Washington state governor declares drought emergency (Source Reuters) Washington state Governor Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency on Friday, saying drought conditions due to a lack of snowpack are some of the worst on record in a region normally known for its drizzly weather. In an announcement in the state capital of Olympia, Inslee said the drought had “deepened dramatically in the past few weeks,” with conditions expected to worsen as the hot summer months approach. The emergency declaration will free up funds and water rights to help counties most in need, Inslee said. Rain totals in the state were equivalent to prior years, Inslee said. But the snowpack, which melts into streams, lakes and rivers and is vital to water supplies, was only 16 percent of average. “What we lack is snow,” Inslee said. “We are calling it a snowpack drought.” Washington, know as the Evergreen State due to its abundant green forests kept lush by heavy precipitation, is one of several western states struggling under drought conditions. California is enduring its worst drought on record, and that state’s mountain snowpack, which usually provides about a third of the state’s water, is at the lowest level on record, according to state officials. Drought emergencies have also been declared in parts of Oregon and Nevada. Officials in Washington state were still deciding which agricultural areas will receive additional water resources and other support, Inslee said. In some regions, water was being shifted creek-to-creek and fish were being hauled to more abundant water, Inslee added. “We are seeing things happen at this time of year we just have never seen before,” the Democratic governor said. “On the Olympic Peninsula – where there would normally be 80 inches (2 meters) of snow today in the mountains – the glacier lilies are blooming.” State officials have estimated $1.2 billion in crop losses associated with the drought, he said. Drought conditions also mean the annual wildfire season could be longer and more destructive, Inslee said. Last year, Washington state endured one of its worst wildfire seasons on record.

Americans Leaving Christianity in Droves (Source newser.com) The nation’s Christians are experiencing a steep slide in numbers, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. The survey of 35,000 adults finds the number of those who identify as Christian slid from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014, the New York Times reports. Almost every major Christian denomination saw a decline, and no age group, race, or region was immune. The trend “is big, it’s broad, and it’s everywhere,” report editor Alan Cooperman tells USA Today. “The decline is taking place in every region of the country, including the Bible Belt,” he adds, per theTimes. While some of the slide is attributed to non-Christian millennials supplanting the elderly, many once-Christians have shifted to the unaffiliated category of atheists, agnostics, and those of “no particular religion,” which has grown from 16% of adults to 23%. That means the 56 million “nones” are now the second-largest faith group behind evangelicals, who make up about a quarter of the religious market. Catholics make up about 21% of the population, though Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants saw the greatest declines, each falling by more than 3%.

US FARMERS IN “DIRE STRAITS”: JPM WARNS OF IMMINENT LIQUIDITY CRUNCH (Source Zero Hedge) Despite the government’s ‘advice’ to young debt-laden students, the tragedy of the American farmer continues with worryingly pessimistic views on the future of the industry. With farmland prices falling for the first time in almost 30 years, credit conditions are weakening dramatically and the Kansas City Fed warns that persistently low crop prices and high input costs reduced profit margins and increased concerns about future loan repayment capacity, and JPMorgan concludes, the industry is currently in dire straits with the potential for a liquidity crunch for farmers into 2016. Not so long ago, US farmland – whose prices were until recently rising exponentially – was considered by many to be the next asset bubble. Then, almost overnight, the fairytale ended, and as reported in February, US farmland saw its first price drop since 1986. Looking ahead, very few bankers expect price appreciation and more than a quarter of survey respondents expect cropland values to decline further in the next three months. And now, The Kansas City Fed warns that Agricultural credit conditions are worsening rapidly. Credit conditions in the Federal Reserve’s Tenth District weakened as farm income declined further in the first quarter of 2015. Persistently low crop prices and high input costs reduced profit margins and increased concerns about future loan repayment capacity. Funds were available to meet historically high loan demand, but loan repayment rates dropped considerably. Although profit margins in the livestock industry have remained stable, most bankers do not expect farm income or credit conditions to improve in the next three months.

Wisconsin plant recalls nearly 2,200 pounds of chicken (source Yahoo News) A northwestern Wisconsin processing plant has recalled nearly 2,200 pounds of chicken that a routine inspection found may have been contaminated by a disinfectant, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday. AA Poultry Processing in Ridgeland, Wisconsin, recalled 2,191 pounds of chicken and 21 pounds of turkey produced from May 4 to May 11, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food, Safety and Inspection Service said. The chicken and turkey was processed and returned to 10 farmers, who have been notified and have reported no problems or illnesses, according to Audrey Martin, a co-owner of the processing plant. The meat was intended for private use.

Vatican officially recognizes Palestine, while Israel fumes (Source RT) The Vatican has become the latest country to recognize the state of Palestine, after a new treaty was finalized on Wednesday. Unsurprisingly Israel has hit out at the move, saying that it damages prospects for peace in the region. The treaty, which was agreed, though has yet to be formally signed states the Vatican has switched its diplomatic allegiance from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine. It was finalized days before the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to visit Pope Francis. Abbas is traveling to the Vatican to attend the canonization of four new saints by the Pope, two of which are Palestinian nuns. The move to grant them sainthood has been described as a “sign of hope” for the region by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, Vatican Insider reports. The Vatican has been unofficially referring to the state of Palestine for over a year. Pope Francis visited Israel last year and the Vatican’s official program referred to Abbas as the president of the state of Palestine. During his visit to the Holy Land, he called for peace from both sides. A spokesman for the Vatican, the Reverend Federico Lombardi confirmed the news saying: “Yes, it’s a recognition that the state exists,” AP reports. The decision has brought condemnation from Israel, with the country’s foreign ministry saying it was “disappointed” at the move. Vatican Foreign Minister Monsignor Antoine Camilleri said the move was not politically motivated, but was simply in line with the Holy See’s position. In 2012, the Vatican welcomed a decision by the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state. However, the latest treaty is the first legal document between the Vatican and the state of Palestine, which can be considered as official diplomatic recognition.

Cyberwarfare, Sanctions : America Is ALREADY at War with China and Russia (Source globalresearch.ca) Top economic and political experts say we’re drifting towards World War 3. Former White House official Dr. Philippa Malmgren – former presidential adviser and member of the U.S. President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – said last December that the United States is already at war with China and Russia: I was recently at a meeting with a lot of very senior people from the defense community, and their view is that we are already in a nose-to-nose confrontation (war) with China and Russia.  But these (wars) are being conducted through cyberspace rather than through traditional conventional weapons. An advisor to the US government – Scott Borg, CEO of US Cyber Consequences Unit – says that the United States has already started launching widespread hostile cyber warfare against Russia, China and Iran. Indeed, the U.S. has admitted that it deployed cyber-warfare against Iran’s nuclear power plant. Paul Craig Roberts – former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who’s Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world  – says that U.S. war against Russia has already begun. Mark Galeotti – a Full Professor of Global Affairs at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, and a prominent expert on modern Russia – says “the West and Russia are already at war“. And the U.S. is threatening military confrontation in the South China Sea. China is taking the threat seriously. Remember, Russia and the U.S. each have enough nuclear weapons to wipe each other out … and American, British, Polish and Russian Experts warn that continued fighting in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war. The Pentagon reports that China now had ballistic missiles which can hit nearly the entirety of the U.S. with nuclear warheads. Russia and China are in a military alliance, and are conducting joint military exercises.

China has warned the U.S. to stop its Ukranian proxy war against Russia. China and Russia have both said that an attack on Iran – or Syria – will be considered an act of war against the Bear and the Dragon

Monsanto’s Glyphosate Blankets GMO Crops Near U.S. Schools. 3,247 Elementary Schools across America Affected (Source The Environmental Working Group) Genetically engineered crops, or GMOs, have led to an explosion in growers’ use of herbicides, with the result that children at hundreds of elementary schools across the country go to class close by fields that are regularly doused with escalating amounts of toxic weed killers. GMO corn and soybeans have been genetically engineered to withstand being blasted with glyphosate – an herbicide that the World Health Organization recently classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The proximity of many schools to fields blanketed in the chemical puts kids at risk of exposure. But it gets worse. Over reliance on glyphosate has spawned the emergence of “superweeds” that resist the herbicide, so now producers of GMO crops are turning to even more harmful chemicals. First up is 2,4-D, a World War II-era defoliant that has been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease and reproductive problems. Young children are especially vulnerable to it. A new EWG interactive map shows the amounts of glyphosate sprayed in each U.S. county and tallies the 3,247 elementary schools that are located within 1,000 feet of a corn or soybean field and the 487 schools that are within 200 feet. The inescapable connection between GMO crops and increased use of toxic herbicides is one reason why many people want to know whether the products they buy contain GMOs. Polls show that more than 90 percent of consumers favor labeling GMOs, but without a mandatory labeling law, they have no way to know for sure.

Through the haze, Paris protesters call for fresh cannabis laws (Source AFP) Sporting T-shirts and caps printed with marijuana leaves and with joints hanging from their lips, hundreds of people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday as part of a world march calling for the legalisation of cannabis. Crowds of protesters, many dressed in Jamaican colours, made their way through the streets of the French capital from the Place de la Republique to Bastille calling for the legalisation of recreational marijuana use. “What do we want? Legalisation,” chanted the crowd, wreathed in clouds of hashish smoke and gathered behind a banner reading “Another drug policy is possible” and placards calling for “Ganga for all”. Some, like 16-year-old Julien, came because they wanted to “smoke in peace”. “Legalisation would mean less trafficking, better products and perhaps less crime,” he explained, between puffs. But for others, the Global Marijuana March — which also held events in Brazil, Greece, Costa Rica, the US, Germany and South Africa among others this month — was about calling for a better life for the terminally ill.

2 babies die, 29 sickened from bad vaccines in south Mexico (Source AP) Mexico’s public health system has suspended infant vaccines and mounted an investigation after two babies died and 29 were sickened in an impoverished community in southern Mexico. Six of the 29 babies are in grave condition after receiving vaccinations for tuberculosis, rotovirus and Hepatitis B, which are generally administered between 0 and 6 months, according to a national schedule. The cause of the adverse reactions is not known, the Mexican Institute for Social Security said. The institute said it stopped vaccines nationwide on Saturday as a precaution. The Rev. Marcelo Perez, a Roman Catholic priest, told The Associated Press that families of the babies said they became sick within hours. The adverse reactions started Friday and the babies were being treated in a hospital in Simojovel, Chiapas, where 93 percent of the people live in poverty, 69 percent in extreme poverty, according to government statistics. The hospital “doesn’t have adequate personnel or equipment,” Perez said. “The real problem is the terrible conditions we have … so that when a baby comes in with convulsions, he leaves dead.” The federal and state government, in a statement Sunday, promised the best medical care for the babies and to stay in contact with the parents to answer all their questions. Perez said he was helping the families collect all the information that could help officials discover the cause of the adverse reactions.

Greece says it faces bankruptcy in weeks (Source Aljazeera.com) Greece has won limited support from the euro zone for the progress it has made in difficult bailout talks, but warned that it faces a cash crunch within a fortnight without a deal. Greece’s new government scraped together enough cash to order the repayment to the International Monetary Fund of 750m euros ($840m) and avoid a default which could send it crashing out of the euro. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, indicated that Greece may not have more than a couple of weeks before the country’s liquidity issues became “binding”. Greece ‘s cash crunch could see it go bankrupt within weeks and possibly leave the euro currency. In the event of a debt default, Greece could have to put controls on the flow of money through its banks and eventually even drop out of the euro altogether.