USA - Did you know "jazz hands" are slowly replacing clapping? No, really: Clapping has been banned at a leading university in the UK "to avoid triggering anxiety" for students. Lest you think this practice doesn't exist in the US, I can personally vouch that it does. When I spoke at Bard College in New York last year, the students there did this exact thing with their hands whenever one of their classmates would challenge me and they wanted to show their support. I couldn't figure out what was going on until about halfway through the talk when I just flat-out asked the students,"What on earth are you all doing?" (I had kind of figured it out by then, but I wanted to hear them explain it.)

USA - America's War With Afghanistan Enters 18th Year. On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 terror attacks, US warplanes bombed targets in Afghanistan in what would be the opening offensive of Operation Enduring Freedom, the effort to drive the Taliban and al-Qaida from the country and install a democratic government.  CIA operatives and US special forces teamed with the mostly-Tajik Northern Alliance to take Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and other cities under an air umbrella that was provided primarily by the Navy and used Joint Direct Attack Munitions to devastating effect.  Depending on who is doing the counting and how it is done, the estimates for the costs of the war for the US since 2001 have generally exceeded $1 trillion. The Pentagon estimates the US will spend at least $45 billion on the war effort this year.

GERMANY - German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen says the structures for a European Defence Union have been “activated”, and also hopes to develop a system that tells Europeans when to use their “forces”. Ursula von der Leyen claimed a legal framework now exists for a European Defence Union. The German Defence Minister also discussed developing a structure that tells Europeans when to use their “forces”. Speaking on Uncut with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Ms von der Leyen declared: “The structures that have been ‘sleeping’ for a long time inside the Treaty of Lisbon - now we have activated them. That means we now have a legal framework for a European Defence Union, we have a joint planning process, so that as Europeans we can also develop a structure that tells us when we are going to use our forces.”

USA - Is Ron Paul about to be proven right once again? Even though he has retired from politics, Ron Paul is still speaking out about the most important issues of the day. And what he recently told CNBC is extremely ominous. The following comes from a CNBC article entitled “Ron Paul: US is barreling towards a stock market drop of 50% or more, and there’s no way to prevent it”…

USA - The eight richest persons in the world collectively own about $426 billion. That is an average of about $53.25 billion each. You’re certain to know some of the guys in the most exclusive club in the world – the rich list rock stars. Others shun the limelight, preferring wealth without fame.

USA - Leftists openly plot mass executions of conservatives as Democrats release home addresses of Republican Senators. As Leftists continue to lose political power in America due to elections (President Trump) and Supreme Court nominations (Brett Kavanaugh), their activists are becoming more militant and extremist.

USA - We’ve all heard the statistics about accidental gun deaths in the US. Many of them are overblown, of course, but even one death is too many. However, when these statistics are put in perspective by comparing them to other types of accidental death, it’s even more tragic; medical malpractice kills 500 times more Americans than accidental gun deaths do! Doesn’t that mean there should be 500 times more calls for doctor control than gun control? The shocking data on malpractice deaths is quite solid. It was taken from an eight-year study from the reputable Johns Hopkins University, who found that there are at least 250,000 deaths due to malpractice in America each year.

USA - This “war” must be waged as a peaceful civil rights revolution to protect and defend human dignity and human rights against the oppressive assault on humanity now being waged by Google and other tech giants. For humanity to survive with anything resembling human rights and the freedom to speak, Google must be completely dismantled and sent to the trash heap of history. If Google is not defeated, it will overrun governments, nations and eventually the entire world with its evil “techno-tyranny” that empowers human rights abusers like Communist China.

HAITI - A powerful 5.9 earthquake off the coast of Haiti has caused deaths and major damage, according to local media and the Civil Protection agency. The USGS registered the quake some 19 km off Ti Port-de-Paix, at a depth of 11.7 km. At least 11 people have died in the wake of the earthquake, the Secretary of State for Communication, Eddy Jackson Alexis, told the Haitian Le Nouvelliste newspaper. In addition, an auditorium has reportedly collapsed in the northern part of the country, while a local police station has also been damaged, forcing police to release detainees from custody as a precaution. A 7.0 earthquake in January 2010, with an epicenter just west of Port-au-Prince, killed over 220,000 people and left some 300,000 injured.

UNITED NATIONS - The order that has structured international politics since the end of World War II is fracturing. Many of the culprits are obvious. Revisionist powers, such as China and Russia, want to reshape global rules to their own advantage. Emerging powers, such as Brazil and India, embrace the perks of great-power status but shun the responsibilities that come with it. Rejectionist powers, such as Iran and North Korea, defy rules set by others. Meanwhile, international institutions, such as the UN, struggle to address problems that multiply faster than they can be resolved.

UK - The world economy is at risk of another financial meltdown, following the failure of governments and regulators to push through all the reforms needed to protect the system from reckless behaviour, the International Monetary Fund has warned. With global debt levels well above those at the time of the last crash in 2008, the risk remains that unregulated parts of the financial system could trigger a global panic, the Washington-based lender of last resort said. The former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said last month that the world economy was “sleepwalking into a future crisis,” and risks were not being tackled now “we are in a leaderless world”.

USA - Should men wear stilettos?  At one time that would have been unthinkable, but in recent years the trend toward “gender-fluidity” has broken down many of the old barriers that once ruled the fashion world. So now many men are wearing whatever they feel like wearing, and they are doing so very publicly. Businessmen are wearing stilettos to important business meetings, and kids are even wearing them to prom. Will we soon reach the point where all of the old fashion rules have been completely wiped out? Our society is changing at a pace that is hard to keep up with, and the pace of change is likely to accelerate even more in the months and years ahead.

USA - Over 20 major retailers have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of last year, and in 2018 we may break the all-time record for annual store closings that was established just last year. We are in the midst of the worst retail apocalypse in American history, and it appears to be picking up speed as retail giants such as Sears, JCPenney, Brookstone and Mattress Firm spiral toward bankruptcy. We live at a time when the middle class is being systematically destroyed, and so the truth is that US consumers simply do not have as much discretionary income as they once did. Many large retailers believed that things would eventually turn around, and they have been fighting very hard to survive, but now time has run out for quite a few of them.

UK - A video published by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) showing 6-year-old school children being instructed to write gay love letters has been causing a stir on social media. The video, originally uploaded to BBC Radio Manchester’s Facebook page, shows young children at Bewsey Lodge Primary School being instructed to write love letters from “Prince Henry” to his manservant, “Thomas”, with the teacher instructing her pupils: “You’re going to tell Thomas why it’s a brilliant idea for him to marry you.” “This school teaches children about LGBT relationships from an early age,” enthuses the BBC’s subtitled commentary.

UK - Clapping has been banned at a leading university student union "to avoid triggering anxiety". The University of Manchester Students' Union passed the resolution to ban clapping at student union events at the first Senate session of the academic year on September 27, according to student newspaper the Mancunion. "It was argued that the loud noise of traditional clapping and whooping pose an issue to students with anxiety or sensory issues. BSL clapping – or, jazz hands – would be a more inclusive form of expression," the paper said. Jazz hands is the British Sign Language for clapping.