Britain on Monday detailed plans to bolster military and security spending to confront the "epoch-defining challenge" posed by China while also countering Russia, as London updated its strategic foreign and defence policy.

In a "refresh" of the so-called Integrated Review, the UK government identified "the threat posed by Russia to European security" as the most pressing short- to medium-term priority.

But the 63-page report -- compiled after months of work across government -- also labelled China a "systemic challenge with implications for almost every area of government policy".

"We cannot be blind to the increasingly aggressive military and economic behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said, as he unveiled the updated review to parliament.

It doesn’t matter who says something; they’ve done something offensive. They are a source of controversy in schools, politics, and books that our children read. One newspaper used the pronouns zi and zir referencing a trans person. You won’t believe what readers have to say about it. For the unversed, ze and zir are gender-neutral pronouns that anyone can use.

According to The Blaze, “The Washington Post, in a Friday profile about a fired transgender diversity officer at New College of Florida, used “zir” as a pronoun about the fired diversity officer — Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez — and also noted that Rosario-Hernandez ‘uses ze/zir pronouns.’”

The Washington Post continued to refer to Rosario-Hernandez as ze or zir throughout the article. For example, the Post said, “The dismissal of Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez, who uses ze/zir pronouns, comes on the heels of a vote by college trustees to eliminate New College’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.”

 Lunchables will soon become part of school lunch programs across the country.

Kraft Heinz said two new varieties will be in school cafeterias this fall – turkey and cheddar cracker stackers and extra cheesy pizza.

These are different than those found in grocery stores. The company said they have improved nutrition that meets federal guidelines for the National School Lunch Program.

The rollout comes as school nutrition guidelines are becoming stricter.

Webmaster addition: Gotta get them little kiddies into eating junk food (heavily processed and loaded with chemicals) as early as possible!

Acommunity college in California fired its director of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) after determining that the individual in question was not sufficiently far-left enough.

The Daily Caller reports that DeAnza College fired Tabia Lee on March 6th after she allegedly questioned certain tenets of the college’s “anti-racism” efforts and policies.

“I noticed that there was a lot of resistance to my even asking questions about anti-racism policy efforts and language,” said Lee after her firing. “I purely wanted to know what folks meant when they were using those terms, and I encountered a lot of hostility.”

Lee further claimed that her colleagues expected her to believe certain things due to being African-American, and that she faced hostility when she did not support every belief that they told her to.

“They said they wanted a black person to do this job,” Lee added. “Apparently, I am the wrong kind of black.”

In the aftermath of the catastrophic collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), new details have emerged revealing just how much the bank continued to double down on far-left “diversity” policies despite previously suffering losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

As reported by Just The News, the transcript of an investors’ call that took place last July shows that some major investors were beginning to voice their concerns about the bank prioritizing politics over investors’ returns. While representatives from SVB used the call to boast about the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures as well as its commitment to gay pride, J.P. Morgan official Steve Alexopoulos demanded answers on one particularly devastating quarter’s losses.

“So if we look at the $137 million of investment losses, which are detailed on Page 7, that declines a bit more than we’ve seen in other periods, right, is over 8%, typically you’re like 2% to 3%,” Alexopolous said. “Can you walk us through the three buckets, so we can understand that a bit better?”

In response to Alexopoulos’ concerns, SVB’s President and CEO Greg Becker, simply said “I believe and I certainly hope we’ve kind of gotten down to the floor. No guarantees, but this is just a flavor for how we’ve approached the securities portfolio.”

President Joe Biden on Monday vowed to enact rules to prevent banks from collapsing after inflation, fueled by the Biden administration’s energy policies, caused increased interest rates meant to tamp down Biden’s soaring price hikes.

One day after taking credit for inventing a new mechanism intended to provide liquidity “to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors,” Biden promised new rules to prevent the bank failures.

“I will ask Congress and banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure happens again,” Biden’s Twitter account posted. “We must protect American jobs and small businesses.”

Webmaster addition: Actually Joe, your job was to prevent the collapse in the first place.

Law enforcement has launched a manhunt for Roy McGrath, the ex-chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in federal court Monday for the start of his criminal trial on fraud and theft charges.

Sheriff’s deputies checked his home Monday morning in Naples, Florida, but McGrath wasn’t there, a spokeswoman said. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest, and the U.S. Marshals Service is calling him a fugitive.

The area around McGrath’s Raffia Preserve home in Naples is quiet, a gated community off a main road that features new-build strip malls with restaurants such as Five Guys and Dunkin’ Donuts. Inside the community, the exterior of McGrath’s house was quiet, with no police presence.

China used green lasers fired from satellites to gather intelligence for a surprise hypersonic missile attack on Hawaii, it has been warned. According to a report from TheSun, The satellite was recorded flashing lasers for a fraction of a second by a live stream camera attached to a telescope on top of a mountain on one of the islands.

Initially, the lights were thought to come from a NASA satellite before it was finally established it was a Chinese pollution monitoring satellite the Daqi-1.

But questions immediately began to be raised about why the Chinese would feel it necessary to monitor pollution in Hawaii, given the large US military presence there.

And it comes just weeks after China flew a giant balloon over the US – which was widely understood to be a spy tool even as Beijing claimed it was a civilian weather airship.

Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii remains vital for the United States military and the presence of the satellite comes amid increased tensions between the US and China.

Webmaster addition: I doubt this story. If China wanted a detailed topological map of Hawaii they can simply download one from the US Geological survey. And it's hardly a secret where Pearl Harbor is located. Even assuming that the US and Russian GPS systems are knocked out in the opening of war, a nuclear-tipped hypersonic missile can get "close enough" using inertial guidance to score a hit.

President Joe Biden said on Monday that swift action to protect deposits of two closed banks was meant to assure Americans that the U.S. banking system remained strong and head off fears that it is the beginning of other failures of financial institutions.

"Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe. Your deposits will be there when you need them," Biden told reporters Monday morning from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, before heading to California.

Webmaster addition:

A split jury means an Islamic terrorist who killed eight people and maimed many more on a bike path in New York City will avoid the death penalty.

 North Korea launched a pair of "strategic cruise missiles" from a submarine in the waters off its east coast, state media reported Monday, in an apparent warning as the United States and South Korea kicked off their largest joint military drills in five years.

The missiles were fired from the "8.24 Yongung" submarine Sunday morning, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. They flew in figure-eight patterns for over two hours and covered a distance of roughly 930 miles before hitting a target in the sea.

"The drill confirmed the reliability of the weapon system and examined the underwater-to-surface offensive operation posture of the submarine units that constitute one of the major components of the DPRK nuclear deterrent," the report said.

One of the possible reasons why Silicon Valley Bank folded is that instead of paying attention to risk managment, their leaders were pushing woke nonsense.

Concerning levels of so-called “forever chemicals” have been detected in several species of fish, some of them used in the quintessential British specialty fish and chips.

According to the Daily Mail, independent journalist group Watershed Investigations collected data from the Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). CEFAS, an executive agency attached to the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) tested 53 fish samples obtained from the Thames, Mersey and Wyre rivers for traces of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

The journalists found that flounder, dab and plaice were the species with high levels of PFAS. One flounder taken from London’s Woolwich district, located along the Thames, had the highest PFAS level at 52.1 micrograms per kilogram (mcg/kg). According to them, fish ingest the forever chemicals while swimming in the three rivers.

Moreover, some samples contained excessively high levels of PFAS. Using the flounder with 52.1 mcg/kg as an example, an average adult who eats just 170 grams (0.4 pounds) of this fish more than once every five months would exceed the safe PFAS threshold set by the European Food Safety Authority. Interestingly, the three fish species – flounder, dab and plaice – are used for fish and chips, one of the U.K.’s national dishes.

During the call on Sunday afternoon Rep. Massie reported that one Democrat Senator asked if there was a program in place to censor free speech at this time on social media.

Tucker Carlson went there tonight — Tucker told his audience if people don’t start making lots of noise we’re going to see a government controlled digital currency.

When US President Biden appointed Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State, CODEPINK feminists (Women for Peace, an international non-governmental organisation) expressed their protest against the decision claiming that Nuland would bring pain and suffering to mothers and daughters as she "fomented war."

"Instead of promoting diplomacy, Nuland lights matches wherever she meddles, agitating for war in Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. If feminists remain silent or support this Bush-era neocon simply because she is a woman, Victoria Nuland might just burn down the world in a nuclear fire," Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK for Peace co-founder then said.

It turned out that the above-mentioned statement was not far from the truth. Suffice it to recall the footage of Victoria Nuland distributing bread in the midst of Maidan riots. The video clearly indicates who was behind the revolution in Ukraine. 

See more at https://english.pravda.ru/world/156024-victoria_nuland_war/

Democrats, including the many vocal liberals of Hollywood have repeatedly told us that walls don’t work. They have even said that walls are racist.

During March 2022, the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine began first in Belarus and then in Istanbul. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to the Russian delegation announced in public that they managed to align their viewpoints on a number of issues and then Kiev presented a document in writing, which for Russia contained sufficient number of acceptable views with the neutral status out of any political bloc of Ukraine without foreign military bases, units or weaponry, nuclear arms included.

It was recommended that as the guarantors for security these countries would be included as follows: Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Italy, Canada, China, Poland, the USA, Turkey and France.

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by regulators on Friday in the biggest bank failure since the 2008 liquidity crisis.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the fault of US President Joe Biden’s administration, Donald Trump has claimed, warning it could lead to a new Great Depression in the United States.

SVB, a major lender focused on tech and startups, which was the 16th largest US bank with over $200 billion in assets only a few months ago, imploded on Friday after what analysts called “a classic case of bank run.”

Alarmed over the state of the bank, depositors rushed to withdraw funds, which saw SVB’s shares crash and forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to shut the lender down.

“With what is happening to our economy, and with the proposals being made on the largest and dumbest tax increase in the history of the USA, times five, Joe Biden will go down as the Herbert Hoover of the modern age,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Webmaster addition: If depression happens, it will be global, due to economic globalism.

A massive crowd of supporters lined up 7 hours in the winter cold before the President was scheduled to speak.

As reported earlier, James O’Keefe was fired by the board of Project Veritas last month, the media organization he founded 13 years ago. He gave a 45 minute going away speech to staff on his final day. The speech was later leaked to The Gateway Pundit and several news outlets.

One of the biggest complaints about ChatGPT is that it provides information, but the veracity and accuracy of that information is uncertain. That's because ChatGPT doesn't provide sources, footnotes, or links to where it derived information used in its answers.

But that's not fully true. 

If you know how to properly prompt ChatGPT, it will give you sources. Here's how.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 81, has been incommunicado since falling and injuring himself last Wednesday night at a Senate fundraising dinner held at the former Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C.

A South Carolina bill is making headlines for seeking to make a person who gets or performs an abortion guilty of homicide.

Local sources have reported the use of JDAMs on March 10, specifically in the vicinity of Bakhmut (Artyomovsk). It should be noted that such weapons require extensive ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, which the Kiev regime simply doesn’t have. This only leaves NATO as the side directly providing targeting data. And while this is nothing new, as the United States and its NATO vassals have been doing this for over a year now, it does represent a new level of escalation, prompting Russia’s express response. According to the latest battlefield reports, Moscow responded with its own PGMs, specifically smart bombs used by the now legendary Su-57, as well as mass usage of air-launched hypersonic weapons.

The Kiev regime troops tasked with air defense recently reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) used at least six 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles at once, complaining that they have no means of intercepting such weapons. Deployed since at least 2017 and used by modified MiG-31K/I superfast interceptors and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers/missile carriers, “Kinzhals” are some of the most advanced weapons in the history of warfare, being capable of not just using standard and thermonuclear warheads, but also their sheer speed and the resulting kinetic energy to neutralize targets of both tactical and strategic importance. Not even NATO itself has any means of intercepting such weapons, while it is yet to deploy anything remotely similar.

The US Air Force has recently increased the activity of its strategic bombers near the borders of Russia and Iran. 

On March 11, the US strategic bomber B-52H Stratofortress, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, worked out a missile launch on the Russian city of St. Petersburg. The aircraft with the board sign NOBLE61 approached the island of Gotland, which is about 200 km from the Russian northern capital. It took off from Poland, not reaching the borders with the Russian Federation, made a detour in the Gulf of Finland and flew in the southern direction.

On March 12, a similar US aircraft with the board sign NOBLE71 capable of carrying nuclear missiles simulated another strike on Iran. It approached the Iranian southern board and was spotted over the territory of Saudi Arabia. According to the local reports, the board “entered the course of combat use of cruise missiles with a nuclear warhead, after which it turned back.” High activity of US reconnaissance aircraft was also noticed in the region. Most likely, they monitored the possible work of Iran’s air defense and recorded the “success” of a virtual strike on Tehran.

The flights of the US strategic bombers were clear acts of intimidation amid the ongoing rapprochement between Moscow and Tehran, including in the military field.

Before the financial collapse come the aggressive anti-regulation lobbyists.  These are often of the same ilk: loathing anything resembling oversight, restriction, reporting and monitoring.  They are incarnations of the frontier, symbolically toting guns and slaying the natives, seeking wealth beyond paper jottings, compliance and bureaucratic tedium. 

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), for a period of time the preferred bank for start-ups, is the bitter fruit of that harvest.  Three days prior to the second-largest failure of a US financial institution since the implosion of Washington Mutual (Wamu) in 2008, lobbyists for the banking sector had reason to gloat.  They had the ears of a number of GOP lawmakers and were pressing the case that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had little reason to sharpen regulations in the industry.

As a matter of fact, the converse case was put: the financial environment was proving too stringent, and needed easing up.  This effort built on gains made during the Trump administration, which saw the passing of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.  Then House majority leader Kevin McCarthy was particularly keen on winding back elements of the Dodd-Frank banking measures introduced in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.  In 2018, he got much of what he wished for.

The UK government expects further deterioration of the global security situation and warns that the period of instability is likely to last beyond the 2030s, according to the Integrated Review Refresh 2023 released on Monday.

"There is a growing prospect that the international security environment will further deteriorate in the coming years, with state threats increasing and diversifying in Europe and beyond. The risk of escalation is greater than at any time in decades, and an increasing number of advanced weapons systems have been developed and are being tested or adopted," the 63-page document says. "the transition into a multipolar, fragmented and contested world has happened more quickly and definitively than anticipated. We are now in a period of heightened risk and volatility that is likely to last beyond the 2030s."