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South Asia Debt Woes Evoke Fears of Another 1997-Style Crisis(Bloomberg - link only)

While in graduate school Matt Schwartz had an epiphany. At the time, he was learning about the food system as part of Stanford University’s Earth Program and also participating in an internship with food tech investor Dave Friedberg, and it was this combination of advanced education with a front-row seat to food tech innovation that helped him to see the future. “That’s when I came to believe that things were heading towards fresh,” Schwartz told me this week in a Zoom interview. “That we need to move towards a more nutrient-dense form of eating, a less calorie dense form of...

SANTA FE – The investigation into the fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin is ongoing, and the New Mexico prosecutor overseeing the case says authorities are awaiting the analysis of key forensic evidence before a decision can be made about whether criminal charges will be filed. First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies provided the update in a social media post Wednesday, saying her office has received only portions of the investigation from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. Still outstanding is forensic analysis of the weapon, a review of data from Baldwin’s cellphone and more from...

Predators may be indirectly protecting region’s wetlands Camera trap image of a cougar with a donkey A cougar caught killing a juvenile donkey in the early hours of the morning in Death Valley National Park - ERICK LUNDGREN For humans and wildlife alike, feral donkeys can be a pain in the ass. Large and full of attitude, the scruffy vegetation-destroying equids steal resources from native sheep and tortoises, poop in precious spring water, and cost many a park manager a good night’s sleep. They aren’t unstoppable, however. In Death Valley National Park, researchers have captured the first photographic evidence of...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the South China Morning Post on Thursday that he would like to discuss his country’s war against Russia with the leader of Russia’s closest ally, Xi Jinping, “directly,” and invited China to help rebuild Ukraine once the war is over.

CHINA is convinced it now needs to hit America "hard and early " in a surprise Pearl Harbor-style attack to invade Taiwan, a leading expert has warned. Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University and a former China analyst at the Pentagon, told The Sun Online how Beijing increasingly views an invasion of the island as inseparable from a war with the US. It comes as massive Chinese military exercises are currently taking place off Taiwan following the visit by US politician Nancy Pelosi. She is the third in line to the presidency and the most senior US figure...

After a protracted battle over its LGBT content, residents of Jamestown Township, Michigan, voted no (62.5% to 37.5%) on August 2 to a 10-year millage renewal and increase for the Patmos Library. (A millage rate is the tax rate used to determine local property taxes.) Bridge Michigan has reported that 84% of the library’s $245,000 annual budget derives from the now rejected millage, which means, according to library board president Larry Walton, Patmos will likely run out of funds in early 2023, despite the library having $325,000 in reserve. It will also mean residents won't have their property taxes raised...

Seriously, there is no climate crisis. Readers of WND have known this for at least 20 years, like a great many other things. Yet Democrats aim to make themselves even more unpopular by spending $439 billion over several years on climate change and renewable energy plans that haven't worked since the 1970s under Jimmy Carter. (The U.S. Department of Defense requested $495.6 billion for Fiscal Year 2015). Democrats have forgotten about Solyndra. How many different ways can we explain that humans are incapable of and are not affecting the climate of the Earth? It starts with a failure to understand...

Up to 100,000 North Korean soldiers could be sent to bolster Vladimir Putin’s forces fighting Ukraine, according to Russian reports. A leading defence expert in Moscow, reserve colonel Igor Korotchenko, told state TV: “We shouldn’t be shy in accepting the hand extended to us by Kim Jong-un.” North Korea has made it clear through “diplomatic channels” that as well as providing builders to repair war damage, it is ready to supply a vast fighting force, reported Regnum news agency. They would be deployed to the forces of the separatist pro-Putin Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] and Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR], both...

FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted Thursday the FBI agent in-charge of the Washington, D.C., field office is the same agent who was in charge of the Detroit field office when the FBI allegedly uncovered a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pressed Wray over whether the same FBI agent who was in charge during the Whitmer incident is now in charge of the Jan. 6 investigations. The alleged plot by far-right militia members to kidnap Whitmer has tarnished the FBI because many of the defendants essentially accuse the...

"The DC Uni-Party (democRATs and RINOs…the In Name Only part of the Republican Party) have desperately tried to destroy Populist Conservatism (AKA the new PC) ever since Donald Trump announced his run for the Presidency June 16, 2015. They never stopped attacking him, not even for a day, and continue to this day in their attempt to destroy that man and the movement (MAGA, Make America Great Again) that he sparked. The most recent polls done of Republicans still show tremendous support for President Trump, who is always in first place and over 50%. Ron DeSantis is always in second...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Mars Wrigley, maker of the Snickers candy bar, apologised on Friday for a Snickers product launch which Chinese social media users said suggested that Taiwan was a country. Videos and pictures showing a Snickers website promoting a limited edition Snickers bar and saying the product was only available in the "countries" of South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan triggered an outpour of anger on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo on Friday. Mars Wrigley later published an apology on its Snickers China Weibo account and said the relevant content had been amended. "Mars Wrigley respects China's national sovereignty and territorial...

Map of modern-day Netherlands showing location of Roman sites included in this study (number corresponds to number of dice measured at each location) along with three examples of dice on right. Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1007/s12520-022-01599-y A pair of researchers, one with the University of California, Davis, the other Drew University, believe they may have solved the mystery of why people living during the time of the Roman Empire used lopsided dice in their games. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, Jelmer Eerkens and Alex de Voogt, describe their study of dice...

Akey senator says a top FBI official has been moved from his leadership perch in Washington after internal whistleblowers complained he was part of an effort to interfere in politically sensitive investigations, allegations Director Chris Wray now calls "deeply troubling." Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Just the News on Thursday that the FBI alerted him that Assistant Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault had been moved to another unspecified job. The transfer came after Grassley reported extensive information to the FBI and Justice Department inspector general that Thibault had expressed political bias in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat. The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city's Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan carrying around 50 migrants. Volunteers were helping to steer people who had no relatives in town to city resources. "Most of them don't have anybody to help. They don't know where to go, so we're taking them to shelters,"...

The number of consumers with credit cards and personal loans reached record highs in the second quarter of 2022, driven by an increase in loans to subprime borrowers, according to the latest credit report from TransUnion.Delinquencies are also back near pre-pandemic levels.But as long as people have jobs, “I’m not seeing anything that I would really declare as a red flag,” TransUnion’s Michele Raneri said.

A 13-year-old boy is dead after he and a group of others allegedly tried to break into a parked car, only for the owner to show up in time for a fatal confrontation, police said, according to local Fox32. Law enforcement officials said that the boy, Dion Young, was one of "four to five" males who were trying to break into a car parked in Woodlawn, on the South Side of Chicago. Then the car's owner, a woman in her 30s with a concealed carry license, arrived. According to police, when the woman confronted the group, one of the males...

LOS ANGELES - On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council will consider passing an ordinance that would house homeless people in empty hotel rooms. If it passes, every hotel in Los Angeles will have to report their vacancies. According to the measure, "Each hotel shall communicate to the Department or its designee, in a form that the Department prescribes, by 2 p.m. each day the number of available rooms at the hotel for that night." "It’s crazy," said Ray Patel, the president of the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners Association. Patel said members of the association are worried. "I can't...

India has firmly conveyed its concerns to China over certain instances of Chinese combat jets flying close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, official sources said on Friday. They claimed that on August 2, the concerns were expressed at a special round of military negotiations. The Indian delegation vigorously pushed for both sides to refrain from flying activities within 10 kilometres of the LAC during the discussion that took place at the Chushul-Moldo border crossing in eastern Ladakh, the sources said. The Indian team, which included a senior Army official and an Air Commodore, stressed the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon rejected a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in what the mayor has called a “growing humanitarian crisis” prompted by thousands of migrants being bused to the city from two southern states. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to provide Guard personnel and the use of the D.C. Armory to assist with the reception of migrants into the city, according to U.S. defense officials. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday that the district may send an amended, “more specific” request, adding that she believes this is the first time a D.C. request for...