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This joint Memorial Day ceremony for fallen Israelis and Palestinians overcame hate
2023-04-28, Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted: 2023-10-16 01:18:51
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/israel-memorial-day-palestinians-independenc...

Memorial Day used to be Israel’s most sacred secular holiday because it honored those who died in wars or terrorist attacks. I attended one memorial service in Tel Aviv that rose above these tensions and penetrated to the heart of the issues troubling the country: a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian families who had lost relatives to the conflict and gathered together to share their grief. What was most astonishing about the event was to see the Palestinians fall into the arms of their Israeli hosts and hold on tightly. Why astonishing? Because these days, Palestinians and Israelis almost never come into contact, except at Israeli military checkpoints on the West Bank, or when violent Israeli settlers attack their fields — or when Palestinian workers come to Israel to work in construction or in agriculture. It was moving in the extreme to see Palestinians and Israelis who had experienced heartbreak at the hands of the other side embrace each other tightly and talk about family. It was also moving to watch thousands of Israelis file into the fenced-off area of the ceremony and fill endless rows of plastic chairs (the organizers say that 300,000 watched online). They listened in total silence as Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims told their personal stories on the stage. Yuval Sapir, whose sister Tamar was murdered in Tel Aviv in 1994 by a Palestinian suicide bomber ... choked out these words: “It is easy and natural to hate ... I chose to try to break the chain of revenge and hatred.”

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


What survivors of trauma have taught this eminent psychiatrist about hope
2023-10-08, NPR
Posted: 2023-10-16 01:17:27
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/08/1203975027/what-survivor...

In 1968, at the age of 42, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton sat down to write Death in Life, a book about his experiences interviewing survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over the course of his career, Lifton studied not only survivors of the atomic bombings but Auschwitz survivors, Vietnam war veterans and people who'd been subjected to repression by the Chinese government. The COVID pandemic prompted him to reflect on what he'd learned about mass trauma and resilience – that telling stories about trauma, and even trying to influence policy, can often help people recover. Now 97, Lifton has just published his 13th book, Surviving Our Catastrophes: Resilience and Renewal from Hiroshima to the Covid-19 Pandemic. "I interviewed people who had undergone the most extreme kind of trauma and victimization," [said Lifton]. "And yet some of the very same people who had so suffered from trauma have shown what I call "survivor wisdom" — they transformed themselves from helpless victims to agents of survival. If ... storytelling can include the transformation from the helpless victim to the life-enhancing survivor, then the storytelling is crucial. The storytelling we most encourage is that kind that enables the formerly helpless victim to be transformed in the story, to transform himself or herself, collectively transform themselves into life-affirming survivors. That's the key transformation, and that's the story we [listeners] seek to help them achieve."

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


Can cooking and gardening at school inspire better nutrition? Ask these kids
2023-10-09, NPR
Posted: 2023-10-16 01:15:59
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/09/1204077086/can-cooking-a...

After a decline in nutrition education in U.S. schools in recent decades, there's new momentum to weave food and cooking into the curriculum again. Remember the hands-on cooking in home economics class, which was a staple in U.S. schools for decades? "I'd love to see it brought back and have the science around healthy eating integrated," says Stacy Dean, deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dean told me she was inspired by a visit to Watkins Elementary, in Washington, D.C., where this idea is germinating. Students grow vegetables in their school garden. They also roll up their sleeves in the school's kitchen to participate in a FRESHFARM FoodPrints class, which integrates cooking and nutrition education. Evaluations show participation in FRESHFARM programs is associated with increased preference for fruits and vegetables. And, the CDC points to evidence that nutrition education may help students maintain a healthy weight and can also help students recognize the connection between food and emotional wellbeing. Given the key role diet plays in preventing chronic disease, the agency says it would be ideal to offer more nutrition education. Programs like FRESHFARM can help kids expand their palettes by introducing them to new tastes. At first, many kids are turned off by the bitter taste of greens. But through the alchemy of cooking, caramelizing the onions, and blending in fresh ginger, kids can be inspired.

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


‘IDK what to do’: Thousands of teen boys are being extorted in sexting scams
2023-10-02, Washington Post
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:52:59
https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/10/02/teen-boys-sextortion/

Lynn and Paul were sitting in their Seattle home one night earlier this year when their son, Michael, a 17-year-old high school football player, burst into the room and made a beeline for his mom’s purse. “I’m being blackmailed,” he said. Michael had fallen prey to what online safety and law enforcement experts call financial sextortion, in which predators befriend victims online under false pretenses, entice them to send incriminating photos and then demand payment under threat that they’ll expose the photos to family and friends. The number of sextortion cases targeting young people “has exploded in the past couple of years,” with teen boys being specific targets, said Lauren Coffren, executive director of the Exploited Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC, which serves as a clearinghouse for records of abuse, received more than 10,000 tips of financial sextortion of minors, primarily boys, in 2022 from the public as well as from electronic service providers, such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which are required by law to report cases. By the end of July 2023, NCMEC had already received more than 12,500 reports. The repercussions of the abuse are devastating: At least a dozen boys died by suicide in 2022, after they were blackmailed, according to the FBI. Meanwhile, social media companies are playing catch up to stem the tidal wave of sextortion scams targeting children.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


FBI Hoovering Up DNA At A Pace That Rivals China, Holds 21 Million Samples And Counting
2023-08-29, The Intercept
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:51:18
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/29/fbi-dna-collection-surveillance/

The FBI has amassed 21.7 million DNA profiles — equivalent to about 7 percent of the U.S. population — according to Bureau data reviewed by The Intercept. The FBI aims to nearly double its current $56.7 million budget for dealing with its DNA catalog with an additional $53.1 million, according to its budget request for fiscal year 2024. “The requested resources will allow the FBI to process the rapidly increasing number of DNA samples collected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” the appeal for an increase says. “When we’re talking about rapid expansion like this, it’s getting us ever closer to a universal DNA database,” Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, [said]. “I think the civil liberties implications here are significant.” The rapid growth of the FBI’s sample load is in large part thanks to a Trump-era rule change that mandated the collection of DNA from migrants who were arrested or detained by immigration authorities. Until recently, the U.S. DNA database surpassed even that of authoritarian China, which launched an ambitious DNA collection program in 2017. That year, the BBC reported, the U.S. had about 4 percent of its population’s DNA, while China had about 3 percent. While DNA has played an important role in prosecuting crimes, less than 3 percent of the profiles have assisted in cases, the Bureau’s data reveals. By comparison, fingerprints collected by the FBI from current and former federal employees linked them to crimes at a rate of 12 percent each year.

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


Google User Data Has Become a Favorite Police Shortcut
2023-09-27, Bloomberg
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:49:22
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-28/google-user-data-is-police...

Google maintains one of the world’s most comprehensive repositories of location information. Drawing from phones’ GPS coordinates, plus connections to Wi-Fi networks and cellular towers, it can often estimate a person’s whereabouts to within several feet. It gathers this information in part to sell advertising, but police routinely dip into the data to further their investigations. The use of search data is less common, but that, too, has made its way into police stations throughout the country. Traditionally, American law enforcement obtains a warrant to search the home or belongings of a specific person, in keeping with a constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrants for Google’s location and search data are, in some ways, the inverse of that process, says Michael Price, the litigation director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Fourth Amendment Center. Rather than naming a suspect, law enforcement identifies basic parameters—a set of geographic coordinates or search terms—and asks Google to provide hits, essentially generating a list of leads. By their very nature, these Google warrants often return information on people who haven’t been suspected of a crime. In 2018 a man in Arizona was wrongly arrested for murder based on Google location data. Google says it received a record 60,472 search warrants in the US last year, more than double the number from 2019. The company provides at least some information in about 80% of cases.

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


TechScape: How police use location and search data to find suspects – and not always the right ones
2023-10-03, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:47:59
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/03/techscape-geofence-warrants

From Virginia to Florida, law enforcement all over the US are increasingly using tools called reverse search warrants – including geofence location warrants and keyword search warrants – to come up with a list of suspects who may have committed particular crimes. While the former is used by law enforcement to get tech companies to identify all the devices that were near a certain place at a certain time, the latter is used to get information on everyone who’s searched for a particular keyword or phrase. It’s a practice public defenders, privacy advocates and many lawmakers have criticised, arguing it violates fourth amendment protections against unreasonable searches. Unlike reverse search warrants, other warrants and subpoenas target a specific person that law enforcement has established there is probable cause to believe has committed a specific crime. But geofence warrants are sweeping in nature and are often used to compile a suspect list to further investigate. Google broke out how many geofence warrants it received for the first time in 2021. The company revealed it received nearly 21,000 geofence warrants between 2018 and 2020. The tech giant did not specify how many of those requests it complied with but did share that in the second half of 2020, it responded to 82% of all government requests for data in the US with some level of information. Apple has taken steps to publish its own numbers. In the first half of 2022 the company fielded a total of 13 geofence warrants and complied with none.

Note: The legal world is struggling to keep up with the rise of tech firms building ever more sophisticated means of surveilling people and their devices. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Decades Later, Closed Military Bases Remain a Toxic Menace
2023-09-27, New York Times
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:46:28
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/us/military-base-closure-cleanup.html

Fort Ord was one of 800 U.S. military bases, large and small, that were shuttered between 1988 and 2005. The cities of Seaside and Marina, Calif., where Fort Ord had been critical to the local economy, were left with a ghost town of clapboard barracks and decrepit, World War II-era concrete structures that neither of the cities could afford to tear down. Also left behind were poisonous stockpiles of unexploded ordnance, lead fragments, industrial solvents and explosives residue, a toxic legacy that in some areas of the base remains largely where the Army left it. Across the country, communities were promised that closed bases would be restored, cleaned up and turned over for civilian use. But the cleanup has proceeded at a snail’s pace at many of the facilities, where future remediation work could extend until 2084 and local governments are struggling with the cost of making the land suitable for development. At more than 1,000 sites within the closed bases, the land is so badly contaminated that no one will ever be allowed to live on it. Sites that were supposed to be clean were later found full of asbestos, radioactivity and other health threats. Military base cleanups are often full of surprises, but Hunters Point is in a league of its own. Two former supervisors at an environmental firm, Tetra Tech EC, which the Navy hired to help clean up the base, were convicted in 2018 of fraudulently submitting clean dirt to a laboratory in place of the contaminated dirt at the shipyard.

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


Garbage In, Toxics Out: They Promised “Advanced Recycling” for Plastics and Delivered Toxic Waste
2023-09-28, The Intercept
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:44:48
https://theintercept.com/2023/09/28/braven-plastic-recycling-toxic-waste/

Braven Environmental [is] a company that says it can recycle nearly 90 percent of plastic waste through a form of chemical recycling called pyrolysis. Traditional recycling is able to process only about 8.7 percent of America’s plastic waste; pyrolysis uses high temperatures and low-oxygen conditions to break down the remaining plastics, like films and Styrofoam, ideally turning them into feedstock oil for new plastic production. The American Chemistry Council, the country’s leading petrochemical industry trade group, claims that chemical recycling will create a “circular economy” for the bulk of the world’s plastic, diverting it from oceans and landfills. Plastic giants have gone so far as to dub the process “advanced recycling,” but environmentalists say this is a misnomer because the majority of the plastic processed at such facilities is not recycled at all. In fact, researchers have found that the process uses more energy and has a worse overall environmental impact than virgin plastic production. Despite these challenges, lawmakers nationwide are now embracing the technology, thanks to a massive lobbying push from ... petrochemical groups. One list of warnings in a Braven air permit application reads like a toxicologist’s worst nightmare: The pyrolysis oil may cause cancer and genetic defects, as well as damage to organs, fertility, and unborn children. Other hazards included being “extremely flammable” and “very toxic to aquatic life” with “long lasting effects.”

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


A mysterious source has been sending radio signals to Earth from space for decades
2023-07-24, The Independent (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:39:58
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/mystery-radio-signals-earth-space-b238063...

An unknown source has been sending radio blasts towards Earth since at least 1988, scientists say. For 35 years, the source has been sending out regular 20-minute blasts of energy that vary considerably in their brightness, researchers say. The emissions appear something like the blasts that come out of pulsars or fast radio bursts, which last for milliseconds to several seconds. But the newly discovered source sends radio signals that pulsate on a period of 21 minutes – something previously thought impossible by expected explanations. Pulsars are neutron stars that spin around quickly, throwing out radio blasts as they do. When one crosses Earth, the emissions can be picked up very briefly and brightly, like being in the path of the light from a rotating lighthouse. Scientists believe that process can only work if the magnetic field of the pulsar is strong, and it is rotating quickly enough – if not, there would not be enough energy to see the pulsar from Earth. That has led to the development of the “pulsar death line”, which suggests that sources must be spinning fast and strong enough to be detected. The newly discovered object named GPMJ1839-10, however, is way beyond that death line. If it is a pulsar, then it seems to be operating in ways that scientists thought impossible. It could also be a highly magnetised white dwarf or magnetar, an extra kind of neutron star with incredibly strong magnetic fields. But they do not tend to send out emissions of this kind, researchers believe.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the mysterious nature of reality from reliable major media sources.


The New Push for Censorship Under the Guise of Combating Hate
2023-10-01, Tablet
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:37:49
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/censorship-center-guise-comb...

In March of 2021 a nonprofit group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a report about online misinformation. Founded [by] Imran Ahmed, the CCDH ... provides the White House with a powerful weapon to use against critics including RFK Jr. and [Elon] Musk, while also pressuring platforms like Facebook and Twitter to enforce the administration’s policies. One rumor that came up ... is that [Ahmed] works for British intelligence. “There’s nothing surprising about this,” said Mike Benz, a former State Department official who now runs the Foundation for Freedom Online, a free-speech watchdog. “This is not the first rodeo of British and U.S. intelligence services creating a cutout for the purpose of influencing the online news economy, to rig public debate in favor of political speech that supports agency agendas.” CCDH’s ... chairman is Simon Clark, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a D.C. think tank aligned with the corporate arm of the Democratic Party. One might conclude that CCDH functions as an arm of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, to be deployed against the perceived enemies of corporate Democrats, whether they come from the left or the right. Clark was also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab. “The Atlantic Council, in the past several years, has had seven CIA directors on its board of directors or board of advisers,” said Benz. “And it’s one of the premier architects of online censorship.”

Note: Read an excellent piece on what gave rise to the modern censorship regime. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


You Are Reading This Thanks to Semiconductors
2023-05-04, ScheerPost
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:32:41
https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/04/you-are-reading-this-thanks-to-semiconductors/

On 7 October 2022, the United States government implemented export controls in an effort to hinder the development of China’s semiconductor industry. The next day, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: "... By politicising tech and trade issues and using them as a tool and weapon, the US cannot hold back China’s development but will only hurt and isolate itself when its action backfires." Under the Trump and Biden administrations, the US has placed hundreds of Chinese companies on trade and investment blacklists. These restrictions have banned any company in the world that uses US products – effectively every chip designer and manufacturer – from doing business with Chinese tech firms. The US has also pressured governments and firms around the world to impose similar restrictions. Washington fears that China’s technological development will lead, through trade and investment, to the dispersal of advanced technologies more broadly throughout the world, namely, to states in the Global South that the US sees as a threat. This would be a significant blow to the US’s power over these countries. The scale of the developments in digital technology is staggering. Earlier conflicts took place over energy and food, but now this conflict has heated up ... the resources of our digital world. This technology can be used to solve so many of our dilemmas, and yet, here we are, at the precipice of greater conflict to benefit the few over the needs of the many.

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


The power of contact in the rehumanization process
2023-09-12, Waging Nonviolence
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:30:06
https://wagingnonviolence.org/metta/podcast/the-power-of-contact-theory-rehum...

‘Contact theory’ has been shown to lead to harmony and an enlarged sense of a common good, even when there are limited resources and competing interests. It's a theory that suggests that the more contact that people have, the more willing they are to rehumanize and understand each other, even across their personal differences. It originated in the 50s with the work of Gordon Allport. After World War II, he asked himself, how can we reduce conflict in society? He put forward that, under the right conditions, having positive experiences with people of another social, ethnic, cultural, religious backgrounds could improve our tolerance and reduce our prejudice against them. 50 years later, the vast majority of studies show that it does work. If you talk about moving beyond past violence and having a harmonious society, one of the biggest things that could hamper having these contact experiences [is] the homophilia principle, where you go with your own group. It's easy to avoid having experiences with other groups. But once we do, they're very beneficial. We spoke with someone named Ali Abu Awad [who] is a Palestinian activist. He said he never had contact with an Israeli ... until he was in his 30s. And they were brought together into a group. This Israeli woman was crying, and he was crying. They were both grieving the loss of family members of the conflict. That moment of contact actually changed the whole direction of his life because he realized that this Israeli woman was human like he was. He ended up becoming an activist working toward a solution that humanizes Israelis and humanizes Palestinians at the same time.

Note: This summary is a transcript of an interview with Jasper Van Assche, professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


The Norwegian secret: how friluftsliv boosts health and happiness
2023-09-27, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:28:45
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/27/the-norwegian-secret-how...

Friluftsliv [is] a way of being that is part of the Norwegian national identity. The term was coined by the playwright Henrik Ibsen in his 1859 poem On the Heights, although the concept is much older. Its literal translation is “free-air life”, but Ibsen used it to convey a spiritual connection with nature. To modern Norwegians, it means participating in outdoor activities, but also has a deeper sense of de-stressing in nature and sharing in a common culture. An astonishingly high percentage of Norwegians report spending time outdoors. A survey in June by the market research company Kantar TNS found that 83% are interested in friluftsliv, 77% spend time in nature on a weekly basis and 25% do so most days. At many nurseries, toddlers spend 80% of their time outside; at school, there are special days throughout the year when children go out in nature and build campfires. Studies show that being in green spaces helps reduce anxiety and improve cognition. In a 2020 survey, 90% of Norwegians said they felt less stressed and in a better mood when they spent time in nature. Helga Synnevåg Løvoll, a professor of friluftsliv at Volda University College, says the five documented ways to wellbeing can be achieved through friluftsliv (they are “connect”, “be active”, “take notice”, “keep learning” and “give”). This nature-induced wellbeing could be one reason why Norway ranks among the happiest countries in the world. It came seventh in the UN’s World Happiness report in 2023.

Note: Read about the rise of "green prescription" programs in different healthcare systems around the world. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Can a map of the ocean floor be crowdsourced?
2023-10-01, BBC News
Posted: 2023-10-08 19:26:56
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230929-can-a-map-of-the-ocean-floor-be-c...

In 2023, Seabed 2030 announced that its latest map of the entire seafloor is nearly 25% complete. The data to make the world's first publicly available map is stored at the International Hydrography Organization (IHO)'s Data Centre for Digital Bathymetry. 17 research vessels owned by American universities ... constantly circle the globe studying the deep ocean. The ocean mappers came up with a new plan: crowdsourcing. By attaching a data logger to a boat's echosounder, any vessel can build a simple map of the seafloor. Tion Uriam, the head of the Hydrographic Unit at the Republic of Kiribati's Ministry of Communications, Transport and Tourism Development, recently received two data loggers that he's planning to install on local ferries. "It's a win to be part of that initiative," he says. "Just to put us on the map and raise our hands [to say] we want to be part of a global effort." The military or commercial value of nautical charts will always be a barrier. "Sea charts were destined to be removed from the academic realm and from general circulation," wrote the map historian Lloyd Brown. "They were much more than an aid to navigation; they were the key to empire, the way to wealth." [Marine geologist Kevin] Mackay experienced this on a scientific-mapping expedition. He received a call from a military he chooses not to name and "they said 'you need to destroy that data because there was military value ... it's a place where submarines like to hide'," he recalls. "Obviously, we ignore them because we're [mapping] for science, we don't care."

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


How NASA Got a 'UFO Czar'—And Why it Matters
2023-09-15, Time Magazine
Posted: 2023-10-03 15:32:44
https://time.com/6314791/nasa-ufo-director-mark-mcinernay/

At a press conference at NASA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, the space agency [appointed] the country’s, and indeed the world’s, first-ever UFO Czar. Only NASA didn’t use either one of those terms. Fewer and fewer people ... talk about UFOs. The preferred term now is UAP, for unidentified anomalous (or, variously, aerial) phenomenon. And NASA didn’t use the label czar either. Instead, the full name for the new job is director of UAP research, and the man tapped to do the work is Mark McInernay, a former Pentagon liaison for NASA. It will be McInernay’s job to study the sightings, advancing science if the vehicles are confirmed to be extraterrestrial, and protecting national security if they’re of international military origin. He’ll have a lot to work with. Over the past 20 years, there have been more than 120 sightings of objects that often appear to be flying with no identified means of propulsion, and maneuvering in quick, head-snapping, often stop-and-start ways that no conventional machines can manage. It helps that the sightings have been called in by witnesses most people think of as unimpeachably reliable: U.S. military pilots. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson yesterday stepped up to offer his view of the possibility of life in space. “There’s a global fascination with UAP,” he said. “Now, NASA has a statutory authority to look for life in the universe. Do I believe there's life in a universe that is so vast that it's hard for me to comprehend how big it is? My personal answer is yes.”

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 UFO Information Center.


Why has France banned sales of Apple's iPhone 12?
2023-09-15, Reuters
Posted: 2023-10-03 15:30:48
https://www.reuters.com/technology/why-has-france-banned-sales-apples-iphone-...

France's radiation watchdog has banned sales of Apple's iPhone 12 after tests that it said showed the smartphone breached European radiation exposure limits. The Agence Nationale des Frequences (ANFR) said on Tuesday the model's Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) - a measure of the rate of radiofrequency energy absorbed by the body from a piece of equipment - was higher than legally allowed. Jean-Noel Barrot, France's junior minister for the digital economy, told newspaper Le Parisien a software update could fix the problem. If Apple does not resolve the issue, the ANFR said it would order a recall of the device across France. "Specific Absorption Rate" refers to the dose of energy that the body absorbs from any source of radiation. It is expressed as watts per kilogram of body weight. The radiation from mobile phones is a result of the way they work, by transmitting radiofrequency waves, creating electromagnetic fields. The ANFR said it recently carried out random tests on 141 phones, including iPhone 12, bought from shops. In independent laboratory tests, two iPhone 12s did not comply with EU standards, the office of the Digital Minister told Reuters. Smartphone radiation tests have so far led to 42 imposed sale stops in the country, it said. The ANFR said accredited labs had found an SAR of 5.74 watts per kilogram during tests of the iPhone 12 being held in the hand or kept in a trouser pocket. The EU standard is 4.0 watts per kilogram.

Note: Explore an excellent investigation into how the FCC shields cell phone companies from valid safety concerns. This Wired article quotes the result of a mega-study that reveals there is “significant evidence linking cellular phone use to increased tumor risk.” Unlike the U.S., many countries have regulations in place to protect people from cell phone radiation exposure. Check out this comprehensive list of countries with official recommendations and policies on cell phone radiation exposure. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on wireless technology risks from reliable major media sources.


America's poverty rate soared last year. Children were among the worst hit.
2023-09-12, CBS News
Posted: 2023-10-03 15:29:03
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poverty-rate-census-income/

Millions of American families fell into poverty last year as the well of government-funded pandemic aid dried up and incomes shrank, according to new data from the U.S. Census. Children were particularly hard-hit, with the poverty rate for kids doubling compared with 2021. The rise in poverty amounts to an increase of 15.3 million people around the U.S. living in poverty. Rising inflation [has] hobbled many households. Last year also marked the end of all pandemic-era benefits that helped families stay afloat during the health crisis, such as stimulus checks and the Child Tax Credit, which distributed as much as $300 per child in cash payments. The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which measures whether people have enough resources to cover their needs, was 12.4% for U.S. households in 2022, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from a year earlier, the Census said on Tuesday. The child poverty rate, as measured by the SPM, jumped from a historic low of 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022, the Census said. That's the largest change in child poverty since the Census began tracking the SPM in 2009, Census officials said. If the expanded Child Tax Credit had been renewed, about 3 million additional children would have been kept out of poverty last year. U.S. households also earned less last year, the Census said. The median household income in 2022 was $74,580, a decline of 2.3% from 2021 and the third year in a row that incomes have dipped. 

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.


The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court
2023-09-20, New York Post
Posted: 2023-10-03 15:27:07
https://nypost.com/2023/09/20/how-dr-jay-bhattacharya-beat-biden-administrati...

A federal court of appeals ruled earlier this month that the White House, surgeon general, CDC and FBI “likely violated the First Amendment” by exerting a pressure campaign on social media companies to censor COVID-19 skeptics — including Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020 with professors from Harvard and Oxford. The epidemiologists advocated for “focused protection” — safeguarding the most vulnerable Americans while cautiously allowing others to function as normally as possible — rather than broad pandemic lockdowns. “We were just acting as scientists, but almost immediately we were censored,” said Bhattacharya. “Google de-boosted us. Our Facebook page was removed. It was just a crazy time. “The kinds of things that the federal government was telling social media companies to censor included us — along with millions of other posts from countless other people who were criticizing government COVID policy,” he added. A New Orleans-based three-judge panel found that the federal government “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content” by vaguely threatening adverse regulatory consequences if social media companies did not suppress certain viewpoints on the pandemic.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and media manipulation from reliable sources.


The real data behind the new COVID vaccines the White House is pushing
2023-09-14, New York Post
Posted: 2023-10-03 15:24:35
https://nypost.com/2023/09/14/the-real-data-behind-the-new-covid-vaccines-the...

What if I told you one in 50 people who took a new medication had a “medically attended adverse event” and the manufacturer refused to disclose what exactly the complication was — would you take it? And what if the theoretical benefit was only transient, lasting about three months, after which your susceptibility goes back to baseline? And what if we told you the Food and Drug Administration cleared it without any human-outcomes data. That’s what we know about the new COVID vaccine the Biden administration is firmly recommending. COVID vaccines are very different from flu vaccines. COVID vaccines have higher complication rates, including severe and life-threatening cardiac reactions. Flu shots have a 50-plus-year safety record whereas COVID vaccines have been associated with a serious adverse event rate of one in 5,000 doses, according to a German study by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut. Another study, published last year in the medical journal Vaccine, estimated the rate of serious adverse events to be as high as one in 556 COVID vaccine recipients. And for young people, the incidence of myocarditis is six to 28 times higher after the vaccine than after infection, even for females, according to a 2022 JAMA Cardiology study. That’s one of the reasons a study that we and several national colleagues published last year found that college booster mandates appear to have resulted in a net public health harm.

Note: The above was written by Marty Makary, MD, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Anecdotals is a powerful documentary that follows the lives of many people who stepped up to get vaccinated for themselves or the greater good, yet whose lives changed drastically as a result. Instead of having their stories of vaccine injuries heard and seen, they were discredited and abandoned by the medical system and our media systems.


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