A 19-year-old Afghan man, Massoud S., was tried Monday at the Aix-en-Provence court for sexual assault against six goats, one of which died, and a 6-month-old lamb at an educational farm. He has been convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison and a ban from French territory.
Afghan migrant Massoud S. was initially charged with “serious abuse or act of cruelty against a domestic, tame, or captive animal.” He continued to deny the rapes in this case despite DNA evidence and being caught redhanded raping a goat. He even told a court psychologist that anyone who did rape the animals only did it to “not rape a woman” since “a goat could not identify him afterward.”
The sexual assaults occurred between February and April and on top of the DNA evidence, his phone location also had him pinged to the crime scene.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he told the magistrates regarding the ample evidence against him.
Massoud S. reportedly repeatedly raped the animals, which all belonged to an animal shelter and educational farm “Un moment” in Les Pennes-Mirabeau, near Marseille.
Cassandra Sortino, the owner of the establishment, remains deeply traumatized by the mass rape of her animals by the Afghan man.
“We set up this association to do good, and the animals were in danger in our own structure. We cannot explain it morally,” she testified. “We feel like we failed.”
According to Swiss outlet 20 Minutes, “Representing herself without a lawyer, she searched in vain for an answer to her central question: why?”
The incident began in February when she noticed that there were ligature marks on some of the animals’ legs. A veterinarian discovered injuries to the animals’ genitals and traces of blood.
This was enough evidence for Sortino to install a surveillance camera, where she saw a man sneaking into her property and raping animals. She remained in contact with police, and in April, the Afghan man was finally arrested. At the moment he was apprehended, police discovered the man in the middle of the act of raping the goat, wearing latex gloves, and with his pants down.
Massoud S. claimed that he was in the barn because he missed his train on the night he was arrested to Marseille, where he lives in an asylum seeker center in the city’s 3rd arrondissement.
Massoud S. required a translator during his trial but said he felt “full of shame” when describing his strict religious upbringing. He arrived in France in November 2025 and claims he lost his family during a bombing raid in his home country.
A psychiatrist reported the man suffers from no mental disorders, however, he reportedly said while talking about the rapes: “We make a big deal out of it when they’re just animals,”
“I’m a normal person,” he said when confronted with these statements in court.
He has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for charges reclassified as “abuse leading to death.” He is also banned from French territory and must register into a database for sexual offenders.
Sortino is not done with the Afghan and plans to appeal the sentence.
“I would have liked to understand,” Sortino said.
Previous casesLast year in Germany, a shocking case has emerged from the beautiful town of Oberneufnach in Bavaria, which involved a 52-year-old Turkish asylum seeker allegedly breaking into a stable and sexually abusing ponies.
The man, who is from a refugee shelter in the nearby town of Anhofen, was arrested after he was caught on surveillance video.
The man broke into the horse farm at 6:45 p.m. while the family was having dinner. They heard the dog barking and then looked on surveillance monitors, where they saw the man in the stable with his pants down on top of one of the animals.
The boyfriend then ran to the stables to chase down the man, but he had already fled the scene. He continued his pursuit of the suspect though and eventually caught him. Police arrived and placed the man under arrest.
In 2023, a 27-year-old suspect was arrested after he was caught on a surveillance camera raping a pony at a stable south of Hamburg. The 18-year-old pony, which is named “Carrie,” was abused by the man at 1 a.m., with footage showing the man calmly walking onto the property and starting to attack the defenseless animal.
Steffi B. released the footage to German newspaper Bild, which posted stills of the perpetrator on its web publication.
The attack happened in Birkenmoor, which is in Harburg, just a few kilometers from the Hamburg city center.
Even the petting zoo at the park has not been safe. In 2017, a Syrian migrant raped a pony there in front of children.
“My babysitter was out with our son in Görlitzer Park. They witnessed the man sexually assault the pony,” one woman told Berliner Morgenpost at the time. The babysitter took a photo of the man as he raped the pony and provided it to police. The migrant was banned from the petting zoo in response, but it is unclear if he was ever charged by police.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 09:15President Donald Trump formally asked Congress on Wednesday for $87.6 billion in supplemental appropriations - your tax dollars (for our American readers) - to cover urgent needs stemming from the U.S. military campaign against Iran, provide economic relief to American farmers, and respond to the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa.
The request, sent in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, comes as the administration seeks to replenish military stocks and address operational expenses from Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israeli military effort launched on February 28, 2026.
Breakdown of the Funding RequestAccording to the White House letter and reporting from multiple outlets, the package allocates funds across several priorities:
The administration described most of the request as addressing “urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury” while also tackling other critical domestic and international priorities.
Background: Operation Epic FuryOperation Epic Fury - the Israeli-US (Master-Blaster) war on Iran which has split the Republican party in exchange for no obvious benefit to Americans who are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars - saw four months of intense fighting from late February to early May 2026. The goal was to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, missile and drone production facilities, navy, air defenses, and efforts to develop or acquire nuclear weapons and related technology.
Diplomatic efforts continue, including a June 2026 memorandum of understanding signed in Islamabad aimed at formally ending the conflict within a 60-day window, though disputes remain over issues such as IAEA access to damaged nuclear sites.
The Trump administration has characterized the campaign as a decisive success achieved through “peace through strength,” while critics have raised questions about costs, civilian casualties in some strikes, and broader strategic outcomes.
Political Reactions and Congressional OutlookThe supplemental faces a challenging path in Congress. It requires bipartisan support to advance in the Senate, where 60 votes are typically needed to overcome procedural hurdles.
House Republican leaders have indicated they will review the details carefully, citing Congress’s constitutional role in funding national defense. The request arrives amid broader debates over the administration’s push for a significantly larger Pentagon budget.
The package also includes regulatory updates favored by some farm-state Republicans, such as measures related to hemp-derived products and year-round sales of E15 ethanol-blended fuel. These provisions aim to support agricultural interests but have drawn opposition from other sectors.
Bundling military, humanitarian, agricultural, and infrastructure spending in one supplemental is a common legislative tactic but often draws criticism for obscuring priorities or adding unrelated items.
What Happens Next?Congressional appropriators will now examine the request. Passage is far from guaranteed given partisan divides over the Iran conflict and competing budget priorities. The administration has urged swift action, emphasizing the need to restore military readiness and address other urgent matters.
This supplemental represents one of the largest emergency funding requests in recent years, reflecting both the scale of the military operation against Iran and the administration’s efforts to address domestic economic pressures on farmers and global health risks.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 09:00The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time fell last week to 215k (after hitting four month highs last week), well below the 225k expectations and back to the same levels it was at in 2021...
New Jersey and Oregon saw the biggest WoW rise in initial jobless claims while Minnesota and Pennsylvania saw the biggest decline...
At the same time, continuing jobless claims picked up to 1.821 million Americans - the highest in 3 months...
The bottom line is that initial claims remain low by historical standards and continue to run below year-ago levels, reinforcing the more hawkish 'labor market is resilient' framework introduced last week.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 08:55After accelerating in March and April, The Fed's favorite inflation indicator - Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) - was expected to rise once again in May.
And it did with the crucial inflation signal up 0.3% MoM (as expected) and up 3.4% YoY (as expected) and at the highest level since Nov 2023...
Services costs picked up again with Durable goods flat and non-durable goods inflation decelerating...
The headline PCE jumped 0.4% MoM (slightly less than the 0.5% exp) and up 4.1% YoY (as expected) - highest since April 2023...
The impact of the war is evident in crude prices and the PCE's energy index, but arguably, this is as bad as it gets in terms of inflation...
But PCE signals that the soaring cost of semiconductors (the software and accessories component receives about 30 times the weight in PCE as it does in CPI) - has stalled...
Higher prices were met with higher spending (+0.7% MoM notional) and higher income growth (+0.7% MoM)...
While Spending has been accelerating, income growth HAD been slowing but accelerated markedly last month...
...with both private sector and government workers seeing wage growth acceleration...
Spending continues to run well ahead of inflation (real personal spending up 2.1% YoY)...
Despite an upward revision to the personal savings rate every month of 2026, May was 3.0%, still lowest since 2022
With the savings rate barely above record lows, it seems that Americans are digging into their savings to keep up with inflation. No wonder sentiment is so low...
Howver, as Goldman's Rich Privorotsky notes, the challenge is that most inflation data now feels inherently backward looking, predating the collapse in oil back toward pre-conflict levels.
Given Warsh's new mantra of no forward guidance we probably should have more volatility around these releases than we have seen historically.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 08:45