USA - Everyone fell for the smartphone scam. A bunch of tech companies ran around telling everyone they sucked because they couldn’t check their email or watch a movie while they were out in the real world living their lives. People looked on in awe as if they were wondering how they could have been so dumb for so long. They ran to the stores and immediately started buying every smart phone version there was and they haven’t stopped since.

USA - Well, there is the money, of course. When millions of people forego expensive and toxic medical drugs; when they rarely see conventional doctors; when they don’t receive vaccinations and don’t have their children vaccinated; when they opt for natural remedies; when, worst of all, THEY STAY HEALTHY, this is a hammer blow to drug-based medicine.

USA - Every time there are reports of a mass shooting, there are a number of people who automatically question whether the suspect had mental health issues or was taking prescription medications such as antidepressants.

UK - Are you racist? Your university says you are – even if you don’t say, think, or do racist things – and it’s all down to the color of your skin. Lecturers are now being told to attend seminars to deal with their own “whiteness.” British universities are encouraging lecturers to acknowledge their “white privilege,” which makes them unwittingly racist. The classes teach university staff that white-skinned people enjoy greater advantages in life due to the color of their skin, and that black staff and students are discriminated against regularly. Posters for sessions held at Bristol University said it would ask lecturers to “examine and acknowledge the destructive role of whiteness.” The seminars will be hosted by the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Staff Advisory Group.

UK - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, is calling for tech giants to be regulated to prevent the internet from being "weaponised at scale". In an open letter to mark the web's 29th birthday, Berners-Lee warned that "power is concentrated" among just a few companies – including Facebook and Google – whose platforms can be manipulated by nefarious forces.

USA - People over 65 years old would outnumber children by 2035, a first in US history, according to updated projections released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday. The milestone would be the latest marker of the nation’s ageing, which has accelerated with baby boomers’ move into their senior years and recessionary effects on births and immigration over the past decade.

USA - An anonymous YouTuber has made fake videos of President Trump, Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, based on performances by the cast of "Saturday Night Live." ​And there is an Adobe program that can create new audio from written text. "Right out of the gate, that's terrifying," Farid said. "I mean, that is just terrifying. 

UK - Britain faces huge fines in an EU legal battle that would poison the Brexit negotiations, if Liam Fox secures a UK-only exemption from Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. The British Trade Secretary, who on Thursday accused the EU of acting like a gang in Brexit talks, said he would use a trip to Washington next week to secure a British carve-out from the US President’s levy of 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminium. On Thursday Mr Trump said he would press on with the tariffs, which he claimed was in the interest of national security, despite the reservations of his Republican party. He said that “allies” could negotiate their own exemptions from the tax…

GERMANY - Germany’s new interior minister will promote a law-and-order agenda that includes pushing for more video surveillance in public areas and faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers, he said in an interview. Horst Seehofer, who heads Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies the Christian Social Union (CSU), told Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that Germany should remain an open and liberal country. “But when it comes to protecting citizens, we need to have a strong state,” he said. “There must be a consensus …that we no longer tolerate areas where the rule of law does not apply,” he added, mentioning more video surveillance and faster processing of failed asylum applicants.

MIDDLE EAST - Avoiding actions against Islamists and terrorists for fear of being seen as anti-Islam can’t go too far without crippling security and giving the impression that the West is scared and vulnerable. Western decisions about protecting itself against Islamism’s attack are more important than what Western governments say about Islamism and its war.

EUROPE - The European Commission has denied allegations of cronyism after a protégé of its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, was given one of the most powerful jobs in the EU civil service. Martin Selmayr has been appointed Secretary-General of the Commission, the organisation that monitors whether countries are sticking to EU rules, dreams up new laws and runs the Brexit talks day-to-day. He helped run Jean-Claude Juncker's successful campaign to be selected as president of the commission in 2014 and later became his head of cabinet, Brussels-speak for chief of staff. Martin Selmayr previously served as Jean-Claude Junker's Head of Cabinet. He has earned multiple nicknames, like the Monster or the Beast of the Berlaymont, the name of the building where he works.

IRELAND - The Irish government has been slammed for paying journalists to write good news stories about Project Ireland 2040. Unveiled by the government last week with a commitment to spend €116 billion, the document outlines plans to boost the Irish nation’s 4.7 million population by another million using mass migration. The government’s strategic communications unit paid for sponsored “news pieces” to appear in national and regional newspapers promoting Ireland 2040, which “could not include negative or critical content”, The Times reported on Friday. Speaking in the Irish parliament, or Dáil, opposition leader Micheál Martin branded the government’s use of the media to promote its scheme “ethically dubious”. “The blurring of the lines is genuinely worrying from a parliamentary democracy point of view,” he said.

MYANMAR - Buddhism may be touted in the West as an inherently peaceful philosophy, but a surge in violent rhetoric from small but increasingly influential groups of hardline monks in parts of Asia is upending the religion's tolerant image.

USA - Georgia resident Kerri Foster smashed several cellphones with a hammer on a picnic table while displaying two of her household’s AR-15s to demonstrate that cell phones kill far more people in America than guns do. The ultra-viral video has over 2.8 million views and is causing liberal snowflakes to melt.

USA - Yellowstone is showing signs of activity once more as earthquakes beneath the potentially catastrophic volcano continue to strike. In the last week, there have been four tremors in and around the Yellowstone volcano. Minor earthquakes occur in the Yellowstone area around 50 times a week. The most recent quake came on March 11 when a small 1.5 tremor took place beneath the surface. The strongest one, a 1.8 magnitude earthquake, came just hours before this, and people are concerned that Yellowstone could be about to blow.