Slams Italian judges for blocking expulsion of dangerous foreign criminals saying said court rulings blocking detention and deportation of a migrant convicted of gang rape undermine public safety and questioned the silence of feminist groups

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sharply criticized judicial decisions blocking the detention of migrants transferred to Albania, citing the case of a Moroccan rapist with a long criminal record whom authorities say they cannot detain or deport after he applied for international protection.

Speaking to RTL 102.5, Meloni said some court rulings preventing the continued detention of migrants transferred to Italian processing centers in Albania were "surreal" and undermined public safety.

"I also wonder where the feminists are in the face of these events," Meloni said during the interview, referring to the case of one of the migrants, Moroccan national Fathallah Ouardi, who had been transferred to Albania but was later returned to Italy after judges refused to validate his detention.

In the first two months of 2026, about a half-dozen clinics announced they would pause or discontinue transgender services to minors.

Mounting political, financial, and legal pressures are poised to put more youth gender clinics out of business - or could force them to scale back services.

During the first two months of 2026, about a half-dozen U.S. gender clinics announced they would pause or discontinue some treatment programs for minors, according to hospital announcements and news reports reviewed by The Epoch Times.

The curtailment trend, which began in 2021 when states began passing laws to ban medical interventions on minors, picked up steam last year when President Donald Trump issued a wide-ranging executive order to guard against what he calls "surgical and chemical mutilation" of children — procedures that advocates refer to as "gender-affirming care."

Trigger Warning: This article contains descriptions of alleged child abuse and violence.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's fallout escalated again February 19 when authorities arrested him on suspicion of misconduct in public office. They released him the same day, but investigators are still reviewing material tied to the case.

Now, a disturbing allegation drawing attention claims Andrew was present while a young girl was subjected to electric shocks during an encounter involving Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

A tip cited in a July 2020 FBI report describes an alleged mid-1990s incident. The claim says Ghislaine strapped a girl to a table and "tortured [her] with electrical shocks." She was believed to be around six to eight years old. Andrew and several other men allegedly watched at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.

An 80-year-old nonprofit that advises conscientious objectors says its phone is "ringing off the hook" as American service members who object to the US-and-Israel-initiated war on Iran are seeking guidance on how to avoid being a part of it. Ominously, the group's executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the run-up to the ground invasion of Iraq.

"Phone has been ringing off the hook," wrote Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner on X. "A LOT more units have just been activated for deployment than the public knows about." Founded in 1940, the Center on Conscience and War provides guidance to military service members pursuing a conscientious objector (CO) status or a discharge. The group also opposes military conscription.

After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison — the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison — has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising "unbiased" news coverage and "varied ideological perspectives," which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network's new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her "pro-Israel stance."

MintPress News examines Ellison's close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss's extensive career as Israel's most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.

McDonald's latest marketing stunt in Germany syncs billboards to show empty packaging by day and full meals only after sunset, drawing backlash for prioritizing a minority's religious observance over the broader customer base.

As Ramadan unfolds, McDonald's Germany has rolled out a campaign that effectively erases tempting food visuals from digital billboards during fasting hours, a move seen by critics as yet another concession to cultural shifts driven by mass immigration.

The fast food chain's digital out-of-home posters display empty fries containers and burger boxes throughout the day, filling them with food images precisely at sunset when Muslims break their fast.


According to Newsweek, the ads carry the message "Happy Ramadan" and use sun-synced data tied to local prayer times to trigger the switch from empty to full.


The post sparked sharp reactions online. One user remarked: "What a great way to ignore the majority of your customers ????"

Another called it: "This is a sign that your country has been conquered without a shot fired."

A third questioned: "Great idea if you are in the Middle East. What about the non-Muslims? Or do we not count any more?"

This campaign echoes recent events underscoring tensions around cultural accommodation in the West.

Just days ago, videos of thousands of Muslims gathering for Ramadan prayers in New York City's Times Square went viral, with observers labeling it a "disturbing display" amid chants of "Allahu Akbar." Professor Gad Saad quipped sarcastically: "What's the big deal!? Just a bunch of pious men praying to Allah. I'm sure that it will all work out."

That incident is tied to broader controversies, including Rep. Randy Fine's response to activist Nerdeen Kiswani's claim that dogs are "unclean."

Fine announced the "Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act," aimed at withholding federal funds from areas banning dogs as pets, highlighting concerns over cultural shifts in regions with expanding Muslim communities.

Across the Atlantic, a similar dynamic played out in London, where a Metropolitan Police officer defended a Christian preacher's right to free speech against an angry crowd in Whitechapel, declaring: "In this country, we have freedom of speech."

She added: "I understand that you guys don't want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don't listen to him. He's not in your home."

The episode raised questions about inconsistent policing, contrasting with past arrests of preachers like Pastor John Sherwood for expressing biblical views on family.

These developments paint a picture of Western institutions — from corporations to law enforcement — yielding ground to avoid offense, often at the expense of longstanding traditions and majority norms.

In Germany, home to millions of Muslim residents following waves of migration, such gestures risk alienating the wider public while fueling debates over integration.

As globalism pushes for unchecked diversity, moves like McDonald's billboard tweak serve as reminders that true coexistence demands mutual respect, not one-sided surrender. Defending core Western values remains essential to preserve the freedoms that built these societies.

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies dubs 20 companies the 'Low-Wage 20' — and includes retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Kroger.

Over the last 50 years, the chasm between average worker pay and CEO compensation has cracked wide open. Between 1978 and 2024, chief executive pay spiked by 1,094%, according to the Economic Policy Institute — which means the average CEO earns 281 times that of the average worker.

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive research organization, captures how this disparity persists across some of the largest companies in the country, and how the low-wage workers they employ are forced to rely on public benefits.

The report drew on the S&P 500 and tallied a list of 20 companies that have been dubbed the "Low-Wage 20" — which includes some of the usual suspects from the retail and grocery sectors, from Amazon and Walmart to Target and Kroger. The following employers round out the full list: AutoZone, Best Buy, Chipotle, Costco, Darden Restaurants, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, FedEx, Home Depot, Lowe's, MGM Resorts, O'Reilly Automotive, Ross Stores, Starbucks, TJX, and Tyson Foods.

Trump's anti-DEI push may mark the start of a deeper reckoning: not just with wokeness, but with the moral and political foundations of the civil rights regime that enabled it.

It is too early to know with any precision what the long-term effects of the Trump administration's anti-DEI efforts will be. We might take our bearings on that score by considering the fate of essays written by prominent law professors in the 1950s and 1960s touting this or that discrete step in the unfolding of the civil rights revolution — the latest Supreme Court decision, and so on — as if each were an all-or-nothing earth-shattering decision.

What we can now say with certainty is that what the Trump administration has done on the DEI front represents the beginning of a general reorientation of our politics away from wokeness. One need only survey what prominent leaders of the Left are saying about the political price the Democratic Party has paid on that score. What they are saying indicates a large political change, even if the Dems prove incapable of unmooring themselves from woke politics for the near future.

The Supreme Court on Monday barred California from enforcing state rules that restrict when schools can notify parents about students who come out as transgender and requires teachers to use children's preferred pronouns.

The court, on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines, allowed a federal judge's ruling in favor of parents who oppose the policy on religious grounds to go into effect. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had put the judge's decision on hold pending further litigation.

The court's ruling focused on the parents' claim that their rights under the free exercise clause of the Constitution's First Amendment were violated. The court also said they have valid parental rights claims under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

The court did not grant a similar request made by teachers who object to the policy.

Many students are chronically absent or have dropped out of school.

Nat Malkus, a senior fellow in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, oversees the Return to Learn Tracker, which monitors chronic absenteeism in U.S. schools. His latest report, released in early February, includes data from 39 states and Washington, D.C.

He states that after reaching a high of 29 percent in the 2021-22 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate — missing 10 percent or more of school days in an academic year — fell by 2.6 percentage points the following school year and by 2.2 percentage points the following school year. This progress was encouraging, but it stalled last school year, with rates falling by just over one percentage point on average. This leaves the average chronic absenteeism rate for most of the country at 23 percent, roughly 50 percent higher than the pre-pandemic baseline.

This chronic absence problem is especially egregious in our large urban areas. In Los Angeles, more than 32 percent of students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. Thirty-four elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of their buildings. Chicago is even worse, with a chronic absentee rate of 41 percent.