Local authorities in the Augdaugava Municipality in southern Latvia have requested a state of emergency due to severe flooding along the Daugava River and tributaries since late March 2023. Flooding has also affected several regions in neighbouring Belarus. At least 8 roads in Augdaugava Municipality, Latvia, are underwater, leaving communities isolated and children unable to attend school. Images from Latvia's State Fire and Rescue Service (Valsts ugunsdzsbas un glbanas dienests - VUGD) showed dozens of buildings in residential areas have been flooded. The Augdaugava municipality has asked the national government to declare a state of emergency. Some evacuations were reported but exact details and numbers had not yet been released by the local authorities, as of 03 April. Recent rainfall and melting snow in southern parts of the country and the bordering country of Belarus caused rivers in the Daugava basin to rise from late March.

At least 20 people died after a landslide struck in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on 02 April 2023. The disaster occurred in the village of Bulwa in the Masisi territory of the North Kivu Province. News media in the country, quoting local officials and observers, said provisional figures show at least 19 people were killed and that the search for other victims was to continue. The Provincial deputy of North Kivu, Alexis Bahunga, gave an update on the situation in a statement of early 03 April 2023. The Deputy said: "More than 20 people have died in a landslide this Sunday 02.03.2023 in Bulwa, Gpt Buabo, in Masisi Territory; I offer my condolences to the population of Buabo and ask the Govt to assist these victim families by organizing a dignified funeral." Heavy rain has also affected South Kivu Provine in recent days and road traffic linking the city of Uvira to Bukavu was suspended.

While downstate areas have been getting rounds of rain, thunder and even a weak tornado, Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula have been getting an astonishing amount of snow in the last few days. Wave after wave of snow has moved through some areas of the U.P., with one town reporting 22 inches of snow falling between Thursday night and Saturday morning. In some areas, snowfall was so intense it was piling up at a rate of 5 inches per hour. Widespread power outages were also reported Saturday in the U.P., with restoration times delayed by the bad weather conditions. Below are some of the recent snow totals reported to the National Weather Service offices in Gaylord and Marquette. "As the record-setting snowfall event comes to a close, here are some of the highest snowfall reports we have received," the NWS meteorologists in Gaylord said, referencing the snow totals roundup being shared in the photo below. "Most of this snow fell within a 12-hour window with rates at 3-5 inches...

Turns out Trump wasn't wrong when he said, two weeks ago, "they're coming after me..." But the regime can't seriously believe that he will go to prison over a payment he made to a (literal) whore 7 years ago, can they?! Also on this NewsReal, Joe & Niall look back on a week that included: A mass shooting at a school in Nashville by a crazed 'transgender' woman; the filing of bi-partisan legislation (the 'Restrict Act') that would block Americans from accessing information from 'unapproved sources' (upon pain of 20 years' imprisonment); notable developments in the ongoing 'de-dollarization' of international trade; the US piling pressure on Pakistan to 'terminate' its democratically-elected leader Imran Khan; the US VP's 'charm offensive' tour of African states; what looks like another US State Department color revolution (in Israel of all places!); and a daunting report on the falling average age of life expectancy in the US. It's ugly stuff, but that's what happens at the End...

In yet another tragic incident that took place at Bardowa Luit Chapari in Majuli, five livestock died due to lightning strikes while several others were injured. According to the sources, the incident occurred around 4 pm on Sunday, when the sky was ominous and there was overcast. The livestock were grazing in an open field when the lightning struck them. The intensity of the lightning was that it killed five animals on the spot. The locals rushed to the spot upon hearing the commotion and immediately informed the local authorities. The injured animals were immediately taken to the veterinary hospital for treatment, where they are currently being treated by the doctor.

A strong magnitude 6.5 earthquake has struck the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East, according to seismologists and residents. Strong shaking was felt near the epicenter but there is no threat of a tsunami. The earthquake struck at 03:06 p.m. local time on Monday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with the epicenter located about 10 kilometers from Vilyuchinsk or 28 kilometers from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of the Kamchatka region. "Based on all available data, a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a statement.

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 has struck Papua New Guinea, seismologists and residents say. Homes were destroyed near the epicenter but only few details were immediately available. The earthquake, which struck at 3:04 a.m. local time on Monday, was centered in Chambri Lake, about 37 kilometers east of Ambunti or 96 kilometers southwest of Wewak, the capital of East Sepik province. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) put the earthquake's magnitude at 7.0, a significant downgrade from earlier estimates of 7.3 and 7.9. It struck about 62 kilometers below the surface, making it a fairly deep earthquake.

Canadian police officers appeared to simply watch and one appeared to smile as radical trans activists approached and then eventually assaulted a lone counter-protester wearing a sandwich board sign that read, "Children can't consent to puberty blockers." Video of the incident was shared by Chris Elston (@BillboardChris), who said that he was assaulted twice at the protest, and that police did nothing. When pressed to respond, police officers suggested that he might have cut his own nose or that he had incited the trans activists to violence by showing up with a sign that they did not like.

A University of South Florida anthropologist has uncovered the first ancient DNA from the Swahili Civilization, prosperous trading states along the coast of East Africa dating back to the 7th century. From Kenya to Mozambique, Chapurukha Kusimba, a USF professor of anthropology, dedicated 40 years to studying the ancestry of those who built the civilizations - a debate that many Swahilis feel robbed them of their heritage for centuries. "This research has been my life's work - this journey to recover the past of the Swahili and restore them to rightful citizenship," Kusimba said. "These findings bring out the African contributions, and indeed, the Africanness of the Swahili, without marginalizing the Persian and Indian connection." Published in Nature, this work examines the DNA of 80 individuals from as long as 800 years ago - making it the first ancient DNA uncovered from the Swahili Civilization. As part of his decades-long research, Kusimba, a Kenya native, spent time with the...

A senior cleric in Ukraine's most prominent Orthodox monastery, Metropolitan Pavel, has been placed under house arrest and barred from attending services for two months, amid an ongoing religious crackdown and attempts to evict hundreds of monks from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. At a pretrial detention hearing on Saturday, Metropolitan Pavel (secular name Pyotr Lebed), who is accused of harboring pro-Russian sentiment, was ordered to stay in a village 50km from the capital. The hearing was initially postponed after the 61-year-old cleric, who has served as abbot of the monastery since 1994, reported feeling unwell. However, he was brought to court again in the evening, and officially placed under house arrest for 60 days.

Swiss news agency SonntagsZeitung weekly reported on Sunday that the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse could result in layoffs of up to 30 percent of the total workforce across the world, amounting to approximately 36,000 positions. This comes after UBS announced the rushed acquisition of Credit Suisse, which was arranged under the auspices of Swiss authorities on March 19. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, collapsed in March 2023 following years of facilitating tax evasion for America's wealthiest.

Russia is expelling an Estonian diplomat from Moscow in a tit for tat move following a similar action by Tallinn, Estonia's foreign ministry said Friday. Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry had summoned Estonia's charge d'affaires, who heads the European Union country's mission in Moscow, to protest the expulsion this month of a Russian diplomat in Estonia and announce that an Estonian diplomat must leave Moscow. The Russian ministry warned that Moscow will also take other retaliatory action in response to the "persistently provocative anti-Russian actions by the Estonian authorities." Comment: Such as: Estonia wants to close Gulf of Finland to block Russia access to Baltic Sea - reports

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Algeria announced a voluntary reduction in oil production by about 1.071 million barrels per day, while Russia announced a voluntary reduction in oil production by 500,000 barrels per day, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya reported on 2 April. An official source in the Saudi Ministry of Energy stated that the Kingdom will reduce its crude oil production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), starting from May until the end of 2023, in coordination with a number of countries participating in the declaration of cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC countries (OPEC+). The source in the Ministry of Energy confirmed that this is a precautionary measure aimed at supporting stability in oil markets.

A voting machine company's defamation case against Fox News over its airing of false allegations about the 2020 presidential election will go to trial after a Delaware judge on Friday allowed a jury to decide whether the conservative network aired the claims with actual malice, the standard for proving libel. Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that neither Fox nor Dominion Voting Systems had presented a convincing argument to prevail on whether Fox acted with malice without the case going to a jury. But he also ruled that the statements Dominion had challenged constitute defamation "per se" under New York law. That means Dominion did not have to prove damages to establish liability by Fox.

A private contractor installed microphones inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where the WikiLeaks co-founder lived, an El Pais investigation has found The CIA used private Spanish security company UC Global to secretly install microphones inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to monitor WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, El Pais reported on Wednesday, citing the company's internal communications. UC Global was hired to provide security for the embassy. Assange, who was granted asylum by Ecuador at the time, resided in the diplomatic compound from 2012 to 2019, before he was forcibly removed by British police. The Spanish company's alleged links to US intelligence agencies were first reported by El Pais in 2019.

The Biden administration cleared the way Friday for California's plan to phase out a wide range of diesel-powered trucks, part of the state's efforts to drastically cut planet-warming emissions and improve air quality in heavy-traffic areas like ports along the coast. The decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows California to require truck manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks over the next couple of decades. The rule applies to a wide range of trucks including box trucks, semitrailers and even large passenger pickups. "We're leading the charge to get dirty trucks and buses - the most polluting vehicles - off our streets, and other states and countries are lining up to follow our lead," Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

The curious case of Ray Epps stands as the most conspicuous and damning thorn in the side of the Regime's official narrative of the January 6 Fedsurrection. It is fair to say if it hadn't been for the intrepid reporting of Tucker Carlson and Revolver News (if the reader will permit a bit of self-congratulation) the burning questions surrounding Epps' involvement in January 6 would not have received the national attention that they deserve. According to the transcript of the January 6th Committee's interrogation of Epps, Epps himself singles out Revolver News along with representatives Massie, Gaetz, and others as the chief culprit in circulating so-called "baseless conspiracy theories" surrounding Epps' behavior.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the "unlawful deportation" of Ukrainian children to a network of camps inside Russia. The warrant was based on a report by the Yale HRL center, which is funded by the US State Department. US journalist Jeremy Loffredo visited one of Russian government-sponsored camps in question. At The Donbas Express, located just outside of Moscow, Loffredo met youth from war-torn regions who were flourishing thanks to free music instruction, and grateful to be in a secure environment. This article features his exclusive video report. A Grayzone review of the Yale HRL report found the paper's content contradicted many claims contained in the ICC warrant. It also undercut incendiary statements its director, Nathaniel Raymond, issued during media appearances. In an interview with Loffredo, Yale HRL's Raymond further contradicted allegations he made in a CNN interview about a massive...

The pro-war lobby has put the entire bloc in danger over Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister claims... The EU has forsaken its goal of ensuring peace and prosperity for its members, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared on Friday. Warning that the bloc is considering sending troops into Ukraine, Orban insisted that Hungary will continue pushing for a ceasefire. "Those who are pro-war have put the whole European Union in danger," Orban told Radio Kossuth, referring to the ongoing efforts by EU member states to arm Kiev's forces. To date, Brussels has supplied Kiev with just under $4 billion worth of arms, while individual member states have donated tanks, artillery, and in the case of Poland and Slovakia, fighter jets to Ukraine. "We expect two things from the European Union; the first is to have lasting peace. The second thing we expect of the EU is that it should preserve the prosperity it has achieved, but in comparison war and sanctions are destroying the European...

Moscow and Kiev would freeze movement of troops and military equipment under the deal, the Belarusian president has suggested... Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has urged Russia and Ukraine to agree a ceasefire, warning Kiev that its apparently imminent counteroffensive could lead to the conflict spiraling completely out of control. In a speech to the Belarusian parliament on Friday, Lukashenko stated that the only path to peace in Ukraine lies through diplomatic engagement. "Moscow and Kiev "should stop now before escalation ensues. I will try to risk suggesting a cessation of hostilities... to declare a truce without the right to move or regroup troops on both sides, [and] without the right to transfer weapons, ammunition... and military equipment... for everybody just to freeze." Lukashenko claimed that the West had previously attempted to use a truce to strengthen its hand in Ukraine, but that if it did so again, Russia "would be obliged to use all its military and...

Avichai Buaron is a radical right-wing activist who has been a leader of the movement to maintain the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, which is illegal even by Israeli law. This week Buaron became the newest member of the Israeli parliament in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, replacing lawmaker David Amsalem who resigned his seat to serve in the Justice Ministry. Buaron is notable because, as if his far right-wing advocacy wasn't enough, in 2010 he published an editorial calling for "extermination camps" for Israel's enemies. Yes, you read right, extermination camps. The editorial referenced support for extermination camps for "Amalekites," a common Jewish euphemism. The Amalekites were a people often mentioned in the bible as bitter enemies of the Israelites, where in Deuteronomy the Israelite God commands to "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." In contemporary Israel, it is widely understood that "Amalekites" are a reference to Palestinians.

The New York Times has lost its official Twitter verification. In the early morning hours of April 2, the Times' verification badge dropped from their Twitter profile. New rules have come into play under Elon Musk's stewardship of the media-heavy social media platform. Now media companies, along with individuals, must pay for their verified labels - a move that Musk believes will lead to more accurate information being disseminated on social media. It's meant to be a corrective to the collusion between government, big tech and corporate media. Musk made the change to hold media outlets accountable and to also generate revenue. His stated goal is to make Twitter the most trustworthy social media platform - home to the most accurate information.

Dairy cows are set to be given 'methane suppressants' by farmers to reduce their carbon footprint - by making them burp less. Ministers are looking to force farmers to give herds additives to reduce gas from digestion in 'compound feeds', which contain seaweed and essential oils. The Government's Net Zero Growth Plan, released this week, looked to address concerns from the High Court that existing plans to reach the climate goal before 2050 were not detailed enough.

Over the past 4 decades, there has been a major increase regarding wage inequality and unequal property ownership occurring mainly in the Western countries. This relates to the neoliberal era launched by US president Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and his ally in London, prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90). Neoliberalism has in effect meant large-scale exploitation by Western elites of the general public. There had long been income inequality in the US, but during the last 40 years it has grown wider there than in any other country. For example in 2013, the chief executives of 350 US companies earned on average $11.7 million that year, while the annual wage of the typical American worker was $35,293.(1) The average income of corporate executives was almost 800 times higher than American workers on the minimum wage, $7.25 an hour. The situation was not much better in Britain. Record-breaking levels of inequality occurred in Britain during the 1980s under prime minister Thatcher,...

At least 19 people are reported injured by a suspected IED explosion in a city center caf An explosion that rocked the 'Street Bar' caf in St. Petersburg, Russia on Sunday has claimed at least one life and left 19 people injured, authorities reported. Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maksim Fomin), a military correspondent and blogger, was killed in the incident, according to emergency services.

The narrative is crumbling as doctors thank Aseem Malhotra and Angus Dalgleish for explaining how the mRNA vaccines are injuring their patients Why is the Government still charging ahead with spring and summer booster Covid vaccines with absolutely no scientific justification? Last week I applied to attend a Policy Exchange forum on 'What is the future for vaccines policy?' with speakers from the U.K. Health Security Agency (Dame Jenny Harries), Government (former Health Secretary Sajid Javid MP), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (Thorrun Govind) and the British pharmaceutical industry (Susan Rienow), who also happens to be U.K. President for Pfizer. The Policy Exchange is the 'conservative' think tank which published "A Fresh Shot, The Future of Vaccines Policy in England" in December 2022. I was eager to hear if any revelations were going to be discussed. My application was initially accepted, but after I filled in all my details they must have had second thoughts and the next...

On Friday, Twitter released the recommendation algorithm portion of its code by publishing it on GitHub, where developers post open source software data. Developer Steven Tey dug into the code and found that there is a mechanism through which the US government can "intervene" with the code. "When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm," Tey wrote. "In fact, @TwitterEng (Twitter Engineering) even has a class for it - 'GovernmentRequested.'" Tey linked directly to the code on GitHub. On March 17, Musk announced he was going to make the algorithm open source later in the month and said, "Our 'algorithm' is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things , but we'll patch issues as soon as they're found!"

An official in Burundi says the bodies of 13 gold miners have been recovered from two pits in which they were trapped by flood water. Nicodme Ndahabonyimana, a district administrator in the northwestern province of Cibitoke, said the miners could not be saved after the pits collapsed Friday night amid torrential rainfall. The bodies of two other miners who were missing and presumed dead have not been recovered, he said, urging artisanal miners to avoid pits during the rainy season. Police and other authorities on Saturday unsuccessfully tried to extract the miners from the pits, flooded with water from the overflowing Rugogo river. Such mining disasters are frequently reported in Burundi's northwest and northeast, where people mining illegally prefer nighttime work to escape the oversight of authorities. Source: AP

A new report estimates that 26.6 million people were injured, 1.36 million disabled, and 300,000 excess deaths can be attributed to COVID-19 vaccine damages in 2022 alone, which cost the economy nearly $150 billion Research firm Phinance Technologies, founded and operated by former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd, Yuri Nunes (PhD Physics, MSc Mathematics) and Carlos Alegria (PhD Physics, Finance), split the impact of the vaccines into four broad categories to estimate the human costs associated with the Covid-19 vaccine; no effect or asymptomatic, those who sustained injuries (mild-to-moderate outcome), those who became disabled (severe outcome), and death (extreme outcome). Data on vaccine disabilities and injuries comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), while the excess death figures are derived from official figures on deaths in the US via two different methods (methodology here). It's important to note that people in one category (injured, for example) can...

Two kinds of absolute controls are being prepared to implement The Great Reset, alias UN Agenda 2030. A potentially straitjacket and total control by programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and an all-oppressive health tyranny by WHO, overriding national Constitutional rights and national sovereignty as far as health measures are concerned. The former will be "managed", coordinated and supervised for faultless implementation, by the so-called Central Bank of Central Banks, the Bank for International Settlement (BIS); the latter by the 1948 Rockefeller-created, falsely called UN-agency WHO. The emerging tyrant's budget is to 80% pharma, Gates and otherwise privately funded. Both are criminal organizations. These are plans, not yet implemented. But the world better be aware, so We, the People, may stop this terrifying assault on humanity in its tracks. CBDC may be upon us, humanity, rather sooner than later. Programmable CBDC is a weapon of mass destruction. The weapon has...

The European Union is in danger of "criminalising" the use of physical cash with its new anti-money laundering laws, an MEP has warned. Dr Gunnar Beck, a representative for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has warned that the EU appears to be pushing for the "criminalisation" of the use of physical cash with its new anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Politicians in Brussels have long been pondering an upper legal limit on the value of cash transactions within the bloc, with lawmakers detailing plans to ban Europeans from spending over 10,000 in physical tender as part of a single transaction. The European Parliament however has now voted for such a proposed limit to be dropped down to as little as 7,000 as part of efforts to clamp down on money laundering and tax dodging within the bloc, with officials also voting to see cryptocurrency transactions paying for goods and services that are valued over 1,000 to be banned.

New York City was hit by a thunderstorm Saturday night, and the front put on quite a spectacular lightning show. At one point, a bolt struck the top of One World Trade Center and the video and still photos of the incident are absolutely breathtaking. Check this out:

At least six people have been killed after a tornado ripped through including US states in Arkansas and Illinois. One person died while more than two dozen were left injured in the Little Rock area, Arkansas authorities said. The town of Wynne in northeastern Arkansas was also devastated, and officials reported two people had died, along with destroyed homes and people trapped in the debris. Two other fatalities were reported in Sullivan County Indiana.

We received 6 reports about a fireball seen over CT, NY, Qubec, Quebec and VT on Friday, March 31st 2023 around 07:09 UT. For this event, we received one video and 2 photos.

Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling has expressed her concerns that enabling children to change their gender could be viewed as "one of the worst medical scandals in a century." Rowling, who has faced criticism and threats for her rejection of modern transgender ideology, spoke out against the medical establishment and the "woke left" for promoting novel gender theories among young children. During an appearance on The Free Press' podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, she highlighted the potential harm of lifelong medicalization for children experiencing distress. "We are watching one of the worst medical scandals in a century," she said. "Those that should have known better the medics and those who have unquestionably cheered this on are creating a climate in which those trying to raise red flags have been intimidated and silenced."

The world we live in requires that we are well informed, and because the world is so complex, and because people need to be safe, the latest aid we have to prevent us being misinformed is an AI chatbox ChatGPT. Given my own susceptibility to use my own eyes, I decided to ask ChatGPT some questions. Here are the questions and answers: Q: What are major recent examples of political misinformation? A: Major recent examples of political misinformation include false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election, false claims about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, and false claims about the origin of the virus. Q: Were the riots of January 6 an armed insurrection? A: Yes, the riots of January 6 were an armed insurrection. Q: What are the major causes of the war in Ukraine? A: The major causes of the war in Ukraine include Russian interference in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Russian support for separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, and the...

Italy's data protection watchdog on Friday issued an immediate ban on access to OpenAI's popular artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, citing alleged privacy violations. In a statement, the Italian National Authority for Personal Data Protection said that ChatGPT had "suffered a data breach on March 20 concerning users' conversations and payment information of subscribers to the paid service". The decision, which comes into "immediate effect," will result in "the temporary limitation of the processing of Italian users' data vis--vis [ChatGPT's creator] OpenAI," the watchdog said. ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 and has since become hugely popular, impressing users with its ability to explain complex things clearly and succinctly, write in different styles and languages with a human-sounding tone, create poems and even pass exams.

Late Thursday night (local time), Turkey's parliament approved Finland's NATO application, which puts the Nordic country on the verge of formal membership in the Western military alliance as the 31st nation. This comes after on Monday Hungarian parliament ratified Finland's for NATO membership. The unanimous Turkish vote was the last hurdle in the process, after for months both Ankara and Budapest stalled the application - but in the case of Sweden it will be left behind, this despite the Finland-Sweden bids being initially launched as a package deal. Turkey's relations with Sweden continue to be at a low-point, suggesting its application will not move forward for a Turkish vote anytime soon. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto hailed the news out of Turkey, saying his country is "now ready to join NATO." He added: "All 30 NATO members have now ratified Finland's membership. I want to thank every one of them for their trust and support. Finland will be a strong and capable ally,...

What still belongs to Science and what does not? Who is to decide what is science and what is para-science or pseudo-science? Some kinds of research are welcomed at one university, but not at another. There are respected scientists, some of whom are Nobel Prize winners, who are ostracized, most of the time by gossip, by various covert activities of their colleagues, simply because they dare to ask questions and research phenomena that others consider as "unworthy". I have already mentioned several such cases, one example being the treatment of the "strange interests" of Alfred Wallace by Encyclopedia Universalis. Someone - we do not know who it was - decided that a major part of the research of a distinguished scientist should be suppressed - the public should not be told about it, that it is better to tell a lie than to tell an inconvenient truth. Science in Secret? A friend of mine, a distinguished French scientist, who is interested in many "esoteric" areas, tells me that one...

We are an empire, as the heirs of the monarchy and as the heirs of the Soviet Union. There can be no neutral position in this war, because there are only two camps. And that is all. Anyone who hesitates or is indecisive, sooner or later (it seems to me much sooner than it seems), will be forced to take up arms and simply go to the front, and the front is everywhere today. It is impossible to return this long, difficult and terrible war to where it was before February 24, 2022; nor can it be stopped; it can only be won. Or it can still be left to human history. Then there will be no winner. Death will win. For now, it's war, which means we're alive. If you do not support the Special Military Operation, then you are not for Russia, you are not for the country, you are not for our people, and then the time will come when you will have to kill Russians, destroy Russia as a country, blow up cars, houses and railways, hide terrorists in your homes, shoot. There is no more security. So,...

Keir Starmer has accused the government of "turning Britain's waterways into an open sewer", as data showed raw discharges were sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year. Private water companies have been consistently accused of failing to take action, and the Environment Agency admitted there were more than 300,000 spillages into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours. The alarming figures led to calls for the environment secretary, Thrse Coffey, to resign, and added to the pressure on Rishi Sunak to do more to tackle the issue.

Tens of billions of pounds have been lost to fraud since the start of the COVID pandemic, according to the National Audit Office (NAO), with little chance of the majority being reclaimed. Of the 21bn identified by the NAO to have been lost by the government, more than 7bn is linked to schemes introduced during the pandemic And it says it is "very unlikely" that the bulk of the taxpayers' money will be recovered. Levels of fraud rose almost fourfold from 5.5bn two years before the pandemic to 21bn in the following two years.

Ghana intends to pass its family values act regardless of what the US says, Speaker of the Parliament Alban Bagbin has told lawmakers. He was speaking in response to remarks by US Vice President Kamala Harris on her African tour in Ghana this week, that LGBT rights were a human rights issue. Bagbin dismissed Harris' remarks. "These things should not be tolerated. That is undemocratic! What is democracy? That somebody else would have to dictate to me, as to what is good and what is bad? Unheard of!" Bagbin said on Tuesday, at a meeting with legislators to discuss the proposed 'Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values' bill. In a joint press conference with President Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday, Harris did not directly address the bill, but affirmed that LGBT rights were "an issue that we consider to be a human rights issue, and that will not change."

Ministers were last night under growing pressure from their own MPs and campaigners to scrap 'preposterous' and 'dangerous' low-traffic neighbourhoods. It came as new figures showed nearly 240 ambulances were delayed from reaching potentially life-threatening callouts due to the controversial schemes. Experts said the recorded incidents would be 'the tip of the iceberg' as they relate only to London and there are hundreds more low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) in other cities. It is also believed that not all incidents were recorded. The disclosure comes amid a growing revolt against the controversial schemes and a raft of other anti-car measures such as clean air zones being imposed across the country. Comment: 'Imposed' is the correct term, because few to none of these schemes were decided on by a citizen vote.

Legal experts reacted Thursday to the news of former President Donald Trump's indictment, calling it a "legal disaster" and "deeply flawed." A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict the former president on Thursday after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation into his alleged payment of hush money to former porn star Stormy Daniels. The indictment is "patently political prosecution," according to Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He commented: "[Bragg] has made history, but it is an inglorious moment where even some on the left have criticized the effort. This is a patently political prosecution. Bragg and NY AG James ran on bagging Trump. This has fulfilled that pledge but, if the indictment follows the course described in coverage, it is deeply flawed theory. We will have to wait to see the indictment."

It's time to buckle up, because the post-WW2 and Cold War systems no longer suit the global order... Humanity has been gripped by a frenzy. The political and military crisis in Europe has captured everyone's attention, but in global terms it's only part of a larger picture. The tensions over Ukraine, and even the wider conflict concerning post-Cold War European security, are elements (but not the core reasons) behind a major shift. When Chinese President Xi Jinping parted company with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, it was no coincidence that he remarked that the changes now taking place are the biggest in a century. A hundred years ago, the old world was fast disappearing. Empires were crumbling, the structure of societies was changing, and old ideologies were being radicalized in an attempt to meet people's needs or point them in the right direction. Two World Wars, a global economic crisis, the resurgence of all sorts of local conflicts, and social experiments - that...

The Lockdown Files have dished up a curious exchange among Britain's top policy advisers in early 2020. On 29 February, responding to a WhatsApp message from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's chief adviser Dominic Cummings that Israeli scientists were just weeks away from developing a Covid vaccine and if this was credible, Chief Scientist Sir Patrick Vallance replied "Short answer is no." Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty explained: "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." England's highest mortality rate was in April 2020 at 0.6 percent, falling to 0.55 percent in January 2021 and 0.04 percent by January 2023. Based on the original Phase 3 trial data, Bart Classen showed as early as August 2021: "Results prove that none of the vaccines provide a health benefit and all pivotal trials show a statically significant increase in 'all cause severe morbidity' in...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., broke from his Senate GOP colleagues on Tuesday over their opposition to TikTok, arguing that banning the popular social media app "goes against the First Amendment." Paul told Fox News Digital: "I think it's a really bad idea. And people need to ask themselves, 'Why does the Chinese government ban TikTok, and do we want to emulate the Chinese government?' So, I think it's a mistake. If you ban a social media platform, you know, I don't know if you get any clearer that that goes against the First Amendment." There are currently two bipartisan Senate bills aimed at banning TikTok, a video app that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic but has raised alarms over its connection to the Chinese Communist Party.

"Reading all the 2016 warnings from the Normalcy Guardians and self-professed Democracy Protectors about how there's literally nothing more corrupt or dangerous than craving the prosecution of your political opponent especially for trivial crimes is really quite something." Glenn Greenwald The New York Times enjoyed its long-delayed tantric Trumpgasm so much today that it rolled out the full-page banner headline format usually reserved for the commencement of world wars. (They took the banner down before seven o'clock this morning.) For many of the cat-ladies employed as "reporters" at the once-august paper, it was the first Trumpgasm they've ever experienced in a lifetime of emotional displacement, over-eating, and furious knitting of pink polyester hats for the crusade to root out patriarchal wickedness. This fulfillment of a years-long psychodrama, starring the feared and loathed occult persona of a gold-coiffed "Daddy" figure who once presided in the political household,...

The US banking system is broken, stresses The Asia Times. That doesn't portend more high-profile failures like Credit Suisse. The central banks will keep moribund institutions on life support. But the era of dollar-based reserves and floating exchange rates that began on August 15, 1971, when the US severed the link between the dollar and gold, is coming to an end. The pain will be transferred from the banks to the real economy, which will starve for credit. And the geopolitical consequences will be enormous. The seize-up of dollar credit will accelerate the shift to a multipolar reserve system, with advantage to China's yuan as a competitor to the dollar. Gold, the "barbarous relic" abhorred by John Maynard Keynes, will play a bigger role because the dollar banking system is dysfunctional, and no other currency surely not the tightly-controlled yuan can replace it. Now at an all-time record price of US$2,000 an ounce, gold is likely to rise further. The greatest danger to...

At least four people are known to have died in a series of avalanches at the beginning of Norway's Easter vacation. Authorities are now warning people to stay away. Following heavy snowfall in recent weeks, a series of avalanches took place in the Troms region of Norway on Friday. Four the avalanches were considered serious with four people known to have died. Two people died when an avalanche hit a house on Reinya, one person from a group of five hikers died in the avalanche in Lyngen, and another person died in the avalanche in Nordreisa. Boats from Redningsselskapet (Norwegian Sea Rescue Society), other small boats and even a Hurtigruten vessel aided in the search and rescue attempts.

'This is how far removed the Left is from reality that they must deny basic scientific facts,' the Independent Women's Forum tweeted in response A University of Pittsburgh classroom erupted with laughter after a professor argued with swimmer Riley Gaines that an archeologist cannot discern whether a person was male or female by examining their bones. Gaines became a national figure when she objected to trans swimmer Lia Thomas participating in women's sports, helping propel a national conversation about whether it is fair to biological women to allow those born as men to compete. Many, such as former Olympian Nancy Hogshead-Makar, have warned that biological males have a clear advantage over biological women due to different body structure.

Top executives at CBS News have banned staffers from using the word "transgender" when reporting on the Nashville shooter despite the fact that police have said Audrey Hale was just that and cited it as a key point in the case, The Post has learned. "The shooter's gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News," the network's executives insisted in a Tuesday memo obtained by The Post. "As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit." The CBS News directive was delivered on a Tuesday morning editorial call by Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the executive vice president of newsgathering, and Claudia Milne, the senior vice president of standards and practices, according to sources close to the Tiffany Network. "Right now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO [sic] THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE," the Tuesday memo said. "And move on to focus on other...

Douglass Mackey, also known as Ricky Vaughn on Twitter, has been found guilty on charges of election interference by a federal court in the Eastern District of New York. The charges stem from a meme Mackey posted on Twitter in 2016, jokingly encouraging supporters of Hillary Clinton to vote by text. The Department of Justice alleged that this constituted election interference, despite being unable to provide evidence that anyone was deceived by the meme. Mackey argued that he was simply trying to create a viral meme, and that other Clinton supporters had posted similar memes encouraging Trump supporters to vote by text without consequence.

As repeatedly promised by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has opened a portion of its source code to public inspection, including the algorithm it uses to recommend tweets in users' timelines. On GitHub, Twitter published two repositories containing code for many parts that make the social network tick, including the mechanism Twitter uses to control the tweets users see on the For You timeline. In a blog post, Twitter characterized the move as a "first step to be[ing] more transparent" while at the same time "[preventing] risk" to Twitter itself and people on the platform. On a Twitter Spaces session today, Musk clarified: "Our initial release of the so-called algorithm is going to be quite embarrassing, and people are going to find a lot of mistakes, but we're going to fix them very quickly." "Even if you don't agree with something, at least you'll know why it's there, and that you're not being secretly manipulated ... The analog, here, that we're aspiring to is the great example...

Metropolitan Pavel, Abbot of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, is suspected of supporting Russia's actions during the conflict The leader of Ukraine's largest Orthodox Christian monastery has said he is under house arrest, marking the latest twist in Kiev's religious crackdown. Metropolitan Pavel (secular name Pyotr Lebed), a senior bishop in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), is suspected of inciting religious tensions. The cleric, who has served as abbot of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra since 1994, told reporters about his arrest on Saturday, in a video released by the Ukrainian news network Vesti. Meanwhile the SBU, Ukraine's domestic security service, claimed in a statement that it "had collected well-founded evidence" that the bishop was "inciting inter-religious enmity" and "justifying Russia's aggression." The two potential charges carry prison sentences of up to eight years and three years, respectively.

We first published our hugely popular cribsheet in September of 2021 in response to dozens - even hundreds - of reader requests for sources and data. It was intended as a resource and link dump as much as an article, and intentionally free of interpretation, editorialising or opinion. The response was incredible, within weeks it became our most-viewed article of all time, and it has maintained steady traffic ever since. But time moves on, and as new data was published and new facts came to light, it became clear we needed to update the piece - not just in terms of facts, but in terms of approach. So, here are all the updated key facts and sources concerning the alleged "pandemic", to help you get a grasp on what has happened to the world since January 2020, and assist in the enlightenment of any of your friends who might be still trapped in the New Normal fog.

Ukraine's Western backers have of late expressed more and more skepticism over the future success of the war effort against Russia. This doubt grew louder and more public starting two weeks ago, when Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview with Polish media that the window is closing on a major new Ukrainian counteroffensive. He then acknowledged that his country may not be able to maintain current levels of assistance to Kiev. "The window of opportunity is open this year. After next winter, it will be extremely difficult to maintain the current level of assistance," Pavel was quoted as saying. "War fatigue is not only the exhaustion of human resources and equipment, the destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine, but also fatigue in the countries that provide aid." This week another small central European country has echoed the same. Slovak President Zuzana aputov said at a foreign policy event that Slovakia is "morally and financially exhausted" after more than a year of...