USA - A state of emergency has been declared in Virginia by the governor after floods devastated the state and left over 40 people unaccounted for. Officials have said that search and rescue efforts are still ongoing following heavy rainfall and power outages throughout the area. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed across 10 miles in Buchanan County, with 44 people still thought to be missing. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened to learn that another flood has impacted a community still recovering from last year’s flood."

USA - The Bureau of Labor Statistics minutes ago released the June inflation numbers. They are not good. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 1.3 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 1.0 percent in May, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 9.1 percent before seasonal adjustment. The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors. The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also rising. The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index. The energy index rose 41.6 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1980. The food index increased 10.4 percent for the 12-months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending February 1981.

EUROPE - The reckoning will come in the winter, which will be the harshest in decades, the Romanian deputy PM has said. The EU will have to pay a heavy price for its sanctions on Russia, as this year the continent could experience the harshest winter in decades, Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Hunor Kelemen told B1 TV on Wednesday. “First of all, we, the European Union, will have to pay for the sanctions against Russia... Truth be told, we will all pay the price this winter while, unfortunately, there are no signs that the end of war is near… It will be a harsh winter, perhaps the harshest one in the last 40-50-60 years,” he told the outlet.

USA - For decades American presidents have arrived in the Holy Land like earnest pilgrims searching for the holy grail of a two-state solution. George Bush hoped to find it in 2003 with his “road map for peace”. Barack Obama came in 2013, while John Kerry, his secretary of state, was trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. Even Donald Trump promised to “give it an absolute go”.

GERMANY - The NATO Response Force is the alliance’s “firewall”. Its multinational combat units are kept constantly on standby. In the event of an emergency, the first units of what is commonly called the NRF are supposed to be capable of moving into crisis areas within 48 hours, taking on missions on the ground, in the air, or at sea. The NRF is hoping it will have an even more deterrent effect soon. At the NATO summit in Madrid last month the alliance decided to strengthen its eastern borders by massively boosting the response force from currently 40,000 to 300,000 combat-ready soldiers. Germany will contribute 15,000 soldiers, the country’s Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht announced, 3,000 to 5,000 of whom are to be stationed in Lithuania. Until now only about 1,000 had been stationed there. In addition, Germany is providing 65 aircraft and 20 ships, as well as special forces, or commando, units. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wants to see a large part of the new rapid reaction forces operational as early as next year…

USA - Totalitarian Democracy: The West is re-entering an age of totalitarianism. Freedom is increasingly defined as the right to concur with the Western hedonist elites, which implies a total revolt against historical Western values. The enemy is now the traditional family, the majority views, respect for spiritual beliefs, natural law and the Christian-Judeo ethics as foundational values. Just as Communism and fascism were totalitarian systems, a new version has developed in the West: A totalitarian democracy based on a Socialist ideology in bed with a non-democratically elected globalist corporate elite. They rule the masses through propaganda control over the media and the political structures, writes Hanne Herland, bestselling author, historian of comparative religions and founder of The Herland Report in her regular column in World Net Daily, one of America’s leading Conservative outlets. Today, socialism works excellently with the globalist corporate elites and help both achieve their goals. If you disagree with the left-wing Liberal agenda, you are instantly demonized as “enemy of state”, racist, misogynist, male-chauvinist and so on. Freedom of speech belongs only to those who concur with the globalist narrative.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has noted the “incoherence” of President Joe Biden’s support for abortion as a Catholic, but said that he “leaves it” to Biden’s “conscience” whether to receive Holy Communion or not. Speaking to the Spanish TV network Univision in an interview segment released July 12, the 85-year-old pope condemned abortion, saying that “scientific data” show that “a month after conception, the DNA of the fetus is already present and the organs are already aligned.” “Is it fair to eliminate a human life?,” he asked. As for the position of self-described “Catholic” US President Joe Biden and his prominent promotion of abortion, Pope Francis did not take an authoritative stance. He stated that he “leaves it” to Biden’s “conscience,” saying “let him talk to his pastor about this incoherence.”

USA - The recent decisions by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on abortion and guns appear to have pushed Democrats deeper into seeking radical changes that would shift the court back into liberal hands. While, for many, simply packing the court with more left-wing judges was the answer before the recent decisions, a new survey found support for killing the court, electing judges, and even allowing the United Nations to have the final say. A new Rasmussen Reports survey sponsored by the Heartland Institute, for example, found that 39% of Democrats would let the UN reverse Supreme Court decisions it viewed as human rights violations. The reversal of Roe vs Wade could fall into that category. Worse, a majority (53%) of Democrats would support legislation to “abolish” the court and turn it into an elected chamber with judges picked on ballots. Just 21% of Republicans agree with that proposal.

USA - For the first time in 20 years, the exchange rate between the euro (EUU) and the US dollar has reached parity - meaning the two currencies are worth the same. The euro hit $1 on Tuesday, down about 12% since the start of the year. Fears of recession on the continent abound, stoked by high inflation and energy supply uncertainty caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The European Union, which received roughly 40% of its gas through Russian pipelines before the war, is attempting to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas. At the same, Russia has throttled back gas supplies to some EU countries and recently cut the flow in the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany by 60%. Now that critical piece of gas import infrastructure in Europe, has been shut down for scheduled maintenance due to last 10 days. German officials fear that it may not be turned on again.

GERMANY - People in the German capital have complained about rising inflation and incompetent ministers. Germans, particularly retirees, are bearing the brunt of inflation, with some even having to cut back on food, according to interviews with Berliners on a Telegram channel. Some in the German capital expressed strong criticism of the way Olaf Scholz’s cabinet is handling the situation and the extent to which the country is engaged in the Ukraine conflict.

UNITED NATIONS - The world's population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, the UN forecast Monday in a report that said India will surpass China as the most populous country on earth in 2023. That overall population milestone "is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another," Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, without citing specifics. "This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity, and marvel at advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates," he added. The forecast by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the world's population is growing at its slowest pace since 1950.

EUROPE - For years, the Western world saw profits in new green and renewable energy sectors and sang from their hymn book on the need to reduce carbon footprints by ditching fossil fuels, or to avoid a potential Chernobyl-style environmental catastrophe by ditching nuclear power. Western officials were going to either earbend their citizens or drag them kicking and screaming towards a new world rife with questionably executable green dreams – all in the interest of supposedly preventing Earth’s temperature from rising by 1.2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. Good luck controlling the temperature of your own room to within a single degree for any length of time, let alone that of the entire planet. Still, officials agreed on the pretext for the green shift, however dodgy, and forged ahead with their new investments and ventures. The European Green Deal was a centerpiece of the Western strategy, with €1.8 trillion euros of investments.

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations World Health Organization is slated to update its guidance on gender to declare that “sex is not limited to male or female” and goes “beyond non-binary.” Now the organization will modify the guidance to focus on “highlighting and expanding on the concept of intersectionality.” Intersectionality “looks at how gender power dynamics interact with other hierarchies of privilege or disadvantage, resulting in inequality and differential health outcomes for different people,” the WHO website states. The WHO’s current “gender mainstreaming manual,” which was created in 2011, contends that there are many genders on a spectrum from male to female. The United States withdrew its members from the World Health Organization during the Trump administration, but immediately after taking office, Joe Biden rejoined. As the WHO and Biden administration attempt to institute a gender fluid agenda, numerous studies confirm gender dysphoria increases the likelihood of being suicidal. Research conducted by the Heritage Foundation shows minors who undergo cross-sex medical interventions are more likely to commit suicide.

CHINA - Signs of financial systems collapsing continue all across the world, which should be headline news, but the corporate media in the US gives very scant mention of most of these events, if they cover them at all. Some of the corporate outlets are starting to report about the total collapse of society in Sri Lanka, but if you go to news aggregate sites like Google News, these reports will be further down the page than what they deem to be the most important news of the day, which in most cases are political news stories, like the continuing January 6 saga sideshow. While rioting and protests for the most part have not yet started in the US, just wait. The corporate media cannot continue to suppress the financial apocalypse for too long, and make no mistake about it, it is coming. A story that barely got any mention last week, and one that I found on RT.com, of all places, even though it was from an American news source (Bloomberg), talks about the collapse of the US industrial industry due to rising energy costs.

SWITZERLAND - The World Economic Forum (WEF) released a position paper Monday that inexorably links two claimed global crises as one – “climate change” and the “decline of democracy.” It says fighting the former can save the latter as long as consumers stop burning coal, oil, and gas in exchange for green renewables. The WEF paper argues for the past 15 years, democracy has been in decline worldwide. To protect and promote freedom, “leading democracies must strengthen their economies and safeguard liberty.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought renewed focus on this economic weakness, the WEF says.