Dubbed Juniper Oak, the exercise will involve over 140 aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers and F-35 fighter jets, as well as 12 warships and about 7,500 troops, according to US Central Command (CENTCOM). It’s designed to improve the “interoperability” of both forces.

Juniper Oak is an all-domain exercise, meaning it will include naval, land, air, space and electronic-warfare drills. It will run from Monday through Friday in Israel and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The US will reportedly employ four HIMARS rocket launchers, laser-guided bombs and stealth cruise missiles. The event will culminate with the firing of 180,000 pounds of live munitions while simulating an electronic attack and suppressing enemy air defenses.

“This is a sign that we continue to have Israel’s back at a time when there’s lots of turbulence and instability across the region,” the defense official said. The source added, “If there’s a sense that Americans are distracted, or the Americans are going away from the Middle East, and therefore they have free rein for their malign activities, I think this will disabuse them.”

Unfortunately, America is now plunging into another severe economic downturn, and that means that there will be a tremendous amount of pain in the weeks and months to come. Earlier today, I was stunned to learn that a new survey has found that 20 percent of business economists “expect employment at their company to fall in the coming months”… But it appears that the coming layoffs in the banking industry could be historic. In fact, one expert is publicly warning that “the job cuts that are coming are going to be super brutal”…

Banks are set to undertake the largest wave of job cuts in 15 years amid declining revenues. He didn’t just say that the job losses will be “brutal”. He said that they will be “super brutal”. Of course many would argue that the outlook for tech industry workers is even worse. At this point, “tens of thousands of employees” have already been laid off within just “the past few months”…

The startling layoffs that we just witnessed at Google made headlines all over the planet, because most of the experts didn’t see them coming. Sadly, many of those that were laid off didn’t see them coming either. Can you imagine giving 20 years of your life to Google and then getting suddenly laid off one day via email?… That is cold. But it appears that this is becoming something of a trend. In fact, Vox just laid off 7 percent of its workforce, and those that lost their jobs were “notified through email”…

In any event, it turns out that the doe-eyed optimists were dead wrong and the economic realists were quite correct. The massive economic meltdown that we have been relentlessly warned about is happening. Hordes of American workers have already been laid off, and countless more will be laid off as 2023 rolls along.

According to the French publicist Emmanuel Todd, the current global power struggle – “the third world war has begun” – is also “about Germany.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz anticipates the emergence of a “multipolar world,” in which Germany and the EU are to assume leading roles as strong military powers.

Paris is following Berlin, which had also massively increased its military budget. In the meantime, the demanded increase is not of 100 but of €300 billion. In reference to Berlin’s plans to increase the defense budget, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Germany is “the largest national economy in Europe.” “Therefore, we should also aim at having the strongest and best equipped army in the EU.” His “job” was “to set the course for the Zeitenwende to succeed” [Zeitenwende: turning point in history].

The government hit the $31.38 trillion debt ceiling last week. Republicans have been pushing for spending cuts, while Democrats are trying to eliminate the cap to allow unlimited spending and borrowing.

President Joe Biden has so far refused to engage in negotiations, leaving his administration to take action to stall a government shutdown. The media has played along with the administration in warning of catastrophic impacts if the administration has to start partially shutting down the government. But those warnings have been heard before, and voters apparently aren’t scared by them.

Between Russia's nuclear brinkmanship in its war on Ukraine, the real threats of climate change becoming increasingly dire and ongoing concerns about more possible pandemics caused by humans encroaching on formerly wild areas, the Bulletin chose to set the clock the closest to midnight yet.

"The threats are even more acute, and the failures of leadership even more damning. We live today in a world of interlocking crises, each illustrating the unwillingness of leaders to act in the true long-term interests of their people," she said.

The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons at the Manhattan Project. Two years later they launched the clock as a way to warn humanity just how close to nuclear apocalypse the world was. "It's a way to remind people of issues that are so big they post a threat to civilization as a whole…"

The global demand for lithium, also known as white gold, is predicted to rise over 40 times by 2040, driven predominantly by the shift to electric vehicles. Grassroots protests and lawsuits against lithium mining are on the rise from the US and Chile to Serbia and Tibet amid rising concern about the socio-environmental impacts and increasingly tense geopolitics around supply.

Mining lithium is a fraught business, and the rise in demand for EVs is contributing to a rise in social and environmental harms – and global supply chain bottlenecks. If Americans continue to depend on cars at the current rate, by 2050 the US alone would need triple the amount of lithium currently produced for the entire global market, which would have dire consequences for water and food supplies, biodiversity, and Indigenous rights.

But at least these smug electric car drivers are decreasing their carbon footprint. Oh, wait, they aren’t… You can’t make electricity without burning fossil fuels… So, according to this hilarious story, “Topping up the e-Corsa’s charge by 80 per cent on a slow charger at peak times results in a cost of 16.18p per mile.” But. The “costs (of a petrol Corsa) are around 14.45 pence per mile.”

Question: What’s left to feel smug about after it costs more to drive your electric car?

Well, I guess you can pretend to feel all kinds of virtuous about saving Mother Earth in your Prius… you’re not saving anything. You’re certainly not saving money — lol. What’s more, no matter how much denial you conjure up, fossil fuels are still being burned to supply you with the electricity for your car, which, by the way, costs more than filling up your car with fossil fuels.

"The most urgent discourse at this time concerns the legal reform promoted by the government, which arouses serious controversy and serious concerns among large sections of the public." Herzog called on leaders and authorities to take the time for discourse and talk with an open heart, warning that the lack of communication was dangerous.

"It is permissible and proper to criticize any authorities, and it is important to understand the depths of frustration, anger and pain that are at the basis of that criticism," said Herzog. "It is legitimate to have a practical discussion about the boundaries of the sector and the relationship between the authorities - just like what happens in many democracies in the world - but with conversation."

Thousands of Israelis protested against the proposed changes to the legal system, on haBima square in Tel Aviv, on January 14, 2023. Herzog reiterated his own position that civil rights and democracy needed to be protected, and the judicial reforms proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin at the beginning of January were done hastily and without proper dialogue with key authorities and the public. The lack of discourse is what has led to the current "dangerous situation". "It seems that not only have we forgotten how to agree, but we can't even argue," said Herzog.

"The LAFD is now in earthquake mode. All 106 neighborhood fire stations will conduct a strategic survey of their districts, examining all major areas of concern (transportation infrastructures, large places of assemblages, apartment buildings, power-lines, etc). This survey will be conducted from the ground, air and sea. Once this process is complete and reports are consolidated, assuming there is no significant damage, Earthquake mode will be complete. This process typically takes less than one hour," Nicholas Prange with the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement around 2:30am Wednesday morning.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. While there are many variables involved, geologists say damage does not usually occur until the earthquake magnitude reaches somewhere above 4 or 5.

Around 30 M1 Abrams tanks will be sent from the US, while Berlin will initially supply 14 Leopard 2 tanks. Russia's own storage facilities have around 10,200 tanks, while an estimated 3,300 have been deployed in Ukraine, with 1,640 destroyed. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's officials hailed the move as a 'punching fist' for democracy, while Russia had warned it would cause a 'global catastrophe' and escalate the war beyond Ukraine's borders.

Pressure has been building for weeks on German chancellor Olaf Scholz's government to send the tanks and allow NATO allies to do the same. The German leader was wary of moves that could prompt Russia to escalate but he finally relented today. 'This decision follows our well-known line of supporting Ukraine to the best of our ability. We are acting in a closely coordinated manner internationally,' he said in a statement.

Terrifying footage shows the navy preparing for a nuclear launch as the hatch opens in preparation for the deadly missile. The vessel has been closely monitored by NATO navies on its mission, armed with the 6,670mph Mach 9 weapon which has a maximum 625 mile range. A day earlier reports said that the Gorshkov had made an unexpected diversion in the Atlantic amid Putin's war with West-backed Ukraine.

Moscow has boasted that the Gorshkov is 'the most dangerous enemy of surface ships in the world's oceans' now it is armed with the new hypersonic missile. The frigate's captain Igor Krokhmal has said previously: 'No one will see the missile launch or its flight. They will only see when the missile hits the target. A surface target, a coastal target. I don't think there will be anything to counter this in the next few years.'

Here, MailOnline looks at the deadliest mass shootings in the US so far this year.

• Half Moon Bay, California - 7 dead and 1 injured.


• Monterey Park, California - 12 dead and 10 injured. Gunman Huu Can Tran, 72, opened fire at patrons inside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, on Saturday night, killing 11 people and injuring 10 others.


• Goshen, central California - 6 people - including a 17-year-old mother and her ten-month-old son - were killed in a shooting at a home in Goshen, central California, on January 16.


• High Point, North Carolina - 5 dead - Robert K Crayton, 45, shot his wife Athalia A Crayton, 46, and his three children before killing himself at their home in High Point, North Carolina on January 7.


• Enoch City, Utah 8 dead - Mike Haight, 42, murdered his wife, Tausha Haight, 40, and their five children, who ranged in age from four to 17, and his mother-in-law Gail Earl on January 4 at their home in Enoch, Utah.

Kishida’s government in December adopted key security and defense reforms, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from the country’s exclusively self-defense-only postwar principle.

Instead, in this piece I am going to focus on examples that are representative of the extreme violence that we witness night after night in communities all over the United States. If you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out. So we should not be surprised that a culture which glorifies violence ends up being saturated with it.

So, you have this dog walking around with a gigantic tail that will shake the dog. When derivatives go, it’s a 48-hour event. Who do you think holds all these derivatives? You’ve got the big banks, all the big brokers, all the big insurance companies and they are all going to go down. It’s like one giant financial STD, and everybody is in bed together and everybody is infected.”

Add to this the announcement from Saudi Arabia that it will now accept payment in currencies other than the US dollar and you have the makings of a destabilizing hyperinflationary catastrophe for America. Holter says, “There will be other Arab nations to follow, and that is a huge hit to the artificial demand for the dollar. You had nations all over the world who were forced to buy dollars to buy oil, and that is no longer."