USA - Democratic Minnesota state representatives introduced legislation that could end the exclusion of pedophilia from legal protections of sexual orientation in state law. The state’s existing anti-discrimination law excludes sexual attraction to children from legally protected sexual orientations, but HF 1655 would remove that exclusion. The bill describes itself as “removing certain sections in the human rights act that allow for discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
HAWAII - 4.2 magnitude Hawaii earthquake has officials closely monitoring nearby volcanos. A magnitude 4.2 earthquake was felt Wednesday afternoon on Hawaii's Big Island. The tremor struck off the Ka‘ū coast, about 7.5 miles east-southeast of Pāhala, shortly after 4:30 pm HST. There were 89 reports of the earthquake in the first half-hour.
USA - A swarm of earthquakes in north-central California has rattled communities near Santa Rosa. The US Geological Survey reported a notable magnitude 4.4. earthquake in a Wednesday tweet, centered seven kilometers west-northwest of Cobb. Cobb is a town located in Lake County. The ShakeAlert system was activated. Later, the agency wrote in a follow-up tweet that magnitude 4.0 and larger tremors "occur commonly" in the Golden State, with recent calculations predicting more than one per week on average and a 100-kilometer buffer beyond California borders.
USA - A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck off the coast of south central Alaska on Sunday and was reported as widely felt in communities on the Kenai Peninsula, the Alaska Earthquake Center said. The earthquake occurred just after 7 am. It was 13 miles west of Homer and 130 miles southwest of Anchorage, the center said. The quake was reported felt as far away as the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, the center said.
NEW ZEALAND - A series of moderately strong earthquakes rattled New Zealand's North Island on Wednesday morning, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries. A preliminary magnitude 5.4 quake hit the rural Hawke's Bay region near the town of Dannevirke about 10:15 am and was followed soon after by a preliminary magnitude 5.2 quake, according to the US Geological Survey. Several milder aftershocks followed. The quakes posed no threat of a tsunami, New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency said.
USA - The deployment, the first of its kind in decades, comes amid persistent missile tests by the North. The US will deploy submarines to South Korea armed with nuclear ballistic missiles, officials told reporters on Tuesday. Intended to deter North Korea from further missile tests, the deployment is also likely aimed at reassuring the South Korean public, who recently learned that the US systematically spied on their government.
AUSTRALIA - Canberra is set to adapt its military assets amid ongoing US-China tension. A comprehensive assessment of Australia’s defense forces has found that the country’s military must undergo drastic changes if it is to have the capacity to address fluctuating strategic demands in the Indo-Pacific. The report comes amid concern in Canberra over the potential impact of posturing by Beijing and Washington in the region. The center-left Labor government-ordered Defense Strategic Review, released on Monday, declared Australia’s armed forces to be not “fit for purpose,” and called for increased spending on assets, including long-range missiles and military drones.
USA - US President Joe Biden declared on Wednesday that a North Korean nuclear attack on his country or South Korea would spell doom for Pyongyang. Under a new agreement between Washington and Seoul, the US would respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol added. “A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
ISRAEL - Netanyahu calls for unity as protesters opposed to his government’s hardline policies gather outside Jerusalem event and opponents hold ‘protest party’ in Tel Aviv. Israel marked its 75th Independence Day on Tuesday under the pall of societal fissures exposed by the hardline government’s contentious policies, with a national ceremony taking place in Jerusalem and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging unity, while protesters demonstrated outside the main event and the coalition’s opponents held a dueling rally in Tel Aviv.
USA - Cases of a dangerous, extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strain of shigella — an easily transmissible bacteria that results in serious, potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal infections — are on the rise in the United States, according to a recent health advisory from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although shigella causes an estimated 450,000 infections in the US each year, none had been linked to the highly resistant strain before 2015. Since then, infections with the XDR strain have been reported in 29 states and now make up about 5% of all cases nationwide.
UK - Did you know that synthetic fragrances are considered the new second hand smoke? Crazy right? Just like cigarette smoke, synthetic fragrances pollute the air and wreak havoc with our health. Please tell me I’m not the only one who holds their breath walking past Lush, the fragrance counter at David Jones, or the cleaning isle in the supermarket. Manufacturers get to hide behind the word parfum or fragrance, as these can be considered a trade secret recipe. But this means these synthetic fragrances may be composed of hundreds of synthetic endocrine disrupting chemicals that are wreaking havoc with your hormones and your health. And most of these chemicals aren’t tested for safety. Synthetic fragrances have been linked to hormone imbalances, respiratory problems, brain fog, allergies, headaches, migraines and more.
USA - The most common synthetic chemical offenders are found in pesticides, plastics (by way of the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA), and beauty products (thanks to two types of chemicals: phthalates and parabens). They can show up in the food you eat, the cookware you use, and the products you put on your face, as well as in everyday objects like receipts and plastic bags.
GERMANY - This week marks the first bombing waves of the wars of aggression in violation of international law, which have had no consequences for the perpetrators. Today, twenty years ago, US troops launched the invasion of Iraq with the participation of British, Australian and Polish troops. This invasion was legitimized with blatant lies and was to serve strategic power interests, like the assault on Libya, launched by French fighter jets twelve years ago yesterday – invoking initially a resolution of the UN Security Council, which was immediately violated and illegally used to overthrow the Libyan government.
LEBANON - We are in the early stages of a global economic collapse, and people all over the globe are getting extremely angry. Here in the United States, higher prices are an inconvenience, but in other parts of the world higher prices can mean the difference between feeding your family or not. And once people get to a point where they cannot even survive on the incomes that they are bringing in, they can become very unpredictable and very violent. For example, a large economic protest that just happened in Lebanon quickly descended into violence as protesters aggressively clashed with government security forces…
UK - An online calculator showing what pay rise Britons need to keep up with inflation has been unveiled - after a Bank of England chief said people must 'accept they're worse off' and stop asking for more money. It comes as BoE chief Huw Pill's remarks provoked outrage across the political spectrum. A top City figure suggested he should 'engage brain before opening mouth' and a business group described the chief economist as 'astonishingly out of touch'.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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