Free Republic

as climate change drives increasingly intense and frequent heatwaves to the UK, experts are calling for better awareness of the risks to women and more targeted efforts to protect them

It became mandatory Tuesday for citizens of the European Union’s 27 member states to allow their cars to track their movements using artificial intelligence. The European Union’s General Safety Regulation mandated Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW) systems that track drivers’ body movements, such as eye and head movements, in every new vehicle sold after July 7, according to Access Newswire. “This is a driver support system,” Martin Krantz, CEO and Founder of Swedish AI company Smart Eye, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “It’s a life-saving technology. It really helps to prevent accidents. It’s probably gonna be...

Talking to LBC's Sunday with Lewis Goodall, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party called for more restrictions on social media usage around the date of elections, calling for rules to be aligned with current broadcasting restrictions. "We absolutely need to strengthen regulation in the social media place," she told LBC, adding that she already has some proposals to put forward, "especially when it’s election time,” as part of a current bill being looked at in Parliament. "We’ve got an elections bill going through the House of Commons at the moment; to strengthen that bill, so that social media comes...

On the tenth anniversary of the vote to leave the EU, Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the prominent Leave campaigner had a worldview which was “sympathetic” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Mr Farage accused political leaders, including former prime minister Boris Johnson, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of failing to understand the “forgotten places” across the country which had wanted a “fairer deal” for the UK. A debate over the future of the UK-EU relationship has reignited in recent weeks after the outgoing Prime Minister made closer ties with Brussels a key pillar...

A woman has been fined after fabricating a series of social media posts claiming she encountered ghosts while taking a boat tour in Trang An, one of northern Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations. On June 9, police in Ninh Binh Province announced an administrative fine of VND7.5 million (USD289) against L.Q.A., a resident of Hanoi, for providing and sharing false and fabricated information that caused public concern and confusion. Authorities said the case stemmed from 37 social media posts that circulated widely online, recounting alleged supernatural and paranormal experiences during a boat trip in Trang An. The posts, published through...

How Will Digital IDs Work?

Canadian Senate passes bill removing religious defence from hate speech lawCanada’s Senate in early June approved legislation that removes a decades-old Criminal Code protection for good-faith religious expression based on sacred texts, advancing a measure widely seen by faith communities as a direct threat to the public proclamation of Christian teaching on marriage, sexuality and human nature.The Combatting Hate Act, known as Bill C-9, cleared the upper house on June 4 by a 45-13 vote, with two abstentions. It now returns to the House of Commons, which passed the bill in March, for final approval of Senate amendments before Royal...

Tommy Robinson was detained by police on Saturday at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism laws, after a week in which he rose to further prominence on social media. It was understood the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was stopped and had his phones seized under section 3 of the Counter-Terrorism Border Security Act 2019. Robinson used social media to claim he was detained for almost three hours and had his iPhone and Samsung Galaxy phones taken, and to ask his supporters to donate money to fund his legal defence. A spokesperson for Robinson posted on X: “They likely...

Social media companies have been ordered to have emergency measures in place to stop illegal content going viral, as regulators battle to stop the type of misinformation spiral that circulated after the 2024 summer riots. Sites such as X, formerly Twitter, and TikTok will have to have a “crisis protocol” in place to intervene when the sharing of dangerous content begins to rise. Under the measures to be implemented by Ofcom, the UK’s tech regulator, online platforms will also need to reserve a dedicated line of communication channel through which the police can contact them in a crisis. It follows...

This video provides an immersive tour of Shenzhen, showcasing the rapid transformation and high-tech integration that makes it one of the most advanced cities in the world. Key Highlights of Shenzhen's Tech Scene: Futuristic Payments & Logistics: The host demonstrates palm payments at a local convenience store (1:14) and experiences drone delivery for tea, which was significantly faster and more efficient than traditional methods (1:40 - 3:18). Autonomous Transportation: The video captures the experience of riding in a driverless taxi (5:21), observing how it handles complex traffic, turns, and obstacle avoidance (5:21 - 7:37). Domestic Innovation: The host explores the...

A video exposing Ford’s dystopian patents for new vehicles has gone viral on X, fueling outrage over the accelerating war on personal vehicle ownership and freedom of movement. The clip details in-cabin cameras, biometric scanners, lip-reading AI, emotion detection, and real-time criminal database queries – all deciding whether your truck will let you drive. In the video, the narrator states “imagine there was an emergency outside the truck… An accident…I jump in this truck. But it won’t shift into drive. Why? Because cameras and sensors inside of my cab won’t let me shift.” Ford can suck my white ass. pic.twitter.com/JjlTXPHZov...

Children who do not reach the age of 18 before January 1, 2027 will never be permitted to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in the UK, once a new law that has now completely cleared parliament gets royal assent from King Charles III. The rules will apply in all four of the UK's constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This will effectively mean that people born on or after January 1, 2009 will never be eligible to buy them... Smoking in designated areas outside pubs and bars and other hospitality settings will remain permissible... Smoking and vaping will...

Banks in the U.S. may not like the idea of being forced to collect citizenship data on customers, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says they better be prepared for the task. “If Treasury and the banking regulators say it’s their job, it’s their job,” Bessent told CNBC’s Sara Eisen at the Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. An executive order that has been discussed for months took a step closer to reality earlier this week when Bessent said in an interview with Semafor that the EO is “in process.” The planned EO is one more plank in...

A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives is pushing the age-verification debate to a new level, from individual state laws to a proposal that could eventually apply nationwide. Filed as H.R. 8250 on April 13, 2026, the measure is titled “To require operating system providers to verify the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes.” It was introduced by Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, and has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. And this development changes the picture quite a...

Meanwhile, foreign Islamists meeting “residency” requirements receive taxpayer assistance. Andreas Wailzer at LifeSite News reports that the German government, through the Ministry of Construction, has just proposed a new bill that “would give municipalities the right of first refusal if a potential buyer of property has ‘anti-constitutional aspirations.’” But those with “anti-constitutional aspirations” aren’t to be confused with the third-world foreigners and hordes of Islamists who have decidedly not integrated and accepted the German constitution and government as authoritative, instead bringing sharia culture, customs, and pseudo-law to Germany and making no pretenses of hiding their intentions—this is specifically in regards...

A new Minnesota bill could ban most weekday and nighttime driving for classic cars A Minnesota bill would sharply limit when classic cars can legally be driven. Collector vehicles may only be allowed on weekends or at organized events. Critics warn the proposal could hurt car culture and local businesses. Seeing a classic car on the road is one of those rare moments that still brings a smile to anyone who appreciates such machines. That experience might be about to become even rarer in Minnesota. A new law there would limit classic cars to driving only on weekends or at...

Castro's (unregistered) agents-of-influence are frantically busy this week thanks to their (unregistered) accomplices in the Fake News Media. All claim an earth-shaking "transition" is underway in Cuba! Needless to add, according to these (unregistered) foreign agents, President Trump should promptly avail himself of this golden opportunity to embrace those harmless, innocent, free- health-care providers that U.S. policy has unjustly and vicariously “bullied” for ‘lo so many years. Could anything be more transparently facetious and idiotic? To quote the late Joan Rivers: “Can we talk?” In fact, what’s happening as Cuban “President” (dictator) Raul Castro “steps down” in favor of Cuban...

Just when we thought that gender ideology nonsense and pronoun tyranny had died off, there’s a story that reminds us how deeply entrenched it is in our society. This week, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, NY, who run Rosary Hill Home — a Catholic hospice for the impoverished — filed a lawsuit accusing the state of violating their constitutional rights. It relates to a 2024 law that requires the facility to affirm gender identity in regard to patients’ pronouns, room assignments and restroom usage. New York’s LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights was sponsored by Manhattan Borough President...

Sir Sadiq Khan has accused social media giants of tarnishing London’s reputation by allowing a “dark blizzard of disinformation” to spread on their platforms. The Mayor of London has claimed that sites such as X, Facebook and Instagram are fuelling lies about the capital online, specifically when it comes to crime and racial segregation. Such disinformation is damaging the capital’s standing as “one of the most successful multicultural societies on Earth”, he told the Cambridge Disinformation Summit on Thursday. “Disinformation has become an industry: an ‘outrage economy’ organised around a ‘division dividend’ which allows people to profit from poison,” he...

“I think having this internal team will really help us transform our [AI] adoption across the organization,” Secret Service CIO and CAIO Chris Kraft said about the push to bring fresh tech talent into the agency.