The Hangover News

Snowden's Legacy
THE MET DETAINED DAVID MIRANDA FOR PROMOTING "POLITICAL" CAUSES
And they used the Terrorism Act to do so, meaning journalism now equals terrorism

David Miranda (left) and Glenn Greenwald (Photo via)

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It has emerged that David Miranda was detained by the Met police under the Terrorism Act for fear that he was promoting a "political or ideological cause".

Miranda's partner, journalist Glenn Greenwald, has broken a large number of stories – often working with the Guardian and based on information leaked by Edward Snowden – about the extent of the NSA's snooping.

It has been claimed that Miranda was carrying some 58,000 encrypted UK documents when he was detained for nine hours at Heathrow airport in August while travelling home to Brazil from Berlin.

According to court documents, the police's justification for detaining Miranda was that the material he was carrying would "endanger people's lives". Additionally, they wrote that "the disclosure or threat of disclosure is designed to influence a government, and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause".

Since the Met's reasoning has been made public, it has drawn strong criticism from human rights groups, with the director of Liberty saying it represented a "chilling" threat to democracy and a spokesperson from Index on Censorship – which campaigns for free speech – stating that it is "very dangerous" for investigative journalism.

Greenwald himself also weighed in, tweeting, "UK govt beats its mighty chest, now explicitly equates journalism with 'terrorism' and 'espionage'."

Drone Deaths
THE CIA KILLED THE CHIEF OF THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN WITH A DRONE STRIKE
Hakimullah Mehsud was hit as he walked home from a mosque

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It turns out that America's secretive drone campaign isn't just in place to slaughter innocents and help al-Qaeda's recruitment drive, as this weekend news emerged that a missile fired from an unmanned aircraft had killed Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Mehsud – the head of an alliance of militant groups trying to topple the Pakistani state – has been wrongly reported as dead before, but informants in North Waziristan, the area where he was targeted, have said they are confident the militant leader is dead.

It now looks like Mehsud's death may spark outrage from some politicians who believe the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) should be brought in to peace talks, with the country's right-wing religious parties likely to believe the drone strike was a deliberate attempt by the US to ruin the talks.

That said, the director of the Pakistani think-tank FATA Research Centre said the movement was unlikely to be affected too much by the killing of its leader. "It's a very decentralised organisation," he said. "They've lost leaders to drone strikes before."

Secret Art Collections
A BUNCH OF EXPENSIVE ART THAT THE NAZIS CONFISCATED HAS BEEN "FOUND" IN MUNICH
The collection includes paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Chagall

A tiled version of Picasso's "Guernica", a response to the bombing of a Basque country village by German and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War. (Image via)

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According to German media, a collection of artworks confiscated by the Nazis has been found in Munich.

The haul – containing around 1,500 pieces looted in the 1930s and 1940s – is believed to include works by Matisse, Picasso and Chagall, with investigators putting its value at around £846 million.

Some of the works were stolen from Jewish art collectors, while others were branded as degenerate and banned for being un-German or for being the work of Jewish artists.

The collection was reportedly found in the home of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of an art collector, while investigators searched his home on suspicion of tax evasion.

Gurlitt had reportedly kept the works in darkened rooms and sold the odd piece when he needed a bit of money.

Horrible Evil Drugs
IT SOUNDS LIKE KROKODIL IS SPREADING ITS WAY THROUGH THE USA
The flesh-eating heroin substitute has now popped up in Ohio, Arizona, Illinois and Oklahoma

A krokodil user pointing to where he injected the drug. (Photo by Tor Farstad)

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Authorities in Columbus, Ohio claim they may have encountered their first state-based krokodil user.

A homeless man in the city recently told medics that he had used the drug, which first emerged somewhere in Russia as a heroin substitute, is full of stuff you shouldn't be putting anywhere near your veins and often leaves gangrenous lesions where it was injected.

As fun as that all sounds, it's really not a good thing to be spreading through a country.

Other reports of the drug being used in the States have come in from Arizona, Illinois and Oklahoma; a doctor in Illinois claims to have personally treated krokodil users and two sisters from the city appeared on TV to talk about their experience with the drug.

However, officials remain sceptical, with a spokesman from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics saying, "We see IV drug users with horrible infections on a daily basis – infections from bacteria and dirty needles. That doesn't mean it's [krokodil]."

Surprise Rebrandings
THE 'SUNDAY TIMES' HAVE REDEFINED WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HIPSTER
In that you are now a hipster if you're a nuclear family living in the home counties

In an unforeseen feat, The Sunday Times' "Home" supplement has successfully redefined what it means to be a hipster.

The old guidelines of hipsterism have now been dropped for a newer, more unattainable model; where hipsters were once essentially anyone young with facial hair, they are now upper-middle class families who have packed up their Belstaff collections and moved from Holland Park townhouses to various piles in the home counties.

This latest classification of the hipster lifestyle comes after an earlier rebranding in a New York Times article, entitled "How I Became a Hipster".

In the May article, it was outlined that, instead of building a gym extension onto your West Sussex cottage, being a hipster involved weekending in four-star boutique hotels and telling clothes shop attendants: "I’m going for a Mumford & Sons look. I want to look like I play the banjo."

The rules to being young and well dressed have changed; check out of your suite, throw your accordion under a train and start scouring for properties in the catchment areas of well respected boarding schools.