Gambling is a one of the biggest social curses of all so, even though the UK government is notoriously soft on the family-wrecking industry, some good action does happen now and again. Paddy Power Betfair has been sanctioned by the industry regulator for systematically failing to protect customers from gambling harm.

The operator has been fined a £2 million penalty by the Gambling Commission after systems to identify and address harm were found to be ineffective.

In 2023, Paddy Power Betfair was fined £490,000 for sending ‘push notifications’ to self-excluding customers.

An investigation by the regulator found that “systems the licensees had in place were not sensitive enough to identify indicators of harm”.

One customer, it reported, “staked £86,000 over a 16-day period during which time they lost £6,000. Despite the high velocity of spend, no manual review of the account took place”.

Another “lost £12,300 in five weeks before being identified for an interaction”, while a third deposited £25,000 in 25 days before Paddy Power Betfair intervened.

Paddy Power Betfair owner Flutter Entertainment claimed: “Customer safety is our No 1 priority and there is no suggestion that any of the customers reviewed by the Gambling Commission experienced any harm.”

But Commission Director of Enforcement John Pierce said: “This £2 million settlement reflects the seriousness of the failings identified and the importance of meeting social responsibility and customer interaction standards.”

The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland (BCOS) published a message on Tuesday reflecting on and expressing their concerns over the country’s radical abortion buffer zone laws that have resulted in the arrest of pro-life activists silently praying near abortuaries.

In the January 6 statement, the bishops lamented that Scotland’s draconian “buffer zone” laws have punished pro-lifers for peacefully praying or holding signs outside abortion centers, and could punish citizens praying within their own homes. In 2024, the leftist-dominated Scottish legislature passed a law barring the harassment, intimidation, and “influencing” of anyone seeking to kill their babies within 200-meter-wide “exclusion zones” or “buffer zones” surrounding all the country’s abortuaries.

“It is therefore unsettling that this season saw the first person in Scotland charged under the new so-called ‘buffer zone’ law in Scotland; a law the Church believes curtails Scotland’s commitment to freedom of expression and conscience, and restricts critical voices from democratic debate in the public square,” the bishops wrote.

Here, the BCOS appears to be referring to the case of Rose Docherty, a 75-year-old pro-life grandmother who was arrested for silently holding a sign that read “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want,” within the “buffer zone” of Queen Elizabeth University Hospital’s abortuary last fall. Docherty was held in custody for several hours, during which she was refused a chair to sit on in her cell despite making it known that she had a double hip replacement.

“I can’t believe I am here today. I simply stood, in love and compassion, offering consensual conversation to anyone who wanted to engage,” Docherty said after a court hearing just days before Christmas.

“Nobody should be criminalised just for offering a chat,” she declared. “Conversation is not a crime on the streets of Glasgow.”

The bishops noted that while the Church does not condone the harassment or intimidation of those planning to abort their unborn child, this “undemocratic” law was really meant to deny Scottish pro-lifers their basic freedoms.

“When parliaments introduce criminal offences where existing law is already sufficient, questions should be raised and alarm bells ring,” they said. “We oppose this law because it is disproportionate and undemocratic. It represents state overreach and curtails basic freedoms. The Church would similarly oppose legislation mandating buffer zones outside nuclear weapons facilities or refugee detention centres. This should concern every Scottish citizen, regardless of their views on abortion.”

“As the Parliamentary Officer for the Catholic Church in Scotland pointed out, women experiencing crisis pregnancies may be ‘denied the opportunity to freely speak to people and organisations who may be able to help them,'” they added. “A law supposedly designed to protect choice risks doing the opposite — eliminating one side of a conversation and one set of choices altogether.”

The bishops further stressed their concern that the law extends to private homes within the “buffer zones.”

“The Act extends to private homes within designated zones. A pro-life poster displayed in a window, a conversation overheard, a prayer said by a window; all could, in principle, fall within the scope of criminal sanction,” they said.

“That sends a chill down the spine of anyone who cares about civil liberties,” they added. “Criminal law that depends on the perception of a passer-by is certainly not the hallmark of a free Scottish society.”

“As we look to the child in the manger this Christmas and Epiphany, we are reminded that babies do not have a voice of their own,” they added. “It is a shame that the State has now also curtailed the voices of ordinary citizens who advocate for them within its borders.”

Cocaine use in Northern Ireland has got so bad that most rivers and lakes in the Province are awash with it. 

Research by Imperial College London and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) found the Class A drug in 91 per cent of the 140 samples they took from rivers and lakes across the region.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland reported 1,353 seizures of cocaine between September 2024 and 2025. It is the most commonly used illegal drug in the nation, according to Northern Ireland’s Substance Misuse Database 2023-24.

Lead author of the research, Dr Billy Hunter, said he was surprised to find cocaine detected “broadly everywhere”, and not just in high population areas like around Belfast.

He said that the findings showed illegal drug abuse is not “solely an urban problem; they are present right across Northern Ireland”.

Dr Hunter added: “One of the interesting things is actually the fact that it was showing up quite strongly in places like Lough Erne, which is maybe because it’s a recreation hotspot.”

Tom McGrath, whose 22-year-old son Matthew was found dead in County Armagh in 2024, highlighted the harms of cocaine earlier this year when he spoke to BBC Radio Ulster calling for a clampdown on drug dealers.

The penalty for possessing the Class A drug is up to seven years in prison, while supply may result in a life sentence.

But the father explained: “How many times do you see them going before the courts and getting custodial sentences? The dealers and suppliers aren’t being prosecuted properly.”

An Obama-appointed federal judge has once again been rebuked for her attempts to stop a federal law, signed by President Donald Trump, that generally defunds Planned Parenthood and some other abortion vendors.

Since July, District Judge Indira Talwani has tried several times to stop the temporary defunding of abortion giant Planned Parenthood. The requirement is provided for in the July “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed by Trump. However, the Massachusetts judge is regularly reversed by other judges, even those appointed by Democrats.

Talwani’s latest act of judicial activism hit a roadblock earlier this week when the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed another injunction the activist judge issued against the law on behalf of 22 states.

“A three-judge panel of the Boston-based ⁠1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at the administration’s request put on hold an injunction issued by [Talwani] who barred ‌the law from being enforced in 22 states and the District of Columbia,” Reuters reported on Dec. 30.

“It marked the ⁠latest instance of the appeals court lifting an order by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani preventing the ‌law from being implemented, ‍after the 1st Circuit on Dec. 12 overturned a ruling she issued in another ⁠case brought by Planned Parenthood declaring that the law violated ⁠the Constitution,” the news wire service noted.

All the judges that rebuked Talwani earlier this week were appointed by Democrats, Reuters reported.

Defunding Planned Parenthood will not eliminate abortion but could make it harder for women to kill their babies. Dozens of abortion facilities have announced they will be closing down due to the law, which further proves that killing babies is central to their business.

A family whose premature baby, born at only 26 weeks and weighing less than a kilo, received four vital blood transfusions, appealed for more people to donate blood and give the gift of life this Christmas, and want people to remember - and act upon - their message in the New Year.

Baby Alexandria, from Scotland, was born extremely prematurely and had to spend over three months in hospital. She faced challenges after being born prematurely and was the recipient of four blood transfusions. Now, her mother, Nicolle, is calling for people to donate more blood and help save lives this Christmas. 

“After 102 days in hospital, in April this year, we brought our baby home”, Nicolle said. “She had been through so much in her wee life already. She was intubated at birth, needed oxygen support at home, and received four blood transfusions”.

“Her dad Dan and I believe she is our total miracle and our warrior princess. We absolutely cannot wait to celebrate her first Christmas”.

“She never gave up. To the blood donors who helped give her a chance at life – thank you for giving us our world”.

The percentage of people in Scotland who donate blood has decreased over the past decade from 3% to under 2%. This decline puts pressure on hospitals, according to the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS), which may need blood to help save the lives of premature babies like Alexandria. These donations are especially important because blood has a shelf life of only 35 days, so regular donations are always needed.

Canada could criminalise the quoting of Scripture under planned changes to hate speech laws/ This is just the latest in a creeping assault on the Bible and on true Christianity.

Currently, people cannot be convicted for “wilful promotion of hatred” if a statement is made in “good faith” based “on belief in a religious text”. But an amendment to the proposed Combating Hate Act would remove this exemption, threatening people with up to two years in prison.

The proposals are backed by Minister of Justice Sean Fraser and the Bloc Québécois party.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops warned the Prime Minister: “The proposed elimination of the ‘good faith’ religious-text defence raises significant concerns.”

“This narrowly framed exemption has served for many years as an essential safeguard to ensure that Canadians are not criminally prosecuted for their sincere, truth-seeking expression of beliefs made without animus and grounded in long-standing religious traditions.”

The Canadian Constitution Foundation, which is campaigning against the proposals, added: “While prejudice and discrimination should be condemned, the proposed law gives the government new power to subjectively determine which words and ideas are acceptable – a direct threat to the Charter right to freedom of expression.”

Earlier this month, a Liberal MP who claimed that Bible passages on sexual ethics contain “clear hatred towards, for example, homosexuals”, was appointed as the M

Slovenians have rejected plans to progress proposed assisted suicide legislation.

In a referendum triggered by a national petition, the majority of voters (53%) in the most north-easterly part of the former Yugosalvia (53 per opposed implementing the Assisted Voluntary End of Life Act adopted by the National Assembly in July, delaying it for at least a year.

The result overturned a 2024 referendum, when 55 per cent of Slovenians favoured allowing terminally ill patients to get help to kill themselves.

Writing in The Critic, Director of Advocacy for ADF International Robert Clarke observed: “What is clear is that support for the move dropped as the precise details of the bill became clearer.”

The barrister commented: “Here is a nation presented with a detailed law, with the chance for debate, here is a legislature that insisted it had built in ‘safeguards’, and here are voters — many of whom had previously expressed support for some form of assisted dying — taking a closer look and concluding that something was wrong.”

Voters, he concluded, “refused the false choice between suffering and state-sanctioned death. In doing so, they reminded the rest of Europe of a truth we are in danger of forgetting: that the compassionate response to suffering is not to eliminate the sufferer, but to address the suffering.

“If Westminster is willing to listen, the people of Slovenia have delivered a message worth hearing.”

The U.K.’s prosecution of a British pro-life activist for standing silently within an abortion centre buffer zone is not only “concerning” as it violates “common sense” but is an “unwelcome departure” from shared transatlantic values, said a Trump administration official.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the spokesman for the U.S. State Department is addressing the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic pro-life activist who was charged last Wednesday for standing and silently praying on the street outside an abortion facility in Birmingham.

Her case marks the first time a person has been accused of violating the country’s new abortion “buffer zone” law, which went into effect in October 2024 under Section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023. The law prohibits “influencing” anyone’s decision to access, commit, or facilitate abortion “services” within 150 meters of an abortion centre.

According to ADF International, the new law “does not mention silent prayer specifically” and Crown Prosecution Service guidance on the law “stipulates that silent prayer on its own is not enough to meet the threshold of criminality unless it is accompanied by ‘overt’ activity,” yet Vaughan-Spruce is being prosecuted for this silent internal activity nonetheless.

Such mere thought, according to the U.S. official, “should not constitute harm.”

“The decision to prosecute a woman engaged in silent prayer is not only concerning in terms of its impact on respect for the fundamental freedoms of expression and religion or belief, but is also an unwelcome departure from the shared values that ought to underpin US-UK relations,” the State Department spokesman told The Telegraph.

“We are monitoring Isabel’s case closely. It is common sense that standing silently and offering conversation should not constitute harm,” he or she said.

Drug gangs are targetting British teenagers on a shocking scale. The criminals are believed to have recruited well over 100,000 under-18s in the past year, with hundreds of thousands more approached, a new survey has revealed.

According to the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), twelve per cent of 13 to 17-year-olds reported being approached by criminals to either: “sell drugs; transport drugs; or store drugs, weapons or money”.

The Government-funded charity asked nearly 11,000 teenage children England and Wales to share their experience of exploitation and gangs.

YEF found that eight per cent of respondents were asked to sell drugs, 7.1 per cent were asked to transport them, and 5.7 per cent were asked to store drugs, weapons or money.

It said: “Around a quarter of those who were approached to do one of these things went through with it — the equivalent of 120,000 13-17-year-olds in England and Wales.”

The survey revealed that the most common tactic used “to exploit teens into crime” was bribery with, criminals offering money, ‘goods’, drugs or alcohol. Gangs also used threats of violence and blackmail.

YEF Chief Executive Jon Yates said it is “horrifying how many children are being targeted” by drug gangs and called for “timely support” to help them “break free from this cycle of harm and violence”.