Ubers if they were officially operating in my borough. Anyway, they're really really fun and I'm really looking forward to them redressing the balance of cars in London. For short journeys, they're perfect and the more people that access them, the fitter the city will be.