God Bless you all! Hoping my food blog site will be last to be removed in these End Times. Stand strong in the faith in Jesus Christ! He is the Way, the Truth and the Life..No one gets to the Father except through Him..
Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned US diplomats on Friday over what it called “provocative statements” by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The American official was de-facto supporting Ukrainian strikes against Russian territory, including Crimea and the Belgorod region, the ministry said in a statement.
Moscow expressed its “strong protest” over what it called “unacceptable remarks” made by Sullivan. His words prove that previous US statements suggesting Washington does not endorse any Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory are “hypocritical and untruthful,” the statement said. It added that weapons and equipment supplied by the US are being used by Ukraine for “terrorist acts.”
“The hostile actions of the US, which has long become a party to the conflict, have plunged US-Russia relations into a deep and dangerous crisis fraught with unpredictable consequences,” the ministry warned. It also maintained that “any forms of aggression against Russia would be always met with a resolute response.”
It is unclear which specific statements by Sullivan triggered Moscow’s reaction. The Russian foreign ministry did not elaborate or point to any particular comment. Last week, the national security adviser told CNN that Washington does not object to Kiev striking Crimea, including with US-supplied weapons.
“We have not placed limitations on Ukraine being able to strike on its territory within its internationally recognized borders,” he said, adding that “we believe Crimea is Ukraine.”
Sullivan didn’t mention Russia’s Belgorod region in the interview, however, and still maintained that Washington “will not enable Ukraine” to attack Russia with US weapons systems. Crimea joined Russia in 2014 in the wake of the Maidan coup in Kiev, following a referendum.
Earlier on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry also warned that Moscow may cut ties with London over the UK’s alleged role in Ukrainian terrorist attacks inside Russia. The ministry said such a step would be an “extreme measure.” The warning came after the Wall Street Journal reported last week that British Special Forces allegedly had “guiding influence on Ukrainian special-forces activity,” including in sabotage operations against Russian railways and other logistical targets.
Attention, Alaska!
Russian propagandists discuss rocket strikes on Alaska.
When one of them asks why, Skabeyeva promptly replies – "to make them feel scared" pic.twitter.com/dZsBnyBdIu
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) May 26, 2023
The Tribulation is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
While Fitch, Moodys and DBRS have all threatened to do what S&P boldly did in 2011 and downgrade the US should the debt ceiling crisis lead to a technical default, China’s leading rating agency, China Chengxin International Credit Rating decided not to wait, and on Friday downgraded the US’ rating by one notch, to AA+ from AAA, citing high inflation and the widely watched debt-ceiling stand-off.
“The intensification of political divisions between the two parties in the United States has increased the difficulty of resolving the debt-ceiling issue,” CCXI said in an online statement. It added that the political wrangling was likely to result in a delayed payment by the so-called X-date – the day the US government says it can no longer fulfil all its financial obligations. Apparently it was unaware that spineless GOP leadership was only pretending it is seeking a compromise, and instead spending will be “cut” by a laughable 0.2% of GDP at most, at which point everyone will call it a day and pat themselves on the back.
“Deterioration in fiscal strength and frequent breaches of the debt ceiling continue to erode the credit base of the US dollar,” it added, according to SCMP.
A downgrade by a Chinese agency is symbolic and while it may represent worries among Chinese market players, it will not have a substantial impact on US borrowing costs.
This is the first time a Chinese institution has explicitly expressed worries on the US debt issues, but there has been no official response from Beijing, which slashed its holding of US Treasury bills by a total of US$143.9 billion, or 14.2%, in the past year up to March.
CCXI, which placed the rating on review for a further downgrade, said the US debt sustainability is being challenged by its highest level of debt among the previously AAAg-rated countries, with debt being compounded by the US Federal Reserve’s continued interest rate hikes.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March further added to the challenges facing the Fed’s policy path while increasing economic volatility, CCXI added.
The X-date could arrive as early as Thursday, with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning again on Monday that the US could be at risk of defaulting on its national debt for the first time ever if timely measures are not taken.
On Wednesday, Fitch put the US on notice for a possible credit downgrade, pointing to the debt-level “brinkmanship” in political negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.
On Thursday, Moody’s said that a mid-June payment of interest on Treasuries will be critical for maintaining the top, AAA grade. On June 15, the Treasury Department is due for about $2 billion in interest payments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Sunday on NBC that “the odds of reaching June 15th, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low” if Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit.
“That’s a really important date for us,” William Foster, a senior vice president at Moody’s, said in an interview Wednesday. While the interest payment is relatively small, “if it was missed, that’s a default. We’d downgrade the rating by one notch from AAA to AA1,” he said.
Foster emphasized that Moody’s does anticipate that Congress and the White House will strike a deal to raise or suspend the debt limit before the Treasury exhausts its special accounting measures to keep within the ceiling. Yellen has advised the Treasury risks running out of cash as soon as June 1.
The AAA rating at Moody’s wouldn’t be restored unless Congress overhauled the current debt-limit legislation, according to Moody’s.
“At that point, the debt limit is no longer a frustration of fiscal policymaking that leads to brinksmanship – it resulted in a default,” Foster said. “And we’d need to reflect that permanently in the rating. To bring it back to AAA, there would have to be significant reform of the debt-limit rule so that it’s no longer a material risk to default” going forward — or axing the rule, he said.
For Moody’s, the key issue is whether the Treasury — if it does go past the so-called X-date when it runs out of sufficient cash — keeps up with its servicing of Treasury securities.
“We consider a default to be a missed interest or principal payment,” Foster said. After a downgrade following any June 15 failure to pay interest, the firm “would keep the rating under review for further downgrade until the default is cured.”
The Destruction of the Dollar is commencing…
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
Senior Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin has branded US federal government debt a global pyramid scheme that is heading for an inevitable collapse. The comments come as Washington struggles to agree on raising its debt ceiling to avoid a default.
“Just think about it, in 2023 interest payments on the US debt could reach $1.5 trillion – almost a third of all US budget revenue!” Volodin, who serves as chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in a Telegram post on Friday.
“The US public debt is a global financial pyramid, built by Washington to defraud other nations,” the State Duma member wrote. “History has shown that all pyramid schemes eventually fail,” he added, warning that the dollar is becoming toxic.
Countries dependent on the US dollar should start looking for alternatives such as national currencies, to reduce risks for their citizens, Volodin concluded.
The US government faces a default on its $31 trillion in debt if lawmakers fail to raise the federal borrowing limit. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress earlier this week that bills can’t be paid if the debt ceiling is not raised by June 1.
Reuters reported on Thursday that President Joe Biden and top Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy were edging close to a deal on the debt ceiling but have yet to agree on cuts to discretionary spending, which powers a wide range of military and domestic programs.
Russia started settling trade deals with its partners in national currencies after the US effectively cut it off from dollar-denominated trade as part of sanctions arising from Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday that the ruble and the yuan are now dominating trade between Russia and China, and are used in 70% of mutual payments.
The Tribulation is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
The process of diversifying away from the greenback by countries around the world is gathering pace, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund.
The statistics tracked by the Washington-based institution show that the dollar’s share of official gold and foreign currency reserves dropped to a nearly three-decade low of 58% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The move has reportedly been gradual and the dollar share of central banks’ foreign reserves is now nearly down to a level last seen in 1995.
The long-standing status of the dollar as the world’s dominant currency has been steadily eroded in recent years amid concerns over soaring US debt and widely implemented sanctions using the currency as leverage.
The shift was more pronounced when adjusted for exchange rates, according to Stephen Jen, CEO of Eurizon SLJ Capital Limited, as quoted by Reuters.
“What happened in 2022 was a very sharp plummeting in the dollar share in real terms,” he said, calling the decline a reaction to the freezing of half of Russia’s $640 billion in gold and FX reserves.
According to Jen, the drastic step sparked a rethink in countries like Saudi Arabia, China, India and Türkiye about diversifying their reserves to other currencies.
The yuan’s share of global over-the-counter forex transactions has increased from nearly zero 15 years ago to 7%, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
After the move against Russia, other countries are questioning “What if you fall on the wrong side of sanctions?” BNY Mellon strategist Geoffrey Yu told the media.
He said global central banks are currently seeking to diversify their assets, scooping up corporate debt, tangible assets such as real estate, and other currencies.
“This is the process that is underway,” Mark Tinker, managing director of Toscafund Hong Kong, told the agency. “The dollar is going to be used less in the global system.”
The Destruction of the Dollar is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink says it has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to launch its first-in-human clinical study. If this is true, it means that actual humans could be getting a device from Neuralink implanted in their heads.
The news follows Elon Musk’s November claim that Neuralink was about six months away from its first human trial — which suggests it’s the rare Musk promise that’s actually coming true on time.
The announcement of a future human trial isn’t nearly as much of a milestone as the results of that trial. But this isn’t just any trial. This represents Elon Musk, of all people, getting to attach a device to a human brain.
And it makes us wonder: who would sign up for such a thing, and why? Will it be someone who might have an important medical reason or someone who wants to draw the world’s attention at Musk’s side, and is there any chance it’s Elon Musk himself?
Musk has claimed he will get the device implanted in his own head at some unspecified time in the future. Meanwhile, Neuralink has been accused of abusing its monkey test subjects, a claim the company denies, and is under investigation for allegedly transporting contaminated devices removed from monkeys.
The FDA rejected an early 2022 Neuralink application for human trials, as reported by Reuters, apparently outlining “dozens of issues” the company needed to address.
According to the Washington Post, Founded in 2016, Neuralink is privately held with operations in Fremont, Calif., and a sprawling, under-construction campus outside of Austin. The company has more than 400 employees and has raised at least $363 million, according to data provider PitchBook.
With Musk’s backing, Neuralink has brought extraordinary resources — and investor attention — to a field known as brain-computer interface, where scientists and engineers are developing electronic implants that would decode brain activity and communicate it to computers.
Such technology, which has been in the works for decades, has the potential to restore function to people with paralysis and debilitating conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Already, companies like Blackrock Neurotech and Synchron have implanted their devices in people for clinical trials, and at least 42 people globally have had brain-computer implants.
Such devices have enabled feats that once belonged to the realm of science fiction: a paralyzed man fist-bumping Barack Obama with a robotic hand; a patient with ALS typing by thinking about keystrokes; a tetraplegic patient managing to walk with a slow but natural stride.(Revelation 13:13-14)
While most companies seeking to commercialize brain implants are focused on those with medical needs, Neuralink has even bigger ambitions: creating a device that not only restores human function but enhances it. “We want to surpass able-bodied human performance with our technology,” Neuralink tweeted in April.
The Depopulation Agenda Plan is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
Russia will launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike should the West provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons, Dmitry Medvedev , the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned on Friday.
“There are some irreversible rules of war. If it comes to [deliveries of] nuclear weapons [to Ukraine], a pre-emptive strike will have to be carried out,” Medvedev, who was Russian president between 2008 and 2012, said.
Throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022, Kyiv has received a trove of weapons and military equipment from its Western allies to assist in its fight against Moscow. These include MiG-29 fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems, tactical drones, rocket systems, howitzers and artillery rounds. There have been no public discussions to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
Russia’s state-run news agency Tass cited Medvedev as saying that it’s possible Ukraine “receives warplanes” and “maybe even nuclear weapons” from its Western allies.
“But it will mean that a missile with a nuclear warhead will come flying to them,” he said.
The U.S., Medvedev said, “operates largely within the field of its pragmatic interests.”
“They do not wage a war, they are making money instead. They are trying to eliminate their centuries-long enemy.”
“As far as Europe is concerned, it is a strange story for me. They keep heating up tensions with their decisions,” Medvedev continued. “Europe has gone mad.”
President Joe Biden last week approved the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine from its allies and U.S. training of Ukrainian pilots. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had long called for his Western allies to provide his military with the advanced fighter jets to assist in the ongoing war against Russia.
Medvedev also weighed in on how long he believes the war could last.
“This conflict will last for a very long time. For decades, probably. This is a new reality,” he said. “Everything always ends in negotiations, and this is inevitable, but as long as these people are in power, the situation for Russia will not change in terms of negotiations.”
Medvedev has issued nuclear threats frequently throughout Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin himself said in a televised address to the nation in September 2022 that he’d be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.
He has also suggested this month that Russia has no options left “aside the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal.” He made the remarks on his Telegram channel after two drones crashed into the Kremlin in Moscow on May 3. Zelensky denied any involvement, saying his country didn’t possess weapons capable of such strikes.
The Tribulation is commencing…
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
May 26, 2023 – Watchman News – John 3:17 – China sinks largest US Navy vessel and carrier group in war game simulations, Russian defense chief Shoigu sees West waging undeclared war on Russia, Minsk, Moscow sign documents on storage of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, Iran unveils 2,000-km-range ballistic missile, Germany, World’s Fourth Largest Economy, Enters Recession, WHO chief warns the World must PREPARE for ‘even deadlier pathogens’ than COVID-19 (Disease X – Zombie Disease Coming), Supreme Court Ruling Limits Powers of the Clean Water Act and More!
VERSE OF THE DAY John 3:17 (New King James Version) For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
________________________________________ High Watch Times June 2nd/3rd -The Day the Earth Stood Still Movie June 4th/5th – Pentecost- Ezekiel’s Vision of Jesus on the Throne – Chariots of Wheels and the Angels
June 14th-16th – In 2022 there will be three Supermoons: Tuesday, June 14. Wednesday, July 15. Friday, August 12 – August’s full Sturgeon Moon reaches its peak on Thursday, August 11, 2022. It will be the last supermoon of the year. Learn when to look for it and why August’s Full Moon got such a peculiar name!
June 22-24th – 23 Sivan (474 BCE) – Mordecai and Esther sent letters so that the Jews shall prepare themselves for the annihilation plan orchestrated by Haman to be committed against them on the 13th of the following Adar. Planetary Parade!!
July 2nd -4th – The Day the Sun and Moon Stood Still – Joshua 10:12-15
Possible UFO Landing in D.C.?
Ezekiel 1:1
Ezekiel’s Vision of God
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
July 13th-14th – Noah Timeline – 150 Days (Dec 3rd -April 30th) + 74 Days = Tops of Mountains became visible = Gen 8:5. Super Buck Moon on July 13.
July 16th – Aug 7th – The Three Weeks or Bein ha-Metzarim (Hebrew: בין המצרים, “Between the Straits”) (cf “dire straits”) is a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples.
Aug 11th -12th – Tu B Av – In 2022 there will be three Supermoons: Tuesday, June 14. Wednesday, July 15. Friday, August 12 – August’s full Sturgeon Moon reaches its peak on Thursday, August 11, 2022. It will be the last supermoon of the year. Aug 22nd – 23rd – Noah Timeline – 224 Days (July 13th) + 40 Days = Raven sent out = Gen 8:6
Aug 28th – 29th – Noah Timeline – 264 Days (Aug 22nd) + 7 Days = Dove sent out after Raven, no resting place= Gen 8:6-12
Sept 5th – 6th – Noah Timeline – 271 Days (Aug 29th) + 7 Days = After 7 Days, Noah sent out Dove again, It returns with Olive Leaf= Gen 8:10-11 Sept 12th – 13th – Noah Timeline – 278 Days (Sept 5th) + 7 Days = After 7 Days, Noah sent out Dove again, it does not return Gen 8:12
Sept 25th – 27th – Rosh Hashana for Hebrew Year 5783 begins at sundown on Sunday, 25 September 2022 and ends at nightfall on Tuesday, 27 September 2022. Oct 10th -12th – Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement & Tabernacles connection to the Julian Calendar, Noah Timeline Date – Gen 8:13, 444 from Israel’s 70th day & 717 on Hebrew Calendar Oct 15th -16th – 4444 from Israel 70th Bday + Hosha’ana Rabba (Haggai -2nd Temple Building) Oct 16th-20th – Shemini Atzeret (8th Day of Tabernacles on Hebrew Calendar + Torah) Oct 24th-25th – Partial Solar Eclipse (Israel to Divide Land) Last Day of 7th Month Oct 31/Nov 1 – 1 Year 11 Days from 11/11/2023 (Chesvan 27) + 7 Days from Oct 24/Oct 25 Eclipse to Nov 7/8th Eclipse (1 Kings 8:62-66) Nov 7-8th – Total Blood Moon Eclipse Nov 11th – Chesvan 17 – Flood Begins Dec 6th – Final Noah Timeline Date from 2021 Dec 8th-9th – 14 Kislev (c. 1445/1568BC) – Birth & Death of Reuben, son of Jacob. Dec 9th/10th – 15 Kislev (167 BC) – The Greeks set up the “Abomination of Desolation” in the Temple. Dec 18th- 1st Day of Hannukah and 40 Days from Nov 8th Blood Moon Dec 21st – Mid – Hanukkah Candlestick + Winter Soltice and 40 Days from 11/11 Chesvan 17 Dec 30-31st – 7th Day of Tenth Month (Dec 7th) Possible Taiwan Invasion Jan 2-3, 2023 – 10 Tevet (588 BC) – Nebuchadnezzar II’s armies besiege Jerusalem; now commemorated as a fast day. 10 Tevet (479 BC) – Esther appears before Achashverosh (Xerxes) for the first time and is chosen by him to be the queen. Jan 16th – Prophetic Warning of Tribulation- Possible Currency Marker of Collapse Jan 17th – 22nd – Yuletide Ends at Epiphany Day, I Pet Goat II linked to Year of the Rabbit at Jan 22nd Jan 30, 2023 – Hitler came into Power – Possible antichrist rise to power Day. Feb 6-7th – Tu BiShvat 2023 / טוּ בִּשְׁבָט 5783 New Year for Trees
Feb 14th – 24 Shevat (517 BC) – Zechariah’s prophecy (Zechariah 1:7–16) (Heart Symbol on the Face from I Pet Goat II Tank Scene ♥️
Feb 20-21 – (New Moon – 12th Month) 28 Shevat (circa 134 BC) – Antiochus V abandoned his siege of Jerusalem and his plans for the city’s destruction. This day was observed as a holiday in Hasmonean times.[1] (Megilat Taanit)
Feb 27-28 – Pandemic Treaty Meeting – The Body today agreed that the INB’s Bureau will develop the zero draft of the pandemic accord in order to start negotiations at the fourth INB meeting, scheduled to start on 27 February 2023. – (Also, major Fire that launched Hitler into Power took place – https://youtu.be/9y6H1_wiQsg
March 13-14 – Possible (Zelensky + Artic Bomb) Revelation 12:9 ESV – And the great dragon was… 9 And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth – https://rumble.com/v27q3xl-the-war-rapture-in-labor-2023-year-of-the-water-rabbit-and-the-green-comet.html March 20-21 – Spring Equinox and Possible Poseidon- https://rumble.com/v27q3xl-the-war-rapture-in-labor-2023-year-of-the-water-rabbit-and-the-green-comet.html March 25 & 28th – Planetary Alignment- Jupiter disappears in the 28th April 8th- December 25th on Enoch Calendar April 9th/10th – Noah Timeline Part III – 150 Days since Chesvan 17 (11/ 11/2022) April 13th – December 25th (Ancient Roman Calendar) April 17th/18th – Tax Day/ Holocaust Memorial Day – Watch Million Dead Fish Video April 19th/20th – Hitler’s Birthday and Eclipse April 21st-23rd – 3rd Night and Day from Passover Eclipse on April 20th April 25th/26th – Israel Independence Day (75 Years Old) May 4th/5th – Lunar Eclipse – True Passover May 7th/8th – 7th Month 17th Day (717) or 33rd Day on the Omer Count May 15th – Possible Tsunami to hit West Coast- Moon in Cetus May 18th-19th – Black Moon -Ascension Day- Noah Timeline Part 4 (Jerusalem Day) – Rain fell for 40 days, and then water covered the earth’s highest places (at that time) over ~20 feet (15 cubits) and began the stage of flooding until the next milestone. 888 Days from Dec 12th, 2020 when Trump announced Vaccine to be released.5 Iyar (1948) – Israeli Declaration of Independence on Friday, 14 May 1948, before sunset. May 20th – 26th – Feast of Weeks on Enoch Calendar May 21st – Pentecost on Enoch Calendar May 28th – Pentecost (40 Days from April 20th- Ascension Day) May 30th – Time Traveller Eno says: “May 30: Over 150 sightings of UFOs occur, all belonging to The Distants, who are planning to conquer Earth. June 2nd-3rd – 2nd Passover based on Hebrew Calendar- 1 Month Off June 4th – Pentecost 9n Zadok Priestly Calendar June 7th-8th – Noah Timeline Part 2 – Tops of the Mountains became visible, Omer Day 33, Passover Day 1 June 12th – 17 Iyar (1945) – Death of Adolf Hitler (Look for Head Wound to antichrist) June 14th – Trump’s 77th Birthday, Ascension Day, 7th Day of Unleavened Bread- Solemn Assembly June 15th-17th – 20 Iyar (circa 1312 BCE) – The Israelites departed their encampment near Mount Sinai. June 17th-18th – 1335th Day from Oct 22, 2019 – Simchat Torah (Covid Start),44 Days from True Passover on May 5th – True Ascension Day, shaking event to take place, Possible war events- Precision Dream of Dana Coverstone- Clock strikes 4 June 22nd-23rd – Noah Timeline Part 3 – Tops of the Mountains became visible ________________________________________
Prepare for the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Please repent and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday made it harder for the federal government to police water pollution in a decision that strips protections from wetlands that are isolated from larger bodies of water.
It’s the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority of the court narrowed the reach of environmental regulations.
The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. Chantell and Michael Sackett objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before building.
By a 5-4 vote, the court said in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that wetlands can only be regulated under the Clean Water Act if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water. There is no such connection on the Sacketts’ property.
The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, allowing regulation of wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to the larger waterways.
Kennedy’s opinion had been the standard for evaluating whether wetlands were covered under the 1972 landmark environmental law. Opponents had objected that the standard was vague and unworkable.
Environmental advocates had predicted that narrowing the reach of that law would strip protections from more than half the wetlands in the country.
Reacting to the decision, Manish Bapna, the chief executive of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, called on Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to restore wetlands protections and on states to strengthen their own laws.
“The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands. The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price,” Bapna said in a statement.
The outcome almost certainly will affect ongoing court battles over new wetlands regulations that the Biden administration put in place in December. Two federal judges have temporarily blocked those rules from being enforced in 26 states.
In Thursday’s ruling, all nine justices agreed that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are not covered by the act.
But only five justices joined in the opinion that imposed a new test for evaluating when wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Alito would have adopted the narrower standard in 2006, in the last big wetlands case at the Supreme Court. They were joined Thursday by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Conservative Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices charged that their colleagues had rewritten that law.
Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s “new and overly narrow test may leave long-regulated and long-accepted-to-be regulable wetlands suddenly beyond the scope of the agencies’ regulatory authority.”
He cited efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay as two projects that could be threatened by the decision.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority’s rewriting of the act was “an effort to cabin the anti-pollution actions Congress thought appropriate.” Kagan referenced last year’s decision limiting the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
In both cases, she noted, the court had appointed “itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy.” Kagan was joined in what she wrote by her liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The Sacketts paid $23,000 for a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in 2005 and started building a three-bedroom home two years later.
They had filled part of the property, described in an appellate ruling as a “soggy residential lot,” with rocks and soil in preparation for construction, when officials with the Environmental Protection Agency showed up and ordered a halt in the work.
They also won an earlier round in their legal fight at the Supreme Court.
The federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the EPA’s determination in 2021, finding that part of the property, 300 feet from the lake and 30 feet from an unnamed waterway that flows into the lake, was wetlands.
The Sacketts’ own consultant had similarly advised them years ago that their property contained wetlands.
The Tribulation is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
The head of the World Health Organization warned Monday the world must prepare for the next global pandemic, warning that the consequences could be even deadlier in the future.
“The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains, and the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains,” WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, noting that pandemics are “far from the only threat we face.”
Tedros stressed that the international community “cannot kick this can down the road.” “If we do not make the changes that must be made, then who will? And if we do not make them now, then when? When the next pandemic comes knocking — and it will — we must be ready to answer decisively, collectively and equitably,” he stressed.
More than 6.9 million people globally have died of COVID, according to a WHO tally. Tedros noted that the COVID pandemic showed “basically everyone on the planet” needs to be better protected.
“We cannot kick this can down the road,” he said. “If we do not make the changes that must be made, then who will? And if we do not make them now, then when? When the next pandemic comes knocking — and it will — we must be ready to answer decisively, collectively and equitably.”
The 194 WHO member states are working on a global pandemic accord, with negotiations set to continue over the next year. Tedros said it’s an important initiative to keep the world safer.
“And for enhanced international cooperation, the pandemic accord — a generational commitment that we will not go back to the old cycle of panic and neglect that left our world vulnerable, but move forward with a shared commitment to meet shared threats with a shared response,” he said.
Since 2009, American scientists have discovered more than 900 new viruses, “60 Minutes” reported last year. One potential threat comes from the human encroachment on natural bat habitats. Experts warn that such encounters increase the risk of pathogen transmission from bats to humans, potentially sparking future pandemics.
More than 1 billion people are at risk because of a “battle” between the global economic system and nature, Ryan McNeill, a deputy editor of data journalism at Reuters, told CBS News. He is one of the authors of a recent series exploring hot spots around the world.
In West Africa, 1 in 5 people lives in a high-risk “jump zone,” which Reuters describes as areas with the greatest likelihood of viruses jumping from bats to humans. Parts of Southeast Asia are also areas of concern. In South America, deforestation has created more high-risk areas than anywhere else in the world, McNeill said.
A mustard plant infected with a certain parasite grows strangely, its development warped by tiny invaders. Its leaves take on odd shapes, its stems form a bushy structure called a witches’ broom and it may grow flowers that do not produce seed. Most peculiarly of all, it lives longer than its uninfected brethren, in a state of perpetual adolescence.
“It looks like it stays in a juvenile phase,” said Saskia Hogenhout, a scientist at the John Innes Centre in England, who studies the life cycle of the parasite, which is called Aster Yellows phytoplasma.
The plant’s neighbors grow old, reproduce and die, but the phytoplasma’s eerily youthful host persists. It becomes something like a mix between a vampire that never ages and a zombie host whose body serves the needs of its parasite, namely, tempting sap-sucking insects to feast on the plant’s bodily fluids as long as possible. When the insects ingest the parasite, they spread it to new hosts, and the whole “Night of the Living Dead-meets-Dracula” cycle repeats.
How the parasite exerts such wide-ranging control is a subject of more than casual curiosity among scientists — phytoplasmas can cause destructive disease in crop plants like carrots. In a paper published in September in the journal Cell, Dr. Hogenhout and her colleagues reveal that some of these creepy alterations are driven by the work of a single protein from the parasite called SAP05, which stands in the way of the plant’s maturation.
SAP05 is not the first substance made by this phytoplasma that the scientists have linked to the symptoms it causes. The team sequenced the parasite’s genome some time ago and has pinpointed a handful of proteins that it may use to zombify its victims. But in the new paper, they explain how SAP05 seems to drive some of the more surprising effects, like the life-span extension.
It turns out that SAP05 binds to two groups of plant proteins that control the expression of genes used in development. Once it latches onto them, it causes them to be broken down by the plant’s own garbage disposal machinery. As a result, the plants appear frozen in time, unable to progress.
That makes sense, from the parasite’s perspective. If host plants were to mature normally, they would grow flowers and produce seeds, putting all of their energy toward making the next generation of plants. Before long they would drop their leaves and wither away.
“You can imagine that this situation is not a perfect situation for the parasite,” Dr. Hogenhout said.
Parasites benefit from the plant being sterile, so they can focus its energy toward making the microbe’s offspring. They also benefit from the plant staying alive and full of tasty juices as long as possible, the better to facilitate insects feeding on it.
Intriguingly, however, the scientists found that SAP05 attaches to a very specific piece of the cell disposal machinery to accomplish this goal. By tweaking the composition of that piece, they could radically curtail SAP05’s effects. Plants — in this case Arabidopsis thaliana, the diminutive mustard plant that’s a common lab model — with this modification did not grow into witches’ broom shapes, and they did not live longer than uninfected plants.
But that didn’t mean they were better off. Plants engineered to evade SAP05 had notably shorter lives when they were infected by the parasite. It seems that SAP05 may provide some protection against the stress of an infection, making it easier for the host to bear. Without that, the plant may be freer to continue its maturation, but it is also taking a greater hit from the disease than the zombie plants, which are more impervious to the parasite’s other effects. The zombies live on, protected by the organism that rides within them.
This control is likely exquisitely timed with the life cycle of the sap-feeding insects, Dr. Hogenhout said. After the insects feed on a plant, infecting it with the parasite, they lay eggs on it. At the same time that the parasite is taking over, the eggs are maturing.
When the young insects hatch, perhaps 10 days later, there is just enough time left in the plants’ extended life span for them to feast heartily on their juices before taking flight. Along for the ride will be their good friend, the phytoplasma.
“The parasite has now proliferated, just in time,” Dr. Hogenhout said.
The euro dropped on Thursday as Europe’s largest economy Germany was confirmed to be in a recession, while the dollar hit a two-month peak, benefitting from safe-haven demand as worries mounted about a US default.
The latest concern was raised by ratings agency Fitch, who put the United States’ “AAA” debt ratings on negative watch, a precursor to a possible downgrade should lawmakers fail to agree to raise the debt limit.
The greenback has paradoxically benefited from demand for safe havens with only a week left for a resolution to slow-moving debt ceiling talks before the June 1 “X-date“, when the Treasury has warned it will be unable to pay all its bills.
“It has been risk-off this week and that has benefitted the dollar generally,” said Stefan Mellin, senior analyst at Danske Bank.
Escalating signs of economic malaise in Europe sent the euro to multi-month lows against the dollar.
The latest sign of weakness out of Europe came from Germany, where the economy contracted slightly in the first quarter, and thereby was in recession after negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2022.
“We have seen some divergent cross-Atlantic macro data this week and while Germany is not the euro, the momentum in the economy is stunningly weak,” Danske Bank’s Mellin said, also noting this week’s Ifo and PMI data.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency against six major peers and is heavily weighted towards the euro, rose as much as 0.3% to 104.16, the highest since March 17.
The euro slipped about 0.2%, enough to refresh a two-month low at $1.0715.
Sterling eased 0.1%, after briefly hitting its weakest since April 3 at $1.2332.
Against the yen, the dollar edged to its strongest since Nov. 30 at 139.705, although was last down 0.1% at 139.345.
The US currency has also been supported by a paring of bets for Federal Reserve rate cuts this year, with the economy proving resilient to the effects of the central bank’s aggressive tightening campaign until now.
US money market traders have trimmed expectations for Fed rate cuts this year to just a quarter point in December, from as much as 75 basis points previously.
They have also ramped up odds for another quarter-point hike in June back to about 1-in-3, after several Fed officials struck hawkish postures recently with consumer inflation still running about twice the 2% target, and the minutes from the latest meeting showing “almost all” policymakers saw upside risks to inflation.
“The market had been very aggressive pricing in rate cuts from the Fed this year. That has changed over the course of the last two weeks which is dollar supportive,” Danske Bank’s Mellin said.
The Chinese yuan renewed a six-month low, dropping to 7.0903 per dollar in the offshore market.
The Asian giant has produced a cascade of disappointing economic indicators, all pointing to dull consumer demand and suggesting a post-pandemic recovery has already run its course.
“The PBoC (People’s Bank of China) showed little intention to defend the (yuan),” Ken Cheung, chief Asian FX strategist at Mizuho Bank, wrote in a client note.
He expected the yuan to remain under pressure until the country’s economic data shows improvement or the PBoC takes policy action to stabilise the currency market.
Australia’s dollar has felt the impact of China’s economic weakness acutely due to its close trade ties, slipping to a 6 1/2-month low of $0.6523.
The New Zealand dollar was still reeling from the central bank’s shock dovish tilt on Wednesday, which triggered a 2.2% slide. It slid a further 0.4% to hit its lowest since mid-November at $0.6077.
The Destruction of the Dollar is commencing..
Please repent, carry your cross daily and accept the free gift of Jesus Christ’s Death on the Cross for payment for your sins.
