As Russia prepares an all-out effort to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Germany, EU and the US prepare to cut critical Russian banks off from the SWIFT financial transfer system. This will result in the collapse of the Russian banking system and its bourse, and hasten the complete collapseread more

There are calls by some health experts to have a subvariant of the highly-transmissible Omicron to be given its own designation as a Greek-lettered variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Responsible for a resurgence in cases in Denmark, the BA.2 subvariant is more transmissible than its already fast-spreading predecessor, while apparentlyread more

The prolonged drought being experienced by the western portion of North America—now considered a “megadrought”—is the driest seen by the region in over 1,200 years, and is considered a worst-case climate change scenario, according to a new study. “Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drierread more