Sears Holdings Corp sued longtime former chairman Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investments and others like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, claiming they illegally siphoned billions of dollars of assets from the retailer before it went bankrupt.

North Korea is flexing its muscles. On Thursday, the nation announced that it had test-launched a new “tactical guided weapon” — but kept the details vague.

The weapon is unlikely to be a long-range ballistic missile that could jeopardize peace talks, according to the Associated Press. Rather, given the fact that the announcement came with new demands for ongoing negotiations with the U.S., the tests were likely intended as a display of military strength.

Guessing Game
South Korean experts suspect that the new weapon was some sort of cruise missile, per the AP‘s attempt to learn more. Had the weapon been a longer-range missile that could pose a threat to the U.S. or other nations, then North Korea may have put at risk its ongoing effort to lift sanctions that other countries have imposed on it.

Sears Holdings Corp sued longtime Chairman Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investments, and former directors including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, accusing them of allowing the retailer to be looted of billions of dollars before its October 2018 bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, made public on Thursday, was filed by the restructuring team winding down what remains of the pre-bankruptcy Sears following Lampert’s $5.2 billion purchase in February of most of its assets.

Sears accused Lampert of ordering the creation of bogus financial plans showing the retailer would turn itself around even as it racked up huge losses, enabling the transfer of five major assets including Land’s End and Sears Hometown Outlet for his benefit.

While the United States and their allies have deliberately created famine conditions in North Korea, then in Sudan, in Tunisia, and now in Yemen, they are also beginning to drag Syria down into starvation. The only way of avoiding this situation is by relaunching the regional economy, which collapsed during the wars in Iraq and Syria. Two projects for railroads are currently in competition – the first intended to develop the region, the second to divide it. Are the Westerners behaving like human beings, or are they pursuing their dream of world domination?

Despite earlier good news on the US-China trade deficit, U.S. soybean exports have plunged to their lowest levels since the early days of the U.S.-China trade war in what is an alarming sign for farmers pleading with the Trump administration to resolve all trade disputes.

Current data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) revealed that the total U.S. soybean exports reached 460,700 metric tons last week, down from 888,700 tons in the previous week and just above 446,500 tons in the same week a year ago. Of the soybean shipments last week, only 130,200 tons were loaded on vessels for China.

The recent collapse in world trade volume is the worst since the financial crisis and as dangerous as during the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, according to The Telegraph.

Data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis revealed that world trade volume dropped 1.8% in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as a synchronized global downturn gained momentum.

THE US MILITARY AND CIA LAUNDER COUP PROPAGANDA THROUGH POPULAR FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER VIDEO GAMES LIKE CALL OF DUTY, SIMULATING ASSASSINATIONS OF VENEZUELA’S SOCIALIST LEADER AND SABOTAGE OF ITS ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
BY MAX BLUMENTHAL AND BEN NORTON

We often think of video games as fiction, but the US government has weaponized them to advance its agenda around the globe.

SIMULATING VENEZUELA INVASION IN “CALL OF DUTY”
Venezuelan citizen journalists Orlenys Ortiz and Sancocho Power have drawn attention to the similarity between the plot of a 2013 first person shooter game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and alleged acts of US sabotage against the country this March.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is set in a dystopian future after the Middle East is nuked. A Venezuelan general comes into power, establishing a socialist style federation that spreads across Latin America like a disease, uniting all oil producing nations and expelling US citizens.

It’s no secret that health experts and nutritionists have been wary of high fructose corn syrup for years. But now they have one more reason to advocate against it: a new study published in the journal Science says that the sugary substance boosts the growth of cancerous tumors in mice.

The study, conducted by researchers at Cornell University and Baylor University, found that consuming a modest amount of high-fructose corn syrup every day—about the equivalent of drinking one can of soda—can accelerate the growth of cancerous tumors in mice’s intestines.

It's not the weather that is causing farmers to commit suicide, it's corporate run dairies and farms that hire illegals to do the work while they rake in the money ... They also get deals on regulations, taxes and fees... How is that fair to the average farmer, rancher or dairyman ??

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'We are taking loans just to pay bills': Broken Minnesota farmer posts heartbreaking Facebook video to reveal how the average salary in his industry has dropped to just $15,000-a-year

Mark Berg, 26, posted an emotional six-minute-long video, viewed more than 300,000 times, voicing his frustration over the strain of running a dairy farm

The young farmer, brushing back tears, talks about his father telling him that he has less than when he started the business 40 years ago

In Los Angeles County alone, there are 41,000 transients living on the streets.

And for Rev. Andy Bales of the Union Rescue Mission, he says the homeless crisis has reached a breaking point.

“At this point, I’m very concerned about everyone in L.A. because we’ve really passed the tipping point of danger because we’ve left so many people for so many years to be devastated on the streets,” he said.

The Los Angeles Police Department recently released new body cam video that shows an interaction between police and a transient armed with a knife in downtown Los Angeles.

In the clip, officers are seen reasoning with the transient in an effort to get him to drop his knife. Moments before, a woman inside the café described how the man had threatened to slice her throat.

Police eventually had to fire half a dozen rounds of non-lethal force as the man used a chair to block the bullets.

Widespread drug use and homelessness in plaguing all socialist regions of the country. From San Francisco, where pedestrians have to literally watch the homeless shoot up, to Los Angeles where Medieval diseases have returned thanks to policies which have made it impossible for the everyday American to scrape by anymore.

Seattle is also committing suicide. “It is about the damage they inflict on themselves, to be sure, but also on the fabric of this place where we live. This story is about a beautiful jewel that has been violated. And a crisis of faith among a generation of Seattlites falling out of love with their home,” said KOMO’s Eric Johnson in the intro to the video he helped create about the crisis. Years of authoritarian socialist policies are taking their toll on America’s cities. It’s time to say “enough is enough.”

European refiners are switching to Russian sour grades as US sanctions have shrunk Venezuela’s similar-grade exports, Reuters reports, adding that the Russian sour crude is getting increasingly expensive.

Citing sources from the trading industry, Reuters says the situation has been made worse by the fact that OPEC members have cut mainly their output of heavier, more sour grades under the OPEC+ agreement aimed at stimulating a price rise.

US crude is not an alternative as it is overwhelmingly light and sweet, while refineries in Europe are equipped to process heavier grades as well as light ones to make refined products.