USA - In what is one of the most corrupt and vile things to have ever happened to the American political system, residents of New Jersey will now be taxed when something 100% out of their control happens. New Jersey’s governor Phil Murphy signed 19 bills into law on Monday, one of which, was the so-called “rain tax.” Unfortunately, there were supporters of this tyrannical and wholly dictatorial law. Dubbed S-1073, supporters call it “flood defense,” and say it will serve as a long-needed tool to manage flooding and dirty runoff from rainwater. So there are actually human beings on earth who want others and themselves stolen from because it rains. There is nothing more disturbing that the current political path the United States is currently one. It’s downright horrifying, actually.

USA - The vast majority of Americans have come to expect biased coverage from the so-called “mainstream media,” and what’s more, they have come to expect that coverage will be designed to advance the Democrats’ Left-wing agenda. The most recent example involves how American journalists initially covered the terrorist attack in New Zealand. In the days that followed, the same Left-wing media outlets hammered on the narrative that 28-year-old alleged attacker Brenton Tarrant is a “white nationalist” and “right-wing extremist” who hates Muslims — as though only white, right-wing extremists are behaving as terrorists these days and the only people they are murdering are people of Islamic faith.

UK - Theresa May has been told by the most senior Tory backbencher that MPs want her to stand down because of her handling of Brexit, The Telegraph can reveal. Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory MPs, visited the Prime Minister in Downing Street on Monday afternoon and made clear that a growing number of Tories believe she has to go. The visit by Sir Graham to Downing Street on Monday came after he was "bombarded with text messages" by colleagues and urged to confront the Prime Minister with demands that she should quit. Sir Graham imparted their calls in a "neutral" manner in his role as chairman of the 1922 committee during the meeting in Downing Street.

EUROPE - Furious infighting erupted last night between EU leaders divided over Brexit when Angela Merkel was forced to step in against hardliners Emmanuel Macron and Donald Tusk as they looked to punish Britain. The frustrated German Chancellor intervened telling Mr Macron, who was pushing for a no deal exit, and Mr Tusk “even if you don’t need the UK, the EU needs them,” according to diplomats. Irritated at the lack of preparedness by EU bosses, Mrs Merkel told Mr Tusk not to interrupt her, according to politics news site Politico.co.uk. The fracas unveiled the cracks threatening to tear apart the unity of the bloc over the UK’s exit from the bloc.  United States Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he hoped the UK and the EU would not do anything to "preclude a free trade agreement" with the US during Brexit negotiations. Speaking to the BBC Today programme, he said: "This is a very, very challenging process for both sides."

EUROPE - Eurocrats who support plans for intensive European Union integration could prove to be a secret weapon for Brexiteers seeking to quit the bloc on time, Nigel Farage suggested. Nigel Farage claimed European politicians have started voicing their discontent towards the United Kingdom for "messing up" the Brexit negotiations. The British Government on Wednesday officially requested an extension of the withdrawal talks until June 30 but Mr Farage suggested "fanatical" pro-EU figures within the bloc would much prefer to see Britain "gone" soon. Speaking to ITV Peston, the British MEP said: "Those who are fanatically pro the EU, those who want the European Army completed by 2025, those who want it to be a United States of Europe – I’m thinking of the Martin Schulzes, the Guy Verhofstadts – some of the key players in Europe are beginning to say ‘the British are messing this up.’

UK - Cabinet ministers believe there is now a real risk of a no-deal Brexit, with sources close to them describing the mood in government as depressing and No 10 as “run by lunatics”. Senior members of the cabinet from both sides of the Brexit argument are understood to think the chances of the UK leaving without a deal have substantially increased after the prime minister set herself against a longer extension to article 50. One aide to a cabinet minister said No 10 was in “full-on bunker mode” and the prime minister’s speech from Downing Street showed “they have all taken leave of their senses”. Another soft Brexit cabinet source described the mood as “depressing” and said of no deal: “The risk is now very real.”

EUROPE - Emmanuel Macron has warned that Britain is heading for a no-deal Brexit unless the House of Commons ratifies the withdrawal agreement negotiated with Brussels. The stark choice for MPs was laid out by the French president shortly before the 27 EU heads of state and government listen to an appeal by Theresa May for a three-month Brexit delay. “In case of a no vote or a no, directly it will guide everyone to a no deal, for sure,” Macron said. “This is it. We are ready.” The British prime minister is asking the EU for a Brexit delay until 30 June to allow time to pass the necessary withdrawal legislation should she get her deal through the Commons next week.

UK - The government has lost the ability to run the country. It is no longer in charge of its own destiny, let alone that of the nation. What makes this so humiliating is that power has been ceded not to parliament, but to the European Union. The immediate future of our country will be decided in Brussels and the capitals of the EU, not in Westminster. It will be the EU that decides whether or not to offer the UK an extension to the Article 50 process, and how long it will be. Once the extension has been agreed, then parliament — which has already voted against leaving without a deal — will rubber-stamp it. Not since Denis Healey was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan in 1976 has this country been so humiliated. Then the nation required an economic bailout. This time it needs a political one.

USA - Donald Trump has announced that the US will recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, in a dramatic move likely to bolster Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes to win re-election, but which will also provoke international opposition. Previous US administrations have treated Golan Heights as occupied Syrian territory, in line with UN security council resolutions. Trump declared his break with that policy, in a tweet on Thursday.

USA - Now even the Federal Reserve is publicly admitting that the US economy is slowing down.  And that is quite remarkable, because usually the Federal Reserve is extremely hesitant to say that an economic slowdown is taking place.  As I pointed out the other day, in 2008 former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke kept insisting that a recession was not coming, but we found out later that a recession had already begun when he was making those statements.  Normally the Federal Reserve tries very hard to paint a rosy picture of our economic future, and one of the big reasons for that is because they want us to believe that they are doing a good job and that they have everything under control.  So it was quite stunning to hear Fed Chair Jerome Powell use the term “slowdown” to describe what is coming for the US economy on Wednesday…

USA - From kitchen tables worldwide you can hear a chorus of parents chastising their children with the same refrain: “Stop playing with your food.” Children aside, this rebuke needs to be loudly directed at the profiteers of industrial agriculture. They keep toying with the very nature of food, not to benefit consumers, family farmers, workers or the environment — but to fatten the profits of Silicon Valley tech giants, food monopolists and Wall Street financiers.

EUROPE - While Europeans view Germany as in the ascendancy, French and British power is viewed as "in decline," a new survey has revealed. Many worry about long-term prospects and fear Brussels is "out of touch" with citizens. In a survey published late Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of all respondents in 10 EU member states said Germany plays a more important role in the world that it did a decade ago. "There is a sense in Europe that while German power is on the rise, French and British power is stagnant or in decline," the center said.

PHILIPPINES - Darrell Blatchley received a call from the Philippines' Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources early Friday morning reporting that it had a young Cuvier's beaked whale that was weak and vomiting blood. Within a few hours it was dead. Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, gathered his team to drive two hours to where the whale had washed up. "It was full of plastic — nothing but nonstop plastic," he said. "It was compact to the point that its stomach was literally as hard as a baseball." "That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more," Blatchley added. He noted that among the 88 pounds of plastic were 16 rice sacks — similar to potato sacks — and plastic bags from local Philippine grocery chains… The Philippines has been deemed one of the world's leading plastic polluters.

USA - With virtually every day that has passed since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed a hundred and fifty-seven people, more disturbing news has emerged. On Sunday, a spokesperson for Ethiopia’s ministry of transport said that the black box that was recovered from the wreckage of Flight 302 indicated that “clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610,” which crashed last October, killing a hundred and eighty-nine people...

USA - The annual Templeton Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to "affirming life's spiritual dimension," was awarded Tuesday to Brazilian Marcelo Gleiser - a theoretical physicist dedicated to demonstrating science and religion are not enemies. An agnostic, he doesn't believe in God - but refuses to write off the possibility of God's existence completely. "Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method," Gleiser told AFP. "Atheism is a belief in non-belief. So you categorically deny something you have no evidence against." "Science can give answers to certain questions, up to a point," Gleiser pointed out. "This has been known for a very long time in philosophy, it's called the problem of the first cause: we get stuck," the physicist, a father of five, said. "We should have the humility to accept that there's mystery around us."