“Our brave Warfighters are right now carrying out aerial attacks on the terrorists’ bases, leaders, and missile defenses to protect American shipping, air and naval assets, and to restore Navigational Freedom,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World.”

The Houthis, he said, had “waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft and drones”, adding that Iran would be held “fully accountable” for the militants’ actions.

The Houthis initially said they launched 18 missiles and a drone at the “aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships” in the Red Sea, then hours later claimed to have fired a second round.

There was no immediate comment on the record from the United States about the Houthis’ claimed attacks. In a statement posted to Telegram on Monday, a Houthi spokesperson said the attacks on the carrier group were “in retaliation to the continued American aggression against our country.”

"The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!"

Yes, you read that correctly. Holly Schepisi, a Republican member of the New Jersey Senate, has shared a photo of the questionnaire on her Facebook page, after getting her staff to confirm that it was real. And here, verbatim, is how the relevant question is phrased.

“Which of the following best describes your baby? Lesbian or gay; straight or heterosexual; bisexual; self-describes (please specify); questioning/unsure.”

No matter how many times I reread the quoted passage, I still can’t decide which aspect of it is the maddest. The idea that a newborn baby can be gay. The idea that parents might think their newborn baby is gay. The idea that a newborn baby can “self-describe” anything, let alone his or her sexual orientation. Or the idea that a newborn baby is “questioning” his or her sexual orientation – as if, while in the womb, the baby was convinced that he or she was heterosexual, but now, a couple of hours after being born, is starting to have second thoughts.

Whatever the explanation, though, the farce doesn’t end there. Because the questionnaire doesn’t just ask about your baby’s sexuality. It also asks about your baby’s gender identity. Among the wide variety of possible answers listed on the form are “male”, “female”, “genderqueer” – and, rather curiously, “trans woman” and “trans man”. In the context, surely it should be “trans baby”. But then, if a man can identify as a woman and a woman as a man, I suppose there’s no reason why a baby shouldn’t identify as an adult.

She will say that while she accepts that climate change exists and wants to leave a “better environmental inheritance” for her children, Labour does not have a “plausible plan” for hitting the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The target has been endorsed by successive Tory prime ministers and was first enshrined in law by Theresa May in 2019, a decision criticised by Badenoch for lacking a plan.

“A multi-trillion, 30-year project touching every single aspect of our lives was decided in 90 minutes without a single vote,” she will say in a speech on Tuesday. “And, among the MPs who spoke that day, only a handful sounded notes of caution. I was one of them.” “This is what happens when politics turns into fantasy."

This would clearly be intolerable. President Donald Trump’s statement that Putin’s words were “promising” but “not complete” was itself a considerable understatement, and his threat to devastate the Russian economy should Putin fail to agree to terms is beginning to gain in relevance.

It is a regrettable fact that much of the burden of this policy would fall on Europe, which has continued to import large quantities of Russian fossil fuels, and to turn something of a blind eye to sales via third countries. It is also unavoidable. If EU leaders intend to match their fine words on defence with action, then it starts here: with tightening their belts, and doing the right thing, rather than continuing to fuel Russia’s war engine.

Having failed to adequately stand up to Russia in 2014, resist the lure of cheap gas subsequently, or act with speed in 2022, it is time for Europe to get its house in order. Rearmament must be matched with economic pressure to cage the Russian bear.

A purely European force based on Nato countries has already been ruled out by the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Their charge is that the Ukrainians are Nato proxies in any case and there would be no balance. If anything, they may consider a peacekeeping force based on non-aligned countries, the so-called BRICS nations, ten countries including Russia and China with Iran, India, Brazil, Indonesia, UAE, South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia. Given the close ties Russia has with some of these nations, this solution may prove equally unacceptable to Ukraine.

Even if the plan was acceptable to Russia, how many Nato nations would be willing, or indeed able, to commit? In some ways this is the root of the problem. Whatever one thinks of the Trump presidency, one thing he has done is shake things up and expose some hard truths. In fact, it is more than a shakeup. As a former head of MI6 put it, he has “dynamited the ice pack” and not just in Ukraine, but in the Middle East too. His Gaza plan has seen frantic movement and creative thinking on all sides like never before. The question in both scenarios is not whether there will be peace, but what peace looks like, and what the future holds.

As the US pivots to address the significant threat from China, the European powers are being forced to address their own security as never before since the end of WWII. Indeed, with combined economies ten times the size of Russia they are also well capable of it.

If the EPA finds that greenhouse gases are not pollutants, some regulations in America would be eliminated, with potential savings of trillions of dollars. The average new car costs almost $50,000, up from $23,000 in 2009, partly due to environmental regulations.

Administrator Zeldin said: “We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”

The administration is presenting a united front on reconsidering the endangerment finding. The secretaries of the Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Interior, and the directors of the powerful Office of Management and Budget and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the White House, all issued supportive statements.

“This near-universal policy of forced isolation in the ICU is not conclusively supported by data and is clearly traumatic to patients, their families, and clinicians like me caring for the dying in the ICU,” D’Couto stressed in the column, headlined, “Forcing my Covid patients to die alone is inhumane — and unnecessary.” The piece was published on March 7, 2022, about two years after a Rockford, Illinois, hospital locked out my uncle from seeing his dying wife.

It’s hard to believe we’re now five years from the beginning of all of that madness. Of all the terrible things the “experts,” the groupthink scientists, the power-drunk unelected bureaucrats, and the evil politicians did to us in that unconscionable lockdown of our liberties, forcing people to die alone was the most inhumane.

The same people who are shedding tears over violent illegal immigrants being rounded up and jailed or deported are ones who created tip lines to rat out Americans who violated lockdown orders. The same people who are lying to you about Trump and Republicans cutting Social Security benefits to actual beneficiaries remained silent when nursing home patients were forced die alone in the name of Covid fear, politics, and “following the science.”

There are many of you who believe that the lockdowns were absolutely necessary and we should have had more of them, instituted earlier. There are probably even seven or eight of you who think that masks work. It seems to me a kind of psychosis, this overwhelming fear of other people. But, whatever, you cleave to your beliefs and I will cleave to mine — unless other evidence turns up.

And that’s the point. Because what we also sacrificed during Covid was an appetite for the truth. Those who challenged the official edicts were censored, harried and pilloried, caveated by the BBC if they were allowed on air at all, signposted as disseminators of that quixotic thing “fake news” if they were on social media. And this happened long after their points of contention were proven to contain a certain truth, whether it be about masks, social distancing, lockdowns or indeed — and here I worry that we may have a scandal brewing for the future — the dangers of vaccines.

There will be another, similar scare one day not too far distant. My only request is that we keep our critical faculties about us and do not treat as pariahs, to be disparaged, those who beg to differ from the approved paradigm. We should remember that the greater the consensus, the more doubting we should be.

Now, however, many of those same billionaires are pulling support at an alarming rate. And Bill Gates — Microsoft founder, sixth richest man in the world— is the latest among them.

Though the billionaire's for-profit green energy investments at companies like Arnergy and Mission Zero Technologies remain in place, Breakthrough's belt-tightening will very likely end the nonprofit's grant writing efforts. That's a major blow to climate nonprofits, and further evidence that, for all their feel-good bluster, the mega-rich never forget their bottom line.