USA - For the first time since it was filled more than 50 years ago, Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the country, is projected to dip past a critical threshold, threatening water supplies and putting a key source of hydropower generation at heightened risk of being forced offline, as climate change-fueled drought continues to grip the Western US. The US Bureau of Reclamation told CNN it is currently anticipating water levels in Lake Powell to reach a significant elevation of 3,525 feet above sea level sometime between March 10 and 16. Lake Powell's plunging water level threatens Glen Canyon Dam's capacity to produce hydropower, much like Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. Glen Canyon Dam provides power for many states including Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska.

USA - Think about the madness of this… Joe Biden is running around trying to look tough, hitting Russia with sanctions over Vladimir Putin’s obscene invasion of Ukraine. But at the same time, we pay Russia in the vicinity of $70 million per day for oil imports. In other words, during these seven days of Putin’s criminal war against Ukraine, we’ve sent this same Putin during those same seven days close to a half-billion dollars! What is going on? On the one hand, Biden claims to be crippling Vlad with sanctions, while on the other hand, we’re slipping him $70 million PER DAY! This is nuts. But it’s true…

GERMANY - The Russian invasion of Ukraine has unleashed horror and fear of a third world war in broad sections of the German population. Those in ruling circles are reacting completely differently: behind their loud moral indignation and denunciation of President Putin lies a barely suppressed euphoria. At last — so the tenor of countless politicians’ speeches and media commentaries goes — at last, we are allowed to rearm and wage war again. For 75 years we had to moderate our language, apologise for the crimes of the Nazis, and back down to pacifist public opinion. That is now over!

CHINA - Chinese officials have rebuked Japan over former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s call to ease the country’s non-nuclear principles and consider hosting strategic US weapons to boost security amid rising geopolitical tensions. “Japanese politicians have frequently spread fallacies related to Taiwan and even blatantly made false remarks that violate the nation’s three non-nuclear principles,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday.

UKRAINE - One of my best friends since Grammar school is Ukrainian. His parents came to the US legally from Ukraine 35+ years ago. He was born in the US. When he got married and purchased his own home his parents moved back to Ukraine. I met him out earlier tonight. Wasn’t to talk about Ukraine or politics. Just old friends catching up. First thing I said is “Are your parents OK”. He said they’re fine and laughed. Told me to stop watching CNN, most Ukrainians are dancing in the streets hoping Russia cleans up our corrupt government. And I believe him 100%. Almost everything we see from Ukraine is MSM using fake news, fake footage using 6-year-old video, fake “ghost of Ukraine” stories. It’s wag the dog…

MIDDLE EAST - Most disturbing is what a growing number of Arabs are trying to warn the Biden administration about: that striking a new deal with Iran would not only embolden Iran and its terrorist proxies and endanger America's friends in the Middle East, but create calamitous turmoil, including a nuclear arms race "on steroids" in the region - all of which would justifiably be blamed on the Biden administration. It appears that the Biden administration has chosen to ignore the likelihood of this terrifying scenario. It is a decision that is causing irreparable damage to America's credibility in the Middle East.

YEMEN - “We’re brutally bombed every day. So why doesn’t the Western world care like it does about Ukraine?!! …Is it because we don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes like Ukrainians?” Ahmed Tamri, a Yemeni father of four, asked with furrowed brows about the outpouring of international support and media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of such a reaction to the war in Yemen. Over the weekend, a member of Tamri’s family was killed and nine relatives injured when their family home was targeted in a Saudi-led Coalition airstrike in the remote al-Saqf area in Hajjah Governorate. Tamri claims that al-Saqf has been subjected to a brutal Saudi bombing campaign for the past seven years – more so, he says, than all of Ukraine has endured since it was invaded by Russia. Despite the horrific bombing campaign against Yemeni civilians, Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations and war crimes have garnered nowhere near the level of coverage and sympathy that the mainstream Western media has rightfully given to Ukraine. “They shed tears for the Ukrainians, and ignore our tragedies… What hypocrisy and racism!” Tamri told MintPress News.

USA - Shoplifters were caught on cellphone video brazenly stealing items off shelves at a Walgreens as daytime customers — and a uniformed security guard — simply watched. Libs of Tik Tok posted the clip to Twitter on Sunday and indicated the Walgreens in question is located in California's Bay Area. Soon a security guard pops into the frame, but she does not approach the crew and instead stands at the end of the aisle, looking on. Someone — perhaps the security guard —apparently calls for help and requests, "I need an officer right now." Undeterred, the crooks head to other aisles and add to the number of items in their bags as they rifle through shelves. In fact, one of the shoplifters is seen heading for the Walgreens' exit — but at the last second she decides to turn around and head to another shelf and add to her loot.

GERMANY - Germany Goes Big on Defense Spending. The memo provides a list of projects into which the money is to be invested. Around 34 billion euros would have to be invested in the following multinational defense projects:

GERMANY - Within a week, Germany has undergone a dramatic transformation, shedding its reluctant and dovish foreign policy and committing itself to drastically increase defense spending. The shock of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine spurred Berlin to send thousands of antitank and antiaircraft weapons to Kyiv. A country that has been criticized by its allies for doing too little, too late has jumped to the front of the pack to take on a leadership role in European security. As Finance Minister Lindner added Tuesday night, Germany will aim to turn its military “into one of the most capable, powerful and best equipped armed forces on the continent,” a statement that would have earned him the label of “warmonger” only days earlier.

GERMANY - Harry Nedelcu, policy director at Rasmussen Global, told Al Jazeera the sudden shift in Germany’s defence policy occurred because of the severity of the crisis in Ukraine. “In his 45-minute bizarre televised rant trying to justify his actions, Putin blamed anyone from the Ottoman Empire to [the first Soviet leader Vladimir] Lenin. So perhaps it’s fitting here to actually quote Lenin, who wrote: ‘There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen,'” Nedelcu said. This war has been such a big shift for European security that it has awakened the German government to “make a complete U-turn in its foreign and security policy and break with its traditionally cautious position within a week”, he told Al Jazeera.

ITALY - “Today’s threat from Russia is an incentive to invest more in defense than we have ever done before. We can choose whether to do this at a national or European level. My hope is that all countries will increasingly choose to adopt a common approach,” he said. The decisions by two of Europe’s biggest powers, both with a longstanding aversion to military spending were unimaginable at the start of last week. Both had pursued friendly relations with the Kremlin and had been criticized by allies for excessive dovishness. The extraordinary turnaround only underlined the gravity of the unfolding crisis in Eastern Europe.

CANADA - As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pulled out all the stops to quash the trucker protest against vaccine mandates, it became clear that democracy has been an illusion. For many years, the technocratic elite, with their global authoritarianism goals, have infiltrated governments around the world and pushed for surveillance and national security tools intended to suppress dissent. A key part of that dissent-crushing system is the surveillance apparatus that has been erected. While sold as a tool to hunt down dangerous criminals, its primary purpose is to stifle dissent among peaceful, law-abiding citizens. Financial warfare — banning people from using financial services — is another. Dissent is also stifled by applying criminal terms to those who disagree with the narrative. Case in point: “Anti-vaxxers” and anyone who disagrees with pandemic measures are now labeled domestic terrorists or domestic extremists. Using terms of criminality allows those in power to justify the use of unconstitutional repression and punishment.

USA - The World Economic Forum has a new wish to control EVERYTHING in your life: a digital ID system that would collect personal data about your online behavior, purchase history, network usage, medical history, travel history, energy uses, health stats… AND MORE! They’d then use this data to determine who should open bank accounts, conduct financial transactions, access insurance & treatment, book trips, cross borders… AND MORE! Glenn urges listeners to stop believing that terrifying proposals like this one are beyond the realm of possibilities. Look at what’s happened in the last few months alone, Glenn says. "NOTHING is beyond the realm of possibilities anymore."

GERMANY - Late last year, when Angela Merkel was still German chancellor, I asked one of the most astute foreign-policy thinkers in her government about the country’s worrying dependence on authoritarian powers and the reluctance of its political class to reconsider these relationships. At the time, Berlin was poised to inaugurate a new gas pipeline from Russia, and Germany’s biggest companies were announcing major new investments in China. But Merkel was on her way out, and the question on many minds was whether a leadership change might bring about a shift in Germany’s approach. The German official was skeptical.