Hello, good evening, and welcome to another exciting edition of the Update, coming to you every couple of weeks whether anything newsworthy has happened or not!

Looking back, we’re seeing the top headlines include Harry and Meghan, a war in which the battle lines haven’t shifted in months, Donald Trump for no good reason whatsoever, and apparently Disney is remaking the remake of a movie that was based on a ride that went away thirty years ago. Evidently, nothing newsworthy actually has happened.

But we’ll look anyway; maybe we can find something. Stay tuned!

– President and Dr. Biden ate lunch at a restaurant and ordered THE SAME THING. The internet exploded.

Nope. Still not news. Uhh…

-Twitter isn’t working again.

Dammit. Try again.

– Manchester United—

*sigh*

– Guilty murderer found guilty of murder at trial.

Hm. Nope. OK; still looking…

– The NTSB has determined that the failure in the safety valves during the derailment fire in Ohio was due to the fact that the valves were made of aluminum and thus had a low melting temperature. The valves are designed to release pressure during fires, and somebody thought aluminum would be a good idea.

Better.

– M23 rebels in the North Kivu region of the Congo have seized the Rubaya coltan mines, which produce about half the coltan mined in the Congo. Coltan ore is essential in cell phone production. The mines also generate significant uranium. Meanwhile, in unrelated news, Congress has passed a resolution stating that “It’s about time Congo became a democracy!” President Tshisekedi, who faces an uphill re-election campaign this year, had no comment.

Ah. THERE we go.

– Brexit has finally been completed, according to sources in both Europe and the UK. A final compromise equally unacceptable to all parties has been reached concerning the trade and taxation protocols between Northern Ireland and Ireland. This comes after the offer to “build a great big wall” was rejected.

– Protests in Israel have turned violent for, according to otherwise reputable news sources, “the first time” on Wednesday, as rioters clashed with police over the controversial judicial ‘reform’ proposals of the current government, leaders of which have until recently been under indictment by the same courts. The protests, mostly by Israeli citizens – AH-HA! That explains it! – are some of the largest in the nation’s history.

– Finland’s parliament has voted to join NATO. In preparation for this, a massive border fence has been started, and, following an extended discussion with their Ukrainian counterparts about brand selection, several hundred Finnish farm tractors have been moved up to the border. Hungary and Turkey have yet to approve Finland’s membership.

– The Department of Energy has joined the FBI in issuing low-confidence reports that COVID was likely started with a lab leak in Wuhan, this following indications from the Chinese government that it may begin selling arms to Russia to support the Ukraine war. Low confidence reports are a category indicating that there’s no actual proof, merely a lot of gossip and rumor to that effect; one example of a low-confidence report impacting policy was the CIA’s report to President Dubya of WMDs in Iraq.

– On a completely unrelated note: Today marks the third anniversary of the as-yet unexplained government torching of thousands of co-op wildlife farms in Yunnan Province, China, which resulted in the deaths of billions of wild animals bred in captivity for food. The project, personally backed by Dictator-For-Life Xi, had been aimed at endorsing traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese cultural superiority while bringing some $70 billion of badly-needed income annually to the impoverished rural province. “This has nothing to do with COVID,” is the only government statement ever made on the topic, and the official who made it has never appeared in public again.

– Grocery inflation continues to bedevil financial markets fighting to oppose the massive hikes in prices seen since the start of COVID. That the price increases are a purely natural consequence of other increases higher up the supply chain has apparently not occurred to the Fed, which instead has opted to maintain high interest rates on loans. It should be noted that grocery purchases are only rarely made on loans, since rich people can afford them and poor people aren’t eligible to borrow.

– Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot has become the first mayor to lose a re-election bid in 40 years. Ms. Lightfoot, a political outsider who ran on an anti-corruption platform, was defeated by two candidates endorsed by rival unions. Those two face a runoff in April.

– Canada has banned Tik-Tok from all government-issued devices; this follows a similar move by the United States. This follows continued revelations of privacy violations built into the popular app, and reportedly sent direct to the Chinese military. Spokesmen for the developer ByteDance (corporate motto: Totally Not A Wholly Owned Subsidiary Of The Government, Praise Mao) have declined comment.

– An outbreak of the highly deadly HPAI H5N1 strain has begun in Cambodia, with more than a dozen cases and several deaths. The virus, which has spread worldwide among birds, has resulted in mass cullings that have severely impact the price of poultry worldwide. The Cambodian strain has a 50% mortality rate among humans, but for now appears to have been contained; another in South America is under investigation but efforts are being hampered by an ongoing civil war.

– BREAKING NEWS: Former billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has, after a continuing investigation, been found to still be dead. More on this late-breaking story as it comes in.

And that’s all the news that is news plus some that isn’t. In response to anticipated reader questions, the Bidens ate rigatoni.

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