Germany’s defense and security overhaul entered a new phase on Wednesday, with cabinet approval for a bill to significantly expand the powers of national intelligence agencies. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt celebrated the biggest intelligence shake-up since the Second World War as “transforming our intelligence services into genuine secret services”, but opponents see something more sinister behind the reforms.
A record seizure in northwest Edmonton should have prompted more than a discussion about unpaid tobacco taxes. Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) investigators, supported by Edmonton police, seized nearly 158,000 cartons containing more than 31.6 million illegal cigarettes from a commercial property in June.
The shipment was valued at more than $29 million and represented an estimated $9.4 million in avoided provincial taxes, and is the largest contraband tobacco seizure in AGLC history.
Britain’s first 15mph bike lane will aim to tackle the scourge of speeding cyclists increasingly threatening the safety of pedestrians.
Cambridge, Britain’s cycling capital, has introduced new limits along one of the city’s most popular bike routes.
Cambridgeshire county council said the move was in response to regular concerns from residents “including older people and families with young children” over cyclists travelling at “excessive speeds”.
Scratch a pedestrian safety group, and you will find an anti-automobile activist underneath every time. The latest group has labelled itself “Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards,” and hasn’t even bothered to build itself a website. But they did catch the attention of legacy media outlets when they highlighted a recent study that profoundly concluded that pedestrians have a higher chance of fatality when hit by larger vehicles rather than smaller ones. Being hit by a train is more likely to kill you than being hit by a scooter as well, but that’s hardly news. It’s physics.
Celebrating independence from the country you’re colonising.
Last night Pakistanis filled the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester waving Pakistani flags and marking “freedom from Britain.”
They’re celebrating breaking free from the nation they then moved to in their… pic.twitter.com/tawfPp0TxP
— (@Maxwellpainn) August 15, 2026
A package of cannabis that may have been purchased legally from a government-owned store became illicit when a detainee at a Quebec prison stuffed it in his anus, the province’s highest court has ruled.
The decision comes in the case of Vincent Tardif, who had appealed a conviction for possessing cannabis with the intent to distribute, arguing that the prosecution hadn’t proven that he knew the cannabis he possessed was illicit.
She looks like a goalie for a dart team. 😆@fancypants_s https://t.co/IBDM3UNmas
— Auntie Polly (@auntie_polly) August 16, 2026
h/t Auntie Polly
The Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport was mulling the installation of special washing rooms to facilitate prayers by its Muslim passengers. A DFW spokesman told The Epoch Times Saturday that the airport has shelved those plans after objections by the governor of Texas.
The airport was “in the process of evaluating an internal proposal to add a set of ablution washing stations on the pre-security side of Terminal D” for international passengers, the spokesperson wrote in a statement.
More. @fancypants_s https://t.co/GR3tF5Unr5
— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) August 15, 2026
h/t Patti Jo
The British Columbia government is set to give Hatley Castle, the home of former B.C. premier James Dunsmuir, to the Songhees First Nation as part of B.C.’s aggressive land-claims process.
Hatley Park is also the site of Royal Roads University, a public university that replaced the Royal Roads Military College, where generations of the naval officers were trained during the Cold War.
Because Hatley Park and the Castle are on federal land, Ottawa is involved in the transfer, too.
I will vote for anyone who ends the Indian act scam.
Two leftist assassins, Luigi Mangione and Charlie Kirk’s killer Tyler Robinson developed insane (mostly female) online cult followings is because they were guilty. If they weren’t guilty, there wouldn’t have been Marxists wearing Mario Bros hats outside the New York City courthouse and Candace Owens wouldn’t have turned her podcast into a ‘true crime’ effort to blame the murder on Erika Kirk and whoever else she had a grudge against.
et’s begin with something most can agree on: high emotion, even rage, and viral imagery increasingly overwhelm logic and reason. Combined with a growing disagreement over what it means to be an American, the result is today’s toxic politics, where fellow citizens increasingly see one another not merely as opponents, but as strangers with fundamentally incompatible values attempting to share a common country. That doesn’t work!
A national union says it was told by Stellantis this week that it is seriously considering the closure and sale of the Brampton Assembly Plant.
Unifor national president Lana Payne told reporters on Friday that the union “received information” from Stellantis on Wednesday about its possible plans, but Stellantis has not provided the union with formal written notice of closure of the plant as required under its collective agreement.
How did this story get buried?
A group of Bay Area parents and students are suing their local school district over a 2025 field trip where children were allegedly encouraged to wear Muslim religious attire like hijabs while visiting a mosque.
The federal suit filed last week by ten Palo Alto High School students names the Palo Alto Unified School District and Principal Brent Kline as defendants.
It alleges that photographs of the students were also posted online, without the parents’ permission.
Earlier last month, Belgian authorities arrested Biwei Zhang, a Canadian intern of Chinese origin working at NATO’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, on suspicion of espionage. Prosecutors say she is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country—identified by Reuters as China—and of belonging to a criminal organization. Before her posting to NATO, Zhang had worked across the Canadian federal government, including stints at the National Research Council, Statistics Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, and the Canadian Space Agency. She even cleared a CSIS and RCMP background check, despite a 2023 finding that she had committed fraud.
Imagine the scene: a Mass celebrated in an ancient church in Normandy, three parishioners, two nuns and an elderly priest. Six people in all. And two terrorists armed with knives who interrupt the rite and slit the priest’s throat on the altar.
It was nothing new.
1996: seven French monks massacred in Algeria.
2006: an Orthodox priest beheaded in Iraq.
But on 26 July 2016 this horrible ritual was consummated in the heart of European Christendom.
