The U.K. is considering a ban on the social media platform X and is trying to gather international support for such a move. But Canada has said it won’t be part of that, at least for now. Here’s what to know.

Why is Britain upset at X?

It isn’t just Britain, but that country have been making news over discussions to ban the platform. At issue is X’s AI assistant, Grok, which has been widely used to generate sexualized deepfakes of women and children, including modifying photographs to remove a person’s clothing.

What has X done to deal with the problem?

The company, run by Elon Musk, said the issue was due to a lapse in its AI’s safeguards. It subsequently limited image generation to

paying customers

. But politicians in Britain and the EU called for a stronger regulatory crackdown.

What are other countries doing?

Some have gone so far as to block their citizens from accessing Grok. On Monday,

Britain’s Guardian newspaper

reported that Malaysia had become the second country to temporarily block access to Grok. This came a day after Indonesia made a similar move.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said on Sunday it would restrict access to Grok over the AI tool’s ability “to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive, and nonconsensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors,” per the Guardian.

The Guardian also reported that Germany’s culture and media minister had called on the European Commission to take legal steps, warning of the “industrialization of sexual harassment,” and that France and Italy were also warning of the platform’s misuse.

What is Britain’s plan?

On Monday, the U.K.’s independent media regulator Ofcom said it was launching a formal investigation into X over Grok’s image creation feature.

Ofcom described the reports as “deeply concerning,” saying in a statement that the undressed images of people “may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography — and sexualiszed images of children… may amount to child sexual abuse material.”

The office of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the investigation and said Ofcom “has our full support to take any action it sees fit.”

A Downing Street spokesperson added, per an Agence France-Presse news story: “We won’t hesitate to go further to protect children online and strengthen the law as needed.”

Britain’s Online Safety Act says social media and video-sharing platforms hosting potentially harmful content are required to implement strict age verification and are not allowed to create or share non-consensual intimate images, or child sexual abuse material, including sexual deepfakes created with AI. Ofcom has the power to impose fines of 10 per cent of worldwide revenue for breaches of these rules.

What has been Canada’s reaction?

Last week, Starmer was said to be in talks with officials in Canada and Australia about mounting a combined response.

The initial response seemed strong when, several days ago, A.I. Minister Evan Solomon posted to X: “Deepfake sexual abuse is violence. We must protect Canadians, especially women and young people, from exploitation.”

Deepfake sexual abuse is violence.

We must protect Canadians, especially women and young people, from exploitation. Platforms and AI developers have a duty to prevent this harm.

Our government is continuing to advance responsible AI, including introducing Bill C-16, the…

— Evan Solomon (@EvanLSolomon) January 8, 2026

However, in the early hours of Sunday morning, he followed up that message to clarify: “Contrary to media reports, Canada is not considering a ban of X.”

What was Elon Musk’s reaction?

According to the

New York Times

, Musk’s reaction to Britain’s call for a ban was to label the U.K. government as “fascist,” while also boasting that the controversy had led to more downloads of the app.

However, when games developer Tim Sweeney posted to X on Canada’s decision not to ban the platform, Musk responded briefly with just two emojis: c Canadian flag and a heart.

🇨🇦❤️ https://t.co/b6BEdLxz1R

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 12, 2026

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A B.C. judge has decided that a woman who believes Jesus Christ will help her fight allegations of recklessly discharging a gun is mentally fit to stand trial.

According to a recently published

provincial court decision

, Crown counsel, on the expert advice of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Garen Gharakhanian, had applied to have Denise Angela Norris declared unfit “based on her diagnosis of unspecified psychosis with religious delusions,” an assessment not contested by her court-appointed lawyer.

The Crown argued that because Norris does not recognize the court’s authority, she “will not actively engage in the court process and will not participate in her defence because, in her view, there is no point,” judge Kristen Mundstock wrote.

In opposing the application, defence counsel insisted Norris was aware of the proceedings, but she ultimately believed “her spiritual fate will be decided by God.”

The Crown submitted reports from five of the meetings between the “deeply religious or spiritual” Norris and Gharakhanian, snippets of which were included in Mundstock’s decision.

During their earliest encounter, Norris acknowledged the existence of courts, judges and prosecutors, but could not explain the charges against her, which she dismissed as “man-made.”

“She said Jesus was her defence lawyer, he will be present at her hearing and she will take instructions from him,” Gharakhanian explained, adding that she communicates with the son of God “mentally and through prayers, while Jesus communicated to her two or three times per day by speaking to her.

“She said she could hear Jesus with her ears and has had visions of him,” he wrote.

As the weeks progressed, these beliefs remained unchanged. Norris insisted she would represent herself in court, with Jesus speaking through her and that the final decision will be made by God.

The psychiatrist said Norris “denied auditory or visual hallucinations”, but said she insisted that “Jesus does speak to her and she was married to God.”

“She then started talking about her relationship to God and Jesus Christ and claimed she had seen Jesus Christ and the devil.”

Norris, who refused to attend court by video because she said it was akin to “playing video games with her life,” also repeatedly stated that provincial law did not apply to her and that the RCMP lacked the authority “to enter her residence, even if she was destroying property.”

In his final report, Gharakhanian said Norris continued to express this belief — distinguishing between B.C. and God’s jurisdiction — and maintain her innocence.

“She said she did not shoot at police and if she were to shoot at them she would have hit them,” the judge wrote. “She also stated the police shot at her and stated the police shot her in the chest to kill her.”

Even with a clear mental disorder, in Mundstock’s view, Norris’s understanding of the legal process and their seriousness indicate she’s able to conduct a defence or instruct her lawyer to do so.

The judge emphasized that fitness does not depend on whether an accused makes good decisions, only whether they are capable of making and communicating decisions. Unlike other cases where delusions caused persons to believe everyone involved the legal process was colluding against them, Norris didn’t appear to have any “persecutory beliefs.”

“Norris’s belief system may interfere with her ability to make the best decisions in conducting her defence, but that is not the standard upon which fitness is measured,” they concluded. “Ms. Norris is entitled to make poor decisions if she chooses.”

The decision does not provide any details on the nature of the Crown’s case against Norris, but it does provide a date and a geographic location for her alleged reckless discharge of a firearm as June 19, 2025, in or near Agassiz, just northeast of Chilliwack. She also referenced shooting and being shot by police during her interviews with Gharakhanian.

All of that aligns with an

incident reported by the Agassiz RCMP

, which is now the subject of investigation by the

Independent Investigations Office of B.C.

, the province’s police oversight entity.

According to the Mounties, officers were called to a residential disturbance that evening, where they found a person with a handgun who “reportedly pointed the gun at police before going into the home.”

Police allege the person returned, pointed the gun outside and fired a shot, resulting in officers returning fire and striking the person before they reentered the home.

The IIO report indicates the accused was air-lifted to the hospital.

According to the court decision, when first taken into custody, Norris refused to take anti-psychotic medication and had to be restrained to be injected. She eventually agreed to accept oral medication, despite denying the need for it.

Norris, who remains in custody, also initially refused to eat, stating that “the eternal body will be with God, the body left behind will decompose.” She eventually started eating again.

The B.C. Prosecution Service told National Post in an email that she is set to appear in court on Monday.

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An Air Canada crew member was trapped in the cargo hold of a flight that was scheduled to take off from Toronto’s Pearson Airport last month, the airline said.

Flight

AC1502

was expected to go from Toronto to Moncton, N.B. on Dec. 13, but it never made it to its destination. A member of the ground crew became stuck in the cargo hold when the doors “inadvertently closed” while he was inside, the airline said in a statement to National Post.

“Upon discovery, the aircraft returned to the gate,” the statement said. “There were no injuries, but as this presented a potential safety issue, we have reinforced our procedures with our ground crews.”

A French Canadian travel blogger and realtor Stephanie Curé posted about the incident

on Instagram

. In the video, a voice can be heard speaking to passengers. Curé started filming as the announcement was being made.

“I’ve never had that in my life,” the voice says, explaining the situation. “First time, hopefully the first and last. But that’s the reason we had to taxi — get that person out of the airplane. The good news is that the person is perfectly fine and safe.”

He added that there was some paperwork to deal with before taking off. However, the flight was later cancelled, according to airline tracking site FlightAware,

CTV News reported

.

“They never did get us to Moncton that day,” wrote Curé, in the caption of the post.

“We had already started taxiing when a baggage crew member was under the aircraft in the cargo and could be heard yelling for help and banging underneath us. Thankfully, he got out safely. I still can’t believe this happened.”

Another passenger, Gabrielle Caron,

told CBC

that passengers sitting at the back of the plane heard “screaming and banging, trying to get their attention.” Someone on the flight “even said that they called 911.”

“We’re noticing the flight attendants are kind of running back and forth in the airplane,” said Caron, “and on the ground, we could see the crew gathering around the plane, so we knew something was happening.”

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Canadians are increasingly concerned about rising crime in their communities, according to a new Angus Reid Institute poll.

“New data from

Angus Reid

,” says Shachi Kurl, president of the institute, “shows that three-in-five (62 per cent) Canadians believe crime has been rising in their communities over the last five years. That’s a lot more than the number of Canadians who say there’s been no change (24 per cent) or a decrease (five per cent).”

The new perception is matched by empirical data from Statistics Canada, which shows a rise in both its Crime Severity Index and Violent Crime Severity Index since 2020.

One key metric reveals growing discomfort: In 2015, Angus Reid asked Canadians if they felt safe walking alone after dark in their neighbourhood, finding one-in-three strongly agreed they felt safe and half agreed. This question was put forward again in 2022 and 2025. The proportion who felt safe had dropped from 32 per cent in 2015 to 23 per cent in 2022, and 17 per cent in 2025.

In 2014, Canadians were more likely to perceive stable crime rates (40 per cent) than increasing ones (30 per cent).

The perception that crime is rising close to home tends to be strongest among Conservatives, according to Angus Reid’s data. Those who voted CPC in 2025 believe there has been an increase in crime in their community at a rate 30 points higher than those who voted for Mark Carney’s Liberals (51 per cent). A majority (58 per cent) of past Bloc voters agree crime is increasing. Few Canadians (five per cent) say that crime has been decreasing where they live.

Many minor crimes have been on a downward trajectory in recent years, but one key offence has bucked this trend: shoplifting.

Shoplifting incidents are at their highest mark in decades. After a drop during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, each subsequent year has featured more shoplifting. “Increased financial pressures, mental health and addiction issues, lower police staffing levels, and other aspects are credited for this, as well as a focus on theft among organized crime,” says Kurl.

“Report after report during the past few years have noted the increase in shoplifting and abuse faced by the business community.”

Asked about their current job and the past six months, two-in-five (40 per cent) have dealt with shoplifting incidents “many times,” while one-quarter (24 per cent) say it has happened once or twice. Four-in-five have faced verbal abuse, while 43 per cent have endured physical threats.

Among the most widespread crimes, or at least attempted crimes, are fraud and identity theft. More than four-in-five Canadians say they have been the target of an online or phone scam over the past two years. For 30 per cent of the population, this has resulted in the loss of information or money.

Notably, according to the Angus Reid data, Canadians lost more than $638 million in reported fraud cases in 2024, although only five to 10 per cent of such cases are thought to be reported to authorities. This means that while 13 per cent of Canadians have been involved in a police-reported crime during this two-year period, more than one-in-three (36 per cent) have been victims of a crime if expanded to include this rampant fraud.

The prevalence of phishing and fraud attempts is astounding, with more than four-in-five Canadians saying they have been the subject of an attempt over the past two years. Asked if they believe telephone or internet-based fraud and identity theft attempts have been increasing or decreasing in their communities, a majority of Canadians, in each case, say they’re becoming more frequent.

While more than 80 per cent have been contacted, 30 per cent say they had money or personal information taken from them by a scam. These proportions tend to be higher with age. People 60 years of age and older are almost twice as likely as 18- to 29-year-olds to have been a victim. Some of this may be attributable to unfamiliarity with emerging fraud strategies.

Across income level, there is little variance, according to Angus Reid. “Canadians of all financial backgrounds are targets. Between 27 and 35 per cent within all income ranges say they have been victimized by fraud of this sort.”

Kurl says that the proportion of Canadians choosing crime and public safety as a top issue in Angus Reid Institute’s quarterly tracking has crept upward over the past eight years. After sitting in single digits from 2014 to 2019, the COVID and post-COVID environment has been one of elevated concern, with the proportion choosing this issue among their most important, rising to almost one-in-five

She notes that according to Statistics Canada, police-reported crimes have risen since 2014, after decades of falling. Though these rates are well below the high point recorded in 1990.

The rate of police-reported violent crime in the U.S. was 334 incidents per 100,000 in 2023, which remains significantly higher than the rate in Canada — 252. However, the gap between the U.S. and Canada has shrunk over the past 25 years.

Crime trends in both countries have fluctuated in recent years, but Canadians are much more likely to perceive crime as rising, while Americans are still far more likely to say that crime is increasing (39 per cent) than decreasing (10 per cent) in their community, though many (37 per cent) say there has been no change.

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Eight people were arrested and 29 charges were laid following an explosive demonstration and counter-demonstration in downtown Toronto on Saturday afternoon, including three arrests for allegedly assaulting police officers.

In

a Sunday news release

, the Toronto Police Service said officers were called to Nathan Phillips Square, near Queen Street West and Bay Street, after tensions escalated between opposing groups. While not identified by TPS, a large group of counter-protesters showed up to a Canada First “Stop Mass Immigration Rally” being held in the area on Saturday.

Police said they attempted to maintain order, but participants became disruptive, engaged in physical confrontations with each other and, in some cases, with officers.

The Toronto Police Association condemned the behaviour of some participants, calling it “completely unacceptable and disgusting.

“While trying to keep the situation safe for everyone, our members were pelted with eggs, used toilet paper, and plastic bags filled with what appeared to be urine. One police officer was punched,” it wrote in

a statement on X

, noting none sustained serious injuries.

“Our members will always facilitate peaceful and lawful demonstrations but this violence cannot and will not be tolerated. We are so proud of our members and we will continue to support them.”

In his

statement on X,

Chief Myron Demkiw also denounced all participants’ actions as “unacceptable — full stop” and offered thanks to the responding officers, who “deserve to do their jobs without being attacked.”

“As we have said many times, when officers have the lawful grounds to do so, arrests will be made and charges laid — anywhere in the city, whether involving protesters or counter-protesters.”

I want to thank the @TorontoPolice officers who were once again on the front line during yesterday’s demonstrations, often facing dangerous situations, including incidents in which officers were assaulted. This kind of violence against police officers, or anyone, is unacceptable… https://t.co/5tA5Kn0kjK

— Chief Myron Demkiw (@TPSMyronDemkiw) January 11, 2026

Three of the accused — a 25-year-old from Milton, along with a 35-year-old and a 27-year-old from Toronto — face charges including assaulting a police officers. Two of them are also charged with throwing an explosive with intent to cause bodily harm, carrying concealed weapons, and participating in an unlawful assembly while masked.

A 35-year-old Toronto resident was charged with theft, mischief and participating in an unlawful assembly. A 31-year-old from Toronto and a 23-year-old from Ottawa were both charged with obstructing a peace officer and disguising themselves with intent. A 50-year-old Toronto resident was also charged with obstruction and unlawful assembly.

A 24-year-old from Toronto faces charges of assault and participating in an unlawful assembly.

Police said a ninth person was initially arrested by later released unconditionally after further investigation.

All the accused are scheduled to appear in court on the morning of Feb. 26, 2026.

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Sprawling training sites. Huge oil storage areas. Countless anti-aircraft missile launchers. Ponds for testing amphibious vehicles. And nuclear-tipped missiles that could reach Western European capitals in mere minutes.

A group of private intelligence analysts using commercial satellite images and other evidence has put together a graphic illustration of the Russian military buildup on NATO’s Eastern flank, a threat that has most of Europe scrambling to bolster its defences.

In

a video stitching together that evidence

and presented to the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute think tank last month, the group provides a sobering overview of the heavily armed Russian presence near the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Finland.

They hope their research will turn some heads in North America, where attention has focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine but largely missed what President Vladimir Putin’s forces have done elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

“I think people need to know Russia is not this benign thing,” said Jeff Nyquist, a writer and blogger on geopolitics who presented the group’s findings in Toronto. “They want to dominate Europe, they want the United States to not be a great power any more … America can’t survive losing its allies in Europe. People need to understand what this means.”

The group’s analysis is “pretty good,” said Frédéric Labarre, a professor at the Royal Military College and an expert on NATO-Russia relations. The research serves the important function of letting Moscow know it is not operating in secrecy, he said.

“Their work is extremely, extremely useful if it gets published because it’s a way of telling the Russians ‘We see you. And whenever you move, we know where you’re going.’ ”

That said, Labarre is not convinced that the preponderance of Russian military equipment close to NATO countries — much of which he said is of poor quality — indicates an imminent plan to invade. It is more likely defensive, based on misconceptions about countries to its west.

NATO does not pose a military threat to Moscow but, said Labarre, “you cannot express this to a Russian, who has an ingrained paranoia about encirclement. This is not new. This is centuries-old, this fear of being encircled.”

Nyquist’s concern is linked to what he sees as a troubling turn by conservatives in the United States, who once were hawkish about confronting the Russian threat. Nyquist says he voted for Donald Trump in last year’s U.S. election, but now says the MAGA movement Trump leads is “obviously penetrated by the Russians.”

Trump himself has courted Putin as the White House tries to broker an end to the Ukraine war, halting direct U.S. military aid to Kyiv, hosting the Russian president in Alaska and at times harshly criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump’s capture this month of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and assertions about U.S. dominion over the Western hemisphere have

triggered concerns

that he is willing to see Russia and China hold sway in their respective domains of Europe and East Asia.

But if the U.S. is sanguine about Moscow’s martial ambitions, Europe is waking up to the threat.

“We are Russia’s next target,” Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general,

said in a speech

last month, one of several cautions he has issued lately. “Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe. And we must be prepared.”

German

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned

that Russia’s readiness to invade other European countries is accelerating. “Some military historians even believe we have already had our last summer of peace,” he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

has also raised the alarm

, as his country blamed a rail-line sabotage, drone incursions and the burning of a shopping mall on Russian agents. To prepare for more aggression, “we will accelerate the building of the strongest army in Europe,” Tusk vowed.

The group that put together the information on Russian forces is led by Lee Wheelbarger, who developed night-vision devices, communications equipment and a ground-breaking telemedicine system as a “senior technologist” with the U.S. Army.

He and his colleagues are not professional intelligence analysts. But he said he’s been studying Russian and other military movements for a decade – posting results on his KLW News online video channels – and has done work for the Ukrainian forces. Wheelbarger said he collects publicly available images from 28 commercial satellites operated by several companies. He and colleagues also access images from ground cameras – sometimes by hacking into them. He employs another video method he declined to discuss on the record, gleans information from human sources around the world and follows aircraft movements with flight-tracking sites.

To help identify what can look to the untrained eye like undefined blobs on the ground, he’s obtained three-dimensional renderings of various military hardware. Those renderings are then placed over the objects revealed by satellite images to see if they match in shape and size, helping identify the equipment. Other objects – like fighter jets and tanks – are clearly recognizable.

His group’s conclusions based on that evidence include:

• There has been major expansion in recent months of military installations in Kaliningrad, the tiny Russian “exclave” sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, including an enlarged command centre, several huge new missile storage facilities and a reconstructed nuclear-weapons depot, an assertion backed up by other reports.
• A runway at an airfield in Kaliningrad was recently lengthened and is lined with fighter jets and supersonic bombers. Nearby is  a storage facility for SS-27s, nuclear-armed inter-continental ballistic missiles. A photograph taken and posted by a cell-phone user – and published by other sites, too – shows a queue of truck-borne “Iskander” missiles, which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, on a highway 19 kilometres from Poland. Nyquist said it’s odd to station ballistic missiles – which roar into space then hurtle down to targets up to thousands of kilometres away – so close to the borders where they are more vulnerable. But he said they could also be fired in “low-trajectory” mode and reach NATO headquarters in Belgium, for instance, in five minutes. Nyquist suggested the Russian nuclear weapons stationed near borders would serve as a kind of blackmail to deter NATO.
• Poland has recently added defences along its border with Kaliningrad, including concrete “dragon’s teeth” and tank ditches for thwarting armoured vehicles. Flight tracking this past summer revealed numerous trips by airliners into Kaliningrad from the Russian far-east at all hours of the night and day, while beaches were empty of tourists, suggesting an influx of troops.
• As in Kaliningrad, scores of S-400 anti-aircraft missiles and launchers are stationed in Belarus, a close Russian ally. A train that the group tracked from its start point in China delivered military hardware to a Russian base in Belarus, Wheelbarger says. He and his group also spotted more SS-27s, stored just 64 kilometres from the Latvian border.
• Belarus contains huge military training grounds near Poland, including “fording ponds” where amphibious vehicles are tested.

Nyquist argued that the most likely move by Russia, if it were to invade NATO territory, would be to capture the so-called

Suwalki Gap

along the Polish-Lithuania border, both cutting off the Baltic states from the rest of NATO and linking Kaliningrad with Belarus.

Labarre called Russia a ”very nasty neighbour” with imperialist ambitions, but he downplayed the significance of its positioning of military hardware close to NATO-country borders. In Kaliningrad, for instance, the area is so small, it would be difficult not to do so, he said.

• NATO to bolster eastern borders as Russia, Belarus hold joint military drills
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