Sunday, July 26, 2026

Diversity Barriers

UK Cities Roll Out More Diversity Barriers; Vehicle-Ramming Threat Now The Norm

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, JUL 26, 2026 - 04:00 AM

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A family summer beach event in the UK city of Nottingham now sits behind portable anti-ram steel barrier, the latest admission that open borders have turned public spaces into soft targets.

Local authorities across Britain are quietly installing more of what critics now call "diversity barriers" - heavy portable steel devices designed to stop vehicles being driven into crowds.

The annual artificial "Nottingham Beach" event opened this week behind a line of bright red Husson H-Stop units.

About 15 of the barriers now block the four main entrances. They tip upward on impact, changing a vehicle's trajectory and generating enough friction to halt a three-and-a-half-tonne truck travelling at 30 mph.

Councillors and organisers insist the move is simply a precaution. The multi-agency safety group that approved them included counter-terrorism officers.

Councillor Neghat Khan, leader of Nottingham City Council, described them as an "additional safety measure" installed "following advice from the multi-agency events safety advisory group, which includes counter-terrorism colleagues."

Event organiser James Mellors was more blunt: "I don't think they look very pretty. But the Market Square is a very high footfall area. It's not always about how things look, it's about keeping people safe."

A regular visitor, Amanda Hose Hawley, said she was "not surprised" and called the barriers "a sign of the climate we live in."

The language is careful, the justification technical. Yet the reason these barriers exist is no mystery.

Across Europe, radical Islamists have repeatedly turned vehicles into weapons against ordinary people gathered in public spaces. Britain is simply catching up with the physical reality already visible on the Continent.

Last winter German towns were forced into even more extreme measures. In the small Bavarian community of Külsheim, officials resorted to recycled anti-tank barriers pulled from old military barracks.

Four massive concrete blocks, each 1.4 metres wide and weighing several tonnes, were painted red and white and placed around the Christmas market.

The town's mayor, Simone Hickl-Seitz, explained the grim arithmetic: "They know exactly that all cities need this. But the coffers are empty."

Bollards that once cost €800 had risen tenfold in price because demand had exploded. The anti-tank relics saved the town €30,000.

That was not an isolated improvisation. Security spending on German Christmas markets rose 44 percent in three years, according to the Federal Association of City and Town Marketing.

Some towns simply cancelled their markets rather than meet the new requirements. The pressure intensified after the December 2024 Magdeburg attack, in which a Saudi national living in Germany for nearly two decades drove a vehicle through a Christmas market, killing six and injuring hundreds.

AfD politician Ulrich Siegmund cut through the official euphemisms: "Why do we need to protect Christmas markets? Go to Czech Republic, Poland - they haven't opened borders... We are losing our freedom bit by bit."

The same pattern has been documented in footage that circulated widely at the time. One widely viewed report showed Berlin's markets ringed by the same style of heavy concrete barriers once intended to stop invading armies, not shoppers buying Glühwein.

Britain's new portable barriers are lighter and more mobile, but they serve the identical purpose. Hostile vehicle mitigation has become standard guidance from the National Protective Security Authority.

Official documents now list crash-rated bollards, vehicle barriers and stand-off distances as core measures against "vehicle as a weapon" attacks.

The threat is no longer theoretical. In October 2025 a man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State used a vehicle and a bladed weapon outside a Manchester synagogue, killing three. Other plots and attacks across Europe have followed the same method: low-skill, high-impact, directed at soft civilian targets.

The Nottingham installation is being described as a trial. Organisers say there was no specific intelligence of an imminent attack. That claim misses the larger point.

Permanent or semi-permanent barriers are appearing at markets, festivals, high streets and public squares precisely because the background risk has become chronic.

Before the era of mass, uncontrolled immigration from regions where Islamist ideology remains mainstream, British towns did not need steel ramps that can stop a truck.

Children played in squares without negotiating "filter" gaps between anti-ram devices. Christmas markets did not require military surplus concrete painted in festive colours.

Now the physical landscape of everyday life is being redesigned around the assumption that someone may try to drive a vehicle into a crowd of shoppers, holidaymakers or beachgoers. The barriers are painted bright red and labelled H-STOP so no one can claim they are invisible. Their very visibility is the admission.

The cost is not only financial. Every barrier is a quiet confession that the post-1990s experiment in open borders has produced a security environment European cities once associated with conflict zones.

Politicians continue to speak of "community cohesion" and "diversity as strength" while the practical response is to harden every public gathering against the most predictable form of attack.

Nottingham's beach will close at the end of the summer and the portable barriers will be stored away. The underlying problem will not. The same devices, or heavier permanent versions, will reappear at the next festival, the next market, the next Christmas period.

Local authorities are not inventing a threat; they are reacting to one that has already left bodies in European streets and forced democratic societies to turn festive spaces into fortified zones.

The choice facing Britain and the rest of the West remains the same one German politicians have already faced: continue importing the conditions that make these barriers necessary, or finally reverse the policies that created the danger in the first place. Concrete and steel can stop a truck. They cannot restore a country that no longer feels safe enough to gather without them.


Islamic imperialism by terror

Manhunt Underway For Islamic State Suspect After Deadly Car Attack On Berlin Pride Parade 

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, JUL 26, 2026 - 07:00 AM

A manhunt is underway in Berlin for a 21-year-old Islamic State supporter accused of driving a vehicle into a pride celebration, killing one person and injuring at least 16 others. The German government called it a "heinous act" of violence. Given the suspect's jihadist ties, why not call it what it appears to be: terrorism?

"The chief suspect in a deadly attack near Berlin's pride parade on Saturday night is a supporter of the so-called Islamic State (IS) group and was previously convicted of related offenses, German media reported Sunday," AFP News reported on Sunday morning.

The outlet added, "The 21-year-old man named by police as Abdul B. last year traveled to the Middle East in a failed attempt to join IS, according the Bild and Spiegel newspapers. He was then convicted in Germany of "preparing a serious act of subversive violence," the papers report."

The attack occurred late Saturday night when Abdul drove his van into a group of pedestrians at the pride festival in Tiergarten, shortly before 10 p.m.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, Germany's top federal security official, said they "will push with particular urgency for the resolution and punishment of this heinous act."

Yet their statement stopped short of describing the attack as terrorism...

British political activist commented on the attack:

There is currently a manhunt in Berlin for 'known' Islamist Abdul B for predominantly peacefully driving straight through a pride parade while advocating for the religion of peace.

When you allow 'known' Islamist scumbags into your country what do you think will happen?

The attack will certainly intensify scrutiny of Europe's backfiring mass-migration policies and Germany's failure to adequately confront Islamist radicalization. Progressive policymakers in Berlin have increasingly focused on the AfD and right-wing extremism, but the latest violence is another reminder that jihadist networks remain among the country's most serious national security threats.

The attack will likely bolster more support for Alternative for Germany, which has positioned itself as the common-sense opposition to the left-wing political establishment. Its growing momentum suggests German voters are increasingly frustrated with nutty lefty globalist policies that have pushed Europe closer and closer to the brink of failure.


Evidence of the Chinese influence on the Biden's ignored

Catherine Herridge Uncovers Shocking Revelations About The Biden Family

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, JUL 26, 2026 - 09:50 AM

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Investigative journalist Catherine Herridge has uncovered records pointing to Chinese blackmail efforts targeting the Biden family - documents that sat in plain sight for the legacy media, the FBI, and the CIA, only to be met with willful blindness.

In a recent appearance discussing declassified materials related to China's 2020 election influence operations, Herridge described finding references to blackmail by China that were prepared for inclusion in the president's daily brief.

"I found these records which are talking about blackmail by China," Herridge explained, adding "It was for President Biden's daily brief. I can conclude, I think, that it was probably about targeting his family."

She noted that the findings, along with broader evidence of suppressed intelligence on Chinese influence, were ignored and buried in order to protect Democratic power, stating tghat "in the media or legacy media there was kind of a willful blindness. They didn't want to look at the records. All you had to do was spend a couple of hours."

Full segment:

These findings come in the wake of President Trump's primetime address to the nation last week, announcing newly declassified intelligence detailing China's massive compromise of U.S. voter data and the intelligence community's efforts to bury it.

Herridge, a veteran Emmy-winning investigative reporter, has previously pursued stories on the Hunter Biden laptop, the Biden family's foreign business dealings, and related corruption allegations - reporting that put her at odds with CBS leadership and the broader media consensus.

In February 2024 she was among those laid off in a round of cuts. CBS then seized her reporting files, including materials involving confidential sources. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Herridge described the seizure in stark terms: "When my records were seized I felt it was a journalistic rape."

She added that "CBS News' decision to seize my reporting records crossed a red line that I believe should never be crossed by any media organization" and that "When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your reporting files, including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism."

She has maintained that she simply "reported out the facts of the story. I called balls and strikes." The network eventually returned the files under pressure from the House Judiciary Committee and her union.

Earlier, during the 2020 campaign, the Biden team had already labeled her a "partisan, rightwing hack." Her treatment fits a pattern of institutional pushback against journalists who refused to look away from the Biden family's financial ties.

Those ties have been documented for years. House Oversight Committee investigations, led by Chairman James Comer, obtained bank records and witness accounts showing Chinese Communist Party-linked money flowing to Biden family members.

Comer stated that the documents demonstrated the family had received funds from CCP-connected entities and that family members "attempted to sell access & influence around the world."

A subsequent memorandum detailed more than $10 million in foreign money linked to Biden family members and associates, including previously undisclosed Romanian payments and millions tied to CEFC China Energy and related entities.

Republicans highlighted wires that reached multiple family members and questioned what services, if any, were provided in return. Comer accused the White House of running interference rather than correcting the record.

IRS whistleblowers later provided additional detail on Joe Biden's proximity to Hunter Biden's China deals. One text message from Hunter to a Chinese businessman read in part that he was "sitting here with my father" and demanded fulfillment of a financial commitment, warning of consequences involving "the man sitting next to me."

Business associate Rob Walker told the FBI that Joe Biden had stopped by a CEFC-related lunch at Hunter's request to bolster the deal. Whistleblowers described DOJ restrictions that limited questions about "the big guy" or "dad," blocked certain warrants on optics grounds, and produced a far softer outcome than the felony charges the IRS had recommended for millions in unreported foreign income from China, Ukraine, and Romania.

President Trump highlighted the same material in 2023, declaring that "Crooked Joe Biden Is Compromised, Owned By China." He quoted the Hunter text and noted the rapid transfer of millions from Chinese sources, arguing that Beijing understood the leverage it held.

Further evidence of parallel communication channels emerged when investigative journalist Peter Schweizer revealed that Hunter Biden paid for a secret AT&T global "burner" phone used by Joe Biden during his vice presidency.

When journalist John Solomon dialed the number, Joe Biden answered before hanging up. Schweizer shared the account details with the House Oversight Committee in hopes of obtaining records that could illuminate contacts with foreign executives.

Taken together, the pattern is consistent: large foreign payments, documented proximity of the then-vice president and later president to the deals, internal efforts to limit scrutiny, and a media apparatus that treated the most serious questions as radioactive.

Herridge's latest examination of the declassified China records simply adds another layer - references to blackmail pressure that reached the level of the president's daily brief - yet once again the institutional response has been to look away.

The American people were told for years that these matters were conspiracy theories or Russian disinformation. The bank records, the texts, the whistleblower testimony, the phone, and now the intelligence product references say otherwise.

Accountability still matters. The full scope of foreign leverage over the Biden family remains a question of national security.

 


Want to guess the party affiliation?Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor Indicted In "Biggest Bribery Scandal In State History"

Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor Indicted In "Biggest Bribery Scandal In State History"

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, JUL 26, 2026 - 10:25 AM

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a Democrat, was indicted by an Oahu grand jury on Friday on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying candidate committee reports. The charges stem from an alleged 2022 scheme, dating to her time as a powerful state lawmaker, to steer state money toward COVID-19 testing contracts during the pandemic. Hawaii News Now reported that legal experts are calling it the biggest bribery scandal in state history.

Luke was one of five people named in the 12-count indictment. The others: Ryan Yamane, a former state representative and ex-director of the Department of Human Services; Tobi Solidum, a businessman and lobbyist; Ford Fuchigami, a Transportation Department official; and Leo Asuncion, a former chair of the state Public Utilities Commission. Luke turned herself in Friday afternoon; her bail was set at $80,000.

Gov. Josh Green did not wait for the case to develop. "The Lieutenant Governor needs to consider formally resigning to address this matter and so that the state of Hawaiʻi can move forward," Green said in a statement Friday.

The Steakhouse Meeting

According to the indictment, Solidum was working as a lobbyist and consultant to the National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii, which held a state contract to run community COVID-19 testing sites. With those contracts set to expire and dependent on the state approving emergency funding, prosecutors allege, Solidum set out to buy influence.

On Jan. 20, 2022, Luke - then chair of the powerful House Finance Committee and running for lieutenant governor - met Solidum and others in a private dining room at Morton's Steakhouse. Prosecutors allege Solidum arranged for two $5,000 checks, both made out to "Friends of Sylvia Luke," to be handed to her in an envelope she placed in her handbag. The pair discussed COVID-19 testing funding and union support for her campaign, according to the indictment - as reported by the NYT.

"By next week, we'll have 35 - so it will be halfway to our 70," Solidum told Luke, according to the filings, allegedly referring to an eventual $70,000. "Oh wow," Luke replied. "That's terrific." The day after the dinner, the indictment states, Luke ordered a House committee chair to set up a meeting with government officials to discuss emergency appropriations to the state health department.

Here the fuller record matters. The written indictment makes no direct reference to $35,000 actually changing hands, according to Honolulu Civil Beat - it alleges Solidum promised $35,000 as the first half of the $70,000. And the cash allegations in the case attach not to Luke but to two of her co-defendants: Hawaii News Now reported the indictment does not allege Luke took cash, while Yamane and Fuchigami allegedly took cash payments from Solidum.

That distinction is central to Luke's defense. She has consistently denied wrongdoing. Luke previously said she did not take "$35,000 in a paper bag," and acknowledged accepting the two $5,000 checks while denying she ever accepted a $35,000 donation - a sum that would exceed Hawaii's legal limit for campaign contributions. In a statement months ago, she said she had "never granted special favors to a contributor" and had "prized integrity and honesty above all" throughout her career.

The Informant, And The Missing Millions

The state case was built on a federal one. Ty Cullen, a former state legislator, was arrested by federal officials in 2021 on bribery charges, then began cooperating with the FBI - wearing a wire and recording meetings, including the 2022 Morton's dinner, as Honolulu Civil Beat has reported. Earlier federal sentencing records described that interaction and identified the recipient of the $35,000 figure only as an "influential" state lawmaker, without naming anyone. The same federal probe previously sent Cullen and former state senator J. Kalani English to prison.

On Jan. 16 of this year, the U.S. Department of Justice handed Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez evidence about the unnamed legislator. Four days later, Lopez announced a state investigation. Six months on, that investigation produced Friday's indictments.

Prosecutors were pointed about who they view as the center of the scheme. "If we're looking at the most culpable individual, factually, we believe it's Ryan Yamane," said David Van Acker, a deputy attorney general, per KHON2. Yamane drew the highest bail at $150,000.

And the man who allegedly orchestrated it all is gone. The indictment states Solidum "has been continuously absent from the State of Hawaiʻi," so no bail was set for him. According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Solidum is separately under federal investigation after bankruptcy filings alleged he made off with at least $7 million from the COVID-19 testing contracts - the same contracts at the heart of the bribery case.

A Fall From Grace

The charges mark a stunning reversal for Luke, who spent more than two decades as a state representative, including 10 years running the House Finance Committee, where she oversaw the state budget and built a reputation - as Honolulu Civil Beat put it - for holding others accountable. She had been widely seen as a leading contender for governor.

Luke took an indefinite, unpaid leave of absence in April after receiving a target letter, was replaced by an acting lieutenant governor, and abandoned her re-election bid. As the state investigation unfolded, several Hawaii labor unions released statements in her support.

The political class read Friday's news through the lens of one-party control of the islands. "It goes to show that the system that's been in control of the state for so many years is following through with the perception that the public has had for so many years," said state Rep. Diamond Garcia, a Republican. A government watchdog was blunter about the puzzle at the center of the case. "If you know Sylvia's lines of power," said Camron Hurt of Common Cause Hawaii, "it's weird that she made this type of mistake."


FBI ‘Most Wanted’ fraud suspect arrested in Jamaica over alleged $32M COVID-19 relief scheme


FBI ‘Most Wanted’ fraud suspect arrested in Jamaica over alleged $32M COVID-19 relief scheme

One of the FBI’s most wanted alleged COVID-19 fraud fugitiveshas been returned to the United States after authorities captured her in Jamaica, where FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital she had been living under the fake identity “Harley Newman” while evading charges tied to a $32 million pandemic relief fraud scheme.

Elaine Angene Escoe, 41, arrived back in South Florida Thursday after Jamaican authorities arrested her following a federal manhunt.

Prosecutors allege she helped fraudulently obtain more than $32 million in taxpayer-funded COVID-19 relief funds before fleeing the country after failing to appear in federal court.

Escoe was indicted in 2025 on charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and multiple counts of money laundering, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Federal prosecutors said a judge issued an arrest warrant after Escoe failed to appear in court in May 2025.

Federal agents hold Elaine Angene Escoe for a photo after her arrest and return to the US. FBI
Elaine Angene Escoe, 41, was arrested in Jamaica and returned to the United States to face COVID-19 fraud charges. Federal Bureau of Investigation

Authorities allege she fled to Jamaica, where she was later located and arrested after the FBI received a tip.

“This Most Wanted Fraudster allegedly obtained tens of millions in COVID-19 relief, stealing critical resources from legitimate businesses during a national crisis,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Digital.

“She fled the country believing she could escape justice but ultimately could not,” he continued. “Those who exploit taxpayer-funded programs will be held accountable by this Department of Justice, no matter how long it takes or where they attempt to hide.”


Patel called Escoe’s arrest another milestone in the FBI’s international fraud crackdown, saying she is the fourth alleged “Most Wanted Fraudster” captured in the past five weeks.

“The historic success of the ‘Most Wanted Fraudster’ list continues as the FBI and our partners just captured our fourth Most Wanted Fraudster in 5 weeks, and yet another high value target returned to the US by this FBI,” Patel said. “Elaine Angene Escoe, on the run since May 2025, was captured in Jamaica while living under a fake identity of ‘Harley Newman’ — and returned to the United States today to face justice.”

Escoe allegedly stole over $32 million in COVID relief fraud from the federal government in a scheme. FBI
Escoe was indicted in 2025 on charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and multiple counts of money laundering. FBI

Patel said Escoe is charged with being involved in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering connected to a scheme that fraudulently obtained more than $32 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds.

He added that the FBI has returned more than 30 high-value targets to the US since June.


Patel said four alleged fraud suspects captured over the past five weeks are collectively charged with nearly $1.8 billion in fraud after spending more than 3,500 days on the run across three continents.

“Under this administration, fraud is no longer tolerated — and those who steal from American taxpayers have nowhere to hide,” Patel said.

Authorities said the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the US Marshals Service, Jamaican law enforcement and the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office coordinated Escoe’s return to the US.