A 'bomb cyclone' slammed into San Francisco Tuesday evening in the latest severe storm to hit the West Coast, devastating the region with hurricane-force winds and torrential rainfall. The weather front is the latest major storm to hit the region this year, where it unleashed flash floods and blistering wind gusts throughout the Golden State. At least one person died after the gusts - which reached upwards of 78mph - caused a tree to fall near Portolla Valley. Meanwhile, more than 230,000 residents across California had their power wiped out in the storm. Glass from a San Francisco high rise reportedly plummeted to the ground after the storm swept in late afternoon, however no injuries were reported from the incident.

An epic disaster like the COVID response, one might suppose, should inspire some humility and rethinking on how public health could have gone so wrong. They had their run at it but created a global disaster for the ages. This is more than obvious to any competent observer. The next step might be to see if there are any places where matters went rather well, and Sweden comes first to mind. The educational losses were non-existent because they didn't close schools. In general life went on as normal and with very good results. One might suppose the Swedish way would be vindicated. Sadly, our leaders care nothing for evidence, apparently. Their concern is for power and money at any cost. As a result, we are witnessing a concerted effort not only to double down on errors the next time but make them even worse.

Comment: Keeping in mind that the author is a goldbug, and the following is not financial advice, he does raise some excellent points. Anyone who doesn't see what is happening will soon lose a major part of their assets either through bank failure, currency debasement or the collapse of all bubble assets like stocks, property and bonds by 75-100%. Many bonds will become worthless. Wealth preservation in physical gold is now absolutely critical. Obviously it must be stored outside a broken financial system. More later in this article. The solidity of the banking system is based on confidence. With the fractional banking system, highly leveraged banks only have a fraction of the money available if all depositors ask for their money back. So when confidence evaporates, so do the balance sheets of the banks and depositors realise that the whole system is just a black hole. And this is exactly what is about to happen. For anyone who believes that this is just a problem with a few...

This impressive bolide was spotted over Spain on March 21, at 2:07 local time (equivalent to 1:07 universal time). It was almost as bright as the full Moon. The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 67,000 km/h. The fireball overflew the province of Sevilla (Spain). It began at an altitude of about 91 km over Paradas (province of Sevilla), moved northeast, and ended at a height of around 36 km over Villanueva del Rey (province of Sevilla). 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 Huelva, La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), Sevilla, Huelva, and El Aljarafe (Sevilla). 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).

Two dolphins have died and six others had to be euthanized by a veterinarian after their pod became beached on the shore of this Cape May County resort town on Tuesday, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. "All eight dolphins have been transported to the NJ State Lab for immediate necropsies," the stranding center said in a Facebook post late Tuesday afternoon. "We share in the public's sorrow for these beautiful animals, and we hope that the necropsies will help us understand the reasoning for their stranding." A spate of marine mammal deaths off the Jersey Shore since December has triggered what at times has been an intensely emotional debate over the cause.

A man has died after police say a dog attacked him in Visalia. Authorities say it happened at a business on S. Santa Fe St. near Walnut Ave. just before 8 am Tuesday. The man was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries. Authorities are not releasing the man's identity at this time, and they have not said what happened to the dog.

Former President Donald Trump unveiled his new plan Tuesday to "dismantle the deep state" by firing "rogue" bureaucrats and career politicians, according to a new policy agenda video. Trump released a list of ten items that indicate how he plans to "clean out the deep state," starting with re-instating an executive order that would give the president the authority to fire bureaucrats, according to the video posted on Rumble. The former president's plan would dismantle the "Washington Swamp," target corruption and ensure that federal bureaucrats and politicians are held accountable. "The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left's political enemies, which they're doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible," Trump said in the video.

American aid worker Jeff Woodke has been released more than six years after being kidnapped by militants in Niger, U.S. officials said on Monday. Woodke's release was announced days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Niger for an official visit, becoming the first top U.S. diplomat to visit the country. "I'm gratified & relieved to see the release of U.S. hostage Jeff Woodke after over 6 years in captivity," U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter. "The U.S. thanks Niger for its help in bringing him home to all who miss & love him."

An unnamed victim of deceased child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, will be allowed to file suit against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. United States District Judge Jed Rakoff tossed most of the charges against the two financial institutions in proposed class action lawsuits on Monday, according to a report from Bloomberg, and threw out three of the four claims against JPMorgan Chase in a separate suit from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Attorneys will be permitted, however, to contend that the firms benefited from the Epstein sex trafficking scheme by providing him with financial services. "Epstein's sex trafficking operation was impossible without the assistance of JPMorgan Chase, and later Deutsche Bank, and we assure the public that we will leave no stone unturned in our quest for justice for the many victims who deserved better from one of America's largest financial institutions," lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands and the...

Joe Biden signed on Monday a new law that could shed light on the links between the coronavirus pandemic and a Wuhan lab in China from which it stemmed. The move requires all U.S. intelligence related to that link and the origins of COVID-19 to be declassified within 90 days of the law's enactment. 'We need to get to the bottom of Covid-19's origins,' Biden wrote in a statement. He noted any released material should also 'include potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.'

The third set of Oath Keepers to go on trial were not facing seditious conspiracy charges like the first two groups. Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday, as a judge ordered jurors to continue deliberating over the most serious counts against two additional defendants. Sandra Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury found Michael Greene, another member of the Oath Keepers, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding but was still debating whether he was guilty of aiding or abetting the obstruction of an official proceeding. Bennie Parker was found not guilty of aiding or abetting, but the jury was still deliberating over the charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

The Russian fitness coach claimed he lives healthily on fruit, vegetables and sun rays. A Russian self-styled personal growth coach who advocates a vegan lifestyle has been arrested in connection with the death of his one-month-old son. The child died from apparent malnutrition and a lack of medical treatment. Maksim Lyutyy, a 43-year-old resident of a village near the Black Sea resort of Sochi, has been placed in pre-trial custody after being charged on Sunday at a local court. The mother of the child, Oksana Mironova, was moved from jail to house arrest last week. The infant was pronounced dead on March 8 when his parents took him to the hospital. The child was born at the couple's home on February 11, investigators said.

As global power dynamics continue to shift, Israel's close western alignment could limit its ability to engage with emerging powers in the east. Arch-rival Iran, which has established ties with Russia and China, will be better positioned to gain from the shifting geopolitical landscape. Great-power competition has the potential to significantly impact the future of Israel. As a key player in West Asia, Israel is likely to be affected by the actions and strategies of major powers such as the US, China, and Russia. The US has historically been a strong ally of Israel, providing significant military and economic aid. However, Washington's current strategy of thwarting growing Chinese and Russian political and economic influence around the world may lead to increased pressure on Israel, a western-creation, to align with US interests in the region. At the same time, China and Russia are rapidly expanding their stakes in West Asia, which may set back Israel's recent rapprochement...

Net zero targets must be brought forward by a decade to stop the "climate time bomb", the UN has said at the launch of a major new climate change report. Rising emissions in recent years mean cuts in the next two decades will have to be more extreme than current plans, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. An 80 per cent global reduction in CO2 emissions is needed to limit warming to 1.5C, the upper aim of the Paris Agreement, its new report says. But the UN said richer countries must move faster than developing nations, by "super-charging" their net zero goals and helping poorer countries cut their own emissions. The UK, like most other developed nations, has set a target for net zero emissions by 2050, and its climate change advisers have said getting there quicker will "stretch feasibility".

Hungary blocked European Union member states from issuing a joint statement about an international arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter. Budapest's veto meant that the EU's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, instead released a statement in his own name 'taking note" of the decision by the International Criminal Court. 'The EU sees the decision by the ICC as a beginning of the process of accountability and holding Russian leaders to account for the crimes and atrocities they are ordering, enabling or committing in Ukraine," Borrell said in the statement published on Sunday evening. EU justice ministers issued their own statement supporting the ICC decision Monday, which Hungary did not sign.

Swiss bank UBS is prepared to take over its troubled rival Credit Suisse but only for a knockdown price, reports said today. It comes amid urgent talks aimed at saving the embattled bank from a bloodbath when the markets reopen. The two largest banks in the wealthy Alpine nation famed for its banking prominence have been in negotiations with the government throughout the weekend, with the central bank and financial regulators all involved. The Financial Times, which was the first on Friday to report the prospect of Switzerland's biggest bank swallowing up Credit Suisse, said UBS had offered to buy it for up to $1billion. The transaction would be worth 25 cents (0.23 Swiss francs) per Credit Suisse share, the FT said.

Ukraine will not be allowed to join the EU or NATO until it restores the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in its Transcarpathian Region, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, warned on Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Szijjarto added that the US-led military bloc was violating its own rules by pushing ahead with a set of meetings involving Kiev's officials, despite his government's objections. "I would like to say that we will not support any significant integration movement of Ukraine towards the EU or NATO until the rights of the Hungarian ethnic community that it had prior to 2015 are restored in Ukraine," the foreign minister told reporters.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned Canada's top diplomat in Moscow to lodge a formal complaint, after the Canadian foreign minister made "inadmissible remarks" earlier this month. Melanie Joly told a news conference on March 10 that Ottawa was seeking "potential regime change in Russia." Members of the cabinet are "seeing potential" for that outcome thanks to their efforts to isolate "the Russian regime" economically, politically and diplomatically, she stated. The Canadian charge d'affaires in Moscow, Brian Ebel, was summoned on March 20 and issued with a formal protest over the remarks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Moscow believes the comments to be "inadmissible and at variance with Canada's obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised Beijing's 12-point peace roadmap for Ukraine, during a summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader is making a three-day visit to Moscow, and today's official talks took place at the Kremlin. "We believe that many of the provisions of the peace plan put forward by China are consonant with the Russian stance and can be taken as a foundation for a peaceful settlement when they are ready for it in the West and in Kiev. However, so far we have not observed such readiness on their part," Putin stated.

Moldova has resumed gas purchases from Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) in March after a break of about three months, the head of public natural gas distributor Moldovagaz said on Monday. "In March of this year, on the basis of a current contract, Gazprom has been providing the supply of natural gas to the Republic of Moldova in a total volume of 176.7 million cubic metres per month, or 5.7 million cubic metres daily," Moldovagaz head Vadim Ceban wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Since December, Gazprom had been providing supplies only to Moldova's Russian-backed Transdniestria separatist region, east of the Dniester river. None had gone to the part of Moldova west of the river, including capital Chisinau.

The French government has survived two parliamentary no-confidence votes over President Emmanuel Macron's decision to push through a controversial pension reform bill without lawmakers' approval. The failed motions on Monday were followed by renewed violent unrest overnight. The first no-confidence motion, tabled by a small group of opposition lawmakers, garnered significant support in the National Assembly, dominated by Macron's centrist alliance. The motion fell just nine votes short of the 287 required to pass. The second motion, put forward by the right-wing National Rally party, was backed by only 94 lawmakers. Despite failing to pass the motions, some opposition lawmakers urged the government to resign anyway. "The government is already dead in the eyes of the French," left-wing MP Mathilde Panot said after the votes. "It doesn't have any legitimacy anymore." Comment: She has a point; polls have shown that 52% of people support a 'social explosion' movement against the...

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has mobilized 700 riot cops and deployed steel barricades around the Manhattan Criminal Court in anticipation of civil disorder, should the Manhattan District Attorney's office order the arrest of former President Donald Trump, following a potential grand jury indictment for allegedly paying a former porn star for her silence ahead of his 2016 presidential campaign. As the NY Times gleefully reports, "He would be fingerprinted. He would be photographed. He could even be handcuffed. And if Donald J. Trump is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in the days ahead for his role in a hush money payment to a porn star, the former president of the United States of America will be read the standard Miranda warning: He will be told that he has the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney."

President Joe Biden vetoed a bill for the first time in his presidency on Monday, arguing that the legislation was overly influenced by "MAGA Republicans." The Republican-led legislation prevented Biden's administration from taking environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into account when making investment decisions. GOP lawmakers argue ESG is a measure of a corporation's loyalty to "woke" cultural movements and should not be taken into account. "I just vetoed my first bill. This bill would risk your retirement savings by making it illegal to consider risk factors MAGA House Republicans don't like. Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not," Biden announced in a Monday tweet. The bill specifically ended enforcement of a new Labor Department rule that urged private retirement plan fiduciaries to consider ESG in their investment decisions.

"As the evidence mounts of an even broader censorship effort by the Biden administration, the Democrats' attacks have become more unhinged and unscrupulous. After shredding any fealty to free speech, they now are attacking journalists, demanding their sources and claiming their reporting is a public threat." Jonathan Turley And it will stop because, as the old wag Herb Stein laid down in his law years ago: Things that can't go on, stop. Which raises the question: which things? And the answer is the things Western Civ is doing in its attempted suicide: inciting war, recklessly running up debt, persecuting its own citizens and stealing their liberties, subjecting them to medical malfeasance, destroying their goods production and food-growing capabilities, and subjecting the public to incessant mind-fuckery in a campaign to falsify and disfigure reality. A consortium of public and corporate bureaucracies has institutionalized the falsification of reality under the pretense of saving...

The German newspaper has cited an unnamed NATO official as claiming that Kiev is preparing to strike in Zaporozhye and Lugansk... Russia and Ukraine are approaching a decisive period in their conflict, with Kiev aiming to sever the Russian land bridge to Crimea this spring, Germany's Bild newspaper has reported. The tabloid cited an anonymous NATO source who claimed the bloc is providing Ukraine with everything it needs to retake its former territories. In a report on Tuesday, Bild quoted a "leading" NATO official as stating that the alliance's analysts expect the conflict to reach a climax in the spring and summer. The official expressed confidence that heavy weaponry being delivered to Ukraine will be brought to bear in several counteroffensives as early as May. "The coming six months will be a key period in the war not only for Ukraine, but also for the allies," the unnamed source predicted. While refusing to go into detail regarding planned operations, the official asserted...

President Biden on Monday signed legislation to declassify information related to the origins of COVID-19 after the measure was passed unanimously in Congress. The House had passed the bill earlier this month, but the White House had been non-committal about whether Biden would sign it into law. Biden said in a statement: "We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19's origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics. My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID-19's origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. "In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security." The president noted that he directed intelligence agencies in 2021 to investigate the virus' origins. The legislation, titled the COVID-19 Origin Act,...

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer believes that more than half a dozen members of the Biden clan may have been involved in various worldwide business schemes that profited off their family name. Comer, whose committee is investigating the Biden family's business dealings, shared the insight in a Wednesday night interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Referring to his panel's far-reaching probe, Comer (R-KY) said: "At the end of this I think we're gonna see there are probably six or seven Biden family members that were involved in various business schemes around the world." Comer didn't mention any names in the interview and declined to reveal the identity of the unnamed Biden family member who got proceeds from a $3 million wire to Hunter Biden associate John "Rob" Walker just weeks after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017.

Note: we haven't reached peak money printing yet, but that's coming. With the current financial uncertainty, I wanted to take a few minutes and give you my take on what's happening with the banking industry, the financial crisis, the recession, and where I believe we're headed. Bottom Line Up Front: This financial crisis will end the short-term boom-bust cycle and, more importantly, end the long-term boom-bust cycle with catastrophic consequences. This is the event you should be preparing for. Here's why I think this. First, right now, banks can park their cash at the Federal Reserve risk-free at nearly a 5% yield, which reduces the incentive for them to approve loans heading into a period of financial uncertainty. The net result is that we're likely to see credit rationing as banks improve their reserve ratios by pulling back on loans. This will decrease economic activity. Second, this is accelerating the end of the short-term boom-bust cycle as credit availability dries up and...

Tucker Carlson accused the NSA of spying on his personal communications when he tried to schedule an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I can corroborate his story. On March 10, Fox News host Tucker Carlson told the Full Send podcast that the US government "broke into [his] text messages" in the summer of 2021, just months before the launch of Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Carlson claimed the spying occurred as he was planning a trip to Russia, where he hoped to record a conversation with the country's president. According to Carlson, he learned of the surveillance after a US government source arranged to meet him in Washington and proceeded to share information with him that only someone with access to his private, personal text messages could have known. "This person's like... 'Are you planning a trip to go see Putin?' This was the summer before the war started. And I was like, 'how would you know that? I haven't told anybody,'" Carlson recalled. "I...

After a heavy storm rolled over Lake Erie and through Buffalo, New York the area was blanketed in ice and snow. The city of Buffalo got absolutely blanketed in snow this Winter. The recorded snow total for Buffalo has reached an eye-watering 133.3 so far. That is 44.1 above normal for Buffalo. We are officially into Spring but there's always a chance of more snow like the heavy Lake Erie storm that turned cars into ice cubes last weekend. The massive lake effect snow storm his Buffalo on Saturday, March 18th. The @BuffaloWeather Twitter account which tracks severe weather in Upstate New York from the Great Lakes to the Adirondacks shared videos and pictures that look other-worldly. Suffice it to say a flamethrower might be needed to thaw this SUV out that was left parked too close to Lake Erie. It turned into a legitimate ice cube.

Former President Donald Trump's lawyers moved on Monday to quash the report from a special grand jury in Georgia's 2020 election inquiry. The legal team also seeks to "preclude the use of any evidence derived" from the report and the recusal of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's office, according to The New York Times. "The results of the investigation cannot be relied upon and, therefore, must be suppressed given the constitutional violations," Trump's attorneys wrote in their motion in Georgia court. The attorneys asked that the motion get a hearing by a different judge than the one who oversaw the special grand jury.

The State Department's annual assessment ultimately blames Russia for Kiev's transgressions An annual human rights report, published by the US State Department on Monday, adopts a light touch in assessing human rights abuses in Ukraine. The study blames the censorship of media, bans on political parties and extrajudicial executions in Ukraine on Russia, though some of these processes had begun before Moscow launched its military assault, in early 2022. Kiev's crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not mentioned at all. The report notes that businessman Denis Kireev was "allegedly killed during his arrest by the Security Service of Ukraine [SBU] after it obtained a recording of Kireyev allegedly implicating himself in treason." It goes on to quote the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) saying "the circumstances of [Kireev's] death remain unclear."

Ukraine Is Winning? Westerners like Joe Biden and Michael McFaul continue to assert that Ukraine is winning the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. The reality is far different. The war could end this year with a complete collapse of the Ukrainian army and Maidan regime. This is not a certain outcome as yet but is possible if not this year then certainly in 2024 in lieu of some negotiated end to war or at least the fighting when Russian, Ukrainian and American presidential elections are scheduled. The election offing raises the stakes of the Ukrainian outcome, which is bleak for Kiev and Washington. Ukraine is running out of artillery shells and firing systems are suffering high attrition. The US has announced plans to produce 50,000 shells next year for Ukraine, but Ukraine is using 90,000 per month, ten times less than Russian and allied forces are using. Moscow has still to commit its newly mobilized troops in an all-out counteroffensive, but nevertheless Russian, Donbass, and Wagner...

An magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, killing at least one person in neighbouring Pakistan and causing strong shaking across the north in both countries. The tremor was very deep, 194 km, and its epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the remote northern Afghan province of Badakhshan. A 13-year old girl died when a wall in her home collapsed on her, and 34 people were injured in the northern Pakistani district of Swat, police officer Shafiullah Gandapur told Reuters. Disaster authorities in Afghanistan said they did not have any immediate reports of casualties.

A meteor exploded three times in Hungarian airspace on Friday evening, and a Hungarian community was able to take a photo and make a video of the phenomenon. You can check them out below. According to hvg.hu, a greenish shooting star, a fireball was visible from Hungary around 9.08 PM on Friday. The Hungarian Meteoritics Society (Magyar Meteoritikiai Trsasg) could take a video and a photo of the unique phenomenon. The society said they have a system of so-called 'fireball cameras'.

Fireball as a meteorite sighted in Puerto Rico, this Monday, March 20, 2023, reports the SAC. The detection of a resplendent meteor over Puerto Rico was confirmed by the Caribbean Astronomical Society (SAC) around 7:45 p.m. According to the SAC, the observed meteor belongs to the "Pi Virginids" meteor shower, characterized by its slow and bright movement. According to the SAC, the meteor's trajectory suggests that it is one belonging to a little-known shower called the "Pi Virginids."

The former US president posted footage on Truth Social, warning Americans it would be in their best interests to stand up for him Former US President Donald Trump rallied his supporters with a video posted on Monday night to his Truth Social platform, condemning the "four horrible, radical left Democratic investigations" that have not yet managed to sink his political career. The video came days after Trump warned he would soon be arrested on charges stemming from the Stormy Daniels scandal, in which his former lawyer Michael Cohen allegedly paid hush money to the porn actress. In the video, the 2024 presidential candidate described how previous lengthy, well-funded investigations against him had failed to prise him from the White House. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's "Russian collusion" probe, the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, and the "Stormy Horseface Daniels extortion plot" were all "sick" and "fake news," he said.

Amid the monumental collapse of several banks over the last few days and broader fears that the banking system is no longer safe, President Biden made a statement to assure Americans that all their bank deposits are perfectly safe in Ukraine. "Folks don't worry. Due to the decisive actions of this administration, everyone's money is safe in Ukraine," said Biden. "I withdrew all the money and shipped it over there last night myself! My son Hunter personally supervised the transfer! That's leadership! I'm sure the Ukrainians will put your money to good use by buying bazookas and paying the pensions of government officials. I will take no questions at this time." Biden then did an about-face and spent 15 minutes trying to walk out of the room as he couldn't find the door. Americans are being assured to wait until the war in Ukraine is over and they pay us back before making any large withdrawals. At publishing time, 12 more banks had collapsed during Biden's speech.

Brighton Resort officially reached a monumental 703" of snowfall for the season on March 20, 2023, the earliest in the season that this has occurred since Utah began recording snowfall in 1943. To celebrate, Ski Utah, Visit Salt Lake, The Utah Office of Tourism and Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City will combine forces to unfurl an impressive 700" banner on the side of the brand new Hyatt Regency in Downtown Salt Lake City later this week. "Ski Utah is thrilled to witness this historic season. Skiers and snowboarders from around the world have been able to enjoy copious quantities of The Greatest Snow on Earth. We knew we had to celebrate this feat in a big way in the middle of Salt Lake City." - Nathan Rafferty, President of Ski Utah

Britain and Ireland is currently experiencing a major influx of Alpine Swift, with birds reported from more than 60 locations during the past week. The influx began on Monday 13th with an extraordinary group of seven over Dungarvan, Co Waterford - the biggest flock ever recorded in Ireland. After another bird in Cheshire on 14th, further new individuals appeared in Co Cork, Cornwall and Gloucestershire on 15th, as suitable departure conditions in northern Iberia and a 'funnel' of south-westerly winds produced a large-scale arrival of common summer migrants across Britain and Ireland, with Sand Martin and Northern Wheatear appearing in particularly good numbers.

Fresh snowfall on Monday in the upper reaches of Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district has left farmers a worried lot due to fear of damage to fruit crops as the trees are currently in bloom. According to officials, snowfall ranging between two inches to one foot was recorded in different high-altitude areas, including Kota Top, Jatani, Kansar, Thanhala, Baach Dhar, Shankhoja, Chenera, Kaljugasar and Sivili. Amid the continuous snowfall, the district administration has issued an advisory asking people not to venture near avalanche-prone areas and has also suspended vehicular traffic on Bhaderwah-Basohli-Pathankot and Bhaderwah-Chamba interstate roads.

An IndiGo flight suffered major damage to its windshield and radome amid a heavy hailstorm, while landing at the Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. As per reports, India's largest air carrier was operating Flight 6E 6594 from Ahmedabad to RGIA in Hyderabad on Saturday evening, March 18, 2023. The pictures of the damages incurred by the plane have surfaced on Twitter recently. A Twitter user going by the name Jet Arena shared the images, revealing the damages on the Airbus A320neo plane. As per and IANS report, the plane suffered damages when it encountered a hailstorm during its descent towards Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. No one was injured in the incident and the pilot successfully landed the plane at the airport. The aircraft's radome and windshields were damaged in the hailstorm.

Patients will now have to travel over 45 miles to the closest hospital with labor and delivery. An Idaho hospital made the decision to axe its labor and delivery department, saying the "political climate" made it too difficult to keep it staffed. "Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult," Bonner General Health, located in Sandpoint, Idaho, said in a social media post Friday. "The Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines."

Texas lawmakers have passed a bill to allow fentanyl dealers to be charged with murder. The "Combating Fentanyl" bill introduced by Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, SB 645, passed unanimously. The legislation would reclassify deaths due to fentanyl as poisonings and open up anyone who makes, sells, or delivers the drug to being charged with murder if someone overdoses.

The "war party" in Brussels wants to push Budapest into sending weapons, Peter Szijjarto has said. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said that his country won't be pushed into supplying arms to Ukraine. The diplomat accused the EU of a pressure campaign against Budapest. The bloc's ministers reportedly agreed to send $2 billion worth of ammunition to Kiev's forces. "Another war party proposal is on the table: this time Brussels wants to send ammunition to Ukraine," Szijjarto wrote on his Facebook page on Monday. "The pressure is constantly increasing on us, but we are not allowing anyone to push us into war," he added.

Police forces are failing to train officers on the importance of free speech while teaching them obscure pronouns, according to a report from the Free Speech Union into the free speech crisis in British policing. The Times has the story. The Free Speech Union (FSU) said there was a "free speech crisis" in British policing and that forces were not emphasising the importance of freedom of expression to officers. Officers are undergoing tens of thousands of hours of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training in which they are told that gender is "culturally determined" and about the use of pronouns including "fae" and "faer". At least one force still uses the "genderbread" diagram, which illustrates the notion that biological sex is irrelevant to an individual's innate sense of gender.

Another 2,000 suspected gang members were shipped to El Salvador's revered mega-prison, the country's president announced Wednesday as he unveiled more footage of the "impossible to escape" facility. The new arrivals joined another 2,000 accused gangsters who landed in the new Center for the Confinement of Terrorism last month as El Salvador looks to win its battle against raging street gangs. President Nayib Bukele blasted out new footage of the prison and its new prisoners being hustled off buses and into the facility as they're surrounded by heavily armed guards.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has urged regional administrations in the country to wean themselves off foreign payment networks like Mastercard and Visa and start using credit cards issued by domestic banks to shield any transactions from possible geopolitical fallout that could disrupt economic transactions. Jokowi said that the war in Ukraine with the attendant economic sanctions imposed by the United States could create problems as economic tools, including payment systems, could be used against countries perceived to have any involvement in the conflict. "Be very careful. We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia. Visa and Mastercard could be a problem," President Jokowi told a national meeting to promote the use of Indonesian-made products and services.

The Russian president made an unplanned stop in Mariupol where he met with locals and checked on the restoration of the city. Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise visit to the Donbass region was largely "spontaneous" and effectively turned into a full-fledged "working trip," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed on Sunday. The overnight trip was the first time Putin has visited Donbass since it broke away from Ukraine in 2014. It was eventually incorporated into Russia following referendums last year. During Putin's stay in the city of Mariupol, he met locals and visited flats in a newly constructed residential building. The city was the scene of intense fighting early in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and ended up being heavily damaged in the process. "Initially, the plan was only to visit this residential complex, and, of course, neither meeting the citizens, nor paying them a visit [in their homes] was planned. It was all entirely spontaneous," Peskov told...

Beijing and Moscow are working together to shape "a more just multipolar world," and ties between the two countries are now "at the highest level in their history," President Vladimir Putin said in an article released on the eve of a visit by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to the Russian capital. The piece, penned by Putin for China's People's Daily, was released late on Sunday by the Kremlin's press service. "The progress made in the development of bilateral ties is impressive. The Russia-China relations have reached the highest level in their history and are gaining even more strength; they surpass Cold War-time military-political alliances in their quality, with no one to constantly order and no one to constantly obey, without limitations or taboos," Putin wrote, praising the "level of trust in our political dialogue, our strategic cooperation." The two nations are busy shaping "a more just multipolar world," Putin noted, lauding Beijing's Eurasian international efforts...

Emmanuel Macron's government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in the French parliament Monday, after it pushed through a deeply unpopular pensions overhaul without a vote last week, sparking outrage and spontaneous protests across the country. In a high-stakes vote in France's lower house of parliament, 278 MPs, mostly from the left and the far right, voted in favor of a cross-party motion of no confidence, falling just short of the 287 votes needed to topple the government. A second motion, backed only by the far-right National Rally, did not garner enough votes. The outcome of the first vote was much tighter than anticipated and increases the pressure on Macron to withdraw his reform. It may also give a boost to the protest movement led by trade unions against the measures. The French president will also be under pressure to respond either by addressing the country or reshuffling his government. Speaking ahead of the votes, the centrist MP Charles de Courson, one of the...

Planning for a bio-terrorism smallpox attack, the U.S. government just bought up enough smallpox medication supplies to treat two million people. But given that smallpox was eradicated in 1980 and that the only known remaining samples of the disease are kept under lock and key in the U.S. and Russia, the New York Times points out, some critics are crying foul over the $463 million the government shelled out for the vaccines. Experts fear, though, that terrorists may have secret stockpiles of the virus or could figure out how to reengineer smallpox in the lab. Two million doses of treatment, the Times writes, could contain an outbreak in a large city in the event of terrorists dousing an airport or stadium with pathogens. But around 12 million doses would be needed to combat a nation-wide epidemic.

Members of the Russian presidential administration whose jobs focus on domestic policy have been instructed to discard their iPhones by the end of March, the business daily Kommersant reported on Monday. The decision was made due to the risk of Western espionage, the outlet said. Russian officials will have to "throw away or give to their kids" their devices running the iOS operating system, according to how one source summarized a discussion during a seminar in early March. Kommersant sources say the final say on the matter and the deadline came directly from Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kirienko, who supervises several departments in the presidential office in charge of various aspects of domestic policy. The ban will also affect officials who liaise with regional governments on behalf of the administration, the newspaper reported.

One of the largest oil depots in the central part of Ukraine burned out completely. We are talking about an oil storage facility in the city of Novomoskovsk, Dnepropetrovsk region. The fire at this fuel and energy infrastructure facility broke out a couple of days ago due to an air strike on the oil depot. Drums were used drones "Geran", which, as the Ukrainian side initially reported, "were successfully shot down." However, the "downed" drones somehow managed to cause an incident that led to the burnout of thousands of tons of fuel and crude oil. Comment: If that sounds unbelievable, lest we forget that Kiev recently shot down a Russian missile, that was headed to energy infrastructure, instead causing it to hit a civilian populated apartment block. The fire was burned for two days.

According to Polish Ambassador to France Jan Emeryk Rosciszewski, a situation may arise in which Poland would have to directly enter the Russia-Ukraine war. "It is not NATO, Poland or Slovakia that are exerting more and more pressure, but Russia, which has invaded Ukraine. Russia that is usurping its territories. Russia that is killing its people. And Russia that kidnaps Ukrainian children," the 57-year-old ambassador told French broadcaster LCI on Sunday evening. "So either Ukraine defends its independence today, or we have to enter this conflict. Because our main values, which were the basis of our civilization and our culture, will be threatened. Therefore, we will have no choice but to enter the conflict," he added.

Late on Monday, March 13, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) traveling at at least 3,000 kilometers per second (6,700,000 miles per hour), possibly the fastest ever recorded. The expelled particles reached the Earth's orbit in less than a day. Had they hit the Earth, the results could have been catastrophic, but fortunately the CME was directed almost directly opposite. However, the explosion is a reminder the next time we may not be so lucky. Comment: That it was 'almost directly opposite' is interesting in itself. Despite coming from the far side of the Sun, it appears the event has caused a minor radiation storm on Earth. A smaller, and much slower, CME on Saturday that was predicted to graze the Earth may have also contributed. CMEs can affect each other, with one clearing a path for the charged particles from another. Spaceweather.com predicts shortwave radio failures for planes flying over the poles.

At least 5 municipalities in Cear State in northeastern Brazil have declared a state of emergency after days of heavy rain triggered flooding and landslides. Dozens of people have been displaced and at least 3 fatalities reported. Three people from the same family died after heavy rain triggered a landslide which destroyed their home in Aratuba on 16 March 2023. A further 15 homes were damaged or deemed unsafe by authorities, forcing around 50 people to evacuate. "The municipal government deeply regrets what happened and will provide full support to the families of the victims and survivors," the Municipal Prefecture of Aratuba said in a statement. A three-day period of mourning was declared. State Governor Elmano de Freitas visited the area on 17 March.

Americans need to have an important discussion about free speech now before the Censorship Complex makes it impossible to do so. The Censorship Complex whereby Big Tech censorship is induced by the government, media, and media-rating businesses threatens the future of free speech in this country. To understand how and why, Americans need to talk about speech and the government's motive to deceive the public. To frame this discussion, consider these hypotheticals: Two American soldiers training Ukraine soldiers in Poland cross into the war zone, ambushing and killing five Russian soldiers. Unbeknownst to the American soldiers, a Ukrainian soldier filmed the incident and provides the footage to an independent journalist who authors an article on Substack, providing a link to the video. Russia uses its intelligence service and "bots" to flood social media with claims that the Ukrainians are misusing 90 percent of American tax dollars. In truth, "only" 40 percent of American...

Snowpack statewide is over double the normal, and much above what we typically have by April 1st, which is historically the deepest snow depth of the season. More snow is ahead this week, and while the moisture is wonderful for the state of the drought, the back to back systems are overwhelming California's soils & rivers. The heavy rain and snowmelt led to widespread flooding around rivers and creeks, most notably in Porterville and Kernville in central California. Here, the rivers overflowed, resulting in mandatory evacuations for the surrounding communities. The southern Sierra has benefited the most from the active winter season. Soda Springs, CA has received over 56 feet of snow this season, making this season the 2nd snowiest since records started in 1946! We are about 11 feet shy of the record 1951-52 year but with more snow in the forecast, we will get awfully close in the next couple of weeks.

This bright bolide was spotted over Spain on March 18, at 23:57 local time (equivalent to 22:57 universal time). The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 80,000 km/h. The fireball overflew Ciudad Real (Spain). It began at an altitude of about 94 km over Argamasilla de Alba (province of Ciudad Real), moved northwest, and ended at a height of around 34 km over Herencia (province of Ciudad Real). 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), Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), and Sevilla. 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).

Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer said the sabotaged gas pipelines would be needed if Germany and Russia resume trade Germany should repair the Nord Stream gas pipelines while it is still possible, the state premier of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, has argued. The politician suggested that the pipelines, which were blown up last September, could be needed again in the event that Germany and Russia normalize trade relations under new leadership in Moscow. "In energy policy, it's all about keeping options open," Kretschmer told Germany's Focus magazine in an interview published on Sunday. "When Putin is gone, the pipeline could also be an opportunity for a successor to restore economic relations with us," the official added, predicting that this could happen in around five years' time.

MAGA supporters tempted to protest an expected Trump arrest should be wary, especially in a major city. They might be walking into another "insurrection" trap. Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, is about to be arrested. The expected Trump indictment hinges on his former lawyer Michael Cohen sending $130,000 to pornstar Stormy Daniels to prevent her from disclosing a purported 2006 affair with Trump, who has denied the allegation. Trump allegedly reimbursed Cohen with campaign funds, allegedly claiming them as "legal expenses." Alvin Bragg responded on Saturday night to pushback ahead of the expected Trump arrest, as reported by Breanna Morello. In part, Bragg told the members of his office: "Please know that your safety is our top priority. We have full confidence in our outstanding security staff and investigators, along with our great OCA and NYPD colleagues, and will continue to coordinate with all of them. We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or...

The lockdowns and the stimulus required to keep the economy alive helped drive inflation. Then the Fed jacked up interest rates. And all hell broke loose. On Friday March 10th, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) died of Covid. Alright, it's a little more complicated than that, but Covid lockdowns followed by massive government stimulus were a critical - and massively under-acknowledged - factor in propelling the bank's demise. At the heart of the crisis is the gigantic pile of low-interest debt that was issued during the height of the pandemic. While private-sector pandemic-era debt like corporate bonds also soared, US government debt like Treasury bonds piled up. In a nutshell, during the pandemic the government issued enormous amounts of extremely low interest government debt about $4.2 trillion of it. But now interest rates, including on government debt, are higher than they have been in 15 years and investors are dumping their old low-interest debt. As they dump, the resale...

Russia's investigative committee says the ICC's top prosecutor and its judges acted "illegally"... The International Criminal Court's (ICC) principal prosecutor and the judges who issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin have become the targets of a criminal case, Russia's Investigative Committee announced on Monday. In a Telegram post, the committee said that it had opened cases against ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan, as well as judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez. Khan sent a petition on February 22 to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber to obtain warrants for the arrest of Putin and Russia's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, whom he accused of being responsible for the "illegal deportation of children from Ukraine." His petition was approved by the aforementioned judges. Moscow regards the evacuation as providing the safety of civilians from territories at risk of attacks by Ukrainian troops.

The Government of Japan is urged to tell the truth about the huge number of vaccine injuries and excess deaths during a hearing. Japanese lawmaker Mr. Yanagase Hirofumi, a Japanese politician who is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan, accused the Japanese government of covering up COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injuries and deaths. Below is the transcript of Mr. Hirofumi's speech: "The number of deaths in Japan has been on the rise continuously. As you can see from this panel, the dramatic increase in the number of deaths is quite obvious. Last year, the number of deaths in 2022, exceeded 1.58 million, the highest number since World War II. Compared to 2021, the number of deaths has increased by more than 140,000. Compared to 2020, the number of deaths has increased by a staggering number of 210,000. Covid didn't cause so many more deaths. There must be factors (like vaccines). I wonder how the government is analyzing this problem?

According to Business Insider sources, a possible Trump indictment is on hold until a final "surprise witness" can testify before the Grand Jury on Monday. Here's the report from Business Insider: Not so fast. A New York grand jury will hear a final surprise witness on Monday and won't vote on Trump indictment until it's over. "There is one more witness," a source with knowledge of the investigation told Insider on Saturday night. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details of the grand jury proceedings. The source declined to identify the witness, whose testimony will cap a two-month grand jury presentation by prosecutors under District Attorney Alvin Bragg. A separate source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Insider that the witness is not Allen Weisselberg, Trump's former CFO, who is serving a five-month sentence for admittedly masterminding a payroll tax-dodge scheme at the Trump Organization.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman has invited Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to a meeting in Riyadh, Raisi's deputy chief of staff said on Sunday. Planning is also underway for a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers, after a Chinese-mediated deal restored diplomatic relations following a seven-year rift. Salman extended the invitation in a letter to Raisi, Deputy Chief of Staff Mohammad Jamshidi wrote on Twitter on Sunday. "Welcoming this invitation, the president emphasized Iran's readiness to strengthen cooperation," Jamshidi added. In a follow-up tweet in English, Jamshidi stated that Salman referred to Saudi Arabia and Iran as "brotherly countries" in his letter. Saudi Arabia and Iran announced last week that they would restore diplomatic ties and commit to "non-interference" in each other's internal affairs, in a landmark deal brokered by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Preparations have been underway to reopen embassies in Riyadh and Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister...

Police in the Pakistani capital filed charges Sunday against former Prime Minister Imran Khan, 17 of his aides and scores of supporters, accusing them of terrorism and several other offenses after the ousted premier's followers clashed with security forces in Islamabad the previous day. For hours on Saturday, Khan's followers clashed with police outside a court where the former prime minister was to appear in a graft case. Riot police wielded batons and fired tear gas while Khan's supporters threw fire bombs and hurled rocks at the officers. More than 50 officers were injured and a police checkpoint, several cars and motorcycles were torched. Police said 59 of Khan's supporters were arrested during the violence. Khan never actually appeared inside the court to face charges that he had sold state gifts received while in office and concealed assets.

Compare Putin's supposed abduction of Ukrainian children to an organized mass kidnapping of Vietnamese children. In the "collective West," hypocrisy rules the narrative, most recently in regard to the ICC and the "kidnapped" children of Ukraine. In America, the scurrilous neocon and warmonger propagandist Max Boot weighed in on the meaningless and unenforcible decision to arrest President Putin. Boot's argument is delusional, but then neocons thrive on lies and delusions. Propaganda, pure and simple. Boot is an accessory to mass murder, having advocated the invasion of Iraq, the slaughter of over a million Iraqis, and the engineered destruction of their country.

On Friday, March 10, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed and was taken over by federal regulators. SVB was the 16th largest bank in the country and its bankruptcy was the second largest in U.S. history, following Washington Mutual in 2008. Despite its size, SVB was not a "systemically important financial institution" (SIFI) as defined in the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires insolvent SIFIs to "bail in" the money of their creditors to recapitalize themselves. Technically, the cutoff for SIFIs is $250 billion in assets. However, the reason they are called "systemically important" is not their asset size but the fact that their failure could bring down the whole financial system. That designation comes chiefly from their exposure to derivatives, the global casino that is so highly interconnected that it is a "house of cards." Pull out one card and the whole house collapses. SVB held $27.7 billion in derivatives, no small sum, but it is only .05% of the $55,387 billion ($55.387 trillion)...

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday described gay people as "deviants" and called for an investigation into homosexuality as lawmakers in the conservative East African nation prepare to vote on an anti-LGBT bill. The bill, introduced earlier this month, proposes tough new penalties for same-sex relations in a country where homosexuality is already illegal, sparking criticism from human rights groups. In a state of the nation address before lawmakers, Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, called gay people deviants as MPs urged him to comment on the new legislation.

Oxfam came under fire last night for issuing a bizarre 'inclusive' language guide to staff. The 92-page report warns against 'colonial' phrases such as 'headquarters', suggests 'local' may be offensive and says 'people' could be patriarchal. Workers were told 'parent' is often preferable to 'mother' or 'father', terms such as 'feminine hygiene' should be dropped, and 'people who become pregnant' should be used instead of 'expectant mothers'.

Too much thing, rain, is sinking farmers' bottom lines across California's Central Coast. The area some call "America's salad bowl" more resembles a soup bowl as round after round of atmospheric river-fueled storms overwhelmed farmland. We all may start to notice a difference in the grocery store as some staples become harder to find. FOX Weather brought you to Pajaro, California when the levee failed recently. The farming community in the Pajaro River Valley disappeared under feet of water. Similar scenes played out across the Salinas River Valley, another iconic farm area in Monterey County which is the fourth top agricultural producer in the state, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "For the farms that were flooded, this catastrophe hit at the worst possible time," said California's Strawberry Commission President Rick Tomlinson in a statement. "Farmers had borrowed money to prepare the fields and were weeks away from beginning to harvest." Acre...

One man was killed, and two others were injured when a powerful avalanche was triggered near Chair Mountain in the Marble, Colorado, area of Gunnison County. Another skier was killed, and 2 others narrowly escaped an avalanche near Aspen. These deaths now brings the total number of people killed by avalanches in Colorado to nine so far this season, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and the Pitikin County Sheriff's Office.. According to the Gunnison County Sheriff's Office, reports of the Marble avalanche were received just before 6 p.m. local time on Friday. One of the men trapped by the avalanche was able to exit the backcountry and was taken to a hospital for treatment. A second victim needed to be rescued via helicopter, and the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post that the third victim remained missing for some time.