As the level of worldwide suffering rises, it seems as though hearts are getting colder at the same time.  The traumatic events of the past several years have left deep scars, and there are many that prefer to ignore the apocalyptic things that are happening in the world because it is just too much for them to handle emotionally.

According to a brand new study, the number of armed conflicts in 2023 was the most that we have seen in a single year since the end of World War II…

More armed conflicts took place worldwide in 2023 than any other year since the end of the Second World War, according to a Norwegian study published Monday.

Last year saw 59 conflicts of which 28 were in Africa, the the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) showed.

We really are living in a time of “wars and rumors of wars”.

But since it isn’t our sons and daughters that are being gunned down on the killing fields of eastern Ukraine, most of us in the western world aren’t really moved by all of the bloodshed.

Every single day, more young lives are being wasted.

But if you think that things are bad now, just wait until Israel and Hezbollah start lobbing thousands of missiles back and forth, China invades Taiwan, and the Russians and NATO begin directly pummeling one another.

Meanwhile, global hunger just continues to grow.

In fact, it is being reported that the number of people facing acute food insecurity last year was the highest ever recorded…

The number of people threatened by hunger in the world has never been so high. In 2023, 281 million people in 59 countries were facing acute food insecurity, according to the 2024 Global Report on Food Crises, published on Wednesday, April 24, by several international organizations (including UN agencies, the European Union, the US Agency for International Development). This figure is up on 2022 (257 million) in its fifth year running.

“This Global Report on Food Crises is a roll call of human failings,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, prefacing the analysis.

A decade ago, world leaders dreamed of a day when hunger would be eradicated.

Today, that dream is completely dead.

Right now, hunger is exploding in areas all over the continent of Africa.

In Sudan, people are literally eating dirt and leaves just so that they can fill their stomachs with something…

Time is running out to prevent starvation in Sudan, warns the World Food Program.

Twenty-five million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance, 18 million are facing acute food insecurity and 5 million people are at emergency levels approaching famine as the country’s civil war passes the one-year mark.

Amid so many other crises, the world’s largest hunger crisis is drawing little global attention. In the Al Lait refugee camp, for example, people are eating dirt and boiling leaves, just to have something in their bellies, reports Reuters. Others are eating grass and peanut shells, according to the World Food Program.

Since it isn’t happening to us, most of us don’t really care.

But hunger is growing here too.

According to one recent survey, over one-fourth of the entire U.S. population is now skipping meals due to crazy high food prices…

More than a quarter of Americans have resorted to skipping meals to avoid paying inflated grocery store prices, according to a new survey.

According to a study by Qualtrics on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma, 80% of Americans say they have felt a “notable increase” in grocery costs in recent years. More than a quarter of respondents said the increased cost has led them to occasionally skip meals, while about one-third said they spend more than 60% of their monthly income on mandatory expenses such as food, utilities and rent.

“Food insecurity is a major issue in this country as millions of Americans don’t have enough food to eat or don’t have access to healthy food,” Courtney Alev, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma, said in a statement.

I keep warning my readers that this is just the beginning, and I hope that they are taking me seriously.

We are also living at a time when major natural disasters are becoming more frequent.

Last year, our world was hit by more “billion dollar disasters” than ever before…

The planet was besieged by a record 63 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023, surpassing the previous record of 57 set in 2020, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its annual report issued January 17.

Unfortunately, we may top that number this year.

So far in 2024, there have already been 11 “billion dollar disasters” in the United States alone…

A deadly outbreak of tornadoes last month caused $4.7 billion in damages across the Southern, Southeastern and Central U.S., making it one of the costliest weather events of the year so far, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there had been 11 confirmed weather and climate disaster events so far this year with losses exceeding $1 billion, with the total price tag topping $25 billion. There were more than 165 tornadoes during the May 6-9 outbreak, impacting Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, officials said.

We have already experienced so many historic disasters, and hurricane season and the heart of wildfire season are still ahead of us.

Almost every day, we are seeing things happen that we have never seen before.

For example, storm chasers in the middle of the country just recovered a piece of hail that was “about the size of a pineapple”…

Val and Amy Castor, veteran storm chasers with Oklahoma City television station KWTV, discovered a piece of hail more than 7 inches (17.78 centimeters) long Sunday along the side of the road near Vigo Park while they were chasing a major thunderstorm system.

Val Castor said the stone was about the size of a pineapple.

“That’s the biggest hail I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been chasing storms for more than 30 years,” Castor said.

We aren’t supposed to have hail of that size.

But this is the “new normal” where the old rules simply don’t apply.

In California, there has been an alarming series of earthquakes during the past couple of weeks…

First, a magnitude 3.6 earthquake in the Ojai Valley sent weak shaking from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles on May 31. Then came two small quakes under the eastern L.A. neighborhood of El Sereno, the most powerful a 3.4. Finally, a trio of tremors hit the Costa Mesa-Newport Beach border, topping out at a magnitude 3.6 Thursday.

Having half a dozen earthquakes with a magnitude over 2.5 in a week, hitting three distinct parts of Southern California, all in highly populated areas, is not a common occurrence.

The “Big One” is coming eventually, but I don’t think it is coming quite yet.

Hopefully I am not wrong about that.

Other nations are getting pounded by natural disaster after natural disaster as well.

Brazil has been getting hit particularly hard.  Nightmarish flooding was making headlines down there for a while, but now wildfires are taking center stage…

After historic floods recently claimed 172 lives in coastal Brazil, the country now faces a new crisis as fires rage through the Pantanal wetlands. These fires have surged nearly tenfold compared to the same period last year, setting the stage for a potential catastrophe worse than the devastating fires of 2020. With severe to extreme drought conditions expected, the situation is becoming increasingly dire.

Data from the Brazilian space research agency, National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reveals a staggering 980% jump in fires across the Pantanal wetlands this year through June 5, compared to the same timeframe in 2023.

Speaking of Brazil, it is in the midst of the worst pandemic of dengue fever that has ever been recorded in that nation…

Brazil recorded the highest number of dengue cases globally in 2024 according to new data from the World Health Organization (WHO). There are nearly 6.3 million probable, and 3 million confirmed cases in the country.

The South American country counts 82% of the 7.6 million probable cases of dengue recorded in the entire world by the WHO this year. Sadly, it also accounts for 77% of the 3,680 deaths globally from the virus and 82% of the 16,242 cases of severe dengue reported.

Thus far, 2024 has seen the most serious dengue outbreak ever recorded in Brazil. According to the Ministry of Health, by the end of May, the number of probable cases was 328% higher than that recorded in the same period last year, which had already seen a record number of dengue diagnoses.

So many pestilences are causing major problems all over the globe right now. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the number of Mpox cases has surged to an all-time record high, and it is the form of the disease that has a particularly high death rate…

The ongoing outbreak of clade I mpox in the DRC has already claimed many victims: The DRC reports “multiple provincial outbreaks” occurring between the beginning of 2023 and April 14, 2024, with an estimated total of 19,919 cases and 975 deaths — meaning that about 1 in every 20 patients have died.

This outbreak is also perhaps the most widespread: “During 2023 and 2024, clade I mpox cases were reported from 25 of 26 provinces and, for the first time, from the capital city of Kinshasa,” the CDC team noted.

Children are especially vulnerable: According to the report, “two thirds (67%) of suspected cases and more than three quarters (78%) of suspected deaths have occurred in persons aged 15 years [or younger].”

If you ever catch this form of Mpox, you will remember it for the rest of your life even if you survive, because it will be the worst pain that you have ever experienced.

On top of everything else, it is being reported that scientists have discovered “giant viruses” in the enormous sheets of ice that cover Greenland…

The idea of a giant virus lurking on a vast ice sheet might sound like the plot to the latest science fiction blockbuster.

But it’s become a reality, after researchers discovered giant viruses while exploring the Greenland ice sheet.

Hopefully none of those “giant viruses” poses a major threat to humanity.

But without a doubt, there will be more global pandemics in our future.

In fact, all of the trends that I have discussed in this article are going to continue to intensify.

Our apocalyptic “new normal” is here.

We live in a world that is going completely and utterly mad, and you can try to ignore that if you wish, but it is the truth.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

From storms to wildfires, it’s already been a record catastrophic year for weather and climate disasters across the nation, and we’ve still got nearly four months to go.

As of Monday, the U.S. has endured a whopping 23 separate weather and climate disasters that have each led to at least $1 billion in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

That breaks the record of 22 set in 2020.

Some people think that I am exaggerating when I write about the nightmarish disasters that are pummeling our planet one after another.

But I am not exaggerating at all. I am just reporting the facts.

And now we may have another billion dollar disaster to add to the list, because it appears that Hurricane Lee may hit the state of Maine…

Latest projections appear to show that the growing Hurricane Lee is bearing down on Maine and could impact the New England-area in the very early hours of Sunday.

As of Wednesday, the storm has triggered a tropical storm watch in Bermuda, and is now less than 500 miles from the island nation, bringing with it winds of 155 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm continues to grow as it moves out of the Caribbean, with its Category 3 winds being felt up to 125 miles from its center and Tropical Storm winds being felt up to 240 miles away, that’s expected to increase to 300 miles by the weekend.

Switching gears, car insurance premiums have risen to a brand new all-time record high, and over the past year the rate of increase has been the fastest since 1976…

Across the United States, the cost of car insurance is up 19% compared to a year ago, according to August’s Consumer Price Index report released on Wednesday. That’s the biggest annual increase since 1976.

But in Florida, where extreme weather episodes are increasingly more prevalent and destructive, the cost is hitting even harder. That’s because insurance companies have to cover more claims as a result of these events, leaving them with higher losses. To compensate, they’re raising rates — or, in some cases, pulling out of states that are prone to extreme weather — according to Insurify, an insurance comparison website.

As I discussed yesterday, the cost of living has become incredibly oppressive.

But they want us to believe that inflation is under control.

No, it is not.

Americans are increasingly turning to debt just to make it from month to month, and this has pushed total credit card debt and total household debt to new record levels…

By some measures, Americans have never been more in the red.

In the second quarter of 2023, total credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time ever, which helped bring total household debt to $17.06 trillion, also a fresh record, according to the New York Federal Reserve.

Of course our national debt is constantly setting new records.

At this point it exceeds 32 trillion dollars, and we are being warned that interest payments on that debt will reach a staggering 1.4 trillion dollars a year by 2032…

The rapid increase in interest rates over the past year could cause some collateral damage to the U.S. government’s finances, because as interest rates rise, so will the federal government’s borrowing costs on its $32.68 trillion in debt.

Interest payments on the national debt are projected to be the fastest-growing part of the federal budget over the next three decades, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Thanks to a combination of high inflation, rising interest rates and unrelenting growth in the national debt, interest payments are expected to triple from nearly $475 billion in fiscal year 2022 to a stunning $1.4 trillion in 2032.

Our politicians in Washington are doing such a great job, aren’t they? But even though our federal government is spending so much money, the national homelessness crisis just continues to get even worse.

As I mentioned yesterday, so far this year we have seen the biggest jump in homelessness ever recorded…

The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.

There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.

Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.

Meanwhile, the level of violence just continues to go up.

Just check out these new numbers that were just released by the federal government…

The number of school shootings in the U.S. just hit a record high.

Again.

There were 188 shootings with casualties at public and private elementary schools during the 2021-22 school year, according to new federal data. About two-thirds of them caused injuries. Fifty-seven led to deaths.

It’s the second year in a row that the number of shootings with casualties hit an all-time peak in American schools.

Abortion numbers are also setting new records all over the nation.

In fact, some states that border other states that have implemented restrictions on abortion have actually seen the number of abortions double or even triple…

New Mexico, which borders Oklahoma, and Wyoming, which borders three other states, saw the biggest percentage increases, with more than three times as many abortions provided in the first half of 2023 compared to 2020.

Kansas and South Carolina also saw their number of abortions double in that time.

We should all be deeply saddened by what has happened to this country.

In this current environment, literally anything goes, and that is especially true for our politicians.

This week, we learned that a prominent Democratic candidate for the Virginia legislature has been performing sex acts with her husband on the Internet for money…

The Washington Post reported Monday that it had viewed videos in which Gibson urged viewers to pay her and her husband with “tips” for performing certain sexual acts.

Gibson — who offered no new public statements on Tuesday — is in a high-profile contest with Republican David Owen in House District 57, which is based in western Henrico and includes part of Goochland County.

Once upon a time, this would have instantly disqualified someone from ever running for office. But some Democrats are already stepping up to defend her…

But state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a leading Democratic lawmaker in Virginia, quickly came to her defense, calling on voters to “make this the biggest fundraising day of (Gibson’s) campaign.” Many women voters retweeted Lucas with a link to donate to Gibson’s campaign.

“Anybody who looks at this knows it’s a hit job,” said Amanda Linton, a 45-year-old defense contractor who donated $25 to Gibson’s campaign after reading about the videos. Linton said she plans to donate another $100 to Gibson’s campaign even though she can’t vote for her because she lives outside her district.

Are you kidding me?

This is how far we have fallen.

If she stays in the race, there is a good chance that she could win.

America has become rotten to the core, and if we stay on this path things will not end well for us.

But even though many of us have been sounding the alarm for years, most Americans still do not want to listen.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

AccuWeather meteorologists say that a life-threatening flooding disaster is unfolding in some of the desert areas and mountains in Southern California to southern Nevada, where more than a year’s worth of rain could fall.

“The impact from Hilary has the potential to be an extraordinary event, one that is rare and unprecedented,” AccuWeather Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin said.

This is not something that happens every day.

In fact, if Hilary is still considered to be a tropical storm when it hits California, it will be the first time this century that something like this has happened…

If Hilary is still categorized as a tropical storm over California, that would be the first time that happened in almost 26 years, since the former Hurricane Nora tracked near the Colorado River in California as a tropical storm in Sept. 1997.

N​orman and Kathleen, in 1978 and 1976, respectively, brought impacts to Southern California, but neither officially made landfall as a tropical storm.

T​here were only two times landfalls happened prior to 1950, including a Sept. 1939 tropical storm in the L.A. Basin and an Oct. 2, 1858 hurricane, which tracked from San Diego to Long Beach.

But no matter how it is categorized, everyone agrees that that there is going to be an extremely unusual amount of rain.

In fact, meteorologists are warning that we are likely to see “dangerous to catastrophic” flooding…

Historic Hilary − downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm but still carrying the potential for “dangerous to catastrophic” flooding − made landfall in the Mexican peninsula of Baja California on Sunday while churning north toward the U.S.

Hilary was 115 miles south-southeast of San Diego when the National Hurricane Center released its latest update at 2 p.m. Pacific Time, warning of “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding likely over Baja California and portions of the Southwestern U.S. through Monday.”

The flooding has already begun in some areas of California as I write this article.

Authorities are warning that extremely heavy rainfall will trigger landslides and mudslides, and this is especially true in areas that have recently experienced wildfires. High winds will be an issue as well.  San Diego County has already seen gusts of up to 84 mph, and Yuma, Arizona has already seen gusts of up to 62 mph.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially declared a state of emergency, and Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has done the same. This crisis is going to play out over several days, and it is going to hit a population that is largely unprepared for such a storm.

Once residents of southern California began to realize what was about to hit them, thousands upon thousands of people descended upon local grocery stores to stock up on needed supplies…

But panic buying has set in and some supermarket shelves in San Diego and Los Angeles were stripped bare of essentials such as water and tinned food.

Videos of people panic buying at grocery stores started emerge from California, with one tweet making jest of the ‘essentials’ being bought by people in Los Angeles.

‘A sign you’re in LA and not the southeast US during hurricane / tropical storm preparation: WHITE BREAD is left at Trader Joe’s!!! Focaccia – all gone!!! But even during storm prep, Angelenos ain’t bringing home the white bread!’ the post read with a picture of empty shelves and around seven loaves of white bread.

Of course those that had prepared ahead of time didn’t need to battle the crowds.

Something else just happened that is very important for me to mention.

On Sunday afternoon, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck near Ojai, California…

As Southern California braced for a highly unusual summer storm Sunday afternoon, residents were struck by a much more familiar phenomenon: a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey.

The epicenter of the quake was in Ojai, between Santa Barbara and Ventura, and it occurred along the Sisar fault, USGS data showed.

Studies have shown that large amounts of water can stir up fault lines.

Personally, I believe that we have now reached a point where the people of California should be extremely concerned about the possibility of the arrival of “the Big One”, and this is something that I discussed on my Substack a few days ago.

Speaking of major disasters, authorities are still recovering dead bodies that were killed during the recent wildfires in Hawaii.

The official death toll currently stands at 111, but local residents are saying that the real death toll is at least four times higher…

Maui authorities are dramatically underplaying the number of people known to have died in the inferno that ripped through Lahaina last week – with locals telling DailyMail.com that the actual death toll is at least 480 and that morgues had run out of body bags.

The figure is quadruple that of the official number of 111 – and some of the relatives of the victims have been left to uncover the remains of their loved ones themselves due to the glacial progress of the search and recovery operation.

I don’t think that any of us will soon forget the images of the destruction in Hawaii.

But now brand new headlines about devastating wildfires are crying for our attention.

In Washington, raging wildfires are ripping across the western portion of the state at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking…

Terrifying wildfires which have so-far killed one person are continuing to tear across Washington state with more than 20,000 acres burned this weekend.

The entire North Western state remains under an alert, while the largest parkland area – Mount Spokane State Park – has been closed off to the public as firefighters battle to contain the inferno.

In Spokane County, east Washington, the largest wildfire has razed 10,892 acres of land, destroying nearly 200 buildings and killing at least one person in its wake as thousands evacuated the danger zone.

Sadly, this is how it is going to be now.

There is just going to be one thing after another, and most people will have absolutely no idea why any of this is happening.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here. Article cross-posted from End of the American Dream.