Kushner was indeed trying to send a message this week, but not to Israelis. The interview he gave during his visit to the United Arab Emirates was his first international television interview since he began working on the administration’s peace plan – and it’s no coincidence that he chose to give it to a channel broadcast throughout the Arab world.

Both Kushner and Jason Greenblatt – the president’s special envoy to the region, who accompanied Kushner on the trip – are trying to dispel the notion that their plan is extremely biased toward Israel, which is how the Palestinian Authority constantly describes it. They hope that once the plan is published, after the Israeli election, several Arab countries will react positively to it and agree to consider it as a basis for negotiations. Their ultimate dream is that the plan helps improve ties between Israel and the Sunni Arab world.

The White House is well aware of these complications. Earlier this week, the pro-Netanyahu free newspaper Israel Hayom, funded by Sheldon Adelson, reported that administration officials are expressing pessimism in behind-closed-doors briefings about the chances of their plan being accepted.

A White House official told Haaretz in response: “We remain committed to releasing our peace plan, which we feel will provide people on both sides a vision for peace and an opportunity for a brighter future. While we feel that our plan is fair, realistic and implementable, we are not blind to the challenges we face. If this was an easy problem to fix, it would have been solved a long time ago. Ultimately, it will be up to the parties to negotiate a final peace agreement.”

It’s no wonder why the Momo challenge has been able to capture the fears of adults with a mythical force that’s persisted for months. The headlining image for the “challenge” is undeniably creepy — the stuff of nightmares for children and adults alike. And the underlying challenge, with its messages supposedly encouraging kids to commit violence and self-harm, would be far more harrowing — if there were any discernible evidence proving this is actually a problem.

Experts say there is no indication that children are being driven to suicide since the story went viral. YouTube said previously it had no evidence of videos promoting the challenge, and it’s since demonetized content featuring the signature Momo image that has cropped up since the hysteria bubbled into the mainstream.

The Momo challenge is hardly the first suspected craze to seize on the anxieties of adults — just look to past panic over supposedly dangerous teen trends that ended up being an overblown internet hoax. And as is the case for many spurts of viral panic, the Momo challenge has been elevated into a global phenomenon, not because of the stories shared by victims themselves but by the worried adults trying to protect them.

The big cell phone companies will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to install hundreds of thousands of new 5G antennas, and every single one of those antennas will be constantly emitting very powerful electromagnetic radiation.  Since we can’t see the radiation, to many people the threat does not seem real, but the truth is that if you live in a major urban area you are constantly being bombarded by it.  And once the new 5G network is completely rolled out, you would literally have to live in the middle of nowhere to get away from it completely.

According to Dr Martin L Pall, a PhD and Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, rolling out 5G without any safety testing at all is an incredibly foolish idea… “Putting in tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has got to be about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world.” But despite the objections of Dr Pall and countless other scientists, we are going to do it anyway.

Economic cancer is rapidly spreading throughout our country, and the US economy is deteriorating at the fastest pace that we have seen since the last recession. So how long will it be before Wall Street catches up with economic reality? The retail industry is being hit particularly hard. At the end of last week, major retailers announced 465 store closings in a single 48 hour period… And those closings already bring the grand total for 2019 to “a whopping 4,309 store closures”…

I really, really don’t understand the people that are telling us that everything is going to be okay. Everything is not okay, and things are getting worse with each passing day. Of course it isn’t just the US that is hurting. Up north, Canada is literally teetering on the brink of recession… The Canadian government shocked the professional financial and economic media with their latest fourth quarter GDP release showing the economy has essentially come to a grinding halt at 0.1% growth.

And over in Europe, things are arguably even worse. Germany is supposed to have the strongest economy in the entire region, but they are also right on the brink of recession…This is a global economic slowdown, and many believe that it will be even worse than what we experienced in 2008. But as I have previously warned, we aren’t just heading toward an economic storm. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and that includes our governmental institutions.

On Sunday, we learned that the House Judiciary Committee is opening an investigation into obstruction of justice by President Trump. This is going to be a year of great governmental shaking. And no matter which side emerges victorious from the legal struggles and from the election of 2020, the truth is that our governmental institutions will never be the same again.

Economic experts have warned the impending threat of a no-deal Brexit could hammer huge holes in the economy and its lucrative manufacturing sector. Exports make up nearly half of Germany’s economic output and according to data from the Federal Statistics Office, cars are by far the country’s main export with annual sales worth £200 billion.

The trade war between US and China, the slowdown of the eurozone and of the Chinese economy and the ongoing emissions scandal in the automotive industry will continue to haunt the Germany economy.

“Italy is in recession but has experienced weak growth ever since Italy joined monetary union but is stuck in a debt trap with government debt amounting to 130 percent of GDP which is one of the highest in the Eurozone. Now the Italian government is rejecting Brussels-imposed fiscal austerity. 'Ital-exit' is becoming a distinct possibility.”

“Italian and French economies are slowing down and the economies of the south member-states are trying to recover from punishing austerity imposed by the ECB and the European Commission. The slowing of the Eurozone economy indicates that the German economic model of fiscal consolidation and welfare cuts is not working. Instead of Brexit uncertainty we should be talking about Eurozone uncertainty.”

Though the trenches ranged in location from Japanese to Chilean waters, all of them were within the “hadal zone,” meaning they were at least 6,000 meters under the sea. The study even includes amphipods collected at Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, which is the lowest known point in the seabed at 10,890 meters below the ocean surface.

Despite such remote habitats, Jamieson’s team found plastic and synthetic fibres such as nylon, polyethylene, and polyvinyl alcohol in the guts of most amphipods they examined.

Within hours, I used my mobile to scroll through my Facebook account and, with growing unease, noticed adverts for LASIK laser eye surgery and a selection of spectacles from LadyBoss glasses appearing alongside the usual updates from friends. I don’t even wear glasses myself. Surely, I thought, it must be a coincidence? And yet the timing felt troubling.

Could it be possible that our phones are somehow eavesdropping on our conversations – and that key phrases are being logged and used to send us targeted adverts? The implications, if true, are chilling.

Those highest bidders include America’s political class and the politicians aspiring to get elected or re-elected. As the Los Angeles Times reports, “If you have been to a political rally, a town hall, or just fit a demographic a campaign is after, chances are good your movements are being tracked with unnerving accuracy by data vendors on the payroll of campaigns.” Your phones, televisions and digital devices are selling you out to politicians who want your vote.

Have you shopped at Whole Foods? Tested out target practice at a gun range? Sipped coffee at Starbucks while surfing the web? Visited an abortion clinic? Watched FOX News or MSNBC? Played Candy Crush on your phone? Walked through a mall? Walked past a government building? That’s all it takes for your data to be hoovered up, sold and used to target you.

This is the age of surveillance capitalism. Incredibly, once you’ve been identified and tracked, data brokers can travel back in time, digitally speaking, to discover where you’ve been, who you’ve been with, what you’ve been doing, and what you’ve been reading, viewing, buying, etc. Once you’ve been identified in this way, you can be tracked endlessly.

“Welcome to the new frontier of campaign tech — a loosely regulated world in which simply downloading a weather app or game, connecting to Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or powering up a home router can allow a data broker to monitor your movements with ease, then compile the location information and sell it to a political candidate who can use it to surround you with messages,” writes journalist Evan Halper. No one is spared.

It allegedly became the face of a sickening online trolling effort targeted at children, even making its way into Peppa Pig videos. It was also the subject of the 'Momo Challenge' where children  were 'challenged' to communicate with an unknown number and take part in sickening forfeits. In a haunting voice, chilling threats allegedly meet those who view the tainted videos. There were reports of a schoolgirl left so terrified after being exposed to Momo that she banged her head against school walls, refused to go to the toilet alone and suffered from paralysing nightmares 

However, the artist does admit that he's glad his work is getting exposure - despite an eye being the only remnant of the original piece. He also said he feels 'responsible' for the wave of fear that the doll and its perceived menace has caused. 'People do not know if it is true or not but apparently the children have been affected and I do feel a little responsible for it,' he said. 

The next day, Nicolle Wallace, a former Republican operative turned MSNBC commentator and Trump critic, played a clip of diGenova's commentary on her show and agreed with him - although she placed the blame squarely on the president.  Trump, she said, "greenlit a war in this country around race. And if you think about the most dangerous thing he's done, that might be it." 

With the report by special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly nearly complete, impeachment talk in the air and the 2020 presidential election ramping up, fears that once existed only in fiction or the fevered dreams of conspiracy theorists have become a regular part of the political debate. These days, there's talk of violence, mayhem and, increasingly, civil war.

A date for the merger of the consulate into the embassy had not been announced, but a State Department official told AFP on condition of anonymity that it “is expected to take place on March 4 [2019]. The Jerusalem consulate general, which has acted independently as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, will be replaced by a new Palestinian affairs unit within the embassy.

The closure of the consulate general means that Palestinian affairs will come under the direction of US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who has been a supporter of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Some Palestinians view Friedman as biased in favor of Israel.