Poland’s Tusk says conflicts with EU could eventually end the bloc

– July 16,2021

WARSAW, July 16 (Reuters) – Poland and Hungary’s conflicts with the European Union could start a process that results in the bloc falling apart, former European Council President Donald Tusk warned on Friday, amid a worsening standoff over democratic standards.

Brussels is at loggerheads with Warsaw and Budapest over issues such as the independence of the judiciary and press freedoms, a conflict which deepened this week as Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled the country should not comply with demands from the EU’s top court, while the European Commission took legal action against both countries over LGBT rights. read more

“If more of these kinds of countries are found who insist on damaging… the European Union it may simply mean the end of this organisation,” Tusk, who has returned to domestic politics as leader of Poland’s main opposition party Civic Platform (PO), told private broadcaster TVN24.

Surveys show an overwhelming majority of Poles support EU membership, and there is no legal way to throw countries out of the bloc.

However Tusk, who helped steer the European Union through a tumultuous period marked by Brexit, said the risk of an eventual exit existed.

“We will not leave the EU tomorrow, and the EU will not fall apart the day after tomorrow. These are processes that can take years,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com

Plummeting reservoir levels could soon force Oroville hydropower offline

Julia Wick – July 21, 2021

A major California hydroelectric power plant could soon stop generating power amid worsening drought conditions.

According to state water officials, the Edward Hyatt Powerplant at Lake Oroville could go offline as soon as August or September — a time frame that would coincide with a feared power crunch this summer. The plant, which opened in the late 1960s, has never been forced offline by low lake levels before.

“I think it’s a bit shocking,” said Jordan Kern, a professor at the department of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. “The fact that it’s projected to go offline just speaks to how severe the drought is,” said Kern, who studies how power grids are impacted by extreme weather.

California Energy Commission spokesperson Lindsay Buckley said the commission is actively planning for the power plant to go offline this summer. But the Hyatt power plant is far from the only hydroelectric power source in the state that will likely be affected by California’s extreme weather.

On July 1, the energy commission, along with the California Independent System Operator and the California Public Utilities Commission, released a letter touching on the drought-driven hydropower losses expected this year, which are occurring amid historic heat event driven by climate change. According to the system operator, drought conditions could reduce the state’s hydropower capacity by up to approximately 1,000 megawatts in the coming months.

The Hyatt power plant is designed to produce up to 750 megawatts of power but typically produces between 100 and 400 megawatts, depending on lake levels. According to Buckley, average high demand in a day across the state is typically about 44,000 megawatts, so 400 megawatts would be a little less than 1% of that total.

“It’s not necessarily the tipping point,” Buckley said. “There’s a lot of different factors that are challenging overall grid reliability this summer. And Hyatt is one piece of the story.”

https://www.latimes.com

DEVELOPING: Outbreaks of a drug-resistant superbug fungus reported in Texas and Washington

Alexandra Larkin – July 23, 2021

Outbreaks of a drug-resistant “superbug” fungus spread among patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities in Texas and Washington, D.C., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The fungus, Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems. The CDC said evidence suggests these cases involved person-to-person transmission, which would be a first for the U.S.

The clusters in the two cities appear to be unrelated to each other, the report said. The 30-day mortality in both outbreaks combined was 30%, although other health conditions may also have played a role.

Candida auris, which was first seen in the U.S. in 2013, is “resistant to multiple anti-fungal drugs that we have, and it’s also resistant to all the things that we use to eradicate bacteria and fungal strains in the hospital,” Dr. Neeta Ogden, an internal medicine specialist, told CBS News in 2019 after health officials issued a warning about the emerging threat.

Of 101 cases of the fungus identified in Washington, D.C., from January to April 2021, three were isolated as being resistant to all three major classes of anti-fungal medications. Those cases occurred at a long-term care facility for severely ill patients.

There were 22 cases identified in Texas during the same period, with two being resistant to all three anti-fungal medications, and five resistant to two of the medications. Those seven cases were found in patients at two acute care hospitals, one long-term and one short-term; two of the patients were treated at both hospitals. The CDC did not identify the facilities, but CBS DFW reports they were both in the Dallas area.

“This is really the first time we’ve started seeing clustering of resistance” in which patients seemed to be getting the infections from other patients, said the CDC’s Dr. Meghan Lyman, an author of the report.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Vandals Burn Churches TO THE GROUND in Canada Amid ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ Report

Tyler O’Neil – July 06, 2021

A year after Black Lives Matter and antifa riots ravaged cities across the United States, vandals and arsonists are targeting churches in Canada. The attacks follow news of more than 1,000 children placed in unmarked graves at Indian residential schools. Canada forced Native Americans (referred to as “First Nations” in Canada) to attend the boarding schools in an act that activists decry as a form of cultural genocide.

On June 21, arsonists targeted two Roman Catholic churches in tribal territory in British Columbia (B.C.): Sacred Heart Mission Church of Penticton, and St. Gregory Mission Church on Osoyoos land. On June 26, arsonists burned two more Catholic churches in B.C. to the ground. Authorities also found that St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Gitwangak First Nations land in B.C. had been set on fire on June 26, but firefighters extinguished the blaze, mostly saving the church, Catholic News Agency reported. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said all the fires were “suspicious” and local leaders attributed them to arson.

On June 27, arsonists lit a fire at Siksika First Nation Catholic Church, but firefighters put out the blaze before it caused severe damage. On June 30, arsonists burned St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church in Morinville to the ground. On the night of July 1, two fires destroyed one Anglican church — the aforementioned St. Paul’s Anglican Church — and damaged part of another church in Tofino.

Vandals have not just attacked churches. They also toppled and decapitated the statue of Egerton Ryerson, one of the designers of the residential school system. Publications at Ryerson University have moved to strike the figure’s name from their publications. Protesters covered the statue of John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister and another originator of the residential school system, with black fabric.

https://pjmedia.com

Mississippi Officially Asks Supreme Court To Overturn Roe V. Wade

B911 – July 22, 2021

Today, in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed her brief with the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Lawmakers in Mississippi has been trying to implement a law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“There are those who would like to believe that Roe v. Wade settled the issue of abortion once and for all,” said Attorney General Fitch. “But all it did was establish a special-rules regime for abortion jurisprudence that has left these cases out of step with other Court decisions and neutral principles of law applied by the Court. As a result, state legislatures, and the people they represent, have lacked clarity in passing laws to protect legitimate public interests, and artificial guideposts have stunted important public debate on how we, as a society, care for the dignity of women and their children. It is time for the Court to set this right and return this political debate to the political branches of government.”

As noted in the brief, rather than settle the discord established by Roe, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey made matters worse. “Caseyrecognized that Roe’s disregard for state interests had to be abandoned…. Caseytried to improve upon Roe by replacing strict scrutiny with the undue-burden standard. But that standard too defeats important state interests rather than accounts for them.

”The brief continues, “The only workable approach to accommodating the competing interests here is to return the matter to ‘legislators, not judges.’…The national fever on abortion can break only when this Court returns abortion policy to the states – where agreement is more common, compromise is more possible, and disagreement can be resolved at the ballot box.”

“With this brief, we’re simply asking the Court to affirm the right of the people to protect their legitimate interests and to provide clarity on how they may do so,” said Fitch.

https://breaking911.com

Now Belief in Creationism Is ‘White Supremacy.’ News Flash: We Won’t Bow to Your Secular Idols

Paula Bolyard – July 12, 2021

In a silly non-scientific op-ed at Scientific American, Allison Hopper declares that “denial of evolution” is a form of “white supremacy.” No, it’s not a satire piece. It’s a bigoted anti-Christian rant masquerading as a science op-ed. In it, Hopper, whose bio says she’s a “filmmaker and designer,” claims that “evolution denial” perpetuates violence against black people:

I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” the legalistic wing of creationists loudly insists that their point of view deserves equal time in the classroom. Science education in the U.S. is constantly on the defensive against antievolution activists who want biblical stories to be taught as fact. In fact, the first wave of legal fights against evolution was supported by the Klan in the 1920s. Ever since then, entrenched racism and the ban on teaching evolution in the schools have gone hand in hand. In his piece, What We Get Wrong About the Evolution Debate, Adam Shapiro argues that “the history of American controversies over evolution has long been entangled with the history of American educational racism.”

The biblical view of creation—that God created the Earth, including man, out of nothing (ex nihilo) in six days—wasn’t invented in the 1920s when secularists were forced to go “on the defensive” against religious activists. It was the secularists, in fact, who went on the attack, portraying orthodox Christians as anti-science backwoods yahoos and bullying school districts and book publishers into removing all references to religion—not just creationism—from public schools. The anti-God mob has been on offense in this fight from Day 1. Hopper’s assertion that “rejection of evolution” (by that she means macroevolution, rather than microevolution, which Christians do not reject) is overtly racist doesn’t pass the smell test.

https://pjmedia.com

Is Israel preparing for the inevitable civil war in the West Bank?

Eric R. Mandel – July 10, 2021

As President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken ponder how to entice the Palestinian Authority (PA) to negotiate with Israel, a far more significant problem is being ignored. The Biden team marched along, facilitating a transfer of money to the PA and reopening the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, another Palestinian demand, without tangible reciprocity. But this will not reveal the elephant in the room: an inevitable, coming uprising by Hamas in the West Bank.

Hamas instigated the Gaza war in May as part of a strategy to weaken Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party and increase Hamas’s popularity among Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank. As Amos Harel writes in Haaretz, the rule of Abbas “is less stable. … The succession battles among his subordinates are being waged openly and, above all, Hamas is continuing to gain popularity against the backdrop of what is perceived as its success in standing up to Israel during the fighting in May.”

The U.S. evidently thinks it can strengthen the PA’s standing with the Palestinian people by insisting any rebuilding of Gaza be coordinated through the PA and not Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization. But covering over the rot of the PA with increased foreign aid is a Band-Aid at best. Hamas may allow some money to flow through the PA to Gaza, but Abbas won’t control it for long.

Are Israel, America and their Middle Eastern allies planning a strategy for the likely possibility of a civil war in the West Bank? Do they believe that funneling humanitarian aid to Gaza through the PA will lead to a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas or inhibit Hamas from setting the West Bank on fire once sufficient arms, material and money get into their hands?

The attention of the international community is focused on Gaza, but Hamas apparently is one step ahead, strategizing with its Islamist patrons to find opportunities to move closer to taking over the West Bank. Then it could impose Muslim Brotherhood control on the rest of the Palestinian State. Funding from Iran, Qatar and Turkey is in place to help make this happen.

Israel’s next war with Hamas may be not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank, centered in Judea and Samaria, as happened during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s. This time, Israel may be fighting on three fronts simultaneously. Add to that Iranian-controlled militia embedded in Syria and Iraq, ready to transfer arms and troops to tip the balance in favor of Hamas.

https://thehill.com

This “Temporary” Inflation Is Turning into an Inflation Spiral

Wolf Richter- July 11, 2021

This year, inflation blasted off with a vengeance, and the last four months have seen the hottest pace of inflation since the 1980s.

The consumer price index – the CPI – rose 5% year-over-year for May. The June reading will come out in a couple of days [update: June CPI came in at 5.4%]. 5% of annual inflation is bad enough. But the pace of inflation over the past four months has been much higher, clocking in at over 8% annualized.

Surely, some inflation measures will tick down in the near future, giving everyone false hopes, before rising again. The first bout of inflation always looks temporary. But during those first bouts of inflation, that’s when the triggers of “persistent” inflation – namely the inflationary mindset and inflation expectations – are being unleashed.

So now the Fed keeps repeating time after time that this is temporary and that it will go away on its own because it was caused by temporary factors, namely a demand shock that occurred because the government spread $5 trillion in borrowed stimulus money since March last year; and because the Fed printed $4 trillion over the same period and repressed interest rates to 0%.

This moolah stimulated consumption, in a huge way, and it caused a historic spike in demand for goods, and there are now cascading shortages from ammo to semiconductors, made worse by container shortages and transportation bottlenecks.

But the fiscal and monetary stimuli are still ongoing. The government and the Fed still have the foot fully on the accelerator.

https://wolfstreet.com

At least seven states report mosquitoes carrying disease that can paralyze humans

Christian Spencer – July 8, 2021

Mosquito bites are annoying at best, and, at worst, can lead to illnesses like malaria, Zika virus and West Nile virus. New reports show at least six states are detecting mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus — and humans have contracted the disease in four of these places.

Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts and New York have found mosquitoes that carry the potentially paralyzing illness, according to a report from Best Life.

West Nile virus has also been detected in Colorado for the first time this season, according to health officials and reporting by Denver ABC 7.

The Colorado health department says mosquitoes are more prevalent this year thanks to hotter weather and more rain.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois and Iowa have confirmed cases in humans.

In New York, officials informed residents on July 2 that two groups of mosquitoes tested positive for West Nile virus in Rockland County. No humans have been reported as contracting the disease in New York.

The infected mosquitoes in Rockland County were found and trapped in Orangetown and Clarkstown on the week of June 21.

“This is typically the time of the year we expect to see a rise in West Nile virus activity, and these positive mosquito pools confirm that,”County Health Commissioner Patricia Schnabel Ruppert said in the statement.

https://thehill.com

The U.S. experienced 8 billion-dollar disasters in the first six months of 2021

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The first six months of 2021 brought a total of 8 billion-dollar disasters to the United States, according to data provided by the NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Disasters. The 1980 – 2020 annual average is 7.1 events (CPI-adjusted), while the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2016 – 2020) is 16.2 events (CPI-adjusted).

The United States experienced 4 severe storms with damages in excess of $1 billion in the first 6 months of 2021, including tornadoes, hail and high wind damage. The nation also had 2 flooding events with damages exceeding $1 billion, 1 winter storm with a deep freeze, and 1 heat wave-influenced drought.

The costliest event was the February 10 – 19 winter storm and cold wave in Texas that incurred direct losses of approximately $20 billion.

The next costliest disaster was the severe weather outbreak of April 27 – 28 in Texas and Oklahoma that caused $2.4 billion in damages.

The large hailstone you can see on the featured image fell on April 28, 2021, near Hondo, Texas. NCEI verified that it’s the largest hailstone on record to fall in Texas. It had a diameter of 16.29 cm (6.416 inches) and weighed 0.57 kg (1.26 pounds).

According to NOAA, these events resulted in the deaths of 331 people, but the actual number might be higher as it’s still not clear how many people died in the 2021 Texas deep freeze.

In 2020, the country had a record 22 weather and climate disasters, each causing at least $1 billion in damages. However, despite the record number of disasters in 2020, none of them made it among the costliest disasters ever to strike the U.S.

The 2021 YTD inflation-adjusted losses from all eight disasters were also at a near-record high for the first 6 months and came in at nearly $30 billion – only behind 2011, NOAA said.

The U.S. has experienced 298 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 298 events exceeds $1.975 trillion.

https://watchers.news