USA - During a hail storm last week, several solar farms in Needville, Texas were destroyed in an area spanning more than 10,000 acres. Nearby residents have expressed concerns about the envirnmental impact of the solar farms. …Nick showed us emails he sent to Fort Bend County Commissioners, the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, and the owners of Fighting J’s Solar Farm asking for the environmental impact report. “We’ve asked for the same studies, and we’ve been treated the same way,” said Mikes Fugua who also lives near the solar farms. “We got nothing out of them.” “My concern is the hail damage that came through and busted these panels we now have some highly toxic chemicals [cadmium, lead and polyvinyl fluoride] that could be potentially leaking into our water tables,” said Kaminski.

UK - It’s been hard to watch the effects of forced diversity, multiculturalism, and mass immigration on the tiny island of Great Britain — the most densely populated nation in Europe. At least in America we still have so much land area that most people are not yet feeling the effects of large-scale population displacement stemming from all forms of immigration. In the UK, however, every day feels like an episode of “Survivor” as people who are being crammed in like sardines are increasingly made to fear that they’ll be voted off the island. Recently, protests surrounding the Israel–Hamas war have exposed the fragility of a British culture — and nation — on the verge of capsizing from the weight of immigration and cultural divides.

USA - What started last summer as a social media challenge has morphed into a major challenge for California shop owners, police, and teens. Hundreds or even thousands of teens descended on one mall and milled about, blocking access to stores, getting into fights and generally raising holy hell. One 16-year-old kid was shot during a disturbance involving hundreds of teens at the Pike Outlets in Long Beach. Another teen was stabbed in the Bay area as a mob of teens descended on a mall in Emeryville. The sheer number of teens who show up at these "takeovers" is alarming. Thousands of teens confronted police at a fashion mall in Torrance, closing streets for hours. They planned to repeat the event this weekend.

USA - Leprosy is on the rise again in the United States, particularly in Florida, concerning disease specialists. According to the World Health Organization, about 200,000 cases of the disease occur every year in 120 countries worldwide and are often associated with contact with armadillos. The US is experiencing cases creep upwards, with the number of infections across the country more than doubling over the past decade, both in people exposed to armadillos and those who aren't. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year, there were 159 new cases of leprosy in the US in 2020, around a fifth of which were in Florida. Of the Florida cases, 81 percent were found in central Florida. Cases in the southeastern states have nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the report.

USA - The major Beltway Bridge over the Patapsco River has collapsed after being hit by a large cargo ship, sending vehicles travelling on the bridge tumbling into the water. This effectively shuts down the Port of Baltimore completely. A four-lane bridge carrying the Interstate-695 over the mouth of Baltimore harbour collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott has said he is aware of an “incident at the Key Bridge” and that emergency services are on scene. The Baltimore Fire Department says the collision, which saw several vehicles which were travelling on the bridge plunge into the Patapsco River, is a “mass casualty event”, per the BBC.

USA - If America is heading in the right direction, why have so many of our major cities become cesspools of violence, drugs, theft, trash and homelessness? Once upon a time, millions of young people from all over America flocked to our rapidly growing metropolitan areas. Today, there is a mass exodus out of our largest metropolitan areas due to the absolutely deplorable conditions. If you are not yet convinced that we are a nation in decline, spend some time wandering around our core urban areas. The shiny new cities that previous generations of Americans built for us are degenerating at a pace that is absolutely stunning.

EUROPE - European members of NATO are €56 billion ($61 billion) short of meeting the US-led bloc’s minimum defense spending target, research for the Financial Times by Germany’s Ifo Institute has suggested. Washington accounted for two-thirds of NATO’s $1.3 trillion total spending in 2023, more than double the $393 billion jointly contributed by EU countries and the UK and Norway, the newspaper outlined on Saturday. According to the research, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Belgium were the furthest from meeting the bloc’s goal of investing 2% of GDP in defense, which NATO members agreed in 2014 following the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

INDIA - Known as India’s Silicon Valley, with 67,000 registered information technology (IT) companies and counting, Bengaluru, once called “the air-conditioned city” for its salubrious climate and widespread gardens, is facing an unprecedented water crisis, forcing over five million IT workers to either work from home or leave the city altogether. Still called Bangalore, too, the city is home to multinational companies such as Capgemini, WalMart, IBM, Deloitte, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, SAP and HewlettPackard, in addition to global Indian companies like Infosys and TCS. It is also India’s start-up capital and its healthcare capital, with a multitude of state-of-the-art medical facilities.

MYANMAR/BURMA - Americans are sick of solving the world’s problems, and many are fed up with funding Ukraine. However, the war in Myanmar/Burma is a just cause, and the locals are willing to do all the fighting if America would give them some surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) like the FIM-92 Stinger to counter Russian and Chinese helicopters and aircraft.

USA - There’s more bad news for Boeing. The aircraft manufacturer is either having a run of bad luck or is suffering from internal rot like so many once-iconic corporations. Maybe it’s a combination of both. Whatever the case, passengers who rely on Boeing aircraft to get from one place to another in a world where air travel often is a necessity have a right to feel reasonably safe when they board a plane. But that’s not what happened when passengers got on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in Portland, Oregon, on January 5, according to The Seattle Times.

SWITZERLAND - More than 92% of the countries and regions analyzed exceeded guidelines for particulate pollution, according to a report from IQAir, a Swiss air quality-monitoring company. Just seven countries met World Health Organization guidelines for air pollution last year, as continued reliance on fossil fuels and climate change repercussions continue to dog human health, according to a report published Tuesday by IQAir, a Swiss air quality-monitoring company.

USA - During an interview with the Fox News Channel aired on Friday’s broadcast of “Special Report,” Senator John Fetterman (Democrat for Pennsylvania) reacted to claims that 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war — a claim that has been repeated by President Joe Biden — by stating that number includes a huge number of Hamas terrorists and also said that the war could end immediately if Hamas would surrender and release the hostages. He continued, “And then we’re talking about now there [are] 31,000 Palestinians that were killed, and, well, you’re not talking about, well, 13,000 or more are actually Hamas fighters on that. So, why aren’t you breaking that out as well, too? And then, if you do, and talk about the casualty ratio, it’s actually very clear that this isn’t a genocide or that the Israelis are targeting civilians. In fact, the only ones that [target] civilians, that’s Hamas.”

EUROPE - EU government officials recently convened with food security experts to devise a plan to handle a potential food crisis. The question no longer appears to be whether such a scenario will come to pass but rather how soon Europeans can expect it. The possibility that Europe might experience a major food crisis has become so likely that 60 EU and government officials gathered to carry out a simulation of what could occur and work on policies that can help respond to such a crisis. With videos depicting floods, droughts and civil unrest to drive home what is at stake, experts were warned to “expect a level of chaos.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis decided at the last minute to skip his homily during Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square, avoiding a strenuous speech at the start of a busy Holy Week that will test his increasingly frail health. Hobbled by bad knees and persistent respiratory problems, Francis also didn’t participate in the procession of cardinals around the obelisk in the piazza at the start of the Mass. Instead, the 87-year-old pontiff blessed the palm fronds and olive branches carried by the faithful from the altar. Off and on this winter, Francis has been battling what he and the Vatican have described as a case of the flu, bronchitis or a cold.

USA - The US cannot afford a war with China. The size of our military has been shrinking, and our resources are stretched way too thin. Today, the US has military bases in 80 different countries, and we have troops stationed in 178 different countries. That is insane. No empire in the entire history of humanity has had forces spread all over the planet like this. Our ammunition levels are extremely low due to major conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and every war game that our leaders have conducted has shown us losing a war to protect Taiwan. So we should be trying to avoid sparking a war with China, because we are holding a losing hand. It would have been bad enough if we had just put troops on Taiwan’s main island. But we didn’t stop there. We are being told that US troops have also been stationed on the Penghu islands and the Kinmen islands…