New census figures in Japan show the population has shrunk by nearly one million in the past five years, in the first decline registered since 1920. As of October last year the country has 127.1 million people, 0.7% fewer than in the last census. MORE

A BBC investigation has found that Thailand, a country known for its hospitality to tourists, routinely arrests and detains asylum seekers. Many are Pakistani Christians who have fled religious persecution in their own country. Some are children. And they are held despite being UN-registered asylum seekers, whom the UN is under a duty to protect. MORE

Beijing has overtaken New York as the city with the highest number of billionaires for the first time, a new report by China-based firm Hurun says.

A total of 100 billionaires are now living in the Chinese capital, compared with 95 in New York, the report says.

Shanghai, China’s centre of commerce, comes in fifth place.

Hurun, which tracks wealth in China, has released an annual Global Rich List for the past five years measuring billionaires’ wealth in US dollars. MORE

Founding Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Counter-Terrorism Operations Center publicly confirms Saudi Arabia has deliverable nuclear bombs.

Last week, on “The Hal Turner Show” Mr. Turner told his audience that, based on his years of experience as a National Security Intelligence Asset with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Saudi Arabia is in possession of nuclear weapons.  He also made clear that a CIA asset had (earlier) made this revelation in public, on FOX NEWS CHANNEL, and this revelation was a staggering breach of Classified Information protocols.MORE

Interview with truck driver who is entering undergroung U.S. City and roadway system that stretches for thouslands of miles benieth the U.S. The driver says he droped off from ozarks base to the state of Maine about 1400-1500 miles.

This overflowing landfill, stretching for hundreds of meters through Jdeideh in the city’s suburbs, is the consequence of the city’s months-long garbage crisis — both a symbol and a byproduct of the country’s dysfunctional politics.

“This used to be such a beautiful place, but look at it now. We can’t even walk by it,” Jawanah, a local resident who didn’t want to give the rest of her name, told CNN. MORE

Justice Antonin Scalia spent his final hours at a Texas ranch in the company of a secretive society of hunters that has existed for almost 400 years.

Several members of the 35-strong hunting party at the Cibolo Creek Ranch where Scalia was found dead are known to be current or former members of The International Order of Saint Hubertus.

John Poindexter, the owner of the ranch, is known to hold a leadership position in the Order, as does C. Allen Foster, a prominent Washington lawyer and Scalia’s traveling companion for the trip. MORE

Speaking to a capacity crowd on Tuesday night, the Fox News host said, “Although it seems that the protections that we have in the Constitution are protections that no one can take away from us, I want to tell you that they’re already being taken away. The irony of today’s liberalism that is accepting of anything and everything is that it is sanctioning discrimination against Christians.” MORE

China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus. MORE

Telegraph’s Julian Ryall, in Tokyo reports, The joint US-South Korean exercises scheduled for March will be largest military drills ever staged on the Korean Peninsula and are both a warning to Pyongyang and an effort to reassure the jittery public in the South.

DEAR DOCTOR K:

Can you explain why “moderate” drinking is defined differently for men and women? Is it because men tend to be heavier? Or is there more to it?

DEAR READER:

Women are advised to drink less alcohol than men because they are much more vulnerable to alcohol’s harmful effects.

For example, research has found that if a woman has more than one drink a day, she increases her risk of car accidents and other traumatic injuries. Her risk of high blood pressure, stroke, suicide and breast cancer goes up. And drinking more than one drink a day also increases the risk that she will go on to abuse or become dependent on alcohol. MORE

The Pew Research Center, drawing on findings from the 2014 Religious Landscape Survey, released a report today on “U.S. Religious Groups and Their Political Leanings.”

“Mormons are the most heavily Republican-leaning religious group in the U.S., while a pair of major historically black Protestant denominations – the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and the National Baptist Convention – are two of the most reliably Democratic groups,” said the report.

Seventy percent of Mormons now affiliate with the GOP, which is up from 65% when the survey was done in 2007. The next-most-Republican group, the Southern Baptist Convention, is six points behind the Latter-day Saints at 64%. MORE

A powerful storm system swept across the East Coast on Wednesday, killing four people in Virginia and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the region.

A day earlier, the system spawned about two dozen tornadoes along the Gulf Coast, damaging hundreds of homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Three people were killed and dozens were injured. MORE

The Vatican is calling for a complete investigation after the Pope’s pregnant receptionist was found dead in her apartment last week on the outskirts of the city.

Mariam Wuolou, a 34-year-old from Eritrea who worked at Pope Francis’ home and a priests’ guesthouse called Santa Marta, was seven months pregnant when she was discovered dead on Friday, The Mirror reports.

An initial review of the body showed no signs of violence, and Woulou had been absent from work for weeks due to complications from diabetes, according to the ANSA news agency. MORE