Jailed wife of ex-Tory councillor loses sentence appeal over Southport tweet

A childminder who was jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire after the Southport attacks has lost an appeal against her sentence at the court of appeal.

Lucy Connolly, who is married to a former Conservative councillor, said in an X post in July last year: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”

The post came after three girls were killed in a knife attack at a holiday club in Southport on 29 July, sparking nationwide unrest. It was viewed 310,000 times in three and a half hours before Connolly deleted it.

In a written judgment published on Tuesday, the appeal court judge Lord Justice Holroyde said: “There is no arguable basis on which it could be said that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive. The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused.”

He said the principal ground for appeal “was substantially based on a version of events put forward by the applicant which we have rejected”.

The former childminder was sentenced at Birmingham crown court last October after pleading guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred.

She is married to Raymond Connolly, who was a Tory councillor for West Northamptonshire but lost his seat in May this year.

The court heard that the day before Connolly was arrested, she sent a WhatsApp message saying the “raging tweet about burning down hotels has bit me on the arse lol”. She also said she would “play the mental health card” if arrested, and would deny responsibility for the post if asked.

Naeem Valli, prosecuting, said Connolly, who had no previous conviction, also sent a message saying she intended to work her notice period as a childminder “on the sly” despite being deregistered.

She sent another tweet commenting on a sword attack that read: “I bet my house it was one of these boat invaders.”

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Russia outlaws Amnesty International in latest crackdown on dissent and activists

The Russian authorities on Monday outlawed Amnesty International as an “undesirable organization,” a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense.

The decision by the Russian Prosecutor General’s office, announced in an online statement, is the latest in the unrelenting crackdown on Kremlin critics, journalists and activists that intensified to unprecedented levels after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The designation means the international human rights group must stop any work in Russia, and it subjects those who cooperate with it or support it to prosecution, including if anyone shares Amnesty International’s reports on social media.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said the move was part of the Russian government’s efforts to silence dissent and isolate civil society. “The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by labeling our organization ‘undesirable,’ we will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations – quite the opposite,” she said in a statement. “We will not give in to the threats and will continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination.”

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Trump Signs Take It Down Act

President Donald Trump has now signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure designed to address the spread of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including increasingly prevalent AI-generated deepfakes.

While the legislation is being celebrated by both major parties as a victory for online safety, particularly for children and victims of abuse, it has also raised concerns about the potential for overreach, selective enforcement, and the erosion of free speech under the guise of digital protection, particularly because of the broad wording of the bill.

The law’s most prominent advocate within the administration has been First Lady Melania Trump, who campaigned heavily for its passage and made rare public appearances to promote it. During the Rose Garden signing ceremony, President Trump invited her to add her signature beneath his, an unusual but symbolic gesture that underscored her role in pushing the legislation forward.

“This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American, especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused,” Mrs Trump said. In her remarks, she repeated her criticism of AI and social media, calling them “the digital candy for the next generation,” and warned that these technologies “can be weaponized, shaped beliefs, and sadly affect emotions and even be deadly.”

President Trump, for his part, appeared to dismiss constitutional concerns. “People talked about all sorts of First Amendment, Second Amendment. They talked about any amendment they could make up, and we got it through because of some very brave people,” he said.

Earlier in the year, during his March 4 address to Congress, Trump had signaled his intent to sign the bill. “The Senate passed the Take It Down Act…Once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.”

While made in jest, the remark pointed to an unresolved issue: how this law will be enforced, and who will benefit most from it.

There is no denying the harm caused by NCII. Victims often struggle to remove intimate images, whether real or AI-generated, while the content continues to spread. The Take It Down Act requires websites to remove flagged content within 48 hours of a complaint. But, just like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), platforms have little way of determining if a complaint is legitimate or being used as a censorship mechanism.

That timeline is designed to offer swift recourse to victims. However, the law’s broad wording leaves its applications open to interpretation.

The bill defines a violation as involving an “identifiable individual” engaged in “sexually explicit conduct,” without offering a clear or narrow definition of what that conduct entails. This vagueness creates a gray area that could easily be used to suppress satire, parody, or even critical political speech.

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Police could search homes and phones after pregnancy loss

Police have been issued guidance on how to search women’s homes for abortion drugs and check their phones for menstrual cycle tracking apps after unexpected pregnancy loss.

New guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) on “child death investigation” advises officers to search for “drugs that can terminate pregnancy” in cases involving stillbirths. The NPCC, which sets strategic direction for policing across the country UK, also suggests a woman’s digital devices could be seized to help investigators “establish a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy”. That could include checking a woman’s internet searches, messages to friends and family, and health apps, “such as menstrual cycle and fertility trackers”, it states.

Details are also provided for how police could bypass legal requirements for a court order to obtain medical records about a woman’s abortion from NHS providers.

Abortion law in the UK is based on the Offences Against the Person Act from 1861. In recent years, an increasing number of women have been investigated and prosecuted under this law. The Abortion Act of 1967 allows women to end their pregnancies under medical supervision up to 24 weeks, or beyond in certain circumstances, such as if the life of the mother is at risk or if the foetus has a serious abnormality.

The guidance replaces a 2014 document that did not mention investigating stillbirths, but had one mention of investigating women who may have had an illegal abortion. The new guidance, published in January and developed by a sub-group of the NPCC’s Homicide Working Group alongside the College of Policing, National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police, covers the scenario over several pages.

The lead authors were Ch Supt Liz Hughes of Avon and Somerset police force; Det Supt Jon Holmes of Lancashire; DCS David Ashton of Durham; Ch Supt Fiona Bitters of Hampshire and Isle of Wight; Sonya Baylis, of the National Crime Agency; and DS Robert Simmons of Suffolk.

Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said: “The new guidance is shocking. Women in these circumstances have a right to compassionate care and to have their dignity and privacy respected, not to have their homes, phones, ­computers and health apps searched, or be arrested and interrogated.”

Leading abortion providers, legal experts and medical professionals have told The Observer they were not consulted over the NPCC guidance and called for it to be amended.

Katie Saxon at BPAS, the leading abortion provider, said the organisation was aware of an increase in police investigating women who had had abortions in recent years, “but to see it in black and white after years of criticisms of the way this outdated law is enforced is harrowing”.

She added: “This [NPCC] guidance was written at the same time as unprecedented threats to global abortion rights and while parliament was set to consider decriminalising women abortion. To write it without public conversation or discussion with experts shows just how detached from reality the NPCC is.”

Louise McCudden at the abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices said the guidance was “fuelling a culture of hostility and suspicion towards abortion and pregnancy loss”.

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Hospital Retaliates For Home Birth By Calling CPS & Then Forced HIV Medicine For Newborn!!!

I’m writing to you with a story that has shaken me to the core; not just because of what happened to us, but because I now understand just how vulnerable parents are when we choose a path that challenges institutional norms.

My wife and I chose a homebirth for our son because we believe birth is sacred. We wanted to welcome our child into the world in an environment filled with peace, warmth, and autonomy — not fluorescent lights, hospital monitors, or rushed protocols. Our son was born safely and beautifully at home, surrounded by calm, intention, and love.

It was, in every way, the birth we had hoped for.

About 30 minutes after delivery, we noticed the placenta hadn’t yet detached. We weren’t panicked — we were informed and prepared — but we decided to transfer to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. We drove there ourselves. My wife was treated, blood was drawn, and we were discharged shortly afterward. Everything seemed routine.

That illusion shattered just two hours later, when we received a call from Child Protective Services. Then, we called the hospital to get the test results: my wife had tested HIV Reactive on the rapid HIV test.

We returned voluntarily to the hospital under the guise that we were only coming in seeking clarity and confirmatory testing. Instead of support, we were met with force and coercion. We were told the rapid test had a 99.7% accuracy, this is inaccurate and incomplete information. With extremely low risk groups and immune disorders the likelihood of false positives is up to 60%.

We were told our newborn would be given antiretroviral drugs, “by force or by choice.” When we asked for time, information, or to wait for confirmatory testing, we were denied. When we attempted to leave, armed guards met us from two separate hallways blocking us in the NICU unit.

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Britain ‘investing in 30,000 more electronic tags for criminals’ amid massive overhaul

Britain is investing in 30,000 more electronic tags for criminals as part of a massive overhaul in sentencing law.

The huge expansion of tagging technology will see nearly 40,000 criminals electronically monitored at once.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is understood to have secured £700 million in funding from the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to buy the devices.

This will increase the Probation Service’s budget by roughly a third and enable it to quadruple the number of criminals fitted with electronic tags, The Times reports.

It comes as David Gauke, the former Conservative justice secretary, will publish a long-awaited sentencing review this month.

The report is expected to lead to the most drastic shake-up of sentencing legislation in decades and, the government is predicted to accept most of his recommendations.

A MoJ spokesman said last week: ‘This Government inherited a justice system in crisis, with prisons days from collapse.

‘David Gauke is conducting a sentencing review to ensure that we never run out of prison places again, and we are committed to reforming sentencing to ensure our prisons cut crime and keep the public safe.’

The Ministry of Justice is also thought to be preparing to announce a new type of tag that will measure the level of drugs in an offender’s system by monitoring their blood pressure and heart rate.

Mahmood said the new devices are the ‘holy grail’ of tagging technology because of the large proportion of criminals whose offending is driven by drugs.

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JD Vance Warns EU Censorship and Fines Threaten US Free Speech and First Amendment Values

Vice President JD Vance sounded the alarm this week over the growing international push to restrict speech, warning that aggressive censorship trends in Europe could soon clash with American constitutional principles.

Speaking with Glenn Beck, Vance stressed that transatlantic influence runs deep, and the speech policies being advanced in Europe aren’t confined to their borders.

“The kind of social media censorship that we’ve seen in Western Europe, it will and in some ways, it already has made its way to the United States. That was the story of the Biden administration silencing people on social media,” Vance said.

He argued that the US must take a firm stance in defense of First Amendment ideals and not allow foreign pressures to shape domestic policies, particularly in the digital space. “So we’re going to be very protective of American interests when it comes to things like social media regulation. We want to promote free speech. We don’t want our European friends telling social media companies that they have to silence Christians or silence conservatives, and I think there is going to be that friction over the next ten years.”

While emphasizing that diplomatic ties remain intact, Vance acknowledged that serious ideological divisions are emerging. “It’s not that we are not friends, but there’re gonna have some disagreements you didn’t see 10 years ago.”

Vance’s concerns were prompted by a question from Beck regarding troubling developments in countries like Canada and within the EU. The digital censorship framework in Europe has gone well beyond theory, with major tech companies already feeling the brunt of regulatory threats. Firms like X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok have faced mounting pressure to fall in line with EU speech codes or suffer severe financial consequences.

The EU has been leveraging the weight of its Digital Services Act (DSA) to pressure American tech companies into stricter content moderation, effectively threatening massive financial penalties if platforms fail to comply with the bloc’s speech regulations.

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UK Man Arrested For ‘Racially Aggravated Harassment’ After Trying to Book a Room in Migrant Hotel

A UK man was arrested for ‘racially aggravated harassment’ after he tried to book a room in a hotel that was housing illegal migrants.

The individual, who goes by the handle @gb_national on X, was filming outside the The New Bridge Hotel in Newcastle when the incident occurred.

The man briefly entered the hotel after hearing reports that migrants staying there had sexually harassed students and underage girls in the immediate vicinity.

Security immediately called the police and the man left the hotel.

He then continued filming from the other side of the road but was subsequently approached by police.

The officers told the man he was not being detained but continued to question him, before telling him he couldn’t walk on the path alongside the hotel due to it representing a “threat to public order.”

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Telegram Founder: Macron Regime Interfered in Romanian Elections by Pressuring Him to Silence Conservatives Ahead of the Vote—Musk Backs Durov

In a disturbing and all-too-familiar turn of events, Romania’s recent presidential election has been marred by foreign interference, blatant censorship attempts, and an alarming assault on national sovereignty.

The increasingly desperate and unscrupulous globalist establishment—now led by France—is facing serious accusations of attempting to subvert Romanian democracy. Allegations have surfaced that French authorities pressured the founder of the influential social media platform Telegram to silence conservative voices after anti-globalist candidates Calin Georgescu and George Simion scored decisive victories—first in an annulled initial round, and again in the re-run that followed.

In the re-run of the first round of the election held on May 4, Simion, a conservative-nationalist firebrand who opposes military entanglements in Ukraine and champions Romania-first policies, threatened to upend the left-liberal globalist order by securing 40% of the vote.

But as we’ve all witnessed, an electoral defeat means little to the globalist establishment. Losing at the ballot box does not compel them to relinquish power—far from it.

Last year, when independent nationalist Calin Georgescu won the first round with a commanding lead, the Constitutional Court annulled the results, citing vague “irregularities” and supposed “Russian interference.” Unsurprisingly, no evidence was ever produced. Georgescu was then banned from running again—a chilling move condemned by pro-humanity forces across Europe and ignored completely or forcefully supported by globalist regime enjoyers.

US Vice President J.D. Vance even cited the case earlier this year as proof of the EU’s escalating war on democratic sovereignty, saying, when the people vote the wrong way, the elites just cancel the results

Now, a new bombshell threatens to further delegitimize the already illegitimate Romanian election.  Pavel Durov, founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, revealed that French intelligence directly pressured him to silence Romanian conservatives online ahead of the election. Durov named Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), as the official who attempted to strong-arm him during a private meeting in Paris.

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Why the Canadian Govt and Big Pharma are Waging War on an Ostridge Farm

Canada’s Ostrich Cull Scandal: Are Big Pharma and Globalist Interests Pulling the Strings?
When I first heard about the ostrich farm in Edgewood, British Columbia, facing a forced cull of 400 ostriches, something immediately felt off. Sure, authorities claim they’re responding to an avian flu outbreak—but the deeper I dig into this, the more it smells of something else entirely. Let’s get right into it, because this isn’t just about bird flu—this is about science, censorship, profits, and powerful global interests that seem determined to control the narrative and crush alternatives.

The Edgewood Ostrich Outrage: How We Got Here

Picture a remote, idyllic farm in British Columbia’s Kootenay region, home to about 400 ostriches on 65 acres. On December 31, 2024, two ostriches tragically die of H5N1 avian flu, reportedly brought by wild migratory birds. This leads to a swift quarantine by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)—but that’s just the beginning.

Incredibly, after the initial outbreak, only about 40 birds (roughly 10% of the flock, mainly younger ostriches) succumb to the virus. Within just days, something remarkable occurs: the flock stabilizes, and the remaining 90% of the birds are thriving. Farm owner Karen Espersen observes that these ostriches seem to develop immunity, something clearly special and scientifically fascinating.

Yet despite the farm’s desperate pleas for additional testing and careful scientific study, the CFIA orders all ostriches culled—every last healthy bird—to supposedly “prevent the spread.” The family fights back, but on May 13, 2025, the Canadian Federal Court sides with the CFIA, leaving no room for appeal. The ostriches, despite clear evidence of recovery and possible immunity, are condemned to death.

Why the rush to destroy animals that might be holding keys to groundbreaking treatments? Why no interest in studying them further?

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