This capability would allow Hezbollah to target strategically sensitive targets deep in Israel, and cross a red line drawn by Israel over how far its enemies can build up their military capabilities. These developments have led to a flurry of Israeli warnings in recent days, as part of a diplomatic attempt to make Iran and its Hezbollah client desist from their activities.

Israeli officials have made it clear that if their warnings go unheeded, military action will become likely. “There is no doubt [that] this is a new stage in the attempts by Iran to build independent capabilities … in Syria and Lebanon,” Dr Ely Karmon, a senior scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, told JNS.

The weapons factories in Syria are likely under direct Iranian control “and those in Lebanon under Hezbollah control,” Karmon said. By building weapons factories in Lebanon and Syria, Iran can kill two birds with one stone, Karmon argued. It can arm its proxies with advanced weapons, and cut out the need for ground transportation of the weapons across routes that have proven vulnerable to Israeli detection and repeated alleged Israeli air strikes.

According to Al-Hayat, Gaza’s prime minister Yahya Sinwar, the former commander of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the large military drill being carried out in southern Israel by the IDF this week is merely a cover for the mobilization of troops and the IDF will seize the opportunity to attack in Gaza. 

Hamas, as well as other militant groups on the strip, have raised their security threat levels and Hamas leaders have been evacuated to safe and secret locations, the paper said. Furthermore, roadblocks have been erected throughout the Gaza strip in order to keep any possible civil unrest at bay. 

I have been repeatedly warning that we are way overdue for a stock market crash, and many are concerned that we may be on the precipice of another great financial crisis.  We shall see what happens on Monday, because that will set the tone for the rest of the week.  If we see another huge decline early Monday morning, that could easily set off full-blown panic selling on Wall Street.

It is quite rare for the market to drop this much in a single day.  The largest single daily decline was a 777 point drop in 2008, and overall the Dow has fallen by more than 600 points less than 10 times throughout history… Once a market landslide begins, the movement can be absolutely breathtaking.  But none of this should come as any sort of a surprise, because even the Washington Post admits that “speculation of a market pullback” has been seemingly everywhere in recent days…

Right now we are in the terminal phase of a historic “double bubble” in both stocks and bonds.  Many times we will see one or the other get clobbered on a particular day, but Friday was a “bloodbath” for all asset classes… But it would be foolish to ignore the fear that appears to be growing on Wall Street.  At this point, even Bloomberg is openly wondering if this “is the start of something big?”… If the stock market does crash in 2018, it will not be a surprise. The only surprise will be that it took this long to happen.

Analysts estimate between 30,000 and 70,000 seasonal workers could lose their jobs this year. …"They're taking the water away to the city. So it's a little bit unfair. As long as there's enough water for us, we don't mind. But with the drought, they're taking more and more water from agriculture," Bourbon-Leftley says.

The water is being diverted to Cape Town to avoid Day Zero, when the city's taps will be shut off and residents will have to stand in line for a daily water ration. …If the dams don't fill, there will be no groundwater. And since so many farmers are now relying on boreholes, they're depleting the underground water supply.

Elsewhere in America, preschoolers at the Learning Collaborative in Charlotte, North Carolina, were thrilled to receive a set of gently used playground equipment. But the kids soon found out they would not be allowed to use it, because it was resting on grass, not wood chips. “It’s a safety issue,” explained a day care spokeswoman. Playing on grass is against local regulations.

And then there was the query that ran in Parents magazine a few years back: “Your child’s old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner?” Absolutely not, the magazine averred: “Take the kids with you, or save your errand for another time.” After all, “you want to make sure that no one’s feelings get too hurt if there’s a squabble.”

The principle here is simple: This generation of kids must be protected like none other. They can’t use tools, they can’t play on grass, and they certainly can’t be expected to work through a spat with a friend. And this, it could be argued, is why we have “safe spaces” on college campuses and millennials missing adult milestones today. We told a generation of kids that they can never be too safe — and they believed us.

We’ve had the best of intentions, of course. But efforts to protect our children may be backfiring. When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened. Yet modern child-rearing practices and laws seem all but designed to cultivate this lack of preparedness.

There’s the fear that everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them. And there’s a newer belief that has been spreading through higher education that words and ideas themselves can be traumatizing.

The abuse of power now evident at the highest levels of the Obama regime — which weaponized the government to target and destroy political enemies — is the most egregious political scandal in the history of this nation, easily dwarfing the relatively minor events surrounding Watergate.

Yet despite the shocking abuse of power that now confirms America functioned as a police state regime under Obama, the criminal actions of top FBI / DOJ officials are not being called out by a single prominent Democrat or left-wing media publisher. In every single case, Democrats and fake news media outlets are choosing to attack the FISA memo instead of apologizing for their role in perpetuating these outrageous abuses of power that qualify as treason.

Remember: The entire purpose of this deep state operation was to remove a democratically elected President from power by any means necessary, including the weaponization of police state powers in a corrupt government that targeted American citizens.

What this means is that we have a government that is divided, but the division is not an even split. Most of the politicos (we don’t have representation in the United States Congress anymore) want to see complete control over the people with individual rights removed. They want this.

For proof? It was a Republican (Representative Bob Goodlatte, Republican for Virginia) who introduced HR 4760, with a “harmless and patriotic” title for the public to gobble down with a smile: The Securing America’s Future Act of 2018. Wonder how much they paid “Smilin’ Bob” to introduce that one? A harmless, patriotic act in our national interests, yes?

No. Securing the citizenry under the “lock and key” of a National ID Card with biometric data and complete storage of individual records back to the time of birth. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution: it will be gone with “the stroke of a pen…”

Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga — who swore himself in as president on Tuesday — claimed that at least 500,000 young girls and women may be infertile, following a tetanus vaccine administered by the government in 2014 and 2015.

The controversy began coming to a head in 2016 when Agriq-Quest Ltd, a Nairobi-based pharmaceutical company got in a dispute with Kenya’s Ministry of Health over their tetanus and polio vaccinations. A group of Catholic doctors originally made the accusations claiming that the vaccines may contain a hormone that is dangerous to young women and can cause potential sterilization.

Confronted with an emboldened, aggressive Iran, and populations eager for economic opportunity, many leaders understand now that Israel is not the problem — in fact, Israel could be part of the solution.

Despite criticism following President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, for the most part I have seen a growing receptivity to peace across the region. During my travels, I found Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs, young and old alike, secular and religious, Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, to be increasingly inspired by the possibility of peace. President Trump has brought a fresh set of eyes and energy to the task of peacemaking.

It is clear that President Trump’s actions and language have changed expectations about what is possible. He has revitalized the discussion and language of peace in the region.