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Is it long COVID or long vax? Does the government want to know?
2024-03-06, The Hill
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:48:31
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4512451-is-it-long-covid-or-long-vax-d...

Long COVID as it’s commonly known is a serious and poorly understood problem. But there is also growing evidence that the COVID vaccine could cause a similar disease. We are critical care physicians with the FLCCC Alliance (the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance) who have treated COVID patients throughout the pandemic. One of us recently opened a private practice focused on patients with long COVID. In two years, the practice has evaluated and treated over 1,000 individuals. Approximately 70 percent of these patients said their reported symptoms occurred in the minutes, hours, days and weeks after COVID vaccination, as opposed to after COVID infection. This could be tied to a new condition that’s flown under the radar until recently. This syndrome, dubbed “long vax,” is just starting to make its way into the medical literature. Dr. Harlan Krumholz at the Yale School of Medicine published a survey of 241 patients who described post-COVID vaccination symptoms of exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog and neuropathy, a nervous system disorder that can cause pain, tingling sensations, numbness or weakness. Long COVID patients were excluded from the study. The concern is that our findings, Krumholz’s study, and any reports of adverse events from COVID-19 vaccination, will be subject to the same institutional censorship we saw throughout the pandemic.

Note: We've documented the growing public backlash against the COVID vaccine, including landmark lawsuits. Vaccine adverse event numbers are made publically available through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and currently show 1,630,913 COVID vaccine injury reports, 37,231 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths, and 214,906 COVID Vaccine Reported Hospitalizations.


Chemical in Water Bottles Linked to Child Obesity
2024-03-01, Newsweek
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:45:30
https://www.newsweek.com/chemical-water-bottles-child-obesity-1875069

A chemical found in water bottles has been linked to child obesity, according to a new study. The synthetic chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, was found in a variety of widely used products, such as plastic water bottles and eyewear. But it is also a chemical known to disrupt the body's hormones. The chemical, which can make its way into other avenues, such as food and the soil, accumulates in the body's tissues and organs when ingested. It is known to affect weight and can affect certain cells. A new study published in mSystems found that this chemical could be playing a role in causing different bacteria groups in children of normal weight than those who were overweight. "We found that the gut microbial community responds differently to BPA exposure depending on the BMI (body-mass index) of the individual," [said] microbiologist Margarita Aguilera of the University of Granada. "[Those connections] underscore the intricate interplay between gut microbiota and potential human pathophysiology resulting from cumulative BPA exposure." Researchers ... found overall that there were more unique bacteria groups in the children of a normal weight. This strongly suggests that the bacteria in those children may be able to fight off harmful chemicals like BPA. This study, and future studies into the effects of BPA, "could point to future interventions and policy changes that may reduce the risk of childhood obesity worldwide," Aguilera said.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


Cancer-causing chemical found in skincare brands including Target, Proactive, Clearasil
2024-03-11, USA Today
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:43:34
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/11/carcinogen-linked-popular-acn...

High levels of a chemical known to cause cancer have been found at "unacceptably high levels" in popular acne products from brands like Proactive, Target's Up & Up, Clinique, and Clearasil, according to a recent report by independent laboratory Valisure. Benzene, a known human carcinogen, was found to develop in products with benzoyl peroxide, a chemical used to treat acne, at a level of over 800 times the concentration limit of 2 parts per million set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the March 6 report said. The drug product was found to be "fundamentally unstable" especially when stored at high temperatures. The report found a Proactiv product left in 158 degrees Fahrenheit of a hot compact car resulted in the detection of benzene at around 1,270 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s calculated threshold for increased cancer risk. "There is not a safe level of benzene that can exist in any skin care product, over the counter or prescription," Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Dermatology at Yale University, said in a statement for Valisure. The report also found that benzene can leak out of packaging and "pose a potential inhalation risk" to consumers, according to the report. The company sent a citizen petition to the FDA on Tuesday describing its report and requesting "recalls and a suspension of sales for products containing the active pharmaceutical ingredient benzoyl peroxide."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


US Lawmaker Cited NYC Protests in a Defense of Warrantless Spying
2024-03-12, Wired
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:41:30
https://www.wired.com/story/hpsci-us-protests-section-702-presentation/

Last year, the Republican chairman of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) presented an image of Americans protesting the war in Gaza while implying possible ties between the protesters and Hamas, an allegation that was used to illustrate why surveillance reforms may prove detrimental to national security. In December, as many as 200 Republican staffers gathered behind closed doors to hear a presentation ... aimed at shoring up support for a US surveillance program known as Section 702. Section 702 authorizes the government to surveil foreigners located physically overseas ... but not Americans or individuals on US soil. While eavesdropping on foreigners is permitted, doing so for the explicit purpose of gaining access to an American’s communications—a practice commonly referred to as “reverse targeting”—is strictly forbidden. “Yes, it’s true, you cannot ‘target’ protesters under 702,” one aide, a legislative director for a Republican lawmaker, says. “But that doesn’t mean the FBI doesn't still have the power to access those emails or listen to their calls if it wants.” Between 2020 and early 2021, the FBI conducted “tens of thousands” of queries related to “civil unrest” in the United States. “Political protest is literally how America was founded. It’s in our DNA,” says Jason Pye, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit FreedomWorks. “Whether you agree with these protesters or not is irrelevant.”

Note: The FBI has a long history of spying on political activists. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Biden’s Big Brother teams are now watching what you buy
2024-01-19, New York Post
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:39:10
https://nypost.com/2024/01/19/news/bidens-big-brother-teams-are-now-watching-...

Anything you purchase can be used against you. After the Jan. 6 Capitol clash, the Biden administration vastly expanded federal surveillance of average Americans. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stretched its “suspicious behavior” definition, warning banks to track “‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts),’” the House committee reported. If you bought a gun or ammo since 2021, Team Biden bureaucrats may have automatically classified you as a “potential active shooter.” FinCEN encouraged banks to use terms including “TRUMP” and “MAGA” for “identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement,” the House Judiciary Committee reports. Rep. Jordan is seeking sworn testimony about the FBI’s “mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process.” Jordan complained that the FBI “prepared an official report that broadly characterized certain political beliefs as indicative of domestic violent extremism.” The Canadian government used emergency decrees to freeze the bank accounts of anyone suspected of being tied to COVID “Freedom Convoy” protests in 2022.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


US Court Sides With Apple, Tesla, Other Tech Companies Over Child Labor in Africa
2024-03-05, US News & World Report/Reuters
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:36:46
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-03-05/us-appeals-court-dis...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to hold five major technology companies liable over their alleged support for the use of child labor in cobalt mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Google parent Alphabet, Apple, Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Tesla, rejecting an appeal by former child miners and their representatives. The plaintiffs accused the five companies of joining suppliers in a "forced labor" venture by purchasing cobalt, which is used to make lithium-ion batteries. Nearly two-thirds of the world's cobalt comes from the DRC. According to the complaint, the companies "deliberately obscured" their dependence on child labor, including many children pressured into work by hunger and extreme poverty, to ensure their growing need for the metal would be met. The 16 plaintiffs included representatives of five children who were killed in cobalt mining operations. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao said the plaintiffs had legal standing to seek damages, but did not show the five companies had anything more than a buyer-seller relationship with suppliers. Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs ... said his clients may appeal further. The decision provides "a strong incentive to avoid any transparency with their suppliers, even as they promise the public they have 'zero tolerance' policies against child labor," he said. "We are far from finished seeking accountability."

Note: Unreported deaths of children, devastating diseases, toxic environments, and sexual assault are just some of the tragedies within the hidden world of cobalt mining in the DRC. Furthermore, entire communities have been forced to leave their homes to make way for new mining operations. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


Emotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood
2024-03-06, Yahoo News
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:34:51
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emotion-tracking-ai-job-workers-133506859.html

Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI aiming to infer employees’ internal states, a practice that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice. We wondered what workers think about these technologies. My collaborators Shanley Corvite, Kat Roemmich, Tillie Ilana Rosenberg and I conducted a survey. 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions. Despite emotion AI’s claimed goals to infer and improve workers’ well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: “They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I’m not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I’m not working enough.” Participants ... said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace.

Note: The above article was written by Nazanin Andalibi at the University of Michigan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Emotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood
2024-03-06, Yahoo News
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:33:53
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emotion-tracking-ai-job-workers-133506859.html

Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI aiming to infer employees’ internal states, a practice that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice. We wondered what workers think about these technologies. My collaborators Shanley Corvite, Kat Roemmich, Tillie Ilana Rosenberg and I conducted a survey. 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions. Despite emotion AI’s claimed goals to infer and improve workers’ well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: “They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I’m not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I’m not working enough.” Participants ... said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace.

Note: The above article was written by Nazanin Andalibi at the University of Michigan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Who Could Have Predicted The U.S. War In Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.
2024-03-07, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:32:05
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/07/pentagon-somalia-africa-terrorism-failure/

The Pentagon has known of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa for nearly 20 years but has nonetheless forged ahead, failing to address glaring problems, according to a 2007 study. The 50-page analysis, conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private think tank that works solely for the U.S. government, is based on anonymized interviews with key U.S. government officials from across various departments and agencies. It found America’s nascent war in the Horn of Africa was plagued by a failure to define the parameters of the conflict or its aims; an overemphasis on military measures without a clear definition of the optimal military strategy; and barriers to coordination between the military and other government agencies. In 2007, the year the ... U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, began operations, the U.S. conducted its first declared airstrike in Somalia. Since then, it has carried out more than 280 air attacks and commando raids, aimed primarily at the terrorist group al-Shabab, while the CIA and elite troops created local proxy forces to conduct low-profile operations on behalf of the United States. At the same time, the U.S. has provided Somalia with billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance. The IDA study lamented the “presence of al-Qaeda” in the Horn of Africa and the “failed state of Somalia.” Both remain realities despite two decades of forever war.

Note: Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Disclosure And National Security: Should The U.S. Government Reveal What It Knows About UAP?
2023-11-22, The Debrief
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:30:13
https://thedebrief.org/disclosure-and-national-security-should-the-u-s-govern...

Information confirming an extraterrestrial presence on Earth ... has the potential to be a genuine Pandora’s box. When I first became publicly involved in the UAP topic, the alleged recovery of ET technology was not an issue. My immediate goal was to alert policymakers to a dangerous intelligence failure, namely, the fact of serious and recurring intrusions into restricted DoD airspace by strange, unidentified aircraft. It was shocking to learn our vaunted multi-billion-dollar intelligence system was paralyzed by ineffable stigma, as effectively as any electromagnetic warfare (EW) weapon, placing US personnel and the nation at risk. This situation reminded me of both Pearl Harbor, where vital warning information was not forwarded up the chain of command, as well as 9/11, when intelligence agencies failed to share vital information that could have saved the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. Having survived the attack on the Pentagon myself, this was not a purely theoretical consideration. Our military is encountering intelligently controlled, solid objects invading restricted military airspace, sometimes even flying in formation, on an almost daily basis. Multiple credible reports indicate that UAP has rendered segments of our nuclear deterrent inoperable. I penned an article for Politico titled, "If the US Government has UFO Crash Materials It is Time to Reveal Them." In the article, I made several points, including the following: Democracy requires transparency. The American people own any materials recovered by our government. The public can handle disclosure. The government cannot forever stifle the truth, so it is better to get ahead of it. Secrecy stifles Science. There is no evidence of an imminent threat. If there is a threat, we need to know so we can prepare.

Note: The author of this article is Christopher Mellon, former deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our new UFO Information Center.


Why Congress needs a select committee to investigate UAP
2024-02-25, New Paradigm Institute
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:27:37
https://newparadigminstitute.org/2024/02/25/why-congress-needs-a-select-commi...

Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have not only fueled public curiosity but have underscored the urgency for enhanced transparency from our government and its agencies. There is [a] need for Congress to initiate thorough public hearings on UAP, following explosive testimony last summer from intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower David Grusch regarding above top-secret crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs of technologies of unknown origin and nonhuman intelligence. Drawing inspiration from the historic U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee, Congress could adopt a similar, no-nonsense approach, which would unearth government secrets about UAP, establish unprecedented transparency and instill unwavering accountability in the process. The Church Committee, led by then-Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975, was pivotal in investigating and exposing US intelligence agency abuses. Taking a cue from this historic success, a Church-style Select Committee on UAP is not just advisable but imperative. Such a committee would compel government agencies and officials to testify openly about their knowledge of UAP encounters. The committee would unearth the extent to which the intelligence community engaged in a disinformation campaign against the American people to keep its UAP secrets buried.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our new UFO Information Center.


How Self-Compassion Can Help People Achieve Weight Loss Goals Despite Setbacks–and Resume Dieting Faster
2024-03-10, Good News Network
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:25:25
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-self-compassion-can-help-people-achieve-w...

A study of 140 overweight or obese adults enrolled in a weight loss program found that higher levels of self-compassion, particularly self-kindness, were linked to reduced negative feelings following a dietary lapse. Individuals who practiced self-kindness tended to feel less guilty and more positive about themselves despite the setback. Afterward, they reported feeling more in command of their eating habits, suggesting that self-compassion can help people regain a sense of agency after a lapse. The research from the Center for Weight, Eating and Lifestyle Sciences (WELL Center) at Drexel University, published in Appetite, found that when study participants had more self-compassionate responses to their lapse, they reported better mood and self-control over their eating and exercise behavior in the hours following the lapse. “Many people worry that self-compassion will cause complacency and lead them to settle for inadequacy, but this study is a great example of how self-compassion can help people be more successful in meeting their goals,” said [lead author] Charlotte Hagerman, PhD. “The next time you feel the urge to criticize yourself for your eating behavior, instead try speaking to yourself with the kindness that you would speak to a friend or loved one.” For example, instead of a person saying to his or herself, “You have no willpower,” reframe it to a kinder – and truer – statement: “You’re trying your best in a world that makes it very difficult to lose weight.”

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Eve by Cat Bohannon review – long overdue evolutionary account of women and their bodies
2023-10-10, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:23:42
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/10/eve-how-female-body-drove-200-m...

Over hundreds of thousands of years, women have developed more sensitive noses (particularly around ovulation and pregnancy), finer hearing at high frequencies, extended colour vision, and longer life expectancy than men by an impressive half decade. Forget plasma exchange and supplementation – entrepreneurs trying to extend human life should be studying women, who comprise around 80% of today’s centenarians. American academic and author Cat Bohannon asks how this came to be, tracing defining female features back to our “presumed true ancestors”, our Eves as she calls them. Bohannon calls on her astounding disciplinary range to tell this epic tale. Her writing ripples with references from literature, film studies, biochemistry, cognitive science and anthropology. Evolution, as Bohannon emphasises, doesn’t care about our contemporary preferences or sensitivities. This emboldens her to confront uncomfortable stereotypes, like whether women’s brains have evolved to be inferior to men’s (in fact, the sexes have strikingly similar cerebral equipment). The author’s parting plea is that we learn more about women and girls. In the UK, unlike the US, there is still no regulation that insists women are included in medical research. Not everyone agrees with the ethical good of extending participation. Might they acknowledge that being specific about people’s sex and gender leads to more rigorous and reproducible scientific results?

Note: Read more about author Cat Bohannon's fascinating take on a wide range of discoveries and differences between the male and female body.


Legally blind Texas student defies the odds, gets accepted into veterinarian school: ‘Anything is possible’
2024-03-06, New York Post
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:21:37
https://nypost.com/2024/03/06/lifestyle/legally-blind-texas-student-defies-th...

Faith Snapp has never let her blindness get in the way of pursuing her dreams. A 22-year-old Texas native who is legally blind, Snapp was accepted into the Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine. “My entire life, my family has raised horses and goats for as long as I can remember,” Snapp shared. “I always loved animals.” Snapp and her twin brother were both born prematurely — and with very limited vision. Snapp has had a guide dog since high school, but she has never let her disability come across as a limitation. She was in several clubs in high school and even worked at local animal clinics. While her blindness may have been a challenge at first, she “needed” people to come alongside her and support her dreams. “I just needed to find the people and the accommodations and the places that would be willing to help me,” the 22-year-old student [said]. “That was a little bit challenging because I think oftentimes people place limitations on somebody with a disability because they assume that they are limited.” Snapp will begin classes in August, and hopes to pursue a career as a mixed-animal veterinarian, working with both large and small animals. It doesn’t matter what challenges a person may be facing, Snapp said; people should not give up on their dreams. “No matter who you are or what your circumstances… anything is possible,” she said. “I just hope my story can help others realize that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.”

Note: Read more inspiring news articles on incredible people with disabilities.


In Holland People With Dementia Can Work on a Farm
2022-03-07, Reasons to be Cheerful
Posted: 2024-03-13 13:14:08
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/netherlands-care-farms-aging-dementia-work/

On Dutch ‘care farms,' aging folks tend to livestock, harvest vegetables and make their own decisions. Boerderij Op Aarde is one of hundreds of Dutch “care farms” operated by people facing an array of illnesses or challenges, either physical or mental. Today, there are roughly 1,350 care farms in the Netherlands. They provide meaningful work in agricultural settings with a simple philosophy: rather than design care around what people are no longer able to do, design it to leverage and emphasize what they can accomplish. Studies in Norway and the Netherlands found that people with dementia at care farms tended to move more and participate in higher-intensity activities than those in traditional care, which can help with mobility in daily life and have a positive impact on cognition. Dementia is often linked to social isolation, and care farms were found to boost social involvement. In traditional dementia care settings ... the focus tends to be on preventing risk. There’s often a fixed schedule of simple activities, like games or movies, and the only choice attendees are given is whether to participate or not. In the course of his research, [Jan] Hassink has spoken to countless people with dementia. Common to many of them is a desire to not only participate in society, but contribute to it. “We don’t focus on what’s missing, but what is still left,” says Arjan Monteny, cofounder of Boerderij Op Aarde, “what is still possible to develop in everybody."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.
2023-10-30, New York Magazine
Posted: 2024-03-11 23:28:02
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lockdowns-big-fail-joe-nocera-b...

In the U.S. and the U.K. especially, lockdowns went from being regarded as something that only an authoritarian government would attempt to an example of “following the science.” But there was never any science behind lockdowns — not a single study had ever been undertaken to measure their efficacy in stopping a pandemic. One New York emergency-room doctor recalls that after the steady stream of COVID patients during March and April of 2020, “our ER was basically empty.” During the first two years of the pandemic — 2020 and 2021 — the U.S. had 19 percent more deaths than it normally saw in two years’ time. For Sweden — one of the few countries that had refused to lock down its society — it was just 4 percent. An analysis by Bloomberg found broadly similar results. In other words, for all the criticism Sweden shouldered from the world’s public health officials for refusing to institute lockdowns, it wound up seeing a lower overall death rate during the pandemic than most peer nations that shut down schools and public gatherings. The downsides of lockdowns and school closings were not being openly discussed in the mainstream media. Emily Oster, a Brown University economist … set up what she called the National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, which eventually tracked 12 million kids in both public and private schools and continued to collect infection-rate data over the next nine months. Not once did the student rate hit one percent during any two-week span. Three CDC scientists acknowledged in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “As many schools have reopened for in-person instruction in some parts of the U.S. … there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID and government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Scientist claims ‘smoking gun’ evidence COVID-19 intentionally created by researchers in Chinese lab
2024-02-29, New York Post
Posted: 2024-03-11 23:25:26
https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/world-news/scientists-may-have-started-the-covi...

COVID-19 may have been created in a Chinese lab, a British professor told the UN Wednesday. Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, was quoted saying in a new Wall Street Journal article that the virus that killed millions around the world may actually have been manmade in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. He cited evidence found in a 2018 document from the lab that talked of making such a virus. “[The document] elevates the evidence provided by the genome sequence from the level of noteworthy to the level of a smoking gun,” Ebright said. The papers from the lab cited by Ebright contained drafts and notes regarding a grant proposal called Project DEFUSE, which sought to test engineering bat coronaviruses in a way that would make them more easily transmissible to humans. The proposal was ultimately rejected and denied funding by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but Wade suggested that their work could have been carried out by researchers in Wuhan who had secured Chinese government funding. “Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time Covid-19 broke out,” wrote [Nicholas] Wade, a former science editor of the New York Times. Along with the research notes, Wade claimed the specific genetic structure of the coronavirus that allowed it to infect humans served as another strong indication of “the virus’s laboratory birth.”

Note: Explore a list of news article summaries on the significant likelihood that COVID was engineered in the context of bioweapons research with US funding and Chinese military involvement at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.


US uses loophole to keep 100 arms sales to Israel under the radar amid Gaza war – report
2024-03-06, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-03-11 23:21:33
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/06/israel-weapons-sales-loophole

The US is reported to have made more than 100 weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs, since the start of the war in Gaza, but the deliveries escaped congressional oversight because each transaction was under the dollar amount requiring approval. The Biden administration ... has kept up a quiet but substantial flow of munitions to help replace the tens of thousands of bombs Israel has dropped on the tiny coastal strip, making it one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history. Administration officials informed Congress of the 100 foreign military sales to Israel in a classified briefing. The sales ... are reported to have included precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid. The under-the-radar deliveries made by the Biden administration to Israel were additional to the three major military sales that were made public since the start of the war: $320m in precision bomb kits in November and 14,000 tank shells costing $106m and $147.5m of fuses and other components needed to make 155mm artillery shells in December. “Whether it is arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE under the Trump administration, or sales to Israel under the Biden administration, Congress – and the American public – deserve full transparency about who is buying US weapons and how many weapons we are selling them,” said Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro.

Note: Learn more about arms industry corruption in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.


Biden administration admits flying 320,000 migrants secretly into the U.S. to reduce the number of crossings at the border has national security 'vulnerabilities'
2024-03-04, Daily Mail (One of the UK's Popular Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-03-11 23:19:52
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13155765/biden-illegal-migrant-flyin...

Joe Biden's administration has admitted transporting migrants on secret flights into the U.S. and lawyers for its immigration agencies claim revealing the locations could create national security 'vulnerabilities'. Customs and Border Protection has refused to disclose crucial information about a program last year arranging flights for thousands of undocumented immigrants from foreign airports directly to U.S. cities. While record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country. Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 [migrants] with no legal rights to enter the United States. Included in details of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit first reported by Todd Bensman, the Center for Immigration Studies found Biden's CBP approved the latest secretive flights that transported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from foreign countries into at least 43 different American airports from January through December 2023. The program was part of Biden's expansion of the CBP One app, which kicked off at the start of last year. [Migrants] who cannot legally enter the U.S. use CBP One to apply for travel authorization. Migrants are able to remain in the U.S. for two years without obtaining legal status and meanwhile are eligible for work authorization.

Note: Read the full in-depth report by the Center for Immigration studies here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


The Government Really Is Spying On You — And It’s Legal
2024-02-28, Politico
Posted: 2024-03-11 23:17:20
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/28/government-buying-your-data...

In 2018 ... the government was buying up reams of consumer data — information scraped from cellphones, social media profiles, internet ad exchanges and other open sources — and deploying it for often-clandestine purposes like law enforcement and national security in the U.S. and abroad. The places you go, the websites you visit, the opinions you post — all collected and legally sold to federal agencies. The data is used in a wide variety of law enforcement, public safety, military and intelligence missions, depending on which agency is doing the acquiring. We’ve seen it used for everything from rounding up undocumented immigrants or detecting border tunnels. We’ve also seen data used for man hunting or identifying specific people in the vicinity of crimes or known criminal activity. And generally speaking, it’s often used to identify patterns. It’s often used to look for outliers or things that don’t belong. So say you have a military facility, you could look for devices that appear suspicious that are lingering near that facility. Did you know that your car tires actually broadcast a wireless signal to the central computer of your car, telling it what the tire pressure is? It’s there for perfectly legitimate safety reasons. Governments have ... figured out that the car tire is a proxy for the car. And if you just put little sensors somewhere or you run the right code on devices that you scatter around the world, then you can kind of track people with car tires.

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