USA - As reported by Joshua Philipp, investigative reporter and host of the Epoch TV's Crossroads program, Bill Gates's company Breakthrough Energy Ventures is a main player behind a new deforestation scheme. Per Philipp, Gates and "other investors" have contributed $6.6 million in a "stealth effort" to a California startup called Kodama Systems, which is offering a "novel" approach to the net zero agenda. So what does Kodama Systems have in mind? Well, the company is launching efforts to deforest about seventy million acres, or around 110,000 square miles of trees, and then bury the biomass, all with the help of the US Forest Service. Yes, really, they're going to waste the wood instead of turning it into lumber, despite there apparently being a "housing crisis" with not enough homes on the market, and despite sky-high lumber prices, allegedly due to supply and demand and supply chain issues. If the "need" to "offset" carbon were actually a real problem, this would be the exact wrong way to do it. Remove the carbon consumers to fight "too much" carbon. Make it make sense.

HAWAII - Hawaiian Electric (HE) has revealed that it de-energized all of its power lines six hours before the deadly wildfires tore through the community on August 8. The HE statement directly contradicts the government’s claims that the wildfires were sparked by active power lines and raises questions about the real cause of the fires.

HAWAII - What are they trying to hide? Tall black fencing that stretches for miles and miles has been hastily constructed around the perimeter of Lahaina, and this has created a tremendous amount of speculation. Are they trying to keep people out? Are they trying to keep people from seeing what really happened in Lahaina? There are so many questions that all of us should be asking right now. An independent journalist has captured video footage of this giant black fence that has been put up, and it is super creepy…

USA - Burning Man attendees late Friday night were told to ‘shelter in place’ after a storm dumped torrential rain on the playa and turned it into a giant soupy mud pit. Burning Man is a yearly music and art festival in Northern Nevada in Black Rock City. An estimated 73,000 people are trapped after a monsoonal storm moved through Black Rock City. Burning Man attendees referred to as ‘Burners’ prayed to the ‘playa gods’ to make it stop. Burners were told to shelter in place and conserve water and food. SF Gate reported: Burning Man conditions are bordering on disaster with over 70,000 people trapped and sheltering-in-place after rains turned the playa into an undrivable mud pit.

USA - I have always been able to find something good in what I’ve reviewed. This time it’s different, for whatever appears good in this “service” serves only to advance its deceptions. I’ll start with the obvious: The app has users chatting with an AI , where the “A” stands for “artificial.” This computer claims to be Jesus, the Son of God. It is a detestable lie. Anyone who treats it as if it were Jesus (or a god) is an idolater, just as much as the ancients who carved their gods out of wood and stone. And if what you want is an easy-access God, God at your fingertips, jumping instantly to your every question — in other words, a small-g god, not the God — this app has it all. It uses Bible verses and it speaks in religious-sounding language, giving it the appearance of legitimacy. And it offers “help” and “guidance.” I could easily imagine people it using much like astrology or a Ouija board. They might think it’s better than occult methods, since it’s got “Bible” and “Jesus” in it. God help them. Its first words in greeting me were a damnable lie: “Hey there! I’m Jesus Christ, here to chat with you and lend an ear. How can I help you today?” The app is pure evil.

UK - The United States could seek to station nuclear weapons on British territory for the first time since 2008, according to Pentagon budget documents analyzed by a US think-tank and British media. American fighter jets capable of nuclear bombing raids are also slated for the same UK air base, the files suggest.

SAUDI ARABIA - From the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to Chinese-brokered peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the US administration of President Joe Biden has been overseeing an era of declining American power across West Asia. In the midst of this fall from grace as the Middle East’s hegemon, Washington’s obsession with achieving a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal demonstrates a disconnect from reality and proves that optics are more important than tangible policy positions. US National Security Advisor Jake Sulivan made it publicly clear last Tuesday that a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which Washington is currently working on, is still far from being achieved. This announcement followed speculation in American media that such a deal could be imminent. For those who have been paying attention to the region’s politics, however, it couldn’t be more clear how arduous a task achieving such a deal would be.

USA - As BRICS gains momentum, the US economy becomes weaker because the members of the grouping can circumvent American sanctions and trade in their own currencies, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Thursday. Speaking to her constituents in Georgia, the Republican congresswoman lashed out at the administration of US President Joe Biden, which she said is turning a blind eye to the rise of BRICS – an economic group which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and accounts for more than a quarter of global GDP.

AUSTRIA - Austria’s far-right Freedom Party — which is expected to win next year’s elections — has sparked fury with a “frightening” video glorifying fascist thinkers and making knowing nods to the country’s Nazi past. The two-minute promo — which splices an extremist conspiracy theory that white Europeans are being replaced by migrants with images of Notre Dame in Paris in flames — was made by the party’s youth wing. But the Freedom Party’s hardline leader Herbert Kickl sprang to its defense, calling the video “great.”

RUSSIA - Russian diplomat Dmitry Glukhov told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin's suggestion earlier in the year that Moscow could possibly restart nuclear tests was conditional on such activity by the US. Glukhov was responding to accusations aired by US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Bonnie Jenkins, who claimed that Putin’s speech amounted to a threat of renewed atomic testing. “I wish to underscore that the aforementioned statement by the Russian president about the hypothetical possibility of our country resuming nuclear tests, mentioned during his speech to the federal legislature, needs to be understood solely in the context of our response to the destructive actions of the US. It was a preventive signal to Washington,” said Glukhov, who serves as third secretary of Russia's mission to the UN. “We will resort to such a step only if the US does it first,” the diplomat added.

CANADA - The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) currently employs Paolo De Buono - a likely contender for the globe's most extreme and outspoken pro-LGBT teacher in a Catholic school. De Buono has publicly and shamelessly rebuked Ontario's Catholic authorities, including Archbishop of Toronto Francis Leo, for teaching and upholding Catholic faith and morals. Now Paolo's sister, Divina De Buono, goes on the record to respond to her brother's actions, providing further context for Paolo's unabashed support for the LGBT Agenda. Does Paolo De Buono have a vendetta against the Catholic Church and the Culture of Life?

UK - Cinnamon, basil, cloves and a bay leaf - no, it's not the ingredients of an autumnal dish, but what you need to join one - of the many - witches covens popping up in the UK. Paganism - the umbrella term referring to traditional Celtic religion - is one of the fastest growing religions in the UK. Every week thousands of people, primarily women, are meeting up in 'covens' and casting spells. For some it's for sisterhood, while others use meet-ups to cast spells and right 'wrongs in the world'. And it's not just in the UK, globally #WitchTok has racked up millions of views on TikTok - with groups meeting up in the US, Australia and beyond to 'cast spells on Putin and Trump'.

GABON - Following last month's military takeover in Niger, a group of senior Gabonese military officers announced on national television they were seizing power in the central African nation, overturning results in a disputed presidential election four days ago. Bloomberg reported the oil-rich nation (also an OPEC member) with a population of about 2 million saw dollar bonds tumble after military officers announced on television channel Gabon 24 that election results were canceled, borders closed, and state institutions including the Senate, National Assembly and Constitutional Court dissolved. "In the name of the Gabonese people… we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime," one military office said. He said, "We call on the population for calm and serenity." If successful, the coup will be the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020 — coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger.

AFRICA - When US Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to South Africa on July 29, her reputation as a blunt instrument of Washington’s hegemonic interests preceded her. According to a veteran South African official who attended meetings with the senior US diplomat in Pretoria, however, Nuland and her team were demonstrably unprepared to grapple with recent developments on the African continent — particularly the military coup that removed Niger’s pro-Western government hours before she launched her multi-stop tour of the region. “In over 20 years working with the Americans, I have never seen them so desperate,” the official told The Grayzone, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pretoria was well aware of Nuland’s hawkish reputation, but when she arrived in Pretoria, the official described her as “totally caught off guard” by winds of change engulfing the region. The July putsch that saw a popular military junta come to power in Niger followed military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso that were similarly inspired by mass anti-colonial sentiment.

USA - The FBI has amassed 21.7 million DNA profiles — equivalent to about 7 percent of the US population — according to Bureau data reviewed by The Intercept. The FBI aims to nearly double its current $56.7 million budget for dealing with its DNA catalog with an additional $53.1 million, according to its budget request for fiscal year 2024. “The requested resources will allow the FBI to process the rapidly increasing number of DNA samples collected by the US Department of Homeland Security,” the appeal for an increase says. “When we’re talking about rapid expansion like this, it’s getting us ever closer to a universal DNA database,” Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in genetic privacy, told The Intercept. “I think the civil liberties implications here are significant.”