USA - US job vacancies hit record highs in March, illustrating how a shortage of workers is hampering economic recovery and heaping fresh pressure on President Joe Biden and his $300-a-week unemployment supplement. Six states have now moved to end the federal program amid complaints that it is deterring people from looking for work. Tuesday's Labor Department figures showed vacancies rising 8%, to 8.1 million openings in March, the most since records began in December 2000. Critics were quick to blame the supplement, which pays more than most minimum-wage jobs. It is due to run until September as part of Biden's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package approved in March.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to 'inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of' prompting Hamas to retaliate with 130 rockets of its own, as the deadly fighting in the Middle East continued on Wednesday. Israeli strikes killed several of the Islamist group's top commanders on Wednesday, and destroyed another multi-storey building in Gaza City, as the UN warned of a 'full scale war' in the region. Israeli fighter jets dropped two bombs on the 14-storey Al-Sharouk tower, which housed the bureau of the Al-Aqsa television channel, and is the third tall structure in Gaza City levelled since the bombing campaign began Monday. In just two days of fighting, Hamas has fired more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, while the Jewish state has carried out counter-strikes against what it called military targets. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken has called Netanyahu to reaffirm America's support for Israel's right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks.

USA - With many students at home, and with a mass of websites offering services to do their homework, schools have seen a surge in academic dishonesty. A year of remote learning has spurred an eruption of cheating among students, from grade school to college. With many students isolated at home over the past year — and with a mass of online services at their disposal — academic dishonesty has never been so easy. Among the newer ways to cheat are homework auction sites, which give students a say in who does their work and at what price. Students post their assignment on a website, along with a deadline; the website acts as a marketplace for bidders who offer to do the assignment.

USA - The first tropical storm of the 2021 eastern Pacific hurricane season formed off the southwest coast of Mexico on Sunday. Tropical Storm Andres is the earliest tropical storm to ever form during the satellite era in the eastern Pacific, surpassing Adrian in 2017. Andres also holds the distinction of developing before the official start of eastern Pacific hurricane season, which begins on May 15. It's not the first time a tropical system has developed before the official start of hurricane season. The eastern Pacific has had either a tropical depression or tropical storm form prior to the official season in three of the last five years. This system began developing on Friday, and has since strengthened into a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Andres currently has sustained winds of 40 mph and is tracking to the northwest at 6 mph. It only takes one storm to change your life and community. If you live in an area prone to tropical cyclones, you need to be prepared. Learn how during Hurricane Preparedness Week (May 9-15, 2021).

ISRAEL - A woman was killed and another person was critically wounded in Rishon Lezion after terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets in the direction of Tel Aviv late Tuesday night setting off sirens throughout the center of the country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz gave a joint statement Tuesday night, declaring that the violence will continue for some time. "Hamas and Islamic Jihad have paid and will continue to pay for their actions," said Netanyahu. "We are all mourning those killed and praying for those who were injured. We give our full support to the IDF and Israeli security forces. This campaign will take time." Israel has "the right and the obligation to act and will continue to do so," said Gantz. Israel struck 500 targets, killing dozens of terrorists, IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi said. "We will continue extensive strikes against Gaza," he added.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a state of emergency in the central city of Lod as police accused Arab residents of waging 'wide-scale riots'. Mayor Yair Revivo had ramped up the drama by declaring 'civil war has erupted', the military should be deployed and compared it to Kristallnacht under the Nazis. The city of 77,000 people, including 47,000 Jewish Israelis and 23,000 Arab Israelis, had been the scene of violent clashes on Monday, local police confirmed. Mr Revivo said the clashes were 'too big for the police' and called for the military to be deployed. 'All of Israel should know, this is a complete loss of control… This is unthinkable. Synagogues are being burned. Hundreds of cars set alight. Hundreds of Arab thugs are roaming the streets… Civil war has erupted in Lod… The Orthodox-nationalist community here has guns. I'm imploring them to go back home but they understandably want to protect their homes. Petrol bombs are being thrown into [Jewish] homes. The situation is incendiary.'

ISRAEL - Things have been getting more tense in Jerusalem for weeks, and Monday was the day when tensions really started to boil over. The violence that we witnessed in the streets of Jerusalem shocked the entire globe, and it threatens to spark a major regional conflict. In response to the chaos in Jerusalem, Hamas fired more than 160 rockets into Israel, and the IDF responded by striking several targets in the Gaza strip. We haven’t seen hostilities in the region reach this level in a long, long time. Politicians around the globe are crying out for peace to be restored, but the leader of Hamas is indicating that more violence may be coming…

USA - Newt Gingrich on Monday night said Joe Biden should be authorized to 'order the killings of anybody overseas' who was found to be behind attacks on America's infrastructure, describing the cyberhack of the Colonial Pipeline as 'an act of war'. Gas shortages were beginning to be reported across the East Coast on Monday evening, as the pipeline was slowly brought back on line after a four-day shutdown. Hackers from DarkSide, a Russia-based network of cybercriminals, were said by the FBI to be behind the ransomware attack. On Monday they said they were mistaken to cause 'societal consequences', and only sought money. They said they would not target critical infrastructure again, and wanted no part in any geopolitical battles. But Gingrich said that the United States needed more power to go after those responsible.

USA - Prices are going up so fast that even the mainstream media can’t stop talking about it. This has already become a major national crisis, and it should be exceedingly obvious to everyone that it is only going to get worse. The Biden administration wants to borrow and spend trillions more dollars on top of all the absurd spending that has already happened, and the Federal Reserve is going to continue to pump gigantic piles of fresh cash into the financial system. Collectively, our leaders are literally committing economic malpractice, and if most Americans truly understood what was going on they would be out in the streets protesting against it.

USA - Hackers were able to launch cyberattacks on more than 24 other companies across a range of industries after shutting down the Colonial Pipeline, according to reports. At least two dozen other victims - which have not been named - were also affected by the ransomware attack, Bloomberg reported. They were helped by private-sector companies and US agencies who helped disrupt the hack, the news agency said. The 5,500 mile Colonial Pipeline was shut down on Friday evening by the company when the ransomware attack was launched - seemingly by Russian-based cybercriminal group, DarkSide. Service was gradually being restored on Monday. White House officials have warned the attack shows just how vulnerable the US is to such events. President Joe Biden said Monday: 'We need to invest to safeguard our critical infrastructure.'

INDIA - Dozens more bodies of Covid victims in India washed up on the banks of the Ganges on Tuesday, as ambulance drivers were spotted dumping corpses into the water. The infected bodies surfaced in the river along the border of the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which the Ganges run through. Tuesday's discovery comes after more than 150 rotting bodies were dumped into the river on Monday in the same region. Some of the bodies on Tuesday were partially burned, according to media reports quoting other officials, suggesting they had not been properly cremated. Locals suggested to AFP news agency that people were immersing the bodies of relatives who had died of Covid-19 because they could not afford wood for funeral pyres or because crematoriums were overwhelmed. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are two of India's poorest states and home to an estimated 370 million people. Since the pandemic began, India has seen more than 22.6 million infections and over 246,000 deaths - both, experts say, almost certainly undercounts.

UK - The Queen has delivered her Government's plans for the year ahead as the nation faces recovery from the pandemic and the post-Brexit era. Here is what she said. The Queen says the government will “ensure that the public finances are returned to a sustainable path once the economic recovery is secure”. She says it will also “ensure that children have the best start in life” with a focus on early years. Ministers will address the lost time in education during the pandemic, she says.

ISRAEL - More than 300 injuries have been reported after Israeli forces raided Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, for the second time since Friday, amid soaring tensions over Israeli plans to forcibly evict Palestinian families from their homes. Israeli security personnel used tear gas and stun grenades while storming the holy site, according to eyewitness reports. At least 305 people have been injured, according to the Palestine Red Crescent, with seven in critical condition. Nine officers sustained injuries during the clashes, Israeli police said. A spokesman for Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the “brutal storming” of the mosque, claiming it undermined peace efforts and presented a “new challenge to the international community.” The European Union’s delegation to the Palestinians released a statement saying the bloc was “extremely concerned” by ongoing clashes in the Old City and urged all sides to refrain from violence. The diplomatic mission also called on Israel’s security forces to ensure that paramedics are able to offer aid to those who have been injured in the clashes.

ISRAEL - What Jerusalem's Arab and Jewish residents have in common is a desire to never return to a physical division of the city, which most of its population is too young to remember. Today is the day we mark the liberation of Jerusalem. Our parents and grandparents dreamed of this city, which we do not appreciate enough, which has become something we take for granted – a city without walls and barbed wire.

FRANCE - A group of active French military personnel has published a new open letter to the country's president Emmanuel Macron, warning him of a "civil war" brewing in the country after all the "concessions" he's made to Islamism. The letter, published in the conservative Valeurs Actuelles magazine late on Sunday, strikes a similar tone to the message published by the same outlet last month. Unlike the previous one, which was signed by 25 retired generals and active-duty soldiers, the new letter is anonymous and is open for signing by the general public. As of noon on Monday, it had attracted over 100,000 signatures.