1453: Shoehorn Event

Detection of viral DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the preferred laboratory test for monkeypox. The best diagnostic specimens are directly from the rash – skin, fluid or crusts, or biopsy where feasible. Antigen and antibody detection methods may not be useful as they do not distinguish between orthopoxviruses.

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Doing something with stealth means doing it in a secretive or concealed manner, to prevent it being widely known and possibly opposed. This applies to the proposal given by the Biden Administration to the Geneva WHO in January 18, 2022 according to official WHO documents. The WHO hid the details of the US “amendments” for almost three months, until 12 April, just a month before the relevant body of the WHO meets to approve the radical measures. Moreover, rather than the previous 18 month waiting time to become treaty in international law, only 6 months are used this time. This is a bum’s rush. The US proposal is backed by every EU country and in total 47 countries ensuring almost certain passage.

The proposals, officially titled, “Strengthening WHO preparedness for and response to health emergencies: Proposal for amendments to the International Health Regulations,” were submitted by Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs (OGA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services, Loyce Pace, as “amendments” to a previously ratified 2005 WHO International Health Regulations treaty. The WHO defines that 2005 treaty thus: “the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) provide an overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders. The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States.” (emphasis added).

Before we look at what the Loyce Pace “amendments” will do to empower the transformation of WHO into a global health dictatorship with unprecedented powers to overrule judgments of any national governments, one stealthy legal issue must be noted. By disguising a complete change in the 2005 WHO treaty powers as mere “amendments” to a ratified treaty, WHO claims, along with the Biden Administration, that the approval of the amendments requires no new ratification debate by member governments. This is stealth. With no national debate by elected representatives, the unelected WHO will become a global superpower over life and death in the future. Washington and WHO have deliberately restricted the process of public participation to ram this through.

A De Facto New Law

As required, the WHO finally published the US “amendments.” It shows the deletions and as well the new additions. What the Biden Administration changes do is to transform a previously advisory role for the WHO to national governments on not only pandemic responses but also everything tied to national “health,” with an entirely new power to override national health agencies if the WHO Director General, now Tedros Adhanom, determines. The US Biden Administration and WHO have colluded to create an entirely new treaty which will shift all health decisions from a national or local level to Geneva, Switzerland and WHO.

Moreover in the new proposed Article 12 on “Determination of a public health emergency of international concern, public health emergency of regional concern, or intermediate health alert,” WHO head–now Tedros in his new 5-year term–alone can decide to declare an emergency, even without agreement of the member state. The WHO head will then consult his relevant WHO “Emergency Committee” on Polio, Ebola, Bird Flu, COVID or whatever they declare to be a problem. In short this is a global dictatorship over citizen health by one of the most corrupt health bodies in the world. The members of a given WHO Emergency Committee are chosen under opaque procedures and typically, as in the current one on polio, many members are tied to the various Gates Foundation fronts like GAVI or CEPI. Yet the selection process is entirely opaque and internal to WHO.

US Government researchers in the 1950s were infecting monkeys with smallpox.

Monkeypox was first seen in 1958, in monkeys used in medical experiments.

The first recorded human case occurred during a smallpox vaccination drive in the Congo in 1970.

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According to a new report from realty firm Douglas Elliman, a bidding war erupts over one in every five rental apartments in Manhattan. One big reason for this: there are now more apartments in New York City listed for rent on Airbnb — 10,572 — than there are available rental units — 7,669. Those waiting for a place could consider taking a working vacation, something Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has suggested will become more popular.

Some worthy backdrops include the beautiful canals of Venice, the mountains and oceans around Rio de Janeiro, and the Richmond Avenue Trader Joe's in Staten Island.

Australian voters ended nine years of conservative rule in the country’s national elections Saturday, ousting Prime Minister Scott Morrison in favor of the center left Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, who has campaigned on promises to take tough action on climate change.

Albanese, 59, known as “Albo,” campaigned on improving free healthcare and advocating for the LGBT community.

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The Buffalo Shooting was horrible. When I had first heard about it, my first reaction was that it

was just another shooting there, oh well (it isn't an uncommon thing in that area). But the more I

learned the more disgusted I was, and also the more afraid I was as to what the after effects might

be.

I luckily had taken that day off of work. But it did happen in a neighborhood where my work often

takes me. That neighborhood isn't a stranger to shootings. I myself have been in the line of fire

a few blocks away, while working. Funny thing was, I had a police escort, and the drug dealers

were being shot at. They ran to us because they knew the cop was there, and our escort ended up

getting the gunman and arresting him. The drug dealers remained unharmed to continue selling

drugs.

The area is on the verge of being a no-go zone. My employer prefers that I have a police escort to

work in that area, and in some other locations. Luckily we have easy access to a police force, and

generally our officers are happy to earn overtime money to stand around and protect us while we

work.

But even then, prior to this incident we would get harassed. There we are installing devices on a

public building, and we get groups of locals who surround us and call us 'honkeys' or (and this

made me chuckle) 'a bunch of Washingtons'.

That being said, prior to this incident, our police have been having trouble maintaining order.

For almost a year now, crime has been increasing. Especially assaults, and drugs. This is

something I see every day, first hand. Every day a fight - sometimes right in front of police

officers who are standing on post, who then pepper spray the combatants. Every day the same drug

dealers standing in the same spots, dealing drugs right in front of police stations. But nothing

can be done. If no one is willing to actually file charges, then the police have no power or

incentive to take any action. A lot of this is due to political and legal changes which have taken

place in NY over the last few years such as Bail Reform. It has gotten so bad over the past few

months that management doesn't even fault us for refusing work, or delaying work due to safety

concerns in some areas.

Anyhow, I did expect that there would be more hate towards me (a white guy), this past week, but I

haven't noticed it. In fact, what I have noticed it more people begging for handouts than usual,

and more people who are on edge and jumpy. I.e. I watched a drunk or drugged up guy pass out and

fall over on the sidewalk, and someone driving by called it in thinking he got shot. Another odd

incident is that a white lady was waiting for a bus wearing a ski mask (you still have to wear

masks for public transit here), and there were multipul 911 calls about her being suspicious and

scary. On video it didn't seem that way.

Sir Roadwolf, Baron of WNY!

Today, we disbursed a new tranche of €600 million in Macro-Financial Assistance to Ukraine

More is coming - we proposed an additional €9 billion loan for in 2022.

Beyond relief, we'll work on a reconstruction platform to help rebuild Ukraine as a free, democratic country.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 17:02

Richard Hanania : ''The attendant, who rides horses'...''The Alpha Masculinity guy warned us. https://t.co/n2oayqNUup

Thu May 19 23:03:28 +0000 2022

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Archived Version

Sun, 22 May 2022 16:58

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Release: Temporary Open Market Operations

Units: Billions of US Dollars , Not Seasonally Adjusted

Frequency: Daily

Notes:This series is constructed as the aggregated daily amount value of the RRP transactions reported by the New York Fed as part of the Temporary Open Market Operations.Temporary open market operations involve short-term repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements that are designed to temporarily add or drain reserves available to the banking system and influence day-to-day trading in the federal funds market.

A reverse repurchase agreement (known as reverse repo or RRP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed under the authorization and direction of the Federal Open Market Committee sells a security to an eligible counterparty with an agreement to repurchase that same security at a specified price at a specific time in the future. For these transactions, eligible securities are U.S. Treasury instruments, federal agency debt and the mortgage-backed securities issued or fully guaranteed by federal agencies.

For more information, see https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/rrp_faq.html

Suggested Citation: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Overnight Reverse Repurchase Agreements: Treasury Securities Sold by the Federal Reserve in the Temporary Open Market Operations [RRPONTSYD], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRPONTSYD, May 22, 2022.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:32

Officials have rushed to secure vaccines as cases of the rare monkeypox virus continue to crop up in the US and Europe

The US health authorities have signed a deal for $119 million in vaccine doses against the monkeypox virus, after a Massachusetts man was diagnosed with the rare but potentially serious illness earlier this week.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) '' a government agency devoted to combating pandemics and bioterrorism '' signed the multi-million-dollar contract with Danish pharma firm Bavarian Nordic on Wednesday, the company announced in a statement.

The $119 million deal is one in a series of contract options which could ultimately reach a total value of $299 million if exercised, in exchange for around 13 million freeze-dried doses of the Jynneos vaccine. It was originally created for smallpox, but was approved for use against monkeypox by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019, just months before the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in China.

Initial deliveries for the Jynneos shot won't come until 2023, the company said, noting that the full 13 million doses are expected to be ready sometime between 2024 and 2025 should BARDA agree to extend the contract.

The first monkeypox case in the US was confirmed on Wednesday in a man who had recently traveled to Canada. Federal health officials have since said they are monitoring six others after they came into close proximity to an infected traveler during a flight from Nigeria to the UK earlier this month, while another possible case is being investigated by the New York City Health Department.

A number of suspected or confirmed infections have also been observed in Britain, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Sweden in recent weeks. Australia has just detected its first case.

On Thursday, Bavarian Nordic announced that it had also reached a deal with an ''undisclosed European country'' for the same dual-use smallpox vaccine '' though offered under different branding '' ''in response to new cases of monkeypox.'' The company did not elaborate on how many doses would be procured or provide an overall price tag for the contract.

In addition to vaccines, the US government also moved to buy up doses of tecovirimat, the standard antiviral treatment for monkeypox, with the Department of Defense signing a $7.5 million contract for the drug with American pharmaceutical firm SIGA Technologies last week.

An intravenous form of the same antiviral received FDA approval for treatment of smallpox on Thursday, though SIGA said the IV version was also ''cited in the recent US president's budget request as being used to treat a patient in the US with monkeypox.''

While rare, monkeypox has been detected in the US before, with a Texas resident becoming hospitalized from the virus last summer after traveling to West Africa, where the pathogen is endemic. In 2003, more than 70 cases were confirmed in the US, marking the first outbreak seen outside of Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

Initial symptoms include fever, head and muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and exhaustion, and though most infections resolve without serious illness, the virus is lethal in a small percentage of cases.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:30

The London Times - May 11, 1987

Dr Alan Cantwell, M.D.full"Article from Dr Alan Cantwell, M.D. reproduced here On May 11, 1987, The London Times, one of the world's most respected newspapers, published an explosive article entitled, "Smallpox vaccine triggered AIDS virus."The story suggested the smallpox eradication vaccine program sponsored by the WHO (World Health Organization) was responsible for unleashing AIDS in Africa. Almost 100 million Africans living in central Africa were inoculated by the WHO (World Health Organization). The vaccine was held responsible for awakening a "dormant" AIDS virus infection on the continent.

An advisor to the WHO admitted, "Now I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation for the explosion of AIDS."

Robert Gallo, M,D., the co-discoverer of HIV, told The Times, "The link between the WHO program and the epidemic is an interesting and important hypothesis.

I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV." Despite the tremendous importance of this story, the U.S. media was totally silent on the report, and Gallo never spoke of it again.

In September 1987, at a conference sponsored by the National Health Federation in Monrovia, California, William Campbell Douglass, M.D.,

bluntly blamed the WHO for murdering Africa with the AIDS virus.

In a widely circulated reprint of his talk entitled "W.H.O. Murdered Africa" , he accused the organization of encouraging virologists and molecular biologists to work with deadly animal viruses in an attempt to make an immunosuppressive hybrid virus that would be deadly to humans.

From the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (Volume 47, p.259, 1972), he quoted a passage that stated: "An attempt should be made to see if viruses can in fact exert selective effects on immune function. The possibility should be looked into that the immune response to the virus itself may be impaired if the infecting virus damages, more or less selectively, the cell responding to the virus."

According to Douglass, "That's AIDS. What the WHO is saying in plain English is Let's cook up a virus that selectively destroys the T-cell system of man, an acquired immune deficiency.'" The entire article can be read on google.com ("WHO Murdered Africa").

In his 1989 book, 'AIDS: The End of Civilization,' Douglass claims the WHO laced the African vaccines. He blames "the virologists of the world, the sorcerers who brought us this ghastly plague, and have formed a united front in denying that the virus was laboratory-made from known, lethal animal viruses. The scientific party line is that a monkey in Africa with AIDS bit a native on the butt. The native then went to town and gave it to a prostitute who gave it to a local banker who gave it to his wife and three girl friends, and wham - 75 million people became infected with AIDS in Africa.

An entirely preposterous story.67

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Archived Version

Sun, 22 May 2022 16:30

Several dozen cases of monkeypox have been diagnosed across Europe, North America, and Australia. The disease has mainly been hitting young men who have sex with men, but that doesn't mean it's being sexually transmitted. Experts are investigating whether this is truly a more infectious version of monkeypox, or it has just infiltrated very close-knit populations. Loading Something is loading.

Monkeypox is spreading, and it is spreading much faster than it usually does.

This month, more than 140 confirmed and suspected cases have been detected in a dozen countries across Europe, North America, and Oceania. The first was diagnosed in the UK on May 7, and the number of cases that have been confirmed in that country has quickly doubled in the past two days, from nine infections on May 18 to 20 infections on May 20.

Other monkeypox cases have recently been confirmed scattered across the US, Australia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Sweden '-- the list of countries grows by the day.

One of the troubling things that disease experts have noticed with this outbreak is that the patients don't all have a clear link to one another. They haven't all traveled to countries where the disease is endemic, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, or Cameroon, nor have they all been in contact with people who recently traveled to the parts of west and central Africa where animals like rodents harbor this virus.

But one thing that public health experts have noticed is that most of the infected patients '-- in fact all but one of the patients whose sex has been revealed so far '-- are men.

This doesn't mean we are dealing with a new brand of monkeypox '-- one that only infects males, or one that is sexually transmitted between men who have sex with men. It's still early days for disease investigators, who are tracking down exactly how genetically related these monkeypox cases may be, and how they might be spreading from person to person. For now, experts are divided on whether we should give much weight to the fact that most of the monkeypox patients diagnosed outside Africa recently have been men.

Why some health officials are focusing on men who have sex with menProfessor Jimmy Whitworth, an infectious disease expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Insider that "we urgently need to find out" whether this version of monkeypox is spreading in a new way.

Typically, monkeypox spreads from person to person through extremely close contact. The virus can be picked up on surfaces, from bedding, clothes, or respiratory excretions, but it's especially easy to get it through skin to skin contact.

"You could imagine that a female person living in the same house, sharing utensils and so on with somebody who's incubating it could get it, but we haven't seen that so far," Whitworth said. "That's what makes us a bit suspicious that maybe this is transmitting sexually, and we need to find that out. Because if so, that's new '-- that's not been seen before."

One CDC monkeypox expert says the sexuality aspect is a red herringEpidemiologist Andrea McCollum, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been dispatched to investigate monkeypox outbreaks for years, in at least four different African countries. She says nothing strikes her as odd about how the disease is spreading '-- at least not yet.

"Even though there's a lot of questions right now surrounding specific populations of concern, and how this may be spreading, I think it's entirely consistent with what we know about the virus," she told Insider. "We know this virus spreads via very close contact."

That contact can be with another person's saliva, blood, or the pox themselves '-- the rashes people get with monkeypox are incredibly infectious.

A monkeypox outbreak across several US states in 2003 spread via prairie dogs. CDC/Getty Images "Pus, scabs '-- all those legions are chock full of a ton of virus," McCollum said. "At first pass, it sounds like this is a strain of virus that's closely related to what we knew was circulating in West Africa within the last couple of years."

Typically, monkeypox rashes tend to break out on the face, palms of the hands, and bottoms of the feet. But Swedish health authorities said on Thursday that "in European cases, the skin problems have often been reported to be localized to the genitals, groin, and the skin around the anal opening."

'Monkeypox is not a gay disease' Public health experts and virologists say that the focus on gay men getting monkeypox now is "sadly reminiscent" of some of the initial reporting about HIV and AIDS 40 years ago.

"Monkeypox is not a gay disease, and neither are any other infectious diseases," virus expert and physician Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, public health researcher Keletso Makofane, and another public health expert who goes by Dr. Neurofourier on Twitter wrote on the PLOS blog "Speaking of Medicine and Health" on Thursday.

"It is unfortunate that this still needs to be said, highlighting how little we have learned from previous outbreaks."

The World Health Organization also chimed in on Friday, pointing out in a statement that anyone who closely interacts with an infectious person can be at risk of catching monkeypox.

"This includes health workers, household members and sexual partners," the WHO said. "Stigmatizing groups of people because of a disease is never acceptable. It can be a barrier to ending an outbreak as it may prevent people from seeking care, and lead to undetected spread."

Everyone is vulnerable to monkeypox, because most of us haven't had a smallpox vaccine Monkeypox virus. BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images McCollum, with the CDC, says that monkeypox cases have been on the rise in recent years in Africa, and there are a couple reasons why that might be happening.

"Nigeria went 39 years without any cases," she said. "And then all of a sudden they didn't just have a few cases, they had a lot '-- and they continue to."

One key reason might be due to the unparalleled success of the smallpox vaccine. Because smallpox was eradicated from the Earth in 1980, most people alive today haven't been vaccinated against the disease. (McCollum, however, is vaccinated against smallpox because of her work, which sometimes includes handling infectious lab specimens.)

Smallpox and monkeypox are closely related viruses, and the vaccines that have been developed for smallpox can provide robust cross-protection against monkeypox. But experts estimate that, these days, more than 70% of people worldwide have no immunity to monkeypox, because they never needed to be vaccinated against smallpox to begin with.

Genetic sequencing being done now should shed better light on whether this is truly a more contagious form of monkeypox or not, and whether it is spreading in some new way.

With fewer than 150 suspected cases in total, both McCollum and Whitworth are cautious about raising the alarm too high among the general public.

"The likelihood is that the number of cases is never going to be that big," Whitworth said. "It's not like this is the next pandemic '-- we don't think."

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Archived Version

Sun, 22 May 2022 16:30

The Gran Canarian pride festival attended by 80,000 from Britain and across Europe is being investigated after being linked to numerous monkeypox cases in Madrid, Italy and Tenerife.

Held between May 5 and May 15, Maspalomas Pride attracts visitors from across the continent.

It was attended by people who have tested positive for the monekypox virus afterwards, with public health services from the Canary Islands now investigating the any links between the cases and the LGBT+ celebrations.

'Among the 30 or so diagnosed in Madrid, there are several who attended the event, although it is not yet possible to know if one of them is patient zero of this outbreak or if they all got infected there,' a health source told El Pa­s.

The Gran Canarian pride festival attended by 80,000 from Britain and across Europe is being investigated after being linked to numerous monkeypox cases in Madrid, Italy and Tenerife. Pictured, attendees at the event this month

There are two suspected cases in men in the Canary Islands, one with links to the LGBT+ festival.

There is no conclusive evidence that the latest outbreak is being sexually transmitted, rather than simply being passed between people who were in close proximity to each other, experts said.

As such gay men are not believed to be more likely to contract the disease, however are potentially more likely to have been exposed to it due to the known incidences being at events and locations that attracted large numbers of people from across the LGBT+ community.

The development came after it emerged Spanish authorities are also investigating confirmed cases of monkeypox that have been linked to a 'sauna' - which in Spain is used to describe establishments popular with gay men looking for sex rather than just a bathhouse.

A spokesperson for the department confirmed that one of the Italian men who has the virus was in the Canary Islands, but denied knowing if the man from Tenerife had travelled there, according to a report from the Spanish news website.

A second Italian man who was also in the Canary Islands contracted the virus. All three Italian men with the virus are unknown to each other.

Earlier today, a top British doctor has predicted a 'significant rise' in monkeypox cases in the UK in the next few weeks, as the country recorded 20 cases '-- and more than 100 found in Europe.

The disease, which was first found in monkeys, can be transmitted from person to person through close physical contact - as well as sexual intercourse - and is caused by the monkeypox virus.

It was attended by people who have tested positive for the monekypox virus afterwards, with public health services from the Canary Islands now investigating the any links between the cases and the LGBT+ celebrations. Pictured, attendees at the event this month

Dr Claire Dewsnap, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, is worried about the rate the virus is spreading.

She told Sky News that she expects a 'significant' rise in infections next week.

'What worries me the most is there are infections across Europe, so this has already spread,' she said. 'It's already circulating in the general population... It could be really significant numbers over the next two or three weeks.'

She also warned that the virus could have a 'massive impact' on access to sexual health services in Britain.

The UK Health Security Agency has said a notable proportion of recent cases in Britain and Europe have been found in gay and bisexual men.

The virus is more common to west and central Africa but the number of cases confirmed in Britain has hit 20, with nine other countries including Spain, Portugal and Canada also reporting outbreaks.

Yesterday, health authorities in Spain reported 23 more confirmed cases of monkeypox, mainly in the Madrid region where the regional government closed a sauna linked to the majority of infections.

It is believed that there are 50 cases in Spain, 30 confirmed and 20 suspected, along with two confirmed cases in the Spanish Canary Islands.

'The Public Health Department will carry out an even more detailed analysis... to control contagion, cut the chains of transmission and try to mitigate the transmission of this virus as much as possible,' said regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero.

Nurses and doctors are being advised to stay 'alert' to patients who present with a new rash or scabby lesions (like above)

Dr Dewsnap said she is concerned about how the infection could affect services because staff who come in contact with sufferers are forced to isolate.

She told the BBC that clinic staff were 'already under significant pressure' before monkeypox was identified, making the situation worse.

'It is already stretching the workforce and will have a massive impact if staff have to isolate if they are in close contact with someone who's infected,' Dr Dewsnap said.

'In terms of the infection and its consequences for individuals, I'm not that concerned,' she later told BBC Radio 4.

'But I am concerned about our ability to maintain good sexual health services and access for everyone while still managing this new infection.'

Dr Dewsnap also called for 'adequate funding' for sexual health services.

She told BBC Breakfast: 'Over the last 10 years, there's been a significant decrease in funding through the public health budget.

'And that has seen a direct effect on staffing level and that means we have less capacity to see people.

'We used to be able to see people within 48 hours of them contacting us - that's really important because it cuts down the window where people have an infection, they don't know they have an infection and therefore they can pass it on to the people.

'So the speed in which we see people is really critical and monkeypox coming along shows us that more than ever before.

'So we need adequate funding so we can adequately staff with the experts that we need and the appropriately trained staff in clinics so that we can ensure people can get in quickly, and therefore we can reduce the risk of infection of other people.'

Meanwhile, Professor Sir Peter Horby, director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at Oxford University, described the current monkeypox outbreak as 'an unusual situation', because the virus is being transmitted within communities outside of Central and West Africa.

Sir Peter told BBC Radio 4 on Saturday: 'It's transmitted by close person-to-person contact and, in the past, we have not seen it being very infectious.

'What's unusual about what we're seeing now is that we're seeing transmission occurring in the community in Europe and now in other countries, so it's an unusual situation where we seem to have had the virus introduced but now have ongoing transmission within certain communities.'

The smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in the UK and Jynneos in the US, can protect against monkeypox because the viruses causing the illnesses are related

He added: 'It would appear that there is some element of sexual transmission perhaps with just the very close contact between people and the skin lesions, because a large proportion of the current cases are being detected in gay and bisexual men.

'So it's very important that we get the message across that if people have unusual skin lesions that they do seek attention quickly so that we can control this.

'The important thing is that we interrupt transmission and this doesn't become established in the human population in Europe.'

Monkeypox is a usually mild infection, with symptoms including fever, headaches and a distinctive bumpy rash.

In Britain, authorities are offering a smallpox vaccine to healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed.

Spain is assessing different therapeutic options, such as antivirals and vaccines, but so far all cases have mild symptoms and therefore no specific ad hoc treatment has been necessary, Spanish Health minister Carolina Darias told reporters on Friday.

The Portuguese cases remain under clinical follow-up but none have been hospitalized as they are all stable, the health authority said.

Portugal has 14 confirmed cases and 20 suspected infections. And across the Atlantic, there are two confirmed cases in Canada, with 20 suspected cases.

There are also cases in Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Israel and Australia.

How DO you catch monkeypox and what are the symptoms? EVERYTHING you need to know about tropical virus spreading around the world

By Emily Craig, Health Reporter for MailOnline

Monkeypox is spreading globally for the first time, in an outbreak that has caught health officials off-guard.

Eleven countries including Australia have now detected the tropical virus, which is usually only spotted within Africa.

Two men from Sydney and Melbourne have both returned from Europe infected with the rare tropical disease.

The Victorian case is known to have been in the UK where there are currently 20 cases, which are all among men from the gay and bisexual community.

Germany and Belgium today became the latest nations to declare monkeypox cases, while and Australia announced patients had tested positive overnight.

A disproportionate number of cases are in gay and bisexual men, authorities have said. Health chiefs say the pattern of transmission is 'highly suggestive of spread in sexual networks'.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said: 'It is important to be particularly vigilant if you returned from overseas from large parties or sex on premises venues overseas.

'You can imagine that some settings, such as sex on premises venues or other events and gatherings may lead to sort of what we've seen as super spreading events.

'It is important that people who have recently returned from Europe who attended such parties be particularly alert given the worldwide case reports today.'

Here is everything we know about the monkeypox outbreak so far:

How do you catch monkeypox?

Until this worldwide outbreak, monkeypox was usually caught from infected animals in west and central Africa.

The tropical virus is thought to be spread by rodents, including rats, mice and even squirrels.

Humans can catch the illness '-- which comes from the same family as smallpox '-- if they're bitten by infected animals, or touch their blood, bodily fluids, or scabs.

Consuming contaminated wild game or bush meat can also spread the virus.

The orthopoxvirus can enter the body through broken skin '-- even if it's not visible, as well as the eyes, nose and mouth.

Despite being mainly spread by wild animals, it was known that monkeypox could be passed on between people.

However, health chiefs insist it is very rare.

Human-to-human spread can occur if someone touches clothing or bedding used by an infected person, or through direct contact with the virus' tell-tale scabs.

The virus can also spread through coughs and sneezes.

In the ongoing surge in cases, experts think the virus is passing through skin-to-skin contact during sex '-- even though this exact mechanism has never been seen until now.

There are a handful of antivirals and therapies for smallpox that appear to work on monkeypox, including the drug tecovirimat, which was approved for monkeypox in the EU in January

How is it tested for?

It can be difficult to diagnose monkeypox as it is often confused with other infections such as chickenpox.

Monkeypox is confirmed by a clinical assessment by a health professional and a test in a specialist lab.

The test involves taking samples from skin lesions, such as part of the scab, fluid from the lesions or pieces of dry crusts.

What are the symptoms?

It can take up to three weeks for monkeypox-infected patients to develop any of its tell-tale symptoms.

Early signs of the virus include a fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion '-- meaning it could, theoretically, be mistaken for other common illnesses.

But its most unusual feature is a rash that often begins on the face, then spreads to other parts of the body, commonly the hands and feet.

The rash changes and goes through different stages before finally forming a scab, which later falls off.

How long is someone contagious?

An individual is contagious from the point their rash appears until all the scabs have fallen off and there is intact skin underneath.

The scabs may also contain infectious virus material.

The infectious period is thought to last for three weeks but may vary between individuals.

What even is monkeypox?

Monkeypox was first discovered when an outbreak of a pox-like disease occurred in monkeys kept for research in 1958.

The first human case was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the infection has been reported in a number of central and western African countries since then.

Only a handful of cases have been reported outside of Africa and they were confined to people with travel links to the continent.

The UK, US, Israel and Singapore are the only countries which had detected the virus before May 2022.

Is it related to chickenpox?

Despite causing a similar rash, chickenpox is not related to monkeypox.

The infection, which usually strikes children, is caused by the varicella-zoster virus.

For comparison, monkeypox '-- like smallpox '-- is an orthopoxvirus. Because of this link, smallpox vaccines also provide protection against monkeypox.

Are young people more vulnerable?

Britons aged under 50 may be more susceptible to monkeypox, according to the World Health Organization.

This is because children in the UK were routinely offered the smallpox jab, which protects against monkeypox, until 1971.

The WHO also warns that the fatality rate has been higher among young children.

Does it spread as easily as Covid?

Leading experts insist we won't be seeing Covid-style levels of transmission in the monkeypox outbreak.

A World Health Organization report last year suggested the natural R rate of the virus '' the number of people each patient would infect if they lived normally while sick '' is two.

This is lower than the original Wuhan variant of Covid and about a third of the R rate of the Indian 'Delta' strain.

But the real rate is likely much lower because 'distinctive symptoms greatly aid in its early detection and containment,' the team said, meaning it's easy to spot cases and isolate them.

Covid is mainly spread through droplets an infected person releases whenever they breathe, speak, cough or sneeze.

What other countries have spotted cases?

Twelve countries '-- including the US, Spain and Italy '-- have now detected cases of monkeypox.

Spain this morning reported 14 new confirmed cases, bringing the nation's total to 21.

And Belgium detected two cases, one in Antwerp and the other in Flemish Brabant.

Germany subsequently confirmed its first ever monkeypox case in a patient who had 'characteristic skin lesions' '-- a tell-tale sign of the illness.

France last night confirmed a 29-year-old man in Paris had contracted the virus. He had not recently travelled, suggesting the virus is spreading in the community.

Meanwhile, Australia last night confirmed two cases, including one man in his thirties who had travelled from Britain to Melbourne with symptoms earlier this week.

The Netherlands Portugal, Sweden and Canada have also detected cases.

How deadly is it?

Monkeypox is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment.

Yet, the disease kills up to 10 per cent of people it infects.

However, with milder strains the fatality rate is closer to one in 100 '-- similar to when Covid first hit.

The UK cases all had the West African version of the virus, which is mild compared to the Central African strain.

It is thought that cases in Portugal and Spain also have the milder version, though tests are underway.

Is there a vaccine for it?

The smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in the UK and Jynneos in the US, can protect against monkeypox because the viruses causing the illnesses are related.

Data shows it prevents around 85 per cent of cases, and has been used 'off-label' in the UK since 2018.

The jab, thought to cost £20 per dose, contains a modified vaccinia virus, which is similar to both smallpox and monkeypox, but does not cause disease in people.

Because of its similarity to the pox viruses, antibodies produced against this virus offer cross protection.

Are there any drugs?

There are also a handful of antivirals and therapies for smallpox that appear to work on monkeypox.

This includes the drug tecovirimat, which was approved for monkeypox in the EU in January.

Tecovirimat prevents the virus from leaving an infected cell, hindering the spread of the virus within the body.

An injectable antiviral used to treat AIDS called cidofovir can be used to manage the infection, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It also works by stopping the growth of the virus.

What is the situation with the UK outbreak?

Twenty cases were confirmed in the UK between May 6 and 20.

No details about the eleven confirmed on May 20 have been released yet.

But six of the previous nine confirmed cases were in men who have sex with men '-- which officials say is 'highly suggestive of spread in sexual networks'.

How worrying is it?

UK health chiefs say the risk of a major outbreak is low.

What do I do if I have symptoms?

Anyone worried that they could be infected with monkeypox is advised to make contact with clinics ahead of their visit.

Health chiefs say their call or discussion will be treated sensitively and confidentially.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:27

Attribution: Image Author: Padri±n on PixabayImage License: This file is licensed under the Simplified Pixabay License. License & Image Links: LINK By F. William Engdahl 18 May 2022 Acting on an initiative from the Biden Administration, by November 2022, conveniently at the onset of the next flu season in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization, barring a miracle, will impose an unprecedented top-down control over the national health regulations and measures of the entire planet. In what amounts to a stealth coup d'etat, WHO will get draconian new powers to override national sovereignty in 194 UN member countries, and to dictate their health measures with force of international law. It is sometimes referred to as the WHO Pandemic Treaty but it is far more. Worse, most of the WHO budget comes from private vaccine-tied foundations like the Gates Foundation or from Big Pharma, a massive conflict of interest.

Draconian New WHO Powers

Doing something with stealth means doing it in a secretive or concealed manner, to prevent it being widely known and possibly opposed. This applies to the proposal given by the Biden Administration to the Geneva WHO in January 18, 2022 according to official WHO documents. The WHO hid the details of the US ''amendments'' for almost three months, until 12 April, just a month before the relevant body of the WHO meets to approve the radical measures. Moreover, rather than the previous 18 month waiting time to become treaty in international law, only 6 months are used this time. This is a bum's rush. The US proposal is backed by every EU country and in total 47 countries ensuring almost certain passage.

The proposals, officially titled, ''Strengthening WHO preparedness for and response to health emergencies: Proposal for amendments to the International Health Regulations,'' were submitted by Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs (OGA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services, Loyce Pace, as ''amendments'' to a previously ratified 2005 WHO International Health Regulations treaty. The WHO defines that 2005 treaty thus: ''the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) provide an overarching legal framework that defines countries' rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders. The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States.'' (emphasis added).

Ms Pace came to the Biden Administration from heading the Global Health Council, whose members include the most corrupt names in Big Pharma including Pfizer, Lilly, Merck, J&J, Abbott, Bill Gates-funded AVAC, to name a few. Her proposals for the radical transformation of WHO ''pandemic'' and epidemic powers, could easily have been written by Gates and Big Pharma.

Before we look at what the Loyce Pace ''amendments'' will do to empower the transformation of WHO into a global health dictatorship with unprecedented powers to overrule judgments of any national governments, one stealthy legal issue must be noted. By disguising a complete change in the 2005 WHO treaty powers as mere ''amendments'' to a ratified treaty, WHO claims, along with the Biden Administration, that the approval of the amendments requires no new ratification debate by member governments. This is stealth. With no national debate by elected representatives, the unelected WHO will become a global superpower over life and death in the future. Washington and WHO have deliberately restricted the process of public participation to ram this through.

A De Facto New Law

As required, the WHO finally published the US ''amendments.'' It shows the deletions and as well the new additions. What the Biden Administration changes do is to transform a previously advisory role for the WHO to national governments on not only pandemic responses but also everything tied to national ''health,'' with an entirely new power to override national health agencies if the WHO Director General, now Tedros Adhanom, determines. The US Biden Administration and WHO have colluded to create an entirely new treaty which will shift all health decisions from a national or local level to Geneva, Switzerland and WHO.

Typical of the Washington amendments to the existing WHO Treaty is Article 9. The US change is to insert WHO ''shall'' and delete ''may'': ''If the State Party does not accept the offer of collaboration within 48 hours, WHO shall may'...,. In the same article now deleted is ''offer of collaboration by WHO, taking into account the views of the State Party concerned'...'' The views or judgment of say, Germany or India, or USA health authorities become irrelevant. WHO will be able to override national experts and dictate as international law its mandates for any and all future pandemics as well as even epidemics or even local health issues.

Moreover in the new proposed Article 12 on ''Determination of a public health emergency of international concern, public health emergency of regional concern, or intermediate health alert,'' WHO head''now Tedros in his new 5-year term''alone can decide to declare an emergency, even without agreement of the member state. The WHO head will then consult his relevant WHO ''Emergency Committee'' on Polio, Ebola, Bird Flu, COVID or whatever they declare to be a problem. In short this is a global dictatorship over citizen health by one of the most corrupt health bodies in the world. The members of a given WHO Emergency Committee are chosen under opaque procedures and typically, as in the current one on polio, many members are tied to the various Gates Foundation fronts like GAVI or CEPI. Yet the selection process is entirely opaque and internal to WHO.

Among other powers the new Pandemic Treaty will give Tedros and WHO the power to mandate vaccine passports and COVID jabs worldwide. They are working on the creation of a global vaccine passport/digital identity program. Under the new ''Pandemic Treaty'', when people are harmed by the WHO's health policies, there's no accountability. The WHO has diplomatic immunity.

Former WHO senior employee and whistleblower, Astrid Stuckelberger, now a scientist at the Institute of Global Health of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, noted, ''if the new Pandemic Treaty is adopted by member states, ''this means that the WHO's Constitution (as per Article 9) will take precedence over each country's constitution during natural disasters or pandemics. In other words, the WHO will be dictating to other countries, no longer making recommendations.''

Who is WHO?

The Director General of WHO would have the ultimate power under the new rules, to determine for example if say, Brazil or Germany or USA must impose a Shanghai-style pandemic lockdown or any other measures it decides. This is not good. Especially when the head of WHO, Tedros, from the Tigray region of Ethiopia, is a former member of the Politburo of the designated terrorist (then by Washington) Marxist organization, the Tigray People's Liberation Front. He holds no medical degree, the first in WHO director-general history without such. He has a PhD in Community Health, definitely a vague field, hardly medical qualification for a global health czar. Among his published scientific papers are titles such as ''The effects of dams on malaria transmission in Tigray Region.'' He reportedly got his WHO job in 2017 via backing from Bill Gates, the largest private donor to WHO.

As Ethiopia Minister of Health in the Tigray-led dictatorship, Tedros was involved in a scandalous coverup of three major cholera outbreaks in the country in 2006, 2009 and 2011. An investigative report published by the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health found that during one major cholera outbreak, ''Despite laboratory identification of V cholerae as the cause of the acute watery diarrhea (AWD), the Government of Ethiopia (Tedros) decided not to declare a ''cholera outbreak'' for fear of economic repercussions resulting from trade embargos and decreased tourism. Further, the government, in disregard of International Health Regulations (WHO), continually refused to declare a cholera epidemic and largely declined international assistance.''

As Ethiopian Health and later Foreign Minister Tedros was accused of systematic ethnic cleansing against rival tribes in the country, especially Amharas, denying opposition supporters World Bank and other food aid, as well as nepotism, diversion of international funds for hospital construction into political support for his minority party. Ironically this is the opposite of the new WHO law Tedros backs today. On 22 September 2021 Merkel's Germany proposed Tedros for a further term without opposition.

WHO, Gates, GERM

A hint of what's in store under the new rules was given by WHO's largest donor (including his GAVI), the self-appointed ''Globalist Everything Czar'', Bill Gates. On his April 22 blog entry, Gates proposes something amusingly with the acronym GERM '-- Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization'--team. It would have a ''permanent organization of experts who are fully paid and prepared to mount a coordinated response to a dangerous outbreak at any time.'' He says his model is the Hollywood movie, Outbreak. ''The team's disease monitoring experts would look for potential outbreaks. Once it spots one, GERM should have the ability to declare an outbreak'...'' It would be coordinated by, of course, Tedros' WHO: ''The work would be coordinated by the WHO, the only group that can give it global credibility.''

A dystopian notion of what could take place is the ongoing fake ''Avian Flu'' epidemic, H5N1, that is causing tens of millions of chickens to be terminated worldwide if even one chick tests positive for the disease. The test is the same fraudulent PCR test used to detect COVID-19. Recently, Dr Robert Redfield, Trump's head of CDC, gave an interview where he ''predicted'' that Bird Flu will jump to humans and be highly fatal in the coming ''Great Pandemic,'' for which COVID-19 was a mere warm-up. Redfield declared in a March 2022 interview, ''I think we have to recognize '' I've always said that I think the COVID pandemic was a wakeup call. I don't believe it's the great pandemic. I believe the great pandemic is still in the future, and that's going to be a bird flu pandemic for man. It's gonna have significant mortality in the 10-50% range. It's gonna be trouble.'' Under the new WHO dictatorial powers, WHO could declare a health emergency on such a fraud regardless of contrary evidence.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine''New Eastern Outlook''

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:25

The suits are officially off the table until they figure out what went wrong.Watery GraveThe spacesuits that allow astronauts to venture outside of the International Space Station have been declared ''no-go'' for upcoming spacewalks.

That's because the suits' helmets keep filling with excess water, a potentially life threatening scenario astronauts have been battling with on multiple occasions, CBS reports.

The massive and unwieldy suits, referred to as ''extra-vehicular mobility units,'' (EMUs) aren't entirely off the table and could still be used in emergencies, according to NASA.

''Until we understand better what the causal factors might have been during the last EVA with our EMU, we are no-go for nominal [extra-vehicular activity],'' Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center, told reporters on Tuesday, as quoted by CBS. ''So we won't do a planned EVA until we've had a chance to really address and rule out major system failure modes.''

Blocked ViewThe news comes after several astronauts have had to deal with water flooding their helmets. A 2013 spacewalk had to be cut short, for instance, after European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet started filling with excess water.

Parmitano was at a real risk of drowning, with ''water covering his eyes, nose and ears,'' according to a NASA report filed at the time.

Since then, NASA has started using sponges called ''helmet absorption pads'' in the back of the helmet to keep excess water to a minimum.

While the Parmitano incident has yet to be repeated, NASA astronaut Kayla Barron recently found water inside German astronaut Matthias Maurer's helmet after he had performed a spacewalk in March.

''Roughly, maybe an eight- to 10-inch diameter circle, a thin film of water on the helmet,'' Barron reported at the time, as quoted by CBS. ''And there is water in his vent port at the back of his neck ring.''

Officials are now waiting to inspect Maurer's suit, which will make its way back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship in July, until they greenlight any future planned spacewalks.

Fortunately, officials ''haven't found anything unusual'' so far, according to Weigel. ''We're looking for any obvious signs of contamination or fouling or something else that might have gotten into our system.''

''We're not seeing that yet,'' she added.

READ MORE: Spacesuits aboard station declared a ''no-go'' pending analysis of recent helmet water leak [CBS]

More on space walks: Guy Snaps Photo of Space Station So Detailed You Can See Spacewalking Astronauts on Exterior

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:25

U.S. airlines facing a pilot shortage are considering measures that would make it easier to get pilots trained faster, including halving the number of flight hours needed to become a pilot.

The pilot shortage has led to flight cancellations across the country and airlines cutting regional planes, Business Insider reported.

''The pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren't enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years,'' United CEO Scott Kirby said in April during a quarterly earnings call, according to CNBC.

On May 13, Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci posted a YouTube video where he apologized for flight cancellations, saying ''we had 63 fewer pilots than what we planned for when we built our scheduled,'' which he said led to a ''ripple effect.''

''By the time we caught this error, April and May schedules were bid on by our pilots and flight attendants, making it impossible to sufficiently adjust schedules to avoid cancellations,'' he said in the video.

In order to address the pilot shortage, some U.S. carriers have announced they would reduce the requirements needed to become a pilot in order to get more into the air, such as ending degree requirements, halving the number of flight hours needed, and increasing the pilot retirement age from 65 to 67 '' a proposal Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is considering introducing in the U.S. Senate.

Delta made the announcement in January, saying it would increase pilot pay and offer large sign-on bonuses while at the same time eliminating the requirement that pilots have a four-year college degree, Insider reported at the time.

''While we feel as strongly as ever about the importance of education, there are highly qualified candidates '' people who we would want to welcome to our Delta family '' who have gained more than the equivalent of a college education through years of life and leadership experience,'' Delta announced. ''Making the four-year degree requirement preferred removes unintentional barriers to our Delta flight decks.''

Republic Airways, a regional carrier operating on behalf of Delta, American Airlines, and United Airlines, is making a similar move. The carrier asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April for permission to hire pilots out of their training academy when they have reached 750 flight hours, half the number currently required.

The proposal has some detractors, for sure. Families of the victims who died in the Colgan Air 3407 crash in 2009 have pushed back on the suggestion. That crash, the last fatal U.S. passenger commercial airline crash, according to CNBC, resulted in the 1,500 flight hours requirement.

And it's unclear whether the FAA would even approve Republic Airways' proposal, telling CNBC in a statement that ''While anyone can request an exemption, it does not mean it will be granted.

Insider noted that regional airlines are the hardest hit by the pilot shortage, since bigger airlines often hire their pilots. Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of Mesa Air Group, which operates on behalf of American and United, recently told CNBC that his airline ''could use 200 pilots right now,'' but that it takes 120 days to replace a pilot who has given their two weeks' notice.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:24

A few weeks ago, Exxon announced that it was banning the display of Pride and BLM flags at its headquarters in Houston. There was a ripple of unhappiness, but nothing was burned down, the media attention was muted, and the world went about its business as before.

Across the country, school board elections are tossing out woke ideologues and partisans of critical race theory and replacing what amounts to gay pornography in the curriculum with more wholesome fare. The Biden Administration keeps running into roadblocks, most recently a judicial order halting its efforts to rescind Title 42 , a Trump-era emergency order that turned away would-be immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. A few days ago, Biden's absurd Disinformation Governance Board was shuttered and its pathetic director, Nina Jankowicz, sucked back into the memory hole whence she came.

On Friday, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robbie Mook, testified that, what do you know, his former boss knew all about and in fact approved the spurious efforts to frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset, contrary to what she and her handlers have said ever since before Hunter Biden took his laptop to be repaired.

Then there is Elon Musk. I have long been a fan of this Rocket Man, notwithstanding his mantras about ''sustainable transport'' and other sops from the green agenda. Hitherto, my enthusiasm was for his technological prowess, his hard work, and his amazing products. Now I find myself applauding his political savvy and efforts on behalf of free speech. Princeton University and other one-party bastions of conformity and self-congratulation should ponder Musk's central observation about free speech: ''When it's someone you don't like saying something you don't like, that's when it actually matters.''

The world was stunned last month when Musk first took a 9.2 percent share in Twitter and then announced that he intended to buy the company outright. The anguished skirling of the Twitterati, alarmed that a platform advertised as promoting free expression might be forced to live up to its mission statement, was music to the ears of the unwoke who could hear the clock ticking on this enemy of consecutive thought and political maturity.

We haven't heard the last of them. Just as Musk predicted, his promise to restore free speech to Twitter'--even, dear God in heaven, to the extent of welcoming back Donald Trump to the platform'--sent them right around the bend. And Musk compounded his tort by admitting that he did not believe Twitter's declaration that ''5 percent or less'' of its apparent users were bots or spam.

And the hits just keep on coming. Not only is Musk looking into the question of Twitter's candor. He is also likely to decrease his offering price when he figures out just how many users are fake. If, he said in a recent interview , you were contemplating buying a house and the owner told you 5 percent of its structure had termites, that would be one thing. But if it turned out that 80 or 90 percent of the structure were infested, that would be something else entirely.

How much worse can it get for the entrenched forces of conformity? A lot worse. On top of everything else, Musk has just announced that he had moved from being a moderate Democrat to being a moderate Republican. ''Oh God, Oh God, Oh God: did you hear that, Mabel?''

''I've just switched from moderate D to moderate R,'' he tweeted , ''as I think many independent voters have done.'' Salt-in-the-wound time: ''We will know the magnitude of this trend in November. I think it's big.'' Me too.

Or perhaps I should say #MeToo. Musk predicted that attacks against him would escalate once his changed political feelings were made public. ''In the past I voted Democrat,'' he wrote on May 18 , ''because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.'' I liked that this was followed by a popcorn emoji. And indeed the dirty tricks are flowing in from all sides, the latest being an allegation by a flight attendant that Musk acted inappropriately back in 2016. The charge will not go anywhere'--Musk is robust in fighting false charges'--but perhaps it will fulfill one longstanding wish. ''If there's ever a scandal about me,'' he tweeted in March 2021, ''*please* call it Elongate.'' Let's do it!

The story of Elon Musk's growing political maturity is not a one-off or an individual data point. It is part of a process, a gathering sea change. What we are seeing is not so much a pendulum swinging back from the extremism of identity politics as the eruption throughout society of contrary fires. Elon Musk's coming of age is a sign or portent of a larger shift in the sensibility of our time. The shift won't happen all at once, and there will be hold-outs and reversals, but what we are witnessing is a sort of spiritual reveille, an awakening from wokeness. The extent of that awakening will not, as Musk said, be evident until the November election. Indeed, I predict that it won't be fully evident until the 2024 election when (further prediction) Donald Trump wins yet again, this time beyond the margin of fraud and dissimulation. Let's see if I am right.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:22

Australian voters ended nine years of conservative rule in the country's national elections Saturday, ousting Prime Minister Scott Morrison in favor of the center left Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, who has campaigned on promises to take tough action on climate change.

Early results showed the Labor Party winning 72 of the 76 seats needed to form a government as Morrison conceded defeat in the Liberal-National Coalition that he has led since 2018.

Albanese, 59, known as ''Albo,'' campaigned on improving free healthcare and advocating for the LGBT community.

Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese speaks to supporters on Sunday, May 22. APHe credits his progressive politics with being raised by a single mother on disability in public housing.

''Tonight, the Australian people have voted for change,'' Albanese said in his victory speech in Sydney.

Albanese celebrates with his partner Jodie Haydon, right, and Labor senate leader Penny Wong. AP Incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison concedes defeat Sunday. REUTERSHe continued: ''It says a lot about our great country that the son of a single mom who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown, can stand before you tonight as Australia's prime minister.''

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Sun, 22 May 2022 15:48

It's 2006. I'm on the school bus listening to my iPod, when on comes Johnny Cash's ''Hurt.'' The song begins softly, a wistful Cash singing of loss and regret over sparse acoustic plucking.

As a freshman in high school, I know nothing of the song's mature themes of aging and death. But about halfway through the song, something happens. The guitar and piano increase in volume, and Cash's voice starts to crescendo. I feel the hairs stand on the back of my neck. A warm shiver runs up my spine, and goosebumps appear on my arms. It feels like something important is happening. I don't know what exactly. But something is coming.

And the moment I expect the song will decrescendo, as it had in the previous chorus'... It doesn't. Cash's voice wails over a pounding piano and guitar that threatens to blow out my headphones.

Suddenly, my body is seized by a rapturous electricity; my mind is invigorated by an indescribable fusion of ecstasy, awe, despair, and longing. And in an instant, I realize something deep in my bones:

This is what it feels like to be alive.

The physiology of frissonThere is a word that describes this common human response to music '-- a word for ''that moment'' when a song pierces your body and soul. It's called ''frisson,'' and it's the reason why music from artists as seemingly disparate as Johnny Cash, Metallica, C(C)line Dion, and Mozart are all featured on a recently released, scientifically-backed playlist of songs that researchers claim are likely to give people ''chills.'' The 715-song playlist was curated by a team of neuroscientists and is available on Spotify.

''Frisson'' derives from French and is ''a sudden feeling or sensation of excitement, emotion or thrill,'' and the experience is not confined to music. Historically, frisson has been used interchangeably with the term ''aesthetic chills.''

According to a 2019 study, one can experience frisson when staring at a brilliant sunset or a beautiful painting; when realizing a deep insight or truth; when reading a particularly resonant line of poetry; or when watching the climax of a film.

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Researchers often describe frisson as a ''piloerection'' (or ''skin orgasm'') noting that the experience retains similar ''biological and psychological components to sexual orgasm.'' Some refer to frisson as ''pleasurable gooseflesh,'' while others maintain that the definition should expand ''to include other perceptible, non-dermal reactions such as tears, lump-in-throat sensations, and muscle tension/relaxation.''

While it is understood that appreciation of beauty is central to what makes us human, it is not clear to researchers what evolutionary advantage this sensitivity could have given our species. The current consensus is that it has something to do with our need to understand our environment:

''Aesthetic chills correspond to a satisfaction of humans' internal drive to acquire knowledge about the external world and perceive objects and situations as meaningful. In humans, this need to explore and understand environmental conditions is a biological prerequisite for survival.''

What causes frisson?In his 2006 book Sweet Anticipation, musicologist David Huron offers a compelling explanation for why we experience such powerful responses to music. He calls it ''contrastive valence theory,'' in which feeling states are strongly influenced by contrast.

''If we initially feel bad, and then we feel good, the good feeling tends to be stronger than if the good experience occurred without the preceding bad feeling.'' This is due to a regulatory process called ''cognitive appraisal,'' in which our minds use cognitive and linguistic processes to reframe the meaning of a stimulus. Huron uses the idea of a surprise party to illustrate this phenomenon:

''When a person is unexpectedly surprised by her friends, the ¬rst response is one of terror: her eyelids retract and her jaw drops. But within half a second, fear is replaced by happy celebration as the individual recognizes her friends and the positive social meaning of the event.''

According to Huron, when the appraisal response confirms that there is no threat, contrastive valence transforms the negative feelings into something positive.

Consider Metallica's ''Master of Puppets'' (one of three Metallica songs featured on the curated playlist). It is understandable if your immediate emotional reaction to the song's shocking intro is one of fear and foreboding. But thanks to ''cognitive reappraisal,'' that initial adrenaline rush can be transformed into something positive when you realize that you are safe, and that it is music making you feel this way.

Also, notice how this experience is related to how our brains anticipate. This ties into Huron's larger argument in Sweet Anticipation, which is built upon ideas popularized by renowned music psychologist Leonard Meyer.

The emotional power of violated expectationsAccording to an article in Frontiers in Psychology, ''Expectancy violations (e.g., harmonic, rhythmic, and/or melodic violations) are strongly correlated to the onset of musical frisson, such that some level of violated expectation may be a prerequisite.''

Our minds, which evolved to predict future outcomes to ensure our survival, are always anticipating how something will play out. And when our initial predictions are wrong, depending on the situation, we can feel anything from anger to surprise to frisson.

Thinking back to my experience of listening to Johnny Cash, it was at the precise moment the song ''violated my expectations'' that I felt frisson. When I anticipated that the song would decrescendo, it crescendoed even more. And, as Huron's book discusses, the most reliable indicator of musical frisson is an increase in loudness.

Other reliable indicators include the entry of one or more instruments or voices; an abrupt change of tempo or rhythm; a new or unexpected harmony; and abrupt modulation. Music psychologist John Sloboda found that the most common types of musical phrases to elicit frisson were ''chord progressions descending the circle of fifths to the tonic.'' This is a deeply affecting chord progression common in many of Mozart's compositions.

Some researchers have also noted how the ''human scream'' can induce musical frisson. Huron writes:

''The adult human scream displays a disproportionate amount of energy in the broad 0-6 kHz region, where human hearing is best. A human scream is the sound humans can hear at the greatest distance.''

There are few things more powerful (or traumatic) than a human scream, and professor William O. Beeman, in his work Making Grown Men Weep, notes how professional singers (particularly opera singers) exploit this auditory sensitivity.

Consider the soaring choruses in Celine Dion's ''My Heart Will Go On'' or Adele's ''Hello'' or John Lennon's screams on The Beatles' ''Twist & Shout'' (all featured on the playlist). Or listen to Merry Clayton's legendary backing vocals on the Rolling Stones' ''Gimme Shelter.''

On YouTube, there is a clip from the 2013 film 20 Feet From Stardom in which Clayton's vocal track is isolated. If you scan the comments section, you will see many people citing Clayton's vocal as the reason behind the song's power '-- particularly the accidental crack in her voice as she screams ''murder.'' Her howls are activating a primal response in us.

It should be noted that there are many different disciplines outside of evolutionary biology that offer compelling explanations of frisson, ranging from the anthropological (Jeanette Bicknell's Why Music Moves Us) to the ethnomusicological (Judith Becker's Deep Listeners) to the psychosocial study of ''emotional contagion'' (Patrik Juslin's ''Toward a Unified Theory of Musical Emotions'').

And Huron's ''Contrastive Valence Theory'' can help us better understand what is going on behind the scenes when we experience this profound emotional state.

By stimulating and exploiting our primitive threat-detection systems, music activates deeply embedded neural networks that have evolved over millions of years. It's no wonder why we feel songs so deeply in our core: Music reminds us what it is like to be alive.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 15:19

The puzzling coronavirus cases highlight ongoing surveillance challenges and blind spots.

Mink were collected for culling because of coronavirus fears on a farm in Naestved, Denmark, in November 2020. Credit... Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix, via Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images May 22, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

In late September of 2020, captive mink on a farm in Michigan suddenly fell ill. They stopped eating, struggled to breathe and bled from the nose, according to a report from the World Organization for Animal Health. Two thousand animals died.

Laboratory testing soon confirmed that the mink were infected with the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatched a team of outbreak investigators, who collaborated with other agencies to swab mink, farm workers and a menagerie of other animals, from rats to raccoons, to determine how the virus had spread.

''We tried to leave no stone unturned,'' said Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who directs the C.D.C.'s One Health Office.

Last month, the C.D.C. confirmed that four Michigan residents, including two farm employees, had been infected with the same unique coronavirus variant that was found in the mink. It was the first, and so far only, known instance of possible animal-to-human transmission in the United States.

But many questions remain: When, and in whom, did the variant first emerge? How did a taxidermist with no connection to the farm contract it? Could there be a link between the Michigan mink outbreak and a white-tailed deer variant that scientists recently discovered in neighboring Ontario?

''It really feels very much like a puzzle,'' said Dr. Samira Mubareka, a virologist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and the University of Toronto. ''It's not just pieces that are missing '-- it's contiguous, interlocking pieces that are missing.''

Since the early days of the pandemic, when the coronavirus tore through fur farms, scientists have worried that mink might become a long-term reservoir for the virus and a potential source of new variants.

To date, coronavirus infections have been detected in mink on 18 American farms, the most recent in Wisconsin in February. Even as Congress considers a ban on mink farming, there is still no national system for proactive surveillance on mink farms, which are not required to report cases to federal authorities. And officials have not released much information about the outbreak investigations they have conducted; some of those details are reported here for the first time.

Together, the secrecy and spotty surveillance make it difficult to determine how much of a risk mink farms pose, scientists say. And it threatens to leave experts blind to the emergence of worrisome new variants that could spill back into humans, extending the pandemic.

''Combined with a desperate need for better more systematic surveillance in humans and animals, we could really benefit from increased transparency regarding spillover and spillback risk,'' said Vivek Kapur, a veterinary microbiologist at Penn State University.

The investigation Image A member of a cleanup and culling operation for mink in Denmark in 2020. Credit... Morten Stricker/Ritzau Scanpix, via Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images The Netherlands and Denmark were the first countries to report mink farm outbreaks, in the spring and summer of 2020. Scientists pieced together an unsettling chain of events: It appeared that humans had transmitted the virus to mink; that the virus had mutated as it moved among the mink, and that the animals then spread the altered virus back to humans.

''All of that jumping back and forth over the fence is what we saw,'' said Dr. Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam. ''And that's something that, as a virologist, you don't really like.''

The Netherlands and Denmark took ''quick and decisive'' action, said Adriana Diaz, a doctoral student at the University of London who studied these responses. Dutch authorities conducted antibody testing on all farms and required farmers to report respiratory symptoms in mink and regularly submit carcasses for examination. Still, the virus proved difficult to control, and both nations ultimately shuttered their mink farms.

The United States took a different tack, developing a set of voluntary guidelines to help farmers keep the virus at bay, including asking farm workers to wear masks and notifying authorities of suspected cases.

But there was no national screening program and federal officials relied upon farm owners to self-report outbreaks. ''All of our federal surveillance efforts are voluntary,'' said Dr. Tracey Dutcher, the science and biodefense coordinator for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.

The C.D.C. investigated outbreaks only when officially invited. Some owners of affected farms declined to participate, and field teams only performed on-site investigations on eight farms, Dr. Barton Behravesh said.

On the Michigan farm, C.D.C. investigators worked with the U.S.D.A. and state agencies to test humans and animals for the virus. They collected swabs and samples from 159 mink on the farm; all but two were actively infected, Dr. Barton Behravesh said.

None of the other animals tested around the farm '-- two dogs, a cat, raccoons, opossums, striped skunks, rats, groundhogs and rabbits '-- were infected, but one dog tested positive for antibodies, officials said.

Two of the farm's employees were infected with the same version of the virus that was spreading among the mink. The variant had two mutations that had also been found in farmed mink in Europe and in people connected to mink farms.

Officials found the same mutations in a sample collected from another Michigan resident nearly two months after the mink outbreak and then in a fourth person connected to that resident. The third case was a local taxidermist, according to internal health department emails obtained by the Documenting Covid-19 Project and the Detroit Free Press, and the fourth case was the man's wife, the organizations later reported. (Michigan's Department of Health & Human Services declined to confirm these details for privacy reasons.) Neither had any known connection to the mink farm.

Unanswered questions Image A deer in a research facility at Texas A&M University. Studies have shown deer to have picked up the coronavirus from humans, who in theory could pass it back to deer. Credit... Sergio Flores for The New York Times These findings suggest a likely scenario, experts said: A person passed the virus to the mink, and the mutations emerged as the virus spread among the animals, which then transmitted them back to the farm workers. ''We concluded that there was likely mink-to-person spread on this particular Michigan farm,'' Dr. Barton Behravesh said.

But determining when, and in whom, the mutations first appeared requires many more virus samples from farm workers, local residents and mink, collected before and after the outbreak. ''That data doesn't exist,'' said Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan.

Throughout 2020, testing was difficult for Americans to access and few patient samples were being sequenced. Surveillance in animals was even worse; until this spring, federal officials explicitly recommended against routinely testing animals for the virus.

''Widespread testing wasn't available, then there became a shortage of certain supplies,'' Dr. Behravesh said. ''So we didn't want there to be, you know, a mad rush to test animals.''

Without more samples, it's impossible to rule out the possibility that the variant emerged in humans, who then spread it to mink, scientists said.

A bigger puzzle is how the taxidermist and his wife got it. The most likely possibility, several experts said, is that the variant was circulating more widely in the human population than was known, and the couple caught it from another infected person.

Another, more speculative, possibility is that they picked up the variant from another animal species. ''Taxidermists deal with other dead animals,'' said Linda Saif, a virologist and immunologist at Ohio State University.

But because the cases were detected ''weeks to months'' after the two fell ill, testing any animals they may have been in contact with ''was either not feasible or not indicated,'' said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the Michigan D.H.H.S.

The pair also had close contact with deer while hunting ''on or very near to their own illness onset dates,'' according to the health department emails obtained by the Documenting Covid-19 Project and the Free Press.

Studies suggest that humans have repeatedly introduced the virus to white-tailed deer, which then transmit it easily among themselves. People could have passed the mink variant to deer, which might have transmitted it to the taxidermist and his wife. ''Given the very high viral burdens that have been noted in white-tailed deer, the spillover to them could certainly have occurred from the deer,'' Dr. Kapur said.

Alternately, deer might have picked up the virus directly from infected mink, which have been known to escape from farms. Feral cats on mink farms have also tested positive for the virus and may act as vectors between captive mink and wildlife.

Or deer might come into contact with mink farm waste, Dr. Kapur said. On farms with outbreaks, airborne dust, as well as the straw and hay that the mink bed down on, can be highly contaminated with virus, Dutch researchers found.

Another finding makes a potential deer link intriguing, scientists said. Canadian researchers recently detected a unique coronavirus variant circulating in deer in southwestern Ontario. Although the deer variant was strikingly different from other known variants, the closest matches were viral samples collected from people and mink in Michigan in late 2020.

One possibility, still theoretical, is that whatever version of the virus was circulating among mink and humans made its way into deer, where it evolved into a new variant. ''There could be interactions and interspecies transmission that have been cryptic and we haven't really picked up on ,'' said Dr. Mubareka, an author of the Ontario study.

Dr. Banerjee was skeptical that deer played a role in the case of the taxidermist and his wife. ''I think that's just speculation at best,'' he said. But he acknowledged that the data are so sparse that many possibilities remain. ''Are there other animals we are missing?'' he asked.

Image Mink on a farm in Wisconsin, prior to the pandemic. Some officials say the mink risk had diminished, with just two U.S. mink farms reporting infected animals after 2020. Credit... Sara Stathas/Alamy Even the data that exist are not always clear-cut. As part of another investigation in the fall of 2020, the U.S.D.A. tested a dozen cattle on a Wisconsin mink farm with a coronavirus outbreak. Although the cattle tested negative for the virus, three had low levels of antibodies, said Travis Weger, a U.S.D.A. spokesperson.

However, these findings ''did not meet the criteria for a positive result,'' Mr. Weger said in an email, and could have been triggered by antibodies to other coronaviruses known to infect cattle. Experimental studies suggest that cattle are not susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, he added.

Still, outside experts said that it is difficult to draw conclusions without more analysis '-- and that the findings suggest a need to monitor livestock, especially as new variants emerge.

Some also expressed concern that officials have not disclosed these and other findings from the mink investigations.

Dr. Barton Behravesh, of the C.D.C., said that the viral sequences obtained during the investigations are available on GISAID, a repository of viral genomes, and that more details would eventually be published in scientific journals.

The U.S.D.A. is using funding from the American Rescue Plan to ramp up animal surveillance and would like to do more active monitoring on mink farms, Dr. Dutcher said: ''We're still working through some of the questions and conversations with industry.''

Although the U.S.D.A has no reports of active outbreaks after 2020, mink infections can be silent. Researchers found antibodies in mink on a Wisconsin farm in February 2022 and on a farm in another, unnamed state in May 2021. There was no evidence of symptomatic outbreaks on either farm, which had supplied samples from healthy animals for research, Mr. Weger said in an email.

But the presence of antibodies suggests that the virus spread on the farms undetected.

''Without surveillance, how would you know?'' said Dr. Jim Keen, the director of veterinary sciences at the Center for a Humane Economy, a nonprofit animal welfare organization that supports banning mink farming in the United States.

Some mink herds have now been vaccinated, which might help slow transmission on farms. But vaccination could make infections more likely to be asymptomatic, Dr. Keen said.

The United States should be regularly testing both mink and farm employees, sequencing positive samples and communicating the results in a timely way, Ms. Diaz said.

As new variants emerge, some perhaps capable of infecting new species, ongoing surveillance is needed to understand the ''web of transmission that may be going on with wildlife, farmed animals and humans,'' Dr. Saif said. ''If you don't look for something, you're not going to find it.''

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:28

Oliver Wendell Holmes made the analogy during a controversial Supreme Court case that was overturned more than 40 years ago.

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Ninety-three years ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote what is perhaps the most well-known -- yet misquoted and misused -- phrase in Supreme Court history: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

Without fail, whenever a free speech controversy hits, someone will cite this phrase as proof of limits on the First Amendment. And whatever that controversy may be, "the law"--as some have curiously called it--can be interpreted to suggest that we should err on the side of censorship. Holmes' quote has become a crutch for every censor in America, yet the quote is wildly misunderstood.

The latest example comes from New York City councilmen Peter Vallone, who declared yesterday "Everyone knows the example of yelling fire in a crowded movie theater," as he called for charges against pseudonymous Twitter @ComfortablySmug for spreading false information during Hurricane Sandy. Other commentators have endorsed Vallone's suggestions, citing the same quote as established precedent.

In the last few years, the quote has reared its head on countless occasions. In September, commentators pointed to it when questioning whether the controversial anti-Muslim video should be censored. Before that, it was invoked when a crazy pastor threatened to burn Qurans. Before that, the analogy was twisted to call for charges against WikiLeaks for publishing classified information. The list goes on.

But those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they'd realize it was never binding law, and the underlying case, U.S. v. Schenck, is not only one of the most odious free speech decisions in the Court's history, but was overturned over 40 years ago.

First, it's important to note U.S. v. Schenck had nothing to do with fires or theaters or false statements. Instead, the Court was deciding whether Charles Schenck, the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft during World War I. As the ACLU's Gabe Rottman explains, "It did not call for violence. It did not even call for civil disobedience."

The Court's description of the pamphlet proves it to be milder than any of the dozens of protests currently going on around this country every day:

It said, "Do not submit to intimidation," but in form, at least, confined itself to peaceful measures such as a petition for the repeal of the act. The other and later printed side of the sheet was headed "Assert Your Rights."

The crowded theater remark that everyone remembers was an analogy Holmes made before issuing the court's holding. He was explaining that the First Amendment is not absolute. It is what lawyers call dictum, a justice's ancillary opinion that doesn't directly involve the facts of the case and has no binding authority. The actual ruling, that the pamphlet posed a "clear and present danger" to a nation at war, landed Schenk in prison and continued to haunt the court for years to come.

Two similar Supreme Court cases decided later the same year--Debs v. U.S. and Frohwerk v. U.S.--also sent peaceful anti-war activists to jail under the Espionage Act for the mildest of government criticism. (Read Ken White's excellent, in-depth dissection of these cases.) Together, the trio of rulings did more damage to First Amendment as any other case in the 20th century.

In 1969, the Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio effectively overturned Schenck and any authority the case still carried. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" (emphasis mine).

Today, despite the "crowded theater" quote's legal irrelevance, advocates of censorship have not stopped trotting it out as thefinal word on the lawful limits of the First Amendment. As Rottman wrote, for this reason, it's "worse than useless in defining the boundaries of constitutional speech. When used metaphorically, it can be deployed against any unpopular speech." Worse, its advocates are tacitly endorsing one of the broadest censorship decisions ever brought down by the Court. It is quite simply, as Ken White calls it, "the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech."

Even Justice Holmes may have quickly realized the gravity of his opinions in Schneck and its companion cases. Later in the same term, Holmes suddenly dissented in a similar case, Abrams vs. United States, which sent Russian immigrants to jail under the Espionage Act. It would become the first in a long string of dissents Holmes and fellow Justice Louis Brandeis would write in defense of free speech that collectively laid the groundwork for Court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s that shaped the First Amendment jurisprudence of today.

In what would become his second most famous phrase, Holmes wrote in Abrams that the marketplace of ideas offered the best solution for tamping down offensive speech: "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out."

In @ComfortablySmug's case during Hurricane Sandy, that is exactly what happened. Within minutes of sending out his false tweets, journalists discovered he was spreading rumors and quickly corrected the record, sounding the alarm not to trust his information. Regardless, no one was hurt because of his misinformation. The next day, @ComfortablySmug (whose real name is Shashank Tripathi) apologized and resigned from his job as the campaign manager of a House Republican candidate in New York in response to the public's reaction to his actions.

The truth prevailed, not through forcing censorship or jailing a person for speaking, but through the overwhelming counterbalance of more speech. As Holmes said after his soliloquy in Abrams, "That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution."

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:16

Unilever is pushing for each of its 400 brands to have a social or environmental purpose. So far, investors aren't encouraged.

What is the point of mayonnaise? At one of the world's largest consumer-products companies, it's no longer just about sandwiches and potato salad.

Ads for Hellmann's once focused on taste, spreadability and ingredients. Now the brand is on a mission to curb food waste'--part of Unilever PLC's push to give each of its 400 brands a social or environmental purpose. A Hellmann's Super Bowl spot this year showed former New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo tackling people on the verge of throwing out food.

The...

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What is the point of mayonnaise? At one of the world's largest consumer-products companies, it's no longer just about sandwiches and potato salad.

Ads for Hellmann's once focused on taste, spreadability and ingredients. Now the brand is on a mission to curb food waste'--part of Unilever PLC's push to give each of its 400 brands a social or environmental purpose. A Hellmann's Super Bowl spot this year showed former New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo tackling people on the verge of throwing out food.

The brands-with-purpose strategy has become a centerpiece for Unilever since Alan Jope took over as chief executive in 2019. The Scottish marketeer defines purpose as having a point of view on issues important to the planet or society. He has said the U.K.-based company could sell brands for which it can't identify a mission.

And so Knorr, a 150-year-old brand best known for its bouillon cubes, now wants people to diversify their diets with more plant-based foods, such as white icicle radish and an Ethiopian grain called teff, for better nutrition and less environmental impact.

Ice cream brand Wall's, originally from England, says it is committed to raising national happiness levels. ''Nobody can be grumpy while eating an ice cream,'' its website notes.

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Vaseline petroleum jelly is helping refugees suffering from skin problems. Dove has successfully helped push for laws to prohibit discrimination against people based on their hair texture or style.

''We've organized all of our priorities in the company around three very deeply held beliefs: that brands with purpose grow, that companies with purpose last, and that people with purpose thrive,'' Mr. Jope told investors shortly after becoming CEO. He has said that brands with purpose increase sales twice as fast as those without.

How's it going so far? Unilever's share price and sales growth have lagged behind those of rivals Nestle SA, L'Or(C)al SA and Procter & Gamble Co. in recent years.

Some analysts, investors and former executives say that rather than talking about purpose, Unilever should put greater emphasis on shifting its portfolio toward faster-growing categories and on developing new products. Scrutiny has grown since Unilever walked away from its rebuffed $68 billion bid for GlaxoSmithKline

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PLC's consumer-healthcare business earlier this year, after investors and analysts questioned the price and strategic fit.

''A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann's mayonnaise has in our view clearly lost the plot,'' Terry Smith, chief executive of Fundsmith, one of Unilever's largest shareholders, wrote in his annual letter to investors in January. Unilever, he added, ''is obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals of the business.''

With mounting investor criticism, Mr. Jope has toned down his rhetoric on purpose lately. A person familiar with the CEO's thinking said that Mr. Jope sees his early rhapsodizing about purpose, without expressly linking the financial benefits, as a mistake.

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''It is the icing on the cake. It is not the cake,'' Mr. Jope said on a February call with reporters. ''We also want to be absolutely clear that purpose isn't a substitute for having fantastic quality, innovation, advertising and distribution.''

Although Unilever is unusual in applying the purpose strategy across its global portfolio of food, home and personal-care products, many big multinationals are now positioning their brands behind social and environmental issues, hitting on themes such as Black Lives Matter, refugee rights, gender equality, LGBTQ rights and climate change in their ads.

Companies say taking a stance helps them attract top talent. Workers, especially young ones, increasingly expect their employers to reflect their own values. Consumers can respond, too. Surveys have found that people are increasingly willing to use or drop brands based on a company's response to calls for racial justice.

There can be risks, as Walt Disney Co. found after taking a stand against Florida's recently passed Parental Rights in Education bill, which critics call the ''Don't Say Gay'' bill. In response, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that would terminate the company's special tax district. The bill reflects a growing critique from some conservatives who say that companies are promoting liberal social values, which demands a response.

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Unilever has long prided itself on social responsibility. During its early days as a soap maker in the late 19th century, founder William Lever built a village for his workers in northwest England, with houses, welfare programs, a hospital and schools. In modern times, the company has been a vocal advocate for issues such as cutting carbon emissions, not testing on animals and reducing plastic waste.

Mr. Jope, who started at Unilever as a marketing trainee in 1985 and rose to head its personal-care business, took the initiative further when he became CEO in 2019. ''We're going to put purpose end-to-end throughout our organization. It is the fuse for our brands, it is the inspiration for our people,'' he said at his first investor seminar after taking the helm.

In prepared remarks alone, the word ''purpose'' was mentioned 87 times at the seminar. Some analysts wanted to hear more about growth drivers and cost savings.

Mr. Jope capped his first year as CEO with a profit warning that wiped more than $6 billion off Unilever's market capitalization in a single day. He remained undeterred and said his purpose strategy would keep brands relevant, attract talent and drive sales.

He regularly holds up Dove as an example. In 2004, Dove began running ads for a skin-firming cream that showed everyday women in their underwear. The subsequent ''real beauty'' campaign depicting women of different sizes, ages and races in a category whose ads are dominated by images of models helped Dove become one of Unilever's most profitable and recognized brands.

''Dove was just a cleansing bar. It didn't have any divine right to be special,'' said Peter Dart, who led advertising giant WPP PLC's work for Unilever for nearly two decades, until 2019. ''It organically and smartly developed a purpose.''

More recently, Dove has helped promote the Crown Act, which would ban discrimination against people, including at work or school, based on their hairstyle or texture. The act was passed by the House of Representatives in March, and similar legislation has passed in a string of states.

Dove's sales rose 8% in 2021, its fastest growth in eight years, which Unilever credited partly to its purpose marketing. The companywide growth rate was 4.5%.

Purpose hasn't come as easily to ice cream brand Magnum. U.S. employees spent hours brainstorming with outside marketing firms seeking a purpose for the product last year, according to a person who worked on the effort. Executives explored ideas including unapologetic indulgence and self expression, but struggled to link them to an obvious social mission, the person said.

In Europe, Magnum rolled out a ''true to pleasure'' campaign and ran into trouble after an ad compared the guilty pleasure of eating an ice cream to a gay relationship in countries where it is illegal.

The U.S. team balked at using the tagline because Magnum is also the name of a condom brand.

Breyers ice cream similarly is still looking for its purpose after months of toying with ideas such as supporting American dairy farmers, according to a person familiar with the matter. Klondike has considered the idea that everyone needs a break.

Deodorant brand Axe once relied on sexually charged ads featuring women wowed by the ''Axe effect.'' It ditched the spots in 2016 when Mr. Jope was Unilever's personal-care head and switched to ads urging consumers to shed traditional notions of masculinity.

One early ad showed men asking if it was OK to be skinny, depressed, scared or a virgin. Euromonitor data shows that Axe's U.S. market share declined between 2018 and 2020 from 8.9% to 7.8%.

Unilever executives say the brand lost fun and got too heavy. Mr. Jope has defended Axe, saying new campaigns need years of consistency to sink in with consumers. Last year, Unilever brought back the ''Axe effect'' tagline.

In India, Unilever's second-largest market behind the U.S., Cornetto ice cream spent years making ads about young romance. Then local executives were told the brand's new global purpose was encouraging happiness. ''We pushed back, saying we can't move from romance to happiness just so we can align purposes globally,'' said Himanshu Kanwar, Unilever's general manager for ice cream in India until last year. The company allowed the local team to decide when to implement the global purpose, Mr. Kanwar said.

To determine whether a brand has a purpose, the company polls consumers on whether they think it is benefiting society or the planet. Whether that lifts sales is an open question.

''Purpose is a very abstract concept,'' says Rahul Shah, who until last year ran Unilever's ice cream home-delivery business and now works for a startup in Austin, Texas. ''It's very difficult to simply attribute sales growth to just general advertising, let alone purpose-led marketing,'' he said.

Stan Sthanunathan, who last year retired as head of Unilever's consumer insights team, said the company's talk about purpose belies how much its brands spend on advertising more straightforward product benefits. Even Dove advertises more about soft skin than it talks about purpose, he said. Brands with a purpose that resonates with consumers stand out from rivals, command a price premium and help rally employees, he said.

Whether purpose drives sales is ''a million-dollar question,'' he said. ''This isn't a 100% foolproof methodology or anything.''

Unilever attributes Hellmann's recent sales growth to the brand's food-waste campaign, but the company has also invested in a vegan option and in new flavors it says have done well. Euromonitor data shows its global market share dropped to 17.5% in 2021 from 19.9% five years earlier.

Mr. Jope has listed examples of purposeful brands'--such as sprays being used to clean mosques in Indonesia during Ramadan'--that some marketers have said sound like standard business these days. Others, such as Popsicle's campaign to encourage play, are just ''a standard emotional marketing strategy,'' according to Peter Field, a London-based marketing consultant.

Sean Gogarty, a former Unilever marketing executive who now consults for the company, said many brands don't robustly test whether their adopted purpose will translate into stronger consumer engagement, and fail to differentiate their brands.

Unilever's Sunsilk shampoo wants to ''inspire girls to dream of a future full of possibility.'' Clinic Plus shampoo wants mothers to encourage their daughters to be strong. Lux soap wants women to ''express their beauty and femininity unapologetically.''

Mr. Jope has hailed Ben & Jerry's, which supports causes including climate justice and refugee rights, as one of the best examples of a purposeful brand.

But Unilever's hold over Ben & Jerry's decisions is minimal because a 2000 acquisition agreement allows the brand to retain decision-making about its social mission. Lately, Mr. Jope has publicly disapproved of some of its pronouncements.

Those include a 2018 anti-Trump campaign featuring a flavor called Pecan Resist, a tweet saying President Biden was fanning the flames of war by sending troops to Europe in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a decision last year to stop selling in Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The latter triggered several pension funds to sell shares in Unilever.

The brand's sales grew 9% last year. When asked on a February call with reporters whether Ben & Jerry's recent political stances helped, Mr. Jope attributed the gains to innovation instead.

Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:15

The world has just 10 weeks' worth of wheat stockpiled after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine disrupted supplies from the "breadbasket of Europe".

The UN has been warned that global wheat inventories have fallen to their lowest level since 2008 as food supplies are rocked by a ''one-in-a-generation occurrence''.

Official government estimates put world wheat inventories at 33pc of annual consumption, but stocks may have slumped to as low as 20pc, according to agricultural data firm Gro Intelligence. It estimates that there are only 10 weeks of global wheat supply left in stockpiles.

Russia and Ukraine account for around a quarter of the world's wheat exports and the West fears Mr Putin is trying to weaponise food supplies. Russia is on track for a strong wheat harvest this year, cementing Mr Putin's control over the staple grain as bad weather spoils production in Europe and the US.

Gro Intelligence chief executive Sara Menker warned global food supplies are being hit by a number of ''extraordinary'' challenges, including fertiliser shortages, climate disruptions and record low inventories of cooking oils and grains.

She told the UN's Security Council: ''Without substantial immediate and aggressive coordinated global actions, we stand the risk of an extraordinary amount of both human suffering and economic damage.

''This isn't cyclical, this is seismic. It's a once-in-a-generation occurrence that can dramatically reshape the geopolitical era.''

The war has disrupted agricultural production in the region and sent global food prices soaring to a record high, stoking fears of unrest in developing countries. The crisis in wheat has been worsened by India, the world's second largest producer, banning exports of the cereal and higher costs for farmers from fertiliser, feed and fuel.

Western officials also fear the Russian president is deliberately trying to damage global food supplies by destroying equipment and stealing grain in Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned of ''apocalyptic'' food price rises as Ukraine struggles to export products.

''Ukraine does have food in store but it can't get it out at the moment,'' he told MPs on the Treasury Committee.

''That is a major worry. It is not just a major worry for this country, it is a major worry for the developing world.''

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that Mr Putin is ''using food as a weapon''.

''The food supply for millions of Ukrainians and millions more around the world has quite literally been held hostage.''

He added: ''Some 20m tons of grain sit unused in Ukrainian silos as global food supply dwindle (and) prices skyrocket.''

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is tightening its grip on wheat supplies after a stronger harvest. Carlos Mera, head of agri commodities research at Rabobank, said mild conditions in Russia '' which accounts for about a fifth of global wheat exports '' had put it on track to produce 84.9m metric tonnes of the staple grain this year.

Conditions for Western growers have been poor due to dry conditions.

America's southern plains region, as the bottom of the "Wheat Belt" that runs through the middle of the country, has been experiencing sustained drought conditions.

In a report earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture forecast a major decline in wheat stocks, saying they will drop 6pc to a nine-year low of 16.8 million tonnes by the end of 2022/23.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:09

In recent days, concern over a global outbreak of monkeypox, a mild disease related to smallpox and chickenpox, has been hyped in the media and health ministries around the world, even prompting an emergency meeting at the World Health Organization (WHO). For some, fears have centered around monkeypox being the potential ''next pandemic'' after Covid-19. For others, the fear is that monkeypox will be used as the latest excuse to further advance draconian biosecurity policies and global power grabs.

Regardless of how the monkeypox situation plays out, two companies are already cashing in. As concern over monkeypox has risen, so too have the shares of Emergent Biosolutions and SIGA Technologies. Both companies essentially have monopolies in the US market, and other markets as well, on smallpox vaccines and treatments. Their main smallpox-focused products are, conveniently, also used to protect against or treat monkeypox as well. As a result, the shares of Emergent Biosolutions climbed 12% on Thursday, while those of SIGA soared 17.1%.

For these companies, the monkeypox fears are a godsend, specifically for SIGA, which produces a smallpox treatment, known by its brand name TPOXX. It is SIGA's only product. While some outlets have noted that the rise in the valuation of SIGA Technologies has coincided with recent concerns about monkeypox, essentially no attention has been given to the fact that the company is apparently the only piece of a powerful billionaire's empire that isn't currently crumbling.

That billionaire, ''corporate raider'' Ron Perelman, has deep and controversial ties to the Clinton family and the Democratic party as well as troubling ties to Jeffery Epstein. Aside from his controlling stake in SIGA, Perelman has recently made headlines for rapidly liquidating many of his assets in a desperate bid for cash.

Similarly, Emergent Biosolutions has also been in hot water. The company, which has troubling ties to the 2001 Anthrax attacks, came under fire just under two weeks ago for engaging in a ''cover up'' over quality control issues relating to their production of Covid-19 vaccines. A Congressional investigation found that quality control concerns at an Emergent-run facility led to more than 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines being discarded. The Emergent factory in question had been shut down by the FDA in April 2021. They were allowed to reopen last August before the government terminated the contract. Given that the majority of the company's business is tied to US government contracts, the loss of this contract, and the accompanying poor publicity, the news that its smallpox vaccine may soon be of international interest is likely seen as a godsend by the company.

Notably, this the second time in a year that both companies have benefitted from pandemic or bioterror fears propagated by the media. Last November, speculation rose that a re-emergence of the eradicated virus that causes smallpox would soon take place. This first began with Bill Gates' comments on the prospects of smallpox bioterrorism during a November 4th, 2021 interview and was followed by the November 16th announcement of a CDC/FBI investigation into 15 suspicious vials labeled ''smallpox'' at a Merck facility in Philadelphia. Now, roughly six months later, the same fears are again paying off for the same two companies.

A Killer EnterpriseEmergent Biosolution was previously known as BioPort. The company was founded by Fuad el-Hibri, a Lebanese businessman, who leveraged his contacts with powerful US former military officials and politicians, to take control of a flailing Michigan factory. It was the only factory authorized to produce an anthrax vaccine.

The anthrax vaccine was known to have major problems even before BioPort had acquired it, and is believed by many investigators to be one of the main causes of ''Gulf War'' syndrome. The vaccine itself, originally developed at Fort Detrick, had little to no safety track record at the time it was administered to US troops in the First Gulf War '' a problem that was never remedied. However, its chronic safety issues and its clumsy, multi-dose regimen would later prompt BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions to spend years developing a new formulation of its anthrax vaccine.

The creation of BioPort coincided with the Clinton administration's efforts to mandate the anthrax vaccine for all members of the US Armed Forces. With control over the only source of anthrax vaccine, BioPort was poised to make a killing.

Once the company acquired the Michigan facility, it took large amounts of US government funds, ostensibly to make improvements at the site. However, the company declined to use the funds to make the necessary repairs, instead spending that money on its executives' offices, as opposed to the vaccine factory, and millions more on bonuses for ''senior management.'' Pentagon auditors would later find that still millions more had gone ''missing'' and BioPort's staff were unaware of the cost of producing a single dose of the vaccine. Despite the clear mismanagement and corruption, BioPort demanded to be bailed out by the Pentagon, and they were. Meanwhile, the Michigan facility lost its license after a government inspection found numerous safety issues.

However, by August 2001, BioPort stood to lose the Pentagon contracts '' its only source of income. The Pentagon began preparing a report, due to be released in September 2001, that would detail a plan for letting BioPort go. Thanks to the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, that report was never released. Shortly thereafter, the 2001 anthrax attacks began.

Just months before, BioPort had contracted Battelle Memorial Institute to help rescue its flailing vaccine program. The deal gave Battelle ''immediate exposure to the vaccine'' and it was used in connection with the Pentagon-funded, gain-of-function anthrax program that involved both Ken Alibek and William C. Patrick III, two bioweapons experts with deep ties to the CIA. That program was housed at Battelle's West Jefferson facility in Ohio. That facility is believed by many investigators to be the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks.

The ensuing panic from the anthrax attacks led the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to intervene. They gave BioPort its license back in January 2002 despite persisting safety concerns at its vaccine production facility in Michigan. BioPort was not content to merely see its past contracts with the Pentagon restored, however, as it began lobbying heavily for new contracts for anthrax vaccines intended for American civilians, postal workers and others. They would get them, largely thanks to HHS' then-counter-terrorism adviser and soon to be HHS' newest Assistant Secretary '-- Jerome Hauer. Hauer would later join the board of BioPort, after it reformed as Emergent Biosolutions, in 2004.

Such examples of cronyism are more common than not when it comes to Emergent Biosolutions. Indeed, the company has frequently relied on individuals who spend their careers passing through the ''revolving door'' between the pharmaceutical industry and government, particularly those who also moonlight as bioterror alarmists. One of the main individuals critical to the company's success over the years has been Robert Kadlec. Kadlec served as the top bioterror advisor to the Pentagon in the weeks leading up to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Months prior, he had participated in the June 2001 simulation Dark Winter, which ''predicted'' major aspects of the subsequent anthrax attacks. Kadlec subsequently crafted much of the legislation that would create the country's subsequent bioterror/pandemic response policy, including BARDA and the Strategic National Stockpile.

Soon after leaving government, Robert Kadlec helped found a new company in 2012 called ''East West Protection,'' which develops and delivers ''integrated all-hazards preparedness and response systems for communities and sovereign nations.'' The company also ''advises communities and countries on issues related to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and natural pandemics.''

Kadlec formed the company with W. Craig Vanderwagen, the first HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (a position Kadlec had helped write into law and would later hold himself). The other co-founder of East West Protection was Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions, who had just stepped down as Emergent's CEO earlier that year.

Kadlec then became a consultant. Kadlec's consultancy firm, RPK Consulting, netted him $451,000 in 2014 alone, where he directly advised Emergent Biosolutions as well as other pharmaceutical companies like Bavarian Nordic. Kadlec was also a consultant to military and intelligence contractors, such as the DARPA-backed firm Invincea and NSA contractor Scitor, which was recently acquired by SAIC.

Kadlec would return to government as HHS ASPR under Trump, a position which he held at the time the Covid-19 crisis began. The year prior, in 2019, Kadlec had conducted a months-long simulation focused on a global pandemic originating in China called Crimson Contagion. Once the Covid-19 crisis began in earnest, he played a major role in securing Covid-19 vaccine contracts for Emergent Biosolutions, despite his conflicts of interest, some of which he had declined to disclose upon being appointed to serve as ASPR.

Emergent Biosolutions' pattern of corrupt behavior, beginning with its anthrax vaccine, can be seen with its recent actions as it relates to its production of Covid-19 vaccines. Per the recent Congressional report, released just days before the recent spike in concern over monkeypox began, Emergent lab workers ''intentionally sought to mislead government inspectors about issues'' at its Baltimore-based plant and also repeatedly ''rebuffed'' efforts by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson to inspect their facilities. ''Despite major red flags at its vaccine manufacturing facility, Emergent's executives swept these problems under the rug and continued to rake in taxpayer dollars,'' House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) stated upon the report's release. Yet such ''major red flags'' can be found throughout the company's entire history, for those willing to take the time to look.

Just days after the Congressional report was released, Emergent Biosolutions announced that it would acquire the exclusive worldwide rights to the ''first FDA-approved Smallpox Oral Antiviral for all ages'' from the company Chimerix. The drug, called TEMBEXA, is only for the treatment of smallpox, which the company refers to as ''a high priority public health threat.'' The press release on the company's acquisition of TEMBEXA states that multi-million US government contracts for the product are anticipated. The FDA formally approved the drug last June.

Emergent Biosolutions also has the rights to the smallpox vaccine known as ACAM2000, which can also be used to treat monkeypox. The vaccine, originally produced by Sanofi, was acquired by the company in 2017. As a result, the company has an essential monopoly over smallpox vaccines as ACAM2000 is ''the only vaccine licensed by the FDA for active immunization against smallpox disease for people determined to be at high risk of smallpox infection.''

Given their track record, it's worth asking why Emergent Biosolutions has been working in recent months to pivot much of its business into smallpox treatments. However, there is no speculation needed when observing that the current monkeypox fears and helping rescue the company, whose shares had fallen some 26% year to date before concern over the recent monkeypox outbreak began to grow.

Whatever comes of the monkeypox situation, Emergent Biosolutions' decades-long track record is undeniably one of corruption and cronyism.

''BioArmor'' for Ron Perelman's Flailing Business EmpireSIGA Technologies, which likens its products to ''Human BioArmor'', features a quote from Bill Gates at the top of its about page. The quote reads: ''['...] the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus ['...]'' The quote is from Bill Gates' speech to the 2017 Munich Security Conference, where he used to the threat specifically of smallpox to argue that ''health security'' and ''international security'' be merged. Notably, last March, the Munich Security Conference hosted a simulation of a global pandemic caused by a ''genetically engineered monkeypox virus.''

SIGA is one example of a company that seeks to find its niche in the middle of ''health security'' and ''international security.'' It specifically provides ''solutions for unmet needs in the health security market that comprises medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as emerging infectious diseases.'' The majority of contracts for CBRN medical countermeasures in the US are funded by the Pentagon. While it promotes itself as a CBRN threat-focused company, SIGA is, for now, singularly focused on smallpox.

Indeed, SIGA Technologies is only currently profitable in the event of an actual outbreak of smallpox or a related disease, or when fear of a smallpox bioterror event is high. Specifically, concern over the latter has led to the company to win government contracts to produce TPOXX for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). This is because TPOXX is only used to treat active smallpox or monkeypox infection, not prevent it. This means that it is only useful if smallpox, monkeypox or a related disease is actively infecting people or if there is a high risk that one of these diseases will soon infect large groups of people. TPOXX was first approved in 2018 by the FDA and was approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) this past January. The FDA approved an intravenous version of TPOXX just this past Thursday. Overall, SIGA has received over $1 billion from the US government to develop TPOXX.

SIGA is currently partnered with HHS' BARDA, the Department of Defense, the CDC and the NIH. Another partner is Lonza, a European pharmaceutical manufacturing firm that is partnered with both the World Economic Forum and Moderna. SIGA's CEO, Phillip Gomez, is an alumni of PRTM Consulting, where he would have worked closely with Robert Kadlec, as the two men overlapped as directors of the firm and both worked advising government agencies on matters of public health and biodefense.

SIGA is also notable because it is possibly the only company in the business empire of corporate raider Ron Perelman that is not attached to growing mountains of debt. Perelman is one of the notorious corporate raiders from the 1980s who conducted corporate takeovers fueled by junk bonds, particularly those connected to Michael Milken's Drexel Burnham Lambert. Perelman's business tactics have long been informed by his volcanic temper and his ruthlessness, with former Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfruend once remarking that ''believing Mr. Perelman has no hostile intentions is like believing the tooth fairy exists.''

Perelman is also known for being a long-time patron of the Clinton family, even though, more recently he donated to Donald Trump's political campaigns. Perelman apparently first became interested in courting influence with the Clintons after marrying Patricia Duff in 1994. Duff was deeply connected to the Democratic Party, having worked for Democratic pollster Pat Cadell, and she had also worked for the House panel that ''investigated'' the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Prior to marrying Perelman, she had been married to movie mogul Michael Medavoy and had ''introduced Clinton to the Hollywood establishment,'' according to the Washington Post.

As Perelman's wife, Duff styled herself a leading Democratic fundraiser, with the 1995 fund-raising dinner being emblematic of that. Also, in 1995, Perelman attended a $1,000-a-plate dinner in New York for the Clintons, where Perelman sat across from the President, as well as a state dinner for Brazil's president at the White House.

For Perelman, his generosity to the Clinton political machine resulted in an appointment by Clinton to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center in 1995. Other, less public gestures from the Clintons were likely, as Perelman offered much more to the First Family than he appears to have received in return. Perhaps most notable of Perelman's favors for Bill Clinton was his offering of jobs to scandal-ridden members of his administration, Webster Hubbell and Monica Lewinsky, in the wake of their respective controversies. However, after the job offers were publicly reported, both Hubbell and Lewinsky were let go, though the offers later caught the attention of independent counsel Ken Starr. Starr never subpoenaed or investigated Perelman or the offers he had made to Hubbell or Lewinsky.

The controversial hirings had been arranged between Perelman and Clinton advisor Vernon Jordan, who sat on the board of Revlon, a Perelman-controlled company, while his wife was on the board of another Perelman-owned firm. Jordan was known as Clinton's ''conduit to the high and mighty'' and had taken Clinton to the 1991 Bilderberg conference. On the decision to hire Lewinsky following the scandal, a former business associate of Perelman's told the Washington Post that ''It's like the Mafia, it's all done in code,'' adding that ''I can assure you that Ronald made the decision to give Lewinsky the job. And I can assure you he wouldn't want to know why Jordan was asking.''

In 1995, Perelman held a Clinton fundraiser at his mansion, with guests including singer Jimmy Buffett, Miami Vice actor Don Johnson, actor Michael Douglas' then-wife Deandra and DNC co-chair Don Fowler. Other guests included A. Paul Prosperi, a corrupt Clinton crony, and the now infamous Jeffrey Epstein. Clinton himself attended the fundraiser. According to the Palm Beach Post, guests had donated at least $100,000 to the DNC to attend the dinner with the President. This was, of course, in the lead up to the 1996 election, and the DNC would later come under heavy scrutiny due to illegal fundraising. This fundraiser was not Epstein's only interaction with Perelman '' Perelman would later be listed as a frequent dinner guest of Epstein's in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile penned by Vicky Ward and is listed in Epstein's black book of contacts.

For most of the 2000s, Perelman has sat atop a massive, ever-growing fortune. Yet, since 2020, Perelman has ''been unloading assets 'A lot of them. Rapidly.''' It stated with sales of valuable paintings at Sotheby's and soon extended to Perelman's investment company MacAndrews & Forbes, which disposed of its interest in two companies that same year, including $1 billion in shares in Scientific Games. According to MoneyWeek, Perelman's net worth dropped from $19 billion in 2018 to $4.2 billion in late 2020, ''prompting speculation that he's runnings out of money.'' Over the course of last year, Perelman has continued to ''downsize'', looking to sell off his estate in the Hamptons for $115 million, another 57-acre estate worth $180 million and two townhouses in Manhattan's Upper East Side for $60 million.

Other assets held by Perelman's company MacAndrews & Forbes are also drowning in debt. One of the few assets of the company that isn't currently haemorrhaging money or struggling with debt is its shares in SIGA Technologies. Perelman's main company, MacAndrews & Forbes, has long been one of SIGA's biggest investors and remains its largest shareholder, controlling 33% of all shares.

Since Perelman got involved with SIGA, accusations of corruption have plagued the company. For instance, in May 2011, SIGA was given a no-bid contract worth about $433 million to develop and produce 1.7 million doses of anti-viral drug for smallpox. At the time there was no evidence the smallpox drug in question was capable of treating the disease and there was alarm among some HHS staffers that SIGA's return on investment from the contract was ''outrageous.'' The contract began to be investigated over concerns that the contract had been awarded to SIGA precisely because it was controlled by Perelman, who had donated heavily to Barack Obama. At the time, CNN noted the following about Perelman's connections to the Obama White House:

''Ronald Perelman is controlling shareholder of Siga Technologies and a longtime Democratic Party activist and fundraiser. He's also a large contributor to Republicans, but has been a particular friend of the Obama White House.

Also on Siga's board of directors is Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, who has had close relations with the Obama administration and who has supported President Barack Obama's health care initiatives.''

As a result of these concerns and the potential conflict of interest, a congressional investigation began. Days after learning that this key government contract may be in jeopardy, SIGA executives sold off large amounts of company stock at an average price of $13.46 per share, netting its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at the time millions of dollars. A month later, the company announced that its contract had been downsized and shares in the company fell to under $2 by that December.

Given past ''pay-to-play'' accusations around Perelman's role in the firm during the Obama administration, when President Joe Biden served as Vice President, what are we to make of the recent media hype around monkeypox? Or concerns raised last year of a bioterrorism event involving smallpox?

Perhaps it's more important to ask other questions '' why has Perelman's role in SIGA been largely obfuscated or totally ignored by recent reporting on the company? Similarly, why has Emergent Biosolutions' horrific track record also been excluded from recent reports, including the major complaints from Congress made against the company less than two weeks ago? It seems the fear being generated around monkeypox is not only boosting shares for these two rotten companies, it's helping the public forget their past sins.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 13:57

WHO holds emergency meeting over monkeypox

Just two days before the World Health Assembly meets to decide whether to sign away Member States' health sovereignty, the WHO announced they must hold an emergency meeting over a spontaneous global monkeypox outbreak that has infected less than 100 people.

According to the Telegraph, which was first alerted to the WHO's emergency meeting and is literally funded by Bill Gates, ''The World Health Organization (WHO) is also convening a group of leading experts in an emergency meeting to discuss the ongoing outbreak, The Telegraph understands.''

''It is believed the main topics of conversation will be around how the virus is being spread, the unusually high prevalence in gay and bisexual men, and also the vaccination situation.''

According to the WHO's website, the recent case of monkeypox in the UK (from May 7) was confirmed by the WHO only one week ago, on May 13.

Since then, monkeypox, which is known to have extremely low transmissibility for humans, has miraculously managed to make its way to several European countries, the US, Australia, and Canada. This is despite the virus existing since the 1970s and almost never leaving the African continent '-- until now.

Curiously, researchers at Johns Hopkins University (also funded by Bill Gates) claim that while the virus is usually only spread by physical contact with someone exhibiting symptoms, monkeypox can supposedly be spread by droplets in the air. So, it looks like governments worldwide have a new reason to enforce mask mandates just months after removing them.

While public health officials are urging people not to panic '-- much like with the mostly non-threatening Omicron variant '-- that is precisely what governments are doing.

The Ontario government is now working with the federal government to increase surveillance of monkeypox after two cases were reported in Montreal.

Meanwhile, the US has ordered 13 million monkeypox vaccines after a single man in Massachusetts was confirmed to have contracted the disease. They also say that they have enough smallpox vaccines, which are supposedly 85 per cent effective, to vaccinate the entire population.

As for the WHO, to say they're overreacting to a few cases of monkeypox is an understatement.

''Intensive public health measures should continue in the United Kingdom,'' writes the WHO. ''In addition to the ongoing forward and backward contact tracing and source tracing, case searching, and local rash-illness surveillance should be strengthened in the MSM and wider community, as well as in primary and secondary health care settings. Any patient with suspected monkeypox should be investigated and isolated with supportive care during the presumed and known infectious periods, that is, during the prodromal and rash stages of the illness, respectively.''

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Monkeypox has taken the world by storm, but thankfully 'experts' have been talking about potential monkeypox pandemics for some time, particularly since the start of COVID. Here's what you should know.

A World Health Organization White Paper advocating for expanding WHO powers through the pandemic treaty puts tackling ''infodemic'' COVID ''misinformation'' at the top of their list.

Joe Biden announced that the US would give the World Bank $450 million to start a pandemic preparedness fund, which will be run in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Australian PM Scott Morrison said he supports giving up Australia's health sovereignty to the WHO to deal with future pandemics.

#StopTheTreaty is trending nationally across Canada, with roughly 50,000 tweeting out their disdain for the World Health Organization's global power grab at the time of writing.

Multiple governments have committed to signing the WHO global pandemic treaty, which will cede health sovereignty to the WHO.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 13:24

Friday, May 20, 2022

Radical Globalists in Biden Administration Use Pandemic As Pretext To Make Americans Subservient To Foreign Powers; America First Legal Warns Any Incursions on Our Sovereign Liberties Will Face Swift Legal Action

Washington, D.C.'--Today, America First Legal Foundation (AFL) sent an official and powerful legal warning to the Biden Administration regarding its plans to potentially relinquish our sovereignty to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Biden Administration is in the midst of a campaign to ''strengthen'' the WHO, potentially at the expense of our national sovereignty and the liberties of all American citizens. Among the actions it has already taken or plans to take are:

1. proposing amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR),

2. committing to a full review of the IHR by the WHO's Working Group on Preparedness & Response, and

3. participating in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a new WHO convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

AFL's message to the Biden Administration: any attempt, whatsoever, to bring any agreement into force in any way that violates the laws or Constitution of the United States or otherwise abridges the sacred liberties of the American people will be met with legal action. This is a clear attempt to violate the Treaty Clause of the Constitution in order to unilaterally surrender American sovereignty, and as such, we will vigorously oppose any illegal attempt to put this agreement into actual binding force and effect in the United States.

Further, as part of its comprehensive strategy, AFL has launched two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigations into who and what is driving the Biden Administration's obsession with transferring our sovereign healthcare freedoms to an unaccountable foreign body.

It is the obvious ambition of bureaucrats and officials within the Biden Administration to relinquish to the WHO, headed by Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former member of Ethiopian Tigray People's Liberation Front''a group with origins rooted in Marxism''the public healthcare decisions of the American People, and to instead empower and use a global pandemic agreement with the corrupt and Chinese-controlled WHO as the basis for imposing future severe restrictions and mandates on the American people.

AFL Warns Biden Administration of Potential Litigation.

First, in a letter to President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Becerra, AFL has warned the Biden Administration that if it does not first obtain appropriate congressional approval for any efforts to strengthen the WHO at the expense of domestic law, AFL will take swift legal action to protect the rights and privileges of American citizens and of the several states to stop the erosion of our Nation's sovereignty and independence from the WHO.

When COVID-19 hit the United States, President Donald J. Trump correctly identified that the WHO was an impediment rather than the solution to addressing COVID-19. Accordingly, on April 14, 2020, President Trump suspended U.S. contributions to the WHO. Months later, President Trump again took action and notified the United Nations Secretary General that the United States would withdraw from the WHO effective July 6, 2021. President Trump was committed to addressing COVID-19 without the WHO, an organization that has become largely a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Americans should know that when Congress in 1948 adopted a joint resolution authorizing President Truman to accept membership for the United States in the WHO, it did so ''with the understanding that nothing in the Constitution of the [WHO] in any manner commits the United States to enact any specific legislative program regarding any matters referred to in said Constitution.''

Despite these clear congressionally set parameters and the WHO's documented corruption and failure, the Biden Administration, in one of its first actions after taking office, not only rejoined the WHO, but has since attempted to legitimize and ''strengthen'' it without needed reforms. AFL is not fooled by this Administration's words. It is clear that Biden is eager to hand over control of all aspects of the civil liberties of American citizens to the WHO in the event this foreign body''not the United States''determines a pandemic exists. One example illustrates the Biden Administration's efforts; its proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations, which will be considered at this year's World Health Assembly, which begins this Sunday, May 22, 2022. These amendments are a significant first step to cede United States sovereignty and the rights and liberties of the American people to a pro-CCP global organization, including the World Health Assembly drafting a more comprehensive and invasive WHO Constitution: something that WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described as a ''generational agreement . . . [t]hat will be a gamechanger.''

Recent history reminds us why this cannot happen. It was only two years ago that the world witnessed the WHO's gross misfeasance and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, in part because of its close ties to the CCP. With disregard for the safety and lives of countless people in the United States and around the world, the WHO was complicit in ''the spread and normalization'' of propaganda by the CCP regarding the pandemic. The WHO even pointed to other countries as the ''epicenter'' of the COVID-19 pandemic, knowing that such accusations were false in order to divert attention away from the People's Republic of China and hamper science-based action. The result of this mass deception was the loss of millions of human lives and economic devastation worldwide. Malevolent politicians here and abroad exploited those results for political gain.

The American people know well the loss of life, the impact of lockdowns across all ages, tyrannical mask mandates, economic loss, if not devastation, and the countless other societal costs of the WHO's and its allies' deliberate deception. More than just the direct harm to Americans' health, Americans' liberties were also injured because of the WHO's conduct. Too many political figures in the United States and elsewhere around the globe manipulated people's fears of the unknown to expand government power and endanger freedoms. The WHO bears outsized responsibility for this dark and prolonged time in world history.

As with its other actions in the area of foreign policy, the Biden Administration appears eager to relinquish America's sovereignty, undermine our Constitution and federal laws, and subordinate the American people to globalist bureaucrats. Unfortunately for this administration, the United States Constitution and federal law are all too clear. The Biden Administration may not use the WHO or any agreements pertaining to it to undermine the rights of American citizens or the laws of the several States absent ratification of any agreement by the United States Congress pursuant to the treaty clause of the United States Constitution, or by specific implementing legislation.

Today's letter puts the Biden Administration on notice regarding its legal obligations to the rule of law and the American people.

AFL Announces the Opening of Two Investigations Into the Biden Administration.

In addition to our letter, AFL is announcing the initiation of two FOIA investigations in order to obtain information about who and what are driving the agenda to bolster the WHO within the Department of State and in the Department of Health and Human Services.

AFL will take swift action to stop this Administration's betrayal of the American people, its breach of its Constitutional duties and its failure to abide by its obligations under federal law. AFL will partner with courageous state attorneys general, members of Congress, other public officials, and the American people to do so.

Statement from America First Legal President Stephen Miller:

''America First Legal is putting the Biden Administration on notice that any attempt to partner with the WHO to trample on our freedoms, any attempt to enact treaty obligations without first obtaining Senate treaty approval, any attempt to implement this agreement''bringing it into force domestically and surrendering our healthcare decision-making and national sovereignty to a foreign power''will compel America First Legal to bring all its resources to bear to prevent or disband all such lawless and intolerable conduct, '' Stephen Miller said.

Read the Letter here.

Read the FOIA to the State Department here.

Read the FOIA to HHS here.

To schedule an engagement with America First Legal, please email [email protected].

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Sun, 22 May 2022 13:21

Belgium has become the first country to introduce a compulsory 21-day monkeypox quarantine - as 14 countries now confirm outbreaks o f the viral disease and doctors warn of a 'significant rise' in UK cases

Those who contract the virus will now have to self-isolate for three weeks, Belgian health authorities have said, after three cases were recorded in the country.

The infections, the first of which was recorded on Friday, are all linked to a festival in the port city of Antwerp.

It comes as doctors have warned that the UK faces a 'significant' rise in infections and the government's response is 'critical' in containing its spread.

Dr Claire Dewsnap, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, has also said the outbreak could have a 'massive impact' on access to sexual health services in Britain.

Sajid Javid yesterday revealed another 11 Britons had tested positive for the virus, taking the total to 20.

The cases include a British child currently in a critical condition at a London hospital, while a further 100 infections have been recorded in Europe.

Dr Dewsnap told Sky News: 'Our response is really critical here.

Dr Claire Dewsnap, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, warns of a 'significant' rise in infections across the UK in the coming weeks

'There is going to be more diagnoses over the next week.

'How many is hard to say. What worries me the most is there are infections across Europe, so this has already spread.

'It's already circulating in the general population.

'Getting on top of all those people's contacts is a massive job.

'It could be really significant numbers over the next two or three weeks.'

She says she expects more cases to be identified around the UK, with a 'significant rise over this next week'.

One of the first known cases of the monkeypox virus are shown on a patient's hand on June 5, 2003, via a picture released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A 2003 electron microscope image issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions

WHAT IS MONKEYPOX?Monkeypox - often caught through handling monkeys - is a rare viral disease that kills around 10 per cent of people it strikes, according to figures.

The virus responsible for the disease is found mainly in the tropical areas of west and central Africa.

Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958, with the first reported human case in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970. Human cases were recorded for the first time in the US in 2003 and the UK in September 2018.

It resides in wild animals but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys, or eating inadequately cooked meat.

The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the eyes, nose or mouth.

It can pass between humans via droplets in the air, and by touching the skin of an infected individual, or touching objects contaminated by them.

Symptoms usually appear within five and 21 days of infection. These include a fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and fatigue.

The most obvious symptom is a rash, which usually appears on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. This then forms skin lesions that scab and fall off.

Monkeypox is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment. Yet, the disease can often prove fatal.

There are no specific treatments or vaccines available for monkeypox infection, according to the World Health Organization.

The rare viral infection, which people usually pick up in the tropical areas of west and central Africa, can be transmitted by very close contact with an infected person.

It is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment.

However, the disease can prove fatal with the strain causing the current outbreak killing one in 100 infected.

The disease, which was first found in monkeys, can be transmitted from person to person through close physical contact - as well as sexual intercourse - and is caused by the monkeypox virus.

Dr Dewsnap also said she is concerned about the impact of monkeypox on the treatment of other infections as staff are diverted to tackle the outbreak.

She added: 'Some clinics that have had cases have had to advise people not to walk in.

'They've primarily done that because if somebody has symptoms consistent with monkeypox, we don't want people sat in waiting rooms potentially infecting other people.

'They've implemented telephone triage to all of those places.'

Dr Susan Hopkins, a chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said more monkeypox cases are being detected on a daily basis.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, Dr Hopkins said UKHSA will be releasing updated figures on Monday.

She said: 'We will be releasing updated numbers tomorrow - over-the-weekend figures.

'We are detecting more cases on a daily basis and I'd like to thank all of those people who are coming forward for testing to sexual health clinics, to the GPs and emergency department."

And asked to confirm reports that someone is being treated for monkeypox in intensive care, she said: 'We don't confirm individual reports and individual patients.'

In Britain, authorities are offering a smallpox vaccine to healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed.

Portugal has 14 confirmed cases and 20 suspected infections. And across the Atlantic, there are two confirmed cases in Canada, with 20 suspected cases.

There are also cases in Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Israel, Switzerland and Australia.

The World Health Organisation said it expects to identify more cases of monkeypox as it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is not typically found.

As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for the virus, the UN agency said, adding it will provide further guidance and recommendations in coming days for countries on how to mitigate the spread of monkeypox.

No one has died of the viral disease to date.

Professor David Heymann, an expert on infectious disease epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: 'What seems to be happening now is that it has got into the population as a sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections, which has amplified its transmission around the world.

He said close contact was the key transmission route, as lesions typical of the disease are very infectious.

For example, parents caring for sick children are at risk, as are health workers, which is why some countries have started inoculating teams treating monkeypox patients using vaccines for smallpox, a related virus.

Many of the current cases have been identified at sexual health clinics.

Early genomic sequencing of a handful of the cases in Europe has suggested a similarity with the strain that spread in a limited fashion in Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018.

Heymann said it was 'biologically plausible' the virus had been circulating outside of the countries where it is endemic, but had not led to major outbreaks as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing and travel restrictions.

It comes as it emerged some of the country's top disease experts warned that monkeypox would fill the void left by smallpox three years ago.

Scientists from leading institutions including the University of Cambridge and the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine argued the viral disease would evolve to fill the 'niche' left behind after smallpox was eradicated.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the experts attended a seminar in London back in 2019 and discussed how there was a need to develop 'a new generation vaccines and treatments'.

The seminar heard that as smallpox was eradicated in 1980, there has been a cessation of smallpox vaccinations and, as a result, up to 70 per cent of the world's population are no longer protected against smallpox.

This means they are also no longer protected against other viruses in the same family such as monkeypox.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 22:20

American music and entertainment magazine

Vibe is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down production in the summer of 2009, it was purchased by the private equity investment fund InterMedia Partners, then issued bi-monthly with double covers and a larger online presence. The magazine's target demographic is predominantly young, urban followers of hip hop culture. In 2014, the magazine discontinued its print version.[2]

The magazine features a broader range of interests than its closest competitors The Source and XXL, which focus more narrowly on rap music, or the rock and pop-centric Rolling Stone and Spin.

Publication history [ edit ] Quincy Jones launched Vibe in 1993,[3] in partnership with Time Inc. Originally, the publication was called Volume before co-founding editor, Scott Poulson-Bryant named it Vibe.[4] Though hip hop mogul Russell Simmons was rumored to be an initial partner, publisher Len Burnett revealed in a March 2007 interview that Simmons clashed with editor-in-chief Jonathan Van Meter. In May 1994, Meter resigned after Jones prevented the publication of the June/July 1994 issue featuring Madonna on Dennis Rodman on the cover.[5][6] Meter's successors were Alan Light, Danyel Smith, Emil Wilbekin, Mimi Valdes, and finally Danyel Smith again.[7]

Miller Publishing purchased Vibe in 1996, and shortly afterward bought Spin. A private equity firm, Wicks Group, bought the magazine in 2006.[8] On June 30, 2009, it was announced that Vibe was ceasing publication immediately,[9] although according to Essence, Quincy Jones stated he would like to keep it alive online.

After shutting down, private equity investment fund InterMedia Partners bought Vibe magazine. They added Uptown magazine to Vibe ' s parent company, Vibe Holdings. Ronald Burkle and Magic Johnson later invested in the company. Vibe Holdings merged with BlackBook Media to form Vibe Media in 2012.[10]

On April 25, 2013 it was announced that Vibe magazine along with vibe.com and vibevixen.com had been sold to Spin Media for an undisclosed sum. Spin Media was thought likely to shut down Vibe ' s print magazine by the end of 2013, which a representative stating: "We're still trying to find a print model that makes economic sense in the digital age."[11] Instead, they cut the magazine's frequency to quarterly.[12]

Founder of

Vibe, Quincy Jones

In December 2016, Eldridge Industries acquired SpinMedia via the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group for an undisclosed amount.[13]

Covers [ edit ] Vibe magazine was known for the creative direction of their covers.[14] R&B singer Mary J. Blige repeatedly was on the cover of Vibe with countless articles following her career. The trio TLC was photographed for the cover in firefighters' gear, referencing the fact that member Lisa Lopes burned down the house of then-boyfriend and NFL star Andre Rison. The first non-photograph cover of Vibe was an illustration of late singer Aaliyah by well-known artist/illustrator Alvaro; this was Aaliyah's first appearance on the cover as well. Other famous cover subjects are Trey Songz, Brandy, Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey, Beyonc(C), Amerie, Jennifer Lopez, Keyshia Cole, Janet Jackson, Lil Wayne, The Fugees, Eminem, T.I., R. Kelly, Michael Jackson (whom Quincy Jones' daughter Kidada had dressed in hip hop clothing, reportedly for the first and only time in the entertainer's career), Ciara, who also appeared on the cover numerous times and rap legend Tupac Shakur's famous cover story in which he reveals important details about his non-fatal 1994 NYC shooting (two years before his death in Las Vegas, Nevada).[15] Electro-rapper Kesha became the first white female artist to appear on the cover as a solo act in October 2012.[16][17][18]

Content [ edit ] Featured segments included the back page list "20 Questions"', the Boomshots column about reggae and Caribbean music by Rob Kenner; "Revolutions" music reviews; "Vibe Confidential", a celebrity gossip column; and "Next", which profiled up-and-coming artists. The magazine also devoted several pages to photo spreads displaying high-end designer clothing as well as sportswear by urban labels such as Rocawear and Fubu.

Vibe made a consistent effort to feature models of all ethnicities in these pages. Former editor Emil Wilbikin was frequently credited with styling those pages and keeping fashion in the forefront of the magazine's identity during the early 2000s. Many clothing brands created or linked to hip hop celebrities, such as Sean Combs' Sean John, Nelly's Apple Bottoms, and G-Unit by 50 Cent found plenty of exposure in Vibe ' s pages.

In the September 2003 issue commemorating ten years of publication, the magazine created different covers using black and white portraits of its most popular cover subjects. It also contained "The Vibe 100: The Juiciest People, Places and Things of the Year".

Many successful writers and editors contributed to the publication, including Alan Light, Jeff Chang, Dream Hampton, Cheo Hodari Coker, Kevin Powell, Erica Kennedy, Sacha Jenkins, Noah Callahan-Bever and Miles Marshall Lewis. Mark Shaw was the magazine's art director.

Expanding the brand [ edit ] In addition to the magazine, Vibe also publishes books on hip hop culture. To celebrate the magazine's tenth anniversary, it published VX: Ten Years of Vibe Photography, which featured a bare-chested 50 Cent on the cover. The volume also includes photos of Alicia Keys, RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, Eve, Chuck D of Public Enemy, and Run-D.M.C. Works by prominent photographers Albert Watson, Ellen von Unwerth, David LaChapelle, and Sante D'Orazio are among the 150 photographs in the hardcover edition.[citation needed ]

Other books published under the Vibe banner cover the history of hip hop, the women of hip hop, and rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.[citation needed ] Additionally, the magazine published a spin-off publication, Vibe Vixen, from 2004 to 2007. Aimed at Vibe ' s female multicultural demographic, Vibe Vixen included features on beauty, fashion, and female entertainers. R&B starlet Ciara appeared on the inaugural issue's cover.[citation needed ]

Spencer was fired in October 1997 and replaced by comedian Sinbad, along with Big Boy as the in-house announcer.[citation needed ] As was common practice for late-night talk shows (established by Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin), it had a live band, led by keyboardist Greg Phillinganes; Jones worked with him during productions for Michael Jackson's albums Thriller and Off The Wall.[citation needed ] The program aired in first-run syndication until the summer of 1998, when it was canceled.[citation needed ] The show was taped at CBS Television City in Los Angeles.[citation needed ]

Other platforms featuring the Vibe brand are Vibe Online, the magazine's online presence; Vibe On Demand, an on-demand network; VLN TV, an online video channel; Vibe Film; MVibe, a wireless content provider for hand-held devices as well as CD and DVD lines distributed under the same name; and The Vibe Music Mixer, is available for iPhone and iPad.[citation needed ]

In May 2015, Vibe expanded its brand by adding the digital extension, Vibe Viva. Vibe Viva is a space where Latinos can explore their rich history, and see what is driving Latin culture.[19]

In October 2019 Vibe co-hosted Billboard's 2019 Hip Hop Power Players event in NYC.

Vibe Awards [ edit ] Beginning in 2003, Vibe produced and aired its annual awards show on UPN through 2006, and VH1 Soul in 2007.

An incident occurred at the 2004 Vibe Awards taping at the Santa Monica Airport hangar, in which G-Unit rapper Young Buck stabbed 26-year-old Los Angeles native, Jimmy James Johnson after Johnson approached Dr. Dre under the pretense of asking for an autograph, and then assaulted him.[20] Young Buck later pleaded no contest to a charge of "assault likely to produce great bodily harm," and was sentenced to three years' probation and 80 hours of community service.

Other editions [ edit ] Vibe Vixen was a magazine geared towards female readers of Vibe magazine that covered beauty, dating, entertainment, fashion, and societal issues for "urban minded females". The magazine was initially released in fall of 2004, and sales were considered successful enough for the magazine to be issued on a quarterly basis. Vibe Vixen folded after its August/September 2007 issue due to low circulation.[21] Stars featured on Vibe Vixen ' s covers included Ciara, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kimora Lee Simmons, Kelis, Lauren London, LaLa Anthony and Tia Mowry.

References [ edit ] ^ "DATA: Magazines by Circulation (for six months ended December 31, 2006)". Advertising Age . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Sterne, Peter (September 11, 2014). "Spin Media lays off 19, kills Vibe print edition". Politico . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ "Top 10 Topics to Pitch to Music Magazines". Freelance Writing. 21 July 2016 . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . Vibe '' a quarterly hip-hop music and entertainment magazine established in 1993. ^ Dungca, Nicole (November 29, 2007). "39-year-old writer returns to hit the books". The Brown Daily Herald . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Jones, Quincy (2001). Q: The autobiography of Quincy Jones. New York : Doubleday. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-385-48896-9. ^ "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Vibe Magazine Editor Resigns". The New York Times. 1994-05-03. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-04-25 . ^ Pasmore, John N. (March 4, 2007). "Hip Hop History: An Interview with Vibe Magazine Publisher Len Burnett". Fast Company . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ "The Wicks Group Announces Acquisition of VIBE, the Country's Leading Urban Youth Lifestyle Magazine" (Press release). New York, NY: Wicks Group. Business Wire. July 5, 2006. ^ Bercovici, Jeff (June 30, 2009). "Vibe magazine shutting down". AOL Finance . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Botelho, Stefanie (January 6, 2012). "Vibe Holdings to Merge with Access Network". Folio . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Hunte, Justin (April 25, 2013). "Vibe Magazine Sold To SpinMedia". HipHopDX . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ McDermott, John (September 17, 2013). "SpinMedia Revives Vibe as Quarterly, Considers the Same for Spin". Advertising Age . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Ariens, Chris (December 22, 2016). "Billboard Buys Spin and Vibe in a Quest to 'Own the Topic of Music Online' ". Adweek . Retrieved November 14, 2017 . ^ Srivastava, Vinita (January 1, 2012). "The Story of Vibe Magazine's TLC Cover: How it Helps to Explain Race, Representation and Resistance from Journalism 's Hip-hop Generation" (PDF) . The International Journal of the Image. Common Ground. 2 (1): 57''66. doi:10.18848/2154-8560/CGP/v02i01/44247. ISSN 2154-8560 '' via Ryerson University Library. ^ Douglas, Joanna (September 11, 2008). "When airbrushing goes too far: Vibe magazine digitally removes Ciara's clothes!". Shine. Yahoo! . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Alexis, Nadeska (October 12, 2012). "Ke$ha Makes History, Proves She's 'Not A Train Wreck' In Vibe". MTV News . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Romero, Angie (October 11, 2012). "Ke$ha Covers VIBE Magazine, Makes History As First Solo White Living Female To Do So". ABC News . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Gayles, Contessa (October 11, 2012). "Kesha, VIBE Magazine: Singer Is First White Woman to Land on Cover". The Boombox. Townsquare Media . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ "Viva". Vibe . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Moss, Corey (November 16, 2004). "Warrant Issued For Young Buck In Vibe Awards Stabbing". MTV News . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Bell, Lauren (July 25, 2007). "VIBE Vixen folds". DMNews. Haymarket Media Group . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . External links [ edit ] Official website So What Do You Do, Danyel Smith? at archive.today (archived January 28, 2013), an interview with the former editor-in-chief

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Sat, 21 May 2022 22:16

The entertainment industry is rife with stories about entertainers fighting with the people they hire to serve them. In 1999, Madonna ended a bitter feud with her manager, Freddy DeMann, by forcing him out of the record label they started. Last year, George Clooney fired his talent agent, who had demanded a real estate finder's fee from the person who sold Mr. Clooney a villa at Lake Como, Italy.

But while tiffs like these are as common as liposuction and chai lattes here, Hollywood has seen nothing in recent memory like the breakup of Jennifer Lopez and her longtime manager, Benny Medina, the man who helped turn ''Jenny from the block'' into a household brand. After firing him in June, Ms. Lopez took the unusual step of filing a complaint with California's labor commission against Mr. Medina, saying he illegally contracted work on her behalf and misappropriated more than $100,000.

Mr. Medina has denied the accusations and both camps say they are close to settling their differences. An agreement could be announced this week. But it has been such a damaging battle from a publicity standpoint -- the New York tabloids have carried a running account -- that Ben Affleck, whom Ms. Lopez plans to marry this year, stepped in to help broker a resolution. The couple could ill-afford to have the fight overshadow the July 30 release of the film ''Gigli,'' in which they star.

The Jenny-Benny dispute has highlighted the fine lines in Hollywood that separate the roles of personal manager, producer, fashion executive and confidant. In the handling of veritable entertainment conglomerates like Ms. Lopez, whom associates say may have earned as much as $60 million last year from her acting, singing and fashion ventures, those lines have become increasingly blurred. With so much money at stake -- and the potential payout to advisers and handlers ever more lucrative -- some stars are more intent than ever on retaining control of their careers. That includes Mr. Affleck, who associates say has had a big influence on Ms. Lopez's recent decisions to keep tighter personal rein on her business affairs than had been her habit under Mr. Medina -- whom in the past was as much her friend as her manager.

''In the entertainment world there are two kinds of divas -- the kind that doesn't pay attention to the details and the one who counts the silverware,'' said Martin Kaplan, the director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California. ''In the end, friendship should have nothing to do with money, accountability and credibility.''

Both Ms. Lopez and Mr. Medina declined to comment on their business breakup or the nature of their relationship before and after. But several people who have worked with both Mr. Medina and Ms. Lopez say the two were virtually inseparable soon after he became her personal manager five years ago, having been introduced by the hip-hop singer and producer Sean Combs, known lately as P. Diddy, who was then a Medina client and was dating Ms. Lopez.

Mr. Medina, whose life inspired the sitcom ''Fresh Prince of Bel Air'' and who founded Handprint Entertainment, has had a client list that included Mr. Combs, the actor Will Smith and the singer Babyface. But it was managing Ms. Lopez for which he became best known.

At Ms. Lopez's wedding in 2001 to her second husband, Cris Judd, Mr. Medina was not only the best man, but joined the couple on their honeymoon. When Ms. Lopez and Mr. Medina traveled on business, they stayed in adjoining hotel suites. And many of the other people advising Ms. Lopez were handpicked by Mr. Medina.

''There was no perception she did not have that wasn't fed into by him,'' said one longtime colleague of the two, who compared the relationship to a platonic marriage.

By all accounts Mr. Medina was a tireless promoter -- one who was paid handsomely. Some industry executives estimate his annual take from his work for Ms. Lopez at $6 million. He received 10 percent of Ms. Lopez's earnings in film and television, according to the filed complaint, 15 percent of music publishing and recording and 10 percent of ancillary businesses, including the J. Lo clothes line and Glow perfume. In addition, Mr. Medina was to receive 50 percent of the producing revenue generated by Ms. Lopez's new production company, Nuyorican Productions.

And he enjoyed many of the diva-worthy perks afforded his star client, friends say. When Ms. Lopez was offered cosmetics and gifts from L'Or(C)al for doing advertisements, colleagues say Mr. Medina got them, too. He flew first class, on a movie studio's or record company's tab. Like Ms. Lopez, he had homes in both Los Angeles and New York. Several people who know Mr. Medina said calls placed to Ms. Lopez were returned only by him -- even if at times he would put the caller on hold while he conducted other clients' business.

And by all accounts, for most of their five years together, Ms. Lopez went along with the arrangement, protected by an army of managers, stylists and handlers. Although Ms. Lopez was involved in every decision, both camps say, they were largely filtered by Mr. Medina. ''She could have picked up the phone, and called people but she chose not to,'' said one person who had worked for Ms. Lopez.

Last year, though, came signs that the relationship was beginning to fray. In August, the verbal management agreement the two had relied on from 1998 and 2002 was formalized in a contract. The intent, according to her lawyer, Barry L. Hirsch, was to establish in writing that Mr. Medina would work solely for Ms. Lopez.

And Mr. Affleck, Ms. Lopez's new beau, had additional suggestions. He pointed out that her business manager, Ken Starr, did not have a cap on his salary, according to two people who talked to Ms. Lopez. (A business manager, who manages the finances, is separate from a personal manager, like Mr. Medina, who helps shape a career.)

Mr. Affleck thought she was paying Mr. Starr too much and, despite protests from Mr. Medina, according to the two people, she switched to Mr. Affleck's business manager, Murphy & Kress. And Mr. Affleck, who friends say tries to keep a low profile despite his star status, was said to be alarmed that Ms. Lopez was a frequent subject of tabloid reports, something her management team had a hard time containing. ''In Jennifer's mind it was normal,'' said a studio executive who has worked with both Mr. Affleck and Ms. Lopez. ''It was not, in Ben's.''

Mr. Affleck declined to discuss his relationship with Ms. Lopez. But according to one person who knows them both, ''Ben came in and said, 'I run a tighter ship.' ''

Problems erupted in October when Ed Limato, an agent at International Creative Management who had only recently begun representing Ms. Lopez, wrote a letter to Mr. Medina (with a copy to Ms. Lopez) saying he did not want to work for her. One frustration for Mr. Limato, who guided the careers of Denzel Washington and Mel Gibson, was that he and Ms. Lopez never talked -- that all dealings were through Mr. Medina.

''I'm not very good at dealing with phantom clients,'' he wrote in the letter, which was widely distributed in Hollywood at the time, ''as my greatest relationships and successes have been with artists with whom I have daily communications and enjoy their full confidence.''

Within weeks, Ms. Lopez signed with Patrick Whitesell, an agent at the Endeavor Talent Agency who happened not only to be Mr. Affleck's agent, but his good friend, too. But while Ms. Lopez was now returning her own calls, said two people apprised of the relationship, Mr. Medina clashed with Mr. Whitesell. Mr. Whitesell declined to comment on his relationship with Mr. Medina. But according to these people, Mr. Medina had wanted Ms. Lopez to sign with a competitor, the Creative Artists Agency, which continued to actively pursue her at Mr. Medina's urging. Mr. Whitesell, for his part, thought Mr. Medina was in over his head, the people said.

Ms. Lopez seemed to be, too, for that matter. The movie director Adam Shankman sued Ms. Lopez in May, saying she had stolen his idea for a movie on the opera ''Carmen,'' which she wanted to produce with Mr. Medina. And while her perfume Glow was a big seller, Ms. Lopez saw little of the profit herself because of the way her business deal was structured, according to one person apprised of the deal.

With her new set of advisers and a business-savvy boyfriend who was pushing her to shore up her finances, Ms. Lopez began to question why she was not making more money. So in late spring a host of accountants combed through her financial records, said three people briefed on the review, and questioned, among other things, payments of more than $100,000 to Mr. Medina. The complaint filed earlier this month described the amount as a misappropriated ''consulting fee.''

''The new accountants came in and said, 'What's this?' '' one of the people said. He said that Mr. Medina explained the payments as being reimbursements for expenses for which he did not save receipts.

By early June the relationship with Mr. Whitesell and Mr. Medina was so contentious, according to the two camps, that Mr. Whitesell gave Ms. Lopez a choice: him or Mr. Medina. She chose neither, firing Mr. Whitesell first and then Mr. Medina a few days later. (She fired her publicist, too.) Within days she had a new agent, her third in less than a year, and a new personal management company, too: The Firm.

One person who had worked with Mr. Medina and Ms. Lopez from the beginning wondered aloud whether the split had anything to do with the fact that, for the first time in five years, Mr. Medina had not been on the set, while Ms. Lopez was making the movie ''An Unfinished Life'' in Canada this past spring. ''With the extended separation,'' this person said, ''the relationship came under scrutiny.''

But he acknowledged that the reasons were probably more complicated. ''It was a mutual obsessiveness,'' this person said. ''You can't be in each others things in an intense way and not have it end some time.'' Still, he added, ''don't be surprised if Benny shows up at the wedding.''

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Sat, 21 May 2022 21:50

American record executive, talent manager, and television producer

Benny Medina

Medina in June 2013

Born ( 1958-01-24 ) January 24, 1958 (age 64) NationalityAmericanOccupationProducerYears active1979''presentBenny Medina (born January 24, 1958) is an American record executive, talent manager, and television producer.

Early life and education [ edit ] Medina was born in East Los Angeles, California, of Dominican parents into a poor family. The death of his mother and abandonment by his father resulted in him being placed into a number of foster homes, which he repeatedly ran away from before he and his siblings were taken in by his aunt. In his early teenage years, Medina dealt cannabis and amphetamines.

He befriended a wealthy white teenager, whose family in Beverly Hills allowed him to live in a refurbished garage behind their property. Medina then attended Beverly Hills High where he met Kerry Gordy and was a successful student. Medina's experiences of transferring to this wealthy environment is the loose basis for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.[1][2][3]

Career [ edit ] Medina started his career with the group Apollo, who released their self-titled debut on Gordy/Motown in 1979. He was the lead singer. Other members included Kerry Gordy (keyboards), Cliff Liles (bass), Lenny Greene (drums) and Larry Robinson (guitar). Medina co-wrote three of the seven tracks, including ''Astro Disco,'' their best known track. The album was produced by Ray Singleton, former wife of Motown founder Berry Gordy.

At age 24, Medina became the head of A&R for Motown, working as a prot(C)g(C) to Berry Gordy. Under Gordy, Medina wrote and produced for legendary Motown acts such as The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Billy Preston, Rick James and Teena Marie.

Medina then moved on to Warner Bros. Records, where executive Mo Ostin tasked him to build and cultivate the careers of the company's urban artists as VP/GM of its urban-music division. While there, Medina collaborated with artists such as Ray Charles, Babyface, Prince, Chaka Khan, Madonna, Paul Simon and Fleetwood Mac. He also worked with Naughty by Nature, Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Biz Markie, Kool G. Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Roxanne Shant(C), and Monie Love.[4]

After leaving Warner Bros., Medina and longtime friend Jeff Pollack formed Medina/Pollack Entertainment, which grew into a full service management and production company. Among their projects were Booty Call, Above the Rim, and Maid in Manhattan.[5]

In early 2009, Medina formed The Medina Company.[6]

Management clients [ edit ] Medina managed Jennifer Lopez, and along with then-head of Sony Music, Tommy Mottola, Medina launched Lopez's pop music career in 1999, after which, in 2003, at the height of her popularity, Lopez fired Medina and filed a complaint against him with California's labor commission.[3] As of 2008, Medina officially resumed his role as Lopez's manager,[7] and is also a godparent to her twin children.[7]

Other clients were also managed by Medina, including Tyra Banks, P. Diddy,[3] Mariah Carey, Brandy Norwood, and Usher Raymond.[8] Medina also managed singer-songwriter Vanessa Daou from 1996-1998 while the artist was signed to Krasnow Entertainment/MCA Records. When Daou chose to leave with label head Bob Krasnow and find a way out of her contractual obligations to MCA in 1998, Medina and his company Handprint Entertainmant, along with Daou, co-released the artist's internet-only album release 'Plutonium Glow'.

Sexual assault allegations [ edit ] In November 2017, actor Jason Dottley accused Medina of attempting to rape him in December 2008.[9] Dottley stated the event happened at Medina's Los Angeles mansion after Medina gave Dottley and fellow actor T. Ashanti Mozelle a tour of the home.[10] Dottley stated in an interview with The Advocate that Anthony Rapp's recent sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey inspired him to come out with his "shameful secret."[11] Through his attorneys Howard Weitzman and Shawn Holley, Medina said in a statement, "Benny Medina categorically denies the allegation of attempted rape."[12]

Personal life [ edit ] Medina is gay. In March 2007, he was ranked as one of Out.com ' s Top 50 Gays, coming in at spot 48.[13]

References [ edit ] ^ Randolf, Laura B. (April 1991). The Real-Life Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Ebony. Johnson Publishing Company. pp. 30''39. ^ "Will Smith in Pursuit of Excellence". black-collegian.com. Archived from the original on 2007-10-25 . Retrieved 2007-10-23 . ^ a b c Holson, Laura M. (July 14, 2003). "When Jenny Dumped Benny". The New York Times. p. C1 . Retrieved March 2, 2021 . ^ Tyrangiel, Josh (August 13, 2005). "Jennifer Lopez: The Diva from the Block". Time. Archived from the original on September 23, 2005 . Retrieved March 2, 2021 . ^ "The Fighting Temptations". jonathanlynn.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-12 . Retrieved 2008-06-11 . ^ "Doppelganger and Telepictures Productions Launch 'The Tyra Banks Show' ". virtualworldsnews.com. Archived from the original on 2009-05-10 . Retrieved 2008-06-11 . ^ a b "Is Jennifer Lopez Moving In With Manager Benny Medina? The Two Purchase L.A. Home". Fox News. 2016-12-19 . Retrieved 2019-05-28 . ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-05-10 . Retrieved 2008-12-22 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) ^ Warner, Kara; Fernandez, Alexia (10 November 2017). "Top Music & TV Exec Benny Medina Accused of Sexual Attack: 'I Could Not Fight Him Off' Alleges Actor Jason Dottley". People . Retrieved 11 November 2017 . ^ Mandell, Andrea (10 November 2017). "J.Lo's manager, Benny Medina, denies man's allegation of attempted rape". USA Today . Retrieved 11 November 2017 . ^ Artavia, David (10 November 2017). "Sordid Lives Actor Alleges Mogul Benny Medina Tried to Rape Him". The Advocate . Retrieved 11 November 2017 . ^ McNiel, Liz (10 November 2017). "Top music, TV exec Benny Medina accused of sexual attack: 'I could not fight him off' alleges actor Jason Dottley". Yahoo . Retrieved 11 November 2017 . ^ Oxfield, Jesse, Idov, Michael (4 March 2007), 'Out' Ranks the Top 50 Gays; Anderson Is No. 2 Archived 6 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, New York Magqazine. Retrieved 28 June 2007. External links [ edit ] Benny Medina at IMDb

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Sat, 21 May 2022 21:45

MGM / EverettDirector: Fred Schepisi

Year Released: 1993

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Cast: Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland

Get This MovieIn 1993 '-- five years after he (and DJ Jazzy Jeff) grumpily complained that ''Parents Just Don't Understand,'' and three years after he assumed the title of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air '-- Will Smith appeared in Six Degrees of Separation: his first starring role in a movie. His character, a clever con-artist who ingratiates himself into the lives of a privileged Manhattan couple, is nothing like the wisecracking heroes he played so successfully in subsequent films, but Smith turns in a terrific performance '-- sharp, nuanced and slyly cognizant of his immense natural charisma.

OTHER NOTEWORTHY PERFORMANCE(S): He did a superb job playing Muhammad Ali in Michael Mann's overly long biopic (though not quite delivering The Champ's predatory menace) and his boozy lonely-guy superhero in the messy-but-fascinating Hancock showed a willingness to explore darker places.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arPhzlHlyEY]

Next Tina Turner, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

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Showcase & clientsEnsemble Studio proudly presents'...In a world of noise, there's an art to being heard. Ensemble Studio brings creativity to brand and corporate communications. We find inspiration in the stories of our clients and collaborators. We fashion harmony out of complexity and produce work that resonates far and wide, up above the noise.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 20:25

NEW YORK, June 24, 2020 '' April Reign, the equity advocate, former lawyer, cultural marketing expert and creator of #OscarsSoWhite, is partnering with Overture Global, a New York-based media company, to launch a digital content studio to accelerate opportunities around content and development in front of and behind the camera for people of color. The new initiative will be named Ensemble, to signify that it takes a collective effort: people of various talents, backgrounds and cultures to create content that is inclusive, equitable, authentic and relevant for the masses.

The goal is to develop sustainable programming, while leveraging distribution platforms to create large audiences. Ensemble services include: development, production, promotion, distribution, sales, marketing, and enterprise. The world is at a point where the overall consumption of content is at an all-time high, while stories by, for, and about people of color have historically been stymied. With the advent of streaming platforms, and the increased desire for short-form sponsored content, the opportunities Ensemble offers for content providers, artists and brands are limitless.

April Reign says: ''I'm excited to be partnering with Overture. They have a reputation for creating professional content for a switched-on audience. We are in a unique period wherein we're able to bring together brands and creators to tell stories, such as interviews, web series and documentaries, that reflect a wide range of American and global human experiences.''

Donnovan Andrews, CEO of Overture explains: ''We know, for example, the mobile usage rate by young African Americans is extremely high and Ensemble intends to create a platform for showcasing mindful and considerate content developed by and for African Americans. Until now, Overture has focused on telling societal-impact stories, such as innovative efforts to solve the global water shortage and supporting women in international STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art and mathematics) fields. Ensemble is an organic extension of this work, focused on thought-provoking content for influential and connected communities. These will be the stories that need to be told, and perspectives that need to be delivered.''

Below are some startling statistics from Nielsen. Essentially, the Black community has a high use of mobile technology and digital content consumption; however, there is a significant gap in programming, ownership and sponsor funding for this influential audience:

'— 61% of African Americans are fascinated by new technology; and 37% are early adopters (they are more likely than the total population to be the first among their peers to try new technologies).

'— 96% of all African American adults have/use a smartphone, compared to 95% of the population.

'— African Americans over 35 surpass similar age-group consumers by 2% for smartphone ownership.

'— African Americans spend more time-consuming video on their Android phones and iPhones compared to the total population.

'— YouTube is the most consumed entertainment app for African-Americans (79%). Netflix has the highest market share among subscription video on-demand apps with 39%, according to Nielsen.

What is more, in 2018, Nielsen estimated Black buying power at $1.2 trillion. Yet, that same year, only about $18 billion was spent on African-American-centric digital and mainstream media, a 5 percent decline from the previous year.

April Reign recognized this disparity. As the creator of the viral hashtag-turned-movement #OscarsSoWhite, she has been challenging the lack of representation of marginalized communities in Hollywood, and beyond, since 2015. Reign sustains a movement that has, arguably, resulted in the most permanent systemic change ever seen in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 80-plus-year history. Her name continues to be synonymous with this historic change, the results of which are reverberating throughout the entertainment industry and will do so for decades to come.

Adds Andrews, ''This is not to say all of the content we produce will be exclusively for the Black audience: our strategy is heavily based on creating, and supporting inclusive content production and delivery opportunities for diverse teams'... in a way that hasn't been done before. Just think about the stories from refugees, immigrants and cultural influencers that've been lost because they've been historically excluded from this process.''

ABOUT APRIL REIGNMs. Reign is an influential and sought-after media presence; she has built an impressive global social media following across several platforms, as well as a network of recognized celebrities, creators, activists, and corporate decision makers. She capitalizes on this network and her experience, using her voice to spark conversations and explore issues of race, politics and culture, helping to structure ways to turn dialogue into action.

April Reign travels internationally, speaking at academic institutions and conferences; she appears at industry awards, festivals and events, and is highly sought-after for consulting with organizations regarding issues of diversity and inclusion.

ABOUT OVERTUREOverture Global is a media platform and thought leadership community built to inspire those working across boundaries, industries, disciplines, and generations. Overture focuses on the intersection of innovation and our culture of change, by curating conversations for a young, digital, connected audience via content online, print, video, and live events. Its members and sponsors include Facebook, Google, Spotify, the World Bank, the Nature Conservancy, International Rescue Committee, US State Department, British State Department, and Johnson & Johnson, among many others.

Site: www.overtureglobal.io

Media Contact:

e: info@overtureglobal.io

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Sat, 21 May 2022 20:08

American media strategist and diversity & inclusion advocate

April Reign is a media strategist and advocate for diversity and inclusion, known for creating the movement #OscarsSoWhite.[1] Reign is credited with starting "the hashtag that changed the Oscars," a movement that prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to diversify its membership.[2]

Early life and education [ edit ] Reign was born in Newark, New Jersey. Her father was a physician's assistant in the military and her family moved around when she was a child, with Reign attending high school in Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia.[3] Reign attended the University of Texas for both college and law school.[4]

Career [ edit ] Reign worked as a campaign finance lawyer for 15 years. In 2014 she resigned from the FEC for violating the Hatch Act.[5] She is currently the CEO of Reignstorm Ventures, where she advocates for the representation of marginalized communities in all areas of the arts and tech.[6] In 2019 Reign was named as an equity advisor to cosmetics retailer Sephora, working with them to eliminate racial bias in stores.[7] In 2020 Reign partnered with Overture Global to create a new digital content studio called Ensemble, aimed at creating content by and for people of color.[8]

Oscars So White [ edit ] Reign created the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite on January 15, 2015[9] to call attention to inequality in Hollywood and the lack of representation of people of color in the 87th Academy Awards nominations.[10] Reign said this movement was intended to draw attention to how films get made, rather than particular actors: ''It's not about saying who is snubbed and who should have been nominated, it's about opening the discussion more on how the decisions were made, who was cast and who tells the story behind the camera.''[11]

The hashtag returned after nominations were announced on January 14, 2016 to protest the second year in a row that no actors of color were nominated in the 88th Academy Awards and gained wide attention in the media.[1][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] In response to the furor sparked by the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, the president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs released a statement promising to take "dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership."[20] As a result, the Academy voted unanimously on January 21, 2016 to make a variety of changes to its membership and governance policies with the goal of doubling the number of women and underrepresented groups by 2020.[21] Reign said in 2016 that while the Academy was moving in the right direction, its membership remained overwhelmingly male and white, and that she would continue her fight "until there is a wealth of films that showcase the nuance and complexity of all marginalized communities, whether it is based on sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnicity, gender identity, or First Nation status."[22]

Despite the changes promised in 2016, the 92nd Academy Awards once again showed a lack of diversity.[23] Reign said she wasn't surprised by the lack of nominations for diverse actors in 2020: "Despite the Academy's commitment to doubling the number of people of color and doubling the number of women within its membership ranks by this year, 2020, the Academy is still 84 per cent white and 68 per cent male."[24] Reign remains committed to the movement, traveling globally to connect with a wider audience to encourage people to become active advocates for disadvantaged groups.[25] Despite her commitment to improving diversity in Hollywood, Reign says no one from the Academy has ever spoken to her about the movement she started or asked for her help making structural changes.[26]

References [ edit ] ^ a b Ashagre, Aggi (2016-01-25). "A conversation with the creator of #OscarsSoWhite". NPR . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Ugwu, Reggie (2020-02-06). "The Hashtag That Changed the Oscars: An Oral History". New York Times . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Lamb, Gregory M. (2016-12-15). "The woman behind #OscarsSoWhite". The Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Rao, Sonia (2017-08-17). "Her #OscarsSoWhite campaign changed how Hollywood deals with race. Now she's taking on HBO". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ "Rep Jim Jordan wants information on computer crash of federal lawyer who campaigned for Obama at work". 15 July 2014. ^ "April Reign". Sparks and Honey. 2019-09-17 . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Rao, Priya (2020-07-07). "Sephora takes steps to improve equity and inclusion in stores". Glossy . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ McNary, Dave (2020-06-23). "April Reign, Creator of #OscarsSoWhite, Partners With Overture Global on Ensemble Venture". Variety . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Reign, April (2015-01-15). "#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair". Twitter . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Murphy, Shaunna (2015-01-15). "YES, the Oscars are so white, and here's why that matters". MTV News . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Workneh, Lily (2016-02-27). "Meet April Reign, The Activist Who Created #OscarsSoWhite". Huffington Post . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Hogan, Mike (2016-01-14). "The Oscars Are Way Too White, Again". Vanity Fair . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Pesce, Nicole Lyn (2016-01-14). "#OscarsSoWhite returns after Academy noms snub minorities again". New York Daily News . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Keegan, Rebecca; Zeitchik, Steven (2016-01-14). "Oscars 2016: Here's why the nominees are so white -- again". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ VanDerWerff, Emily (2016-01-14). "Oscars 2016: The nominees are blindingly white. Again". Vox . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Gray, Tim (2016-01-14). "Academy Nominates All White Actors for Second Year in Row". Variety . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Ryan, Patrick (2016-02-02). "#OscarsSoWhite controversy: What you need to know". USA Today . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Cox, David (2016-02-26). "#OscarsSoWhite: who is really to blame for the Oscars' lack of diversity?". The Guardian . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Wong, Jessica (2016-02-26). "#OscarsSoWhite, Hollywood diversity woes loom over Academy Awards". CBC . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Boone Isaacs, Cheryl (2016-01-18). "Statement from Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs". Oscars.org . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ "Academy takes historic action to increase diversity". Oscars.org. 2016-01-21 . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Reign, April (2016-06-30). "Oscars members list: one small step toward a more diverse Academy". The Guardian . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ VanDerWerff, Emily (2020-01-13). "The lack of diversity among the 2020 Oscar nominees feels disappointingly familiar". Vox . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ "Why #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign isn't surprised by the lack of diverse nominees". CBC. 2020-01-14 . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ McCullough, Sarah-Mae (2020-01-23). "#OscarsSoWhite: April Reign talks about the tweet that became a movement". Daily Emerald . Retrieved 2020-12-20 . ^ Reign, April (2020-01-15). "With a Mostly White Academy, What Could We Expect?". Variety . Retrieved 2020-12-20 .

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Sat, 21 May 2022 20:08

An Oscar statue, on display during the Academy Awards nominations announcement in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 14. Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images An Oscar statue, on display during the Academy Awards nominations announcement in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 14.

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images In recent weeks, as controversy has embroiled the Oscar nominations, one hashtag has surfaced again as a vehicle for those displeased with the lack of diversity among the academy's selections: #OscarsSoWhite.

The hashtag has gathered momentum once more online, even as criticism of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences escalated '-- to the point where, on Friday, the academy announced unprecedented changes to its membership and voting rules. The goal, according to a statement, was to "make the Academy's membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse."

But #OscarsSoWhite isn't simply a hashtag '-- it's part of a broader social media movement started in 2015 by April Reign, managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com.

Reign spoke with me about her reaction to the academy's changes and what more still needs to be done to increase diversity in the film industry. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

What's known as "hashtag activism" has been criticized as not being enough to create change outside of the online space. Did you ever imagine #OscarsSoWhite would become what it is?

There was no way for me to know that a single tweet that I made from my family room in January of 2015 would have the impact that it has. And I'm not sure that anyone ever really knows what hashtag is going to become viral until it does. The very first tweet was "#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair," and I was just being sort of cheeky and frustrated with what I was watching on the Oscar nominations and it just took off from there.

And so there were a lot of discussions, and we saw last year that Cheryl Boone Issacs, the president of the academy, invited 300 new members to the academy in an attempt to increase its diversity, but then the nominations were announced this year, 2016, and there was no change. In fact, it may have actually gotten worse. And so the hashtag unfortunately was still very relevant and experienced a resurgence.

April Reign. Courtesy of April Reign hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of April Reign April Reign.

Courtesy of April Reign Many creators in the digital space are unable to hold on to ownership of their creations once they go viral. Was that something that worried you at all?

It happened somewhat, and I have to credit other people who are Twitter friends of mine who will take journalists and other organizations to task for saying something like "Twitter created the hashtag" '-- or something passive like "the hashtag was created by Twitter," or "it just took off" '-- without saying, well, "Here's the person who actually did it."

There's a real person. It's in my bio. It's not very hard to track down. There were countless articles from last year and this year that named me directly or it's easy enough to figure out who I am. There was also a question about, I'm speaking about the erasure of people of color in marginalized communities in film, and yet I am being erased because they're not actually acknowledging the person who created the hashtag. ...

I appreciated every time someone reached out and said, "Is it you? We want to interview you directly, because you actually started it." But overall, it's not about me. I don't need the credit.

What I want to see acknowledged is a change that everyone, or so many people, were asking for. So, make more diverse films, change the structure of the academy, change the way that votes are cast by academy members. That's what's important when all is said and done. If you remember that I had something to do with that, even better '-- but it's not imperative.

Was the announcement that the academy made on Friday on par with what you were hoping for? Were they missing anything?

I think it's a really good first step. I am very encouraged by the fact that the vote that the board of governors took was unanimous to make these changes.

Some of the things that they are doing now, I specifically suggested in interviews, so I am gratified that the academy and President Cheryl Boone Isaacs were listening.

Have you heard from Isaacs or anyone on the organization's governing board?

No. I would imagine that if they were going to reach out they would have done if before they decided to make the changes, but again, it's not about me. They were able to make sweeping changes: I mean, to my knowledge, these are the first substantive changes that they've made to the voting structure in the over 80-year history of the academy.

They didn't need to reach out to me. ... I think what they've done will go a long way to increasing the diversity of the academy. I would like to see the academy now put the onus on Hollywood studios to make more diverse and inclusive films, to give the academy something on which they can vote that doesn't look as homogeneous as what we currently have.

On that note, what do you say to people who argue that this energy is being spent on the wrong fight, and that focus should actually be put on encouraging diversity among studio executives, production companies and writers' rooms?

I think that this is an issue that can be addressed on many fronts. There was a need for the academy to be more diverse and for them to represent the people who watch the films that they nominate and that they support.

There's also a need for Hollywood and the studio heads and those who greenlight the films to make substantial changes to their thought processes and perspectives. They need to broaden their perspectives with respect to who can play particular roles and how stories can be told effectively.

I don't know that this is a chicken-and-the-egg issue and that we should have pressured Hollywood before we pressured the academy. I think this is the way that it turned out, I think the changes are a good start, but I think there is more work to be done.

Director Spike Lee and actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith have called out the Oscars in recent weeks, saying they won't be attending, which many are calling a boycott. On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg said on The View that refusing to tune in or not attending is a "slap in the face" to host Chris Rock. What do you make of their stances?

"Boycott" is a word that was sort of thrust into the mix. Spike is saying that he's not actually boycotting, they're just not attending. Jada and Will won't be attending. We engaged in counterprogramming last year. We tweeted Coming to America during the Oscar's presentation and that movie was chosen very deliberately. We will be doing something on an even bigger scale this year. So, if you want to call it a boycott that's fine; that's not really a word I'm comfortable with.

What I'm saying is that if you have issues with the way the academy has been up until yesterday, if you want to see yourself, your perspective or someone else's perspective, something different from the academy, then don't watch on Feb. 28. Turn off your TV, express your concern and your disappointment with your dollars. Not only with your dollars at the movie theater in choosing very thoughtfully which films you will support, but also with your viewership.

I think the changes are a good start, but I think there is more work to be done.

April Reign

What we know '-- based in part on the conversations emanating from the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag last year and our live-tweeting during the telecast of something other than the Oscars '-- [is] that the Oscars show had its lowest ratings of the last six years.

As I say, [what] we'll be doing this year, we're not ready to announce just what yet, but it'll be on an even grander scale because there's still work to be done. I'm very gratified with the announcement that the academy made, because I think the changes they will be making are important. But that doesn't speak to this year. So, we're going to continue with our original plan.

While some actors and filmmakers have come out in support of the call for more diversity, there have also been actors who have faced backlash for their comments about the situation. Actress Charlotte Rampling, who is nominated this year in the best actress category for her role in the film 45 Years, said in an interview on a French radio program that the uproar is "racist against whites." She later released a statement saying she regretted her comments. British actor Michael Caine has also spoken out, saying in an interview with BBC Radio 4 that actors of color should just "be patient." How do you respond to their comments?

I found them very disappointing, because I think that Michael Caine is a fine actor. And to tell people of color they need to be patient when we have been for over 80 years is frustrating. You cannot say that there are not qualified film creatives both in front of and behind the screen '-- directors and cinematographers and screenwriters, in addition to actors and actresses. I found his comments disappointing, because I think that unfortunately ... he may be expressing what perhaps some of the academy members think, as well. Change is hard, and I would hope that he will see the light and embrace opportunities for everyone, including himself.

You mentioned a "we" when talking about planning for the #OscarsSoWhite counterprogramming during this year's ceremony. Are you talking about your followers or do you have some sort of dedicated team for the logistics?

There's no team; it's just me and people who feel like me. So, it is my followers who retweet what I say, and articles and interviews on the subject. They tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on. I definitely could not have done this alone. This happened because there are millions of people around the world who want to see films that are more representative. They spoke out and changed with me, so I am very humbled by the support I've recieved and the support that the hashtag got as well.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

I'd like to thank academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, because I know that this was not easy for her. She has been speaking out about these issues for a while, and she could not have made these changes alone. The academy is over 6,000 members strong, and she appeared to have been very vigilant in wanting these changes made. Again, while I think there's more that needs to be done, I appreciate her work on this issue, especially in the last couple of months.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 20:07

One day in the summer of 2017, Daniel Hernandez, better known as the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, appeared outside a Brooklyn row house to shoot the video that would make him a star, and eventually ruin his life. Against the menacing strains of his viral hit ''Gummo,'' he and a crowd of men in red bandannas danced, waved guns and made cryptic symbols with their hands. Hernandez, clad in a green tracksuit, thrashed his rainbow hair and bared his multicolored teeth. At one point, he removed his own bandanna to show off a recent tattoo that would become his most identifying feature: the numerals ''6'' and ''9'' that covered half his forehead.

The tattoo was part of a personal rebrand that shocked Hernandez's friends when he debuted it on Instagram. ''I didn't even know he had done that shit!'' says Andrew ''TrifeDrew'' Green, who directed the ''Gummo'' video. ''At that moment, I knew there was no turning back.'' Just a few months before, 6ix9ine had still been Danny the deli clerk, with mostly unmarked skin, black hair and preposterous dreams of stardom. Then the dye job; then the tattoos; then the full Tekashi.

In his brief career, Tekashi 6ix9ine captured America's attention with an escalating series of provocations and controversies. He became hip-hop's troll prince, a master at sparking outrage and bottling it into a feverish popularity. It's a playbook that's been used before '-- 50 Cent, for example, dissed his way to rap's throne in the early 2000s '-- but the speed at which 6ix9ine found himself with an audience of millions could only have happened in the smartphone era. You didn't have to like him; you just had to have an opinion. ''He is the Donald Trump of the music industry,'' Elliot Grainge, the CEO of Tekashi's label, 10K Projects, told me last summer. ''We look at the data '-- 80 percent of the comments are hate. But if we showed you the analytics on who writes the hate comments, they're the ones who go to the shows and buy the T-shirts!''

The ''Gummo'' video launched Hernandez on three parallel trajectories '-- one that made him famous; one that made him notorious; and one that may end his career. ''Gummo,'' powered by the bizarre, unforgettable 6ix9ine image, was a viral sensation that went platinum in just a few months. That surge in popularity would lead to the uncovering of Hernandez's pre-fame life, including a guilty plea for child-sex charges, a case that would define Hernandez in the public eye. But it was his introduction to Kifano Jordan, a.k.a. ''Shotti,'' that would be the most consequential part of that summer day in Brooklyn. Shotti was allegedly a member of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, a subset of the violent prison gang founded at New York's Rikers Island jail in 1993. He produced the crowd of menacing young men in the video, and in time would become Tekashi's unofficial manager. Later, authorities allege, he would threaten Tekashi's life.

People who knew Hernandez well agree that, before he met Shotti, he hadn't been involved in gang life at all. But just more than 12 months after that video shoot in Brooklyn, Hernandez would be in a jail cell facing 32 years to life on charges that included armed robbery and attempted murder.

***

69 Problems: In a Manhattan courtroom on October 26th, 2018, for a plea violation. Tekashi would avoid incarceration, but that evening, at a dinner celebrating the judge's decision, a gun battle would break out between Shotti's crew and his label CEO Elliot Grainge's security team. And within a month, Teakashi would find himself in a much bigger trouble. Photo credit: Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times/Redux

Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times/Redux

His friends all called him Danny. To them, he wasn't Tekashi or 6ix9ine, even after he put 14 songs on the Billboard chart and started hanging out with Kanye West. He was Danny Hernandez, from Locust Avenue, in Bushwick, who worked the counter at the Stay Fresh Grill and Deli, who picked fights on Instagram, and who lived in a crowded two-bedroom apartment in a derelict tenement. ''His mom's house'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰that was, like, him, his mom, his brother [his brother's] girlfriend, his girlfriend and his kid,'' says Andrew, who visited him often.

Danny liked to needle people endlessly. Many of his closest friends had once been enemies; many of his enemies were once his closest friends. Almost always, a first interaction with him was negative. He'd find someone on social media, leave nasty comments, and dare them to fight him. Then, when they ran into him in person, he'd disarm them with kindness. He wasn't threatening at all in real life '-- around five feet six and 130 pounds, with a boyish demeanor and an impudent smile. Danny would quash the internet beef, explain that it was all a misunderstanding, and maybe even apologize. Then: lifelong friends.

Danny's biological father had abandoned the family when Danny was an infant. His mother, who was born in Mexico, told him that his adoptive Puerto Rican father was actually his biological dad, according to a radio interview Danny gave on The Angie Martinez Show. Danny eventually learned the truth about his stepfather, but it didn't affect their relationship and Danny continued to describe himself as ''half Puerto Rican, half Mexican.'' They were close, and Danny referred to him, even afterward, as his ''real'' father.

In early 2010, when Danny was 13, his adoptive father was shot and killed outside their apartment, on a busy street, in the middle of the day. He'd taken a trip to the grocery store and invited Danny along, but Danny decided to stay home. The crime was never solved.

Not long after, Danny began acting out, and was expelled from the eighth grade. His family struggled financially. Along with his older brother, he worked odd jobs in Bushwick, but was repeatedly sacked. He never attended high school, not even for a day.

Last August, while reporting a story about Grainge, Danny's label boss, I had a five-minute conversation with Danny via FaceTime. At that time, his career looked bright, and he told me with confidence that he would soon be the number-one rapper in the world. But when I asked him about his difficult teenage years, he told me something odd: ''For two months, I didn't say nothing to no one,'' he said. ''Not a word.''

In 2015, Danny's girlfriend got pregnant. Having lost two fathers himself, Danny was determined to support his child. But living in an apartment with five other people, with no education and a minimum-wage job, he had few economic prospects. He needed to make a lot of money, quickly. He decided to become a rapper.

Danny had not previously shown much interest in rap music, and he was not a natural talent, but he had the attitude nailed. He'd seen the response to his social media provocations, and he sensed that this could be leveraged to build a larger audience. If he was not the most technically gifted of performers, when it came to trolling, he was Mozart.

But Danny was also a Christian, a true believer, as his mother had raised him, and during the darkest parts of his life, he would turn to religion for help. Having decided that music was the way forward, he appealed for divine assistance. As his career was just starting, he told me, he would walk the grimy streets of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, muttering to himself in supplication '-- ''Please, God, change my life. Please, God, make me famous.''

***

Much of what I know about Danny comes from Andrew ''TrifeDrew'' Green, one of Danny's closest friends and most important collaborators. Andrew, a former skateboarder, is lanky, athletic and handsome, with a gentle sense of irony and a nonchalant demeanor. He and Danny met on Instagram in the early 2010s. Danny had trolled Andrew, leaving nasty comments on a mutual friend's feed. The two got into it, trading barbs online, which escalated quickly into threats. ''I actually pulled up on him, to see if he wanted to thump,'' Andrew tells me. ''He didn't show.''

Two weeks later, they reconnected and Danny made peace. Andrew realized that the taunting was a kind of immature courtship, and that Danny admired Andrew's videos and wanted to work with him. ''It was just to get my attention,'' Andrew says. ''He was actually just a little smartass. Just funny, goofy, joking and laughing.''

Danny explained his vision to Andrew. His rap handle was Tekashi69. The ''Tekashi'' part was inspired by Japanese anime, of which Danny was a big fan. Six-nine was more mysterious '-- it was the sex number, obviously, but in its interlocking yin-yang digits, Danny had found something deeper that he never fully explained. He was obsessed with the number and, even before the tattoos, was wearing outlandish sports jerseys with the numerals emblazoned on the back, and the words ASSHOLE and STD'S in the fields for the player's name.

One of Danny's first songs as Tekashi69, titled ''69,'' released in 2014. Musically, it was half-decent '-- an aggro-trap hybrid as effective as it was anonymous. The video featured graphic clips of pornographic hentai, a suite of Lamborghinis, and Danny appearing to get a blow job while Nirvana's ''Come As You Are'' played in the background. Danny can be seen receiving one of his first tattoos: a bone font on his inner forearm that read SCUM.

S.C.U.M. was an acronym '-- Society Can't Understand Me '-- the tag line of S.C.U.M. Gang, a New York rap collective that Danny associated with. (Standout S.C.U.M. Gang rapper Zillakami shot videos of friends appearing to smoke angel dust.) Andrew, who was angling to be Danny's videographer, wasn't overly excited by the ''69'' video, which was shocking but visually incoherent. He was more impressed that Danny, who'd never had more than a few dollars to his name, managed to finagle the Lamborghinis.

The ''69'' video didn't bring the kind of major label attention Danny was hoping for, but it didn't stifle his commitment, either. After it was shot, he got a series of more provocative tattoos: dozens of small ''69''s, spaced at regular intervals, like leopard spots, up the lengths of both his arms.

''Wizard'' Lee Weinberg is an affable dude from Long Island who runs a ramshackle independent recording studio in Lower Manhattan. For basement rates, he'll record, mix and master your album, and for a long time, he was S.C.U.M. Gang's go-to engineer. He was also one of Danny's ''Day Ones,'' meaning he knew Danny before the Tekashi identity took over. From the start, Wizard was responsible for smoothing out the rougher edges in Danny's sound. Andrew, too, became a crucial contributor '-- a talented rapper with his own career who was now co-writing Danny's songs.

The Unofficial Manager: Tekashi with Kifano Jordan, better known as ''Shotti,'' who is allegedly a made member of the Nine Trey Bloods, a prison gang. He would become a key figure in Tekashi's life. Photo credit: Johnny Nunez/WireImage

Johnny Nunez/WireImage

By the start of 2015, Danny, then 18, was evolving into a competent, commercially viable recording artist. But then he did something horrible. In February, he traveled with a rapper named Taquan Anderson to a trap house in Harlem to shoot footage for a new video. Instead, the two ended up making a series of sex tapes, one showing a nude young girl lying across their laps; another showing her fellating Taquan while Danny stood behind her, making thrusting motions and smacking her on the buttocks. The video was posted to Instagram, and Danny was tagged in it. He then reposted it to his own account.

Soon, Danny found himself talking to Detective Maureen Sheehan of the NYPD Special Victims Squad. Danny admitted it was him in the video and that he'd posted it to social media. She informed him that the girl was 13 years old; her mother had seen the video and reported it to the police. Danny was arrested, and by his account, his bail was set at $100,000 '-- a sum he could never hope to afford '-- and he spent the next few months in Rikers Island jail.

The prosecutor was threatening years in prison, but Danny's lawyer from the Legal Aid Society negotiated a deal. It wasn't bad, as deals go: In exchange for pleading guilty to a felony count of ''use of a child in a sexual performance,'' Danny was conditionally released on one year's probation, and temporarily spared the sex-offender registry. He was given a series of requirements to meet: obtain his GED, avoid getting arrested, write the girl and her family a letter of apology, complete 300 hours of community service, and attend outpatient mental-health treatment. If he did all of this, he would avoid jail time and stay off the registry permanently.

In the years following the incident, Danny made a variety of lame excuses. He claimed that he was only 17 at the time of the incident (he wasn't). He claimed that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time (untrue). He said that he'd just met the girl and the other man in the video (irrelevant), and he claimed the girl had told him she was 19 (please). In his more self-pitying moments, he would present himself as the victim in the situation, making comparisons to Meek Mill, the rapper who had spent 10 years on probation '-- and served multiple jail sentences '-- stemming from one drug charge.

It's difficult to imagine what restitution would have looked like in this case, but it's fair to say Danny never paid it. Instead, he buried the incident and focused on his career. But he'd left a loose end. Rumors began to swirl that Zillakami, his friend from S.C.U.M. Gang, had paid a portion of his bail '-- up to the full $100,000, though Andrew says it was more like two or three grand. A rift opened between the two. According to Wizard, Zillakami accused Danny of stealing the money, and Danny began taunting Zillakami in Instagram Stories and interviews. ''If that's true and you bailed me out,'' he said in an interview, ''you's a bitch, because who bails out a rapist?'' One day, representatives from S.C.U.M. Gang approached Wizard and delivered an ultimatum: Choose between working with us or working with Danny.

Wizard chose Danny. He had heard rumors about the sex tapes, but he didn't feel that Danny was actually a pedophile. Also, the sessions he'd hosted with Danny and Andrew had a sensational musical energy he hadn't experienced before. ''I went with my gut,'' Wizard tells me. ''I see a lot of talented musicians, but his gift for marketing, the Tekashi69 identity'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰I'd never seen anything like it. I thought Danny was going to be a star.'' His decision '-- to ignore Danny's misdeeds in favor of his obvious charisma '-- was one many in the music industry would repeat in the following years.

***

Danny took a lot of crazy risks, and he pushed those around him to do the same. Sometimes, he and Andrew would come up with enough money for one-way tickets to California, where they were featured on underground tracks. ''We'd be hustling, scraping up money to shoot a video in L.A. or some shit,'' Andrew says. ''We would only have money for one-way flights, and maybe enough to buy two bags of ramen noodles when we got there.'' Earning $500 or so a feature, they always managed to make it home.

By 2017, Danny was attracting interest from established labels, as SoundCloud rap emerged from underground. Several breakout stars signed major deals around that time, including XXXTentacion, Lil Pump and Trippie Redd. Danny knew many of these artists, and producers began to use his aggressive energy to throw some flair on otherwise dull tracks.

Among the first to see Danny's potential was Elliot Grainge, then 23, the CEO of 10K Projects, the independent label that had signed Trippie Redd. Grainge '-- tall, polite, English '-- hailed from a royal family of music management. His father, Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, was the industry's most powerful man. His uncle Nigel Grainge had signed Sin(C)ad O'Connor to her first record deal; his cousin Nick Shymansky discovered Amy Winehouse. Elliot, looking to make his own name in the ancient family trade, was targeting generation SoundCloud. When I asked Elliot his thoughts about the genre, his eyes and nostrils flared: ''This is punk rock.''

Early in 2017, Trippie invited Danny to California to feature in a song called ''Poles1469.'' The song eventually went gold, and a bidding war erupted to sign 6ix9ine, one in which Grainge couldn't financially compete. What he could offer instead was total creative control. After several rounds of negotiations, Danny signed with 10K, forgoing larger advances from Warner Bros. and Sony.

Danny got to work immediately, returning to Wizard's grimy studio with Andrew and several hundred beats from various producers. One of these was the work of Pi'erre Bourne, most famous for producing Playboi Carti's ''Magnolia.'' Bourne's new beat was originally meant for Trippie; Danny would claim Trippie had given it to him as a gift, though Trippie would later claim it was stolen. Whatever the case, it was a scorcher that set a whining, high-pitched minor-key melody over insistent, driving hand claps.

Danny turned it into ''Gummo,'' his breakout hit. The lyrics, co-written with Andrew, were a generic endorsement of the thrills of armed robbery, but Danny's angry vocals, barked at maximum volume into Wizard's distortion filters, then layered over Bourne's superbly chilling beat, gave the song a unique flavor of menace. Andrew says that the team hadn't intended to record such a threatening anthem, but the song's tone had emerged organically from the studio process. ''We worked on 'Gummo' for almost four months,'' he says. ''We tried a bunch of different flows, a bunch of cadences. The label didn't believe in it, but we just knew when we heard it.''

Grainge, in L.A., tried to shelve ''Gummo,'' arguing that the gangbanger image wasn't right for Tekashi, who, in his mind, had the potential to be something more like the court jester of pop. But Danny, extending the creative-control clause in his contract, overruled him '-- this was his image, he insisted, and this was his sound. Grainge was forced to acquiesce. Now all that remained was to shoot the video.

***

Around the time ''Gummo'' was released, Trippie Redd and 6ix9ine turned on each other. I heard competing explanations for the rift '-- that Trippie envied Danny's success; that Danny had stolen the beat for ''Gummo''; that there was a dispute about a girl. Whatever the reason, Trippie soon found Danny's weak spot and exposed him. Zillakami, possibly still angry about the bail money, posted about the underage-sex-tape indictment, to which Trippie reportedly alerted his millions of followers in a now-deleted video.

The 6ix9ine identity, previously just provocative, was now radioactive. ''Gummo'' was released the same month the #MeToo movement emerged, and after decades of looking the other way, nobody, anywhere, was now willing to normalize a convicted underage sex abuser. He struggled to get radio airplay and TV appearances. Even in the historically more permissive world of music management, nobody wanted to work with Danny. For the remainder of Danny's brief career, his sole lifeline to the legitimate recording industry was Grainge. ''I didn't know about the charges, but I don't regret signing him,'' Grainge tells me. To Grainge, 6ix9ine had promise. ''The definition of a star is when someone walks in the room and they kind of brighten up the room. It's an energy they give off, that I'm very sensitive towards. He had that.''

And yet the doxxing of Danny's child-sex case wasn't the worst thing to result from the ''Gummo'' video shoot. The worst thing, according to multiple sources, was the older man he met on the set that day. Kifano Jordan, 36, was better known as ''Shotti.'' He had a friendly disposition '-- ''a real stand-up guy,'' says a friend of Danny's, without irony '-- but he was also allegedly a made member of the Nine Trey Bloods with a record of arrests for drug charges.

At the time ''Gummo'' was released, Danny had a manager, whom he'd hired through an associate of XXXTentacion. But in early 2018, Danny fired him, leaving himself in a vulnerable position: Although he was a highly successful recording artist, the blacklist prevented him from obtaining competent professional representation. In February 2018, Danny instead made Shotti his unofficial manager.

Danny's associates question exactly how much managing Shotti actually did. ''He wasn't no manager,'' Andrew tells me, then blows a raspberry. Grainge agrees: ''That's not his manager. That's his f riend.'' Shotti could not be reached for this story, but several people tell me he thinks of himself as a contemporary Suge Knight. Soon, Danny adopted a strident gangbanger image. He began yelling ''Treyway'' in Instagram posts '-- a nickname for Shotti's business platform, but also likely a reference to the Nine Trey nation. His music began to promote gang politics enthusiastically, especially ''Blood Walk,'' a remix of Rich the Kid's ''Plug Walk'' that borrowed from Snoop Dogg: ''I keep a red flag, hanging out my backside/Only on the right side/Yeah, that's the Blood side.''

Instagram-Ready: A surveillance-video still of a robbery near Times Square in April. Prosecutors allege that Shotti was present and Tekashi was filming the robbery from a car parked outside. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office

For his friends, it was an inexplicable turn. The gangster image in his previous videos was a front, as fake as pro wrestling. In reality, he was a struggling teenage dad who had earned his money slicing ham at the Stay Fresh Grill. The distinction, though '-- that Danny's association with the Nine Trey Bloods was all an act to sell records '-- would quickly become murkier, and eventually beside the point at all.

***

After ''Gummo,'' Danny put 13 more songs on the charts. His songs have been streamed more than 2.6 billion times, according to the music analytics company BuzzAngle. He's garnered more than 15 million followers on Instagram, and was at one point in the service's top 100 users. The popular consensus was summarized in a Youtube comment: ''This shit does bang but it's lowering my IQ.'' As his career progressed, his visual iconography became cartoon shorthand for an emerging demographic. On 4chan, a crudely drawn image quartered millennials into distinct generations: ''Boomers'' (post-30), ''Bloomers'' (late 20s), ''Doomers'' (early 20s) and teenage ''Zoomers,'' also known as Generation Z. The last had rainbow hair and a forehead tattoo of a ''69.'' Online, 6ix9ine was the face of a generation.

In interviews, Danny suggested that he didn't have to try very hard to make a hit and downplayed his technical rapping ability. ''I didn't put no effort into that shit,'' he told radio host Angie Martinez following the release of ''Fefe,'' his collaboration with Nicki Minaj that hit Number Three. Grainge was eager to corroborate the story. ''He's been to the recording studio maybe 15 times, never for more than an hour or so,'' Grainge says. ''And he's got 15 hits!''

But Wizard tells me the rapper was actually a studio perfectionist who agonized over every bar. Andrew says something similar: Together, he and Danny would lay down a series of lyrical ideas, then spend hours obsessively line-editing them. Thematically, the material never strayed far from the gangster archetype, but they weren't looking for range; they were looking for hooks. ''He focuses on every bar, and he can see if something's fire or trash,'' Wizard says. ''If it's trash, he'll focus on it. His real talent'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰basically, it's evaluating whether things are trash or fire.''

Danny's songs were simple, but they were catchy, and short, too, ending just before the listener might get bored. In the months following ''Gummo,'' Danny showed surprising versatility, switching from belligerent screaming to a hoarse, emotional whisper to AutoTuned Spanish-language pop. The disconnect between his voicing, the lyrics and the production created a sense of internal conflict, and at his best, Danny pulled off one of the hardest tricks in songcraft: He made the listener feel multiple emotions at once.

Throughout 2017, as his musicianship was improving, Danny doubled down on his already daring social media strategy. This meant tattoos, lots of them: spiderwebs on his jaw, enormous ''69''s on his neck, chest and stomach, and in a Gothic touch, the torture-porn icon Jigsaw, from the Saw franchise, on his right cheek. (Naturally, the face on his face had its own ''69'' tattoo.) It also meant beef, tons and tons of beef, with anyone and everyone he could find, including 50 Cent, Chief Keef, YG, Ludacris, Casanova and the Game.

Violence began to plague 6ix9ine's public appearances, especially after he linked up with Shotti and his entourage. There was video of gunfire outside a nightclub in Minnesota, following a chaotic appearance where someone threw an ice bucket at the rapper. There was a video of a brawl in the outdoor loading zone at LAX, where a fistfight appearing to involve 6ix9ine spilled out onto a busy street. And there was reportedly gunfire at a video shoot in Beverly Hills for a song featuring 6ix9ine, Minaj and Kanye West. Minaj's dressing room was reportedly hit by a bullet from an unknown assailant before she arrived. It was unclear whether Danny was directly involved in these incidents, but his constant incitements on Instagram created a perpetually volatile situation. Andrew began to worry about his friend. ''Almost every time I was around him, I was like, 'You don't gotta do this gang-sta shit, bro,''‰'' he says. ''He has rainbow hair, for God's sake! He could've just been a star.''

Danny often posted obnoxious Instagram content where he displayed his expensive jewelry, including a diamond-encrusted necklace of the Jigsaw marionette, which, he claimed, had cost him $300,000. ''Someone please come snatch my chain so my project could sell more,'' he wrote in one caption. In July 2018, he was kidnapped at gunpoint, beaten and robbed. In his recounting to Angie Martinez, he suggested the incident had been an inside job: His car had been rammed from behind, an assailant drew a gun, then forced him into another vehicle. He was then driven to his apartment '-- his captors already knew where it was '-- where he was forced to wait in the back seat while the thieves raided his home for jewels, terrorizing his girlfriend and child. Danny says he managed to escape by jumping out of the moving car.

Grainge attempted to persuade Danny to move to Los Angeles, suggesting he rent a house in a place like Calabasas, where he could be neighbors with Kim Kardashian and Drake. ''I don't think he can be safe in New York City,'' Grainge told me in August. ''Not in Bushwick.'' Danny, loyal to his ''Day Ones,'' turned him down.

In the spring and summer of 2018, Danny was arrested three times, first for driving with a suspended license, then for assaulting a police officer, then in connection with an assault at a mall in Houston, where he'd allegedly choked a 16-year-old who'd taken his picture. The arrests violated the terms of the plea deal in his sex-tape case; he had also repeatedly failed his GED exam. In October, Danny made a request for clemency at his sentencing hearing. In the courtroom was Grainge; so, too, were members of Shotti's entourage, dressed in subtle shades of red.

The prosecutor asked for at least a year in prison.

The judge spared him incarceration, instead issuing four years probation on the condition he not get arrested again or associate with known gang members. To celebrate, Grainge took Danny out to dinner at Philippe, a narrow, swanky Chinese restaurant in midtown Manhattan, whose private dining rooms often host New York's athletic and musical celebrities. Shotti and his crew attempted to attend, but were denied entrance by Grainge's security. According to his lawyer, Danny bailed on the scene.

An argument broke out between Shotti, with his squad of thugs, and 6ix9ine's princeling label boss, with his security detail of retired cops. A member of Shotti's crew bashed someone in the head with a chair. A security guard working for Grainge pulled out a gun and shot one of his assailants in the stomach. It was a custody battle for rap's problem child.

***

In November, three weeks after the fracas at Philippe, Danny announced on Instagram that he was firing his entire management team, meaning Shotti and his entourage, although he never mentioned them by name. In a radio interview, he attributed the firings to financial mismanagement. His lawyer explained it to me this way: ''He made the decision [to get out] after the judge granted him a second chance. The Phillipe incident'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰he was given back the best days of his life, and he took that second chance.'' By that point, the feds had already taken an interest in Danny; a search of his residence in September had retrieved an illegal firearm and a backpack that had been reported stolen by the victim of an armed robbery.

The escalating situation put Danny at risk; one does not simply exit gang life with an Instagram post. Danny's collaborators got nervous. Wizard, assembling the final cut of 6ix9ine's debut album, began locking himself in the studio. Andrew, Danny's oldest and closest collaborator, distanced himself from the scene and focused on launching his own career.

Two days after the announcement, Danny was approached by the FBI, who told him that his life was in danger. It turned out that Shotti was the target of an open federal investigation and that, for the past few weeks, law enforcement had wiretapped the phones of his crew. They'd been hearing chatter from gang members suggesting that a hit had been authorized on Danny's life '-- that he was in line to be ''super''violated.'' According to a leaked transcript of the wiretap, Mel Murda, one of Shotti's associates, was overheard suggesting that Shotti ''don't got nothing to lose no more.'' The FBI offered Danny its protection. He declined.

An indictment soon followed: a task force consisting of the ATF, Homeland Security and the NYPD had been building a RICO case against Shotti and his crew for months. (RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law used to prosecute acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.) Shotti and four members of his crew were arrested '-- as was Daniel Hernandez. The arrests, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Michael Longyear, were prompted by a fear that Shotti and his crew would attempt to attack Danny in a public place, and the authorities would be unable to contain the situation.

Powder Keg: Violence began to plague 6ix9ine's appearances especially after he linked up with Shotti. Photo credit: Gonzales Photo/Jarle H. Moe/PYMCA/Avalon/UIG via Getty Images

Gonzales Photo/Jarle H. Moe/PYMCA/Avalon/UIG/Getty Images

Famous rappers have been charged with serious felonies in the past, but the indictment brought against Danny and his crew has no precedent in the history of hip-hop. It alleged an extraordinary range of gang activity, including drug dealing, firearms charges, armed robbery and two attempted murders. There was the April incident at Brooklyn's Barclays Center where, according to the indictment, Danny and his crew were involved in a dust-up with rival rapper Casanova. A member of Shotti's crew fired a shot '-- no one was hit '-- and was later arrested. There was the July shooting in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where, the indictment alleged, Danny and his crew planned a hit on a disrespectful street rival. (The shooter missed, hitting a bystander.) There was the armed robbery in April near Times Square; the U.S. Attorney's office claimed that a group of Nine Treys were the perpetrators and Danny was outside, filming it all.

At his arraignment on November 19th, Danny appeared disheveled before the judge. His hearing was directly after Shotti and the other alleged Nine Treys', even though they were being tried together. Danny was denied bail, despite offering to surrender his passport and to pay more than $1 million in bail. The judge frequently asked the prosecutors how they knew Danny had been present at shootings, like the one at the Barclays Center. The answer was often simple: Danny had posted about it on Instagram.

Danny was brought to a federal jail in Brooklyn, according to his lawyer. There, his life was openly threatened by gang members. The guards at the prison immediately transferred him to a private facility in Queens. On November 26th, he was denied bail; he remains imprisoned today. The mandatory-minimum sentencing for the racketeering charges he faces is 32 years.

In mid-December, I meet with Danny's criminal''defense attorney, Lance Lazzaro, who emphasizes to me that, despite the prison rumors, Danny was not cooperating with authorities, and under no circumstances would he do so. Lazzaro also tells me Danny was not, and had never been, a member of the Nine Trey Bloods, that the charges against him were based on ''hearsay,'' and that he was willing to fight the racketeering charge all the way to trial. ''Danny liked to present the image of being a gangster to sell his music,'' he says. ''But my client is not a gangster.''

But when I ask Lazzaro if Danny might be willing to plead guilty to a lesser charge '-- say, armed robbery '-- he said it would depend on the charge and the terms. Shortly after our meeting, TMZ obtained surveillance footage of an April robbery that appears to show Shotti exiting an SUV, and a short Hispanic man with rainbow hair emerging shortly afterward. This robbery, authorities claim, was also captured on a separate video shot on Danny's phone, then sent to one of his friends, who posted it to social media.

To some observers, Danny's arrest wasn't a surprise. ''All the politics, all the beef, it was like'...'‰You can't just be speeding down the highway without expecting to crash,'' Andrew says.

But why would he feel the need to behave this way, I ask Andrew. Why on Earth would a platinum-selling recording artist stick up some kid on the street for a backpack?

''The internet,'' Andrew says.

***

On November 27th, nine days after his arrest, 6ix9ine's first official album, Dummy Boy, was released online. It debuted at Number Two but was a commercial disappointment to anyone invested in Tekashi. The critics were not kind.

With the exception of a couple of unreleased tracks on Wizard's desktop, this likely brings to an end the brief, bizarre and shocking career of Tekashi 6ix9ine. He faces six separate charges, and federal prison terms don't offer the possibility of parole. Even if he were to cooperate, it's not like he could enter witness protection '-- not with that face. Anything less than a decade inside seems improbable. Hernandez still plans on releasing music from jail, according to a recent report from TMZ. His lawyer was unavailable to comment on whether that's true, or the potential method for recording new music.

All of this '-- his supercharged rise from his corroded Brooklyn neighborhood, his extended tangle with the legal system and his eventual arrest by federal agents '-- took just more than a year, an internet-fueled ride that went off the rails almost as quickly as it began.

6ix9ine's fall coincides with the crashing of the entire SoundCloud rap wave: XXXTentacion has been murdered; Lil Peep is dead of a drug overdose; Lil Xan recently went to rehab. Danny was the movement's defining face. His behavior was unforgivable, but his instincts as an influencer were immaculate, and that only made his critics hate him more, extending the cycle of popularity for as long as it could be sustained.

Instagram was Danny's MTV, and trap music was his grunge, but the ironic, media-savvy distance previous generations had maintained between themselves and their entertainment had for him collapsed. He was a confused child of the internet who'd pierced the realm of stardom, but failed to understand where the theatrics were supposed to end.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 19:52

Been itching to try out a mushroom tea since my last several trips have been inconvenienced with stomach discomfort before and after the experience.

Last minute decision, because I got some quiet peaceful alone time I drank 2 coffee cups full of mushroom tea on a half full stomach.

Effects took an hour before anything was felt. About 2 hours before I peaked.

I felt like time was moving slower and colours were more exaggerated. I also felt a little chilly so I hopped in the bath for a bit to begin the ride. The CEV's began first. The normal orange-ish colour I can produce with my eyes shut was very noticeable. And was drifting like clouds.

Not sure how long I spaced out for but patterns and designs eventually began to slowly take over some of my vision. They were beautiful, gold grid-like patterns, slightly altering as they slowly rolled towards me taking over my vision completely now.

I instantly recognized the environment as similar to what I have experienced with dmt breakthrough. I was in hyperspace! I must of drifted back to my body for a second because I was startled to have lost that much control in the bath tub and after a few attempts (you know how it is) I drained the bathtub and got into bed to enjoy the ride.

This trip was very enjoyable. I cant recall seeing any entities, but feeling their presence was a recurring vibe. This was one of my best mushroom experiences.

My stomach discomfort was minimal during the experience.

I will be repeating this, but next time I want to see where 6 grams will take me.

7 seemed overkill for me, I got the experience I wanted, then when it was over the lingering effects lasted way longer than i wanted.

I drank the tea around 7pm and couldn't sleep until after 3am maybe closer to 4, still managed to get up for work at 530am though.

I am so happy to discover how similar dmt and mushrooms can be.

I have had similar "operating table" like experiences with both substances, but this time I went to hyperspace, gently. I skipped the blast off.

Makes me want to try pharmahuasca.

I need to try a higher dose of mescaline aswell.

Trip on, fellow psychonauts. Thanks for reading.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 19:48

It was the slap seen around the world.

But no one at the Dolby Theatre thought Will Smith actually meant to hit Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife at the Oscars, until Rock said out loud, ''Will Smith just smacked the s''t out of me.''

Though ABC chiefs cut the sound when Smith ran on stage, the audience could clearly hear Smith shouting after he returned to his seat, ''Keep my wife's name out of your f'--ing mouth!''

''We thought it was a bit,'' said one Hollywood insider. ''Then we heard Will yelling. You heard it so loudly in the theater.''

Another Hollywood insider told how she watched the chaos from the green room. ''Suddenly everyone froze and the whole place was, like, what the f'--k happened?''

The insider told how Smith's longtime publicist Meredith O'Sullivan Wasson, Academy CEO Dawn Hudson, Oscars producer Will Packer and Academy president David Rubin then walked into a private room ''very quickly '... with great seriousness.''

Will Smith's slap left Oscar producers and other actors scrambling to find out what was going on with the star. Chris Rock met with police but refused to press charges. NY Post photo composite The joke wasn't reportedly on the teleprompter or practiced in rehearsals but, among Rock's people, ''no one thought there were any issues with the jokes.'' REUTERS''There was a sense that something was wrong with Will,'' said the insider. ''I heard Chris' manager, Jason Weinberg, say, 'I've got to deal with the LAPD now. I have to find out what is going on,' then he walked out.

''Everybody was saying, 'Holy s'--t.' Even the bartenders. The gravitas was not lost on anyone. There were people saying, 'Oh, my God, poor Chris.' People were wondering if Chris' face was red because he was flush or because he was hit.''

A source who knows Rock said the comedian walked to the front of the stage after Smith had retreated and tried to keep the peace. REUTERSPictures right after the slap show Rock on stage talking to a seated Smith as though trying to make peace, but a source who knows the comedian said he wasn't attempting an apology. Rather, he was saying, ''Whoa, whoa, OK, I hear you. I'm just here to give out the Oscar,'' the source said.

''How does that read as an apology?'' the source added. ''He was the one who was assaulted live. The fact that the guy continued to be so cool after this assault, he deserves an Oscar.''

After hearing Rock's joke about her baldness, Jada Pinkett Smith rolled her eyes. She has suffered from alopecia since 2018. ABCRock was ''shaken'' as he walked off stage to meet with producers and members of the LAPD, the source continued.

''When he got off stage, he was a bit shaken. He was taken into a side room and talked to producers and LAPD. Then he went to the writers' room and spoke to his guys and left. I mean, these are guys he has worked with for years. No one thought there were any issues with the jokes.

''If anything, Regina Hall's joke about Will and Jada earlier in the evening (which hinted at their open marriage) was in way worse taste,'' the source said, while adding that Rock did not have a mark on his face from the slap.

During this awards season, Smith, 53, and his 50-year-old wife have repeatedly been the butt of jokes about their marital status, and some have speculated that Rock's barb '-- ''Jada, love you, 'G.I. Jane 2,' can't wait to see it,'' referring to her bald head '-- might have been the last straw. Filmmaker Judd Apatow suggested, in a now-deleted Twitter post, that Smith ''could have killed [Rock]. That's pure out of control rage and violence. [Jada and Will have] heard a million jokes about them in the last three decades. They're not freshmen in the world of Hollywood and comedy. He lost his mind.''

The Wall Street Journal reported that Rock's joke wasn't on the teleprompter nor was it practiced in rehearsal. Meanwhile, Rock reportedly did not know that Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which causes hair loss.

Smith's mentor Denzel Washington was first to offer words of wisdom to the actor as Rock looked on. REUTERSAfter the slap, LAPD officers asked Rock if he wanted to press charges against Smith. ''Chris said no and left soon after. He was stunned and shook,'' said the source.

Back in the theater, it was Smith's great mentor '-- and now fellow Oscar winner '-- Denzel Washington who came over to his table first to offer words of wisdom. As Smith revealed in his acceptance speech for Best Actor later that evening: ''Denzel said to me a few moments ago, he said, 'At your highest moment, be careful, that's when the devil comes for you.'''

During his acceptance speech, Smith revealed, ''Denzel said to me a few moments ago, he said, 'At your highest moment, be careful, that's when the devil comes for you.''' REUTERSDuring the commercial breaks, movie mogul Tyler Perry and actor Bradley Cooper also tried to calm Smith down. Fellow nominee Nicole Kidman was seen giving Smith a hug.

''He was wiping his eyes of tears, he knew it was not good,'' said Hollywood Reporter awards columnist Scott Feinberg on Matt Belloni's podcast, ''The Town,'' about Smith in the aftermath.

After slapping Rock, Smith walked back to his seat and yelled, ''Keep my wife's name out your f'---g mouth!''Meanwhile, it was clear that Smith would not be leaving the ceremony. ''Everybody started to realize 'Oh my God, he's going to get back up there,' they did not escort him out,'' said Matt Belloni, the former editor of the Hollywood Reporter, on the podcast.

Music magnate Diddy attempted to smooth things over on stage as he appeared to introduce a 50th anniversary tribute to ''The Godfather.''

''OK, Will and Chris, we're going to solve that like family at the Gold Party, OK?'' referring to the Oscars afterparty hosted by Jay-Z and Beyonc(C). ''But right now we are moving on with love. Everybody make some noise!''

During a commercial break, actor Bradley Cooper was seen trying to calm Smith down. Rob Latour/ShutterstockThe backstage industry source said: ''Diddy was minutes from getting on stage when the slap happened. He was trying to stay in the moment and rehearse his script.

''He wanted to thank Will Packer and Shayla Cowan for an incredible show, as the first-time black producers, and to thank the hosts. But he wanted to lift up the room, show Will and Chris they are family and bring them back together. He went up to Chris backstage and gave him a hug, they had a private conversation and went to Will in his seat and hugged him too.''

A-listers '-- including Jason Bateman, Taika Waititi, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, Sienna Miller and Sarah Paulson '-- watched in shock as the slap played out. Derek Blasberg''How and if they resolved it is up to them '-- to him, his intention was to bring love to them and say a few words of encouragement and be a part of that.''

Smith's rep O'Sullivan Wasson was also seen during every commercial break at her client's side talking to him quietly until the Best Actor category was announced about 40 minutes after the slap. It's believed she helped Smith rewrite his acceptance speech, in which he apologized to the Academy but not to Rock personally for his moment of rage.

As expected, Smith won his first Oscar for playing Richard Williams, the father of tennis legends Serena and Venus, in the movie ''King Richard.'' He kissed his wife and bounded up on stage.

Will Smith dances without a care in the world at the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones. WireImage for Vanity FairDespite his act of violence, the crowd gave him a standing ovation, although Belloni said some people in his row refused to clap.

Instead of going to the press room after his win, as is the norm, Smith returned to his seat, where he held hands with his wife. Meanwhile, his ''King Richard'' co-star Aunjanue Ellis sat next to him and placed her hand on his arm, as all three watched ''CODA'' win Best Picture.

Smith, who is also a musician born in West Philadelphia, was later seen with his entire family, including kids Trey, 29, Jaden, 23, and Willow, 21, at the swanky Vanity Fair party, dancing to his own hits including ''Gettin Jiggy With It.'' Before the show, he and Baltimore-born Jada had posted a picture of themselves to Instagram looking tough. After the show, Smith added a comment: ''You can't invite people from Philly or Baltimore nowhere.''

Seemingly having shaken off the incident, Smith and his Oscar took to the Vanity Fair party to dance to his own hits including ''Gettin Jiggy With It.'' WireImage for Vanity FairMeanwhile, Rock, 57, headed over to the annual Oscars party hosted by his pal, multimillionaire manager Guy Oseary.

''He's OK, he went to be with his best friend,'' said the source who knows Rock. ''Bottom line '-- you don't hit people, it was a joke.''

True to his character, the Los Angeles Times reported that Rock also made a joke about the slap. Backstage, the comic said, he ''just got punched in the face by Muhammad Ali and didn't get a scratch.''

By Monday afternoon, Smith had finally apologized to Rock on Instagram. ''I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris,'' he wrote. ''I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.''

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Sat, 21 May 2022 19:26

American film producer

Will Packer (born April 11, 1974) is an American film producer who founded Will Packer Productions,[1] and Will Packer Media.[2] Packer has produced 28 features often known for small scale comedies including Think Like a Man (2012), Ride Along (2014), Think Like a Man Too (2014), The Wedding Ringer (2015), Girls Trip (2017), Night School (2018), and What Men Want (2019).[3][4] He gained notoriety for producing the infamous 2021 Oscars ceremony.

Early life and education [ edit ] Packer was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated from St. Petersburg High School in 1991 and began attending Florida A&M University that fall. In 1996, Packer graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering.[5] On October 29, 2021, FAMU personally honored Packer by renaming its amphitheater the Will Packer Amphitheater.

Career [ edit ] Rainforest Films [ edit ] It was at FAMU that he started filmmaking with colleague and future business partner Rob Hardy while participating in an internship with veteran producer Warrington Hudlin.[6] In 1994, Packer and Hardy produced their first film, Chocolate City,[7] for $20,000 and Packer helped broker a small distribution deal with Blockbuster video.[8] After graduating, Packer and Hardy moved to Atlanta, Georgia and co-founded Rainforest Films. Packer produced and oversaw the company's studio-financed and self-financed films and distribution projects.[9][10] Packer and Hardy's vision was to make films that would appeal to black audiences who hadn't seen genre films starring people like themselves.

In 2000, Trois, Rainforest Film's first movie to be released theatrically, grossed over $1.2 million and became the fastest million-dollar grossing film independently distributed by African Americans.[9][10] Trois was in the Top 50 Highest Grossing Independent Films of the year, according to Daily Variety,[11] and Rainforest Films was at #34 on the list of Top 100 Film Distributors of 2000 listed by The Hollywood Reporter in August 2001. Due to the success of their first film, Packer and Hardy were listed among the "New Establishment" of Black power brokers in Hollywood.[10][12][13]

In 2001, Packer helped broker a deal with Sony to produce and distribute urban films including Trois ' s sequel, Trois: The Escort, and Motives.[10][14] The film Lockdown, released on home video under this Rainforest-Sony collaboration. In 2005, Rainforest Films released The Gospel.[13] At this time, Packer started using the shortened moniker "Will Packer".

Packer and Hardy wanted Rainforest's films to include established actors and actresses as well as those who are up and coming. 2007's This Christmas, a film about a middle-class family that reunites at Christmas time for the first time in many years, stars veteran actresses Loretta Devine and Regina King as well as R&B superstar Chris Brown in his feature film debut.[15] Packer produced five #1 films with Rainforest, Stomp the Yard, Obsessed, Takers, Think like a Man and Ride Along. His biggest hits with Rainforest have been Think like a Man, which grossed over $96 million worldwide after being released in April 2012,[16] and Ride Along, which brought in box office receipts totaling nearly $150 million as of April 2014.[17]

In television, Packer, along with Andrew Young, Martin Luther King III, and Rainforest Films partner Rob Hardy, are co-founders of Bounce TV, a United States television network airing on digital terrestrial television stations. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created exclusively for African Americans," Bounce TV launched on September 26, 2011 and features programming geared toward blacks and African Americans in the 25''54 age range.[18]

In June 2014, Packer and Hardy dissolved Rainforest Films. The pair were included in a lawsuit brought by former business partner Bernard Bronner in late June 2014.[19]

Will Packer Productions [ edit ] In 2013, Packer launched Will Packer Productions. In July 2013, he signed a two-year deal with Universal Television to develop new projects for the studio.[20] Later that year, he signed a three-year deal with Universal Pictures.[21] Packer-produced films under the Will Packer Productions banner include #1 box office openers Ride Along 2, No Good Deed and Think Like a Man Too along with The Wedding Ringer and Girls Trip. Girls Trip was the highest grossing live action comedy of 2017[22] and the first film written, directed, produced, and starring African-Americans to gross over $100 million.[23] The film went on to gross $140 million on a $19 million budget. Packer also served as executive producer on NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton and on 2016 television mini-series Roots.

He has produced the comedies Night School (2018), starring Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, What Men Want (2019), starring Taraji P. Henson, and Little (2019), starring Marsai Martin and Issa Rae.[24] Packer has been included in several high-profile lists, including The Hollywood Reporter's "40(ish) Most Powerful People in Comedy,[25] GIANT magazine's "The GIANT 100", Jet magazine's "Who's Hot To Watch in 2008" and Black Enterprise ' s "Most Powerful Players Under 40."[26]

Will Packer Media [ edit ] In 2017, Packer launched Will Packer Media, a branded content and digital production company, in partnership with Discovery Communications and Universal Pictures.[27] As part of the launch, the company acquired digital ad firm Narrative_[28] to serve as the new venture's branded content arm, WP Narrative. In 2018, Will Packer Media acquired women's lifestyle site xoNecole.[29]

Will Packer Media projects include television series Ambitions and Ready to Love for OWN;[30] Power Star Live, a 30-minute live series for Twitter;[31] and digital series The Baxters, produced for Roma Downey's LightWorkers platform.[32] The company's WP Narrative_ division was a 2018 Webby Award Winner[33] and 10th Annual Shorty Award winner[34] for its work producing video short #TakeAKnee. WP Narrative was also honored for its #BackedByAxe campaign created for Showtime's Billions, winning at the Clio Entertainment awards,[35] 10th Annual Shorty Awards[36] and 2018 D&AD Awards.[37]

Central Ave, an entertainment magazine series, debuted November 4, 2019 on Fox television stations.[38]

2021 Oscar ceremony [ edit ] Controversy [ edit ] Packer was named the Producer of the 94th Annual Academy Awards which aired on March 27, 2022. This marked his first "live" television production credit for a major show on a major television network (ABC) and was televised in more than 200 territories worldwide.[39] The show was overshadowed by Will Smith walking on stage and slapping host Chris Rock after he made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett's, hair.[40] Packer immediately tweeted, "Welp'... I said it wouldn't be boring", before deleting the tweet after criticism that he was being smug. He later tweeted that it was "a very painful moment for me".[41] Variety reported that Packer "was the key to Smith remaining in his seat".[42] Academy Board of Govenors member Whoopi Goldberg defended Packer's decision to carry on with the show saying, "And the reason they didn't go and take him out is because that would have been another 15-, 20-minute explanation of why we're taking the Black man out five seconds before they're about to decide whether he's won an Oscar or not".[43]

Criticism [ edit ] Both Packer's producing of the ceremony and his handling of Smith's assault against Rock received widespread negative attention among critics, members of the industry and audiences of the ceremony. Deadline Hollywood compared Packer's producing to that of Allan Carr who produced the infamous 1989 Oscar ceremony.[44] Packer went on Good Morning America without the approval of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to defend his actions and to declare that Rock told him that he didn't want Smith removed from the ceremony. However this was contradicted by the reporting from The Hollywood Reporter journalist Matthew Belloni who wrote, "Packer's assertion about Rock's apparent wishes was not necessarily accurate. I've got it on good authority that Rock never said that, and he only told the LAPD backstage that he didn't want this to become a criminal matter".[45]

Personal life [ edit ] Packer is a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (inducted into the Beta Nu Chapter at FAMU).[46][47] Packer married his first wife Nina Packer (general manager of Bryant Management and Dir. Of Operations for Blueprint Group, the artist management firm for Lil' Wayne and his YMCMB label from 2007-2014) in July 2001 and they have two daughters together, Nija Packer and Maya Packer. They were divorced in February 2009.[48] Packer proposed to his fianc(C) Heather Hayslett live on stage at the 2013 Essence Music Festival.[49] They were married in August 2015 in Georgia.[50]

Filmography [ edit ] Feature films [ edit ] Chocolate City (1994) (producer)Trois (2000) (writer, producer)Trois 2: Pandora's Box (2002) (story writer, producer)Motives (2004) (producer)Trois: The Escort (2004) (executive producer)The Gospel (2005) (producer)The Gospel Live (2005) (executive producer)Puff, Puff, Pass (2006) (producer)Stomp the Yard (2007) (producer)Motives 2 (2007) (producer)This Christmas (2007) (producer)Three Can Play That Game (2008) (producer)Obsessed (2009) (producer)Takers (2010) (producer)Stomp the Yard: Homecoming (2010) (producer)Alpha Man: The Brotherhood Of MLK (2011) (executive producer)Think Like a Man (2012) (producer, cameo appearance)Battle of the Year (2013) (executive producer)Ride Along (2014) (producer)About Last Night (2014) (producer)Think Like a Man Too (2014) (producer, cameo appearance)No Good Deed (2014) (producer)The Wedding Ringer (2015) (producer)Straight Outta Compton (2015)[51] (executive producer)Ride Along 2 (2016) (producer)Almost Christmas (2016)[52][53][54] (producer)Girls Trip (2017)[55][56][57][58] (producer)Breaking In (2018)[59] (producer)Night School (2018)[60][61] (producer)What Men Want (2019)[62] (producer)Little (2019)[63][64] (producer)Jacob's Ladder (2019)[65][66] (producer)The Photograph (2020) (producer)[67]Beast (2022) (producer)Oracle (TBA) (producer)Television [ edit ] Truth Be Told (2015)[68][69]Roots (2016)[70][71][72] (executive producer)Uncle Buck (2016)[73]Being Mary Jane (2017-2019)[74][75] (executive producer)The Quad (2017-2018)[76] (executive producer)Ready to Love (2018)[77] (executive producer)The Atlanta Child Murders (2019)[78] (executive producer)Ambitions (2019)[79] (executive producer)Bigger (2019-2021)[80][81]94th Academy Awards (2022)[82]Blackballed (TBA)[83]References [ edit ] ^ "Will Packer | Will Packer Productions". Willpackerprods.com . Retrieved February 15, 2018 . ^ Media, Will Packer. "Narrative_: an integrated, story-driven marketing solutions agency". willpackermedia.com . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ RYAN FAUGHNDER (August 8, 2017). " 'Girls Trip' producer Will Packer finds success by targeting an underserved audience". Los Angeles Times. latimes.com . Retrieved February 15, 2018 . ^ "Will Packer". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . ^ Thornton, Cedric (May 29, 2014). "The American Black Film Festival: 10 Facts About Will Packer". Black Enterprise Magazine . Retrieved March 28, 2022 . ^ Jasfly, By. "FAMU-FSU College of Engineering :: Will Packer, the Hollywood Hitmaker". Eng.fsu.edu . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "Will Packer". IMDb . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . ^ "Campus Campaign To Sell His Movie Rob Hardy And Buddies From Florida A&m Made The Circuit Of African American Colleges Plugging His Erotic Thriller, "Trois." - philly-archives". Articles.philly.com. March 14, 2000 . Retrieved June 1, 2015 . ^ a b "Rainforest Films". Rainforest Films . Retrieved February 2, 2012 . ^ a b c d "About The Company" (Press release). Rainforest Films. Archived from the original on December 4, 2008. ^ Variety Staff (July 26, 2001). "Limited release B.O. winners '' 2000". Variety . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "PANEL: A Conversation With Will Packer And Rob Hardy Of Rainforest Films". Archived from the original on July 8, 2011. ^ a b "Unlikely pair win fans with 'Gospel' ". Los Angeles Times. October 10, 2005 . Retrieved April 10, 2018 . ^ "Rainforest Films". Archived from the original on December 30, 2008. ^ "This Christmas (2007)". Artistdirect.com . Retrieved February 2, 2012 . ^ "Think Like a Man (2012)". Box Office Mojo. July 8, 2012 . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "Ride Along (2014)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Molloy, Tim (September 25, 2011). "Black-Oriented Bounce TV Begins, Betting on Classic Movies". Thewrap.com . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "EUR Exclusive: 'Think Like a Man Too' Producers Sued for Gross Mismanagement, Abuse of Control". Eurweb.com. April 25, 2014 . Retrieved June 1, 2015 . ^ Lesley Goldberg (July 9, 2013). "Film Producer Will Packer Inks Overall Deal With Universal TV". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Fleming, Mike (October 31, 2013). "Universal Makes First-Look Feature Pact With Hitmaking Producer Will Packer". Deadline . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ " "Girls Trip" Just Broke A Major Milestone & The Timing Couldn't Be More Perfect" . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ " 'Girls Trip' Crosses $100 Million at Domestic Box Office" . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ N'Duka, Amanda (May 3, 2018). "Issa Rae Joins 'Black-ish' Star Marsai Martin In 'Little' From Universal & Will Packer Productions". Deadline . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "The 40(ish) Most Powerful People in Comedy". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "Jet - Google Books". Johnson Publishing Company. January 14, 2008 . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "Will Packer Starting Production Company With Backing From Discovery and Universal" . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "Newly launched Will Packer Media acquires creative and tech agency Narrative". The Drum . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Spangler, Todd (January 18, 2018). "Will Packer Media Acquires Women's Lifestyle Site xoNecole". Variety . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Andreeva, Nellie (April 17, 2018). "OWN Orders 2 Will Packer Series: Drama 'Ambitions' & Unscripted 'Ready To Love' ". Deadline . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Spangler, Todd (April 30, 2018). "Twitter Boasts 30 New or Renewed Video Pacts, Details ESPN, NBCUniversal Live Programming". Variety . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Evans, Greg (January 30, 2018). "Roma Downey's LightWorkers Teams With Will Packer On 'The Baxters' Digital Series". Deadline . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "Take A Knee | The Webby Awards" . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "#TakeAKnee - The Shorty Awards". goo.gl . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "Billions - #BackedByAxe". Clios . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "#BackedByAxe - The Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ "#BackedByAxe WP Narrative_ |SHOWTIME Networks |D&AD Awards 2018 Pencil Winner |Use of Social Media". DandAD . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Albiniak, Paige (October 28, 2019). "Fox Prepares to Step Out on Central Ave". Broadcasting & Cable. 149 (10): 19. ^ "Oscars: Will Packer Set To Produce 94th Academy Awards". Deadline. October 5, 2021 . Retrieved October 12, 2021 . ^ Juneau, Jen (March 27, 2022). "Will Smith Smacks Chris Rock in the Face at 2022 Oscars After Rock Jokes About Jada Pinkett's Hair". People Magazine . Retrieved March 28, 2022 . ^ Bedigan, Mike (March 28, 2022). "Oscars-showrunner says Will Smith altercation was 'a very painful moment for me' ". Irish Examiner . Retrieved March 31, 2022 . ^ Lang, Brent; Donnelly, Matt; Davis, Clayton (March 31, 2022). "Will Smith Was Not Formally Asked to Leave Oscars Following Chris Rock Slap, Sources Claim". Variety . Retrieved March 31, 2022 . ^ Sand, Nardine (March 29, 2022). "Film academy governor Whoopi Goldberg: 'Nobody is OK with what happened' with Smith". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 31, 2022 . ^ "Second Thoughts On The Oscars, Toxic Masculinity & Admitting Wrong For Appeasing Will Smith's Assault On Chris Rock". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved April 15, 2022 . ^ "Oscars producer Will Packer claims Chris Rock didn't want Will Smith removed from ceremony". Goldderby . Retrieved April 15, 2022 . ^ "News Headlines '' Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University 2012". Famu.edu. December 7, 2006 . Retrieved February 2, 2012 . ^ ''FAMU's Beta Nu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. Receives College Chapter of the Year Award'', July 25, 2008. Accessed May 3, 2009. ^ "Producer Will Packer Proposes During Essence Music Festival'... [PHOTOS + VIDEO]". Straightfromthea.com . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "Will Packer Proposes Live at the 2013 ESSENCE Festival". Essence.com . Retrieved May 19, 2016 . ^ "JUST MARRIED: Hollywood Producer Will Packer & Heather Hayslett Tie The Knot In Surprise Backyard Wedding! | The Young, Black, and Fabulous®". Theybf.com. August 30, 2015 . Retrieved May 19, 2016 . ^ Max Weinstein (December 19, 2013). "N.W.A. Biopic 'Straight Outta Compton' Brings On Writer". Vibe . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ "David E. Talbert and Will Packer Pair Up for Thanksgiving | Shadow and Act". Blogs.indiewire.com . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Lincoln, Ross A. (May 14, 2015). "Universal Sets Release Dates For 'Legend', 'A Meyers Christmas' ". Deadline . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Lincoln, Ross A. (April 13, 2016). "Universal Retitles Family Comedy 'A Meyers Christmas' ". Deadline . Retrieved April 17, 2016 . ^ Dominique Hobdy (February 25, 2014). "Malcom D. Lee and Will Packer Team Up for New Movie 'Girls Trip' ". Essence.com . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Jeff Sneider (March 19, 2014). " 'South Park' Writer to Take 'Girl's Trip' With Malcolm D. Lee, Universal". Thewrap.com . Retrieved June 8, 2015 . ^ Dave McNary (June 22, 2015). "Will Packer Sets Female Comedy at Universal". Variety . Retrieved May 19, 2016 . ^ Busch, Anita (May 13, 2016). "Regina Hall To Star In Will Packer's Untitled 'Girl Trip' Film At Uni". Deadline . Retrieved May 19, 2016 . ^ wilsonmorales (May 31, 2017). "Gabrielle Union To Star & Produce "Breaking In" With Will Packer - blackfilm.com/read | blackfilm.com/read". Blackfilm.com . Retrieved June 21, 2017 . ^ Dave McNary (April 13, 2017). "Kevin to Star in Comedy 'Night School' ". Variety . Retrieved May 21, 2017 . ^ Fleming, Mike (June 29, 2017). "Malcolm D. Lee To Direct Kevin Hart In Universal Comedy 'Night School' ". Deadline . Retrieved September 16, 2017 . ^ Shankman, Adam (January 11, 2019), What Men Want, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Taraji P. Henson, Max Greenfield , retrieved June 25, 2018 ^ Chism, Tina Gordon, Little, Issa Rae, Marsai Martin, George Lott , retrieved June 25, 2018 ^ " 'Black-ish' Breakout Marsai Martin to Star in 'Little' for Will Packer, Kenya Barris (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 25, 2018 . ^ Fleming, Mike (March 21, 2016). "Michael Ealy Will Star In 'Jacob's Ladder' Reboot". Deadline . Retrieved March 30, 2016 . ^ wilsonmorales (March 22, 2016). "Michael Ealy To Star In "Jacob's Ladder" Remake With Producer Will Packer | blackfilm.com/read". Blackfilm.com . Retrieved March 30, 2016 . ^ Issa Rae, LaKeith Stanfield to Star in Stella Meghie's 'The Photograph' ^ Elizabeth Wagmeister (May 7, 2015). "NBC Comedy Orders: 'People Are Talking,' 'Crowded,' 'Superstore' ". Variety . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ Andreeva, Nellie. "Upfronts 2015: The Overachievers". Deadline . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ Andreeva, Nellie (April 30, 2015). " 'Roots' Remake Set For History, A&E, Lifetime; Will Packer, LeVar Burton Produce". Deadline . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ Cynthia Littleton (April 30, 2015). " 'Roots' Remake to Air on History, A&E and Lifetime Next Year". Variety . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ "Will Packer to Executive Produce 'Roots' for Three Networks". Eurweb.com. May 2, 2015 . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ Lesley Goldberg (May 8, 2015). " 'Uncle Buck' Remake Ordered to Series at ABC". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved May 17, 2015 . ^ Andreeva, Nellie (May 23, 2016). " 'Being Mary Jane': Will Packer As EP, Erica Shelton Kodish Showrunner". Deadline . Retrieved February 15, 2018 . ^ "Breaks: Will Packer to Executive Produce Being Mary Jane | Video | Celebrities | BET Breaks". BET. May 25, 2016 . Retrieved February 15, 2018 . ^ "Upfront". Bet.com . Retrieved May 19, 2016 . ^ "Introducing Ready to Love, a New Dating Series from Will Packer". Oprah.com . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . ^ White, Peter (February 12, 2019). "Will Packer To Produce 'The Atlanta Child Murders' For ID". Deadline . Retrieved March 2, 2019 . ^ Petski, Denise (November 13, 2018). " 'Ambitions': Robin Givens To Lead Ensemble Cast Of Will Packer's OWN Drama Series". Deadline . Retrieved March 28, 2019 . ^ "BET Networks Announces the Cast for "Bigger," The Will Packer Executive Produced Original Series". The Futon Critic. July 30, 2019. ^ Ho, Rodney; Journal-Constitution, The Atlanta. "BET streaming service launches 9/19 with Will Packer's raunchy, hilarious 'Bigger' ". ajc . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . ^ Hammond, Pete (October 5, 2021). "Oscars: Will Packer Set To Produce 2022 Academy Awards". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved October 7, 2021 . ^ Jarvey, Natalie (November 4, 2019). "Quibi Buys Donald Sterling Scandal Docuseries From Will Packer". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . External links [ edit ] Will Packer at IMDbOfficial website

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Sat, 21 May 2022 14:53

The bank messaging service, which dates back to the 1970s, is looking to connect CBDCs to each other and to traditional currencies as it tries to stay up to date.

News The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, the Belgian financial messaging network used by banks in international money transfers, announced Thursday that it is teaming up with French IT company Capgemini to conduct experiments with cross-border central bank digital currency (CBDC) payments. This is SWIFT's second research project on CBDC.

SWIFT and Capgemini are testing ways to link multiple CBDC networks, as well as CBDC and traditional currency networks, as a proof of concept. The majority of central banks worldwide are working on creating CBDCs, ''with numerous central banks developing their own digital currencies based on different technologies, standards and protocols,'' Thomas Zschach, SWIFT chief innovation officer, said in a statement.

According to the company's statement, it is developing a gateway for domestic CBDC networks to intercept, translate and forward them to the SWIFT platform for onward transmission. The system will use existing SWIFT standards, authentication models and infrastructure. SWIFT connects over 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries.

SWIFT's new alliance is a continuation of the efforts begun last year with American professional services company Accenture. That collaboration succeeded in creating a cross-border transaction between a CBDC network and ''an established real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.''

''If the experiments are successful, it will demonstrate that SWIFT has the capability and technical components to interlink different networks,''SWIFT head of innovation Nick Kerigan said. ''This would help solve a huge technology and industry challenge facing CBDCs. And it could enable us to help central banks make their own CBDC networks cross-border payment ready.''

Related: EU will cut off 7 Russian banks from SWIFT, with ordinary Russians facing consequences

SWIFT processed 42 million messages a day last year, but transactions on the network can take several days to complete. It is striving to maintain its relevance in the international economic order, especially in regard to CBDCs. Many developers foresee CBDCs interacting outside the traditional network, potentially with the aid of Ripple's (XRP).

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Thu, 19 May 2022 19:38

This article is a translation of an Italian article, originally posted on Identit . This was then reposted by the Golden Dawn and now reposted again as we feel this information is of high importance.

Mass immigration is a phenomenon, the causes of which are still cleverly concealed by the system, and the multicultural propaganda is trying to falsely portray it as inevitable. With this article, we intend to prove once and for all, that this is not a spontaneous phenomenon. What they want to present as an inevitable outcome of modern life, is actually a plan conceived around a table and has been prepared for, for decades, to completely destroy the face of the continent.

The Endgame - Full White Genocide Documentary

Report: EU Intentionally Collapsing European Countries With Illegals

The pictures and information taken from Stormfront "For Services Rendered '-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel accepts the Coudenhove-Kalergi Society's "Europa Prize," which is awarded every two years to leading figures who have done the most for European "integration" and the Jewish world project. With the chancellor are Austrian politician Josef Hochtl (centre), representing the president of the Coudenhove-Kalergi Europa Society, and Prince Nikolaus von Liechtenstein (right)." Britannia: The Murky Past of Angela Merkel

The Pan-European Few people know that one of the main initiators of the process of European integration was also the man who designed the genocide plan of the Peoples in Europe. He is a dark person, whose existence is unknown to the masses, but the elite considers him as the founder of the European Union. His name is Richard Coudenhove Kalergi. His father was an Austrian diplomat named Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, (with connections to the Byzantine family of the Kallergis), and his mother, Japanese Mitsu Aoyama. Kalergi, thanks to his close contacts with all European aristocrats and politicians, due to the relationships of his nobleman-diplomat father, and by moving behind the scenes, away from the glare of publicity, he managed to attract the most important heads of state to his plan, making them supporters and collaborators for the "project of European integration".

In 1922, he founded the "Pan-European" movement in Vienna, which aimed to create a New World Order, based on a federation of nations led by the United States. European integration would be the first step in creating a world government. Among the first supporters, including Czech politicians, TomÅ Masaryk and Edvard BeneÅ, and the banker Max Warburg, who invested the first 60,000 marks. The Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel and the next president of Austria, Karl Renner, took the responsibility for leading the "Pan-European" movement. Later, French politicians, such as L(C)on Blum, Aristide Briand, Alcide De Gasperi, etc. will offer their help.

With the rise of Fascism in Europe, the project was abandoned and the "Pan-European" movement was forced to dissolve, but after the Second World War, Kalergi, thanks to frantic and tireless activity and the support of Winston Churchill, the Jewish Masonic Lodge B'nai B'rith, and major newspapers like the New York Times, the plan manages to be accepted by the United States Government. The CIA later undertakes the completion of the project.

The essence of the Kalergi plan In his book "Praktischer Idealismus", Kalergi indicates that the Presidents of the future "United States of Europe" will not be the People of the Old Continent, but a kind of sub-humans, products of miscegenation, the inbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types. He clearly states that the peoples of Europe should interbreed with Asians and colored races, thus creating a multinational flock with no pure quality and easily controlled by the ruling Globalists.

Kalergi proclaims the abolition of the right of self-determination, and then the elimination of nations with the use of ethnic separatist movements and mass migration. In order for Europe to be controlled by an elite, he wants to turn people into one homogeneous mixed breed of Blacks, Whites, and Asians. Who is this elite, however? Kalergi is particularly illuminating on this:

"The man of the future will be of mixed race. The races and classes of today will gradually disappear due to the elimination of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-negroid race of the future, similar in appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples and the diversity of individuals. Instead of destroying European Judaism, Europe, against her will, refined and educated this people, driving them to their future status as a leading nation through this artificial evolutionary process. It's not surprising that the people that escaped from the Ghetto-Prison, became the spiritual nobility of Europe. Thus, the compassionate care given by Europe created a new breed of aristocrats. This happened when the European feudal aristocracy crashed because of the emancipation of the Jews [due to the actions taken by the French Revolution."

Although no textbook mentions Kalergi, his ideas are the guiding principles of the European Union. The belief that the peoples of Europe should be mixed with Africans and Asians, to destroy our identity and create a single mestizo race, is the basis of all community policies that aim to protect minorities. Not for humanitarian reasons, but because of the directives issued by the ruthless Regime that machinates the greatest genocide in history. The Coudenhove-Kalergi European Prize is awarded every two years to Europeans who have excelled in promoting this criminal plan. Among those awarded with such a prize are Angela Merkel and Herman Van Rompuy.

The incitement to genocide is also the basis of the constant appeals of the United Nations, that demands we accept millions of immigrants to help with the low birthrates of the EU. According to a report published on January 2000, in "Population division" Review of the United Nations in New York, under the title "Immigration replacement: A solution to declining and aging population, "Europe will need by 2025, 159,000,000 migrants.

One could wonder how there can be such accuracy on the estimates of immigration, even though it was not a premeditated plan. It is certain that the low birth rate could easily be reversed with appropriate measures to support families. It is just as clear that the contribution of foreign genes do not protect our genetic heritage, but that it enables their disappearance. The sole purpose of these measures is to completely distort our people, to turn them into a group of people without national, historical and cultural cohesion. In short, the policies of the Kalergi plan was and still is, the basis of official government policies aimed at genocide of the Peoples of Europe, through mass immigration. G. Brock Chisholm, former director of the World Health Organization, (OMS), proves that he has learned the lesson of Kalergi well when he says: "What people in all places have to do, is to limit birthrates and promote mixed marriages, (between different races). This aims to create a single race in a world which will be directed by a central authority. "

Conclusions If we look around us, the Kalergi plan seems to be fully realized . We are facing Europe's fusion with the Third World. The plague of interracial marriage produces, each year, thousands of young people of mixed race: "The children of Kalergi". Under the dual pressures of misinformation and humanitarian stupefaction, promoted by the MSM, the Europeans are being taught to renounce their origin, which means to renounce their national identity.

The servants of globalization are trying to convince us that to deny our identity, is a progressive and humanitarian act, that "racism" is wrong, because they want us all to be blind consumers. It is necessary, now more than ever, to counter the lies of the System, to awaken the revolutionary spirit of the Europeans. Everyone must see this truth, that European Integration amounts to genocide. We have no other option, the alternative is national suicide.

We, therefore, observe a personality with strong snobbish attitudes, arrogance, and, allow me the term, "degenerate elitism." Also, the fact that his mother was Asian, may have created internal conflicts and frustrations, something that can happen to people with such temperament. But the most decisive factor must have been the "proper teenager", which incidentally, of course, was beside him, and became his first woman, (at age 13): The Jewess, Ida Roland, who would later become a famous actress.

EUROPEAN COUNCIL The Coudenhove-Kalergi Prize goes to President Van Rompuy

On 16 November 2012, the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, was awarded the Coudenhove-Kalergi Prize, during a special conference in Vienna, to celebrate the 90 years of the pan-European movement. The prize is awarded every two years to leading personalities for their outstanding contribution to the process of European integration.

A decisive factor that helped him win the prize was the balanced way in which President Van Rompuy executed his duties in the new position of President of the European Council, which was established by the Treaty of Lisbon. He handled this particularly sensitive leading and coordinating role with a spirit of determination and reconciliation, while emphasis was also given to his skillful arbitration on European affairs and unfailing commitment to European moral values.

During his speech, Mr. Van Rompuy described the unification of Europe as a peace project. This idea, which was also the objective of the work of Coudenhove-Kalergi, after 90 years is still important. The award bears the name of Count Richard Nicolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972), philosopher, diplomat, publisher and founder of the Pan-European Movement, (1923). Coudenhove-Kalergi was the pioneer of European integration and popularized the idea of a federal Europe with his work.

Among the winners of the award, the Federal Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, (2010), and the President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga (2006), are included.

White Genocide Explained By Its Architects

John Lash - White Genocide & The Archontic Infection

31/03/2015

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:45

CNN '--

Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are closely tracking recent clusters of monkeypox infections around the world '' and possible cases in the United States.

Currently, the CDC is monitoring six people in the United States for possible monkeypox infections after they sat near an infected traveler who had symptoms while on a flight from Nigeria to the United Kingdom in early May.

Separately, CDC officials also are investigating a case of monkeypox confirmed in a man in Massachusetts who had recently traveled to Canada. And in New York City, one patient has tested positive for orthopoxvirus, the family of viruses to which monkeypox belongs, NYC health officials announced in a news release Friday.

The case is being treated as a ''presumptive positive'' case until confirmed pending CDC testing and the patient is currently isolating, the release states.

New York City health officials had also tested one other patient for monkeypox, but that case has been ruled out, health officials said. City officials have been working with state authorities from the New York State Department of Health in their investigation of the two cases, both of which were identified Thursday.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said in a statement Friday that ''the current risk to the public is low.''

''Reports of suspected cases of monkeypox in the United States and elsewhere are concerning. While a possible case in New York State awaits confirmatory testing by our local and federal partners, the Department has alerted health care providers in New York State so that they can consider this unusual diagnosis if their patients present with symptoms,'' Bassett said.

Meanwhile, recent monkeypox infections have been identified in several other regions around the world where the virus is not usually common, including Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Northern Ireland and Spain.

''We have a level of scientific concern about what we're seeing because this is a very unusual situation. Monkeypox is normally only reported in West Africa or Central Africa, and we don't see it in the United States or in Europe '' and the number of cases that are being reported is definitely outside the level of normal for what we would see,'' Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology within the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Thursday.

''At the same time, there really aren't that many cases that are being reported '' I think maybe a dozen, a couple dozen '' so, the general public should not be concerned that they are at immediate risk for monkeypox,'' she said. ''We're working through the investigations.''

Overall, ''we have people who are being monitored for diseases all the time,'' CDC spokesperson Christine Pearson wrote in an email, Thursday. That means that if someone might have been exposed to a pathogen, their health is monitored, and they should see physicians if they develop symptoms.

As for the six people currently being monitored for potential monkeypox, they all ''are healthy, with no symptoms and are considered at low risk for monkeypox,'' Pearson wrote, adding that none were seated next to the ill passenger and none had direct contact.

As the CDC's investigation continues, discussions have started to include the topic of vaccines.

CDC officials are evaluating whether smallpox vaccine should be offered to healthcare workers treating monkeypox patients and other people who may be at ''high risk'' for exposure to monkeypox, McQuiston said.

''It's definitely something that we're discussing and evaluating, whether offering smallpox vaccine makes sense in the current setting,'' she said. ''We'll be closer to making recommendations for that in the next day or so.''

The variola virus that causes smallpox and the monkeypox virus are somewhat related as they are both members of the Orthopoxvirus genus, belonging to the scientific family of ''pox'' viruses. Therefore, some of the same vaccines administered to prevent smallpox have also been shown to prevent monkeypox. Even though the viruses are related, monkeypox is less contagious than smallpox and causes less severe disease.

''We have vaccines that are stockpiled and available to be used, and if judged as a way to help manage this outbreak, we have the availability to use them,'' McQuiston said.

''I would say that we are in the early days of understanding what is causing this outbreak '' and the fact that we're seeing cases reported in multiple places around the globe suggests that maybe it's been going on for a couple of weeks,'' she said. ''As we work to complete our investigations and get our arms around it then hopefully we'll have much stronger recommendations for folks.''

Monkeypox, a viral disease, is rare in the United States and the virus does not occur naturally in the nation, according to the CDC. But cases have been identified that were associated with international travel or importing animals from areas where the disease is more common. After the virus jumps from an animal to a human, human-to-human transmission of monkeypox can occur when a person encounters the virus through direct contact to: large respiratory droplets, bodily fluids, or lesions on the skin.

Monkeypox symptoms can include fever, headache, muscle aches and swollen lymph nodes. A characteristic of the disease is that it can cause lesions and a rash on the body, including the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.

''This is not a disease that is going to sweep across the country,'' Dr. Daniel Bausch, president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, told CNN on Thursday.

''From a public health angle, of course, we need to investigate and respond '' I think the general population should just be aware of this '' but there's certainly no reason to panic and I think it's highly, highly, highly unlikely that we will get any sort of large outbreak of this,'' he said. ''And if you haven't had contact in Massachusetts and you're not related to the person who had disease or in that link at all '' until we have any other reason to expect or to understand how this disease got into the United States '' your risk of getting monkeypox is really low.''

In Massachusetts, physicians donning the same personal protective equipment they wear for Covid-19 patients have been treating the US monkeypox patient at a special pathogens unit within Massachusetts General Hospital, where he originally was diagnosed.

''They were undergoing a workup related to symptoms and the infectious diseases physician seeing the patient, learning about some of the cases in the United Kingdom, decided that the patient could possibly have monkeypox,'' Dr. Erica Shenoy, medical director for the Regional Emerging Special Pathogens Treatment Center and associate chief of the infection control unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, told CNN on Thursday.

''Then we had discussions with our state public health officials. The decision was made that yes, they did meet criteria for testing,'' Shenoy said. The patient tested positive.

''I think to the public overall, there really is no clear risk at this point,'' Shenoy said. ''This is an evolving situation that we're looking to understand better '' why these clusters that have been reported as well in the UK and in Portugal and Spain are happening, and to better understand the epidemiology.''

Both in the United Kingdom and Canada, health authorities have noted that many of the monkeypox cases were identified in men who have sex with men '' but the virus is not typically described as a sexually transmitted infection and investigations into these recent cases continue.

Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like illness were seen in colonies of monkeys that were kept for research, leading to the name ''monkeypox,'' according to the CDC. The first human case of monkeypox was reported years later in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during a time when intense efforts were underway to eliminate smallpox.

In the United States, the last outbreak of monkeypox recorded was in 2003, when 47 confirmed and probable cases were reported in six states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. ''No instances of monkeypox infection were attributed exclusively to person-to-person contact,'' according to CDC.

All of the people infected with monkeypox during that outbreak became ill after having contact with pet prairie dogs, the CDC found. Those pets were housed at an animal vendor's facilities in Illinois where they may have been infected with the virus. The facilities housed other small mammals imported from Ghana that tested positive for monkeypox virus: two African giant pouched rats, nine dormice and three rope squirrels.

''The prairie dogs got monkeypox from the imported animals and then passed it on to the humans,'' Bausch said. ''It's a bit of a misnomer calling it monkeypox. The reservoir for this virus, the natural reservoir in nature is probably certain types of rodents.''

US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Thursday that people should not be worried about monkeypox at this point, but that they should be aware of symptoms and when to reach out for help.

Murthy explained on CNN's New Day that monkeypox is rare in humans, ''but when it does come up, it's a serious one that we should investigate, and we've got to make sure that we understand if and how it is spreading from person to person.''

Symptoms generally are similar to the flu, he told CNN's John Berman and Erica Hill.

''The good news is we have one confirmed case right now. But we should always be on the lookout for more cases,'' he said. ''At this time, we don't want people to worry. At this point, again, these numbers are still small '' we want them to be aware of these symptoms and if they have any concerns to reach out to their doctor.''

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:34

Nina Jankowicz resigned as head of the Disinformation Governance Board at DHS after relentless attacks from conservatives. DHS has put the board on pause. DHS hide caption

toggle caption DHS Nina Jankowicz resigned as head of the Disinformation Governance Board at DHS after relentless attacks from conservatives. DHS has put the board on pause.

DHS Three weeks: That's how long it took for the Department of Homeland Security to go from announcing a board intended to combat disinformation to suspending it.

In those three weeks, both the Disinformation Governance Board and its leader, Nina Jankowicz, came under relentless and sometimes vicious attack from right-wing media and Republican lawmakers.

DHS initially shared few details about the board's function and purview, leading to speculation and fears it would police online speech.

As the board's public face, Jankowicz became a lighting rod. A well-regarded authority in online disinformation, who has studied Russian information operations and advised governments including that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she was accused of being a Democratic hack.

Conservatives seized on her tweets and past public statements as evidence of her partisan bias. The attacks got personal: Jankowicz has been barraged with abuse, harassment and death threats.

It all culminated Wednesday in DHS's decision to put the board on pause for 75 days while the agency reviews its work addressing disinformation. The same day, Jankowicz quit.

Jankowicz spoke with NPR about the board's botched rollout, what she had hoped to accomplish, and the irony of an effort to combat disinformation being derailed by disinformation. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the purpose of the Disinformation Governance Board?

Basically, everything you may have heard about the Disinformation Governance Board is wrong or is just a flat out lie. The board was quite simple and anodyne. What it wanted to do was to coordinate among the Department of Homeland Security's components '-- agencies like FEMA or the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency or Customs and Border Patrol '-- and make sure that Americans had trustworthy information about issues connected to homeland security.

But we weren't going to be doing anything related to policing speech. It was an internal coordinating mechanism to make sure that we were doing that work efficiently, we were doing it to the best of our ability, and we were doing it in a way that respected privacy, civil rights, civil liberties and, most importantly, the First Amendment.

Can you give an example of the work the board was meant to do?

Let's say that there was a deepfake video about how to access disaster aid or how to get out of a city during a disaster released by a malign actor like Russia, China or Iran in order to put Americans in danger.

The board would support FEMA in getting good information out there. How do we want to reach this audience? What's the best way to do that? Let's look at best practices in resilience building or counter-messaging, to make sure that Americans are safe during this natural disaster.

Why was the board's purpose so poorly communicated?

I think DHS had other priorities at the time the rollout was happening. They didn't anticipate this fierce backlash and weren't able to mount a transparent, open, rapid response when these criticisms came down the pike.

I wish it went differently. And I definitely think that the information vacuum that we created allowed people to fill in the blanks. It frankly showed exactly how disinformation campaigns work.

You have not been shy about sharing your opinions on Twitter, on television. That's given your critics fodder to accuse you of being partisan. What's your response to those criticisms?

My response is that there are 250,000 employees at DHS. When I was at DHS along with them, I checked my politics at the door. So these deliberate misconstruals and stripping of nuance and context of my previous statements is nothing but a bad faith, childish distraction from real national security issues that has now hampered the department and the federal government's response to these issues.

That makes me extremely sad. These are serious issues that have deadly consequences as we're seeing in places like Ukraine right now. I have always said that disinformation is not a partisan issue. It is a small-d democratic issue. It knows no political party.

The term "disinformation" means one thing for people working in your field. It's also been used politically to dismiss ideas people disagree with. How would you address concerns that this work can be politically manipulated?

We're not just talking about speech that happens to be inconvenient for someone's political viewpoint. Disinformation is false or misleading information spread with malign intent. In this case, the intent would be to hurt or harm the American people. That's the type of stuff that we were looking at: where disinformation had a nexus with offline action. So violence or making people unsafe in some way.

The idea is to help people understand how these techniques of manipulation look when they encounter them online. To help people recognize when they're being manipulated or when they're being scammed.

Why didn't DHS and you anticipate that this board, however it was intended, would get backlash?

We should have anticipated this response. I think that we absolutely should have done better in communicating it. I understand the American people's hesitance to get behind an initiative that sounds as scary as the name communicated.

I think there was a little bit of myopic thinking going on when the board was named, which was prior to my tenure at DHS. The thinking was, OK, it's going to govern the work that DHS is doing in that sphere '' it's not going to govern the entire internet, right? And that should have been communicated more clearly as well.

I believe that I gave the department the best advice that they could have received. That advice was not always heeded.

And, frankly, it speaks to why efforts like the one I was supposed to lead are needed. I don't think governments are equipped to handle disinformation campaigns. I don't think governments are thinking very deeply about what to do when their employees are the subject of harassment and death threats and absolute mischaracterization of the work that they've done and committed their careers to.

Why did you choose to resign?

My decision to leave was in part because of hesitancies about whether the department is up to the task. And the uncertainty of the future of the board. I'm about to have a baby in two weeks and I really didn't want this rancor and partisanship and uncertainty to hang over what should be a very happy time for me and my family.

You wrote a book called How to Be a Woman Online about the harassment women, including yourself, face on the internet. Was what happened in the last three weeks different?

It was way more overwhelming and exhausting than anything I've experienced before. This was three weeks of a barrage of sexualized, gendered attacks. Attacks on my personal life, attacking my hobbies and my own personality.

But the worst thing, especially as somebody who's about to become a mom, was these death threats. I think I had maybe one, two, or three days over the three weeks where I wasn't reporting one to DHS. It was about killing me and my family, taking away everything I held dear. Encouragement for me to commit suicide. Doxxing me and my family.

It should be said that the people who are spreading these childish characterizations of me and my work encourage this type of behavior online, whether or not they say those words themselves.

How has this experience changed the way you see the challenge of disinformation?

It's made me a lot less optimistic about the American response to disinformation.

This needs to be a wake-up call that things aren't getting better in this country by ignoring them. That our democratic discourse, the way it is so polarized and so, again, childish and not focused on the real threats, leaves us vulnerable to attacks from without and within. And our adversaries know that.

That's what I worry most about. I'm coming out of this experience pretty pessimistic. But I'm still committed to the work, because I don't want my son to grow up in a world where you can't tell truth from fiction and where you can't trust anything anybody says.

I'm going to keep working on it as long as I have the energy to.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:20

Wall Street Silver : Bloomberg China - 2350 hedge funds forced to sell 50% of their stocks. and many others dropped below the liquidatio'... https://t.co/XInY8Xqmuu

Sun May 22 09:00:36 +0000 2022

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:16

SteveMcAuliffe : You know when #BillGatesBioTerrorist is concocting a bullshit fear narrative - he waves his arms around like a fuck'... https://t.co/Zric35jUvn

Sat May 21 12:51:49 +0000 2022

It Is All A Lie : @beholdcosmicwav The trouble with @BillGates is that his ego is so big, that he can't help but give the game away a'... https://t.co/RkVHenABnR

Sun May 22 15:56:44 +0000 2022

Incio de Souza Franj : @beholdcosmicwav Bill Gates'... ''Vocª diz, Ok, e se um bioterrorista trouxe var­ola para 10 aeroportos.?'''...

Sun May 22 15:46:22 +0000 2022

Anneli Ojanper¤ : @beholdcosmicwav pankaa h¤kkiin tuo apina, se on vaarallinen apinatautiakantava virus.

Sun May 22 15:25:42 +0000 2022

Crypto Gumby $CKB : @beholdcosmicwav That's Dr. Bill Gates Oh wait, he's not a doctor My bad

Sun May 22 14:10:22 +0000 2022

steveCro🇨ðŸ‡...🇭🇷🇨ðŸ‡...🇭🇷 : @beholdcosmicwav @fin_dawn This....Is the most dangerous person in the world.

Sun May 22 12:29:24 +0000 2022

YoSissy ðŸðŸ¼ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸''¤ : @beholdcosmicwav It's all a game to this monopolist

Sun May 22 10:59:31 +0000 2022

Banksey (no not that one) : @beholdcosmicwav 100%

Sun May 22 10:31:44 +0000 2022

John R. Gardy : @beholdcosmicwav What if Bill Child Porn Gates is thatA close friend of Jeffery Epstein!!!

Sun May 22 09:49:35 +0000 2022

Ultra MEGA Rencia DeV : @beholdcosmicwav He's telling us what he did

Sun May 22 09:00:41 +0000 2022

Chantal : @beholdcosmicwav Until 2020 anyone talking like this was adviced to see a psychiatrist

Sun May 22 08:56:01 +0000 2022

The Almighty Doctor. PHD, BHp, MDP. : @beholdcosmicwav https://t.co/4JVRRN4HsW

Sun May 22 08:40:46 +0000 2022

DogAndLampost : @beholdcosmicwav Autistic ?

Sun May 22 08:22:29 +0000 2022

Ginger : @beholdcosmicwav And he fkn smirks..@BillGates is a menace to society.

Sun May 22 07:51:03 +0000 2022

Lewis E. Fur : @beholdcosmicwav A bio terrorist bringing diseases through airports? Where have I seen this before? https://t.co/VKpkzZ7FlO

Sun May 22 07:47:52 +0000 2022

Angela Gordon-Davis : @beholdcosmicwav Exactly !

Sun May 22 07:46:59 +0000 2022

NiftyArtist : @beholdcosmicwav YEP!!! And his eyes... his EYES... ðŸ‘LOL!!! #FkBillGates

Sun May 22 07:19:41 +0000 2022

zuby : @beholdcosmicwav This clown is trying to tell us how we should look after ourself he should take his own advice put'... https://t.co/wydFOOoalN

Sun May 22 06:13:48 +0000 2022

Adela : @beholdcosmicwav The man is sickM¼nchausen syndrome maybe#BillGatesBioTerrorist

Sun May 22 06:13:10 +0000 2022

Age case : @beholdcosmicwav of all the thousands of scenarios that could happen, he gets it right for a second time

Sun May 22 05:49:46 +0000 2022

Omega : @beholdcosmicwav Vector from Despicable Me got old

Sun May 22 05:26:47 +0000 2022

Leon ''Renegade Mind'' Michael : @beholdcosmicwav See also when his lips are moving and the uncontrollable bursts of duper's delight

Sun May 22 05:26:20 +0000 2022

Vic Creed : @beholdcosmicwav Tactic hitler used

Sun May 22 05:16:52 +0000 2022

Mach : @beholdcosmicwav Terrorists believe in AK-47s and crashing big planes into big buildings

Sun May 22 05:13:53 +0000 2022

''¨ : @beholdcosmicwav This guy just screams bad vibes ðŸ–

Sun May 22 05:11:47 +0000 2022

Secretary of Status : @beholdcosmicwav His body language is saying this germ "game" isnt so much of a gane but real life.

Sun May 22 05:10:15 +0000 2022

stan : @beholdcosmicwav how is it bullshit fear? the genetic code for smallpox is public domain. synthesizing a virus in t'... https://t.co/gkCubzN7tq

Sun May 22 05:09:07 +0000 2022

Harrowing Hell : @beholdcosmicwav He's casting demonic spells.

Sun May 22 05:07:28 +0000 2022

Live&LetLive - Don't Believe Everything U Read : @beholdcosmicwav How could anyone seriously want to be a leftist? These people are freaking weird.

Sun May 22 05:00:20 +0000 2022

à¤'य à¤'य हे महà¤à¤·à¤¾à¤¸à¥à¤° मर्à¤...à¤à¤¨à¥ Free Tibet n AKSAICHIN : @beholdcosmicwav @PMOIndia must be councious while dealing with this joker money starve jerk ,would lead to a world'... https://t.co/LPmycXH97P

Sun May 22 04:55:41 +0000 2022

Demonpudding : @beholdcosmicwav Yet it's only child traffickers and pedophiles who attack Bill gates.

Sun May 22 04:39:18 +0000 2022

NanaByrd7 : @beholdcosmicwav #Satanic

Sun May 22 04:28:06 +0000 2022

Cuchulainn : @beholdcosmicwav Or he is talking about things passionately. You know, the way your ex-wife wanted you to be before'... https://t.co/AHfXMmH02y

Sun May 22 04:26:14 +0000 2022

Sutter Cane Book Club : @beholdcosmicwav #RussiaTerroristState https://t.co/9YinHwSY1e

Sun May 22 04:16:40 +0000 2022

ben willard. : @beholdcosmicwav @wolfpox https://t.co/FBMJovObwk

Sun May 22 03:10:50 +0000 2022

SKiP : @beholdcosmicwav Everything about his body language says beware.

Sun May 22 02:54:59 +0000 2022

Turret Limit Henry : @beholdcosmicwav Whats wrong with what he said lmao? Small pox is the premier disease for biological warfare, and t'... https://t.co/sOJzN03rj4

Sun May 22 02:53:12 +0000 2022

tintbar : @beholdcosmicwav @kaijucantdie They want to get rid of a significant percent of the population and also distribute the wealth towards them.

Sun May 22 02:47:13 +0000 2022

Bettina🇨ðŸ‡...🇺🇸🇬🇧🇭🇲 : @beholdcosmicwav #BillGatesBioTerrorist #BillGatesBioTerrorist #BillGatesBioTerrorist #BillGatesBioTerrorist

Sun May 22 02:39:27 +0000 2022

Doug Wiest : @beholdcosmicwav DID FAUXI DIE AND MAKE BILL GOD OF SCIENCE NOW? WHY WOULD ANYONE WITH ANY BRAINCELLS LISTEN TO ANY'... https://t.co/srycp18eZz

Sun May 22 02:38:46 +0000 2022

Doug Caswell : @beholdcosmicwav Go away WEF-er!!!

Sun May 22 02:36:59 +0000 2022

elainemdenison1@gmail.com : @beholdcosmicwav Bill! How many acres of land do you own!?Bill if your so paranoid about bugs and viruses you can isolate yourself!

Sun May 22 02:35:20 +0000 2022

elainemdenison1@gmail.com : @beholdcosmicwav 'Germ Games'?if you or I was pedalling this terrible Global Plague senario! We would receive a 'Big Knock On The Door'!

Sun May 22 02:33:02 +0000 2022

MeanderingWonk : @beholdcosmicwav @MonaRahalkar Sooo .. that was Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation's brief ? To scrape the world fo'... https://t.co/9gfjxcEkcm

Sun May 22 02:30:12 +0000 2022

elainemdenison1@gmail.com : @beholdcosmicwav You know the problem with Bill Gates! He thinks everybody else is evil, and coniving just like he'... https://t.co/n2syHqw9Vz

Sun May 22 02:18:16 +0000 2022

elainemdenison1@gmail.com : @beholdcosmicwav I think it would be very wise of Bill Gates. To get out of pandemic mantra!

Sun May 22 02:16:03 +0000 2022

elainemdenison1@gmail.com : @beholdcosmicwav Bill! its time to shut up!Unless of course you can stand 'The Blow back'! of a pandemic of your making!

Sun May 22 02:13:17 +0000 2022

jim wimmer : @beholdcosmicwav poor Billy Gates.. he was so sorry that Nature cleaned up the Chinese/Fauci virus without his help

Sun May 22 02:11:24 +0000 2022

ravmun 🇮ðŸ‡" : @beholdcosmicwav @MonaRahalkar Agree

Sun May 22 02:10:09 +0000 2022

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Sun, 22 May 2022 16:13

JOY K MOORE : Dr. Naomi Wolf~On the PUSH for Orwellian Vaccine Passports"...Has the Power to Turn Off Your LIFE~"Vax passport'... https://t.co/3o6wncet5O

Wed Aug 25 06:58:30 +0000 2021

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Sun, 22 May 2022 15:40

The rising number of monkeypox cases in the U.S. and Europe suggest the virus has already spread widely across communities, but it won't likely cause a major epidemic like Covid, Pfizer board member and former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday.

''Now that there's been community spread, it may be hard to fully snub this out. I don't think it's going to become a major epidemic because this is a virus that's difficult to spread,'' Gottlieb said on ''Squawk Box.''

Monkeypox is a rare viral illness that begins with flu-like symptoms and the swelling of lymph nodes, eventually progressing to a rash on the body and face. Monkeypox spreads through open contact with the sores of a person infected, and has a long incubation period of 21 days or more, according to Gottlieb. He said this means many people may be incubating the virus since patients infected were likely undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Gottlieb's remarks come two days after U.S. health officials confirmed a case of the virus in a man from Massachusetts who recently traveled to Canada. The New York City Department of Health said Thursday it's investigating a possible case in a man who's being treated at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue.

Monkeypox, which reemerged in Nigeria in 2017, has been spreading in several countries in the last few weeks, leaving health officials scrambling to warn clinicians and the public about the virus.

Gottlieb added that there have been numerous disconnected cases, indicating that the spread in the community is ''pretty wide.'' He said there might be a lot more infection than what health officials have found since it has such a long incubation period and doctors don't know to look for it yet.

But he said the U.S. could just see a low level of spread that ''just becomes hard to stop'' since it may be difficult to deploy public health measures, such as mass immunization using the Vaccinia virus vaccine.

He noted that the virus is endemic in some countries, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo reporting anywhere from five to 10,000 cases a year.

''That's the concern, not a widespread epidemic here at this point. But this just low-level persistent spread, cases popping up here and there, outbreaks,'' Gottlieb said.

However, he emphasized the virus could still be dangerous. The case fatality rate for the strain spreading is anywhere from 1% to 4%, according to Gottlieb. He described it as a "disabling" virus that can last for two to four months, causing a fever and sores.

The CDC on Wednesday urged clinicians to identify patients with rash illnesses consistent with monkeypox. People suspected of having the virus should be isolated in a negative pressure room '-- spaces used to isolate patients '-- and staff should wear appropriate personal protective equipment around them, according to the agency.

Disclosure: Dr. Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings'² and Royal Caribbean's "Healthy Sail Panel."

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:31

Haven't you ever at least been curious as to what ''the other side of the World War II story'' was?

Since the mid-20th century, the world has only ever heard one side of the most horrific war in human history. During the 75 years that have now passed, only a single narrative of the great conflict has been heard. This over simplistic narrative totally ignores the previous decades of critical history leading up to World War II, ignores vital information from the actual war years, and outright fabricates lie after lie after lie.

We are today living in the world of the victors of that war and without an objective, rational and balanced view of our history, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes. After World War Two, the victors of the war not only went on to write our history books, infiltrate our media and public education but even going so far as to criminalize the mere questioning of the official story's orthodoxy. The truth is, that our world today can only be understood through a correct understanding of World War II, the architects of it and the conflicts between Globalism and Nationalism. Between the old-and-new world order. The Traditional and the ''Progressive''.

Day in and day out, has the post-war propaganda been pounded into the minds of three subsequent generations. Every medium of mass indoctrination has been harnessed to the task of training the obedient masses as to what the proper and ''acceptable'' view of this event should be. Academia, news media, public education, book publishing, TV documentaries, Hollywood films and politicians of every stripe all sing the same song.

For very good reasons, most people don't trust the mainstream media anymore. You have already heard the official history millions of times.

This documentary gives an overview of how Europe has been shaped in modern history. In it, you will find the secret history, where you will find the real causes of the events. Watch this series and uncover the real root causes of World War II. It will take you on an epic timeline that will transport you back in time and lead you on the journey through the Bolshevik Revolution, the communist attempts to take over Germany; hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic, widespread unemployment and misery, Adolf Hitler's rise to power, World War I & II '' all the way to the modern world. It presents the true historical events that lead to this world catastrophe known as the second world war, as well as the aftermath.

Do be forewarned though, your worldview might never be the same. As always, the Truth Fears No Investigation.

This documentary consists of 9 (10) parts, read all about it onhttps://europathelastbattle.wordpress.com/watch/

Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:39 - Part 101:14:55 - Part 202:23:51 - Part 303:03:32 - Part 404:50:04 - Part 505:43:15 - Part 606:43:02 - Part 707:51:19 - Part 809:56:22 - Part 911:52:15 - Sources & Credits

METATAGS:Europa the last battle full documentaryEuropa the last battle all partsWorld war II documentaryWorld war 2 documentaryWW2 documentary German perspectiveWorld war II documentary German perspectiveWorld war two documentary German perspectiveWorld war 1 documentary GermanyWorld war one documentary Germanyww2 German sideEurope after ww2How was the European union formedHow has Europe been shapedEuropean union originsSoviet union originsHow was the soviet union formedWhat happened to the soviet unionGlobal economic structure originsHistorical roots of communismBolshevik revolution and the holodomorThe Balfour declarationFrankfurt schoolWeimar RepublicThe fall of the Third ReichRebirth of GermanyTransfer agreement and madagaskar planThe final solution endl¶sungGermany's struggle for peaceThe start of WWIIRoots of globalism and multiculturalismKalergi kaufman morgenthau and hooton planOperation barbarossaLiberation of Soviet RussiaChurchill's Bengal FamineBombings of german citiesFirestorm in DresdenEisenhower in WW2Origin of the six million figureLabour and internment camps GermanyWhat are gas chambers GermanyRed cross figures WW2ww2 aftermath europeDemographic replacement in europeeuropean union endgoalDemoralization in the modern dayEffects of ww2 on modern dayHow WW2 still effects todays history

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Sun, 22 May 2022 14:17

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First published at 21:14 UTC on May 21st, 2022.

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Sun, 22 May 2022 12:36

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The White House is planning for ''dire'' contingencies that could include rationing supplies of vaccines and treatments this fall if Congress doesn't approve more money for fighting COVID-19.

In public comments and private meetings on Capitol Hill, Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, has painted a dark picture in which the U.S. could be forced to cede many of the advances made against the coronavirus over the last two years and even the most vulnerable could face supply shortages.

Biden administration officials have been warning for weeks that the country has spent nearly all the money in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that was dedicated directly to COVID-19 response.

A small pool of money remains, and the administration faces critical decisions about how to spend it. That means tough decisions, like weighing whether to use it to secure the next generation of vaccines to protect the highest risk populations or giving priority to a supply of highly effective therapies that dramatically reduce the risks of severe illness and death.

That decision may be made in the coming week, according to the administration, as the White House faces imminent deadlines to begin placing orders for vaccines and treatments before other nations jump ahead of the U.S. in accessing supply.

Jha has warned that without more money, vaccines will be harder to come by, tests will once again be scarce, and the therapeutics that are helping the country weather the current omicron-driven surge in cases without a commensurate increase in deaths could be sold overseas before Americans can access them.

As COVID-19 cases are trending up, the FDA authorized a new first-of-its-kind over-the-counter COVID-19 test. (CNN, LABCORP, CINCINNATI CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL)

''I think we would see a lot of unnecessary loss of life if that were to happen,'' Jha said this past week. ''But we're looking at all the scenarios and planning for all of them.''

He said the administration was ''getting much more into the scenario-planning business to make sure that we know what may be ahead of us so we can plan for it and obviously also lay those out in front of Congress.''

Jha, who declined to put a specific projection on potential loss of life, has become the face of the Biden administration's efforts to persuade Congress to approve an additional $22.5 billion for COVID-19 response.

''The scenarios that we're planning for are for things like what if Congress gives us no money and we don't have adequate vaccines,'' Jha told the AP in a May 12 interview. ''We run out of therapies. We don't have enough tests. What might things look like? Obviously, that's a pretty dire situation.''

Already, the domestic production of at-home testing is slowing, with workers beginning to be laid off. In the coming weeks, Jha said, manufacturers will sell off equipment and ''get out of this business,'' leaving the U.S. once again dependent on overseas suppliers for rapid test.

Drug manufactures and the Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, are working on evaluating the next generation of vaccines, potentially including ones that are targeted at the dominant omicron strain. But getting them ready before the predicted case surge in the fall means placing orders now, since they take two to three months to produce.

Jha said this week that the U.S. has yet to start negotiations with drugmakers because of the lack of money.

''We've had some very preliminary conversations with the manufacturers,'' he said. ''But the negotiations around it have not yet begun, partly because we're waiting for resources.'' He added: ''The truth is that other countries are in conversations with the manufacturers and starting to kind of advance their negotiations.''

The U.S., he said, doesn't have enough money to purchase additional booster vaccines for anyone who wants one. Instead, the supplies of those vaccines may be restricted to just the most vulnerable '-- not unlike the chaotic early days of the COVID-10 vaccine roll-out.

''Without additional funding from Congress, we will not be able to buy enough vaccines for every American who wants one once these new generation of vaccines come out in the fall and winter,'' he said.

And while the U.S. has built up a stockpile of the antiviral pill Paxlovid, which has been widely effective at reducing severe disease and death, it's running out of money to purchase new doses '-- or other, even more effective therapies that are in the final stages of development.

''If we don't get more resources from Congress, what we will find in the fall and winter is we will find a period of time where Americans can look around and see their friends in other countries '-- in Europe and Canada '-- with access to these treatments that Americans will not have,'' Jha said.

A congressional deal for a slimmed-down COVID-19 response package of about $10 billion fell apart in March over the Biden administration's plans to lift virus-related restrictions on migration at U.S. borders. But a federal judge on Friday put that plan on hold, just days before it was to take effect on Monday.

There is no guarantee of swift action on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers '-- particularly Republicans '-- have grown newly wary of deficit spending. On Thursday, a $40 billion measure to assist restaurants that struggled during the pandemic failed on those grounds. GOP lawmakers have also objected to additional funding for the global pandemic response, and called for any new virus response funding to come from unspent economic relief money in the $1.9 trillion rescue plan.

The administration is preparing to lay the blame on lawmakers if there are tough consequences this fall due to lack of money. Still, it could be perilous for Biden, who has struggled to fulfill his promise to voters to get control of the pandemic.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Sat, 21 May 2022 15:42

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Sat, 21 May 2022 12:56

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Fri, 20 May 2022 16:52

Jeremy Loffredo : Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explains Pfizer's new tech to Davos crowd: "ingestible pills" - a pill with a tiny chip th'... https://t.co/UEHiArBHiz

Fri May 20 05:26:55 +0000 2022

bayougeauxrealla : @loffredojeremy Compliance

Fri May 20 16:52:07 +0000 2022

JoeyEddy : @loffredojeremy ðŸ¬

Fri May 20 16:52:05 +0000 2022

Jamo : @loffredojeremy Now that is scary'...,,

Fri May 20 16:52:01 +0000 2022

nessa : @loffredojeremy just a bit much

Fri May 20 16:51:52 +0000 2022

Jo : @loffredojeremy https://t.co/DwfaHv7amh

Fri May 20 16:51:33 +0000 2022

carmen : @loffredojeremy this is w nightmareðŸ±ðŸ±ðŸ±ðŸ±ðŸ¤®ðŸðŸ¤¬

Fri May 20 16:50:51 +0000 2022

Philo_Beddoe : @loffredojeremy Is this a joke?

Fri May 20 16:50:49 +0000 2022