A German bishop and a Catholic women’s lay organization have slammed the Catholic Women’s Association of Germany for demanding access to abortion in Catholic hospitals.
As LifeSiteNews reported last week, the Catholic Women’s Association of Germany (kfd) demanded that abortions be carried out in Catholic hospitals as part of its paper: “Between the Protection of Life and Self-Determination: Positions and Perspectives of the kfd on Section 218 of the German Criminal Code.” The kfd is a private association that is subject to the oversight of the German bishops’ conference.
Bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen, emeritus bishop of Fulda, responded to the scandalous text, saying it was “not Catholic.”
“That a Catholic organization is seriously demanding that the killing of children before birth ‘must also be possible in Catholic hospitals’ is completely unacceptable and downright intolerable,” Algermissen, who serves as chairman of the pro-life group Seelsorge für das Leben, said.
“The killing of an innocent and defenseless child in the womb does not constitute a medical service,” he stated. “Nor is an unwanted pregnancy an illness. Attempting to shift the costs of the killing of children before birth onto the community of insured individuals trivializes and undermines the prohibition against killing.”
The kfd defended a woman’s decision to abort their unborn child and attacked pro-life activists, claiming that they challenge “sexual and reproductive rights” and calling them “religious fundamentalists” who align with “radical right-wing forces.”
The orthodox Catholic laywomen’s organization Maria 1.0 published a scathing critique of the kfd’s paper.
“When it comes to the killing of unborn children, there can be no legitimate pluralism, for the direct killing of an innocent human being is, by definition, murder,” Maria 1.0 wrote.
“The Catholic faith clearly states: Human life is sacred from the moment of conception, inviolable, and must be protected with the utmost care. A pregnancy conflict is therefore not a conflict between two equally valid interests, for human life is a far greater good than any life plans or aspirations. Anyone who claims it is justified to directly end innocent human life – even moments after conception – cannot call themselves Catholic, nor indeed a person of integrity.”
“The supreme good is the glory of God, which naturally forbids sacrificing the life of an innocent human being created by God to any ‘right to self-determination,’” the group stated.
“God alone is Lord over life and death. In accordance with the glory of God, a person must first attend to the salvation of their own soul. Abortion, however, is objectively a mortal sin which, if not repented of, can lead a person directly to hell.”
Indeed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states:
Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or as a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: “You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.”
Moreover, formal cooperation in an abortion carries the penalty of automatic excommunication. The 1983 Code of Canon Law states: “A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.”
Sir Keir Starmer has unveiled plans to ban under-16s from major social media platforms, presenting the policy as child protection while opening the door to one of the most intrusive digital-control regimes ever proposed in Britain.
The Prime Minister said the government intends to block children from platforms expected to include TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Threads, X, YouTube and Reddit. The plan could restrict the online activity of more than 12 million under-16s across the United Kingdom.
Starmer’s pitch is simple: children are being harmed online, Big Tech has failed, and the state must step in. But the enforcement mechanism is where the proposal becomes far more dangerous than the headline suggests.
The government says the ban would rely on “highly effective age assurance systems.” In practice, that could mean facial age-estimation scans, digital IDs, passports, credit cards, open banking checks, phone-company verification and even email-usage analysis.
That means millions of ordinary users may eventually be pushed into proving who they are before accessing basic digital platforms. A policy sold as protecting children could quickly become a national gateway system for the internet.
The ban is not expected to take effect until May 2027, according to the source material. That delay gives ministers, regulators and technology companies time to build the machinery that could reshape online access for everyone.
Starmer announced the plan at a Downing Street press statement, thanking campaigners who had pushed for tougher action. He said the government had listened carefully during the consultation process.
“Some people are dismissive of processes like this,” Starmer said. “But policy making that doesn’t listen very carefully to the voices of those it seeks to serve, that is not how this Government carries out its business.”
He also thanked those who campaigned after personal tragedy or loss. “I want to thank all the people who have campaigned so courageously on this issue,” he said.
No serious person denies that social media can be harmful to children. Bullying, predatory behavior, addictive design and dangerous content are real problems that parents have been battling for years.
But Starmer’s answer is not simply to punish Big Tech or empower parents. His answer risks putting the British state, Ofcom (Britain’s primary media regulatory) and platform operators between citizens and the digital public square.
The Prime Minister framed the issue through his own experience as a father. “All I’ve ever wanted for my own children, hand on heart, is for them to be happy and for them to be safe and I think that’s what any parent wants,” he said.
He asked whether social media creates a happy or safe environment for children. “I don’t think I even need to answer those questions, do I?” Starmer said. “Every parent can see it with their own eyes.”
He accused social media of making children unhappy and exposing them to abuse. “Social media is making children unhappy, it’s making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them,” he said.
“And it could even be harming their mental health, exposing them to content that is dangerous,” he added. He also warned that platforms are “designed to be addictive,” pointing to the “infinite scroll” as a risk to children across the country.
Although those concerns are legitimate, a legitimate problem does not automatically justify a biometric checkpoint at the entrance to everyday online life.
The government is expected to raise the effective minimum age for major platforms from 13 to 16. Current age limits are widely ignored, with Ofcom research showing that nine in ten children aged eight to 12 use online services with a minimum age requirement of 13.
Ofcom called that failure “concerning” and urged ministers to toughen the rules. But stronger enforcement inevitably raises the question: how does the state verify age without dragging adults into the same surveillance net?
The answer appears to be age assurance—and that is the heart of the controversy. If platforms must prove users are not underage, many adults may also be required to submit to checks before being allowed in.
Facial age-estimation technology is already being discussed as one option. The system uses a digital camera to estimate a person’s age, adopting a model similar in principle to the Challenge 25 approach used for alcohol sales.
But online life is not a pub counter. Making people scan their faces to access speech platforms, news clips, videos, commentary and public debate would mark a major expansion of identity-based internet control.
Australian tests reportedly found facial age-estimation scans accurate to within about 1.5 years. That still means fallback checks—such as formal ID verification—would be needed in many cases.
Other methods listed by Ofcom include digital IDs, credit cards, passports, open banking, phone-company checks and email age estimation. That last method could involve analyzing a person’s email usage to infer whether they have accessed services such as bank loans.
This is not a small privacy trade-off. It is a system that could normalize linking online access to biometric scans, financial records, identity documents and behavioral data.
The government is also considering curfews for 16- and 17-year-olds to reduce late-night scrolling. Ministers are examining limits on addictive features, popularity metrics such as “likes,” and algorithms designed to keep users online.
The plan could also restrict livestreaming by children, contact between children and adult strangers, and AI chatbots designed for romantic or sexual interaction. Gaming platforms are expected to face tighter rules after pressure from Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza over predator risks.
Starmer has promised “world-leading” action. But “world-leading” in this case may mean Britain becoming a test laboratory for digital access controls that other governments will later copy.
The Prime Minister admitted the rollout would be difficult. “Yes, it’s hard, hard to legislate for, hard to regulate, hard to enforce,” he said.
That admission should alarm voters. When politicians admit a ban is hard to enforce, the next step is usually more power for regulators, more pressure on companies, and more intrusive checks on the public.
Starmer also said some technology firms want people to believe social media cannot be changed. “Now it doesn’t have to be, I always prefer the politics of partnership,” he said.
He added that government must “harness the power of technology to build a stronger, fairer Britain.” But under Starmer, “fairer Britain” increasingly sounds like a Britain where the state demands more control over speech, platforms and personal identity.
Parents who blame social media for family tragedies have welcomed the move. Ellen Roome, whose son died in 2022, praised Starmer’s announcement in comments to the BBC.
“To actually hear him step up and do this was phenomenal and I thought it was a very good speech, it was very powerful,” Roome said. “The devil is bringing the details of how this actually happens but I think, well done, thank you.”
That last line is crucial. The devil is in the details — and the details point toward facial scans, digital IDs and age-verification infrastructure that could affect far more than children.
Even some child-safety advocates have warned against a blanket ban. Jeffrey Demarco, a senior adviser at Save the Children UK, said the policy could look “protective on paper” while pushing children into less regulated spaces where they may be less likely to seek help.
Australia’s experience also raises doubts. Six in ten Australian under-16s are reportedly still using social media six months after the ban was introduced, due to tech-company failures and children finding ways around the restrictions.
That should make Britain cautious. If the ban fails without harsher verification, ministers may use that failure to justify even more invasive checks.
Baroness Kidron, one of Britain’s leading online safety campaigners, warned that enforcement is the real test. “The big question is how are they going to enforce it, because if you keep on giving duties to Ofcom but don’t fix the enforcement, then you are doing nothing,” she said.
Lord Nash, a former Conservative education minister, said the policy needs “robust age verification.” “They must deliver in full on their pledge to raise the age limit to 16 for harmful platforms and features, with robust age verification to ensure it is properly enforced,” he said.
“Only by doing this can they begin to end the catastrophic harm being done to a generation,” Nash added. “Let’s give our children their childhood back.”
The problem is that robust age verification can easily become digital permissioning. Once the system exists for children, it can be expanded to speech, political content, adult content, financial services, controversial websites, and eventually almost any corner of online life.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, passed in April, already gives ministers powers to restrict harmful online features without passing fresh primary legislation. That means Labour may be able to push significant controls through regulation rather than a full new parliamentary battle.
The politics are impossible to ignore. The announcement comes during a perilous week for Starmer’s leadership and just before the Makerfield by-election. Conservative critics accused Labour of opportunism. Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said it was “shameful it’s taken the Prime Minister’s job to be on the line for the Government to finally U-turn.”
“Three times Labour voted against a ban,” Trott said. Her attack cuts directly at Starmer’s credibility: Labour is now trying to look tough on child safety after resisting tougher action before.
Polling cited in the source material shows strong parental support for action. Eighty-three percent of parents said social media risks outweighed the benefits, while nine in ten backed a minimum age of 16.
Children, however, were more anxious about the move. Seventy-two percent said they worried about feeling left out under the proposed restrictions.
Starmer is betting that parents will reward him for taking on Big Tech. But voters should ask whether the price of that intervention is a digital identity architecture Britain may never be able to unwind.
Protecting children online is a serious goal but it should not become the excuse for forcing face scans, ID checks and verification gates onto the entire population.
The danger is that Starmer’s government will create a system that fails to stop determined teenagers but succeeds in conditioning adults to accept surveillance as the cost of internet access. That would be a victory not for families, but for the control state.
A school teacher has been found guilty of murdering and sexually assaulting a baby, and his partner of the crime of allowing the death of a child and sexual assault after the death of the 11-year-old they adopted together.
Two men who were adopting a baby subjected the infant to sexual abuse, causing 40 “traumatic” injuries, and recorded indecent videos before the child died, have been found guilty by a British court.
37-year-old Jamie Varley [above, left], a teacher, was found guilty of murder, two counts of assault by penetration, five of cruelty to a child, one of Grievous Bodily Harm, sex assault of a child, and over a dozen counts relating to indecent photographs and videos.
His partner John McGowan-Fazakerley [above, right], 32-year-old and a salesman, was also found guilty of allowing death of a child, one count of child cruelty, and one of sexual assault of a child. The court was told that while McGowan-Fazakerley was not present on the night of the killing on 27th July 2023, he had known the abuse was happening and turned a blind eye.
Baby Preston Davey had been taken from his biological mother, herself a convicted murderer, aged just five-days-old by Oldham Council. He spent the first months of his life with a foster family but after Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were approved to become adoptive parents he was handed over to the pair in Blackpool, Lancashire.
Preston Crown Court heard Varley claimed baby Davey, who was 11-months-old at the time of his death, had accidentally drowned while left unattended in the bath. But a post-mortem revealed the child had suffered “40 traumatic injuries”, the BBC reports. These included damage to his rectum, a perforated bowel, and bruising to his mouth, throat, anus, bowels, and bladder.
The court heard the injuries were consistent with “forcible penetration” and police said they believed the bath drowning was a complete fiction, given the child was not wet and had ingested no water at the time of death. Police further said they ad found evidence that that beyond the physical abuse, the baby was also psychologically tortured by Varley for months for “sordid amusement”.
While officers were unable to conclusively prove that Varley had “sourced” a child purely for the purpose of sex abuse and murder, a spokesman said the public would “come to their own conclusions”.
Police said in a statement today that “I think Jamie Varley has sought to deceive right from day one… He is a serial manipulator and a serial liar, and his defence has basically been everybody else is wrong… I don’t see any evidence of regret, remorse, or actually sorrow for Preston Davey”. They said in their digest of the case that they discovered a trail of evidence on Varley’s personal mobile phone, including messages to friends saying he found baby Davey “annoying”, and the sending of an indecent video of the baby on Snapchat.
The force said one of the videos taken of Davey was on the day of his death. They stated: “…on 27th July 2023 Varley recorded a video of Preston [left] on a bed struggling to breathe and in obvious discomfort. It was the prosecution’s case that earlier in the day, Preston had been the victim of a sexual assault at the hands of Jamie Varley. There was then a second assault on Preston which caused an obstruction to Preston’s airways… He was sadly pronounced deceased at 7.20pm.”
People visit the publishers’ book stand of the publishing house “Passaggio al Bosco”. Screengrab youtube
A political storm over censorship and freedom of expression has erupted in Italy after organisers of the country’s leading fair for independent publishers introduced a requirement obliging exhibitors to sign a declaration endorsing anti-fascist values.
Among the most vocal critics has been Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In a post on X on June 14, she denounced what she called an “anti-fascist certificate” for publishers, describing the requirement as “quite simply, censorship” and adding that “censorship is incompatible with any democratic society”.
Meloni accused organisers of introducing a discriminatory criterion for participation and warned against the use of political labels to determine who is entitled to take part in public cultural life.
The fair’s organisers rejected her characterisation, saying the declaration was “not censorship at all” but a “need for clarity”. They added that the prime minister’s intervention and the wider debate had prompted them to examine the matter further out of institutional respect.
Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani struck a more measured note, saying he was anti-fascist himself but that no one should be branded a fascist for holding different views.
The controversy comes ahead of the 25th edition of Più Libri Più Liberi (“More Books, More Free”), scheduled to take place at La Nuvola, in Rome’s EUR district, from December 4 to December 8, 2026. Organised by the Italian Publishers Association (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE), the fair is Italy’s largest event dedicated exclusively to small and medium-sized publishers and attracts more than 600 exhibitors every year.
The dispute is rooted in tensions that have been building within Italy’s publishing world for several years. As publishers associated with conservative and right-wing authors have increasingly begun taking part in major literary fairs, some writers, activists and left-wing cultural figures have voiced concerns about what they see as a growing influence of the political right within Italy’s cultural sector. Campaigns have repeatedly been launched calling for some of these publishers to be excluded from book fairs and other publicly funded cultural events, arguing that they promote ideas incompatible with democratic values.
Particularly heated controversy surrounded the December 2025 edition of Più Libri Più Liberi, when Passaggio al Bosco, a publisher whose catalogue critics say glorifies figures from Italy’s Fascist and Nazi past, participated for the first time. Some 80 writers, intellectuals and cultural figures — including the historian Alessandro Barbero, the novelist Antonio Scurati and the cartoonist Zerocalcare — signed an open letter questioning its inclusion, while some authors withdrew from scheduled appearances and local officials distanced themselves from the opening ceremony. The Italian Publishers Association’s then president, Innocenzo Cipolletta, defended the decision, saying it was for readers to judge the books and for the courts to assess their legality in a country that bans the glorification of fascism.
Against that backdrop, organisers have now introduced new participation rules for the 2026 edition. Publishers applying for exhibition space are required to sign a declaration recognising and sharing the values underpinning Italy’s constitutional order, including what organisers describe as its anti-fascist foundations. The text also commits exhibitors to repudiating fascist ideology and any form of totalitarianism, and to not displaying or selling material that glorifies fascism or incites hatred or discrimination, on pain of immediate exclusion; the fair’s online system blocks any application that does not accept the clauses. Supporters of the measure argue that anti-fascism is not a partisan political position but a core principle of the Italian Republic, born out of the collapse of Benito Mussolini’s regime and the experience of the Second World War.
Critics, though, see the requirement as a form of censorship and an ideological screening process. They accuse organisers of using anti-fascism as a pretext to determine which publishers are deemed acceptable participants in major cultural events, effectively favouring certain political viewpoints over others. In their view, participation in a book fair should depend on compliance with the law rather than on the signing of political declarations.
The controversy has been further fuelled by the fact that the term “anti-fascism” does not explicitly appear in the text of Italy’s 1948 Constitution. Its transitional provisions do, nonetheless, ban the reorganisation, in any form, of the dissolved Fascist Party — a clause supporters cite as evidence of the document’s anti-fascist character. Opponents of the requirement argue that organisers are imposing a political interpretation of constitutional values rather than merely enforcing existing legal obligations. Supporters, by contrast, maintain that anti-fascism is implicit in the constitutional framework and in the post-war democratic settlement on which the Republic was founded.
With almost six months remaining before Più Libri Più Liberi opens its doors, critics say the dispute risks setting a precedent in which access to cultural platforms is conditioned on ideological compliance, turning what is meant to be a space for literary exchange into a contested test of political conformity. In their view, the affair has become less about constitutional values than about where the line is drawn between defending democracy and restricting freedom of expression.
Interior ministers of Germany’s federal states are set to meet on Wednesday, and there is one topic on everyone’s minds: What to do with some 700,000 Syrian refugees now that the civil war has ended and the country is relatively stable again?
As some might recall, the swift deportation of Syrian refugees was one of the main campaign promises of Chancellor Merz and his center-right CDU ahead of the 2025 February elections.
Fifteen months later, Germany is still just discussing the question, with the two old establishment parties within Merz’s grand coalition having wildly different takes on it.
CDU ministers, desperate to regain the trust of their voters and stop them from switching over to the nationalist AfD, are pushing for the implementation of Merz’s campaign promise and finally beginning large-scale reexaminations and returns.
Interior ministers of the Socialist SPD, however, argue that Syrians are “sustainably integrated, especially through employment, school or vocational training, and social participation,” and propose to create a new legal framework to provide indefinite residency permits to all Syrians—even those who didn’t get asylum and who currently reside in Germany illegally.
In reality—and in contrast to the SPD’s reasoning—Syrians in Germany remain one of the least integrated large migrant communities, with an unemployment rate currently estimated at 53%. Even among those who arrived over ten years ago at the height of the 2015 migration crisis, employment barely reaches 60%, significantly below the national average of 71%.
That’s why the CDU, after promising a major shift in the country’s immigration policy but failing to do much in more than a year, is now pushing back against the SPD proposal. Hessian Interior Minister Roman Poseck, leading the effort for more deportations among the CDU-led states, made it clear that Germany’s asylum system is not an immigration system waiting to be abused, even if that’s essentially what it was for the past decade.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for Germany’s largest establishment party. It’s been steadily losing support ever since winning last year’s election with 29% (its worst performance since 1949), and by now, polls show it might have lost its edge over the nationalist AfD forever. Current aggregates put the AfD at 28%, with the CDU trailing behind at only 22%—pointing toward a possible AfD victory next time around.
Chancellor Merz’s approval rate is even worse than his party’s. Surveys show Merz as one of the world’s most unpopular leaders with just a 19% approval rate, second only to French President Emmanuel Macron (18%) in the EU—supposedly the two most powerful men in Europe.
A homeless Gambian migrant is now under arrest after he allegedly tried to kidnap a 5-year-old girl from her mother’s hands in the Fontivegge train station in Perugia.
The incident occurred on the evening of Thursday, June 11, around 8 p.m. while a 40-year-old woman, originally from Arezzo, was waiting for a bus with her young daughter.
Suddenly, the suspect grabbed the child and began dragging her away, prompting the little girl to cry and the mother to scream for assistance. People in the vicinity were alerted to the emergency and rushed to the little girl’s aid.
Emergency services were also contacted and police officers rushed to the scene at Piazza Vittorio Veneto to arrest the suspect.
The mother managed to chase down the individual and successfully wrest her daughter away from the migrant.
The girl was uninjured but clearly shaken, according to Italian news outlet La Nazione.
“He was staring at us, then he yanked me,” the little girl reportedly told the police.
Despite the intervention, the man allegedly continued to harass the child until law enforcement officers arrived at the station perimeter to arrest him. The African has previous convictions for a variety of crimes.
A subsequent inspection of the suspect’s cell phone revealed that he had taken multiple photographs of the little girl prior to the incident. Investigators later verified the mother’s account of the events using the train station’s electronic video surveillance systems.
“My daughter is still terrified,” the mother stated.
So far, no video of the attempted kidnapping has been released.
The individual was taken into custody on charges of attempted kidnapping and was transferred to the Perugia prison facility under the authority of the local judiciary.
The German broadcaster ZDF is at it again: following the attempted beheading of a man in Belfast and the ensuing protests, ZDF claims that a “racist mob” was hunting down migrants – and that British activist Tommy Robinson and tech billionaire Elon Musk had incited them to do so. Following public criticism, the broadcaster has been forced to backtrack: the wording was “imprecise and misleading”.
On closer inspection, the narrative crumbles: Musk had merely commented on a post by Tommy Robinson, saying that only repeated and loud protest leads to change. ZDF turns “protest” into an incitement to violence. Furthermore, the presenter in the live broadcast incorrectly translates the English word “trouble” as “unrest” instead of “anger” – thus reinforcing the desired narrative. In the end, the broadcast concludes with a call for stricter regulation of social media.
ZDF’s flagship evening programme “Today Live” devoted much of a Tuesday broadcast to the role of social media in fueling the unrest. Presenter Christina v. Ungern-Sternberg said a “British right-wing extremist and tech billionaire Elon Musk” had called for rioters to hunt down migrants — a claim the broadcaster did not support with direct evidence.
The posts in question show Mr. Robinson urging followers to join demonstrations at locations listed across Britain and Northern Ireland, with instructions to remain “Peaceful. Respectful. Together.” Mr. Musk shared that post on X, writing to his 240 million followers: “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!”
The ZDF broadcast drew scrutiny of its own. The network previously issued a retraction after its Washington correspondent falsely claimed that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had called for homosexuals to be “stoned to death” — a claim ZDF later acknowledged misrepresented Kirk quoting a Bible passage.
An 88-year-old transgender serial killer has been sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder and dismemberment of a woman he met while staying at a women’s shelter in New York City. This is the third time Harvey Marcelin, who also refers to himself as Marceline Harvey, has been convicted of killing a woman.
Marcelin’s victim was 68-year-old Susan Leyden, who was murdered in March of 2022 and had her body parts scattered throughout the neighborhood. Leyden’s headless torso was the first part of her body found after a passerby spotted it in an abandoned shopping cart. The gruesome discovery was blocks away from Marcelin’s Brooklyn apartment, prompting police to search Marcelin’s residence as he had a criminal record that included multiple murders. In security camera footage obtained by police, Leyden was spotted entering Marcelin’s apartment but never leaving.
During their search of his residence, investigators discovered Leyden’s head, as well as a number of saws and bloody sheets Marcelin had purchased from a local Home Depot. One of Leyden’s legs was recovered near a garbage can a few blocks away.
Days later, the NYPD held a press conference with updates on the gruesome crime in which they released surveillance footage from a retail store featuring Marcelin. In it, Marcelin was seen casually utilizing a motorized wheelchair with what appears to be a severed human leg on the seat, visible when Marcelin stands from the chair to look at products in the store.
During the conference, Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez introduced Marcelin as a “female” and stated he was “born a male, but prefers the pronoun ‘miss.’” Gonzalez used feminine pronouns to refer to Marcelin throughout the conference, and often referred to him as a “female person of interest” during the investigation.
In May, the jury swiftly convicted Marcelin after just one hour of deliberations, and, on June 10, he was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder.
Harvey Marcelin’s victim, 68-year-old Susan Leyden.
While some outlets have referred to Leyden as being Marcelin’s “girlfriend,” there is no evidence that the two had a confirmed intimate relationship.
As previously revealed by Reduxx, Marcelin had known the victim and was interacting with her on Facebook, but that Leyden appeared to be somewhat hesitant about Marcelin due to his concerning behavior.
While it is unclear exactly when Marcelin and Leyden first began to interact on social media, one of his many Facebook profiles reveals a communication with the victim dated 2019, just after he was released from the upstate Cayuga Correctional facility on the provision of lifetime parole.
Marcelin used Leyden’s own photo as his own profile image on more than one Facebook account and had repeatedly posted her picture to his Facebook pages. In October 2021, just months before Leyden was murdered, Marcelin responded to her with the comment, “Love personified.”
Yet a few comments made from Leyden’s Facebook account suggest that the feeling was far from mutual.
In November 2020, Marcelin uploaded a photo of a young blond woman as his main profile photo, the identity of whom is unknown. Beneath the photo, Leyden commented: “That is not a picture of Marceline Harvey… [he] is nice but crazy… Marcaline [sic] is a freak.”
The New York serial killer arrested in March for dismembering a woman had been granted entry to a women's shelter, where he met with his victim and began to obsess over her on Facebook.
Both Marcelin and Leyden were transient, and at one point stayed at the same shelter for homeless seniors in the women’s section. Prior to living at the Sage Center at Stonewall House, Marcelin had stayed at multiple shelters in the Brooklyn area, and left a trail of concerned staff in his wake.
In July of 2025, a nurse who worked intake for a shelter in the Bronx spoke to The New York Times and revealed she had great concerns about Marcelin being allowed access to the women’s section of the facility. Anne Brennan questioned whether Marcelin should be permitted to reside in the women’s area of the shelter, but was told by her supervisors to grant Marcelin entry.
“Apparently his feelings and identity were far more important than all the other women that were terrified of him,” she said.
In December 2022, just months after Marcelin’s arrest for Leyden’s murder, a former social worker at a Manhattan senior shelter filed a lawsuit against her ex-employer, claiming she lost her job after she warned her bosses that the convicted serial killer had made threats against her life while she worked at the facility.
Monica Archer was let go from her position at George Daly House, a short-term housing alternative for elderly residents in Alphabet City, even after convicted serial killer Marcelin was charged with the brutal slaying and dismemberment of Leyden.
According to an exclusive published by the The New York Post, Marcelin “made constant threats to kill” Archer and other personnel, and was even permitted to keep a gun on the premises.
Archer had suggested to her supervisors that Marcelin be transferred to a facility specializing in mental health disorders, but was ignored. She had also recommended Marcelin be placed in an “appropriate setting for the serial killer who has issues that I can’t address.”
But Archer says that management continued to allow Marcelin to reside at the shelter, despite “knowing that [he] had been accused of and convicted of several murders, allegedly possessed a gun, and regularly threatened to kill staff members.”
Prior to the murder of Susan Leyden, Marcelin was already well-known to police, having been convicted in the brutal deaths of two other women on two separate occasions.
In 1963, Marcelin was arrested for shooting his then-girlfriend Jacqueline Bonds three times inside their Manhattan apartment. He was sentenced to 20 years to life and was paroled in 1984. After his release, he went on to stab another female sexual partner to death, stuffing her corpse in a garbage bag and then dumping it on the street near Central Park.
Marcelin was arrested in 1986 for the second murder, but was once again released on parole in 2019. At the time, he told a parole officer that he had “a problem with women.”
It was after his second slaying that Marcelin began identifying as a woman. While at Auburn State Prison, he began taking Premarin, a type of estrogen intended for post-menopausal women. His decision to begin identifying as transgender reportedly came after meeting trans-identified male inmate at the facility. Bizarrely, the killer appears to treat his “male” and “female” personas as two separate entities, with his “feminine” side being named Marceline Harvey while his “masculine” side is Harvey Marcelin.
“Harvey’s not a good guy, he’s a tough guy,” Marcelin said during a 2022 interview with The New York Post, “Marceline’s nice and gentle and loving, you know, lots of laughter, fun to be with. She’s the one who’s perfectly normal.”
Throughout the course of his trial, Marcelin repeatedly changed his gender identity. Earlier this year, he announced he no longer identified as a woman, though it is unknown if that was yet another fleeting change. He remains classified as a “female” inmate in the New York City Department of Corrections database.
For the past four years, Marcelin had been held at the Rose M. Singer Center for female inmates on the basis of his self-declared gender identity, but he was recently moved to the Bellevue Hospital Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit, likely due to his failing health and advanced age.
Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Combined Authority had schemes to provide ‘culturally appropriate employability support’. LBJLibraryNow, CC-PD-Mark, Wikimedia Commons
White people are being shut out of taxpayer-funded jobseeker schemes across the nation.
The programmes – only available to ethnic minorities – have been labelled an example of “two-tier” Britain, and come just as the nation’s youths stare down the barrel of an unemployment crisis.
In Sheffield, the Labour and Green-led city council offers “targeted employment support for ethnic minority groups” as part of a pathways to work programme.
A £340,000 project, operated by local charities, aims to help find jobs for “economically inactive” minorities.
The scheme is part-funded by the “Economic Inactivity Trailblazer” run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the £2.6billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund provided by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Combined Authority, meanwhile, hoovers up ring-fenced grants for projects to provide “culturally appropriate employability support”, including CV workshops and mentoring for black and minority ethnic people in Oldham.
These funds are given to authorities to spend on “levelling up” projects.
William Yarwood, campaigns director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, told The Telegraph that public funds should not be spent on “two-tier initiatives”.
He said: “Taxpayers should not be funding schemes that exclude people because of their race.
“Race-based eligibility smacks of identity politics and a two-tier system, which undermines public confidence in the system.
“Ministers should end these discriminatory programmes and ensure taxpayer-funded support is open to all jobseekers who need it.”
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, said the schemes were a “divisive, race-based, segregationist plan for social in-cohesion”.
Further questions are now looming over the schemes in the wake of the Milburn report, which highlighted the staggering level of youth unemployment across the country.
The DWP had previously operated schemes exclusively for non-white jobseekers, including “mentoring circles” and the “Moving on Up initiative” – an effort to tackle unemployment, with rates amid ethnic minorities at 8.8 per cent – compared to 4.3 per cent amid white people.
The Government previously said it provided “bespoke programmes” to help ethnic minority jobseekers move into employment.
A spokesman for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority said it had “many employment and skills programmes” which “support people from a wide range of backgrounds into work”, and said no eligible person is excluded on ethnicity grounds.
A spokesman for the DWP said: “Every penny of taxpayer money we spend on employment support is focused on one thing – getting people back to work and growing the economy.
“Local authorities know their communities and sometimes decide to offer local programmes targeted at groups with above average levels of unemployment, alongside their wider support which must be available to all.
“We are transforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Britain, available to all – regardless of their ethnicity or barriers to work – alongside our £3.5bn investment in employment support for sick or disabled people and £2.5bn for the biggest youth employment reforms in a generation.”
In Belfast, a Sudanese man repeatedly stabbed a man in the head before attempting to behead the victim. This attack invites a comparison with events in Windsor, Ontario, back in 2017.
As Robert Spencer notes, the attacker in Belfast was a “Sudanese man,” an Arabic speaker not named at the outset. Police were “commencing an investigation to establish a motive,” which was already evident. The Sudanese man, 30 years old, was acting in obedience to Qur’an 47:4, “When you meet the unbelievers, strike necks.” Dial it back to Windsor, Ontario on October 8, 2017.
Anne Widholm, a 75-year-old grandmother, was taking an after-church walk on a local trail when Habibullah Ahmadi, 21, attacked her. According to Dr. Balraj Jhawar, the victim’s skull fractures, smashed face and fractured neck vertebrae were “among the most brutal things I’ve seen in my career.” (emphasis added) So the “friend of Allah,” which is what Habibullah means, had targeted the frail woman’s head and neck.
At the outset, police proclaimed a random attack and announced no motive. That was “absolutely unacceptable” to Dr. Jhawar. “This is not just another assault,” he said. “This is maybe representing a new, dark side of Windsor that we can’t let propagate.”
The attacker was profiled as a “Windsor man” also known as “Daniel.” At 21 he was a full adult, but no photos of him ever appeared. News reports on the crime included no interviews with the attacker’s relatives, friends or colleagues, before or after the trial.
The Belfast attacker was later identified as Hadi Alodid and his victim as Stephen Ogilvie, a man “in his 40s.” Ogilvie suffered “serious eye, face and back wounds,” and in some accounts lost one of his eyes. The Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder.
Habibullah Ahmadi’s attack on Anne Widholm drove her into a coma, which Dr. Jhawar called “a worse state than death.” When she died a year later, the charge was changed to murder. Habibullah Ahmadi pleaded not guilty. and his possible motive for attacking a defenseless grandmother escaped attention during the trial.
As Mark Tapson explains, Prime Minister Kier Starmer issued a statement condemning the Belfast attack and declaring “absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets.” On the other hand, it’s hard to find statements by Starmer naming and condemning Alodid, or naming and supporting victim Stephen Ogilvie. In similar style, the PM finds no fault with the immigration policies that have made the UK streets, as Mark observes, “Muslim-occupied territory.”
In Canada, feminists did not decry the deadly attack on Anne Widholm as an example of toxic masculinity or violence against women. Then-Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who had often spoken out about bullying, offered no statement. The case also escaped the notice of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who believes “diversity is our strength.”
Keir Starmer may be, as Bruce Bawer contends, “the most despicable creature ever to hold the title of British Prime Minister.” The Widholm case suggests that Canadian officials are far worse.
In February 2021, judge Bruce Thomas sentenced Habibullah Ahmadi to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 13 years, suggesting that the convicted murderer “has good prospects for rehabilitation.” Last year Ahmadi’s appeal was denied, but he can apply for parole in 2030 and odds are strong that he’ll get it. In Canada, a life sentence doesn’t mean life, and Anne Widholm is still dead.
At this writing Stephen Ogilvie remains in critical condition and according to one report has lapsed into a coma. Alodid will probably get off light, and as Spencer notes, those who suggest Islam might have had anything to do with the attempted beheading will be charged with “racism” and of course, “Islamophobia.”
In modern multicultural Britain, a Muslim can attempt to behead a man, the cops pretend they don’t know why, and “absolutely nothing will be done to prevent it from happening again.” The same is true in Canada. Full disclosure, Windsor is this writer’s home town and the attack on Anne Widholm took place near the residence of my cousin Gerri. But of course, the victim could have been anybody’s cousin, wife, brother or friend.
In Canada, to quote the anthem, nobody is standing on guard for thee. Expect no plus brillants exploits, or even common sense, from the pasty-faced poltroons now in power.
