USA - Why is this happening? Each week, it seems like there is another new outbreak somewhere in the world that the experts are deeply concerned about. Prior to 2020, it was never like this. In the old days, the vast majority of us never even thought about when the “next pandemic” might happen because such a scenario seemed so improbable.

USA - Monday evening, news broke that the FBI conducted a raid on former President Donald Trump’s personal residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. The legal justification for the raid is still somewhat hazy — with some indicating that it stems from the alleged mishandling of classified information — but as Joe Biden’s support plummets, the political reason for it has never been more clear. On July 28 in Compact Mag, Michael Anton, a former National Security Council staffer in the Trump administration, said, “The people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.” In the same piece, Anton suggested the January 6 committee is laying the “groundwork for an indictment of Trump” and that the Justice Department might charge the former president with “seditious conspiracy.”

USA - Last month, legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong said the time to prepare is now for the chaos that is coming in 2023. The destabilization of America has been kicked into high gear early with the FBI raid on President Trump’s Florida home this week. Armstrong explains, “This really is unprecedented. In the United States, we are supposed to have civilized transfer of power. That’s all coming to an end. I am not being dramatic here. From a legal perspective, this is completely unprecedented. The danger of this is once they have done this, if the Republicans are ever allowed to get back into power, they would only end up doing the same thing to the Democrats… It’s striking a real deathblow to the very idea of a democracy. We are not, at least we were not until today, someplace like Guatemala where you throw the opposition in jail, kill them or whatever you do. This is what’s going on. They are so afraid of Trump running in 2024 that this is just over the top. Once they did this, there is no end.” Armstrong says the Democrats are in “dire straits” at the polls – and they know it. “We basically are sitting here in the middle of the collapse of Western civilization."

USA - The corruption is right out in the open now. The whole world was stunned by the vicious raid on Mar-a-Lago, and it is quite obvious why it was ordered. Even though close to half of the country wants Donald Trump to run for president again, the Washington establishment is going to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening. If the Washington establishment is successful, will our system of government be able to survive? I think that is a legitimate question at this point.

UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has voiced concerns over a potential disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power station, after Russia accused Ukrainian forces of shelling the plant in the country’s southern Zaporozhye Region on Friday. Kiev claims that Moscow – which holds the area – is using the facility as a “shield” for its soldiers. “Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing. I hope that those attacks will end, and at the same time I hope that the IAEA will be able to access the plant,” Guterres said at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday morning, without blaming either side. The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in the country’s south was seized by Russian forces in late February, when Moscow launched its military campaign in Ukraine. The facility continues to operate with Ukrainian staff under Russian control.

USA - The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act over the weekend brings the total amount of spending in the pipeline by congressional Democrats to around $3.5 trillion since President Joe Biden took office, with the imposing tally coming as Americans struggle with an inflationary cost-of-living crisis. Senators passed the sweeping bill, estimated at $740 billion, in a 51–50 vote on August 7, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. The package, which Republicans have panned as a tax-and-spend bonanza and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said would have a negligible impact on inflation, next goes to the House for consideration. Assuming the bill clears all remaining legislative hurdles and gets signed into law by the president, this would bring the total amount of big-ticket spending by congressional Democrats under Biden’s watch to nearly $3.5 trillion.

UK - It comes as annual energy bills are set to top £4,200 from January. The UK is making crisis plans for the winter which include the possibility of organised blackouts. Cold weather could combine with gas shortages to result in blackouts for businesses and households, Bloomberg reports. Under the UK government’s “reasonable worst-case scenario”, officials reportedly believe there could be blackouts on "several" days in January. It comes as forecasts show annual energy bills are set to top £4,200 from January, sparking fears of severe hardship without government intervention. The reasonable worst-case scenario — which government sources insist are highly unlikely to materialise — would see the power shortfall total about a sixth of peak demand even if emergency plans to fire up retiring coal power plants came into force, according to Bloomberg. In that scenario, a reduction of electricity imports from Norway and France would see the UK government bring in emergency measures to conserve gas for four days in January.

GERMANY - Germany's most-important river is running dry as Europe suffers through a drought that is on course to become its worst in 500 years, with terrifying wildfires burning once again in France. Water levels in the Rhine - which carries 80 per cent of all goods transported by water in Germany, from its industrial heartlands to Dutch ports - are now so low that it could become impassable to barges later this week, threatening vital supplies of oil and coal that the country is relying upon as Russia turns off the gas tap. The Rhine is already lower than it was at the same point in 2018, when Europe suffered its last major drought. That year, the river ended up closing to goods vessels for 132 days, almost triggering a recession. Costs to transport goods by river this year have already risen five-fold as barges limit their capacity to stay afloat. Economists estimate the disruption could knock as much as half a percentage point off Germany's overall economic growth this year, with experts warning the country was facing recession due to an energy crisis even before the drought hit.

USA - The top 10 US firms are Lockheed Martin ($64 billion), Raytheon Technologies ($42 billion), Boeing ($35 billion), Northrop Grumman ($31 billion), General Dynamics ($31 billion), L3Harris Technologies ($15 billion), HII ($9 billion), Leidos ($8 billion), Amentum ($6 billion) and Booz Allen Hamilton ($6 billion). Lockheed, whose revenue represents nearly 11% of the total, topped the list for the 23rd year in a row. China again had seven firms on the list, all in the top quarter and with a combined $117 billion in defense revenue. That’s more than the combined defense revenue for firms from NATO countries (excluding the US) — $110 billion — and far more than that of the other Asia-Pacific firms (excluding Russia) on the list, at $23 billion.

ISRAEL - Over 2,000 Jews visited the Old City of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on Sunday morning to mark the Jewish day of mourning Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of the two Jewish temples, amid deadly fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in the Gaza Strip. Among the pilgrims was firebrand far-right Knesset member Itamar Ben Gvir who regularly makes highly publicized trips to the holy site at times of heightened tensions, in what is widely seen as a deliberately provocative gesture. Many Jews traditionally visit the Western Wall and Jerusalem’s Old City on Tisha B’Av, a fast day that began on Saturday night and lasts through Sunday evening, in order to mourn the destruction of the two temples in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively. On Tisha B’Av, the Book of Lamentations is also traditionally read…

UK - More babies were born outside of marriage in England and Wales last year than to wedded couples for the first time on record, official figures show. The latest Office for National Statistics data shows around 625,000 live births were logged in the two nations in 2021. But 321,000 of these were outside of marriage or a civil partnership, while 304,000 were within one. It means just 48.7 per cent of newborns were to a legal couple, falling below the 50 per cent threshold for the first time since records began in 1845. The rate has been trending downwards for the last century.

USA - The murder rate per capita in Chicago is higher than the civilian death rate per capita from the Ukraine-Russia War. The narratives we're being sold about the Ukraine Wars and gun control in America do not jibe when we look at the actual statistics. What is the real purpose of our billions of "aid" dollars?

USA - Leftists left aghast by the loss, through a Supreme Court ruling, of their cherished federal "right" to abortion now are turning to marriage as the next battleground on which they plan to "drive Christians out of the public square," according to a Republican senator. A recent episode of "Washington Watch with Tony Perkins" featured Senator James Lankford, Republican for Oklahoma, and a report at Washington Stand explained his decision to oppose a Democrat agenda point to redefine marriage nationwide. That will be used, he warned, as a weapon to take Christians out of any position of influence. The Democrats' HR 8404 is called the "Respect for Marriage" law but Lankford said what will happen if Schumer gets his way is that religious Americans would be prevented from speaking about their beliefs and any organization that affirms biblical marriage – that being between one man and one woman – would become a "target of this federal government marriage" law but Lankford said the scheme imposes a top-down demand for every state to recognize any "marriage between two individuals."

SWEDEN - Rainwater almost everywhere on Earth has unsafe levels of ‘forever chemicals’, according to new research. Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of human-made chemicals that don’t occur in nature. They are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t break down in the environment. They have non-stick or stain repellent properties so can be found in household items like food packaging, electronics, cosmetics and cookware. But now researchers at the University of Stockholm have found them in rainwater in most locations on the planet - including Antarctica. There is no safe space to escape them.

USA - Firefighters carry several children and a baby through chest-high flood waters in Denver after their minivan became submerged - amid historic rainfall across the West that devastated Death Valley in rare '1,000 year rainfall event'. Firefighters in Denver placed children onto their backs and shoulders as part of a heroic rescue effort as parts of the Mile High City were deluged by floods.