1397: ok zoomer

Ox Ranch

Brent C. Oxley, 34, the founder of HostGator.com, a web hosting provider that was sold in 2012 for more than $200 million.

Sir Mark

$10k

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Pfizer said Friday that its easy-to-administer Covid-19 pill, used in combination with a widely used HIV drug, cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% in high-risk adults who’ve been exposed to the virus.

It’s now the second antiviral pill behind Merck’s to demonstrate strong effectiveness for treating Covid at the first sign of illness. If cleared by regulators, it would likely be a game changer in the ongoing global pandemic fight.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC the company plans to submit its data to the Food and Drug Administration before Thanksgiving.

“I think this medicine will change the way things are happening right now that will save millions and millions of lives, it has the potential to do it,” Bourla said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He said the company has “the capacity right now of 500 million pills,” which he said translates to 50 million treatments. “The very high efficacy comes even to us as

"Until we come up with some drugs that can prolong life and help people beat the virus, we’re going to continue to have people passing away," Johnson said. "That’s unfortunate. Here we are, the biggest and strongest country in the world, and we should be having drugs that can help people through this virus."

There is no cure either for HIV or AIDS. Yet Johnson has lived with the HIV virus by keeping a strict daily routine. He prays and has a positive attitude. He works out. And he takes his medicine (he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011 that he takes three undisclosed pills twice a day). On CNN, Johnson added that he has taken what is known as the HIV cocktail. David Ho, Johnson’s physician and one of the preeminent doctors in the AIDS research community, is credited for coming up with the "cocktail" mixtures of protease inhibitors.

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Scientists in Hong Kong recently completed a clinical study in which they found that administering a cocktail of three different anti-viral medications to patients enduring mild coronavirus symptoms "may rapidly suppress the amount of virus in a patient's body."

The three-drug anti-viral cocktail is made up of the HIV medication lopinavir-ritonavir, the hepatitis therapy drug ribavirin and the multiple sclerosis treatment interferon-beta.

"Early triple antiviral therapy was safe and superior to lopinavir–ritonavir alone in alleviating symptoms and shortening the duration of viral shedding and hospital stay in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19," the study authors wrote, adding that "future clinical study of a double antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b as a backbone is warranted" for a complete overview.

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Texas Beef Initiative

Marketing starts after COP, but not really prepared yet

NAC = Soylent green

Nothing new, been going on since the Pharaos.

Let Them Eat Cake!

Gates Water rights

Transhumanism - Fix and improve everything with technology

The changing of the nickname of the Royal Guards from The Beefeaters to something else after she’s dead and eventually the sword goes to William

http://projectbritain.com/Beefeaters.htm

Perhaps the CarbonEaters?

Here in the EU Belgium they are proposing to ban all non electric cars by 2027.

I did think all car batteries would be produced in China like the solar and wind equipment. But Tesla is producing batteries in the US? Why? They know what is

coming an probably will sell to other brands. Feels like war. Of course oil prices rise Arabic producers watch also the news.

Gas and oil will not be allowed for heating anymore for new installations. Health workers need to have 2 shots before April 1st. Hmm so no J&J. Our son 16

Months need to take a Covid test before he can enter the hospital for an scan. Incredible times we are experiencing what kids will learn in history in the

future.

My good friend and fellow Knight, Sir Pants (Steven Fettig), has filed suit

against the Brandon admin over the mandate.

Wisconsin manufacturer sues Biden administration over vaccine mandate

Press release

Adam,

Nice to do it at the 11th hour. Don't know if you saw, but United

announced 14 station closures mostly in the last few days due to

"staffing". The date most of those stations lose service is (not)

coincidentally exactly the same as the new vaccine deadline Jan4.

*Unvaccinated airline workers seeking exemptions will have until January 4

to file a request. While American Airlines has already extended its

internal vaccine deadline, Southwest told Insider that it is "reviewing the

revised guidance." *

*The extension staves off a potential showdown between the government and

airlines over unvaccinated workers heading into the busy holiday season.

Prior to the new deadline, many airlines had already signaled they may not

fully comply with the December timeline, including executives at American

Airlines and Southwest Airlines who indicated they would refuse to fire

unvaccinated staffers. *

Biden Vaccine Mandate for Airline Workers Pushed After Holidays

(businessinsider.com)

Link

The American Psychological Association failed in its role leading the discipline of psychology, was complicit in contributing to systemic inequities, and hurt many through racism, racial discrimination, and denigration of people of color, thereby falling short on its mission to benefit society and improve lives.

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Due to [extreme weather / civil unrest], the Uber app [is/will

be] offline as of [time and date]. We’re closely monitoring

this situation, and are in contact with local authorities.

We’ll notify you as soon as the app is back online. You can

also visit our blog for more information.

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Archived Version

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 16:47

Image A giraffe named Buttercup moved closer to Buck Watson, a hunting guide, as he looks on from a vehicle at the Ox Ranch in Uvalde, Tex. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times UVALDE, Tex. '-- On a ranch at the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country, a hunting guide spotted her cooling off in the shade: an African reticulated giraffe. Such is the curious state of modern Texas ranching, that a giraffe among the oak and the mesquite is an everyday sort of thing.

''That's Buttercup,'' said the guide, Buck Watson, 54.

In a place of rare creatures, Buttercup is among the rarest; she is off limits to hunters at the Ox Ranch. Not so the African bongo antelope, one of the world's heaviest and most striking spiral-horned antelopes, which roams the same countryside as Buttercup. The price to kill a bongo at the Ox Ranch is $35,000.

Image Water buffaloes walked across a dam at the Ox Ranch. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Himalayan tahrs, wild goats with a bushy lion-style mane, are far cheaper. The trophy fee, or kill fee, to shoot one is $7,500. An Arabian oryx is $9,500; a sitatunga antelope, $12,000; and a black wildebeest, $15,000.

''We don't hunt giraffes,'' Mr. Watson said. ''Buttercup will live out her days here, letting people take pictures of her. She can walk around and graze off the trees as if she was in Africa.''

The Ox Ranch near Uvalde, Tex., is not quite a zoo, and not quite an animal shooting range, but something in between.

Image Mr. Watson points out a Roan on the Ox Ranch. Roan, originally from Africa, never shed their horns, making them attractive trophies for hunters any time of year. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times The ranch's hunting guides and managers walk a thin, controversial line between caring for thousands of rare, threatened and endangered animals and helping to execute them. Some see the ranch as a place for sport and conservation. Some see it as a place for slaughter and hypocrisy.

The Ox Ranch provides a glimpse into the future of the mythic Texas range '-- equal parts exotic game-hunting retreat, upscale outdoor adventure, and breeding and killing ground for exotic species.

Ranchers in the nation's top cattle-raising state have been transforming pasture land into something out of an African safari, largely to lure trophy hunters who pay top-dollar kill fees to hunt exotics. Zebra mares forage here near African impala antelopes, and it is easy to forget that downtown San Antonio is only two hours to the east.

Image A worker replaces a light bulb at the Ox Ranch. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times The ranch has about 30 bongo, the African antelopes with a trophy fee of $35,000. Last fall, a hunter shot one. ''Taking one paid their feed bill for the entire year, for the rest of them,'' said Jason Molitor, the chief executive of the Ox Ranch.

To many animal-protection groups, such management of rare and endangered species '-- breeding some, preventing some from being hunted, while allowing the killing of others '-- is not only repulsive, but puts hunting ranches in a legal and ethical gray area.

''Depending on what facility it is, there's concern when animals are raised solely for profit purposes,'' said Anna Frostic, a senior attorney with the Humane Society of the United States.

Image Mr. Watson inspects an Axis buck shot the day before by an 8-year-old boy. Trophy carcasses are hung in a cooler room before being transported from the ranch. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Hunting advocates disagree and say the breeding and hunting of exotic animals helps ensure species' survival. Exotic-game ranches see themselves not as an enemy of wildlife conservation but as an ally, arguing that they contribute a percentage of their profits to conservation efforts.

''We love the animals, and that's why we hunt them,'' Mr. Molitor said. ''Most hunters in general are more in line with conservation than the public believes that they are.''

Beyond the financial contributions, hunting ranches and their supporters say the blending of commerce and conservation helps save species from extinction.

Image Various bovine species, including Watusi cattle and buffalo, eat from a hay drop at the Ox Ranch. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Wildlife experts said there are more blackbuck antelope in Texas than there are in their native India because of the hunting ranches. In addition, Texas ranchers have in the past sent exotic animals, including scimitar-horned oryx, back to their home countries to build up wild populations there.

''Ranchers can sell these hunts and enjoy the income, while doing good for the species,'' said John M. Tomecek, a wildlife specialist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Animal-rights activists are outraged by these ranches. They call what goes on there ''canned hunting'' or ''captive hunting.''

Image To ensure a healthy herd, the Ox Ranch introduces fresh blood lines using animals bred on other ranches. April Molitor watches with her father, Jason Molitor, the chief executive of the Ox Ranch, as newly arrived blackbuck antelope are released from a trailer. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times ''Hunting has absolutely nothing to do with conservation,'' said Ashley Byrne, the associate director of campaigns for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. ''What they're doing is trying to put a better spin on a business that they know the average person finds despicable.''

A 2007 report from Texas A&M University called the exotic wildlife industry in America a billion-dollar industry.

At the Ox Ranch, it shows. The ranch has luxury log cabins, a runway for private planes and a 6,000-square-foot lodge with stone fireplaces and vaulted ceilings. More animals roam its 18,000 acres than roam the Houston Zoo, on a tract of land bigger than the island of Manhattan. The ranch is named for its owner, Brent C. Oxley, 34, the founder of HostGator.com, a web hosting provider that was sold in 2012 for more than $200 million.

Image Three kangaroos that live in front of the Ox Ranch lodge are mainly for attraction purposes and are not hunted. They greet arriving guests and are often fed corn by the newcomers and by guides. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times ''The owner hopes in a few years that we can break even,'' Mr. Molitor said.

Because the industry is largely unregulated, there is no official census of exotic animals in Texas. But ranchers and wildlife experts said that Texas has more exotics than any other state. A survey by the state Parks and Wildlife Department in 1994 put the exotic population at more than 195,000 animals from 87 species, but the industry has grown explosively since then; one estimate by John T. Baccus, a retired Texas State University biologist, puts the current total at roughly 1.3 million.

Image A hunting blind stands among trees near a game feeder at the Ox Ranch. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times The Ox Ranch needs no local, state or federal permit for most of their exotic animals.

State hunting regulations do not apply to exotics, which can be hunted year-round. The Fish and Wildlife Service allows ranches to hunt and kill certain animals that are federally designated as threatened or endangered species, if the ranches take certain steps, including donating 10 percent of their hunting proceeds to conservation programs. The ranches are issued permits to conduct activities that would otherwise be prohibited under the Endangered Species Act if those activities enhance the survival of the species in the wild. Those federal permits make it legal to hunt Eld's deer and other threatened or endangered species at the Ox Ranch.

Image Mr. Watson petted Buttercup the giraffe. Hunters are not allowed to shoot the ranch's giraffes. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Mr. Molitor said more government oversight was unnecessary and would drive ranchers out of the business. ''I ask people, who do you think is going to manage it better, private organizations or the government?'' Mr. Molitor said.

Lawyers for conservation and animal-protection groups say that allowing endangered animals to be hunted undermines the Endangered Species Act, and that the ranches' financial contributions fail to benefit wildlife conservation.

''We ended up with this sort of pay-to-play idea,'' said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. ''It is absolutely absurd that you can go to a canned-hunt facility and kill an endangered or threatened species.''

Image Wildebeest run free on the Ox Ranch's rangeland. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times The creatures are not the only things at the ranch that are exotic. The tanks are, too.

The ranch offers its guests the opportunity to drive and shoot World War II-era tanks. People fire at bullet-ridden cars from atop an American M4 Sherman tank at a shooting range built to resemble a Nazi-occupied French town.

''We knew the gun people would come out,'' said Todd DeGidio, the chief executive of DriveTanks.com, which runs the tank operation. ''What surprised us was the demographic of people who've never shot guns before.''

Image A World War II-era M4 Sherman tank. The ranch also has a shooting range built to resemble a Nazi-occupied French town. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Late one evening, two hunters, Joan Schaan and her 15-year-old son, Daniel, rushed to get ready for a nighttime hunt, adjusting the SWAT-style night-vision goggles on their heads.

Ms. Schaan is the executive director of a private foundation in Houston. Daniel is a sophomore at St. John's School, a prestigious private school. They were there not for the exotics, but basically for the pests: feral hogs, which cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage annually in Texas.

''We are here because we both like to hunt, and we like hunting hogs,'' Ms. Schaan said. ''And we love the meat and the sausage from the hogs we harvest.''

Image Joan Schaan takes a photo of her son Daniel Schaan, 15, as he prepares for a night boar hunt. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Pursuing the hogs, Ms. Schaan and her son go off-roading through the brush in near-total darkness, with a hunting guide behind the wheel. Aided by their night-vision goggles, they passed by the giraffes before rattling up and down the hilly terrain.

Daniel fired at hogs from the passenger seat with a SIG Sauer 516 rifle, his spent shell casings flying into the back seat. Their guide, Larry Hromadka, told Daniel when he could and could not take a shot.

No one is allowed to hunt at the ranch without a guide. The guides make sure no one shoots an exotic animal accidentally with a stray bullet, and that no one takes aim at an off-limits creature.

One of the hogs Daniel shot twitched and appeared to still be alive, until Mr. Hromadka approached with his light and his gun.

Image Larry Hromadka, a hunting guide, fires his pistol to end the suffering of a feral hog shot and wounded during a night boar hunt. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Hundreds of animals shot at the ranch have ended up in the cluttered workrooms and showrooms at Graves Taxidermy in Uvalde.

Part of the allure of exotic game-hunting is the so-called trophy at the end '-- the mounted and lifelike head of the animal that the hunter put down. The Ox Ranch is Graves Taxidermy's biggest customer.

''My main business, of course, is white-tailed deer, but the exotics have kind of taken over,'' said Browder Graves, the owner.

Image Many trophy carcasses from the Ox Ranch are taken to Graves Taxidermy in Uvalde for mounting. Meg Rowland, a newly hired assistant, works on a customer order in the workshop. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times He said the animal mounts he makes for people were not so much a trophy on a wall as a symbol of the hunter's memories of the entire experience. He has a mount of a Himalayan tahr he shot in New Zealand that he said he cannot look at without thinking of the time he spent with his son hunting up in the mountains.

''It's God's creature,'' he said. ''I'm trying to make it look as good as it can.''

Image White stags and white elk graze on the ranch at sunset. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Small herds passed by the Jeep being driven by Mr. Watson, the hunting guide. There were white elk and eland, impala and Arabian oryx.

Then the tour came to an unexpected stop. An Asiatic water buffalo blocked the road, unimpressed by the Jeep. The animal was caked with dried mud, an aging male that lived away from the herd.

''The Africans call them dugaboys,'' Mr. Watson said. ''They're old lone bulls. They're so big that they don't care.''

The buffalo took his time moving. For a moment, at least, he had all the power.

Image An ostrich and grazing fallow deer are illuminated by the headlights of a ranch vehicle. Credit... Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

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Archived Version

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 14:41

With inventory low and demand high, firms like Hershey's and Kimberly-Clark cut back on ad spending

The global supply-chain crisis is spreading to Madison Avenue.

Many companies have been struggling for months to get products to consumers, as they face shortages in everything from raw materials to labor to cargo containers, among other problems. Some are questioning whether it makes sense to promote products they can't adequately stock.

''It's...

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The global supply-chain crisis is spreading to Madison Avenue.

Many companies have been struggling for months to get products to consumers, as they face shortages in everything from raw materials to labor to cargo containers, among other problems. Some are questioning whether it makes sense to promote products they can't adequately stock.

''It's not wise to drive demand when shelves are bare,'' said Susan Cantor, chief executive officer of branding firm Sterling Brands.

Chocolate giant Hershey Co. and household-goods manufacturers Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Church & Dwight Co. in recent days said they cut back on ad and marketing spending in the third quarter because of supply-chain issues.

''The supply-chain challenges just wouldn't enable us to be able to meet further demand that we would create through our very impactful advertising,'' Hershey Co. Chief Executive Michele Buck said on an investor call. ''It just didn't make sense.''

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Kimberly-Clark Chief Financial Officer Maria Henry said her company, which makes Kleenex facial tissues and Huggies diapers, had more demand than it could meet at the moment. ''We have challenges getting the product to our customers,'' she said on an investor call.

Church & Dwight, the consumer-product company behind the Arm & Hammer and OxiClean brands, said Friday that it pulled back on third-quarter marketing for products most affected by the shortages, especially household products. The New Jersey-based company said it expects supply-availability issues to begin to abate in the first half of 2022 for most of its brands.

Two of the largest players in online advertising, Facebook Inc. and Snap Inc., said recently that they expected a slowdown in revenue growth in the fourth quarter, due in part to macroeconomic factors such as supply-chain bottlenecks and labor shortages. Both companies said their advertising business's performance was also hurt by Apple Inc.'s new privacy rules, which make it harder for advertisers to target their ads at audiences.

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The retreat comes as the ad market has been booming, thanks in part to strong consumer confidence and the end to some restrictions intended to slow down the spread of Covid-19. The fourth quarter of the year is typically the most lucrative for media entities as brands and retailers rely heavily on the critical holiday shopping season.

Jason Wagenheim, president and chief revenue officer at Bustle Digital Group, which owns publications Gawker, Nylon and W Magazine, said his company is seeing ''temporary but significant advertising pauses'' from many clients because of severe product shortages across many sectors including cars, diapers, toys, food and consumer electronics.

''I think large media organizations are going to see short term significant impacts in these categories until the supply-chain issues right themselves, which should be early in 2022,'' Mr. Wagenheim said in an email.

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Some digital publishers are planning for ad spending to shrink by at least 5% in the fourth quarter compared with their previous projections, according to media executives.

Not all platforms are expected to be affected equally by the ad pullback. Digital ad sellers often can be the first to see an advertising retreat because online ads are easier to cancel. Those ads are often bought in real-time or closer to their run date and are unlike TV ads, which are often sold well in advance of when they air.

Still, some TV networks are also seeing some softness in spending from several ad categories including auto manufacturers, according to ad buyers and TV network executives. Some fast-food chains also aren't spending as much as expected because of the labor shortage, a TV executive said.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said his company had seen advertising pullbacks from car makers and telecommunications companies.

''It's a supply issue, not a demand issue,'' Mr. Murdoch said at a conference in September. ''So we expect those clients and those partners to come back strongly once they have the supply of their cars to be able to sell.''

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Fox and Wall Street Journal parent News Corp share common ownership.

The auto sector has been particularly hampered by the global chip shortage. This has caused manufacturers to cut production, resulting in car shortages at dealerships in the U.S.

General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. this week reported steep drops in third-quarter profit. They said supply-chain disruptions should slowly improve in the fourth quarter and throughout next year, although strong car demand will make it difficult to restock dealership lots. Neither company mentioned cutting back on advertising while discussing their results. In an email, GM's chief marketing officer said the company planned to have ''a hearty media presence'' in the fourth quarter. Ford didn't respond to a request for comment.

Advertisers tend to be reluctant to cut marketing expenditures too deeply. Many believe it is important to remain top of mind with customers and fear that deep cuts to advertising can allow rivals to be more visible, which can lead to the loss of market share.

Consumer-product giant Procter & Gamble , one of the largest advertisers in the world, said it would continue to invest in marketing despite the supply-chain crisis, which has led to escalating costs. ''We continue to drive marketing spend,'' said Andre Schulten, P&G's chief financial officer, during a recent call with investors.

Ad-holding companies, which work on behalf of big advertisers, appear largely unaffected so far by the supply-chain bottlenecks.

''To date, we haven't seen any impact from supply-chain disruption in our numbers,'' said Mark Read, CEO of WPP PLC, the world's largest ad-holding company by revenue, on a call with analysts on Thursday. Still, Mr. Read said his company had seen a ''little bit of weakness'' in automotive during the third quarter because of the semiconductor shortages.

WPP expects U.S. ad spending to surge 22% to $276 billion this year, according to a prediction made in June by WPP's ad buying firm GroupM, and has no plans to downgrade its estimates.

''The factors which have driven the U.S. advertising market up so much, so fast, aren't showing signs of abating, despite the issues with supply chains and Apple's operating system,'' said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM.

Write to Suzanne Vranica at suzanne.vranica@wsj.com and Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com

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Archived Version

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:41

Joe Rogan, the world's most successful podcaster and comedian, may have accepted a Bitcoin payment of $100,000. The podcast host and MMA commentator has talked about Bitcoin in the past on his show, and has even hosted conversations with notable Bitcoiners, but accepting Bitcoin as payment marks a definitive switch in stance on his part.During the Joe Rogan Experience episode #1728, about 56 minutes and 30 seconds in, frequent guest and comedian Ari Shaffir boasted to fellow comics Mark Normand and Shane Gillis on behalf of their friend, ''Joe got a deal for over $100,000 dollars,'' Shaffir said.

''It's not American money,'' Joe deflected, brushing off his fellow comics' antics. ''It's all in Bitcoin.''

If this encounter is any indication of Rogan's stance on Bitcoin, and if it is in fact true that he was paid over 1.5 BTC by today's prices, the occasion marks a shift in his understanding of the world's most sound store of value.In the past, Rogan has dismissed Bitcoin on his show as a ''ponzi scheme,'' which is an opinion many form when hearing about the success of Bitcoin's early adopters, prior to doing their homework on the composition of the leaderless, ungovernable asset.

However, one of the more captivating and humanizing traits of the internet legend is that Rogan frequently revises his opinions on topics throughout the episodes when presented with good information.

In a February 2019 episode with Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who is an extremely active promoter of Bitcoin, Joe commented, ''One of the things that's kind of cool about the Cash App is that you can buy and sell Bitcoin with it.''Rogan went on to ask whether Dorsey would allow other crypto currencies outside of Bitcoin to be bought and sold on the platform. Dorsey then explained to Rogan how Bitcoin will become the native currency of the internet, the trials that have strengthened it, and what is likely to propel Bitcoin to becoming a global store of value and reserve asset.

During that episode with Dorsey, Rogan for perhaps the first time since hosting early episodes with OG Bitcoin advocate and educator Andreas Antonopoulos, talked about Bitcoin seriously as a disruptive technology. ''This is another step towards a new way of doing things,'' he remarked at the time. In the past he has cited popular Bitcoin educators such as Max Keiser on the show, at times displaying something more than a surface-level interest.

Joe Rogan's acceptance of Bitcoin on any scale will be celebrated by people who have Bitcoin by sheer virtue of his reach, which is in some ways unquantifiable. It is estimated his podcast reaches over 11 million people per show. Over the years he has brought considerable influence and unprecedented attention to the arts of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Boxing, MMA, elk hunting, archery, biohacking, comedy, health and fitness, self improvement, clean eating, and podcasting in general.

One can only hope Rogan will continue to research Bitcoin, come to understand the fundamental differences between it and the other crypto securities, and share his Bitcoin journey with the world.

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Archived Version

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:40

October 28, 2021 03:15 PM

J oseph Messina woke up one February morning to find an anti-white racial slur spray-painted on his house in South Philadelphia. It also included threats and the word ''die.'' It is believed the incident stemmed from bullying incidents at the 12-year-old's school. This is an example of a phenomenon that has had a significant increase recently but does not get widespread media scrutiny: hate crimes with an anti-white bias. Earlier this week, the FBI released its hate crime report for 2020, and it showed a nearly 41% increase in hate crimes with an anti-white bias from 2019. Good luck finding any media outlet reporting this.

''To write the word 'die,' that's really ... taking it far. It wasn't just a racial comment. It was 'die,''' Messina said.

A slur and a threat to a child's life would be national news if the aggressor were white and the victim black. But this incident received no attention. Something as significant as a year-over-year 41% increase in hate crimes against a racial group would draw national outrage had the victims been any race other than white. But it would be a little bit tricky for the media to explain how their own promotion of racial resentment is generating hate.

2019 hate crime stats

According to the data in the FBI Crime Data Explorer, in 2019, there were 761 total incidents of hate crimes with an anti-white bias. In 2020, this number jumped to 1,072. Additionally, this included a 22% increase in ''simple assaults'' with an anti-white bias. It also included a 34% increase in ''aggravated assaults'' with an anti-white bias. The offense with the biggest increase was ''intimidation'' with an anti-white bias, which saw a 54% increase between 2019 and 2020.

hate crime stats 2020

Most media reports announced that the FBI hate crime report revealed a dramatic increase in overall hate crimes from 2019 to 2020. And when detailing this, most of the attention was given to the increase in hate crimes against black people and Asian Americans. These are all true and equally horrifying and deserve attention. But so should the crimes with an anti-white bias.

As a country, we should be striving to have the total amount of hate crimes be zero. Any crime committed against anyone because of their race is unquestionably disgusting and horrific and should not be tolerated. However, the entire story should be told, not just the hate crimes that fit the agenda of liberals and Democrats. Any media scrutiny on the FBI's hate crime report must include the statistics showing the 41% increase in anti-white hate crimes.

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Archived Version

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:21

Think about it: Will I be exaggerating if I say that a part of your behavior and personality is shaped by the things that you see on the screen? Definitely not! It is naive to think that television is a harmless pastime activity that doesn't affect your psyche in any way.

Every thinking person knows that anything you expose your mind to, affects it. Your psyche is continually being shaped by all kinds of information that you receive from your environment and that includes television.

Television is one of the most effective hypnotic tools out there. It can have a huge influence on the way you think, the beliefs that you hold, and consequently how your life turns out.

Your subconscious mind, which carries all your memories and beliefs and makes you who you are, is directly programmed by watching television.

The flicker-induced hypnotic stateYour mind slips into the hypnotic trance state within seconds of watching TV. This lowers your brainwaves to a lower 'alpha state' commonly associated with meditation and deep relaxation. This is believed to be caused by the screen flicker and explains why you feel sleepy while watching TV.

Under this state of trance, your subconscious mind becomes highly suggestible and whatever information you receive from the TV becomes part of your memory pool.

Since beliefs are nothing but memories, this information has the tendency to alter your beliefs or form new ones when it seeps into your subconscious mind. You might think the remote is in your hand and you're watching the programs but, in truth, you are the one who is getting programmed.

Impaired conscious filteringFreeing your mind is all about finding out what beliefs you are holding in your subconscious, bringing them to consciousness and then eliminating the ones that have no compelling evidence or any basis in reality.

Our conscious mind is a security guard that ensures only information that we already believe in is allowed into the subconscious mind so that our pre-existing beliefs get strengthened. It has the tendency to reject any information that does not match our pre-existing belief systems.

The natural consequence of a hypnotic trance state is that your conscious filters are turned off and you are unable to critically analyze the information that you are receiving.

Moreover, when you watch TV you are not able to do any thinking because information is bombarded continuously into your mind. You get no time to process what you are watching.

Your conscious mind is eliminated from the equation and the information that you receive continues to become part of your belief system.

Compare this to reading where you can stop, think and reflect after each line that you read. You, the reader, sets the pace while you are reading and not the book. TV, on the other hand, keeps on pouring information like wine into the glass of your unconscious mind and before you know it, you are already drunk.

And that's what you see all around you- people intoxicated with the thoughts of other people who never give sobriety a chance by reflecting on their drunkenness.

How TV influences usHow many times have you done something just because you saw someone doing it on TV?

We are hard-wired to copy those around us. This was especially important during childhood when our survival depends much on how well we copied actions that others around us did such as eating for instance.

I've said before that our entire childhood was essentially a period of hypnosis. We picked up beliefs from all over the place because our conscious faculty was not fully developed. We did not have the ability to question our beliefs and actions.

We saw Superman flying, got a Superman dress and tried to take off from the balcony. We saw wrestling on TV and fought with pillows in the living room, tearing the poor cottony things apart.

We saw our favourite gun-carrying heroes and were shooting imaginary aliens in your courtyard.

This is strong proof of the fact that our subconscious mind cannot differentiate between things that we see on the screen and reality. That's why we believed all that we saw on TV when we were kids and tried to copy what we saw.

But some people just never grow out of it. Sure you can't do anything to convince your subconscious mind that what you see on TV isn't real, just like you can't be 'not-scared' while watching a really scary horror movie alone in the night.

But what you can do is bring your conscious mind into the equation and only accept that information which agrees with your common sense and reason.

Millions of people are daily getting programmed by the stuff they watch on TV. They might not try to take off from the balcony but their life is a good reflection of what they see on the screen.

Find out what TV programs a person watches and you can know a lot about what kind of a person he is.

Millions of people are trying to live the fictional lives they see being portrayed in the films, many are identifying with their favorite celebrities and copying them and countless others are daily accepting the versions of reality their news channels present them with.

Choose what you seeTV isn't necessarily bad if you are very conscious and deliberate about the things that you watch. Entertain and educate yourself, but don't allow the programs to program you with irrational beliefs.

Always try to keep your critical thinking faculty switched 'ON' so that you don't let others control your thought processes

Hi, I'm Hanan Parvez (MBA, MA Psychology), founder and author of PsychMechanics. I've published one book and authored 300+ articles on this blog (started in 2014) that have garnered over 4 million views. PsychMechanics has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader's Digest, and Entrepreneur. Feel free to contact me if you have a query.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:03

'); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1609270282082-0'); }); }The Summit caught a fascinating story out of Italy: the Italian Higher Institute of Health decided it had miscounted COVID deaths. Instead of looking at people who died with COVID, as it once did, it looked only at people who died from COVID '-- leading to a 97% decrease in Italy's COVID death count. So far, the CDC shows no signs of following suit.

'); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1609268089992-0'); }); }According to The Summit:

The Italian Higher Institute of Health has drastically reduced the country's official COVID death toll number by over 97 per cent after changing the definition of a fatality to someone who died from COVID rather than with COVID.

Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000.

'); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0'); }); }"Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid," writes Toby Young.

Of the of the 130,468 deaths registered as official COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic, only 3,783 are directly attributable to the virus alone.

"All the other Italians who lost their lives had from between one and five pre-existing diseases. Of those aged over 67 who died, 7% had more than three co-morbidities, and 18% at least two," writes Young.

"According to the Institute, 65.8% of Italians who died after being infected with Covid were ill with arterial hypertension (high blood pressure), 23.5% had dementia, 29.3% had diabetes, and 24.8% atrial fibrillation. Add to that, 17.4% had lung problems, 16.3% had had cancer in the last five years and 15.7% suffered from previous heart failures."

There's more interesting material here, for the article discusses the ethics of overcounting to induce panic.

Reading between the lines, the problem in Italy was that the socialized medicine system was unable to cope with an influx of patients during a bad flu season. (And it was a bad flu season.)

The actual data match closely what those who are not panicking have observed in America. As with every flu season, there are unlucky young (and youngish) people who die from the flu. Overall, though, the ones who die are either very elderly or have comorbidities of the type described in the quoted material above.

In America, however, counting COVID deaths is more of an art than it is a science (and that's not even getting into the way the government incentivized hospitals to count COVID deaths). You can see here the CDC's instructions.

A February 2021 article at the American Association of Medical College's website assures readers that no one is really overcounting in America: "There's no evidence of orchestrated inflation, but parsing the role that the disease plays in some deaths is not always easy for doctors '-- nor is the process clear to the public."

The article then discusses the fact that deaths from COVID are confusing because COVID creates a lot of "clinical complications." However '-- and this is where the article starts tying in with what we know to be true:

[T]he disease's brutal impact on people with other medical conditions '-- such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart ailments '-- can make COVID-19 one of several contributors to a death, says Sally Aiken, MD, chief medical examiner of Spokane County, Washington. Aiken has seen cases where elderly people who were in advanced decline due to Alzheimer's disease and atrial fibrillation contracted COVID-19 and soon died.

In other words, COVID hastens death but doesn't necessarily cause it. Moreover (and, again, this matters), when it comes to death certificates:

Part I and II of a death certificate ask what caused a death and what other factors contributed to it. If COVID-19 appears among the causes and contributors, CDC guidance counts that as a COVID-19-related death.

Part I asks for the "immediate cause" of death, followed by any "conditions that led to the immediate cause," the CDC explains in guidelines for certifying COVID-19 fatalities. For example: In some COVID-19 cases, the immediate cause is an affliction that arose from the disease, such as pneumonia, while COVID-19 gets listed under that as an underlying condition that led to death. In other words, COVID-19 caused the pneumonia.

Alaska's policy is a good yardstick for what's going on:

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services explains on its website why the disease is cited if it played any role at all:

"Whether COVID-19 shortened a life by 15 years or 15 minutes; whether COVID-19 is an underlying or contributing condition, the virus was in circulation, infected an Alaskan, and hastened their death."

Parse your way through all of this, and it becomes clear that COVID, because it is a new and highly adaptable coronavirus, hastened the deaths of those with one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana peel by increasing their vulnerability to the things that were already killing them. This is sad, for every minute, day, or week spent with a loved one matters. Additionally, the extreme lockdowns consigned so many to heartbreakingly lonely deaths.

However, if you do as the Italian government did and strip away age and comorbidities from the death count, COVID is just another flu for most people. The economy does not need to stop; people do not need to be locked up; the disease is treatable; and mass vaccination mandates are unnecessary, ineffective, and totalitarian.

Image: Caring for a COVID patient in 2020. YouTube screen grab.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:14

One of the most depressing features of our current cultural condition is the leakage of wokism and anti-white bigotry into the sciences.

Latest on that: the American Psychological Association has done a full race grovel, issuing a public statement about how ashamed they are for being white. I don't have the stomach to read the whole thing, but here's a snippet from the CNN report, November 1st.

Grovel:

The American Psychological Association failed in its role leading the discipline of psychology, was complicit in contributing to systemic inequities, and hurt many through racism, racial discrimination, and denigration of people of color, thereby falling short on its mission to benefit society and improve lives.End grovel.

The APA was established in 1892 when it was perfectly mainstream to write about improving humanity through eugenics and speculating on race differences in psychology. That apparently is what has the APA keening their guilt and flagellating themselves.

Well, at least this settles the question of whether psychology is really a science, which is to say a disinterested quest for truth. No: as instantiated in the APA it is a social-service movement with a "mission to benefit society and improve lives." Glad we got that clear at last.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:11

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Brandon Trosclair, a native of Louisiana and an owner of a chain of supermarkets, is credited with having been instrumental in getting the Federal Appeals Court to block the Biden vaccine mandate.

Trosclair launched his own lawsuit, on behalf of his own company, BST Holdings LLC, and against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the government entity which had issued the mandate. The lawsuit alleges that OSHA does not have the legal authority to issue such a mandate, while also mentioning constitutional issues.

According to the Liberty Justice Center's website, "supermarket employees like Trosclair's and other essential workers who braved the pandemic and were once hailed as heroes now face losing their jobs if they don't comply with the government's demands. And this is despite the fact they are not government employees, but are employed by private businesses."

"I am faced with an incomprehensible choice imposed upon me by the federal government: force these workers, whose dedication and skills have fueled my business's success, to take the COVID vaccine '' or show them the door," commented Trosclair on the subject.

Trosclair runs a grand total of 16 supermarkets in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, and is responsible for a total of more than 500 employees.

If this legal action prospers, the plaintiff could be granted a permanent injunction against OSHA and the federal government. The vaccine mandate may even wind up struck down altogether.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:06

Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday in Houston. Amy Harris/Invision/AP hide caption

toggle caption Amy Harris/Invision/AP Travis Scott performs at the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday in Houston.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP Eight people died and scores were injured at an outdoor concert at rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival in Houston after the crowd rushed the stage, authorities said Saturday.

Scott was performing when, shortly after 9 p.m. local time, the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, causing panic.

The cause of the eight deaths has not yet been determined, and the investigation is ongoing.

The victims range in age from 14 to 27, officials said at a Saturday afternoon briefing. They also confirmed that 25 people were transported to the hospital, with 13 still hospitalized including five minors. No one is reported missing at this point.

"Last night was tragic on many different levels, and this is a very, very active investigation," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. "And we'll probably be at it for quite some time to determine what exactly happened."

More details and numbers are starting to emergeOfficials provided a slightly more detailed picture of the night's events on Saturday, but cautioned that it could take weeks or longer to determine exactly what happened.

Of the eight people reported dead, one was 14, two were 16, two were 23, one was 27 and one person's age remains unknown.

Authorities had previously said that CPR had to be performed on several people. At about 9:38 p.m., 17 patients at the event were transferred to hospitals and 11 of those transferred experienced cardiac arrest, according to Houston Fire Chief Sam Pe±a.

Police made 25 arrests on Friday night, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said, and the vast majority were for trespassing. One person was arrested for possession of marijuana, and one for public intoxication.

Finner also addressed rumors of drug use at the concert, including what he described as a "narrative" of someone injecting people with drugs.

He said one medical staff member told investigators that a security guard went unconscious after feeling a "prick in his neck." That officer '-- who investigators have yet to interview '-- was reportedly revived after being given Narcan, and did indeed have a prick in his neck consistent with the mark of an injection, Finner said.

In response to a reporter's question, Finner later said there had been "many" instances of Narcan being administered, but declined to elaborate.

Officials at the briefing cautioned against buying into rumors and unconfirmed social media reports, and are asking anyone with information to get in touch. They said the investigation will involve both the police department's homicide and narcotics divisions.

Live Nation, the organizer of the concert, is expected to provide authorities with video footage of the incident.

Officials promise to leave "no stones unturned" as they investigate Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo called for an "objective, independent investigation as to what went on and how it could have been prevented."

Turner said investigators will talk to Live Nation representatives, members of Scott's team and witnesses. They will also review video footage from the concert, as well as the approved security plans and communications between the city and the county.

Multiple officials promised that the investigation would "leave no stones unturned" and will be looking at inspections and permits issued for the event.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said earlier in the day that "our hearts are with those who lost their lives & those who were injured" and that he's making state resources available for the investigation.

Comparing security precautions to that of the 2019 festivalOfficials discussed the specific safety provisions that those involved with the festival took ahead of time, as well as the emergency response that ensued.

There were about 50,000 guests in attendance during Scott's performance, Pe±a said. There are no occupancy permits for outdoor events, but he said fire code assembly occupancy would have allowed more than 200,000 people at NRG Park, the festival venue.

The crowd was divided into two separate stages in two separate areas as required, he added, and the entrances and exists remained unobstructed. There were permits and inspectors for things like pyrotechnics, tents and doors.

Reports of people falling started to come in around 9:30 p.m., and the festival had come to an end by 10:10, authorities said.

Hidalgo noted that there were barricade breaches and crowd control issues at the 2019 Astroworld, which was the most recent iteration. As a result, she said, this year's event had stronger fencing, more barricades, additional space for crowd control and more security personnel.

The 2019 festival had 409 events security personnel, 30 armed private security staff and 47 police officers. This year's had 505 events security staff, 91 armed private staff and 76 police officers, she said.

Turner said that about 528 police officers provided security for the event and another 755 private security officers were contracted through Live Nation.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Friday during Travis Scott's performance at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, the crowd started rushing the stage, authorities said. Erika Goldring/WireImage hide caption

toggle caption Erika Goldring/WireImage Shortly after 9 p.m. Friday during Travis Scott's performance at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, the crowd started rushing the stage, authorities said.

Erika Goldring/WireImage The rest of the festival has been canceledThe Astroworld Festival, which was scheduled for Friday and Saturday, said Saturday events were canceled. The festival posted to Instagram on Saturday morning saying, "We are focused on supporting local officials however we can."

Xavier Watkins, who said he's been to all three Astroworld Festivals, was at the event Friday night. But last night's concert was different from any others he's experienced.

"I'm 6'3 and I felt bad for the smaller people there cause they were just being swallowed down at first into the crowd," Watkins said in a text message to NPR. "I was doing my best to help pull people up cause it was also muddy and it was very easy to slip."

Watkins said there wasn't enough security at this year's event, and from the security guards he spoke with, many said it was their first time staffing a concert like this.

Festivalgoers are seen rushing into the VIP area prior to Travis Scott's performance at the Astroworld music festival at NRG Park on Friday. Amy Harris/Invision/AP hide caption

toggle caption Amy Harris/Invision/AP Festivalgoers are seen rushing into the VIP area prior to Travis Scott's performance at the Astroworld music festival at NRG Park on Friday.

Amy Harris/Invision/AP Travis Scott, whose real name is Jacques Webster, is a Grammy-nominated rapper and Houston native, and launched his Astroworld Festival in 2018. He was arrested in 2015 after telling his fans to jump the barricades during his Lollapalooza performance and in 2017 for encouraging people to rush the stage at a performance in Arkansas.

The details of what caused the crowd to surge are still unclear.

"My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival," Scott wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. "I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need."

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:05

Majestic, increasingly hungry and at risk of disappearing, the polar bear is dependent on something melting away on our warming planet: sea ice.

In the harsh and unforgiving Arctic, where frigid cold is not just a way of life but a necessity, the polar bear stands out. But where it lives, where it hunts, where it eats '-- it's disappearing underfoot in the crucial summertime.

''They have just always been a revered species by people, going back hundreds and hundreds of years,'' said longtime government polar bear researcher Steve Amstrup, now chief scientist for Polar Bear International. ''There's just something special about polar bears.''

Scientists and advocates point to polar bears, marked as ''threatened'' on the endangered species list, as the white-hot warning signal for the rest of the planet '-- ''the canary in the cryosphere.'' As world leaders meet in Glasgow, Scotland, to try to ramp up efforts to curb climate change, the specter of polar bears looms over them.

United Nations Environment Program head Inger Andersen used to lead the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which monitors and classifies species in trouble. She asks: ''Do we really want to be the generation that saw the end of the ability of something as majestic as the polar bear to survive?''

THE STATE OF SEA ICE

Arctic sea ice '-- frozen ocean water '-- shrinks during the summer as it gets warmer, then forms again in the long winter. How much it shrinks is where global warming kicks in, scientists say. The more the sea ice shrinks in the summer, the thinner the ice is overall, because the ice is weaker first-year ice.

Julienne Stroeve, a University of Manitoba researcher, says summers without sea ice are inevitable. Many other experts agree with her.

Former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, now a top University of Colorado environmental researcher, is one of them.

''That's something human civilization has never known,'' Abdalati said. ''That's like taking a sledgehammer to the climate system and doing something huge about it.''

The warming already in the oceans and in the air is committed '-- like a freight train in motion. So, no matter what, the Earth will soon see a summer with less than 1 million square kilometers of sea ice scattered in tiny bits across the Arctic.

The big question is when the Arctic will ''look like a blue ocean,'' said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Maybe as early as the 2030s, most likely in the 2040s and almost assuredly by the 2050s, experts say.

The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. In some seasons, it has warmed three times faster than the rest of the globe, said University of Alaska at Fairbanks scientist John Walsh.

That's because of something called ''Arctic amplification.'' Essentially, white ice in the Arctic reflects heat. When it melts, the dark sea absorbs much more heat, which warms the oceans even more quickly, scientists say.

THE POLAR BEAR CONNECTION

There are 19 different subpopulations of polar bears in the Arctic. Each is a bit different. Some are really in trouble, especially the southernmost ones, while others are pretty close to stable. But their survival from place to place is linked heavily to sea ice.

''As you go to the Arctic and see what's happening with your own eyes ... it's depressing,'' said University of Washington marine biologist Kristin Laidre, who has studied polar bears in Baffin Bay.

Shrinking sea ice means shrinking polar bears, literally.

In the summertime, polar bears go out on the ice to hunt and eat, feasting and putting on weight to sustain them through the winter. They prefer areas that are more than half covered with ice because it's the most productive hunting and feeding grounds, Amstrup said. The more ice, the more they can move around and the more they can eat.

Just 30 or 40 years ago, the bears feasted on a buffet of seals and walrus on the ice.

In the 1980s, ''the males were huge, females were reproducing regularly and cubs were surviving well,'' Amstrup said. ''The population looked good.''

With ice loss, the bears haven't been doing as well, Amstrup said. One sign: A higher proportion of cubs are dying before their first birthdays.

Polar bears are land mammals that have adapted to the sea. The animals they eat '-- seals and walruses mostly '-- are aquatic.

The bears fare best when they can hunt in shallow water, which is typically close to land.

''When sea ice is present over those near-shore waters, polar bears can make hay,'' Amstrup said.

But in recent years the sea ice has retreated far offshore in most summers. That has forced the bears to drift on the ice into deep waters '-- sometimes nearly a mile deep '-- that are devoid of their prey, Amstrup said.

Off Alaska, the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea polar bears provide a telling contrast.

Go 30 to 40 miles offshore from Prudhoe Bay in the Beaufort Sea ''and you're in very unproductive waters,'' Amstrup said.

Further south in the Chukchi, it's shallower, which allows bottom-feeding walruses to thrive. That provides food for polar bears, he said.

''The bears in the Chukchi seem to be faring pretty well because of that additional productivity,'' Amstrup said. But the bears of the Beaufort ''give us a real good early warning of where this is all coming to.''

THE FUTURE

Even as world leaders meet in Scotland to try to ratchet up the effort to curb climate change, the scientists who monitor sea ice and watch the polar bears know so much warming is already set in motion.

There's a chance, if negotiators succeed and everything turns out just right, that the world will once again see an Arctic with significant sea ice in the summer late this century and in the 22nd century, experts said. But until then ''that door has been closed,'' said Twila Moon, a National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist.

So hope is melting too.

''It's near impossible for us to see a place where we don't reach an essentially sea ice-free Arctic, even if we're able to do the work to create much, much lower emissions'' of heat-trapping gases, Moon said. ''Sea ice is one of those things that we'll see reach some pretty devastating lows along that path. And we can already see those influences for polar bears.''

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Fassett, a data journalist based in Oakland, California, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:02

A Wisconsin manufacturer filed suit Thursday to block the Biden administration from instituting COVID-19 vaccine mandates for private-sector workers.

Darien-based Tankcraft Corp. and Plasticraft Corp. made the move hours after guidance on the mandates was published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The new OSHA rule requires businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure each of their employees is fully vaccinated or undergoes weekly COVID-19 testing. Companies that do not comply will face financial penalties.

"The order is unconscionable. OSHA does not know how to run our companies. We do," said Steve Fettig, Secretary and Treasurer of Tankcraft and Plasticraft. "OSHA does not know how to keep our employees safe. We do. And we have done so successfully since the start of the pandemic without the interference of a federal bureaucracy. We respect our employees' fundamental right to make their own private, difficult medical choices."

In looking to stay the rules, the two firms said they had to "decide between two impossible choices. If they imposed the mandate, they will lose employees who do not wish to be vaccinated or tested weekly and precious days of productivity due to testing, vaccinations, and vaccine side effects," the suit said.

But if they failed to comply, "they will face staggering fines from OSHA."

The conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty filed the suit with the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Normally cases must be filed in district court but certain claims against OSHA can go straight through to a federal appeals court.

The lawsuit challenges the authority and rationale for OSHA to issue the mandate using the Emergency Temporary Standard.

The suit claims: "If OSHA can use this authority to force 80 million American workers to

vaccinate or test weekly, then it is hard to imagine what OSHA could not

order. American businesses could be ordered to monitor and intervene in

virtually any employee behavior that might pose a risk to others, whether

directly related to the workplace or not."

A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson responded to the suit in a statement to the Journal Sentinel:

''The evidence shows us that unvaccinated employees are in grave danger of contracting COVID-19 from exposure to contagious people in the workplace and facing serious illness or death, and that vaccination or weekly testing and face coverings are necessary to protect them. This rule is well within OSHA's authority under the OSH Act, and consistent with OSHA's requirements to protect workers," the spokesperson said.

''The OSH Act was adopted to ensure every working person in the country has safe and healthy working conditions. That law gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency to address grave danger faced by workers when a standard is necessary to protect them."

The Biden administration has said the rules will withstand legal challenges. In a briefing Wednesday night with reporters, a senior administration official said "the Emergency Temporary Standard is well within OSHA's authority under the law and consistent with OSHA's requirements to protect workers from health and safety hazards, including infectious diseases."

"A virus that has killed more than 745,000 Americans, with more than 70,000 new cases per day currently, is clearly a health hazard that poses a grave danger to workers," the official said.

Tankcraft hosted then-Vice President Mike Pence during a campaign appearance in 2020.

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Drake Bentley at (414) 391-5647 or DBentley1@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DrakeBentleyMJS.

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:56

G lass ceilings and phallic towers. Mean streets and dark alleys. Road names and statues of men. From the physical to the metaphorical, the city is filled with reminders of masculine power. And yet we rarely talk of the urban landscape as an active participant in gender inequality. A building, no matter how phallic, isn't actually misogynist, is it? Surely a skyscraper isn't responsible for sexual harassment, the wage gap, or even the glass ceiling, whether it has a literal one up top or not?

That said, our built environments can still reflect patterns of gender-based discrimination. To imagine the city and its structures as neutral places where complicated human social relations are staged is to ignore the simple fact that people built these places. As the feminist geographer Jane Darke has said: ''Our cities are patriarchy written in stone, brick, glass and concrete.'' In other words, cities reflect the norms of the societies that build them. And sexism is a deep-rooted norm.

As far back as 1977, an American poet and professor of architecture named Dolores Hayden wrote an article with the explosive headline ''Skyscraper seduction, skyscraper rape''. Hayden tore into the male power fantasies embodied in this celebrated urban form. The office tower, she wrote, is one more addition ''to the procession of phallic monuments in history '' including poles, obelisks, spires, columns and watchtowers'', where architects un-ironically use the language of ''base, shaft and tip'' while drawing upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating light into the night sky.

If the sexism of the city began and ended with architectural symbolism, I would've happily written a grad school essay about this then turned my attention to more pressing matters. But society's historical and ongoing ideas about the proper gender roles for men and women (organised along a narrow binary) are built right into our cities '' and they still matter. They matter to me as a mother. They matter to me as a busy professor who often finds herself in strange cities, wondering if it's OK to pop into the neighbourhood pub alone. Ask any woman who's tried to bring a pram on to a bus, breastfeed in a park, or go for a jog at night. She intuitively understands the message the city sends her: this place is not for you.

'This place is not for you' '... a woman walks through an empty car park at a mall in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/ReutersYet the city can be a place of great freedom. The anonymity of urban life breeds possibilities easily stifled in a claustrophobic small town or suburban enclave. Education, work, pleasure, politics: the city broadens our horizons and gives us choices our foremothers never had. Despite its hostilities, it remains our best hope for radical change. This is the paradox that drove me to write a book, rather than a grad school essay. Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World takes on fear, motherhood, friendship and activism, as well as the joys and perils of being alone '' to show not only where our cities have failed, but to imagine what they could become.

During the Industrial Revolution, the populations of European cities and many others in the colonised world grew rapidly. They became flashpoints for moral panic about how gender norms were changing. The teeming streets threatened the neatly defined spaces that kept the classes apart, increasing the risk that women, especially, would have their virtue tainted by rubbing shoulders with workers, immigrants, poor people, the ''other''.

Echoing department stores and New York's Ladies' Mile (a stretch of shops for the well-to-do created at the end of the 19th century), new spaces and entire urban districts were built with the intention of controlling high-status white women's exposure to the messy public realm. After all, what would be worse than being considered a ''public woman''?

A haven for the high-status woman '...Ladies' Mile, New York, in the 1890s. Photograph: Bettmann ArchiveAt the other end of the spectrum, those who fell into grinding poverty or sex work were also in need of tight control, lest their failings infect others. Working women were blamed for the breakdown of the traditional family and its consequences: namely, men straying into gambling and alcohol addiction. Even Friedrich Engels feared that women working outside the home was too great a disruption to society. Charles Dickens suggested that fallen women should be diverted to the colonies, where their low status could be ignored by the surplus of men in need of wives.

If the disorder of cities was a threat to certain women, and the disorder of certain women a threat to cities, the suburbs could provide a solution. Early ads for the London tube depicted such areas as Golders Green as refuges where women would be safe and conveniently preoccupied with homemaking and child-rearing, while fathers could easily access the city via expanded underground routes.

In the mass suburbanisation of North America in the 1950s, this ''fix'' for gender norms that had become unstable during the war was quite explicit. ''Developers,'' says Hayden, ''argued that a particular kind of house would help the veteran change from an aggressive air ace to a commuting salesman who mowed the lawn. That house would also help a woman change from Rosie the Riveter to a stay-at-home mom.''

Escape to gender rigidity '... a poster showing 'delightful' suburbia. Photograph: Pictorial Press/Alamy Stock PhotoRe-establishing these norms was seen as necessary to ensure full access to employment for returning male soldiers. What's less-often understood is that this would enable access to another, no less vital kind of labour force: the unpaid women whose care work would keep the urban economy running, despite being unappreciated or simply unacknowledged.

Surely this suburban malaise has passed? After all, few women are now full-time homemakers throughout their lives. And few men want to be little more than an emotionally distant breadwinner. But has the responsibility for care work been redistributed equally between men and women? Has it been re-evaluated and properly remunerated? Have we reorganised our cities in ways that would make shared care work visible and convenient?

Hardly. Much of the work has simply shifted to the shoulders of other underpaid women: nannies, personal care workers, cleaners '' often recent immigrants and people of colour. Their precarious conditions of employment continue to make their labour mostly invisible. It remains deeply undervalued, in and outside of the home.

The consequences have proved deadly as Covid-19 rampages through our cities. Take the crisis in long-term care homes. Care for elderly and disabled people has been largely privatised in many countries, leaving homes dependent on a low-wage labour force, who must cobble together a living by working at multiple facilities, most likely taking crowded public buses and trains between them. This factor rapidly spread Covid-19, exposing the most vulnerable members of society to a frequently fatal illness. Because cities have failed to prioritise care as a public good, while perpetuating the notion that it is women's work, employees have risked their lives for pennies, and the elderly have died because staff don't earn a living wage.

Another deadly consequence is the global rise in domestic violence. If violence against women is ever given any attention in our cities, it is generally along the lines of women facing ''stranger danger'' in public: having to limit our movements, adjust our clothing, and travel in packs, avoiding dark alleys. Fear-mongering keeps women ''in our place'' and limits our access to the public realm. It also reinforces the idea that women should seek safety and protection in the nuclear family home '' when nothing could be further from the truth.

Masculine monument '... the office building of the People's Daily newspaper, Beijing, which was mocked for its phallic appearance. Photograph: Imaginechina/Rex FeaturesThe vast majority of violence, including fatal violence, against women and girls worldwide is perpetrated in the home, and lockdowns have exacerbated its every cause. These include stress, financial pressure, isolation, and a lack of interventions from family, friends and colleagues. Women are frightened to access shelter services and have little safe space or time to reach out for help. Not only is it almost impossible to move during the pandemic, loss of employment for many also means they can't afford to leave anyway.

These problems weren't created by coronavirus. The pandemic is merely exposing the fact that cities have been content to ignore domestic violence, not seeing it as an urban problem deeply connected to such issues as housing, employment, transportation, childcare, and of course the wage gap. Ultimately, tackling domestic violence may mean unsettling the heterosexual nuclear family in ways that would be deeply disruptive to the status quo '' namely, disruptive to the long-standing reliance on the single-family home as a place of unpaid care work, a disruption cities can ill afford given their reluctance to fund childcare, subsidise housing and prevent violence.

The good news is that women haven't been twiddling our thumbs waiting for city planners or politicians to solve these problems. In fact, women have been coming up with their own designs for cities and homes for well over a century. In 1889, Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, a social settlement for young, unmarried women and immigrants who needed a safe home and a sense of community.

We should not forget that Black Lives Matter was founded by black womenHer legacy echoes through the activism of other women who just won't wait: the Focus E15 mums, who occupied their hostel in 2013 when faced with sudden evictions by Newham council in London; the Moms 4 Housing group who squatted in a vacant mansion to protest against rampant gentrification in the Bay area of San Francisco; and we shouldn't forget that Black Lives Matter '' perhaps the most transformative movement of our time '' was founded by black women.

City planners, architects and politicians can make a difference, if the will is there. In the Aspern district of Vienna, all of the streets and public spaces are named after women. In Tokyo, trains have carriages set aside at particular times for women, disabled people, children and carers. In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, female street vendors have seen their safety and economic prospects improve with the building of secure, permanent mini-markets that include space for breastfeeding. In Stockholm, snowploughing schedules prioritise residential streets, school zones, public transport and bike lanes. These interventions say to women: ''Your contribution matters. Your safety matters. Your mobility matters.''

The current situation offers an unprecedented opportunity for even bigger changes. One possibility comes via the anti-racism protests sweeping the globe: defund the police. Transfer that money to affordable housing, childcare and public transport, all of which would dramatically improve women's lives in ways that increased policing never has. A second move: all those people suddenly deemed ''essential workers'' should be paid as if our lives depend on them, because they do. Third: reinvest in the public realm by creating accessible, barrier-free spaces and transport systems that would allow everyone full access to the benefits of city living.

My fourth and by no means final suggestion: seek out, listen to and employ diverse groups of city-dwellers in all areas of urban design, planning, policy-making, politics and architecture. The pandemic has shown us that society can be radically re-organised if necessary. Let's carry that lesson into creating the non-sexist city.

Feminist City by Leslie Kern is published by Verso on 7 July, price £12.99.

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:50

AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) '-- NASCAR denounced its association with the ''Let's go, Brandon'' political cry being used across the country as an insult directed at President Joe Biden. Steve Phelps, NASCAR's president, said Friday the top motorsports series in the United States does not want to be associated with politics ''on the left or the right.''

Phelps also said NASCAR will pursue action against any illegal use of its trademarks on merchandise boasting the slogan. Retired baseball star Lenny Dykstra posted a photo on Twitter this week of a man eating breakfast at a New Jersey hotel wearing a black ''Let's go, Brandon'' shirt alongside NASCAR's trademarked color bars.

''We will pursue whoever (is using logos) and get that stuff,'' Phelps said. ''That's not OK. It's not OK that you're using our trademarks illegally, regardless of whether we agree with what the position is.''

Brandon Brown won his first career NASCAR race in October in Alabama, and the Talladega Superspeedway crowd at the Xfinity Series race chanted ''F--- Joe Biden'' during Brown's interview. It was not clear if NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast, who was wearing a headset, could hear what the crowd was saying during the interview, and she incorrectly told Brown the fans were cheering ''Let's go, Brandon.''

The phrase has become a rallying cry for Biden's critics, and ''Let's go, Brandon'' is now conservative code for the original vulgar chant.

''It's an unfortunate situation and I feel for Brandon, I feel for Kelli,'' Phelps said. ''I think unfortunately it speaks to the state of where we are as a country. We do not want to associate ourselves with politics, the left or the right.''

That's a reversal on NASCAR's long history of allowing political candidates to use its races as campaign stops. President Donald Trump was the honorary starter at the Daytona 500 in 2020 and the sold-out February crowd made NASCAR's Super Bowl feel like a campaign rally until his plane flew over the Florida speedway after his command to start the engines.

Drivers and their families posed for selfies with Trump ahead of the race, and in early 2016 reigning Cup champion Chase Elliott was among a handful of drivers who attended a Georgia rally with then-NASCAR chairman Brian France in support of Trump. Several in the group, including NASCAR's most popular driver, spoke on stage.

NASCAR also took aggressive positions on social justice issues in 2020 during a nationwide racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd. NASCAR banned the display of the Confederate flag at its events at the request of Bubba Wallace, its only Black full-time driver. Wallace wore an ''I Can't Breathe'' shirt on pit road and ran with a Black Lives Matter paint scheme in one race.

Phelps said NASCAR respects the presidential office.

''Do we like the fact that it kind of started with NASCAR and then is gaining ground out elsewhere? No, we're not happy about that,'' Phelps said.

___

More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:47

A new coronavirus identified in Haiti (and in Malaysia) likely came from dogs. Above: A child and a dog in Haiti. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images A new coronavirus identified in Haiti (and in Malaysia) likely came from dogs. Above: A child and a dog in Haiti.

Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images Early in 2017, a team of medical personnel, including doctors, nurses and volunteers, returned home to Florida after volunteering at a clinic in Haiti. Soon after their return, 20 members of the team began to feel a bit under the weather. "They had a slight fever and didn't feel 100% right," says virologist John Lednicky at the University of Florida. "But they weren't very sick."

At the time, Zika virus was circulating in Haiti, and health officials were worried the travelers might have been infected, potentially importing the mosquito-borne illness to Florida. So officials took urine samples from each traveler and asked Lednicky to test for Zika.

Lednicky ran the standard PCR tests for the virus, and they all came back negative. But he wasn't satisfied. He had a hunch that the urine samples did contain a virus '-- not Zika but something else.

So he took a little bit of the urine from six of the travelers and added it to a special solution of monkey cells. The goal was deceptively simple: to see if any viruses in the urine would infect the monkey cells, start replicating and grow to detectable levels. Then Lednicky could collect the virus's genes and identify it.

"This is what we do in our lab," Lednicky says. "We cast a wide net. We try to isolate viruses. And oftentimes, when we do that, the unexpected happens."

Indeed, the unexpected occurred.

"We found a coronavirus," he says. And not just any coronavirus, but one that many scientists believe may be a new human pathogen '-- likely the 8th coronavirus known to cause disease in people. Turns out, this coronavirus in the Haiti travelers has cropped up previously, on the other side of the globe.

Coronavirus From Dogs Likely Causes Pneumonia In KidsBack in May, scientists at Duke University, reported they had detected a nearly identical virus coronavirus in children at a Malaysian hospital.

The researchers found the virus in the upper respiratory tract of 3% of the 301 patients they tested in 2017 and 2018.

The genetic sequence of the Malaysian virus suggested it likely originated in dogs and then jumped into people. "The majority of the genome was canine coronavirus," virologist Anastasia Vlasova told NPR in May.

Although the findings sounded alarming, the researchers had no evidence that the virus could spread between people or that it was widespread around the world.

"These human infections with ... canine coronaviruses appear to be isolated incidents which did not lead to extensive human transmission," virologist Vincent Racaniello wrote on the Virology Blog.

Now Lednicky and his colleagues have found an almost identical virus infecting people 11,000 miles away-- at the same time. The genetic sequence of the virus in Haiti is 99.4% identical to the one in Malaysia. Lednicky and his colleagues reported this past Sunday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

And the big question is: How does a dog virus in Malaysia wind up in doctors and nurses in Haiti?

A Widespread Virus, But How It Spreads Is A Mystery"The virus probably circulates widely, but no one has paid attention to it," Lednicky says. He suspects it's all over the world. And if you've been around dogs frequently you might have been infected with this virus '-- or developed an immunity to it by exposure to similar virus. "We'll know when scientists start looking for antibodies inside older blood samples taken from patients with respiratory disease. How many of them were misdiagnosed all along?"

Some scientists also think doctors and researchers should start actively looking for this virus in patients. "I think that's important for several reasons," says virologist Linda Saif at Ohio State University, who has studied coronaviruses for about 40 years.

"No. 1, this virus has been associated with a number of pneumonia cases in children, and no. 2, we really don't know if it can transmit from human to human," she adds.

The fact that scientists detected the almost-identical viruses in both Haiti and Malaysia, at the same time, suggests the virus does spread between people, Saif says.

"There's a temporal sequence here. These two viruses '-- which are very, very similar '-- have been detected in a similar time frame but in widely separated regions of the world," she explains. That could happen if a nearly-identical virus was circulating in dogs in both Haiti and Malaysia and then jumped over to people in both countries during the same year.

"I would be very surprised if that happened," Saif says.

The second hypothesis is that the virus is circulating in people, at low levels, in many parts of the world, under the radar. "That hypothesis is more likely," Saif says.

If that hypothesis turns out to be true, this canine coronavirus will be the eighth coronavirus known to spread among humans.

Why This Finding Is Good NewsOn the surface, these new findings sound like horrible news. The last thing the world needs right now is another coronavirus that may trigger pneumonia in children. But Jonna Mazet says it's actually good news because it means scientists have caught this virus before it has caused a big problem.

"The very exciting part is that people are starting to do virus discovery and characterization, even when large groups of people aren't dying and or getting severely ill, which is how most virus discovery has happened in the past," says Mazet, who's an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis and the founding executive director of the One Health Institute there.

By finding this virus early, scientists now have time to study it, create tools to diagnose it and understand what it might take to stop it. Although it's not a cause for deep concern at this time, there's always the risk the virus could evolve over time and become a bigger problem, Mazet says, as was likely the case with SARS-CoV-2.

"Almost certainly, SARS-CoV-2 was circulating for quite some time and making people either a tiny bit sick or not sick enough to be noticed," she says. If scientists had detected it at this stage, perhaps the world would have had time to develop a test for it, some promising treatments and even a preliminary vaccine. Perhaps the pandemic would have taken a much different '-- perhaps less deadly course.

"We need to find these novel viruses well before they fully adapt to humans and become a pandemic problem," writes epidemiologist Gregory Gray, from the University of Texas Medical Branch, in an email to NPR. "Fortunately, today we have the tools to both detect and evaluate the risk of such novel viruses. We just need the political will and financial support to do so."

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:06

It's pretty understandable that the opinion section of the NY Times wants to mostly avoid what happened in Virginia and other states, leaving it to a few stories and ''analyses'' in the straight opinion sections, because they would then have to expose themselves to criticism for being an insane political party. Sort of Republican Ross Douthat tries with Republicans Schooled the Left in Virginia and sorta Republican Brett Stephens goes for Why Democrats Are In Trouble. There's something about Michelle Wu winning in Boston, some whining about the Supreme Court, even a piece on changing clocks twice a year. But, nothing from the liberals about their Tuesday losses. Instead, we have this bit of moonbattery from Jennifer Finney Boylan

Should Classic Rock Songs Be Toppled Like Confederate Statues?

A long, long time ago '-- I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.

''American Pie,'' Don McLean's generation-defining ballad, was released on vinyl 50 years ago this October. The first time I ever heard it, I was with my sister in our kitchen. I was 13. I was eating a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal. It came on the radio, and my sister '-- only a year older but centuries cooler '-- told me, ''This is the greatest song ever.''

It's impossible for me to hear that song now without thinking of her.

But when Patrisha McLean, Don McLean's ex-wife, hears ''American Pie,'' she isn't reminded of golden moments of adolescence or even the classic age of rock 'n' roll memorialized by the song. Ms. McLean says she was subjected to years of emotional and physical abuse from her former husband.

Was all this necessary? Liberal minds are just weird. They have to link everything to their hardcore politics. I love Paul Simon stuff, even though he's a hardcore socialist. Roger Waters is an avowed socialist, and an Israel and Jew hater, but, I still love Pink Floyd. Devo used a John Hinkley, Jr poem to create a song (not a particularly good one), but, I like other Devo stuff.

The past several years have seen a reassessment of our country's many mythologies '-- from the legends of the generals of the Confederacy to the historical glossing over of slaveholding founding fathers. But as we take another look at the sins of our historical figures, we've also had to take a hard look at our more immediate past and present, including the behavior of the creators of pop culture. That reassessment extends now to the people who wrote some of our best-loved songs. But what to do with the art left behind? Can I still love their music if I'm appalled by various events in the lives of Johnny Cash or Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis? Or by Eric Clapton's racist rants and anti-vaccination activism?

Of course, there is no easy answer here. Even Ms. McLean doesn't think ''American Pie'' should be banned from playlists, like some other pieces of classic rock produced by disgraced musicians. Gary Glitter's ''Rock and Roll (Part 2),'' more popularly known as ''The Hey Song,'' for instance, was pulled from airplay after the musician was convicted of possession of child pornography and a series of sex abuse offenses against young girls.

Instead, Ms. McLean told me, she feels we should reconsider how we elevate these artists. It's the tarnished creators, she said, that we should not celebrate. In other words: The problem with ''American Pie'' isn't the song. It's the singer. ''American Pie'' remains a great song. In 2016 the Library of Congress selected the original recording for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

In other words, we should Cancel the people, not their music. Or, you could just mind your own business and stop being such a Karen.

For a lot of baby boomers, it's painful to realize that some of the songs first lodged in our memories in adolescence really need a second look. And it's hard to explain why younger versions of ourselves ever thought they were OK in the first place.

Or, maybe cancel the songs, too.

I want to live in a world where I can be moved by art and music and literature without having to come up with elaborate apologies for that work or for its creators.

Then move on, don't listen. Don't watch. Don't force your views on everyone else.

It was Don McLean, in ''American Pie,'' who asked if music can save our mortal souls. My guess is probably not. But it can help us to time travel, and not only to our adolescent past. Maybe reconsidering those songs, and their artists, can inspire us to think about the future and how to bring about a world that is more inclusive and more just.

Yup, cancelling. Hey, let's go after Jimmy Buffett, a reliable Democrat, because he changes the line in Margaritaville to say ''it's some woman's fault'' when he does it live.

Now do all the rap songs about bitches and hoes, treating women in a degrading manner.

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 23:01

EXCLUSIVE: The Mighty Ducks franchise will continue without Gordon Bombay. Emilio Estevez, who reprised his role from the 1992 movie and its 1994 and 1996 sequels in Season 1 of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, will not be back for the Disney+ series' upcoming second season, I have learned.

I hear Disney Television Studios' ABC Signature, which produces the hockey-themed sequel series, made the decision not to pick up Estevez's option for Season 2 after weeks of back and forth with his team over the show's Covid vaccination requirement. Reps for the studio and Estevez declined comment.

Heading into Season 2, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers '-- like many Disney TV Studios series '-- has adopted a mandatory vaccination policy for the cast and crew in Zone A, which was included as an option in the most recent Return-to-Work agreement between the Hollywood studios and major unions. (Zone A includes all actors and crew members who come into direct contact with them.)

According to sources, Estevez, through his reps, has declined to provide assurances that he would comply with the policy. With the two sides at an impasse as the Season 2 scripts were being written and the planned early 2022 start of production was looming, I hear the studio made the call to not exercise the actor's option and the scripts will be adjusted to continue the story without the character.

Meanwhile, sources close to Estevez indicate that creative differences may have played a role in his exit.

While not a blanket policy yet, the Zone A vaccination mandate has emerged as an industry standard, with its adoption footprint steadily expanding. Netflix has made Zone A vaccines mandatory on all productions in the U.S. Disney TV Studios has introduced the policy on new series going forward as well as a number of existing ones, including The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.

Estevez starred alongside Lauren Graham and Brady Noon in Season 1 of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. The series is set in present-day Minnesota, and the Mighty Ducks have evolved from scrappy underdogs to an ultra-competitive, powerhouse youth hockey team. After 12-year-old Evan Morrow (Noon) is unceremoniously cut from the Ducks, he and his mom (Graham) set out to build their own team of misfits to challenge the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs culture of youth sports today. With the help of Estevez's Gordon, they rediscover the joys of playing just for love of the game.

Graham and Noon will be back for Season 2, leading the cast that also includes Maxwell Simkins, Swayam Bhatia, Luke Islam, Kiefer O'Reilly, Taegen Burns, Bella Higginbotham and DJ Watts.

Dominic Patten contributed to this report.

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 22:53

Reason is our primary means of understanding the world. How does that change if machines think?

By

Henry Kissinger ,

Eric Schmidt and

Daniel Huttenlocher

Nov. 1, 2021 6:35 pm ETThe White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has called for ''a bill of rights'' to protect Americans in what is becoming ''an AI-powered world.'' The concerns about AI are well-known and well-founded: that it will violate privacy and compromise transparency, and that biased input data will yield biased outcomes, including in fields essential to individual and societal flourishing such as medicine, law enforcement, hiring and loans.

But AI will compel even more fundamental change: It will challenge the primacy of human...

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The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has called for ''a bill of rights'' to protect Americans in what is becoming ''an AI-powered world.'' The concerns about AI are well-known and well-founded: that it will violate privacy and compromise transparency, and that biased input data will yield biased outcomes, including in fields essential to individual and societal flourishing such as medicine, law enforcement, hiring and loans.

But AI will compel even more fundamental change: It will challenge the primacy of human reason. For all of history, humans have sought to understand reality and our role in it. Since the Enlightenment, we have considered our reason'--our ability to investigate, understand and elaborate'--our primary means of explaining the world, and by explaining it, contributing to it. For the past 300 years, in what historians have come to call the Age of Reason, we have conducted ourselves accordingly; exploring, experimenting, inventing and building.

Now AI, a product of human ingenuity, is obviating the primacy of human reason: It is investigating and coming to perceive aspects of the world faster than we do, differently from the way we do, and, in some cases, in ways we don't understand.

In 2017, Google DeepMind created a program called AlphaZero that could win at chess by studying the game without human intervention and developing a not-quite-human strategy. When grandmaster Garry Kasparov saw it play, he described it as shaking the game ''to its roots'''--not because it had played chess quickly or efficiently, but because it had conceived of chess anew.

In 2020, halicin, a novel antibiotic, was discovered by MIT researchers who instructed AI to compute beyond human capacity, modeling millions of compounds in days, and to explore previously undiscovered and unexplained methods of killing bacteria. Following the breakthrough, the researchers said that without AI, halicin would have been ''prohibitively expensive'''--in other words, impossible'--to discover through traditional experimentation.

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GPT-3, the language model operated by the research company OpenAI, which trains by consuming Internet text, is producing original text that meets Alan Turing's standard of displaying ''intelligent'' behavior indistinguishable from that of a human being.

The promise of AI is profound: translating languages; detecting diseases; combating climate change'--or at least modeling climate change better. But as AlphaZero's performance, halicin's discovery and GPT-3's composition demonstrate, the use of AI for an intended purpose may also have an unintended one: uncovering previously imperceptible but potentially vital aspects of reality.

That leaves humans needing to define'--or perhaps redefine'--our role in the world. For 300 years, the Age of Reason has been guided by the maxim ''I think, therefore I am.'' But if AI ''thinks,'' what are we?

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If an AI writes the best screenplay of the year, should it win the Oscar? If an AI simulates or conducts the most consequential diplomatic negotiation of the year, should it win the Nobel Peace Prize? Should the human inventors? Can machines be ''creative?'' Or do their processes require new vocabulary to describe?

If a child with an AI assistant comes to consider it a ''friend,'' what will become of his relationships with peers, or of his social or emotional development?

If an AI can care for a nursing-home resident'--remind her to take her medicine, alert paramedics if she falls, and otherwise keep her company'--can her family members visit her less? Should they? If her primary interaction becomes human-to-machine, rather than human-to-human, what will be the emotional state of the final chapter of her life?

And if, in the fog of war, an AI recommends an action that would cause damage or even casualties, should a commander heed it?

These questions are arising as global network platforms, such as Google, Twitter and Facebook , are employing AI to aggregate and filter more information than their users or employees can. AI, then, is making decisions about what is important'--and, increasingly, about what is true. Indeed, that Facebook knows aggregation and filtration exacerbates misinformation and mental illness is the fundamental allegation of whistleblower

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Frances Haugen.

Answering these questions will require concurrent efforts. One should consider not only the practical and legal implications of AI but the philosophical ones: If AI perceives aspects of reality humans cannot, how is it affecting human perception, cognition and interaction? Can AI befriend humans? What will be AI's impact on culture, humanity and history?

Another effort ought to expand the consideration of such questions beyond developers and regulators to experts in medicine, health, environment, agriculture, business, psychology, philosophy, history and other fields. The goal of both efforts should be to avoid extreme reactions'--either deferring to AI or resisting it'--and instead to seek a middle course: shaping AI with human values, including the dignity and moral agency of humans. In the U.S., a commission, administered by the government but staffed by many thinkers in many domains, should be established. The advancement of AI is inevitable, but its ultimate destination is not.

Mr. Kissinger was secretary of state, 1973-77, and White House national security adviser, 1969-75. Mr. Schmidt was CEO of Google, 2001-11 and executive chairman of Google and its successor, Alphabet Inc., 2011-17. Mr. Huttenlocher is dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are authors of ''The Age of AI: And Our Human Future.''

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 22:06

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Netherlands has decided not to sign a pledge to stop spending taxpayers money on supporting international fossil fuel projects at the COP26 environmental summit in Glasgow.

The United States, Canada and 18 other countries on Thursday committed themselves to stop public financing for oil, gas and coal projects abroad by the end of next year but the Netherlands was not among them.

According to the finance ministry, the caretaker cabinet considers it a 'controversial' matter for the next government to decide on.

But environmental groups described the Dutch decision as 'bizarre' and described the call to action issued by prime minister Mark Rutte on the first day of the conference as 'empty words'.

Climate change is a serious issue that demands serious action. This is why it's important to be here in Glasgow today at @COP26. NL's ambitions are clear: gradually reduce harmful emissions to zero and make ourselves more resilient to climate change. pic.twitter.com/sOgkdPgWdJ

'-- Mark Rutte (@MinPres) November 1, 2021

Official Dutch involvement in the fossil fuel industries abroad comes primarily from export credits extended to projects involving Shell, Van Oord, Boskalis and Heerema, the NRC reported.

The Netherlands did, however, support a motion to stop investment in coal-fired power stations both at home and abroad by the end of 2022. The Netherlands currently has plans to phase out the use of coal to generate power by 2030.

Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nlThe DutchNews.nl team would like to thank all the generous readers who have made a donation in recent weeks. Your financial support has helped us to expand our coverage of the coronavirus crisis into the evenings and weekends and make sure you are kept up to date with the latest developments.

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:43

Heroin is almost impossible to get in North America, where it has been virtually replaced by fentanyl, Vice News says '' leading some sarcastic commenters to wonder if this means the CIA will ask Congress for more money for coups.

It has become increasingly hard to find heroin in the US and Canada, replaced by the more dangerous synthetic substance. What is sold as heroin in the streets is more often than not laced with fentanyl, according to a Vice report titled 'Drug Users Are Nostalgic for 'Old-School Heroin' as Fentanyl Takes Over'.

''Fentanyl sucks,'' one of the upset drug users interviewed by the outlet said. ''It doesn't last long, it doesn't provide you much euphoria, so it doesn't offer me much utility. It's just fentanyl around now, and I fear it's going to be like that forever.''

The 26-year-old heroin enthusiast moved to Jackson, Tennessee in March to be closer to his dealer and avoid two-hour-long round trips for his drug of choice. Since September, he has not been able to procure any.

The report is full of anecdotes of how heroin has become increasingly rare and expensive. People who want to maintain their habit and avoid the higher risks of overdose associated with fentanyl want some form of legalization, which would give them the option of safer consumption.

Also on rt.com Overdoses soar by nearly 30 PERCENT in US, breaking record for second year in a row '' CDC Heroin, which originates from opium poppies, is unlikely to ''make a comeback in a serious way'' in North America, the report said. The synthetic competition is cheaper, simpler to make and smuggle. And its formula can be tweaked at a lab for a boost in potency and avoidance of prosecution.

Some of the responses to the article brought up the elephant in the room: the effect of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan on the illegal heroin trade.

While there was a NATO military presence in Afghanistan, poppy growing and heroin production flourished, with US-allied warlords and the families of top Afghan government officials enriching themselves. In some instances, well-connected drug lords would reportedly even direct American efforts to eradicate poppies against the fields of their competitors, in the process pocketing reward money from Washington.

The militant Taliban group, which fully overran Afghan security services in August, made a promise to eradicate heroin production during its charm offensive to foreign nations. In the 1990s, the Taliban government in Kabul launched a brief but efficient crackdown on the heroin trade in an attempt to boost its international recognition. Sceptics doubt the Taliban would be able or even willing to deliver on its pledge.

Also on rt.com The Taliban needs foreign help to eradicate opium trafficking, spokesman tells Russian media Vice barely mentioned Afghanistan, with a Europe-based biochemist researching opium poppies stating that ''Europe's heroin markets have likely remained intact'' against the rise of fentanyl. The omission was commented on by many people, who brought up the CIA's alleged funding of off-the-books operations with heroin money.

''Called it. Right down to the US press pretending to be baffled by it,'' one user remarked, linking to his August prediction of looming shortages of heroin. Another joked that the spy agency will now have to ask the US Congress for more money to fund the ''overthrow of socialist South American governments.''

In unrelated news: The CIA is mysteriously struggling to fund overthrow of socialist South American governments and has beg congress for more money.

'-- XBOOMINATOR (@xboominator) November 4, 2021I wonder if this has anything to do with the US pulling out of a country where the CIA would likely have to make deals with poppy-growing warlords.

'-- The Guillotine Implier (@impliedChoppy) November 4, 2021If you like this story, share it with a friend!

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:28

Merck has already put forward its COVID pill for FDA authorization.

November 5, 2021, 10:45 AM

' 6 min read

A course of pills developed by Pfizer can slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 by 89% if taken within three days of developing symptoms, according to results released Friday by the pharmaceutical company.

In a study of more than 1,200 COVID-19 patients with a higher risk of developing serious illness, people who took Pfizer's pills were far less likely to end up in the hospital compared to people who got placebo pills.

None of the people who got the real pills died, but 10 people who got placebo pills died, according to results summarized in a Pfizer press release.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in prepared remarks that the data suggest the pill-based treatment, if authorized, could "eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations."

Infectious disease experts cautioned these results are preliminary -- only described in a press release and not in a peer-reviewed medical journal -- but they represent another promising development in the search for effective and easy-to-administer COVID-19 pills.

In this file photo taken on April 26, 2016, the Pfizer company logo at Pfizer's headquarters in New York.

Right now, the only authorized treatments are given via intravenous infusion.

"Having an oral therapy is critically important," said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean and a global health expert at the Emory School of Medicine.

"If we can get patients to start treatment early before they progress to severe illness and unfortunately death, everyone wins in the fight against COVID," said Dr. Simone Wildes, a board-certified infectious disease physician at South Shore Health and an ABC News contributor.

Infectious disease specialists stressed that these pills are not a replacement for a vaccine -- by far the safest and most effective way to reduce the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19.

But they may make a big difference if given quickly to people after getting COVID-19, especially the immune compromised, or in places where a vaccine is not available.

Pfizer's pill-based treatment "would be a good drug for patient with COVID and high risk of progression, vaccinated or not," said Del Rio, "although the vaccinated were not included in this study."

Another company -- Merck -- is ahead of Pfizer on developing a COVID pill treatment, having already applied with the Food and Drug Administration for authorization. Emergency use authorization for the Merck treatment may come before the end of the year.

An experimental COVID-19 treatment pill called molnupiravir being developed by Merck & Co Inc and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP, is seen in this undated handout photo released by Merck & Co Inc., May 17, 2021.

Merck's treatment reduced the risk of hospitalizations and deaths by 50%. This could indicate Pfizer's treatment has an edge on efficacy, but experts cautioned against comparing the studies directly because they were designed in different ways, and measured different so-called "primary endpoints."

"We need to be cautious comparing studies," said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health and an ABC News Medical Contributor.

The FDA analyzes safety and efficacy before authorizing any medication.

The FDA's advisory committee is set to review Merck's application on Nov. 30. Merck CEO told CNBC at the end of October that the company is ready to distribute 10 million courses of treatment by the end of the year.

Pfizer, meanwhile, plans to start sharing the data with the FDA "as soon as possible."

This Pfizer data is from one of three clinical trials that the company is running. The results from the other two trials are expected by the end of the year. Pfizer then plans to submit all the data and seek authorization at that time, meaning the new medication may be available in early 2022.

Using lessons learned from other infectious diseases, experts said it might one day prove beneficial to combine different antiviral treatments.

"Pfizer oral drug is an investigational SARS-COV-2 protease inhibitor antiviral therapy," Wildes said. "We have used protease inhibitors drugs in our HIV patients with and they have worked well."

"Big picture is this is similar to HIV and [hepatitis C] where we have different antivirals," Ellerin added. "There may be opportunity for combination therapy in the future."

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:24

Two candidates got the exact same number of votes in the ranked-choice election.

November 4, 2021, 10:54 PM

' 5 min read

Hundreds of people in Portland, Maine, turned up Thursday to watch an unprecedented event unfold in local election history: The winner of an open city council seat was chosen by chance, by drawing a name out of a wooden bowl.

None of the four candidates in the race for the city's at-large council seat won a majority of the vote in Tuesday's municipal election. The ranked-choice instant runoff determined that two of the candidates -- Brandon Mazer and Roberto Rodriguez -- were tied with exactly 8,529 votes each.

In the event of a tie, the city's charter, which was amended in 2011 to adopt rules for administering ranked-choice voting, governs that ''the City Clerk shall determine the winner in public by lot" -- meaning the winner is selected at random.

So on Thursday morning, City Clerk Katherine Jones brought an antique wooden bowl from home as people gathered on the plaza outside Portland's City Hall for the public drawing to determine the winner.

Mazer and Rodriguez, who both agreed to the unique process in advance, verified that their names were printed on identical pieces of cardstock paper. They folded the cards in half and placed them in the bowl, at which point Elections Administrator Paul Riley swirled them around while averting his eyes.

City Council candidates Brandon Mazer and Roberto Rodriguez, who each won 8,529 votes in the at-large race after tabulation was completed, await the results as the city clerk drew the winning name from a wooden bowl outside City Hall in Portland, Maine, Nov. 4, 2021.

He then held the bowl above Jones' eye line so she could pull out a card. After displaying it to the candidates, she announced the winner into a microphone -- Brandon Mazer. Cheers erupted from the crowd, and the two candidates shook hands and embraced.

"I'm incredibly proud of the campaign we ran, and I really appreciate everyone who came out, and this truly shows that every vote matters," Mazer, an attorney, told ABC Portland, Maine, affiliate WMTW after the drawing.

Rodriguez promptly submitted an official request for a manual recount, which has been scheduled for Nov. 9. If needed, it will continue on Nov. 10. If the outcome changes from the drawing, Rodriguez will be the winner.

"After such a grueling campaign season, to have it come down to chance was a little bit of a shock," Rodriguez, a member of the Portland School Board, told WMTW. "But, again, you know, this is what the policy says. This is what we're governed by, and so here we are today."

"There is going to be a recount. We're going to make sure every vote is counted," he added.

Candidates Brandon Mazer and Roberto Rodriguez shake hands after the city clerk drew Mazer as the winning name from a wooden bowl after the election results were too close to call outside City Hall in Portland, Maine, Nov. 4, 2021.

Mazer told the station he supports a recount.

The new councilor will be sworn in on Dec. 6 in what is a historic event for the city.

"This is the first time anyone here can remember having a tie in an election," Portland spokesperson Jessica Grondin told ABC News. "It is certainly the first time ever having a tie since we've used ranked choice voting, which was adopted in 2011."

The unusual process sparked some criticism on Facebook, with commenters on a video post of the drawing mockingly suggesting using a dartboard, a coin toss or Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine the winner.

Portland isn't the only place to decide ties by lot. The winner of a hotly contested Virginia House of Delegates seat in a 2017 race was determined by drawing a name out of a ceramic bowl.

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Archived Version

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:11

Scientists in Hong Kong recently completed a clinical study in which they found that administering a cocktail of three different anti-viral medications to patients enduring mild

coronavirus symptoms "may rapidly suppress the amount of virus in a patient's body."

The three-drug anti-viral cocktail is made up of the HIV medication lopinavir-ritonavir, the hepatitis therapy drug ribavirin and the multiple sclerosis treatment interferon-beta.

"Early triple antiviral therapy was safe and superior to lopinavir''ritonavir alone in alleviating symptoms and shortening the duration of viral shedding and hospital stay in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19," the study authors wrote, adding that "future clinical study of a double antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b as a backbone is warranted" for a complete overview.

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The Lancet medical journal '' the 86 patients who were randomly assigned to the experimental group received the anti-viral cocktail, while the 41 patients assigned to the control group were solely administered the HIV therapy drug lopinavir-ritonavir - often known by the brand-name Kaletra.

The study was "open-label," meaning that the patients knew which drug they were receiving, without a placebo group.

Age, gender and baseline demographics in each group were "similar"; fever and a dry cough were among the most common symptoms observed.

Patients administered the cocktail tested negative for

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, seven days after application.

"For the primary endpoint of time from start of study treatment to negative nasopharyngeal swab, the combination group had a significantly shorter median time (7 days) than the control group (12 days)," the study authors noted. "For the virological outcome, the combination treatment was associated with significantly shorter time to negative viral load in all specimens when assessed individually (nasopharyngeal swab, posterior oropharyngeal saliva, throat swab, and stool samples) as well as in all specimens combined. All urine samples tested negative for viral load."

Patients normally felt better within four days, with researchers adding that previously established side effects within the medications were being closely watched. The drugs, however, have a long-standing track record for safety, according to medical officials.

"Despite the concern of major side effects arising from a combination of three drugs, no significant differences in incidence of adverse events between treatment groups were reported in our cohort of 127 patients," the study authors wrote.

"No haemolysis occurred from the short duration of low dose ribavirin. We did not use triple combination for patients who started treatment 7 days or more after symptom onset because of the concerns about the proinflammatory side effects of interferon beta-1b '' despite that at most, three doses were used for each patient," they added, noting that "liver dysfunction was observed in about 14% of these patients and it was mild and self-limiting, except in one patient in the control group, in whom the biochemical hepatitis warranted the discontinuation of lopinavir''ritonavir treatment."

The study was independently reviewed by experts, who concurred that the findings were positive, but larger clinical trials are warranted in their opinion for greater certainty regarding the cocktail's effectiveness.

HIV also has a long-standing record of being successfully treated by a cocktail of drugs, and medical experts purport this could also be the case with COVID-19, adding the results are promising and warrant adding interferon beta to the list of evidence-based treatments for the coronavirus.

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Archived Version

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:01

''US regulators finalize rule requiring Americans who work at big companies to get vaccinated by Jan. 4 or test weekly,'' the AP reported on Thursday without providing further details.

''The Biden administration ordered U.S. companies Thursday to ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 by Jan. 4 '-- giving them a reprieve over the holidays before the long-awaited and hotly contested mandate takes affect,'' CNBC reported.

''The administration on Thursday also pushed back the deadline for federal contractors to comply with a stricter set of vaccine requirements for staff from Dec. 8 to Jan. 4 to match the deadline set for other private companies and health-care providers,'' the report added.

''The newly released rules, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the Labor Department, apply to businesses with 100 or more employees,'' the report noted. ''All unvaccinated workers must begin wearing masks by Dec. 5 and provide a negative Covid test on a weekly basis after the January deadline, according to the requirements. Companies are not required to pay for or provide the tests unless they are otherwise required to by state or local laws or in labor union contracts. Anyone who tests positive is prohibited from going into work.''

''Companies also have until Dec. 5 to offer paid time for employees to get vaccinated and paid sick leave for them to recover from any side effects,'' the report added.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will also be policing workplaces nationwide to ensure compliance with the unlawful mandate.

''OSHA, which polices workplace safety for the Labor Department, will provide sample implementation plans and fact sheets among other materials to help companies adopt the new rules,'' CNBC reported.

''OSHA will also conduct on-site workplace inspections to make sure companies comply with the rules, a senior administration official said. Penalties for noncompliance can range from $13,653 per serious violation to $136,532 if a company willfully violates the rules,'' the report added.

''The vaccine mandate, which covers 84 million people employed in the private sector, represents the most expansive use of federal power to protect workers from Covid-19 since the virus was declared a pandemic in March 2020,'' it continued.

''Biden's vaccine mandate for large employers begins Jan 4, with hefty fines for noncompliance,'' Disclose reported. ''OSHA plans to send out agents to check that workplaces are in compliance with the rule. For willful violations, a company can be fined up to $136,532. The standard penalty is $13,653 for a single violation.''

According to the latest data, 75% of the U.S. population has had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, while 67% are considered to be ''fully vaccinated,'' although the administration has now endorsed ''boosters'' since the vaccines' efficacy wears off so quickly. Covid cases are down over 50% since September, even as Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission or significantly slow the spread of Covid.

Twenty-four state attorney generals in mid-September threatened to sue the Biden administration over the federal vaccine mandate after it was announced by executive order. These state AGs delivered a letter to the Biden administration that is worth reading in full.

''We, the Attorneys General of 24 states, write in opposition to your attempt to mandate the vaccination of private citizens,'' the AGs' letter reads. ''On September 9, you announced that you would be ordering the Department of Labor to issue an emergency temporary standard, under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act , which would mandate that private sector employers require most of their employees to either get a COVID-19 shot, submit to weekly testing, or be fired. Your plan is disastrous and counterproductive. From a policy perspective, this edict is unlikely to win hearts and minds-it will simply drive further skepticism. And at least some Americans will simply leave the job market instead of complying.''

''This will further strain an already-too-tight labor market, burdening companies and (therefore) threatening the jobs of even those who have received a vaccine,'' the letter continues. ''Worse still, many of those who decide to leave their jobs rather than follow your directive will be essential healthcare workers. This is no idle speculation. A New York hospital recently announced its plans to stop delivering babies after several staff members resigned in the face of New York's mandate} And recent polling suggests those frontline healthcare workers are not outliers. 2 Thus, Mr. President, your vaccination mandate represents not only a threat to individual liberty, but a public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans.''

''This government edict is also likely to increase skepticism of vaccines. You emphasized at your September 9 announcement 'that the vaccines provide very strong protection from severe illness from COVID-19 '... [and] the world's leading scientists confirm that if you are fully vaccinated, your risk of severe illness from COVID-19 is very low','' the letter continues. ''You further stated that 'only one of out of every 160,000 fully vaccinated Americans was hospitalized for COVID per day.' And you said 'the science makes clear' that 'if you're fully vaccinated, you're highly protected from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19.' The mandate, however, sends exactly the opposite signal: it suggests that the vaccinated need protection from those who, for whatever personal reason, choose not to or cannot receive a COVID-19 shot. That is hardly a statement of confidence in the efficacy of vaccines.''

''The policy also fails to account for differences between employees that may justify more nuanced treatment by employers,'' the letter states. ''Most glaringly, your policy inexplicably fails to recognize natural immunity. Indeed, the CDC estimated that by late May 2021, over 120 million Americans had already been infected, and that number is likely tens of millions higher today.4 And your sweeping mandate fails to account for the fact that many workers-for example, those who work from home or work outdoors-are at almost no risk of exposure from their co-workers regardless of vaccine status. A one-size-fits-all policy is not reasoned decision-making. It is power for power's sake.''

''Your edict is also illegal,'' the letter adds. ''You propose to enforce your mandate through the rarely used emergency temporary standard provision in the OSH Act. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Department has attempted to adopt an emergency temporary standard only one other time since 1983 (and that one exception came in June of this year and is being challenged). An emergency temporary standard does not have to go through notice and comment and can be made effective immediately upon publication. Because of this lack of process and oversight, courts have viewed these standards with suspicion. Between 1971 and 1983, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued nine emergency temporary standards. Of those, six were challenged. The courts fully vacated or stayed the standards in four cases, partially stayed the standards in another, and upheld only one of the six.''

''Courts are skeptical because the law demands it,'' the letter continues. ''To justify an emergency temporary standard, OSHA must determine that 'employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards '.... ' and it must conclude that 'such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.' Each of the italicized phrases defeats your attempt to rely on this statute. First, while 'grave danger' is left undefined, your own statements during the announcement that those who are vaccinated have little chance of hospitalization or death undercut any assertion that there is 'grave danger.' Moreover, many Americans who have recovered from COVID-19 have obtained a level of natural immunity, and the statistics are clear that young people without co-morbidities have a low risk of hospitalization from COVID-19. You thus cannot plausibly meet the high burden of showing that employees in general are in grave danger.''

''What is more, the COVID-19 virus is not the sort of 'substance,' 'agent,' or 'hazard' to which the statute refers,'' the attorney generals point out. ''OSHA, as its full name suggests, exists to ensure occupational safety. In other words, it deals with work-related hazards, not all hazards one might encounter anywhere in the world. Congress made this clear in empowering OSHA to establish workplace standards not concerning whatever it likes, but rather 'employment and places of employment. ' The findings Congress passed with the law say the bill was motivated by a concern that 'personal injuries and illnesses arising out of work situations impose a substantial burden upon . . . interstate commerce.' Congress expressly intended to encourage 'employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the number of occupational safety and health hazards at their places of employment'.''

''When used in the context of a law directed toward occupational safety, the words 'substances,' 'agents,' and 'hazards' relate to the dangers presented by the job itself-for example, chemicals used at job sites and tools used to carry out tasks-not to dangers existing in the world generally. And indeed, this is consistent with how the Act elsewhere uses these words. One provision, for example, requires the government to prepare a report 'listing all toxic substances in industrial usage.' Another provision repeatedly imposes duties and powers regarding 'substances' and 'agents' to which employees are exposed as part of their employment. Still another requires studies regarding 'the contamination of workers' homes with hazardous chemicals and substances, including infectious agents, transported from the workplaces of such workers.' All of these provisions are most naturally focused on dangers occurring at work because of one's work, as opposed to dangers occurring in society generally, including at work.''

''Finally, broadly mandating vaccinations (or weekly COVID-19 testing) for 80 million Americans, simply because they work at a business of a certain size, hardly seems 'necessary' to meet any such danger,'' the attorney generals note. ''On the contrary, it is vastly overbroad and inexact. There are many less intrusive means to combat the spread of COVID-19 other than requiring vaccinations or COVID- 19 testing. The risks of COVID-19 spread also vary widely depending on the nature of the business in question, many of which can have their employees, for example, work remotely. The one-size­fits-almost-all approach you have decreed makes clear that you intend to use the OSH act as a pretext to impose an unprecedented, controversial public health measure on a nationwide basis that only incidentally concerns the workplace.''

The Biden administration will now undoubtedly be sued in federal court over this egregious overreach, which is not even a 'law' since it is not based on federal legislation.

NOW READ:

University is Forced to Drop Mask Mandate After Attorney General Says It Violates a State Order

OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion.

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Archived Version

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:00

Enforcement Memos 2021 Annual Adjustments to OSHA Civil Penalties U.S. Department of Labor

Occupational Safety and Health Administration Washington, D.C. 20210 Reply to the attention of:

DOL-OSHA-DEP-2021-001 - This document does not have the force and effect of law and is not meant to bind the public in any way. This document is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.

January 8, 2021

MEMORANDUM FOR:REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORSTHROUGH:AMANDA EDENSDeputy Assistant SecretaryFROM:PATRICK J. KAPUST, Acting DirectorDirectorate of Enforcement ProgramsSUBJECT:2021 Annual Adjustments to OSHA Civil PenaltiesPurpose.The penalty information included in this memorandum is intended to supplement the penalties and debt collection information found in Chapter 6 of the Field Operations Manual (FOM). Tables included in this memorandum reflect penalty amounts for calendar year 2021 and correspond to adjusted penalty amounts found in OSHA Information Systems (OIS). OSHA updates this information annually to ensure access to current penalty information. Background.On November 2, 2015, the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 was enacted, which further amended the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 as previously amended by the 1996 Debt Collection Improvement Act (collectively, the ''Prior Inflation Adjustment Act''), to improve the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and maintain their deterrent effect. The Inflation Adjustment Act required agencies to: (1) adjust the level of civil monetary penalties with an initial ''catch-up'' adjustment through an interim final rule and (2) make subsequent annual adjustments for inflation, no later than January 15 of each year.The cost-of-living adjustment multiplier for 2021, based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for October 2020 (not seasonally adjusted), is 1.01182. To compute the 2021 annual adjustment, the Department multiplied the most recent penalty amount for each applicable penalty by the multiplier, 1.01182, and rounded to the nearest dollar. The adjustment factor of 1.01182 is consistent across the minimum and maximum penalties set forth in the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the FOM. Minimum and Maximum Penalty Amounts.Table 1 summarizes the minimum and maximum amounts for proposed civil penalties:Table 1: Maximum and Minimum Amounts for Civil Penalties

Table 1: Maximum and Minimum Amounts for Civil PenaltiesType of ViolationPenalty MinimumPenalty MaximumSerious[$975] per violation$13,653 per violationOther-Than-Serious$0 per violation$13,653 per violationWillful or Repeated[$9,753*] per violation$136,532 per violationPosting Requirements$0 per violation$13,653 per violationFailure to AbateN/A$13,653 per day unabated beyond the abatement date [generally limited to 30 days maximum][* For a repeated other-than-serious violation that otherwise would have no initial penalty, a GBP penalty of $390 shall be proposed for the first repeated violation, $975 for the second repeated violation, and $1,950 for a third repetition.]

Gravity Based Penalty Amounts.The gravity of a violation is defined by the Gravity Based Penalty (GBP).A high gravity violation is one with a GBP of $13,653.A moderate gravity violation is one with the GBP ranging from $7,802 to $11,703.A low gravity violation is one with a GBP of $5,851.For serious violations, the GBP shall be assigned on the basis of the following scale in Table 2: Severity + Probability = GBPTable 2: Serious Violations

Table 2: Serious ViolationsSeverityProbabilityGBPGravityOIS CodeHighGreater$13,653High10MediumGreater$11,703Moderate5LowGreater$9,753Moderate5HighLesser$9,753Moderate5MediumLesser$7,802Moderate5LowLesser$5,851Low1For other-than-serious violations, only minimal severity is assigned.Table 3: Other-Than-Serious Violations

Table 3: Other-Than-Serious ViolationsSeverityProbabilityGBPMinimalGreater$1,000 - $13,653MinimalLesser$0Serious Willful Penalty Reductions.The reduction factor for history shall be applied as usual. The reduction factors for size for serious willful violations shall be applied as shown in Tables 4:Table 4: Serious Willful Penalty Reductions

Table 4: Serious Willful Penalty ReductionsEmployeesPercent reduction10 or fewer8011-206021-305031-404041-503051-10020101-25010251 or more0If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact Arthur Buchanan in the Directorate of Enforcement Programs at (202) 693-1850.[Correction 1/26/2021]

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Archived Version

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:57

Executive Order 13653, ''Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change'' was issued by President Barack Obama on November 1, 2013.[1] E.O. 13653 is the Federal Government's response to the rising issue of climate change. It was issued in order to prepare the Nation for the impending impacts on the environment brought by climate change and to implement risk management strategies to lessen the harm done by these impacts on the Nation.[2]

E.O. 13653 mandates that the Federal Government, as well stakeholders, must manage these risks with deliberate preparation, cooperation, and coordination in order to effectively improve climate preparedness and resilience.[3] With preparedness and resilience come a safer economy, infrastructure, environment, and supply of natural resources - allowing the continuation of department and agency operations, services, and programs.[3] Agencies are called on to promote open lines of sharing and communication throughout all levels of government, make both informed and strategic decisions, quickly adapt and adjust future plans when needed, and to effectively prepare for the future by planning.[3] On March 19, 2015, President Obama amended E.O. 13653 to require, among other things, that the Federal Government ensure that agency operations and facilities prepare for the impacts of climate change in specified ways.[4]

E.O. 13653 attempts to plan for the following Environmental Impacts:

High TemperaturesHeavy DownpoursPermafrost ThawingOcean AcidificationSea Level RisePresident Donald Trump rescinded E.O. 13653 on March 28, 2017.[5] In suspending the order, the executive branch told all federal agencies to stop considering climate preparedness in decision-making. Many departments fully complied with the order, especially those with recent executive appointments. Others, such as the Department of Defence, continued considering climate forecasts in decision-making.[6]

On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued E.O. 13990, ''Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the Climate Crisis,'' which reinstated E.O. 13653.[7]

Sections [ edit ] PolicyModernizing Federal Programs to Support Climate Resilient InvestmentManaging Lands and Waters for Climate Preparedness and ResilienceProviding Information, Data, and Tools for Climate Change Preparedness and ResilienceFederal Agency Planning for Climate Change Related RiskClimate on Climate Preparedness and ResilienceState, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and ResilienceDefinitionsGeneral ProvisionsReferences [ edit ]

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Archived Version

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:29

An analyst who was the key source behind the shady ''Steele dossier'' about former President Donald Trump and Russia was arrested Thursday on charges he lied to the FBI regarding his sources '-- one of whom was an associate of Hillary Clinton.

Igor Danchenko, 43, was busted as part of special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe, which Trump has long insisted was a witch hunt.

Danchenko, a Russian citizen living in Virginia, was a primary source for Christopher Steele, the former British spy who was paid by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign for intelligence examining ties between Russia and Trump.

The dossier of unverified opposition research included the wild claim that Russian security services possessed a tape of Trump in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes who were supposedly urinating on a bed where the Obamas had previously stayed.

Danchenko later admitted to the FBI that the scandalous detail '-- like much of his info in the report '-- was based on ''rumor and speculation.''

Authorities have arrested Igor Danchenko, who allegedly contributed to the Steele dossier. TwitterMany of his other allegations, such as the claim that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian intel operatives, have been subsequently disproven.

Despite its murky sourcing, the research was used by the feds between October 2016 and September 2017 to successfully apply for surveillance warrants targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

According to a five-count indictment unsealed Thursday, FBI agents interviewed Danchenko several times between January and November 2017 as they attempted to vet the materials.

The FBI ''was ultimately not able to confirm or corroborate'' most of the substantive allegations contained in the dossier, the court document notes.

Igor Danchenko had been the main source for ex-British spy Christopher Steele, pictured here. APIt charges Danchenko with making false statements to investigators on at least five occasions regarding the sources behind his dubious intel.

For instance, the feds say Danchenko claimed never to have spoken to a certain unnamed PR executive '-- and longtime Democratic party operative '-- about specific allegations contained in the report.

In fact, Danchenko used the Democrat as an anonymous source for one or more of the claims contained in the dossier, according to the indictment '-- including gossip about the resignation of Paul Manafort as Trump's campaign chairman and his alleged ''strained relationship'' with another aide, believed to be Corey Lewandowski.

The individual is not named in court papers, but his lawyer, Ralph Drury Martin, confirmed his identity to The Associated Press as Chuck Dolan, a former executive director of the Democratic Governors Association who advised Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and volunteered in her 2016 bid.

The Clinton ally's role in feeding Danchenko information would have been important for the FBI to know since it pertained to his ''reliability, motivations, and potential bias as a source,'' the court papers state.

Danchenko's alleged lies about the exec '-- who isn't named in the indictment '-- was also ''highly material'' to the FBI, since the person was ''present at places and events'' where the analyst collected information, the indictment states.

Igor Danchenko is the third person to face charges in the probe by special counsel John Durham, front, into the origins of the Russia investigation. TNSThe charging document specifically refers to the salacious pee-tape allegation, which Trump has forcefully denied. Danchenko claimed to the FBI that he collected that information from ''various sources,'' including a manager at the Moscow hotel, but that he had characterized it to Steele as ''rumor and speculation'' and didn't himself know if it was true.

Danchenko in June 2016 had lunch in Moscow with the exec, who was staying at the same hotel. The indictment says that the exec toured the presidential suite, and that while a hotel staffer told him Trump had stayed there, the worker did not mention any obscene activity.

The researcher '-- a former analyst at the Brookings Institution think-tank '-- is also accused of lying about interactions he claimed to have had with the then-president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. That person isn't named in the court papers, but has been identified in reports as Sergei Millian.

Danchenko allegedly told the FBI he received an anonymous phone call in July 2016 from a person he believed to be Millian, who told him about a ''well-developed conspiracy of co-operation'' between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. That allegation was included in the dossier.

Durham was appointed by President Trump's DOJ to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. Getty Images''In truth and fact, and as Danchenko well knew, Danchenko never received such a phone call or such information,'' the charging doc states. ''Danchenko fabricated these facts.''

These falsehoods mattered because the FBI ''devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and corroborate the allegations'' and had ''relied in large part'' on the information in the dossier to obtain the surveillance warrants, the indictment says.

Danchenko is now the third person to face criminal charges in Durham's probe.

The special counsel was appointed by Trump's Justice Department in May 2019 after the president said the investigation into his purported campaign ties to Russia was a witch hunt.

Although special counsel Robert Mueller ultimately found questionable ties between Trump's campaign and Moscow, there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.

Danchenko made his initial appearance in Alexandria, Virginia, court Thursday afternoon on five counts of making false statements to the FBI.

Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan ordered pretrial release on $100,000 unsecured bail. Danchenko's defense attorney indicated his client would plead not guilty.

He could face up to five years in prison on each count if convicted.

With Post wires

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 12:27

Pfizer said Friday that its easy-to-administer Covid-19 pill, used in combination with a widely used HIV drug, cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% in high-risk adults who've been exposed to the virus.

It's now the second antiviral pill behind Merck's to demonstrate strong effectiveness for treating Covid at the first sign of illness. If cleared by regulators, it would likely be a game changer in the ongoing global pandemic fight. Pfizer said it plans to submit its data to the Food and Drug Administration "as soon as possible."

Pfizer's pill, scientifically known as PF-07321332, is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme the virus needs to replicate in human cells. Protease inhibitors are used to treat other viral pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C.

The HIV drug helps slow the metabolism, or breakdown, of Pfizer's pill in order for it to remain active in the body for longer periods of time at higher concentrations, the company said.

The company said its data on the drug is based on a mid-to-late stage study of 1,219 adults who had at least one underlying medical condition and a laboratory-confirmed infection within a five-day period. Participants were also given a low dose of ritonavir, a medication commonly used in combination treatments for HIV.

Pfizer said there were six hospitalizations and zero deaths out of the 607 trial participants who received the pill in combination with the HIV drug within five days of symptom onset. That compares with 41 hospitalizations and 10 deaths out of the 612 people who received a placebo.

"These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients' lives, reduce the severity of COVID-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Unlike Gilead Sciences' intravenous drug remdesivir, Pfizer's and Merck's drugs can be taken by mouth. While vaccinations remain the best form of protection against the virus, health experts hope pills like these will keep the disease from progressing in those who do get infected and prevent trips to the hospital.

Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Oct. 1 that they've developed a drug that, when administered alone, reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% for patients with mild or moderate cases of Covid.

The antiviral pill made by Merck was approved by Britain's medicines regulator on Thursday.

June Raine, chief executive of the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said that Merck's pill will greatly facilitate the treatment of Covid, a disease that has killed more than 5 million people globally and caused tremendous strain on health systems.

Bourla told CNBC in April that Pfizer's pill could be available to Americans by the end of this year.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 15:08

A battle may be around the corner. Young children are taught new fighting tactics, and weapon-carrying trucks are spotted rolling down the street. But an expert says Beijing is just trying to boost morale.

Little financial aid, blocked from going to work, personal freedom halted'--that has been the situation in one Chinese city for the past seven months. Amid strict pandemic-lockdown orders, many who are suffering have been silenced.

China ramps up surveillance use in its battle against the pandemic. For Chinese citizens, if a confirmed virus patient so much as walks by, they may end up confined in quarantine.

A Chinese property developer is knee-deep in a debt crisis'--but it's not Evergrande. The group missed a payment to investors, and now its shares are halted on Hong Kong's stock exchange.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more first-hand news from China.

For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter.

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 15:00

Chief Nerd : Commercial Airline Pilot Develops Brain Swelling and Can No Longer Fly Following Pfizer Vaccine''I've had 6 spinal'... https://t.co/B9GfUGRXad

Thu Nov 04 05:35:09 +0000 2021

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 14:12

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:37

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:36

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:17

Tom Elliott : Biden mocks Americans' intelligence: ''If we were all going out & having lunch together & I said let's ask whoever's'... https://t.co/3O3m4hMzbh

Sat Nov 06 18:41:40 +0000 2021

STONK GORILLA : @tomselliott People who understood what Biden just said. https://t.co/fbhctlfZgB

Sun Nov 07 12:14:50 +0000 2021

John Rose : @tomselliott For want of a nail...It's a chain, Brandon.When you break that chain, whether it's more expensive'... https://t.co/8zd4aRj7Oo

Sun Nov 07 12:14:17 +0000 2021

Kershinator Jek : @tomselliott Here ya go Joe... Since I doubt you understand it either, Someone drew you a picture. Too bad it not i'... https://t.co/z8dUCnVOWC

Sun Nov 07 12:05:53 +0000 2021

Michelle Burg : @tomselliott The second he says ''look'' and ''guess what'' he starts to ramble. Never completes a thought and jumps a'... https://t.co/7iaRTpqb4m

Sun Nov 07 12:05:14 +0000 2021

FitLakeMom : @tomselliott Same uneducated people who voted for him.

Sun Nov 07 12:04:18 +0000 2021

George Pinkasiewicz : @tomselliott He's talking about himself, likely....

Sun Nov 07 12:03:23 +0000 2021

Cassandra Silvestra : @tomselliott Jesus, can't Fox stop with this sleaze? Biden's perfectly right, supply chain issues are extremely com'... https://t.co/euhxW1rFNt

Sun Nov 07 12:01:10 +0000 2021

Dubs : @tomselliott You cannot look at this dude and think he is in charge. Come on man!

Sun Nov 07 12:00:13 +0000 2021

Craig Thomsen : @tomselliott Someone needs to tell Brandon to come visit Florida and see what normality looks like

Sun Nov 07 11:55:38 +0000 2021

Debbie Myers : @tomselliott does HE even understand the supply chain? I doubt it. He's just doing whatever his handlers tell him'... https://t.co/YqHoFsH06L

Sun Nov 07 11:54:30 +0000 2021

Dubs : @tomselliott The mock was the fact he "won" "the most votes in history". Not a chance.

Sun Nov 07 11:54:20 +0000 2021

Linda Dittman : @tomselliott This a confusing time? He is a confused President and should never be in this position. He continues t'... https://t.co/ksdLvrbaHX

Sun Nov 07 11:52:00 +0000 2021

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:16

Jake Schneider : Kamala Harris interrupts a NASA presentation to ask if NASA "can measure trees" as part of "environmental justice." https://t.co/POoArDzaGc

Sat Nov 06 19:48:49 +0000 2021

zack : @jacobkschneider A tree grows in Brooklyn. I heard that's a book title.. I never read it

Sun Nov 07 12:09:46 +0000 2021

Babcia : @jacobkschneider She's so feminine

Sun Nov 07 12:07:31 +0000 2021

mike : @jacobkschneider Has anybody added up the collective IQ of Brandon and hoe ? Just curious

Sun Nov 07 12:05:01 +0000 2021

Bob Zluck : @jacobkschneider It's Kamala's way of asking the young man, ''Got wood?''.

Sun Nov 07 12:04:38 +0000 2021

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:13

talkRADIO : American philanthropist Bill Gates has warned of a "bioterrorist smallpox pandemic" which could arise if we don't l'... https://t.co/g76SawlVQ5

Thu Nov 04 12:29:15 +0000 2021

Bel(C)n : @talkRADIO @lordoftheisles9 Ahora resulta que entiende de epidemias, un filntropo que lo que busca es la muerte de la poblaci"n

Sun Nov 07 12:02:47 +0000 2021

Bel(C)n : @talkRADIO @lordoftheisles9 Qu(C) asco le tengo a este psic"pata!! Dejemos de comprar productos de microsoft!! Todo r'... https://t.co/Bne74q8Tfw

Sun Nov 07 12:00:01 +0000 2021

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:08

CNN has stirred controversy and been accused of pushing ''propaganda'' by critics for once again deploying the 'Sesame Street' puppets to promote Covid-19 vaccines, this time to children.

On Saturday, CNN aired 'The ABCs of COVID Vaccines: A CNN/Sesame Street Townhall for Families', hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Erica Hill, in which numerous recognizable children's characters like Elmo and Big Bird recommended children get their Covid-19 jabs now that the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Pfizer vaccine for children five to 11.

One of the muppets named Rosita says she got the vaccine because ''it will help keep me, my friends, my neighbors, my abuela all healthy.'' With vaccines, the muppets, exclaim, kids can do things they couldn't during the pandemic, like have ''playdates.''

Gupta mentions to the muppets that children as young as five can receive the vaccine and the more people that get jabbed, ''the better we're going to be able to stop the spread of Covid and keep everyone healthy.''

Big Bird at one point says he is scared of needles, and Gupta and Hill recommend bringing a toy from home or singing to yourself if you're scared of getting jabbed.

I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it'll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.Ms. @EricaRHill even said I've been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!

'-- Big Bird (@BigBird) November 6, 2021CNN has received backlash in the past from critics over making the muppets part-time contributors, and the new town hall on Saturday was no different, with Twitter users accusing the network of promoting ''propaganda,'' made more offensive by its targeting of children.

The town hall marks the sixth time CNN has used the 'Sesame Street' muppets for a town hall concerning the coronavirus.

Also on rt.com Federal court FREEZES Biden's vaccine mandate for businesses Like this story? Share it with a friend!

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 11:48

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 13:17

Alice : Make it go viral 👇 141 people in hospital only ONE who didn't have the jab #COVID19AB #CovidVaccine #Pfizergate'... https://t.co/W1LsblgWHF

Fri Nov 05 02:16:16 +0000 2021

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 12:54

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:41

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:32

Vincent : ðŸ‡...🇺 HOSPITAL IN AUSTRALIA IS FULL OF VACCINATED PEOPLE ðŸ'‰' ¸ https://t.co/pB6uFwKC9J

Sat Nov 06 09:36:49 +0000 2021

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Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:07

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 22:42

𖤐 Wizard in Black 𖤐 : We all laughed at him and called him kook. And here we are'... https://t.co/QUG1G5VKGH

Fri Nov 05 22:04:59 +0000 2021

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 21:56

Rumble '-- Join Greg Hunter as he talks to 25 year veteran Dr. Elizabeth Eads, DO, exposing the lies that Big Pharma, CDC, FDA and NIH are telling the public. Dr. Eads will highlight the real unreported effects of the CV19 injections/jabs and how it's all gone completely out of control in hospitals across the country.

To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here: https://usawatchdog.com/donations/

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:22

A French astronaut has used a video call from space to sound the alarm about worsening repercussions from climate change that he can see from the International Space Station

By The Associated Press

November 4, 2021, 6:30 PM

' 2 min read

PARIS -- Entire regions of Earth in flames. Storms trailing destruction in their wake. And the haunting fragility of humanity's only home floating like a blue '-- but also tarnished '-- pearl in the vastness of space.

Through the portholes of the International Space Station, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet has an arresting view of global warming's repercussions. He used a video call from space to sound the alarm Thursday, as negotiators, government officials and activists continued meeting at a U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

''We see the pollution of rivers, atmospheric pollution, things like that. What really shocked me on this mission were extreme weather or climate phenomena,'' Pesquet told French President Emmauel Macron during the call.

''We saw entire regions burning from the space station, in Canada, in California,'' he said. ''We saw all of California covered by a cloud of smoke and flames with the naked eye from 400 kilometers (250 miles) up.''

From space, ''the fragility of Earth is a shock,'' Pesquet continued. ''It's a sensory experience to see just how isolated we are as an oasis, with limited resources.''

This is Pesquet's second mission to the space station. He also spent 197 days in orbit in 2016-2017. The destructive effects of human activity have become increasingly visible, he said.

''Year after year, we also know we are beating records for fires, for storms, for floods. And that is very, very visible. I very clearly saw the difference compared to my mission four or five years ago,'' the astronaut said.

Macron said the goal for climate negotiators in Scotland must be to speed up humanity's response.

''There is still a huge job ahead of us, and I think we are all aware of that,'' the French leader said.

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:13

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:10

Back when he shocked the world and announced he was diagnosed with HIV, perhaps only Magic Johnson truly believed he would still be alive. Johnson has been proved correct for just over 29 years and counting.

"The reason I'm still living is early detection," Johnson said Thursday on CNN. "I had a test and I had a physical. It came up that I had HIV, and that saved my life."

Johnson did not appear on CNN just to reflect on the moment he announced on Nov. 7, 1991, that he would retire from the Los Angeles Lakers after learning he contracted the HIV virus that causes AIDS. He also appeared to discuss the novel coronavirus pandemic.

First, Johnson offered some context: "When I think about this virus, it is completely different."

Nonetheless, Johnson still drew parallels between HIV and COVID-19 because of the similarities regarding the misconceptions about the respective viruses, the inadequate testing, the lack of available drugs and how the pandemic has hurt the black community.

"African Americans are leading in terms of dying from the coronavirus and most of them in the hospital are African American,'' Johnson said. "We have to do a better job as African Americans to follow social distancing, stay at home and make sure we educate our loved ones and our family members and do what we're supposed to do to keep safe and healthy. Then when you add that up, we don't have access to health care, quality health care. So many of us are uninsured. That also creates a problem, too. Just like it did with HIV and AIDS."

Consider the common perception about HIV when Johnson learned he first had it.

"When I announced, it was considered a white, gay man's disease," Johnson said. "People were wrong. Black people didn't think they could get HIV and AIDS."

That partly explains why Johnson went public with his diagnosis. It also partly explains why Johnson eventually raised more than $10 million for HIV/AIDs research and charities through his foundation.

Nonetheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in 2018 black people accounted for 42% of new HIV diagnoses. USA TODAY recently reported that black people are dying of coronavirus at much higher rates compared to other Americans in major cities. Johnson offered varying reasons that explain such a troubling trend.

Johnson decried the country's lack of testing supplies and the varying logistical and financial hurdles it takes to receive one.

"We got to make sure first every American can get tested. Right now there's a shortage of tests. People want to get tested but they can't find a test kit," Johnson said. "The problem is people want us to drive to suburban America to get that test. Why can't you have that testing done right in urban America and right in the inner cities?"

Johnson lamented the country's current health care system. He observed that black people are susceptible to more underlying health conditions, including obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Those conditions can make people more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19.

"The lack of access to health care, that is an unbeatable combination," Johnson said. "We need to get better. Hopefully there will be affordable health care for all people, not just for minorities but everybody. If the prices come down, then I think you're going to see African Americans be a lot healthier."

Lastly, Johnson pointed out that black people are more likely to be working in jobs considered "essential services" than those that allow them to work from home. That partly explains why Johnson has made investments on projects that focus on rebuilding inner cities and has raised funds to award college scholarships.

"We're hardworking people," Johnson said. "We want to take care of our family. But at the same time, we have to understand that the hospitality sector and restaurant sector are driven a lot by minorities, especially African Americans. We can't just say it's because they are in those sectors. We as African Americans have to do a better job. We have to make sure our kids can educate themselves so they can have jobs in other sectors. So we won't be talking about this hopefully in the next five years."

That largely depends on if doctors can find a vaccine for COVID-19.

"Until we come up with some drugs that can prolong life and help people beat the virus, we're going to continue to have people passing away," Johnson said. "That's unfortunate. Here we are, the biggest and strongest country in the world, and we should be having drugs that can help people through this virus."

There is no cure either for HIV or AIDS. Yet Johnson has lived with the HIV virus by keeping a strict daily routine. He prays and has a positive attitude. He works out. And he takes his medicine (he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011 that he takes three undisclosed pills twice a day). On CNN, Johnson added that he has taken what is known as the HIV cocktail. David Ho, Johnson's physician and one of the preeminent doctors in the AIDS research community, is credited for coming up with the "cocktail" mixtures of protease inhibitors.

"That is what made me live now for almost 30 years," Johnson said. "When I first announced HIV almost 30 years ago, there was only one drug in AZT. Now there are 30 drugs. Now people can live a healthy life because of those drugs."

It remains to be seen how long it will take to find the right drugs to treat COVID-19. Until that happens, professional sports leagues might not be equipped to return to play.

Major League Baseball has suggested a proposal to hold games behind closed doors in Arizona. The NBA has considered a similar setup in Las Vegas. Lakers star LeBron James initially voiced his displeasure about playing games without fans but has since softened his stance.

"LeBron is right. It's hard to play without fans," said Johnson, who stepped down as Lakers president of basketball operations in 2019. "You play one game, you'll adjust to not having fans there. We've all played our whole life on the playgrounds and in pickup games without fans being there. Basketball players will know how to adjust."

Even if Johnson admitted he is "looking forward to see if the Lakers are going to win the championship," he seemed more concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic than worried if sports will resume.

"I hope that happens. But first the players have to be safe," Johnson said. "The numbers have to be stabilized. America and all of us who live in this great country we live in need sports, especially in a time like this. But only if everybody is safe."

Follow USA TODAY NBA writer Mark Medina on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 12:59

JDKop : @AIustitiae @ossewed @adamcurry

Fri Nov 05 11:16:18 +0000 2021

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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 12:29

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Sun, 07 Nov 2021 12:15

RNC Research : WATCH: Biden bizarrely yells at a reporter when confronted about offering cash payments to illegal immigrants for b'... https://t.co/s6WVNtUn1R

Sat Nov 06 14:54:11 +0000 2021

PICCINONE DECLET : @RNCResearch Biden is on the attack because he can't handle the truth and continues destroying America.

Sun Nov 07 12:15:08 +0000 2021

Larry teal : @RNCResearch He is going to house and feed these illegals and now wants to make them all rich , we have homeless a'... https://t.co/MXM65l8Cg6

Sun Nov 07 12:12:17 +0000 2021

Frankie Furface : @RNCResearch I'd like to see the numbers of legal immigrants who "lost their child".

Sun Nov 07 12:03:00 +0000 2021

JF : @RNCResearch Ok What about the outrageous act of you and what you did in Afghanistan causing 13 military families t'... https://t.co/CPrxyXPPzA

Sun Nov 07 11:58:08 +0000 2021

Happy Joyous and Free : @RNCResearch What about all the African American babies and Children killed in your Democratic Cities?

Sun Nov 07 11:45:41 +0000 2021