USA - As information professionals, Nicole stressed that we need to give people tools and strategies to use in order to keep an open mind, and this applies to us as well, as librarians and educators. She stressed that we need to move away from using the phrase "fake news" because it's politicized, polarizing, and a way to really shut down a conversation. She suggests we start using the terms misinformation and disinformation rather than fake news. "Fake news" is inadequate to capture the complex problem of disinformation. It is also misleading because it has been appropriated by people who use the term to dismiss coverage that they find disagreeable.

USA - As President Joe Biden cozies up to nations such as Venezuela in his hunt to bring down sky-high gasoline prices, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has a different partnership in mind — one with Americans. “President Biden is searching for oil anywhere on the planet except at home,” Dunleavy told Fox News on Wednesday. During remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month in Orlando, the Republican governor said the Trump era was about “opportunity and hope.” Biden’s time is filled with “cancellation and trepidation,” he said. Dunleavy followed those remarks with a statement on his website Thursday outlining how Alaska, if let off the Biden leash, could address America’s energy woes. “Alaska is awash in energy, but not able to capitalize on it,” Dunleavy wrote. “Mr President, we know you can help with this.”

USA - From free speech to "spheres of influence" to our passion for endless war, we've become the doublethinkers '1984' predicted. This weekend I re-read '1984', a book I tend to reach for when I get Defcon-1 depressed about the state of the world. Deep in the novel, Winston ponders the intricacies of doublethink: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them… To forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again… that was the ultimate subtlety.”

USA - A massive homeless encampment in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, known as the "Zone," raises eyebrows as the shelter's population swells to more than 900 people. The Zone is located on 9th Avenue, Jackson Street, 13th Avenue, and Jefferson Street in Phoenix, down the street from the Arizona State Capitol complex. Vice News points out, "the camp more than doubling in size over two years may be a testament to how bad Phoenix's housing crisis has become." According to Schwabenlender, the tent city had a population of 200 people last summer. By the end of 2021, the population climbed to 500, then 700, and in the last three weeks, the number jumped to 900 unsheltered people. The rapid increase coincides with a massive boom in Arizona's residential real estate market, where rents and housing prices skyrocketed during the virus pandemic, thanks to rock bottom interest rates and low inventory. "With rising rents and lack of affordable housing — which was a crisis a few years ago and still is — we're going to continue to see rises in homelessness," the shelter's CEO Lisa Glow said.

RUSSIA - Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have unleashed his fury on Germany by suspending westbound gas flowing through a key pipeline. Worrying data from the Poland-Germany border appears to show that Moscow is suspending gas flowing through the Yamal-Europe pipeline. The 2.500-mile-long pipe connects Russia with Poland and Germany, through Belarus. According to the data, gas supplies fell to just 939,809 kilowatt-hours per hour (kWh/h) from around 11.5 million kWh/h. Last week Russia threatened to cut natural gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline as part of its response to sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that the Kremlin had the ight to take actions that “mirror” the penalties imposed on the Russian economy. Mr Scholz admitted that Germany would not be able to cope without Russian gas.

USA - In another jaw-dropping dereliction of duty by our elected representatives, the US House of Representatives voted to approve a massive, pork-stuffed, $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package on Wednesday despite not having any time at all to review its nearly 3,000 pages of content. The bill includes $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine and European allies and will fund the federal government through to September 30 if it is passed through the Senate later this week. On Tuesday night, the Democrat-controlled House Rules Committee held a meeting in the dead of night at 1:30 am to finalize the $1.5 trillion spending package. After meeting for an hour, they released the final text of the bill just before 3:00 am, which gave lawmakers less than 12 hours to scramble and read its contents before the vote, which was set for 1:30 pm EST. Most lawmakers, if not all of them, weren’t awake when the bill was released, so they did not receive it until the morning, leaving them with just a few hours before having to submit a decision.

SWITZERLAND - Klaus Schwab’s globalist cabal, the World Economic Forum (WEF), announced that it has severed “all relations” with the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. “We are not engaging with any sanctioned individual and have frozen all relations with Russian entities,” spokesperson Amanda Russo told Politico this week. Putin was also completely purged from the WEF website earlier this week before Russo’s announcement.

USA - A truck diver in Tennessee was outraged while filling his semi-truck as gasoline prices have soared to record highs. In a viral video, a truck driver was seen complaining over the soaring gas prices to fill a semi-truck. He forewarned what will happen in the next coming months. “You... want a reality check? I’m gonna give you a reality check. $1,052 to fill a semi-truck in Tennessee. It is currently right now, $5.15 a gallon,” the man clarified. “What ... are you going to do next month with your gallon of milk cost $11? Because you hear that [pointing to the truck], that’s the only way to get milk,” he explained. The average gas price soared to $4.318 overnight for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA.

USA - A third world war will “destroy our civilization” unless Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are “removed from power” warns billionaire Democrat megadonor George Soros. “After receiving a green light from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war in Ukraine in an effort to reclaim the old Russian empire,” Soros wrote in an op-ed published by Project Syndicate on Friday. “But both leaders appear to have misjudged the situation, raising the prospect of a global catastrophe – unless they are removed from power,” he wrote. Putin has “gone literally mad,” cautioned the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations. According to an Associated Press-NORC poll, just 26 percent of Americans want the US to have a “major role” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while 72 percent said the US should have a “minor role” or “no role” at all. The US and its allies ought to have as much involvement in the conflict as possible, Soros contends.

USA - In order to prevent another pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) wants to create an international “pandemic treaty” that would restrict and legally bind its 194 member nations to medical martial law. The United States would need to give up its national sovereignty under the plan, including all civil and health rights. Every other country that is part of the United Nations would be expected to do the same (if they have not already). Back in December, the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s 194-member health policy forum, agreed to initiate the process of drafting a pandemic treaty based on an already existing international legal instrument called the International Health Regulations (2005), also known as the IHR. The stated purpose of the IHR is to: “Prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.”

USA - Food company Frito-Lay has cut down the number of chips in each bag of Doritos as record inflation has raised production expenses. A bag of Doritos has five fewer chips than it used to, the company told Quartz. “Inflation is hitting everyone… We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips,” a Frito-Lay representative said. Other ubiquitous consumer products have fallen victim to “shrinkflation,” Quartz reported. Bounty has cut three sheets from each roll of paper towels, and a box of Wheat Thins now has 28 fewer crackers. Under the Biden administration, inflation has skyrocketed. Inflation reached a 40-year high last month, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused energy prices to surge. The cost of food accounts for much of the inflation, with grocery prices up 8.6 percent from last year.

USA - Does it seem as though you are not getting the same bang for your buck at the grocery store?. Many consumers describe that as shrinkflation: when product sizes shrink, but prices stay the same. Did you know there is such a profession as a consumer rights lawyer? Consumer rights lawyer Edgar Dworsky says, “Downsizing comes in waves, and it tends to happen during times of increased inflation." Dworsky tracks downsized products on consumerworld.org and explained that "bottom lines are being pinched and there are three basic options: raise the price directly, take a little bit out of the product, or reformulate the product with cheaper ingredients.” Shrinkflation is now a hashtag on Twitter.

UK - Celebrating 'divine and demonic' women! British Museum's first exhibition on female spiritual beings will explore primordial she-demon Lilith who was 'consort of Satan' and Circe who turned men into pigs. From powerful deities to primordial she-demons, a new exhibition exploring how femininity has been perceived across the globe throughout history will be unveiled later this year. Feminine power: the divine to the demonic is the British Museum's first ever exhibit on female spiritual beings and will open in May.

USA - Has nuclear war been on your mind lately? If so, you are definitely not alone. According to Google, searches for “nuclear war” spiked to the highest level in the entire history of their search engine after the Russians invaded Ukraine. Many believe that this invasion marked the beginning of World War 3… Until this happened, nuclear war wasn’t something that most people in the western world thought much about, but now everything has changed. All of a sudden millions upon millions of people are deeply alarmed about the possibility of a nuclear conflict. And the other day I was quite stunned to learn that one research company in Canada is actually projecting that there is a “10% chance of a civilization-ending global nuclear war over the next 12 months”…

EUROPE - For some European countries watching Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, there are fears that they could be next. Western officials say the most vulnerable could be those who aren’t members of NATO or the European Union, and thus alone and unprotected — including Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova and Russia’s neighbor Georgia, both of them formerly part of the Soviet Union — along with the Balkan states of Bosnia and Kosovo. But analysts warn that even NATO members could be at risk, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Russia’s doorstep, as well as Montenegro, either from Moscow’s direct military intervention or attempts at political destabilization.