Back in the late Seventies, Genette Tate's name dominated the headlines in the same way that Madeleine McCann's did after she disappeared. Genette's face stared out from newsstands and 'missing' posters across Britain, and her parents made emotional appeals on TV. A reward of £23,000, raised by the local community, was put up for information leading to her safe return.

The 13-year-old's disappearance became synonymous with a single, haunting image which remains as chilling today as it was then: a picture of Genette's bike lying in the middle of a country lane near her home in Devon, from where she was snatched in broad daylight.

Genette lived in the hamlet of Aylesbeare, three miles south-east of Exeter and close to the M5 motorway. She was a Girl Guide and a popular member of the church choir. Like many children of her generation, she also had a paper round.

At around 3.45 pm on Saturday, August 19, 1978, she was delivering the evening paper, the Express & Echo, to houses in Withen Lane. She stopped briefly to speak to two of her friends, before whizzing off on her bike. Moments later, her friends walked around the corner and found her bicycle — but there was no sign of Genette. The bike's back wheel was still spinning. 'The girl who vanished into thin air' was the headline in one national newspaper the following morning.

The search for Genette — also known as 'Ginny' — turned into the biggest missing person hunt in Britain, with the village hall transformed into a major incident room. Scores of police officers were joined by Royal Marines based at the commando training centre at nearby Lympstone. While more than 7,000 volunteers combed the moors and woodland near Genette's home, divers scoured gravel pits, ponds, wells and silage pits. Helicopters and RAF reconnaissance aircraft were a constant presence above Aylesbeare.

Forget for a moment that U.S. stock markets have seen their worst start to a new year since the Great Depression or that some $2.5 trillion in wealth has been evaporated in less than two weeks.

CNN says it's hardly the time to panic:

Time to panic? Hardly.

There are plenty of reasons to relax, especially if you are a U.S investor. Here are the top two:

1. America's economy is still in good shape.

2. Staying in stocks pays off. Since World War II, investors who remained in stocks for at least 15 years made money

...

Right now, the U.S. economy is growing. It's not rock star growth, but 2% to 2.5% a year is good, and the Fed is being very cautious.

More importantly, businesses are still hiring. Over 2.3 million jobs were added last year (the latest data on hiring comes out Friday and it's widely expected to show more jobs added).

You may have noticed that things are starting to get crazy. Financial markets are imploding, violent crime rates are soaring in our major cities, and we have witnessed a truly unusual series of natural disasters in recent months. War in the Middle East continues to rage out of control, and Islamic terror continues to spread all over the globe. And many believe that 2016 is going to be a year of political shaking, civil unrest, governmental crackdowns and great economic chaos in the United States. All it is going to take to plunge our society into full-blown panic mode is a major "trigger event" of some sort. Another 9/11, a new "Lehman Brothers" moment, a massive EMP burst from the sun or a historic seismic event are all examples of what this "trigger event" could look like.


So are you ready for what is about to happen to America? In previous articles, I have urged my readers to focus on the five basics - food, water, shelter, energy and self-defense. If you focus on those five things, you will probably be in pretty good shape during any major disaster or emergency.

In this article, I want to dig a little deeper and give people some more specific tips regarding what they can do to prepare for the times that we are now entering. The following are 70 tips that will help you survive what is going to happen to America...

In a blatant abuse of authority, a Las Vegas cop was recently caught on cell phone video pepper-spraying a group of high school students. Instead of committing a crime or threatening the officer's safety, the teens were simply asking why he was physically assaulting an 8th grader when he suddenly fired pepper spray into their eyes.

On Friday, a student recorded a cell phone video of a Las Vegas police officer slamming an eighth-grade student's head against the hood of his patrol car while pulling the kid's hair. The 8th grader had been taken into custody after he allegedly trespassed onto the campus of Eldorado High School and refused to leave. According to police, a crowd of students gathered around the officer when the boy's sister asked the aggressive cop to leave her brother alone.

"What the f**k are you doing to him?" a girl asks the cop a moment before he shoots her and nearly half the students in their faces with pepper spray.

While most of the world has fixated on the plunging Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and Beijing's missteps managing the currency, China's labor market has become increasingly fragile. As wage arrears and layoffs grow, unrest in factories and on construction sites is spreading.

Worker protests and demonstrations doubled last year, to 2,774, with December's total of more than 400 such incidents, setting a monthly record. The protests come as China's slower growth crimps profits and concerns about poor policymaking sap investor confidence. "The increase in strikes and protests began last August around the time of the yuan devaluation and subsequent stock market crash and continued to build during the final quarter of the year, as the economy has showed little sign of improvement," says Geoffrey Crothall, communications director at the Hong Kong-based workers' advocacy organization China Labour Bulletin.

A large vehicle carrying gas tanks caught fire and exploded near two factories in Yuhang District, Hangzhou city, east China, setting them both on fire.

The blast occurred around 7.05pm local time (11.05am GMT) on January 14, and firefighters were immediately dispatched to the scene, reports the People's Daily Online.

So far one person has been reported to have died in the incident. The huge explosion which engulfed an area of 21,500 square feet was captured on camera by nearby villagers.

The lorry was at the Junction of Liangzhu Street and Tongyun Road, when it caught fire, causing the gas tanks to explode.

According to the Hangzhou fire department, the vehicle set fire to two nearby factories, causing more explosions.

Chinese media reports that 29 fire engines were deployed to the blast site to fight the blaze.

According to the report, witnesses in the area described a 'car bomb' igniting a factory called 'Winfoong Machinery,' but this is yet to be confirmed.

Many people said they heard the sound of the explosion and felt the vibrations from inside their homes, miles from the blast site.

A view last month of Southern California Gas' leaking well near Porter Ranch, including the exposed wellhead

Southern California Gas Co.'s effort to plug its leaking natural gas well involves higher stakes than simply stopping the fumes that have sickened many residents of Porter Ranch.

The company also is trying to avoid a blowout, which state regulators said is now a significant concern after a seventh attempt to plug the well created more precarious conditions at the site.

If a blowout occurs, highly flammable gas would vent directly up through the well, known as SS25, rather than dissipating as it does now via the subsurface leak and underground channels.

State officials said a blowout would increase the amount of leaked gas, causing greater environmental damage. That natural gas also creates the risk of a massive fire if ignited by a spark. The risk of fire already is so high that cellphones and watches are banned from the site

California Department of Conservation spokesman Don Drysdale called the possibility of fire "a concern" even without a blowout. The department is the umbrella agency that oversees the oil and gas regulators responsible for well safety.

If the wellhead fails, the thing is just going to be full blast.- Gene Nelson, physical sciences professor, Cuesta College.

The chief deputy director of the department, Jason Marshall, and a senior oil and gas field regulator assigned to daily watch at Aliso Canyon, Scott McGurk, told The Times the site and wellhead were made more unstable by the gas company's attempts to stop the leak by pumping a slurry directly into the well.

The last of those efforts, which stretched over several days beginning Dec. 22, expanded a crater around the wellhead, state and gas company officials said.

The crater is now 25 feet deep, 80 feet long and 30 feet wide, those officials said. The wellhead sits exposed within the cavernous space, held in place with cables attached after it wobbled during the plugging attempt, Marshall and McGurk said. The well pipe and its control valves are exposed and unsupported within that hole, atop a deep field of pressurized gas.

Background information from the translator: the German Farmers Association - DBV / Deutscher Bauernverband - is Germany's major representative for farmers, their families, and rural areas of the country. With its long tradition, the Farmers Association today represents more than 90% of a total of 300,000 farms in Germany.

The Association is quite influential in German politics and plays a role in the general political discussions. The Farmers Association has two offices and representations in Berlin and Brussels which work as central points of contact between political parties, associations and public organizations. The Germany Famers Association is a member of the European Farmers Association (COPA) and is also a member in the World Farmers Association (WFO).

The German Farmers Association is complaining about billion-dollar losses due to EU sanctions against Russia. But Federal Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt characterizes the sanctions as merely "annoying" - and expects 2016 to be a poor year.

Considering the poor economic situation of many farmers, the German Farmers Associations (DBV) is demanding an end to the Russian sanctions on products from the EU. "Efforts to overcome the current embargo have to be intensified!" stated DBV president Joachim Rukwied in an interview with the newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung. Many German farmers find themselves in dire straits because of Russia's boycott on products from Europe.

Two former U.S. attorneys said the FBI will likely reach a determination in the next few months in its investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, and based on publicly available evidence said the bureau could have a strong criminal case.

"I expect the FBI to conclude the investigation within 60 to 90 days and make a recommendation to the Justice Department, and I believe they will recommend a series of charges involving the classified information," said Joseph DiGenova, who was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia during the Reagan administration.

The FBI has been investigating whether classified information was mishandled over Clinton's private email server since at least August. The probe reportedly has expanded to include contracts awarded by the State Department in relation to Clinton Foundation donors.

"These classified information cases are relatively simple cases to get into, and the FBI knows that what the Clinton people did with regard to her server was a clear violation of federal criminal law," DiGenova added. "It is the negligent handling of classified information, which is prohibited by statute, and this is a gross example of it, and it dwarfs the information in the [David] Petraeus case."

Capitol Police and Washington, DC fire officials are investigating a suspicious substance found in the basement of Longworth House Office Building after 10 cafeteria workers there suddenly became sick.

Construction has been underway at the facility, which is one of three used by the House of Representatives.

The 10 people reported feeling ill in the cafeteria area of Longworth House Office Building on Friday morning and were escorted from the building. At least two were carried out on stretchers, according to Roll Call.