Is the time for warning people to prepare for what is ahead coming to an end? For years, bold men and women all over America have been sounding the alarm and warning people to get prepared physically, financially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for the great storm that is rapidly approaching. Personally, I have written more than 2,500 articles on my primary two websites combined, and so nobody can accuse me of not blowing the trumpet. It has gotten to the point that sometimes I am even tired of listening to myself warn the people. But now we are shifting into a new phase.

The other day I was reflecting on some of the things that I have been hearing lately. Sales of emergency food and supplies are way down across the entire industry. Many organizations and websites that have been instrumental in sounding the alarm for a long time are really struggling right now. On my websites, traffic has hit a bit of a plateau after experiencing a tremendous surge late last year. Overall, "prepping" was very hot just a few years ago, and at one time it was estimated that there were approximately three million "preppers" in the United States. But these days there seems to be a tremendous amount of apathy out there.

Hillary has been in the hot seat, but she escaped unscathed.

But what is really going on behind the scenes? Is something big going down inside the DNC?

A high-level Democratic National Committee staff member, Seth Rich, was gunned down by unknown assailants near his home in Washington, D.C. while reportedly walking home at 4 a.m.

As the Washington Post noted:

President Obama referred to himself 45 times in this speech at the memorial service for the five police officers killed in Dallas, including referring to himself in the third-person: "the president."

For Barack Obama it's not about Dallas Police Officers, gun violence, Black Lives Matter...none of these issues. For Barack Obama it's all about...Barack Obama, the me, me, me POTUS.

The Daily Caller comments on Obama's "I" Dallas memorial speech.

Obama referred to himself twice before finishing his opening salutations and before mentioning the slain officers or their families. After noting the presence of President Bush, members of Congress and Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings, Obama appeared to go off-script.

A German of Iranian origin who traveled to Syria to join a jihadist group was sentenced to two years in prison for appearing in a set of images with severed heads of Syrian army servicemen. The case marks the first Syria-related war crime verdict in Germany.

A regional court in Frankfurt has found Aria Ladjevardi, a 21-year-old German citizen, guilty of war crimes for treating two Syrian army soldiers "in a degrading and humiliating manner" in violation of international humanitarian law.

The unidentified militant group, to which Ladjevardi is said to have belonged, raided a Syrian army checkpoint between March 8 and April 16, 2014, in the town of Binnish located in the Idlib province. The militants captured and later executed two servicemen. In course of the slaughter they beheaded the victims and spiked their heads on metal rods put on public display, the court has stated in a statement Tuesday.

South Korea's military has announced the location of its THAAD anti-missile defense system, intended to deter threats from North Korea. The plan, which greatly angered regional powers, has led thousands of Koreans on to the streets in protest.

Seoul and Washington say the system is intended to both counter threats in the region and defend US troops stationed there. It forms the core element of the America's multilayered defense program. But the local residents fear it will lead to deteriorating health and will negatively impact the agricultural economy. The system's high-powered radar has been linked to infertility and cancer, according to local rumors, which the government dismissed as "baseless."

Some 3,000 people first took to the streets on Saturday, following the previous day's announcement of the US-backed Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense System, or THAAD. This was in Chilgok County - thought to have been the likeliest of the locations. The protests have since spread.

But on Wednesday the government revealed the location to be the county of Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, about 135 miles (217km) southeast of Seoul.

"South Korea and the US' joint working group have proposed the Seongju area, North Gyeongsang Province, as the optimal place for the deployment ... and the countries' defense ministers have approved it," the Ministry of National Defense's Deputy Minister for Policy Yoo Jeh-seung announced on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reports.

This led to no less than 5,000 farmers gathering in protest, according to Yonhap. Opposition continues to be so fierce that some officials have gone on hunger strikes. This was followed by the county's Governor Kim Hang-gon writing a letter to Seoul in his own blood, as the attendees observed.

Ninety-five percent of the people living in Crimea would vote in favor of the republic's accession into the Russian Federation if a referendum on the subject was held again today.

On Tuesday, Russia's state owned public opinion research agency, VTSIOM, released the results of a poll conducted among Crimean residents between late June and early July of this year which found that 95 percent of Crimeans and 94 percent of the people living in Sevastopol, which is a separate subject of the Russian Federation, said they would vote to reunite with Russia if a referendum on the issue took place in the near future.

Only two percent of those polled said they would not support the reunification. Three percent of Crimeans and four percent of Sevastopol residents found the question too complicated to answer.

In the same poll, Crimeans were asked if they were satisfied with the general situation in their region. Seventy-six percent answered "yes," of which 34 percent were "very definite" about it. Ninety-seven percent of Crimeans and 98 percent of those living in Sevastopol said they approve of how Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing his job.

The Crimean Republic reunited with the Russian Federation two years ago after over 96 percent of its residents, the majority of whom are ethnic Russians, approved the move in an urgently called referendum. The decision was prompted by the ouster of the democratically elected president of Ukraine in a violent coup in Kiev and the installation of a nationalist-backed government that almost immediately declared war on the pro-Russian regions in the country's southeast, which refused to recognize the newly imposed regime.

Dozens of half-dead people blindly staggered through the streets of a Brooklyn neighborhood known as "Zombieland" Tuesday morning, propping themselves up against fire hydrants and vomiting foam down their shirts.

But the apocalyptic scene wasn't for a movie. The victims had apparently smoked a bad batch of the "synthetic marijuana" drug known as K2 — and 33 people had to be hospitalized.

"It looked like a scene out of 'The Walking Dead,' " said Brian Arthur, a lifelong Brooklyn resident who posted footage of the disheartening scene on Facebook.

British Airways passengers flying from Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 are facing huge lines and lengthy delays after a glitch in a new IT system caused chaos at check-in.

It is the second time in as many weeks that travellers have taken to social media to post pictures of long queues in the departure hall, as hundreds of people have had to contend with "total chaos" at the start of their holidays.

"Total chaos at Heathrow Terminal 5 where 'technical difficulties' have halted BA check in," wrote Theo Delaney on Twitter, sharing a photo of a snaking line.

Filtering the news accounts of the tragedy in Dallas, we have more questions than answers. For some time, we have been afraid that long-standing, lethal police brutality toward African-Americans and the Black Lives Matter could provide a combustible mix in this troubled, wounded nation.

Although Micah Johnson was apparently moving up and down stairs to effect multiple sniper posts, the numerous accounts of other gunmen generating "triangulated fire" do not strike us as being satisfactorily dismissed by Johnson's vertical mobility.

Subsequent accounts of other snipers turning out to be armed protesters at what was described as a "peaceful" protest strike us as inadequate as well.

With Louis Farrakhan having called for blood, with jihadists being recruited for combat as proxy warriors in the Caucasus and Syria, among other places, with long-standing interface between Farrakhan and white supremacist elements, with white supremacists having enthusiastically embraced Donald Trump, we are of the opinion that other angles should be explored here.

Graphic body camera video was just released showing a Wagoner police officer kill an unarmed man — for pointing his finger.

The shooting occurred after 25-year-old Andrew Henson led police on a high-speed chase for approximately 20 minutes. The chase began after a routine traffic stop.

Police say Henson's car rolled after he clipped a patrol car. When Officer Robert Reynolds approached Henson, he was hiding behind the car.

According to the body cam footage, Officer Reynolds approached Henson with his gun drawn. As Henson emerged from behind the vehicle, he pointed at Reynolds. "You're going to have to kill me," Henson said.