USA - The Texas grid may fail again this year, according to a local investigative journalist who this week raised the alarm about the grid's state of preparedness ahead of an Arctic weather front. "This is not a good start. Tried checking @ERCOT_ISO dashboard about grid conditions and it's down. Tried checking hourly resource outage data, that's down too," Jeremy Rogalski from K-HOU TV tweeted on Wednesday. He later added that he had gotten in touch with a spokesperson for the Energy Reliability Council of Texas who'd told him that the grid operator was having issues from an upgrade made back in November. Alarm is the appropriate reaction to such news after last year, the grid failed so spectacularly that it caused massive blackouts, with some people remaining without power for several days. The Texas Freeze of last year, as it came to be known, also knocked out power plants and oil and gas wells, causing the largest-ever oil production decline in US oil history.

USA - BLM ‘Week of Action’ Teaching Students Nationwide to Affirm Transgenderism, Disrupt Nuclear Family. Students across the country as young as kindergarten-age are learning that “everybody gets to choose their own gender” and are receiving kid-friendly lessons on disrupting “Western nuclear family dynamics” as part of this week’s national Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. The activist-driven curriculum for the Week of Action, which kicked off Monday, is based off the 13 “Black Lives Matter Guiding Principles.” Those principles include a commitment to restorative justice, being transgender affirming and queer affirming, creating space for black families that is “free from patriarchal practices,” and “the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the ‘collective village’ that takes care of each other.” Black Lives Matter at School offers kid-friendly versions of the 13 principles designed for elementary and middle-school students.

USA - Everyday items, from grocery staples to home décor, are being priced more like airline tickets and gasoline, where the sticker prices can move frequently within hours or days. Retailers say the price moves are in response to rising production, labor and shipping costs, and continuing product shortages associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The price changes are happening online as well as offline, especially among smaller retailers that have been wary of spending on pricey technology or frustrating customers, according to executives and analysts.

USA - A decline in morality has preceded the collapse of almost every great society throughout history. Moral decay is often cited as one of the primary reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the level of wickedness in ancient Greece reached a frightening crescendo before it finally fell, and the depravity of French aristocrats was so nauseating that ordinary citizens took them out into the streets and beheaded them during the French Revolution. Unfortunately, we have not learned from the lessons of the past, and so we appear doomed to repeat them.

EL SALVADOR - El Salvador President Nayib Bukele tweeted out on Monday wondering... “Is there a deliberate plan to destroy the United States from within? Why are the authorities and some of the media not even commenting on this things? Why are they letting their beautiful cities rot?” President Bukele tweeted. His comment was in response to a New York Post report on empty shelves at a Rite Aid store in New York City that will be closing soon due to shoplifters. America was once a great country but the Left’s acceptance of crime, destruction of our cities, and attacks on the police have resulted in the most homicides in several US cities in 2021. Democrat officials continue to allow looters to run wild and crime to skyrocket in New York and elsewhere. After the criminals were caught and arrested, charges were reduced to a misdemeanor, and the thieves were back on the streets in less than 24 hours to steal again! And thanks to Democrats and Joe Biden’s devastating policies, the US inflation measurement has reached its highest level in decades, since the early 1980’s.

USA - To put it mildly, these are scary times in Los Angeles. Since November, there have been dozens of dramatic smash-and-grab heists at Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton, Saks Fifth Avenue, and other high-end stores. The Grove, victim of several such “smash mob” attacks, started installing barbed-wire-like fencing around its property every night to deter invaders, while the Tony boutiques of Rodeo Drive have added dozens of security guards to patrol their floors. From South LA (where a CVS was ransacked by a mob of looters) to Studio City (where a man was attacked while taking out the garbage from his house, then tied up along with his disabled son and forced to watch while his home was plundered) to Hancock Park (where a mother pushing a baby in a stroller was robbed in her driveway and 24-year-old Brianna Kupfer was stabbed to death while working at a furniture store on North La Brea on January 13), you can all but smell the fear on the streets. Even in zip codes where violent crime was once unheard of, residents are starting to sweat.

USA - The gross federal debt of the United States has surpassed $30,000,000,000,000. Although the debt affects each of us, it may be difficult to put such a large number into perspective and fully understand its implications. America’s high and rising debt matters because it threatens our economic future… different ways of looking at the debt and its relationship to the economy, the budget, and American families. $30 Trillion is roughly the value of the economies of China, Japan, Germany and the UK. Within 10 years, the federal government will spend nearly as much on interest payments as it does on research and development, infrastructure and education – combined! At $30 trillion and rising, the #NationalDebt threatens our economic future. The interest that we pay on the #NationalDebt is now the fastest growing part of the budget.

USA - Facebook's owner Meta Platforms saw its stock market value slump by more than $230 billion (£169 billion) on Thursday, in a record daily loss for a US firm. Its shares fell 26.4% after quarterly figures disappointed investors. Meta also said that Facebook's daily active users (DAUs) had dropped for the first time in its 18-year history. The company's share price slide saw chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's net worth fall by $31 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The drop in Mr Zuckerberg's personal fortune was equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of Estonia. Even after that drop, Mr Zuckerberg has an estimated net worth of almost $90 billion, which means he is still one of the richest people in the world. It was the first time ever that this measure of activity on the world's biggest social network had gone into reverse.

SWEDEN - Britain, Denmark, Norway and now Sweden are exiting the pandemic panic and returning to normal. This sends a message to the rest of the world that nations and people can survive without dystopian policies to micromanage citizen behavior. Citizens of remaining nations will quickly see that they are being conned by tyrannical leaders. “It is time to open Sweden again,” said Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, announcing the restrictions would be removed from February 9. Among the measures and recommendations that will be lifted, Sweden will allow people to return to restaurants with no limitation on how many people can be there, how much space there should be or opening hours. Requirements for vaccine certificates and wearing face masks on public transportation will also be removed, as well as the recommendation to limit social contacts. On Tuesday, neighboring Denmark took the lead among European Union members by scrapping most restrictions. Hours later, Norway lifted its ban on serving alcohol after 11 pm and the cap on private gatherings of no more than 10 people.

USA - It’s time for America to leave NATO and for Europe to resolve their internal disputes. Since 1916 and the First World War, United States foreign policy has been dominated by Eurocentrism. Following the Second World War, America has been the military protector of Western Europe for 73 years through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. Now the time has come to disband NATO and tell the countries of Europe, in particular Germany, that they are on their own, as this nation must focus on its ever-growing domestic problems and the global threat of Communist China. America leaving NATO will force Europe to confront the long-term viability of a German-dominated European Union and Russia’s ambitions. As well as come to the realization that Communist China is a far greater threat to Europe than their present-day internal squabbles.

RUSSIA - Hopes that rock-bottom relations between Moscow and Washington can be turned around are unlikely at present, a top Russian politician has claimed, arguing that only when a new world order is established will there be less conflict between the two states. Speaking as part of an interview with Ukraina.ru earlier this week, Aleksey Pushkov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, who previously served as chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, cast his view on the current power dynamic on the world stage.

USA - Shipping giants have come under fire from US business groups and watchdogs for raking in record-breaking profits on the backs of skyrocketing prices driven by unprecedented port congestion. Each of the largest ocean carriers saw their profits more than triple over the last year, according to research from liberal watchdog group Accountable.US, which noted that all of the firms upped their prices substantially amid surging demand. The industry, which is dominated by a handful of large freight companies, is currently lobbying senators to reject a bipartisan House-passed bill that aims to crack down on anticompetitive shipping practices, which carriers argue would only worsen supply chain issues. Denmark-based carrier Maersk expects to report $24 billion in 2021 earnings before taxes and depreciation, triple its 2020 haul. Shanghai-based Cosco Shipping reported $14 billion in annual profits, nine times its 2020 earnings. Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd AG said Tuesday that its pre-tax income more than quadrupled to $12.8 billion last year.

USA - The past two years have been a checklist for the worst impulses of government and public sentiment. COVID allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions. But what if COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event? Implementing significant but partial restrictions, one by one, in the name of the common good can allow for encompassing government control that results in relatively little backlash. Fear over climate change could lead to long-term soft lockdowns, given the precedent of immense growth of government power and significant support for sweeping state actions. This isn’t a right-wing fever dream. Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are already in the parlance of influential organizations and figures. Political leaders have learned that fear prompts the public to accept dramatic curtailing of freedoms for vague promises of safety — they must realize the incredible power at their fingertips.

USA - Fear really is contagious, and scientists say having more people around you for support won’t help. So much for “strength in numbers.” Researchers from the California Institute of Technology used a haunted house experience with 17 rooms containing various spooky threats during their experiment. They found people were actually more scared when the group walking through the house was larger. The team also found that their fear built up and increased as people moved from room to room. Scientists say when faced with fear, people are more likely to have a heightened physical response when other people are around. This “phasic effect” involves rapid changes the body experiences as it responds to an event and is more likely to happen when other people are dealing with the same thing. So, if a friend is shaking with fear and reacts to traumatic triggers, the study finds even the calmest person may also be startled by that trigger.

USA - The News Literacy Program warns that “common misinformation themes” include phrases such as “The media won’t report this” and “Do your own research”. The News Literacy Project (NLP) is a propaganda outlet masquerading as “non-partisan.” The dangerous organization teaches school children how to be mindless leftist narrative consumers. Left-wing commentator and notorious fake news purveyor Brian Stelter of CNN’s deceptively named “Reliable Sources” was featured last week teaching young teens about “misinformation” in Queens, New York. During the segment, students are indoctrinated by the NLP’s Checkology e-learning platform. Stelter said that NLP founder Alan C Miller “says that these lessons are now used by more than 37,000 educators.” The company behind NLP is E W Scripps. Checkology is funded by militant left groups with bland sounding names: Science Literacy Foundation, Argosy Foundation, Dow Jones Foundation, Grable Foundation. Also, see NewsGuard, another left-wing group focused on teaching children about “misinformation,” which has striking similarities to the News Literacy Project.