News and Prophecy Staff

Just a couple of years ago, China’s economy was booming and seemed poised to become the largest in the world. That was until COVID-19 and China’s all-encompassing societal response to the virus. Bloomberg reports that China’s “Covid Zero” strategy is to lock down whole cities—even as large as Shanghai—when just one case of the virus is identified (May 15, 2022).

The most remote and sparsely populated continent on the earth is Antarctica. Yet researchers from New Zealand recently found microplastics in 19 samples of freshly fallen snow on the remote Ross Ice Shelf (The Guardian, June 7, 2022).

The concept of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic has become a favorite idiom for describing activity that seems beneficial on the surface but which is, in reality, utterly meaningless compared to the magnitude of what is actually happening. And, to be sure, many chairs on the Titanic’s deck are being frantically moved about.

The world is awash with efforts to prevent “disinformation” and promote “truth.” As the impact of false and misleading information online and in the media is being felt at a growing scale by society, governments are increasingly stepping in to establish rules and regulations and act as protective “gatekeepers” of information.

These days, the definition of “mass shooting” depends on who is reporting the news. By one definition—at least four people other than the shooter shot and injured or killed—Memorial Day weekend in the United States saw at least 14 such “mass shootings” (NBC News, May 31, 2022). These shootings claimed the lives of nine people and over 60 were wounded.