Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Global Military Spending at Record High with Europe Leading the Way
- The world has never spent so much on military muscle. Figures released Monday show $2.24 trillion was outlaid globally in 2022 with Europe leading the way due to Ukraine’s demands for continued supplies of battlefield hardware.
- There was a 13 percent rise in Europe, the steepest in at least 30 years, coming on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and broader insecurity around the world.
- Some of the sharpest increases were seen in Finland (+36 percent), Lithuania (+27 percent), Sweden (+12 percent) and Poland (+11 percent).
- “The continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” Nan Tian, senior researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme, said.
- Overall the United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender.
- S. military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 percent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender.
- India’s military spending of $81.4 billion was the fourth highest in the world. It was 6.0 percent more than in 2021.
- In 2022 military spending by Saudi Arabia, the fifth biggest military spender, rose by 16 percent to reach an estimated $75.0 billion, its first increase since 2018.
- The United Kingdom had the highest military spending in Central and Western Europe at $68.5 billion
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- Disney plans layoffs for thousands next week, report says
- Walt Disney Co. announced it would trim its payroll by some 7,000 jobs in February
- Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the plans said the company would cut about 15% of the staff in its entertainment division.
- The cuts will include those in TV, film, theme parks and on corporate teams, in every region where Disney operates.
- Disney Entertainment, a unit created in a restructuring this year, would also be impacted, the report said.
- The move was part of major restructuring aimed at saving the company billions and was announced by CEO Bob Iger during the first-quarter earnings call.
- Disney said then that it plans to save $5.5 billion in its overhaul, cutting $1.5 billion in operating costs and another $3 billion from reductions in non-sports content — including the job cuts.
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Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- Hundreds of shallow earthquakes detected along California coast during 8-month study
- California is experiencing a record number of earthquakes. In Long Beach and Seal Beach areas, seismologists recorded a thousand tiny tremors over eight months. The majority were shallow quakes reaching depths less than two kilometers below the surface.
- This past earthquake was six to 10 kilometers deep — far greater than the shallow ones seen today. However, constant shallow earthquakes could build up and create possibilities for an earthquake that reaches the surface. The regulatory zone surrounding the surface of active faults, called the Alquist-Priolo zone, span a minimum of 50 feet.
- “The surprising aspect is the relative number of shallow events,” says Yan Yang, a Caltech researcher…
- The study also identified new faults between the Los Alamitos Fault and the Newport-Inglewood Fault and north of the Garden Grove Fault. None of the small shallow earthquakes detected in the study were the result of oil and gas activity
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Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- 3-magnitude earthquake strikes New Zealand’s Kermadec Islands region
- A magnitude 7.3 earthquake rocked the Kermadec Islands region near New Zealand on Monday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
- The quake was at a depth of 10 km, reported news agency Reuters.
- A tsunami threat is predicted by US Tsunami Warning System following the earthquake.
- Last month, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck the Kermadec Islands.
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- San Francisco Target store locks its entire product range behind security glass as crime spirals out of control
- The city’s residents continue to battle soaring crime, brought to light recently with the murder of Cash App CEO Bob Lee and the brutal broad daylight attack on the city’s former fire commissioner.
- Industry groups have noted that there is an issue with theft, with the National Retail Federation saying that organized retail crime is setting stores back around $100 billion a year, according to a 2022 survey.
- A Target store in San Francisco has locked its entire product range behind security glass as crime in the city spirals out of control.
- In 2021, retailers saw a 27 per cent increase in theft carried out by organized criminal rings, the survey found.
- Earlier this month, it was announced that Whole Foods is temporarily shutting one of its flagship stores in San Francisco just a year after it opened, citing concerns that crime in the area is endangering its staff.
- It followed Walgreens shutting down some of its San Francisco stores in 2021 due to theft.
- ‘Crime is worse than the data shows,’ ex-San Francisco prosecutor Charles Stimson told Fox News this month. ‘People do not report these crimes because when you have a DA who’s pro-criminal and not going to enforce the law, the cops aren’t going to go out and arrest somebody when they know the case is going to be no papered.
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Florida homeowner fires into couple’s car when they mistakenly turned into his property during a late-night Instacart delivery in latest ‘wrong house’ case
- A South Florida man opened fire on two Instacart delivery workers after they drove onto his property while lost, attempting to drop off an order.
- Antonio Caccavale, 43, said he opened fire after the car ran over his foot on his property in Southwest Ranches, about 20 miles northwest of Miami, on 15 April.
- Police initially closed the case without arrests as, they said, both sides ‘appear justified’ in their actions – but the state attorney is now calling for a full investigation.
- Nobody was injured by the gunfire but it comes as the latest in a spate of similar shootings across the nation, where people have been shot at after getting the wrong address or into the wrong car.
- Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot and injured after ringing the wrong doorbell in Missouri. Kaylin Gillis, 20, was shot dead when the car she was in pulled into the driveway in New York. And two Texas cheerleaders were shot and injured after one tried to get into the wrong car by mistake last week in Illinois.
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Florida deputies arrest second suspect in road rage attack where woman climbed atop car
- A minor crash led to the road rage incident on April 11 in the 9800 block of Six Mile Creek Road in the Tampa area, the FHP has said.
- The FHP shared video on social media showing the man involved in the incident yelling, “Get out of the car!” while the woman can be seen punching the Chevy’s window.
- The woman was seen at one point jumping on the front hood of the car while it was stopped in traffic at a light, while troopers said the man used a firearm in an attempt to break the car’s window.
- Prior to the witness recording the incident from inside her car, troopers said at least one gunshot was fired at the Chevy.
- Both in the incident have since been arrested
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Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Important Takeaways:
- Police arrest man who allegedly shot 6-year-old when basketball rolled into yard
- Neighbors told ABC News’ Charlotte affiliate WSOC the shooting on Tuesday started when a basketball rolled into Singletary’s yard from a group of local children playing basketball in the street. Singletary allegedly fired a gun at a neighbor before approaching a father and daughter, William James White and 6-year-old Kinsley White, who were both seriously wounded.
- One woman was grazed by a bullet and a second man was shot at but not injured, police said.
- William White remains in serious condition, according to police.
- Family members said William White tried to draw gunfire toward himself to protect his family as Singletary unloaded an entire magazine toward his neighbor. White was shot in the back in his own front yard, according to his partner, Ashley Hilderbrand.
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Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Important Takeaways:
- A recent survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and The University of Chicago found that Americans are, in huge numbers, pulling back from the values that once defined them. Over the last 25 years, the percentage of Americans who described “Patriotism” as either “important” or “very important” fell from 70% to 38%. Those who valued “Religion” fell from 62% to 39%, “Having Children” from 59% to 30%, and “Community Involvement” from 47% to 27%. Even the percentage of Americans valuing “Tolerance for Others” dropped from 80% to just 58%. Only one value out of the ten listed increased: “Money,” from 31% to 43%.
- If there is no moral design to reality, or for humanity in particular, what people value is inconsequential. In such a world, there is nothing to be pursued outside of individual expression, which is assumed to lead to happiness and human flourishing. Who cares if people do not value communities, countries or tolerance? It is the inherent determination of individuals, the pursuit of what they want the most, that will inevitably guide them. We can only follow our own impulses and desires.
- History tells a different story, however. For example, a central genius of the American system is the built-in idea that people can and will go wrong if given the chance. Even the well-intentioned can be hypocrites, including America’s founders, who nevertheless understood the pitfalls of both concentrated power and a virtue-less mob. In the prophetic words of John Adams,
- “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net.’’
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- China Is Preparing For War; Is The US Ready?
- Both the United States and China are investing record-breaking sums in building up their military capabilities. Leadership on both sides increasingly appears to consider such a conflict as inevitable, despite rhetoric to the contrary.
- Xi has ordered the regime’s military wing to prepare for war, and to be ready to launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
- Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.)… Russia’s ongoing conquest of Ukraine, and the United States’ failure to deter it, contain all the lessons necessary to prepare for what comes next in Taiwan.
- “If we don’t learn the right lessons from the failure of deterrence in Ukraine, authoritarian aggression and the CCP’s malign influence will spread to the Indo-Pacific, and our New Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party could quickly become hot,” Gallagher told The Epoch Times.
- “To prevent this, we have to act with a sense of urgency and do everything we can to deter a CCP invasion of Taiwan.” “If the Chinese Communist Party invaded Taiwan today, we would not be well positioned to defend our friend, our interests, or American values in the Indo-Pacific,” Gallagher says.
- The United States must choose, he believes, to arm Taiwan to the teeth now or come to Taiwan’s aid at a much greater cost later.
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