Important Takeaways:
- More than a quarter of Americans have resorted to skipping meals to avoid paying inflated grocery store prices, according to a new survey.
- According to a study by Qualtrics on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma, 80% of Americans say they have felt a “notable increase” in grocery costs in recent years. More than a quarter of respondents said the increased cost has led them to occasionally skip meals, while about one-third said they spend more than 60% of their monthly income on mandatory expenses such as food, utilities and rent.
- “Food insecurity is a major issue in this country as millions of Americans don’t have enough food to eat or don’t have access to healthy food,” Courtney Alev, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma, said in a statement.
- Of the Americans surveyed in the Credit Karma poll, 44% reported feeling financially unstable. This feeling is strongest among households making less than $50,000.
- The rising cost of living is also a likely factor in the increasing number of Americans taking on debt (55%).
- A large majority of consumers (80%) said they felt the most notable increases in expenses were for groceries, followed by gasoline, utilities, housing and dining out.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden administration officials have discussed potentially negotiating a unilateral deal with Hamas to secure the release of five Americans being held hostage in Gaza if current cease-fire talks involving Israel fail, according to two current senior U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials.
- Such negotiations would not include Israel and would be conducted through Qatari interlocutors, as current talks have been, said the officials, all of whom have been briefed on the discussions.
- White House officials declined to comment.
- The officials did not know what the United States might give Hamas in exchange for the release of American hostages. But, the officials said, Hamas could have an incentive to cut a unilateral deal with Washington because doing so would likely further strain relations between the U.S. and Israel and put additional domestic political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- The five Americans believed to be held in Gaza are Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra and Keith Siegel. The three Americans believed to have been killed during the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack are Itay Chen, Judy Weinstein and Gad Haggai.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Orit Meir, the mother of Almog Meir Jan, revealed in a press conference on Monday that her son, who was released on Saturday, learned Arabic and Russian while in Hamas captivity.
- Speaking at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Orit said that “he was exposed to news on Al Jazeera in Arabic.
- “He learned Arabic but also Russian from [fellow hostage] Andrey Kozlov.” She added: “On May 11, he saw the rally in the square and saw pictures of himself on the stage at the rally.”
- Another family member who spoke at the conference called on the Israeli government to push through with the ceasefire and hostage deal presented by US President Joe Biden.
- “We understand that such a [rescue mission] cannot happen for 120 people, which is why we are asking the government, which had recently shrunk in size, to carry out and execute the plan that is on the table.”
- Hamas launched a massive attack on October 7, with thousands of terrorists infiltrating from the Gaza border and taking some 240 hostages into Gaza
- Over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, including over 350 in the Re’im music festival and hundreds of Israeli civilians across Gaza border communities
- 120 hostages remain in Gaza
- 43 hostages in total have been killed in captivity, IDF says
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Raising a child is getting more expensive – but the problem is worse in these 5 states
- High inflation has made the price of just about everything in the U.S. more expensive — including how much it costs to raise a child.
- “The cost of everything is rising,” said Matt Schulz, LendingTree chief credit analyst. “There’s so much that goes into child care, including rent, payroll, insurance and much more. When all those costs shoot up, the overall cost of child care does, too.”
- The cost of child care surged nearly 20% between 2016 and 2021
- That means the typical family is spending about $237,482 over the course of 18 years to raise a child — and that is excluding the cost of college.
- However, new research published by SmartAsset suggests that the problem is even worse in some states.
- Raising a child in Massachusetts costs an estimated $35,841 a year – the most expensive state in the country and nearly double the national average.
- The annual cost of raising a child in Hawaii is $35,049, which includes about $19,500 for child care. One of the largest expenses in the Aloha State is housing, according to the study. Adding a child to a two-family household costs an additional $6,188 per year. By comparison, that adds about $4,983 in Massachusetts.
- It is notably cheaper to raise children in a handful of Southern states.
- Mississippi ranked as the least expensive, coming in with a total cost of $16,151. That is followed by Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and Alabama.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Southern California was recently rattled by several small earthquakes. They produced minor shaking but nonetheless left psychological aftershocks in a region whose seismic vulnerabilities are matched by our willingness to put the dangers out of our minds.
- For many, it all added to one question: Is this the beginning of something bigger?
- First, a magnitude 3.6 earthquake in the Ojai Valley sent weak shaking from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles on May 31. Then came two small quakes under the eastern L.A. neighborhood of El Sereno, the most powerful a 3.4. Finally, a trio of tremors hit the Costa Mesa-Newport Beach border, topping out at a magnitude 3.6 Thursday.
- Having half a dozen earthquakes with a magnitude over 2.5 in a week, hitting three distinct parts of Southern California, all in highly populated areas, is not a common occurrence.
- But experts say these smaller quakes have no predictive power over the next major, destructive earthquake in urban Southern California, the last of which came 30 years ago.
- Generally speaking, there is a 1 in 20 chance any earthquake in California will be followed by one that’s larger, said Susan Hough, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Those odds aren’t high, and typically, the subsequent, larger quake would occur in the same area within a week. Plus, if something bigger did happen, the odds are a new temblor would be only a little bigger, Hough said.
- In contrast, last week’s earthquakes highlighted nearby fault systems directly under our most populated cities and could produce even worse death tolls than a San Andreas megaquake, targeting our oldest neighborhoods with many unretrofitted buildings when they rupture.
- “All three sets of these earthquakes occurred near large, potentially dangerous faults,” said James Dolan, an earth sciences professor at USC. “The L.A. urban fault network has been in a seismic lull for the entire historic period, and this lull likely extends back on the order of the last 1,000 years. We know at some point this lull we’re in will end.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- ISLAMIC terror outfit ISIS has threatened chilling attacks on the upcoming Paris Olympics in an appalling poster message.
- The death cult posted a propaganda image showing one of its terrorists seemingly flying an “armed drone” to attack the iconic Eiffel Tower.
- The poster, pushed by ISIS-linked social media channels, was captioned: “Lone wolves’ Olympics have begun with the Will of Allah.”
- The chilling threat vaguely indicates there could be attempts to carry out lone-wolf-style terror attacks across Paris amid the upcoming games.
- France is already on high alert amid a slew of vile threats made by Islamic terror outfits.
- Tony Estanguet insisted that “security is the priority” to ensure the safety of 15 million fans and more than 10,000 athletes.
- But the July 26 ceremony along the River Seine — the first not held in a stadium — has already been scaled back from 600,000 spectators to 300,000.
- The 10,500 athletes from 203 nations will take to boats on the Seine, watched by one billion globally.
- There will be 30,000 police, 15,000 soldiers and 22,000 security guards on duty.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- In a statement to RIA Novosti published on Monday, Kartapolov clarified that if the F-16s “are not used for their intended purpose” or are simply held in storage at foreign airbases with the intent to transfer them to Ukraine, where they will be equipped, maintained, and flown from Ukrainian airfields, then Russia would have no claims against its “former partners” and would not target them.
- However, if the jets take off from foreign bases and carry out sorties and strikes against Russian forces, both the fighter planes and the airfields they are stationed at will be “legitimate targets,” according to Kartapolov.
- As for [our ability] to shoot [them] down, we can shoot down anyone, anywhere,” the MP insisted. Kartapolov’s statement comes after the chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force Command, Sergey Golubtsov, stated in an interview with Radio Liberty on Sunday that some of the F-16 fighter jets donated to Kiev by the West would be stationed at foreign airbases.
- Golubtsov stated that so far four countries have agreed to transfer F-16s to Ukraine, namely Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands. While he did not specify exactly how many aircraft would be donated, he claimed it was between 30 and 40 planes, with potentially more to come in the future.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- BRICS Summit Begins with Goal of Ditching U.S. Dollar
- The foreign ministers of BRICS member nations – and another 13 countries interested in collaborating with the anti-Western bloc – convened in Russia on Monday for a meeting outside of the confines of the BRICS annual summit to discuss, among other issues, ways to expand trade without the use of the U.S. dollar.
- “The proactive work is underway on fulfillment of decisions of the Johannesburg summit of the last year, specifically as regards improvement of the international monetary system and development of a platform for payment in national currencies in mutual trade,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
- … Given the growing number of sanctions imposed on Russia and China is response to a litany of human rights abuses committed by their dictatorships, both countries have spearheaded efforts both in BRICS and beyond to “de-dollarize” their economies, ideally rendering them immune from sanctions.
- “De-Dollarization” was a major topic of discussion at the 2023 BRICS summit, in the short term by replacing the dollar with the Chinese yuan or the Russian ruble. In the long term, however, BRICS representatives have suggested that the member nations of that coalition could create their own currency to protect its members from sanctions or any human rights requirements Western nations may demand.
- According to Tass, BRICS is currently in talks with about 30 countries interested in joining the bloc, supporting Putin’s claim that BRICS has “potential” for expansion. This week’s BRICS meeting will include representatives of 22 nations in total, according to Tass. The list of nonmember nations attending includes a rogue’s gallery of serial human rights abusers, such as Cuba, Belarus, Vietnam, Turkey, and Venezuela. The other nations sending envoys are Bahrain, Mauritania, Laos, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Thailand.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The group of medical experts banded together to launch research studies and share data after concluding there was compelling evidence among their own patients to suggest a link between COVID and cancer diagnoses
- “I’ve been in practice 23 years and have never seen anything like this,” Kashyap Patel, an oncologist in South Carolina and CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates
- Patel, who is calling for a national registry to analyze trends, said he has already collected data from dozens of his own patients showing a possible link between unusual cancers and long COVID.
- “Hopefully, we’re wrong,” Afshin Beheshti, president of the COVID-19 International Research Team, said. “But everything is, unfortunately, pushing toward that being the case.”
- The US-based doctors are calling on the federal government to prioritize the research — given such answers could affect treatment for cancer patients, as well as management of the disease, over the next several decades.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia and China, which hold veto powers in the U.N. Security Council, raised concerns on Thursday with a U.S. draft resolution that would back a proposal -outlined by President Joe Biden – for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
- The council’s only Arab member, Algeria, also signaled it was not ready to back the text, diplomats said. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the U.S., France, Britain, China or Russia to pass.
- The current draft welcomes the ceasefire proposal, describes it as “acceptable” to Israel, “calls upon Hamas to also accept it, and urges both parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”
- Some council members have raised questions about whether Israel has actually accepted the plan and want the council to stick to a demand made in March for an immediate ceasefire and unconditional release of all hostages, diplomats said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
