USA - The stimulus bill costs $1.9 trillion as the national debt approaches $28 trillion, according to the latest Treasury Department data. The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the second-largest stimulus package in US history in the early hours of Saturday that includes a gradual $15 minimum wage hike, despite the Senate parliamentarian's ruling. Two Democrats, Representatives Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon, joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The final vote shortly after 2 am was 219 to 212 and the bill now moves to the Democratic-led Senate. Democrats are using budget reconciliation to pass the American Rescue Plan, which the Senate parliamentarian ruled cannot include a minimum wage increase. Reconciliation allows Democrats to pass the bill without relying on any votes from Senate Republicans.

USA - A historic winter storm and cold blast caused chaos in Texas last week. Temperatures fell into the teens near Dallas and 20s around Houston. Power outages were initiated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas early on Monday morning and lasted for days. Oil and natural gas producer Texas could not keep up with the power needed last week because their Chinese wind turbines froze up in the cold. So what lesson did the crazy left learn about the record freeze last week? We need more frozen wind turbines! Green Czar Gina McCarthy says we need more green energy. You really can’t make this stuff up!

USA - A tacit admission by the US Air Force that the F-35 has failed its main mission has triggered an outpouring of outrage from Americans who think the stealth fighter’s gargantuan budget could have been better spent on other things. Frustration with Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation stealth jet flooded Twitter on Wednesday, after Forbes magazine published a story about how USAF commissioning a study into a new, cheaper and lighter fighter amounts to “a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed.” “We could have used this cash to cancel student loans for every person in America,” lamented the liberal watchdog Public Citizen, pointing to the F-35 program’s estimated $1.7 trillion lifetime cost. For that kind of money, “we could have completely replaced America's water infrastructure,” said environmentalist advocate Erin Brockovich. “That's enough to house all homeless people in the United States 28 times over,” tweeted Robert Reich, Labor secretary in the Clinton administration.

UK - Replacing the word ‘mother’ with terms like ‘birthing bodies’, ‘uterus holder’ and ‘chestfeeders’ is not only an assault on women – it reveals the divided and parlous state of many liberal democracies. This week debate commenced in the UK House of Lords over a bill dealing with paid maternity leave for members of parliament – an insignificant piece of legislation that would normally have attracted little or no attention. The bill, however, includes provisions that compel the use of woke transgender terminology, and this has provoked a fierce debate in the Lords between supporters of the new globalised world order and defenders of the older nation-state based regime.

USA - California’s Assembly is slated to consider a new bill requiring department store childrens’ sections to be largely “gender-neutral” in order to combat “prejudice” and “judgment” against gender non-conforming children. “Large retailers that sell toys, clothes, and other children’s items in California would have to devote floor space to merchandise marketed to both boys and girls under a new bill,” Politico reported earlier this week. “Stores would be able to sell the same products they do now as long as they maintain some areas where shoppers can find all toys or clothes, regardless of gender-based marketing, under CA AB2826 (19R) from Assemblyman Evan Low (Democrat for Campbell). It would apply to department stores with 500 or more employees beginning in 2023.” Lowe told Politico that the idea for the bill, which he also introduced last year to little effect, came from one of his staffers, who claims her daughter wanted an item in the “boys” section but felt slighted because she [saw] the toy was designated for a male child. “This is an issue of children being able to express themselves without bias,” Lowe told the outlet.

USA - A New York university has suspended an education student from mandatory teaching programs for posting Instagram videos expressing conservative ideology. State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo sent an email to education student Owen Stevens placing him on suspension from his field teaching programs after his peers uncovered videos of him preaching conservative dogma. The school claims that Stevens’ videos “call into question” his ability to “maintain a classroom environment protecting the mental and emotional well-being of all of [his] students.” According to a copy of Steven’s suspension obtained by The Daily Wire, the education student will remain suspended from participating in in-school field experiences and courses that have field experiences until he completes a “remediation plan.” The remediation plan includes taking down his Instagram videos, toning down his social media presence, and attending school-sanctioned training. Stevens told The Daily Wire he refuses to take part in “re-education” training.

FRANCE - Not content with controlling people’s lives with curfews and lockdowns, politicians in France are now extending their reach, with the mayor of Lyon banning meat in schools. It’s time for an end to this heavy-handed state meddling. A year into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is growing weary of the restrictions of debatable effectiveness that have impeded daily life.

USA - Democrats’ ‘Equality Act’ that prioritises sexual preference over religion isn’t interested in delivering equality at all. Religious Americans are under fire from the Equality Act, which will strip them of their right of association, forcing them to accept lifestyles they disagree with. Why is sexual orientation more important than faith? All three Abrahamic religions have very strict definitions of marriage and gender. All three state that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that God created man and woman in his own image. Each religion believes that there is a purpose to these decrees, and that those purposes are divine.

CHINA - Solar panels. Wind turbines. Electric vehicle batteries and motors. These are just four of the things that need one or more of a group of minerals known as rare earths. Incidentally, these are also four of the things the EU is basing its future on. And it produces next to none of these critical rare earths. Like lithium, rare earths are abundant. Deposits large enough to make economic sense, however, are only found in a limited number of areas around the world, with the largest deposits discovered so far in China. Rare earth exports are a lucrative business for Asia’s biggest economy, where it has virtually established world domination. And this domination is not good news for Europe — or the United States, for that matter.

NIGERIA - Police in Nigeria’s Zamfara State have said that 317 schoolgirls were abducted in an armed raid on Friday morning, just one week after 42 people were kidnapped from a boys’ school in neighboring Niger State last week. “The Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operation with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe,” police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement on Friday. Speaking earlier on Friday, Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara State, told Reuters that the girls were taken in a midnight raid by unknown gunmen. Anka added that the attackers came with vehicles and transported the schoolgirls away. Amnesty International Nigeria called the attack “a serious violation of international humanitarian law” and called on the authorities to do everything in their power to bring about the students’ safe return.

USA - More Americans than ever identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) according to a survey of sexuality, with one in six people under 23 saying they are something other than heterosexual. The Gallup Poll released Wednesday, found that 5.6 percent of Americans classify themselves as LGBTQ – up from 4.5 percent in 2017. That was the last time Gallup carried out polling on the issue. Women are more likely than men to identify as LGBT (6.4 percent to 4.9).. .Gallup added that with younger generations far more likely than older generations to consider themselves LGBTQ, that growth should continue.

USA - I don’t know why anyone would want to live in Chicago at this point. According to the latest estimate that I could find, “over 117,000 gang members” currently live in the city, and there is so much violence that it regularly makes headlines all over the globe. Some of the wealthy areas of Chicago still look nice, but many communities have been transformed into something straight out of a war zone. Large churches, hospitals and factories that were once so beautiful are now rotting and decaying all over the city, and a vibrant open air drug market scares customers away from local businesses. Sadly, the truth is that the entire country is going down the exact same path that Chicago has gone.

USA - A whole host of prominent voices have been warning that volatility and chaos would be returning to Wall Street, and that is precisely what has happened. But is this just a temporary blip, or has the great shaking of the financial markets finally begun? Many stock market investors are very much hoping for the former, because the pain is already becoming quite severe. The Nasdaq has fallen more than 5 percent this week, and it is headed for its second consecutive weekly loss. But the bond market has actually been making even bigger news.

USA - A New Albany, Ohio, music school offering piano, guitar and violin lessons racked up under nearly $1 million in loans and $35,000 in credit card debt. A fine dining restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, received more than $450,000 in federal small-business funds to help pay workers but still had to close its doors. Nearly a year since coronavirus-related shutdowns began affecting large swaths of the American economy, more businesses are filing for bankruptcy as Chapter 11 filings were up nearly 20 percent in 2020 compared with the previous year, court records show. Economists are predicting strong economic growth this year overall. But the bankruptcy data show that despite $3.7 trillion in federal stimulus spending to combat the recession triggered by the pandemic, and another $1.9 trillion being proposed by President Biden, businesses in certain industries have become particularly vulnerable and may take years to recover enough to pay their bills. Others will not recover at all.

ISRAEL - The satellite images of the Negev Nuclear Research Center that were leaked on Thursday were not what made the story. The timing of the leak did. Someone is sending a clear message to the world. It was not the facts that made the story, but the timing at which they leaked. Someone is sending a clear message to the world: Israel is sharpening its sword. Who is responsible for sending the message? IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant. General Aviv Kochavi said a month ago, "I instructed the IDF to prepare several operational plans beyond the existing ones." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out several times that he opposed the Biden administration's plan to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The IDF, the Mossad, the Foreign Ministry, and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi agree. So do Permanent Representative to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, head of the National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat, and the entire Israeli echelon. Seeing as the leaders agree on this, the IDF is preparing to take independent action in case Iran does end up using its nuclear weapons, and the US stands by.