Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets across the country on Saturday to protest against the government's controversial push to overhaul the judicial system.

The organizers of the massive demonstrations - which took place in cities including Jerusalem, Haifa, Beersheba, and Tel Aviv - announced on Friday a 'Week of Paralysis' to resist what they called an "attempt to turn Israel into a dictatorship."

According to figures provided by the organizers, a total of 630,000 people attended the rallies. In Tel Aviv alone, which was the main venue for the activists, around 200,000 protesters gathered, local media said.

The Saudi oil conglomerate has pledged its full support to the east Asian country's growing demand for fuel and petrochemical products.
Saudi oil giant Aramco announced on 27 March that it has signed an agreement with China for the building of an oil refinery and petrochemical complex in the far-eastern country's northeast, aimed at supporting the growing Chinese demand for fuel and petrochemical products.

According to the Saudi newspaper Sabq, the total cost of the project will amount to $12.2 billion.

Construction is set to begin during the second quarter of this year, and the complex is scheduled to officially open by 2026. Currently, the project is awaiting the necessary administrative approvals.

In a statement, Aramco announced that it will be supplying 210,000 barrels of crude oil to the complex, which is being constructed in Panjin city, in China's province of Liaoning.

"This important project will support China's growing demand across fuel and chemical products. It also represents a major milestone in our ongoing downstream expansion strategy in China and the wider region, which is an increasingly significant driver of global petrochemical demand," said Aramco Executive Vice President Mohammed al-Qahtani.

This project is a joint initiative between Aramco and Chinese firm NORINCO and Panjin Xinxin Industrial Group.

The Babylon Bee has had nearly 100 joke headlines turn into prophecies after the stories eventually came true, the CEO of America's largest right-leaning satire website told Fox News.

"The problem isn't that our satire is too close to reality," Seth Dillon told Fox News. "It's that reality is too close to satire, so our jokes keep coming true."

The Bee maintains a running list of its satirical headlines that became real — or at least partially real — stories after publication. The fulfilled prophecies include a wide range of topics and include jokes about Democrats and Republicans alike.

I recently proposed that COVID Warlord Fauci can and should be prosecuted for negligent homicide vis a vis the illicit gain-of-function research he funded in Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Here, I would like to expand the indictment to include his vaxx-related criminality, which is legion.

On the vaxx front, Fauci is culpable for an untold number of deaths which will become, perhaps, more concrete over time as the research unfolds into what exactly the long-term effects of the gene therapy are.

As of March 2023, there are 19,476 preliminary reports of death from the COVID-19 shots reported to the CDC's and FDA's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

However - and this is a huge caveat - the figures reflected in VAERS are likely significant under-estimates of the actual death toll. Research indicates that less than 1% of adverse events are ever actually reported to VAERS.

A 70-car train hauling hazardous materials derailed in North Dakota late Sunday, according to local reports.

The Canadian Pacific train derailed around 11:15 p.m. about a mile southeast of Wyndmere in Richland County, Valley News Live reported. No injuries were reported.

Officials said 31 of the 70 cars derailed, with some leaking petroleum used in the making of asphalt, according to the report.

Crews will allow the cold weather to solidify the leaked materials, which are expected to turn into a gel, WZFG reported, citing officials.

Israeli extremists have increased their attacks on Palestinian Christians and Christian institutions in occupied East Jerusalem since the beginning of the year, with police doing little to stop violent incidents, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.

Church leaders say the spike in violence can be attributed to the Jewish supremacist rhetoric of the current far-right government, whose ministers have called for Palestinian villages to be "wiped out" and even denied the existence of a Palestinian people.

On top of this, locals who spoke with Haaretz say the police "do not treat the situation seriously enough and refuse to identify the growing list of violent incidents as a trend."

A major incident has been declared on Sunday following an oil leak from the UK's largest onshore field into Poole harbour in Dorset.

The incident, which took place at Wytch Farm oilfield in Dorset, resulted in approximately 200 barrels of "reservoir fluid" being released.

The area is a haven for wildlife and has been designated a site of special scientific interest.

Jim Stewart, chief executive of Poole Harbour Commissioners, said: "A major incident has now been declared and a gold command unit has been established.

A Ukraine-operated drone "packed with explosives" has caused an explosion in the center of a Russian town, injuring three people and damaging three residential buildings.

The explosion took place in the town of Kireyevsk in Tula region, about 300 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, on Sunday, Russian news agency TASS reported. None of the three people are believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries, the report said.

According to the news agency, authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141, which has a range of about 1,000 kilometers.

The U.S. and Canada have agreed to allow asylum seekers who illegally cross the border in both countries to be turned back. This is a significant change made necessary by the huge influx of illegals trying to cross the border from Canada into the United States.

At the southern border, Joe Biden has been forced to renew most of the policies initiated by Donald Trump, including the automatic denial of asylum to migrants who transited a third country, a modified "Remain in Mexico" policy, and a modified Title 42 program. That program will end on March 31 and Biden has been looking for ways to keep the coming massive influx at the border under control.

The deal with Canada will be announced during the president's visit to Canada, which began last night.

According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

"We're seeing an increase in irregular migration going north into Canada, which reflects the regional and global migration challenges we have been talking about. We're committed to working with them to address it, including by prioritizing orderly and safe migration through regular pathways."

The screengrab above is from a job advertisement for a senior academic role at a mid-ranking UK university (to which I have no connection), paying a maximum salary of around £63,000 a year. (For context, the median full-time salary in the UK is approximately £33,000.)

British universities frequently advertise a commitment to the Athena SWAN Charter, which is a set of ten principles designed to promote and support equality between genders in institutions of higher education, and which allocates bronze, silver and gold awards on application by such institutions. That universities should remove barriers that unfairly prevent employees from achieving their full potential is a project that almost anybody can get behind - even if we recognise that there is a certain amount of rent-seeking going on whenever a body sets itself up to give out industry awards of this kind.

But explicitly adopting an 'inclusive recruitment process' for the furtherance of equality between men and women in higher education is a new one on me - especially when it is so transparently and obviously wrongheaded (although I suppose nothing should surprise me in this regard anymore). The 'logic', if I can use that word, would appear to be that if all short-listed candidates know in advance what they will be asked at interview, and also know that there will be no unexpected questions or digressions (and can even bring pre-prepared notes on their answers), there will be a level playing field between them and - presumably - no danger of any particular candidate benefiting from the conversation straying into irrelevant areas ('Oh, I didn't know you were a West Ham supporter too! The job's yours!').