1482: Gorby Chips

Mzameleni Mthembu suffered a "heart attack"...

Phakamile Ntshiza collapsed dead...

At least 74 athletes had to be transferred to hospitals around Durban...

- runningmagazine, eNCA, news24

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After reading that California has actually passed a law (awaiting the governor’s signature - unless I have fallen for fake news) whereby the state determines the pay rate for fast food workers, my first thought was that this was a textbook example of Fascism. But I looked up the word online and get this:

fascism

I'fae(IzamI

noun

1

an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing

system of government and social organization.

extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or

oppressive ideas or behavior: an outright ban

is just fascism

very intolerant or domineering views or

practices in a particular area: this is yet

another example of health fascism in action

I can’t find a definition that describes my latent understanding that fascism allows private ownership of business but controls how it is run. In fact, Fascism isn’t even listed as a type of government even though Mussolini was self-defines as a fascist.

Thoughts on this? Do I remember incorrectly??

Link

ITM!

So that story about windmill blades being made into gummy bears caught my attention. I did a little search and came up with this article:

https://www.foodandwine.com/news/wind-turbine-sustainable-materials-gummy-bears

Here’s the important TLDR part:

“Dorgan and his colleagues have developed a new material that combines glass fibers with both synthetic polymers and polymers derived from plant materials.

The resulting thermoplastic resin is strong enough for use in wind turbine blades but, unlike the existing fiberglass versions, it can also be dissolved and recast to make another set of blades; combined with other materials to make a wide-range of consumer products like kitchen countertops, automobile taillights, or even diapers; or even purified through a distillation process to make food-grade potassium lactate. "This is something that you would find in Gatorade sports drinks or in various types of candies," Dorgan said on Tuesday. "So we went that extra step and took the recovered material that we made and included it as an ingredient in some candies. We made gummy bears from that."

So, basically, this is like fluoride in the water.

And they aren’t dissolving current blades, they are creating a new material to do this process with, which may or may not ever actually be used. And they are adding it to candies for some reason beyond my understanding. Which is what brought fluoride to mind.

TYFYC,

Dame Lisa, Straddler of Universes

ITM Adam, I'll try be as succinct as possible,

My Step Father (name anonymous) has been in the pharmaceutical industry and worked with several of the largest drug companies in the field of diabetes and insulin medication for over 30 years. Started in the labs, moved to sales, now managing multiple territories etc. He's someone I'd call an expert in his field.

He is getting a promotion, to oversee the company's new "Obesity" division being created in the coming months. While celebrating and discussing the promotion, he brought up the importance of keeping insulin refrigerated with me, as one of his sales reps accidentally left their refrigeration unit open and it ruined a large amount of insulin. *insert NA Bell here*

My curiosity peaked and I asked how many diabetics there are in the US.

I knew we were an obesce culture, but I didn't know it was this bad. Their company numbers estimate in the US we CURRENTLY have a total of 100M Diabetics, and 80 Million who are pre diabetic. (diagnosed and undiagnosed) *another NA Bell here*

Then it clicked for me. The next pandemic won't be a new disease, well not technically.

When the "energy climate crisis" finally hits its peak and they shut the power off, goodbye insulin; hello M5M death toll. Covid numbers will be nothing compared to how Diabetes would decimate the US and even global population count if readily available insulin were to simply disappear overnight.

With all the information No Agenda has reported on the crap they feed to us, I'm not even surprised at this point.

But I am now fully convinced that when the powers that be are ready to usher in the great reset and significantly lower the population, this is by far the most efficient and convenient way to do so.

Worst of all, he's not a fan of No Agenda (Believe me i've tried)

Thanks for everything you do,

- Extremely Online Jake

The new NASA SLS rocket is not reusable. The cost per launch is estimated to be $1B to $4B.

SpaceX cost per launch about $10M.

Cost to go around the moon, about $80M.

The SPACEX Starship is taller than the NASA SLS.

The SPACEX Starship has more than twice the payload capacity. 46 tons vs 100+ tons.

The NASA SLS can get to deep space in 1 go. SpaceX will need to refuel in space to get 100 tons into deep space, but that is part of the design.

NASA will be using SpaceX to get to the moon. This part confused me. I think both SLS and SpaceX will be used.

A few weeks ago, SpaceX launched South Korea's first mission to the Moon.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:25

Chemical abortion is the backup plan of the abortion industry post-Roe, but it shields a ghastly history. The demand for this dangerous drug is rising in the U.S. despite its four times higher complication rate than surgical abortion and a jaw-dropping reality: the chemical abortion drug is connected to Nazi Germany. The affiliates of those who killed innocent children in the Holocaust introduced to our county the drug that is today killing innocent preborn children and numerous mothers.

Pro-life activists often argue that the dehumanization of Jews by the Nazis and the dehumanization of the preborn by the abortion industry are philosophically similar phenomena. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a relentless racist. However, few know the true historical relationship between the Nazi genocide during World War II and today's chemical abortion industry, now responsible for 54 percent of abortions nationwide.

In the early to mid-20th century, the pharmaceutical holding company I.G. Farben Chemical Company controlled much of the German chemical industry. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the infamous Auschwitz was one of I.G. Farben's very own chemical plants, responsible for the slavery and deaths of more than a million people in World War II.

Several of Farben's directors were also found guilty in the U.S's Nuernberg War Crimes Trials for slavery and mass murder. Georg von Schnitzler, a member of the managing board of directors of Farben, was even a captain in a violent division of the Nazi party that helped facilitate Hitler's rise before WWII. I.G. Farben Chemical Company was the archetype of an industrial demon.

After the war, Western countries attempted to utterly splinter I.G. Farben industrial power, but divided the holding company into three of its own industrial members, Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.

In 1974, the first of these three entities, Hoechst, gained a majority share of the holding company Chimio that controlled a French pharmaceutical company called Roussel Uclaf. By 1982, Roussel Uclaf had developed the RU-486 chemical abortion drug mifepristone.

Abortion Drug's Ties to Population Council, Planned ParenthoodDuring the mid-1990s, Roussel Uclaf allied with the nonprofit Population Council, which led the charge for FDA approval of the abortion pill in the U.S., officially granted in 2000. During that time Hoechst acquired the remaining shares of Roussel Uclaf.

Like Hoechst, the Population Council had deeply eugenic roots. Aided by the director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the organization was founded by John D. Rockefeller III, son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Rockefeller Jr. sponsored German eugenic research leading up to the late-1930s that influenced later Nazi policy. Through the Rockefeller Foundation, he funded multiple institutions at which Ernst R¼din, who spearheaded Hitler's gruesome medical research during the Holocaust, held leading roles. One such organization was the Institute for Brain Research. According to The History News Network:

Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst R¼din. R¼din's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Following in the footsteps of the organization his father founded, in the 1950s Rockefeller III's Population Council supported the American Eugenics Society, eugenics-motivated sterilization of women, and the use of sex-selective abortion. It also tested, along with International Planned Parenthood Federation, population controlling IUD contraceptives in Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, and India in the '60s despite knowing their dangerous side effects on women. The council itself was led for years by openly eugenicist presidents Frederick Osborn and Frank Notestein, both of whom were members of the American Eugenics Society.

Aborting MinoritiesRockefeller III acted as chairman of President Nixon's 1969 Population and the American Future Commission just two years after receiving Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger Award. The commission staff was headed by Dr. Charles F. Westoff of the American Eugenics Society and advised by eugenicist Daniel Callahan. The final report endorsed decreasing population growth through supporting the option for women to obtain contraception and/or abortion. No wonder the Population Council was such a willing candidate to spearhead FDA approval for the Hoechst/Roussel Uclaf chemical abortion drug.

Certain mid-19th century eugenicist figures such as Gunnar Myrdal in his 1944 book ''An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy'' schemed that ''the most effective way they could advance their agenda would be to concentrate population control facilities within the targeted communities,'' according to Life Dynamic's Racial Targeting Report. Today, abortion is the leading cause of death among African Americans, having taken an estimated 19 million black lives. According to Students for Life of America, ''Almost 80% of Planned Parenthood's abortion facilities are located in minority neighborhoods. 88% of its new 'mega facilities' are located within walking distance of minority neighborhoods.''

Today's abortion industry today is continuing Sanger's racist legacy. As filmmaker Jason Jones bluntly put it, even though today's abortion supporters generally reject eugenics, by still endorsing policies (namely abortion) that disproportionately kill black babies, they are ''watering an apple tree hoping they get peaches.''

A disproportionate number of black babies are being killed by the abortion industry. This is the effect Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Sanger hoped for. It is no surprise that organizations like Hoechst and Population Council, who have eugenic roots too, were inclined to join the abortion bandwagon considering its ability to control populations.

Eugenic leaders laid the groundwork for today's abortion industry. Similar to the 1969 Commission using the language of women's choice to propagate what was possibly the eugenic dispositions of its leaders, today's abortion industry touts the language of bodily autonomy to bolster their abortion business. Considering that nearly half of black babies are aborted in the U.S. today, abortion supporters don't seem to care that their policies, in effect, carry on the eugenic tendencies of the Population Council, both J.D. Rockefellers, I.G. Farben Chemical Company, and Margaret Sanger.

The sad irony is that while the language of the abortion industry changed, its policies did not. Planned Parenthood still propagates a eugenic legacy through killing innocent children by chemical abortion.

Rachel Schroder is a history major at Hillsdale College. She wrote this article during her internship at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:24

When Britain was being locked down, the country was assured that all risks had been properly and robustly considered. Yes, schools would close and education would suffer. Normal healthcare would take a hit and people would die as a result. But the government repeatedly said the experts had looked at all this. After all, it wasn't as if they would lock us down without seriously weighing up the consequences, was it?

Those consequences are still making themselves known: exams madness, the NHS waiting list surge, thousands of unexplained 'excess deaths', judicial backlogs and economic chaos. Was all that expected, factored in, and thought by leaders to be a price worth paying? Right at the start of lockdown, ministers had already started to worry that the policy was being recklessly implemented without anyone thinking about the side-effects. Only a handful of key players at the very top made the decisions: among them Rishi Sunak, the chancellor. He has now decided to go public on what happened.

When we meet at the office he has rented for his leadership campaign, soon to enter its final week, he says at the outset that he's not interested in pointing the finger at the fiercest proponents of lockdown. No one knew anything at the start, he says: lockdown was, by necessity, a gamble. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser, would openly admit that lockdown could do more harm than good. But when the evidence started to roll in, a strange silence grew in government: dissenting voices were filtered out and a see-no-evil policy was applied.

Sunak's story starts with the first Covid meeting, where ministers were shown an A3 poster from scientific advisers explaining the options. 'I wish I'd kept it because it listed things that had no impact: banning live events and all that,' he says. 'It was saying: you should be careful not to do this stuff too early, because being able to sustain it is very hard in a modern society.' So the scientific advice was, initially, to reject or at least delay lockdown.

This all changed when Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College published their famous 'Report 9', which argued that Covid casualties could hit 500,000 if no action was taken '' but the figure could be below 20,000 if Britain locked down. That, of course, turned out to be a vast exaggeration of lockdown's ability to curb Covid deaths. Imperial stressed it did 'not consider the wider social and economic costs of suppression, which will be high'. But surely someone involved in making the policy would figure it out.

This was the crux: no one really did. A cost-benefit calculation '' a basic requirement for pretty much every public health intervention '' was never made. 'I wasn't allowed to talk about the trade-off,' says Sunak. Ministers were briefed by No. 10 on how to handle questions about the side-effects of lockdown. 'The script was not to ever acknowledge them. The script was: oh, there's no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy.'

If frank discussion was being suppressed externally, Sunak thought it all the more important that it took place internally. But that was not his experience. 'I felt like no one talked,' he says. 'We didn't talk at all about missed [doctor's] appointments, or the backlog building in the NHS in a massive way. That was never part of it.' When he did try to raise concerns, he met a brick wall. 'Those meetings were literally me around that table, just fighting. It was incredibly uncomfortable every single time.' He recalls one meeting where he raised education. 'I was very emotional about it. I was like: ''Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare'' or something like that. There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.'

One of Sunak's big concerns was about the fear messaging, which his Treasury team worried could have long-lasting effects. 'In every brief, we tried to say: let's stop the ''fear'' narrative. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong.' The posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, he said, were the worst. 'It was wrong to scare people like that.' The closest he came to defying this was in a September 2020 speech saying that it was time to learn to 'live without fear' '' a direct response to the Cabinet Office's messaging. 'They were very upset about that.'

'It was wrong to scare people like that': the posters that Sunak tried to stopHis Eat Out to Help Out campaign was designed to be an optimistic counter-narrative. 'The survey data across Europe showed that our country was far and away the least likely to get back to normal. All the evidence was that everyone was too scared to go and do things again. We have a consumption-driven economy, so that would be very bad.' As indeed it was. The UK ended up with the worst economic downturn in Europe.

Lockdown '' closing schools and much of the economy while sending the police after people who sat on park benches '' was the most draconian policy introduced in peacetime. No. 10 wanted to present it as 'following the science' rather than a political decision, and this had implications for the wiring of government decision-making. It meant elevating Sage, a sprawling group of scientific advisers, into a committee that had the power to decide whether the country would lock down or not. There was no socioeconomic equivalent to Sage; no forum where other questions would be asked.

So whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings '' condensing its discussions into guidance for government '' would set the policy of the nation. No one, not even cabinet members, would know how these decisions were reached.

A police officer asks a couple not to sit on a bench in Leamington Spa, 9 April 2020 (Getty Images)In the early days, Sunak had an advantage. 'The Sage people didn't realise for a very long time that there was a Treasury person on all their calls. A lovely lady. She was great because it meant that she was sitting there, listening to their discussions.'

It meant he was alerted early to the fact that these all-important minutes of Sage meetings often edited out dissenting voices. His mole, he says, would tell him: '''Well, actually, it turns out that lots of people disagreed with that conclusion'', or ''Here are the reasons that they were not sure about it.'' So at least I would be able to go into these meetings better armed.'

But his victories were few and far between. One, he says, came in May 2020 when the first plans were being drawn to move out of lockdown in summer. 'There's some language in there that you will see because I fought for it,' he says. 'It talked about non-Covid health impact.' Just a few sentences, he says, but he views the fact that lockdown side-effects were recognised at all at that point as a triumph.

He doesn't name Matt Hancock, who presided over all of this as health secretary, or Liz Truss, who was silent throughout. As he said at the outset, he doesn't want to name names but rather to speak plainly about what the public was not told '' and the process that led to this. Typically, he said, ministers would be shown Sage analysis pointing to horrifying 'scenarios' that would come to pass if Britain did not impose or extend lockdown. But even he, as chancellor, could not find out how these all-important scenarios had been calculated.

'I was like: ''Summarise for me the key assumptions, on one page, with a bunch of sensitivities and rationale for each one'',' Sunak says. 'In the first year I could never get this.' The Treasury, he says, would never recommend policy based on unexplained modelling: he regarded this as a matter of basic competence. But for a year, UK government policy '' and the fate of millions ''was being decided by half-explained graphs cooked up by outside academics.

'This is the problem,' he says. 'If you empower all these independent people, you're screwed.' Sir Gus O'Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, has suggested that Sage should have been asked to report to a higher committee, which would have considered the social and economic aspects of locking down. Sunak agrees. But having been anointed from the start, Sage retained its power until the rebellion that came last Christmas.

When the Omicron variant started to rise last December, the dance began again. A Sage analysis claimed that without a fourth lockdown, Covid deaths could hit 6,000 a day. That was out by a factor of 20. But we only know this because, for once, the government rejected Sage's advice. This time, Sunak was taking soundings of his own '' including academics at Stanford University, where he went to business school, and his former colleagues in the world of finance who had started to do some Covid modelling. Crucially, JP Morgan used South African data on Omicron to suggest that UK hospitals would not be overrun '' contrary to Sage's predictions.

'I'm still on the JP Morgan research [email] list,' he says. 'It gives me a bit of a different perspective.' In the case of Omicron, if that very different perspective was right, then every single one of the 12 Sage scenarios provided to ministers was a vast exaggeration and Britain would be locked down needlessly. Yet the wheels were already in motion, says Sunak. 'They had briefed already that there was going to be a press conference. The system just kind of geared up.'

He flew back early from a trip to California. By this time JP Morgan's lockdown analysis was being emailed around among cabinet ministers like a samizdat paper, and they were ready to rebel. Sunak met Johnson. 'I just told him it's not right: we shouldn't do this.' He did not threaten to resign if there was another lockdown, 'but I used the closest formulation of words that I could' to imply that threat. Sunak then rang around other ministers and compared notes.

Normally, cabinet members were not kept in the loop as Covid-related decisions were being made '' Johnson's No. 10 informed them after the event, rather than consulting them. Sunak says he urged the PM to pass the decision to cabinet so that his colleagues could give him political cover for rejecting the advice of Sage. 'I remember telling him: have the cabinet meeting. You'll see. Every-one will be completely behind you'... You don't have to worry. I will be standing next to you, as will every other member of the cabinet, bar probably Michael [Gove] and Saj [Javid].' As it was to prove.

Is Sunak exaggerating his own role? For what it's worth, his account squares with what I picked up from his critics in government: that the money-obsessed Sunak was on a one-man mission to torpedo lockdown. And perhaps the Prime Minister as well. 'Everything I did was seen through the prism of: ''You're trying to be difficult, trying to be leader,''' he says. He tried not to challenge the Prime Minister in public, or leave a paper trail. 'I'd say a lot of stuff to him in private,' he says. 'There's some written record of every-thing. In general, people leak it '' and it causes problems.'

Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson during a coronavirus press conference, 17 March 2020 (Getty Images)At any point, Sunak could have gone public '' or even resigned. I ask him if he should have done. To quit in that way during a pandemic, he says, would have been irresponsible. And to go public, or let his misgivings become known, would have been seen as a direct attack on the PM.

At the time, No. 10's strategy was to create the impression that lockdown was a scientifically created policy which only crackpots dared question. If word leaked that the chancellor had grave reservations, or that a basic cost-benefit analysis had never been applied, it would have been politically unhelpful for No. 10.

Only now can Sunak speak freely. He is opening up not just because he is running to be prime minister, he says, but because there are important lessons in all of this. Not who did what wrong, but how it came to pass that such important questions about lockdown's profound knock-on effects '' issues that will probably dominate politics for years to come '' were never properly explored.

'All this blaming civil servants '' I hate it,' he says, 'We are elected to run the country, not to blame someone else. If the apparatus is not there, then we change it.' When things go well, he says, 'it comes from the person at the top being able to make decisions properly '' and understanding how to make good decisions'.

Which is, of course, his ultimate point: 'The leader matters. It matters who the person at the top is.' It's the reason he resigned, finally, and part of his pitch to be leader of the Conservative party. He says ministers need to be honest about the flip-side of any policy (including tax cuts), and that denial always makes things worse.

'It's not a holiday, it's a lockdown' '-- Police cleared out sunbathers from this London park days after PM Boris Johnson ordered a nationwide lockdown pic.twitter.com/gswjA3lls9

'-- NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 25, 2020And the other lessons of lockdown? 'We shouldn't have empowered the scientists in the way we did,' he says. 'And you have to acknowledge trade-offs from the beginning. If we'd done all of that, we could be in a very different place.' How different? 'We'd probably have made different decisions on things like schools, for example.' Could a more frank discussion have helped Britain avoid lockdown entirely, as Sweden did? 'I don't know, but it could have been shorter. Different. Quicker.'

There's one major factor he doesn't raise: the opinion polls. Lockdowns were being imposed all over a terrified world in March 2020 and the Prime Minister was already being accused of having blood on his hands by failing to act earlier. Surely whoever was in No. 10 would have been forced to lock down by public opinion? But the public, Sunak says, was being scared witless, while being kept in the dark about lockdown's -likely effects. 'We helped shape that: with the fear messaging, empowering the scientists and not talking about the trade-offs.'

The slogan 'Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives' pictured on the BT tower in central London, 13 May 2020 (Getty Images)Those trade-offs are apparent. At first, no one asked what all those cancelled NHS appointments would mean. When the answer came, it was devastating: a waiting list that is projected to grow from six million now to nine million by 2024. Avoidable cancer deaths due to late diagnosis will run into the thousands. Then there's the economic impact. 'We are short of 300,000 to 400,000 [workers],' he says. 'That is a problem.' Some 5.3 million are on out-of-work benefits, with many over-fifties giving up on work entirely: a tendency that Sunak says was not spotted 'until it was too late'.

Even now, Sunak doesn't argue that lockdown was a mistake '' just that the many downsides in health, the economy and society in general could have been mitigated if they had been openly discussed. An official inquiry has begun, but Sunak says there are lessons to learn now. The emergence of another Covid variant (or another new pathogen) may lead to demands for another lockdown someday. One of the questions will be how to protect democratic scrutiny in a future crisis '' how to ensure that robust questioning and testing of policy continues, even when it is expedient for the government to suppress the debate.

To Sunak, this was the problem at the heart of the government's Covid response: a lack of candour. There was a failure to raise difficult questions about where all this might lead '' and a tendency to use fear messaging to stifle debate, instead of encouraging discussion. So in a sentence, how would he have handled the pandemic differently? 'I would just have had a more grown-up conversation with the country.'

The all-important minutes of Sage committee meetings often edited out dissenting voices

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:23

Democratic hopeful for Texas Governor Beto O'Rourke announced via Twitter on Aug. 28, 2022, that he had to postpone upcoming events due to a bacterial infection. Shortly after the announcement, social media users speculated that he instead had monkeypox, but presented no evidence to substantiate their claims.

In a statement published via Twitter on Aug. 28, O'Rourke wrote that he had been diagnosed with a bacterial infection: ''After feeling ill on Friday, I went to Methodist Hospital in San Antonio where I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection. The extraordinary team there '-- from custodians to nurses and doctors '-- gave me excellent care and attention, including IV antibiotics and rest'' (here).

Following O'Rourke's statement shared online, users speculated that he had contracted monkeypox.

One user said on Twitter: ''How did Beto get monkeypox??'' (here).

Another user shared an image of O'Rourke with text printed across the photograph that reads: ''Texas gov candidate Beto O'Rourke diagnosed with 'bacterial infection,' says he will be 'resting at home'.'' The headline printed across the upper-third of the image reads: ''Probably Monkeypox'' (here).

Other examples of the claim shared online can be found (here) and (here).

The claims and speculation do not cite a source, and a spokesperson for O'Rourke told Reuters that the claims are inaccurate: ''The claims are false. Doctors diagnosed Beto with a bacterial infection, which they treated with antibiotics. His symptoms continue to improve and he will be back on the road as soon as he is able.''

Monkeypox is not a bacterial infection; it is caused by a virus that belongs to the larger viral family known as poxviridae, and the subgroup, or genus, known as poxviruses, with 12 species, including smallpox and cowpox (here).

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), treatments available for monkeypox include several antiviral drugs, as well as immune globulin (here).

According to the Merck Manual, a monkeypox diagnosis can lead to an individual being more likely to develop other infections, with some going on to develop bacterial infections in the skin and lungs (here).

Reuters has previously addressed the false narrative that monkeypox can only be transmitted among men who have sex with men (here).

Per the CDC, monkeypox can be transmitted through close contact, including touching surfaces that have previously been used by someone with monkeypox, contact with their respiratory secretions, or by sexual contact with an individual with the virus (here).

VERDICTNo evidence. Beto O'Rourke's spokesperson told Reuters that the Democratic candidate for Governor fell ill from a bacterial infection, not monkeypox.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .

for-phone-only for-tablet-portrait-up for-tablet-landscape-up for-desktop-up for-wide-desktop-up

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:20

Amsterdam wil per oktober duizend asielzoekers tijdelijk opvangen op een cruiseschip. Daarmee heeft het stadsbestuur dinsdag ingestemd. Met deze opvang wil Amsterdam de 'žvastgelopen asielketen'' weer op gang brengen. Bij het aanmeldcentrum voor asielzoekers in Ter Apel sliepen de afgelopen weken honderden mensen buiten, omdat er binnen geen plek voor ze was. De Inspectie Gezondheidszorg en Jeugd waarschuwde afgelopen week dat het gebrek aan hygine bij Ter Apel een gevaar voor de volksgezondheid kan vormen.

Het Amsterdamse stadsbestuur heeft met het kabinet afgesproken dat de asielzoekers een half jaar op het schip worden opgevangen, 'žmet mogelijkheid tot verlenging''. Het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) wordt verantwoordelijk voor de opvang, de rijksoverheid voor de kosten. In ruil voor het cruiseschip, zo stelt het stadsbestuur, heeft het kabinet beloofd dat Amsterdam versneld flexwoningen kan bouwen. Het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken gaat bijdragen aan de bouw van 2.500 tot 3.000 van zulke snel inzetbare huizen. In een eerste akkoord is afgesproken dat het Rijk daarin zo'n 12 miljoen euro investeert.

Het cruiseschip is momenteel nog in Estland, maar komt binnenkort naar Amsterdam. Het komt te liggen in het Westelijk Havengebied. Momenteel vangt de hoofdstad naar eigen zeggen 2.100 asielzoekers en statushouders op - voor de oorlog gevluchte Oekra¯ners zijn daarbij dus niet meegerekend - op zes verschillende locaties. Het cruiseschip wordt de zevende en de grootste. Tot nu toe was A&O Hostels in het stadsdeel Zuidoost met 850 opvangplekken het grootst. Amsterdam is de tweede gemeente die van plan is een cruiseschip in te zetten voor de opvang van asielzoekers: de Noord-Hollandse gemeente Velsen ging eerder akkoord met een vergelijkbare constructie.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:18

(Photo Credit: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock) American Express class action lawsuit overview: Who: Brian Netzel filed a class action lawsuit against American Express Company. Why: Netzel claims American Express illegally favors its Black employees over and at the expense of its white workers. Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in Arizona federal court. A former American Express manager accused the company of illegally favoring Black workers and providing a financial incentive for its executives to help enforce the company's ''racial quotas.''

Plaintiff Brian Netzel claims American Express became a ''racially toxic'' work environment where rules were enforced differently based on ''identity group membership.''

''The company's policies incentivized coworkers and supervisors to use race as a cudgel through which personal grudges and ambitions could be executed,'' the American Express class action states.

Netzel argues American Express' alleged favoring of its Black employees led to ''hundreds'' of white employees being let go from the company or forced to leave ''because they could not tolerate the racially repressive environment.''

''For those that remained, American Express deducted the difference between the working conditions promised and those received from their hearts and their self-esteem and their mental health,'' the American Express class action states.

American Express class action alleges retaliatory behavior over hiring decisions American Express wants its percentage of Black employees to ''match that of the U.S. population,'' the lawsuit claims.

Executives who were ''unwilling to make employment decisions based purely on race rather than merit,'' meanwhile, would either be punished, scolded or let go from the company entirely, the American Express class action alleges.

''Once American Express and (CEO Stephen Squeri) handed down their racial engineering marching orders, it gave executives carte blanche to ruthlessly implement a racial caste and quota system in the company,'' according to the lawsuit.

Netzel claims American Express violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . He demands a jury trial and requests declaratory and injunctive relief along with an award of general, compensatory and punitive damages for himself and all class members.

Netzel wants to represent a class of all ''past, present or potential white employees of American Express'' who will be, have been or are being discriminated against in the terms and conditions of their employment on account of their race.

A separate lawsuit was filed against American Express last year over claims the company wrongly listed that he was dead , preventing him from being able to receive credit. The case is currently stayed pending arbitration.

Have you ever felt like you were being discriminated against at your workplace? Let us know in the comments!

The plaintiff is represented by David Pivtorak of The Pivtorak Law Firm and Aaron T. Martin of Martin Law and Mediation PLLC.

The American Express class action lawsuit is Netzel v. American Express Company, et al. , Case No. 2:22-cv-01423, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.

Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:

Walmart to pay $4M in consumer discrimination lawsuitNCAA claims student athletes misconstrue Supreme Court pay decisionJudge approves $9.4M DirecTV settlement in class action alleging company preyed on minority-owned small businessesShake Shack employee schedules $6M class action lawsuit settlementWe tell you about cash you can claim EVERY WEEK! Sign up for our free newsletter.Please note: Top Class Actions is not a settlementadministrator or law firm. Top Class Actions is a legal news sourcethat reports on class action lawsuits, class action settlements,drug injury lawsuits and product liability lawsuits. Top ClassActions does not process claims and we cannot advise you on thestatus of any class action settlement claim. You must contact thesettlement administrator or your attorney for any updates regardingyour claim status, claim form or questions about when payments areexpected to be mailed out.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:18

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The EU's carbon market is back.

After years on the sidelines of the EU's regulatory machinery, where it was largely written off, the Emissions Trading System (ETS) has returned as the cornerstone of the bloc's climate policy.

Brussels is betting that a major overhaul of the cap-and-trade scheme '-- set to be presented as part of its mammoth Fit for 55 climate policy package on Wednesday '-- will speed up emissions reductions, incentivize companies to invest in clean technologies and help the bloc achieve its ambitious climate targets.

It's a big bet.

A pioneering system when it was first launched in 2005, the carbon cap-and-trade scheme '-- which caps the emissions of more than 10,000 power plants and factories and makes them pay to pollute '-- quickly ran into trouble: A glut of low-priced permits and an overly generous emissions cap following the 2008 financial crisis meant that many companies weren't hit hard enough to change their behavior. As Brussels scrambled to fix it, countries and companies went their own way, diluting the market's effectiveness.

The European Commission's reform proposal aims to extend the scheme, which currently covers some 40 percent of emissions, to most emissions in the bloc. That would make it more expensive for large swathes of Europe's industry '-- from steel and cement to power plants and transport '-- to pollute, and help the bloc meet its steeper 2030 goal of reducing emissions by 55 percent and reach net zero by 2050.

"People lost trust in the ETS because it didn't work. Now it works," said German MEP Peter Liese, the environmental spokesperson for the European People's Party, the largest group in the European Parliament. "I've fought for many legislations [but] the step to 55 percent is so huge that we cannot do it by regulation [alone]. We really need to invest in the market," he said.

Wednesday's proposal will look to further squeeze the total number of permits, expand the scheme to new parts of the economy such as maritime shipping, and impose tougher conditions on aviation, according to drafts seen by POLITICO. A separate, "adjacent" trading system would slap a carbon price on heating and road transport fuels.

"It's clear: We need to reach our climate goals," Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told German daily S¼ddeutsche Zeitung on the eve of the proposal. "If not through the ETS, then through another way, which means more regulation, more standards, more interim steps and more taxes. In that case, I prefer a system that's betting on the market. It leaves industry and the economy more space to get creative and find its own solutions."

The EU's push to reboot the carbon market comes as prices continue to climb, as a result of previous reform efforts and the pressure of tougher climate legislation. Currently at around '‚¬50 per ton of emitted carbon, analysts suggest prices could rise to up to '‚¬100 by the end of this decade. The reformed system is set to become an ever more lucrative revenue source for EU countries '-- and, potentially, the Commission.

The scheme is "entering a new era" and is no longer "haunted by these ghosts from the past," said Ingvild S¸rhus, lead carbon analyst for Refinitiv. "It has proven that a high CO2 price is delivering actual emission reductions," she added, and forced companies to realize they must "plan how to position themselves in a low carbon future."

Trouble aheadStill, Brussels' market enthusiasm has skeptics.

The Commission's plans to extend emissions trading to the building and road transport sectors have drawn fire from across the Continent, temporarily uniting politicians from Poland, France and Luxembourg, as well as NGOs and consumer groups, over concerns that the reform will raise prices for consumers and hit poorer households hardest.

"The risk remains that it's unfair," said Dimitri Vergne, sustainability lead at the consumer group BEUC. Brussels should "go for sector-specific measures" such as stronger CO2 targets for carmakers, tougher energy efficiency requirements or an ambitious renovation strategy, rather than extending the ETS, he said.

Other campaigners worry the reform will leave some of the bloc's major polluters '-- such as the steel, cement and chemicals industries '-- largely off the hook by continuing to hand over free emission permits.

"The heart of the matter [is] who pays for the carbon pollution in the European carbon market," said Sam Van den plas, policy director at Carbon Market Watch.

The Commission is arguing that its mix of more than a dozen interconnected policy proposals '-- from a carbon border tax to green standards and energy efficiency rules '-- will help to spread the costs while shielding vulnerable groups from rising prices.

But those are just proposals: The big question will be whether Brussels' carbon market bet will survive the political negotiations with EU countries and the Parliament.

Bas Eickhout, the vice chair of the Greens group in the Parliament, worries that the Commission's focus on the carbon market takes the pressure off capitals, which are wary of implementing costly and possibly unpopular national emission reduction targets.

"There are all kinds of reasons why the ETS is such an important instrument for the European Commission, however, it threatens to lead to complacency at the national capital level," he said, adding that recent achievements in expanding the use of clean energy were largely driven by other factors, including renewable energy targets.

"In the end, we will not get to climate neutrality if member states aren't fully on board with policy."

Louise Guillot contributed reporting.

Want more analysis from POLITICO ? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email [email protected] to request a complimentary trial.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:17

A Google spokesperson has revealed that former President Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social has been kept from Android devices because the platform allegedly lacks "effective" content moderation.

According to The Hill, the spokesperson said that Truth lacks the content moderation needed to meet Google Play's terms of service.

This comes after Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes claimed last week that the Android version of the social media platform's app is ready, waiting only on Google's approval.

"On August 19 we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play," the spokesperson said.

Google is reportedly particularly concerned about violations of its policies prohibiting content with physical threats and incitements to violence.

The spokesperson added that Truth Social has acknowledged the feedback, and is currently working on addressing the issue.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:17

Truss first suggested the prospect of an alteration to the Bank's mandate at the Conservative Party hustings in Cardiff on Aug. 3.

Anthony Devlin / Stringer / Getty Images

LONDON '-- The front-runner to become the U.K.'s next prime minister plans to review the Bank of England's mandate in a move that's concerning campaigners and think tanks.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the current favorite to win the Conservative Party leadership contest and become British prime minister, has indicated that she could consider curbing the central bank's independent decision-making on interest rates.

Truss first suggested a possible alteration to the Bank's mandate at a campaign event in Cardiff on Aug. 3.

"The best way of dealing with inflation is monetary policy and what I have said is I want to change the Bank of England's mandate to make sure in the future it matches some of the most effective central banks in the world at controlling inflation," Truss said.

'Investors like certainty'Uncertainty over what could be in store for the central bank '-- if Truss does become prime minister '-- could create difficulties for investors, according to Scott Corfe, research director at the Social Market Foundation, a cross-party think tank based in Westminster.

"Investors like certainty," Corfe told CNBC.

"If there is a lack of clarity for an amount of time around what the new mandate of the Bank of England will be, or the extent to which politicians might meddle in the rate-setting process in the future, that does create some uncertainty around what is the outlook for inflation and economic growth in the U.K. going forward," he added.

This view was echoed by Fran Boait, executive director at Positive Money, a U.K.-based think tank campaigning for systemic change in the financial system. Speaking to CNBC's "Street Signs Europe" on Aug. 25, Boait said it would be good for Truss to "lay out a bit more what she's hoping to achieve" in a possible mandate review.

Truss' campaign team told CNBC that her "bold plan will challenge the failing economic orthodoxy and deliver necessary growth to the UK economy."

"As Prime Minister, Liz would review the Bank's mandate, as after 25 years, she believes it is only right to ensure it is fit for purpose and works for the current economic context," the campaign team's statement said.

Former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, Truss' leadership rival, told Sky News last week that the discussion around the Bank's autonomy could "spook" international investors.

Curbing the independence of the Bank would be a "mistake," Sunak said, and would "be bad for all of us."

Shadow Finance Minister Rachel Reeves also questioned Truss' plans in an interview with The Guardian.

"This is deeply irresponsible from a Conservative leadership candidate. It creates huge uncertainty that will hold back vital investment in our economy," she said.

Meanwhile, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey stressed earlier this month that central bank independence "is critically important," in an interview with BBC Radio 4's "Today" program.

'Shifting the blame'Truss' campaign team said the Conservative Party leader front-runner is "committed" to the independence of the Bank of England.

However, if her promised review of the central bank's mandate leads to a deeper rearrangement of its functions, it could have huge ramifications, Corfe said '-- including a banking system that revolves around election cycles.

"Politicians wanting to get involved with rates and rate setting would be very dangerous indeed," Corfe said.

"If an election is coming up, politicians will be reluctant to raise interest rates if that's what's required to bring rates down because higher rates and higher mortgage bills are not necessarily an election winner."

Truss' plans come as the U.K. battles inflation at a 40-year high, with many households buckling under the pressures of the deepening cost-of-living crisis.

By putting the spotlight on the Bank of England, the government is "washing its hands" of delivering policy to address the issues, Corfe said, and instead placing responsibility on the Bank.

"I think you're seeing this kind of shifting the blame now where the government, rather than rolling out the fiscal support needed to help households with prices, is instead saying, 'Well, why aren't you doing more about this?'" Corfe said.

"Politicians want to shift the blame elsewhere and say this is the responsibility of monetary policy alone rather than government and fiscal policy."

Positive Money's Boait said the discussions around financial regulation in the U.K. at the moment were "very worrying from a civil society point of view."

"Most people want a banking and financial system that is resilient, that doesn't crash, that also provides the basics, access to payments, investment in the things we need like green transition and small businesses '... And we're just so far away from those things right now," she said.

"Neither of the current Conservative leadership candidates '' that want to become our next PM in the next couple of weeks '' are talking about a financial system that does any of these things."

Sunak's campaign team did not respond to a request for comment when contacted by CNBC.

What could a mandate change look like?Truss has a number of options on the table when it comes to a potential change in the Bank's mandate.

Currently, the Bank of England's objective is to keep inflation "low and stable" at 2%, according to its website, with the aim of keeping the U.K. economy in a healthy state.

"What is most likely is a review of the 2% inflation mandate and whether something else would be more appropriate in the government's eyes," Corfe said.

"I could see, for example, the inflation target changing or maybe the Truss government will want to pursue some kind of dual mandate of inflation and economic growth."

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve has a dual mandate that strives for "maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates."

It wouldn't be the first time there has been speculation about the U.K. adopting a U.S.-style mandate. In 2013, it was thought that then-Chancellor George Osborne could adopt a Fed-style mandate as the country tackled an economic slump and emerged from a double-dip recession.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has said that central bank independence "is critically important."

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Investment bank JPMorgan outlined two options for a possible Bank of England shake-up by Truss in a note on Aug. 19. It coined one scenario "the seeds of change" and the other '-- rather ominously '-- "the dark arts of politics."

The "seeds of change" option includes alterations that could see the Bank target nominal gross domestic product, or GDP, or monetary aggregate '-- the amount of money in circulation '-- instead of the inflation rate.

Truss said in mid-July that the U.K. has "not been tough enough on monetary supply," but JPMorgan does not expect a focus on supply going forward.

"It's hard to see any sort of return to this policy replacing the BoE's inflation target," it said.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government attempted to target money supply in the 1980s in an effort to battle rising inflation

Corfe agreed that a similar strategy was "unlikely" this time around, as "it wasn't wholly successful ... as it is difficult to control with accuracy the broad money supply in the economy."

JPMorgan's "dark arts" option suggests that interest in the Bank's mandate could be more to do with "presentational appeal."

"A review that challenges the status quo would signal that new energy is being injected to resolve the cost of living crisis," JPMorgan says.

"As inflation inevitably declines from its peak, the government might stake a claim in that process even if the policy implications were limited."

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:16

IT DID NOT take long for another Cabinet Minister with responsibilities during the Covid Lockdowns to volunteer fresh revelations about the chaos in government at the time.

First it was Rishi Sunak, now it is Grant Shapps '' who has criticised the decision-making process that brought about the UK lockdowns, while Liz Truss has said already she would not introduce another lockdown were she prime minister. Who's next to step forward and say the UK Government should not take that authoritarian course of action again?

Fresh from former Chancellor Rishi Sunak's admission to having grave doubts about the lockdowns '' but in most part doing nothing to prevent them '' the current Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, owned-up last week to having his own Lockdown demons to deal with.

It turns out that, according to Shapps, he had to prepare his own briefing presentations to debate with Cabinet members when there were attempts to bring in new restrictions following the arrival of the Omicron variant of Covid.

Grant Shapps was '' and still is '' the Transport Secretary, with the responsibility for deciding on mask wearing and other restrictions required if travellers were to be allowed on buses, trains and aircraft '' a not inconsiderable responsibility. Shapps was not, however, a member of the 'Quad' '' the four ministers (Gove, Raab, Sunak and Hancock/Javid) where daily decisions were taken between Cabinet meetings. This meant that at the wider Cabinet meetings ministers could be bounced into agreeing a course of action unless they were prepared '' but they lacked impartial advice.

What Shapps explains is that there was no information available to counter the proposals from SAGE, the Quad and officials involved '' and bizarrely, he did not appear to have any support from his own Department of Transport officials in preparing him for Cabinet meetings.

The reality is that the decisions around which our freedoms, health, education and lives depended upon were taken without any real collective responsibility but presented as fait accompli to be rubber-stamped.

Shapps ended up making his own spreadsheets based on international data and presented his findings at Cabinet and ministerial meetings to strengthen the arguments against further restrictions.

''I was able to present data based on three South African studies which wasn't available from the standard Sage presentation. In a close-run discussion, we didn't lock down. The NHS wasn't overrun''

Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, Telegraph, 28 August 2022.The Sunak revelations were bad enough '' in that they showed an inability of senior level political decision-making to test the advice of officials and special advisers, but Shapps goes further by showing a complete disconnect existed between Ministers with serious responsibilities and the policies being agreed around them.

Following Grant Shapps' revelation about resorting to doing his own research to sense-check inadequate or partial advice from SAGE, Recovery can reveal that he was not alone amongst Cabinet ministers. We know there are at least two further cabinet ministers who did the same, both of whom have yet to make any public statement about their position when decisions were being taken. How do we know? Because they sought counterbalancing advice from Recovery.

The first time we were approached by a senior cabinet minister with doubts about the virulently pro-lockdown stance by SAGE was during autumn 2020, when we provided some questions for SAGE and a briefing on the likely damage of lockdowns. The response from the small Covid team and SAGE was to tell that Minister bluntly to butt out of Covid policy and we were told by the minister that attempting to argue an alternative point of view was like 'banging my head against a brick wall.'

The second time a minister who sought advice it was via a Special Adviser and we cannot break that trust without damaging Recovery's reputation for being able to work with politicians, officials and media without breaking confidences.

At the same time as Shapps decided to reveal his own frustrations a timely article appeared in the Timesfrom Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court, that eviscerated the argument in favour of lockdowns. This has since been followed up in the Times by a joint article by Steve Baker MP and Professor Steve H Hanke from Johns Hopkins University. Using a new 115-page meta-analysis conducted by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, the international researchers from the US, Sweden and Denmark concluded that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had little to no effect on Covid-19 mortality, were ill-founded and should have been rejected. Their research suggests 6,000-23,000 deaths were avoided in Europe during Spring of 2020 '' but that needs to be seen in a context of an average of 72,000 deaths that would normally be recorded from flu in Europe.

''When the conclusions of the Johns Hopkins study are taken with the evidence that infections were falling before the three full lockdowns the UK experienced, it becomes clear that the effects of them were not worth their costs.''

Steve Baker & Steve H Hanke, Times, 31 August 2022The Times has not been known as a regular publisher of articles sceptical of lockdowns; accordingly, for two such articles to appear suggests a change of editorial mood or at least a recognition there is a respectable case to be made that lockdowns (and their accompanying restrictions) were not effective or necessary. Add to this recent conversion the regularity of lockdown sceptic articles now appearing in the Telegraph and Daily Mail '' both of which were always more sceptical during the pandemic '' and we have the beginnings of a consensus that lockdowns must be avoided in future as a price not worth paying for, what in any event turn out to be, very poor protection for the people they are designed to keep safe.

This does not mean we should think we have won the anti-Lockdown argument and can pack up and go home '' far from it. These small advances are really on the opening skirmishes that give us hope to believe we can win, but much more requires to be done.

The most powerful media voices with the widest reach are the broadcasters (like the BBC, ITV and Sky) '' and they are still, as far as can be seen, very much pro-lockdowns. For commercial operations, Lockdowns boost viewer numbers and commercial revenue. Also, the Covid Inquiry is structured to favour lockdowns, and the instruction from OFCOM to broadcasters and digital media companies that they must not allow criticism of Covid restrictions has not been rescinded (particularly worrying since vicious new teeth are being given to the instruction with the Online Harms Bill and its provision to forbid 'legal but harmful' content, that will prevent any critical online discussion of Covid restrictions.

So let's redouble our efforts and go on to win more arguments with the media shape shifters.

If you appreciated this article please subscribe to our regular newsletter here, share and follow us on Twitter here '' and like and comment on facebook here. Recovery is a 'not for profit' campaign (we make a loss!) and need your financial support to survive '' if you can spare some of your hard-earned pounds you can donate here.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments and managing editor of the Recovery blog.

For the Grant Shapps interview in the Telegraph go here: I did my own research to help block Christmas Covid lockdownFor the Jonathan Sumption article in the Times go here: Little by little the truth of lockdown is being admitted: it was a disasterFor the Steve Baker article in the Times go here: Next PM must guarantee Britain never locks down againFor the Rishi Sunak interview in the Spectator go here: The lockdown files: Rishi Sunak on what we weren't toldFor Fraser Nelson's interpretation in the Telegraph of what it means go here: Rishi Sunak is just the start. The great lockdown scandal is about to unravel

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 16:36

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FRANKFURT, June 23 (Reuters) - Germany on Thursday moved to stage two of its three-tier emergency gas plan after Russia reduced deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, though for the time being there will be no government rationing of the fuel. read more

Here is a closer look at the three stages, which are all set by Germany's Economy Ministry:

1. EARLY WARNING PHASE- This stage is triggered when there are "concrete, serious and reliable indications that an event may occur which is likely to lead to a significant deterioration of the gas supply situation and probably to the alarm or emergency level."

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- Gas companies continue to ensure supplies, there are no supply disruptions yet.

- Gas transmission system operators (TSOs), or network operators, update Germany's Economy Ministry at least once a day on the supply situation.

- Electricity TSOs coordinate to ensure the stability of their grids.

- Gas suppliers advise the government and are part of the crisis team.

- The government immediately informs the European Commission about potential further measures, which can include revoking the early emergency status if the conditions are no longer met.

Pipes at the landfall facilities of the 'Nord Stream 1' gas pipeline are pictured in Lubmin, Germany, March 8, 2022. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo2. ALARM PHASE- This stage is triggered when there "is a disruption in the gas supply or an exceptionally high demand for gas which leads to a significant deterioration of the gas supply situation, but the market is still able to cope with this disruption or demand without the need to take non-market based measures."

- It kicks in when there is a high risk of long-term supply shortages of gas, and theoretically enables utilities to pass on soaring gas costs to industry and households

- Germany's Economy Ministry on Thursday said, however, that this clause had not been triggered

- There are no changes compared with the first phase, but all market players, including TSOs and gas suppliers, are under more pressure to balance out disruptions via efficiency and short-term measures such as procuring gas from alternative sources.

3. EMERGENCY PHASE- This stage is triggered when there "is an exceptionally high demand for gas, a significant disruption in gas supplies or another significant supply situation and all relevant market-based measures have been implemented, but gas supply is insufficient to meet the remaining gas demand so that additional non-market based measures need to be taken, in particular to ensure the supply of gas to protected customers."

- State intervention kicks in because market fundamentals no longer apply, effectively meaning that remaining gas supplies are rationed.

- This is done by the German network regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, which is tasked with securing the "vital demand for gas with special consideration of protected customers and minimising consequential damage."

- In broad brush terms, supply to industry is curtailed first, while households and critical institutions such as hospitals continue to receive available gas.

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Reporting by Christoph Steitz; editing by Edmund Blair and Jason Neely

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:57

A three-part plan delivers on President Biden's promise to cancel $10,000 of student debt for low- to middle-income borrowers

President Biden believes that a post-high school education should be a ticket to a middle-class life, but for too many, the cost of borrowing for college is a lifelong burden that deprives them of that opportunity. During the campaign, he promised to provide student debt relief. Today, the Biden Administration is following through on that promise and providing families breathing room as they prepare to start re-paying loans after the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic.Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up: Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third. That has left many students from low- and middle-income families with no choice but to borrow if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analysis, the typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt.

The skyrocketing cumulative federal student loan debt'--$1.6 trillion and rising for more than 45 million borrowers'--is a significant burden on America's middle class. Middle-class borrowers struggle with high monthly payments and ballooning balances that make it harder for them to build wealth, like buying homes, putting away money for retirement, and starting small businesses.For the most vulnerable borrowers, the effects of debt are even more crushing. Nearly one-third of borrowers have debt but no degree, according to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of undergraduates. Many of these students could not complete their degree because the cost of attendance was too high. About 16% of borrowers are in default '' including nearly a third of senior citizens with student debt '' which can result in the government garnishing a borrower's wages or lowering a borrower's credit score. The student debt burden also falls disproportionately on Black borrowers. Twenty years after first enrolling in school, the typical Black borrower who started college in the 1995-96 school year still owed 95% of their original student debt.

Today, President Biden is announcing a three-part plan to provide more breathing room to America's working families as they continue to recover from the strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan offers targeted debt relief as part of a comprehensive effort to address the burden of growing college costs and make the student loan system more manageable for working families. The President is announcing that the Department of Education will:

Provide targeted debt relief to address the financial harms of the pandemic, fulfilling the President's campaign commitment. The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No high-income individual or high-income household '' in the top 5% of incomes '' will benefit from this action. To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023.Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers by:Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower's discretionary income'--half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers. Fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by proposing a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military, or in federal, state, tribal, or local government, receive appropriate credit toward loan forgiveness. These improvements will build on temporary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 public servants have already had more than $10 billion in loan forgiveness approved.Protect future students and taxpayers by reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike up prices. The President championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in over a decade and one of the largest one-time influxes to colleges and universities. To further reduce the cost of college, the President will continue to fight to double the maximum Pell Grant and make community college free. Meanwhile, colleges have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford. This Administration has already taken key steps to strengthen accountability, including in areas where the previous Administration weakened rules. The Department of Education is announcing new efforts to ensure student borrowers get value for their college costs.Provide Targeted Debt Relief, Fulfilling the President's Campaign CommitmentTo address the financial harms of the pandemic for low- and middle-income borrowers and avoid defaults as loan repayment restarts next year, the Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in loan relief to borrowers with loans held by the Department of Education whose individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples) and who received a Pell Grant. Nearly every Pell Grant recipient came from a family that made less than $60,000 a year, and Pell Grant recipients typically experience more challenges repaying their debt than other borrowers. Borrowers who meet those income standards but did not receive a Pell Grant in college can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.

The Pell Grant program is one of America's most effective financial aid programs'--but its value has been eroded over time. Pell Grant recipients are more than 60% of the borrower population. The Department of Education estimates that roughly 27 million borrowers will be eligible to receive up to $20,000 in relief, helping these borrowers meet their economic potential and avoid economic harm from the COVID-19 pandemic.Current students with loans are eligible for this debt relief. Borrowers who are dependent students will be eligible for relief based on parental income, rather than their own income.

If all borrowers claim the relief they are entitled to, these actions will:

Provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers.Target relief dollars to low- and middle-income borrowers. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are no longer in school, nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year. No individual making more than $125,000 or household making more than $250,000 '' the top 5% of incomes in the United States '' will receive relief.Help borrowers of all ages. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are eligible for relief, 21% are 25 years and under and 44% are ages 26-39. More than a third are borrowers age 40 and up, including 5% of borrowers who are senior citizens.Advance racial equity. By targeting relief to borrowers with the highest economic need, the Administration's actions are likely to help narrow the racial wealth gap. Black students are more likely to have to borrow for school and more likely to take out larger loans. Black borrowers are twice as likely to have received Pell Grants compared to their white peers. Other borrowers of color are also more likely than their peers to receive Pell Grants. That is why an Urban Institute study found that debt forgiveness programs targeting those who received Pell Grants while in college will advance racial equity.The Department of Education will work quickly and efficiently to set up a simple application process for borrowers to claim relief. The application will be available no later than when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates at the end of the year. Nearly 8 million borrowers may be eligible to receive relief automatically because their relevant income data is already available to the Department. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, this debt relief will not be treated as taxable income for the federal income tax purposes.

To help ensure a smooth transition back to repayment, the Department of Education is extending the student loan pause a final time through December 31, 2022. No one with federally-held loans has had to pay a single dollar in loan payments since President Biden took office.

Make the Student Loan System More Manageable for Current and Future BorrowersFixing Existing Loan Repayment to Lower Monthly PaymentsThe Administration is reforming student loan repayment plans so both current and future low- and middle-income borrowers will have smaller and more manageable monthly payments.

The Department of Education has the authority to create income-driven repayment plans, which cap what borrowers pay each month based on a percentage of their discretionary income. Most of these plans cancel a borrower's remaining debt once they make 20 years of monthly payments. But the existing versions of these plans are too complex and too limited. As a result, millions of borrowers who might benefit from them do not sign up, and the millions who do sign up are still often left with unmanageable monthly payments.

To address these concerns and follow through on Congress' original vision for income-driven repayment, the Department of Education is proposing a rule to do the following:

For undergraduate loans, cut in half the amount that borrowers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level'--about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower'--will have to make a monthly payment.Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education estimates that this reform will allow nearly all community college borrowers to be debt-free within 10 years.Cover the borrower's unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower's loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments'--even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low.These reforms would simplify loan repayment and deliver significant savings to low- and middle-income borrowers. For example:

A typical single construction worker (making $38,000 a year) with a construction management credential would pay only $31 a month, compared to the $147 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,400.A typical single public school teacher with an undergraduate degree (making $44,000 a year) would pay only $56 a month on their loans, compared to the $197 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,700.A typical nurse (making $77,000 a year) who is married with two kids would pay only $61 a month on their undergraduate loans, compared to the $295 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of more than $2,800.For each of these borrowers, their balances would not grow as long as they are making their monthly payments, and their remaining debt would be forgiven after they make the required number of qualifying payments.Further, the Department of Education will make it easier for borrowers who enroll in this new plan to stay enrolled. Starting in the summer of 2023, borrowers will be able to allow the Department of Education to automatically pull their income information year after year, avoiding the hassle of needing to recertify their income annually.

Ensuring Public Servants Receive Credit Toward Loan ForgivenessBorrowers working in public service are entitled to earn credit toward debt relief under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. But because of complex eligibility restrictions, historic implementation failures, and poor counseling given to borrowers, many borrowers have not received the credit they deserve for their public service.

The Department of Education has announced time-limited changes to PSLF that provide an easier path to forgiveness of all outstanding debt for eligible federal student loan borrowers who have served at a non-profit, in the military, or in federal, state, Tribal, or local government for at least 10 years, including non-consecutively. Those who have served less than 10 years may now more easily get credit for their service to date toward eventual forgiveness. These changes allow eligible borrowers to gain additional credit toward forgiveness, even if they had been told previously that they had the wrong loan type.

The Department of Education also has proposed regulatory changes to ensure more effective implementation of the PSLF program moving forward. Specifically, the Department of Education has proposed allowing more payments to qualify for PSLF including partial, lump sum, and late payments, and allowing certain kinds of deferments and forbearances, such as those for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps service, National Guard duty, and military service, to count toward PSLF. The Department of Education also proposed to ensure the rules work better for non-tenured instructors whose colleges need to calculate their full-time employment.

To ensure borrowers are aware of the temporary changes, the White House has launched four PSLF Days of Action dedicated to borrowers in specific sectors: government employees, educators, healthcare workers and first responders, and non-profit employees. You can find out other information about the temporary changes on PSLF.gov. You must apply to PSLF before the temporary changes end on October 31, 2022.

Protecting Borrowers and Taxpayers from Steep Increases in College CostsWhile providing this relief to low- and middle-income borrowers, the President is focused on keeping college costs under control. Under this Administration, students have had more money in their pockets to pay for college. The President signed the largest increase to the maximum Pell Grant in over a decade and provided nearly $40 billion to colleges and universities through the American Rescue Plan, much of which was used for emergency student financial aid, allowing students to breathe a little easier.

Additionally, the Department of Education has already taken significant steps to strengthen accountability, so that students are not left with mountains of debt with little payoff. The agency has re-established the enforcement unit in the Office of Federal Student Aid and it is holding accreditors' feet to the fire. In fact, the Department just withdrew authorization for the accreditor that oversaw schools responsible for some of the worst for-profit scandals. The agency will also propose a rule to hold career programs accountable for leaving their graduates with mountains of debt they cannot repay, a rule the previous Administration repealed.

Building off of these efforts, the Department of Education is announcing new actions to hold accountable colleges that have contributed to the student debt crisis. These include publishing an annual watch list of the programs with the worst debt levels in the country, so that students registering for the next academic year can steer clear of programs with poor outcomes. They also include requesting institutional improvement plans from the worst actors that outline how the colleges with the most concerning debt outcomes intend to bring down debt levels.

***

More information on claiming relief will be available to borrowers in the coming weeks.Borrowers can sign up to be notified when this information is available at StudentAid.gov/debtrelief.

###

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Archived Version

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:56

Bank of America said it is now offering first-time homebuyers in a select group of cities zero down payment, zero closing cost mortgages to help grow homeownership among Black and Hispanic/Latino communities.

The option will first become available in certain neighborhoods in Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles and Miami. The new mortgage, called the Community Affordable Loan Solution, aims to help eligible individuals and families obtain an affordable loan to purchase a home, the bank said.

''Homeownership strengthens our communities and can help individuals and families to build wealth over time,'' AJ Barkley, head of neighborhood and community lending for Bank of America, said in a release. ''Our Community Affordable Loan Solution will help make the dream of sustained homeownership attainable for more Black and Hispanic families, and it is part of our broader commitment to the communities that we serve.''

The loans require no mortgage insurance '-- the additional fee typically charged to buyers who put down less than 20% of the purchase price '-- and no minimum credit score. Instead, eligibility will be based on factors like timely rent payments and on-time utility bill, phone and auto insurance payments. Prospective buyers must also complete a homebuyer certification course provided by Bank of America and federally approved housing counseling partners before they apply for the loan program, the bank said.

The racial gap in homeownership rates in the U.S. remained substantial in 2020, the most recent year for which National Association of Realtors data are available.

For white households, the homeownership rate was 72.1%. That compares with 51.1% for Hispanic households and 43.4% for Black households. The Black homeownership rate was lower in 2020 than it was in 2010, the NAR said.

"During the pandemic, rising home prices and low housing supply have disproportionally impacted Black households more than any other race/ethnic group," the NAR said in a report. White households are now 40% more likely to be able to afford to buy a home compared with Black households, the association said.

Bank of America and other major financial institutions like Wells Fargo have checkered histories when it comes to mortgage lending to people of color and prospective buyers who have disabilities.

Bank of America's Countrywide Financial, a subprime lender it purchased in 2008, was fined $335 million in 2011 over claims that it charged Black and Hispanic homebuyers higher interest rates than white applicants.

In 2012, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $175 million to settle claims that it targeted people of color with risky home loans that were more expensive. And the city of Miami sued JPMorgan Chase in 2014, accusing the bank of predatory lending in communities of color.

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:53

A large study on the impact of using ivermectin as a prophylaxis for COVID-19 found that regular users of the drug experienced up to a 92% reduction in mortality compared to those who did not.

Brazilian research scientist Dr. Flavio A. Cadegiani said via Twitter that his study in his home country showed a "dose-response effect," meaning that "the more you used, the more protection you had."

He observed that people who use ivermectin regularly every 15 days for at least six to eight weeks had up to a 92% reduction in mortality.

Cadegiani conducted a previous study of drug that evaluated whether its use could impact COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.

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Last fall, esteemed epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale Medical School was among scientists and physicians who said in Senate testimony that thousands of lives could have been saved if treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine had not been suppressed.

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In April, after noticing that the word ivermectin was trending on Twitter amid Elon Musk's move to buy the company, the FDA reprised its disingenuous "horse dewormer" smear of the drug as a treatment for COVID-19.

"Hold your horses, y'all. Ivermectin may be trending, but it still isn't authorized or approved to treat COVID-19," said a post on the FDA's Twitter account.

Are leftists suppressing the truth abut ivermectin because it actually fights COVID effectively?

100% (433 Votes)

0% (1 Votes)

The reference to horses played on the explosion last fall of media articles and social media posts mocking people who treated COVID-19 with the drug as ignorant rubes who were sneaking into farms or patronizing Tractor Supply stores in quest of "horse dewormer."

During the pandemic, Twitter and other social media platforms censored positive mention of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine despite the countless testimonies and dozens of studies from around the world showing the drugs to be effective in treating COVID-19.

A follow-up FDA post said: "Also, a reminder that a study showed it didn't actually work against COVID."

Dr. Pierre Kory, who has testified to the Senate of the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19, fired back.

"You are not a horse, you are not a cow, you are Big Pharma's ass," he tweeted.

The FDA, he wrote, was "messaging BS" by citing "one corrupt study" while ignoring 82 trials, including 33 randomized controlled trials with 129,000 patients from 27 countries that show "massive benefits" of ivermectin in treating COVID-19.

"Stop lying man, people are dying," he wrote, adding the hashtag "earlytreatmentworks."

You are not a horse, you are not a cow, you are Big Pharma's ass.

Messaging BS w/ one corrupt study while ignoring 82 trials (33 RCTs) from 27 countries, 129K patients - sum showing massive benefits https://t.co/WQRjMQKaqJ

Stop lying man, people are dying. #earlytreatmentworks https://t.co/am7XspZ386 pic.twitter.com/7SKjuI3eUH

'-- Pierre Kory, MD MPA (@PierreKory) April 26, 2022

In an article published in April for the Brownstone Institute, Kory wrote that it's "a tried-and-true tactic with effective and dastardly results" for "Big Pharma and other well-financed interests" to sponsor purportedly impartial medical trials "aimed at discrediting cheaper generic alternatives.'

"Ignoring the flaws in the methodology, the media runs wild with the desired narrative, which is amplified by a well-orchestrated public relations effort," he wrote.

Kory cited as an example the newly reported clinical trial from Brazil known as "TOGETHER," which he said ostensibly aimed at studying the effectiveness of ivermectin to treat COVID.

Among the flaws was the lack of explicit exclusion criteria for trial participants on ivermectin, meaning both trial groups had access to the same drug. Further, the treatment window was set for only three days, which didn't allow for adequate dosing, and the trial was conducted during the massive gamma variant surge, which was one of the most virulent and deadly COVID variants.

"The dosage of the trial was far lower than everyday Brazilian clinicians were prescribing patients at the time to match the strength of the strain," Kory pointed out.

"In spite of these and other readily apparent shortcomings, the nation's leading media gobbled up the results. 'Ivermectin Didn't Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date' blared the Wall Street Journal, while a New York Times headlined announced, 'Ivermectin Does Not Reduce Risk of Covid Hospitalization, Large Study Finds.'"

Meanwhile, social media platforms stifled conversations while California pushed potentially precedent-setting legislation to punish doctors "who dare question phony studies," threatening loss of a medical license.

A similar study of ivermectin "of far larger size, conducted by investigators without any conflicts of interest, found the drug led to massive reductions in Covid infection, hospitalization and mortality'--yet it received virtually no media coverage."

Kory said that ending "this cycle of perpetual disinformation requires revamping our dysfunctional drug approval process."

"An independent board free of pharma industry conflicts must be established to oversee trials for re-purposed medicines," he said. "Recommendations should be based on trials designed by impartial experts and actual results, not the desired ones, and policymakers or prescribers who ignore the findings should be held accountable."

And academia and the regulatory agencies must be reminded, he said, "that observational trials data '' wherein a sample of population who take a drug are compared to those who do not '' is equally valid at informing policy."

"Randomized controlled trials can yield useful information, but their complexity, costs, and delays to treatment lead to errors and effectively shut out low-cost drugs from the approval process, regardless of their efficacy," he said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Last year, America's doctors, nurses and paramedics were celebrated as frontline heroes battling a fearsome new pandemic. Today, under Joe Biden, tens of thousands of these same heroes are denounced as rebels, conspiracy theorists, extremists and potential terrorists. Along with massive numbers of police, firemen, Border Patrol agents, Navy SEALs, pilots, air-traffic controllers, and countless other truly essential Americans, they're all considered so dangerous as to merit termination, their professional and personal lives turned upside down due to their decision not to be injected with the experimental COVID vaccines. Biden's tyrannical mandate threatens to cripple American society '' from law enforcement to airlines to commercial supply chains to hospitals. It's already happening. But the good news is that huge numbers of "yesterday's heroes" are now fighting back '' bravely and boldly. The whole epic showdown is laid out as never before in the sensational October issue of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE GREAT AMERICAN REBELLION: 'We will not comply!' COVID-19 power grab ignites bold new era of national defiance."

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected] .

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:24

Volkswagen is stockpiling windows and windscreens amid a glass shortage in Europe, per the WSJ. Glass making requires large amounts of natural gas, which has become far more expensive. A German brewer told The Journal it had bought 50 million beer bottles to cope with shortages. Loading Something is loading.

Volkswagen is stockpiling windows and windshields and brewers are bulk-buying beer bottles as a glass shortage threatens a new supply chain crisis in Europe.

The Wall Street Journal reported how companies in Europe are likely to be affected by a glass shortage being sparked by soaring energy costs.

Volkswagen, which Bloomberg Intelligence expects to overtake Tesla as the world's largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in 2024, said it was stockpiling components that use glass, such windows and windshields, and searching for new suppliers outside Europe, according to The Journal.

The automotive sector has endured numerous headwinds since the pandemic, including a semiconductor shortage and a spike in the price of lithium used to power EV batteries, which have all forced up vehicle costs.

Making glass involves melting sand, soda ash and limestone and requires large amounts of natural gas. Energy prices in Europe have soared since Russia invaded Ukraine.

According to ICIS, Germany gets about 40% of its natural gas from Russia, making moves by the Kremlin, which could include price hikes this winter, particularly acute in the country.

German beer maker Brauerei C. & A. Veltins, which normally buys bottles throughout the year, has purchased 50 million in one go '' enough to last for 12 months '' a spokesman told The Journal, because prices were rising by as much as 90%.

Glass shortages could also affect supply chains for other sectors as it is used for smartphone screens and to make bottles for products such as medicines and soft drinks.

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Archived Version

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:13

DENVER '-- During the dog days of summer, it's important to keep your home cool. But when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they learned they had no control over the temperatures in their own homes.

Temperatures climbed into the 90s Tuesday, which is why Tony Talarico tried to crank up the air conditioning in his partner's Arvada home.

"I mean, it was 90 out, and it was right during the peak period," Talarico said. "It was hot."

That's when he saw a message on the thermostat stating the temperature was locked due to an "energy emergency."

"Normally, when we see a message like that, we're able to override it," Talarico said. "In this case, we weren't. So, our thermostat was locked in at 78 or 79."

On social media, dozens of Xcel customers complained of similar experiences '-- some reporting home temperatures as high as 88 degrees.

Thousands of Xcel customers locked out of thermostats during 'energy emergency'

Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards program were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.

"It's a voluntary program. Let's remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives," said Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel.

Customers receive a $100 credit for enrolling in the program and $25 annually, but Romine said customers also agree to give up some control to save energy and money and make the system more reliable.

"So, it helps everybody for people to participate in these programs. It is a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time, but it's very, very helpful," said Romine.

This is the first time in the program's six year span that customers could not override their smart thermostats, Romine said. He said the "energy emergency" was due to an unexpected outage in Pueblo combined with hot weather and heavy air conditioner usage.

But Talarico said he had no idea that he could be locked out of the thermostat. While he has solar panels and a smart thermostat to save energy, he says he did not sign up to have this much control taken away.

"To me, an emergency means there is, you know, life, limb, or, you know, some other danger out there '-- some, you know, massive wildfires," Talarico said. "Even if it's a once-in-a-blue-moon situation, it just doesn't sit right with us to not be able to control our own thermostat in our house."

Editor's note: Denver7 seeks out audience tips and feedback to help people in need, resolve problems and hold the powerful accountable. If you know of a community need our call center could address, or have a story idea for our investigative team to pursue, please email us at contact7@thedenverchannel.com or call (720) 462-7777. Find more Contact Denver7 stories here.

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:08

Home news news releases Prime Minister launches Canada's first Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan to continue building a more inclusive future, with pride August 28, 2022Ottawa, Ontario

No matter who you are or who you love, you should have every opportunity to succeed in Canada. The Government of Canada has taken historic action in recent years to build a better, more inclusive future for Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and additional sexually and gender diverse people (2SLGBTQI+), and we know there is more to be done.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, joined by the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, Marci Ien, today launched Canada's first Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan'... Building our future, with pride, a whole-of-government approach to achieve a future where everyone in Canada is truly free to be who they are and love who they love.

The Action Plan will:

Prioritize and sustain 2SLGBTQI+ community action by supporting 2SLGBTQI+ community organizations in advocating for and serving the communities they represent;Continue to advance and strengthen 2SLGBTQI+ rights at home and abroad including by building on the criminalization of conversion therapy and launching consultations on additional criminal law reforms, as well as continuing to invest in projects abroad through Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy;Support Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ resilience and resurgence including by continuing to fund Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ community organizations, placing the ''2S'' to represent Two-Spirit people at the front of the 2SLGBTQI+ acronym, and creating a dedicated Two-Spirit Senior Advisor position within the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat;Engage everyone in Canada in fostering a more inclusive future by investing in awareness campaigns to improve understanding of 2SLGBTQI+ communities and issues;Strengthen 2SLGBTQI+ data and evidence-based policy making by improving data collection, analysis, research, and knowledge on 2SLGBTQI+ communities and the barriers they face in Canada; andEmbed 2SLGBTQI+ issues in the work of the Government of Canada by ensuring coordinated action to advance 2SLGBTQI+ priorities across federal government organizations.Budget 2022 committed $100 million over five years to develop and implement the Action Plan to benefit 2SLGBTQI+ people. The Prime Minister today also announced that this includes:

Up to $75 million for 2SLGBTQI+ community organizations that advocate for and serve their communities:$40 million in new capacity-building support, prioritizing funding for 2SLGBTQI+ communities experiencing additional marginalization, such as Black, racialized, and Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ communities, 2SLGBTQI+ persons with disabilities, seniors, youth, official language minority communities, and those living in rural communities; and$35 million in new project-focused support aimed at addressing specific barriers to 2SLGBTQI+ equality.$11.7 million for the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat to oversee and implement the Action Plan;$7.7 million for data collection and community-led policy research to support federal action on 2SLGBTQI+ issues; and$5.6 million to develop and implement awareness campaigns that focus on breaking down stigma and ending discrimination for 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians.The Action Plan was developed with community leaders, researchers, and organizations. It speaks to the concerns of diverse members of 2SLGBTQI+ communities across the country and uses an intersectional, holistic, and long-term approach to breaking down barriers and fighting the discrimination and oppression of 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians.

Building on the historic action already taken, the Action Plan is an evergreen document that continues to celebrate Canadians for who they are. While it is a historical first, the work does not end here '' this Action Plan will continue to guide our work into the future. The Government of Canada will continue to work with provinces and territories, cities and towns, community organizations, and 2SLGBTQI+ people from all walks of life to build a better future we can all be proud of.

Quotes''Canada gets a little bit stronger every day that we choose to embrace and to celebrate who we are, in all our uniqueness. We are a diverse nation enriched by the lives, experiences, and contributions of 2SLGBTQI+ people. Let us celebrate all the communities that make Canada such a diverse country, and work together to build a better future, with pride.''

''Canada's 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan is a historic collaborative effort that will help build a more inclusive country. Founded on the hard work of community members, organizations, and allies, this Action Plan will set an example for generations to follow. I can assure you that the work does not end here '' we will continue to partner with 2SLGBTQI+ communities and leaders to make sure we're building a Canada that serves everyone.''

Quick FactsTerminology and acronyms are continuously evolving. Based on extensive consultation with 2SLGBTQI+ communities across the country, the Government of Canada will adopt and encourage the use of the 2SLGBTQI+ acronym (2ELGBTQI+ in French), which is more inclusive and places the experiences of Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ communities at the foreground as the first 2SLGBTQI+ peoples in North America. It stands for Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and additional sexually and gender diverse people.Between fall 2020 and summer 2021, the Government of Canada undertook a community engagement process to inform the development of the 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan, including 25,636 survey responses, 102 written submissions, and roundtable discussions with over 100 participants.The Government of Canada has taken historic action in recent years to advance equality and create better opportunities for 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians, including:In 2016, the Prime Minister appointed a Special Advisor on LGBTQ2 issues, and shortly thereafter, created what is now called the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat with the mandate to provide the federal government with pathways to address historical and ongoing injustices experienced by 2SLGBTQI+ people in Canada;In 2017, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code were updated to protect gender identity and gender expression;In 2017, the Prime Minister apologized in the House of Commons for the systemic oppression, rejection, and criminalization of Canadians identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and Two-Spirit;In 2018, the Federal Court approved the LGBT Purge Class Action Final Settlement Agreement;In 2018, the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act for eligible offences involving consensual same-sex sexual activity became law;In 2019, the government repealed anal intercourse, vagrancy, and bawdy house offences from the Criminal Code;In 2019, the government announced targeted programming for 2SLGBTQI+ communities, including the Community Capacity Fund and advancing 2SLGBTQI+ rights globally through Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy;In 2022, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Conversion Therapy) became law, criminalizing this cruel, harmful, and degrading practice; andIn 2022, the Prime Minister launched Canada's first Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan.Associated LinksCanada's 2SLGBTQI+ Action PlanAction Plan Overview2SLGBTQI+ SecretariatLGBTQ2 Action Plan Survey findingsApology to LGBTQ2 communities

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:05

We've always assumed the vaccine kills you quickly (in the first two weeks) because that's when people notice the association and report it to VAERS. This is still true; it does kill some people quickly.

However, thanks to an HHS whistleblower, we can now clearly see that most of the deaths from the vaccine are happening an average of 5 months from the last dose. That is for the second dose; it may be getting shorter the more shots you get but there are arguments both ways (since there can be survivor bias).

But this explains why the life insurance companies got off-the-charts all-cause mortality peaks for people under 60 in Q3 and Q4 rather than right after the shots rolled out.

The five month delay is also consistent with death reports where people are developing new aggressive cancers that are killing them over a 4 to 6 month period.

The 5 month death delay was also confirmed using only European data. That analysis was posted Aug 11, but I learned about it after I wrote this post.

So when you hear of a death from stroke, cardiac arrest, heart attack, cancer, and suicide that is happening around 5 months after vaccination, it could very well be a vaccine-related death.

I got this chart from a whistleblower who works for HHS. This is data you are not supposed to see. The mortality increase (60% at peak) is huge. That sort of increase can only be caused by something novel that affected massive numbers of people.

There is only one possibility that fits that: the COVID vaccine.

The peak is September 9, 2021.

This graph, which is not publicly available, is from the US Social Security death master file. It compares deaths from 2021 to deaths in 2020. You simply cannot get such a rise in deaths like that unless something very deadly is affecting massive numbers of people. This explains why insurance companies all over the world were seeing massive death spikes in Q3 and Q4 of 2021. The vaccine was simply taking an average of 5 months from the most recent injection to kill people. The peak here is September 9, 2021.The peak is April 12, 2021.

The peak is April 12, 2021.The most obvious conclusion is that the vaccine takes an average of 5 months to kill people after the second dose.

The second peak in December 2021 will result in life insurance companies having spikes in Q1 and Q2 of 2022.

Analysis from Chris Martenson's site found the same 5 month delay using different source data! That is really stunning. I had no idea when I wrote my article.

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/this-one-graph-tells-you-everything/comment/8768068

I encourage everyone to read all the comments.

If someone has a better explanation for this data, I'd love to hear it.

If any fact checker wants to challenge me on this, you can use the Contact Form and let's have a recorded conversation.

The CDC doesn't want to talk about this. They also won't tell us why they aren't showing us this data.

For sure, the NY Times and rest of the mainstream media will ignore this and won't ask any questions. Maybe Tucker Carlson will talk about it.

It was wrong to assume that most of the vaccine-related deaths were happening shortly after vaccination. Some are, but most are not. It's just that they were easier to notice when there was temporal proximity to the jabs.

If someone you know died around 5 months after vaccination, you should definitely have a proper autopsy done as described in my earlier interview with Ryan Cole .

Please share this info.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 12:52

Despite the fact that no one asked, the World Economic Forum is now advocating for the merger of human and artificial intelligence systems to censor ''hate speech'' and ''misinformation'' online before it is even allowed to be posted.

A report published to the official WEF website ominously warns about the peril of ''the dark world of online harms.''

But the globalist body, run by comic book Bond villain Klaus Schwab, has a solution.

They want to merge the 'best' aspects of human censorship and AI machine learning algorithms to ensure that people's feelings don't get hurt and counter-regime opinions are blacklisted.

''By uniquely combining the power of innovative technology, off-platform intelligence collection and the prowess of subject-matter experts who understand how threat actors operate, scaled detection of online abuse can reach near-perfect precision,'' states the article.

After engaging in a whole host of mumbo jumbo, the article concludes by proposing ''a new framework: rather than relying on AI to detect at scale and humans to review edge cases, an intelligence-based approach is crucial.''

''By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms. Supplementing this smarter automated detection with human expertise to review edge cases and identify false positives and negatives and then feeding those findings back into training sets will allow us to create AI with human intelligence baked in,'' the article rambles.

NEW '' Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum proposes to automate censorship of "hate speech" and "disinformation" with AI fed by "subject matter experts."https://t.co/A4JDrh7RaK pic.twitter.com/LYqFhik3Wk

'-- Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 11, 2022

In other words, your free speech will probably get censored before you're even able to post it on social media sites. Some are calling it ''preemptive censorship.''

Or as the WEF puts it, ''Trust and safety teams can stop threats rising online before they reach users.''

No doubt that a central part of such ''misinformation'' will be strident denunciation of the WEF itself, given that the organization is notorious for blocking its critics on Twitter.

Many would ask why the World Economic Forum, amidst a cost of living crisis, upcoming energy rationing and a global recession, is concerning itself with any of this.

Why don't they just stick to the economy?

''It's never a sure bet if this Davos-based elite's mouthpiece comes up with its outlandish ''solutions'' and ''proposals'' as a way to reinforce existing, or introduce new narratives; or just to appear busy and earn its keep from those bankrolling it,'' writes Didi Rankovic

''No '' it's not the runaway inflation, energy costs, and even food security in many parts of the world. For how dedicated to globalization the organization is, it's strangely tone-deaf to what is actually happening around the globe.''

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Tue, 30 Aug 2022 19:11

The fourth edition, BCSC 2022 will take place in-person. It will convene high-level political actors, climate security experts and practitioners at the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin on 11-12 October 2022.

This year's BCSC is entitled Climate '' Conflict '' Clash of Crises: Weathering the Risks. BCSC 2022 will address climate impacts on peace and stability, and its interlinkages with current global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the looming food crisis. The conference will focus on advancing inter alia locally informed-action in response to these multiple global crises.

BCSC 2022 seeks to:

Identify intersectoral, cross-border, cross-regional and cross-government cooperation;Showcase best practice of locally informed and participatory climate and conflict sensitive policies and operations;Build awareness of risk and foresight assessments and capacity for climate-security decision-making to use through trainings and interactive sessions;Establish the Climate, Environment, Peace and Security Initiative.The conference will examine some of the best examples of risk analysis, early warning and decision-making support to address the challenges posed by climate change to international peace and security, with a view to finding clear steps forward to strengthen responses to the climate-related security risks.

Featuring a high-level political segment with German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, the conference will take stock of the agenda for action set out in the Climate, Environment, Peace and Security Declaration and outline a concrete roadmap to inform the Climate, Environment, Peace and Security Initiative, announced by Foreign Minister Baerbock and endorsed by G7 FM on 3rd May 2022. It will be informed by the flagship Weathering Risk initiative and its impact focussed Peace Pillar, as well as by the highest quality knowledge and experience of climate security risk analysis and responses, such as PREVIEW.

Capitalising on the value of convening world class climate and security expertise in person, BCSC 2022 will also offer scope to organize high-level strategic side meetings, for example a meeting of the Climate Security Expert Network, the Strategic Advisory Board of Weathering Risk, a consultation for the NATO Centre of Excellence on Climate and Security and the G7 Climate Security Working Group.

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Tue, 30 Aug 2022 13:43

SECPublished: Aug. 29, 2022, 12:11 p.m.Kirk Herbstreit, right, revealed over the weekend that he was diagnosed with blood clots in his ankle and lungs back in April. AP

Kirk Herbstreit recently revealed he was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs and ankles in April.

In a wide-ranging profile by ''The Los Angeles Times,'' the ESPN ''College GameDay'' analyst, 53, revealed how his outlook on life changed just four short months ago.

What started out as a calf pain - he thought it was a pull - turned in to pain in the right side of his chest when he would lay in bed. That was followed by shortness of breath. At that point, per the report, he called a cardiologist.

''Your heart arteries are crystal clear, look great,'' Herbstreit recalled the doctor telling him. ''But, you're not going to believe this: You have clots in your lungs.''

RELATED: ''GameDay'' crew gives CFP Final Four picks

Herbstreit followed up with a scan of his calf, which revealed additional clots.

''Somehow they got into my bloodstream, went through my heart and into my lungs,'' Herbstreit says. ''Once it got into the lungs, it's like a dead end. They're in your lungs, but they go through your heart. That's where people die. '... And so I was just like, 'Damn.' "

The former Ohio State quarterback was feeling better after a few days of blood thinners. It is also, according to the ''Times,'' why he sat out ESPN's NFL Draft coverage.

Herbstreit appears to be full speed ahead, already acknowledging Alabama ''will be possessed'' this year, and he awarded Tide linebacker Will Anderson the ultimate Herbie Award.

Check out the full report here.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:06

The federal government wants to roll out another round of COVID-19 boosters this fall but drugmakers are still testing the new boosters. The Food and Drug Administration has said it will base its evaluation of the boosters on data from mouse studies, in a controversial move. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The federal government wants to roll out another round of COVID-19 boosters this fall but drugmakers are still testing the new boosters. The Food and Drug Administration has said it will base its evaluation of the boosters on data from mouse studies, in a controversial move.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is using a controversial strategy to evaluate the next generation of COVID-19 boosters.

The approach is stirring debate as the agency works to make new, hopefully improved, boosters available in September to help prevent severe disease and save lives in the fall and winter.

For the first time, the FDA is planning to base its decision about whether to authorize new boosters on studies involving mice instead of humans.

"For the FDA to rely on mouse data is just bizarre, in my opinion," says John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. "Mouse data are not going to be predictive in any way of what you would see in humans."

But others defend the approach, arguing that the country has had enough experience with the vaccines at this point to be confident the shots are safe and that there's not enough time to wait for data from human studies.

"We have 500 people a day dying of coronavirus right now. Those numbers sadly might very well rise in the fall and the winter. The question is: 'Can we do something better?'" says Dr. Ofer Levy, a pediatrics and infectious disease researcher at Harvard Medical School who also advises the FDA. "And I think the answer is: 'We can, by implementing this approach.'"

The U.K. just approved a new boosterThe United Kingdom just approved a new booster that targets both the original strain of the virus and the original omicron variant, called BA.1 '-- a so-called bivalent vaccine.

But the FDA rejected BA.1 bivalent boosters last spring. Instead, the FDA told the vaccine companies that make the mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech, to develop bivalent vaccines that target the dominant omicron subvariants '-- BA.4 and BA.5 '-- in the hopes they will offer stronger, longer-lasting protection.

That's why the FDA decided to use a new, streamlined strategy for testing the new boosters. The agency is asking the companies to initially submit only the results of tests on mice. Regulators will rely on those results, along with the human neutralizing antibody data from the BA.1 bivalent booster studies, to decide whether to authorize the boosters.

The companies will continue to gather more data from human studies; those results probably won't be available until late October or early November.

But the big concern is the boosters may not work as well as the mouse data might suggest. Mouse experiments are notoriously unreliable.

And with the government telling people not to get the old boosters now and rejecting the first bivalent vaccines, the FDA really needs good evidence that the BA.4/5 boosters are in fact better, critics say.

"We need to make sure that we have solid immunogenicity data in people to show that you have a dramatically greater neutralizing antibody response against BA.4, BA.5," says Dr. Paul Offit of the University of Pennsylvania, who also advises the FDA. "I think anything short of that is not acceptable."

Some also worry that the approach may further erode the long-faltering efforts to persuade people to get boosted.

"I think it would be good to have neutralizing antibody data in a small group of humans," says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. "Otherwise, extrapolation may be considered too great."

But others agree the time constraints mean the country can't wait for more evidence. The billions of people who have gotten Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines show how safe they are, those experts say.

The new booster will be identical to the original vaccines except it will contain genetic coding for two versions of the protein the virus uses to infect cells '-- the protein from the original vaccine and proteins from the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants.

And some scientists say health officials know enough about how vaccines work to start handling the COVID-19 vaccines like the flu vaccines, which are changed every year to try to match whatever strains are likely to be circulating but aren't routinely tested again every year.

"We're going to use all of these data that we've learned through not only from this vaccine but decades of viral immunology to say: 'The way to be nimble is that we're going to do those animal studies," says Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunobiologist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. "We're really not going out too far on a limb here."

The companies are expected to submit their data to the FDA by the end of the month and the administration hopes to make millions of doses of the new boosters available starting in September.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:02

W ith nearly all the new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. coming from the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, it makes sense that health officials are considering switching to a different vaccine to protect the public.

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha expects the first Omicron-specific booster to be available in mid-September at the earliest, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) authorize and recommend the shot. In late August, both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna submitted requests to the FDA for authorization of their Omicron-specific boosters.

But with the fall and winter fast approaching'--the seasons when respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2 spread even more efficiently, as students return to school and people huddle indoors'--getting the booster ready requires a more efficient review and regulatory process. And that includes considering safety and efficacy data from animals, not people.

Back in June, the FDA's panel of independent vaccine experts met to consider switching the country to a new booster that targets Omicron, given how quickly that variant is dominating new infections. At the time, the two largest COVID-19 vaccine makers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna'--which both make mRNA-based vaccines'--had developed shots against an earlier Omicron variant, BA.1. The panel decided that if health authorities were going to change the booster shot to target Omicron, the next one should protect against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which would continue to account for almost all cases in the winter season.

They asked the vaccine manufacturers to develop a new vaccine, one that combined the original vaccine and also targeted Omicron BA.4 and BA.5. At the end of August, both companies submitted data on their new, bivalent vaccines to the FDA for emergency use authorization.

Given the short time they had to develop the shot, however, the data only included information on the safety and efficacy of the booster in animals. Human studies are planned and will be ongoing even if the FDA and CDC decide to authorize the shots and the government starts distributing them. The FDA has also decided to review the animal study data without consulting its advisory committee again.

That has vaccine experts divided. Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the advisory committee, says this strategy makes him ''uncomfortable'' for several reasons. He notes that the data presented from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in June involving their BA.1 booster shot, which focused on the levels of virus-fighting antibodies the vaccine generated, were underwhelming. ''They showed that the neutralizing antibody titers were between 1.5- and two-fold greater against Omicron than levels induced by a booster of the ancestral vaccine,'' he says. ''I'd like to see clear evidence of dramatic increase in neutralizing antibodies, more dramatic than what we saw against BA.1, before launching a new product. We're owed at least that.''

While conducting human studies does take more time, Offit says even a small trial involving about 100 people to measure their antibody levels after getting a BA.4/5 booster would be helpful. ''You can boost people and measure their neutralizing antibodies two weeks later,'' he says. Such information could also be critical in setting realistic expectations for the Omicron booster. The public might feel it's a panacea that signals the end of the pandemic, but without any data showing how well the booster will protect people from not only getting sick, there might be unrealistic expectations about what the boost can do. ''I get a little nervous, frankly, when I hear this [booster] is going to be miraculous,'' Offit says.

Other experts see it a little differently. Based on the fact that the mRNA vaccines have been administered to millions of people so far, with relatively few safety concerns, and given that the vaccines have been effective in protecting people from getting hospitalized or dying of COVID-19, even during the latest Omicron surges, they argue that changing the strain of virus in the vaccine doesn't require the same extensive testing that the original shot did. ''The totality of evidence is relevant here,'' says Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children's Hospital, and also a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee. ''We are in a situation where we need to pivot as variants emerge, and if we try to be too rigid in our approach, we will always be behind, and not giving the population optimal protection.''

Levy says that the latest Omicron-specific boosters that the FDA is considering contain a combination of mRNA targets against both the original virus and Omicron BA.4/BA.5, so the data on safety and efficacy from the original vaccine in protecting against hospitalization and death is relevant. While the data on this vaccine does come from animals, using that data to decide whether or not to authorize the booster is a matter of ''hedging bets.'' There is data showing that even vaccinated and boosted people can get mild to moderate COVID-19 disease, because their vaccine-induced protection is waning, so boosting with a shot that is better matched to the Omicron subvariants circulating now is a reasonable bet, even if the data on its efficacy comes from animals and not people. ''I think it's the right decision,'' says Levy.

There's no guarantee that the FDA will authorize the new bivalent vaccines, although all signs point to an authorization that could come in a week or so. If the shots are released and people get boosted, health officials will be carefully monitoring data from those vaccinees to ensure that the assumptions they made about the safety and efficacy of the booster hold. And hospitalization rates in the coming winter will reveal whether betting on the new Omicron-specific booster was the right decision.

Contact us at letters@time.com.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 16:47

Commentary By Warner Todd Huston, The Western Journal August 28, 2022 at 6:35pm A woke Illinois middle school teacher recently admitted that she routinely lies to parents about what she is teaching children in a video that should not only act as a warning to parents, but also as a road map to eliminating this dangerous, anti-American leftism that is so pervasive in our public school systems.

The teacher's name was not made public, but according to the Post Millennial, she is a member of the faculty at Troy Middle School in Plainfield, Illinois, a town about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.

In her self-congratulatory video, the smug leftist went on and on about how she purposefully excludes parents from being informed when students claim to be ''transgender.''

Constantly grinning from ear to ear, the teacher told her social media audience, ''I respect their name and their pronouns, and I use them in class, but because their parents don't know '-- I even say this to the students '-- I say, 'I'm gonna have to use your legal name and pronouns when addressing your parents, okay?' And this usually, again, strengthens the bond, the trust bond between me and the kid.''

Before we go on, note that last bit about ''strengthening the bond'' between her and the kids. This is evidence that she is purposefully driving a wedge between parents and kids and attempting to eliminate parental influence in education.

This teacher at @troymidschool explains that she tells students that she keep a secret from their parents and that it ''strengthens the trust bond between [her] and the kid.'' pic.twitter.com/vpPrqvLZKZ

'-- 👁 Inside The Classroom (@EITC_Official) August 26, 2022

The teacher egoistically begins her video by saying, ''I may or may not have ruffled some feathers in today's team meeting.''

''So here's the situation. We've got kids that are trans, in our classrooms, and they are feeling safe enough around us,'' she continues grinning like the Cheshire Cat. ''And there's a particular student that has been brought up in team meetings. And the reason being is because their parents do not know that they are trans.''

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Notice how she goes from ''we have trans kids'' to only talking about one such kid. This leads to the suspicion that the school doesn't really have multiple trans kids but only one.

The teacher then added that she threw in her ''two cents'' in the meeting on dealing with transgenderism in the classroom which caused the meeting to get ''a little heated.''

''Should it matter to us what we call students as long as they're learning, right?'' she claims she told another teacher at the meeting. The teacher next said she ''respects'' a child's new trans names and pronouns, ''and I use them in class,'' and then went into the point posted above about how she excludes the parents from knowing about what she is doing in the classroom.

Despite her woke suggestions, though, it appears that the other teachers and administrators in the meeting were not as enamored with the hardcore trans agenda this woman was pushing on little kids.

She then added, ''The take was [from a parent's point of view], if my kid asks you to use a different name and pronouns and then you don't tell me you're not honest with me, you don't tell me that that's what they're doing. And they've told you that I don't know. I would be pissed.''

But this desire for parents having to be told what is going on with their children disgusted the teacher and she scolded parents for not ''affirming'' a pre-teen child's claim to being transgender.

This leftist commissar began wrapping up her video by equating herself to medical doctors. ''I abide by the same oath a doctor takes. Do no harm,'' she bloviated in a vainglorious manner.

This behavior is not isolated to one Chicago-area school, to be sure. It is a nationwide trend that is showing up, all across the country.

At the end of her video, though, this woke teacher did say something that just might give sane people some hope.

The teacher glumly noted that one of her leaders said, ''Hey, there might be a law that comes down that says eventually you could get sued for doing that.''

And on a note that might make the parents of her students cheer with delight, the teacher concluded saying that if such a law is ever passed, ''Well, that will be the day that I exit teaching.''

The sooner the better, I'd say.

Still, this is the perfect path toward eliminating this garbage. Sue them. Sue them. And sue them again until this dangerous behavior by woke teachers ends, and teachers like this one begin to ''exit teaching.''

Once precedents are set that affirm teachers have no right to eliminate parents from education, the better it will be for the nation's children who will finally be able to get back to learning instead of being subjected to left-wing indoctrination.

This teacher did reveal the rot infesting our public schools. But she also helped us see a way toward surgically removing it.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

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Robby Starbuck : Dr. Scott Mosser admits they have "secret missions" to normalize child sex change surgery at the Gender Confirmatio'... https://t.co/cpxiAu2vfr

Wed Aug 31 13:15:16 +0000 2022

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John Cooper : Karine Jean-Pierre says that people who voted for Donald Trump are "a threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to o'... https://t.co/OrPjS6PiX6

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Thu Sep 01 16:11:44 +0000 2022

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Breaking911 : NY GOV. HOCHUL TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS: ''Jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, ok?! Get outta town.'''... https://t.co/IqFhrJPibE

Mon Aug 29 00:19:57 +0000 2022

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Rebel News : Trudeau claims the rise in anger toward politicians stems from ''increasing anxietybecause of climate change,'' and'... https://t.co/cCw8CSwFHK

Tue Aug 30 18:51:46 +0000 2022

Russell : @RebelNewsOnline @RealAndyLeeShow We should not make space or tolerate him any longer .

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Thu Sep 01 15:18:27 +0000 2022

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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 16:00

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil : German FM: I will put Ukraine first ''no matter what my German voters think'' or how hard their life gets. https://t.co/GwAqIZ2jL7

Wed Aug 31 20:02:37 +0000 2022

🇺🇸 Voter ID/Paper Ballots/Same day count 🇺🇸 : @ivan_8848 And moron's will vote for this bitch.

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Darkwulf : @ivan_8848 @ploughmansfolly Default victimhood

Thu Sep 01 15:50:06 +0000 2022

Gloria Beacon : @ivan_8848 What the .....? Seriously? Come on Germany you can do better then this.

Thu Sep 01 15:48:31 +0000 2022

shakur424 🇾🇪 : @ivan_8848 Literal criminals. Texbook definition of treason.

Thu Sep 01 15:48:11 +0000 2022

Moket 🏰 : @ivan_8848 Darauf hab ich richtig bock

Thu Sep 01 15:47:42 +0000 2022

Toth : @ivan_8848 Treator to her nation. There is a sentence for that...

Thu Sep 01 15:46:42 +0000 2022

Free Assange! STOP THE WAR, NEGOTIATE : @ivan_8848 this is beyond deranged, she is possessed, bought and paid for by the #wef #nato cabal.what do they have on her?

Thu Sep 01 15:45:42 +0000 2022

🇺🇸John🇺🇸🍊 : @ivan_8848 Stop spending money on Ukraine. You are being bamboozled.

Thu Sep 01 15:45:14 +0000 2022

Pibaez156 : @ivan_8848 Germany is a vassal state of the US.

Thu Sep 01 15:45:09 +0000 2022

Felix the '—¼¸'—¼¸'—¼¸ Cat : @ivan_8848 @garethicke https://t.co/1bHYEC2llG

Thu Sep 01 15:44:43 +0000 2022

eloi levermilor : @ivan_8848 She is counting her days as minister ðŸ¤'

Thu Sep 01 15:42:32 +0000 2022

Sean McConnell : @ivan_8848 @ABaerbock kann kaum warten also bis wir waffen an Jemen, Syrien und Libanon liefern, das w¤re zumindest konsequent.

Thu Sep 01 15:41:39 +0000 2022

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:22

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 17:03

The worsening energy crisis besieging Europe has laid bare the "limitations" of the electricity market and requires an "emergency intervention" to bring down soaring prices, Ursula von der Leyen has said.

"The skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design," the European Commission president said on Monday while addressing the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia.

"[The market] was developed under completely different circumstances and for completely different purposes. It is no longer fit for purpose.

"That is why we, the Commission, are now working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market. We need a new market model for electricity that really functions and brings us back into balance."

How does the electricity market work?Today, the EU's wholesale electricity market works on the basis of marginal pricing, also known as the "pay-as-clear market".

Under this system, all electricity producers '' from fossil fuels to wind and solar '' bid into the market and offer power according to their production costs. The bidding starts from the cheapest resources '' the renewables '' and finishes with the most expensive ones, usually gas.

Since most EU countries still rely on fossil fuels to meet all their energy demands, the final price of electricity is often set by the price of gas. If gas becomes more expensive, electricity bills inevitably go up, even if clean, cheaper sources also contribute to the total energy supply.

The system was initially praised for boosting transparency and promoting the switch to green sources, but since late 2021, it has come under intense criticism.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought the market design to its most extreme limits, fuelling calls for state intervention and meaningful reforms.

Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, Italy and Belgium are among those calling for a "decoupling" of gas and electricity prices to put an end to the contagion effect.

The Czech presidency of the EU Council has already convened an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers, scheduled to take place on 9 September.

Soaring gas pricesPresident von der Leyen did not unveil further details in her speech, which touched upon a wider range of topics, including rule of law, climate change, the economic recovery and EU enlargement.

Her comments come amid a record-breaking spike in gas prices, driven by speculation around Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled energy giant.

The multinational has repeatedly limited and even shut down gas flows to several EU countries. Deliveries across the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are at 20% of its daily capacity.

On Friday, future gas prices at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the continent's leading trading hub, reached '‚¬339 per megawatt-hour, a stratospheric figure compared to the '‚¬27 mark set a year ago.

The seemingly unstoppable upward trend is raising fears of bankruptcy for companies and energy poverty for households ahead of the winter season, when heating consumption is expected to increase drastically.

In late July, the EU decided to establish a voluntary plan to reduce gas demand by 15% between now and next spring with the hopes of somehow cushioning the impact of the Kremlin's energy manipulation.

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Archived Version

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 14:05

Clown World ' 🤠: https://t.co/woCSUcQkrW

Mon Aug 29 15:42:15 +0000 2022

Jamie McCollough : @ClownWorld_ We're screwed

Tue Aug 30 14:05:34 +0000 2022

TheBinkyToy : @ClownWorld_ Seriously!!??

Tue Aug 30 14:03:53 +0000 2022

Gigi : @ClownWorld_ Sad

Tue Aug 30 14:03:24 +0000 2022

Ser Ulric '''¸ðŸ'‚ : @ClownWorld_ Public education

Tue Aug 30 14:01:52 +0000 2022

Brad James : @ClownWorld_ ðŸ¤...🏼''‚¸

Tue Aug 30 14:01:27 +0000 2022

Brent Swenson : @ClownWorld_ @Angelmomtodana Just more evidence in support of universal suffrage.

Tue Aug 30 13:59:32 +0000 2022

noÄ' ðŸ'¯ : @ClownWorld_ "yes"

Tue Aug 30 13:59:07 +0000 2022

ruth : @ClownWorld_ Heaven help us!!!

Tue Aug 30 13:54:30 +0000 2022

little brown dog : @ClownWorld_ yes..... they are going to save the world

Tue Aug 30 13:52:50 +0000 2022

BellaTT : @ClownWorld_ Thank God they are all well educated on all 225262 genders'....

Tue Aug 30 13:52:31 +0000 2022

jijawm : @ClownWorld_ Sad

Tue Aug 30 13:50:20 +0000 2022

SoCalBohoGal : @ClownWorld_ Embarrassing

Tue Aug 30 13:49:49 +0000 2022

Never Comply Stoopid : @ClownWorld_ @ArtValley818_ This video should be used in a congressional hearing to disband the department of education.

Tue Aug 30 13:46:47 +0000 2022

Stephen Cowie : @ClownWorld_ Confirmation that the USA is officially the dumbest country in the world. Or should that be continent? ðŸ‚ðŸ‚🌎ðŸ‚

Tue Aug 30 13:46:26 +0000 2022

Silv 🇨🇭 : @ClownWorld_ haha Americans are so lost

Tue Aug 30 13:44:39 +0000 2022

Loaded0x.cro 🎣 : @ClownWorld_ WTF

Tue Aug 30 13:42:44 +0000 2022