Where do European’s feel the least safe?

To answer this question, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized the results of Numbeo’s Crime Index, which reveals how people perceive safety in their own city as of mid-2025.

Unlike official crime statistics, this index reflects public sentiment through crowdsourced surveys.

Data & Discussion

Numbeo’s City Crime Index uses a scale from 0 to 100, based on residents’ self-reported experiences and perceptions. The survey covers various aspects of crime, including:

• General perception of crime levels

• Perceived safety during day and night

• Concerns about specific crimes (mugging, robbery, car theft, physical attacks, etc)

• Severity of property crime (burglary, theft, vandalism)

• Severity of violent crime (assault, homicide, sexual offenses)

As mentioned above, higher values indicate a stronger sense of insecurity among residents. Here’s how to interpret the scores:

• Very Low Crime: 20 and below

• Low Crime: 20.01-40

• Moderate Crime: 40.01-60

• High Crime: 60.01-80

• Very High Crime: above 80

According to the mid-2025 rankings, the top five most dangerous cities in Europe are Bradford, Marseille, Coventry, Birmingham, and Naples.

The UK Claims Four of the Top Five

Four of the top five cities — Bradford, Coventry, Birmingham, and London — are located in the United Kingdom. Bradford leads the list with a Crime Index of 67.1, the highest in Europe.

One area of concern is rising knife crime. In the year ending March 2024, there were roughly 50,500 offences involving a knife in England and Wales, up notably from 33,800 in 2011.

Under current UK laws, individuals must be at least 18 years old to purchase a knife.

France

France accounts for seven of the top 10 entries, including Marseille, Grenoble, Montpellier, Nantes, Paris, Lyon, and Nice. Despite their cultural and economic prominence, these cities report strong local concerns about petty theft, vandalism, and other poverty-related issues.

Marseille, in particular, remains associated with organized crime, while Paris struggles with perceptions of street crime in tourist areas.

What the Crime Index Really Measures

It’s important to remember that these are the most dangerous cities in Europe according to citizen perceptions, not official crime data. Factors such as media coverage, visible disorder, and local socioeconomic conditions can all influence these scores.

Still, perception plays a major role in shaping city reputations, affecting tourism, investment, and migration decisions across Europe.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The $3.1 Trillion Financial Crime Pandemic on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Via Remix News,

The far-left extremist portal “Indymedia,” associated with Antifa, was used to target three politicians of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Hamburg, including the publishing of their home addresses and calls to take action against the “fascists.” The information was published both on the platform but also on stickers, which were put up all over the neighborhoods where the three politicians live.

As a result, a state investigation has been launched.

Two AfD city council members were targeted, as well as a district council member, with the stickers distributed in the neighborhoods of all three individuals. The stickers featured the address and photos of all three politicians, along with a message that read: “Attention, AfD fascists in your neighborhood.” 

The same information was published on the Indymedia website, which is well-known for publishing manifestos and calls to action for Antifa terror groups. Recently, a left-wing group took responsibility on the platform for a series of attacks on Berlin’s electrical grid, which resulted in the longest-running blackout in Berlin’s history since the end of the Cold War.

Indymedia also published the message that the “three AfD politicians in Hamburg have been outed.” The message read that the AfD politicians had been “visited” in their neighborhoods. The post also included a message: “We greet all Antifa members in hiding and in prison! Lots of strength and love to the antifascist Maja! We stand together! Free ALL Antifas! Fight Fascism!”

“Maja” refers to the alleged left-wing trans person currently incarcerated in Hungary and standing trial for a wave of vicious attacks in Budapest. Hungarian authorities state that Maja was involved in these serious assaults, which were committed by the Antifa terror group known as the Hammer Gang.

Dirk Nockemann, the Hamburg AfD parliamentary group leader, condemned the action as “attempts at intimidation” and said they should be “condemned in the strongest possible terms.” Nockemann also called on left-wing parties in the Hamburg Parliament to condemn the terrorizing of political opponents.

“Antifa means terror. It is a left-wing terrorist and anti-democratic group that, like no other, stands for public denunciation and violence against dissidents,” wrote Nockermann. He criticized political leaders who have often associated themselves with Antifa. The previous interior minister, Nancy Faeser, even wrote for Antifa Magazine shortly before she was installed in her position.

AfD politicians have long been targeted in attacks, including arson attacks and assaults. Bernd Baumann, parliamentary director of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, spoke to WELT TV about his own experiences after being named by Antifa via “Indymedia.” Baumann described the constant threat, saying, “I’m constantly being attacked on my house. My wife is really scared.” To feel safe, he said he installed “steel doors and got a dog so his wife could sleep again.”

Baumann also recounted an incident where his tenant’s car was burned in front of his house. He detailed the immediate online claim of responsibility: “And the next morning, Antifa wrote on Indymedia that we had once again burned an expensive limousine in front of Bernd Baumann’s house.” The resulting damages and fear meant he “could no longer rent the house.”

In Hamburg itself, AfD politicians have already been brutally assaulted, including in an incident from 2023.

Notably, the West has been plagued with a wave of extremist left-wing violence as of late, with numerous assassination attempts against Donald Trump, along with the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, which was allegedly committed by Antifa and trans activist Tyler Robinson. As a result, Antifa has been declared to be a domestic terror threat in the United States by Donald Trump.

Other European leaders have called for similar action against Antifa. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was nearly killed last year in an assassination attempt, is one of the European leaders attempting to highlight the risks coming from left-wing terrorists.

Read more here…

In Boston, the price of beer has shot up 43% since 2020, the fastest jump in America.

Not only that, beer inflation in Boston is the eighth-highest worldwide, driven by higher ingredient and materials costs.

This trend has been seen in many big cities globally, surpassing the rate of inflation.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the cities with the steepest beer price increases and decreases in the last five years, based on data from Deutsche Bank.

Top 10 Biggest Beer Price Increases

Below, we show cities with the highest beer price inflation. Figures represent the nominal change in an average price of a 0.5L bottle of domestic beer since 2020.

In Argentina’s capital, beer has jumped an eye-watering 89% since 2020, costing $2.23 on average in 2025.

Meanwhile, European cities account for six of the 10 largest price increases, with Birmingham, UK leading at a 63% surge. Warsaw, Poland follows closely with a 59% jump, fueled by higher excise taxes and persistent inflation.

Mexico City has also faced mounting price pressures. In 2022, Grupo Modelo raised prices after global beer production costs spiked by an average of 62% over the prior two years. Added to this, rising tourism and an influx of digital nomads have further driven prices upward.

Top 10 Biggest Beer Price Declines

In contrast, here are the cities with the largest drop in beer prices:

Beer prices have sunk the most in Dubai (-37%) amid easing liquor laws, which previously put a 30% tax on alcohol sales.

In Tokyo, beer has also become increasingly affordable as the yen stands at 30-year lows to the U.S. dollar and several other major currencies. As a result, prices are now 30% cheaper than in 2020, where domestic beer can cost around $2.14.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the top countries by beer consumption in the world.

Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

In my previous article I suggested that the UK’s proposed “mandatory” digital ID, called the BritCard, was a bait and switch psyop. I posited that the arguments presented by Keir Starmer’s purported Labour government, to supposedly justify the BritCard rollout, coupled with the timing of the announcement, the apparent inability to understand public opinion, and the lack of necessity for the BritCard, indicated that there was something amiss with the so-called government’s BritCard proposition.

It seems to me that the purpose of the BritCard gambit is to frame the Overton Window for the public debate about digital ID in the UK.

People can accept or reject it, imagining the BritCard represents the totality of digital ID infrastructure. If the population rejects the BritCard they may well do so under the misapprehension they have defeated digital ID in the UK.

Subsequent developments have strengthened my view.

Digital ID is a global policy initiative that governments around the world, including the British government, are following, not leading.

It is the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9 which promises to “by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.”

Even before the ink was officially dry on SDG 16.9, the ID2020 group, tasked with meeting the “identity” sustainability target, outlined what achieving SDG 16.9 would mean in practical terms:

[C]reate technology-driven public-private partnerships to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of providing legal identity for everyone on the planet.

ID2020 further clarified the global policy objective:

By 2030, enabling access to digital identity for every person on the planet.

The objective of SDG 16.9 is to force not just approved “legal identity” but digital ID on every human being on earth. To this end, the UN has already created a nascent global digital ID database called ID4D. The ID4D Global Dataset aim to capture the data of “all people aged 0 and above.”

Run by the World Bank Group—a UN specialised agency—ID4D informs us:

The World Bank Group’s Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative harnesses global and cross-sectoral knowledge, World Bank financing instruments, and partnerships to help countries realize the transformational potential of identification (ID) systems. [. . .] The aim is to enable all people to exercise their rights and access better services and economic opportunities in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

At first reading this might not seem so bad. Therefore, it is very important to be clear about what it implies.

Your access to all “services” and all “economic opportunities” will be dependent upon you possessing the requisite digital ID; the entire economy—all services and all economic activity—must comply with “Sustainable Development Goals.” This means everything will be ordered by the global governance system, not by national governments. Finally, “partnership” means public-private partnerships.

If you think I may have put an unwarranted pejorative spin on the ID4D statement consider that the UN’s SDG 16.9 makes no mention of “digital ID,” only “legal identity.” Yet, ID2020, the UN’s own body responsible for implementing SDG 16.9, had already committed to the global rollout of digital ID before the UN officially announced its global governance ID agenda.

The UN “regime” is not an honourable or trustworthy organisation and we must interpret its goals and public statements carefully to understand the actual implications. With far less fanfare, and allowing for a suitable cooling-off period, in 2023, the UN finally came out of the closet and simply said it wanted “Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts.”

The global public-private partnership (G3P)—essentially a nexus between central banks, international policy think tanks, the UN, multinational corporations, NGO’s and other “philanthropic” organisations, and governments—is propelling the global rollout of digital ID. ID4D “partners” include the Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) that represents “leading global companies” seeking to “shape the future.”

Leading WEF Partners include US data and AI giant Palantir. The WEF runs a number of global research “Centres” and Palantir is a key partner in five of them including the Centres for Cybersecurity and for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The UN began as a public-private partnership. In 1998, having undergone a “quiet revolution,” it formally shifted away from being an intergovernmental organisation to become a public-private global governance regime that promotes “business-friendly legislation.”

Like the UN ID4D project, the central bank of central banks—the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)—envisages a “unified ledger” that will oversee every transaction on earth. The power to control all commerce extends to all business to business (B2B) transactions. The Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are among the central banks working on the associated BIS-led Project Agora:

The project aims to test the desirability, feasibility and viability of a multi-currency unified ledger for wholesale cross-border payments. [. . .] The project is a public-private collaboration that seeks to use new technology to improve the correspondent banking model.

To appreciate what this new global monetary system is designed to achieve we need to understand “tokenization.” McKinsey explains:

Tokenization is the process of creating a digital representation of a real thing. [. . .] [T]okenization is a digitization process to make assets more accessible, [. . .] tokenization is used for cybersecurity and to obfuscate the identity of the payment itself, essentially to prevent fraud. [. . .] [T]okenized financial assets are moving from pilot to at-scale development. McKinsey analysis indicates that tokenized market capitalization could reach around $2 trillion by 2030 (excluding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and stablecoins like Tether). [. . .] Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, said in January 2024: “We believe the next step going forward will be the tokenization of financial assets, and that means every stock, every bond … will be on one general ledger.”

The BIS has been planning to seize the opportunity presented by tokenisation operating on a “one general” or a unified ledger for some time:

A new type of financial market infrastructure – a unified ledger – could capture the full benefits of tokenisation by combining central bank money, tokenised deposits and tokenised assets on a programmable platform

Digital ID is inextricably linked to “onboarding”—accessing and using—programmable digital currencies (PDCs) such as stablecoins and central bank digital currency (CBDC). The push to get us to adopt programmable digital currency is also a public-private global project. The BIS spells out why digital ID is a prerequisite for using programmable digital currency:

Identification at some level is [. . .] central in the design of CBDCs. This calls for a CBDC that is account-based and ultimately tied to a digital identity. [. . .] A digital identity scheme, which could combine information from a variety of sources [. . .] will thus play an important role in such an account based design. By drawing on information from national registries and from other public and private sources, such as education certificates, tax and benefits records, property registries etc, a digital ID serves to establish individual identities online. [. . .] [S]ystems in which the private and official sector develop a common governance framework and strive for interoperability between their services, [. . .] represent the furthest-reaching model. These allow administrative databases to be linked up, further enhancing the functionality and usefulness of digital ID.

The BIS is quite clear about the interoperable model that will “allow administrative databases to be linked up.” In such a model your biometric—biological identifier—digital ID (e-ID) will be constructed by your use of the “interoperable” system framework.

Your e-ID will provide both public and private organisations access to your data. For example, as long as they have the required access permission, approved private finance “partners” can check your identity attributes, such as your qualifications, tax records, history of any welfare payments you may have received, and assess the value of any of your other e-ID attributes, such as property or other assets you might own. This can help them decide if they will offer you credit, how much interest to charge you, whether to offer you insurance or not, and at what price, etc.

In addition, every time you make a transaction with your PDC—by virtue of it being directly connected to your e-ID—public and private parties with sufficient access permissions to the application programmable interface (API) layer will be able to use your e-ID attributes to make decisions about processing payments, in real time, such as allowing or disallowing your transactions.

The BIS illuminates:

APIs ensure the secure exchange of data and instructions between parties in digital interactions. [. . .] Crucially, APIs can be set up to transmit only data relevant to a specific transaction. [. . .] An example is “open banking”, which allows third-party financial service providers to access transaction and other financial data from traditional financial institutions through APIs. For example, a fintech [Financial Technology company] could use banks’ transaction data to assess credit risk and offer a loan at lower, more transparent rates than those offered by traditional financial institutions. [. . .] Payment APIs may offer software that allows organisations to create interoperable digital payment services to connect customers, merchants, banks and other financial providers. [. . .] [T]he recipient’s bank (or financial services provider) needs to agree to the transaction on the customer’s behalf. During this [. . .] step, it is verified that the transaction satisfies rules and regulations. [. . .] Once there is agreement, in [the next] step funds are transferred and made available to the recipient immediately.

Such a system could, and it may offer all kinds of cost savings and other benefits. But behavioural and, ultimately, social and economic control, is what the likes of the UN, the BIS, and their partners desire. Speaking in October 2020, BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens explained why PDCs are nothing like any form of money we are currently familiar with:

The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.

Again, “interoperability,” enabling universally recognised e-ID to be assigned to all transactions, using internationally accepted PDCs, allows API’s to precisely control any transaction, anywhere, between any parties, by using digital agreements, often called “smart contracts.” The BIS collaborated on Operation Rosalind with the Bank of England to develop the smart contract functionality we will all be subjected to in the UK once we accept e-ID and, as planned, PDCs.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)—most likely blockchain—will record, oversee and control all digital transactions on a “unified ledger.” The Operation Rosalind social engineers concluded:

Ledger API layer: This layer translated smart contracts into API calls and transformed API requests into a format understood by, and actionable for, the central bank ledger. [. . .] This could support many use cases, such as third-party payment initiation, external smart contract applications and budgeting applications.

Smart contracts on the API layer could be used to automatically initiate “third party payment” such as taking taxes, fines, private penalty charges, utility payments, and so on, directly from your “digital wallet.” Using smart contracts, your e-ID assigned PDC can be programmed, in real time, to control what you buy, from whom, where and when.

Bo Li, the former Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, and the current Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaking at the Central Bank Digital Currencies for Financial Inclusion: Risks and Rewards symposium, explained the power that programmable digital currency provides to those with the approved ledger permissions:

CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targeted policy functions. For example[,] welfare payments [. . .], consumption coupons, [. . .] food stamps. By programming, CBDC money can be precisely targeted [to] what kind of [things] people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised. For example, [. . .] for food.

Whatever falsehoods the government or the media might tell you about digital ID, the fact is digital ID is a global governance policy initiative and the objective is to control our behavior and our lives. Digital ID (e-ID) is the keystone for a global system of oppression and once we have accepted e-ID the rollout of a global network of programmable digital currencies (PDCs) will immediately follow.

Whether we accept BritCard or not, the UK government has already adopted what the BIS called “the furthest reaching model” of e-ID. The system is managed by the UK government’s Office for Digital Identity Attributes. The “Office” has registered the current slew of private companies that have won bids to provide “digital ID and attribute services” to all of us in the UK. Notable e-ID and attribute service providers include Deloitte (Go Verify) and Mastercard.

In order to become a “trustworthy digital verification service (DVS),” global corporations like Deloitte and Mastercard must adhere to the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. The framework sets the “technical and operating standards for use across the UK’s economy [that] will help to enable international and domestic interoperability.” International interoperability will ensure all the data harvested from the UK population is available to the architects of global governance. Possibly via the ID4D or the BIS unified ledger, for example.

In order to ensure both domestic and international interoperability between all e-ID products and services, the DVS-provider must use the approved “data schema.” Section 14 of the framework provides all the technical information-exchange standards that will enable interoperability.

The interoperability standards allow all the data harvested from you to be stored and transmitted “in a machine-readable format” that is “interoperable with other certified services and relying parties” both “in the UK and internationally.” This means, for instance, that data seized from your use of your digital biometric driving licence, or passport, can be connected to the separate “trustworthy” DVS provided by, for example, the issuer of your bank card.

This interoperable system means that a single, government issued BritCard is completely unnecessary and achieves nothing whatsoever. The e-ID framework that the government has been developing for years, and already has in place, does not need and does not benefit from BritCard.

Yet, when more than 2.8 million people apparently signed a government petition opposing Britcard, in response, the government said:

We will introduce a digital ID within this Parliament. [. . .] [T]he new digital ID will build on GOV.UK One Login and the GOV.UK Wallet to drive the transformation of public services. Over time, this system will allow people to access government services – such as benefits or tax records – without needing to remember multiple logins or provide physical documents.

Beyond the demonstrable reality that the government doesn’t care what we think, this statement is gibberish. The GOV.UK One Login system was designed around the interoperable UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. Farcically, One Login’s hopeless cybersecurity failings led the government to revoke the “framework” accreditation for its own service in May of this year. The government then handed multi-million pound contracts to PA Consulting and the US Tech Giant Accenture to try and fix all the One Login problems and hopefully regain its own interoperable framework accreditation.

BritCard is not framework compliant and is not listed as a DVS-provider. The BritCard concept has not been put out for either market or public consultation. BritCard does not exist in any meaningful sense and is nothing but a PR stunt. The only question is what is the purpose of the stunt. There are some telling clues.

Palantir is a “data-mining juggernaut” that works closely with US intelligence and national security agencies. It is a UK strategic defence partner, and operates the UK NHS Federated Data Platform which “connects vital health information across the NHS.”

Palantir also operates a number of its own strategic partnerships with other global corporations. For example, its partnership with KPMG affords KPMG access to “Palantir Foundry”—Palantir’s AI software platform. The government then awarded KPMG the contract to promote and rollout Palantir’s NHS Federated Data Platform across the country. This is understandable because Palantir Foundry is also the AI software platform digitally transforming the UK government.

Palantir’s partnership with the UK digital verification service (DVS) provider Deloitte enables both companies to “break down institutional barriers, organize fragmented data, and transform information into decisive action.” Its partnership with Accenture will supposedly deliver “transformational outcomes,” and its partnership with fellow US intelligence cut-out Oracle will “accelerate AI” for businesses and governments. This is why the UK government has given Oracle the contract to do just that.

With its vast array of networked connections into the heart of the British state, it is no surprise that the UK government is heavily reliant on Palantir Gotham to plan missions and run investigations “using disparate data.” This will enable state operatives—or Palantir operatives, depending on how you look at it—to “produce actionable intelligence based on the full ecosystem of available data.” For Palantir, that “available data” in the UK appears to be pretty much all of it.

In the UK, Gotham is fully “interoperable with any legacy system,” quickly makes “connections across massive scale, dispersed datasets,” and enables the sharing of “investigative reports” either “internally” or with “partner agencies,” who ever they may be. If it existed, BritCard would add nothing other than additional hassle.

Once again, interoperability, is the key to hoovering up data from all “dispersed datasets” and Palantir is among the North American, UK, and European global technology firms to have already invested in the interoperable digital attributes framework in the UK. Louis Mosley, Executive Vice President (EVP) of the UK and Europe for Palantir Technologies, told the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee—which was deliberating on the UK government’s e-ID plans:

Interoperability is our [Palantir’s] bread and butter. As the Chair described, one of the core value-adds of the software is the fact that it can interact with and read and write data from pretty much every system out there. […] [W]e provide an enormous amount of control and governance to the organisations that use our software.

With this mouthwatering and unprecedented control and governance on the near horizon, what on earth possessed the government to seemingly throw the whole thing into jeopardy by trying to stamp digital ID onto a very resistant British population? When it came to office a little over a year ago, Labour categorically rejected digital ID. Then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “It’s not in our manifesto. That’s not not our approach.”

What’s changed? Has Starmer’s government lost its collective mind?

Or is there a more plausible explanation?

In a very revealing interview with former BBC political editor John Pienaar for Times Radio, Louis Mosley made a series of claims regarding why Palantir had decided—and very publicly announced—it will not back BritCard. Bizarrely, Mosley said he had “personal concerns about digital ID.”

He added that Palantir will “help democratically elected governments implement the policies they have been elected to deliver.” He noted, however, that digital ID was not in Labour’s election manifesto and that the decision to adopt digital should be taken at “the ballot box.” Therefore, he demurred, the BritCard project “isn’t one for” Palantir.

Of course, harvesting every possible scrap of data to enable “control” of the population wasn’t in the Labour Party’s manifesto either, but that hasn’t stopped Palantir from enthusiastically diving into that project. As for Mosley’s personal qualms about such things, if he holds them, he is definitely working for the wrong intelligence-linked “data-mining juggernaut.”

It was Pienaar who perhaps made the most interesting comment of all:

Among the other views, privately expressed by ministers, about the digital ID, a program, which at least one senior politician, who thought this wasn’t going to happen, it was just be too difficult. Do you think it’s gonna happen?

Pienaar is a member of the Establishment. He is privy to the the off-the-record discussions of ministers. His observation is worth thinking about.

Mosely replied:

One of my concerns about it is the technical feasibility of it or, maybe better expressed, the technical necessity of it. No doubt, we have all had the experience of engaging with parts of government where the online experience leaves something to be desired. It needs improvement.

However, we are in a world now where, I think, there are at least a dozen unique identifiers for each of us in government. We have passports, we have driving licenses, we have unique tax codes, we have national insurance numbers. Now, each of these sits in a silo and doesn’t talk to the other, isn’t harmonised. There’s no way for government to easily jump from one to another.

That could be achieved, in the back-end, with relatively little effort and I think that would go a long way to improving that citizen experience. I don’t see the need for an additional form of identification on top of the many that already exist.

Over the last decade or so, ably assisted by mega-corporations like Palantir, Deloitte, and Oracle, successive British governments have been putting the interoperable digital ID infrastructure together. Mosley casually refers to this as the “back-end.”

Our adoption of digital ID is absolutely essential to the state’s, and its private partners’, long-term plans. At some point, we have to be convinced to use it.

Let’s assume Pienaar is right: the government knows we will not accept e-ID. How, then, does it coerce us into adopting it?

It announces a Mickey Mouse, pretend digital ID and deliberately raises the specter of government overreach in our lives. It knows we will react viscerally and anticipates the backlash. In so doing, it focuses the public debate on the introduction of a single, government issued e-ID which it doesn’t need and has put no effort into developing. Waiting for us is the real digital ID system that government and its corporate partners, like Palantir, have actually been engineering.

Along comes the saviour, in this instance embodied by Palantir and Louis Mosley, pointing out to us that we don’t need BritCard. We just need to improve the “back-end” of the government’s system so that all our cards and licenses can “talk to the other” in harmony. And that is the essence of genuine digital ID.

It seems highly likely that we will reject BritCard. An ignominious defeat will be heaped on the government and talked about incessantly by the media as it extols how we Brits will never succumb to digital ID.

It’s just that we need to tweak the “back-end” a bit to improve our “citizen experience” as we interact with the online public-private state.

BritCard is a bait and switch psyop. Don’t fall for it.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Authored by Frank Landymore via Futurism.com,

A new analysis of our solar system’s interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, reveals that it’s spewing huge amounts of water — and astronomers can’t immediately explain why.

The object, which is widely believed to be comet, showed strong ultraviolet emissions that are unmistakable telltales of hydroxyl gas (OH), a byproduct of water, when astronomers imaged it with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift space telescope before it disappeared behind the Sun. The emissions could only be spotted from space because the ultraviolet light would get absorbed in the atmosphere.

Their findings, detailed in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, argue that the presence of all this OH indicates the comet is ejecting water vapor at a torrential rate of about 88 pounds per second — around the same rate as a fire hose running at full blast, according to a press release about the findings.

The most extraordinary thing is that this was spotted happening pretty far from the Sun, at a heliocentric distance of about three astronomical units (AU) away, or three times the distance between the Earth and our star. Typically, comets stray much closer to the Sun before the water ice in their core, called a nucleus, begins to sublimate, or instantly transform from a solid to a gas. Something else must be driving all the water dumping from 3I/ATLAS — which also implies, tantalizingly, that the comet must harbor considerable stores of water for this process to keep going.

“When we detect water — or even its faint ultraviolet echo, OH, — from an interstellar comet, we’re reading a note from another planetary system,” coauthor Dennis Bodewits, a professor of physics at Auburn University, said in the release. “It tells us that the ingredients for life’s chemistry are not unique to our own.”

It’s another example of the fascinating strangeness of interstellar objects like 3I/ATLAS. Think of it as a sample of somewhere very far away, perhaps tens of millions of light years, careening straight past our doorstep. That it’s in many ways bizarre compared to local comets hints at just how unique these unimaginable alien realms must be, and how we have so much more to understand of how star systems form and how their structures may evolve.

Typically, a comet’s coma, a huge halo of gas and dust that give comets their glowing appearance, begin to form as the object nears the Sun — or another star, presumably — and heats up. The heat either sublimates or vaporizes the material in its nucleus, which is many times smaller than the tail that catches our eyes from the ground, stretching behind the comet.

3I/ATLAS’s coma has already surprised us in many ways. Its chemistry is strange compared to our own comets, and it appears to have an astonishingly high ratio of carbon dioxide to water.

What’s causing the outpouring of water vapor is still unclear. The astronomers speculate that sunlight might be heating up the ice grains released from the nucleus, which then get vaporized into the surrounding coma.

Astronomers believe that 3I/ATLAS came from the center of the Milky Way, where it was likely booted out of its original star system by a gravitational disturbance like the close flyby of another star, braving interstellar space before eventually cruising through our solar neighborhood. Based on these inferences, astronomers estimated that the comet must be billions of years old, perhaps three billion years older than the Sun itself. It’s not only a snapshot of a different part of the galaxy, but a different era of the cosmos altogether.

Right now, 3I/ATLAS is flying behind the Sun, so we can’t observe it from Earth. But scientists have been able to catch a glimpse of it using spacecraft stationed near Mars, and it’ll soon swing back into full view in late November.

“Every interstellar comet so far has been a surprise,” said lead author Zexi Xing, a postdoctoral researcher at Auburn University, said in a statement about the work referencing the two previously discovered interstellar objects. “‘Oumuamua was dry, Borisov was rich in carbon monoxide, and now ATLAS is giving up water at a distance where we didn’t expect it.”

“Each one,” Xing added, “is rewriting what we thought we knew about how planets and comets form around stars.”

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On a sweltering mid-August weekend, hundreds of women at Federal Prison Camp Bryan were locked in their dorms, missing family time and fresh air. All except one: Ghislaine Maxwell. The 63-year-old Jeffrey Epstein confidante, convicted for helping him abuse underage teens, held a quiet meeting with several visitors inside the prison chapel while the rest of the camp was on ice, according to a new report from the WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter.

Maxwell had landed at the minimum-security Texas facility less than three weeks earlier, after a sudden transfer from a higher-security prison in Tallahassee. That move alone raised eyebrows: Bureau of Prisons policy generally keeps sex offenders out of camps without a special waiver. Her defense has said she faced “serious danger” in Florida; the bureau won’t say how many waivers like this exist – or why Maxwell got one.

The ripple effects inside Bryan were immediate. Inmates say the usually relaxed camp tightened the screws: more frequent lockdowns, armed guards on site, and SORT tactical teams posted at the gates. Black tarps went back up on the fence line. Guards delivered meals to Maxwell’s room, escorted her for late-night workouts, and let her shower after others were confined. Meanwhile, resentment simmered. Some inmates called her a “chomo,” prison slang for child molester. The warden, sources said, warned that threats or media chatter would earn a fast ticket to a harsher joint.

The flashpoint came days after gunfire erupted outside the camp perimeter around 1 a.m. on Aug. 9. Officers stormed Maxwell’s room with rifles and whisked her to another location; inmates were briefly locked down. Police later logged 29 shell casings and called it gang-related, not aimed at the prison – though many inmates weren’t convinced and feared becoming collateral damage.

Then came the chapel meeting. As the rest of Bryan shuffled unit-by-unit to the cafeteria under lockdown, Maxwell, witnesses say, met visitors behind closed doors – smiling when she returned to her dorm. Who showed up remains a mystery. A lawyer for Maxwell declined comment.

The timing was notable. Weeks earlier, Maxwell sat for an interview with senior Justice Department official Todd Blanche, telling him she’d never seen Donald Trump behave inappropriately with Epstein. Shortly after, she was transferred to Bryan. The DOJ later released a transcript of that interview; officials won’t discuss the move.

Outside the fence, protesters gathered. Inside, inmates who discussed Maxwell with reporters or outsiders say they were punished: one woman’s email privileges were yanked and she was abruptly moved to a higher-security facility, according to her lawyer, who called the BOP a “black box.”

Bryan isn’t exactly Club Fed – but it’s no fortress. Six guards can watch 600-plus inmates on early shifts, and most residents are white-collar, low-risk, or nearing release. Maxwell is the rare exception: records show she has one of the longest remaining sentences at the camp and sits alongside high-profile inmates like Elizabeth Holmes and reality-TV figure Jennifer Shah. She’s projected to be freed in 2037 with credit and good time.

Meanwhile – on Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear Maxwell’s appeal, leaving a presidential pardon as her only long-shot escape hatch. Asked about it, Trump said, “I’d have to take a look at it.” Meanwhile,where’s the list, Pam?

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse wants answers, demanding BOP records on Maxwell’s transfer and whether it broke policy. The bureau hasn’t responded.

Back in Bryan, Maxwell has tried to blend in – a salon trim, mahogany dye job, vegetarian trays she often gives away, but the special handling keeps her spotlight bright. For the rest of the camp, the message feels clear: When a notorious inmate arrives, rules bend – and everyone else pays the price.

Pretty weird for someone who was trafficking dozens, if not hundreds of young women to absolutely nobody. 

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Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Epoch Times on Oct. 7 received an envelope containing a white powder that appears meant to intimidate the publication.

The yellow-colored envelope contained an Epoch Times newspaper and a small clear ziploc bag containing a white powder. The Epoch Times alerted the New York Police Department, which took the items for testing. Results of the investigation are pending. Federal authorities were also notified.

The envelope bore official Chinese postal markings indicating it either originated from China or was returned from China – at the same time that pro-Beijing actors have stepped up their campaign to target and threaten The Epoch Times.

In recent months, Chinese threat actors have been sending threat emails en masse to various government and civil agencies in the United States and worldwide, impersonating Epoch Times email addresses and staff.

Over the past week, Chinese actors have also created fake social media accounts to impersonate senior personnel from The Epoch Times in what appears to be a widening cyber campaign against the publication.

One such account spammed a YouTube channel with violent messages. The user, using the name and profile of Huang Wanqing, editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language edition of Epoch Times, repeatedly stated a plan to crash into people in front of Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building and open fire.

“The comments immediately caught my eye because this is someone I know,” political affairs commentator and YouTube channel owner Chen Weiyu told The Epoch Times. “I knew he couldn’t possibly have sent them, so this is definitely fake.”

Chen responded to the comments, urging her subscribers to report the impersonator. That same day, she received an email showing she had also been impersonated.

“They are getting increasingly belligerent,” she said. “They think that they are untouchable. It’s as if they are above the law.”

This appears to be the sentiment the cyberactors were trying to convey.

In recent weeks, operatives have also been sending screenshots to The Epoch Times revealing threatening messages they have purportedly distributed.

“What can you do with me?” reads one email from Oct. 5. Attached is a screenshot showing a White House contact form filled out with The Epoch Times’ contact email and phone number.

Other affected agencies include the CIA, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Park Service, the Kennedy Center, various state and public entities in Taiwan, the UK, the Czech Republic, and others.

A Chinese-language email sent to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7 came with a photo of a hand victory sign in front of a Chinese flag. In an email sent a day later, the sender states that “while judging by the current circumstances, the Chinese Communist Party has a near-zero chance to win,” they are throwing their lot in with it.

“In every dynasty and generation there are people like me, and in this era I’m playing this role,” the Oct. 8 email reads, adding that they are “all in.”

“Fortune is sought through danger,” it continued.

The Epoch Times rebuked the efforts to intimidate the publication.

“The Epoch Times strongly condemns this intimidation campaign by the Chinese Communist Party,” Jasper Fakkert, the chief editor for The Epoch Times’ English language edition, said in a statement. “We will not be intimidated and will continue our mission to provide truthful and uncensored information to people around the world, including in China.”

The goal of the operation is to impose psychological pressure, according to Casey Fleming of BlackOps Partners, a Washington-based cybersecurity consulting firm.

“It’s all meant to intimidate and scare,” he told The Epoch Times, describing these actions as part of an “unrestricted war” that the Chinese regime has long waged to “weaken your enemy from within.”

“Just the existence of an organization that has refuted CCP rule embarrasses them and weakens their power over the Chinese people as well as the rest of the world,” he added. “They have to eliminate that embarrassment right now.”

In the backdrop of this operation is an intensifying effort by the Chinese regime to stifle a particular faith group worldwide.

In late 2022, Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally gave the directive in a secret meeting to zero in on companies founded by practitioners of Falun Gong.

The spiritual discipline, based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, attracted an estimated 70 million to 100 million following in the 1990s in China, but has since been subject to a brutal state-directed persecution.

Since 1999, untold numbers of practitioners have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and even death by forced organ harvesting.

The Epoch Times was started in 2000 in Atlanta by Falun Gong practitioners who had fled persecution in China. Their goal was to bring heavily censored information out of China and expose the CCP’s atrocities against tens of millions of people that were going largely unreported. The regime arrested dozens of the publication’s early contributors in China, sentencing several to up to 10 years in prison.

According to a political insider, Xi was particularly frustrated with officials’ failure to prevent The Epoch Times, along with its sister media NTD, from growing into one of the main platforms for exposing the CCP’s crimes.

In 2025, the Justice Department confirmed several Beijing-directed cyberespionage attempts targeting The Epoch Times. According to a federal indictment, state-backed hackers compromised email accounts of the newspaper’s chief editor and a vice president in one May 2017 scheme.

The cyberattackers have taken credit for several other campaigns, including fake bomb threats to New York libraries in April. The threats, appearing on the eve of a major Falun Gong anniversary, caused at least one evacuation.

Shen Yun Performing Arts is another prominent target. Founded by Falun Gong practitioners in New York, the arts group undertakes an annual world tour to showcase “China before communism,” with some segments depicting ongoing abuses by the CCP. Eminent venues around the world have received intimidation threats ahead of scheduled performances. The perpetrators usually demand the show be canceled and threaten potential violent retaliation.

A preliminary analysis from an outside analyst traced some of the threatening emails to China’s northwestern Shaanxi province. Taiwan’s authorities, while investigating the threats against Shen Yun, have previously identified Xi’an, the capital of the province, as the possible city where the emails originated.

Huang, the chief editor for The Epoch Times’ Chinese language edition, said the actions bear the marks of a coordinated campaign.

“This is part of the CCP’s transnational repression,” he said in a statement. “It’s a systematic impersonation operation, and the goal is to create terror and chaos.”

Fleming echoed the assessment.

“It’s what it is. It’s terrorism.”

Update 1:10pm ET.  Late on Friday, we were amazed to learn that apparently nobody has learned anything from the past 6 months of TACOing, and said that Trump would post something late on Sunday to calm markets…

Odds of Trump Sunday evening post:

“Had a great call with China’s wonderful president Xi Jinping, and our relations have never been better. Look forward to our meeting in two weeks. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 10, 2025

Well…. we were off by a few hours, in what has been the fastest TACO reversal yet. 

Moments ago, confirming the rapid shift in sentiment that gripped markets on Sunday morning following JD Vance’s far more palatable comments, Trump crushed any hopes the bears may have had of a limit down open when he took down the trade DefCon tension with China from 10 back to 2, stating on Truth Social “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!“

There is still a few hours before futures reopen for trading, but while we wait for Polymarket to launch a weekend market, IG is showing a surge in weekend pricing…

… and ETH has almost fully reversed the Friday flash crash.

* * * 

Who could have seen this coming?

After President Trump (perhaps unexpectedly) caused a shitstorm in markets on Friday with his threats against China, it appears the scale of the carnage required ‘good cop’ VP Vance to calm the waters before futures open tonight.

The FT reports that Beijing has slammed President Trump’s plan to impose additional 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese exports and threatened new countermeasures as it blamed the US for escalating tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

The commerce ministry said on Sunday that since the two countries held trade talks in Madrid last month, the US had “continuously introduced a series of new restrictions against China”, including putting Chinese companies on a trade blacklist.

“China’s position on tariff wars has been consistent: we do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight,” the ministry added.

So, VP Vance was rolled out to Sunday morning shows to walk-back the US rhetoric a little…

During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, JD Vance called on Beijing to “choose the path of reason” in the latest spiraling trade fight between the US and China, claiming that President Donald Trump has more leverage, but is “willing to be a reasonable negotiator with China.”

“It’s going to be a delicate dance, and a lot of it is going to depend on how the Chinese respond,” Vance said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

“If they respond in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you, the president of the United States has far more cards than the People’s Republic of China. If, however, they’re willing to be reasonable,” he said, then the US would, too.

Vance, who said he had spoken with Trump Saturday and Sunday, said the president “appreciates the friendship that he’s developed with Xi,” but added, “We have a lot of leverage. And my hope, and I know the president’s hope, is that we don’t have to use that leverage.”

He added that the good relationship is threatened “if the Chinese go down this pathway of cutting off the entire world from access to some of the goods that they produce.”

“We’re going to find out a lot in the weeks to come about whether China wants to start a trade war with us, or whether they actually want to be reasonable. I hope they choose the path of reason,” Vance said.

Watch the subtle shift in stance here…

🇺🇸🇨🇳 “We’re going to find whether China wants to start a trade war with us or be REASONABLE” — US Vice President, Vance pic.twitter.com/ksQ1m8X5cW

— Jeff George ™ (@jhon_odey) October 12, 2025

Shortly after Vance spoke, US Trade Rep Greer spoke on Fox News, explicitly trying to calm markets:

• *GREER ON TARIFFS: THINK WE’LL SEE MARKETS CALM IN COMING WEEK

• *GREER: TRUMP CONTINUES TO HAVE GREAT RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA XI

• *GREER ON CHINA: WE NEED TO FIND A WAY BACK TO STABLE SITUATION

• *GREER ON TARIFFS: I THINK CHINA REALIZED THEY OVERSTEPPED

.@USTradeRep Ambassador Greer: “In the past couple of days, I think it’s become very clear to everybody that this power grab by the Chinese won’t be tolerated. So, I think some of this messaging has signaled that they understand that there’s a serious issue here.” pic.twitter.com/MB4xQUrLFd

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 12, 2025

Crypto markets are up significantly on the comments with Ethereum outperforming…

And IG shows The Dow trading up around 155pts at time of writing…

So, circling back to where we started, who could have seen this coming? Well, us for sure…

Odds of Trump Sunday evening post:

“Had a great call with China’s wonderful president Xi Jinping, and our relations have never been better. Look forward to our meeting in two weeks. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 10, 2025

As we noted on Friday, Brace for the TACO Monday meltup as with one post, Trump pulled the Nasdaq from overbought…in fact, RSI is now below 50. 

And just like that, the euphoria has reset.

Will the market ever learn?

And the market always falls for it pic.twitter.com/HwMKdmjA8Z

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 10, 2025

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Authored by Rachel Ann T. Melegrito via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Your daily hot cocoa might do more than warm you up – it could also prevent heart disease and the inflammation that drives it, according to a recent study.

As we get older, our bodies become more inflamed, increasing our risks of developing chronic disease and dying.

A large-scale study tracked people who took daily cocoa supplements for two years and found that body-wide inflammation stayed steady instead of rising – with the strongest effects in those who had higher inflammation at baseline.

In the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) trial, daily cocoa extract supplements were linked to a 27 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

Taking cocoa extract supplementation lowered C-reactive protein, a key marker of body-wide inflammation, by 70 percent after two years.

That drop corresponds to an estimated 7 percent to 23 percent lower risk of cardiovascular events, shifting participants from the “average-risk” range into the low-risk range for heart disease, while the placebo group remained in the average-risk category.

The Inflammation Connection

The study focused on C-reactive protein, or CRP, which typically rises about 5 percent annually with age and is widely used as a marker of body-wide inflammation. This process, dubbed “inflammaging” by researchers, fuels chronic diseases, frailty, disability, and premature death.

While the placebo group’s CRP levels rose by about 5 percent per year, the cocoa group’s dipped by about 3 percent—a change that wasn’t significant on its own. However, when the two groups were compared across two years, cocoa significantly prevented the usual age-related inflammaging, keeping inflammation steady. These results came from a standardized 500-milligram cocoa flavanol supplement (including 80 milligrams epicatechin).

The findings suggest that cocoa may help protect the heart by lowering inflammation, a key driver of cardiovascular disease, Howard Sesso, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author of the study, told The Epoch Times.

The cocoa group also showed a small but significant rise in IFN-γ. This messenger has potential antiviral effects, which may indicate protective effects, though its effect on health is still unclear and requires more study.

These results come from the COSMOS-Blood substudy, which followed nearly 600 generally healthy older adults (average age 70) with no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer through repeated blood tests over two years.

How Cocoa Fights Inflammation

Cocoa extract appears to blunt inflammaging by lowering CRP.

Cocoa is naturally rich in flavanols, which counter inflammation at the molecular level. They turn down a key switch that tells cells to make pro-inflammatory molecules like CRP. They also boost nitric oxide production, which relaxes blood vessels, lowers oxidative stress, and helps calm inflammation in the vessel walls.

In the heart, flavanols help lower blood pressure, keep blood flowing smoothly, and lower the risk of stroke and atherosclerosis by keeping blood vessels flexible and platelets less “sticky.”

A review of clinical trials found that cocoa or dark chocolate can boost nitric oxide levels and lower oxidative stress. The effects were strongest with higher flavanol doses, over 450 milligrams per day.

Make Cocoa Work for You

Not all cocoa products are created equal, Sesso said, noting that most cocoa products lose flavanols during processing and labels don’t list their content.

Melissa Mitri, a registered dietitian-nutritionist and owner of Melissa Mitri Nutrition, agreed, noting that the study used a specific, standardized dose of 500 milligrams of cocoa extract. “The amount of cocoa flavanols present in food forms, like dark chocolate, can vary significantly and may not always contain the amount shown to provide anti-inflammatory benefits in the research,” Mitri told The Epoch Times.

“Cocoa powder may be a better option,” Sesso added. “But this does not mean we should all turn to supplements. Instead, it is important to focus on flavanol-rich foods that include cocoa, berries, tea, grapes, and other plant-based foods.”

Experts say natural is better. “The real benefits come from cocoa, so the darker the chocolate, the better. Aim for 70 percent cocoa or higher,” Kara Siedman, a nutritionist and director of partnerships with resbiotic Nutrition, told The Epoch Times.

Siedman noted that chocolate is calorie-dense and easy to overdo. She recommended just a square or two after dinner, savored slowly, or using unsweetened cocoa powder in smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt to get flavanols without added sugar and fat.

The most effective approach combines cocoa with other proven strategies like regular exercise and healthy eating patterns, such as the Mediterranean diet and omega-3s. “What matters most is consistency—the foods and habits you follow most of the time.”

Lawyers for accused assassin Luigi Mangione asked a Manhattan federal judge Saturday to throw out some of his criminal charges – including the lone charge that could put him on death row in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare chief Brian Thompson outside a Midtown hotel, court papers say.

The defense also wants Mangione’s statements to cops and his backpack with a gun and ammo kept out of trial, arguing he wasn’t read his rights and that officers searched the bag without a warrant after collaring him days later, according to the filing.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal raps in the Dec. 4 killing, which stunned Wall Street and sent corporate security teams scrambling. Thompson was gunned down as he arrived for his company’s annual investor conference, a murder that triggered a multistate manhunt. The suspected shooter ditched the scene on a bicycle to Central Park, then hopped a taxi to a bus depot, investigators say. He was grabbed five days later after a McDonald’s tip in Altoona, Pa., roughly 233 miles from Manhattan, and has been held without bail since.

In a minute-by-minute takedown narrative, defense attorneys paint Mangione as cooperative when two “fully armed” officers approached him in the fast-food joint, saying a caller had flagged him as “suspicious.” He allegedly handed over a New Jersey driver’s license in someone else’s name before cops told him to stand up, hands on his head for a frisk. One officer then stepped outside to summon backup, telling a colleague he was “100 percent” sure they had their guy. Nearly a half-dozen more officers swarmed the restaurant within minutes, according to the filing—before, the defense says, any Miranda warning or warrant.

The high-stakes legal fight centers on a federal firearms murder statute, the only count that makes capital punishment possible in a state where New York law doesn’t apply the death penalty. The defense says prosecutors haven’t identified the requisite “crime of violence” to pair with the gun charge and argues the alleged predicate—stalking—isn’t one.

Last month, Mangione’s team also moved to strike the death penalty from the case after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly ordered prosecutors to seek it, calling the slaying a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.” The defense says those comments taint the process.

The shocking hit ignited a firestorm against big insurers online. At the crime scene, investigators found ammo scrawled with “delay,” “deny,” and “depose,” a grim echo of phrases blasted by industry critics.

Next up: Treasury-sized legal trench warfare. Prosecutors will defend their charging decisions and the cops’ actions; the defense will press to gut the capital count and suppress key evidence. The judge’s rulings could decide whether this is a straight murder case—or a potential death-penalty showdown.