USA - Why are Colorado teachers taking students to gay after-school programs? Erin Lee, whose daughter attended Wellington Middle School in Wellington, announced during an interview with Conservative media that her daughter was invited to the club by her art teacher last May and that students in the club were told by an outside speaker that “what you hear in here, stays in here.” “She explained to my daughter that if she is not 100% comfortable in her female body, then she’s transgender,” Lee stated. “She then told the kids that parents aren’t safe, and that it’s OK to lie to them about where they are to attend this meeting.” “She doubled down that parents aren’t safe [and] that heterosexuality and monogamy are not normal,” the mother claimed. The Poudre School District confirmed the club's existence and that its conversation “may be confidential.”

USA - Three students at Kiel Middle School have been placed under investigation for "sexual harassment" for not referring to another student using "they/them" pronouns. Defence lawyers for the students stated: “The District’s position appears to be that using what the District calls “incorrect pronouns” “after being informed that a student’s preferred pronouns were ‘they/them’’’ automatically constitutes punishable sexual harassment under Title IX.

UK - My jaw hit the floor during the Stonewall discrimination trial this week when the LGBT charity’s ‘head of trans inclusion’ Kirrin Medcalf took the stand and declared: ‘Bodies are not inherently male or female. They are just their bodies.’ But as those words sank in, my heart sank to my boots too. I was one of the six co-founders of Stonewall in the 1980s. Along with the others, I poured all my energy into making the organisation a formidable force for gay and lesbian rights.

USA - How is it that in the exceptional and indispensable USA, a former American president [Trump] can be denied his constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech by a private communications company? How can a mere private company cancel the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights? How is it possible that the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans (including a former US president) is dependent on who owns Twitter? And Facebook? And Google? And the New York Times? How can Americans, especially conservatives, think they live in a free country when a former president of the United States can have his Constitutional Rights cancelled or granted by a private company CEO? Isn’t this a case of the “private sector” controlling the government? End times approach while Americans worry about transgender rights and the boundaries of Nazi Ukraine. Americans have entirely forgotten their own rights guaranteed by the US Constitution and do nothing to protect them. Freedom in the West has been thrown into the trash bin of History, not by conquerors but by the West itself.

CHINA - As global food prices remain at record highs and war wages in Europe between two of the world's largest grain suppliers, troubling videos from China show farmers slashing winter wheat production ahead of harvest times, adding even more uncertainty about food security. An analyst at Melbourne-based Thomas Elder Markets, Andrew Whitelaw, said it's not surprising that farmers are cutting their wheat early for hay as this may be a better return on their money because of poor crop conditions. "If China has a poor crop this season, then they will likely have to continue with a strong import program ...there are already question marks around China's food security ambitions," Whitelaw said, adding that the country has ramped up wheat imports this year. The situation in China adds to wheat production concerns in Ukraine, Russia's unlikeness to ship the crop to "unfriendly" countries, India's threats of wheat export bans due to severe weather, and planting issues in the US Northern Plains and Canada because of wet conditions. As a result of all of these issues that may tighten global food markets even further, US wheat futures hit a 14-year high on Monday.

EUROPE - A German member of the European parliament warned EU citizens that they soon “will no longer have any political influence over who they entrust with the administration of their fundamental rights” after treaty changes made by the WHO with its member states. “I asked the Commission to what extent it would ensure that the principles of the people’ s rule would be respected and that citizens would not be subjected to the arbitrariness of an unelected entity,” Anderson said in a new video she posted May 8 on her YouTube channel. “The answer I received to my question a few hours ago is clear and brief: not at all!” “With this, the rule of the people, the basic principle of any democracy, has been finally laid to rest,” Anderson said. The German MEP explained that the composition of the WHO is “not based on democratic elections” and that, therefore, “the decision-makers sitting there can issue instructions to you but are not accountable to you and cannot be held politically responsible by you.”

USA - Major trucking fleets across the eastern half of the US are preparing for an "imminent" diesel shortage, according to logistics firm FreightWaves. Founder and CEO of FreightWaves Craig Fuller said "3 very large fleets" are preparing for diesel pumps at fuel stations to run dry. Drivers of these fleets received notifications about fuel shortages that could materialize in the coming weeks across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions. Fuller tweeted several messages that drivers received from fleet operators. The notifications were alarming. He also tweeted what appears to be an unnamed industry insider explaining the historic mess hitting Mid-Atlantic and Northeast markets is a combination of crude being diverted from the US to Europe and supply chains issues along the East Coast. Diesel supply is short worldwide due to the invasion of Ukraine disrupting energy markets and resulting Western sanctions. The writing has been on the wall for months about developing shortages…

USA - Gas prices hit an all-time high today at $4.374 per gallon of regular gasoline, just three weeks before Memorial Day weekend. While Americans will feel this pain each time they go to gas up their vehicles, the worst pain point may well be what’s happening with diesel and diesel prices.

NEW ZEALAND - A sexism row has erupted over concerns that not enough newly discovered species of parasitic worms are named after women. Concerns are being raised as to whether “gender bias” has played a role in naming the creatures after a team of scientists led by parasitologist Robert Poulin “scoured studies in eight journals published between 2000 and 2020,” reports Sky News. “Of the 596 species named after eminent scientists, only 111, or 19%, recognised women, according to the experts from New Zealand’s University of Otago.”

USA - The nation’s transmission network, plagued by outages and increasingly severe weather, needs a trillion-dollar overhaul to handle the Biden administration’s promised clean-energy revolution. No one is taking charge of that problem. After decades of struggle, the US clean-energy business is booming, with soaring electric-car sales and fast growth in wind and solar power. That’s raising hopes for the fight against climate change.

MOROCCO - In December 2020, in one of his final acts in office, US President Donald Trump signed a unilateral proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over a 100,000-square-mile territory that has been disputed for half a century: Western Sahara. The United States had long remained mostly neutral in the standoff between the Moroccan government, whose forces exercise de facto control over most of the territory, and the rebel group that seeks Western Sahara’s independence. But with the stroke of a pen, Trump reversed decades of US policy, endorsing Morocco’s territorial claim in exchange for its normalizing relations with Israel and joining Trump’s Abraham Accords. This tradeoff caused the collapse of a cease-fire agreement, leading to renewed fighting and growing tensions in the region. The United Nations is trying to relaunch a political process that would overcome the current impasse; Morocco has rejected implementing a UN-backed popular referendum that would determine Western Sahara’s status and has instead advanced its own proposal that would grant the territory a form of limited autonomy. The disagreement remains intractable.

UNITED NATIONS - Droughts have increased 29% in the space of a single generation, according to a paper the United Nations released on Wednesday, which observed that the problem is rapidly accelerating. Released to coincide with the 15th annual Conference of Parties held by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the “Drought in Numbers 2022” report reveals that droughts comprise just 15% of natural disasters but account for 45% of disaster-related deaths, along with an encyclopedia of other disturbing statistics. From 1998 to 2017, droughts cost the world $124 billion, the report found. They also took some 650,000 lives between 1970 and 2019, and the report warns that over 2.3 billion people are currently living in water-insecure conditions, including 160 million children. In the US alone, drought-related economic losses have amounted to $249 billion since 1980. Worsening drought conditions will put upwards of 700 million people at risk of becoming climate refugees by 2030.

UK - Campaigners, researchers and commentators demanding action on climate change have a tendency to err on the side of catastrophe when discussing what the world might look like in the future. Greta Thunberg’s famous statement, “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic,” is an obvious example. Even that three-word mantra ‘save the planet’ is positively febrile, since there is nothing in any scientific literature to suggest the planet needs saving. Underpinning these scenarios is the view that smart people – like academic researchers – should be running society and this whole democracy business is downright dangerous. How dare people complain about high energy bills or want to drive, fly and eat meat? Society should be run by technocrats (hence the love for the EU) who will make life harder for us all for our own good. In that sense, this scenario-generating exercise is extremely useful. Whenever we see scare stories about the future – like the UK government’s latest climate-change assessment, published this week – we should remember these scenarios, remind ourselves what kind of people are doing this state-sponsored speculation, and be very, very sceptical about their claims.

UKRAINE - You read that right. Ukraine announced today that it is cutting off a third of the natural gas flow to Europe: Gas Transit Services of Ukraine (OGTSU) declared force majeure on Tuesday, saying that it was impossible to continue the transit of gas through a connection point and compressor station located in the Lugansk area. As OGTSU personnel “cannot carry out operational and technological control” over the Sokhranovka connector point and Novopskov compressor station, the company cannot continue to fulfill its contract obligations, it said. Gas from this connection will not be accepted into the transit system of Ukraine starting at 7 am on Wednesday, OGTSU said. The motive behind this move is irrelevant. The “why” does not matter. It is the negative effect it will have on an already shaky European economy.

USA - Inflation can occur when prices rise due to increases in production costs, such as raw materials and wages. A surge in demand for products and services can cause inflation as consumers are willing to pay more for the product. This current beast is different and more dangerous. First, there are increases in production costs, specifically labor, that is a consequence of the Covid shutdowns. Many employers are having to raise wages in order to entice workers to come back.