#northernlights from Yorkshire Wolds around 06.45 today

Petition: Repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and Net Zero targets petition.parliament.uk/petit…

Demand Nikon to Denounce the Award Given to the Associate Press for Picture of the Year chng.it/FZJR6Tsz via @Change

Dear @HumzaYousaf, I was sorry to hear that since April 1st several hundred people have reported your 2020 speech in which you complained about "often being the only non-white person in the room" as a 'hate crime' under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. As you know, even if Police Scotland decide not to investigate you, they will record all of these reports as 'non-crime hate incidents'. These can show up in enhanced criminal record checks, thereby making it difficult for you to get a job working with vulnerable people, such as a teacher or a carer. The @SpeechUnion believes the automatic logging of NCHIs in this way is incompatible with Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and we are helping @murdo_fraser challenge Police Scotland about this, just as we helped @HarryTheOwl101 successfully challenge the legality of the recording and retention of NCHIs in England and Wales. If @murdo_fraser's challenge is successful, Police Scotland should delete the NCHIs it has recorded against you. If you'd like to donate to the fundraiser the @SpeechUnion has set up to help pay @murdo_fraser's legal expenses, you can do so here: gofundme.com/manage/the-free… In the meantime, if you'd like the @SpeechUnion's help in getting Police Scotland to remove the NCHIs it has recorded against you – we recently succeeded in getting West Mercia Police to remove an NCHI they had recorded against @redditchrachel, the Conservative Party's Deputy Chair for Women – please contact us on help@speechunion.org. If you become a member, we'd be happy to write a letter to Police Scotland on your behalf. You can join the @SpeechUnion here: freespeechunion.org/join/. Yours sincerely, Toby Young General Secretary The Free Speech Union

Scotland spent 3 years considering the laws on hate crimes before the Bill was introduced in 2020. 4 more years, after being voted into law and police training to deal with complaints, it came into force. It took @jk_rowling less than 24 hours to demonstrate why it is ludicrous. Free speech and women’s rights must be protected Re-post if you agree. #freespeech

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉 Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them. In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex. For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors. It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment. If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it. #ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland 11/X

This year, the main Christmas tree in Sofiyska Square was installed thanks to donations from businesses, and it works with power generators. And once can charge gadgets from it. Even in wartime, there should be a minute of warm Christmas joy.

Hey guys, please make sure to subscribe and tell your friends they can support true wartime journalism in Ukraine. We really, really want to hit 10,000 Patrons by the end of the year. Please retweet — our monthly budget depends mostly on readers’ support. patreon.com/kyivindependent

War is when your friends die. When you see this breathless cruelty of death. You remember talks with this brave young man, a talented scientist, now he's gone. Or a woman who cares about her rose garden, and you thought of her as the kindest person on earth. She's gone too 1/4

turns our @premiumbusiness and @Twitter verified some russian occupation accounts in crimea. help to mass report them: @MVD_Crimea @92mvd

⚡️ In Ukraine, a minute of silence in memory of those who died as a result of hostilities of the Russian Federation.