For America's law enforcement, the threat of being injured or killed while on the job is all too real, with hundreds of officers being shot each year.

A new report from the National Fraternal Order of Police has revealed that as of July 31, 210 officers have been shot in the line of duty, with thirty-nine such attacks resulting in death.

According to the National Fraternal Order of Police, 2022 numbers are up 14 percent from last year, and 12 percent from 2020.

Many Afghans expressed shock or doubt Tuesday that Al-Qaeda's chief had been killed in Kabul by a US drone strike, saying they couldn't believe Ayman Al-Zawahiri had been hiding in their midst.

"It's just propaganda," Fahim Shah, 66, a resident of the Afghan capital, told AFP.

Late Monday, US President Joe Biden announced Zawahiri's assassination, saying "justice has been delivered" to the Egyptian with a $25 million bounty on his head.

The destruction and plunder of Ukraine have been old news for quite some time now, unfortunately. However, the media and the public have only scratched the surface of the sheer scale of this process. With the territory of modern-day Ukraine being the breadbasket of Europe (and beyond) for millennia, the country has been the target of various agricultural corporations, particularly those originating in the political West. In recent years, especially after the Neo-Nazi coup in 2014, foreign corporations acquired Ukrainian fields, depriving the country of any control over its food exports and even domestic food supply.

Corporations such as "Cargill", "DuPont" and "Monsanto" (which is formally a German-Australian company, but essentially an American one) are among the most prominent owners of Ukrainian arable land. In addition, corporations like "Vanguard", "Blackrock" and "Blackstone" are among the largest shareholders in the aforementioned agricultural giants, owning trillions in assets. For instance, "Blackrock" is a fund that manages assets worth over $10 trillion, with "Vanguard" controlling at least six and "Blackstone" managing up to $1 trillion. Together, the three massive US multinational corporations ("Cargill", "DuPont" and "Monsanto") own over 17 million hectares of Ukraine's arable land.

In comparison, the whole of Italy has 16.7 million hectares of agricultural land. In short, the three American corporations own more usable agricultural land in Ukraine than what the whole country of Italy has. The entire area of Ukraine is approximately 600,000 square km. Out of that land area, 170,000 square km have been acquired by foreign corporations, the vast majority Western, particularly those based in or financed by the US. Since the new law on the sale of agricultural land passed by the Kiev regime entered into full force approximately one year ago, to this day, the three large multinational consortia financed with US capital have acquired well over a quarter of Ukrainian arable land. A report by the Australian National Review states that the three US corporations managed to acquire 17 out of the 62 million hectares of agricultural land in less than a year. This made it possible for them to control 28% of the total arable land in Ukraine.

When Americans are asked to name the most important problem facing the U.S., 8% of the resulting mentions focus on abortion. While not high on an absolute basis, this is the highest such percentage since Gallup began tracking mentions of abortion in 1984. Additionally, another 6% of Americans name a related issue -- problems with the nation's judicial system and courts.

Abortion ranks behind three other issues on the "most important" list in Gallup's July 5-26 update. Inflation (17%) and dysfunctional government or bad leadership (17%) top the list, with another 12% of Americans making general complaints about the economy. In addition to specific mentions of inflation, 5% of respondents mention fuel and gas prices.

California's governor on Monday declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the declaration will help California coordinate a government-wide response, seek more vaccines and lead outreach and education efforts on where people can get treatment and vaccination.

"We'll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization," Newsom said in a statement announcing his declaration.

This global drive to "vaccinate" the human race did not come out of nowhere, but was preceded, over decades, by "public health" campaigns that variously readied people for it, by expertly convincing them that their lives, and their children's lives, depended utterly on their obeying, without question, the dictates of "public health," however needless and/or risky they may be.

That preparatory process has been underway for quite some time; but it accelerated in the Eighties, when the vaccination schedule for our children started growing radically (some might say metastasizing) into the relentless poisonous assault it is today. That push increasingly entailed the demonization of all those who wouldn't go along, whether on medical grounds or for religious reasons, all such heretics now fiercely vilified as "anti-vaxxers."

Sting shared an urgent political message during a concert in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday.

The singer stopped his show to appeal to the crowd regarding the war in Ukraine and the growing threats to democracy.

Calling the country's invasion at the hands of Russian forces "an absurdity based upon a lie," the statement was expressed through Polish actor Maciej Stuhr, who Sting invited on stage to act as a translator, as reported by the Associated Press.

On February 27, Ukrainian President Zelensky announced the formation of the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine and invited foreign nationals to come to Ukraine and join the fight against Russia. Foreign nationals, many with no prior military experience or training, heeded Zelensky's call and poured into Ukraine. Months of reports of heavy casualties among the undertrained and often underarmed International Legion volunteers followed.

On July 1, the International Legion issued a statement on their social media accounts:

"Going forward, media enquires and requests for interviews regarding the Legion and with legionnaires must go through the Legion's Communications Director, "Mockingjay" on Signal or Telegram only. We also remind all journalists that interviews and any communication with legionnaires are only legitimate if they are approved by the Legion's press office, and that legionnaires are under strict orders not to talk to the press."

The true number of foreign volunteers fighting in Ukraine is unknown. In March, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed more than 20,000 came from 52 countries, but many of the volunteers who came have already left. The total number of volunteer groups, both officially registered with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and operating unofficially, is also unknown.

Iain Overton writes to Jane Hartley, US Ambassador to the UK, after Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder to America:

In February 2011, a British Lieutenant Colonel in Afghanistan, in receipt of daily military Situation Reports from UK special forces, wrote of something he described as "quite incredible". His surprise was regarding the number of Afghan detainees that UK SAS units had sent "back into a building", only for those prisoners to grab a gun or grenade and to then be swiftly killed by their British captors. The Lt Col's superior, the Operations Chief of Staff, replied that such suspicious deaths constituted "a massive failure of leadership". Indeed, they did.

This month it was revealed - in part by Action on Armed Violence (the charity I head up) - that such leadership failed to prevent a killing spree that saw as many as 56 extra-judicial killings by the SAS over a six-month period alone. Hundreds more murders could have occurred. The Chief of Staff wrote:

"If we don't believe this, then no one else will. And when the next WikiLeaks occurs then we will be dragged down with them."

Truth, he felt, had a habit of getting out sooner or later. That at least was true.

What is not true is that the exposé of UK Special Forces would come from WikiLeaks. In part, this might be because Julian Assange today lies in a British jail, his extradition to your country approved by the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. It seems that a very effective way to stop someone exposing British or American death squads is to lock them up.

Inflation and crime have gotten so bad in Gotham that even cheap meat like Spam has to be locked up.

At Duane Reade's store in the Port Authority bus depot, the shelf-stable product — only $3.99 a can — is now being stocked in plastic, anti-theft cases.

"I've never seen that before!" one cashier laughed while using a magnet to remove a can of Spam from its cage.

The cashier was among the employees, tourists and store regulars stunned that the iconic blue-and-yellow cans are now being kept under lock-and-key — some even poking fun at the sight as "a sort of Jeff Koons homage," per one viral tweet.