I had a fellow on my latest podcast, released Sunday, who insists that the world population will crash 90-plus percent from the current 7.6 billion to 600 million by the end of this century. Jack Alpert heads an outfit called the Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab (SKIL) which he started at Stanford University in 1978 and now runs as a private research foundation. Alpert is primarily an engineer.

At 600 million, the living standard in the USA would be on a level with the post-Roman peasantry of Fifth century Europe, but without the charm, since many of the planet's linked systems - soils, oceans, climate, mineral resources - will be in much greater disarray than was the case 1,500 years ago. Anyway, that state-of-life may be a way-station to something more dire. Alpert's optimal case would be a world human population of 50 million, deployed in three "city-states," in the Pacific Northwest, the Uruguay / Paraguay border region, and China, that could support something close to today's living standards for a tiny population, along with science and advanced technology, run on hydropower. The rest of world, he says, would just go back to nature, or what's left of it. Alpert's project aims to engineer a path to that optimal outcome.

A "senior officer" told Haaretz reporter 'Amos Harel that most Gazans killed by the IDF since March 30^th were killed accidentally, claiming that IDF snipers were aiming to wound them but that the protesters either bent down just as the sniper was pulling the trigger or were killed by shrapnel from the ground.

This claim directly contradicts IDF's official statement of 31^st March, in which the army claimed that "nothing was carried out uncontrolled, everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed." The IDF later deleted the statement, presumably because of the legal culpability it carries, but a screen capture was taken in time.

The New York Times has obtained a list of four-dozen questions that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would like President Trump to answer, after Mueller's office delivered the questions to Trump's attorneys (however the Times notes that their source is not someone on Trump's legal team).

Mueller has sought to question Trump for months over his business dealings, his relationships, and his communications with former staffers who have become embroiled in the probe. Trump, meanwhile, has at times expressed a desire to be interviewed by Mueller in the hopes of ending the investigation more quickly. The President's lawyers eventually negotiated for Mueller to present a list of questions, which can be read below.

About 80 percent of Mexico's Indigenous children live in poverty.

As Mexico marks Child's Day Tuesday, data shows that five in 10 children live in poverty in the country, while among Indigenous children, the rate goes up to eight in 10, according to a report by the National Council of Social Development Policy Evaluation (Coneval).

Using the most recent available data (2016) the report reveals that 52.3 percent of children over 11 years old live under the poverty line, out of which 9.7 percent live in extreme poverty. This means that 20.7 million children and teenagers (about a sixth of the country's total population) live in poverty in Mexico.

A French-born American bought the domain France.com in 1994. However, in March 2018, the ownership of the domain was abruptly transferred to the French government. Now, Jean-Noël Frydman is suing to get his business back.

Over a 20-year period, Frydman built up a substantial business that served the French-speaking community in the United States; he even collaborated with several French governmental agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which would later sue for control of his web domain.

Frydman employed the services of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School to help him wrest control of the website back from the French authorities in 2016 but to no avail. In September 2017, the Paris Court of Appeals declared that France.com was operating in violation of French trademark law, a ruling which forced web.com to transfer ownership of the domain to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 12, 2018. Frydman was neither notified nor compensated.

'"Defendants did not approach Plaintiff to purchase or license the domain, the trademark, or Plaintiff's underlying business and goodwill. Instead, in 2015, Defendants misused the French judicial system to seize the domain from Plaintiff without compensation, under the erroneous theory that Defendants were inherently entitled to take the domain because it included the word 'France,'" the lawsuit reads as cited by Ars Technica.

Taiwan is considering purchasing American M1A2 Abrams tanks to defend its shores from China's potential aggression, Taipei's defense minister said, claiming that the island might become a new "hottest flashpoint" in the region.

Taipei is contemplating the procurement of US M1A2 Abrams tanks to serve as a coastal line of defense should mainland China chose to reassert its sovereignty over the island nation, Minister of National Defense Yen Teh-fa told a panel of lawmakers on Monday, Central News Agency reports.

Noting that Abrams tanks could serve as the key force to "win the coast and defeat the enemy on the beach," the defense minister told the panel that the military is currently evaluating buying the hardware from the United States. The assessment and the size of the potential order, Yen added, will be completed by the end of the year.

The Taiwanese defense chief believes that the island must beef up its military as China steps up its military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait.

"In one or two months, China will hold more long-range military training and increase combined forces operations when engaged in such activities in waters near Taiwan," Yen said. "The Taiwan Strait is very likely to replace the Korean Peninsula as the hottest flash point in the region."

Goodall's decision is reigniting a debate about euthanasia in Australia where assisted suicide is illegal

Australia's oldest scientist, who caused a stir when his university tried to vacate his office aged 102, will fly to Switzerland in early May to end his life, reigniting a national euthanasia debate.

David Goodall, who is now 104, does not have a terminal illness but his quality of life has deteriorated and he has secured a fast-track appointment with an assisted dying agency in Basel, euthanasia advocates said.

"I greatly regret having reached that age," the ecologist told broadcaster ABC on his birthday earlier this month. "I'm not happy. I want to die. It's not sad particularly. What is sad is if one is prevented.

On April 23^rd, the great independent investigative journalist, Craig Murray - a former British diplomat - headlined at his blog, "Condemned By Their Own Words", and he posted there the translated-to-English transcript (excerpted below) to this Israeli radio Hebrew broadcast on April 21^st, in which an Israeli Brigadier-General, named Fogel, explained why Israel's troops are doing the right thing to shoot and even to kill Gazans who come (an unspecified) too close to the wall which separates Israel from Gaza:

Any person who gets close to the fence, anyone who could be a future threat to the border of the State of Israel and its residents, should bear a price for that violation. If this child or anyone else gets close to the fence in order [the soldier thinks possibly] to hide an explosive device or [to] check if there are any dead zones there or to cut the fence so someone could infiltrate the territory of the State of Israel to kill us ...

Nesiel [the interviewer]: Then, then his punishment [for being suspected] is death?

Fogel: His punishment is death. As far as I'm concerned then yes, if you can only shoot him to stop him, in the leg or arm - great. But if it's more than that then, yes, you want to check with me whose blood is thicker, ours or theirs. It is clear to you that if one such person will manage to cross the fence or hide an explosive device there ...

Nesiel: But we were taught that live fire is only used when the soldiers face immediate danger. ... It does not do all that well for us, those pictures that are distributed around the world. Fogel: Look, Ron, we're even terrible at it [at suppressing those pictures]. There's nothing to be done, David always looks better against Goliath. And in this case, we are the Goliath. Not the David. That is entirely clear to me. ... It will drag us into a war. I do not want to be on the side that gets dragged. I want to be on the side that initiates things. I do not want to wait for the moment where it finds a weak spot and attacks me there. If tomorrow morning it gets into a military base or a kibbutz and kills people there and takes prisoners of war or hostages, call it as you like, we're in a whole new script. I want the leaders of Hamas to wake up tomorrow morning and for the last time in their life see the smiling faces of the IDF [Israel's army]. That's what I want to have happen. But we are dragged along. So we're putting snipers up because we want to preserve the values we were educated by [that Israel's soldiers are jury, judge, and even executioner, when suspecting a Gazan - Gaza is Israel's free-fire zone].

Labour MP John Woodcock, suspended from the party over sexual harassment allegations, has cast doubt on the "integrity" of the process as he queried how details of his case were leaked to the press.

Woodcock, a fierce critic of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was suspended amid claims he sent inappropriate messages and emails to a former female staff member during the two years she worked at the party. The Daily Mirror reported on Sunday that the woman had left her job in 2016 because the correspondence made her feel uncomfortable.

The MP for Barrow and Furness, who is the partner of the Spectator's assistant editor Isabel Hardman, has said he does not accept the claims. He went on to say that, following the complaint made last November, Labour's harassment panel referred the case to the party's national constitutional committee.

In May of last year, two West Milwaukee police officers broke down the door to Adam Trammell's home, confronted him as he stood naked in his shower, and tasered him 18 times until he died. This month, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has decided that the two cops responsible for this horrifying incident will not be charged.

On that fateful day, officers Michael Rohleder and Anthony Munoz "responded to a medical emergency under complex circumstances that required them to attempt restraint," Chisholm wrote to West Milwaukee Police Chief Dennis L. Nasci.

However, according to investigative reports, Trammell, 22, who suffered from schizophrenia, did not exhibit any signs of needing medical attention as police arrived and began to forcibly remove him from the shower.

What's more, if authorities claim he was in need of medical attention, why would they respond by attacking him in the shower with tasers and brute force? This was not help.