It has rarely felt this lonely at the center of Europe. With Britain leaving, Germany is losing an important partner within the European Union, as well as on foreign policy beyond it.

That is not to say that Britain was an easy partner in recent years. The mind reels at what Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, known for her cautious, step-by-step policies, must have thought of Prime Minister David Cameron tossing his country’s membership onto the gambling table in a bid to blackmail the European Union. Ms Merkel is a committed Europeanist; Mr Cameron called the union “too big, too bossy, too interfering.”

Germany cannot go it alone, and doesn’t want to. But without a strong partner to share the leadership, it has the unpalatable choice of letting power sit with a broad cast of unreliable partners, or creating a new inner circle. No one wants to give Law and Justice a seat at the table. But denying it will only strengthen national narcissisms in countries already troubled with euroskepticism, further splintering the Continent.

Which means that Germany may have to take command, after all. It’s a delicate task. But now that Germany finds itself on center stage, it might as well perform.

Many academic studies of same-sex families have arrived at the same conclusion. A new study finds that children with same-sex parents even had a slightly lower rate of depression in their mid-teens than their peers in general. But that, unfortunately, is the sole nugget of good news for the “no differences” theory in this study: by the age of 28 the same individuals were more than twice as likely (2.25 times) to suffer depression as the general run of their peers.

Why? Were there earlier experiences that could explain later onset depression? No-one had previously examined this relationship, says sociologist Paul Sullins of the Catholic University of America. “My new study tests whether this inattention is supportable.”

Sullins has previously analysed data for the younger children of same-sex parents, finding that they suffer twice as many emotional problems as do children with opposite-sex parents, and four times the emotional problems of children raised by their own joint biological parents. In another study he found that ADHD is also twice as common among these children.

In spite of most experts noting that Tylenol can be taken daily virtually free from danger, studies show that ingesting just a little bit more than the daily recommended dose of 4 grams of Tylenol over the course of a few days can result in severe illness and even death. Aside from liver damage, overdose, severe illness, and death — a new study shows acetaminophen to effectively kill human empathy.

Dr Dominik Mischkowski, the study’s first author, explains:

“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen. Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.”

The ability to understand and share the feelings with other humans is a crucial part of peace. The golden rule itself is a function derived from empathy. Remove human empathy and you remove a driving force behind humans treating each other with respect and dignity.

According to the study:

As hypothesized, acetaminophen reduced empathy in response to others’ pain. Acetaminophen also reduced the unpleasantness of noise blasts delivered to the participant, which mediated acetaminophen’s effects on empathy. Together, these findings suggest that the physical painkiller acetaminophen reduces empathy for pain and provides a new perspective on the neurochemical bases of empathy. Because empathy regulates prosocial and antisocial behavior, these drug-induced reductions in empathy raise concerns about the broader social side effects of acetaminophen, which is taken by almost a quarter of adults in the United States each week.

The executive summary of the document reads:

“It is in the interests of our citizens to invest in the resilience of states and societies to the east stretching into Central Asia, and to the south down to Central Africa. Under the current EU enlargement policy, a credible accession process grounded in strict and fair conditionality is vital to enhance the resilience of countries in the Western Balkans and of Turkey. Under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), many people wish to build closer relations with the Union: our enduring power of attraction can spur transformation in these countries.”

“The EU wants its own Empire as former Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made clear when he was in charge,” UKIP’s defence spokesman Mike Hookem said. “This global strategy by the EU is yet another reason why last Thursday’s result was a lucky escape for the UK.”

The German chancellor’s frustration with the European Commission chief came as Europe split over whether to use the Brexit negotiations as a trigger to deepen European integration or take a more pragmatic approach to Britain as it heads for the exit door.

“The pressure on him [Juncker] to resign will only become greater and Chancellor Merkel will eventually have to deal with this next year,” an unnamed German minister told The Sunday Times, adding that Berlin had been furious with Mr Juncker “gloating” over the UK referendum result.

Mr Juncker’s constant and unabashed calls for “more Europe”, has led to several of Europe's other dissenting members – including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic – to lay some of the blame for Brexit at his door. Even before he was appointed President of the European Commission - against the wishes of David Cameron - concerns were raised about Mr Juncker's alchohol consumption which were dismissed as a "smear campaign" by his officials.

At the time The Telegraph and several other newspapers reported officials worrying about Mr Juncker having "cognac for breakfast" and rolling through long negotiations fortified with large quantities of claret and brandy.

When Norway gave Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, China dramatically scaled back its salmon purchases from Norway and halted trade talks. When tensions escalated between the Philippines and China over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, China let Philippine bananas rot in its ports.

Over the years, Beijing has retaliated so strongly by cutting (or threatening to cut) business ties with any nation recognizing Taiwan that only 22 nations still formally call Taiwan the "Republic of China." These are only a few examples that Blackwill and Harris lay out in their new book, "War by Other Means."

Their thesis is simple: The US should be using similar tactics to China's -- and doing it better. Right now, America is getting crushed. "Despite having the most powerful economy on earth, the United States too often reaches for the gun instead of the purse in its international conduct," they write.

In the US Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential nomination. However, Republican convention delegates are plotting to deny Trump the nomination that the people have voted him. The Republican political establishment is showing an unwillingness to accept democratic outcomes. The people chose, but their choice is unacceptable to the establishment which intends to substitute its choice for the people’s choice.

Do you remember Dominic Strauss-Kahn? Strauss-Kahn is the Frenchman who was head of the IMF and, according to polls, the likely next president of France. He said something that sounded too favorable toward the Greek people. This concerned powerful banking interests who worried that he might get in the way of their plunder of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. A hotel maid appeared who accused him of rape. He was arrested and held without bail. After the police and prosecutors had made fools of themselves, he was released with all charges dropped. But the goal was achieved. Strauss-Kahn had to resign as IMF director and kiss goodbye his chance for the presidency of France.

Curious, isn’t it, that a woman has now appeared who claims Trump raped her when she was 13 years old.

Consider the political establishment’s response to the Brexit vote. Members of Parliament are saying that the vote is unacceptable and that Parliament has the right and responsibility to ignore the voice of the people. The view now established in the West is that the people are not qualified to make political decisions. The position of the opponents of Brexit is clear: it simply is not a matter for the British people whether their sovereignty is given away to an unaccountable commission in Brussels.

Martin Schultz, President of the EU Parliament, puts it clearly: “It is not the EU philosophy that the crowd can decide its fate.”

Alluding to the political economic turmoil that has enveloped the country since the vote to Leave the European Union, she said that Britons “live and work in an increasingly complex and demanding world” with events and developments occurring at “remarkable speed”.

The Queen admitted that the ability to “stay calm and collected” in such circumstances can be “hard” but argued that a major hallmark of leadership is the ability to take a step back. She argued this would allow for a “deeper consideration of how challenges and opportunities can be best addressed."

The opening of the five-year parliament was a "time for hope and optimism", she added, with a "real sense of renewal" thanks to the large number of new members returned in May's Holyrood election. Her call for a period of quiet contemplation, her first intervention on the Brexit vote since the shock result was announced eight days previously, suggests she does not approve of demands by Jeremy Corbyn and some European leaders for the UK to immediately invoke the Article 50 process to leave the EU.

Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it. They complain the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.

“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school. Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.

Meanwhile, white kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of color-blindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.”

The program, these parents say, deliberately instills in white children a strong sense of guilt about their race. Some kids come home in tears, saying, “I’m a bad person.” They say white kids are being brainwashed into thinking any success they achieve is unearned. Indeed, a young white girl is seen confessing on a Bank Street video: “I feel guilty for having a privilege I don’t deserve.”

On which subject we’re only a couple of days recovered from our celebratory hangovers and we find that the poor benighted continentals are being presented with further plans for further integration: Plans for ‘a closer European Union’ have been branded an attempt to create a ‘European superstate’. Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault today presented a proposal for closer EU integration based on three key areas – internal and external security, the migrant crisis, and economic cooperation.

As ever with the EU those phrases don’t mean quite what they do in the colloquial parlance. Economic cooperation does not, for example, mean that governments and the ECB try to pull in the same direction occasionally. No, it means that German taxpayers get to pay Greek pensions. Internal security does not mean that the various police forces of the various countries work together to keep an eye on potential bad ‘uns, it means that criminal law must be the same in each country. No, that last is not an exaggeration, that is actually the proposal.

Regardless of the UK situation, however, the EU can essentially refound itself as a closer union of like-minded nations. That appears to be the essence of the Steinmeier-Ayrault proposal, which starts by acknowledging that Brexit is a watershed moment for the EU and a chance to stop the rot eating through its foundations.

The only people who have been asked say no to more integration. The answer therefore is more integration. Good one that, good one. Brexit isn’t about leaving the European Union of today. It’s not joining the monster of the European Union of tomorrow.

At the same time, the President of the European Parliament and Germany's Minister of the Economy (both SPD) are calling for the communitarization of the EU's foreign policy, reinforcement of its external borders, the enhancement of domestic repression and the creation of a "European FBI." The German chancellor has invited France's president and Italy's prime minister to Berlin on Monday to stipulate in advance, measures to be taken at the EU-summit on Tuesday.

German media commentators are speaking in terms of the EU's "new directorate" under Berlin's leadership. At the same time, Berlin is intensifying pressure on London. The chair of the Bundestag's EU Commission predicts a new Scottish referendum on secession and calls for Scotland's rapid integration into the EU.

German politicians in the European Parliament are exerting pressure for rapidly implementing the Brexit and reorganizing the EU. Chancellor Merkel has reiterated her veiled threat that "reconciliation and peace" in Europe are "anything but self-evident," should European countries choose to no longer be integrated in the EU.

In Berlin, this is all being flanked by statements that cannot be otherwise interpreted as oblique war threats. "Although it is difficult for us to imagine," one should "never forget" that "the idea of a united Europe, had been an idea of peace," claims the German Chancellor. The allegation corresponds less to historical reality, than to the EU's self-promotion.

Yet, Merkel declares that in Europe, "reconciliation and peace" are both currently and in the future "anything other than self-evident." The chancellor has expressed this point of view in various EU crisis situations. According to this view, the potential of European countries settling their disputes militarily remains essentially unaltered and can be unleashed, should they no longer choose integration in a German-dominated EU.

A party spokesman branded Brussels a "bureaucracy monster", before adding: "Next year the AfD will enter the German parliament and Dexit will be top on our agenda". They called the vote a Dexit as it stands for a Deutschland exit from the EU. Eurosceptism has swept across the continent after the people of Britain backed Brexit in the historic EU referendum on June 23.

AfD chairman Bjorn Hocke said: "I know the German people want to be free of EU slavery." George Pazderski of Berlin AfD added: "Germans must decide on staying in the EU. The AfD is the only party which speaks out clearly in favour of them deciding."

Party leader Frauke Petry, who caused controversy earlier this year when she called on German police to open fire on illegal immigrants, reacted with delight at Britain's decision to sever ties with Brussels. She said: "This is the chance for a new Europe, one which maintains partnerships and respected national sovereignties."

"The Great Britain decision to leave the EU is a signal to the Brussels Politburo and its bureaucratic attachments. If the EU does not finally leave its wrong path, and the quasi-socialist experiment of deeper political integration, more European Nations will reclaim their sovereignty the way the British are."

President Obama met this week with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to form a new ‘Partnership Action Plan’ modeled after Obama’s radical Clean Energy Plan.

According to the Leaders' Statement:

“Our actions to align climate and energy policies will protect human health and help level the playing field for our businesses, households, and workers. In recognition of our close ties and shared vision, we commit today to an ambitious and enduring North American Climate, Clean Energy, and Environment Partnership that sets us firmly on the path to a more sustainable future.”

It is clear that the basic objectives from 2005 remain the same: integrate and harmonize the three nations for the sake of businesses, households and workers.

Slyapich has been working with snakes for more than 50 years and says homeowners are giving the rattlers exactly what they are looking for. “If you build it, they will come,” he said. “Just because you build them a cave, leave the door open, garage door open, put a cement pond in the backyard, make it green all around, maybe throw some mice and rats around. They love us humans.”

He suggests building a box around your property, installing one-quarter-inch fencing around the entire perimeter, and reducing landscaping. He also recommends checking seals, and bringing bushes up off the ground. In essence, eliminating all of the hiding places. “By taking away shrubbery as much as you can, you take away the rodent, the food source, which eliminates the snakes,” he said.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates there are about 800 rattlesnake bites every year, with one or two being fatal. These bites can also sting your wallet, potentially costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for anti-venom and treatment.

Two gay men filed class-actions claims against Spark Networks Inc in California courts in 2013 alleging that ChristianMingle.com and several other sites in the company’s portfolio of niche dating services excluded users looking to meet singles of the same sex. ChristianMingle, billed as the largest online community for Christian singles, required new users to specify whether they’re a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.

The lead plaintiffs, two gay men who tried using it, claimed that the limited options violated California’s anti-discrimination law. Known as the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the state law requires “business establishments” to offer “full and equal accommodations” to people regardless of their sexual orientation.