Personally, I had heard that First Republic supposedly had enough reserves to keep going for months. But that was a lie, and now First Republic is toast. Needless to say, the biggest losers of all are the shareholders of First Republic. They got completely wiped out…

The three banks held a combined total of $532 billion in assets, which – according to the New York Times and when adjusted for inflation – is more than the $526 billion held by all the US banks that collapsed in 2008 at the peak of the financial crisis. We are only one-third of the way through 2023. And as Charlie Munger recently observed, many of our banks are absolutely packed with “bad loans” right now…

Under the leadership of US President Joe Biden, there has been a notable downgrade in the status of the West amongst various long-time Middle East allies. As the US-led West exerts the majority of its efforts on the war in Ukraine, its poor decision making in the Middle East has finally begun to catch up to it.

The first major blow to Washington’s influence came in the form of a Chinese-mediated agreement to end a decades-long feud between major regional actors Iran and Saudi Arabia, one which led to the severing of ties in 2016. This has a number of implications for US power in the region.

"God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper... Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play," Hamdok said during an event in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday. "This is a huge country, very diverse... I think it will be a nightmare for the world," he added.

"This is not a war between an army and [a] small rebellion. It is almost like two armies - well trained and well armed." The conflict broke out two weeks ago between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), sparked by disagreements over plans to integrate the RSF into the armed forces.

Some of the world's greatest minds are split over whether AI will destroy or elevate humanity, with Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates championing the technology and Tesla founder Elon Musk a staunch critic.

The bitter argument spilled into the public domain earlier this year when more than 1,000 tech tycoons signed a letter calling for a pause on the 'dangerous race' to advance AI. They said urgent action was needed before humans lose control of the technology and risk being wiped out by robots.

Co-organiser Jules Woodhell told Nation Cymru: "Wokefest is more than just an entertainment event. It is a statement of unity and a celebration of the strength of diversity. The festival will feature a range of talented performers, musicians, poets, and speakers from all walks of life, who will showcase their skills and spread their message of hope and positivity. We are proud that Swansea is a city of sanctuary - it is important for everyone to feel welcome and safe here.

"We totally support freedom of speech, but hate speech and spreading misinformation are another matter. We named the festival Wokefest as, in recent times, the term 'woke' has been used derogatively. But we absolutely own being 'woke' as it means we are conscious of systemic injustices and strive to actively address and dismantle them. The festival fully embraces and celebrates this mindset."

Initially rising to prominence on 2007's series of The Apprentice, Hopkins went on to carve out a career as an outspoken commentator, often sparking outrage with comments on race, religion and immigration. A former contributor to MailOnline and The Sun, she was banned from Twitter in 2020 for breaking rules on hate speech. In addition, last year saw her deported from Australia after boasting on social media she planned to breach the country’s quarantine rules.

One of the documents seen by the Post suggests that during a meeting in February, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval told the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, that New Delhi was resisting pressure to support a Western-backed UN resolution on Ukraine. India “would not deviate from the principled position it had taken in the past,” Doval reportedly assured the Russian official.

Another leaked file suggested that Brazil was more interested in playing a mediation role in the conflict than supporting Washington and its allies. Russia favours the idea of a “world peace bloc” to resolve the crisis over Ukraine, put forward by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit to China earlier this month. Moscow believes it would counteract the West’s “aggressor-victim” narrative about Kiev, according to the document.

Francis, who has been a vocal advocate for the end of the Russia-Ukraine war, added that the Vatican was also ready to help repatriate Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the conflict. However, the pontiff's comments came as Vladimir Putin unleashed a series of missiles at Ukraine, killing one person and wounding three others in the region of Kherson.

In recent months, Francis has grown increasingly critical of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Pope said he had spoken about the war in Ukraine with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and with Metropolitan Hilarion, a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest. 'In these meetings we did not just talk about Little Red Riding Hood. We spoke of all these things. Everyone is interested in the road to peace,' Francis said.

She quickly set up an Instagram account, in January 2021, offering white witch and tarot card services, and was instantly bombarded with requests for readings. Jessica, who now has over 5,000 clients, now reads for a variety of people including, celebrities and friends.

Alongside the financial benefits, Jessica is able to work from home while ''picking and choosing'' her own hours. With intuition, a set of tarot cards and crystals, Jessica encourages other women to join the world of witches. Jessica said: "It's really changed my life, it's my calling. I do always encourage other women to give it a try, I've been on such a journey of discovery.'

“TST SatanCon 2023 will be in historic downtown Boston, Massachusetts from April 28th to April 30th, 2023, with the theme, ‘Hexennacht in Boston.’ Attendees will enjoy lectures and panels presented by our campaigns and congregations as well as evening entertainment and a Satanic Marketplace. Satanists shredded a Holy Bible and ripped up a pro-police ‘Thin Blue Line’ flag during their opening ritual this weekend.

He continued “their deaths really marked a fork in the road for our country and the rest of the world where we started down this road towards corporatism which I call the corrupt merger of state and corporate power.

Kennedy followed up his comment and stated the spear tip is what “President Eisenhower warned us about four days before my uncle took office and that’s the rise of the military industrial complex which has turned America into a warfare state abroad and a surveillance state at home.”

It comes amid a bigger push from campaigners to take up a plant-based diet, with initiatives such as Veganuary and Meatfree Mondays. Further to this, the medical journal The Lancet published a paper The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factor Study in 2020, where they said a high red meat diet was responsible for 896,000 deaths globally.

Researchers found, however, that it is hard to replicate the nutritional content of meat. It added that those who live in poorer communities and have a low meat intake often suffer from a number of nutrient-deficient diseases such as stunted growth, wasting and anaemia, The Telegraph reports. Researchers at Animal Frontiers said that unprocessed meat is responsible for providing B12 vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and minerals, such as iron and zinc, as well as supplying retinol.

The paper suggested that the link between red meat and disease was almost eradicated when it was combined with a healthy diet, leading to the suggestion it was the rest of the diet that is the cause behind health issues.

Research in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2017 found that a quarter of children and 40 per cent of adults were using these sweeteners. Since then, their use has become even more widespread — partly due to the introduction of the sugar tax in 2018, which meant manufacturers had to pay more tax if their goods contained 8g (or more) of added sugar per 100ml. In fact, according to a recent survey 3.5 million people now use sweeteners at least twice a day.

You can see why. The idea of having a sweet hit without worrying about your health or waistline is appealing. But is it that simple? For far from saving our waistlines, research suggests that sweeteners may, in some cases, expand them. That might sound counterintuitive — but research on fruit flies and mice (admittedly not humans — we're trickier to study) has found that consuming sweeteners increases appetite.

For one such study, published in the journal Cell in 2016, researchers gave fruit flies the no-calorie sweetener sucralose for three days. Surprisingly, this encouraged the flies to eat more food and calories. When they stopped the sucralose, their consumption fell. Meanwhile, recent research suggests certain sweeteners can alter the make-up of our microbiome — the microbes that live in our gut and underpin so much of our health.

SVB's failure was swiftly followed by the demise of another US lender, Signature Bank. According to reports, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a US financial regulator, sought bids for First Republic by the end of last week and has been assessing them over the weekend.

Investment banking giant JP Morgan Chase is believed to be one of the banks invited to bid for First Republic, according to news agency Reuters. Bank of America is also understood to have been approached.

Concerns about the global banking industry gathered pace last month as problems at Silicon Valley Bank emerged. Central banks around the world have been sharply raising interest rates over the past year to dampen the rate of price rises, otherwise known as inflation. It has hurt the values of the large portfolios of bonds bought by banks when rates were lower, raising concerns that other firms faced similar situations.

At the same time in Europe, Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse - which had been engulfed in its own problems for a number of years - said it would have to borrow $54 billion from the country's central bank to shore up its finances. Credit Suisse has since been rescued by long-time rival UBS.

The raid of Bain and Company offices in Shanghai came weeks after officers detained five staff members from the Beijing offices of American corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group. The company said in a statement made to Reuters that authorities shuttered operations for the business in China, additionally clarifying that the five detailed employees were all Chinese nationals. “Mintz Group has not received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company and has requested that the authorities release its employees,” the company added.

The raids also occur as tensions between the United States and China heighten over several recent espionage efforts from the rising communist power, including a spy balloon that traversed the continental United States and reports of social media platform TikTok collecting data on American citizens. Other technology firms based in China have provoked concerns among lawmakers and prompted the Biden administration to increase trade restrictions.