USA - So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us? No, not those who haven’t been “vaccinated” yet. Us. The “Covidiots.” The “Covid deniers.” The “science deniers.” The “reality deniers.” Those who refuse to get “vaccinated,” ever. There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do so.

USA - President Joe Biden will display transgender flags at the White House on Wednesday to celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility, according to an official. White House Director of Political Strategy and Outreach Emmy Ruiz announced Biden would display the pastel pink and blue and transgender flag at the White House. “Imagine being a trans kid and feeling seen by the highest office in the land. And not just seen, but loved and cared for,” she wrote on social media. Biden also released a statement Wednesday to celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility. “Transgender Day of Visibility recognizes the generations of struggle, activism, and courage that have brought our country closer to full equality for transgender and gender non-binary people in the United States and around the world,” Biden’s statement read. The president recognized the “trailblazing” and “hard-fought” efforts of activists to give transgender people “the bravery to live openly and authentically.”

USA - Doctors the world over can take a glance and know a newborn baby’s sex, but CNN doesn’t seem to believe the science. While gender identity is a thorny issue, and there is indeed no way of knowing what a child will grow up to identify as, assigning a baby’s sex at birth is not a complex process, and takes only a quick peek. While some super-woke activists want to change this and do away with the idea of labeling children male or female altogether, the overwhelming majority of medical professionals assign sex this way, except in the 0.018 percent of births that are intersex. Commenters online ripped into CNN. “This is beyond farce,” conservative talk show host Jason Rantz tweeted. “This is CNN.” “10 years ago, you would never have been allowed to write something so nuts at CNN,” another Twitter user chimed in, accusing the news network of denying “reality” itself.

USA - By now, you have probably heard that a rapper named “Lil Nas X” has just released a special line of “Satan Shoes”. The rapper’s real name is Montero Lamar Hill, and I am not familiar with his music at all and I don’t plan to ever become familiar with it. But this story is not about his music. Working with a company known as “MSCHF”, Lil Nas X took hundreds of pairs of Nike Air Max 97s and turned them into “hellish sneakers”. In particular, the fact that there is one drop of human blood in each shoe has really created quite a backlash…

EGYPT - Egypt’s president said Tuesday his country’s share of the Nile River's waters are “untouchable" in a stark warning apparently to Ethiopia, which is building a giant dam on the Nile's main tributary. The comment from President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi comes amid a deadlock in the years long talks over the dam between the Nile Basin countries, which also includes Sudan. In a news conference, el-Sissi warned of “instability that no one can imagine” in the region if the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is filled and operated without a legally binding agreement. “No one can take a single drop of water from Egypt, and whoever wants to try it, let him try," he said. “No one imagines that it will be far from our capabilities.”

USA - We know Democrats support “BLM: Black Lives Matter.” It’s all they talk about. While I’m no fan of the Marxist BLM organization, I think all of us can agree that “Black Lives Matter.” No one wants a single law-abiding, innocent, black American to die needlessly. But someone needs to ask puppet President Joe Biden and every Democrat politician in DC a simple question: Do “American Lives Matter?”

USA - Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999. US church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades, before beginning a steady decline around the turn of the 21st century. The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.

PAKISTAN - Pakistan has unveiled a new “geo-economic vision” that offers to “bury the past” with neighboring rival India if it reciprocates with a “relaxation” on the two sides’ long-running dispute over Kashmir. Pakistan’s olive branch announcement, made on March 18, comes after last month’s bilateral resolution to revive an 18-year-old ceasefire agreement to end Kashmir’s Line of Control (LoC) skirmishes, which have claimed thousands of lives on both sides of the divide over the years.

CHINA - The second sandstorm to hit China in less than a fortnight has reversed the colours of the sky, turning the sun blue and the heavens yellow. Beijing woke on Sunday morning shrouded in thick dust carrying extremely high levels of hazardous particles. The sandstorm was fuelled by winds from drought-hit Mongolia and north-western China. Visibility in the city was reduced, with the tops of some skyscrapers obscured by the sandstorm. Pedestrians were forced to cover their eyes as gusts of dust swept through the streets. Northern China has long suffered sandstorms as deserts in the region spread further south, with deforestation intensifying the frequency during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward period from 1958 to 1961.

IRAN - A cooperation deal between Iran and China covering a quarter of a century has been signed in Tehran, furthering Iran’s role in the Chinese global infrastructure initiative. Both nations are being targeted by US sanctions. The landmark document was signed during a televised ceremony by visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. The document was described by the Iranian side as “a complete roadmap with strategic political and economic clauses covering trade, economic and transportation cooperation.” China is a major trade partner for Iran. Both countries are also targeted by the US, which accuses them of human rights violations and has slapped them with various sanctions.

UK - The University of Oxford is considering proposals that would remove sheet music from its curriculum over woke claims that teaching the Western form of musical notation has roots in “colonialism” and “complicity in white supremacy”. In response to widespread Black Lives Matter protesters and riots last year in the United Kingdom, music educators at Oxford University have joined the wider iconoclastic movement which has been sweeping through British academia.

USA - Nike is suing Brooklyn art collective MSCHF over a controversial pair of "Satan Shoes" that contain a drop of real human blood in the soles. The $1,018 (£740) trainers, which feature an inverted cross, a pentagram and the words "Luke 10:18", were made using modified Nike Air Max 97s. MSCHF released 666 pairs of the shoes on Monday in collaboration with rapper Lil Nas X and says they sold out in less than a minute. Nike claims trademark infringement. It has asked the court to stop MSCHF from selling the shoes and prevent them from using its famous Swoosh design mark. "MSCHF and its unauthorised Satan Shoes are likely to cause confusion and dilution and create an erroneous association between MSCHF's products and Nike," the sports shoe giant says in the lawsuit.

GERMANY - The left-wing candidate to replace Angela Merkel when she steps down as Chancellor of Germany has said he backs the formation of an EU army. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has governed Germany since 2005, has said she will not run for a fifth term this year. Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Saturday, Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats, said: “For me, a common army is part of the idea of ​​European sovereignty.”

CHINA - A leading Chinese professor — who is also an adviser to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — laid out a comprehensive plan for the communist regime to overthrow the United States as the world’s superpower. The professor’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese regime.

CHINA - Beijing FM announces five-point plan to boost its involvement in peacemaking and realize ‘regional peace and stability in the Middle East’. China is set to take a more active role in encouraging negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, offering to host officials from both sides for a summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Saudi news network al-Arabiya Wednesday. Wang said that China will advance a five-point plan to realize “regional peace and stability in the Middle East.” As part of the initiative, Wang also told al-Arabiya that China plans to invite Israeli and Palestinian “notables” to meet for talks in Beijing.