A North Carolina Democratic legislator handed a decisive victory to the Republican party Wednesday by defecting and ensuring a veto-proof majority. Announcing the switch, Tricia Cotham declared that "The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and others across the state," adding "I will not be controlled by anyone." "If you don't do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside," she further proclaimed, adding "They have pushed me out."

A 14ft-long smalltooth sand tiger shark washed up at Kilmore Quay in Co Wexford on Saturday. Scientists believe this is the first official record of the species being found in Ireland's waters. The smalltooth sand tiger shark, scientifically called Odontaspis ferox, is a species rarely encountered by humans as it is normally found in water more than 100m deep. Shark biologist Dr Nicholas Payne, an assistant professor in Trinity College Dublin's (TCD) school of natural sciences, "could not believe it" when he received an email from a Swiss tourist who discovered the shark while walking on Saturday.

Robert F Kennedy Jr is reportedly going to run for president. The son of late Sen. Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy registered his presidential campaign with the Federal Election Commission. According to RawStory, Kennedy filed his paperwork with the FEC on Wednesday afternoon, which indicated that he would run as a Democrat. His committee is reportedly called Team Kennedy, and is testing to see how much potential support he would receive for the run. John E. Sullivan, a Florida-based attorney, is serving as the campaign's treasurer, and confirmed to the outlet that the presidential run and the FEC filing are both true.

The Prime Minister wants to 'bring legal clarity' to an issue that has become mired in fear, confusion and accusations of bigotry. Rishi Sunak is set to rewrite equality law to protect women by making it easier to bar trans people from female sports and single-sex spaces. On Tuesday, it emerged that the Government had asked the equalities watchdog for advice on changing the wording of the Equality Act to specify that it protects "biological sex" rather than "sex".

Romania is in the grips of weather specific to winter, such as low temperatures, blizzards and snow. These days, planes were grounded, schools shut and roads were blocked in several parts of the country due to snowfall and strong winds. The meteorological service ANM issued orange and yellow code warnings and an information notice valid until Saturday, April 8. "There is a cyclone formed south of the country, which brought significant amounts of precipitation, but at the same time, an atmospheric front of polar origin that brought temperature values that are currently 8-12 degrees Celsius below the multi-year averages," Elena Mateescu, director-general of ANM, told Digi24. She added that temperatures may rise over the next week to around 14-17 degrees, but that rains will persist as well. "We will have weather close to the thermal norm of the date for Palm Sunday, and for Easter, at this moment, temperature values are estimated to be throughout the country between 14 to 17-18...

Police announced Monday that transgender shooter Audrey Hale had been planning an attack on the Christian elementary school for "months," according to a press release. Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) gave an update to the investigation into the mass shooting at Covenant School in a press release, noting that Hale's manifesto indicated that she had been "planning over a period of months to commit mass murder." Hale had also been studying the way other "mass murderers" had committed acts of violence and "acted totally alone," according to police. "In the collective writings by Hale found in her vehicle in the school parking lot, and others later found in the bedroom of her home, she documented, in journals, her planning over a period of months to commit mass murder at The Covenant School," police said in the press release. "The writings remain under careful review by the MNPD and the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia. The motive for Hale's actions...

A tech mogul who helped create Android and Cash App, has been stabbed to death in San Francisco. Bob Lee, 43, was attacked in the city's plush downtown residential Rincon Hill neighborhood at 2.35am on Tuesday. Police were called to the 300 block of Main Street near the entrance of a high-rise close to the waterfront and found the dad-of-two suffering from multiple stab wounds.

Freezing rain and thunderstorms pummeled parts of Ontario and Quebec on Wednesday, knocking out power for about 800,000 people, officials reported. Quebec's power utility said shortly after 5 p.m. that more than 676,000 of its 4.5 million customers had no electricity as much of the province remained under a freezing rain warning. "What's causing the outages is the mixture of precipitation and wind," Hydro-Qubec spokeswoman Gabrielle Leblanc said. "It weighs down the vegetation. There can be branches and trees that fall on the lines." In Montreal, more than 316,000 customers had lost power, while 171,000 people were hit with outages in the Montrgie region, south of the city.

The Air Force has loosened its restrictions on body fat for new recruits, one of the latest moves to grow the pool of potential applicants amid the military's recruiting crisis. In the past, men and women's bodies needed to be 20% or 28% fat, respectively, to be eligible for service. That benchmark is now 26% for men and 36% for women, Air Force Recruiting Service spokesperson Leslie Brown said Monday. The American Council on Exercise categorizes as obese those with body fat percentages over 25% for men and 32% for women. The old Air Force benchmark fell into the range of "acceptable" fat, according to the organization.

A man was mauled to death by stray dogs in southwest Detroit. Police say the dogs allegedly attacked him at a building on Fort Street between Morell and Junction streets. People who live in the area have seen a number of stray dogs. Some of them are described as vicious and have targeted neighborhood pets. Neighbors feared this tragedy was only a matter of time. "They look like junkyard dogs all greasy and dirty they're scared, but when they're together, that's when they're dangerous because they run in a pack," Gordon Compton, one of those neighbors, said.

If our banking system can't find a way to turn things around, our entire economy will soon be in a world of hurt. When banks get into trouble, they start getting really tight with their money. That means fewer mortgages, fewer commercial real estate loans, fewer auto loans and fewer credit cards being issued. So it should greatly concern all of us that U.S. banks are bleeding deposits at an absolutely staggering pace right now. During the week ending March 15th, 98.4 billion dollars was pulled out of U.S. banks. That was really bad, but we just learned that things got even worse the next week. During the week ending March 22nd, 126 billion dollars was pulled out of U.S. banks... Depositors drained another $126 billion from U.S. banks during the week ending March 22, according to new Federal Reserve data. This time the outflow came from the nation's largest institutions.

The mid-March Moscow summit between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was notable for being publicized in advance. Since the outbreak of the Syrian war, Assad's foreign visits have not been publicly revealed until after they have occurred. This small but significant detail suggests the Syrian president has a newfound confidence in the political and security conditions outside his national borders. While the participants kept a tight lid on leaks, informed sources from both Moscow and Damascus disclosed to The Cradle that the Syrian and Russian presidents discussed the following issues: Economic ties: With a focus on Syria's energy sector, Putin expressed Russia's readiness to invest in the production of electricity in the Levantine state, which post-conflict, suffers from a 75 percent deficit in production. Putin also expressed Moscow's willingness to help Syria meet its vital grain needs.

We know the question that keeps you awake at night: when did humans start eating snails? Well, researchers have recently discovered the earliest evidence of prehistoric people cooking and eating these terrestrial mollusks. But while you might imagine a actually enormous in comparison. A team of researchers from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, have found shell fragments of land snails from the Achatinidae family - which can grow to 16 centimeters (6.3 inches) long - at Border Cave, located on a cliff near South Africa's border with Eswatini. The site has been excavated on multiple occasions since the 1930s, but it was during work conducted between 2015 and 2019 that the shell fragments of giant land snails were found.

NPR was labeled as "US state-affiliated media" by Twitter on Tuesday night. According to the social media platform's guidelines, "Labels on government accounts provide additional context for accounts heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy." "Labels on state-affiliated accounts provide additional context about accounts that are controlled by certain official representatives of governments, state-affiliated media entities, and individuals associated with those entities." "The label appears on the profile page of the relevant Twitter account and on the Tweets sent by and shared from these accounts. Labels contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or state-affiliated media entity."

A fire ripped through the Russian Ministry of Defence tonight, just a short distance from the Kremlin. The blaze broke out as Vladimir Putin was holding talks with the Belarusian despot Alexander Lukashenko. Comment: Lukashenko is the President of Belarus who, just a few years ago the West was courting for partnership, until Lukashenko turned down the Covid bribes to lockdown his country and then signaled his alliance with Russia. Dark smoke was seen gushing from the third-floor windows in the defence ministry headquarters at 19 Znamenka Street. Footage shared by state media outlets on social media showed a plume of spiraling smoke. Around 50 people were evacuated as flames ripped through the headquarters. Emergency services arrived and the small blaze was put out shortly after it started. There were no casualties, the Russian TASS news agency reported.

The following is a transcript of Danny Haiphong's interview with economist Michael Hudson on Haiphong's The Left Lens YouTube channel. They discuss the US banking sector collapse and the deep connections between global economy and geopolitics. *** DANNY HAIPHONG: Good afternoon everyone, good afternoon. You are tuning in to another episode of The Left Lens. How are you all doing this afternoon? I am joined by Economist Michael Hudson, as you can see here. I am very honored to have him. How are you doing this afternoon, Michael? MICHAEL HUDSON: Pretty good. The weather is nice. The sun is shining. DANNY HAIPHONG: Indeed, indeed. So we have a lot to get to. So everyone, you know what to do. Be sure to like the stream as you're coming in. Hit that share button and share it around where you can. Subscribe to this channel. And of course if you want to support this channel you know where to go. Go to the links in the description, patreon.com/dannyhaiphong being the best place. But let's...

If you are a consumer today, inflation is only one of the problems harming you. As prices go up, quality continues to go down. What most stores have to offer you might crassly be called "cheap crap." In fact, economic writer Charles Hugh Smith has repeatedly warned that the "crapification" of the U.S. economy is the natural result of a "neoliberal-hyper-financialization-hyper-globalization model," in which quasi-monopolist manufacturers mass-produce goods with the cheapest possible components, while customers with scant other buying options are forced to accept that few purchases will last. "Planned obsolescence," combined with a free market "in name only," creates a rigged system in which downstream consumers are forced to pay more over time, while owning little that will maintain value for long. Appliances that used to work for decades now barely make it through legally required warranty periods. Metal tools that could be passed from one generation to the next now tend to rust...

Russia has just published its "Foreign Policy Concept". After recalling its position in the world, this document describes the end of Western domination and the efforts of the United States and its allies to maintain the hegemony of Washington. It lists Moscow's interests and goals. It emphasizes the primacy of contemporary international law (a creation of Tsar Nicholas II) and concludes with a description of the changing world. President Vladimir Putin met with his Security Council via video conference on March 31, 2023. At the end of this meeting, he promulgated an update of the "Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation". In this document, Russia sets out its vision of its role in building a multipolar world. First of all, Russia recalls its significant resources in all spheres of life, its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, its participation in major international organizations and associations, its nuclear power and its status as the successor in...

President Biden's former assistant contradicted White House claims that classified documents discovered at Biden's post-vice presidency DC office this past November were in a "locked closet" and revealed the White House sought to quietly retrieve the papers, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Tuesday. Comer (R-Ky.) added in a statement that Chung, who sat for an interview with the panel, "provided startling information that undermines the Biden White House's narrative on the matter." "Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington, DC, area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center. "At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicles to an office location. "The boxes were not in a 'locked closet' at...

Movie star Leonardo DiCaprio took the stand in a federal trial on Monday that seeks to hammer down the details of what appears to be a money-funneling scheme that features a Malaysian financier funneling tens of millions of dollars through a prominent 90s rap artist for the purpose of donating to former President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. DiCaprio plays into the saga because he was said to have partied with Jho Low, a Malaysian financier who apparently suggested to DiCaprio once during a conversation that he intended to contribute to Obama's presidential campaign, according to the New York Post. DiCaprio said: "It was a casual conversation about what party he was in support of, I told him what party I was in support of. And he told me that he, or he and a group, were going to make a significant contribution to the Democratic Party. ... I said 'wow, that's a lot of money.'" Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, founder of The Fugees, has been recruited by Low in an effort to...

The average American lifespan keeps getting shorter, even as comparably rich countries rebound and recover after Covid-19 Recently, National Public Radio (NPR) in the US published a story titled 'Live free and die? The sad state of US life expectancy' that explored the great divide between the United States and peer countries on life expectancy. While most countries experienced a dip during the Covid-19 pandemic and rebounded after vaccines and other treatments were rolled out, American life expectancy has essentially fallen off a cliff and never came back. The graph published by NPR is shocking. It shows that US life expectancy is lower than in Cuba or Lebanon. The number has been known since just before Christmas when health officials announced that the country's life expectancy had dropped starkly for a second year in a row to 76 years. However, last week more bad news arrived after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that maternal mortality in the...

The St. Petersburg division of the so-called National Republican Army (NRA) has claimed it was behind the murder of military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, according to a Telegram statement shared by former Russian State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev. Ponomarev, who has been branded a "foreign agent" by Moscow, previously claimed to be the mouthpiece of the NRA, although there is no conclusive evidence that the group actually exists. According to the statement, the NRA carried out the attack against "a group of Z-activists and personally against the well-known arsonist and propagandist, war criminal Maksim Fomin," referring to Tatarsky's real name. The group insisted that the bombing was "prepared and carried out by us autonomously," and without assistance from foreign forces or special services. The NRA also denied the involvement of Darya Trepova, who is the main suspect in the blogger's assassination.

Darya Trepova claims she was set up, according to the Fontanka news outlet... The main suspect in the murder of prominent Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, Darya Trepova, has confessed details of her involvement in the bomb attack, according to the Fontanka news outlet. Tatarsky was killed in an explosion on Sunday at a caf in St. Petersburg, after Trepova handed him a statuette that contained an improvised explosive device (IED). The bombing, which also wounded 40 people, has been classified as a terrorist attack.

French trade unions called for record turnout at protests on Thursday, after negotiations with the government over a controversial pension reform bill broke down. France has been consumed by protests and riots since President Emmanuel Macron's government hiked the retirement age without a vote in parliament. Union representatives met with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday, warning beforehand that they would walk out if Borne refused to entertain the idea of bringing the retirement age for most workers back to 62 from 64. Borne refused, and the union representatives walked out, calling for strikes and mass demonstrations the following day. Cyril Chabanier, who heads the CFTC union, told reporters: "We again told the prime minister that the only democratic outcome could be the text's withdrawal. The prime minister replied that she wished to maintain the text, a grave decision." Sophie Binet, leader of the CGT union, said: "We decided to put an end to this useless meeting....

A team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has induced stem cells to emulate the development of the human heart. The result is a sort of "mini-heart" known as an organoid. It will permit the study of the earliest development phase of our heart and facilitate research on diseases. The human heart starts forming approximately three weeks after conception. This places the early phase of heart development in a time when women are often still unaware of their pregnancy. That is one reason why we still have little knowledge of many details of how the heart is formed. Findings from animal studies are not fully transferable to humans. An organoid developed at TUM could prove helpful to researchers. A ball of 35,000 cells The team working with Alessandra Moretti, Professor of Regenerative Medicine in Cardiovascular Disease, has developed a method for making a sort of "mini-heart" using pluripotent stem cells. Around 35,000 cells are spun into a sphere in a centrifuge. Over a period...

In an earlier post I suggested the earliest phase of construction of GT could be in the Younger Dryas period. This is because enclosure D is so well crafted and so large, that it is unlikely to have been the first construction of its kind. Other enclosures must have preceded it, acting as templates or precursors for its design. Given that ground penetrating radar scans show that other large structures remain to be uncovered, and that the enclosures excavated so far represent only 5-10% of the site, it seems unlikely we have excavated the oldest parts already. This idea is reinforced by the existence of enclosure E outside the main excavation area. It seems to be a rougher and less precise example than enclosure D, and so could be a precursor. Since it is missing its walls and pillars, it is possible they were re-used in the construction of enclosure D. But what about scientific evidence? Let's consider the facts. Regarding radiocarbon dates, the earliest radiocarbon dates reported...

The body of an 88-year-old Cape Town woman is believed to have only been discovered several hours after her neighbour's two pit bulls attacked and mauled her in her backyard. Olga Grill died after her neighbour's dogs assailed her in her backyard in Bonteheuwel on Tuesday. She is believed to have been hanging her laundry when the pair jumped over the fence and attacked. Her heartbroken son, Graham Woodman, 68, left home in the early hours of the morning for work. He had made her breakfast to tide her over until her carer arrived at 10:00. His mother was fiercely independent, Woodman said. She preferred to take care of herself, insisting that she could cook and clean for herself, despite his offers to do the household chores for her.

In the latest development, a group of dogs attacked 2 people in Jalandhar city. The case has been reported from Jalandhar City's Bhairon market. Reportedly, 2 scooty riding people were passing through a street late at night during which they were attacked by around 5-6 dogs. The dogs tried to harm him due to which the victim's jacket got torn off. Post this, the dogs also tried to bite him but the other person took a stone and acted to hit them after which they ran away. The CCTV of the same has gone viral. The video shows 2 people riding on a scooty and suddenly a dog started barking at them. So that the dog does not attack them, they stopped the vehicle and waited for dogs to calm down. Instead of running away, the dogs became aggressive and attacked the person sitting behind.

Washington is used to controlling the planet's top tech companies and doesn't want anyone to threaten its surveillance domination. As the United States contemplates a possible ban on TikTok, it relentlessly accuses Beijing of using the popular Chinese-owned social media application as a means of espionage, claiming that the Communist Party has access to user data. Ironically, Washington itself is known to be doing exactly what US politicians are accusing China of doing. Using the unique advantage of having jurisdiction over the world's top internet companies, the US has given itself the right to look into the private communications of foreign citizens anywhere in the world. Combine that data-sharing between intelligence agencies of the US and its allies, and you get the most comprehensive espionage regime in the world. While American politicians and media constantly talk about fears of Chinese espionage, the near-absence of coverage of Washington's own spying efforts ought to be a...

Another ski resort has just blasted into the history books and surpassed its all-time record snowfall. Following the most recent storm, Snowbird, UT, has had 792of fresh snow this season, besting the 783 in 2010/11. Snowbird has seen 28 in the last 24 hours, an incredible 43 in the last 48 hours, and has a 195 base.

At least seven tourists have died and many are feared trapped after a major avalanche struck near a mountain pass in the northeast Indian state of Sikkim. The incident occurred at 11.30am (0600 GMT) on Tuesday near the Nathu La mountain pass, a popular destination for tourists on India's border with China. The avalanche struck a road that connects Gangtok to the Nathu La pass and the nearby Changu lake - another major tourist attraction. The Indian army has said five to six vehicles carrying up to 30 tourists were stuck under the snow after the avalanche. "By 3PM, 14 persons were rescued and taken to nearby Army medical facility. However, seven persons succumbed. The other seven persons were administered first aid and returned to Gangtok," the army statement, cited by several Indian media outlets, said.

Snowfall in what has become a historic blizzard in central Wyoming has begun in Gillette, and it likely won't end until tonight. The National Weather Service in Rapid City, South Dakota, is forecasting a 100% chance of heavy snow throughout the day today, enough so to issue a Winter Storm Warning for Gillette. Patchy blowing snow will be troublesome for travelers, particularly this afternoon. Today's forecast high is 24 degrees but with a northeast wind 16 to 20 mph and gusts reaching 31 mph, wind chills will dip as low as 7 degrees. Total daytime accumulation of 3 to 7 inches is possible. Gillette city officials issued a Level I Snow Emergency on Monday ahead of the storm. Elsewhere in the state, Casper saw the fall of a 40-year snowfall record in this storm with more than 26 inches of snow Monday. The previous record of just more than 24 inches was set in 1982, according to the National Weather Service in Riverton.

Reuters reports that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates dismissed calls to halt the development of more advanced AI chatbots more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4. Last week, an open letter signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio called for a six-month pause in developing new AI tools. Gates stated that the proposed pause in AI chatbot development would not "solve the challenges." According to Gates, the focus should be on effectively integrating AI technology into society. He finds it hard to understand how a pause could work globally with so many firms working on the technology. "I don't think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," the billionaire said on Monday. "Clearly, there are huge benefits to these things... what we need to do is identify the tricky areas," he noted.

Snowplows are busy on Hawaii's Big Island, removing snow that continues to fall on Mauna Kea, the tallest summit on the island and in the state. An April snowstorm has brought several inches of snow to the higher terrain of Hawaii, prompting officials to close roads until they're free of snow and ice. In an update released this morning, the Mauna Kea Rangers wrote, "The access road to the summit of Maunakea is CLOSED to the public at the Visitor Information Station at an elevation of 9,200 feet due to snowy conditions, below-freezing temperatures, high humidity, and wet roadways that will likely develop into icy conditions."

A two-year-old Virginia boy is dead after a dog attacked him in Maryland Tuesday evening, according to Brunswick Police Department. According to officials, Brunswick Police and the Frederick County Division of Fire & Rescue Services (DFRS) were called to a report of a child in cardiac arrest around 5:13 p.m. in the 400 block of West B Street. There they found the toddler suffering from life-threatening injuries from a dog bite. While they tried to treat the little boy, he went into cardiac arrest.

The market and the government will continue to promote and support a neofeudal status quo until they are forced by society to restore the common good and opportunity. Of the three primary dynamics of human endeavor--the market, government and society--we focus almost exclusively on the first two. Society is rarely considered as a force of its own. It is implicitly viewed as reactive to the market economy and government, the churning wake left as the market and government chart the course. In other words, society is secondary to the economy and governance, the venue of fashions, trends, entertainment, culture wars, etc., fodder for media and social media, a reflection of what's happening in the market and government. As I explain in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal, this is a misunderstanding of society's role as a force that changes the economy and governance in profound ways. We give social transformation short shrift because it's not easy to study or understand. Social...

It's never good when you go out on the water to catch some fish and the water tries to catch you instead... Two fisherman in Franca, Brazil were in for a little more than they bargained for when a sinkhole opened up underneath the water and started to pull in their jon boat. The terrifying video shows the two men fighting to keep their boat above water (or mud) as the sinkhole pulls everything in the near vicinity down below. The boat happened to be the perfect size, because the front and the back stayed on land just far enough apart to cover the length of the sinkhole. Almost looked like a classic Saturday morning cartoon gag.

Sadly, gold is now on its way to heights which are unthinkable for most people. To all the people who have asked me over the years why gold doesn't go up, I have replied: "Don't wish for gold to go up substantially for when it does, your quality of life will deteriorate remarkably." And we are now at the point in the world when this is likely to happen. Let me be clear, now is the time to protect whatever assets you have in order to avoid the total asset destruction that is coming next. More about this later in this article. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM WILL NOT SURVIVE I came to the conclusion early in this century that a sick financial system was not going to survive the infestation of vermin in the form of debt that started just over 50 years ago.

A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday off Panama's Pacific coast near the town of Boca Chica. The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 5:18 local time (22:18 UTC) and its epicenter was about 44 miles (71 kilometres) south of Boca Chica. The earthquake occurred at a depth of eight miles (13 kilometres). Panama's civil defense office said there were no immediate reports of damages. But the office said the quake was felt on nearby Coiba Island. National Civil Defense Director Carlos Rumbo told local press that his office had not received reports of damage or injuries, but was continuing to check with people in the provinces along the Pacific coast. Source: Associated Press

Comment: For the original story, see: Conservative judge fires back after Stanford disruption: 'They hate my work and my ideas' James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, who announced a clerkship boycott of Yale Law last year, are adding Stanford to the list. James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, the circuit court judges who announced last year that they would no longer hire clerks from Yale Law School, are adding Stanford to the boycott. "We will not hire any student who chooses to attend Stanford Law School in the future," Ho, who sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, said Saturday evening in a speech to the Texas Review of Law and Politics, a transcript of which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The clerkship moratorium, like the one on Yale, will exempt current law students.

They're calling it 'revenge travel': the desire to make up for the touring opportunities we all lost when we were locked down in our pandemical homes. As a keen professional traveller, I confess I've got a fearsome case of this bug: I've spent the past 20 months going just about anywhere I can, playing catch up. Here's a brief list of the cities I have visited since mid-2021: Tbilisi, Seville, Munich, New Orleans, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Bangkok, Yerevan, Rome, Istanbul, Athens, Da Nang, Nashville, Los Angeles, Florence, Phnom Penh, Tucson. I could add a dozen more, but you get the gist. I've missed a terrific number of domestic social engagements; but I have recently seen quite a lot of the world and, more pertinently, seen how the urban world is coping post-pandemic. Conclusion? Every city has suffered in various ways, and the scars are visible. In East Asia the lingering lesions are psychological: they are all still wearing masks. In Europe, normal unmasked street life has returned,...

The Washington Post has attempted to dismiss claims the liberal financier had funded the district attorney prosecuting Trump. Twitter users corrected the Washington Post's star fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, when he attempted to write off the claim that liberal financier George Soros had funded the Manhattan district attorney who indicted former US President Donald Trump as 'misleading'. Kessler, who rated the 'incendiary claim' that Soros funded Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg 'three Pinocchios' in a Saturday fact-check, accused the Trump campaign and other Republicans who echoed the factoid of "being slippery" and conjuring "stereotypes of rich Jewish financiers secretly controlling events."

A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief then wrestled the gun away and opened fire on the suspect has been charged with attempted murder, police said. The overnight worker, identified by cops as Moussa Diarra, 57, was also hit with assault and criminal possession of a weapon charge in the Saturday incident, which unfolded around 5:30 a.m. as the attendant saw a man peering into cars on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage, the sources said. Believing the man was stealing, the attendant brought him outside and asked what was inside his bag.

Wikipedia is a "politically biased" platform and should eventually be banned in Russia, Valery Fadeev, the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC), has said. The Kremlin, however, cautioned that any talk about blocking the website is premature, as there is currently no adequate alternative. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Fadeev said Wikipedia "should be closed." While the website is a convenient platform for receiving all sorts of information, he said, there are also "a lot of distortions when it comes to politics, history." Fadeev stressed that he is not insisting that the Russian authorities ban the portal right away, but rather only after a viable alternative is launched. Igor Ashmanov, an HRC member, supported this idea, saying that Moscow has no tools to influence Wikipedia. "This is a strategic weapon. We should create equivalents and block it."

Summary Contrary to the claims made by covid vaccine proponents there is hard evidence that most reports of vaccine deaths to the USA VAERS and UK Yellow Card systems are genuine. At most 30% of these reports can be ruled as likely not to have been caused by the vaccine. There is also evidence that the reporting rates for deaths and adverse events to these systems is very low. It is likely that fewer than 10% of deaths and other adverse events ever get reported. With these minimal assumptions we estimate there have been: approximately 120,000 deaths in the USA directly caused by the covid vaccines (between Dec 2020 until 23 March 2023) and 16,000 in the UK (between Dec 2020 until 29 Sept 2022). over 103 deaths per million doses of the covid vaccines in the UK with big differences between the three main vaccines (187 for Astra Zeneca, 68 for Pfizer and 35 for Moderna). For Astra Zeneca that amounts to 1 death in every 5348 doses. Taking account of the small proportion of people...

Email exchanges between Joe Biden's family and business associates show the Bidens planning to cash in on the family name in an academic venture with the University of Delaware while discussing ways to carefully distance Joe himself from financial documents outlining the deal. Team Biden was to receive $12.5 million for the establishment of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware (UD), which launched shortly after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017. The arrangement meant a nice payday for the Bidens and their associates. And, as it turned out, the launch of the Biden Institute coincided with a bonanza in foreign money donations for the university. Correspondences show that UD wanted Joe Biden to raise funds for the university after his institute opened. In the weeks and months following the opening of the Institute, UD received foreign cash donations totaling more than $33 million, including $6.7 million from China. Of that sum, three gifts came directly from the...

Former US President Donald Trump arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney's office on Tuesday afternoon, to be placed under arrest and face a series of charges his attorneys have denounced as a politically motivated "witch hunt" by the New York Democrat Alvin Bragg. The existence of the charges was leaked to the press last Friday, and more details were leaked on Monday, indicating that Bragg is going after the 45th president for the "crime" of allegedly falsifying business records in regard to "hush money" reportedly paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Federal prosecutors declined to pursue the case, and multiple legal scholars have argued that the charges amount to a misdemeanor campaign violation at best. Hillary Clinton paid a fine for the same exact transgression in the matter of funding the notorious "Steele dossier," a series of fabrications accusing Trump of having ties to Russia. Trump himself has denounced the indictment as purely...

A proposed class-action lawsuit over infamous brainwashing experiments at a Montreal psychiatric hospital was before Quebec's highest court Thursday, as victims attempted to remove immunity granted to the United States government. The U.S. government successfully argued in Quebec Superior Court last August that the country couldn't be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA, allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA. U.S. lawyers argued that foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada between the 1940s and 1960s, when the program took place.

Leaders from European countries have recently announced trips to China. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attended the Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province which lasted from March 28 to 31. French President Emmanuel Macron and some EU leaders, including EU Commission President Urusla Von der Leyen, will also pay visits to China. What does this wave of visits signal about China-Europe relations? How should Europe balance its ties with China and the US? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to Michele Geraci (Geraci), former undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, over these issues on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia.

Human history is a story of forgotten lessons. Despite the catastrophic collapse of European democracy in the 1930s, it appears that the tale of the twentieth century - in which citizens, cowed by existential threats, acquiesced in the rejection of liberty and truth in favour of obedience and propaganda, whilst allowing despotic leaders to seize ever more absolutist powers - is perilously close to being forgotten. Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to the apparent nonchalance which has greeted two international legal agreements currently working their way through the World Health Organisation: a new pandemic treaty, and amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, both due to be put before the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, in May next year. As concerned scholars and jurists have detailed, these agreements threaten to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the WHO, national governments, and individuals.

Finland formally joined NATO on Tuesday, its flag unfurling outside the military bloc's Brussels headquarters, in a historic policy shift brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine that drew a threat from Moscow of "counter-measures." Finland's accession, ending seven decades of military non-alignment, roughly doubles the length of the border the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shares with Russia and bolsters its eastern flank as the war in Ukraine grinds on with no resolution in sight. Finland's flag - a blue cross on a white background - was hoisted alongside those of the alliance's 30 other members as a military band played in bright spring sunshine.

New Zealand's newly elected Prime Minister Chris Hipkins struggled to define the term 'woman' when a reporter's question about gender caught him off guard. During his regular afternoon press conference on Monday, Mr Hipkins was asked by Sean Plunket, a broadcast reporter from The Platform, to 'define a woman' on behalf of himself and his government. Mr Hipkins took a moment to gather his thoughts before responding. 'Um,' Hipkins began, before pausing. 'To be honest Sean, that question has come out of left field for me.'

An unusual occurrence of wintry weather in spring swept through the Western Balkans Tuesday, bringing snow and gusts that snarled traffic in the region. Residents in the capitals of Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo woke to the sight of trees and bushes blanketed in snow. In Croatia and Montenegro, strong winds stopped most ferry lines along the Adriatic Sea coastline and delayed a flight from Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, to Belgrade. Authorities in Serbia said that a tree branch fell on two teenage girls in Belgrade, apparently brought down by wet and heavy snow. The girls were taken to a hospital as a precaution. Snow blocked several roads in southern and southwestern Serbia and some villages were left without electricity, police said in a statement, urging caution.

The shock oil production cuts from May outlined by the OPEC+ on Sunday essentially means that eight key OPEC countries decided to join hands with Russia to reduce oil production, messaging that OPEC and OPEC+ are now back in control of the oil market. No single oil producing country is acting as the Pied Piper here. The great beauty about it is that Saudi Arabia and seven other major OPEC countries have unexpectedly decided to support Russia's efforts and unilaterally reduce production. While the 8 OPEC countries are talking about a reduction of one million b/d from May to the end of the year, Russia will extend for the same period its voluntary adjustment that already started in March, by 500,000 barrels. Now, add to this the production adjustments already decided by the OPEC+ previously, and the total additional voluntary production adjustments touch a whopping 1.6 million b/d. What has led to this? Fundamentally, as many analysts had forewarned, the Western sanctions against...

Flash floods caused severe damage in Taita-Taveta County, southern Kenya, on 02 April 2023. Four people are feared dead. Heavy rain fell in hilly areas surrounding the settlement of Kironge in Mwatate Sub-County on 02 April, triggering flash floods. Four people from the same family - an expectant mother and 3 children - were reported missing after their home was swept away late on 02 April. The body of one of the victims was later found. The search for the missing victims is ongoing. Christine Saru Kilalo, Deputy Governor Taita Taveta County, visited the affected community on 03 April. She said the floods have left a "trail of destruction".

"The American press, once the guardian of democracy, was hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives... Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise." Jacob Siegel How's the war going? Huh? Do you mean the war over in Ukraine? Or the US government's war against its own people? Well, the first one, the Ukraine War, is mostly destroying Europe though, apparently, they haven't figured that out yet. Europe's industrial economy is toast without affordable Russian natgas. We turned off their pipeline for that in September and nobody in Europe objected. They just sucked it up and went back to smoking cigarettes at their caf tables. A year or so from now, nobody in Europe will have enough money for a cappuccino (or cigarettes) and maybe then they'll start asking the mental mollusks who run things there some questions if they don't just...

Marin says 'democracy is always a wonderful thing' as her Social Democrats come third behind rightwing NCP and nationalist Finns parties... Finland's prime minister, Sanna Marin, has lost her battle to stay in power after her centre-left Social Democratic party (SDP) was narrowly beaten into third place in a cliffhanger election by its conservative and far-right rivals. With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party (NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin's SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%. Marin congratulated the election winners during her concession speech, but hailed an improvement in both her party's vote share and its projected number of MPs. "It's a really good achievement, even though I didn't finish first today. Democracy has spoken, the Finnish people have cast their vote, and the celebration of democracy is always a wonderful thing. We have good reason to be happy...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the embattled ex-president to "keep on fighting" as he prepares to face trial in New York... Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban took to Twitter on Monday to show his support for former US President Donald Trump, who will appear in court in New York on Tuesday. "We are with you," the conservative PM told his political ally. Trump departed his residence in Florida on Monday, bound for the city in which he built his fortune, New York. He is expected to turn himself in on Tuesday to face criminal charges relating to his alleged payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. Crowds of supporters cheered the ex-president's motorcade as it traveled to Palm Beach International Airport. Meanwhile, the Hungarian PM wished his former American counterpart well online.

Christo Grozev of the US government-sponsored Bellingcat endorsed the terror attack that killed a Russian war reporter and injured many others during a public event in St. Petersburg. He also defended Ukraine's attempt to assassinate a Russian philosopher because he was a "propagandist." In the hours that followed the April 2, 2023 bombing of a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia, Christo Grozev of the US government-funded Bellingcat outlet defended the terror attack that killed a war reporter and wounded 30 others. Throughout his eight-minute interview with Sky News, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev offered an unapologetic, de facto endorsement of the terror attack at a public event at the Street Food Bar 1 cafe in St. Petersburg. In order to justify the bombing, Grozev cast it as either a legitimate Ukrainian operation carried out in the context of "hybrid warfare," or a potential Russian false flag.

On Saturday, the New York Police Department announced that a man who shot a thief in self defense will be charged with attempted murder despite being shot twice and having to wrestle the firearm away from the thief. The man, identified as 57-year-old Moussa Diarra, was working in a Manhattan parking garage early Saturday morning when he saw a man looking into vehicles around 5:30 a.m., as reported by the New York Post. When the attendant confronted the suspected thief, he brought him outside of the garage and asked him what was inside of his bag. When the thief, identified as 59-year-old Charles Rhodie, reached into the bag he pulled out a gun thus leading to a struggle. Diarra lunged for the weapon but was shot in the stomach and ear by the thief. Following this, the worker managed to get the gun away from the would be killer and shot Rhodie in the chest. Rhodie was also shot [sic and charged] with attempted murder, assault, burglary, and criminal possession of a weapon. It is...

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials investigating potential health concerns in a small Ohio town impacted by a toxic train derailment became ill during their study, a CDC official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Seven CDC members reported sore throats, headaches, coughing and nausea while in East Palestine, Ohio, weeks after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in early February and a controlled burn leaked hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, into the environment, Belsie Gonzlez, CDC senior public affairs specialist, told the DCNF. The CDC members' symptoms are consistent with health complaints reported by residents and first responders. "Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours. Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects." The CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a branch that specializes in...

The publisher hired a white writer to pen an essay and detail the book's "white supremacist" elements to avoid hiring a black writer and giving them the "emotional labour" of such a task. Pan Macmillan, the publisher of Margaret Mitchell's classic 1936 American novel Gone With The Wind, has added a trigger warning in the preface of the book's most recent publication telling readers that the text is "harmful" and "problematic" because of its "white supremacist" qualities. The Telegraph reports that the publisher specifically hired a white writer, Philippa Gregory, to pen an essay to accompany the trigger warning and detail the book's "white supremacist" elements to avoid hiring a black writer and giving them the "emotional labour" of such a task.

The ongoing church conflict "has the traits of a religious war," Sergey Naryshkin has said Kiev's crackdown on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is part of a Western campaign to undermine religion in Ukraine and its role as the glue that unites the faithful, senior Russian intelligence official Sergey Naryshkin has said. "The current regime in Kiev and its masters in the capitals of Western nations seek not only to ban, but to physically destroy canonical Orthodoxy in the territory of Ukraine," he stated on Tuesday. The official heads the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia (SVR). He made the remarks during a media event in Minsk, where he is meeting with the Belarusian leadership. Western governments realize the value of faith "amid the collapse of ideologies and a fight for world dominance," Naryshkin added. Russian Orthodoxy serves as "a spiritual force, which remains the foundation of unity of Orthodox peoples."

Firefighters in Italy report one person died after a vehicle was swept away by flash floods in the Calabria Region. Stormy weather caused flash floods, landslides and wind damage in Calabria on 03 April. The worst affected areas were the provinces of Cosenza and Crotone. Schools were closed in Savelli in the Province of Crotone due to adverse weather conditions. The commune recorded 118.2 mm of rain on 03 April. Italy's Fire Service Vigili del Fuoco reported 13 interventions carried out by the firefighters in Cosenza Province. Vigili del Fuoco firefighters used a helicopter to search for a man reported missing after being swept away by floods in Corigliano-Rossano. Vigili del Fuoco later reported the man was found dead. Several roads were closed, blocked by floods, fallen trees or landslide debris in the municipalities of Acri and Longobucco.

Two civilians have been killed in an Israeli air raid targeting Syria's capital, state media has reported, noting that missiles also struck the country's southern region. The assault came amid a flurry of similar strikes in recent days, which left several Syrians injured and two Iranian soldiers dead. Missiles fired from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights hit Damascus and other areas in the south early Tuesday morning, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), which cited an unnamed military source. In addition to the two civilians killed, the attack also resulted in "material damage" in Damascus, the source said, adding that Syrian air defenses intercepted most of the incoming missiles.

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck in the ocean off the coast of the eastern Philippines on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said, with local authorities warning of aftershocks and possible damage. The shallow quake hit around 9:00 pm (1300 GMT) about 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Catanduanes Island, off the main island of Luzon, the USGS said. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones, but so far there have been no immediate reports of damage on Catanduanes.

The battle of ideas around Covid has few clashes as hotly contested as Long Covid. Alarmists have hyped the frequency and severity with which infection causes long-term damage. Sceptics see no reason for panic. A new study helps to settle at least part of this debate. The paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA) Network Open looked at "post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) in young people after mild acute infection" to find how common it was and to find risk factors. Participants were aged between 12 and 25. The authors offer this straightforward conclusion: "PCC was not associated with biological markers specific to viral infection." That is, participants were equally likely to suffer from 'Long Covid', whether or not they had suffered from acute COVID-19. The researchers concluded that Long Covid is predicted by "initial symptom severity" and, intriguingly, "psychosocial factors".

With Kari Lake's legal complaint alleging systematic signature verification failures in Maricopa County remanded by the Arizona Supreme Court to trial court, closer examination of the signature verification software used by the county reveals a strikingly low threshold for signatures to qualify as "high-confidence" matches. Since falling about 17,000 votes short in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, Lake has continued to contest the election results in court, arguing that there were ballot chain of custody and signature verification issues in addition to thousands of Republican voters disproportionately disenfranchised on Election Day, when voting machine errors occurred in nearly 60% of the voting centers in Maricopa County. Lake has requested that the election results be invalidated or that she be declared the winner. Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court remanded Lake's claim alleging massive signature verification failure to the trial court,...

So, I went to London to speak to the Left ... no, not "the Left" you're probably thinking of. Not the mask-wearing, Ukrainian-flag-flying Left. Not the pronoun-using, segregationist Left. Not the WEF, WHO, FBI, CIA, DHS, and MI6-loving Left. Not the global-capitalist New Normal Left. The other Left. The old-school Left. The "Covid-denying, conspiracy-theorizing, Putin-loving, far-right-extremist" Left. There were approximately 150 of us, and we gathered in a "homophobic church" in Islington. Yes, Islington, which is more or less the British headquarters of the New Normal Left. We did not care. "Let them come for us," we said. They didn't. It was a Saturday. They were probably out shopping or hunting down imaginary anti-Semites. So, we went ahead and did our thing. Our "thing" was a conference loosely based on leftist opposition to the WEF and its assorted dystopian visions for our future ... you know, eating the bugs, owning nothing, being happy, that kind of stuff. I was invited...

The incident occurred in shallow water at Waddy Point Beach, on Fraser Island, also known as K-gari - a World Heritage-listed island in Australia's Queensland region. The girl was bitten on the back of her head, suffered puncture wounds around one of her ears and was also hurt on her hands. A rescue helicopter was sent to the island to support the victim of the attack, which took place just after 4pm on Tuesday. The young child was treated by paramedics at the scene before being flown, in stable conditions, to Hervey Bay Hospital in central Queensland.

Eight dolphins were found washed up on beaches in the Greater Tokyo Area on Tuesday morning, according to local news reports. The mammals, identified as melon-headed whales, looked like they were struggling to breathe, said Mibu Saito, a local official who visited the site nearby Isumi and Ichinomiya in Chiba Prefecture. "I felt sorry for all those weak dolphins that had washed ashore and we still don't know why they were stranded there," Saito told VICE World News. Of the eight found, four were dead, while the rest were returned to the ocean. A day earlier, 33 dolphins were also found beached just a few hundred meters away. Passersby and surfers tried to carry or roll the dolphins towards the ocean, but two died, Saito said.

A dolphin was found dead on the Baltimore Avenue beach in Cape May Saturday morning, the 24th dolphin to become stranded on a New Jersey beach since December. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center said an adult female common dolphin was found Saturday and was taken by some of its team for a necropsy. Fox Philadelphia reported the dolphin was found on the Baltimore Avenue beach. A porpoise washed up on a beach in the Ortley Beach section of Toms River on Tuesday. Necropsy results are pending from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Porpoises and dolphins are both species of odontocetes or toothed whales. Porpoises have rounder faces and more triangular dorsal fins, while dolphins have more pointed beaks and dorsal fins.

We received 158 reports about a fireball seen over Bretagne, Brussel, Drenthe, England, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Grand Est, Hauts-de-France, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire, Rgion Wallonne, Utrecht, Vlaams Gewest, Wales and Zuid-Holland on Monday, April 3rd 2023 around 05:08 UT. For this event, we received 2 videos and one photo.

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off Sumatra island in western Indonesia on Monday (Apr 3), shaking homes of panicked residents but causing no casualties or damage. The quake's epicentre was at sea southwest of Padangsidempuan city in northern Sumatra at a depth of 84 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported. It occurred around 9.59pm. The country's meteorology and geophysics agency said there was no tsunami warning after the tremor but told residents nearest the epicentre to beware of potential aftershocks.

A new study examining the recent epidemic of teenagers and young adults identifying as transgender has been published and the findings strongly indicate that social contagion is a factor in this new phenomenon. The study by Drs. Michael J. Bailey and Suzanna Diaz, published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, examined a survey of 1655 parent reports to further investigate the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) hypothesis first put forward by Dr. Lisa Littman in 2018. Activists at the time accused Littman of transphobia and claimed her study was invalid, but evidence to support her hypothesis has only grown in the intervening years and this latest study indicates that, at least for some, ROGD is a disturbing reality. The study is much larger than any attempt that has been made to study this cohort to date, and consists of parent reports from an online survey on the website Parents of ROGD Kids. The authors acknowledge the possible bias of their sample, but state that research on...

Part I of a CAM investigation into the origins of the Ukraine War: U.S. and NATO involvement in the February 2014 Coup and Maidan Massacre, and their historical antecedents As I write, the world is on the edge of nuclear and humanitarian crises after a year of the Ukraine "proxy" war with Russia. No single event can be seen as the sole cause, but the most dramatic lurch in the story was the "Revolution of Dignity" in Ukraine in November 2013 to February 2014, notably the horrific massacre of protesters and police in Maidan (Independence) Square on February 20, 2014. Without dismissing the large sectors of Ukrainian society with legitimate grievances against corruption and stagnation, this was a bloody coup d'tat, engineered largely by the U.S. over years with parts played by NATO puppets and local proxies. Viktor Yanukovych was elected in internationally recognized fair elections, and new elections were planned to occur within a year. But powerful interests and a large section of...

Pundits, journalists and public intellectuals don't commit suicide for professional reasons. And not since Diogenes, the Cynic of Athens, have they opted to live in a barrel, keep the company of dogs, and urinate on their audience. Even among the most progressive of current journalists, it's difficult for them not to follow, sit, stay, or bark on the leash and command of their masters. . These days the Substack paywall behind their scoops doesn't pay enough to buy dogfood. Seymour Hersh's million for his Nord Stream story is the exception that proves the rule. Patriotism is the safer, better-paying refuge for journalists, even when they risk indictments for being scoundrels like Evan Gershkovich, the first Moscow Times reporter since Catherine Belton to be recognized in Russia for what he has been doing. Looked at closely, the evidence of espionage against Gershkovich turns out to be much more than a bark up the wrong tree, as Washington officials claim, and Russian government...

Archaeologists found an extremely rare stone relic, an axe-shaped weapon used for rituals in ancient China, engraved with a tiger pattern, in Wuxi City in east China's Jiangsu Province. The relic dates back some 4,500 years, during the Liangzhu Culture period. According to an expert consultation meeting held Saturday on the archaeological site of Dinggeng Relics Site, 16 archaeologists from home and abroad said it was the first time they had seen such a tiger-patterned stone relic, which they believed to be a symbol of power.

For a few milliseconds last Monday night, March 27th, an enormous red ring of light appeared in the sky over central Italy. Valter Binotto photographed it from the small town of Possagno in the foothills of the Italian Alps: This is an "ELVE"--short for Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. It's a rare species of sprite discovered in 1990 by cameras onboard the space shuttle. Binotto may have just taken the best ever picture of one from the ground. "The ELVE was generated by intense lightning in a storm near Ancona about 285 km south of me," says Binotto. One bolt was so strong, it generated an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere. Normal lightning bolts carry 10 to 30 kilo-ampres of current; this bolt was about 10 times stronger than normal.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko mulled the possibility of his nation hosting Russia's strategic nuclear weapons during his annual address to parliament on Friday. The veteran leader's words came as Moscow announced its plans to deploy its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. "I and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can decide and deploy strategic nuclear weapons here, if need be," Lukashenko told lawmakers, adding that the move would show the two nations' readiness to defend their "sovereignty and independence." "We will stop at nothing to protect our nations, our states, our people," the Belarusian leader said, adding that the move would likely serve as an effective deterrent against any hostile moves by the US and its allies. The Belarusian president expressed his hope that strategic nuclear weapons deployment to his country would "sober up all the hawks across the pond for a long time."

Polish authorities have transferred several MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Marcin Przydacz, Polish presidential international policy advisor, said on the air of the RMF radio station on Monday. "As far as I know, several MiG-29s have already been sent," he said. "According to my information, that process is already over, as far as the transfer of the first part is concerned," Przydacz added.