USA - This year saw some 7,000 retail stores shuttered, thanks to online shopping and in particular, Amazon; 2018 could be another banner year for closings, driving many malls to extinction as well. Most retailers are certainly not Technocrats, but Amazon is and it is intent on decimating the entire retail industry in America.

INDONESIA - Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung erupted Wednesday afternoon, leaving a thick cloud of smoke over parts of the country’s North Sumatra province. The active volcano spewed ash up to 4.6 kilometres into the sky, Reuters reported. Officials tweeted that there were no deaths caused by the explosion because the red zone has already emptied. Thousands of families will be relocated from Sinabung. Meanwhile, a thick rain of ash fell on villages east of the volcano.

USA - The current tensions and saber rattling with North Korea could be coming to a head — which would inevitably kick off world war III — by as early as March 20, 2018, according to intelligence insider, James Rickards. Rickards notes that we should expect this war in the next 12 weeks, because “the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency told me,” writes Rickards.

USA - President Trump took aim at President Xi this morning in a very clear tweeted warning that follows US spy satellite evidence that showed China allowing oil exports to North Korea. Trump exclaimed "caught red-handed" and said he was "very disappointed" by China's actions. Perhaps more notable is that he explained "there's no friendly solution" if this continues... As a reminder, this is what President Trump is upset about, according to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, US recon satellites have photographed around 30 illegal transactions involving Chinese vessels selling oil to North Korea on the West Sea in October. The images allegedly showed large Chinese and North Korean ships transacting in oil in a part of the West Sea closer to China than South Korea. The satellite pictures even showed the names of the ships.

ISRAEL - At least 2,500 people have turned up at a mass prayer at the Western Wall following calls by Israel's agriculture minister seeking divine intervention to end the drought plaguing the country for a fifth straight year. Farmers, the president of Israel's Farmers Union as well as the country’s highest religious authorities, represented by chief rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, were in attendance. Israel's Agricultural Minister, Uri Ariel, who hails from the Ultra Orthodox Jewish Home party, stated last week that a prayer service would be performed “alongside the preparations for a year of drought and for the sake of rain,” as all other more conventional steps taken by the government have, so far, been futile.

USA - The "Nation's Icebox" is feeling the chill and setting a record.

The National Weather Service reports International Falls and Hibbing set record low temperatures on Wednesday morning. International Falls — the self-proclaimed "Nation's Icebox" — plunged to 37 degrees below zero, breaking the old record of 32 below set in 1924. Hibbing bottomed out at 28 below, breaking the old record of 27 below set in 1964. Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills will stay put for days to come across much of the northern United States. Forecasters are warning of hypothermia and frostbite from arctic air settling in over the central US on Wednesday and spreading east. Meanwhile, the snow-hardened city of Erie, Pennsylvania, is digging out from a record snowfall of more than 5 feet this week.

USA - Following an announcement Sunday by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales that his country has begun work to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the capital of Jerusalem, two more Latin American countries are poised to announce similar plans. According to media reports in the Palestinian Authority, the governments of Panama and Honduras both notified the PA leadership of their intentions to move their embassies to the Israeli capital. Like Guatemala, Honduras voted against the General Assembly resolution last Thursday. 

USA - GMOs will quickly dominate the global food chain under a new mantra that gene editing is merely "accelerated breeding technology."  Furthermore, the US Department of Agriculture has bought this brazen lie and states that GMO plants are not “regulated articles” because they don't contain foreign pathogens from bacteria. Thus, the new breed of gene editors will not be regulated, monitored or required to conduct detailed testing, and yet they will contaminate the gene pool of the world's food supply. This is a horribly dangerous combination of greed and a Technocrat mindset that the 'science is already settled.'

USA - Ramen noodles are a staple for many people trying to eat on the cheap. They are filling meals for those who need something fast, easy and inexpensive. They can even be a quickie meal for vegans and vegetarians, if you buy the right brand and flavor. That said, though, they’re apparently death in a crinkly little bag or cup, according to a new study by Baylor University researchers. If you eat a lot of ramen noodles, your risk of metabolic changes linked to heart disease, diabetes and stroke rise considerably. Even those who lived on an unhealthy fast food diet but no instant noodles were less likely to have metabolic syndrome than those who ate ramen noodles at least twice a week on an otherwise healthy diet. That’s just scary.

USA - A New Jersey mall was forced into lockdown after a crowd of between 700 and 1,000 juveniles became unruly to the point where shops shuttered their windows, the escalators were switched off and the police were called. The incident began at approximately 7:30 pm local time at the mall entrance beside a JC Penney store. Responding officers encountered a crowd of between 700 and 1,000 unaccompanied juveniles. Such disorderly scenes have become commonplace across the United States in recent years. A similar, though much smaller, incident at the Weberstown Mall in Stockton, California provoked a police response…

USA - The United States announced a $285 million cut in the United Nations’ “bloated” budget for next year, negotiated by UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. A statement by the United States Mission to the United Nations reads:

USA - Debkafile, an Israeli website close to the military intelligence, has reported that the Trump administration has decided to take a series of punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority (PA) after its successful campaign on Jerusalem in the UN General Assembly.

CYPRUS - The eastern Mediterranean is expected to witness the first conflict of 2018, as developments at the end of 2017 are signaling worsening relationships between Turkey and the Greek Cypriot-Greece-Israel-Egypt bloc. Territorial disputes over natural gas and newly discovered hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern Mediterranean basin are the reason.

USA - American lives are shorter on average than those in other wealthy nations, and the gap is growing ever wider, according to the latest data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2016, US life expectancy dropped for the second year in a row, a statistical event that hasn't happened since the early 1960s. The United States remains one of the wealthiest countries in the world. So what happened?

USA - Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants have transformed the way billions of us communicate, shop, socialize and work. Now, as consumers, medical centers and insurers increasingly embrace health-tracking apps, tech companies want a bigger share of the more than $3 trillion spent annually on health care in the United States, too. The companies are accelerating their efforts to remake health care by developing or collaborating on new tools for consumers, patients, doctors, insurers and medical researchers. And they are increasingly investing in health start-ups.