“Homeless encampment is blocking sidewalk and creates a health hazard with trash and feces. Please move them, and send a cleaning crew. Sidewalk is impassable, forcing pedestrians into the street,” reported one user, his complaint accompanied with a photo of a tent pitched under a tree in the city’s central Mission district.

San Francisco residents can make non-emergency ‘311’ municipal complaints with the touch of a button, thanks to a website and a mobile app. Complainants can attach photos as proof, and the authorities send a notification when the problem is resolved. Many of the complaints are connected to the city’s homeless problem. Rent in the city averages over $3,500 per month, pricing out all but the highest earners and creating a city of wealthy tech employees on one side, and a teeming homeless underclass on the other.

Dr Lee Riley, an infectious diseases expert at the University of California in Berkeley, told NBC reporters that in some parts of the city, the contamination is “much greater than communities in Brazil or Kenya or Italy.” Getting stuck by a used needle can pass on diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B and C. San Francisco has one of the largest HIV-positive populations in the US, with an estimated 16,010 people living with the disease.

Over the past several decades, US consumers have loved gobbling up super-cheap goods from China, and the Chinese have used many of the dollars that they have been accumulating to fund our exploding national debt.  This symbiotic relationship has been bad for the United States in a lot of ways, and something had to be done, but in the short-term this trade war is going to be enormously painful.  Sadly, most Americans are completely oblivious to what is happening. 

Another way should have been found to deal with our trade imbalances with China, because a trade war is not going to work. Instead of giving in, the Chinese are promising to respond with measures of “equal scale, equal intensity”, and President Trump is already pledging to hit the Chinese with another 500 billion dollars in tariffs if the Chinese hit back in this manner…

Once these escalations begin, where will they end? The Chinese can really, really hurt us by dumping our debt and by cutting off our access to rare earth elements. Would they really go that far? We simply cannot continue to enjoy a massively inflated debt-fueled standard of living if we decide to provoke all of the other nations that are funding our debt by starting trade wars with them. What we are doing does not make any sense at all, and there will most certainly be severe consequences in the not too distant future.

Their investigation touched on a known but persistent problem in the research world: too few studies have large enough samples to support generalized conclusions. But pressure on researchers, competition between journals and the media's insatiable appetite for new studies announcing revolutionary breakthroughs has meant such articles continue to be published. "The majority of papers that get published, even in serious journals, are pretty sloppy," said John Ioannidis, professor of medicine at Stanford University, who specializes in the study of scientific studies.

The problem also comes from the media, which according to Oransky needs to better explain the uncertainties inherent in scientific research, and resist sensationalism. "We're talking mostly about the endless terrible studies on coffee, chocolate and red wine," he said. "Why are we still writing about those? We have to stop with that."

What’s more, they might not be alone in this attempt to curb OPEC’s clout on the global oil market. According to Bloomberg’s Carl Pope, Europe and Japan, previously reluctant to take part in any anti-OPEC projects, may now join in. The reason they are likely to join in is that unlike in previous oil price cycles, now there are alternatives to fossil fuels. Electrification is where OPEC may have to face off with a future oil buyers’ cartel.

India, China, and Europe are all very big on EV adoption. Japan is a leader in battery manufacturing. If they set their minds to it, these four players could upend the oil market and effectively cripple OPEC. Of course, this is a best-case scenario of the kind that rarely unfolds in reality.

In an address to Germany's lower house of parliament Wednesday, Merkel cited President Trump's threat of targeting US imports of cars from Europe, which risk hitting Germany the hardest. She backed efforts by the European Union and US negotiators to reach a deal this month.

“The international financial crisis, which ensured that we now act in the framework of the (Group of 20), would never have been resolved so quickly, despite the pain, if we hadn't cooperated in a multilateral fashion in the spirit of comradeship,” Merkel said. “This has to happen.”

As the leader of Europe's biggest economy, Merkel underscored her resolve to fight for the survival of post-World War II global institutions under attack by the Trump administration. At the same time, she renewed her counterattack against US criticism of German exports by saying that the United States has a trade surplus with the EU if services are included.

“This is taking on the contours of a trade conflict. I don't want to use words that go any further,” Merkel said in her speech. “It's worth every effort to try to defuse this so that this conflict doesn't become a war.”

A high level of market turnover is often a sign of big trouble ahead, and according to Bloomberg our financial markets “are churning at the fastest rate since 2008″…

"From junk bonds to emerging-market stocks, market turnover is through the roof, reaching multi-year highs. Within the S&P 500 Index, investors traded more than $2.9 trillion worth of shares in each of the past two quarters, a feat last achieved in early 2008."

Bloomberg is not prone to hyperbole, and so when they say that “market turnover is through the roof”, I hope that you will take that statement seriously… stock prices are more overvalued today than they have been at any other point in modern American history.  Meanwhile, all sorts of red flags continue to indicate that big trouble is on the horizon, but most investors are ignoring those red flags.

But if you look closely, it is becoming clear that the most savvy investors are getting out while the getting is good.  In a previous article, I explained that the “smart money” is getting out of stocks at a pace that we have not seen since just before the last financial crisis.  Fortunately for them, the “dumb money” has been willing to buy what they are selling at these massively inflated prices.

...global stocks lost approximately 10 trillion dollars in value during the first six months of 2018. Just think about that. 10 trillion dollars is almost half of the US national debt. If global stocks continue to fall at a similar pace during the second half, it is only a matter of time before US stocks get absolutely slammed.

But the truth is that online retailers are not exactly taking over the world. At this point, 91 percent of all retail sales still take place in brick-and-mortar stores, and that means that online retailers only account for about 9 percent of all retail sales.  Sadly, there is a much bigger reason why thousands of retail stores are closing down and millions upon millions of square feet of retail space is now sitting empty all over America.

The mighty US consumer base was once primarily made up of middle class Americans, but the middle class in America has been on a slow, steady death spiral for many years. We have never been through anything like this in modern American history.

2017 was the worst year for retail store closings in the United States that we have ever seen.  The number of retail stores that closed approximately tripled the number from 2016, and this year we are definitely on pace to shatter the record that we set last year.

Not too long ago, I shared with you some absolutely shocking numbers about the decline of the middle class, and I would like to share them with you again now…

#1 78 million Americans are participating in the “gig economy” because full-time jobs just don’t pay enough to make ends meet these days.

#2 In 2011, the average home price was 3.56 times the average yearly salary in the United States.  But by the time 2017 was finished, the average home price was 4.73 times the average yearly salary in the United States.

#3 In 1980, the average American worker’s debt was 1.96 times larger than his or her monthly salary.  Today, that number has ballooned to 5.00.

#4 In the United States today, 66 percent of all jobs pay less than 20 dollars an hour.

#5 102 million working age Americans do not have a job right now.  That number is higher than it was at any point during the last recession.

#6 Earnings for low-skill jobs have stayed very flat for the last 40 years.

#7 Americans have been spending more money than they make for 28 months in a row.

#8 In the United States today, the average young adult with student loan debt has a negative net worth.

#9 At this point, the average American household is nearly $140,000 in debt.

#10 Poverty rates in US suburbs “have increased by 50 percent since 1990”.

#11 Almost 51 million US households “can’t afford basics like rent and food”.

#12 The bottom 40 percent of all US households bring home just 11.4 percent of all income.

#13 According to the Federal Reserve, 4 out of 10 Americans do not have enough money to cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing the money or selling something they own.

#14 22 percent of all Americans cannot pay all of their bills in a typical month.

#15 Today, US households are collectively 13.15 trillion dollars in debt.  That is a new all-time record.

This is why so many US retailers are failing.

The controversy began when an influx of nearly 1,000 asylum seekers from Yemen arrived on the South Korean resort island of Jeju. They took advantage of a new visa waiver program that allowed people from 186 countries to visit the island without a tourist visa. This led to 950 foreign nationals, the majority from Yemen, arriving as tourists under a one month permit but then immediately claiming asylum, a process that can take years while they remain in the country.

“And local people here are worried,” said Hank Kim, owner of the Core Travel Agency. “We have all read about the problems that immigrants have caused in Europe — in Germany and France in particular — and we do not want that to happen here.” Emphasizing that South Koreans do not think the Muslim religion is compatible with their culture, Kim added, “They all have big families and they bring their own culture instead of trying to adapt to the place where they live.”

Dr Harold Rhode, a former adviser on Islamic affairs in the US Department of Defense and now a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute think tank, told JNS in an interview that from the perspective of the Iranian people, the radical regime is reacting to the protests from a position of fear.

“The protesters have confidence because they inherently sense that the regime is weak,” commented Rhode, adding that as long as the regime is perceived to be strong, the protesters will be more careful and reserved. Protests have criticized the Iran regime and its foreign policy of imperialist expansion in the region, which they say is happening against the interests of its own citizens.

Results showed high levels of potentially harmful bacteria in chicken, turkey, pork, and beef, caused by the administration of antibiotics to livestock. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria contamination rates ranged from 36 percent in chicken breasts, legs, thighs, and wings to 79 percent in ground turkey – while ground beef and pork chops hit 62 and 71 percent, respectively.

The organization also found that 20 percent of salmonella found in supermarket chicken was resistant to the antibiotic most commonly used to treat the ailment – amoxicillin. The EWG maintains that the over administration of antibiotics is meant to compensate for ‘stressful, crowded and unsanitary conditions’ on industrial farms. According to the EWG report – which hints at corruption on a federal level – The Federal Drug Association (FDA) has made an effort to downplay the severity of the situation.

Robert AJ Gagnon, PhD, a former associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, had his Facebook account suspended for 24 hours simply for pointing out that the video in question has nothing to do with “sexual diversity,” as claimed, but rather centers entirely around the celebration of sexual perversity.

Produced by Canadian news outlet CBC Life, a taxpayer-funded subsidiary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the video explains to children that it’s important for them to “come out of the closet,” or at the very least to become “gay allies” in support of the LGBT agenda. Featured in the video is CBC television host Jessi Cruickshank, who explains how, as a child, she began questioning her own sexuality while watching naked clips of actress Jodie Foster.

“Happy pride, everybody!” Cruickshank announces at the video’s onset in a room filled with children that’s decorated party-style with gay pride flags and rainbow balloons. The video’s intended audience, as revealed by the setting and décor of the set, are children as young as five years old – kindergarteners, essentially, who are many, many years away from even reaching puberty.

Enter snowflakes. It’s an abstract some leftists struggle to comprehend: Sometimes hunting actually aids the future of a herd or even an entire species. One referred to the hunter as a Neanderthal savage. Another wrote, “Shame on you to think your life is more worth than any other living creature and gives you the right to end its life! Who are you to place yourself above any other living creature. I hope nature takes revenge at you!”

That, apparently, doesn’t apply to human babies who are massacred by the millions for our convenience.

Disturbing screenshots shared alongside her story show two male characters attacking the avatar before a third, female character jumps on top of her. The pictures even show an unambiguous animation of male genitalia. Petersen is now calling on parents to delete the app from their kids’ devices, and ensure all precautions have been taken to secure other programs. The Minecraft-style game touts roughly 64 million monthly players and is geared toward children, with the ability to put in place certain restrictions for kids under the age of 13.

But, recent incidents have increasingly caused parents to sound the alarm. After the latest, Petersen says she’s been left feeling ‘traumatized and violated on so many levels,’ and is now concerned about how the disturbing event may have affected her daughter. ‘At first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,’ Petersen wrote on Facebook. 

'My sweet and innocent daughter’s avatar was being violently gang-raped on a playground by two males. A female observer approached them and proceeded to jump on her body at the end of the act. Then the 3 characters ran away, leaving my daughter’s avatar laying on her face in the middle of the playground.’

The shocking incident managed to slip through despite the presence of the game’s moderators, which operate 24/7 to remove offensive content, and the ‘maximum privacy’ settings Petersen and her husband had put in place.  But this is not the first time the game has come under fire for exposing children to graphic sexual content.

At the beginning of June, a mother in Australia revealed her horror after witnessing the moment her 6-year-old daughter was invited into a ‘sex room’ in the online game. The woman, identified only as Peggy, told Kidspot how she took the game away from her daughter and then recorded the disturbing scene, which showed numerous pairs of 3D avatars engaging in sex acts.