Signs of the Times (5/21/13)

Department of Education to Eliminate ‘Mother,’ ‘Father’ From Student Aid Forms

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that student financial aid forms will begin using the terms “Parent 1″ and “Parent 2″ rather than the gender-specific terms “mother” and “father,” Baptist Press reports. The 2014-15 federal student aid forms will for the first time collect income and other information from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together, according to the department. In addition to removing “mother” and “father,” the new forms will provide an option for applications to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together.” Traditionally, the forms have been written to collect information about a student’s parents only if the parents are married, thus excluding income and other information from one of the student’s legal parents when the parents are unmarried, even if those parents are living together. “Gender-specific terms also fail to capture income and other information from one parent when a student’s parents are in a same-sex marriage under state law but not federally recognized under the Defense of Marriage Act,” the department said. “All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

• The end-time breakdown of God’s natural order continues unabated

Tea Party Groups to Sue IRS

A group of conservative activists, being represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, are preparing to sue the federal government for their admitted targeting Tea Party groups. ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow told FoxNews.com he’ll likely file the civil suits next Wednesday or Thursday on behalf of more than a dozen Tea Party groups who say they were singled out by the IRS and had their tax-exempt status severely delayed or denied altogether. The suits, combined with congressional inquiries an FBI probe, and the resignation of the IRS chief signal the start of a protracted legal and political battle over the scandal.

Sekulow said the number of plaintiffs in the civil suit are growing as is the list of who his organization wants held accountable. It’s still unclear whether the organization will file as a class-action or individually in the 17 different states where the complaints originate. “In testimony before Congress, the acting Commissioner of the IRS called the intentional targeting of conservative groups merely ‘horrible customer service.’ No, this was a direct violation of the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens,” said Sekulow. As a major tea party group plans protests Tuesday at Internal Revenue Service offices across the country, a new national poll indicates that the IRS controversy has given the four-year-old movement a shot in the arm.

AP Ponders Legal Action Against DOJ

Associated Press President Gary Pruitt says the Justice Department sent a strong – and negative — message to future sources that the government would go after them if they spoke to the press. It’s a move Pruitt called not only unconstitutional, but damaging to the ideal of a free press in the country. Pruitt said, “It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but… we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated.” He said President Obama “should rein in that out-of-control investigation.” Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen.

Colorado Sheriffs Sue over New State Gun Restrictions.

Colorado sheriffs upset with gun restrictions adopted in the aftermath of last year’s mass shootings filed a federal lawsuit Friday, challenging the regulations as unconstitutional. The lawsuit involves sheriffs from 54 of Colorado’s 64 counties, most representing rural, gun-friendly areas of the state. The sheriffs say the new state laws violate Second Amendment protections that guarantee the right to keep and bear arms. The filing targets Colorado laws that limit the size of ammunition magazines and expand background checks. The regulations passed the Legislature this spring and are set to take effect July 1.

Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks on U.S. Targets

Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China’s People’s Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks The Obama administration had bet that “naming and shaming” the groups, first in industry reports and then in the Pentagon’s own detailed survey of Chinese military capabilities, might prompt China’s new leadership to crack down on the military’s highly organized team of hackers. But Unit 61398, whose well-guarded 12-story white headquarters on the edges of Shanghai became the symbol of Chinese cyberpower, is back in business, according to American officials and security companies.

“Crazy Ants’ Threaten Ecology of Southeastern U.S.

Researchers at the University of Texas are warning that the invasive species from South America has the potential to change the ecological balance in the southeastern United States. The crazy ants, officially called “Tawny crazy ants,” are omnivores that can take over an area by both killing what’s there and starving out what they don’t kill. The crazy ants nest in walls, crawl spaces, house plants or empty containers in the yard. They don’t sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests. Videos on YouTube show people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants, having to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. Scientists are unsure how far the ants, which are native to Argentina and Brazil, may spread in the U.S. Since being first seen in Houston in 2002, they’ve been found mostly in wetter environments with mild winters in parts of Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Economic News

Even as Americans held overall consumer debt to a 9 percent increase from 2004 to this year, student debt tripled to $986 billion after adjusting for inflation. It’s now 8.8 percent of all consumer debt, up from 3.1 percent in 2004. A system that pushes students to borrow whatever they need to get through college has come under increasing scrutiny as college gets more expensive and a new generation of students is hamstrung by larger and larger debt loads.

Last week, a measure of consumer sentiment showed buying attitudes toward appliances and other durable goods at the highest level since mid-2007. And the government reported that April retail sales solidly beat estimates despite huge federal spending cuts.

Sales at restaurants are at an all-time high. Sales at eating and drinking places in April reached $45.9 billion, a $200 million seasonally-adjusted increase from the previous high in December 2012.

Syria

Violence surged in the strategically important Syrian town of Qusayr on Sunday. Activists said the offensive marked some of the most intense fighting they’ve seen in the fiercely contested area near the Lebanese border. Rebels and the Syrian government both claimed to control parts of the city, where fighting has been raging for weeks. Activists said artillery shells, mortar shells and bombs from aircraft were raining down as government forces attacked. Makeshift medical clinics were reportedly filled with casualties.

Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into Syria’s civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday. The overt Hezbollah involvement edges the war further into a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis. A staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah is heavily invested in the survival of the Damascus regime and is known to have sent fighters to aid government forces.

Turkey

Two bomb attacks in Reyhanli, Turkey claimed some 50 lives and injured hundreds more in the deadliest attack on Turkish soil in more than 20 years. Reyhanli sits at the border with Syria, where an increasingly brutal civil war has spilled over in an action that, many Turks say, demands international response. Turkey has endured several attacks by Syria and many are concerned the attacks will only increase. President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met at the White House on Thursday, emerging later to say they remain opposed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and want his removal. But neither offered any initiatives to make that happen.

Iraq

Bombs ripped through Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months. Another string of car bombs and shootings tore through Iraq on Monday, killing at least 57 people. Additional attacks Monday killed another seven and wounded dozens more.The attacks hit markets and crowded bus stops. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering toward civil war. The attacks followed two days of bombings targeting Shiites, including bus stops and outdoor markets, with a total of 130 people killed since Wednesday. Tensions have been intensifying since Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government, including random detentions.

Afghanistan

A suicide attack in northern Afghanistan on Monday morning killed at least 11 people, including the head of the local provincial government. The attack took place outside the Baghlan provincial council compound in the capital, Pul-e-Khumri. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to CNN.

Nigeria

An ongoing “massive deployment” against insurgent groups in northern Nigeria by the nation’s special forces killed at least 14 suspected terrorists and captured 20 others, according to a statement released Sunday by Nigeria’s defense ministry. The ministry had reported killing at least 10 suspected terrorists and apprehending another 65 on Saturday, as well as the deaths of over 20 dead on Friday. Sunday’s update noted that three soldiers were killed and seven more were wounded in the offensive. Among those targeted by the military was the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Yemen

Yemeni security officials say a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four al-Qaeda militants in the country’s south. The officials say the attack took place around dawn Saturday in an area called Deyfa in Abyan province. Yemeni forces battled al-Qaeda in Abyan province last year, routing out militants from major cities that al-Qaeda had overrun during the country’s 2011 political turmoil. The militants fled to surrounding mountainous areas. There has been a dramatic rise in such drone strikes in Yemen since the country’s new U.S.-backed president assumed power early last year.

North Korea

North Korea continued firing short-range weapons over its own eastern waters Monday after a weekend of what it called “rocket launching tests” intended to bolster deterrence against enemy attack. North Korea routinely test-launches short-range missiles. But the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing recent tension, including near-daily threats by North Korea to attack South Korea and the U.S. last month. North Korea has a variety of missiles but Seoul and Washington don’t believe the country has mastered the technology needed to manufacture nuclear warheads that are small and light enough to be placed on a missile capable of reaching the U.S.

Earthquakes

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 has struck off the coast of Chile. The quake was recorded at 5:49 a.m. local time Monday, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), some 370 miles from the city of Puerto Quellon. No tsunami warning was issued. The strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in Chile, a magnitude-9.5 in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.

People on both sides of the border felt an earthquake originating around the Quebec and Ontario borders, the Canadian government said. Natural Resources Canada gave it a preliminary magnitude of 5.2; the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 4.4. With an epicenter about 11 miles from Shawville, in western Quebec, the quake was felt in the Ottawa-Gatineau area and out to Toronto, more than 260 miles away. It also was felt in New York state and Cleveland.

Volcanoes

One of Alaska’s most restless volcanoes shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air Friday in an ongoing eruption that is visible for miles. The ash would have to rise tens of thousands of feet to threaten larger planes. The eruption began Monday 5/13, with lava spraying out from the summit of the Pavlov volcano, located 625 miles southwest of Anchorage. Residents of Cold Bay, about 40 miles from Pavlof, are concerned the ash could damage their power generators. But so far, the wind has blown the ash away from the area. The ash cloud reached 19,500 feet Sunday, just below the 20,000-foot threshold considered to be a major threat to trans-continental aircraft. The aviation warming level remained at code orange, a step below red, the highest of the four levels.

Wildfires

As firefighters took on a stubborn 3-day-old wildfire Friday in rough terrain north of Los Angeles, a second and more serious blaze broke out 30 miles away near Interstate 5, quickly surging to more than 500 acres, briefly threatening an elementary school and leading to the precautionary evacuation of nearly 20 homes. The new fire burned very close to I-5 during some of the busiest hours of the week for the heavily traveled route in and out of Los Angeles. The freeway has seen wildfire activity in its surrounding hills all week. But some 350 firefighters were able to get the edge on the blaze as quickly as it arose. The fire was 60 percent contained by nightfall.

Weather

Several tornadoes struck parts of the nation’s midsection Sunday, concentrating damage in central Oklahoma and Wichita, Kan. Entire subdivisions were destroyed. Altogether five states were hit with tornadoes. Search-and-rescue crews worked through the night after a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 24 people were killed, including at least seven children with 101 people pulled alive out of the rubble.

Signs of the Times (5/17/13)

Texas Doc Picks Up Where Gosnell Left Off

Kermit Gosnell may be behind bars, but his deadly legacy lives on. Just when the abortion lobby thought it could turn the page on the PR disaster of the Women’s Medical Society, a new “house of horrors” is making headlines–this time in Texas. There, the eye-witness accounts rival those of even Gosnell’s clinic, as three former employees described a staggering amount of violence, which would, on occasion, involve Douglas Karpen twisting off the heads of newborn babies. It was a routine procedure, Deborah Edge said of the born-alive killings–which usually involved cutting babies’ spinal cords or gouging them in the skull.

• The light of truth is now shining on the baby murder factories for all to see its evil underbelly (Mark 4:22, John 3:19-21, Eph. 5:12-13)

More Immigrant Felons Freed than Initially Reported

Under pressure from lawmakers, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has disclosed new details about the criminal backgrounds of some of the approximately 2,200 immigration detainees let out of custody in February in anticipation of spending cuts, revealing that 32 of the 622 convicted criminals released nationwide had multiple felony convictions. The new details, released in a briefing made to a Capitol Hill investigatory panel, raised more questions about the decision in February by Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials to release 2,226 immigration detainees from facilities in Arizona and several other states in order to slow rising detention costs in the face of $300 million in automatic budget cuts which kicked in March 1.

During two congressional hearings in March, ICE Director John Morton insisted that only detainees who did not pose a threat to public safety were released and that all remained under supervision. But information released by DHS officials in response to requests from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows that ICE has taken back into custody 58 of the convicted criminals released nationally after a review showed the seriousness of their offenses.

House Votes to Fully Repeal Obamacare

The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. The House voted for repeal 229-195, with votes cast almost entirely down party lines. Two Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of repeal: Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah and Rep. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina. With implementation of Obamacare set to begin later this year, the vote is largely symbolic. The Senate is highly unlikely to even take up a vote on repeal.

AFA Says AARP Supports Gay Agenda

The American Family Association is going after the AARP (American Association for Retired People) for contributing money to the “homosexual agenda.” “If you are a Christian and believe in biblical values, you can pretty much count on the fact that everything that you are in favor of, the AARP is opposing,” said AFA Executive Vice President Buddy Smith. AARP Pride is the organization’s site dedicated to resources on marriage equality, HIV/AIDS, nondiscrimination policies and other issues relevant to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Lawsuit Accuses IRS of Illegally Obtaining 60 Million Health Records

A lawsuit filed in California accuses the Internal Revenue Service of illegal seizure of 60 million electronic health care records belonging to 10 million Americans. The lawsuit – which was filed March 11, 2013, and surfaced Wednesday – claims that the “medical records contained intimate and private information of more than 10,000,000 Americans, information that by its nature includes information about treatment for any kind of medical concern, including psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual or drug treatment, and a wide range of medical matters covering the most intimate and private of concerns.” The suit said the 15 IRS agents involved in the raid did not have a search warrant or subpoena for the medical records.

Solar Flares Kick into High Gear

The sun has kicked into high gear and produced four so-called X-class solar flares over the past week from a solar spot that is expected to come more into alignment with Earth as the sun’s activity peaks this year and next. The intense solar storms are expected to last as long as until 2020. Until now, the sun has remained relatively dormant, but with four X-class eruptions in one week, it is beginning to reach its “solar storm maximum” in this latest 11-year cycle of activity.

Along with the radiation from the flares, there also is a coronal mass ejection, or CME. During a CME, billions of tons of highly charged particles are ejected to interact with Earth’s magnetic field, causing potential radio blackouts and the shutdown or destruction of vulnerable electrical grid systems and sensitive electronic components. Because the United States and other Western countries are technologically based societies, with critical infrastructures run by electronics, the increase in space weather activity takes on a high level of importance.

• Solar activity is a key marker of end-time events (Joel 2:31, Matt. 24:29, Rev. 6:12, 8:12)

White Kids a Minority in a Few Years

White, non-Hispanic kids will no longer make up the majority of America’s youth in just five to six years, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday. Those projections, which include four different scenarios for population growth, estimate that today’s minority ethnic groups will soon account for at least half of the under-18 population, either in 2018 or 2019. Already, more than half of American babies being born belong to racial and ethnic groups traditionally thought of as “minorities.” By the time those kids grow up to become adults — sometime between 2036 and 2042 — everyone in the working-age population (ages 18 to 64) will be members of these former minorities.

U.S. Oil Boom Causing Energy Upheaval

Booming North American oil production is reshaping world markets and will help satisfy the growing thirst for oil in the developing world, according to the International Energy Agency. “North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world,” said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven. “This is helping to ease a market that was relatively tight for several years.” In its latest report, the Paris-based IEA forecasts that North America’s oil supply will grow by nearly 4 million barrels per day between 2012 to 2018, amounting to nearly 50% of global output growth over that period. The U.S. is experiencing an oil boom, in large part thanks to high world prices and new technologies, including hydraulic fracking, that have made the extraction of oil and gas from shale rock commercially viable.

Economic News

A continued decline in the federal budget deficit this year is resulting in a better than expected fiscal forecast for 2013 from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO projects a $642 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2013, down more than $200 billion from its February estimate and the smallest annual shortfall since 2008. It is the lowest level of deficit spending to date under President Obama, who faced $1 trillion or more in annual deficits during his first term.

The number of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits for the first time rose sharply in the week ended May 11 after hitting a five-year low the previous week. First-time claims jumped 32,000 to 360,000, highest since March. The broader economy has been mixed with the government reporting this week that factory output fell sharply last month while retail sales unexpectedly rose.

A sharp fall in the cost of gas drove a measure of U.S. consumer prices down last month by the most since December 2008. Outside the drop in fuel costs, prices were largely unchanged. The Labor Department says the consumer price index fell 0.4% in April from March. An 8.1% fall in gas prices was the main reason for the decline. In the 12 months ending in April, overall prices rose 1.1%, the smallest annual gain in 2 ½ years.

A sharp pullback in apartment and condominium construction led to a big decline in overall home building in April, even as single-family home construction remained strong, according to government data released Thursday. The Census Bureau reported that housing starts fell 17% in the month to an annual pace of 853,000. The decline was driven by a 38% drop in starts of buildings with five or more apartments or condo units in them. Single-family home starts fell only 2% to a pace of 610,000. The single-family starts remained 21% above year-earlier levels. Building permits rose to an annual rate of 1 million from March, a five-year high.

The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 continue to set record highs and have put $13 trillion in paper profits into investors’ pockets.This week it has also driven the number of S&P 500 stocks hitting fresh 52-week highs to the highest level in almost 25 years.

Eurozone

Europe’s biggest economy Germany has returned to growth in the first quarter, narrowly avoiding recession. No such luck for France. The economy there is back in a technical recession after gross domestic product fell for two consecutive quarters. New figures released Wednesday showed the Eurozone’s economy continued to contract in the first quarter, keeping it in recession for a sixth consecutive quarter. Although Germany avoided recession, its 0.1% quarterly growth was weak, while France fell back into recession.

Persecution Watch

Muslims in Bangladesh have been obtaining Christian children from their parents in small villages, promising to educate them and provide them jobs. Instead, they have been sold into madrassas, or Islamic training centers. Corey Bailey of International Christian Concern (ICC) says police in Bangladesh have rescued 140 children so far, most of whom are Christian. “In this group, almost half of them were girls,” Bailey reports. “And of these girls, many of them reported to us that they had actually been sent to local hotels to work in the sex trade and that they had also been forced to be slaves in people’s homes.

Jerry Dykstra, a spokesman for Open Doors USA, says that after American troops left Iraq, Christians seem to be an open target for Islamic extremists. “We know that there’s more and more violence there, there’s more and more Christians leaving. They want the Christians out completely.” At one point, many Iraqi Christians who did leave fled to Syria, but the conflict there is sending them back to Iraq, where conditions are much worse than when they left. That is especially the case in Mosul, the biblical city of Ninevah which has been largely Christian. “Many Christians are fleeing cities like Mosul and going to the northern part of Iraq, which is called Kurdistan,” the Open Doors spokesman reports. “And even there there’s a lack of security, and [there are] kidnappings, church attacks.”

Middle East

A senior Palestinian Authority official declared his support for dropping nuclear bombs on Israel. Palestinian Media Watch has reported that Jibril Rajoub, the deputy secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and the chairman of the PA Olympics Committee, declared on Lebanese television, “Listen. We as yet don’t have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.” Rajoub has a long history of being involved with terrorist activities. Unfortunately, Rajoub is not the only PA official to support violence against Israel and the Jewish people.

Despite Palestinian leaders within Fatah continuing to openly call for violence against Jews and Israelis and rewarding Palestinian terrorists, western countries friendly towards Israel, including the United States continues to fund the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority. Last March, President Obama even released $500 million in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority that had been frozen for the Palestinian Authority violating the Oslo Agreements by unilaterally seeking statehood at the United Nations in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel.

Syria

The leaders of Turkey and the United States are huddling in Washington on Thursday over how to handle the Syrian civil war, the raging conflict that has left an estimated 80,000 people dead and a few million displaced — despite more than two years of diplomacy to halt the bloodshed. President Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan, discussed how to strengthen the Syrian opposition, help the many people displaced by the war, and mobilize the international community to put more pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and forge a political transition. They spoke as the warfare in Syria raged Thursday. The opposition Local Coordination Committees in Syria said at least 63 people were killed Wednesday, including 45 in Damascus and its suburbs.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a political transition in Syria. The resolution, which passed by a 107-12 vote, with 59 abstentions, also condemned the government’s increased use of heavy weapons and ongoing “widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” said a U.N. statement.

Afghanistan

A suicide car bombing tore through a U.S. convoy during rush hour in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, including six U.S. military advisers and two children. NATO says four U.S. service personnel have also been killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan’s volatile south. It was the deadliest attack to rock the Afghan capital in more than two months and followed a series of other attacks against Americans that has made May the deadliest month for international forces this year. There are a number of wounded as well. The powerful explosion ripped through a NATO convoy Tuesday in southern Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgent Taliban.

Iraq

Car bombs struck Shiite neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital and a northern city on Thursday, killing 16 people, while gunmen in Baghdad shot dead the brother of a Sunni lawmaker. The attacks followed a wave of bombings Wednesday that also struck in mainly in Shiite neighborhoods, killing 33 people and raising concerns over a return to sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.

Iran

Negotiations held Wednesday in Vienna between representative from Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) aimed at setting up a mechanism to investigate the Islamic Republic’s renegade nuclear program failed to produce an agreement.

Nigeria

At least 20 insurgents were killed Friday as Nigeria’s military carried out an aerial bombardment of suspected militant Islamist camps in the country’s northeast. The raid by Nigerian Air Force jets and attack helicopters is part of what the military says is a “massive deployment” of Nigerian forces this week to tackle insurgent groups, especially Boko Haram. “Within those insurgents’ camps, we discovered that they have been storing sophisticated, high-caliber weapons including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons,” said defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade.

Bolivia

Hundreds of miners, teachers and other workers have marched in Bolivia’s capital on the 11th day of protests called by the country’s largest union to demand higher old-age pensions. Miners exploded dynamite and protesters tried to occupy the plaza where Bolivia’s seats of government are located. Police forced protesters back with tear gas. There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests Thursday, but protests over the past week left 33 people injured and more than 100 detained. Protesters are demanding that President Evo Morales’ government double pensions, which currently range from $21 to $28 a month. The government is offering an 81% hike.

Volcanoes

An Alaska volcano exhibiting “elevated seismic activity” has spewed ash clouds skyward — as high as 20,000 feet above sea level — an observatory reported Wednesday. As was the case a day earlier, the Pavlof Volcano was on “watch” status on Wednesday. The same alert levels also continue to apply to the Cleveland Volcano, which like Pavlof is in the Aleutian Island range southwest of mainland Alaska. Lava was reported flowing Tuesday at Pavlof and Cleveland. Alaskans and air travelers remained on alert Thursday due to the rumblings of the 8,000-foot Pavlof volcano emitting a “continuous ash, steam and gas cloud” that already extends up to 60 miles away.

Wildfires

Prosecutors announced Thursday they won’t file charges against loggers whose equipment apparently started a massive wildfire in northwestern Wisconsin, concluding there was no criminal intent or negligence. The fire began Tuesday afternoon in the woods near Simms Lake in Douglas County, about 40 miles southeast of Duluth, Minn. It consumed 8,131 acres, destroyed 17 homes and forced dozens of people to evacuate before firefighters contained it late Wednesday evening. No injuries have been reported. Firefighters from nearly 40 departments battled the blaze.

Firefighters had to battle terrain as much as flames as they worked to surround a wildfire entering its third day in harsh hills and mountains north of Los Angeles. Temperatures dipped Thursday and were expected to remain cool on Friday, but winds upwards of 20 mph continued to swirl, and much of the blaze that has blackened some 3,800 acres was in rocky, rugged, difficult-to-reach places, making containment a challenge. After a heavy aerial assault Thursday, the fire was 25 percent contained by nightfall.

Weather

Sixteen tornadoes ripped through an area of North Central Texas Wednesday night, leaving at least six people dead and over one hundred injured. The tornadoes drove hundreds from homes that were flattened by the turbulent winds and pounded by hail the size of grapefruit. Emergency teams rushed 18 bulldozers into the subdivision to clear the way for rescue teams and to look for people trapped in the debris. More than 250 people were evacuated, many by bus. Seven people remained unaccounted for, and 37 people were treated at local hospital while 15 people, including two in critical condition, were transported to hospitals in Fort Worth. The injuries range from lost limbs to minor bumps and bruises, according to local officials.

Starting this weekend and continuing into Monday of next week, a more substantial threat of severe storms, including tornadoes, will target parts of the Plains and Midwest. Saturday in northwest Oklahoma to South Dakota and southeast North Dakota forecasters expect large hail greater than two inches in diameter, damaging winds and tornadoes. Sunday those storms will move on to central Oklahoma northeastward to central/eastern Kansas, northwest Missouri, eastern Nebraska, western/central Iowa, and southern Minnesota.

North America — and the USA in particular — has the world’s wildest weather extremes: No other part of the planet can boast its ferocious weather stew of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, wildfires, blizzards, heat waves and cold snaps according to the Discovery Channel. Our wild weather has always fascinated us, and was a shock to the early pioneers. “Europeans who settled America from east to west were progressively amazed by the spectrum of conditions they encountered,” wrote meteorologist and author Robert Henson in his book The Rough Guide to Weather.

Signs of the Times (5/14/13)

Abortionist Gosnell Convicted of Murder

Now that jurors have convicted the 72-year-old Kermit Gosnell of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies born alive jurors must decide whether his grisly abortion practices warrant putting him to death, or whether he spend the rest of his life in prison. The sentencing hearing begins May 21. Prosecutors said Gosnell delivered babies alive and killed them, or had untrained staff kill them. Gosnell was also convicted of infanticide, racketeering and more than 200 counts of violating Pennsylvania’s abortion laws by performing third-term abortions or failing to counsel women 24 hours in advance.

Benghazi memo Show State/White House Involvement in Coverup

A disclosure of e-mails showed the White House was more involved in revising talking points about the attack in Libya than officials have previously acknowledged. A top State Department official pressed the CIA and the White House to delete any mention of terrorism in public statements on the Benghazi terror attack that killed four embassy personnel in order to prevent critics from blaming lax security at the consulate, according to documents obtained by ABC News. According to ABC News, Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department, objected in an email to White House and intelligence officials that the CIA description “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up on the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.” Nuland said she was expressing the concerns of her “leadership” when she sent the email.

AP Blasts Feds for Phone Records Search

The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records for reporters and editors at The Associated Press, the news service disclosed Monday in an outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. The records included calls from several AP bureaus and the personal phone lines of several staffers, AP President Gary Pruitt wrote. Pruitt called the subpoenas a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its reporting. The AP reported that the government has not said why it wanted the records. Lawmakers from both parties ripped the Dept. Of Justice over its effort to secretly obtain AP phone records. “The First Amendment is first for a reason,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. “If the Obama administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a good explanation.”

IRS Apologizes for Targeting Conservative Groups

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday. Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said. Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. Senior IRS officials were aware as early as 2011 that its agents were targeting Tea Party groups to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, Fox News confirmed. The agency also targeted groups focused on government spending, the Constitution and more.

Russia reportedly withheld intel on Boston bomb suspect

Russia withheld a crucial piece of information from the U.S. before the Boston bombings, U.S. officials say, bolstering a concern that distrust between the two governments erased an opportunity to avert the disaster. In 2011, Russia sent an alert to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, prompted in part by text messages between his mother and a Russian relative. The texts suggested Tsarnaev was interested in joining militant groups that Russia blames for attacks in the Caucasus region. U.S. officials call these text messages the most important in a series of missed signals between the two countries. The U.S. officials say they learned about them roughly a week after the April 15 bombings.

• Blaming the Russians for our intel failures is just an easy way out from under harsh scrutiny

More Terrorist Acts to Come

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WorldNetDaily reported Tuesday. A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials. Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime. One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days.

Carbon Dioxide Levels Soar to New High

For the first time in recorded human history, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm), according to data released Friday morning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The average level of carbon dioxide over the past five days is 400.03 ppm. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the greenhouse gas that is responsible for 63% of the warming attributable to all greenhouse gases, according to NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases caused by the burning of the oil, gas and coal that power our world are enhancing the natural “greenhouse effect,” causing the planet to warm to levels that climate scientists say can’t be linked to natural forces, NOAA asserts.

Economic News

Retail sales posted an unexpected gain in April, which may ease fears about how much this year’s federal tax increases and spending cuts are slowing the economy. Sales climbed 0.1% in April, the Commerce Department reported. Sales were up 3.7% from April 2012. This is a bounce back from a March decline of 0.5%.

The dollar rose Friday to more than 100 yen for the second straight day, staying at its highest level since April 2009, and a gain against the euro currency. The price of commodities including crude oil and gold fell as the dollar strengthened.

Persecution Watch

At least five people were killed and around 60 wounded in the bombing of a new church building in Tanzania during a service to mark its official opening. An explosive device was thrown into the church compound in Olasti, a predominantly Christian suburb of Arusha. Many of the wounded were in a critical condition. Radical camps in the country were teaching young Muslims that Christians must be killed or live as second-class citizens. Senior Christian leaders have reported details of these camps to the authorities, but no serious action has been taken against them.

Christian workers, arrested as part of an ongoing crackdown in Sudan, were interrogated by security officers, who threatened to bury them alive if they did not reveal information about their activities. The staff, from a university campus-based ministry, were arrested on 23 February and interrogated for a week. For the ensuing two weeks they had to report to the offices of the National Intelligence and Security Services every day for further questioning; they have since had to present themselves on a weekly basis.

Syria

Syrians are losing patience, confidence in revolution. As President Obama announces more support for the Syrian opposition, many caught in the crossfire worry about the proliferation of Islamist groups among rebels. Monday, President Obama said the United States is working with Britain to strengthen the moderate opposition in Syria. The fighting has killed more than 70,000 people, and 1.4 million Syrians live as refugees outside the country. Throughout Syria, it has become hard to make a living. In opposition-controlled areas, few people are able to work, and most people live off savings and humanitarian aid. The country has seen a sharp spike in crime. In many areas, kidnapping is emerging as a serious threat.

Russia defended its sales of anti-aircraft systems to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov avoided saying whether those sales included advanced S-300 batteries. Israel has asked Russia to cancel what it said was the imminent sale of the S-300 missiles, portrayed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as destabilizing to Israel’s security. The S-300s would make it harder for the U.S. and other countries to even consider intervening militarily or enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria. The U.S. has urged Russia — an Assad ally along with China, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia — to cut off weapons supplies to Syria.

Turkey

Turkey’s Interior Minister Muammer Guler says the death toll in two car bomb explosions in a town near the border with Syria has risen to 43 with 140 injured. The bombs exploded in the town of Reyhanli, just across the border from Syria’s Idlib province on Saturday. He says one of the car bombs exploded outside the city hall while the other went off outside the post office. Suspicion immediately fell on Syria, but there was no immediate confirmation of its involvement. Turkey, which shares a more than 500-mile border with Syria, has been a crucial supporter of the Syrian rebel cause and Ankara has allowed its territory to be used as a logistics base and staging center for Syrian insurgents.

Pakistan

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared victory as unofficial, partial vote counts showed his party with an overwhelming lead following a historic election marred by violence Saturday, including a string of attacks that killed 29 people. Defying the danger of militant attacks, Pakistanis streamed to the polls Saturday for a historic vote pitting a former cricket star against a two-time prime minister and an unpopular incumbent. The violence was a continuation of what has been a brutal election season with more than 130 people killed in bombings and shootings. Some are calling this one of the deadliest votes in the country’s history. Despite the violence, many see the election — the country’s first transition between an elected government fulfilling its term to another — as a key step to solidify civilian rule for a country that has experienced three military coups.

Earthquakes

Seismic activity has increased at the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City, leading authorities to alert towns in two central states and the capital. Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Center says the white-capped volcano spewed a plume of steam more than a half mile into the sky. The volcano shook during Saturday night, sometimes emitting glowing rock over the crater. The government deployed soldiers and federal police to the area Sunday in the event of a bigger eruption, and officials closed off a seven-square-mile zone around the cone of the 17,886-foot volcano. State authorities also prepared shelters.

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake has hit the Pacific island nation of Tonga Saturday, but no tsunami warning was issued. The quake struck 218 miles northwest of the capital, Nuku’alofa. It occurred 127 miles below the surface.

Iranian state TV says a strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake has jolted the south of the country, injuring at least 15 people. The report said the quake struck the Arabian Sea port town of Jask at 6:38 a.m. Saturday damaging hundreds of homes. A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 in southern Iran last month.

Weather

Monday and Tuesday of this week offered an impressive contrast between morning frost and freezes and searing 90s and triple digits across the nation. On Monday morning, new record low temperatures for May 13 were tied or broken in Nashville, Tenn., Toledo, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., Tupelo, Miss. and Marquette, Mich., to name a few locations. Light snow was even reported in Bradford, Pa. and in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York. By Monday afternoon, the season’s first 90s surged as far north as the Dakotas. Some cities in the Dakotas have seen temperature rises of 65+ degrees from Sunday morning’s lows in the 20s. Aberdeen, S.D. saw a temperature swing of 70 degrees from 22 on Sunday morning to 92 on Monday afternoon. In Las Vegas, Nev., temperatures reached the 100-degree mark for the first time this year. Salt Lake City, Utah (93), Boise, Idaho (95) and Bismarck, N.D. (91) were among the cities that either tied or set new record highs for May 13.

Signs of the Times (5/5/13)

Obama Guts National Day of Prayer

President Obama issued a statement endorsing the National Day of Prayer, but he excised virtually any reference to Christianity, the primary faith of the nation’s founders. The nation’s Christian heritage is referenced only in his statement that “the earliest settlers prayed that they would ‘rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work. Regardless of religion or creed, Americans reflect on the sacredness of life and express their sympathy for the wounded, offering comfort and holding up a light in an hour of darkness.”

Rhode Island Passes Gay Marriage Bill

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage after the state legislature approved the measure Thursday, making Rhode Island the tenth state in the nation to give same-sex couples the right to wed. Iowa, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Washington and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. Their combined populations, based on U.S. Census estimates for 2012, represent 15.8% of the U.S. population.

Americans Blind to Truth about Planned Parenthood

A recent poll commissioned by the National Right to Life Committee shows that people need to be educated on the mission of Planned Parenthood. Because when that happens, they tend to change their view. The survey shows that a majority has a favorable opinion of the abortion giant. Although 63 percent said that they had a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, including 38 percent of those who identified themselves as pro-life, 55 percent of those polled did not know that Planned Parenthood performs abortions. But based on current figures, the truth is an estimated 27 percent of all abortions done in the U.S. are performed at Planned Parenthood facilities.

Results from the poll show that once people become informed of the fact Planned Parenthood kills well over 300,000 babies in the womb each year, the favorable opinion of the tax-supported organization fades. For example, 53 percent would either prohibit all abortions, or allow them only if the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest, which is much different from Planned Parenthood’s practice of performing abortion for any reason.

• The reason people do not know the truth about the abortion giant is the secular media does not report it.

FDA Approves Morning-After Pill Without Prescription

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it approved the availability of the Plan B One-Step emergency contraception pill without a prescription for women 15 and older. This move comes just weeks after a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, ordered the FDA to make the morning-after birth control pill available to women of any age, without a prescription. According to the new FDA decision, Plan B One-Step will now be labeled to reflect that proof of age is required to purchase it, and it cannot be sold where age cannot be verified. The packaging will include a product code that prompts the cashier to ask and verify the age of the customer.

The Obama administration on Wednesday appealed a federal judge’s order to lift all age limits on who can buy morning-after birth control pills without a prescription. In appealing the ruling, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn’t have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available.

Alabama Senate Votes To Ignore New Federal Gun Laws

The Alabama State legislature is warning the federal government and other to back off on gun control legislation. On Tuesday, the Alabama State Senate passed legislation that declared “All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment.” The vote was 24-6 and also declared that all federal laws in violation of the Second Amendment (which are all of them) would be considered null and void in Alabama.

Illegals Entering US Triple With Talk of Immigration Reform

Arrests of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States have nearly tripled in recent months in anticipation of Congressional efforts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation, border patrol agents told CBS News. “Once the first group gets across, they call their family, they call their friends and let them know, ‘Hey the time is right, come on over,’” Border Patrol agent and union representative Chris Cabrera told CBS News. In March, 7,500 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. That’s up from 2,800 in January. Border Patrol agents have become so concerned about overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that they’ve complained to local and federal officials, the Monitor.com reports. Immigration into the United States had been slowing during the recession. But, CBS says, hopes of gaining citizenship under new legislation and a rebounding U.S. economy are fueling the fresh migration.

Suicides Double for 50-Somethings

Teen suicides often get the most media, but a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more attention needs to be directed at preventing suicide in adults as well. Between 1999 and 2010, suicides in the 35-to-64 age group increased 28.4%, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Suicides among people aged 50 to 59 years old specifically almost doubled during that time period. More than 38,000 Americans killed themselves in 2010; that’s more than double those who were killed in a homicide that same year. In 2009, the number of deaths from suicide in the United States surpassed the number of deaths from motor vehicle crashes for the first time. Experts assume that the increase is related to the economic recession.

Time to Revive the Gold Standard?

The prospects for the United States to implement a 21st century gold standard are rising sharply, according to economist and author Ralph Benko. Writing in Forbes, Benko acknowledged official and academic debate about establishing a new gold standard has been out of favor and even given fringe status in recent decades. However, recent global economic turmoil and ultra-loose monetary policies may have given the debate fresh impetus. Critics say major governments’ monetary policies have debased sovereign currencies and that gold could be an alternative.

Economic News

Employers added a better-than-expected 165,000 jobs in April,, easing concerns that payroll growth may be slipping into a sustained mid-year slump. The unemployment rate fell to 7.5% from 7.6%, the Labor Department said Friday. That’s the lowest since December 2008. Businesses added 176,000 jobs. Federal, state and local governments cut 11,000. Professional and business services, restaurants and health care led the private-sector job gains.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell 18,000 in the week ended April 27, to 324,000 from a revised 342,000 the week before. Claims were at their lowest level since January 2008. The 4-week moving average of claims was 342,250, down 16,000 from the previous week. The peak of 670,000 was reached the week of March 28, 2009.

Nearly 4.4 million Americans were out of work for at least 27 weeks in April, according to Labor Department data released Friday. That’s a drop of 14% from last April, when the figure topped 5 million, and a far cry from April 2010, when a record 6.7 million people were unemployed for more than six months. What’s unknown is whether these formerly jobless folks are finding new positions or are simply giving up and dropping out of the labor force.

Unemployment fraud is costing the government billions of dollars in paid benefits to people who are still working, no longer alive or are behind bars, according to a recent report. A study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that of the $108 billion paid out in unemployment benefits in 2011, some $3.3 billion was paid out dishonestly The largest share of the fraud payments — $2.2 billion — went to people who were still working.

Investors cheered the latest report on the U.S. job market Friday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average briefly above 15,000 for the first time. The Dow rose 0.9% to end the day at 14,972. The S&P 500 gained 1%, rising above 1,600 for the first time. The Nasdaq gained 1.1% to end at the highest level since November 2000.

Foreigners now hold more than $13 trillion in American securities, a record set as the U.S. seeks to assert itself as the safest port in troubled global waters. Foreign holdings have more than doubled since 2005 and are getting close to the $15 trillion total size of the U.S. economy

The Australian government has just announced new rules which penalize citizens who have responsibly set aside savings for their own retirement. Any income over A$100,000 drawn from a superannuation fund (the equivalent of an IRA in the United States) will now be taxed at 15%. Previously, all such income was tax-free. The government is going to tax people’s savings ‘on both ends,’ meaning that people are taxed on money they move INTO the retirement fund, and now they can be taxed again when they pull money out.

Persecution Watch

Christians in a village in Punjab, Pakistan were forced to evacuate their homes after they were attacked by armed Muslims who threatened to destroy their property. This is the third Christian community to come under attack in less than two months. A mob of around 50-60 armed Muslims attacked Christians in Eassa Pur village, Khanewal district, on 26 April. The furious assailants opened fire on the believers after beating them and throwing stones at their houses, which they also threatened to torch. When the police arrived they took control of the furious mob, evacuating the Christian community to a safe place. Christian communities in nearby villages were also forced to flee their homes after receiving threats against their property.

A Texas high school track team was disqualified from competing in the state championships because one of the runners made a gesture thanking God after he crossed the finish line. Derrick Hayes, the anchor of the Columbus High School 4×100 relay team had just crossed the finish line when he raised his finger to the sky – thanking the Lord for winning the race that would send them to the state finals. But a judge with the University Interscholastic League, the governing body for high school athletics in Texas, ruled that the gesture was a violation of the taunting rule – and the Cardinals were stripped of their victory. Robert O’Connor, the superintendent of the school district filed an appeal, but so far the UIL is standing by its rule.

Middle East

Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli airstrike, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war. Syria’s state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties.

It was the third Israeli strike this year against Syria and the latest salvo in its long-running effort to disrupt Hezbollah’s quest to build an arsenal capable of spreading destruction inside the Jewish state. The strike comes as the U.S. considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its bloody civil war. Syria has condemned the Israeli airstrikes against targets around Damascus, saying the attacks aim “to give direct military support to terrorist groups” fighting the government and declared it “an act of war.”

Iraq

Twenty-five people died in a spate of car bombs Monday. Three of the bombs exploded at markets where people were shopping. Last week, bombs blew up at Sunni mosques amid Friday prayers and at a restaurant in a Shiite area. The uptick in violence has prompted fears among Iraqi leaders and international powers that the tensions between Sunnis and Shiites could escalate further and threaten to burst into full-blown sectarian war. After the U.S. military withdrawal, sectarianism began to re-emerge with a vengeance, plus al Qaeda in Iraq and various other groups are trying to re-establish themselves and there is fallout from what’s happening in neighboring Syria. More people died violently in Iraq in April than in any other month in nearly five years, the United Nations said Thursday. A total of 712 people died and 1,633 more sustained injuries.

Afghanistan

Seven U.S. service members were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest days for Americans in Afghanistan in recent months and the latest of attacks against international troops since the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive. The renewed violence came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged at a news conference that regular payments his government has received from CIA for more than a decade would continue. Karzai also said that talks on a U.S.-Afghan bilateral security agreement to govern future American military presence in the country had been delayed because of conditions the Afghans were placing on the deal. NATO says five members of the U.S.-led international military coalition have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan — the first foreign troops killed in May around the country.

North Korea

North Korea has sentenced a Korean American to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified “hostile acts” against the state, the North’s KCNA news agency announced Thursday. Kenneth Bae, 44, from Washington state, had been detained since November after entering the country’s northeast as either a tourist or tour operator. A devout Christian, who ran a travel company from the northeast China city of Dalian, Bae had previously visited North Korea several times without incident. He could be used as a bargaining chip to lure the U.S. to Pyongyang to negotiate his release, and thereby kick-start a dialogue with Washington over North Korea’s nuclear program.

Bangladesh

The death toll in the factory-building collapse in Savar, Bangladesh rose to more than 580 on Sunday, a day after the country’s finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn’t think it was “really serious.” The government suspended Savar’s mayor and arrested an engineer who was accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. The building owner was arrested earlier. The government appears to be attempting to fend off accusations that it is in part to blame for the tragedy because of weak oversight of the building’s construction.

Wildfires

A flow of damp air from the Pacific Ocean helped firefighters in their battle against a huge wildfire burning through coastal mountains in Southern California. Fire crews on Saturday worked to create miles of containment lines as the high winds and hot, dry air of recent days faded. The wildfire 50 miles north of Los Angeles mushroomed to 43 square miles Friday. Forecasters said a weekend of increased humidity should help teams fighting the early-season blaze. The fire forced the evacuation of a university and thousands of people from hundreds of homes. The blaze was 56 percent contained as of Sunday morning. Some 2,000 homes were threatened. Despite the fire’s size and proximity to populated areas, no houses had been destroyed, though 15 were damaged and a cluster of RVs in a parking lot was destroyed by flames.

Firefighters were able to beat back a powerful wildfire that bore down on a dry Southern California city, limiting the damages to a single house and curbing the threat to hundreds more. But the difficult conditions that helped fuel the 4½ square-mile blaze in Riverside County on Wednesday could be even worse in parts of the state Thursday. Winds of 20-30 mph are expected, along with nearly non-existent humidity and an abundance of wildfire fuel. The grass, brush and trees are very volatile. They’re ready to burn.

Weather

The calendar said May 1, but it might as well have been winter across the front range of the Rockies where 5 inches or more of snow was be the norm from Cheyenne south to Denver. While their neighbors to the northeast were braving the winter-like weather, residents of Phoenix were running their air conditioners full blast to cope with triple-digit temperatures. The May Day snow storm made travel difficult on some Colorado highways, where several crashes were reported late Wednesday, and along Interstate 80 in southeastern Wyoming. Denver’s airport reported about 50 flight cancellations, and other flights were delayed for de-icing.

This winter storm was a rare snowstorm for parts of the central United States that delivered historic amounts of snow for the month of May to the Midwest. Up to 18 inches of snow fell in Blooming Prairie, Minn. Several locations in western Wisconsin have reported more than 14 inches of snow, including one report of up to 18 inches near Hayward, Wis. Up to 11 inches was reported in Britt, Iowa.

Six states in the Midwest have been suffering from flooding since Sunday and more rain is on the way. At least six rivers in northern Illinois have surged to record levels and downpours have also sparked flooding concerns for rivers in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi and Michigan.

Some farmers and ranchers in parts of the West and the Plains, including southwest Oklahoma, are pondering the prospect of another year of a desert-like landscape and a disappointing harvest. For some, this year may be a tipping point. Two years of heat and far too little rain already have drained Oklahoma agriculture of more than $1.1 billion in direct losses. In that time, farmers and ranchers sold nearly one in five of their cattle as ponds and creeks dried up and feed became scarce. It’s a scenario Oklahomans know only too well and dread — parched earth, blowing dust, burned crops. During the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, boiling dark masses of dirt, some thousands of feet high, rolled along, blotting out the sun.

The World Meteorological Organization says last year was the ninth-warmest since record-keeping began in 1850, despite the cooling effect of the weather pattern called La Nina. The U.N.’s weather agency says this marks the 27th year in a row the global average temperature – 58 degrees Fahrenheit in 2012 – surpassed the 1961-1990 average. WMO said in annual climate report Thursday the years from 2001 to 2012 were all among the top 13 warmest on record – the hottest being 2010, when the average temperature was 58.2 degrees F.

Signs of the Times (4/30/13)

Prayer for America Takes Place Thursday

Millions of people across the country will gather in thousands of separate events to worship and pray Thursday in honor of the annual National Day of Prayer (NDP). Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, will serve at the Honorary Chairman of 2013 Pray for America. He will deliver the keynote address at the National Observance in Washington, D.C. Laurie has also written a special prayer to be simultaneously read throughout the nation Thursday at noon, ET. GOD TV will broadcast the D.C. event live from 9 to noon, ET. “Our country is at a place where we have many things we need to pray about,” NDP Director of Public Relations Dion Elmore told CitizenLink. “With attacks on marriage, the sanctity of life and religious freedoms, we need to rise up in our nation and pray.”

Obama: God Bless Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood ends the lives of over 330,000 babies every year while taking over 500 million of our tax dollars. What did President Obama tell them? “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.” Last week the most pro-abortion President in our nation’s history stood before the largest abortion provider in America and declared: “Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere today. It’s not going anywhere tomorrow.” President Obama became the first sitting president in American history to address Planned Parenthood at its annual conference.

Mormon Church Backs Boy Scout Gays

The Mormon church has given its blessing to the Boy Scouts of America on its latest proposal to lift the gay ban for youth members but continue to exclude gays as adult leaders. The Mormon church has more Scouting troops than any other religious denomination in the country so there was widespread interest in what it would say about the proposal.

• The Mormon Church backs gay rights because that will ultimate redefine marriage and open the doors once again to polygamy

Abrupt Halt to Terror Suspect’s Questioning ‘Mind-Boggling’

Outrage is rising over the decision to read teenage Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights just as he was beginning to open up about the blast that killed three and injured about 270 people. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said it was “mind boggling” that a judge stopped the questioning while the 19-year-old was talking to FBI agents. And House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers called the decision to intervene a “God-awful policy.” Lawmakers are demanding to know why Tsarnaev, who has confessed to being involved in the planting of two bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line, was read his Miranda rights in the middle of his interrogation. Tsarnaev had been under interrogation for about 16 hours in his hospital room before a magistrate and representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office entered the room and read him his Miranda rights. He then stopped talking.

• Terrorism is an act of war and combatants should be treated as war criminals

U.S. Gives Big, Secret Push to Internet Surveillance

The Justice Department agreed to issue “2511 letters” immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws. The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors’ Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12. The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as “2511 letters,” a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.

Video Surveillance Booming

Video surveillance was already big business in the U.S. Expect it to get bigger. After law enforcement used closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to help identify last week’s Boston bombing suspects, lawmakers and surveillance advocates renewed calls for increased numbers of cameras nationwide. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly wants to “increase significantly” the amount of surveillance equipment in Manhattan, which already has one of the country’s most robust systems. The best way to limit events like last week’s bombings, the argument goes, is to accept 24-hour surveillance in public spaces. No amount of security can completely eliminate risk, so it’s difficult to know where to draw the line. Are 10,000 cameras really twice as good as 5,000? When the goal is to push risk as close to zero as possible, spending can asymptotically stretch into infinity.

• Big Brother has arrived on the wings of terrorism. Certainly CCTV surveillance is a boon to law enforcement, but the likelihood of government abuse also increases. How much is too much. We’ll find out soon.

Black Voter Turnout Rate Passes Whites

America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home. Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press. Last year’s heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting.

Economic News

Under President Barack Obama, the federal government’s debt has increased by an amount per household that exceeds the annual median household income. Since Obama’s first inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal debt has climbed $6,167,472,778,984.22. That equals about $53,616 for each of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau currently estimates are in the country. By contrast, the Census Bureau’s most recent estimate of the median household income was $50,502 (for 2011).

Personal income and spending both increased 0.2% in March, the Commerce Department said Monday. Personal income increased $30.9 billion. Personal consumption expenditures increased $21.0 billion. These figures are down from February in which personal income increased $151.2 billion, or 1.1%, and spending increased $81.6 billion, or 0.7%. Higher incomes helped offset an increase in Social Security taxes that kicked in Jan. 1st.

Eurozone

Unemployment has surpassed Great Depression-era levels in Southern Europe. Recession is drifting to the once resilient economies of the north. Even some onetime hawks on government spending say they cannot cut any more. After years of insisting that the primary cure for Europe’s malaise is to slash spending, the champions of austerity, most notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, find themselves under intensified pressure to back off unpopular remedies and find some way to restore faltering growth to the world’s largest economic bloc. On Friday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain, who once promoted aggressive budget cuts, became the latest leader to reject European Union targets for reducing deficits. A recent court ruling against job cuts in Portugal; a new, austerity-averse prime-minister-in-waiting in Italy; and mounting doubts among ordinary Europeans and even the International Monetary Fund have forced senior officials in Brussels to acknowledge that a move away from what critics see as a fixation on debt and deficits toward more growth-friendly policies is necessary.

Persecution Watch

The Supreme Ulema Council in Morocco, a body of Islamic scholars headed by King Mohammed VI, published a fatwa in the Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm this week declaring that Muslims who renounce their faith “should be condemned to death,” International Christian Concern reports. Christians are concerned that the edict, which has sparked controversy in the country, will be used to “harass” and “harm” the church if approved. The Supreme Ulema Council, the only institution entitled to issue fatwas in Morocco, reportedly drafted the edict in April 2012, but only recently published it. Article 220 of Morocco’s Penal Code does state, however, that “attempting to undermine the faith of a Muslim or convert him to another religion” is punishable with six months to three years in prison.

Middle East

An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcycle in Gaza on Tuesday, killing a man who the military said was a top militant in a shadowy al-Qaeda-influenced group who had been involved in a recent rocket attack on southern Israel. Israel responded Sunday to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip with airstrikes on sites used by Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory. Israeli jets struck “a terrorist weapon storage facility and a Hamas training installation” after rockets landed in southern Israel the night before. It also closed a closed a key border crossing with the territory. Gaza health officials said nobody was hurt in the strikes. On Saturday, thousands of Israelis had been outside in parks and forests celebrating the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer with traditional bonfires. The rockets exploded in open areas but caused no injuries.

Jordanian officials have confirmed that several Syrian missiles have crossed the border and landed near the village of Thneibat, setting some farmland on fire but otherwise causing no casualties. The cross-border hits appear to have been incidental to a campaign of air strikes against rebel-held territory along the Syrian side of the border, but also follow warnings earlier this week from Syria about Jordan’s support for the rebels. Jordan’s support for the rebels has been escalating dramatically in recent weeks, with more US trainers showing up and the announcement that Jordan will lead the arming of the rebels.

Syria

GOP lawmakers say Obama must stick with his vow to take action should Syria cross a ‘red line’ by using chemical weapons on its citizens, amid such mounting evidence, but caution against sending in American troops. Instead, President Obama revised and extended his “red line” for stopping Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. “We cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations,” Obama said.

• The key word in that statement is systematic, which the White House is using to fudge its earlier criteria

Syria’s prime minister escaped an assassination attempt Monday when a bomb went off near his convoy in Damascus, state media reported, the latest attack targeting a top official in President Bashar Assad’s regime. Syrian rebels attacked a sprawling military air base in the country’s northwest on Saturday, while in the south opposition forces assaulted a string of army checkpoints and positions, activists said. The raids follow nearly two weeks of advances by Syrian government troops, mostly in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, and areas near the Lebanese border in the central province of Homs.

Afghanistan

For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency. All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

The Taliban on Saturday announced the start of their spring offensive, signaling plans to step up attacks as the weather warms across Afghanistan, making both travel and fighting easier. The statement comes toward the end of a month that already has been the deadliest of the year. The militant group’s leadership vowed that “every possible tactic will be utilized in order to detain or inflict heavy casualties on the foreign transgressors.” It said that will include more so-called insider attacks by members of the Afghan security forces against their colleagues or foreign troops.

Pakistan

A suicide bomber targeting policemen killed six people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday in the latest attack ahead of next month’s parliamentary election. Pakistani Taliban detonated bombs at the campaign offices of two politicians in the country’s northwest on Sunday, police said, killing at least nine people in an escalation of attacks on secular, left-leaning political parties. Both politicians, who were not in the offices at the time of the blasts, are running as independent candidates for national assembly seats to represent constituencies in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, where scores of militant groups operate including some with links to al-Qaeda. The general elections will be held on May 11.

Iraq

Five car bombs exploded Monday in public areas in predominantly Shiite cities and districts in central and southern Iraq, killing 26 civilians and wounding dozens. The blasts come amid a week-long spike in sectarian violence following clashes at a Sunni protest camp in the north of the country. Coordinated bombings in civilian areas are a favorite strategy used by al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Libya

Armed men in trucks with anti-aircraft guns mounted on them occupied the Libyan Justice Ministry in Tripoli on Tuesday, forcing ministry staff to leave. The militants consisted of 20 to 30 armed men in military fatigues. This comes as the nation’s Foreign Ministry remains under siege for a third straight day. The armed protesters have said their main goal was to push the General National Congress to pass a proposed law that would ban Gadhafi-era officials from holding government posts.

Wildfires

Californians can expect a dangerous summer wildfire season due to a dry winter that has left the normally green hills of spring parched and tinder-dry, authorities warned. State fire crews have responded to more than 680 wildfires since the beginning of the year — some 200 more than average for the period. They included several 300- and 400-acre blazes around the state.

Weather

Firefighters responded to at least 50 calls for water rescues after heavy downpours and thunderstorms hit the Houston area on Saturday. most of the calls Saturday came from motorists who mistakenly drove into high water and became trapped. Flood Control District officials reported as much as 6 inches of rainfall in some parts of Harris County in three hours, mostly in the west, southwest and central parts of the area.

Only 65 tornadoes have touched down in the U.S. so far this April, according to preliminary data through April 25. Over the past 10 years (2003-2012), the April average through April 25 is 195 tornadoes, making it the quietest April, tornado-wise, since 1992. Contrast that with the record-setting April 2011, when an incredible 758 tornadoes recorded, including the massive “Superoutbreak” from April 25-28.

Signs of the Times (4/26/13)

Mosque That Boston Bombers Attended has Radical Ties

The mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon double bombing has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism. Several people who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Mass., have been investigated for Islamic terrorism, including a conviction of the mosque’s first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in connection with an assassination plot against a Saudi prince. Its sister mosque in Boston, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has invited guests who have defended terrorism suspects. A former trustee appears in a series of videos in which he advocates treating gays as criminals, says husbands should sometimes beat their wives and calls on Allah (God) to kill Zionists and Jews. The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews.

UN Official Says Boston Got What It Deserved

UN Human Rights Council “expert” Richard Falk has published a statement saying Bostonians got what they deserved in last week’s terror attack. He quotes W.H. Auden to make his point: “to whom evil is done/do evil in return.” Richard Falk is the UN’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” He has held the post since 2008, despite exposure as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Falk wrote that the police action in Boston was a “hysterical dragnet.” Boston’s dead were “canaries” that “have to die” because of America’s “fantasy of global domination.” Falk explains the attacks as justifiable “resistance.” In his words: “The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.” He minimizes the crime and predicts worse if America doesn’t change its ways to better accommodate the demands of “the Islamic world.”

• The Bible says: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) Islam proclaims the opposite, promoting evil under the pretext of goodness

France Legalizes Gay Marriage After Months of Debate

France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after months of debate that divided the country and sparked massive protests, WORLD Magazine reports. Police braced themselves by the thousands ahead of the vote, preparing for dueling protests around the National Assembly building and along the Seine River. They used tear gas and pepper spray against hundreds of thousands of supporters of traditional marriage the last time they gathered to publicly protest the law, claiming demonstrators got violent. The measure passed easily, 331-225, in the Socialist-majority National Assembly. At least one spectator, a supporter of traditional marriage, was thrown out of the gallery. According to Christiane Taubira, France’s justice minister, the first same-sex weddings could be held as early as June. France is the 14th country to redefine marriage, with Tuesday’s vote coming a week after New Zealand’s.

Boy Scouts Proposes to Lift Ban on Gay Members

Conservative and liberal religious leaders alike are expressing displeasure with the Boy Scouts’ proposal to accept gay members but reject gay leaders, the Religion News Service reports. The Boy Scouts released its draft proposal on April 19 that will be voted on at its annual meeting in May. “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone,” reads the proposed resolution, which also notes that the Scouts “will maintain the current membership policy for all adult leaders of the Boy Scouts of America.” Scouting officials had earlier proposed dropping the gay ban for both adults and children, but reconsidered after massive resistance from religious groups and conservatives. The policy shift would leave intact the Scouts’ ban on atheists and other nonbelievers, who decline to say the Boy Scout Oath because it begins: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.” Leaders of Scouting groups sponsored by religious organizations said their groups are mulling the Scout proposal. According to the BSA, religious organizations comprise 70 percent of its sponsoring organizations. Mormons, Methodists and Catholics — the three largest groups — sponsored more than 1 million of the 2.6 million Scouts in 2011. The Religious Relationships Task Force unanimously requested in February that the Scouts postpone a possible removal of the ban on gay members and leaders so they would have more time to consider it. “As you might imagine, there’s a variety of opinions among our faith groups,” said R. Chip Turner, national chairman of the task force.

House Challenge DHS Ammo Buys

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys. “It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing. The hearing itself was unusual, as questions about the department’s ammunition purchases until recently had bubbled largely under the radar. Republicans said the purchases raise “serious” questions about waste and accountability. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he suspects rounds are being stockpiled, and then either “disposed of,” passed to non-federal agencies, or shot “indiscriminately.”

• The DHS is either trying to get ammo off the market as a backdoor attempt at gun control or is arming itself for domestic suppression of dissention

Evangelicals Give More to Charity, Study Finds

Evangelical Christians tend to give more to charity than their peers, according to a new study by the Barna Group, Baptist Press reports. The study finds that 79 percent of evangelical Christians gave money to a church or charity last year, while 65 percent donated items and 60 percent volunteered their time. Only 1 percent of evangelicals say they donated nothing at all, which beats the national rate (13 percent) and the rate among those who claim no faith at all (25 percent). “A person’s religious identification has a lot to do with whether or not they donate to causes they believe in,” the study said. The study concluded that Americans support churches and nonprofits about equally. Of those who gave in the last 12 months, 43 percent say most of their contributions went to a church, while 45 percent indicated a nonprofit. Evangelicals are least likely to give to a nonprofit (28 percent), while about two-thirds of evangelicals (66 percent) who made charitable contributions gave to a church. Conversely, 82 percent of atheist and agnostic donors gave to a nonprofit, while only 4 percent gave to a church.

Bird-to-Human Infections Likelier with New Flu Strain

World Health Organization officials say a lethal new strain of bird flu that emerged in China over the past month appears to spread more easily from birds to humans than the one that started killing people in Asia a decade ago. Scientists are watching the H7N9 virus closely to see if it could spark a global pandemic but say so far there is little evidence to show the virus can spread easily from human to human. Health officials at a news conference Wednesday in Beijing said they believe the infections with the H7N9 strain are primarily taking place at live poultry markets. The virus has infected more than 100 people in China, seriously sickening most of them, and killing around 20 — mostly near the eastern coast around Shanghai. The World Health Organization warned that the H7N9 virus was “unusually dangerous” and one of the most lethal that doctors and medical investigators have faced in recent years.

America’s Air is Getting Cleaner

America’s air is getting cleaner, which doesn’t just mean a healthier public — it also saves the U.S. billions of dollars. The American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report — based on EPA findings for 2009 through 2011 — found that the three types of air pollution they track have all declined. Improved air quality helped prevent 160,000 deaths in 2010 (the last year data was available); avoid 1.7 million asthma attacks; and reduce hospital admissions and emergency room visits by 86,000 each. By 2020, the EPA estimates that the savings from cleaner air will total $2 trillion annually. Still, about 132 million people in the United States, or 42% of the country’s population, live in counties that have unhealthy levels of at least one form of air pollution.

Millions Can’t Afford See a Doctor

A growing number of Americans are skipping needed medical care because they can’t afford it. A growing number of Americans are skipping needed medical care because they can’t afford it. Some 80 million people, around 43% of America’s working-age adults, didn’t go to the doctor or access other medical services last year because of the cost, according to the Commonwealth Fund’s Biennial Health Insurance Survey, released Friday. That’s up from 75 million people two years ago and 63 million in 2003. Not surprisingly, those who were uninsured or had inadequate health insurance were most likely to have trouble affording care. But 28% of working-age adults with good insurance also had to forgo treatment because of the price. Nearly three in 10 adults said they did not visit a doctor or clinic when they had a medical problem, while more than a quarter did not fill a prescription or skipped recommended tests, treatment or follow-up visits. One in five said they did not get needed specialist care.

Doctors Blast Ethics of $100,000 Cancer Drugs

Should a life-saving drug that can be profitably sold for far less cost more than $100,000 per year? A group of more than 120 cancer researchers and physicians took the unusual step this week of publishing a research paper taking aim at pharmaceutical prices they see as exorbitant and unjustifiable. Drug companies are profiteering, the doctors say, by charging whatever the market will bear for medications that patients literally can’t live without. The paper analyzes and criticizes the cost of drugs used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia, a rare type of cancer that responds very well to drug therapy. The 10-year survival rate for CML patients now tops 80% for those who receive targeted drugs — but the annual price tag for the treatment is usually in the six-figure range. Those prices bear little relation to what the drugs actually cost to develop and produce, the doctors say.

Economic News

The nation’s economy perked up in the first quarter, expanding at a 2.5% annual pace, the government said Friday, but that was less than expected. The pickup was fueled by stronger consumer spending and increased business stockpiling that was partly offset by a drop in government spending. Growth is expected to slow in coming months as the impact of federal budget cuts ripple through the economy.

Consumer spending increased at a 3.2% annual rate in the first quarter, fastest pace in two years as Americans saved less. Business investment also picked up, but at a slower pace than in the fourth quarter. But business stockpiling of products increased at a 1% rate after falling in the fourth quarter.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell 16,000 to 339,000 the week ended April 20, the Labor Department said Thursday. It’s the second-lowest level in five years. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out weekly fluctuations, fell 4,500 to 357,500 last week. When weekly claims for unemployment benefits stay below 350,000 for weeks in a row, economists agree that workers are more likely to be able to find a job.

The Commerce Department says orders for durable goods declined 5.7% in March, after a 4.3% gain the previous month. The steep March decline was exacerbated by a 48.2% fall in commercial aircraft orders. Still, even excluding aircraft, cars and transportation equipment, orders dropped 1.4%.One positive sign: So-called core capital goods, which signal companies plans to expand and modernize their operations, ticked up 0.2%.

The world’s largest economies are losing momentum. Recent data shows slowing growth in the United States and China, while Europe’s recession is still underway. Japan has announced a massive stimulus program, but it’s not likely to grow much this year either. Meanwhile, the euro zone is still stuck in a recession. Even Germany, the largest of the European economies, saw its services and manufacturing sectors contract in April.

Eurozone

With more than 6 million people unemployed for the first time, Spain’s jobless rate shot up to a record 27.2% in the first quarter, a 1.1% increase from the previous quarter, another grim picture of the recession-wracked country. The number of people out of work stood at 6.2 million, first time the number has breached 6 million. The number of people considered long-term unemployed — out of a job more than a year — increased to 3.5 million while the unemployment rate for those under 25 years old was a staggering 57%. In Greece, 34.2% individuals aged 25 to 34 are unemployed. It’s even worse for younger workers — 59.3% of Greeks aged 15 to 24 are out of work.

Britain dodged recession after official figures showed the economy grew in the first quarter. The Office for National Statistics said Thursday that the economy grew by 0.3% in the first quarter compared with the previous three-month period. A recession is typically defined as two quarters of economic contraction. The economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012. Observers had feared that news of another recession — what the media had been calling a “Triple Dip” — would scare consumers even more, feeding into a vicious cycle that has the economy flat-lining.

Persecution Watch

Islamist militants in Somalia have killed the widow of a Christian who was slain for his faith in December, leaving the couple’s five children orphaned, Morning Star News reports. Islamic extremist al Shabaab rebels shot 42-year-old Fartun Omar to death on April 13 in Buulodbarde, 12 miles from the central Somalian city of Beledweyne, sources said. The extremists had been searching for her for several months, as they knew that she was a secret Christian like her late husband, Mursal Isse Siad. Siad had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam, and was shot outside his home by two unidentified masked men on Dec. 8, 2012. After his death, Omar initially fled the area with her five children.

Two leaders of the Christian community in Aleppo, Syria, who were kidnapped by gunmen on Monday are still missing, WORLD reports. Greek Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim were abducted Monday near the Turkish border while on a mission to negotiate the release of other kidnapped Christians. Muslim and Christian leaders in the region are calling for the two men’s release, but neither rebel groups nor government forces have claimed responsibility.

A Christian-run children’s home in India has been attacked by a group of Muslim extremists who beat staff and visitors and vandalized property. Islamic leaders have falsely accused the group running the home of converting Muslim children. A group of mullahs descended on the home in Srinagar, in the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir. During the attack they tried to kill Pastor Neethi Rajan, who runs the home, and attempted to kidnap the children staying there. When police officers arrived, the distraction allowed the pastor’s family to hide in the attic.

Middle East

The Israeli air force shot down a drone approaching the nation’s coast Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said. An Israeli F-16 shot the drone with air-to-air missiles, an Israeli military official told CNN. It went down five nautical miles off the coast of Haifa, and Israeli naval forces were searching the area while an investigation was initiated. “I view with utmost gravity this attempt to violate our border,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel’s citizens.” Thursday’s incident marked the second time an unmanned aircraft had been intercepted in Israeli airspace within the past seven months. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for sending the drone, which Israeli officials at the time said appeared to have originated in Lebanon.

Syria

With Thursday’s news that U.S. intelligence shows evidence that sarin gas has been used in Syria, all eyes are now on President Obama, who said in August that any sign of chemical weapons use in the country’s civil war would be “a red line for us.” The Obama administration said Thursday that it is working to gather more information on the reports of sarin-gas use and is calling for a full-scale U.N. investigation into what may have happened. The first direct U.S. support for the armed opposition arrived in the country last month in the form of food and medicine. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen noted Tuesday that “the situation in Syria has dramatically deteriorated” and “continues to pose a threat to regional stability.”

As Islamists increasingly fill the ranks of Syrian rebels, President Bashar al-Assad is waging an energized campaign to persuade the United States that it is on the wrong side of the civil war. Some government supporters and officials believe they are already coaxing — or at least frightening — the West into holding back stronger support for the opposition. Confident they can sell their message, government officials have eased their reluctance to allow foreign reporters into Syria, paraded prisoners they described as extremist fighters and relied unofficially on a Syrian-American businessman to help tap into American fears of groups like Al Qaeda. “We are partners in fighting terrorism,” Syria’s prime minister, Wael Nader al-Halqi, said. Despite hopes in Damascus, President Obama has not backed off his demand that Mr. Assad step down. The administration has also kept up economic pressure on his government and has increased nonlethal aid to the opposition while calling for a negotiated settlement to the fighting.

• Unrest in Muslim nations will continue to open doors to Islamic militants, an end-time scenario that will continue to grow in frequency and intensity

Iraq

Islamist extremists want Iraq to be a “Muslim only” country, and as a result, Christians in Iraq remain continuous targets of violent attacks, Open Doors USA reports. While most of the attacks against Christians are part of the general violence, such as bomb attacks and mortar fire which intensified during provincial elections last Saturday, a part of the violence can be labeled as specifically targeted against Christians. “Since the fall of Saddam Hussein 10 years ago, an estimated 1,000 Christians have been killed, a relatively high number compared with percentages killed from other groups in Iraqi society.” All these targeted attacks serve only one purpose, shares the field worker: “We received documents and threats stating that the aim of the Islamist Insurgents is to make Iraq a ‘Muslim only’ country; they want the Christians out.” According to Open Doors’ 2013 World Watch List materials, there are only an estimated 330,000 to 350,000 Christians left in Iraq. There were more than 1.2 million Christians in the early 1990s. Many of the believers have fled to Jordan and Lebanon or to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. Iraq is ranked No. 4 on the list of the worst persecutors around the globe.

Korea

Seoul said Friday that it has decided to withdraw the roughly 175 South Koreans still at a jointly run factory complex in North Korea, raising a major question about the survival of the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. The statement by the country’s minister in charge of inter-Korean relations came after North Korea rejected Seoul’s demand for talks on the factory park that has been closed nearly a month. Seoul said it issued a Friday deadline for North Korea to respond to its call for talks because it was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine. North Korea hasn’t allowed supplies or workers to cross the border since early this month.

Weather

The blast of cold air that took over the central states this week is broke records on Wednesday morning. New daily record low temperatures were set in more than a dozen locations in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado.

As of late April 2013, drought has been wiped out of the Ohio and mid-Mississippi Valleys, Alabama and most of Georgia. Drought improvement has also been noted in parts of the Plains and Rockies. A large area of the nation remains in drought from the Upper Midwest and Plains to Southern California.  A swath of central Florida has also slipped into drought.  Overall, 47% of the contiguous U.S. remains in drought, down from over 65% in late September 2012.

Just in time for the spring flood season, the federal sequester is threatening to shut off funding for hundreds of stream gauges used by the U.S. Geological Survey to predict and monitor flood levels across the country. Additional stream gauges may be affected if USGS partners at state and local agencies reduce their funding support. USGS is quick to point out, though, they won’t take out of service the gauges now being used to monitor the heavy floods currently soaking the Midwest.

Signs of the Times (4/23/13)

Boston Bomber Says Brothers Acted Alone

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, has told investigators that his brother was the driving force behind the attacks and that they were motivated by religion, but did not have help or contact from terrorists or groups overseas, according to media reports quoting U.S. officials. Dzhokhar, who has injuries in his throat and tongue, has responded to questions about the attack by writing down some answers or simply nodding. Tsarnaev indicated that the two brothers conceived of the bombing attack on their own and were motivated by religious fervor. Officials also say that Tsarnaev told them they learned how to make bombs on the Internet. The brothers appear to have gotten their ideas — and bomb-making know-how — from Inspire, an English-language website Al Qaeda uses to radicalize Westerners, officials say.

The young widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev learned of his alleged role in the attacks the same way millions of Americans did: She saw it on TV. Katherine Russell, 24, worked long days as a home health care aide and suspected nothing — neither as her husband allegedly planned last week’s terrorist attacks nor in the four days that followed, her attorney, Amato DeLuca, told the Associated Press. He said Tsarnaev, 26, cared for the couple’s 3-year-old daughter while Russell worked. Russell converted to Islam and they married in 2009.

A key question has emerged as investigators comb through clues: What did Tamerlan Tsarnaev do during a trip to Russia and Chechnya from January to July of last year? Tamerlan was flagged as a potential extremist by Russian security services. After Tsarnaev returned to the United States in mid-July, a video of an Islamic militant known as Abu Dujana was posted and then removed from Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel. Tamerlan had already been investigated by the FBI. Why wasn’t this trip explored for links to terrorist training camps in Chechnya, a hotbed of Islamic militancy? Why wasn’t Tamerlan on a watch list?

• Expect a lot of coverups and false information as the FBI and CIA scramble to avoid blame

Terrorist Suspects Arrested in Canada

Two men accused of planning to carry out an al Qaeda-supported attack against a passenger train traveling between Canada and the United States will make their first court appearance on Tuesday, police said. The hearing in Toronto’s Old City Hall Court comes a day after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced they had arrested 30-year-old Chiheb Esseghaier of Montreal and 35-year-old Raed Jaser of Toronto. The two men face charges of “receiving support from al Qaeda elements in Iran” to carry out an attack and conspiring to murder people on a VIA railway train in the greater Toronto area.

Public Support for Gun Control Fades

Four months after the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a USA TODAY Poll finds support for a new gun-control law ebbing as prospects for passage on Capitol Hill seem to fade. Americans are more narrowly divided on the issue than in recent months, and backing for a bill has slipped below 50%, the poll finds. By 49%-45%, those surveyed favor Congress passing a new gun-control law. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in early April, 55% had backed a stricter gun law, which was down from 61% in February.

• The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were not licensed to have the firearms they used in several shootouts with police, Reuters reported. Gun control has little effect on criminals and terrorists.

Immigration Reform Bill Draws Criticism from Both Sides

Register with the government. Submit fingerprints. Pass background checks. Pay fines, application fees and taxes. Remain employed. Wait 10 years to apply for a green card. Learn English. Those are among the major hurdles immigrants currently in the country illegally would have to clear to eventually become citizens under the sweeping immigration-reform bill introduced last week by a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators. The pathway to citizenship is expected to be the most contentious and scrutinized section of the proposed legislation as the debate in Congress and among the public unfolds over the coming weeks. The 844-page bill also calls for billions of extra dollars in border-security spending to prevent illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The proposal, introduced Wednesday, is already drawing criticism from both sides of the debate. Many immigrant advocates say the pathway is too long; many opponents of illegal immigration, who played a major role in derailing immigration-reform attempts in 2006 and 2007, remain opposed to any legalization program, no matter how long or difficult, calling it amnesty.

Americans ‘Snapping’ by the Millions

The sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction, according to WorldNetDaily:

• Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat.
• Shocking new research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five of all high-school-aged children in the United States has been diagnosed with ADHD, and likewise a large new study of New York City residents shows, sadly, that one in five preteens – children aged six to 12 – have been medically diagnosed with either ADHD, anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder.
• Incredibly, 11 percent of all Americans aged 12 and older are currently taking SSRI antidepressants – those highly controversial, mood-altering psychiatric drugs with the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label and alarming correlation with school shooters. Women are especially prone to depression, with a stunning 23 percent of all American women in their 40s and 50s – almost one in four – now taking antidepressants, according to a major study by the CDC
• Add to that the tens of millions of users of all other types of psychiatric drugs, including (just to pick one) the 6.4 million American children between 4 and 17 diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin or similar psycho-stimulants. Throw in the 28 percent of American adults with a drinking problem, that’s more than 60 million, plus the 22 million using illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants, and pretty soon a picture emerges of a nation of drug-takers, with hundreds of millions dependent on one toxic substance or another – legal or illegal – to “help” them deal with the stresses and problems of life.
• Things are no better across the Atlantic – and may be worse, according to one major study that concluded almost 40 percent of Europeans are plagued by mental illness.
  • Separation from and rejection of God is the underlying cause of all mental/emotional problems

Economic News

Total existing-home sales fell 0.6% in March from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million. The slip, which surprised Wall Street analysts, was blamed largely on a lack of supply. Buyer traffic was 25% above year-ago levels, NAR says, but housing inventories were down almost 17% year-over-year. But, home sales were up 10.3% from March 2012.

After a sharp early year run-up that was expected to continue propelling prices up to $4 or more a gallon by late spring, pump prices have reversed course and continue to slide. Nationally, a gallon of gas now averages $3.51, down 18 cents over the past four weeks and 37 cents lower than year-ago prices. With crude oil prices slumping, prices are expected to fall another 20 cents a gallon by Memorial Day. Meanwhile, April consumption is the lowest since 1997. In some states, prices could fall below $3 a gallon.

Afghanistan

A civilian transport helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all nine people who were on board hostage, officials said Monday. Officials could not say whether the aircraft had made a precautionary landing or whether the Taliban had forced it down. Taliban fighters then captured all nine aboard the helicopter and took them from the area, The crew members and passengers are all civilian, but officials said they did not know their identities or nationalities.

Syria

Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said Tuesday that the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and criticized the international community for failing to respond, intensifying pressure on the Obama administration to intervene. “The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons,” said Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, research commander in the intelligence directorate of the Israeli Defense Forces, echoing a recent finding by Britain and France. “The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction,” he added, “is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate.”

The bodies of at least 566 people who were killed over a six-day period across Syria were found Sunday, according to Local Coordination Committees in Syria, an opposition group based in the country. That is the highest number of victims discovered in a single day since the war began in March 2011. Over the past six days, some 3,000 members of the security forces stormed the area. The dead include at least 300 civilians and 150 members of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Libya

France’s embassy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli has been hit by a car bomb, Libyan security officials told the Associated Press. Two guards were injured as a result of the attack and the blast caused extensive damage. The bomb set off a fire near the entrance to the embassy and two other nearby buildings also sustained damage. Foreign diplomatic missions have been targets in Libya since the country’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi, was removed from power in 2011. The eastern city of Benghazi has also seen frequent attacks. An attack on the U.S. consulate on Sept. 11 left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and there was an assassination attempt on Italian Consul Guido de Sanctis in January.

Nigeria

Fighting between Nigeria’s military and Islamic extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation’s far northeast, officials said Sunday, an attack that saw insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers spray machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians. The assault marks a significant escalation in the long-running insurgency Nigeria faces in its predominantly Muslim north, with Boko Haram extremists mounting a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry. The killings also mark one of the deadliest incidents ever involving Boko Haram. Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and extremist fighters. Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

Earthquakes

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck in the Mexican state of Michoacan on Sunday night, causing buildings to sway 200 miles away in Mexico City. Some people evacuated buildings in the capital, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. State officials in Michoacan also said they had no reports of casualties or damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was about 23 miles northeast of the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas. That is about 202 miles west-southwest of Mexico City.

Weather

We are now a month past the official start of spring and some parts of the central United States can’t shed the feeling of winter. Specifically, in the last two weeks we’ve seen three named winter storms spread significant snow in parts of the Rockies, Plains and Upper Midwest. Now, a fourth winter storm has delivered even more snow to those regions followed by record cold temperatures. This latest storm delivered more than a foot of snow to western South Dakota. Snow totals of 6 to 10 inches were measured in the Rapid City, S.D. area.

Flooding in the Midwest has turned fatal Saturday, with at least two deaths blamed on flash flooding and a third suspected. States of emergency were declared in half a dozen states, residents were evacuated and roads were closed in the affected areas. On Sunday, more than 45 river/stream gauges showed major floods in parts of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. Record flooding has been been recorded at around a dozen river gauges in Illinois. Record flooding is ongoing on the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Mich. More rain is expected to fall on Tuesday in the areas hit hard by flooding last week.

Signs of the Times (4/20/13)

Boston Bombers are Islamic Militants from Chechnya

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing remained hospitalized with serious injuries this morning as the hunt for answers goes full tilt to discover why the alleged terrorists turned against a country they once embraced. Police captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Friday night, ending a tense, five-day drama that gripped Massachusetts with fear and rekindled the specter of terror across the nation. He and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in an earlier gun battle with police, are Islamic Chechens who came to the U.S. and – for a time – seemed to want to succeed in America. FBI agents interviewed one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings two years ago, but found no connection with terror groups.

Chechnya, a Russian republic, has been the scene of terrorism and related violence since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. Militants from Chechnya and other restive regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus have targeted Moscow and other areas with bombings and hostage-takings for more than 20 years. The allegations of ties to Monday’s Boston bombings are the first connection of terror attacks in the United States. Predominantly Muslim, Chechnya declared independence from Russia in November 1991. A full-scale separatist war broke out in 1994 and lasted through most of the 1990s. It was only after a second wave of Russian military action in the early part of the last decade that Chechnya fell under firmer Russian control. However, Chechen terrorists have committed sporadic large-scale attacks in Russia since then. In March 2010, Chechen terrorists claimed responsible for bombings on the Moscow subway system that killed more than 40 people.

• No matter how much Obama and the liberal media wanted the bombers to be white, American Christian conservatives, the truth is that Islamists are the terrorists in 99% of the cases around the world

New Zealand Approves Gay-Marriage Bill

Hundreds of jubilant gay-rights advocates celebrated at New Zealand’s Parliament as the country become the thirteenth in the world and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage. Lawmakers voted 77 to 44 Wednesday night in favor of the gay-marriage bill. Same-sex marriage is currently recognized in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Denmark. Lawmakers in Uruguay approved a law last week that President Jose Mujica is expected to sign.

Gun Background Check Expansion Defeated

Supporters of new gun control legislation are vowing to ramp up their campaign for expanded background checks despite suffering a major defeat in the Senate Wednesday, threatening to overpower the gun lobby even if it takes years. A Senate proposal to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales, while exempting personal transactions, failed on a 54-46 vote Wednesday. It needed 60 to pass. Opponents, which included Republicans and rural-state Democrats, said the measure would infringe on Second Amendment rights by imposing a burden on law-abiding gun owners while doing little to stop criminals. They also repeated the concern that the system could lead to a gun registry.

‘Gang of Eight’ Releases Immigration Plan

The eight senators who authored the newly unveiled bipartisan immigration-reform bill said on Thursday that they are confident their efforts will not collapse the way a bipartisan gun-control bill did this week. Immigration reform has much wider support among both Democrats and Republicans than gun control does, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Schumer is one of the “Gang of Eight” senators who released their bill this week. Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, said the most compelling reason for the senators’ confidence is the unprecedented coalition of diverse interest groups that have come together around the legislation. Among them: labor unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, farmers and farm workers, Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and immigrant-rights advocates and conservatives such as Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. A bipartisan coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general also is calling on congressional leaders to pass reform.

Obamacare Reality: Doctor Shortage on the Way

With 30 million new people expected to enter the health-care system in 2014 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, experts say a looming doctor shortage isn’t a chance—it’s a reality. Some experts expect the shortage to hit the primary care physician (PCP) arena the hardest and explain that there is approximately one PCP for every 15,000 people in the U.S. but come 2020, there will be about 70,000 less doctors available to consumers as a direct result of the law. A recent Deloitte 2013 survey  of U.S. physicians found 57% doctors view changes in the industry under health-care reform as a threat, and six in 10 physicians report it’s likely that many will retire earlier than planned in the next two to three years, fueling the shortage.

Chinese Bird Flu Puzzling

Almost three weeks after China reported finding a new strain of bird flu in humans, experts are still stumped by how people are becoming infected when many appear to have had no recent contact with live fowl and the virus isn’t supposed to pass from person to person. The uncertainty adds to challenges the Chinese government is facing in trying to control the spread of the H7N9 bird flu virus that has already killed 17 people and infected 66 others in the country. Theories among experts about how the virus may be spreading run from the ways poultry is slaughtered in markets to infected droppings from migratory birds.

Economic News

Prices aren’t going up very much. Should we celebrate? Not really. Inflation that’s too low could be a bad sign for the U.S. economy, and some Federal Reserve officials are starting to get concerned.Prices are up 1.3% over a year ago. “Economic history has shown that economies perform best with slightly higher levels of inflation, such as 2% to 3%,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group. “Low and dormant inflation translates into a dormant economy.”

• Some economists are worried about deflation (i.e. price decreases), which would also deflate the economy

Arizona is on track to become the second state in the nation to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender, joining Utah as part of a conservative movement arising out of a lack of confidence in the Federal Reserve and fear that paper money could become virtually worthless as U.S. debt deflates the value of the dollar.

New claims for unemployment benefits rose 4,000 in the week ended April 13, to 352,000. The 4-week moving average was 361,250, up 2,750 from the previous week.

Jobs keep moving to the suburbs. Jobs within 3 miles of a city center fell from 24.5% of overall positions in 2000 to 22.9% in 2010, according to a report released Thursday from the Brookings Institution. During the same time, jobs in the outer suburbs — between 10 and 35 miles of a city’s center — grew from 40.9% in 2000 to 43.1% in 2010.

Persecution Watch

A weekend of violence left seven dead after three artillery shells crashed into a Central African Republic church, reports World Watch Monitor. At least twenty were reported dead after gun battles in sectors of Bangui, the capital of the republic, where rebel groups took power last month. The seven Christian victims in the attack were attending church service at the Evangelical Federation of Brothers church on Sunday. Many children were among the wounded and were transferred to a pediatric hospital for treatment, Rev. Mbaye-Bondoi told World Watch Monitor in a telephone interview. The pastor was also hurt but said the injury was not life-threatening. Various independent news reports said clashes erupted Saturday after members of the rebel forces known as Séléka began a sweep through parts of Bangui. There have been increased attacks on Christian clerics and lay people since the Séléka coalition formed in December.

Syria

The U.S. readied a package Saturday of up to $130 million in nonlethal military aid to Syrian opposition forces while European countries consider easing an arms embargo, moves that could further pressure the Assad government. Since February, the U.S. has shipped food and medical supplies directly to the Free Syrian Army. The aid was expanded later aid to include defensive military equipment. So far, the U.S. has provided an estimated $117 million in nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition.

In a critical indication of growing U.S. military involvement in the civil war in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the deployment of more American troops to Jordan. He said the troops will work alongside Jordanian forces to “improve readiness and prepare for a number of scenarios.” The deployment “creates an additional capability” beyond what has been there, one official said, and will give the United States the ability to “potentially form a joint task force for military operations, if ordered.” The new deployment will include communications and intelligence specialists who will assist the Jordanians and “be ready for military action” if President Barack Obama were to order it.

• Syrian rebels are more and more directed by Islamic militants; they are not our friends and we should not support them in any manner

Iraq

A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a Baghdad cafe crowded with young people late Thursday, killing at least 26 and wounding dozens ahead of provincial elections scheduled for the weekend. The rare evening attack, which came at the start of the local weekend, brought to 30 the number of people killed across the country Thursday. Earlier in the day, a car bomb struck an army convoy in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing three soldiers and wounding five others. Hours later, one policeman was killed and three others were wounded when gunmen attacked a security checkpoint in western Baghdad.

Iran

Iran’s oil ministry says the country is considering exporting oil to North Korea as a way to improve its battered economy. Talks are underway between Tehran and Pyongyang bout the oil exports. An oil deal would bring the two nations – both deeply at odds with the U.S. and the West over nuclear weapons development – closer together. In September, they signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement. A delegation from North Korea’s oil ministry is currently visiting Iran. Iranian and North Korean officials have said in the past that their nations are in “one trench” in the confrontation with Western powers.

North Korea

North Korea set out demanding conditions for any talks with Washington and Seoul, calling for the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions against it and a permanent end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. The United States and South Korea “should immediately stop all their provocative acts against the DPRK and apologize for all of them,” the North’s National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by state-run media, using the shortened version of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The commission listed a number of “practical measures” it said the United States and South Korea should take if they want to avoid “sledge-hammer retaliatory blows of the army and people” of North Korea.

• Iran and North Korea operate from the same playbook: a lot of bluster, threats and stalling in order to keep their nuclear ambitions moving forward

Earthquakes

A powerful earthquake struck the steep hills of China’s southwestern Sichuan province Saturday, leaving at least 156 people dead and more than 5,500 injured, nearly five years after a devastating quake wreaked widespread damage across the same region. The quake – measured by the earthquake administration at magnitude-7.0 – struck the steep hills of Lushan county shortly after 8 a.m., when many people were at home, sleeping or having breakfast. Saturday’s quake triggered landslides and disrupted phone and power connections in mountainous Lushan county. The village of Longmen was hit particularly hard, with authorities saying nearly all the buildings there had been destroyed in a frightening minute-long shaking by the quake.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck in seas off far northern Japan and far eastern Russia on Friday, but no damage was expected. No tsunami warnings have been issued. The tremor struck around midday in the Pacific Ocean at a relatively shallow depth of 6.2 miles. Japan and Russia both claim some of the sparsely populated islands in the remote region.

A strong earthquake and about 20 smaller temblors have struck a small volcanic island south of Tokyo, but there is no danger of a tsunami and no injuries have been reported. Japan’s Meteorological Agency says a magnitude-6.2 quake hit just off Miyake island Wednesday evening at a depth of 20 kilometers (12 miles). About 20 smaller temblors have also been recorded in the area since the morning. The volcano, located 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of Tokyo, most recently erupted in 2000, forcing all 3,000 of the island’s residents to evacuate.

A powerful earthquake shook Papua New Guinea’s northern coast Wednesday morning, sending residents fleeing for higher ground and items tumbling from shelves. There were no immediate reports of serious damage and no tsunami alert was issued. The shallow, magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck about 11 miles east of Aitape.

• Earthquakes will continue to increase in frequency and intensity as we roll further into the ‘beginning of sorrows.’ (Matt. 24:8)

Weather

Heavy rain in the Midwest Wednesday into Thursday has created critical flooding problems in at least a half-dozen states. States of emergency were declared, residents were evacuated and roads were closed in the affected areas. As of Saturday morning, more than 50 river/stream gauges were showing major flood levels in parts of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. Record flooding has been been recorded at around a dozen river gauges in Illinois. Record flooding is ongoing on the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Mich. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and activated the Missouri National Guard to aid flood-fighting efforts. At Burlington, Iowa, the Mississippi Riverwas expected to rise to near its third or fourth highest level on record. In central Indiana, the Wabash River in Tippecanoe County near Lafayette could crest Saturday at 25.3 feet – its highest level in more than a half-century.

A powerful spring storm that snarled air traffic from Denver to Chicago moved into U.S. heartland Thursday, tormenting the region with everything from heavy snow to severe thunderstorms. Airlines reported more than 200 cancellations at Denver International Airport on Wednesday after the storm system dumped up to 7 inches of snow in the area and much more in the mountains.

A dust storm rolled through southeastern Arizona near the New Mexico border Wednesday, closing a 112-mile stretch of Interstate 10. The freeway was reopened Wednesday night after winds died down. Dust storms, or haboobs, are common in the Southwest in spring when strong storm systems move through the Rockies, generating gusty winds.

Signs of the Times (4/16/13)

Terrorists Bomb the Boston Marathon

Boston Marathon bombings killed at least 3 people and injured at least 144. Hospitals say scores more have life-threatening injuries. A Saudi man was observed running from the scene and sought medical treatment and police are searching his apartment for clues. Monday’s explosions were centered at the finish line of the Marathon in downtown Boston. Two explosive devices, which went off about about 12 seconds and 100 yards apart, were believed to be assembled with gunpowder and ball-bearing-type material to serve as shrapnel. Initial evidence indicates they were not detonated by suicide bombers. Police have cordoned off a 15-block area around Boston’s Copley Square and bolstered security around the city as they continue to gather evidence.

Cities and sports venues nationwide have upped their security in the wake of the Boston Marathon explosions. The New York Police Department bolstered security at hotels and other prominent locations, such as its subway system. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority said there would be extra patrols on the bus and rail system, including the possibility of bomb-sniffing dogs at the Los Angeles Union Station and other Metro facilities. World markets fell Tuesday on renewed concerns about the pace of economic growth and after U.S. stocks slumped in the wake of the Boston bombing.

U.S. & China Agree North Korea Must be Denuclearized

Secretary of State John Kerry and China’s top diplomat agreed Saturday that nuclear weapons must be removed from the Korean peninsula — amid North Korean’s heighten rhetoric about missile testing and its nuclear programs. The immediate crisis: a North Korean test of a mid-range missile with a range of up to 2,500 miles that the U.S. believes could happen any day. The long-term problem: a nuclear program that may soon — or already — include the capability to deliver a warhead on a missile. China is the only country with significant leverage over North Korea, a regime that like few in the world actually cherishes its isolation.

New NSA Data Center Prompts Concern

Twenty-five miles due south of Salt Lake City, a massive construction project is nearing completion.  The heavily secured site belongs to the National Security Agency. “The spy center” is what locals call it. The NSA says the Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community that will have a major focus on cyber security. The agency will neither confirm nor deny specifics. Some published reports suggest it could hold 5 zettabytes of data. According to International Data Corporation, the total amount of global data is expected to grow to 2.7 zettabytes during 2012. This is 48% up from 2011, so this center is a ultra-major undertaking. Critics, including former NSA employees, say the data center is front and center in the debate over liberty, security and privacy.

• Privacy in this ‘brave new world’ is a relic of the past; intrusive government is the new game in town

Media Late to Coverage of Abortion Doctor’s Trial

In an opinion column in Thursday’s USA TODAY, contributor Kirsten Powers chastised major media outlets for ignoring the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, which began March 18. Gosnell is charged with causing the deaths of a patient and seven babies allegedly born alive as well as performing illegal late-term abortions. Eight former employees of his West Philly clinic have been charged in connection with the case, and three have pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Some of the former employees have testified about the bizarre, horrific and often chaotic practices at the clinic.

• This is a trial the mainstream media would like to ignore because it brings out the truth about abortion. Now they’re being forced to come to the table, but watch out for slanted coverage.

Tough New Gun Law Takes Effect in NY

Key measures of New York’s tough new gun law go into effect Monday, with owners of guns now reclassified as assault weapons required to register the firearms and with new limits on the number of bullets allowed in magazines. As the new provisions take effect New York’s affiliate of the National Rifle Association said it plans to head to court to seek an immediate halt to the magazine limit. New York’s new gun restrictions, the first in the nation passed following December’s massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, limit state gun owners to no more than seven bullets in magazines, except at competitions or firing ranges. The new regulations in New York commence as the U.S. Senate prepares to debate expanded gun legislation and weeks after Connecticut joined Colorado in signing into law tougher new gun restrictions.

In New Budget, Obama Cuts Abstinence Education Funds

In the budget he delivered to Capitol Hill, President Obama axed funds for sexual risk avoidance (SRA) education, even though research shows these programs can help curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, WORLD reports. The president also redirected funds away from avoidance education and towards sex-ed programs that emphasize contraception. In a statement, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) said moving the money violates a 2010 congressional mandate to give states $50 million in Title V grants for SRA education. Currently, the ratio of federal funding for contraceptive-based sex education and abstinence-based programs is 16:1. Opponents of abstinence education criticize it as unrealistic and ineffective, assuming teens will choose to be sexually active. Consequently, they advocate for “safe sex” education instead. But SRA programs teach students more than just the wisdom of abstinence. They also learn other practical skills, like how to identify healthy relationships, avoid unwanted sexual advances, avoid STDs, and understand contraception.

• The New World Order folks (and Satan) want to promote teen sex to further undermine God’s ordained social order

Food Donations Down, Companies Step Up

A growing number of food companies are teaming with Feeding America and the Walmart Foundation’s Fighting Hunger Together campaign in an effort to counter a nationwide slump in springtime food donations. Six more companies, including Campbell’s Soup, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and Nestle USA, have joined this year’s second annual, nationwide April food drive, along with returning companies, ConAgra Foods, General Mills, Kraft Foods group and Kellogg. The Walmart Foundation says the goal is to collect 35 million contributed meals. Last spring’s campaign collected 22 million meals from food companies. The drive is once again turning to social media to encourage a greater scope of user involvement. From now through April 30, people can vote for one of the 300 food banks or agencies listed on the campaign’s Facebook page. The 40 highest vote-getting food banks will each receive $45,000. In addition, 60 agencies will be awarded $20,000 each

Future Social Security: Pay More, Get Less

Up until now, Social Security has been a windfall for many retirees: They collected far more in benefits than they shelled out in taxes. That’s changing. Many of those retiring will have paid more into the coveted entitlement program than they will get back. A couple who each earned the average wage during their careers and retired in 1990 would have paid $316,000 in Social Security taxes, but collected $436,000 in benefits. Had that couple turned 65 in 2010, however, they would have paid $600,000 in taxes, but could expect to collect just $579,000. This is the first time in the program’s history that taxes outweighed benefits for those with average earnings. The imbalance will get more pronounced for future generations of retirees. Couples now in their early 40s will have forked over $808,000 in Social Security taxes by the time they retire, but get back only $703,000 in benefits.

Economic News

Gold, the world’s premier inflation-fighter, has plunged nearly $200 an ounce the past two trading days. It’s now down 25% from its 2011 high. Silver has fallen more than 9% in frenetic trading Monday. Futures prices for copper fell 3.6% overnight. Oil has fallen below $90 a barrel, to $88.50, lowest since Dec. 21. The collapse in commodity markets signals worldwide weak economic demand.

Housing starts took a big jump in March, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Total starts were running at a 1.036 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, fastest in nearly 5 years and up 7% from February. Building permits, however, fell 3.9% from February, to a 902,000 annual rate.

The consumer price index declined last month as the cost of gasoline fell sharply and food prices were unchanged. The tame reading is the latest evidence that the sluggish economy is keeping inflation in check. The figures come a day after the prices of many commodities, including copper and oil, fell in response to a report of slower than expected growth in China. That suggests U.S. consumer prices will likely stay low in the coming months.

The bear market in gold intensified Monday with frenzied selling knocking the yellow metal down more than 9% and below the key $1,400-per-ounce level. Investors’ trashing of gold Monday follows a 5% plunge Friday. Gold, often viewed as a haven in tough times and a hedge against inflation, is down more than $527 from its all-time high of $1,888.70 on Aug. 22, 2011. Last week, gold plunged on worries that debt-troubled Cyprus would sell a big chunk of its gold reserves to foot the bill for portions of a bailout. This has spurred fears that other European countries struggling with high debts, particularly Italy, Spain, and Portugal, might also sell some gold reserves.

The International Monetary Fund trimmed its forecast for global growth this year due to government spending cuts in the U.S. and continuing economic stagnation in the Eurozone. The IMF reduced its projection for global economic growth to 3.3% from 3.5%. The U.S. growth outlook was downgraded to 1.9% from 2%.

China’s GDP rose 7.7% — a monster move in every nation but China, where analysts were calling for 8% growth or better. The lower figure means lower demand from Asia. With China slowing and Europe in recession, it seems unlikely the U.S., with its anemic economic growth, will be able to pick up the slack. And that means lower prices.

What’s wrong with lower prices? In a weak economy, lower prices lead to even lower prices, which means deflation. Ultimately, it means companies that can’t slash prices are forced out of business, which leads to further economic weakness. The Federal Reserve has been trying to fight deflation and keep the economy growing with rock-bottom interest rates and a program of buying longer-term bonds to keep interest rates low.

• End-time economies will eventually fall into an even greater recession/depression

Persecution Watch

A Turkish court on Monday convicted top Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say of denigrating religion through comments he made on Twitter and handed down a 10-month suspended prison sentence. He is the latest in a series of intellectuals and artists to be prosecuted in Turkey for expressing their opinions and his case has raised further concern over rights and freedoms in the country, a democracy with a mostly Muslim population that seeks membership in the European Union.

Iraq

A series of car bombings across Iraq on Monday killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 170 others. The 24 attacks took place in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Baquba, Tuz Khurmato and Hilla. Two of the bombings pummeled a checkpoint near Baghdad’s international airport. Most of the attacks in Baghdad targeted Shiite areas. Attacks elsewhere hit security checkpoints, Shiite areas and political offices. Al Qaeda in Iraq, made up of Sunni extremists, has claimed responsibility for most of these attacks in recent months.

Somalia

Nine al-Shabab Islamic extremists, most wearing suicide vests, stormed Somalia’s main court complex on Sunday while the Supreme Court was in session, firing a barrage of bullets during a running gun battle with security forces that lasted two hours. A preliminary death toll stood at 29, including all ten attackers. Nearly 60 people were wounded in the skirmish. The assault was the most serious in Mogadishu since al-Shabab militants were forced out of the capital in August 2011. Al-Shabab controls far less territory today than in years past, and its influence appears to be on the decline, but Sunday’s attack proved the extremists are still capable of pulling off well-planned and audacious assaults.

Venezuela

Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor won a narrow victory in Venezuela’s presidential vote, but his opponent slammed the results as illegitimate and demanded a recount. Nicolas Maduro secured 50.7% of votes in Sunday’s poll while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski won 49.1%, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council said. Capriles’ refusal to concede left key questions about Venezuela’s future unanswered

China

Two more people infected with a rare strain of bird flu in China died over the weekend, as the number of human cases of H7N9 climbed to 60, state media reported Sunday. The two deaths, both in Shanghai, takes the death toll to 13. The virus also appears to have spread beyond eastern China for the first time. Two new cases were reported in central Henan Province on Sunday morning, while a child in Beijing in the north tested positive on Saturday. The World Health Organization (WHO) said China had been infected with a new variation of bird flu. The agency said it continues to look for the source of the infection.

Earthquakes

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the Middle East on Tuesday, with the epicenter close to the border of Iran and Pakistan. According to the Associated Press via Iranian state TV, at least 46 deaths have been reported. Iran’s Red Crescent said it was facing a “complicated emergency situation” in the area with villages scattered over desolate hills and valleys. The epicenter was located 53 miles east-southeast of Khash, Iran. This event comes a week after a 6.1 earthquake killed at least three dozen people in western Iran. Pakistani news channels showed buildings shaking in the southern city of Karachi, where people in panic came out from offices and homes.

A strong earthquake shook Japan on Saturday near the southwestern city of Kobe, leaving 23 people injured, seven of them seriously. The magnitude-6.3 quake left some homes with rooftop tiles broken and cracked walls, while goods fell off store shelves. The earthquake was centered on Awaji Island, just south of Kobe, at a depth of 15 kilometers (9 miles). The quake was in the area where a magnitude-7.2 temblor killed more than 6,400 people in 1995. TV news footage showed that some areas of the island had liquefied, a common effect of strong earthquakes. The agency warned there may be aftershocks for about a week.

The U.S. Geological Survey says several earthquakes have shaken central Oklahoma. The temblors began around 1:45 a.m. Tuesday and all were centered northeast of Oklahoma City. Three earthquakes have been confirmed with a possible fourth under review. The strongest was a magnitude 4.3 quake centered near the town of Luther. All the quakes were shallow, which is common for the area.

Weather

Authorities in Washington state say one woman has died and one man is still missing after a pair of spring avalanches struck separate groups hiking in the mountains outside Seattle. Rescuers carried a female snowshoer off of Red Mountain in blizzard-like conditions early Sunday. The woman was confirmed dead at the rescue base. She had been hiking with her dog near a group of a dozen other people when an avalanche hit Saturday. A separate avalanche at Granite Mountain swept a group of three snowshoers more than 1,200 feet. Two men emerged, but a 60-year-old hiker from Kent, Wash., was still missing Sunday morning.

Fargo ND, officials said Monday they are resuming sandbag-filling operations to protect against spring flooding because of last week’s snowstorm and the prediction for more precipitation later this week. Mayor Dennis Walaker said his opinion on the severity of flooding “changed dramatically” after Sunday’s spring storm dumped nearly a foot of snow on some areas in the Red River Valley, where residents are expecting their fourth major flood in five years. The city had been preparing for the Red River to peak in Fargo and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., at 38 feet, or 20 feet above flood stage, based on last month’s probabilistic forecast by the National Weather Service. City officials are now shooting for protection to 41 feet —  and figure they have less than two weeks to get there.

The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported on Monday. Researchers found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago. They say that shows the ice melt can increase dramatically in climate terms once temperatures hit a tipping point.

Signs of the Times (4/12/13)

Judge Defends Cross at 9/11 Memorial

A New York City judge has protected the Cross of Jesus Christ to be displayed in the 9/11 memorial display, and thrown out a lawsuit by the American Atheists.  The Blaze reports:  “A judge sided with New Yorkers and others around the country who believe that a steel cross that was formed when World Trade Center buildings collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001 should be included in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. American Atheists (AA), a secular group committed to church-state separatism, has long fought the presence of the symbol that is being included in an effort that remembers the lives lost during the nation’s most horrific terror attack.

Biggest Reason for Declining Church Attendance: Children’s Sports?

Sunday morning used to be a time reserved by many Christians for attending worship services, but new research indicates the extent to which American churches today are competing against other activities — the biggest competition being children’s sports, Christianity Today reports. According to a study published in the Review of Religious Research, an examination of declining attendance at 16 congregations revealed that most pastors place the most blame on children’s sports activities, since practices and competitions alike are increasingly “scheduled on Sunday mornings at the very time when many churches traditionally have provided religious education.” However, that doesn’t mean that families whose kids are highly involved in athletics will stop attending church. Instead, more Protestant churches are offering alternate service times to accommodate members with Sunday morning commitments. They’re also increasing their emphasis on physical fitness programs or sports ministries. According to David Briggs of the Association of Religion Data Archives, “More than two-thirds of congregations who said sports and fitness programs were a specialty of the congregation reported more than a 10 percent growth in attendance from 2000 to 2010. In contrast, only a third of churches with no athletic programs reported such growth.”

VP Biden Calls for New World Order

At a banking conference last Friday, Vice President Joe Biden called for the creation of a “new world order” with new financial institutions, updated global rules, a level playing field, and a prosperous China. Biden’s remarks also come one week after China, Russia and other powers announced the creation of a new economic order that would rival the Western-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Delivering the keynote address at the Export-Import Bank Conference in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Biden stated “the affirmative task we have now is to create a new world order… We have to update the global rules of the road.”

• Globalists are seeking to create a one-world government, just as Revelation 13 prophesies.

Obama Sends Congress $3.8 Trillion Spending Plan

President Obama found himself weathering bipartisan broadsides Wednesday as he sent Congress his 2014 budget proposal, which in its effort to please both sides of the aisle has ended up angering both. The budget arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning, delivered 65 days after the legal deadline. The $3.77 trillion spending plan, which is over 2,000 pages, tries to curb deficits by further raising taxes on top earners and reining in the growth of Social Security. But Republicans argue they already consented to increased taxes as part of the fiscal crisis deal and have expressed little interest in negotiating another hike. And liberal Democrats — particularly powerful advocacy groups — have launched a series of campaigns to oppose the changes to Social Security.

Obamacare Exchanges Costs Double to: $4.4 Billion

As a number of Republican governors continue to say “no” to Obamacare, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) on Wednesday acknowledged that the president’s signature healthcare law is racking up twice the costs to set up the all-important insurance exchanges. HHS more than doubled its previous cost estimate of $2 billion for the amount it expects to spend to help states set up insurance exchanges, which is a central component of Obamacare. Despite the projection overruns, the department is “determined to make them work,” said HHS. Exchanges were envisioned as places where private consumers, who aren’t necessarily covered by an employer healthcare program, can compare and purchase healthcare coverage.

• Anytime the government gets involved in running a business, losses and cost overruns are all but guaranteed (e.g. the Postal Service and Amtrak)

Pentagon Report Says N. Korea Can Arm Missile with Nuke

Obama administration officials scrambled to downplay the errant disclosure of a classified portion of an intelligence report finding that North Korea has advanced its nuclear knowledge to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. The analysis, disclosed Thursday at a hearing on Capitol Hill, says the Pentagon’s intelligence wing has “moderate confidence” that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon was unreliable. The revelation was significant, because it has not been previously reported or believed that the country had the ability to miniaturize and deliver a nuclear weapon.

North Korea warned foreigners to leave South Korea Tuesday, to avoid harm in the event of war. The latest moves follow weeks of ever escalating threats from Pyongyang, which has reacted with increasing anger to United Nations sanctions punishing the North for its third nuclear test, conducted February 12^th. North Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position, feeding concerns that a launch is imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday. After the raising of the missile Wednesday, it was not clear to U.S. officials why the North Korean government did not proceed with the firing.

U.S. Arming Islamist Militants Through Libya?

Questions remain about the Obama administration’s role in supplying arms to Libyan rebels as a United Nations report released this week reveals the weapons from Libya to extremists proliferating at an “alarming rate,” fueling conflicts in Mali, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere. In December 2012, the New York Times reported that after discussions among members of the National Security Council, the Obama administration backed arms shipments to Libyan rebels from both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The administration urged the emirates to ship foreign weapons to Libya that could not be traced to the U.S., the Times reported. The Times further reported in 2012 the White House “secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants. A report by the U.N. Security Council’s Group of Experts blamed Qatar and the UAE for arming the rebels, but omitted U.S. involvement in what some say is an elaborate coverup.

IRS Tells Agents PK to Snoop on Emails Without Warrant

The Internal Revenue Service believes it doesn’t need permission to root through emails, texts or other forms of electronic correspondence, according to recently released internal agency documents. The documents, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union, reveal that tax department agents have been operating under the assumption that they can bypass warrants. According to a 2009 IRS employee handbook, though, the tax agency said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users don’t “have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A lawyer for the agency reiterated the policy in 2010. And the current online version of the IRS manual says that no warrant is required for emails that are stored by an Internet storage provider for more than 180 days. Privacy advocate groups, like the ACLU, say the government must obtain a search warrant based on probable cause.

• Under the Obama Administration we belong to the government and they can do whatever they want

ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Personal Info

A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a “massive” online database capable of pulling up individuals’ personal information, connections and associates. On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled “Investigative System.”  The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes. The document says that the system will be utilized by staff “to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.” The system is described as a “massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds.”

• Government abuse of such information is sure to follow in order to quench dissent

Study Points to Overuse of Drug Prescriptions

Doctors are prescribing enough antibiotics to give them to 4 out of 5 Americans every year, an alarming pace that suggests they are being overused, a new government study finds. Overuse is one reason antibiotics are losing their punch, making infections harder to treat. There is no scientific consensus on an appropriate level of antibiotic prescribing. But some experts said the new study’s results are disturbing, and that rates are excessive. Experts say chances of resistance increase when antibiotics are not used long enough or are taken for the wrong reasons, allowing bacteria to survive and adapt. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking at least 20 strains of resistant bacteria.

• One possible cause of end-time pestilence

Mood of the Nation Trending Upward

As the stock market continues to show record highs, the number of Americans who say things are going well in the country has reached 50% for the first time in more than six years, according to a new national survey. But that doesn’t mean the country is entirely out of the woods yet. The CNN/ORC International poll released Friday indicates that an equal 50% say the country is in bad shape. “The number continues an upward pattern since the summer of last year, when only 35% were optimistic about the country’s conditions,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. Americans haven’t been this optimistic since January 2007, when 57% felt the country was in good shape. For more of the next four years, the figure hovered in the 20’s and 30’s, and stayed mostly in the 30’s and 40’s last year.

• Irrational exuberance? Time will tell. Most likely is the calm before the storm.

Economic News

Retail sales fell in March from February, taking the biggest drop in nine months, the Commerce Department said Friday. Retail sales declined a seasonally adjusted 0.4% last month, Commerce said. That followed a 1% gain in February. Consumers cut back across a wide range of categories. Sales at auto dealers dropped 0.6%.

First-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 42,000 in the latest week to 346,000 from an upwardly revised 388,000 a week earlier. The data have been volatile the past two weeks largely because of the Easter holiday.

Foreclosure filings — including notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — during the first quarter fell 23% from a year earlier, the lowest level since the second quarter of 2007. Last month, banks repossessed just under 44,000 homes, within striking distance of the pre-housing bust monthly average. At the height of the housing meltdown, in September 2010, repossessions topped 100,000 a month.

The number of homes listed for sale ticked up by almost 2.4% in March from February but remained down 15% from a year ago. The low inventory of homes for sale in many markets is helping drive up prices.

Personal computer shipments worldwide plummeted 13.9% in the first quarter, the latest evidence of a decaying market. Consumer preferences for tablets and smartphones continue to turn the PC industry upside-down. Desktops have been particularly hard hit as sales have been shaved nearly in half in the past 10 years.

Persecution Watch

Tens of thousands of Christians have left post-revolution Egypt due to concerns over rising Muslim conservatism and a general instability they say is emboldening attacks against them. Perhaps the most dramatic example of sectarian tension yet occurred Sunday in central Cairo, where a crowd attacked Christian mourners after they emerged from a funeral in Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral. Coptic Pope Tawadros II underscored rising tensions between Christians and Muslims when he criticized Islamist president Mohammed Morsi for the weekend violence which resulted in the deaths of four Christians. The state of instability, decaying economy and rise in crime have scared many Egyptians into leaving, or trying to — not least of all Egyptian Christians who say they are easy targets when trouble erupts and there is no system in place to protect them. “They feel if there is an issue, there is vigilante violence,” said Douglas May, a U.S. Catholic priest based in Egypt, where he has lived for 18 years. He said that although there were restrictions on minorities under former President Hosni Mubarak, Christians felt safer because there was at least a sense the country was under control. There are no official figures for how many Christians have left Egypt since the revolution, though estimates range as high as in the tens of thousands. “When there is no clarity, rumors abound,” said Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak, patriarch of Egypt’s estimated 250,000 Coptic Catholics. “There are those saying hundreds of thousands, others saying thousands, but there are people leaving, this we know — and not only Christians, Muslims are leaving as well.”

Syria

President Barack Obama has signed off on a new package of nonlethal aid for Syrian rebels, U.S. officials told CNN, signaling his administration is cautiously wading further into the conflict. The move reflects what officials describe as a ramped-up effort to change the military balance on the battlefield in Syria. It follows a decision by Obama last month to send food and medicine to the rebels, the first direct U.S. support for the armed opposition.

A Syrian rebel group’s pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda’s replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group’s influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq said it has merged with Syria’s extremist Jabhat al-Nusra, a move that shows the rising confidence of radicals within the Syrian rebel movement and is likely to trigger renewed fears among its international backers. A website linked to Jabhat Al-Nusra confirmed on Tuesday the merger with the Islamic State of Iraq. Jabhat Al-Nusra has taken an ever-bigger role in Syria’s conflict over the last year, fighting in key battles and staging several large suicide bombings. The U.S. has designated it a terrorist organization.

Last month marked the deadliest month in Syria since protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began two years ago, CBN News reports. More than 6,000 people were killed in what is being called “Bloody March”; a third of those were civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Those killed include 291 women, nearly 300 children and more than 1,400 rebel fighters. The United Nations reports that 70,000 people have died since the uprising began, but Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory, said, “We estimate it is actually around 120,000 people.” Efforts by foreign media and independent human rights organizations within the country have been curtailed, making the verification of casualty figures virtually impossible.

Iran

Iran’s crude exports declined in March to the lowest this year as international sanctions aimed at the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear program and weaker global demand cut purchases, the International Energy Agency said. Imports from Iran slipped to 1.1 million barrels a day in March, from a revised 1.26 million barrels daily in February, the Paris-based adviser to 28 oil-consuming nations said in a report today. The U.S. and its allies are restricting Iran’s oil exports, the country’s largest source of revenue, to pressure the government in Tehran to stop enriching uranium.

Mali

About 70,000 refugees who fled violence in Mali are living in “appalling” conditions in a camp in the middle of the Mauritanian desert, Doctors Without Borders said Friday. The situation has only got worse in Mbera camp since French forces entered Mali in January to help local forces take on Islamist militants. About 15,000 more refugees have flooded into the camp since the fighting, and conditions are so bad there that many who were healthy became ill or malnourished after they arrived. The number of children admitted to clinics in the camp for severe malnutrition more than doubled in that time, climbing from 42 to 106. The camp was set up by the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, with the Mauritanian government about 37 miles from the border.

China

The death toll in China’s bird flu crisis stood at 10 on Friday, as Hong Kong authorities announced plans to test all poultry imported from the mainland. The total number of cases across eastern China climbed to 38. Seventy people have had close contact with the three patients, but none of them have exhibited abnormal symptoms. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Chinese health officials continue to monitor for human-to-human transmission. On Wednesday, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the H7N9 virus had probably originated from migratory birds from East Asia mixing with domestic fowl in China’s Yangtze River delta region.

Mexico

Gunmen in Mexico opened fire on police and civilians Wednesday in two separate incidents, in which at least 13 people. Police seized the gunmen’s vehicles and found five assault rifles with magazines and other combat paraphernalia, the National Safety Commission said. Mexico has a reputation for strict gun ownership laws. In the town of Apatzingan, gunmen opened fire twice on residents who were commemorating the anniversary of the death of a revolutionary figure popular in the region. Eight died when the same group, marching in a ceremonial parade, came under fire again. In addition, six civilians and two police officers were wounded.

Earthquakes

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 and injured hundreds more in a sparsely populated area in southern Iran on Tuesday, Iranian officials said, adding that it did not damage a nuclear plant in the region. The report said the earthquake struck the town of Kaki some 60 miles southeast of Bushehr, a town on the Persian Gulf that is home of Iran’s first nuclear power plant, built with Russian help. Dozens of aftershocks have been reported by the official IRNA news agency.

Weather

Friday is a day of clean up across several southern and midwestern states, after a classic spring storm spawned tornadoes and damaging thunderstorms Thursday. A powerful spring storm hit parts of the Mid-Atlantic on Friday morning after unleashing tornadoes, hail and high winds as it swept through the Midwest and into the Deep South, where it left three people dead and thousands without power. A supercell thunderstorm spawned a tornado in eastern Mississippi killing one person. The severe storm system packed high winds and tornadoes ripped through sections of Arkansas and eastern Missouri overnight Wednesday, including a neighborhood in St. Louis, prompting the governors of two states to activate the National Guard. The storm was part of a dangerous system that raked the Midwest and may have also spawned a tornado in north-central Arkansas that left four people injured. In Missouri, where thousands of people were left without power in the southern parts of the state, Gov. Jay Nixon also called out the Guard and issued a state of emergency.

A winter storm was a major problem for the Plains, dropping temperatures dramatically and then dumping more than a foot of snow across parts of several states. More than two feet of snow fell in parts of South Dakota, while ice has become a problem in the southern Plains.

A wildfire due to extreme drought, a possible tornado touchdown and a blizzard warning all within a 50 mile radius — the weather in northeast Colorado went crazy overnight Monday to Tuesday. Hours after firefighters defeated a 2,600 acre blaze in Sterling County, a wind storm, suspected of being a tornado, tore down a home in adjoining Washington County to the south. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service is predicting a blizzard in the neighboring counties of Arapahoe and Adams to the east, where temperatures should drop into the single digits Tuesday night.

• End-time weather will continue to grow more extreme