Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida filed a resolution in Congress on Wednesday calling for the removal of California's Adam Schiff after the Durham Report revealed that much of what Schiff said in Congress over the past few years about Donald Trump was based enitrely on fabrications.

A strong earthquake struck Guatemala on Wednesday, shaking the Central American nation and parts of Southern Mexico, though the quake's deep hypocenter of more than 150 miles underneath the earth's surface seems to have averted damage. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the magnitude 6.4 quake struck at a depth of 252 kilometers (156.6 miles) and its epicenter was some 2 kilometers southeast of the municipality of Canilla, Guatemala. Guatemala's natural disaster agency said there were no immediate reports of damage, while the civil protection authorities of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas said there were no injuries or damage to property. Neighboring El Salvador said on Twitter there was no risk of a tsunami from the quake.

While major banks downgrade Anheuser-Busch's stock and Bud Light becomes a corporate punch line, a quartet of CEOs seems all too happy to join them. As the beer company implodes under the weight of a national boycott, its cautionary tale seems lost on four companies who've decided to follow transgender advocacy straight to financial insolvency. Who are the brands foolish enough to ride Bud Light's tattered coattails? 1. Target One of the first companies to stick out their necks for the LGBT agenda, Target was woke before woke was a word. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the chain that introduced a controversial line of "Love Is Love" shirts way back in 2012 was ready to board the transgender train. Back then, retail analyst Britt Beemer warned that the Target strategy isn't "very smart," especially in conservative states, where it does the biggest business. "Anytime a retailer gets away from doing what they should be doing by being involved in a social cause, [they lose]."...

NYC council member says Brooklyn kids are paying for 'misguided policies' of Biden admin. New York City Mayor Eric Adams and city leaders are facing outrage from residents for their decision to place migrants in several public schools. Lakeisha Bowers, whose son graduated from a Brooklyn school now housing migrants, and NYC council member Ari Kagan (R) joined "Fox & Friends" Tuesday to explain why community members are up in arms.

Nearly 30 percent of U.S. adults say they have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime, and 17.8 percent say they currently have or are being treated for depression, a Gallup poll found. "Both rates are the highest recorded by Gallup since it began measuring depression using the current form of data collection in 2015," according to the survey report. The survey was conducted with 5,167 U.S. adults between February 21-28, 2023. Respondents were asked, "Has a doctor or nurse ever told you that you have depression?" and "Do you currently have or are you currently being treated for depression?"

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis Police Officer convicted in the murder of George Floyd, is appealing his case to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Chauvin's lawyer, William Mohrman, on Wednesday filed a petition for review with the state's highest court, arguing that the district judge's decision not to move the proceedings out of the city deprived his client of a fair trial. The petition comes a month after the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Chauvin's conviction for second-degree murder and let his 22-1/2-year sentence remain in place.

"The notion that I was putting children in danger because of books ... I knew I couldn't go back," said teacher Sarah Bonner. Sarah Bonner has been an Illinois middle school teacher for 20 years, and she has always tried to offer her students a diverse collection of books. This year, a parent called the police over her book choice.

Chinese researchers may have begun developing two Covid vaccines in November 2019, before the official start of the outbreak, a U.S. Senate report has claimed. The Telegraph has more.

"The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy." President Joe Biden, speaking at Howard University, May 13, 2023 In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when establishment politicians started to make common use of the term "homeland," they told us the most dangerous threat to Americans was foreign terrorists. But today, we are instructed to fear the enemy within. A new iconic date, January 6, 2021, is inscribed on our collective consciousness. From coast to coast, Americans are being herded into two camps. There are the "white supremacists," those bad people who purportedly hate good people. And then there is everyone else, good people who are encouraged to hate the bad people. The common thread, to state the obvious, is hate. As Joe Biden's would-be successor, doing his part to nurture and support the hate industry, California Governor Gavin Newsom on May 4 announced "the Launch of CA vs Hate, a New Statewide Hotline to Report Hate Acts in California."...

Three Rhode Island teachers who were fired for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 were offered their jobs back after a legal settlement. The Barrington School Committee reached a settlement with Brittany DiOrio, Stephanie Hines and Kerri Thurber to receive a payment of $33,333, a spokesperson for the school district announced Thursday in a May 11th news release. Barrington Public Schools also said that the three teachers have the opportunity to return to teaching positions within the Barrington School District should they choose to do so. "Our district was navigating an unprecedented health pandemic and leaned on the important recommendations by the CDC and the Rhoda Island Department of Health to ensure the safety of our students and school community," the statement reads. "Our then-policy helped combat the pressing public health crisis of the time, while keeping schools open, and one that nearly all faculty adhered to." The statement continued, "In coordination with our...

Archaeologists excavating in Iran's Mazandaran region have revealed that Iranian farmers were cultivating rice as far back as 3000 years ago. Mzandarn is a historic northern Iran region bordering the Caspian Sea on the north. An early Iranian civilization flourished at the beginning of the first millennium BC in Tabarestan (Mzandarn). Based on the results of an archaeological survey conducted by experts from the Peking University, rice cultivation in the Mazandaran region dates some 3,000 years, ISNA quoted Iranian archaeologist Ebrahim Amirkolai as saying on Thursday. The study relies on evidence mostly accumulated from excavations conducted on Qale-Kesh, an archaeological site near Amol, the Amirkolai said. It shows that the history of this grain's cultivation in Mazandaran goes back to the Achaemenid period and even further in time to 3,000 years ago, he explained. Moreover, the excavations at the site revealed significant data about the Bronze Age and Iron Age, Amirkolai...

Around 8,000 years ago, Middle Eastern hunters carved to-scale plans of their 'desert kite' traps onto rocks. Stars and lines engraved in rocks on the Arabian Peninsula may represent nearby hunting traps, making these carvings the first scale-plan diagrams in human history, according to a new study that reveals humans' sophisticated understanding of space around 8,000 years ago. Archaeologists first noticed these structures, known as desert kites, about 100 years ago, when aerial photography began taking off with airplanes. Kites are large areas of land bordered by low stone walls, sometimes with pits scattered on the inside near the edges. Found primarily in the Middle East and Central Asia, kites are thought to have functioned like pens or traps for animals. Hunters would herd animals, like gazelle, into the kite through a long, narrow passage, where the game would be unable to escape the walls or the pits, making them easier to kill. Because of their massive size averaging...

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has launched a campaign on social media platforms to recruit Russian nationals disaffected by the military operation in Ukraine as spies and agents, a US media report says. According to a recent report by CNN, the CIA first released the Russian-language video on the popular social messaging service Telegram, calling on Russians to come forward with important intelligence information and share secrets. "The CIA wants to know the truth about Russia, and we are looking for reliable people who can tell us that truth," the agency said in the two-minute video. "Your information may be more valuable than you know." The video has also appeared on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The commencement of regular output from a much-delayed Finnish nuclear reactor in April saw electricity prices in the country decrease by more than 75 percent. The Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear plant completed the transition from testing to regular output last month to become Finland's first new nuclear plant in more than four decades. It is expected to produce up to 15 percent of the country's power demand. Comment: In a rather worrying sign as to the state of Finland, this project was initially set to go live in 2009 but a variety of 'technical mishaps sparked costly delays and a lengthy legal battle'. And while the plant's production is still in its early days, its launch has had a considerable effect on Finland's energy prices, lowering the electricity spot price in the country from 245.98 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in December to 60.55 per MWh in April, a reduction of more than 75 percent, according to physical electricity exchange, Nord Pool.

European Union countries will agree sooner rather than later to ban import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia, Spain Energy Minister Teresa Ribera told Reuters on Tuesday. "This will be coming sooner than later," she said in an interview on Tuesday when asked if the EU will muster the political will for such a move. With imports of Russian crude and oil products banned and the flow of Russian gas via pipelines sharply reduced, imports of Russian LNG are in the spotlight as the EU tries to deprive Russia of energy export revenue. Comment: Well, it has sharply reduced because the US and its allies blew up two pipelines. However, gas continues to flow through the Turkish and Ukrainian lines, as well as some Russian LNG making its way to the West via highly expensive and unreliable shipping routes.

Minister Piet Adema of Agriculture thinks it will cost 6.7 billion euros to implement the measures in the Agriculture Agreement, NOS reports based on a memorandum from the Ministry. One of the measures in that memorandum is limiting the number of cows to about two cows per football field-sized plot of land. The 6.7 billion euros has not yet been approved by the Cabinet, which first wants to be convinced of the effectiveness of the measures, according to the broadcaster. Adema also thinks he'll need about 600 million euros per year for "ecosystem services" - the ways in which farmers can manage nature themselves. According to the memorandum, Adema eventually wants to introduce a maximum number of cows per pasture. The document mentions "up to 0.35 hectares of grassland per livestock unit." That amounts to about two cows per football field. He hopes that this will result in fewer cows in grassland-poor areas. It could also lead to fewer maize fields that can be converted into...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA In an effort to finally clean up the streets, San Francisco announced they will release several packs of monkeys into the city to help fling away all the poo. "We all know monkeys like to throw poo," said John Hawkins, Director for the Department of Sanitation. "We have lots of poo. It's a match made in heaven."

In a development that will surely impact growing US-Chinese tensions, US-backed opposition parties have won Thailand's May 14, 2023, general elections. A US-backed client regime taking power in Thailand will impact China's Belt and Road Initiative, threaten bilateral trade and tourism, and perhaps even undermine regional security. This is particularly so should Thailand now begin working more closely with Washington over matters in the South China Sea, over Taiwan, or a number of other points of contention the US seeks to use to unify the region against Beijing, but that Thailand had so far refused to be drawn into. The two largest opposition parties, Move Forward Party and Pheu Thai Party, defacto run by billionaires Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and Thaksin Shinawatra respectively, secured the largest number of seats in parliament. However, there are a number of legal and procedural hurdles that await them, including a selected senate with significant influence over who will be...

After controversial comments that spooked investors in Tesla and Twitter, Elon Musk has finally come forward to apologize to Magneto for comparing him to the dastardly villain George Soros. "I would like to say I'm sorry to Max Eisenhardt, also known as 'Magneto,'" said Elon in a statement. "My comparison was unfair. While Magneto is a conflicted and misunderstood character with real human motivations you can empathize with, Soros is an insane cartoon villain with an inhuman hatred for humanity. Not even close to the same person." The Anti-Defamation League thanked Elon for the apology and expressed hope that he will do better in the future. "It is unfair to compare anyone, living or dead, to that evil, hollow shell of a man known as 'Soros,'" said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. "We certainly hope Mr. Musk chooses his words more wisely in the future." When reached for comment, Soros responded by catching a fly out of the air with his tongue and asking one of his servants to turn up...

Move comes after Democrats blocked Trump from purchasing $24/barrel oil three years ago On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it will purchase up to 3 million barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) after the Biden regime aggressively drained the US stockpile. A record-breaking 180 million barrels were released from the SPR by the Biden regime. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the SPR held about 638 million barrels of oil when Biden took office in January 2021. It has dropped to its lowest level since October 1983 today, at 362 million barrels. "Today's announcement advances the President's replenishment strategy following his historic release from the SPR to address the significant global supply disruption caused by Putin's war on Ukraine and provide a wartime bridge for domestic production to increase," according to DOE's news release.

Says parental "rights are gone when your child is in the public school system." This woke teacher just accidentally made the best case for homeschooling that I have ever seen. Remember this story about Jenna Barbee, the elementary school teacher in Florida who showed kids a Disney movie with gay characters to teach about the "environment"? This Florida teacher claims to be under investigation for showing kids Disney movie with gay storyline Guys, Ron DeSantis is SUPER evil and totally OBSESSED with Disney because he doesn't see the benefit in pushing homosexual propaganda to kids in the name of fighting the sun monster! Well, yesterday, this woman went on the Lemon-less CNN morning show and disclosed some really evil crap.

With an estimated net worth of over $1 billion, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the Netscape browser and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is far from an everyman. And yet Andreessen's biting criticisms of the "entrenched oligarchic structure of the present regime" have made him one of the surprising figureheads of a growing anti-elite movement that could depending on which side wins out reshape America's political and social future. Andreessen is one of the more prominent names in a new class of tech wealth that includes figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel whose political vision and methods conflict both with dot-com tech titans like Bill Gates and Pierre Omidyar, as well as with those of old world industry and media, like Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner. While it might seem strange, given his own position of power, for someone like Andreessen to criticize elites, the truth is that elites have cliques, just like the rest of us. And in the cafeteria of America's...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responded to Special Counsel John Durham's report on Monday by acknowledging mistakes in its 2016-2017 investigation of the Trump campaign and noting that the agency had rolled out reforms in response to the mistakes. "The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time," the FBI wrote in a statement published hours after the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the Durham report (pdf) on its website on Monday. "Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented." "This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect," the FBI wrote in acknowledging the findings of Durham's report. In his report, the special counsel...

Dmitry Medvedev said "good riddance" after MPs backed the pullout from a treaty with NATO... Russia will field arms where it wants on its territory and step up its production of weapons after its withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) with NATO, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said. "Good riddance," Medevev wrote on Telegram on Tuesday after the Russian parliament unanimously supported the law allowing Moscow to denounce the agreement, signed in 1990 by NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, comprising the USSR and its allies in Eastern Europe. The CFE limited the number of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopters and aircraft allowed to be stationed in Europe in order to preserve parity and prevent the sides from amassing forces for a blitzkrieg-type offensive. "This document lost its relevance for us back in 2007," the former president, who now holds the position of deputy head of Russia's Security Council, said. Russia suspended...

Reading through the newly released Durham Report, there's a lot to absorb and I plan to be filling several reviews in the coming days. But it struck me that the section of the report detailing an aspect of John Brennan's role in the Clinton campaign and Obama administration's operation targeting Donald Trump and his aides was most urgent. - L.S. The only genuine piece of Russian intelligence that US spy services ever received about Donald Trump's ties to Russia was intelligence that Russia knew Hillary Clinton backed a 2016 campaign plan to smear Trump as a Russian agent. According to John Durham's 300-page report, the information reached the CIA in late July 2016. Brennan told Durham that on August 3 he briefed President Barack Obama at the White House on what the special counsel refers to as the Clinton Plan intelligence. Others in attendance at the meeting were Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey.

Plants have an impressive ability to regenerate damaged tissues, but how they do it is not fully understood. Now, researchers from Japan have discovered the mechanisms involved in this superpower. In a recently published study in Nature Communications, a research group led by Osaka University has revealed that cells within plant leaves may be able to detect mechanical pressure or the lack of it to determine where they are and what type of cells they become in response to damage. In land plants, the epidermis is an outer layer of tissue that forms a boundary between the external environment and the plants' internal tissues. It protects them from environmental stresses. Studying this cell type revealed that cell fate determination how a cell develops into a final cell type depends on a cell's location within the developing plant; for example, the epidermis only contains surface cells.

An attorney for a Biden administration whistleblower told Congress on Monday that his client and "his [client's] entire investigative team" tasked with working on the Hunter Biden probe at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were removed from the case at the behest of the Department of Justice (DOJ). A letter sent to congressional leaders and obtained by The Federalist reads: "Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice." Last month, attorney Mark Lytle, who authored Monday's letter, sent a separate letter to several congressional committee chairs with claims from the aforementioned whistleblower of "political interference in the...

Anti-corruption authorities have suggested that other judges may be implicated in the scheme... Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has detained the chair of the country's Supreme Court, Vsevolod Knyazev, local media have reported. He is allegedly suspected of receiving a $2.7 million bribe as part of a scheme that may involve other officials. In a Facebook post late on Monday, NABU said it had "uncovered large-scale corruption in the Supreme Court, namely a scheme that allowed the leadership and judges to receive illicit profit." The bureau added that an "urgent" investigation was under way, and that details would be provided in due course. In a separate message on Tuesday, NABU announced a press conference on the case at midday local time in Kiev. While officials have stopped short of revealing any names, several Ukrainian media outlets have cited anonymous sources as claiming that Knyazev was taken into custody.

Aliens are not ready to reveal themselves to earthlings, given humanity's sub-par "civilizational level," Kirsan Ilyumzhinov claims Former head of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who also served as president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia, has claimed he was abducted by aliens back in the 1990s. Ilyumzhinov detailed the "encounter" in an interview with the Sports.ru website, published on Tuesday. "[It happened in] September 1997, in Moscow. They called me to the balcony. I went out and soon found myself on their ship. Everything was simple," he claimed.

About 100 million years ago, a group of trendsetting moths started flying during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees. This single event led to the evolution of all butterflies. Scientists have known the precise timing of this event since 2019, when a large-scale analysis of DNA discounted the reigning hypothesis that pressure from bats prompted the evolution of butterflies after the extinction of dinosaurs. Now, scientists have discovered where the first butterflies originated and which plants they relied on for food. Before reaching these conclusions, researchers from dozens of countries had to create the world's largest butterfly tree of life, assembled with DNA from more than 2,000 species representing all butterfly families and 92% of genera. Using this framework as a guide, they traced the movements and feeding habits of butterflies through time in a four-dimensional puzzle that led back to North and Central...

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) chief General Kirill Budanov has claimed responsibility for assassinating "many" Russian public figures. The spy boss made the bombshell admission in an interview with Ukrainian blogger Sergey Ivanov on Tuesday. Asked whether high-profile Russian media figures such as prominent journalist Vladimir Solovyov or RT's Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, are prime targets for his organization, Budanov responded that the GUR had already "gotten" multiple high profile targets. "We have already gotten many, including public and media personalities," Budanov said, without providing any names. Pressed further by the blogger on the potential involvement of the GUR in the assassination of journalist Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, or the recent car bombing of author and political activist Zakhar Prilepin, the spy boss said he could "neither confirm nor deny" the involvement of his service.

Poland is leading a group of European nations that are secretly urging Vladimir Zelensky to find a way to settle the conflict with Russia, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing a "knowledgeable" American official. According to US intelligence, other EU countries that want to see an end to the fighting include Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Hersh wrote in an article published on his Substack page on Wednesday. "Hungary is a big player in this and so are Poland and Germany, and they are working to get Zelensky to come around," the unnamed official claimed. Those countries have made it clear that "Zelensky can keep what he's got if he works up a peace deal even if he's got to be paid off, if it's the only way to get a deal." By "keep what he's got," the source was referring to the Ukrainian president's villa in Italy and interests in an offshore bank, Hersh clarified.

The Chinese government has sent a notice to multiple embassies and international organizations, asking them to remove inappropriate signs from their premises, a Japanese news agency reported on Tuesday. The request most likely refers to pro-Ukraine posters displayed by embassies of Canada, Poland and Germany. The memorandum asked foreign missions not to use the outer walls of their buildings for "political propaganda" and to "avoid causing conflicts between states," according to Kyodo News. It was reportedly sent by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on May 10. The notice also informed recipients that they are "obligated to follow Chinese laws and regulations." However, there was no indication China would renege on the principle of diplomatic immunity, established under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Multiple Western embassies have put up posters declaring they "Stand With Ukraine," in Chinese and English. The Canadian display in particular has drawn the attention of...

China's military has vowed to "resolutely smash" any separatist movement in Taiwan and warned that Washington's increased meddling with the self-governing island has created a dangerous fracture in Sino-US relations. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) "continues to strengthen military training and preparations and will resolutely smash any form of Taiwanese independence secession, along with attempts at outside interference, and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Tan Kefei told reporters on Tuesday in Beijing. Tan made his comments in response to a US plan, revealed earlier this month, to provide $500 million in military aid to Taiwan. In addition, the Pentagon has reportedly dispatched as many as 200 troops to the island to provide military training.

New study helps show how bacterial cells fix faulty DNA sections. A new study adds to an emerging, radically new picture of how bacterial cells continually repair faulty sections of their DNA. Published online May 16 in the journal Cell, the report describes the molecular mechanism behind a DNA repair pathway that counters the mistaken inclusion of a certain type of molecular building block, ribonucleotides, into genetic codes. Such mistakes are frequent in code-copying process in bacteria and other organisms.

On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared before Congress to address the need for new rules to help guide the development of artificial intelligence as the sector continues to grow exponentially. He suggested that while he was committed to working with the government to ensure that humans remain in control of the technology, there was a chance that things could get out of control. As the Daily Mail reports, Altman warned that if left unattended, AI could "go quite wrong," adding that OpenAI sought to "work with the government to prevent that from happening." He admitted that his "worst fear" was that products such as OpenAI's ChatGPT would cause "significant harm to the world."

Comment: Warning: Graphic descriptions of pedophilic images below. France's President Emmanuel Macron has defended artwork which appears to depict a child being orally raped by an adult after protestors threw paint on it. The graphic painting titled fuck abstraction! depicts an entirely nude, muscular adult forcing what appears to be a naked, slightly built male child kneeling with his hands bound behind his back to fellate him. Someone who objected to its pedophilic content splashed it with purple paint at the Palais de Tokyo modern art museum in Paris, prompting France's increasingly unpopular globalist president to leap to its defense.

A powerful cyclone has hit the coastlines of Bangladesh and Myanmar after intensifying into the equivalent of a category-five storm. Cyclone Mocha did not make landfall at the sprawling refugee camp in Cox's Bazar as earlier feared, but still tore apart hundreds of makeshift shelters. At least six people have been reported dead in Myanmar. Up to 90 per cent of the western Rakhine state's capital city Sittwe has been destroyed, residents told the BBC. The Burmese military has declared the whole of Rakhine as a natural disaster area.

Germany's chancellor has acknowledged the viewpoint that Western powers don't apply their principles equally. India, Vietnam and other countries that have balked at condemning Russia over its conflict with Ukraine largely agree with the principles behind the Western-based "international order," but they aren't convinced that those tenets are being applied fairly to Moscow, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has admitted. "When I talk to leaders from those countries, many assure me that they are not questioning the underlying principles of our international order. What they are struggling with is the unequal application of those principles," Scholz said on Monday at the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin.

On Sunday, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration after ice jams and snowmelt led to significant flooding in several communities along the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers this past weekend. A major ice jam on the Yukon River, which originates in the coastal mountains of Canada and flows nearly 2,000 miles northwest into the Bering Sea, has created catastrophic flooding in several riverfront communities. "Ice jams are caused when ice breaks up on the river, begins to flow downstream but then gets 'stuck' and acts as a dam. This causes the water in the river to rise, usually quite rapidly, and gives very little notice to the flood threat," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines said. This time of the year is known as the "spring breakup" in Alaska, and while that may sound like the name of a rom-com movie, FEMA officials say it's no laughing matter, especially if you live in The Last Frontier. In April and May, most of the river ice in Alaska thaws and breaks up into...

This video shows a bolide recorded on May 9, at 5:37 local time (equivalent to 3:37 universal time). The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 78,000 km/h. The fireball overflew Valencia and Castelln (Spain). It began at an altitude of about 88 km over Caudete de las Fuentes (province of Valencia), moved northeast, and ended at a height of around 60 km over Aydar (province of Castelln). This bright meteor was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN) from the meteor-observing stations located at La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), Sevilla, and Olocau (Valencia). The event has been analyzed by the principal investigator of the SMART project: Dr. Jose M. Madiedo, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).

A young man along with 14 cows died in a lightning strike at Ishwardi upazila in Pabna district on Tuesday evening. The dead was Sajib Hossain, 25, son of Alhaj Pramanik, a resident of Kamalpur village of the upazila. Locals said Sajib was returning home from Kamalpur Char of Padma in the evening along with 41 cows. A lightning struck on him, and he died on the spot along with 14 cows. Ishwardi Police Station officer-in-charge Arbinda Sarkar confirmed the matter.

Firefighters in Italy have rescued dozens of people trapped in flooded areas of the Emilia-Romagna Region. As of 17 May Civil Protection reported at least 2 people have lost their lives and 3 more were missing. Parts of the neighbouring Marche Region have also been severely impacted. Floods in the Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy Communities in the region of Emilia-Romagna are still recovering from catastrophic flooding earlier this month when at least 2 people lost their lives. At the time, the President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Stefano Bonaccini, described the situation as unprecedented. Further heavy rain fell in the region from 15 May 2023, increasing river levels and triggering landslides. Italy's fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, said 500 firefighters were working in the affected areas of Ravenna, Forl-Cesena, Rimini and Bologna Provinces.

Firefighters in Italy have rescued dozens of people trapped in flooded areas of the Emilia-Romagna Region. As of 17 May Civil Protection reported at least 2 people have lost their lives and 3 more were missing. Parts of the neighbouring Marche Region have also been severely impacted. Floods in the Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy Communities in the region of Emilia-Romagna are still recovering from catastrophic flooding earlier this month when at least 2 people lost their lives. At the time, the President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Stefano Bonaccini, described the situation as unprecedented. Further heavy rain fell in the region from 15 May 2023, increasing river levels and triggering landslides. Italy's fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, said 500 firefighters were working in the affected areas of Ravenna, Forl-Cesena, Rimini and Bologna Provinces.

We received 6 reports about a fireball seen over MI, Ontario and PA on Tuesday, May 16th 2023 around 06:56 UT. For this event, we received one video and one photo.

Sorority sisters at the University of Wyoming have filed a lawsuit against the Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity for allowing a trans-identified male, who allegedly becomes "sexually aroused" in their presence, to move into the sorority in the fall semester. The complaint filed on Monday by seven past and present sorority members in the US District Court of Wyoming accuses Kappa Kappa Gamma of "betrayal" and "breaking their bylaws" which state that the sorority is a "single-sex organization" which must be preserved, Cowboy State Daily reports. The girls allege that Artemis Langford, a 6'2' biological male weighing 260lbs, has had "visible erections through his leggings" and "repeatedly questions the women about what vaginas look like, breast cup size, whether women were considering breast reductions and birth control,'" according to the complaint obtained by the outlet.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is under pressure to withdraw guidance for schools recommending that toddlers "ask questions about sexuality", "explore gender identities" and learn about "enjoyment" of "early childhood masturbation". The Telegraph has the story. The guidance says that "sexuality education starts from birth" and is described as a "framework for policy makers, educational and health authorities and specialists". Its advice on how to "talk about sexual matters" with young children was aimed at policymakers across Europe, and was translated into several European languages and promoted at national and international events, according to the WHO.

Peer Review has been a sixty year experiment with no control group It's touted as the "gold standard" of science, yet the evidence shows Peer Review is an abject failure. There are 30,000 scientific journals that publish nearly 5 million articles a year, and the only thing we know for sure is that two-thirds of papers with major flaws will still get published, fraud is almost never discovered, and peer review has effectively crushed ground breaking new discoveries. By Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History The rise and fall of Peer Review Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that's a great thing For the last 60 years or so, science has been running an experiment on itself. The experimental design wasn't great; there was no randomization and no control group. Nobody was in charge, exactly, and nobody was really taking consistent measurements. And yet it was the most massive experiment ever run, and it included every scientist on Earth. It seemed like a...

A pair of unknown and "exceptionally rare" portraits by Rembrandt have been discovered in a private collection in the UK. The intimate paintings of relatives of the Dutch master are now expected to sell for between 5 million and 8 million ($6.25 million-$10 million) at auction. Signed and dated 1635, the pictures are of an elderly husband and wife who were related to Rembrandt by marriage. Measuring just under 8 inches high, the paintings depict wealthy plumber Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen Carels, who were from a prominent family in the Dutch city of Leiden.

It's the second such case ever to be reported A rare genetic mutation never seen before protected a man with an inherited form of Alzheimer's from developing the disease for decades. He is the second person found to have such protection, following a report in 2019 of a woman with a different mutation (SN: 1/26/20). Both mutations may have staved off the disease for years by acting in similar ways in the brain, an insight that could lead to new treatments for all forms of Alzheimer's, scientists report May 15 in Nature Medicine. But some researchers are cautious about concluding too much from just two cases. "The results look very promising, but it would be useful to see replication in more samples," says neurologist Rudolph Tanzi of Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the new study. Still, the work is important as "it can serve as a useful guide for drug discovery," he says.

Special Counsel John Durham's investigation - an inquiry into government corruption, lies to secret courts, the weaponization of the US intelligence apparatus, the FBI's attempt to take down a sitting president - has concluded. The Durham Report has been released.

Washington has opposed any reconciliation between Damascus and its neighbors, Beijing claims The Arab League's decision this month to readmit Syria after a nearly 12-year absence should be seen as a positive development by every nation other than the US, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has claimed, arguing that the reconciliation signals the waning of Washington's power in the region. "From whatever angle, Syria's return to the Arab League is something to be happy about except for a certain country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday in a press briefing in Beijing. He added that US officials "unabashedly criticized" the move and pressured allies not to normalize relations with Syria. "In fact, it is because of the US pressure and sanctions that Syria has suffered 12 years of war with related catastrophic consequences lasting until now."

This was the longest and loudest shelling in Kyiv since the war began. I woke up after a loud bang that made the windows of my downtown apartment shake. It felt very close, but the sound made me realise it was the "good" bang of air defence systems hitting drones or missiles midair. At least 10 more bangs followed within a couple of minutes, with bright spots of air defence rockets coming up in the darkness. Comment: Well, the Kiev junta claims to be taking out the vast majority of Russia's precision strikes and yet the destruction of the Nazi infrastructure continues unabated, as do the rolling blackouts. I was too sleepy to count them. These are not the kind of fireworks that make you rush to the window to enjoy the view, let alone videotape. I watched them through the blinds still lying in my bed.

The remains of two people believed to have been killed by an earthquake that accompanied the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius have been found in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The skeletons, thought to belong to two men in their mid-50s, were found during excavations at the Insula dei Casti Amanti, or Insula of the Chaste Lovers, an area of Pompeii made up of a cluster of homes and a bakery. The well-preserved remains were found beneath a collapsed wall. Bone fractures indicate that the men probably died as a result of multiple injuries sustained as the building they sought refuge in caved in because of an earthquake that struck during the early stage of the volcanic eruption.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak and Dutch leader Mark Rutte have agreed to build an "international coalition" to help procure F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine, the British government has announced. A Downing Street spokesperson said Sunak and Rutte "would work to build an international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets". Comment: An 'international coalition' of whom, exactly? Is this similar to the 'international community' sanctioning Russia?Bearing in mind that even those nations enforcing the sanctions are still buying Russia products via intermediaries, or being granted exemptions for certain critical items, or, like the US, they avoid adding them to the sanctions regime entirely: US splurges $1 billion on Russian uranium despite sanctions war "The prime minister reiterated his belief that Ukraine's rightful place is in Nato and the leaders agreed on the importance of allies providing long-term...

Scientists believe they have discovered the earliest human footprints - tracks left by a family of extinct humans 300,000 years ago. The perfectly preserved prints of a small family of 'Heidelberg people,' a species of human long since extinct, were uncovered in Germany. This subspecies of archaic humans, formally known as Homo heidelbergensis, were the first to build homes and hunt large animals but disappeared from the Earth about 28,000 years ago - and experts say it was because of climate change. The traces were discovered in the Paleolithic site complex of Schningen in Lower Saxony, along with ancient animal imprints, including the first evidence of elephants in the region.

The FBI investigation of former President Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia in 2016 was "seriously flawed" and had no basis in evidence, special counsel John Durham said in a report released Monday. Durham concluded his four-year review with a scathing indictment of official bias in the probe, which fueled Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Trump's theorized conspiracy with the Kremlin to win the White House. "It is the Office's assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia," Durham wrote. "Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators 'repeatedly ignore[d] or explain[ed] away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign... had conspired with Russia... It appeared that ... there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent,'" he added.

Even if you don't know it by name, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is one of the most familiar sights in the heavens above a gleaming ruddy dot at the shoulder of the constellation Orion. Although already quite difficult to overlook, Betelgeuse has become even more eye-catching across the past few years because of major changes in its appearance unexpected fluctuations in its brightness that remain poorly understood. In recent weeks, the star has at times shone more than 50 percent brighter than normal, drawing renewed attention from amateur sky watchers and professional astronomers alike. These individuals hopefully await a historic celestial event. Someday, you see, Betelgeuse will explosively end its life in a supernova and from our planetary perch just 650 light-years away, we Earthlings will have front-row seats to this spectacular cosmic cataclysm. But does the current bout of brightening presage Betelgeuse blowing its top? And what would such a nearby supernova look...

Former President Donald Trump appeared on CNN Wednesday night for a town hall with moderator Kaitlan Collins and an audience of Republican and independent voters. Trump was... Trump - an unapologetic steamroller who didn't let Collins bully him into admitting that he lost the 2020 election (and called Collins a "nasty person" at one point). Here are the top 10 moments from last night: Rigged election "You still have not acknowledged the 2020 election results, but you are also under active federal investigation for trying to overturn the 2020 election results," said Collins. "Your first term ended with a deadly riot at the Capitol, and you still have not publicly acknowledged the 2020 election results. Why should Americans put you back in the White House?" To which Trump replied: ""I think that when you look at that result, and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you're a very stupid person, you see what happened. A lot of the people out of the people in...

MSM went "all-in" on a discredited COVID narrative. Since the pandemic I've been saying that confidence in the mainstream, corporate press has been irreparably damaged. After four years of non-stop Trump Derangement Syndrome so intense that even some liberals were wondering if the press had gone overboard on editorializing - Covid hit, and a lot of normies now see the MSM for what it really is: agitprop and brainwashing. Cancel culture and censorship reached such absurd levels that we started to see an exodus of high profile reporters (Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, et al) exiting corporate news outlets and setting up on their own, after they committed the sin of colouring outside the lines of establishment precepts (Taibbi and Greenwald having been arguably left-wing commentators, have now been designated "far right extremists").

The removal was on the order of the DOJ, according to the whistleblower's attorneys The IRS on Monday removed the "entire investigative team" from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who recently contacted Congress to allege a cover-up in the case, The Post has learned. The purge allegedly was done on the orders of the Justice Department, the whistleblower's attorneys informed congressional leaders in a letter. "Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice," Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote.

ExxonMobil agreed on Monday to an out-of-court settlement in a long-running lawsuit brought against the company by villagers of Indonesia over allegations of human rights abuses. In the two-decade-long legal battle, the locals said they were subjected to torture, sexual assault and physical abuse by Indonesian military officials contracted to provide security to the organisation. The case, brought against the company in 2001 by 11 villagers of Aceh province, was due to go on trial on 24 May in Washington. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed as it is confidential. "Our clients... bravely took on one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world and stuck with the fight for more than 20 years," Agnieszka Fryszman, an attorney at Cohen Milstein, told AFP. "We are so pleased that now, on the eve of trial, we were able to secure a measure of justice for them and their families."

North Korea's Foreign Ministry has claimed NATO is seeking to increase its influence in Asia, citing growing "military collusion" with Japan, which hosted a delegation from the military bloc last month to discuss ways to step up cooperation. In comments carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday, an official with the Foreign Ministry's Japan Research Center, Kim Seol-hwa, said Washington is gradually pushing NATO into Asia through partnerships with regional powers. "It is an open secret that the United States... has been trying to create a military alliance like this in the Asia-Pacific region," he said, adding that the "recent unprecedented military collusion between Japan and NATO is arousing great concern and alertness in the international community." Kim went on to cite recent reports that NATO is now in talks to open a "liaison office" in Japan, its first such facility in Asia. The office would be used to "conduct periodic consultations with Japan and...

A new report claims that the settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems led to the Fox News decision to pull Tucker Carlson off the air. Dominion had sued Fox News over its coverage of claims about Dominion's equipment that were advanced in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. On Tuesday, April 18, just as the jury trial of the lawsuit was expected to begin, a $787.5 million settlement was announced. Less than a week later, on Monday, April 24, as he was preparing for his show that night, Carlson was informed his show had been canceled. Due to the timing, initial speculation linked the two events. According to a report in Variety, dumping Carlson was an unwritten promise from Fox News to Dominion.

Prof. Michael Hudson's new book, The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization's Oligarchic Turning Point is a seminal event in this Year of Living Dangerously when, to paraphrase Gramsci, the old geopolitical and geoeconomic order is dying and the new one is being born at breakneck speed. Prof. Hudson's main thesis is absolutely devastating: he sets out to prove that economic/financial practices in Ancient Greece and Rome - the pillars of Western Civilization - set the stage for what is happening today right in front of our eyes: an empire reduced to a rentier economy, collapsing from within. And that brings us to the common denominator in every single Western financial system: it's all about debt, inevitably growing by compound interest. Ay, there's the rub: before Greece and Rome, we had nearly 3,000 years of civilizations across West Asia doing exactly the opposite.

"The average Democrat knows the Biden family is profoundly corrupt and they simply don't care.... Sam Harris spoke for all of them when he said it wouldn't matter if Hunter's laptop was packed w/pictures of dead kids." MartyrMade on Twitter This is the dirty secret of our time: the device that the Woke / Progressive elite used to finally get rid of Donald Trump Covid-19 shoved them over a cliff Wile E. Coyote style. And now, as they freefall off that cliff, the supposed antidote to Covid-19 getting vaccinated is blowing up in their faces, again, Wile E. Coyote style. The elite now have to wake up every day and wonder if the vaccines they rushed to get will end up killing them prematurely. This is what has finally driven them crazy. And, of course, crazy people will do crazy things: like destroy their own country. I decided early-on to not get vaccinated for a simple reason: as the vaxx program got up to speed in the late winter and spring of 2021, reports came out that...

Durham uncovered several red flags that should have dissuaded the FBI from opening its 'seriously flawed' Crossfire Hurricane investigation... Special Counsel John Durham released a 306-page report on Monday detailing how Democrat operatives packaged and sold a lie to the all-too-believing Obama administration FBI that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. For more than six years now, corrupt corporate media and Democrats have rallied around that allegation as evidence that Trump shouldn't hold office. But Durham's latest report, much like previous investigations into the Russian collusion hoax, once again found that there was no evidence of collusion from the beginning. Durham wrote in the opening pages of his bombshell report concluding three years of investigation. "Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law...

Senator Josh Hawley urged Friday that the Biden administration is intending to "collapse the immigration system" on purpose and that "they want the chaos" at the border. "I think the plan is exactly what you're seeing, they want the chaos," Hawley told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, adding "The plan is to try to collapse our immigration system completely, collapse the courts collapse the asylum process, overrun the border." "That is the plan. That's what they want. They want the chaos," The Senator reiterated, adding "If you thought the fentanyl problem in this country is bad. You thought it was bad in my state, where it's the number one cause of death in the state of Missouri for young people. Just wait because they are about to turn it on full throttle." "The drugs that will come across this border, the crime that will come across this border, the danger to our families and our communities, it's going to be unlike anything we've ever seen in terms of border crossings in our...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News the testimony his panel heard in private from Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan "confirmed" the letter signed by 51 current and former intel officials was not on-the-level. "[Brennan] sat for a four-hour interview and he further confirmed that this thing was all political," Jordan said on Jesse Watters Primetime. Jordan recounted his allegation that then-Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken was the "impetus" behind the letter, which he said was organized in-part by former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who testified before the Judiciary Committee earlier in May. He also took issue with reaction from a member of his committee, Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y.

Three FBI officials will testify on alleged 'abuses of power' by FBI leadership - ranging from discrimination against conservatives to inflation of domestic terrorism statistics - during a public whistleblower hearing by the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Thursday, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and head of the select committee, has secured the in-person testimony of suspended FBI special agents Garret O'Boyle and Steve Friend, as well as former FBI State Operations Specialist Marcus Allen. President of Empower Oversight Tristan Leavitt will also be testifying. The hearing is set to be held at 9 a.m. ET Thursday and will focus on the 'abuses of power' the former officials witnessed. They will be given the opportunity to detail how they have been 'retaliated' against by the FBI, according to a source familiar. O'Boyle and Friend participated in a closed door...

Logistical problems and political fatigue in Europe could hamstring Kiev's counteroffensive, while Russia's risks involve the potentially destabilizing consequences of the Defense Ministry-Wagner Group rivalry continuing, independently existing defensive difficulties along the Line of Contact, and a reluctance to escalate. The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine is reaching its most critical moment thus far as Kiev prepares to commence its counteroffensive, which is backed by that US-led military bloc. A breakthrough by either side could coerce the other into concessions ahead of the Chinese- (and possibly jointly French-)mediated ceasefire talks that are expected to begin by the end of the year. Likewise, a continued stalemate would probably result in freezing the existing months-long Line of Contact (LOC). Here are ten critical observations of everything from the West's and Russia's perspectives respectively: 1. NATO Acknowledges Its "Race Of Logistics"/"War Of Attrition" With...

Science is the process by which we learn about the workings of material reality. Though modern innovations - built on the fruits of science - would look like magic to people living only decades ago, they result from the time-tested scientific method. Contrary perhaps to media portrayals of science, the scientific method depends not on the existence of a mythical consensus but rather on structured scientific debates. If there is a consensus, science challenges it with new hypotheses, experiments, logic, and critical thinking. Ironically, science advances because it believes it has never arrived; consensus is the hallmark of dead science. One of us is a college student with an unpremeditated career in alternative indie journalism. The other is a professor of health policy at Stanford University School of Medicine with an MD, a Ph.D. in economics, and decades of experience writing on infectious disease epidemiology. Despite the wealth of differences in our backgrounds and experiences,...

Elite plans for digital ID, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and a "Green" post-war economy proliferate in Ukraine as conflict rages, manifesting in Ukraine's Diia app, the e-hryvnia, a corporate takeover of Ukraine's war efforts and prospective reconstruction, and other efforts that signal a Fourth Industrial Revolution roll-out. Outlining these efforts and who's behind them, Stavroula Pabst argues that Ukraine's cannon-fodder status before and during NATO's proxy war makes it an ideal testing ground for the Great Reset. "Ukraine 2030 the freest and most digital country in the world. Without bureaucracy, but with strong tech industry. Cashless & paperless. This is the future we are building." - Mykhailo Fedorov These were the words of Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, who posted a glossy video showcasing Ukraine's sci-fi-esque future to Twitter. The video boasts of Ukraine's plans (after its victory over Russia, of course!) to become the...

Globalist cabal may be up against a conspiracy of saboteurs. The events could accelerate dramatically in the coming days... Over the weekend, the hero of our day, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine travelled to Rome where he met with the Pope. He also met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Then he travelled to Berlin where he signed the joint declaration between Germany and Ukraine and secured more financial and military help from the Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government. Zelensky then flew to Paris and on to London where he thanked profusely the United Kingdom for their leading role in helping and supporting his government: "Thank you very much for this package that you've prepared - great, huge... Really what can save the lives for all our people." The Pope called for peace and offered to mediate between Ukraine and Russia to bring the conflict to an end but Zelensky, who had signed a decree formally banning any Ukrainian talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, dismissed...

A lightning strike killed a man and hospitalized a 6-year-old child as rainstorms moved through Central Texas, authorities said. First responders were called to the Laguna Park area at about 5 p.m. Monday, May 15, FOX44 reported. Upon arrival, deputies found an unresponsive man and child, according to a news release from the Bosque County Sheriff's Office. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said, and the child was rushed to a hospital for emergency care. The child was breathing on their own.

The United Nations reports that continued flooding in Ethiopia has caused widespread destruction and displacement in the regions of Somali, Oromia, SNNP (Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples'), South West and Afar. Over 90 fatalities have lost their lives. In early April this year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) reported flooding and heavy rain affected or displaced around 240,000 people in Somali, Oromia and Afar regions from mid-March, with 29 fatalities reported. Flooding has worsened since then, causing significant damage and displacements. According to the latest UN report, around 190,000 households have been affected by flooding across the country, with over 200,000 people forced to leave their homes. The flooding has deepened the vulnerability of populations whose resilience is already highly affected by the impact of a prolonged drought since 2020 as the areas most affected by flooding and drought overlap, UN OCHA said.

The SpaceX CEO lashed out at the financier soon after it emerged that he had dumped his Tesla stock. Elon Musk used his Twitter platform to attack fundraiser George Soros on Tuesday, claiming that the prominent Democratic Party financier "hates humanity," and comparing him to comic-book super villain Magneto. In a tweet which has been viewed more than 20 million times, Musk wrote without explanation that "Soros reminds me of Magneto" - the mutant comic book anti-hero of the X-Men series. Musk elaborated on Soros when pressed by journalist Brian Krassenstein, claiming the Hungarian-American businessman was a frequent right-wing punching bag because some people object to his "good intentions" as "they disagree with his political affiliations."

Currently, there is an extraordinary hydrological situation in the area of the Una and Sana river basins, as was forecast in the Notification on the forecast of an extraordinary hydrological situation from May 12. The levels for the start of notification have been reached at all hydrological stations that are defined by the Federal Operational Plan for Flood Protection, the Agency for the Sava River Water Area announced. During the day, new precipitation is expected in the area of the Una-Sana Canton. However, according to the results of simulations of prognostic systems, the water level is expected to stagnate during the day and decrease in the evening in the upper and middle parts of the Una basin.

Making James Bond politically correct is "almost comical," the author of 'The Satanic verses' insisted. British author and freedom of expression advocate Salman Rushdie has blasted publishers who amend old books with the stated goal of protecting modern readers from being offended. He argued that oversensitive readers can always opt for something else. Rushdie addressed the issue on Monday evening while receiving the prestigious British Book Award for Freedom to Publish. In his televised acceptance speech, which he delivered via a video link from New York, the writer sounded the alarm over what he perceives as a growing acceptance of censorship in Western nations.

Rescue teams and hundreds of soldiers were deployed on Monday to help people in parts of Croatia hit by floods. Heavy rain in recent days caused some rivers to overflow their banks, flooding homes, roads and public buildings in some towns. Classes in the town of Obrovac were cancelled after water got into the schools there. Parts of the town were left without electricity, and water covered the centre of Obrovac. In nearby Gracac, about a dozen people had to move to upper floors or evacuate their homes to avoid surging water.

The beer brand's decision comes in the wake of the ongoing Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney controversy. Miller Lite, one of America's top-selling beers, has pulled down a controversial advert it published in March in honor of Women's History Month, after the video sparked a wave of backlash in recent days, with users accusing the brand of going 'woke.' The video, titled "Bad $#!T to Good $#!T," was originally posted on March 7 but had only recently gone viral. The ad vowed to clean up the brand's sexist past, which included ads featuring women dressed in bikinis, and promised to donate fertilizer to female brewers so that they can "grow quality hops."

A straphanger who was on the subway when former Marine Daniel Penny placed Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold said Thursday she's "praying" for Penny after it was revealed the 24-year-old would face charges tied to the high-profile case. "I hope he has a great lawyer, and I'm praying for him," the 66-year-old woman, who did not want to be identified, told The Post Thursday night. "And I pray that he gets treated fairly, I really do. Because after all of this ensued, I went back and made sure that I said 'Thank you' to him." The Manhattan District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday afternoon Penny would be charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Netflix's "docudrama" Queen Cleopatra launched two weeks ago and now looks to have earned the unenviable plaudit of drawing the worst audience score in TV history. Forbes magazine reports the controversial production has not just garnered the lowest audience score in Netflix history on debut, it has essentially the lowest audience score possible on Rotten Tomatoes at one percent. Not a 10 percent. A one percent, although Forbes reports it has later stumbled upwards to hit the giddy heights of two percent.

Early on the morning of May 3rd the Kremlin was attacked by two explosive drones, and although these were destroyed by the defenses, the Russian government claimed that the incident had probably been an assassination attempt against President Vladimir Putin. I was skeptical at the time, but when Ray McGovern was interviewed a few days later he seemed to take the accusation seriously. Given his 27 years as a CIA Analyst, including serving as head of the Soviet Policy Group, I tend to trust his judgment on such matters:

A shark attacked a man fishing from his kayak off the coast of Hawaii in a harrowing encounter that he caught on video. The man wasn't hurt in the brief attack. Scott Haraguchi was fishing less than 2 miles off the island of Oahu around midday Friday. After he caught a fish, he told a local TV station he left his GoPro camera running. "It was incredibly bad luck but incredibly good luck to capture it," Haraguchi told KITV.

Police are searching for an angler who went missing at a lake in Hokkaido, suspecting he may have been attacked by a bear after a human head was found in the area Monday, they said. According to the police, a boat dropped off Toshihiro Nishikawa, 54, to fish unaccompanied at a spot on Lake Shumarinai in Horokanai early Sunday. An employee of the boat operator later saw a bear nearby with waders dangling from its mouth and attempted to call Nishikawa by phone, but could not reach him. The information prompted the town office to launch a bear hunt operation and a member of the group killed one Monday afternoon, according to a town official.

Waterspout on Lake Moultrie as storms moved by, estimated around 6:20 PM.

The first (original) Nazi Party was in Germany, but the ideology, of imperialistic racist fascism (the lower-case "nazism" ideology, instead of just the original, upper-case "N" Nazi Party that was an example of it) can be in any country. German racist-fascism or Nazism was organized by Hitler as anti-Jewish, anti-communist, and for a Thousand-Year Reich in which "Aryans" or purebred descendants of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, would have control over the entire world, and there would be no descendants from the snake (Satan) in Genesis 3, which Hitler believed Jews to be. The Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union would become enslaved to Aryans, and that land would be the main breeding ground or "Lebensraum" to expand the numbers of Aryans so that they could achieve further conquests, and he thought that the most difficult country for Germany to defeat would be America but, that he and his fascist allies would first need to defeat all of Eurasia. Then, he would take on America. That...

Parliamentary staff have been urged to police gender pronouns and report "negative behaviours", The Telegraph has learnt. The UK Parliament authorities have drawn up gender-identity guidance for hundreds of civil servants working in administrative roles in the House of Commons and Lords, which has been circulated internally for the last three years. One section of the 15-page guide warns that staff should "learn to identify what transphobic behaviour looks like and understand that these must be met with an attitude of zero-tolerance". It lists examples including "another colleague refusing to use a trans person's preferred pronouns or names", adding that this "should be dealt with in an appropriate manner". The pamphlet, obtained by The Telegraph, has been criticised by campaigners and a senior MP as "concerning" and "compelled belief".

The credibility of the disaster-addicted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been dealt a damaging blow with recently-published research showing that 42% of its climate scenarios rely on improbable rises in future temperature that even the UN-funded body believes are of "low likelihood". The research notes the IPCC admission of improbability is "deeply buried" in the full Sixth Assessment Reports (AR6), and is "unlikely to be read by the policy makers". The authors note that significant and important sections of the full IPCC work emphasise these improbable claims, "potentially invalidating those sections of the report". Climate and emissions outline SSP5-8.5 assumes a rise of around 5C by the end of the century. It was always somewhat detached from reality and has long been dealt a death blow, given that global warming ran out of steam about 25 years ago. Even the climate alarmist Zeke Hausfather is unimpressed, and his comments can be seen on the right of the...

Los Angeles officials are trying to stop the spread of the flesh-eating drug xylazine that has taken over the city. The 'zombie drug', a veterinary tranquilizer approved in the US for cows and horses, is now flooding the illicit US drug market, with dealers often cutting it with cocaine and heroin. But it is most often used to cut fentanyl, the lethally potent synthetic opioid that already kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. The drug has spread to Los Angeles of late, with news crews capturing people hunched over and on the ground, strung out on the drug. The problem, Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials say, is that the drug is technically a legal substance. The county is now desperately trying to track xylazine's presence throughout the city, according to KTLA.

Erin Lee, mother of a child whose daughter was invited to attend her school's secret gender club, joins The Faulkner Focus with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss the issue. A Colorado mother said her daughter was among a group of sixth-graders recruited to a deceptive after-school "art" club that turned out to be much more than it seemed. "When she got there, she very quickly learned it was actually a gender and sexuality awareness club," Erin Lee told Fox News' Harris Faulkner on Tuesday. "The art teacher had invited in an outside presenter into the classroom that day, and this woman did absolutely unthinkable things with the kids."

As we approach mid-May, the question on everyone's mind is "where is the big Ukrainian counteroffensive"? This much-touted event has been percolating in the western mainstream media and social media channels since the Fall of 2022, when the commanding general of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valeri Zaluzhnyi, informed the US and NATO-led Ukraine Contact Group during a meeting in Ramstein, Germany, about the shopping list of military equipment Ukraine would need to carry out a successful offensive operation designed to expel Russian troops from Ukrainian soil. Since that time, the collective West has been working overtime to provide much of this material support, along with the training necessary for Ukrainian troops to employ it using standard NATO combined arms offensive operational and tactical doctrine. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, announced in late April 2023 that NATO had delivered more than 98% of the equipment promised to Ukraine last fall, including more than...

May is normally when my garden starts to come into its own. I dust off the outdoor furniture, sit out and enjoy my collection of sub-tropical plants, from palm trees to yuccas. This year, however, I'm feeling as deflated as my enfeebled plants. My BBC weather colleagues and I often exchange stories about how our gardens are doing. Like mine, theirs have been nipped by all the sharp frosts we've had this spring. Meanwhile, people are stopping me in the street, asking when spring will finally arrive. And what have we done to deserve such cold, gloomy weather dragging on so long?

Known as one of Greece's most famous tourist destination islands, Santorini's unique beauty was, as many know, the result of the eruption of an ancient volcano one that is still alive to this day, as scientists remind us. In a CNN profile, scientists studying the volcano noted that although it hasn't erupted for hundreds of years, it is by no means dead. "If we start seeing increased activity in Kolumbo then we need to be alert," Tim Druitt, volcanologist and expedition co-chief of the deep drilling research vessel JOIDES Resolution, which visited Santorini for the first time late last year, told CNN. Capable of drilling up to 26,000 feet below the surface of the Aegean Sea, the researchers collected sediments that hadn't yet been uncovered as they attempted to scientifically piece together the region's storied volcanic history.

There are numerous symbolic links between Catalhoyuk (Central Turkey, 7100-6000 BCE) and Gobekli Tepe (southern Turkey, ~10,000-8000 BCE) that show they knew the same (or similar) astronomical zodiacal system. First, see here for a list of known 'Master/Mistress-of-Animals' symbols from around the Near Eastern region. Above is a 3rd millennium BCE example from Ur, Mesopotamia. We also have a Mistress-of-Animals, or Potnia Theron, at Catalhoyuk (above). This shows symbolism from the 8th millennium BCE survived until the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Before the escalation of the long-running Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine last year, America's nuclear power plants depended on Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for nearly half of their enriched uranium. Well over a year into the conflict, Washington has apparently failed to find alternatives. The Biden administration's failed quest to sanction the Russian economy into oblivion throughout the past year has included one massive exception this whole time - with the US continuing to buy Russian-sourced enriched uranium for use in nuclear power plants like there's no tomorrow. According to calculations by US business media, American companies purchased roughly $1 billion worth of Russian enriched uranium over the past year. Industry experts attribute the continued buy up of the key capabilities, with Russian nuclear giant Rosatom continuing to account for about a quarter of all enriched...

High-resolution imaging of radio emissions from an ultracool dwarf show a double-lobed structure like the radiation belts of Jupiter. Astronomers have described the first radiation belt observed outside our solar system, using a coordinated array of 39 radio dishes from Hawaii to Germany to obtain high-resolution images. The images of persistent, intense radio emissions from an ultracool dwarf reveal the presence of a cloud of high-energy electrons trapped in the object's powerful magnetic field, forming a double-lobed structure analogous to radio images of Jupiter's radiation belts. "We are actually imaging the magnetosphere of our target by observing the radio-emitting plasma its radiation belt in the magnetosphere. That has never been done before for something the size of a gas giant planet outside of our solar system," said Melodie Kao, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Cruz and first author of a paper on the new findings published May 15 in Nature. Strong magnetic fields...

Erdogan has learned from bitter experience to play hard ball with European capitals The Economist has surpassed itself in its clearly expressed hatred for an elected head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In its latest edition, it casts the Turkish presidential election as the most important that will take place this year, and claims that not just the future of Turkey but the future of democracy itself will hinge upon the result. "Most important, in an era when strongman rule is on the rise, from Hungary to India, the peaceful ejection of Mr Erdogan would show democrats everywhere that strongmen can be beaten," it opines. This is an enormously stupid thing to say.

"CBS Saturday Morning" featured a segment suggesting adding insects into a diet could provide benefits for a growing world affected by climate change. To counter meat, soybean derived proteins or other high-carbon foods, the segment described efforts by climate experts and scientists to explore farming bugs to protect the planet. "We all know how important insects are for the environment, but climate researchers say bugs could be a game changer in the fight to protect the planet in ways you may not have imagined," host Dana Jacobson said.

A number of professional football players in France have drawn the ire of the nation's sports ministry for refusing to take part in an annual league-wide anti-homophobia campaign, French media have reported. Over the weekend, all teams in France's Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 divisions were required to wear uniforms featuring rainbow-colored numbers on the back as part of the initiative. However, players from several clubs, including Toulouse FC's Zakaria Aboukhlal and Nantes' Mostafa Mohamed, were omitted from the roster after they refused to wear the jerseys. Aboukhlal, who is Moroccan, wrote on social media that he "made the decision not to take part in the match" over the weekend and noted that he had "the highest regard for each individual, without judging their personal preferences, gender, religion, or background. It is a principle." "Respect is a value that I hold in high regard. This applies to others, but also to my own beliefs. I do not think I am the right person to participate...

American special forces have trained up foreign proxy fighters and sent them on 'kill-or-capture' missions without ascertaining whether they have histories of rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, or other human rights abuses, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing newly disclosed Pentagon documents. Such surrogates are paid, equipped, and deployed without any vetting required to verify that they have a clean human rights record, according to documents obtained by the NYT. The 'gap in rules' applies to proxy forces hired to carry out counterterrorism missions, as well as allied forces who are trained under an irregular warfare program designed to help countries that are at risk of invasion by larger neighbors. One such clandestine mission in Ukraine was allegedly terminated just before Moscow launched its military operation against Kiev's forces in February 2022, but some officials reportedly wish to restart it, according to a Washington Post report earlier this year.

Thousands of Japanese protesters assembled near Kadena Air Base in Okinawa to protest the US occupation of the island on Saturday, on the 51st anniversary of the island returning to Japanese control. The annual demonstration comes amid rising regional tensions as the US supplies Taiwan with weapons in what China views as open provocation. Chanting slogans including "Give us back our peaceful life" and "Osprey get out," the latter being a reference to US military helicopters, the demonstrators demanded the closure of the US' Okinawa bases. The island's inhabitants are weary of the pollution - both chemical and aural - produced by Washington's military outposts, as well as the high number of crimes committed by American servicemembers, from petty theft and drunk driving to rape and murder. Governor Denny Tamaki has urged the Japanese and US governments to reduce the Pentagon's footprint on the island, which hosts 70% of all US military facilities in Japan despite comprising just 1%...

The Philippines has staked its claim to a disputed area of the South China Sea by placing navigational buoys around the Spratly Islands, challenging Beijing's alleged sovereignty over the area. Five buoys bearing the country's national flag were placed around the islands between May 10 and May 12, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Sunday. They were all installed within Manila's 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and marked the "critical areas" of Patag Island, Kota Island, Panata Island and the Balagtas and Juan Felipe reefs. "This move highlights the Philippines' unwavering resolve to protect its maritime borders and resources and contribute to the safety of maritime trade," PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela said in a Twitter post.

1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Gulag Archipelago - there are many great books on 20th-century totalitarianism. But few of them have the power and poetry of Ernst Jnger's 1951 The Forest Passage. Both a man of his time - and ahead of his time - the German-born Jnger was not only a staunch but careful critic of tyranny; he could see through the "soft power" manipulations of much subtler forms of centralized oppression as well. And call it out for exactly what it was. Given Jnger's broad vision and deep insight, one could be forgiven for thinking that the The Forest Passage was written only yesterday. It is packed with perennial truths that apply to the politics and psychology of Western civilization over the last 100 or so years. Join us this week on MindMatters as we give Ernst Jnger's gem of a book its due, and begin to explore what it means to be, or become, a 'forest rebel'. Running Time: 01:07:36 Download: MP3 92.8 MB

The Ukrainian leader reportedly wanted to "occupy" Russian cities to gain leverage over Moscow... Despite public assurance that he would limit military action to his own country's 1991 borders, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky formed plans to conduct attacks deep inside Russia and suggested that Kiev "destroy" the industry of Hungary, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing leaked Pentagon documents. Citing US intelligence reports recently published on a gaming server, the Post described how Zelensky suggested at a meeting in January that his troops "conduct strikes in Russia," while moving across the border to "occupy unspecified Russian border cities" in order to "give Kiev leverage in talks with Moscow." Less than two months later, the Ukraine-based Russian Volunteer Corps launched a cross-border raid that left two civilians dead in Russia's Bryansk Region. A member of the group told Western media that Kiev had approved the attack, and further assaults have taken...

The Washington Post has cut a large segment from an interview with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, in which he pushed the newspaper to reveal alleged traitors in his ranks and angrily accused its reporters of aiding Russia by publishing information from leaked documents. The Post published a transcript of a lengthy interview with Zelensky on Saturday. After a discussion of a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, the newspaper asked whether his military intelligence agency - the GUR - had "back-channel contact" with Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military company Wagner Group. Citing recently leaked Pentagon documents, the Post explained to Zelensky that American spies noted a meeting between the president and GUR chief Kirill Budanov in February in which Budanov told him that he had learned of a Wagner plan to "destabilize Moldova," but could counter this alleged plan by exposing his own "dealings" with Prigozhin, thus portraying the Wagner boss...

If you were ever confused as to why the political left has been using the words 'white supremacy' every time they mention conservative ideals in their rhetoric, then you might just be a regular person trying to think logically. After all, millions of minorities are also conservative, libertarian and pro-constitution. Millions of minorities are anti-socialist, pro-2nd Amendment and pro-meritocracy. The accusation of white supremacy simply doesn't apply. Yet, this narrative continues. Why? It's called social conditioning - Tell a big enough lie, tell it thousands of times, and eventually the public might subconsciously associate conservatives or conservative principles with racism even if the claim is provably false. They will even suggest a conservative is a "white supremacist" despite the fact that he or she is not white. It's confusing because it defies all reason, but that's the point. You cannot reason with zealotry. You cannot argue facts with mental patients. Their goal is...

A new report detailing a series of leaked emails and comments from protected sources within the State Department has revealed that the agency "held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls, and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship," according to Reuters. Making matter worse, it happened while a Chinese balloon designed for intelligence gathering floated unimpeded across the country. At another time, words like 'treason,' and 'disloyalty' would be used to describe what the American people have seen from the Biden administration and particularly the Biden State Department. But today in the U.S., that's just business as usual it seems. According to Reuters, officials within the State Department were "alarmed" to discover that several delays were applied to the department's schedule of "competitive actions," a secret list of diplomatic maneuvers the Biden administration had planned in relation to China. A divide formed in the...

The arrest of two heavily armed French neo-Nazis returning from Ukraine highlights a looming problem for NATO states sponsoring the proxy war, and their conspiracy of silence on the nature of the threat. On April 24th 2023, two French neo-Nazis were jailed for 15 months, nine of which were suspended, for possessing assault rifle ammunition. The pair had returned to Paris from Ukraine two days earlier, and were arrested at customs. Both were on the radar of French domestic spying agency DGSI, which held files on them for endangering state security. According to the French outlet Mediapart, one was a veteran of Chasseurs Alpins (Alpine Hunters), France's elite mountain infantry force. He was thrown out of the military after his neo-Nazi sympathies were exposed online. The other is a notorious local far-right activist. As in many other Western countries, hundreds of French citizens have traveled to Kiev to take up arms against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022....

Hungarian billionaire George Soros has influenced many judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Friday. He was referring to a 2020 report which revealed that 22 out of 100 ECHR judges who served between 2009 and 2019 had "strong ties" to Soros, whether through his Open Society Foundation or intermediary NGOs that received funding from the organization. Medvedev, who worked as a lawyer before entering politics, was speaking at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum about the problems of the modern judiciary. "For many years, these judges literally ate out of his hand and, on direction from across the ocean, stamped biased court verdicts - which, by the way, have not been revised even after these corruption scandals." Russia withdrew from all treaties forcing it to accept ECHR jurisdiction in September 2022, and a law declaring all of the court's verdicts null and void on its territory went into effect in March.

Iran and Egypt are on track to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has said. MP Fada-Hossein Maleki added that President Ebrahim Raisi and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, will meet in person in the near future. Speaking to Iran's Tasnim news agency on Sunday, Maleki said that talks between Tehran and Cairo are currently being held in Iraq. The lawmaker described the atmosphere during the negotiations as positive. In January, the Iranian Foreign Ministry revealed that its head, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, sat down with the Egyptian head of state in late 2022. The ministry spokesperson said at the time that the two countries "have basically no problem for dialogue, meetings, and exchange of views."

New York City had reportedly promised not to send migrants upstate after vehement protest from local governments... Twenty homeless veterans were kicked out of hotels in Newburgh, New York where they had been given temporary shelter, in order to make way for illegal immigrants bused north from New York City, veterans' advocates told local media on Friday, eliciting outrage from across the political spectrum. Sharon Toney-Finch, CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, told Mid Hudson News on Saturday: "Over the last week, many of our homeless veterans... were informed that they had to leave their temporary housing. The veterans were staying in several hotels that were preparing to receive migrants from New York City." The veterans were due to stay for a month at the hotels while permanent housing was secured, only to be shown the door two weeks into their stay, according to Toney-Finch. Local politicians were outraged at the report.

This week, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) tried to do the impossible. After he and his colleagues presented a labyrinth of LLC shell companies and accounts used to funnel as much as $10 million to Biden family members, Donalds tried to induce the press to show some interest in the massive corruption scandal. "For those in the press, this easy pickings & Pulitzer-level stuff right here," he pleaded. The response was virtually immediate. Despite showing nine Biden family members allegedly receiving funds from corrupt figures in Romania, China and other countries, The New Republic quickly ran a story headlined "Republicans Finally Admit They Have No Incriminating Evidence on Joe Biden." For many of us, it was otherworldly. A decade ago, when then-Vice President Joe Biden was denouncing corruption in Romania and Ukraine and promising action by the United States, massive payments were flowing to his son Hunter Biden and a variety of family members, including Biden grandchildren.

In September 2022, President Biden released an Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology. Then, In March 2023, he released a document entitled Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, outlining specific areas of focus in this bioengineering manifesto. The goals in these documents sound very nice. They're all about using new technology to fight climate change, increase the food supply, cure diseases, and strengthen national security by increasing domestic manufacturing. Is that really the goal? However, I believe that these goals will be used to grab land from existing farmers and ranchers. Farmers and ranchers need to turn a profit to pay taxes on their land; as actions are taken to achieve these goals all but the largest will be driven out of business. This will occur via a combination of oppressive regulations in the name of climate change, and lawsuits regarding patent-protected crops. This probably sounds a little crazy, but the crazy people have been getting a...

Russian intelligence "knows what to do" about Kiev's pledge to continue "killing Russians anywhere," Dmitry Peskov has said Ukraine has de-facto turned into a "state-sponsor of terrorism," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The official made the remarks in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin that aired on Sunday. The spokesman was asked for comments about a recent pledge by Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, who vowed to "keep killing Russians anywhere" across the globe. Despite their explosive nature, the remarks did not face any criticism from Kiev's Western sponsors, Peskov noted. "The statement is unprecedented in its essence. And of course, it will be strange not to hear any words of condemnation from European capitals and from Washington. Logic says it's impossible to do without condemnation," he said.

Are moral standards real, relative, or both? Reading through Hill's overview of the history of western philosophy in After the Natural Law, I was reminded of a thought: that this history and development has largely been an ongoing battle between two opposing worldviews, with land lost and regained over the millennia. Materialism and idealism. Absolutism and relativism. Atheism and theism. Their seeds are all there in the ancient Greeks. But the land itself remains largely the same. And perhaps therein lies part of the answer: it is all the same land. As in, both positions occupy some ground, but like changing borders they miss the wider truth: that the land itself encompasses both. Reality can tolerate either extreme position, to a degree, because each takes into account a part of reality as a whole. But they are incomplete on their own, and when either demands exclusive worship like some tribal god, they commit a form of philosophical blasphemy. Borrowing somewhat from political...