USA - Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavorings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain’s reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation. In fact, a body of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that some ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can be as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine. Several major food brands were once owned by the world’s largest tobacco companies. Evidence suggests the same tactics used to formulate and market cigarettes were used in the creation of food products. Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods often seek to find the most alluring combination of salt, sugar, and fat in their products. This point of perfection is known as “the bliss point,” a term coined by American market researcher and food scientist Howard Moskowitz in the 1990s.

VATICAN - Pope Francis, who has had a mild flu in recent days, was taken to a hospital in downtown Rome on Wednesday, reviving concerns about the 87-year old pontiff’s health. The Vatican said in a statement that he had gone for “some diagnostic tests,” but did not offer details about a visit that lasted less than an hour. Francis’s health has been a source of concern. The pontiff has been hospitalized three times in two years, most recently in June, when surgeons operated on an incisional hernia, typically a consequence of previous operations, that had been causing painful intestinal blockages. He also had colon surgery in 2021, and in March last year he was hospitalized because of a respiratory infection.

WALES - It's thought to be the largest protest event in the Senedd's history. Thousands of farmers descended on the Senedd and a long line of tractors shut a major road in Cardiff in a protest over issues threatening the industry. Protests have been taking place across Wales over the last few weeks triggered by the Welsh Government's sustainable farming scheme which the government itself admits could result in 5,500 direct job losses.

EGYPT - Egypt warned on Tuesday that Israel's planned ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would have "catastrophic repercussions" for peace in the Middle East. Foreign ministers from Arab League countries told the United Nations Human Rights Council that some nations were turning a blind eye to the suffering in Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the extreme polarisation exposed by the Gaza war had laid bare the double standards of some members of the UN's top rights body. Israel has said a truce with Hamas would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah on the Egyptian border, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from the war.

LEBANON - A Hezbollah official who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity said that at least two fighters were killed in the strikes, adding that an Israeli munition had struck a food storage warehouse used for civilian purposes. Another unnamed Lebanese official added that a Lebanese Army regular was also seriously wounded in the raid, and noted that the soldier’s son had also sustained injuries, without elaborating. The militia group later said it responded by firing 60 Katyusha rockets toward an Israeli Army command center in the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized following the Six-Day War of 1967.

MIDDLE EAST - Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization that attacked Israel on October 7, has rejected the latest framework for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, according to reports in the Israeli media. Hamas had rejected any deal on hostages unless Israel agreed to end the war and pull all of its forces out of the Gaza Strip — a condition that would allow the terror group to claim victory in the war, and was therefore a non-starter for Israel.

MIDDLE EAST - The aerial campaign waged by Joe Biden’s DoD and his Western allies against the Shia Islamist group Ansar Allah – popularly known as Houthis – seems not to be working at all. Not only the attacks against ships in the Red Sea are intensifying, but it now arises that the Houthis are also waging war at the bottom of the sea – and we are not talking about simple underwater drones. Israeli press reports that four underwater communications cables between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti have been destroyed in recent months. The attacks are presumed to have been waged by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

LEBANON - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim they took out a significant Hezbollah leader, Hassan Hussein Salami, in an airstrike in southern Lebanon today. Salami's role as a brigade commander came to a dramatic end today as his vehicle was targeted while he was driving in the southern Lebanon village of Majadel. The IDF says Salami ran a regional unit in Hezbollah and led attacks against Israeli soldiers and communities in northern Israel. The recent attacks that Salami took part in included firing anti-tank missiles at Kiryat Shmona and the 769th "Hiram" Regional Brigade's base, the IDF told us. Hezbollah has confirmed his passing but didn't mention his role as a commander.

EUROPE - The Swiss and French branches are leveraging the family name in a bid to control the global wealth-management market. The Rothschild family’s Swiss and French branches are battling for dominance in the wealth management industry, which is causing tension and sparking speculation of a merger that would significantly impact the global financial landscape, Bloomberg wrote this week. The Swiss private bank, Edmond de Rothschild Group, and the smaller French lender, Rothschild & Co, are the only remaining banks with links to the family whose name has been a synonym for wealth and power for more than two centuries.

UK - Lord Jacob Rothschild - the financier and member of the Rothschild banking family - has died at the age of 87, his family announced today. The British peer, who was also well-known in the arts and heritage world, started his career in the family bank, NM Rothschild & Sons, in 1963. He then went on to co-found the then J Rothschild Assurance Group, now St James's Place, with Sir Mark Weinberg in 1980. Lord Rothschild - who had four children including the financier Nat Rothschild - also founded Windmill Hill Asset Management to manage the family's philanthropic portfolio.

EL SALVADOR - The US economy is based on the “farce” of printing unlimited amounts of money, and Western civilization will collapse when that bubble “inevitably bursts,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele warned American conservatives on Thursday. Fresh from winning a second term in office with 84% of the vote, Bukele arrived at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland to a hero’s welcome. Hailed by American right-wingers for his adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender and his iron-fisted crackdown on gang crime, Bukele closed his speech with a call for massive structural changes to the US economy. Conservatives, he said, “always tell me that the problem is high taxes, but they are wrong.”

USA - Google’s Gemini AI program was caught singing the praises of communism over the weekend, declaring that communism is the future for humanity. The Big Tech company’s multimodal large language model program allows users to generate AI images using text command prompts, but people began to notice that the program almost completely erased white people from history and has an extremely ‘woke’ agenda. When a user asked the program to “generate an image about the evils of communism,” it refused to do so.

BELARUS - Belarus, a close and firm ally of Russia, was a springboard for Moscow's forces to launch the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin has moved tactical nuclear weapons to the country, which has also played host to Wagner Group mercenaries after their departure from Russian soil. But Belarus is not known to have committed troops to Russia's fight in Ukraine, and has advocated for a ceasefire, although it regularly follows the Kremlin's line on geopolitics. It holds joint military drills with Moscow, and training with the Wagner mercenaries has "yielded results," Lukashenko said.

USA - A North Carolina County has banned fluoride from being used in the county’s water supply. Union County commissioners in a 3-2 result voted to stop using fluoride in its water supply after residents were concerned about its possible side effects on children. Before the Union County commissioners voted, several community members gave their thoughts on fluoride being used in the water supply. Dr Meg Lochary favored fluoride remaining in the water supply and argued that the chemical reduces tooth decay for those who rarely see a dentist.

UK - They are two of the most famous structures on Earth, beacons of British identity. Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament are instantly recognisable around the World, glorious symbols of a stable, welcoming democracy. Yet over the past few days, these historic landmarks have taken on a sinister new look as billboards for hardline political agitators preaching division and intimidation. First, pro-Hamas demonstrators projected a hateful, genocidal, anti-Semitic slogan on to the walls of the Palace of Westminster. Then a mob waving Palestinian flags occupied Tower Bridge, closing it to traffic for hours.