Tag: police state

Brits are warned they could be prosecuted if they take bananas washed up on beach after cargo containers fell off ship

Brits have been warned they face prosecution if they take bananas that washed up on a beach after falling off a cargo ship. 

Thousands of bananas appeared on Selsey Beach, West Sussex on Saturday night after 16 huge containers toppled off the Baltic Klipper near the Isle of Wight coast.

Stunned beachgoers soon flocked to the scene to investigate, as police quickly installed a cordon and urged people to steer clear of the fruit, which must be reported to HM Coastguard.

Those who fail to declare a wreck without a reasonable excuse face a £2,500 fine under the terms of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. 

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said: ‘HM Coastguard is continuing to work with relevant authorities after 16 containers went overboard from the cargo ship Baltic Klipper in the Solent on December 6.

‘This includes working with the vessel’s owners, who are responsible for recovering the containers.

‘The public are advised to avoid the area and are reminded that all wreck material found in the UK has to be reported to HM Coastguard’s Receiver of Wreck.’

Eight of the containers were filled with bananas, while two were packed with plantain and one with avocados – five were empty.

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‘Unprecedented’ Power Grab: FCC, Congress Race to Strip Local Control Over Cell Towers

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and federal lawmakers are pushing to make it easy for telecom companies to erect cell towers in communities without residents’ consent — even if the tower isn’t really needed to close a coverage gap in cell service.

If either the agency or Congress succeeds, communities will lose the right to keep unwanted towers and other wireless infrastructure away from their homes and schools, according to Miriam Eckenfels, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program.

“This is the most aggressive push we’ve ever seen to override local zoning, erase public participation, and force dense wireless infrastructure into residential areas under the guise of streamlining wireless infrastructure deployment,” Eckenfels said.

On Wednesday, the U.S House Committee on Energy and Commerce advanced H.R. 2289, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025, in a 26-24 vote along party lines, with Democrats opposing it. A floor vote has yet to be scheduled as of press time.

If passed, the bill would allow wireless companies to install towers and antennas wherever they decide, regardless of whether local residents want the equipment, Eckenfels said.

The FCC, the federal agency that oversees telecommunications, is working on its own similar strategy. On Dec. 1, the agency published a notice in the Federal Register about a proposed rule to “free towers and other wireless infrastructure from unlawful regulatory burdens.”

Eckenfels called H.R. 2289 a “legislative shortcut” for what the FCC wants to accomplish.

The FCC and lawmakers don’t want any roadblocks to installing more wireless infrastructure, said tech attorney Odette Wilkens, president and general counsel for the nonprofit Wired Broadband, Inc. “They see community input as an obstacle, and they see it as a regulatory barrier because the zoning ordinances on the local level protect the people.”

Across the country, residents have been successfully keeping new cell towers and antennas from going up next to their homes and schools.

Eckenfels said she thinks these successes prompted the FCC — which is captured by the wireless industry — and lawmakers who favor the wireless industry to push the measures.

Wilkens agreed. “The reason for HR 2289 is to prevent any further litigation and any further successes that people have had across the country in stopping cell towers,” she said.

Eckenfels called the FCC and Congress’ proposed actions an “unprecedented federal power grab” that would “strip away state and local powers, and force communities to accept more cell towers, more antennas and more industrial equipment — without meaningful review, without due process and without the ability to say no.”

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‘Fourth Reich’: Musk Strikes Back At EU ‘Tyrants’ After X Fine

Elon Musk is not taking the outrageous fine from Brussels bureaucrats lying down, lashing out at EU officialdom for taking on Nazi characteristics and oppressing their own citizens’ best interests…

As Catherine Salgado reports for PJMedia.com, Musk also re-shared a post about Irish teacher Enoch Burke, who was jailed for refusing to use transgender pronouns, and later replied to another user, “So many politicians in Europe who are traitors to their own people.”

And Musk highlighted the fact that Meta has a verification program similar to X’s, yet the EU hasn’t onerously fined the more censorship-prone Meta.

Musk reposted and reiterated his previous explanation of why he bought X (then Twitter) in the first place.

“I didn’t do the Twitter purchase because I thought it was a great way to make money. I knew that there would be a zillion slings and arrows coming in my direction.

It really felt like, there was a civilizational danger that unless one of the major online platforms broke ranks, then, because they’re all just behaving in lockstep along with the legacy media.

Literally there was no place to actually get the truth. It was almost impossible. So everything was just getting censored. The power of the censorship apparatus was incredible,” Musk said.

The EU seems to be borrowing ideas from 20th century Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler… 

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Iran’s Executions Reach Decade High

Iranian authorities have executed over 1,000 people between January and September 2025, the highest number of yearly death penalties conducted in Iran that Amnesty International has recorded in at least 15 years.

As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat shows in the chart below, within less than nine months, the number of people executed by the regime has already surpassed last year’s grim total of 972 executions.

These figures are likely low estimates due to the Iranian authorities not publishing such data publicly.

According to Amnesty, the Iranian regime has increased its use of the death penalty since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement uprising, as a tool of state repression and to crush dissent.

In 2025, the authorities have further intensified executions in the aftermath of the escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran, under the guise of national security.

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German Chancellor Merz Filed Hundreds of Criminal Complaints over Insults From Citizens: Report

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly filed hundreds of criminal complaints against members of the public for insulting him during his tenure as a politician.

According to research conducted by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Merz is “one of the most sensitive politicians in the history” of the German republic.

Die Welt’s Sunday paper reported that during his time as a member of parliament, Merz filed criminal complaints against citizens for calling him names such as “little Nazi”, “asshole,” and “filthy drunk”, among others.

The paper said that documents from a law firm commissioned by Merz to file such complaints revealed that the “little Nazi” and “filthy drunken” comments resulted in police searches, with the later ultimately being found to have been an unlawful search.

In the “little Nazi” case, police seized the phone of an elderly and physically disabled woman, who is bound to a wheelchair. The paper noted that by doing so, police hindered her ability to communicate with her doctors.

In total, Welt reported that there were 4,999 individual cases collected by the law firm.

Merz is said to have partnered with the internet monitoring agency ‘So Done:’, a firm founded by a former Free Democrat politician Alex Brockmeier. The agency is said to monitor social media sites for so-called hate speech free of charge for political figures in Germany in exchange for recouping 50 per cent of any fines levied against members of the public.

Given Germany’s strict rules against insulting politicians, it is not always necessary for the individual politician to file a criminal complaint.

Indeed, one such case in which a commenter called Merz an “asshole”, was launched by the Berlin prosecutor’s office after being tipped off by the group “Hesse Against Hate”, a project launched by the local interior ministry in the state of Hesse. The case is currently being investigated as a potential “extremist” politically motivated crime.

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Lawmakers To Consider 19 Bills for Childproofing the Internet

Can you judge the heat of a moral panic by the number of bills purporting to solve it? At the height of human trafficking hysteria in the 2010s, every week seemed to bring some new measure meant to help the government tackle the problem (or at least get good press for the bill’s sponsor). Now lawmakers have moved on from sex trafficking to social media—from Craigslist and Backpage to Instagram, TikTok, and Roblox. So here we are, with a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on 19 different kids-and-tech bills scheduled for this week.

The fun kicks off tomorrow, with legislators discussing yet another version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)—a dangerous piece of legislation that keeps failing but also refuses to die. (See some of Reason‘s previous coverage of KOSA here, here, and here.)

The new KOSA no longer explicitly says that online platforms have a “duty of care” when it comes to minors—a benign-sounding term that could have chilled speech by requiring companies to somehow protect minors from a huge array of “harms,” from anxiety and depression to disordered eating to spending too much time online. But it still essentially requires this, saying that covered platforms must “establish, implement, maintain, and enforce reasonable policies, practices, and procedure” that address various harms to minors, including threats, sexual exploitation, financial harm, and the “distribution, sale, or use of narcotic drugs, tobacco products, cannabis products, gambling, or alcohol.” And it would give both the states and the Federal Trade Commission the ability to enforce this requirement, declaring any violation an “unfair or deceptive” act that violates the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Despite the change, KOSA’s core function is still “to let government agencies sue platforms, big or small, that don’t block or restrict content someone later claims contributed to” some harm, as Joe Mullin wrote earlier this year about a similar KOSA update in the Senate.

Language change or not, the bill would still compel platforms to censor a huge array of content out of fear that the government might decide it contributed to some vague category of harm and then sue.

KOSA is bad enough. But far be it for lawmakers to stop there.

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Ohio Senate Expected To Vote On Bill Recriminalizing Some Marijuana Activity That Voters Legalized

A new law that’s likely to pass at the Statehouse next week would establish a series of minor criminal penalties for people who improperly transport or possess marijuana in Ohio, while rolling back legal protections for users in venues like child custody or professional licensing disputes.

For that reason, NORML, the oldest marijuana advocacy organization in the U.S., is leading a quixotic effort to ask the Ohio Senate to reject Senate Bill 56 before a final vote next week.

With the Senate’s approval, the bill would go to Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for a signature or veto.

The marijuana changes come within a larger package that also imposes a comprehensive, new regulatory system on intoxicating hemp, a product that’s functionally similar to legal marijuana but sold without the age restrictions, taxes or quality controls. DeWine, a Republican who opposed relaxing Ohio’s marijuana laws, has made a public cause of the intoxicating hemp issue for more than a year now.

But perhaps out of a political compromise, marijuana users have found themselves caught in the crosshairs within the hemp crackdown, according to Morgan Fox, NORML’s political director.

“A lot of these things are completely nonsensical,” he said in an interview. “This is recriminalizing a lot of behavior that is relatively innocuous and has been legal for some time.”

House and Senate lawmakers negotiated a final version of the legislation in a conference committee, which means the bill can no longer be changed. The House passed it last month, with a late-night 52-34 vote, where a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in opposition.

Committee members described the final version as a compromise between a list of scrambled voting blocs: Democrats who don’t want new criminal penalties for run-of-the-mill users, libertarian-minded Republicans protective of the right to grow one’s own marijuana, religious conservatives who disapprove expanding the legal use of intoxicants, local governments who want their tax money, a governor seeking a crackdown on the gas station hemp retailers, and both the hemp and marijuana industries seeking market advantage. (All told, 153 lobbyists registered to work on the bill as of August, state records show.)

In 2023, Ohio voters passed Issue 2 by a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, allowing for adults to lawfully use, buy, sell and possess cannabis. Those rights remain broadly intact under the bill.

However, SB 56 imposes legal penalties for things like possessing marijuana in anything but its original container or buying legal marijuana in Michigan where it tends to be much cheaper.

What follows is a closer look at some of those rules.

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Canadian patriot informed that he cannot display Canada flag outside Toronto City Hall

Welcome to Nathan Phillips Square, home of Toronto City Hall, which is, unsurprisingly, located in the City of Toronto, in the province of Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada.

So, you would think it would be completely acceptable to display a Canadian flag there, right?

Wrong.

Just ask Canadian patriot Scott Youmans.

Youmans visited this very site a few days ago, brandishing a Canadian flag. And incredibly, it did not go well. Which is to say, a city hall security guard informed him that the display of ANY flag, including the Maple Leaf, is verboten. (Oddly, a Ukrainian flag has been displayed on a flagpole at the south end of Nathan Phillips Square for some three years now. But never mind…)

Speaking of blatant hypocrisy and double standards, last month, the City of Toronto officially raised the flag of Palestine, even though such a nation doesn’t exist. What next? Raising the flag of Narnia?

And when it comes to bylaw enforcement at Nathan Phillips Square, this is a very selective process, isn’t it?

We specifically speak of a group of hobos known as “Afro-Indigenous Rising.” These reprobates occupied Nathan Phillips Square for almost a month in 2020 during that year’s “Summer of Love”. They pitched tents, and they urinated and defecated upon the square, breaking some 11 sections of the Trespass Act in the process. Yet, City Hall security had absolutely no problem with those unhinged lunatics. Rather, security went out of their way to call the police on independent journalists covering this disgusting occupation.

And given what happened to Scott Youmans, we have to wonder: how long will it be before ALL Canadian flags are taken down from flagpoles and put in cold storage? Consider that a Labour MP in the UK is urging Britons not to display the Union Jack because it makes some newcomers feel uneasy. We’re not making this up…

However, hope abounds: Rebel News received a response from the City of Toronto media relations department regarding the Youmans flag fiasco.

Here is what it states in part: “There is no City of Toronto bylaw that prohibits a person from holding or displaying a Canadian flag – or any flag – at Nathan Phillips Square (NPS). Flags, signs and other hand-held items are permitted, provided they do not pose a safety risk or involve equipment that requires a permit. These requirements are outlined in the NPS Code of Conduct and related bylaws.”

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NYPD Recruit Gets Arrested, Shining Light on an Evil No One Dares to Discuss

It’s a sad, shameful case, but unfortunately, all too common: a man in New York City has been arrested for rape. Compounding the evil in this case is the fact that the accused was a New York City Police Department (NYPD) recruit, but there is abundant precedent for that sort of thing as well. It is good that this man was caught before he actually joined the force, and we can hope that even in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, his arrest will prevent him from ever becoming an NYPD officer. There is, however, another aspect of the case that no one dares to discuss, but is crucial to understanding why cases of this kind are likely to recur in the future, in New York City and all over the country.

The New York Daily News reported Thursday that the NYPD recruit was “four months into his police academy training” when he  was “arrested on rape charges in Queens.” The would-be police officer, Ahmed Elnahtawy, who is 24 years old, “was taken into custody at the NYPD Police Academy in College Point just after 8 a.m. and charged with rape, forcible touching and sex abuse.” 

The arrest comes after an NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau investigation into Elnahtawy’s behavior. “The sex crime he’s accused of committing occurred weeks ago. It wasn’t immediately clear if it happened before he joined the academy.” Elnahtaway “joined the NYPD on Aug. 20 and was expected to graduate the academy in February,” but now, of course, those plans are all on hold.

The one aspect of the story that is getting no attention anywhere is the fact that the perpetrator in this case is a Muslim. Now, before you dismiss this point as another manifestation of that terrible malady, “Islamophobia,” consider the fact that while there are rapists of all cultures and backgrounds, but only one culture gives rape, under some circumstances, a divine sanction. And that happens to be the culture from which Ahmed Elnahtawy has emerged.

The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). In one of those verses, Qur’an 4:24, Allah forbids Muslims to marry women who are already married, but a specific exception is made for slave women. The renowned and mainstream Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathir explains that Muslim men “are prohibited from marrying women who are already married,” with one notable exception: “those whom you acquire through war, for you are allowed such women after making sure they are not pregnant. Imam Ahmad recorded that Abu Sa’id Al-Khudri said, ‘We captured some women from the area of Awtas who were already married, and we disliked having sexual relations with them because they already had husbands. So, we asked the Prophet about this matter, and this Ayah was revealed…Consequently, we had sexual relations with these women.’”

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Germany’s Globalist Regime Bans AfD From Mayoral Elections in Rhineland-Palatinate 

Germany’s increasingly unpopular and authoritarian globalist regime has banned members of the conservative-nationalist party Alternative for Germany (AfD)—the most popular in the country—from running for local mayor in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The regime’s weapon of choice is a state blacklist, crafted by Germany’s highly politicized domestic intelligence service—an agency that persecutes patriotic citizens while branding the country’s true opposition as extremists.

A 2025 order from the state’s Interior Ministry, designed as a de-facto ban on the party, now forces candidates to vow no ties to listed organizations over the past five years, the Austrian news outlet Exxpress reported.

AfD members simply cannot sign without legally perjuring themselves. German-American Roberto Kiefer hoped to contest the mayoral seat in Nieder-Olm next March. The new rules render his bid impossible solely because of his party loyalty.

Kiefer rightly denounces it as a sneaky exclusion of a fully legal political movement and a party that’s the most popular in the country. He will file his candidacy regardless, bracing for the inevitable bureaucratic rejection.

This authoritarian tactic, employed by a government that’s quickly losing its democratic mandate, is nothing new—in Ludwigshafen, AfD’s Joachim Paul was booted from the race on flimsy loyalty grounds. Establishment courts, controlled by regime loyalists, rubber-stamped the decision, citing trumped up domestic intel rulings.

Voter turnout in Ludwigshafen plunged to embarrassing lows once Paul was removed. Disgusted citizens boycotted an election stripped of real alternatives.

Germany’s regime claims these bans safeguard democracy from supposed dangers. In reality, unelected officials are trampling the sovereign will of the people.

AfD leaders insist that only voters, not faceless ministries staffed with regime loyalists, should choose their representatives. The party remains completely lawful and is surging in polls nationwide.

The crackdown traces back to a July decree that already purges AfD supporters from all public-sector jobs. Small-town mayoral posts are conveniently classified as civil service to widen the net.

Legal scholars warn that letting bureaucrats revoke voting rights through vague lists threatens free elections. Such overreach exposes the regime’s fear of genuine competition.

Violent left-wing radicals are propped up in Germany and share space on the same voting list, while the AfD is singled out because it’s the only real alternative to the regime. It deliberately targets the country’s largest  party after its electoral breakthroughs.

With sustained, uncontrolled mass migration overwhelming towns and cities, emptying the country’s state welfare coffers and causing upticks in violent crime, AfD’s firm border policies have clearly struck a chord with fed-up Germans. Silencing their candidates muzzles the growing demand for national sovereignty.

The Nieder-Olm scandal reveals how the Brussels-aligned elite in Germany are desperately clinging to power. Real democrats demand AfD be allowed to contest elections without interference.

Germany desperately needs leaders who put German citizens and Western Civilization first, not ones who bend the knee to the EU’s anti-European dictates. These repressive measures only deepen public contempt for an increasingly authoritarian system.

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