USA - Schools across the United States are 'weaponizing' their curriculums to 'indoctrinate' young children to 'turn them into activists', a former Virginia school board member warned on Thursday. Elizabeth Schultz, who served on the school board of Fairfax County, said that the pandemic, and its subsequent home schooling, had lifted the lid on what was going on in classrooms. 'The pandemic has revealed that our education system is being weaponized by school boards — school boards like Fairfax county that is certainly a bellwether district for what's happening in this country … are taking this time not to get our children back in school and learning in the classroom, but weaponizing their time and using taxpayer money to embed things like critical race theory by outsourcing this to consultants from New York City and beyond.' Critical race theory is a reassessment of racial inequalities in the United States, which critics say emphasizes racial differences, and brainwashes white children into feeling guilty about the color of their skin.

USA - Americans are returning to restaurants, bars and other dining places as Covid-19 restrictions come down, adding new strains in food supply chains. Suppliers and logistics providers say distributors are facing shortages of everyday products like chicken parts, as well as difficulty in finding workers and surging transportation costs as companies effectively try to reverse the big changes in food services that came as coronavirus lockdowns spread across the US last year. “Over the last six weeks, we have seen the market come roaring back faster than anybody would have anticipated,” said Mark Allen, chief executive of the International Foodservice Distributors Association. “The start up has been, in many ways, as difficult as the shutdown… Everybody is trying to turn it on immediately and the capacity might not be there.”

USA - Younger Americans are reshaping the country with a philosophy of life that rejects faith in God and organized worship at the same time defining success and morality in terms of personal happiness and economic social justice, a survey from the Cultural Research Center (CRC) at Arizona Christian University found. The American Worldview Inventory (AWVI) 2021, an annual survey that examines the perspectives of adults aged 18 and over in the United States, found that while 57 percent of Millennials (born 1984-2002) consider themselves to be Christian, 43 percent “don’t know, care, or believe that God exists.”

USA - Is eating grains healthy? You might think that as long as you stick to whole grains, you have nothing to worry about from a health standpoint, but the sad truth is that America’s wheat supply is extensively contaminated by glyphosate. Although there is no GMO wheat grown in the US right now – at least, not deliberately, although there are reports of rogue varieties of GMO wheat cropping up from test plots – most of the country’s wheat is nevertheless contaminated with toxic glyphosate. This is largely because the herbicide is habitually sprayed on wheat crops in a process known as desiccation. When farmers spray glyphosate, often in the form of the commercial herbicide Roundup, on their wheat, it allows them to harvest it at a time that is convenient for them, such as ahead of the first snowfall in their area. It may make their lives easier, but it can make life a lot harder for many people who eat the resulting products as the chemical has been linked to a host of serious illnesses, including cancer.

USA - Millions of consumers around the world have been hoodwinked by the “Non-GMO” product label, and to this day, have no clue that the quality of the majority of those products is nothing even close to organic. The whole goal of eating healthy is to avoid foods that are contaminated, and that way you also get the most nutrients possible. The “Non-GMO” label, such as the popular “Project Non-GMO Verified” label, can be affixed to food products that still contain “biosludge” biological waste, which can include syringes, blood vials and pathogens from surgical wraps and Petri dishes used to develop dirty vaccines, including COVID-19. There is one good reason to buy food that is labeled “Non-GMO,” but there are about 10 blaring reasons not to. This is why you should only buy organic food or locally (or self-grown) food that you can be sure is not loaded with contaminants.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO - Thousands of people have been evacuated after the Nyiragongo volcano erupted and fumes turned the sky red in apocalyptic scenes. The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ordered the mass evacuation from the eastern city of Goma on Saturday following the eruption. Even before the official announcement, thousands of people had started filling the streets and carrying what they could as they headed out of the city, which has already suffered from previous eruptions. But later Saturday, Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya tweeted: "The evacuation plan for the city of Goma has been activated. The last time Nyiragongo erupted was January 17, 2002, killing more than a hundred people and covering almost all of the eastern part of Goma with lava, including half of the airport's landing strip.” The Goma region, which lies in North Kivu province, bordering Rwanda and Uganda, has six volcanoes, all higher than 3,000 metres.

ISRAEL - Israel had restrained itself in Gaza under the belief that Yahya Sinwar wants to focus on improving the living conditions of Gazans. But the deep essence of Hamas dictates an inevitable confrontation. In the Gazan culture of the Muslim Brotherhood there is almost no constructive content of building a society and a nation. The struggle to uproot the Jews is the meaning of life. Gazan society does not offer its children a better future but a morbid satisfaction from killing Jews and destroying their country, derived from a tribal and pathological version of “honor.” Gaza has no “solution”: improving living conditions of Gazans is not for them a substitute for violent struggle. The current confrontation would have come anyway and it's good that it came now and not during a possible war with Iran and its emissaries. Israel has been given the opportunity to direct all its resources against Hamas and to fatally damage its military capabilities.

IRAN - Iran is once again trying to present itself as the main power fighting for the Palestinians and the Muslim nation. A poster issued by Supreme Leader Khamenei's office clearly illustrates the changing balance of power. In Tehran's view, the Palestinians have progressed from stones to missiles, while Iranian nuclear power will provide the strategic blanket to enable continued terror and subversive activity. The poster, based on the Supreme Leader's speech on al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, reads: “Today, the balance of power has shifted in favor of the Muslim world.” Khamenei added that today, “the hope of achieving victory is stronger than ever.” One of the most prominent features of al-Quds Day is mass “Death to Israel“ and "Death to the United-States" marches. Khamenei stressed that Iran is arming Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza and allowing them to strike a balance in the armed struggle against Israel. IRGC General Asghar Emami, a Quds Force commander, said on May 6: “Whenever we want to strangle America, to exert pressure on it, extract concessions from it, and get what we deserve, we can easily tighten our grip around the throat of the Zionist regime, because it is surrounded from all directions.”

ISRAEL - You, who march through the streets of Italy, the UK or Germany with Palestinian flags and shout slogans accusing Israel of crimes against humanity, tell me, what should Israel do? You, who don't rush to protest against the blatant crimes against humanity contained in targeting innocent civilians when terrorists are bombing homes, schools, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. You, who solely condemned the right of Israel to defend itself from those ready to murder its citizens by blowing up buses and pizzerias, when suicide terrorists killed almost 2,000 Israelis during the Second Intifada.

GAZA - For many years, Gaza has been a major location for an army of international aid providers. Their reports consistently portray an impoverished Palestinian enclave on the brink of disaster, usually blamed on Israeli policies. The suffering of innocent children is a frequent theme used to raise donations, which exceed $1 billion annually. Yet no one talked about the massive arsenal of rockets deployed by Hamas and its allies, and the costs involved. Instead of using very limited resources for economic development and to create real jobs, Hamas diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to build a vast war machine. Aid materials disappeared into the rocket assembly lines, and the concrete provided for housing was used to build cross-border attack tunnels. Now, with millions of Israeli citizens targeted and terrorized by Palestinian missiles, many are demanding an end to the years of impunity for Hamas and the international organizations involved in or complicit with this ongoing assault.

ISRAEL - The recent fighting has revealed two new realities: the US’s once-automatic backing of Israel is fraying, and the much-parroted resolution for the conflict is a non-starter. Are we approaching seismic change in the Middle East? For starters, the conversation on this subject in the United States – Israel’s largest benefactor – has changed forever. As Ryan Grim of The Intercept described in a recent piece, this is the first time ever that members of the United States Congress have expressed disapproval against Israel. What we’re seeing is a generational change over how the public sees the conflict and I think it has to do with the fact that this is the most diverse Congress in history, in a country that is becoming more and more racially diverse.

ISRAEL - The next round will be worse, unless Israel reasserts control of its destiny. The Hamas terror-state is causing violence on many fronts, fueling internal Israeli hatreds, harming us globally. It opened this round of conflict on Monday, May 10, by launching a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem — at a stroke staking a claim among the Palestinians as the ostensible defender of the contested city, where tension and violence had been building at and around the Al-Aqsa mosque atop the Temple Mount. At a stroke, too, by extension, it marginalized the West Bank Palestinian leadership under Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

UK - Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government have expressed regret for using what they now admit to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behaviour during the pandemic, according to a report. The London Telegraph reports the comments made by Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) the government’s chief scientific advisory group.

GERMANY - Germany will continue to make it possible for Israel to defend itself as long as there are forces seeking its destruction, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said during his visit to Israel aimed at promoting “ceasefire.” Germany’s solidarity with Israel “is not limited to words only,” Maas said as he arrived in Israel for a one-day visit on Thursday. The diplomat insisted the Jewish state had every right to defend itself against what he called “massive and unacceptable attacks.” “As long as there are states and groups that threaten Israel with annihilation, it must be able to protect its citizens,” Maas said, adding that Germany would “make contributions” to ensure Israel’s ability to do just that.

USA - Companies are increasingly chasing next-gen consumers: America’s youth. What’s new: Fidelity today said 13 to 17-year-olds can trade stocks using an account in teens’ full control once it's opened by a guardian. It’s an industry first — and other brokers could follow. Why it matters: Kids are a lucrative market given how much younger they are developing online habits (something the pandemic has only made worse). What they're saying: “It’s basically hook ’em as young as you can, period,” says Jim Steyer, founder of Common Sense Media, a children’s advocacy group that's called for more regulations on this front. It's happening across a slew of industries. Media companies like Netflix and ViacomCBS are pouring millions of dollars into content for kids. The New York Times is testing kid-friendly digital subscriptions. One toy retailer now “lets kids as young as 3 years old shop for gifts … without requiring further signoff from an adult,” the Wall Street Journal reported this week.