Mark Menzies strongly disputes the allegations that were put to him by the Times. Photograph: Richard Townshend/UK Parliament/PA
A Conservative MP has lost the party whip after an investigation was launched following claims that he misused campaign funds.
Mark Menzies, 52, also faced allegations that he made a late-night call to a 78-year-old aide asking for help because he had been locked up by “bad people” demanding thousands of pounds for his release.
The Fylde MP disputes the allegations reported by the Times, but the Conservative party is looking into the claims and taking them seriously. A spokesperson for the chief whip, Simon Hart, said on Wednesday night: “Following a call with the chief whip, Mark Menzies has agreed to relinquish the Conservative whip, pending the outcome of an investigation.”
According to the newspaper, £14,000 given by donors for use in Tory campaign activities was transferred to Menzies’ personal bank accounts and used for private medical expenses.
The MP, who is one of Rishi Sunak’s trade envoys, is also said to have called his 78-year-old former campaign manager at 3.15am in December, claiming he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”.
Six Sunrise Movement activists were arrested while protesting outside of Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in Los Angeles, California on April 15, 2024. (Photo: Sunrise Movement/X)
“We deserve an administration who will fight for us, but instead of declaring a climate emergency, we are seeing Biden and Harris expand oil and gas production to record levels.”
Six young activists were arrested outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Los Angeles home on Monday while calling on the White House to declare a climate emergency, according to the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
Harris and President Joe Biden–Democrats who are seeking reelection in November—campaigned as climate champions in the 2020 cycle but have had a mixed record on the topic since entering office.
“My generation is spending our teenage years organizing for climate action because people like Kamala Harris have failed us,” said Adah Crandall, one of the activists arrested after blockading the street outside her California residence overnight.
“We’re ready to do whatever it takes to win a climate emergency declaration—we will camp out overnight, we will get arrested, we will mobilize our peers by the thousands to win the world we deserve,” the 18-year-old continued. “The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.”
“The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people.”
The White House has been praised for climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as well was a recent pause on liquefied natural gas exports. However, the president has also faced criticism for continuing fossil fuel lease sales, backing the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Willow oil project, and skipping last year’s United Nations summit.
Just last week, the Biden administration approved a license for a pipeline company to build the nation’s largest offshore oil terminal off of Texas’ Gulf Coast—despite surging fossil fuel pollution that is pushing up global temperatures.
Sunrise last week condemned the approval as “very disappointing” and also joined with Campus Climate Network and Fridays for Future USA to announce Earth Day demonstrations intended to pressure Biden to declare a climate emergency.
Biden claimed last year that “practically speaking,” he had already declared a national climate emergency; however, as campaigners and experts have stressed, actually doing so would unlock various federal powers to tackle the fossil fuel-driving crisis.
Stand with Ariela and the young people arrested this morning. Urge President Biden to act: https://t.co/BesSjADGHy
“Our communities in California breathe toxic air from fossil fuels and face fires that destroy our homes,” noted 18-year-old Ariela Lara, who was arrested at Harris’ home.
“I’m on the frontlines raising my voice for my Black and Latine families and friends,” Lara added, “because I know that we deserve to have affordable housing and healthcare, we deserve an administration who will fight for us, but instead of declaring a climate emergency, we are seeing Biden and Harris expand oil and gas production to record levels.”
The action targeting Harris came after a February protest at Biden’s campaign headquarters in Delaware that also led to arrests.
Dr Sarah Brown is fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days. Picture: Just Stop Oil/Alamy
A GP who was jailed for taking part in a Just Stop Oil protest has defended her actions by claiming they were part of a doctor’s ‘fundamental duty is to protect health and life’.
Dr Sarah Brown is now fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days for contempt of court and breaching an injunction to not demonstrate outside Kingsbury oil terminal, Warwickshire, in 2022.
The doctor from Birmingham could now be struck off from the medical register following a tribunal today.
Dr Brown defended her actions in a statement published by Just Stop Oil: “As a doctor, my fundamental duty is to protect health and life.
“This includes proactive efforts to prevent disease and death. The climate crisis is the most significant existential threat to global health we have ever faced.”
🚨 BREAKING: Former GP Faces Losing Medical Licence for Taking Action to Protect Patients' Lives
🩺 This week, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service is reviewing the case of Dr Sarah Benn, 57, who has been arrested multiple times taking action to stop oil.
Google workers stage sit-in to end Project Nimbus (Photo: No Tech for Apartheid)
Tech workers are joining the Palestine solidarity movement in leading coast-to-coast sit ins at Google offices across the country
On April 16, Google workers led sit-ins at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California, and Google’s New York City headquarters in protest against Google’s complicity in the Israeli genocide of the Gaza Strip, through Project Nimbus, the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government and military.
BREAKING—DOZENS OF @GOOGLE WORKERS LEAD HISTORIC COAST TO COAST-INS AT @GOOGLECLOUD CEO THOMAS KURIAN’S OFFICE IN SUNNYVALE & @GOOGLE’s NYC 10TH FLOOR COMMONS. They refuse to leave until @google stops powering the genocide in Gaza
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) April 16, 2024
Tech workers at both Amazon and Google have been organizing for years to end Project Nimbus, which is Google and Amazon’s USD 1.2 million contract with the Israeli government and military. Despite retaliation from Google including the firing of workers, the movement against Project Nimbus has only grown.
“Google is enabling and profiting from Israel’s AI-powered genocide through Project Nimbus, their USD 1 billion cloud contract with Israel. The Israeli military is also using Google Photos as part of a facial recognition dragnet across Gaza, which has led to the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of thousands of Palestinians with little to no evidence. It’s clear that the Israeli military will use any technology available to them for genocidal means,” say the Amazon and Google workers, organized in the group No Tech for Apartheid, in a recent statement. “Google workers do not want their labor to power Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
This action comes days after Time Magazine reporting confirmed that Google is providing direct cloud computing services to the Israeli occupation forces, despite the company stating the contrary.
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial platform by Israeli government ministries such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education,” a Google spokesperson previously toldTime Magazine. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.” Time reporting revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own secure entry point into the Google Cloud.
Tech workers staging the sit-ins in California and New York are demanding that the company end Project Nimbus, stop “the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers,” and address health and safety issues in the workplace, which arise from the “mental health consequences of working at a company that is using their labor to enable a genocide,” workers say.
Across the United States, Australia, and the UK, Palestine solidarity activists took action on April 15 as part of global call to strike for Gaza
Protesters blockade the entrance to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago (Photo: Dissenters)
April 15 marked yet another global day of solidarity with Palestine, in which activists across the globe in countries such as the United States, Australia, and the UK took action for Gaza. Activists were responding to a global call to strike for Gaza, which originated within Palestinian civil society.
In the United States, the global strike for Gaza also coincided with the day that taxes are due in the country (Tax Day). Activists used this as an opportunity to highlight how much of taxpayer money goes to the weapons industry.
In several cities, activists strategically targeted sectors of the war machine, including the offices of Lockheed Martin in Arlington, Virginia, the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. Activists who occupied the Arlington office highlighted that Lockheed Martin receives billions of dollars in taxpayer money each year, which is used to produce the arms that Israel uses to kill Palestinians.
🚨🚨BREAKING🚨🚨 Palestine solidarity activists SHUT DOWN war profiteers Lockheed Martin to say NO MORE TAX DOLLARS FOR GENOCIDE! Lockheed Martin receives $4.7 billion in tax dollars PER YEAR to make the F-16s and F-35s that bomb Palestinians. The people say NO MORE! pic.twitter.com/CeVik3pFTK
— Claudia Jones School for Political Education (@ClaudiaJonesEdu) April 15, 2024
While activists occupied the building, protesters outside marched up to the office doors, staging a rally and shouting at employees inside the building to quit their jobs.
For Tax Day, protesters march in Arlington, VA against defense contractors that receive billions in U.S. tax dollars for war.
Activists marched on Lockheed Martin, the weapons manufacturer that made the F-35 stealth fighter used by Israel to bomb the Iranian embassy in Damascus. pic.twitter.com/GWYebadIkQ
Activists also blockaded the entrance to a facility belonging to Boeing, another massive weapons manufacturer that supplies Israel, in St. Charles, Missouri.
BREAKING: Organizers from St. Louis + Chicago in coordination with @a15action have blockaded the Boeing facility in St. Charles, MO.
This facility produces missiles and bombs sent directly to Israel at the hands of the US government❌ pic.twitter.com/ehuqFD9Uha
A facility of weapons manufacturer Pratt and Whitney was also targeted in Connecticut, where organizers blocked the entrance to the factory to impede production.
Activists shut down Pratt and Whitney's facility in CT for an A15 action in response to the manufacturer supplying Israel w/ military aircrafts for the illegal occupation beginning in 1947, & they’re currently sustaining the Israeli Air Force's fleet of F100-PW-229 engines. 🌹🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/J5fKDlTZ3i
On the same day, several activists blockaded the road going to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, blocking Terminals 1 through 3. Over 40 protesters were arrested after taking this action, who have as of now all been released.
BREAKING: Organizers are blockading the road entering O’Hare Airport in Chicago‼️‼️
Several bridge blockades took place in the Bay Area. Protesters first stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, holding banners that read “Stop the world for Gaza” and “End the siege on Gaza now!”
BREAKING: Protestors have shut down the Golden Gate Bridge this morning. Folks in Marin County advised to go the long way…Richmond-San Rafael Bridge down to the Bay Bridge. pic.twitter.com/pukbwMMp8a
Protesters later took further action and shut down the Interstate 880 in Oakland. Altogether, the California Highway Patrol announced the arrests of 38 people.
In London, activists with Palestine Action targeted the office of BNY Mellon, demanding that the bank divest with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company. BNY Mellon offices in Manchester were also targeted.
BREAKING: Palestine Action target BNY Mellon’s London office during the global economic blockade for a Free Palestine.
BREAKING: Once again, offices of major Elbit investors BNY Mellon disrupted in Manchester this morning as part of the @a15 global day of action. We will not rest while genocide profiteers walk free in our cities! All colonisers must fall! Shut Elbit Down! @_YFFP_@GMF_Palestinepic.twitter.com/7usrFXQ5Zn
In Adelaide, Australia, pro-Palestine activists occupied the office of Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office. Activists said this action had been undertaken to “protest the government’s ongoing complicity in, and facilitation of, the genocide occurring in Gaza—a genocide which has been enabled by international forces, like Australia, to continue for over six months.”
I was incredibly proud to be part of international movement A15.
