USA - Monster storm Hurricane Milton has landed in Florida with the first casualties reported as the state is battered by 'catastrophic' flooding and 120mph winds. The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St Petersburg, where over 16 inches of rain has fallen so far. More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, while about 125 homes were destroyed. Meanwhile, the Sheriff of Florida's St Lucie County revealed there have been 'multiple fatalities' after the area was ravaged by a tornado before the hurricane even made landfall.

USA - Many citizens want more government control of the economy to curb rising prices. It is the worst strategy imaginable. Interventionist governments never reduce consumer prices because they benefit from inflation, dissolving their political spending commitments in a constantly depreciated currency. Inflation is the perfect hidden tax. The government makes the currency less valuable by issuing more units of fiat money, partially dissolves its debt in real terms, collects more taxes, and presents itself as the solution to rising prices with subsidies in an increasingly worthless currency. That is why socialism and hyperinflation go hand in hand.

USA - The State Department said Tuesday that it doesn’t want to see a ceasefire in Lebanon and supports the heavy Israeli bombardment of the country to “degrade Hezbollah.” State Department spokesman Matt Miller was asked about comments from Hezbollah Deputy Sheikh Naim Qassem, who said the group supports efforts by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to reach a ceasefire without mentioning that it must also include a ceasefire in Gaza. "Now that Hezbollah is on the back foot and is getting battered, suddenly, they’ve changed their tune and want a ceasefire,” Miller told reporters. “What we want to see come out of this situation ultimately is Lebanon able to break the grip Hezbollah has had on the country” Miller said.

LEBANON - Hezbollah said Tuesday it is now ready to engage in cease-fire talks with Israel, after suffering serious blows to its leadership and ranks in recent months. The terror group in Lebanon made the announcement after firing more than 100 rockets at the Jewish state hours earlier. Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, publicly endorsed a truce with Israel, the first such time the terror group has proposed a cease-fire not conditioned on the war in Gaza. “We support the political efforts led by [Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih] Berri under the banner of achieving a cease-fire,” Qassem said, according to a CNN translation. “Once the cease-fire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed and decisions will be made collaboratively,” he added.

UK - All birdkeepers, regardless of the size of their flock, will be required to officially register their birds under new measures announced by Defra (The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The threshold for mandatory registration will be reduced from 50 birds to 1, which means all poultry and captive bird keepers will be legally required to register their birds. Poultry keepers will be required to review their poultry register entry annually to ensure their details are up to date. The requirement for all poultry keepers to register will come into force [from 1 October 2024], with the requirement for an annual review to be introduced 12 months later. The government said the changes would help manage potential disease outbreaks, such as avian influenza and Newcastle disease, and limit any spread.

USA - Thousands of people are scrambling to flee Florida as catastrophic Hurricane Milton threatens a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St Petersburg, engulfing the region with towering storm surges. Terrified Floridians are rushing to safety after local officials issued a stark warning overnight advising residents to 'flee or die' before the monster storm packs furious winds and gushes walls of water inland tomorrow.

RUSSIA - In January, BRICS welcomed four new members into its ranks – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, with Saudi Arabia currently finalizing the accession process. The inclusion of two more African nations, Egypt and Ethiopia, in the group has significantly amplified their influence on the continent while giving them a global platform to shape not only regional but also international policies. Both of them are regional leaders with diversified economies and significant population, and thus their membership works both ways by providing other member countries wider access to African markets.

USA - During trying times like these, with many storms upon us (literally and figuratively), no book provides greater comfort than the Bible. Yet how many actually read it? Two years ago, Christianity Today noted: “The data said roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.” Meanwhile, as of this writing, the education department of the state of Oklahoma is planning to purchase 55,000 Bibles for the public schools. I’m sure the left is gnashing their teeth over such a plan.

UK - They say "demography is destiny". Well, Britain's demographic is in the process of changing, quite dramatically. It's time we paid more attention to it. Consider the figures released by the Office for National Statistics today which provide the latest update of the UK population. They show that the overall level of the population rose to 68.3 million by the middle of 2023. But the really important detail here is to be found beneath the surface.

UK - A British scientist known as the “Godfather of AI” has won the Nobel Prize for physics – but has regrets about his invention. Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who was born in London and studied at the University of Cambridge, shared the honour with Professor John Hopfield of Princeton University. The 76-year-old was staying in a “cheap hotel in California” when he received the early morning phone call informing him of his award, while Chicago-born Professor Hopfield, 91, was in a thatched cottage in England. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognised their work using “fundamental concepts” to design artificial neural networks. The work, carried out in the 1980s, which involved inventing a method that can autonomously find properties in data and identify specific elements in pictures, was foundational to the modern AI increasingly dominating the world today.

USA - Tech Billionaire Elon Musk is endorsing the theory that UFOs are a ‘new weapons program [ie secret] hidden within the US government’s vast black budget’ – I would only add that they sometimes belong to other nations as well. Musk told Tucker Carlson that he believes ‘we are the aliens’ because ‘he has never seen extraterrestrial life’ in his time running SpaceX. He also promised to be ‘the first person’ to expose extraterrestrial life. He said that he will post whatever he uncovers on X at the very moment he finds it. SpaceX has more than 6,000 Starlink satellites in the orbit of planet Earth and ‘not once have we had to maneuver around an alien spacecraft.’

MIDDLE EAST - The jihadist terrorist group Hamas – and fellow Iran-backed outfits such as Hezbollah – celebrated the one-year mark since the atrocities committed against civilians in the Hamas siege of Israel on October 7, 2023, calling for the extermination of the Israeli people and heralding Iran for its support. While a somber day to honor the fallen in Israel, Hamas leaders used the occasion to celebrate the slaughter. “Al-Aqsa Flood returned the occupation [Israel] to square zero and threatened its existence,” Hamas “political” chief Khaled Mashal said in a statement on Monday, referring to the October 7 massacre by the jihadi name for it, the “al-Aqsa Flood.”

MIDDLE EAST - War in the Middle East has not yet caused an economic crisis - but that could change. Recent events in the Middle East have already had a ghastly human toll and there could be much more to come. Beside such considerations, economic issues are decidedly second order. Nevertheless, there are economic aspects to this crisis and they need to be analysed. Naturally, how serious the economic consequences prove to be will depend greatly on what happens from here so our judgments are hedged about with uncertainty. The most important economic variable affected by the Middle East conflict is the price of oil. Twice in the 1970s, huge increases in the oil price caused a major spike in inflation and simultaneously sent the developed world into a recession. Both of those spikes were associated with trouble in the Middle East so, when a crisis brews up there, it is natural for people to recall what happened then and to run for cover.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has announced his intention to make 21 new cardinals on December 8, among whom is the pro-LGBT Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe. In 2023, the pontiff chose the woke friar to open the Vatican Synod on Synodality, who began his words by confessing, “I am old, white, a Westerner, and a man! I don’t know which is worse.” “All of these aspects of my identity limit my understanding, so I ask for your forgiveness for the inadequacy of my words.” said Father Radcliffe, a leader of the Church’s progressive wing for decades, who was largely sidelined during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II but has found new life under Francis.

USA - Power restoration in Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina could take months — 360 substations down indefinitely. Word on the street is that it will take months to restore power, water and some kind of normalcy to everyone impacted by Hurricane Helene in North and South Carolina, which were hit hardest by the storm’s flood waters. The situation is so bad in western North Carolina especially that Representative Chuck Edwards (Republican for North Carolina) issued a press release detailing the progress of emergency responders and repair crews. “More than 30 swift water and helicopter rescue crews from across North Carolina and seven nearby states have rescued more than 200 people since Thursday,” Edwards says. “Thousands of linemen from across North America, including crews from Canada, have been deployed to our community to restore power, and we’ve seen the state come together to transport dozens of trucks filled with potable water and food to our shelters.” While a valiant effort, these operations will still take a lot of time considering the scope of the damage.