Lincoln Council issues warning over 'convincing' licensing scam
Businesses are being urged to be vigilant after a spate of scams in which fraudsters posed as council officials.The City of Lincoln Council said criminals had contacted holders of alcohol licences to ask them to pay to renew them.The authority has advised anyone who receives a suspicious call to refuse to provide personal details or make any payments.Ben Jackson, the council's public protection and licensing manager, said: "Some businesses are struggling as it is, so for them to be targeted and to lose money makes the scam even worse."
Mr Jackson said the scam was "convincing" and a few people had made payments to the fraudsters.The authority became aware of the incidents after people contacted them, but Mr Jackson said he was unsure how the fraudsters had obtained their personal contact details.
He described the con as "quite creative" and urged people to remain cautious and to "end the call straight away"."If you are ever unsure, please report any suspicious behaviour to the relevant organisation," he added.The council said it did not request licence fee payments over the phone. All legitimate annual payment requests were issued on an official invoice, followed by written reminders.Officers might contact a licence holder by phone if a correspondence address had changed and the council had not been informed, but payment would not be requested or taken on a call, the authority added.Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
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New European
3 hours ago
- New European
Trump's war against the law
The earliest source is the newspaper editor and publisher Horace Greeley's book The American Conflict (1865), which reports Old Hickory's alleged declaration on the basis of a former congressman's recollection. According to Jackson's best biographer, Jon Meacham, the claim was 'historically questionable but philosophically true'. As far as historians can tell, President Andrew Jackson never uttered the threat to the chief justice that is still so frequently attributed to him. In 1832, after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Cherokee nation in Worcester v Georgia, Jackson supposedly said: 'John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.' What Jackson did say to his longtime associate, John Coffee, was: 'The decision of the Supreme Court has felt still-born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate'. All of which matters because the spirit of Jackson is now routinely invoked by the MAGA movement as Donald Trump wages a fast-escalating war with the courts. As far back as 2021, JD Vance said that his advice to his future boss would be to fire all civil servants: 'And when the courts – because you will get taken to court – and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'' More recently, on February 9, the vice president posted on X: 'Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power'. In a podcast released on May 21, he warmed to his theme in conversation with Ross Douthat of the New York Times. 'I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people'. Chief justice John Roberts, Vance continued, was failing in his supervision of the judiciary: 'You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they're not allowed to have what they voted for. That's where we are right now.' The Democratic Party is in a state of aphasic shock, paralysed by the electoral disaster of November 5. Both houses of Congress are controlled by the Republicans, who, with a tiny number of exceptions, are craven in their obedience to Trump. That leaves journalists, a great many of whom continue, valiantly, to speak truth to power; but do so in the face of increasing intimidation and, in some cases, knowing that their proprietors have business exposure outside the media sector that makes them fearful of Trump. So – in practice – the line that stands between the republic and authoritarianism is judicial. At the time of writing, there have been 251 legal challenges to this administration, whose actions have been halted in at least 181 cases. Time and again, Trump and his senior officials have found themselves obstructed by judges from all over the country whose orders have nationwide force. As the solicitor general, D John Sauer, has complained, this means that the government has 'to win everywhere, while the plaintiffs can win anywhere'. Last Wednesday, the US Court of International Trade ruled against the president's tariff regime, finding that 'the Constitution assigns Congress the exclusive powers to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises' and that 'any interpretation of IEEPA [the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act] that delegates unlimited tariff authority [to the president] is unconstitutional.' Helpfully reposting photos of the three trade court judges, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, claimed on May 29 that 'We are living under a judicial tyranny'. A federal appeals court last week granted a suspension of the order, meaning that, for now, Trump can pursue his deranged tariff strategy, pending further legal action. On Truth Social, he posted that he hoped 'the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY.' But will it? On Friday, the highest court in the land gave the administration interim approval to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian programme to grant temporary residency to more than 500,000 migrants facing political turmoil or warfare. This 'humanitarian parole' system is intended to help people from countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. On May 19, the supreme court also gave emergency approval to the government to lift the separate 'Temporary Protected Status' from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants. The case is still subject to appeal. But immigration officials may now proceed with mass deportation – perhaps to the Salvadoran gulag. Yet the president and his allies remain furious with the general response of the judiciary to MAGA's egregious 'remigration' plan. On April 7, the supreme court ruled that the government must give 'constitutionally adequate notice' to individuals before their removal under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act; 12 days later, it intervened again, this time in the middle of the night, to block deportations of Venezuelans from Texas under the same antiquated legislation. The court has also ruled that the administration must 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old migrant who had been living in Maryland for 13 years, sent back to El Salvador after what the government has admitted was an 'administrative error'. In this case, as in many others, Trump and his team have opted for what the US legal scholars Leah Litman and Daniel Deacon refer to aptly as 'legalistic noncompliance': quibbling over what 'facilitate' means precisely, resorting to pedantry and slow-walking action mandated by the courts. With characteristic indifference to the responsibilities of his office – not to mention the oath that he took – the president himself has become an expert in non-expertise, claiming to have insufficient legal knowledge to offer an opinion on even the most basic juristic questions. Asked on NBC's Meet the Press on May 4 whether citizens and non-citizens alike deserved due process, Trump said, 'I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer.' Pressed by Kristen Welker on the substance of the Fifth Amendment which refers to the rights of the 'person', the president replied: 'It might say that – but if you're talking about that, then we'd have to have a million or two million or three million trials.' In an interview with the Atlantic to mark the first 100 days of his second presidency, Trump insisted that he would abide by any supreme court ruling – but went on to complain that 'we have some judges that are very, very tough. I believe you could have a 100% case – in other words, a case that's not losable – and you will lose violently. Some of these judges are really unfair.' His language was less restrained in a special Memorial Day post on Truth Social in which he attacked 'JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER AND RAPE AGAIN – ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY'. Which shows that this is a temperamental as well as a constitutional clash. Trump demands instant gratification; the courts exist to deliberate. This incompatibility is now becoming perilous for the republic. Miller, meanwhile, has said that the administration is 'actively looking' at suspending habeas corpus for migrants – the individual's fundamental legal right to challenge his or her detention. In this context, it is worth noting that Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, revealed in a senate committee hearing on May 20 that she completely misunderstood this most basic legal doctrine, defining it as 'a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.' Even more revealing was what Miller went on to say: 'Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.' In other words, the government will abide by judges' decisions – as long as they do what the administration wants. Suggested Reading Why do they hate us so much? Jay Elwes In Federalist No 78 (1788), Alexander Hamilton, writing as 'Publius', expressed fears that have rarely seemed more pertinent. The judiciary, he said, was by far the weakest of the three supposedly co-equal branches of government (the other two being the executive and the legislature); having 'no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment'. What were once abstract issues for constitutionalists to debate in the lecture hall are now all too practical and menacing. To start with, Mike Johnson, the House speaker, threatened in March to use the congressional 'power of funding' to 'eliminate an entire district court'. Founded in 2019, the Article III Project (A3P) mobilises thousands of phone calls, emails and social media messages to members of Congress to back Trump against the judiciary and is supporting bills introduced by senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and representative Darrell Issa of California to stop federal district judges from issuing nationwide court orders. More alarming is the surge in outright intimidation of the judiciary. Since Trump's return, unexplained pizza deliveries have been made to federal judges and their families – a way of telling them that their enemies know where they live. Deplorably, many have been made under the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of a federal judge who was murdered in 2020 while protecting his parents from a furious litigant. Judges considered hostile to Trump have also been 'swatted', where a hoax call is made to summon a SWAT team to a particular address – in the hope that heavily armed police officers, following procedure, will inadvertently traumatise whoever is at the location in question. On April 25, Hannah Dugan, a Wisconsin circuit court judge, was arrested and has now been indicted for allegedly assisting an undocumented immigrant in evading arrest. On Friday, 138 former judges filed a legal argument warning that Dugan's indictment 'threatens to undermine centuries of precedent on judicial immunity, crucial for an effective judiciary.' Pam Bondi, the attorney general, takes a different view. 'The [judges] are deranged is all I can think of,' she said on the day of Dugan's arrest. I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today. If you are harbouring a fugitive, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.' Most shocking of all are the formal discussions among senior judges, revealed by the Wall Street Journal, about forming their own armed security force. At present, the Supreme Court is protected by a special police service which it also oversees; other courts, in contrast, deploy US marshals. Notionally, these officers have a statutory duty to follow the judiciary's instructions. In practice, they work for the Department of Justice, and therefore for Bondi. What, in practice, would happen if the Trump administration flagrantly defied the Supreme Court? Thanks to the court's own landmark ruling last July, the president himself enjoys immunity; he could also pardon officials accused of criminal contempt. Another option is civil contempt, which seeks to enforce future compliance (the person in contempt of this kind is said to 'hold the keys to his own cell'). The advantage here is that the courts can deputise other agencies to enforce their rulings. But which agencies, precisely? Which, in this climate of fear, would be willing to risk retribution from MAGA? Chief Justice Roberts is an 'institutionalist' which means that his highest allegiance is to the preservation of the system that protects the constitution. In the words of his biographer Joan Biskupic, 'he elevated the institutional integrity of the Court above all'. And, to be fair to Roberts, he wrote in his most recent end-of-year report: 'Within the past few years… elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the spectre of open disregard for federal court rulings'. When Trump posted in March that a judge frustrating his deportation plan 'should be IMPEACHED!', the chief justice issued a direct rebuke, declaring that this was 'not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.' Yet it is precisely this value-system that may deter Roberts from a direct confrontation with the president. For the institutionalist, the prospect of the Supreme Court appearing impotent before an autocratic president is intolerable. Paradoxically, because such a defeat would shatter his worldview, he will postpone the moment of reckoning as long as he possibly can. But he cannot do so indefinitely. High Noon is approaching, and only one of the gunfighters – president or Supreme Court – can prevail. The outcome of that contest depends on a question of global consequence: whether the US remains, as it has long been, a nation of laws; or becomes something altogether more dangerous.
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Community groups helped shield youth from gun crimes. US funding cuts have put them at risk again
Most days, Fredrick Womack and his team can be found scattered throughout Jackson, Mississippi, talking to groups of young Black men and teens – whether they're working, which bills need to be paid at home and if any brewing conflicts are at risk of turning violent. Through these conversations with young men, who are both perpetrators and victims of much of the city's violence, Womack hopes he can help steer them in a different direction. Womack, 51, is the co-founder of the non-profit Operation Good, which, in addition to this work on the streets, hosts a youth summer program and trash cleanups, and helps teen boys find odd jobs, like cutting lawns, so they can earn a few dollars instead of resorting to crime for income. It also offers critical resources for the community, like buying school clothes for kids and paying utility bills for families that can't afford them through its It Takes a Village program. 'That is the main underlying factor for violence,' Womack said, 'people living in impoverished situations.' It's critical work in a city with outsize violence and poverty. Last year, 111 people were killed in the predominantly Black city of 140,000. That year, Jackson had a homicide rate nearly double that of the rest of Mississippi, and 16 times higher than the rest of the US. At the same time, more than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line, more than double the national average. Womack's work has made a difference: in the years since the pandemic – which saw nationwide surges of gun violence – the homicide rate started to tick down, a change city officials have attributed, in part, to the work of community-based groups like Operation Good, and their collaboration with the police. But now that work is in jeopardy, as Operation Good is among the many gun violence prevention programs across the US whose work will be significantly hampered – or eliminated altogether – thanks to sweeping federal cuts. 'It's unfortunate because of the progress that's being made,' Womack said. In April, the Trump administration cut more than $800m in grants managed by the justice department's office of justice programs (OJP) to organizations that prevent and respond to gun violence, sexual assault and hate crimes; support foster youth; and provide re-entry services. Many, like Operation Good, work in underserved Black and Latino communities. Operation Good had a two-year $250,000 grant terminated, more than 20% of their annual budget. The money would have been used to support a summer program, transforming an abandoned building into a youth recreation center, offering stipends for teens and young men, and tracking the impact of the group's work. Operation Good has so far received $90,000 of the grant money before the cancellation. Supporting community-based violence intervention had been a priority for the Biden administration, which established the first-ever White House office of gun violence prevention and made hundreds of millions of dollars in grants available through American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act dollars. Trump's justice department, meanwhile, said the terminated funds will be reallocated toward law enforcement agencies and other 'Department priorities'. Earlier this month, five of the non-profits that lost funds filed a class action lawsuit to reverse the terminations. For Operation Good, receiving the grant had been a lifeline. It allowed the organization to hire new staff and run a summer program for youth – an initiative that Womack said has been crucial during the season when violence tends to increase across the nation. 'That was the best thing we had going for violence reduction,' said Womack, an army veteran who many in the community affectionately call 'Paw paw'. 'Kids are out of school and coming to our program was their only food source. It helped us try to prevent robbing, stealing and killing.' Now, without the remainder of the grant, the future of Operation Good's work is uncertain, which for Womack and his staff could mean a loss of their own livelihoods and a potential increase in the violence they've worked to address. David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which received federal funding and sub-granted it to smaller violence prevention organizations, including Operation Good, called the news 'terrible'. 'It's a perfect program for us to say, 'Please continue to focus on the good work while we help you build up the capacity,'' he said. Ira Henry, Operation Good's co-founder and program supervisor, said the news of the funding cuts 'broke us'. 'To me, it feels like they don't care,' he said. 'Do you want to stop crime in the city of Jackson? Do you want change?' Before Operation Good, Henry had been in and out of incarceration, with his last stint ending in 2010. When he came home, he saw young people lose their lives or face life-altering injuries over petty disputes, which led him to link up with Womack to try to stop it. The loss of federal funds means less money for things like gas for intervention workers to get to the sites of shootings and do their nightly drives through the neighborhood, he says. Even with the budget they do have, staff often dip into their own pockets for miscellaneous expenses, like food and school supplies for program participants and community members. Henry worries that he'll have to pick up more odd jobs to make ends meet for himself, which would take him away from the young people who've come to rely on him. 'If we don't do this work, we know what's gonna happen,' he said. 'We're gonna be doing balloon releases, we're gonna have to hear mothers and sisters cry.' Jaylin O'quinn, one of Operation Good's violence intervention workers, expressed the same concerns. 'It's extremely important for us to be here,' he said. 'The police don't really do shit and the people don't trust them. They would rather call us than the police. So if we stop, it's gonna get so bad.' Before he was a violence intervention worker, the 22-year-old was one of the young people at risk of being on either side of a gunfight. He says he can't remember a time in his life when he wasn't around shootings, and got his first illegal gun when he was just nine. After his best friend was shot and killed in front of him two years ago, O'quinn wanted to get retribution, he said Shortly after his best friend's death, O'quinn remembers his friend appearing in one of his dreams and telling him that he didn't want O'quinn to meet the same fate. This experience combined with support from Womack and Henry – who he knew because his father participated in community cleanups during the early days of Operation Good – led him away from revenge and toward a career that allowed him to help teen boys like himself who are headed down dangerous paths. 'I see my younger self in a lot of them,' O'quinn said. 'All of them have a great amount of potential, but they don't know how to direct their thought patterns. It's exactly how I was. So I try to mold them to be better than what I was and show them that there's a better way.' Operation Good's organizational growth in recent years came as Jackson, as well as the rest of the nation, was experiencing an unprecedented uptick in homicides, particularly shooting deaths. In Hinds county where Jackson is located, the homicide rate jumped from 31.5 per 10,000 people in 2019 to 52.2 in 2020, and continued to climb to 62 in 2021. In 2022, after the protest movement for racial justice that followed the murder of George Floyd, Jackson's mayor's office established the state's first and only office of gun violence prevention and trauma. It also began building infrastructure to address the violence through partnerships with hospitals and schools, while focusing on the root causes of violence, like access to illegal guns, poverty and unaddressed trauma. 'We tried to build an ecosystem,' said Keisha Coleman, a longtime violence prevention and community leader in Jackson, and former executive director of the city's office of violence prevention. 'It was about shielding and protecting the youth, because those were the ones most at risk of violence.' While Jackson's office of violence prevention did not receive federal funding, they did get support and training from organizations that did, like NICJR, to build the office up, expand their programming and help secure sustained funding for groups like Operation Good. Coleman cited the Biden administration's support of gun violence prevention in underserved Black and brown neighborhoods as the reason this work was possible. 'It was great because Mississippi probably wouldn't have had those opportunities under any other circumstances,' she said. 'It was for resources on the ground in our communities to respond in real time because we know that the state wasn't going to give it to us. The money was used in our communities fighting for the lives of Black and brown people.' Now, that work is being 'stunted', she said. Womack said that without federal funding, the staff he built up will likely be reduced to a 'skeleton crew' by September, and some of their programming may also slow. 'This hit us hardest because we're at the bottom of the pole,' Womack said. 'We're frontline workers and are probably going to suffer the most from these cuts.' One of Womack's staffers, Cleveland Colbert, survived being shot 11 times, and began working with the organization in 2020, as homicides were increasing in the city and around the nation. He takes youth on trips to the local agricultural and civil rights museums to give them experiences outside their neighborhood, runs group sessions and attends court with teens facing criminal charges. He also works Operation Good's night shift from 8pm to 4am, keeping an eye out for young people walking the streets or hanging out outside of stores so that he can tell them to go back home instead of loitering. This work has helped Colbert understand the reasons behind the robberies and drug dealing that people resort to, so that he and Operation Good's staff can step in. 'There's a lot of stuff these kids have in their minds and situations in their homes that we don't know until they open up,' he said. 'When we ask them why they do these things, it's usually because they're hungry or don't have money.' Colbert says that no matter what happens after the funding cuts, he's still committed to his work. 'I don't think we're gonna turn our back to the community or city,' he said. 'We did this way before we started getting funding.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
BBC Sounds announced as the official fringe festival partner for Crossed Wires 2025
BBC Sounds has been announced as the official Fringe Festival partner of Crossed Wires Festival – the UK's biggest podcasting celebration which will take place in Sheffield from 4 to 6 July 2025. Over three jam-packed days, BBC Sounds will invite podcast and radio fans to experience live recordings and special sessions in the old Cole Brothers Department Store in Barkers Pool, Sheffield. The famous Grade II listed building – which originally opened in 1963 – will be transformed into a vibrant BBC Sounds hub for the weekend, reimagining the historic retail space for an entirely new purpose. Inside the venue, visitors can listen to special live recordings of popular podcasts including Football Daily, Newscast and Evil Genius, all of which will air later in the year on BBC Sounds. Literary lovers can settle down with Sara Cox and bestselling author David Nicholls for a special edition of Radio 2 Book Club, and for Radio 4's Rewinder Greg James will be joined by a special guest to dig deep into the BBC Archives and uncover an array of audio gems - including some with Sheffield connections. Fans of Radio 4's investigative series will be able to go behind the scenes of their favourite narrative podcasts with Gabriel Gatehouse (The Coming Storm) and Sue Mitchell (To Catch a Scorpion), whilst Frank Skinner will bring top comedians to Sheffield for two special recordings of One Person Found This Helpful. And to celebrate 100 years of the Shipping Forecast, Radio 4 announcers Lisa Costello and Viji Alles will take us behind the scenes of the beloved radio broadcast. For those looking for a moment of tranquillity, there will also be an immersive session of music and mindfulness with Radio 3 Unwind. Outside the venue, the BBC Sounds Garden will offer a relaxed, open-air listening experience, where visitors can settle into a deck chair, slip on some headphones, and enjoy their favourite audio in an outdoor setting. Jonathan Wall, Director of BBC Sounds says: 'We're delighted to join forces with Crossed Wires as the official fringe festival partner. Delivering value for audiences all over the UK is a big priority for us, so to be able to bring this level of talent and creativity to Sheffield - and for free - is really exciting. These will be memorable live shows and experiences that money can't buy. Crossed Wires is exactly the kind of event we want to be part of.' Tickets for the BBC Fringe are free and the line up goes live on Friday 6 June at 11am. You can reserve seats for individual shows via the external Crossed Wires website. Do note that entry on the day will be first-come, first-served, even with a ticket, so we recommend arriving early to secure your place. The festival will take place from 4 to 6 July 2025. The BBC Sounds Garden The BBC Sounds Garden will offer a welcoming space where you can lose yourself in the audio you love. Settle into a deck chair or bean bag, slip on some headphones, and enjoy a moment of calm with live radio, on-demand music, or your favourite BBC podcasts. You'll find the BBC Sounds Garden in Barkers Pool, right across from Sheffield City Hall and beside our Fringe venue in the Cole Brothers Department Store. There's also a photo booth where you can snap some shots with friends and family. AT2
