USA - Is being a snowflake a disability? This is apparently the case at (pseudo) elite US colleges, where up to one in four students are classified as “disabled” — often simply because they experience “stress and anxiety” — and are thus given special accommodations. This can sometimes mean getting twice as long as their peers to take exams.

EUROPE - “...we will return briefly to another major anticipation we addressed last September, the one concerning the arrival of the petro-yuan via the creation of the Shanghai Energy Stock Exchange and the oil futures contracts denominated in yuan and exchangeable to gold. At the time, among other things, we had anticipated that Saudi Arabia could not resist for very long and would soon sell its oil in yuan to the world's largest importer, China. In doing so, Saudi Arabia, historically at the heart of the petrodollar system, would put a definite end to the hegemony of the dollar as energy exchange currency."

EUROPE - A US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran is supporting China’s newly established crude oil futures, and may spur efforts to start trading oil in yuan rather than dollars, traders and analysts said. Since launching in March, Shanghai crude oil futures ISCC1 have seen a steady pick-up in daily trading, while open interest - the number of outstanding longer-term positions and a gauge of institutional interest - has also surged. Traded daily volumes hit a record 250,000 lots last Wednesday, more than double the day before, spurred by news of the Iran sanctions. The jump helped the front-month Shanghai futures contract account for 12 percent of the global oil market last week, up from just 8 percent in week one.

UK - Knives are too sharp and filing them down is a solution to soaring violent crime, judge says. A judge has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic. Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of large pointed kitchen knives. Latest figures show stabbing deaths among teenagers and young adults have reached the highest level for eight years, and knife crime overall rose 22 per cent in 2017. In the past two months, he said, there have been 77 knife-related incidents in Bedfordshire, including three killings.

USA - Foreign exchange (or forex) reserves are a key indicator of economic health. They provide policymakers with a tool to control inflation, ensure the continual flow of imported goods into the country, and generally provide a sense of security in uncertain economic climates. With the US national debt recently topping an eye-popping $21 trillion, we started thinking about how the US stacks up against the rest of the world in forex reserves. We got our data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Q1 2018.

TURKEY - “The capital city of Palestine is Jerusalem, and everyone knows that. There is no hesitation about that. Admit it or not, it doesn't matter". "America has almost reduced its reputation to zero. America and Israel have taken this decision [to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem in recognition of the city as Israel’s capital] which holds no value. This shows us that these actions are not approved around the world. If you say ‘I have money, I have power, and I can intimidate all of you using that’, you can't do it. And nobody takes you seriously," President Erdogan said in an interview with TRT World last night. 

USA - Gay advocacy group GLAAD slapped Hollywood with a failing grade on its annual report card for the lack of roles for gays and a dearth of gay storylines in films for 2017. Even as James Ivory won Best Screenplay last year for the gay-themed Call Me by Your Name, GLAAD complained that last year Hollywood actually had fewer gay characters and themes in its movies, according to the Hollywood Reporter. With that, GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis insisted that “If Hollywood wants to remain relevant with these audiences and keep them buying tickets, they must create stories are reflective of the world LGBTQ people and our friends and family know.” However, GLAAD’s numbers are disputable. According to a recent poll, only 4 percent of America claims to be gay, according to Gallup.

USA - Half of Hollywood is gay, [says Ian McKellen] yet in movies gay men don't exist. The veteran star rails against studio representation of minorities, saying ‘they only recently discovered that there were black people in the world’. McKellen credited 1998’s Gods and Monsters – in which he played director James Whale – as triggering a new climate of acceptance in the industry, saying it “was the beginning of Hollywood admitting that there were gay people knocking around, even though half of Hollywood is gay”. On Tuesday a new report from advocacy group GLAAD found only 12.8% of mainstream films featured LGBTQ characters. They have called for the number to rise to 50% by 2024.

USA - Half human–half chicken abomination created in US lab. A team of stem cell researchers have done the seemingly impossible and successfully combined artificial human cells with the embryo of a chicken in a shock new experiment aimed at trying to better understand developing life. Until now, scientists have been unable to answer how certain cells in a developing embryo decide to become muscles or limbs, while others become bones and nerves. But now researchers led by Dr Ali Brivanlou, from Rockefeller University in New York, have achieved the unimaginable in a shock experiment. By grafting petri dish-grown human cells onto the embryo of a chicken the scientists were for the first time ever able to observe how cells organise themselves.

USA - The US dollar is becoming less appealing for investors as American debt continues to soar and the greenback is printed to cover it, investor Jim Rogers said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). The American currency will lose the status of main reserve currency much sooner than 2030, Rogers said... “The Dollar is going to be higher than now because the turmoil is coming. Then, it is going to be overpriced and people will look around and say, ‘America’s got the largest debt in the history of the world. It’s printing money as fast as it can’.” People will look at what Brazil, Russia, China, India, Iran and other developing countries are doing, Rogers said. “They are forming a competing currency right now,” he added. So, the dollar alternative will come from the countries that “have been bossed by the US, and they don’t like it, but have enough power to do something about it.”

RUSSIA - Settlements in US currency could be dropped by Russia in favor of the euro if the EU takes a stand against the latest US sanctions on Moscow, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. “As we see, restrictions imposed by the American partners are of an extraterritorial nature. The possibility of switching from the US dollar to the euro in settlements depends on Europe’s stance toward Washington’s position,” said Siluanov, who is also Russia’s first deputy prime minister. The EU initially supported Washington’s sanctions against Moscow, but has recently criticized US President Donald Trump’s policy of imposing trade restrictions on other countries. The EU was also hit by the introduction of US import duties on steel and aluminium. The situation escalated even more after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran.

USA - President Donald Trump has announced the widely anticipated summit between the US and North Korea will not take place because of the "tremendous anger and hostility" of Kim Jong-un's recent statement. The summit, which had been due to take place in Singapore on June 12, will not go ahead because it would be "inappropriate" to hold the meeting at this time, according to the US President. Earlier on Thursday, North Korea repeated a threat to pull out of the unprecedented summit with Trump next month and warned it was prepared for a nuclear showdown with Washington if necessary.

USA - The worst drought to hit the Southwest in decades continues to grow even worse, and many are already comparing this current crisis to the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.  Agricultural production is way down, major rivers are running dry, and horses are dropping dead from a lack of water.  The epicenter of this drought is where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico all come together, but it is also devastating areas of north Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas as well.  Portions of seven states are already at the highest level of drought on the scale that scientists use, and summer won’t even start for about another two months.  If we don’t start seeing some significant rainfall, it won’t be too long before massive dust storms start devastating the entire region. 

ISRAEL - The Israel Water Authority relaunched a campaign Tuesday urging citizens to cut back on their water use, under the slogan, “Israel is drying out again.”  The goal of the campaign is to encourage Israelis to limit their use of water as a way of life.  The new push is an updated version of a long-running, powerful TV advertising campaign from the 1990s and 2000s in which celebrities highlighted the “years of drought” and the “falling level of the Sea of Galilee.” As they spoke plaintively to camera, their features started to crack and peel — like the country — for lack of moisture. Major desalination efforts along with other technologies allowed the Water Authority to end the campaign in 2013. According to Hadashot News, the situation in northern Israel is the most dire in 100 years.

UK - Britain has a legal right to retaliate against aggressive cyber attacks with missiles, the Attorney General has suggested. The most serious cyber attacks should be treated in the same way as armed attacks on Britain if they result in a high level of devastation, Jeremy Wright QC said. It is the first time a Government minister has set out the UK’s view on the record. Speaking to Chatham House, the think tank, on Wednesday morning, Mr Wright said: "Cyber operations that result in or present an imminent threat of death and destruction on an equivalent scale to an armed attack will give rise to an inherent right to take action in self defence."