USA - Shared testimonies, collective singing, silent meditation and baptism rituals – these are all activities you might find at a Christian church service on a Sunday morning in the United States. But what would it look like if atheists were gathering to do these rituals instead? Today, almost 30% of adults in the United States say they have no religious affiliation, and only half attend worship services regularly. But not all forms of church are on the decline – including “secular congregations,” or what many call “atheist churches.”

USA - You have probably heard about the “dirty dozen,” but what about the “hateful eight?” The hateful eight refers to the eight most damaging vegetable oils that pollute the food supply and destroy human health. Dr Simon Goddek compiled information ...about the hateful eight, which include the following vegetable oils:

• Sunflower oil
• Soybean oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Safflower oil
• Corn oil
• Rice bran oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Canola oil

All eight of these vegetable oils are heavily processed well beyond the point of being even remotely healthy or nutritional.

NIGERIA - A prominent Nigerian economist has claimed that membership of BRICS is a "win-win situation." Speaking on Tuesday during an exclusive interview to RT, Muda Yusuf, the CEO of the Nigerian Center for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, said a lot of sectors will benefit if Nigeria joins the BRICS. "Such sectors as oil and gas, technology sector, agricultural sector, solid mineral sector, and generally our infrastructure" will get advantages from joining the economic block. "It also helps to reduce the Western dominance generally," he added. According to the BRICS information portal, Yusuf Tuggar, the Foreign Minister of Nigeria, has stated that the country plans to join the BRICS group of nations in the next two years.

UK - Violent pornography and access to smartphones are turning children into sex abusers – with more than 6,800 rapes committed by youngsters aged ten to 17 in a year, a report reveals. In excess of half of all child sexual offences are now committed by other youngsters, the landmark study into the scale of offending across the country has concluded. Officers have charted an explosion in sexual crimes being committed by teenagers. As well as the 6,813 rapes in 2022, there were 8,020 sex attacks plus 15,534 cases of indecent images of a child relating to the sharing of naked pictures. Yesterday the national police lead in tackling child abuse warned that sexual violence has become 'normalised behaviour' for some schoolchildren after years of watching hardcore pornography on their phones.

WALES - A headteacher has issued a guide for parents on how to talk to their children about safe mobile phone use. Sarah Parry, head of Llanishen High in Cardiff, said she was responding to worries from parents about the time their children spend on social media, cyber bullying, online predators and mental health. Mrs Parry has published the guide - Navigating social media with your children - on her school website after more than half of the 339 parents answering a survey she sent out reported their teenager checks social media every few hours and more than a quarter said their child had experienced bullying through social media. A further 40% of parents said they have had to speak to their teenager about inappropriate posts. The guide comes as police figures released today show young people taking nude pictures are adding to a rise in sexual offences committed by children in England and Wales. Potential offenders were aged under 18 in more than half of all reported child abuse cases, according to analysis.

ECUADOR - Ecuador has erupted into a 'civil war' with cartel thugs after the president ordered the army onto the streets and declared a state of 'internal armed conflict'. Crazed criminals have rampaged through the South American country's cities today after President Daniel Noboa, 36, ordered a state of emergency. Hooded gangsters seized a state TV news studio today, while a university was attacked and jail guards reportedly executed by prisoners.

USA - Half of the members on the World Health Organization's transgender health policy committee are not qualified medical experts - and most are gender activists. One of the panelists is a controversial Canadian trans TikToker who believes puberty blockers should be prescribed to all children, regardless of their gender identity, so they can 'choose' their gender rather than being assigned one by society. Another member believes that transitioning causes no health problems and claims the only 'actual side effects' of getting a sex change are a 'significantly improved quality of life... and trans joy.' A number of women's rights and LGBTQ+ organizations fear the UN agency - whose recommendations are highly influential - has been captured by a 'trans bias'.

FRANCE - Gabriel Attal has become the youngest-ever prime minister of France after President Emmanuel Macron appointed him to succeed Elisabeth Borne. The 34-year-old had previously served as education minister. Attal was chosen to shake up the Macron presidency, which has struggled since losing its absolute majority in parliament in 2022. He is the country’s first openly gay premier, having entered a civil union with a French MEP. The government reshuffle comes months before the Olympic Games are hosted by Paris and a European Parliament election takes place in June. Polls expect the Macron-led centrist forces to lose many of their current seats in the EU legislature.

GERMANY - Public support for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen to record lows, the tabloid Bild reported on Monday, citing a survey conducted by the INSA polling institute. Almost two-thirds of Germans want him to resign before the next federal election, scheduled for October 2025, the data suggests. As many as 64% of respondents told INSA that Scholz should vacate his position and hand it over to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, a fellow Social Democrat. Less than a quarter of Germans oppose this prospect. Some 77% said they placed little or no trust in the way Scholz is governing Germany. Even among SPD supporters, this figure reached 60%. Later in the month, Der Spiegel reported that Scholz’s personal approval had slipped to just 30%, down from 44% in June 2023. On Monday, Bild described Scholz as “the most unpopular chancellor of all time.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, is facing increasingly strong opposition inside the Vatican. The conservative clan of the Roman Curia – the powerful governing body of the Holy See – accuses him of a laxist vision of Catholic doctrine, particularly regarding the status of homosexual couples and divorced people in the Church. Our Rome correspondent Natalia Mendoza reports from the Vatican’s corridors of power on this growing conflict between tradition and modernity.

USA - Survey after survey has shown that Americans overwhelmingly agree that this country is moving in the wrong direction. So how did we get here? I often write about the economy, politics, crime, immigration, homelessness, corruption, drugs, the mainstream media, online censorship, government surveillance, war and many other challenges that our nation is facing. But none of them is America’s biggest problem. Ultimately, America’s biggest problem is the fact that our country has become completely saturated with evil. From the very top of society to the very bottom of society, we have eagerly embraced evil, and just about every form of wickedness that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us. If we do not reverse course, there is no future for us.

USA - Bottles of plastic water contain hundreds of thousands of toxic microscopic plastic particles, new research has found. The findings are likely to shock anyone who has swapped from tap to bottled water, believing it was better for their health. Drinking water from a bottle could mean you are contaminating your body with tiny bits of plastic, which scientists fear can accumulate in your vital organs with unknown health implications.

UNITED NATIONS - In 1958, Mao Zedong decreed that Chinese citizens should destroy the humble sparrow because the birds were eating much-needed grain in a country where hunger was a constant companion. Dutifully, people took up the challenge, shooting the birds, breaking up nests, smashing eggs, and beating drums to scare the animals and prevent them from landing to rest. After two years, hundreds of millions of birds were dead as the sparrow approached extinction across China. But destroying the sparrow resulted in one of the most devastating famines in recent history, killing 15-40 million Chinese citizens (the exact number remains subject to debate).

USA - JP Morgan say it could well be a "boiling frog" phenomenon for the economy, as higher deficits and ballooning debt servicing costs could easily become unsustainable. A boiling frog situation is one in which people fail to act on a potential problem that grows over time, causing it to become more severe until it eventually bubbles over. A frog thrown in boiling water might jump out, but if the water comes to a boil slowly, it's too late by the time it notices it's being cooked. Anyway, JPM argue that: national debt hit a fresh $34 trillion this month [which increased by $1 trillion in just 15 weeks]. Unlike US Congresspeople, frogs are not stupid. If you tried to boil a frog, it'd notice as the temperature increased and hop out once it got too hot for comfort.

AFGHANISTAN - The Taliban in Afghanistan, who took control of the nation when Joe Biden abruptly withdrew American military personnel, leaving behind thousands of civilians and billions of dollars worth of American war machinery, now reportedly are seeking access to nuclear weapons. The report said it’s not been noticed much, but Afghanistan “has a long-standing nuclear energy program that was taken over by the Taliban mujahideen when they took control of Afghanistan in August 2021.”