USA - In Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s progressive, gun-control-laden city of Chicago, at least 60 people were shot and 15 killed from Thursday evening into Monday as the city celebrates the 4th of July. Over 60 people have been shot, 15 fatally, since Thursday evening, Chicago police report. According to a report by WGN9 in Chicago, no one is in police custody for the homicides.

USA - They resemble fat grasshoppers and the extreme heat and drought conditions only increase their vast numbers, leaving ranchers and farmers to battle the insurgent mess. On top of a worsening drought and rising temperatures, farmers across the Western third of the United States are battling outbreaks of cannibalistic insects that are ravaging crops from Nevada to Montana. Officials have spent millions of dollars over the past few years trying to control the explosive swarms of Mormon crickets that are responsible for destroying swatches of crops from Nevada to Montana.

USA - The Great Salt Lake in Utah reached a historic new low level on Sunday, reaching an average daily surface water elevation of 4,190.1 feet at the lake’s southern end, officials announced. The announcement, made in a joint press release on Tuesday between the Utah Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and United States Geological Survey (USGS), marks the second time within a year that the lake has reached a record low elevation. The Utah DNR and USGS noted that Sunday’s measurement beat the previous historic low elevation recorded in October, when it was measured at 4,190.2 feet. Prior to that, the lowest recorded elevation was 4,191.35 feet in October 1963. “This is not the type of record we like to break,” Utah DNR Executive Director Joel Ferry said in a statement.

USA - A record-low 20% of Americans now say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from 24% the last time the question was asked in 2017, and half of what it was at its high points in 1980 and 1984. Meanwhile, a new high of 29% say the Bible is a collection of "fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man." This marks the first time significantly more Americans have viewed the Bible as not divinely inspired than as the literal word of God. The largest percentage, 49%, choose the middle alternative, roughly in line with where it has been in previous years. Interpretation of the Bible, the holy Scripture of the Christian religion, has varied widely across time and across religious traditions. Gallup has been asking Americans specifically about their views on a literal interpretation of the Bible since 1976, with the latest update coming in Gallup's May Values and Beliefs survey.

RUSSIA - Everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. Deterrence was turned on its head. Instead of preventing President Vladimir Putin from open aggression, the threat of nuclear war shielded him from intervention. Now Europe’s worried the ageing autocrat aims to re-create the long-lost empire of Tsar Peter the Great. It’s a raw nerve Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to trigger as Europe’s leaders assembled to reset the future of the 30-member NATO alliance. “This is Russia’s real goal,” he warned on Thursday while appealing for aid to stop the Russian army in its tracks. “There will be either urgent help for Ukraine – enough to win – or Russia’s postponed war with you.” And that prospect, he intoned, could come sooner rather than later.

EUROPE - Experts are sceptical concerning the widely praised results of the western summits (EU, G7, NATO) that took place over the past ten days. The EU summit has produced an astounding result – granting Ukraine and Moldova candidate status, they note. However, how real the prospects may be for Ukraine, should be cast in serious doubts, given the fact that the EU continues to renege on its accession promises to the non-EU countries of Southeastern Europe. Concerning NATO’s announcement to massively militarize its eastern flank, they wonder where the resources should come from.

EUROPE - From an ostensible defensive alliance, NATO has grown into an aggressor designed to promote ‘rules’ dictated by the US. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, has just wrapped up its annual summit in Madrid, Spain. The one-time trans-Atlantic defensive alliance has, over the past three decades, transformed itself from the guardian of Western Europe into global cop, seeking to project militarily a so-called values- and rules-based posture.

GERMANY - The world in 2050 will be multipolar, with many influential countries, including Russia, pursuing their own interests, so the “big task” for the West is “to make this work,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday. Speaking to CBS News, Scholz said the key thing now is to do business “with many countries so that you can live with a situation when trouble comes up with one.” “I think the world we are going to live in [in] 2050 will be multipolar,” he added. “Many countries will be important. The United States, Russia, China, the European Union and the countries in this Union, but also Indonesia and India, or South Africa, countries from South America.” The chancellor argued that “the big task” now is “to make this work,” adding that “multipolar is not enough. Multilateral, working together for a better future, this is what we should aim for.”

USA - A woman has full rights to her womb and should not be held responsible for the wellbeing of an aborted fetus outside of it. With the present kerfuffle concerning the Supreme Court’s rejection of Roe v Wade, it might be a good time to consider the philosophical case for and against abortion. Which is correct: The pro-choice view or the pro-life position? Neither. The only tenable stance is a compromise between the two of them, called evictionism.

USA - The historic US emergency oil reserves release aimed at lowering domestic fuel prices led to more than 5 million barrels of oil being exported to Europe and Asia last month, despite record-high gas and diesel prices. The news of the export to other nations was reported by Reuters a week ago and raised concern over the continued mismanagement of resources by the Biden Administration. Oil exports from the US to reach an all-time high of 3.3m b/d in the current quarter as refinery disruptions and Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases increase available supplies, Rystad Energy says. The export of crude and fuel hinders the impact of the moves by Biden, who claimed the release of the strategic reserves would lead to lower prices at the pump. US crude inventories are now at the lowest since 2004. Refineries in the US Gulf coast were at 97.9% utilization before the release of the reserves.

USA - There are pros and cons with electric vehicles, not the least of which is the higher cost of purchase in a crumbling Biden economy. But with gas prices skyrocketing, many Americans are turning to them to save at the pump. But are they really saving money, especially in high-density cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco? As the old saying goes, time is money. It takes 40+ minutes to charge a Tesla using a Supercharging station. That’s far worse than the four or five minutes it takes to fill up a gas tank. All things being equal, this might still be a worthwhile tradeoff, but there’s one major problem that California residents are quickly learning. When there aren’t enough charging stations available, you’re not just waiting 40+ minutes. You’re waiting for the people ahead of you who are also taking 40+ minutes for their vehicles. Add more cars and it will be a 24 hour wait! This is what Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden, and the vast majority of Democrats want for us. Imagine what it will look like as more people buy electric cars and outpace installation of charging stations. This is a disaster now and it’s likely to get much worse.

USA - Too many Americans are blithely dismissing threats that could prove cataclysmic. Even as we watch the reservoirs and lakes of the West go dry, we keep watering our lawns, soaking our golf courses, and growing water-thirsty crops. As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending. As the ice caps melt and record temperatures make the evening news, we figure that buying a Prius and recycling the boxes from our daily Amazon deliveries will suffice. When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.

USA - The Biden regime, together with its allies in the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party, consider those natural rights, not unalienable endowed by the Creator, but as privileges dispensed or withdrawn according to the convenience of the state. Call it globalism, communism or neo-Feudalism, the intent is the same, to establish a world government by an international ruling class, who exploit the land for personal profit and rule over billions of people without liberty or property. Once elected, members of Congress serve only their own interests, and that of their party and its wealthy donors. Petitioning Congress for the redress of grievances is an exercise in futility. Now that our elections have proven to be a sham and our political system has been shown to be hopelessly corrupt, Americans who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law must choose either to resist or to submit to a one-party totalitarian state. The United States is no longer a functioning constitutional republic.

USA - The Great Reset is no longer just a nightmare for us, and an aspiration in the toxic minds of a bunch of the most evil conspirators ever known. It is now frighteningly close to the scary conclusion we’ve all been dreading. We are already living within an oppressive, restrictive faux-communist society based on digital control and progressing rapidly towards a complete lack of individuality and freedom. Everything that has been happening during the last two years – the Covid fraud, the net zero fraud, the sanctions against Russia, the transgender controversy – is part of the plan leading the world into the biggest recession since the 1930s. The New World Order is already here. We’re living in it. And things are going to get far, far worse during the coming months…

UK - Former punk star Feargal Sharkey has issued an urgent warning as the UK capital faces the imminent risk of becoming one of the most water-stressed cities in the world. The singer, most widely known for being a vocalist for The Undertones, warned of the increasing risks of water shortages brought about by a burgeoning population and “over-abstraction” of chalk streams. Over abstraction is the process where the amount of water harvested from a river is greater than the amount of rainfall it receives, leading to plummeting water levels in a river. In a 2017 report by the London Resilience Forum and Thames Water, the authors wrote that drought has become a "real and present threat to the capital”. Meanwhile, a more recent 2020 report from the National Audit Office warned that "if more concerted action is not taken now, parts of the south and south-east of England will run out of water within the next 20 years".