A tornado swept through a village in Creuse, central France, on Thursday (March 9), causing damage to infrastructure and buildings. The violent weather left a number of houses in Pontarion with roofs and windows, while telephone lines were also damaged. Despite the damage from the tornado, no one was injured in the village, confirmed its mayor on Friday (March 10). The tornado was caused by the strong winds that led to weather warnings across France, with some regions seeing winds of up to 100km/h.

The storms and floods that have hit Mozambique since February have taken the lives of 117 people, according to Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane. Giving information on the floods on Wednesday to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Maleiane said that, up to 5 March, 272,000 people had been affected. Cyclone Freddy was responsible for much of the damage. When it hit parts of the southern provinces of Inhambane and Gaza in late February, it dropped between 300 and 900 millimetres of rain in 24 hours. Instead of dissipating, this cyclone has returned to the Mozambique Channel and is now heading northwards towards Zambezia province, where it is expected to make landfall on Friday.

This bright bolide was spotted over Spain on March 8, at 23:15 local time (equivalent to 22:15 universal time). The fireball was observed by a wide number of casual eyewitnesses, who reported it on social networks. The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 80,000 km/h. It overflew the province of Jan (south of Spain). It began at an altitude of about 79 km over Villacarrillo (province of Jan), moved northwest, and ended at a height of around 44 km over Aldeaquemada (province of Jan). This bright meteor was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN) from the meteor-observing stations located at La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada, and La Sagra (Granada). The event has been analyzed by the principal investigator of the SMART project: Dr. Jose M. Madiedo, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).

Update (1300ET): Well, that escalated quickly... As one might expect, the Judiciary hearing on the "weaponization" of federal agencies, featuring Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger as witnesses was full of fireworks, facts, and ad hominem friction. Out of the gate, Ranking Member Democratic Del. Stacey E. Plaskett labeled the two "so-called journalists" as dangerous and a "threat" to former Twitter employees. She claimed that Republicans brought "two of Elon Musk's 'public scribes'" in "to release cherry-picked out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative - Elon Musk's chosen narrative - that is now being parroted by the Republicans" for political gain.

Crowd not pleased. Joe Biden had another embarrassing verbal slip up during a speech in Philadelphia when he referred to Donald Trump as "maybe the future president" to a disapproving audience. Biden was in Philadelphia to talk about his $6.8 trillion budget, but it appeared as though Trump was still on his mind.

The feds' political persecution of the Proud Boys took a wild turn after unintentionally leaked chat logs from FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller revealed she said she was ordered by her boss to "destroy" "338 items of evidence." The leaked chats also suggest Miller failed to reveal relevant communications to the defense, potentially spied on privileged attorney-client communications and was asked by another agent to "edit out that I was present" during a meeting with a Confidential Human Source Informant.

We received 50 reports about a fireball seen over NY, Ontario and PA on Thursday, March 9th 2023 around 01:47 UT. For this event, we received 2 videos.

Proof-of-concept mouse experiment will have a long road before use in humans is possible. Researchers have made eggs from the cells of male mice and showed that, once fertilized and implanted into female mice, the eggs can develop into seemingly healthy, fertile offspring. The approach, announced on 8 March at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing in London, has not yet been published and is a long way from being used in humans. But it is an early proof-of-concept for a technique that raises the possibility of a way to treat some causes of infertility or even allow for single-parent embryos. "This is a significant advance with significant potential applications," says Keith Latham, a developmental biologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Matt Gaetz sponsored a resolution in the House, supported by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to force congressional oversight of the continued U.S. military presence in Syria. Ahead of a Wednesday vote on his resolution to force congressional oversight on the continuation of U.S. military operations in Syria, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. was feeling bullish. "Hope springs eternal," he told The Intercept when asked whether the measure would pass. The resolution was ultimately voted down on Wednesday night with 47 Republicans joining 56 Democrats in support of the bill. Despite the resolution's defeat, it was just the beginning in a string of efforts to end U.S. military operations abroad, according to its sponsor. "Syria is my leadoff hitter. We're going to take a trip around the globe. We may go to Yemen. We may have stops in Niger. We may have stops in Sudan. Maybe ultimately, we'll end in Ukraine," Gaetz said.

Police say a child was attacked by a pack of pit bulls in Tennessee Monday night. The Memphis Police Department reports officers were called to a neighborhood regarding a person being bitten by a dog around 5 p.m. Police said they found that five pit bulls attacked a 3-year-old named Lorenzo, who suffered critical injuries. WMC reports the child was taken to the hospital in critical condition where the staff was able to stabilize the toddler's vital signs.

There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who "put America first" everywhere. It's tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug to "move on" without ever acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways. But that erasure of personal and public history would be wrong. I owe you a full-throated apology.

A First Nation in northern Alberta is mourning the death of a five-year-old boy who was killed by his family's dogs on Sunday. The child died after being attacked by his family's dogs on Whitefish Lake First Nation on Sunday, Const. Kelsey Davidge said Thursday. "He did die from a dog attack/mauling," she said. "They were family-owned pets. There is no public safety concerns or other concerns to the public." Davidge said the family killed the dogs themselves following the attack. She was unable to say how many dogs were involved in the attack.

Last month, Revolver profiled the Biden Administration's persecution of former Twitter anon Doug Mackey, who was a famous pro-Trump voice back in 2016 under the moniker of Ricky Vaughn. For those whose memory is foggy, a quick review: In the late stages of the 2016 race, Mackey posted several memes, designed to resemble Hillary Clinton campaign images, claiming that supporters could vote by simply texting a phone number.

but let's clear some of that fog with court documents and see what's there What did Jacob Chansley do? What did the government say he did? Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison, to be followed by 36 months of supervised release a total of six and a half of years of punishment. Tucker Carlson maintains, with video to support his description, that Chansley did nothing much to earn that sentence: He walked through the Capitol with police who didn't try to stop him. But what's the other side of the argument? Comment: See: Tucker Carlson releases exclusive Jan. 6 footage, says politicians, media lied about Sicknick, 'QAnon Shaman'

Families of the victims have called for a renewed search after the findings of a US-based marine robotics company emerged. Malaysian authorities are being asked to launch a new search for flight MH370, nine years after it disappeared from radars over the South China Sea. The request comes after US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity claimed to have found new evidence of the plane's possible location. The Boeing 777 was en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing with 239 passengers on board on March 8, 2014, when it vanished from the grid less than an hour into its journey. For three years, Malaysia, China, and Australia searched for the plane in the Indian Ocean, where it was believed to have crashed, only to come up empty-handed. The search was officially called off in January 2017, with no conclusion made about what could have happened to the mystery flight.

Editor's note: at around 10 a.m. EST this morning, Michael Shellenberger and I will be testifying at the "Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files" for the House Judiciary Committee, in the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Just before, around 9:00 a.m., we'll also be releasing a TwitterFiles "Statement to Congress" thread, which will be submitted to the record. It contains some surprises. My opening: Chairman Jordan, ranking member Plaskett, members of the Select Committee, My name is Matt Taibbi. I've been a reporter for over 30 years, and an advocate for the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Over my career, I've had the good fortune to be recognized for the work I love. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for independent journalism, and written ten books, including four New York Times bestsellers. I'm now the editor of the online magazine Racket, on...

James Bamford is forty years late in discovering that Israel not only spies against the US, but does so constantly and comprehensively, effectively escaping prosecution at the highest levels of government in Washington, and almost always lower down. Now almost 77 years of age, Bamford is not old enough to understand the reason for this is that the Israelis have managed a state capture in Washington that is longer lasting and more successful than the Ukrainians have pulled off for the Canadian government in Ottawa; or the Gupta brothers who took over the South African government in Pretoria. The last of these state captures was stopped in 2016 after just seven years. Still, Bamford has convinced the French publisher Hachette to print a news update of the Israeli takeover of the US government.

It is generally observed that imperial powers like the United States frequently interfere in foreign governments in support of economic or hard political reasons. To be sure, Washington has refined the process so it can plausibly deny that it is interfering at all, that the change is spontaneous and comes from the people and institutions in the country that is being targeted for change. One recalls how handing out cookies in Maidan Square in Kiev served as an incentive wrapped around a publicity stunt to bring about regime change in Ukraine in 2014 when Senator John McCain and the State Department's Victoria Nuland were featured performers in a $5 billion investment by the US government to topple the friendly-to-Russia regime of President Viktor Yanukovych. Of course, change for the sake of a short-term objective might not always be the best way to go and one might suggest that the success in bringing in a new government acceptable to Nuland has not really turned out that well for...

The entire modern history of Georgia, dating back to the late 1980s, is a chronicle of temperamental lurches towards change. These consist of chaotic attempts at implementation, followed by work to stabilize the situation and build a sturdy state structure, before a new cycle begins. Each time there are objective socio-political preconditions for these perturbations, which are overlaid by both domestic and external factors. At home: Excessive personalization of politics and an obsession with certain leaders at each stage - Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1991-1992), Eduard Shevardnadze (1995-2003), Mikhail Saakashvili (2004-2013), and Bidzina Ivanishvili (de-facto leader for the past decade). Outside influence: A real, or perhaps fictitious, struggle for influence between Russia and the West. This time it's notionally about the government's attempt to introduce a 'foreign agents' law, which the opposition claims is very close to similar rules imposed in Russia. But the root of the issues goes...

The Czech government has approved sending its military police officers to Ukraine, whose tasks will include investigating war crimes. According to the Czech news agency CTK, it is planned to send up to 15 experts of the military police to the territory of Ukraine, who will then be included in the number of specialists of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It is reported that the number may end up being much higher. The mandate approved by the Czech Parliament will be valid until the end of 2024. Police experts will also be able to conduct their activities in the Netherlands. Funding for this mission is expected to be 29,6 million crowns (approximately $1,3 million).

US Representative Mara Elvira Salazar warned last week that Argentina was planning to install a factory of Chinese warplanes in the South American country. The former Spanish-language news anchorwoman of Cuban heritage stressed that President Alberto Fernndez and Vice President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner (CFK) had embarked on a deal with the Devil that they would regret sooner than later. "I am going to forewarn them that if they decide to build a fighter jet factory of Chinese fighter jets, it's a very bad idea for them," Salazar said in English. But then she switched to Spanish to continue: "I'm going to say it in Spanish so that it is very clear to my Argentine friends: Your presidenta (female for president) and your president (male version) are making a deal with the Devil that may have consequences of Biblical proportions. The United States will not remain with its arms folded because you cannot have an ally who builds and exports Chinese military aircraft and sells them...

Several people have been killed or seriously injured in a shooting at a Jehovah's Witness church in the northern German city of Hamburg, with the motive for the attack unclear, police said on Thursday. There were no indications that a perpetrator was on the run, a police spokesperson said, declining to say how many people were dead. The Bild newspaper reported that seven people were dead and eight others injured in the shooting. "Several people were seriously injured, some even fatally. We are on site with a large contingent of forces," said Hamburg police on Twitter.

Russia has fired various missiles, including the hypersonic nuclear-capable Kinzhal, pounding the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and other cities. The Ukrainian air force said Russian forces had fired 81 high-powered missiles of different types in a "massive" pre-dawn attack on Thursday. "The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don't remember seeing before," said Colonel Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of Ukraine. Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said all targets had been hit during Russia's "retaliation" missile strike on Ukraine in response to a recent incursion in Russian Bryansk region.

Can you create cutting edge "deep fake" videos, spy on people using household appliances, and make massive data dragnets? If so, the Pentagon wants to hear from you so it can amp up its manipulation efforts. US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) has issued proposal requests for a whole host of dodgy services, according to new documents obtained by The Intercept. Specifically, the Pentagon is looking for "next generation capability to'takeover'Internet of Things (IoT) devices in order to collect data and information from local populaces to enable a breakdown of what messaging might be popular and accepted through sifting of data once received." For what purpose? "This would enable MISO [Military Information Support Operations] to craft and promote messages that may be more readily received by the local populace in relevant peer/near peer environments," according to the document.

At Russia's Valdai Club meeting - the east's answer to Davos - intellectuals and influencers gathered to frame West Asia's current and future developments. The 12th "Middle East Conference" at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region. But first, an important word on terminology - as only one of Valdai's guests took the trouble to stress. This is not the "Middle East" - a reductionist, Orientalist notion devised by old colonials: at The Cradle we emphasize the region must be correctly described as West Asia. Some of the region's trials and tribulations have been mapped by the official Valdai report, The Middle East and The Future of Polycentric World. But the intellectual and political clout of those in attendance can provide valuable anecdotal insights too. Here are a few of the major strands participants highlighted on regional developments, current and future:

A dirty little secret about January 6 one of many is that Democrats and establishment Republicans, not Trump supporters, wanted to shut down the official proceedings of that day. Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election "irregularities" in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states. The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day. And no one opposed the effort more than ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch...

Americans and Europeans are becoming less enthusiastic about Ukrainian aid... The fact that Ukraine is still fighting is mostly thanks to America. No other country has provided more help to combat Russia's advance: it is responsible for more than half of all recorded military and financial aid. Joe Biden, America's president, has promised to stand with Ukraine for "as long as it takes". Whether Mr Biden can continue to send so much depends in part on how well such funding is viewed at home. Polling data from The Economist and YouGov, a pollster, suggest that a partisan gap is widening, and even Democrats are showing slightly less support for certain types of aid than they did last year (see chart).

Far and away the most common question I get from those who took one of the COVID-19 vaccines is: "how do I get this out of my body." The mRNA and adenoviral DNA products were rolled out with no idea on how or when the body would ever breakdown the genetic code. The synthetic mRNA carried on lipid nanoparticles appears to be resistant to breakdown by human ribonucleases by design so the product would be long-lasting and produce the protein product of interest for a considerable time period. This would be an advantage for a normal human protein being replaced in a rare genetic deficiency state (e.g. alpha galactosidase in Fabry's disease). However, it is a big problem when the protein is the pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 Spike. The adenoviral DNA (Janssen) should be broken down by deoxyribonuclease, however this has not be exhaustively studied. This leaves dissolution of Spike protein as a therapeutic goal for the vaccine injured. With the respiratory infection, Spike is processed and...

The West now faces the task of de-fusing the landmine of their own electorate's conviction of a Ukraine 'win', and of Russian humiliation. Larry Johnson, an ex-CIA analyst, writes "I no longer hold clearances and have not had access to the classified intelligence assessments. However, I have heard that the finished intelligence being supplied to U.S. policymakers continues to declare that Russia is on the ropes - and their economy is crumbling. Also, analysts insist that the Ukrainians are beating the Russians". Johnson responds that - lacking valid human sources - "western agencies are almost wholly dependent today on 'liaison reporting'" (i.e., from 'friendly' foreign intelligence services), without doing 'due diligence' by cross-checking discrepancies with other reporting. In practice, this largely means western reporting simply replicates Kiev's PR line. But there does occur a huge problem when marrying Kiev's output (as Johnson says) to UK reports - for 'corroboration'. The...

Yesterday evening, news that "pro-Ukraine saboteurs" may have been responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage was simultaneously reported by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Times of London, and the German newspaper Die Zeit. There is "no evidence" that Zelensky or his top generals were involved, the newspapers claimed. Nonetheless, "traces lead in the direction of Ukraine". The two American newspapers simply referred to "intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials", details of which were not disclosed. In fact, the New York Times offered this hilariously obtuse observation: "The review of newly collected intelligence suggests [the saboteurs] were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia." Opponents of Vladimir Putin - you don't say! The two European newspapers were slightly more forthcoming. According to the Times, Scandinavian diplomats were told only a week after the attack took place that it had been carried out by "a private venture originating in Ukraine". The...

Democrat leaders have issued a dire warning to Americans, saying that anyone who watches unedited clips of the footage from January 6 runs the risk of arriving at a conclusion that hasn't been approved by Democrat leaders. "This is a very dangerous situation," said Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer. "We work hard every day to make sure Americans all have all the correct opinions. With thousands of hours of footage being given to the American public with no filter, we're in grave danger of some people not agreeing with us, or worse not giving us politicians more and more unchecked power. This is an existential threat to democracy." Mitch McConnell, another Democrat Senator, agreed. "I'm terrified right now," he said. "What if everyone starts thinking we're lying frauds? I'm not saying we are, but it would be terrible if people came to such a scary and unapproved conclusion." Experts also weighed in, warning that if unapproved opinions are allowed to spread, it may lead to...

Severe flooding struck in northern parts of Rio Grande do Sul State in Brazil after heavy rain that began around 05 March 2023. The hardest hit municipalities were Maquin, Trs Forquilhas, Trs Cachoeiras, Itati, Terra de Areia, Dom Pedro de Alcntara and Morrinhos do Sul. One person died after a vehicle was swept away by the flooding of the Trs Forquilhas river in Terra de Areia. Homes, roads and bridges were damaged or destroyed. Classes have been suspended. The Civil Defence has been operating in the region since 06 March in support of residents and to carry out full damage assessments. Civil Defence has distributed relief supplies such as clothing, food and hygiene items.

A farming couple in Scotland's Shetland Islands encountered an unusual weather phenomenon on March 7 when a snow devil formed as they were out feeding their sheep during the wintry weather. Credit: Michael Peterson via Storyful

As mountain communities in Southern California gradually emerge from piles of snow, officials are starting the difficult task of assessing the damage and the number of people who have died. At least four people were found dead in their homes in the Big Bear area of San Bernardino County, the first one on March 2, said Shannon Dicus, the county sheriff and coroner, on Wednesday. But the total number of dead could climb. Sheriff Dicus said that at least 11 people had died in the region since Feb. 23, including those who were receiving care at Bear Valley Community Hospital. How many of those deaths are directly related to the snowstorms, however, is unclear because his office has not provided more information on the circumstances involved and is still reviewing the cases. Sheriff Dicus's office so far has only attributed to the storm the death of a 39-year-old woman who was killed in a hit-and-run traffic collision on Feb. 26.

The BBC is receiving backlash for airing a Bill Cosby documentary in which a self-proclaimed "fat sex therapist" argued for allowing men to pay to be able to drug and have sex with women. "If we actually grappled with the fact that sex negativity is what causes this type of behavior, then we could create a world where in an idyllically sex-positive world, someone is able to pay conscious women to come and be drugged so that I can get my kink out, my fetish on having sex with unconscious people," Sonalee Rashatwar said in a segment. "There's a consensual way to do that." The comments were made during the four-part documentary titled We Need to Talk About Bill Cosby which originally aired in the US on Showtime last year.

During Wednesday's White House press conference, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Fox News' Tucker Carlson "not credible," citing his recent unveiling of previously unseen footage from the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots. Responding to a reporter's request that she comment on Carlson's latest broadcasts, as well as comment on the ongoing lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems has brought against Fox News "which has turned up evidence that there may have been falsehoods in the in the reporting that they did around the election," Jean-Pierre said, "Tucker Carlson is not credible."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been hospitalized in Washington, DC after a fall Wednesday night. His spokesman David Popp told Fox News that McConnell, 81, was attending a private dinner at a hotel and tripped. According to a statement from McConnell's team, "This evening, Leader McConnell tripped at a local hotel during a private dinner. He has been admitted to the hospital where he is receiving treatment."

The most damning real world evidence yet! Update/Correction March 3rd 2023 (I need to correct the Stillbirth data. A new law in Singapore broadened the definition of Stillbirth in 2022. As a result, it VOIDS the comparison between 2021 and 2022). The decline in Live Births is still valid - a decline of over 3000 (or 7.62% of live births post vaccination).

Legalizing same-sex unions for soldiers would also please Kiev's "Western allies". Ukraine's former deputy culture minister has proposed legalizing same-sex civil partnerships, arguing it would both reward the service of LGBTQ soldiers and please Kiev's foreign backers. Inna Sovsun of the Golos party announced on Tuesday that she has submitted the bill to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration. "Legalization of single-sex relationships is very important to me now, because if I come home [dead], my partner can't even bury me," was one of the arguments from the Ukrainian LGBT Soldiers and Allies' Facebook community that Sovsun quoted in announcing her bill. The bill is a product of nine months of work, involving two NGOs. It would establish legal grounds for people in same-sex relationships to regulate property ownership, inheritance, pensions, and death benefits, Sovsun argued.

Dana Hyde, 55, was flying from Maryland to New England and suffered blunt-force injuries from violent turbulence. A former official in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses died last Friday after the private business jet that the prominent Washington attorney was on experienced stability issues and encountered severe turbulence mid-flight. The National Transportation Safety Board has since started investigating "a reported trim issue that occurred prior to the in-flight upset" that affected the plane's altitude control and may have caused the instability.

The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday passed its version of a Senate-approved bill that would force the Biden administration to declassify information about the coronavirus' origins including its ties to a Chinese lab. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines would be required to declassify "any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and COVID-19, as well as "make available to the public as much information as possible" regarding the virus' origin, according to the bill. The committee approved the legislation with a bipartisan voice vote Tuesday in which no one dissented. It will now go to the House floor for a vote, then to President Biden's desk for his signature.

These revealing photographs show shop shelves in a provincial Russian city groaning under piles of fresh food. As British supermarkets ration eggs and an array of fruit and vegetables amid shortages provoked in large part by the Ukraine war, no such hardships afflict Vladimir Putin's citizens. The pictures were taken at a food hall, two superstores and a corner shop in Perm, a city with a population the size of Birmingham in the Ural mountains, a 24-hour drive from Moscow. The images suggest the West's much-vaunted sanctions on Russia, imposed to punish President Putin for his invasion, are not having a deep bite. What's more, the scenes are a reversal of 40 years ago, when many of us watched pitiful TV footage of Russians under the Communist regime queuing for staples such as bread and eggs. Now it's Britain's turn to suffer. Supermarkets here are rationing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and lettuces as UK farmers struggle with higher energy costs which stop them using hothouses in...

German authorities searched a boat in January which they suspect transported explosives ahead of the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines in September last year, the country's Prosecutor's Office said on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed that a search had taken place earlier this year, adding that authorities were still evaluating the items seized. The identities of the people allegedly associated with the rental of the vessel, as well as their potential motives, remained unclear, the official added, as quoted by German media. On Tuesday, German state broadcaster ARD, SWR radio and Die Zeit newspaper claimed that investigators looking into the incident had found that the yacht reportedly used in the attack belonged to a Polish company "apparently owned by two Ukrainians." According to Die Zeit, a "secret operation" to destroy the pipelines was undertaken by a team of six people - five men and one woman. Their nationalities are unknown,...

The newly discovered asteroid 2023 DW could collide with Earth in February 2046, although the odds of an impact are low. A newly discovered asteroid may make a perilously close approach to Earth about 20 years from now, with a roughly 1-in-600 chance that the space rock will collide directly with our planet, officials with NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office tweeted. While that's a higher-than-average risk level for near-Earth asteroids, it's still a "very small chance" of impact, NASA wrote and that risk level is expected to decline as clearer observations of the asteroid become available. First detected on Feb. 27, the asteroid dubbed 2023 DW is estimated to measure about 165 feet (50 meters) in diameter, or roughly the length of an Olympic-size swimming pool. The asteroid is expected to make a very close approach to Earth on Feb. 14, 2046; as of March 8, the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre predicts a 1-in-625 chance of a direct impact,...

Tunisia has been a hotbed of turmoil for almost two years since President Kais Saied suspended parliament and grabbed a range of executive powers for himself in what opponents described as a coup. Since that time, opposition politicians, campaigners and journalists have found themselves behind bars and dissent has been repressed. In the past two weeks, around 20 prominent politicial figures have been arrested. At the same time, economic problems exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and Saied's controversial proposals to remedy it, have further stoked anger. Over the weekend, thousands of Tunisians defied a ban on protesting to take to the streets in opposition to Saied's power grab.

Soil animal communities in the tropics are driven by plant roots and the resources derived from them. This is the main finding of a new study of a research team led by the University of Gttingen, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University. Millions of small creatures toiling in a single hectare of soil including earthworms, springtails, mites, insects, and other arthropods are crucial for decomposition and soil health. For a long time, it has been believed that leaf litter is the primary resource for these animals. However, this recent study published in the journal Ecology Letters shows that litter doesn't play any crucial role at all for the tropical soil fauna. The researchers isolated plots within natural ecosystems and separated the plots from accessing plant roots with a plastic barrier (a technique known as 'root trenching'). Their study included rainforest, as well as both rubber and oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia. As...

This is the moment a home was engulfed in flames mere seconds after 'popping' noises were heard from the kitchen. Five people were rushed to hospital after the 'horrifying' house fire in Illingworth, West Yorkshire, at around 1am on February 24. All of the casualties had smoke inhalation, with one occupant suffering burns to their mouth and windpipe. None of the injuries were life threatening. The property's kitchen was severely damaged from the smoke and heat, which also affected other parts of house as doors were left open as people escaped from the blaze. West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service said they released the shocking footage to educate the public on the danger of lithium batteries.

Up to $9billion worth of gold that the Perth Mint sold to China could be recalled after it was discovered some bars were diluted with other metals. The WA government-owned mint, which is the largest refiner of newly mined gold in the world, started 'doping' its gold in 2018 - a process which involves mixing in silver or copper while still keeping the purity above 99.99 per cent. While the product met widely accepted standards on the global gold market, up to 100 tonnes of bullion shipped to China potentially falls short of the more stringent standards of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE). Some of the gold the SGE tested from Perth Mint exceeded the allowable silver content.

Tens of thousands of Georgians continue to protest on Wednesday evening against a controversial foreign agent law that some claimed will stifle freedoms in the country. The number of protesters in Georgia is swelling, with thousands pouring into streets of the capital Tbilisi and many massing in front of parliament in opposition to the controversial draft law.. Police used water cannon and used tear gas to disperse the thousands gathered outside the parliament building. The law, drafted by the ruling Georgian Dream Party, if approved, will make all media outlets and non-governmental organisations that receive 20% of their funding from abroad register as "foreign agents". This would subject them to monitoring and possible sanctions.

COVID-19 was not dangerous enough to justify cutting short vaccine trials as the vaccine had to be "very safe", Chris Whitty advised the Government in the early weeks of the outbreak, it has emerged. Writing on WhatsApp on February 29th 2020, the Chief Medical Officer told Government figures: "For a disease with a low (for the sake of argument 1%) mortality a vaccine has to be very safe so the safety studies can't be shortcut. So important for the long run." The estimate of 1% turned out to be an overestimate, as the infection fatality rate in Europe and the Americas was found to be 0.3-0.4%. Chief Scientist Patrick Vallance agreed with this advice and wrote that existing drugs should be relied on instead: "Agree, existing drugs best things to try for this outbreak. Accelerate vaccine testing where we have good candidates for future, and prepare for manufacturing capacity for longer term."

Truly sovereign states are no longer afraid of 'Western diktat,' Dmitry Medvedev says... Russia is ready to help the world do away with the vestiges of a Western-dominated colonial past, former president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The official argued that as a nation "which has never had any colonies," Russia is well-placed to take part in this process. In an article published on Monday, Medvedev claimed that "geopolitical turbulence has cut open an abscess of the old problems of our world." The ex-president and now deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued that: the "malignant tumor of a colonial past" is a problem that calls for "international surgery." "We, together with other countries, can now drive the final nail in the coffin of the Western world's neo-colonial aspirations," Medvedev proclaimed in the piece, posted on the United Russia party website. He noted that the Soviet Union played a major role in dismantling the colonial system of the 20th century.

Washington has ignored concerns over its "bio-military bases" both at home and abroad, Beijing said... The World Health Organization (WHO) should launch a new investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in the United States, China has said, rejecting charges by Washington that the deadly pathogen escaped from a high-security virology lab in Wuhan. Asked about recent comments by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - who called on China and other nations to be "transparent in sharing data" regarding the genesis of the health crisis - Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning insisted: "Beijing has shared more data and research findings than any other country and contributed the most on origins-tracing. Tracing the origins of the virus is a matter of science. This study should be and can only be conducted jointly by scientists around the world." Mao told reporters on Monday: "The US government has only hampered those efforts by politicizing, weaponizing and instrumentalizing the issue....

Anonymous agents cited unspecified intelligence to deny US responsibility for the pipeline attack... Unspecified new intelligence "suggests that a pro-Ukrianian group" was behind the September 2022 attack on Nord Stream pipelines, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, quoting anonymous US officials. The Times' unnamed sources said they "believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two" and that "no American or British nationals were involved." They further said they had no evidence Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or his "top lieutenants" were involved, or that the "any Ukrainian government officials" directed the attack. The anonymous officials and said it was possible the attack "might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services."

The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders. Carey Shenkman, attorney, author, and litigator specializing in civil and human rights, joins Robert Scheer for this week's Scheer Intelligence, where Shenkman offers a sobering analysis on one of the most chilling attacks on press freedom exhibited in the Julian Assange case. Using his recently published book, A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press, Shenkmen details the history of the Espionage Act and how civil liberties have continued to be eroded as a result of the existence of this law and the lack of revision. Shenkman talks about the bipartisan disdain towards the Espionage Act in legal circles yet its continued use by bipartisan presidents brings the conversation to its flaws and disreputability: "Over the decades, you have folks that are...

Pyongyang said any American efforts to interfere with its weapons tests would be considered a "clear declaration of war". North Korea has vowed to respond with "overwhelming" force should the US military attempt to intercept missiles fired during test launches. The warning came hours after Washington and Seoul carried out their latest round of air drills in the region, which involved at least one nuclear-capable bomber. In a statement on Tuesday, Kim Yo-jong - the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a senior figure in the ruling Workers' Party - responded to a recent press report citing a high ranking US military official, who said the Pentagon would immediately intercept any long-range missile fired into the Pacific by the DPRK. In comments carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), she said: "If a military response such as an interception follows our strategic weapons test, which is conducted without any harm to the safety of neighboring countries in...

The Pentagon's secret operations branch is seeking capabilities to deploy "next generation" deep fakes in information warfare and hack the Internet of Things (IoT) to track their impact, a procurement document has revealed. The Intercept reported on the initiative on Monday. The document in question outlines a technology wish list for US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which is responsible for Washington's clandestine military actions around the world. It was first published in 2020 and last updated in October 2022, adding tools that can falsify images of public figures to its desired inventory, according to the outlet. The command's Military Information Support Operations (MISO) is seeking a "next generation of 'deep fake' or other similar technology to generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels in relevant peer/near peer environments," it states. Deep-fake technology uses publicly available imagery to create a

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding Elon Musk turn over internal Twitter documents, including a list of the journalists who were behind the viral "Twitter Files." The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday about more than a dozen letters the FTC sent to Twitter and its legal counsel as part of a probe looking into Musk's 2022 takeover of the tech giant. The information ordered by the FTC included a demand to "identify all journalists" who were granted access to the company's archives, turn over anything involving the massive layoffs and the Twitter Blue subscription service, provide all internal communications related to Musk, and explain why Twitter fired its deputy general counsel and former FBI lawyer Jim Baker. Details of the letters emerged from an interim staff report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government which accused the government agency led by FTC chairwoman Lina Khan of overreaching to harass Twitter.

Does rotting Western Civilisation has any hope of resuscitation and survival? The infamous Carl Rove (we shall not bother with an explanatory note, whoever remembers this cowboy and is still interested may look him up) twenty and some years ago articulated the gist of the empire's swaggering ideology: We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality judiciously, as you will we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. Students of "empire" must wonder indeed how this foolish man, if he is still around, would now comment his erstwhile utterance. The empire in whose name Rove arrogantly spoke a quarter of a century ago lies in shambles; its reality-producing powers seem notably diminished. If the pretentious nincompoop Rove had any notion of history, he would probably acknowledge...

"We are seeing emissions from the shockwaves in the largest structures in the universe." Scientists have discovered the first evidence of shockwaves rippling through the "cosmic web," a massive network of interweaving filaments that represents the largest structure in the universe. The discovery represents tantalizing evidence of magnetic fields weaving through the gas, dust, and dark matter tendrils which link galaxies together. Scientists first began to think that on the largest scales, the universe is ordered in a web-like pattern with filaments that cross vast voids in space and pull galaxies into clusters in the 1960s. Two decades later using computer modeling, researchers were able to determine what this vast universal network might look like for the first time. Astronomers have since mapped the cosmic web with actual observations in the process answering questions about its structure. One element has remained frustratingly shrouded in mystery, however: The magnetic fields...

"There is a sentiment among many Israelis, saying, OK these are the circumstances, they're animals anyway, let's behave the same way," Amos Harel says of Israeli view of settler attacks on Palestinians. Many in Israeli society approve of the settler "pogrom" against the Palestinian village of Huwara because they regard Palestinians as "animals" and accept the occupation as normal, a leading Israeli reporter explained to American Jews last week. Speaking to the Israel lobby group Israel Policy Forum, Amos Harel of Haaretz said the settlers' rampage in Huwara on February 26 that killed one Palestinian and destroyed stores and cars was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing blacks in the south, or Russian pogroms against Jews. Susie Gelman, the chair of the IPF, then asked whether Israelis were horrified by Huwara, and could the pogrom be a wakeup call to those who have compartmentalized the horrors of the West Bank? Harel said most are not horrified, Huwara could be "the dark...

How long is the present? The answer, Cornell researchers suggest in a new study, depends on your heart. They found that our momentary perception of time is not continuous but may stretch or shrink with each heartbeat. The research builds evidence that the heart is one of the brain's important timekeepers and plays a fundamental role in our sense of time passing - an idea contemplated since ancient times, said Adam K. Anderson, professor in the Department of Psychology and in the College of Human Ecology (CHE). "Time is a dimension of the universe and a core basis for our experience of self," Anderson said. "Our research shows that the moment-to-moment experience of time is synchronized with, and changes with, the length of a heartbeat." Saeedeh Sadeghi, M.S. '19, a doctoral student in the field of psychology, is the lead author of "Wrinkles in Subsecond Time Perception are Synchronized to the Heart," published March 2 in the journal Psychophysiology. Anderson is a co-author with...

Scandinavian scientists said Wednesday that they have identified the oldest-known inscription referencing the Norse god Odin on part of a gold disc unearthed in western Denmark in 2020. Lisbeth Imer, a runologist with the National Museum in Copenhagen, said the inscription represented the first solid evidence of Odin being worshipped as early as the 5th century at least 150 years earlier than the previous oldest known reference, which was on a brooch found in southern Germany and dated to the second half of the 6th century. The disc discovered in Denmark was part of a trove containing about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of gold, including large medallions the size of saucers and Roman coins made into jewelry. It was unearthed in the village of Vindelev, central Jutland, and dubbed the Vindelev Hoard. "It's one of the best executed runic inscriptions that I have ever seen," Imer said. Runes are symbols that early tribes in northern Europe used to communicate in writing.

At least eight people have been confirmed dead following floods caused by days of heavy rainfall in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Lusaka District Commissioner, Christa Kalulu, who addressed journalists at press conference on Tuesday, said the torrential rains that caused serious flooding in the city also affected thousands of residents whose houses were destroyed by the floods. Kalulu said the heavy rains started in February and caused rivers to burst their banks, flooding tens of thousands of homes and forcing people to live in makeshift shelters." She added that the floods also caused a cholera outbreak in the city with about 14 people currently receiving treatment in hospitals.

A heavy downpour lasting several hours caused flooding in parts of Accra, the capital of Ghana, on 07 March 2023. Ghana Meteorological Agency wanted that, "Southeastern Ghana has been engulfed by a rain-bearing cloud. This is producing rain of varying intensity within the Volta region. Areas within the Greater Accra and Eastern will be affected before drifting to the Central, Western and parts of the Ashanti." Roads were swamped severely disrupting traffic in a city regularly impacted by flooding. State broadcaster, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporations said the floods had dumped large amounts of garbage on streets around Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

At least 3 people died after heavy rain caused flooding and landslides in the Manab Province of Ecuador on 07 March 2023. The worst of the flooding struck in Chone city and areas of Chone canton after several small rivers and streams - tributaries of the Chone River - broke their banks. Flood water, mud and debris swept through parts of Chone city and the parishes of Santa Rita, Canuto, Ricaurte and San Antonio. Dozens of homes were severely damaged or destroyed. Teams from the Fire Department, National Police and the Secretary of Risk Management (SGR) helped families evacuate to safer areas. SGR reported around 2,000 families were affected and one person died. A hospital was also damaged.

Over a million people in France went on strike Tuesday to protest against the government's unpopular pension reforms which would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years. Some 320 demonstrations have been organized across France and police are expecting between 1.1 and 1.4 million people to take part. The strikes have paralyzed much of France's transport system, with only 20% of high-speed trains running, suspending several international routes, while air traffic controllers also joined the action, leading to cancellations at airports in Paris, Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse.

A man was killed on Tuesday after he was attacked by four dogs while reportedly working on a property in Jurupa Valley, according to Riverside County Animal Services. After a 911 call reported screaming at a property on the corner of Bellegrave Avenue and Martin Street, Riverside County Sheriff's deputies responded to the property around 7:30 a.m. and requested assistance from Animal Service officers. The victim, whose identity has not been released, had reportedly worked on the property previously without incident, said Riverside County Animal Services representative John Welsh. "It's a tragedy. Our thoughts are with him and his family," said Welsh.

The imposing headquarters of The New York Times was built of glass, supposedly to highlight the fact that the august newspaper has nothing to hide. But last month, something happened there that the management would have very much preferred to go unnoticed. An electronic billboard lorry parked outside the building bearing the message: 'Dear New York Times: Stop questioning trans people's right to exist & access medical care.'

Jurgens is one of only two Georgians arrested Sunday. A lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism over the violence that broke out in Atlanta on Sunday in relation to protests of a planned training facility for police officers in the city, the SPLC has confirmed. "An employee at the SPLC was arrested while acting and identifying as a legal observer on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The employee is an experienced legal observer, and their arrest is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters," the SPLC said in a statement on Monday. Thomas Webb Jurgens was among the list of 23 suspected domestic terrorists released by the Atlanta Police Department on Monday. Violence broke out in Atlanta on Sunday after protesters of a planned police training facility hurled bricks and Molotov cocktails at officers and set cars on fire.

We received 84 reports about a fireball seen over NH, Ontario, Qubec and VT on Tuesday, March 7th 2023 around 03:05 UT. For this event, we received one video.

We received 84 reports about a fireball seen over NH, Ontario, Qubec and VT on Tuesday, March 7th 2023 around 03:05 UT. For this event, we received one video.

A Texas state lawmaker filed a bill on Monday that would set a referendum for voters to decide whether the state should explore the possibility of seceding from the United States. If the measure known as the TEXIT Referendum Act passes, a referendum on whether Texas "should reassert its status as an independent nation" would be scheduled for the next general election on Nov. 7, 2023. The bill would also require potential plans to be presented to the state legislature. "The Texas Constitution is clear that all political power resides in the people," Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) wrote in a statement. "After decades of continuous abuse of our rights and liberties by the federal government, it is time to let the people of Texas make their voices heard."

Research shows young liberals, especially liberal girls, are more depressed than conservative youth a trend left-wing writer Matthew Yglesias said could be caused, in part, by "poor behavior by adult progressives, many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of political commitment." Yglesias, co-founder and former columnist for left-leaning Vox and current columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, wrote an article on his Substack titled "Why are young liberals so depressed?" The piece explores recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing alarming rates of sadness and depression among American teenagers, along with another study exploring the depression levels of American teens broken down by political affiliation. "The CDC survey doesn't ask teens about their political beliefs, but [the study found] not only divergence by gender, but divergence by political ideology," Yglesias wrote. "Breaking things down by gender and ideology, they find...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called a wave of illness that has hit hundreds of schoolgirls all across the country over the past four months "an unforgivable crime" and vowed that it should be "severely punished." The unexplained illnesses have required the hospitalization of many young women and girls and ignited parents' and broader public anger over the failure of authorities to identify the cause amid underlying tension brought on by protests over women's rights and rule of law and a resulting crackdown. "Authorities should seriously pursue the issue of students' poisoning," state media quoted Khamenei as saying on March 6 in his most-forceful public response so far to the situation, according to Reuters.

Getting good sleep can play a role in supporting your heart and overall health -- and maybe even how long you live -- according to new research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. The study found that young people who have more beneficial sleep habits are incrementally less likely to die early. Moreover, the data suggest that about 8% of deaths from any cause could be attributed to poor sleep patterns. "We saw a clear dose-response relationship, so the more beneficial factors someone has in terms of having higher quality of sleep, they also have a stepwise lowering of all cause and cardiovascular mortality," said Frank Qian, MD, an internal medicine resident physician at Beth Israel Deaconess

Alexander Lukashenko used harsh words to describe his Ukrainian counterpart's actions amid the conflict with Russia Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has lashed out at his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, accusing him of attempting to drag Belarus into Kiev's conflict with Moscow. On Tuesday, Lukashenko told the media that a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft sustained minor damage in a drone attack on the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last week, adding that the assault had been carried out by a "terrorist" recruit of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU). "There can be only one conclusion... President Zelensky is just scum. Just scum, as such operations are never carried out without the consent of the head of state and the commander-in-chief. I am telling you this as a president," the Belarusian leader said.

Ford Global Technologies, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, has filed a patent for new "systems and methods to repossess a vehicle," including potentially locking certain features after missed payments. A patent application published on February 23, describes a system in which a vehicle computer could be used to "disable functionality of a component of the vehicle or may place the vehicle in a lockout condition." The application describes multiple possible implementations of this system, such as disabling "the air conditioning system, a remote key fob, and an automated door lock/unlock system," using the stereo to "emit an incessant and unpleasant sound every time the owner is present in the vehicle," and even using self-driving to technology to cause the vehicle to move to a place where it could be retrieved by the creditor: In some cases, the vehicle can be a semi-autonomous vehicle and the repossession system computer may cooperate with the vehicle computer in the...

Eugyppius argues that the many thousands of Matt Hancock's finger-flicking conversational exchanges leaked to the Telegraph do not provide evidence of a conspiracy. His argument has much that is sound in it and I admire its tone. But in the great argumentative battle between cock-up and conspiracy as explanations of pandemic protocols, he comes down on the side of cock-up. The protocols were "driven by autonomous political and institutional forces rather than nebulous globalist conspirators". In short, he claims: Advisers and bureaucrats originally pushed for lockdown. Once lockdown protocols were initiated, the Government and the media terrorised citizens to ensure they would comply. Politicians used public panic as an opportunity for politicking. Everything was really about politics, not science. There was a feedback loop, whereby restrictions were introduced, strictly enforced, generating a fear in citizens which justified further restrictions and enforcement. The politicians...

For years, the Department of Homeland Security has run a virtually unknown program gathering domestic intelligence, one of many revelations in a wide-ranging tranche of internal documents reviewed by POLITICO. Those documents also reveal that a significant number of employees in DHS's intelligence office have raised concerns that the work they are doing could be illegal. Under the domestic-intelligence program, officials are allowed to seek interviews with just about anyone in the United States. That includes people held in immigrant detention centers, local jails, and federal prison. DHS's intelligence professionals have to say they're conducting intelligence interviews, and they have to tell the people they seek to interview that their participation is voluntary. But the fact that they're allowed to go directly to incarcerated people circumventing their lawyers raises important civil liberties concerns, according to legal experts. That specific element of the program, which...

borderline personality disorder: BPD is characterized by emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, and cognitive-perceptual impairment. "Strangely enough, people with damage to the dorsolateral and nearby ventromedial areas can have normal intelligence but have no common sense they are unable to make reasonable decisions." (Oakley, Evil Genes, p. 203) Subclinical borderlines seem to have greater executive control, possibly facilitating their success in the social sphere. As with paranoid personality disorder, some researchers do not consider borderline a valid personality-disorder construct. Many of its features are symptoms, not personality traits, making diagnosis inconsistent; some diagnosed with BPD have internalizing (neurotic) traits, others externalizing (antisocial); some respond to treatment, others don't; there are too many comorbidities; and its three main components are probably best understood as separate conditions: a genetic component linked to bipolar, and two others...

In his classic rendition of the African "postcolony," the philosopher and political theorist, Achille Mbembe, observed that thinking about Africa in the present world does not come easy. I observe that thinking and writing about Africa and the world in the present does not only not come easy, but it can also be inconvenient and traumatic. In the light and the weight of ongoing geopolitical struggles for global supremacy that pit the USA and its NATO allies against China, Russia and their allies, covert and overt, Africa as a phenomenon and as political food for thought, is a hot potato and what I can call a "political hard hat area" that may not be for the fainted hearted. Observing, thinking and writing about the position of Africa in the present "world disorder" demands a radical loss of innocence for the political observer and the analyst. It demands what Enrique Dussel calls philosophical atheism where one has to disbelieve in powers that have turned themselves into gods on...

Timothy Garton Ash (lead image, left) and Mark Leonard (right), and Ivan Krastev (centre), a Bulgarian, claim to have discovered from opinion polls they conducted in nine European Union (EU) countries during January that "since Russia's war on Ukraine began, the US and its European allies have regained their unity and sense of purpose...Russia's aggression in Ukraine marks both the consolidation of the West and the emergence of the long-heralded post-Western international order." "The growing hostility of Europeans towards Russia is reflected in their preference not to buy Russian fossil fuels even if it results in energy supply problems. This is the prevailing view in every one of the nine EU countries polled, with an average of 55 per cent of these EU citizens supporting it. It is now clear that, contrary to the Kremlin's expectations, the war has consolidated the West, rather than weakened it." "Average" is a telltale admission from Ash, Leonard, and Krastev.

Briton Samuel Halpern came to surprising conclusions about the most famous shipwreck. Oh, the famous Hollywood director James Cameron rushed with the shooting of his famous movie "Titanic". I would have waited a quarter of a century, you see, now, taking into account the change in the international situation, not 11 Oscars, but three times more, I could go out and find my masterpiece. It just needed to be corrected. After all, it turned out that such a plot was brewing there that, against its background, the official would have seemed somewhat boring and unbearable. Hold on tight, now you will learn a terrible secret. The catastrophe that claimed the lives of one and a half thousand people was created by the captain of the ship, Edward John Smith, because in fact he could be called Ivan Vasilyevich Sidorov, since this sailor had Russian roots. The British Samuel Halpern, who calls himself the investigator of the...

At least 17 people have been killed and 140 injured in an explosion inside an office building in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police and fire service officials have said. The explosion shook the fourth and fifth floors of a five-storey building in Gulistan, a major hub for wholesale goods in the capital, shortly before 5pm local time (11:00 GMT) on Tuesday. Authorities could not immediately provide the reason behind the huge explosion in the bustling commercial area.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has publicly criticized the US and accused it of leading a Western attempt to "contain" his country. Foreign Minister Qin Gang also warned Washington to "hit the brakes" or risk "conflict and confrontation." "Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our nation's development," Xi said in a rare verbal attack on Monday, as quoted by state media. The Chinese leader was meeting with industry and business groups during an annual gathering of an advisory body to the Communist Party. His speech focused on the national economy, with the remark about Washington's policy illustrating what he called "uncertain and unpredictable factors" in the international environment, which also included the Covid-19 pandemic.

Poland's ruling Law & Justice party has come under fire over the death of an opposition MP's 15-year-old son, who killed himself after a report by a state-run radio station led to his identification as the victim of a paedophile. The Polish parliament, the Sejm, stood for a minute's silence on Tuesday during the funeral of Mikolaj Filiks. His mother, Magdalena Filiks, an MP from Poland's main opposition party, Civic Platform, said last week that he had died in February. The teenager took his life weeks after a report on a convicted paedophile by Radio Szczecin, part of the state-run broadcaster Polskie Radio network, revealed details about the victims that allowed Filiks to be easily publicly identified.

More than 1.2 million protesters marched in France on Tuesday as rail workers and refinery staff began rolling strikes and trade unions stepped up their campaign to try to stop Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise the pension age to 64. For the sixth time since the start of the year, trade unions called a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations. Many protest rallies attracted bigger crowds than previous ones organised since mid-January, including in Marseille, one of France's biggest cities, authorities and local media said. "The idea is to bring France to a standstill," said Fabrice Michaud of the railway workers' branch of the CGT trade union. Rail unions called for rolling, open-ended strikes, which could affect all national trains as well as international routes including the Eurostar. Bin collectors and truck drivers joined the action.

Mass protests against Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, then erupted which his security forces suppressed, locking up his opponents or forcing them to flee. Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was handed a 15-year jail term on Monday after being convicted in absentia for treason and "conspiracy to seize power", a verdict she said was punishment for her efforts to promote democracy. Tsikhanouskaya, 40, a former English teacher, fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020 after running against incumbent leader Alexander Lukashenko in a presidential election, which official results showed Lukashenko won by a landslide.

"If, however, as Pareto suggested... a governing elite is inevitable, then we are certainly under the wrong elites. Whether a circulation of elites can be completed in time to save the world economic system from ruin and the majority from destitution and veritable slavery is a question of no little urgency." Michael Rectenwald Imagine that on an April evening in 1912, the captain of the RMS Titanic had announced a grand ball at which the male passengers were asked to wear their wives' clothing and vice-versa.... That was approximately the condition of Western Civ verging on springtime in 2023: preoccupied with silliness while the iceberg awaits. But who would have thought the sinking of civilization would occur with such fantastic comic ornamentation? Men, in more ways than mere costuming, pretending to be women... incompetence honored, feted, even worshipped... intellect reduced to anti-thinking... anything of value thrown overboard in some weird post-modern potlatch ceremony of...

President Erdogan may be instrumentalizing what happens in the aftermath to craft his P.R. campaign ahead of the next elections. The setting: a cosy Ossetian restaurant owned by two Ossetian ladies close to Istiklal street, a very busy central area of Istanbul. The players: a smatter of Istanbul intelligentsia - academics, media, liberal professionals, lawyers, highly educated, secular, very critical of the AKP ruling party. The questions: during dinner, I asked the table their analysis of the state's response to the deadly earthquakes in Turkey, and how President Erdogan may be instrumentalizing what happens in the aftermath to craft his P.R. campaign ahead of the next elections. After our conversation, it was still not officially confirmed whether the next presidential elections will be held on May or June 2023. So the stage is set for an unedited exercise in direct democracy, with some stunning answers, and way more enlightening than what Turkish media and think tanks may be...

Quamquam animus meminisse horret - Although my mind shudders to remember. So says Aeneas in Book 2 of Virgil's Aeneid when he embarks on telling Dido the terrible story of the fall of Troy. And that's exactly how I feel every time I think back to the dark days of 2020 and 2021. Not because of the virus but the dizzying and reckless speed with which this country plunged into authoritarianism. The revelations of Hancockgate are all over the news and on this website. There's no need for me to recount them here. Toby has already pointed out it was the usual political clown show. No doubt there are plenty more revelations to come. One of the common threads filtering through now though is the disgust with which the government presided over the creation of a totalitarian state. Rod Liddle is one, with his 'Unmasking the truth about Covid' telling us: It was the authoritarian mindset which demanded that countervailing opinions should not even be heard and that the people voicing them...

What lies behind concerns in Moldova, and the breakaway region of Transnistria? For the past several weeks, Eastern Europe has been on the verge of a new war. Moldova risks returning to active conflict with the self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria - a separatist region, with a slavic majority, which broke away from Chisinau during the collapse of the USSR. Ukraine has a special interest in the territory, because launching a military action there could be doubly beneficial for Kiev. It would embarrass Moscow, which only has 1,500 peacekeepers stationed and no way to currently reinforce them, and would also allow Kiev potential access to a huge arms dump. The facility at Kolbasna - with a reported 22,000 tons of weaponry - is one of the largest in Europe, and it's located only 2km from the Ukrainian border. During Soviet times, the strategic reserves of the Western Military District were stored here. However, most of the ammunition was brought to the warehouse after the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the option of attacking an Iranian nuclear facility in "self-defense" must be left on the table, arguing that the chief of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made an "unworthy" statement when he declared that any such strikes are banned. Netanyahu said on Sunday in a cabinet meeting: "Are we forbidden to defend ourselves? Of course, we are allowed, and of course, we are doing this... Nothing will prevent us from protecting our country and preventing oppressors from destroying the Jewish state." Netanyahu's remarks came a day after IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi was asked by a reporter about US and Israeli threats to attack Iran if it doesn't agree to curb its nuclear program. "Any military attack on a nuclear facility is outlawed, is out of the normative structures that we all abide by," Grossi said at a press briefing in Tehran after meeting with Iranian leaders. That principle applies to all...

US planners continue to occupy northeastern Syria under the pretext of fighting ISIS... Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited US forces occupying northeastern Syria on Saturday, 4 March, allegedly to assess efforts to prevent a resurgence of ISIS and to review safeguards for US forces against attacks, including from drones flown by Iran-backed militias, Reuters has reported. Some 1,000 American troops continue to support allied Arab and Kurdish militias from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the region. Milley, whose term as chairman of the joint chiefs ends in September, met with the commander of the US-led coalition to defeat ISIS, Army Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, and reviewed security measures from an undisclosed base in Syria's northeast. According to Al-Monitor, Milley's visit to Syria signals the Biden administration's seriousness about keeping troops in the country in support of the SDF. Pentagon's top Middle East policy official, Dana...

Nicole Solas slammed those responsible as 'psychopaths'... Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas slammed an area teachers' union she claimed harassed her and made her the topic of a "secret meeting" after she made a records request regarding the district's curriculum. Solas told Fox News' Rachel Campos Duffy Sunday on Fox & Friends Weekend: "They painted me like a wanted enemy of the state simply because I submitted public records requests. "There were 250 teachers that attended where they were alerted to me being an attack on public education." Solas, who was sued by her daughter's school district last year, said presentation slides condemning her at the secret meeting were leaked to her by a teacher.

Supercomputer simulations on Frontera reveal the origins of ultra-massive black holes, the most massive objects thought to exist in the entire universe. Ultra-massive black holes are the most massive objects in the universe. Their mass can reach millions and billions of solar masses. Supercomputer simulations on Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)'s Frontera supercomputer have helped astrophysicists reveal the origin of ultra-massive black holes formed about 11 billion years ago. "We found that one possible formation channel for ultra-massive black holes is from the extreme merger of massive galaxies that are most likely to happen in the epoch of the 'cosmic noon,'" said Yueying Ni, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

For years, Russia has been calling on Western nations to investigate cases of human rights abuse, illegal killings, and war crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities that came to power after the 2014 coup. Moscow pointed out that many of them were committed by neo-Nazis against Russians or Russian-speaking people. When Russian President Vladimir Putin was announcing the start of a special operation to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) on 24 February, he described the goals as "demilitarising and denazifying" Ukraine. His spokesman later elaborated that "denazifying" means that Russia is planning to free Ukraine from neo-Nazis, their supporters, and their ideology. Moscow has repeatedly warned foreign nations about neo-Nazis taking control of Ukraine following the West-backed coup in 2014. However, Western nations chose to ignore the human rights violations committed by the Kiev regime. What were these crimes?

In normal circumstances, the Atomwaffen's plot in Baltimore should have been headline news American far-right radicals - linked to neo-Nazis from the Ukrainian Azov Battalion - have been charged with conspiring to stage a terrorist attack in Baltimore, Maryland. However, US media reporting on the story does not mention connections between the group and the militants. Additionally, the attempted terrorist act may only be the first signs of the threat that Azov members, and their foreign friends, pose to Western countries.

In June 2020, the Southern Poverty Law Center posted an article entitled, "Designating Antifa as domestic terrorist organization is dangerous, threatens civil liberties." The organization that supposedly tracks extremism in America dismissed the idea that Antifa was a threat to anyone. The "anti-fascists" are "broad, community-based" and "represent a large spectrum of the political left." "Individuals loosely affiliated with Antifa are typically involved in skirmishes and property crimes at demonstrations across the country," the article hand waves. "But the threat of lethal violence pales in comparison to that posed by far-right extremists." Will the SPLC change its tune now that 23 members of Antifa were arrested as domestic terrorists for violently attacking a police facility outside Atlanta?

Throughout the course of the pandemic, officials and ministers wrestled with how to ensure the public complied with ever-changing lockdown restrictions. One weapon in their arsenal was fear. "We frighten the pants off everyone," Matt Hancock suggested during one WhatsApp message with his media adviser. The then health secretary was not alone in his desire to scare the public into compliance. The WhatsApp messages seen by The Telegraph show how several members of Mr Hancock's team engaged in a kind of "Project Fear", in which they spoke of how to utilise "fear and guilt" to make people obey lockdown.

Sometimes a single incident efficiently summarizes a larger trend. So it is with New York University's selection of its new president, Linda Mills, a licensed clinical social worker and an NYU social work professor. She researches trauma and bias, as well as race and gender in the legal academy. She is a documentary filmmaker and teaches advocacy filmmaking. She serves as an NYU vice chancellor and as a senior vice provost for Global Programs and University Life. In all these roles, Mills is the very embodiment of the contemporary academy. The most significant part of her identity, however, and the one that ties the rest of her curriculum vitae together, is that she is female, and thus overdetermined as NYU's next president. Mills is part of the Great Feminization of the American university, an epochal change whose consequences have yet to be recognized. Seventy-five percent of Ivy League presidents are now female. Nearly half of the 20 universities ranked highest by Forbes will...

Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan says his various investigations have proven the need for substantial congressional oversight of the federal government, and he told Fox News Digital he's hopeful House Democrats can find ways to work with the GOP majority. "With all these things that we start to investigate, it seems to me that the central theme is the only thing we get wrong is it's always worse than we thought," Jordan said. During an interview with Fox News Digital, Jordan, R-Ohio, laid out the investigations the House Judiciary Committee and his Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government are conducting in the 118th Congress.

Kiev's troops on the ground are reportedly concerned that the government is clinging to a key Donbass city Despite the Ukrainian leadership's insistence that its armed forces will continue to defend the Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, there are indications of a looming retreat, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). "Bakhmut will fall," a Ukrainian tank operator told AFP in the town of Chasov Yar, about 10 km (six miles) west of Artyomovsk. "We are almost encircled. The units are progressively retreating in small groups."

Conspiracy and coordination were important at the beginning, but national governments and their institutions rapidly assumed the initiative in all areas of pandemic policy. We are witnessing an unprecedented, comprehensive failure of policy, medicine and science. The world will never be the same. Arguing the conspiracy-or-emergence question with respect to pandemic policy is a little like weeding the garden. You are never quite done with it, and every few months you find you have something more to say. In this instance, I must thank friend-of-the-blog Igor Chudov for providing the opportunity. He disagrees with my view that Covid policies owe less to creepy conspiratorial globalists, than they do to the unbounded stupidity of our leaders, boring institutional dynamics, and feedback effects. He's explained why in an extensive post that everyone should read.