Another sick man bites the dust.

Scotland finance chief resigns after reports of inappropriate texting relationship with teen boy, 16, emerge

Scotland’s Finance Secretary Derek Mackay resigned Thursday, just hours before he was set to deliver the annual budget, following reports that he sent hundreds of messages to a 16-year-old boy he befriended on social media back in early August.

The 42-year-old finance minister issued a statement announcing the immediate resignation from his post, as well as an apology to the teen to whom he reportedly sent more than 270 messages on Facebook and Instagram as recently as five days ago, The Scottish Sun reported.

"I take full responsibility for my actions. I have behaved foolishly and I am truly sorry,” Mackay’s statement read. “I apologize unreservedly to the individual involved and his family. I spoke last night to the First Minister and tendered my resignation with immediate effect.”

It was announced that Scotland’s Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has resigned with immediate effect, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, after allegations emerged that he befriended a teenager on social media and sent hundreds of messages to the 16-year-old boy

According to the report, Mackay first reached out to the teen on Aug. 2 in a private online message sent on Instagram. Over the next six months, the politician engaged in several conversations with the boy, including one exchange where he asked if their “chats” were “between us?”

The messages seen by The Sun appear to show that Mackay was well aware of the boy’s age.

On one occasion in September, he invited the 16-year-old to a rugby game, offering to pay for the tickets. Then in December, he again invited him to another rugby function being held in Holyrood. Mackay also tried to enlist the teen’s help in handing out leaflets for his campaign.

The teen told the outlet that he stopped answering Mackay after he sent him a message on Dec. 27 calling him “cute.” He received two messages since, with the most recent being sent last week.

The boy’s mother also spoke to The Sun and said she only recently found out about Mackay’s texting relationship with her son.

“A man like that is not supposed to say these sort of things to a boy — he looks like he wants something from my son. When I finally read the messages it was terrifying and made my stomach turn,” she said.

Mackay, who has not been accused of breaking the law, was a rising star in the Scottish National Party, which runs Scotland’s semi-autonomous Edinburgh-based administration. He had been seen as a potential successor to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP, which advocates independence from the United Kingdom for the nation of 5.5 million.

"Serving in government has been a huge privilege and I am sorry to have let colleagues and supporters down,” Mackay said in a statement.

Sturgeon said in a statement that Mackay has also been suspended from the SNP.

"I don't condone in any way, shape of form this kind of behavior," Stugeron said.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/scotland-derek-mackay-resignation-inappropriate-relationship-16-boy

IRA had plans to blow up a bomb last friday, the same moment UK officially left the EU. Luckily this plot failed.

Northern Ireland militants planted Brexit bomb, investigators say

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stresses the importance of the Brexit victory; Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent Greg Palkot reports.

Authorities in Northern Ireland said Thursday that militants with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) planted a bomb on a truck that was intended to explode around the time the United Kingdom left the European Union (EU) on Friday.

A Belfast newspaper had received a call on the day of Brexit saying there was a bomb on a truck at the Belfast docks, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The caller said the truck was headed for a ferry to Scotland.

Despite a search, nothing was found.

Another call was made to the same newspaper Monday with new information. After a daylong search, police found a bomb aboard a truck in the Northern Ireland town of Lurgan.

Police Assistant Chief Constable George Clarke said the caller told authorities "the intention had been for that device to explode on Friday evening at around the time the United Kingdom left the European Union."

The bombers apparently picked the wrong truck, because the explosives-laden vehicle remained at a haulage company's yard in Lurgan until it was discovered.

Police said they believed the bomb plot was the work of a group of pro-Irish militants known as the Continuity IRA.

"Once that device had left that yard, if it had … it was exposing people on the public road, at a busy time, and at busy places, to huge levels of risk," Clarke said. "These people are absolutely callous and reckless in what they have done."

More than 3,700 people died during decades of violence before Northern Ireland's 1998 Good Friday peace accord. Most militants have renounced violence, but small groups of IRA dissidents continue to carry out occasional bombings and shootings.

The violent dissidents were emboldened by several years of political drift in Northern Ireland, whose power-sharing government was suspended between January 2017 and last month – and by uncertainty about the future of the currently invisible border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/northern-ireland-militants-planted-brexit-bomb-investigators-say

>>8055123

kek

>>8055200

On September 7, 1776, during the Revolutionary War, the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle in New York Harbor. It was the first use of a submarine in warfare.

>>8055221

Well "Turtle" never managed to sink any ships and it was later destroyed when another ship carrying it was sunk by british forces. The first warship sunk by a submarine was in 1864 when Union USS Housatonic was sunk by confederate submarine H. L. Hunley