Why is blood worth more than oil? For impoverished Americans, blood donations have become a source of income - presenting a real risk to their health, as they lie about their health conditions and donate repeatedly to make ends meet.

Protests and strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial reforms package are now so pervasive the planned state visit by Britain’s King Charles III has been postponed pending conditions in France improving.

King Charles III, who became the monarch of 15 countries worldwide including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand after the death of his mother Elizabeth II last year, was due to make his first state visit to France and Germany from this coming Sunday, per details of the tour released by Buckingham Palace earlier this month.

But the French element of the tour will now not go ahead as planned, as the country has been struck by repeated violent protests and lengthy strikes all aimed at stopping or even bringing down the Macron government. President Macron, for his part, has described himself as a god-like ruler but has otherwise struggled to get his deeply controversial pensions reform bill to pass, and has resorted to using emergency executive powers to push it through. Foreseeably, perhaps, this has intensified protests.

A left-run city council in Britain has vowed that it will never again put a child in the care of a paedophile again after authorities were exposed for doing just that, leading to a young girl being sexually abused for years and ultimately impregnated.

Labour Party-controlled Leeds City Council has been forced to pledge that it will increase safeguards to prevent a repeat of the case of “Ruby”, a vulnerable local girl who was put into the care of a known paedophile by a family court on the advice of the local authority

The scandal was revealed in a report in January.

An Anglican vicar who smoked crystal meth, boasted of corrupting young boys, abused animals, and discussed sacrificing babies to Satan with online paedophiles has been convicted in England.

Reverend David Renshaw, 63, was convicted of “three counts of possessing indecent images of children; three counts of making indecent images of children; possessing prohibited images of children; and possessing extreme pornographic images portraying acts of intercourse with animals, namely dogs and horses,” according to a Sussex Police statement.

Strangely, he does not appear to have faced any charges relating to animal cruelty or neglect, despite police officers finding his vicarage full of dead and dying animals including cats, dogs, and chickens.

The leader of Bulgaria, a European Union and NATO member-state, says his country will not use its arsenal of Soviet-era warplanes, air defence missiles, and tanks to bolster the Ukrainian war machine.

President Rumen Radev says “Bulgaria does not support and is not part of the general order for the supply of shells to Ukraine” he said in reference to an EU joint procurement programme which is believed to be going badly, adding that his country will instead “support European diplomatic efforts to restore peace,” according to a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

A U.S. government-funded news organisation which received CIA funding until at least the 1970s and claims its “mission is to promote democratic values by providing accurate, uncensored news and open debate in countries where a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive”, RFE/RL describes President Radev as being “known for his pro-Kremlin leanings”, and said he also ruled out Bulgarian participation in Western efforts to supply Ukraine with military aircraft, air defence missiles, and tanks.

Webmaster addition: Deserting the sinking ship?

Florida Congressman Byron Donalds has made a strong statement on Fox Business, claiming to possess evidence of corruption involving President Joe Biden. According to Donalds, bank statements provide proof that Biden lied to the American people, and the media has subsequently covered up these lies. The Congressman went on to assert that investigations are ongoing, and he called attention to the ethical implications of the Biden family's international business dealings, particularly with China. Donalds also questioned the nature of the Biden family's business activities, suggesting that they amount to little more than influence peddling.

A shocking incident in Portland, Oregon, has left the community in disbelief after a homeless man, Terrance Spencer, allegedly sucker punched a young child on Sunday, leaving the boy with a lump on his forehead and soreness from the fall.

According to Portland police, the suspect approached a mother and her young son outside the Tin Shed cafe and, without any provocation, forcefully punched the boy in the face. Witnesses reported seeing Spencer's fist connect with the child's forehead, sending the boy flying into the air before landing backward and hitting his head on the sidewalk.

Thankfully, residents quickly restrained Spencer until police arrived. Upon arrest, Spencer allegedly said, "I want to go back to prison." He has since been booked and charged with disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, and assault. He is currently being held in Multnomah County Jail without bail due to his prior felony record, which includes convictions for sodomy and sex abuse.

This week the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual audit on antisemitic incidents in the United States. According to the data antisemitic incidents rose by 36% in 2022, resulting in 3,697 such occurrences. That’s the highest tally since the ADL began tracking this information back in 1979 and a nearly 500% increase over the past decade.

However, a cursory look at the group’s methodology immediately reveals its conclusions to be dubious. The ADL openly chalks up anti-Zionist actions and protests against Israel as examples of antisemitism because they can make Jewish students uncomfortable.

The vague wording made van Terheyden suspect that Dr. Cheryl Dopke, the medical director who signed it, had not taken much care with his case.

Van Terheyden was right to be suspicious. His claim was just one of roughly 60,000 that Dopke denied in a single month last year, according to internal Cigna records reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum.

The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills, according to corporate documents and interviews with former Cigna officials. Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.

In recent developments, German Prosecutor General Peter Frank confirmed “there is no evidence to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines”:

“It currently has not been proven (…) The investigation is ongoing (…) We are currently evaluating all this forensically. [The suspicion] that there had been a foreign sabotage act [in this case], has so far not been substantiated”, he said during the interview with Die Welt.

No evidence of foreign sabotage of an act which has created social havoc and hardship in the European Union, with rising energy prices? People are freezing, unable to pay their heating bills. The EU economy which relied on cheap energy from Russia is in shambles. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to comment on the investigation.