AUSTRALIA - A massive plague of rats and mice has ravaged Australia in the past week, amid fears that the wave of rodents could unleash a rare infectious disease across the country. Terrifying footage from rural eastern Australia show entire towns being overrun by a plague of mice and rats. At least three people have been bitten by mice inside Australian hospitals, as experts warn that the plague of rodents will only get worse. Farmers in New South Wales have reported "a drastic increase" in the mouse population, with the creatures found swarming inside grain silos, barns and homes. Footage of the swarms of mice have sparked concern across Australia and prompted viewers to remark: "This is exactly what nightmares are made of!" Experts have linked the mice plague to unusually heavy summer rains across eastern Australia after years of drought. There is also alarm around the safety of Australia's drinking water, with reports of poisoned mice carcasses ending up in water tanks.

USA - Last year the Fed increased the supply of US dollars in the financial system (M2) by 26% – the single largest annual increase since 1943. The Fed has nearly doubled the size of its balance sheet in the last 12 months alone, and nearly 10x’d its balance sheet since the financial crisis of 2008. In simple terms, the Fed ‘prints’ money (albeit electronically) and sprinkles it around the financial system.

JAPAN - A huge magnitude-7.2 earthquake has struck eastern Japan, sparking fears of an imminent tsunami. A tsunami warning has already been issued for the Miyagi Prefecture along the country's northeast coast. National public broadcaster NHK have since reported a one-metre tall tsunami wave has already hit the coast of Miyagi. According to locals, the earthquake was "felt strongly" across the country, including the capital Tokyo.

ICELAND - A volcano that had been dormant for 800 years has erupted south-west of Iceland's capital Reykjavik. The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said the eruption began on Friday night and is continuing into the weekend. The IMO said the fissure, which is part of the Krysuvik volcanic system is about 500 to 700 metres long. A no-fly zone has been established in the area as the eruption continues. Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hotspot, located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates. The two plates are drifting in opposite directions, leading to plenty of activity.

ITALY - Mount Etna has erupted for the 10th time in just three weeks, belching out columns of ash and smoke over Sicily. The latest eruption on Sunday morning spewed jets of molten lava and columns of ash more than 32,000ft (10km) into the sky. Europe's biggest and most active volcano has been erupting since mid-February, raining ash and smoke over Sicily's eastern coast. Volcano Discovery said: "This marks the 10th paroxysm in a row in a remarkable series since February 16. Intervals between individual eruptions have been regular, ranging between 36 hours to 3.5 days only, and there are no signs that this series is ending soon."

USA - The US Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday on the so-called “Equality Act,” leading to dueling narratives on the LGBT legislation’s ramifications for religious liberty, women’s athletics, privacy rights, and more. Labeled a “top priority” by the Biden administration, the proposed legislation would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sex,” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” among expressly recognized “non-discrimination” categories in “public accommodations” (the definition of which would be dramatically expanded); and force employers of 15 or more people to recognize their claimed “gender identity,” forbid them from “discriminating” based on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” and mandate transgender “access” to sex-specific facilities.

USA - The US may be on the cusp of another Covid-19 case surge, one expert says - but the mass vaccination of the most vulnerable Americans is likely to limit its human cost. "I think we are going to see a surge in the number of infections," emergency physician Dr Leana Wen told CNN on Wednesday night. "I think what helps this time though is that the most vulnerable - particularly nursing home residents, people who are older - are now vaccinated. And so we may prevent a spike in hospitalizations and deaths." Health officials have repeatedly warned about a potential fourth surge as state leaders eased restrictions and several lifted mask mandates. The first warning sign came when case numbers, after weeks of steep declines, appeared to level off - with the country still averaging tens of thousands of new cases daily. That kind of plateau previously predicted surges, some experts have said. Cases of the worrying variants - notably the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant - have also climbed and are set to become the dominant strain by the end of March or early April.

USA - A judge who presided over the Milwaukee County Children’s Court was arrested and charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography on Tuesday, including uploads made at the courthouse. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Brett Blomme was arrested Tuesday on tentative charges of possession of child pornography, the state Department of Justice announced. Blomme, 38, was taken into custody by special agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation “following an investigation into multiple uploads of child pornography through a Kik messaging application account in October and November 2020,” according to a statement. But conspicuously missing from the mainstream media reports about the arrest are Brett Blomme’s history with the notorious “Drag Queen Story Hour” events that have sparked outrage across the country. He was President and CEO of The Cream City Foundation which organized the LGBTQ+ events across Milwaukee.

USA - Just because you forecast the weather doesn't mean you're immune to it. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Cheyenne, Wyoming, have been trapped in their facility since Saturday, thanks to impassible roads and vehicles buried beneath heavy snow. Much of Wyoming, western Nebraska and the Colorado Front Range experienced a historic blizzard over the weekend, part of the same system that whipped up a serious tornado outbreak in the Texas Panhandle. Cheyenne picked up 30.8 inches, 28 of which came down within a 24-hour window. A whopping 22.7 inches fell Saturday alone, the city's single-greatest calendar day snow total since the start of bookkeeping in 1935.

UK - A Solar storm is on its way to our planet, and there is a chance the storm, which is travelling at 600 kilometres per second, could have enough venom to potentially interfere with satellite-reliant technology. Astronomers are forecasting that a "stream of high speed particles" are on their way to Earth. The particles were released by a hole in the Sun's southern hemisphere and they are travelling at a staggering 600 kilometres per second, or 2.1 million kilometres per hour. The particles are currently voyaging through the solar system and will hit Earth on March 20. When they do, researchers believe it could cause problems for satellite technology. It has been categorised as a G1 class storm which can lead to “weak power grid fluctuations” and can have a “minor impact on satellite operations”.

AUSTRALIA -Millions of residents are on alert and some low lying areas of New South Wales have been warned to evacuate by 8pm on Friday night as torrential rain and flooding batter Australia's east coast. The State Emergency Service said dangerous flooding is unfolding in several areas of the mid-north coast including Port Macquarie, North Haven, Laurieton, Camden Head, and Dunbogan. Severe weather warnings have also been extended to Sydney, Illawarra, and the Blue Mountains regions with heavy rains, damaging winds and wild surf expected. Two thirds of the country is expected to receive a drenching over the next 48 hours including Australia's red centre.

USA - For poor countries, what comes next could be worse. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many feared that the disease would hit the world’s poorest countries the hardest — that cases would overwhelm hospitals, health-care workers would run out of equipment and supplies, and the death toll would be devastating. Those eventualities, thankfully, have not yet come to pass. From available data, there appear to be fewer deaths per capita in low- and middle-income countries than in their richer counterparts. But developing countries may have suffered more from the pandemic economically and politically than they have in the realm of public health. A recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) study has found that social unrest increased after the SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola, and Zika pandemics, particularly in countries with high levels of inequality. COVID-19 has more potential than all those past diseases combined to increase poverty, deepen social fractures, and intensify conflicts.

USA - On February 25, the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a bill that is touted as a step forward for civil rights in the United States. If enacted, the bill would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the federally protected classes that cannot be discriminated against and would expand where such protections are applied. While expanding such protections is not necessarily widely opposed (Mormon Republican Chris Stewart has introduced the Fairness for All Act as an alternative bill), the act explicitly says that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 cannot be invoked, and this has generated tremendous concern that both private businesses and religious institutions will be forced to toe the current cultural line regarding sexual and gender ideology, or else face discrimination suits and be sued into oblivion.

UK - Some people believe the most extraordinary things. Earth is flat, and airplane GPS is rigged to fool pilots into thinking otherwise. COVID-19 vaccines are a pretext to inject thought-controlling microchips into us all. The true president of the United States is Donald Trump; his inauguration will happen on January 20, make that March 4, make that a date to be arranged very soon. The question “How could anybody believe this stuff?” comes naturally enough. That may not be the most helpful question, however. Conspiracy theorists believe strange ideas, yes. But these outlandish beliefs rest on a solid foundation of disbelief.

USA - A surveillance contractor that has previously sold services to the US military is advertising a product that it says can locate the real-time locations of specific cars in nearly any country on Earth. It says it does this by using data collected and sent by the cars and their components themselves, according to a document obtained by Motherboard. "Ulysses can provide our clients with the ability to remotely geolocate vehicles in nearly every country except for North Korea and Cuba on a near real time basis," the document, written by contractor The Ulysses Group, reads. "Currently, we can access over 15 billion vehicle locations around the world every month," the document adds.