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Thousands of people — included hundreds of men — were accused of witchcraft in Scotland, the Guardian reports, “from allegations of cursing the king’s ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil.” Many were executed. Now, three centuries after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, campaigners are Read more…

“Thousands of people received a surprise gift on Christmas Day this year,” reports CNBC, “when European bank Santander accidentally deposited £130 million ($176 million) across 75,000 transactions.” The mistake happened when payments from 2,000 business accounts in the U.K. were processed twice, meaning some employees saw their wages double, while Read more…

China is turning a major part of its internal Internet data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to a Washington Post review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents, contracts and company Read more…

The Public Health Agency of Canada (or PHAC) “accessed location data from 33 million mobile devices to monitor people’s movement during lockdown”. “Due to the urgency of the pandemic, PHAC collected and used mobility data, such as cell-tower location data, throughout the COVID-19 response,” a spokesperson told National Post… PHAC Read more…

A spate of new studies on lab animals and human tissues are providing the first indication of why the Omicron variant causes milder disease than previous versions of the coronavirus. From a report: In studies on mice and hamsters, Omicron produced less damaging infections, often limited largely to the upper Read more…

NPR reports: In late November, more than 110 people gathered at a crowded Christmas party at a restaurant in Oslo. Most of the guests were fully vaccinated. One had returned from South Africa just a few days earlier and was unknowingly carrying the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Ultimately, about 70% Read more…