Blog

Former Police Officer Convicted of Sharing ‘Grossly Offensive’ Meme About Islam in Britain

A former British police officer has been convicted of posting offensive content on Facebook after he reposted an image mocking Islam, sparking accusations that blasphemy laws have returned to the United Kingdom.

A former British police officer has been convicted of posting offensive content on Facebook after he reposted an image mocking Islam, sparking accusations that blasphemy laws have returned to the United Kingdom.

Retired police officer Stephen Gray, 65, has been found guilty by the Newton Aycliffe magistrates’ court of breaching Section 127(1)(a) of the Communications Act 2003 over a post he reshared on Facebook, which was deemed to be “grossly offensive”.

According to The Telegraph, Gray was reported to the Durham Constabulary for two Facebook memes by a non-Muslim neighbour of his, whom Gray had previously been in a separate dispute with.

The first post reported to the police featured the title “time for mass deportations” next to a Middle Eastern man in his 20s or 30s with the words “Children in need”. It was captioned with: “12-year-old Mohammed recently arrived at Dover. Please donate to help him move from a three-star to a five-star hotel, which has a better halal menu, free Wi-Fi, and Sky and is nearer to a girls’ school”.

This post was not deemed by the court to violate the law, as it concerned a political issue that had been debated in Parliament.

The second meme depicted a picture of a man wearing a turban next to some bacon with the caption: “Fun facts about Bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a 9-year-old!”

As the post was not considered to be a political message, but rather critical of a religion, it was found to be “grossly offensive” by the court. For this, Gray was found guilty of violating the Communications Act and was ordered to pay £1,000 in fines and court costs.

Gray said of the ruling: “I made a joke, an ironic joke, about Islam. That is all it was at the end of the day. A joke. I certainly never, not for one second, thought it would be deemed abusive.”

Keep reading

Migrant From Ghana Arrested Multiple Times in Two Weeks For Raping, Sexually Assaulting Women in Oklahoma

A migrant from Ghana has been arrested at least three times in the last two weeks for raping and sexually assaulting women in Oklahoma.

26-year-old Jeff Kufi Asare, a foreign national from Ghana, has sexually assaulted four women this month.

Koco reported:

Jeff Asare has been in jail three times in the last two weeks, all for allegedly assaulting women.

On Aug. 1, near Northwest 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard, police responded to a possible rape. Asare allegedly pushed a woman against a bus stop window and put his hands down her pants.

Another woman told police that Asare came up behind her while she was walking on Classen Boulevard, pulled her pants down, and fled after she pushed him away. He was arrested for sexual battery and indecent exposure.

Five days later, near Scissortail Park, Asare allegedly walked up behind a woman, grabbed her buttocks multiple times, and began digging in his pants. When the woman asked him to leave, he walked away. Police later spotted him and arrested him for sexual battery.

Six days after that, on Wednesday, Asare allegedly approached a woman from behind on the Lake Hefner Trail, pulled her down, and attempted to rape her. Firefighters intervened and called police.

Keep reading

30 Dead, 17 Fatal Crashes, and a Judge Tells DHS to Wait

Thirty people were killed in 17 crashes in 2025 involving what the left’s dictionary calls “non-domiciled commercial drivers” who, under the Trump administration’s current rule, would no longer qualify for those licenses.

The issue isn’t foreign CDL drivers; plenty of lawful immigrants and foreign-born drivers safely operate commercial trucks daily. The issue is whether somebody who can’t adequately read road signs, understand warnings, communicate with police, or follow instructions in English should be behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle on an American highway.

That’s a safety standard, not a nationality test.

When crashes expose drivers who apparently couldn’t meet that basic standard, the question becomes unavoidable: Who licensed them, who failed to catch it, and why were they still on the road?

Senior U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga put DHS’s access to roughly 17 million commercial driver records on hold Friday. His administrative stay is temporary, and he hasn’t ruled the subpoena unlawful. 

DHS must file its opposition Monday, the states reply Wednesday, and Trenga has scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

DHS wants five years of records from the Commercial Driver’s License Information System, including names, birth dates, license numbers, states of record, and Social Security numbers. The subpoena says the information would be used to investigate illegal practices at CDL schools, criminal fraud involving CDLs issued to illegal aliens, and civil immigration enforcement.

Keep reading

Thieves Steal Four Renaissance Artworks in Sicilian Museum Heist

Thieves stole four works attributed to the Sicilian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina from a regional museum in the Sicilian city of Messina on the Italian Ferragosto holiday, the news agency LaPresse reported Sunday.

The thieves bypassed alarm and security systems Saturday evening at the MuMe regional museum to make off with three of the five surviving panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych, dated from 1473, as well as the double-sided panel depicting the Virgin Mary and dead Christ in Pietà, which was removed from an armored display case, LaPresse reported.

“We are devastated by what happened. They were two of Antonello da Messina´s most important and best-known works. It is a tremendous loss for the museum, the city, the community and the art world,” MuMe director Marisa Mercurio told the ANSA news agency. She said the theft occurred just before 10 p.m.

The Italian government in March bought a devotional painting titled “Ecce Homo” by da Messina for $14.9 million from Sotheby’s auction house in New York – raising the profile of the early Renaissance painter.

Lynda Albertson, an art-crime analyst, said the works are instantly recognizable, impeding any effort to sell them through reputable channels.

“Stealing an Antonello may be far easier than selling one. If these are ordinary thieves, they will soon discover that – to their cost,” Albertson, who is the chief executive of the ARCA art crimes research association, told the Italian daily La Repubblica. She said such famous artworks often pass from one criminal to another, serving as collateral for other illicit activity.

The museum was closed Sunday while investigators gathered evidence. Neither museum officials nor the Carabinieri could immediately be reached for comment.

The Ferragosto holiday, which marks the feast of the Assumption of Mary, marks the height of the Italian summer holiday season.

The theft comes just days after police in the northern Italian city of Parma announced that they had recovered three stolen artworks by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth about 10 million euros ($11.5 million). Five people have been detained in the March 22-23 theft from the Magnani Rocca Foundation located in the Parma province.

Keep reading

Military Contractor’s Spy Aircraft Quietly Flying Southern Border On Mysterious Mission

The Pentagon says it does not discuss contractor support to particular missions. The gear aboard mimics cell towers.

Private military contractor Metrea has spent months quietly operating two surveillance-equipped aircraft along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the Arizona Mirror.

The planes have traversed Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, circling at high altitude over border cities including Bisbee and Douglas in Arizona, and Laredo and El Paso in Texas.

Metrea holds multiple contracts with the U.S. military, including a $5.7 million award to support training for U.S. Special Operations Command. The company also conducts simulated training missions for the Marine Corps.

It performs comparable border work overseas, providing what it describes as advanced aerial surveillance to the Australian government for monitoring that country’s border regions.

Arizona Mirror reports:

One of the major pieces of equipment installed on the aircraft is a DRT 3300, also sometimes referred to as a “dirtbox.” A dirtbox is a piece of equipment that mimics a cell phone tower and acts in a similar manner to “stingray” devices that track cell phones and reportedly can even intercept messages.

It isn’t the only equipment on the aircraft meant for “signals intelligence” either. Signals intelligence refers to the collection of information that is transmitted through the airwaves such as radio, wifi or other electronic means. One of the aircraft lists a “Windjammer System” as a piece of equipment that has been installed.

The Trump administration declined to say what the aircraft are doing over the border, or which agency they are working for.

A DHS spokesperson told the Mirror that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection were not flying with Metrea along the southern border. The department did not answer whether the flights support a DHS or a Defense Department mission.

“The Department of War contracts with a number of companies, including Metrea, to provide capabilities in support of military operations across the globe. For operations security reasons, we do not discuss specific contractor support to particular missions or operations,” a Defense Department spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “These activities are governed by Attorney General approved procedures that ensure the activities are conducted in a manner that protects the constitutional and legal rights and the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens.”

Metrea did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Meanwhile, Metrea’s are not the only contractor aircraft working the border. The Mirror reports that a jet belonging to Tenax Aerospace, equipped with high-end mapping technology and previously spotted over the South China Sea and Nigeria, has flown the same route since July.

Civil liberties advocates contend that the secrecy itself is the problem.

“Whatever security rationales are used to justify mass surveillance, whether it is patrolling the border or pursuing the war on drugs, if you’re intent on pursuing those policies you have to do it in a way that respects the privacy and constitutional rights of Americans,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a statement to the Arizona Mirror.

“Number one, you need policies that ensure transparency so we know what government agencies are doing with the brand new powers that technology is giving them that humans have never had in history,” Stanley added. “No matter what your position is, you should agree that it is done in the democratic process and not done by government officials behind closed doors.”

Keep reading

Nevada man pleads guilty to providing 140 firearms to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico

From April 1, 2020, to September 17, 2025, Osorio conspired with co-defendants to purchase firearms, magazines and ammunition on behalf of people affiliated with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.

The 140 firearms purchased by Osorio included multiple large-caliber and long-range firearms.

Osorio also admitted to harboring people who unlawfully resided in the United States to employ them at a Nevada mining company, according to the DOJ.

“Trafficking military-style firearms and ammunition to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico fuels violence, strengthens criminal networks and threatens communities on both sides of the border,” said Jonathan Sherwin, Deputy Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Las Vegas.

“In the world of organized crime and drug trafficking, guns and drugs go hand-in-hand,” said David S. Olesky, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, which also covers Nevada.

“Firearms trafficking networks feed the violent cartels that terrorize border communities and pump illicit drugs into our neighborhoods,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada. “By cutting off this supply chain and holding this defendant accountable, we are directly disrupting the operational capabilities of these dangerous criminal organizations.”

Keep reading

Apple Trains Custom AI Model For China With Alibaba’s Help

Apple has trained a custom large language model specifically for the Chinese market, utilizing technical support from Alibaba Group, according to Reuters. 

This arrangement would make Apple the first foreign company cleared by Beijing to offer a proprietary AI model in China.

The custom model is expected to power portions of Apple Intelligence when the AI suite rolls out to mainland China via an upcoming iOS update.

This marks a strategic shift from Apple’s earlier plan to rely solely on third-party Chinese models for its regional generative AI features. According to the report, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude – which Apple pairs with its own technology in Western markets – are unavailable in China.

In July, China’s Cyberspace Administration officially registered Apple’s generative AI service, clearing the primary regulatory hurdle that had kept Apple Intelligence off local devices.

Under this approved framework, Alibaba’s Qwen model will integrate into Apple Intelligence across compatible iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Vision Pro headsets sold in China, while Baidu’s technology will separately support search-related features.

It remains unclear exactly how Apple’s proprietary model will divide tasks with Qwen and Baidu, as the technical breakdown between the systems has not yet been disclosed.

China remains one of Apple’s most crucial markets. Until now, the lack of native AI capabilities on Chinese iPhones has put Apple at a distinct competitive disadvantage against domestic rivals like Huawei, which have aggressively marketed AI-equipped handsets.

Apple Intelligence began rolling out globally in October 2024, but Apple said at the iPhone 16 launch that September that mainland China availability was “subject to regulatory approval.” The CAC’s July 15 registration came roughly 22 months later, clearing Apple alongside six other on-device generative AI services from Huawei, Samsung, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE.

The wait proved costly in a market Apple has been winning back. IDC put Apple’s China smartphone share at 18.1 percent in the second quarter, up from 13.9 percent a year earlier on 24.4 percent shipment growth – the strongest gain of any major brand, and enough to move Apple from fifth place to second. Huawei held the lead at 22.6 percent. They were the only two vendors to grow at all as overall shipments fell 4.3 percent to roughly 66 million units, a fifth straight quarterly decline driven by rising memory costs and fading government subsidies.

Apple’s gains came from holding iPhone 17 pricing steady while Android rivals raised theirs, and from signaling second-half price increases that pulled demand forward – mechanics that flatter one quarter rather than establishing a trend. Domestic rivals shipped on-device generative AI features throughout the wait.

Reporting has indicated Apple evaluated Baidu, ByteDance’s Doubao and DeepSeek before settling on Alibaba as its primary model provider. Apple has said nothing publicly about the arrangement – every confirmation to date has come from Alibaba and Baidu, or from the regulator’s own filing. No mainland launch date has been announced.

Keep reading

B.C. government has given $8.7M to group hosting ‘jockstrap’ dance parties

Have you ever heard of the HIM (Health Initiative for Men) Society?

Founded as a grassroots organization focused on gay men’s health, HIM entered into a formal contract with Vancouver Coastal Health in 2009 to deliver health-promotion services.

Today, it says it provides health-based programs and services for gay, bisexual and queer men and gender-diverse people. Over the past seven years, according to HIM’s CRA filings, the organization has received more than $8.7 million from provincial and federal government sources.

So, what exactly are taxpayers helping fund?

For one, HIM hosts something called the “HIMBO Jock Tea Dance,” where attendees are invited to show up in jockstraps and “lube up” their thighs for the event.

Culture Guard, a political advocacy organization that says it works to protect traditional family values and ways of life, first put HIM on my radar. Culture Guard sent a public accountability letter to Premier David Eby, asking why his government continues to provide substantial public funding to a registered charity involved in events like the “HIMBO Jock Tea Dance.” 

Let me show you some of what Culture Guard highlighted, using screenshots from HIM’s own website.

For example, there is their “QUEERLY DESIGNED & LOCALLY MADE” merchandise. HIM’s website describes it as the “horny lovechild” of HIM. And then there is their “Collab,” inviting adult-content creators to sit down together and build community.

HIM describes some of these activities through the lens of HIV prevention. On its own website, the organization says: “Connectedness is HIV prevention,” and “Dancing together is HIV prevention.” It has continued to receive substantial public funding through provincial health authorities, such as Vancouver Coastal Health, Interior Health, and Fraser Health, as well as from the federal government.

Like Culture Guard’s letter to Premier Eby, I too have reached out to clarify whether your tax dollars have actually gone to preventing disease or to funding sexually charged jockstrap dance parties and adult content communities for the gay and queer men in BC.

I have not yet heard back at this time.

Keep reading

Iran Offers $30,000 Bounty for Killing or Capturing American Troops — Double If Carried Out By a Woman

Iran’s military is offering cash rewards for anyone who kills or captures an American service member as fighting with the U.S. and its allies continues across the Middle East.

Iranian Army chief Amir Hatami announced Sunday that anyone who kills or captures an “invading American military personnel” and hands them over will receive the equivalent of approximately $30,000.

“Anyone who kills or captures and hands over an invading American military personnel will receive a reward equivalent to $30,000 or 5 billion tomans from Iran’s Army,” Hatami said.

Female participants are being offered twice as much.

“Courageous Iranian women who carry out such an action will receive double the reward,” he added.

According to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, Hatami claimed the scheme was established following a “large number of requests” from people seeking to provide financial support.

Keep reading

San Mateo County Passes Resolution To Regulate Commercial Humanoid Robots

San Mateo County may become the first in California to regulate humanoid robots used for commercial purposes.

The county board of supervisors on Aug. 11 passed a resolution sponsored by Supervisor Ray Mueller to direct county legal and administrative staff to draft an ordinance regulating the use of untethered autonomous or semi-autonomous humanoid robots, or “mobile humanoid robots,” in restaurants, retail stores, and other businesses.

State law already regulates autonomous vehicles but not the commercial use of humanoid robots, according to a county memo. The resolution aims to create a “comprehensive permitting process governing the commercial deployment and operation” of such robots within the county.

Several companies have already started humanoid robot pilot projects.

Tau Robotics, for instance, offers cleaning services to invited San Francisco residents at $30 per hour in a pilot program launched on July 28. The robots are operated by humans and artificial intelligence, according to the company’s website.

According to the county memo, having a permitting framework in place before these robots are widely implemented would “encourage the responsible integration of emerging technologies in a manner that serves the public interest.”

The resolution directs county staff to consider having businesses pay an annual fee dedicated to HazMat and fire equipment for local first responders to handle risks from the lithium-ion batteries the robots use.

“In recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in lithium-ion battery fires due to thermal runaway,” Rich Seguine, vice president of Local 2400, which represents firefighters in San Mateo County, said in a public comment at the county board meeting. “A funding source like this in the resolution can be used to purchase necessary specialized equipment.”

The resolution also aims to require the robots to have accessible emergency “kill switches,” have clean manufacturer safety records, and be supervised by a trained human onsite.

Technological progress and protecting working people aren’t competing goals, said Julie Lind, a member of the San Mateo Labor Council, in a virtual public comment.

“Businesses should understand and account for the human consequences of deploying this technology, including potential job losses,” Lind said.

Non-humanoid robots have already been deployed in a few commercial uses in the area, including Cafe X, a robotic coffee bar in San Francisco International Airport; Artly Coffee in Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco; and autonomous sidewalk delivery company Coco Robotics.

Keep reading