USA - Heroin has become so pervasive in cities such as Cincinnati and so profitable for the cartels that supply it that even cops admit the sporadic arrests they make have little effect. “It’s really not going to make any impact out on the street,” says Detective Brandon Connley, speaking from the damp parking lot outside the market. “Everybody and their mom sells drugs these days. There’s always somebody right there to pick back up.”

USA - There’s a news story that Comey requested additional money for his investigation just days before he was fired. The Department of Justice has just denied it 100%. There was no request for additional money before he was fired. CNN and the Washington Post get this fake news trail going that Comey was getting close, man! He needed some more money. He needed some more money to nail Trump!

AUSTRALIA - Charles Darwin may have been correct when he theorised that life began in a ‘warm little pond’ on early Earth, new fossils suggest. Currently most scientists believe that the first lifeforms evolved in the warm thermal vents of ancient seas, before gradually colonising the land around 2.9 billion years ago. But scientists have found evidence that microbes were living in hot springs in Western Australia as early as 3.48 billion years ago. In February 1871, Charles Darwin wrote to botanist Joseph Hooker speculating that life could have evolved in ‘some warm little pond’ if it were full of ‘ammonia, phosphoric salts, light, heat, and electricity’.

TURKEY - Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged Muslims to throng to the Temple Mount in a show of solidarity with Palestinians as he issued a string of challenges to Israel, which he called “racist and discriminatory.” Israel reacted quickly and angrily to Erdogan’s comments, calling them “baseless slander.” “Anyone who systemically violates human rights in their own country, should not preach about morality to the only democracy in the region,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Israel strictly adheres to protecting full freedom of worship for Jews, Muslims and Christians — and will continue to do so despite this baseless slander,” the statement said. Erdogan also warned Israel against the planned Muezzin Bill meant to limit the volume on Muslim calls to prayer, saying he would not allow mosque loudspeakers to be silenced.

USA - It is hard to believe that Baltimore was once one of the greatest cities in the entire world.  Unlike nearby Washington DC, Baltimore is a blue collar city that is home to some of the hardest working people in America.  When I was in high school, my brother and I were huge fans of the Baltimore Orioles, and once in a while our parents would drive us from our home in Virginia all the way up to Baltimore to see them play.  As an adult, I spent a number of years living near DC, and I would take frequent trips up to Baltimore. 

USA - Trump's firing of the high-profile FBI director on the 110th day since taking office marked another sudden turn for an administration that has fired its acting attorney general, national security adviser and now its FBI director, who Trump had praised until recent weeks and even blew a kiss to during a January appearance.  By ousting the FBI director investigating his campaign and associates, Trump may have added more fuel to the fire he is furiously trying to contain — and he was quickly criticized by a chorus of Republicans and Democrats. “We just have no idea why this happened. No idea,” said one recently retired top FBI official who worked closely with Comey on many high-profile investigations. “No one knew this was coming. Everyone is just shocked that this happened.”

USA - Did you know that the number of murders increased by almost 60 percent in the city of Chicago last year?  This year gang violence in the Windy City has risen to a new level of viciousness.  A staggering 9.5 million people live in the Chicago metropolitan area, and it was once known primarily for great pizza, bitter cold and some of the best sports fans on the entire planet.  But now the number one thing that comes to mind for many when they think about the city of Chicago is gang violence. 

ISRAEL - Ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Sunday endorsed a controversial bill to enshrine Israel’s character as a Jewish state despite criticism that it would leave the country’s one-fifth Arab minority as second-class citizens. Among other things, the bill downgrades Arabic from its current status as an official language of the state to that of “special” language to make government services accessible to the country’s Arab citizens. Entitled “Israel — The Nation-State of the Jewish People,” the bill declares that “the right to realize national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” If passed by the parliament, the legislation would become part of Israel’s quasi-constitutional series of “Basic Laws” and require a special majority to repeal.

USA - In the midst of all of this is what is described as the “retail apocalypse”, there are two main metrics that are pretty black and white.  The number of bankruptcies and number of store closures.

USA - Within the last 24 hours, 45 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater have struck Alaska, and 25 of them were of magnitude 4.0 or greater. The worst one had a magnitude of 6.2, but none of the earthquakes did much damage because none of them hit heavily populated areas. But the reason why all of this shaking is causing so much concern is because the “Ring of Fire” runs right along the southern Alaska coastline, and all of the earthquakes except for one were along the southern coast.

USA - A veterans’ memorial park in Minnesota will soon include a satanic monument after a free speech debate sparked by the removal of a cross from a statue of a praying soldier. The memorial from the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, features a black cube with inverted pentagrams, a soldier’s helmet and a plaque honoring veterans who died in battle. Local media and wire service reports downplayed the significance of the town council’s decision as an “unintended consequence” of protests by residents after the removal of a cross near another statue in the park. The reports cited only members of religious groups resigned to the seeming fairness of the decision.

UK - Homeowners are being warned to cut down on water consumption by only using washing machines and dishwashers when fully loaded, amid fears that Britain’s reservoirs are drying up. Since last Summer, some parts of the UK have seen half of the usual level of rainfall, leaving areas facing the prospect of droughts and hosepipe bans. October to March has been the driest in the UK for more than 20 years, and the Environment Agency has been in contact with water companies to warn that the coming months are also likely to be drier than usual. April saw just 41 per cent of average rainfall across the country.

EUROPE - A rift emerged between Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker last night after she reportedly accused him of ‘inflaming’ Brexit talks by leaking details of his row with Theresa May. The German Chancellor’s relations with the EU Commission president are said to have ‘soured’ after Mr Juncker described Mrs May as living in ‘another galaxy’ following a recent dinner. According to German newspaper Der Spiegel, which has close links with Merkel’s government, she believes the leaking of private conversations – blamed on Juncker – ‘is not helpful in heating up the mood in this way’. The Der Spiegel article, headlined ‘Merkel angered by Juncker at Brexit dinner’, said it had made her mood ‘sour’ towards him.

USA - How many times have you encountered a study — on, say, weight loss — that trumpeted one fad, only to see another study discrediting it a week later? That’s because many medical studies are junk. It’s an open secret in the research community, and it even has a name: “the reproducibility crisis.”

UK - Stripes are ubiquitous in modern life, from City shirts and barcodes, to Venetian blinds and zebra crossings. But a new study suggests they might be making us ill. Scientists in the Netherlands and the US have discovered that for some people, simply looking at vertical lines, either on a static image, or in real life, can trigger a neural loop of activity in the brain. In severe cases it can lead to epilepsy, but researchers think it might also be responsible for migraines. Around one in seven people suffer migraines in Britain and the cause is often unknown. But the study authors believe that stripes in clothing, buildings or public artworks could be triggering disabling headaches, particularly in people who are already sensitive to light.