Portuguese President António José Seguro has officially signed into law a bill banning face-concealing attire in public spaces, with the move seen targeting the full-face Islamic veils like the burqa and niqab.
Addressing the national debate, President Seguro framed the decision around human interaction, stating: “The face should be considered a central element of human identity and communication.”
However, the former Socialist Party leader acknowledged the controversial nature of the ban, recognizing it as a matter of significant cultural and social sensitivity.
The law was largely backed by the country’s right-wing politicians and labeled the “burqa law” by Portuguese media. It passed parliament in July with the votes of right-wing parties, with the left firmly in opposition.
The new legal framework strictly limits garments designed to hide one’s identity in public spaces. It also penalizes forcing individuals to cover their faces based on gender, religion, or age.
Violators face financial penalties ranging from €150 to €3,000. There are, however, some exceptions. Wearing items that cover the face, such as medical masks, professional/artistic gear, and extreme weather wear, are all examples of exceptions under the law.
In the first half of 2026 alcoholic beer sales fell by as much as 11.9 percent, and despite the sharp increase in non-alcoholic beer sales, this trend is unable to arrest the dramatically deepening economic downturn in the brewery industry, which supports 85,000 jobs, including in agriculture, logistics, bars, and catering.
The beer market has been falling continuously for eight years. Between 2018 and 2025, the market lost over 7.5 million hectoliters in beer sales, which corresponds to the annual production of three medium-sized breweries. In the first half of 2026, there is no sign of a rebound. According to data from the Polish Central Statistical Office, production of alcoholic beer fell by 11.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
“The first half of this year is not encouraging. An alcoholic beer sales decline of almost 12 percent shows how troubled the brewing industry is in Poland. There are several sources, primarily the global NoLo trend (no or low-alcohol) or the ‘Better for You’ trend, which are increasingly effectively translating into the consumption behavior of Poles. Economic issues are also important: beer is a very price-sensitive product, and its retail price has increased by over 40% in recent years,” says Bartłomiej Morzycki, general director of the Association of Brewing Industry Employers Browary Polskie.
In the first half of 2026 production sold of 0.0 percent alcohol beers increased by as much as 16.2 percent, and in June by as much as 30.1 percent year over year.
“Non-alcoholic beers are a daily choice for professionally active people, drivers and consumers who care about their health and consciously limit their alcohol consumption. They are increasingly choosing 0.0 percent products so as not to give up social rituals or the taste of beer itself. This is a pan-European trend that meets public health objectives,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki.
Breweries unprecedented regulatory and financial pressure
For almost a decade, breweries have consistently developed the 0.0 percent segment, investing in new technologies and innovative products. Variants without sugar and calories, enriched with vitamins and electrolytes, are appearing on the market. At the same time, research shows that non-alcoholic beer has a strong substitution effect, helping reduce alcohol consumption.
“Recent CBOS research has shown that almost one in four Poles has given up alcohol, and among those who consume alcohol, more than half also reach for non-alcoholic beer. The substitution effect makes this segment of social, health and economic importance. Therefore, in many European countries it is supported by the state as an effective element of alcohol consumption reduction policies,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki.
Meanwhile, several projects concerning the alcoholic beverages market are currently moving forward in Poland, which may hinder the further development of the non-alcoholic beer segment, including changes to the “Act on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism,” as well as a proposal to abandon the current excise map. At the same time, the sugar tax in Poland might be expanded and the VAT for zero-income earners may also be increased.
“Never before has the brewing industry faced such a large number of simultaneous changes. Each of them individually affects the operating conditions and competitiveness of beer in the alcoholic beverage market, and their combined impact may threaten the stability of many sectors in the brewing industry value chain. Moreover, the proposed changes go against the grain of socially acceptable alcohol reduction policies,” said the general director of the Polish Breweries Association.
Risk to the entire economy
The brewing industry represents 85,000. jobs, including thousands of farms and Polish enterprises in related sectors. Beer production accounts for approximately 0.56 percent of Polish GDP and contributes billions of zlotys to public finances each year in taxes and contributions.
According to data from the Association of Brewing Industry Employers Browary Polskie, the industry uses approximately 400,000 tons of barley malt, 75,000 tons of other cereals, over 130 tons of alpha hop acids and approximately 30,000 tons of apples used to produce flavored beers. The reduction in production means lower orders for packaging manufacturers, logistics and transport companies, as well as lower turnover for retail and catering.
“Poles are drinking less and less alcohol. If we add sharp tax increases and further administrative restrictions to natural consumer changes, we risk halting positive health trends and deepening the crisis of the entire value chain. Today, we need a well-thought-out, common-sense and emotion-free economic policy towards our industry,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki while speaking on behalf of the brewing industry.
Mohamed L. is being released in France after just 4 years in detention, the same man who brutally murdered 40-year-old military doctor and father Alban Gervaise in front of his young children in 2022.
“It’s news that we’re trying to prepare for this early release after the murder, barely four years later. It’s news that is really hard to hear, that makes us really go back to our work of mourning for the children and me,” said Christelle Gervaise, the wife of Alban, in an interview with Legend TV.
“It’s true that it’s hard to imagine being able to be in the same city as him. It’s true that it’s quite unbearable for us.”
Mohamed L. is being released in France after just 4 years in detention, the same man who brutally murdered 40-year-old military doctor and father Alban Gervaise in front of his young children.
"It’s news that we’re trying to prepare for this early release after the murder,… pic.twitter.com/CdChf3u7A7
Alban was stabbed to death while waiting outside his children’s Catholic school to pick up his two sons, aged 3 and 7, while his 20-month-old daughter was inside his car, in Marseille in May 2022.
Now, the killer will enjoy partial release during evenings and weekends “at liberty.”
The mother, Christelle, is terrified, and the courts so far have refused to listen to her pleas to block Mohamed L. from being in the same city as her and her children.
“I find that it is an additional concern in our lives that we didn’t really need. And I had to announce to my children this early release. There is necessarily a feeling of injustice. How can he leave prison so early after the murder of their father? And then, yes, there is a great concern on the part of my children. That’s for sure.”
This clip is a condensed version of her full interview, but it showcases the horror a French family is facing, both from the murderer and from the French judicial system.
In the interview, Christelle describes the moment of disbelief and grief when she first learned her husband had been stabbed.
“This is not possible, this is not possible, what is happening,” she told herself.
But it did happen, just as it has happened to countless Europeans year after year. Upon arriving on scene, she is greeted with an empty car and no sign of her children.
“And in fact, I’m going to see a first policeman who is going to accompany me to see the principal this time, who reassures me, my children are safe inside the school, all three of them, but I learn from a policeman who comes that my husband is between life and death and has been transferred to the hospital for resuscitation,” she said.
Alban spent 17 days in a coma, where she tried to tell him over and over again that the children were not harmed and that they needed their father.
“And during those 17 days, I talked to him a lot and he … I hope he heard me. I will never know…. I kept repeating several times to Alban that our daughter is fine, that she is okay, that nothing happened at all. Because I imagine that as a father, for him, it was terrible to be attacked like that with a knife. And then to see that he was going to lose his consciousness. He must have felt it and imagined his daughter in danger.”
“I also tell him that he can’t leave, he can’t leave us. Our children are very small, and I need him, the children need him.”
Then, she describes the moment when she had to tell her young children that their father is gone.
“The death announcement to the children is something that I will never forget and I think it’s the hardest moment of my life, really.”
She was forced to sit her children down and let them know what happened to their father.
“So I told them that I had terrible news to tell them, but that unfortunately, their father had died the night before,” said Christelle.
Now, after the terrible ordeal of losing a father and a husband, the French court system is releasing their father’s killer with zero restrictions on him entering the same city as the family. While there is a direct contact ban, there is no guarantee they do not run into Mohamed L. on the street.
Mohamed L. never even faced a trial. Why? He smoked too much cannabis and had a “psychotic break.” The court experts confirmed this, and just like that, authorities deemed he could not be held criminally responsible. No trial and freedom after just four years.
“The fact that he is not imprisoned like a murderer for 15, 20 years in prison. It’s terrible for us. It’s terrible to know the violence Alban has suffered. And in addition, we must accept that after four years, his murderer is outside on evenings and weekends.”
“I am very worried, first of all, about the risk of recidivism. And then I find that for us, it is also a concern, since this person has the right to come to Marseille.”
She said that the authorities involved in the decision say Mohamed L. “must be able to benefit from it, he must have the necessary care.”
The murder already led the children to be forced from their own school. Now, they may have to leave their own city.
“My children have already had to change schools since it happened. They had to change friends. If, in addition, I tell them that we are leaving the city completely because the murderer and their father have the right to go where they want, I think that it is difficult to understand for them. I can’t help but say to myself, I don’t know where he is, I don’t know what he’s doing,” Christelle said.
She is fighting desperately with her lawyer to ensure this killer is no longer allowed in her city.
“The goal is that, is to have a measure that makes it forbidden for him to go to Marseille.”
“It is something that we carry on our shoulders with the children and that we will carry for a very long time.”
After his arrest, while held at Baumettes prison, he attempted to assault a guard, which contributed to his transfer to a psychiatric unit for difficult patients (UMD). This occurred after the murder and presumably, cannabis was not a factor in this assault.
Shockingly, during the trial, one of the psychiatrists openly said that they cannot predict whether the murderer will “relapse.”
“The question of the risk of a relapse. One of the psychiatrists had answered that it was a bit like predicting a plane crash, that it was impossible to predict. Psychiatrists who take care of this type of patient do not have a crystal ball to be sure that there will be no relapse. And this risk is still to be taken into account in the decisions to allow this person to be in the street today,” she said.
In other words, psychiatric experts admit Mohamed L. may murder again, yet, he is being allowed out on evenings and weekends anyway.
Christelle still has questions about how the man was deemed psychologically unfit to stand trial.
She said that after passersby tackled Mohamed L., he screamed: “In the name of Allah, I gave him 30 stab wounds!”
In response, Christelle said: “I always ask myself the question of something that was more premeditated than what you want to make me believe… We are talking about someone who can kill someone in the street. My husband only lasted a few moments. It’s not a fight, it’s a murder.”
“You think he’s going to go to prison. It doesn’t happen as planned. In relation to the trajectory of the murder of my husband,” she added.
“What is complicated, in fact, with this decision, is that we have no idea of the deadline. We don’t know how long he’s going to stay at the hospital in a closed unit. We don’t know how to answer this question. And despite everything, we can still hear that it is difficult to announce to his children that the murder of their father is not condemned to prison, but will have care for an undetermined duration. I also felt deprived of answers to certain questions,” she said.
Regardless, three children are now missing a loving father, with Alban’s wife describing a happy home life before his murder: “We had a life with Alban who was quite classic and very happy. We met in 2009. I was a medical student and he was an intern. We got engaged and then we got married. We had three children. We moved several times because Alban was a military doctor. So we met in Lorraine. Then we went to Paris for his work. Then to Marseille in July 2021. And we really had a very happy family life because Alban was a very loving husband, very loved and a father really present for his children and very invested in his role as a father.”
During a marital argument, a 69-year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Habib Rouissi, allegedly murdered his 50-year-old Polish wife, Joanna Rouissi, by stabbing her four times in the throat in the town of Colleferro near Rome.
During the argument and murder on Aug. 18, their nine-year-old son witnessed the brutal murder of his mother, and the couple’s eldest son, 20, was also in the apartment and was unable to stop his father.
After killing Joanna, her husband reportedly dropped the knife and fled the scene. The daughter, who returned home moments later, found her younger brother terrified and her mother dying. Despite the intervention of the paramedics and attempts at resuscitation, the victim died at the scene, according to Italian newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano.
As part of the immediate operational activities undertaken, police officers from the Colleferro police station detained Mohamed Habib several hundred meters from the murder scene. The man did not resist and confessed to the crime during questioning.
The Velletri prosecutor’s office is conducting an investigation into the murder, determining the exact course of events and the perpetrator’s motives.
The mayor of the town has also spoken out.
“From what we can understand, the lady was quite well known in the area and by some families of Colleferro. From what emerges, there were some signs of this situation which, however, evidently escaped authorities’ attention or were not considered so dangerous,” said the mayor of Colleferro, Giulio Calamita, while speaking to LaPresse. “This is the first femicide our city has seen in its modern history. A man, reportedly with mental problems, killed his partner. This is yet another tragedy after a difficult week, terrible news that has shaken a family of five children, one of whom is a minor. In these hours, we have given them as much support as we could and will continue to do so in the coming days. I’m sure the city will also find a way to react to this bad story.”
Investigators are also checking whether the family has previously reported cases of domestic violence. According to preliminary findings, tensions had been brewing between the spouses for some time. The couple’s five children were placed in a care facility.
“Blueapples” writing on X and also on his Substack page, Ashes for Acacia, reported how Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, states that Trump followed Kabbalistic teachings, and even kept an Aramaic copy of the Book of Pinchas under his clothing.
If you want to understand the true reasons behind why the U.S. started a war with Iran, you need to understand the influence of the Jewish Kabbalah cult, and its influence over President Trump and many Zionists.
I covered the Kabbalah last year, with Ben Born Again’s documentary about it. It has since been removed from YouTube, but I had a backup copy and restored it in last year’s article, which you can watch here:
Although President Donald J. Trump declared his longstanding affinity for the Jewish people and State of Israel far before he entered into the political arena, his entrenchment with Zionism has become the defining feature of his second term in the Oval Office.
That position has also become the focal point for criticism of the second Trump administration, as critics — many of whom were once his most loyal supporters — have come to question whether the president is intent on putting America or Israel first.
That doubt has raised questions that transcend far beyond political concerns into deeper, more philosophical and spiritual realms.
One glaring red flag that perfectly distills those questions was observed on the date of Trump’s second inauguration, when he elected not to place his hand upon the Bible when he was sworn in as president.
Donald Trump takes the oath for the President of the United States on January 20, 2025, without placing his hand on either of the two Bibles that Melania Trump was holding.
According to an interview with Israeli media, Trump’s former mistress turned ex-wife revealed that decision may have been made because the president keeps another holy book closer to his heart.
Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, told Israeli Channel 12 news that the president keeps an Aramaic copy of the Book of Pinchas under his clothing close to his heart for “healing and protection.”
The portion of the Book of Numbers (specifically, Numbers 25:10-30:1) is distributed among Kabbalistic sects in the Aramaic text Maples referred to Trump’s copy being as an apotropaic talisman. Centered on the biblical figure Pinchas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of the High Priest Aaron, the book is a highly revered section from the Zohar, the foundational text of the preeminent branch of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah.
In her interview with Channel 12, Maples described her own deep affinity for Judaism, its mystical elements such as Kabbalah, and the State of Israel, despite maintaining the outward appearance of a Christian identity. The experiences and practices that Maples detailed from her own life drew stark parallels with that of Trump and his family’s, including maintaining a kosher diet, reciting the Shema as a declaration of the Jewish faith, visiting the graves of exalted Jewish religious figures, observing the Sabbath, and frequently visiting Israel.
When recounting the ties to Judaism she has maintained for decades, Maples made note of visiting the city of Safed in northern Israel. In addition to being one of Judaism’s Four Holy Cities — alongside Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias — Safed is the historical center of Kabbalah. Its status as the epicenter of Kabbalah arose during the 16th century, when it became home to central figures of the branch of Jewish mysticism like Moses Cordovero and, most notably, Isaac Luria, the father of its contemporary practice, which has become known as Lurianic Kabbalah. Luria’s influence on Kabbalah was so profound that he became known as “Arizal,” which in Hebrew translates to “Lion of God,” based on the Hebrew words “El” (meaning God) and “Ari” (meaning lion).
Following his death in 1572, Luria was buried in the Safed Old Jewish Cemetery on the lower hillside of the city. His grave has since become a major pilgrimage site for Kabbalists.
Trump’s ex-wife is not the only figure in his life who maintains reverence for Kabbalah.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who has held various high-ranking advisory roles in each of his presidential administrations, is a member of the Haredi sect of Judaism known as Chabad-Lubavitch.
Chabad arose as a Hasidic dynasty in 1775 by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi in Liozno, then part of the Russian Empire. The sect is inherently Kabbalistic, taking its name from an acronym representing the first three Sephirot of the Tree of Life: Chokmah, Binah, and Da’at.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, converted to Judaism in order to marry Kushner and regularly attends Chabad-run congregations as a practicing Jew. She has also regularly been seen adorned with a red string bracelet on her wrist, another popular apotropaic talisman worn by Kabbalists.
Maples detailed how Ivanka Trump’s conversion was a monumental force in further immersing the president into world Jewry, which she expressed has helped shape her ex-husband’s spiritual and consequently political identity. The influence of that immersion into Judaism has been echoed by fervent ultra-Zionist supporters of Trump, such as political commentator Mark Levin, who has referred to Trump as the U.S. “first Jewish president” on multiple occasions.
Trump himself reinforced that image by making his undying commitment to Israel and the Jewish people explicit, wasting no opportunity to reiterate it during his second term as president.
That commitment has come to undermine Trump’s second term, which continues to be mired by its war with Iran, which senior officials in his administration have consistently justified as necessary to defending Israel and maintaining the U.S. allegiance with the Jewish state.
Prioritizing that relationship has led to upheaval among Trump’s supporters, who have come to mock his presidency as being Israel First instead of following through on the America First platform it built itself upon.
That growing disdain has become amplified by the continued presence of Kushner within his administration, whose overt identity as a member of Chabad and an unflinching ally of Israel has raised further questions behind the motives driving the work in his role as an informal special envoy in deliberations between the U.S. and Iran.
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