An online petition calling for looters and rioters to have their state welfare handouts withdrawn has proved so popular that the British government website hosting it crashed Wednesday. More than 78,000 people had signed the petition by the time it crashed, amid a growing sense of a popular fightback against the wave of lawless violence that has swept across English cities this week.
If 100,000 people sign the petition, it would trigger a process that could end with lawmakers voting in parliament on the plan.