Signs Of The Times RSS

1. Straight talk: All Ukrainian presidents are thieves - Lukashenko

   A once "prosperous" country has been ruined by its leaders and "oligarchs," the Belarusian president has claimed Ukraine has devolved into a Western-style oligarchy where all of its leaders are only interested in "plundering" the country and getting rich, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday during an address to the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, a gathering of high-profile officials and public figures. Lukashenko fired a broadside at the neighboring country, accusing its presidents and "oligarchs" of stealing Ukraine's riches. The process began immediately after Ukraine became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has worsened over time, Lukashenko argued.

2. The first bioluminescent animals may have been ancient corals deep in the ocean

   Many animals can glow in the dark. Fireflies famously blink on summer evenings. But most animals that light up are found in the depths of the ocean. In a new study, scientists report that deep-sea corals that lived 540 million years ago may have been the first animals to glow, far earlier than previously thought. "Light signaling is one of the earliest forms of communication that we know of — it's very important in deep waters," said Andrea Quattrini, a co-author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

3. Seven alleged members of a 'youth terror cell' arrested in sweeping raids across Sydney, Australia, after bishop church stabbing

   Seven young people have been arrested in counter-terrorism raids across Sydney in response to last week's Sydney church stabbing. More than 400 members of a joint counter-terrorism team from state and federal police forces began kicking down doors at 13 homes in the city's south-west at about 11.15am on Wednesday. The sweeping raids were carried out in response to the April 15 attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at the Assyrian church, Christ The Good Shepherd Church, in Wakeley - which was declared a religiously motivated terror incident. New South Wales Police said there was no specific threat to public safety and the raids had no connection to Anzac Day commemorations on Thursday. However, the national terrorism threat level remains at 'possible'.

4. Sanity: Judge declares mistrial in case of Arizona rancher charged with murder of Mexican national on border property

   Jurors did not reach a unanimous verdict in the murder trial of Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly A jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly, who was accused of second-degree murder in connection to the death of a Mexican national found fatally shot on his borderland ranch in January 2023. The jury began deliberating April 18. After days of being unable to reach a verdict, the judge overseeing the trial declared a mistrial on Monday. The case centered around the death of Mexican national Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, who was found shot to death on Kelly's 170-acre cattle ranch near Keno Springs outside Nogales, Arizona, on Jan. 30, 2023. Kelly's defense has countered the prosecution's argument that Cuen-Buitimea was an unarmed migrant and has suggested cartel influence mired the death investigation.

5. Elon Musk blasts Australia's 'censorship' after court orders X to take down terror attack video

   Elon Musk slammed Australia's prime minister on Tuesday after a court ordered his social media company X to remove footage of a terror attack against a Sydney cleric — arguing the decision could effectively allow one country to control "the entire internet." Musk has come under fire from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and government officials for not deleting the video showing a teenager stab a priest and two others last week. X had geo-blocked the footage from its Australian users but did not delete the clip from its servers. Australia's e-Safety Commissioner argued the content should be taken down since it showed explicit violence. "Does the PM think he should have jurisdiction over all of Earth?" Musk wrote on X.

6. The world's most censored democracy

   Australia is rapidly becoming the most censored "democracy" in the world. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) regulates all media from broadcasting, telecommunications, online search results, video games, to social media platforms. The Classification Board and Classification Review Board decides what information Australians can and cannot see. The government has even appointed an eSafety Commissioner to specifically oversee "online safety" and prohibit Australians from viewing anything the government deems unfit. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel is an Orthodox Christian priest with a massive online following. Mari preaches at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, delivering powerful messages that have been resonating with believers and non-believers alike. Everyone is aware that Australia has a migrant crisis no different from other developed nations. A few weeks ago, Mari was delivering a sermon when an Islamic extremist approached him with a knife....

7. Ukraine to deny consular services to draft dodgers abroad

   Ukrainian consular offices will not serve fighting-age men living abroad who are unwilling to risk their lives for their country's survival, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Tuesday. Kiev's diplomatic missions in several Western nations stopped processing such service requests on Tuesday, according to multiple Ukrainian media reports. Documents that have been finalized for fighting-age Ukrainian men are being withheld, reports claim. Kuleba confirmed in a social media post on Tuesday that he had ordered the policy change and that it is meant to encourage men to come back to Ukraine for possible call up for military service. "How it looks like now: a man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war." The order to deny consular services to all men aged 18 to 60 was first revealed by Ukrainian media on Monday. Kuleba has...

8. BBC, Guardian raise alarm about 'deadly' heatwaves in Mali and Burkina Faso, despite little rise in average temperatures last 85 years

   Legacy media filled its columns last week with poppycock 'attribution' stories suggesting that recent heatwaves in Mali (the hottest country in the world), Burkina Faso and the rest of the Sahel would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption. Needless to say, a number of important facts were missing from this latest bout of climate catastrophism. Average temperatures in both Mali and Burkina Faso have barely risen in the last 85 years, rainfall in both countries has increased slightly in recent times, agricultural production is up, while de-desertification is under way across the entire Sahel region. This last fact is never likely to be mentioned in these footling stories dreamed up to promote Net Zero collectivisation. To do so would be to open a Pandora's Box showing global plant levels have accelerated due to the recovering levels of carbon dioxide in a previously denuded atmosphere. A recent science paper revealed that over the last two decades, plant growth...

9. Voyager 1 resumes sending readable status updates after 5 months of repairs

   The pioneering Voyager 1 deep-space probe is once again sending usable engineering updates back to Earth after five months of repairs, NASA officials announced Monday. Voyager 1, which along with its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space, has not been able to send readable data about its health or scientific mission since Nov. 14. But following lengthy and sophisticated attempts to establish a technological work-around, NASA revealed Monday its engineers had succeeded in once again receiving Voyager's engineering status updates that can be deciphered.

10. What an inner monologue can reveal about you

    While experts disagree on how common self-talk really is, they wholeheartedly agree that it's a valuable tool for self-discovery. While writing this, I caught myself talking to... myself. Between clicks on the keyboard, I realized I was having an internal conversation about an encounter I'd had the night before. Why, out of the blue, would I interrupt the work I was doing to chat with myself about something that seemed so inconsequential? If you ask that question of experts in self-talk — colloquially, "talking to ourselves" or more formally the "inner monologue" — one clinical response might be that I wasn't avoiding the task at hand. Instead, and much more intriguingly, I was possibly experiencing a close encounter with the real "me" through a deeply personal internal dialogue. Russell Hurlburt, psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, would say that the words I used in my inner conversation might've represented a "pristine inner experience" which would take me, in...

11. 'Extraordinary': George Washington's 250-year-old cherries, full wine bottles, found buried at Mount Vernon , USA

    The forgotten cherries were supposed to be served on George Washington's dinner table, but became a time capsule instead, sitting untouched since at least 1776 Archaeologists found something incredibly rare in the cellar of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon: Two intact jars of cherries buried in the basement of the first U.S. president's house. Nick Beard, project archeologist at Mount Vernon, told USA TODAY on Tuesday that he had been excavating the basement "for quite a while" when he saw the lip of one of the jars in November. When the bottle started to peek out from the earth, he proceeded carefully but said he didn't think it would turn out to be anything out of the ordinary, adding that it's common to find wine bottles and glasses at the site about 15 miles south of Washington, D.C.

12. Quebec farmers have been protesting since December - is anyone listening?

    On Monday morning in Sherbrooke, Que., dozens of tractors slowly rolled along a stretch of road between the regional offices of Quebec's farmers' association and the Agriculture Department a few hundred meters away. Upset about high interest rates, growing paperwork and heavy regulatory burdens, protesting farmers have become a familiar sight across Quebec since December. "It's pretty hard to get farmers out of their farms, because they've got so many hours to put in, but to see them going out, it means that there is really something going bad in farming right now," said Benjamin Boivin, a corn and wheat farmer in Quebec's Estrie region, east of Montreal, who was out protesting on Monday.

13. Biden signs $95bn aid bill to be sent 'right away' - for wars in Ukraine, Israel, and provocations in Taiwan

    US President Joe Biden has signed a $95bn (£76bn) package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. "It's going to make America safer, it's going to make the world safer," he said after signing the bill into law. The president said the US would "right away" send fresh weapons and equipment to Ukraine to help Kyiv fend off Russian advances. Comment: The West has depleted much of its weapon stocks, so much of the money is to go to US weapons manufacturers to actually make the weapons, first. He spoke a day after the US Senate approved the aid package following months of congressional gridlock.

14. The granny argument: Russian warfare threatening British grannies - ex-UK defense chief

    Moscow 'condones' online scams that target the UK's elderly, Ben Wallace has claimed The UK is facing certain forms of "unconventional warfare" waged by its enemies, potentially including Moscow-backed online scams that target the elderly, former British Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace has claimed. The Conservative MP, who resigned from the cabinet last August, told Sky News on Wednesday that the world today reminded him of the interwar periods during the last century. The situation, Wallace explained, is similar to "the 1930s, but with an added challenge of terrorism and a challenge of unconventional warfare." As examples of the latter, he cited "disinformation campaigns, the enemies in this country using cyber to divide us, to rob from us, to spy on us, and to create frictions in our society." When asked by host Kay Burley which nation posed the biggest threat to the UK, Wallace said it was Russia. Comment: It is a little rich to blame Russia for frictions in the society in the...

15. Heavy snowfall at the end of April continues in the Alps - meter of snow in 3 days

    The snowy end to April in the Alps shows no sign of abating with a number of resorts posting up to a metre of snowfall in the last three days. The latest big falls come after Gstaad's Glacier 3000 ski areas reported a 1.5m (five foot) accumulation in a similar period last week. At the start of this week it's Austria's Stubai Glacier (pictured top earlier this week) in Tirol region, which has had over a metre of snowfall and is now posting Europe's deepest snow up high at 5.65 metres (nearly 19 feet), one of the deepest snowpacks reported all season. It's staying open to late May. Switzerland's Engelberg, also open into May, is the latest to report nearly a metre (97cm) of snowfall in 72 hours and reports its snow 4 metres deep on the glacier. Around 30 ski regions remain open in the Alps for the final week of April with around half of them planning to stay open into May.

16. Softball-size hail smashes windows, destroys homes in the Carolinas: 'All hail broke loose'

    Severe thunderstorms brought a massive hailstorm to the Carolinas on Saturday, blasting out windows, tearing down fences and leaving yards covered in enough ice to create the appearance of a fresh blanket of snow. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was in effect for Rock Hill, Fort Mill and Tega Cay in South Carolina on Saturday at 4:45 p.m. ET. The warning included the potential for winds of up to 70 mph and huge hail. Warnings were also in effect for central North Carolina through Saturday night into early Sunday morning. During the severe thunderstorms on Saturday and Sunday, the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina, received hail reports ranging from quarter to golf ball size. Teams with the National Weather Service office in Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, conducted surveys on Monday in Rock Hill and York to assess the damage from Saturday's severe thunderstorms.

17. Death toll from floods rises to 38 in Kenya as over 110,000 displaced

    The death toll from the ongoing floods in the country has hit 38, with the Kenya Red Cross now warning that the flood situation is moving from an emergency to a disaster level. Over 60 families in Kirinyaga County have been rendered homeless after River Thiba burst its banks, leaving behind a trail of misery and destruction. The affected residents were rudely woken up during the night by waters from the flooded river, forcing hundreds including children to spend the night in the cold after their homes were completely submerged. Property of unknown value was also destroyed by the floods. "It is bad, it is a disaster. The people we find mostly getting affected are the people without alternatives, we are trying as much as possible with our teams to map out the populations at risk," Venant Ndhigila, Head of disaster Operations, Kenya Red Cross, said.

18. BEST OF THE WEB: Royal Household Calvary horses bolt through London after throwing riders off, just as Big Ben clock 'stops working'

    Something weird - and perhaps symbolic, though of what we're unsure - happened in London, UK, this morning. Media reports that two riderless military horses were seen galloping through central London at rush hour on Wednesday morning. They were caught after about two hours, local police said. Photos and video posted on social media and by British news outlets showed the horses running along busy roads, dodging buses, taxis and other traffic. Both were wearing saddles and bridles, with one - a white one - apparently covered in blood on its chest and forelegs.

19. Greece: Orange Sahara dust haze descends over Athens

    A dramatic orange haze has descended over Athens as clouds of dust have blown in from the Sahara desert. It is one of the worst such episodes to hit Greece since 2018, according to officials. Greece had already been struck by similar clouds in late March and early April, which also covered areas of Switzerland and southern France. The skies are predicted to clear on Wednesday, says Greece's weather service. Air quality has deteriorated in many areas of the country and on Wednesday morning the Acropolis in Athens was no longer visible because of the dust. The cloud has reached as far north as Thessaloniki.

20. Study suggests human occupation in Patagonia prior to the Younger Dryas period

    Archaeologists have conducted a study of lithic material from the Pilauco and Los Notros sites in north-western Patagonia, revealing evidence of human occupation in the region prior to the Younger Dryas period. The Younger Dryas, which occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years BP), was a cooling event which marked a return to glacial conditions, temporarily reversing the climatic warming of the preceding Late Glacial Interstadial. The period in which humans arrived in South America, in particular, north-western Patagonia, has been the subject of an ongoing debate by academics for many years. Previous archaeological evidence and palaeogenetic studies have suggested human presence between 16 600 and 15 100 cal BP, however, a new study published in the journal Antiquity is providing new evidence of pre-Holocene human activity during the late Pleistocene-early Holocene transition.

21. Ukraine freezes all consular services for military-aged men abroad

    Those eligible to serve will now have to return home to procure documents or update their passports Ukrainian consulates are set to "temporarily suspend" all services to men between the ages of 18 and 60, who will only be able to procure documents by returning home, Ukraine's Minister for Foreign Affairs has confirmed. The measure is set to be enacted on Tuesday and remain in place until the foreign ministry receives guidelines on the controversial mobilization law that was signed by President Vladimir Zelensky last week. The new legislation, which had been deliberated for weeks by the country's parliament before being adopted, is set to take effect in May.

22. Did 50 Nova festival survivors commit suicide? Shocking testimonial heard at Israel's Knesset

    'This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since' says Guy Ben Shimon, a survivor from the Nova Music Festival, during a parliamentary hearing in Israel Following the Hamas-led massacre at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, about fifty survivors have committed suicide, revealed Guy Ben Shimon. Ben Shimon, a survivor of the massacre, spoke on Tuesday at a Parliamentary hearing for a State Audit Commission on the treatment of the survivors of October 7. "Few people know, but there have been almost 50 suicides among the Nova survivors. This number, which was true two months ago, may have increased since," Ben Shimon said, emphasizing that many of his friends who escaped the massacre could not recover from what they had experienced.

23. BEST OF THE WEB: Macron lawyers bring forward defamation trial against authors who theorized France's 'First Lady' is a man

    Brigitte Macron has brought forward her libel trial against Natacha Rey, who made bizarre claims that the French First lady was born a man. The hearing has been moved from March 2025 to June 19, 2024, at the request of Macron's lawyer following Rey's claims that she was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux. Since the interview with Rey, 48, on a YouTube channel at the end of 2021, lawyer Jean Ennochi said the rumours surrounding French President Emmanuel Macron's 70-year-old wife had continued to be fuelled. Ennochi therefore requested the hearing to be sped up, as concerns around how the rumours have spread beyond France and into the United States have arisen. He also said: 'In recent weeks, particularly internationally, via the Trumpist influencer Candace Owens, who relayed, I felt that the harm to my clients was increasing day by day'. Comment: "Trumpist influencer"!?

24. Notre Dame Cathedral renovation is almost complete

    Five years after the fire at Notre-Dame, the iconic cathedral in Paris now has a roof and a tower again. The reconstruction is almost complete in what is no less than a national tour de force that has led to rare unity in a divided republic. Comment: Perhaps, but only unity in the sense of the majority of people against the Parisian elites. It is rare that gaps need to be closed in the sky. In this case, though, it was urgently needed. For almost five years, Parisians looked into a sad emptiness when they walked past Notre-Dame and looked up. The void reminded them of a national trauma: the evening of April 15, 2019, when smoke first rose from the Gothic building and flames then shot out of the roof. With every catastrophe, there is a moment when the hope dies that the drama can still be averted. On that evening in April, it was the minute the glowing tower plunged into the depths. On both banks of the Seine to the left and right of the Île de la Cité, people stood and shouted,...

25. 'Goldene': The gilded cousin of graphene that is also one atom thick

    Sheets of gold might find use as catalysts, or in light-sensing devices. It is the world's thinnest gold leaf: a gossamer sheet of gold just one atom thick. Researchers have synthesized1 the long-sought material, known as goldene, which is expected to capture light in ways that could be useful in applications such as sensing and catalysis. Goldene is a gilded cousin of graphene, the iconic atom-thin material made of carbon that was discovered in 2004. Since then, scientists have identified hundreds more of these 2D materials. But it has been particularly difficult to produce 2D sheets of metals, because their atoms have always tended to cluster together to make nanoparticles instead.

26. Six minutes of Time magazine: The deadliest propagandists on Earth

    It's a six-minute read, or so Six Minutes of Time Magazine: The Deadliest Propagandists on Earth. Before I dove in, my first question was, "Who wrote this?" I guess you already suspect some would-be propaganda expert. And Peter Pomerantsev is the spurt in question. Now, if I may, allow me to poke holes like the Swiss in this cheesy bit of Putin-phobia. Before I launch into this Time Magazine horse manure, it's significant to note that Pomerantsev hatched his genius Putin hate piece with a catchy story about traveling to Kyiv from Poland. Please, let's face it: anybody traveling from Poland to Ukraine's capital is never going to be carrying any good news about Russia. Let's address the author's (or Time's ownership's) the biggest question. Do Russians believe the news in Russia? I am told by most Russians I know that, like any other media market in the world, a lot depends on who you are reading, watching, or listening to. That said, the best way to shred Time Magazine's propaganda...

27. US lawmaker demands 'proof' of CIA's Russia scare

    If there is evidence that Moscow plans a march across Europe, Americans deserve to see it, congresswoman says... US intelligence agencies should provide proof of the Russian expansionism they claim justifies a new $61 billion war chest for Ukraine, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has insisted. The "proxy war" they are funding will inevitably end in defeat for Kiev, she claimed. Speaking on Monday in an interview with former White House aide Steve Bannon, Greene pushed back against claims that Russian forces will take Poland and continue "marching across Europe" if they are allowed to defeat Ukraine. She noted that US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) only agreed to the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill, which was approved on Saturday, after hearing intelligence briefings hyping the Russian threat. Greene said: "If the American people are going to have to pay for it, then show us this proof that was shown to Mike Johnson in the SCIF [sensitive compartment...

28. The bad faith olympics

    "This is the weirdest era in human history. By far. Nothing else even comes close. Billionaires trying to kill everyone. Civil society unable to form a coherent thought. Institutions lie in smoldering ruins. Poisons handed out like candy. We are Neanderthals with iPhones." — Dr. Toby Rogers Did it warm your heart to see all those blue and yellow Ukrainian flags waved by our elected officials in Congress Saturday night with the passage of the $60-plus-billion aid bill to the Palookaville of Europe? You realize, don't you, that the tiny fraction of that hypothetical "money" — from our country's empty treasury — that ever reaches Ukraine will rebound on the instant into Mr. Zelensky's Cayman Islands bank account. The rest of the dough enters the recursive shell-game between US weapons-makers and the very hometown folks in Congress waving those blue and yellow flags, who will receive great greasy gobs of fresh "campaign donations" from the grateful bomb and missile producers. No wonder...

29. Revealed - The documents the state didn't want you to see before the referendums

    Documents provided to Gript under FOI show that senior officials in the Department of Justice believed that amending Article 41 of the Constitution to include non-marital families, as proposed by the Government in a recent referendum, would undermine, or even outright destroy, the ability of the State to operate an effective immigration system. One email seen by Gript shows senior officials in the Department being told that "The State has been able to maintain an immigration system so far precisely because Article 41 is applied to a small, tightly-defined group of people. The State will not be able to regulate immigration if this protection is applied any more widely." In one of the two referendums held in March of this year the Government attempted to expand the definition of family in Article 41 to include non-marital families which were based on "durable relationships."

30. What Happened to America's Anti-Fascist Traditions?

    Americans once took great pride in the defeat of the Nazi scourge that threatened to run roughshod over the 20th century and beyond. Under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt, America mobilized not only to heal from the devastation of the Great Depression, but also became a global leader of industrial power supplying the Allies with the tools they needed to fight the war before entering the fight herself in 1941. Coming out of that scarring experience, there was great hope that the world would finally be raised out of the fires of imperialism, poverty and war. The UN charter enshrined Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, respect for sovereignty and a mandate for economic cooperation into law giving hope that a new age of brotherhood was upon us. Despite certain pushbacks by US Statesmen to the Anglo-American special relationship, and military industrial complex that began to take on a life of its own, FDR's vision for world peace continued to die throughout the Cold War. Perhaps it was...

31. The 2024 Olympics in Paris, echoes of Berlin 1936

    Berlin, Germany, in 1936, hosted the Olympic Games fraught with international tensions. The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had seized power in 1933. Berlin won the bid to host the games at the 29th International Olympic Committee Session on April 26, 1931. It was the first time that the quadrennial sporting event was to be televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries. Germany wanted to show the world that it was a modern, prosperous, and democratic country. For the occasion, the anti-Semitic slogans were removed, which not only concerned Jews but also Gypsies (Romani), the Slavic people, Africans and Asians. Comparisons can be readily made with the international tensions and vested political ambitions of the 2024 Olympics to be held in Paris from July 26 to August 11. French President Emmanuel Macron has personally sought to make the event a showcase for presumed national prowess. The political orchestration and propaganda efforts are similar to the Berlin games of 1936....

32. Kona Blue insiders reveal how US agencies allegedly involved in legacy UFO programs rattled Department of Homeland Security officials

    According to insiders involved in establishing an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) related Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS staff emerged from meetings with two other U.S. government agencies, rumored to possess advanced non-human materials, 'convinced that advanced technology was sequestered under government supervision at aerospace contractors' facilities.' The book, titled Skinwalkers at the Pentagon details how in 2011 high-level officials at the DHS, Sacha Mover and Jim Bell, 'began knocking on doors beyond DHS to connect with the "keepers of the secrets" in at least two other agencies.' The account continues: 'In these meetings, which took place in June-July 2011, Sacha, Jim, and colleagues were treated rudely and harshly.' 'Bell and Mover were repeatedly told "no, and hell no."' The narrative of these events was penned by journalist George Knapp, along with Dr. James Lacatski and Dr. Colm Kelleher. Kelleher...

33. Iranian lawmaker hints that nuclear test capabilities would take just 1 week

    Iranian lawmaker Javad Karimi Ghoddusi says there is only "a one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test" of a nuclear bomb, despite previous assertions of peaceful intentions. His Monday statement on X came amidst escalating tensions with Israel and just hours after the Iranian foreign ministry reiterated that nuclear weapons have no place in Iran's military doctrine. Ghoddusi, who is known for his hardline stance in domestic and foreign policy, also made provocative comments prior to Iran's missile and drone attack against Israel, warning that attempts to assassinate 'Resistance Front' personalities worldwide would be met with retaliation with Iranian missiles.

34. US House votes to protect every country not named the United States

    In a landmark bipartisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to protect every country in the entire world, as long as that country isn't named the United States. "Huzzah! We've done it!" Exclaimed Democrats and Republicans as they tearfully hugged each other. "Every single nation on the planet can enjoy the total protection of the United States military! Except the United States. We didn't have time to add that to the bill. Maybe later." The representatives then joyfully called their defense lobbyist donors to tell them the happy news. "We are proud to fulfill our sacred duty to all the nations everywhere," said Congressman Dan Crenshaw. "Our military now stands at the ready to protect Brazil, India, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Italy, Argentina, France, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Thailand, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Vietnam, Philippines, Pakistan, South Korea, Bangladesh, Colombia, Poland, Ukraine,...

35. 15-month-old child dead after pit bull attack in Italy

    A 15-month-old boy is dead after being attacked by two Pit bull terriers in the town of Campolongo, near the southern city of Salerno, sources said on Monday. "This morning there was an attack by a dog on a child who was in the arms of his mother, at least that is what I have been told," said Mario Conte, the mayor of Eboli, the municipality Campolongo belongs to. "He was literally ripped from her arms and bitten. "The veterinary service will take away both dogs, who do not belong to the family hit by the tragedy, but to another family that lives in the same residence. "It was a ferocious attack and, even though one of the child's uncles intervened to try and free him, nothing could be done.

36. Germany's Zugspitze sees 3 feet of Spring snow in 5 days

    Germany's tallest mountain, the Zugspitze with an elevation of 9,718 feet (2,962 meters), received 16 inches (40 cm) of snow in the last 24 hours and around 3.3 feet (1 meter) in the last five days. Snow conditions at the Zugpitze Ski Area are perfect right now, despite the resort having started preparing for the summer season. Thanks to the resort being home to one of the last remaining German glaciers and its high altitude, the Zugspitze is open for skiing until May each year. This year the season is scheduled to end on May 1, 2024. Current snowdepth at the Zugspitze, which is measured at the measuring station at 7,382 feet (2,250 meters), is 147 inches (372 cm). The Zugspitze ski area offers 12.5 miles (20 km) of groomed ski runs across three peaks, the Schneefernerkopf at 9,429 feet (2,874 meters), Wetterwandeck 8,852 feet (2,698 meters), and Zugspitze or Zugspitze plateau at 8,530 feet (2,600 meters). The ski area can usually be accessed from Germany as well as Austria,...

37. Mudflows hit several settlements in Kyrgyzstan

    Several settlements in Nooken district, Jalal-Abad region were hit by mudflows in the evening of April 22. Mudflows hit Boston and Kok-Tash villages, flooding roads and streets. The Bishkek-Osh road was blocked partially. The flows of mud washed away the protection facility in Boston village, posing threat to Eski Kochkor-Ata village. The local authorities made the decision to evacuate people. Residents of 300 houses are evacuated.

38. Former Obama aide Rahamim Shy charged with crimes against children

    The ex-adviser, who also worked with Hillary Clinton, has been accused of possessing indecent images and arranging commission of a sexual offense in the UK. A former White House aide who advised then-President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on counterterrorism initiatives has reportedly been accused of committing child sex crimes in the UK. Rahamim 'Rami' Shy, 46, was arraigned on Friday in Luton Crown Court, near London. He faces charges of possessing indecent images of children and arranging the commission of a child sexual offense, according to local media reports. The New Jersey resident was arrested in late February and jailed at HMP Bedford pending court proceedings. Shy, who has not yet entered a plea to the charges, is scheduled for another court hearing in June, the Daily Mail reported. His case is slated to go to trial in August. The defendant held multiple roles in the Obama administration, reportedly including coordination of the US government's...

39. Kurzeme in Latvia sees thick layer of April snow

    On Tuesday morning, the thickest snow layer was formed in Kurzeme, according to the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center (LVĢMC). From where LVĢMC is taking measurements, the deepest snow this morning at 9:00 was 11 centimeters in Talsi municipality Stende, while a nine-centimetre thick layer of snow had formed in Saldus in the early hours of the morning. Elsewhere in official weather watch stations, the snow cover has been thinner. Residents from several locations in Kurzeme report as much as a 15-20 centimeter thick layer of snow.

40. Tallinn in Estonia blanketed in thick April snow

    Tallinn and Harju County saw a night of snow which has covered the land in a fluffy coat. The snow is still coming down Tuesday morning, with drivers who have changed their tires to the summer variety urged to leave their vehicles home. Tuesday will be cloudy, with sleet, snow and in places rain forecast. Blizzards are not out of the question either. The precipitation is forecast to ease up moving into the evening, with clearer patches of sky possible in the west of the country. Westerlies of 4-9 meters per second are in store, 16 m/s during gusts. The temperature will rise from 0 degrees Celsius in the morning to around 4 degrees later in the day. As the precipitation moves west, driving conditions will suffer in Northern and Western Estonia. The wintry mix can come down hard at times, while freezing rain is not out of the question either. Road surface temperatures are near-zero and precipitation can make them extremely slippery, the Transport Administration warns.

41. 500,000 Ukrainian troop 'losses' since beginning of SMO - Shoigu

    The Russian armed forces have the initiative along the entire contact line and are pushing the enemy away from the occupied borders, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the Defense Ministry's board. Ukraine has lost almost half a million soldiers since the beginning of the special military operation in 2022, Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. "In total, the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces amounted to almost half a million military personnel since the beginning of the special military operation," Shoigu told a Defense Ministry meeting.

42. Malaysia: 10 dead after navy helicopters collide mid-air during training, 3 days after similar incident with Japan's Navy

    The two helicopters crashed during training for a flyover for Malaysia's 90th Naval Day celebrations. Ten people have died after two helicopters collided in mid-air during a rehearsal for a Royal Malaysian Navy parade. The incident took place at the Malaysian navy's Lumut Base - 100 miles (160km) northwest of the capital Kuala Lumpur - at around 9.30am local time. The crash involved an AW139 maritime operations helicopter, with seven crew members, and a navy Fennec, with three crew members. "All the victims were confirmed to have died at the scene and were sent to the Lumut Base Army Hospital for the identification process," the navy said in a statement.

43. Lebensraum? Germany holds massive military drills near Russian border

    More than 3,000 German military personnel are taking part in the Grand Quadriga 2024 drills that kicked off in Lithuania on Tuesday. The maneuvers are part of the larger, months-long Steadfast Defender 24 series of NATO exercises that began in late January. Lithuania shares a border with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, as well as Moscow's closest ally, Belarus. In a separate development earlier this month, Berlin deployed an advanced military team to the Baltic country as part of plans for a full-strength armor brigade permanently stationed there. Moscow has described the plans as a threat requiring "special measures" in response. The Grand Quadriga 2024 exercise is scheduled to wrap up in late May, and will involve 200 pieces of German military hardware, including Leopard tanks as well as Puma and Boxer infantry fighting vehicles.

44. New Delhi chokes as 65 metre 'Trash mountain' fire spreads hazardous fumes

    India's capital choked on toxic fumes Tuesday, as a thick and pungent haze spread from a fire at a towering trash dump, the latest in a series of landfill blazes that authorities have struggled for years to bring under control. Sections of the Ghazipur landfill in New Delhi burst into flames on Sunday, causing dangerous heat and methane emissions and adding to India's growing climate challenges. Comment: This is hardly a 'climate challenge'... By Tuesday, the blaze at the capital's largest landfill had largely been put out, but people living nearby complained of throat and eye irritation due to lingering acrid air, according to local media reports. The cause of the fire remains unknown; landfill blazes are often triggered by combustible gases from disintegrating garbage.

45. Helsinki shuts down tram network after late April snowfall in Finland

    Helsinki's tram network shut down completely on Tuesday, after freezing rain and snowfall iced up overhead power lines and jammed the points at various points around the network. The freak April weather left several trams stuck along the number 15 line, and with winter maintenance machines already in storage for the summer, operators made the decision to cancel all tram services for the whole day. Services are expected to re-start on Wednesday morning on a reduced timetable. Many HSL bus services were also delayed or cancelled, with driving conditions described as 'very bad' by the Meteorological Institute. Metro services and commuter trains were running normally, although K and I trains were on a reduced timetable. "This is a very unusual situation, but this weather is also unusual," said Helsinki Region Transport (Finnish acronym HSL) press officer Johannes Laitila, who urged travellers to allow more time for their journeys.

46. Thick snow cover returns to parts of Lithuania

    On Tuesday morning, parts of Lithuania woke up to several centimetres of snow. According to the Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service (LHMT), it snowed practically all over the country on Monday. According to the 8:00 data, the thickest snow cover was in the Panevėžys, Šiauliai, and Radviliskis districts, where it reached 12 - 17 centimetres. The heavy snowfall resulted in a cover of wet snow on trees, wires, and various structures. It broke or bent tree branches, leaving some residents without electricity and some roads impassable.

47. BEST OF THE WEB: USDA claims bird flu is spreading in cows with detections in 32 herds in 8 states, is criticized for withholding data

    Researchers around the world are growing more uneasy with the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in US dairy cows as the virus continues to make its way into new herds and states. Several experts say the US is not sharing enough information from the federal investigation into the unexpected and growing outbreak, including genetic information from isolated viruses. To date, the US Department of Agriculture has tallied 32 affected herds in eight states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas. In some cases, the movement of cattle between herds can explain the spread of the virus. But the USDA has not publicly clarified if all the herds are linked in a single outbreak chain or if there is evidence that the virus has spilled over to cows multiple times. Early infections in Texas were linked to dead wild birds (pigeons, blackbirds, and grackles) found on dairy farms. But the USDA reportedly indicated to Stat News that the...

48. Multiple early season wildfires burning in British Columbia (112) and Alberta (66)

    Wildfire season is off to an early start in British Columbia's central Interior and Cariboo regions. The B.C. Wildfire Service reported several wildfires over the weekend south of Quesnel and east of Vanderhoof. The service says the largest of the fires is the Burgess Creek wildfire, located about 45 kilometres south of Quesnel and was estimated to be about half of a square kilometre in size. The Prince George Fire Centre is reporting two wildfires, each covering an area of about eight city blocks, about four kilometres east of Vanderhoof. The Wildfire Service is reporting 112 active wildfires in B.C. The B.C. government says last year's wildfire season was the most destructive in the province's history as more than 28,400 million square kilometres of forest and land burned and tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate. An evacuation alert is in effect for some living near the Burgess Creek wildfire, one of 118 active wildfires in B.C. In Alberta, there are 66 active...

49. US House passes $95 billion Ukraine, Israel aid package, sends to Senate

    WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners. The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. U.S. leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote. The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Biden to sign it into law. The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs,...

50. Food shortages and price hikes threaten the UK as extreme weather havoc strikes

    Farmers in several regions of the United Kingdom have been unable to grow crops including potatoes, wheat, and vegetables throughout the crucial spring season due to record rains. The crops that have been sown are of lower quality, with some decaying in the soil. The ongoing rainy weather has also resulted in a high death rate for lambs on the UK's hills, and some dairy cows have been unable to be moved out onto grass, resulting in less milk production. Agricultural groups have stated that the UK will become increasingly dependant on imports; however, comparable wet weather in European countries such as France and Germany, along with the drought in Morocco, may result in less food to import.