Crazy footage from yesterday in the Nineveh Governorate of Northern Iraq, close to the Kurdish-majority city of Erbil, showing an American Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a copycat of the Iranian Shahed-136, striking a building utilized by Iraq’s Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Before the Assyrian Christian Genocide of 1915 an Assyrian Christian woman from Tkhuma, Hakkari (present-day Turkey)—one of the last generations to live freely in her ancestral homeland. Between 1914 and 1924, more than 70% of the Assyrian Christians of Hakkari were systematically killed. The survivors were forced into exile, fleeing to the Nineveh Plains, Urmia, and beyond—ending an Assyrian presence in Hakkari that had endured for thousands of years. But Hakkari was only one part of a much larger tragedy. Across the Ottoman Empire—in Mosul, Urmia, Siirt, Diyarbakir, Adana, Mardin, Tur Abdin and Beirut—entire regions were devastated Eyewitnesses spoke of rivers running red and wells filled with bodies. Villages were burned. Churches were desecrated. In the spring of 1915, a storm of violence swept across the empire. This was not random. This was not temporary. This was systematic destruction. The Christian Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, and Maronites—ancient peoples rooted in faith, language, and identity—were targeted for annihilation. For the Assyrians, this catastrophe is remembered as Seyfo/Sayfo—the Year of the Sword. Families like the woman in this photograph were torn apart: • Fathers executed • Mothers violated • Children taken, orphaned, or left to die along endless death marches. Entire communities vanished. Historians estimate that over 3.5 million Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, and Maronites were killed. Today, more than a century later… The memory lives on. The pain remains. The voices still echo. We remember.

Nineteen humanoid robots waltzed with human partners in Shanghai this week. The interesting problem isn't the dancing. It's the partner. 🤖 Choreography alone is solvable, a robot executing a fixed sequence on a flat stage is a well-understood control problem. But adding a human changes the category. A partner applies unpredictable forces through the arms and torso, arrives fractionally early or late & shifts weight in ways no script anticipates. To the robot, that's a continuous stream of disturbances it has to reject while staying upright, in sync with music & in position on a crowded stage. Balance under unmodelled contact is the same problem that stops humanoids working in warehouses and homes. Objects shift, floors slip, people bump into things. A stage with a human partner is a rare public test of exactly that. The hardware: Unitree H2, 180 cm, roughly 70 kg, 31 degrees of freedom, leg joints rated to 360 newton-metres, onboard compute scaling to 2,070 TOPS on Nvidia's Jetson AGX Thor. The eyes are cameras. Unitree says the routines ran autonomously in real time. That means no teleoperation & no remote correction, not improvisation. The choreography was learned in advance; what's live is the balance & synchronization. Nineteen machines holding that simultaneously, in front of an audience, with no single failure visible, is the real measurement worth noting here. 📐

Nineteen Muslim refugees were accused in the r*pe of a 12-year-old at a parking garage. Guess how many got convicted?!?! ⠀ The scene was near Vienna Central Station. The first man tried was a 17-year-old Syrian. The court acquitted him and said there was no proof she had not consented. ⠀ He had confessed. He threw her cash as a “gesture of goodwill.” The girl’s lawyer called it a mockery. ⠀ A later Favoriten trial put ten men in the dock, Syrians and others from Turkey and the Balkans, ages 16 to 21. All ten walked. Prosecutors never charged underage abuse because they said they could not prove the men knew she was 12. ⠀ Austria’s 2025 convictions for r*pe of minors were 53 percent foreigners. That is the migration record, not a courtroom score of 19-for-19. ⠀ The United States is pulling the same mix through illegal crossings and refugee pipelines while an Islamic political bloc grows. Pew counts about 5.5 million U.S. Muslims, up from 2.4 million in 2007. ⠀ Mosques went from about 1,200 in 2000 to about 2,800 in 2020. Dearborn is majority MENA. CAIR claims more than 2.5 million Muslim voters. Hamtramck already has an all-Muslim council and a public hijab try-on for little girls. ⠀ Sharia politics starts with the claim that a child can consent. Vienna showed what a weak court does with that claim. ⠀ #Austria# #Vienna#

Nieves María Josefa Vázquez Peteira is one of the oldest active drivers in Spain. At 102, she lives in Santalla de Rioaveso, located in the Galician municipality of Cospeito (Lugo). She obtained her driver's license out of pure necessity in the 1990s at the age of 69. Since then, she has been driving her trusted Citroën ZX almost daily.

In the nineteenth century, travelers reportedly discovered a strange abandoned village hidden far from major towns. Homes stood empty. Cooking utensils remained inside kitchens, personal belongings were still scattered across rooms, and food was reportedly left behind. Yet the villagers were gone. There were no clear signs of a battle, no obvious disaster, and no convincing evidence explaining where everyone had disappeared. Searchers looked through nearby forests and roads, hoping to find clues. Nothing solved the mystery. Some believed the villagers had fled because of disease or danger. Others suspected conflict, migration, or something never recorded by history. The truth remains uncertain. What happened to everyone? To this day, the mystery continues to fascinate people because the village appeared to be abandoned without a clear explanation.

Mary Austin and Freddie Mercury: A Bond Beyond Fame Mary Austin was just nineteen years old when she met the man the world would later know as Freddie Mercury. At the time, however, he was simply Farrokh Bulsara—a twenty-three-year-old art student with little money, big dreams, and a quiet nature that hid the confidence he would one day display on the world's biggest stages. Their story began in 1969 at Biba, a fashionable London boutique where Mary worked. Life had never been easy for her. Raised in Fulham by deaf parents, she left school at fifteen to help support her family. She was practical, hardworking, and far removed from the glamorous world she would eventually enter. Farrokh often visited the shop. He admired the clothes but could rarely afford them. For months, he returned again and again, gathering the courage to speak to Mary. The future frontman of Queen—who would later command stadiums full of fans—was too nervous to ask one young woman on a date. Finally, on September 5, 1969, his twenty-third birthday, he made his move. Mary did not even realize he considered their outing a date. To her, it felt like two friends spending time together. Yet that evening marked the beginning of a relationship that would shape both of their lives. The two quickly grew close and, within months, moved into a small apartment near Kensington Market. Money was scarce. Mary worked to help cover expenses while Freddie focused on music. As he pursued what seemed like an unlikely dream with a struggling band that would eventually become Queen, Mary stood firmly by his side. When others questioned whether he would ever succeed, Mary never did. Queen released its debut album in 1973, but success did not arrive overnight. Reviews were mixed, finances remained tight, and the band's future was uncertain. Through it all, Mary remained Freddie's strongest supporter. That Christmas, Freddie surprised her with a gift. Inside a series of nested boxes was a small jade ring. When Mary asked which hand she should wear it on, Freddie told her to place it on her left ring finger. Then he proposed. Mary accepted. For a time, it seemed they would spend their lives together. But as Queen's popularity grew, Freddie found himself confronting truths about his identity that he had long struggled to understand. By 1976, he finally opened up to Mary and told her he believed he was bisexual. After listening carefully, Mary responded with honesty. She told him she felt he was actually gay. The conversation changed the course of their relationship. Their engagement ended, and so did their romantic partnership. Yet instead of drifting apart, they forged a bond unlike any other. Freddie arranged for Mary to live nearby and ensured she remained an important part of his life. Although they were no longer a couple, Freddie never considered her simply an ex-girlfriend. He often described her as his soulmate. Many of the people Freddie dated found it difficult to understand Mary's place in his life. Yet he repeatedly made it clear that no one could replace her. In his eyes, she remained the closest person to him. He even wrote "Love of My Life" with Mary in mind, immortalizing their connection in one of Queen's most beloved songs. As the years passed, both moved forward. Freddie became one of the most famous performers on the planet. Mary built a life of her own, married, and had two sons. Still, they remained deeply connected. Mary knew the person behind the fame. She remembered the young dreamer before the stadiums, the records, and the worldwide recognition. She remembered Farrokh. When Freddie was diagnosed with HIV in the late 1980s, he kept the news private from most of the world. Mary was among the few who knew. As his health declined, she stayed close, visiting him regularly at Garden Lodge, his home in Kensington. On November 24, 1991, Freddie Mercury passed away at the age of forty-five. Before his death, however, he entrusted Mary with one final responsibility. Freddie did not want his grave to become a public attraction. He feared that his final resting place would turn into a spectacle for fans and tourists. To prevent that from happening, he asked Mary to take his ashes somewhere private after his cremation. She agreed. According to reports, Mary kept the ashes safely in her home for nearly two years before carrying out his wishes. Then, one day, she quietly left Garden Lodge and scattered them at a location known only to her and Freddie. To this day, she has never revealed where that place is. Countless theories have emerged over the years. Some believe his ashes were scattered in London, while others suggest Switzerland, Zanzibar, or even the grounds of Garden Lodge itself. Mary has never confirmed any of these claims. Her silence remains one of the last promises she made to him. Freddie's will further demonstrated the depth of his trust. He left Mary half of his estate, including Garden Lodge. Over time, her share became even more significant through the estate's arrangements. While some questioned why he left so much to a former fiancée, Freddie had long ago explained his reasoning. He once told Mary that if life had unfolded differently, she would have been his wife—and everything would have belonged to her anyway. For decades after his death, Garden Lodge remained filled with Freddie's belongings: his clothing, artwork, handwritten notes, treasured possessions, and even the piano associated with some of Queen's greatest music. In 2023, Mary made the difficult decision to auction nearly 1,500 of those items through Sotheby's. The collection attracted enormous global attention, with almost 140,000 visitors coming to view the memorabilia before the sale. For Mary, it was not simply about selling possessions. It was about closing a chapter that had remained open for more than thirty years. Yet one thing she refused to part with was the secret of Freddie's ashes. Over the years, Mary became the guardian of the private Freddie Mercury—the man behind the icon. Not the superstar who electrified Wembley Stadium, but the shy young artist who once wandered into a clothing shop hoping to find the courage to speak to her. Mary later said that losing Freddie felt much like losing a husband. Their relationship had survived every stage of life—success and struggle, joy and heartbreak, health and illness. What they shared never fit neatly into a single category. It began as love, evolved into friendship, and ultimately became something deeper than either. While romance ended, loyalty never did. Mary believed in Freddie before the world celebrated him. Freddie trusted Mary when he had everything to lose. And in the end, he placed his final wish in her hands. More than fifty years after they first met, people still wonder where Freddie Mercury's ashes rest. Mary Austin still refuses to say. Perhaps that enduring mystery is what makes their story so powerful. It reminds us that some relationships transcend labels, some bonds survive every change life brings, and some promises remain unbroken even after death. Some loves simply take a different form—and last forever.

A legendary smokehouse in Kansas City. Hickory smoke rolling out of brick chimneys since nineteen forty-six. I stood before the wooden ordering counter, staring at an item listed as Burnt Ends. My tactical memories flared. In fortress warfare, the burnt ends were the blackened cedar beams pulled from a ruined citadel after the gates fell. Was this the meal of disgraced commanders? A dish of penance for men who lost their banner? For seven full minutes I stood at the glass, arms folded across my chest, refusing to reveal my shameful ignorance to the cashier. Big Darryl, a towering pitmaster wielding a twelve-inch brisket knife like a halberd, stepped up to the counter and leaned down. Buddy, you been staring at that sign like it insulted your mother. You have not the faintest clue what a burnt end is, do you? Shame choked my throat. My ears burned scarlet. I bowed my head and forced out the three hardest words in the warrior tongue. I do not. Big Darryl’s face split into a wide, golden grin. He brought the knife down on a smoking black brisket, carved off a glistening charred corner dripping with dark molasses bark, dipped it into warm sauce, and laid it on brown butcher paper. Put that in your mouth right now, Darryl ordered. Then you can ask me why. I placed the dark cube upon my tongue. It did not chew. It dissolved into woodsmoke, black sugar, and unconditional grace. Tears sprang from my eyes. I looked up at the giant with trembling lips. Why? Darryl slammed his fist on the cutting board with pure joy: Because the smoke loves the corners best, little brother! I ordered three pounds. Ignorance was annihilated in a single bite.