1495: Soft Nuts

The company I work for is owned by a Danish company. On their internal website today, they mention that Denmark is seeing a 9x increase in natural gas prices and a 5x increase in electricity prices. That’s an industrial rate. I can’t imagine what the residential rates are doing

Signed,

An anonymous Dude Named Ben

Hi John and Adam, you've had many great discussions on the crazy trans hormone situation. I have an important discussion point that isn't being brought up that points to a massive crisis of trans folks being rife with horrific cancers later in life.

My wife is an oncology RN and treated many baby boomer-aged women who had non-genetic cancers who she confirmed were using Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for youthfulness and minimizing menopausal effects. There was a strong correlation between the type of cancer not being familial and her confirming their use of HRT.

Many studies prove this causation (and bing-ing "hrt cancer" will show more):

Lancet study on correlation between HRT and increased cancer risk: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31709-X/fulltext

Lancet study gist: starting at age 50, 5 years of HRT causes 1 out of 50 women to develop cancer. 10 years of usage doubles incidence to 2/50 and every additional decade of use is a stronger correlation.

Cancer.org Estrogen and Uterine Cancer Risk: https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/medical-treatments/menopausal-hormone-replacement-therapy-and-cancer-risk.html

Getting back to the epidemic of young people that will be taking this from teen years until potentially middle age, you can do the math on the risk of cancer being near absolute. This also says nothing about the AMOUNT of hormones being taken to "transition" versus HRT which are probably orders of magnitude less to treat menopause compared to force-rebooting a human body to act like a different sex.

I think we'll see a devastating future in a couple of decades from now as all these people trying to "transition" become riddled with terminal cancers from unprecedented, long-term use of hormones and in significant quantities. I don't believe there are any current studies on this new usage, certainly not that prove it is safe!

Just wanted to point this out so both of you have more talking points to the great coverage and analysis you're already doing on this evil plot to ruin people's lives.

Thanks for reading!

—

Dakotah

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:16

CHICAGO, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Commercial barge traffic on southern stretches of the Mississippi River was at a standstill on Tuesday as low water levels halted shipments of grain, fertilizer and other commodities on the critical waterway, shipping sources said.

The supply chain snarl comes just as harvesting of corn and soybeans, the largest U.S. cash crops, is ramping up and as tight global supplies and strong demand for food and fuel have sent inflation soaring.

Around 100 tow boats hauling some 1,600 barges were lined up for miles waiting to pass through one trouble spot near Lake Providence, Louisiana, that has been largely closed since late last week, shipping sources said.

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At least two other sections of the lower Mississippi have also been closed at times, disrupting the flow of grain to U.S. Gulf Coast export terminals, where some 60% of U.S. corn, soybean and wheat exports exit the country, they said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is dredging the river to deepen the shipping channel to allow some cargo to pass. But shippers fear that without substantial rain the jam will persist well into the busiest grain export period of the year. Products such as road salt are also hauled north ahead of winter.

"Mother Nature hasn't been very helpful, and there's not a lot of relief in sight in the weather forecast," said Merritt Lane, president and chief executive of barge operator Canal Barge Company.

Shippers have been loading less cargo per barge so vessels sit higher on the water, and towing companies have reduced the number of barges per tow by nearly 40% as the low water conditions narrowed the navigable channel.

Many U.S. Gulf exporters have pulled offers for corn and soybeans loaded in October and November as it is unclear if they can source enough grain, threatening already sluggish export sales.

"We can't commit to new sales right now," one exporter said.

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Reporting by Karl Plume in ChicagoEditing by Marguerita Choy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Karl PlumeThomson Reuters

Chicago-based senior commodities correspondent covering agricultural markets, large agribusinesses and the food supply chain and specializing in global trade, farming technology and climate change issues impacting the industry.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:15

Image source, HECTOR RETAMAL Image caption, Coca-Cola produces 200,000 bottles a minute

By Esme Stallard

BBC News Climate and Science

Climate activists are "baffled" over Egypt's decision to have Coca-Cola - a major plastic producer - sponsor this year's global climate talks.

Campaigners told the BBC the deal undermines the talks, as the majority of plastics are made from fossil fuels.

Coca-Cola said it "shares the goal of eliminating waste and appreciates efforts to raise awareness".

This year's COP27 UN climate talks are hosted by the Egyptian government in November in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Egypt announced it had signed the sponsorship deal last week.

At the signing, Coca-Cola Global Vice-President, Public Policy and Sustainability Michael Goltzman said: "Through the COP27 partnership, the Coca-Cola system aims to support collective action against climate change."

But opposition to the decision has grown over the past week over Coca-Cola's links to plastic pollution. Climate activists are accusing the company of "greenwashing" and more than 5,000 have now signed a petition calling for the decision to be reversed.

The company admitted in 2019 that it uses three million tonnes of plastic packaging in a year.

Found on every continent and in the oceans, plastic is a major source of pollution. Its production also contributes to global warming. Currently 99% of global plastic is produced from fossil fuels in a process called 'cracking' which produces greenhouse gas emissions and drives climate change.

And in 2021, an audit from Break Free From Plastic named Coca-Cola as the world's number one plastic polluter.

Mohammad Ahmadi of Earth Uprising International said: "This action by the COP27 presidency goes against the purpose of the conference."

This was a sentiment echoed by Steve Trent, CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation, who called on Egypt to reverse the decision.

Neither Egypt's COP27 presidency nor UNFCCC - the UN's climate change body - responded to the BBC's request for comment on the sponsorship deal.

Last year when the UK government hosted the climate talks, they banned fossil fuel companies from sponsoring the event.

Mr Trent said: "Coca-Cola's whole business model is predicated on fossil fuels. They have made promises to improve recycling which have never been met."

Image source, NurPhoto/Getty Images

Image caption, Youth activists have been protesting ahead of COP27 in November

Coca-Cola told the BBC it recognised it needs to do more: "While we have made progress against our World Without Waste goals, we're also committed to do more, faster."

Climate activists the BBC spoke to were not only concerned about the signal the sponsorship sent, but also how it could affect the negotiations.

Nyombi Morris, a climate activist from Uganda and a UNOCHA Ambassador, told the BBC: "When polluters dominate climate negotiations, we don't get good results. As an African activist, I am concerned that more of our lakes are going to be filled with plastics again."

Last year the BBC revealed the impact that plastic pollution by Coca-Cola was having on remote communities across the world.

Media caption, Panorama investigates Coca-Cola's promises to crack down on plastic waste

Coca-Cola told the BBC that it remains committed to: "collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030."

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:15

A Florida-based plastic surgeon who dubs herself 'Dr Teetus Deletus' '-- a glib reference to breast removal surgery '-- has been reported to America's consumer watchdog for using her huge TikTok following to 'unfairly and deceptively' sway teens into having sex-change operations.

A complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) obtained by DailyMail.com, says Dr Sidhbh Gallagher, who runs Gallagher Plastic Surgery in Miami, talks up the benefits and downplays the risks of sex-reassignment surgeries.

It accuses Dr Gallagher, who says she carries out between 400-500 gender-affirmation surgeries a year, of using catchy videos with pop music backing tracks on social media platforms as a marketing gimmick to attract 'vulnerable and impressionable' minors to everything from breast removals to 'bottom surgery'.

The clinic said in a statement that the videos aim to 'educate' and 'celebrate' a marginalized group, and that Dr Gallagher has become a 'target of attacks and complaints' because of her politically-charged work with transgender teens.

For those experiencing gender dysphoria, transitioning with drugs and surgery can be life-saving. Still, some experts warn against providing irreversible treatments to adolescents, pointing to growing numbers who come to regret their procedures.

Whether to allow young people to take puberty-blockers, hormones or undergo surgery has become a hot-button issue in America's culture wars, and Republican officials across the US have sought to limit access to procedures.

Dr Sidhbh Gallagher has been criticized for using the phrase 'yeet the teets' '-- a glib reference to breast-removal surgery '-- in her viral social media posts. She even calls herself 'Dr Teetus Deletus'

Dr Gallagher, who taught at Indiana University before opening her business in 2020, has 273,000 followers on her main TikTok account, another 7,000 as TheVagicianMD, and many more fans on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

Her unusual embrace of social media platforms has made her one of the most visible sex-change surgeons in the US, as well as courting criticism from conservatives and some parents and doctors, as the audiences skew young.

According to the complaint, Dr Gallagher has released thousands of videos advertising her 'gender-affirming' plastic surgeries to children and teens in a bid to 'convert them into her patients'.

Her videos 'glamorize, romanticize and valorize medical gender transition', says the complaint, issued in February by Genspect, a global network led by Stella O'Malley, that flags the dangers of gender-affirming treatment for youths, and other groups.

Dr Gallagher posing with a scarred patient following surgery. A user says they'll get the same procedure when they're 'old enough'. Recent data point to a disproportionately large number of girls and young women seeking to transition into men, which may amount to a fad

A user says they'll get the same procedure when they're 'old enough'. Recent data point to a disproportionately large number of girls and young women seeking to transition into men, which may amount to a fad

'To induce young followers to use her services, Gallagher's video marketing spots misrepresent the removal of healthy breasts as medically necessary, proven quick, effective, and safe '... while omitting their real physical and psychological risks,' says the 18-page document.

It also takes aim at slang terms used by Dr Gallagher in her videos '' she calls herself 'Dr Teetus Deletus' in posts, and, in another glib reference to breast removal, describes the procedure as 'yeet the teets'.

In one such video, Dr Gallagher appears wearing scrubs and looking sad. Superimposed over her head is the text: 'Just realized I only get to Yeet 4 Teets next week,' and a crying emoji, while an Eminem rap tune plays in the background.

The videos are a 'brand marketing scheme' that present Dr Gallagher as an 'entertaining celebrity surgeon' to expose 'hundreds of thousands of underage social media users' to her services and win future customers, says the document.

The complaint features a 36-page compilation of dozens of Dr Gallagher's clips, accompanied by comments from teenager users expressing their desire to have procedures once they reach the requisite age.

It was filed by Genspect, Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics, Our Duty, the Cardinal Support Network and International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. A similar complaint was lodged with the authorities in Florida.

Dr Gallagher, who is from Ireland, has said she performs between 400-500 gender-affirmation surgeries a year. Last year, she carried out 13 top surgeries on minors, up from a handful a few years ago, she told The New York Times last month.

One of Dr Gallagher's posts on Instagram, which features comments from a prospective patient who describes himself as a 'minor' interested in 'top surgery' if it is 'still free'

One of Dr Gallagher's posts on Instagram, which features comments from transgender adolescents about age requirements for procedures. One says the 'youngest ... is 13'

The social media posts frequently show Dr Gallagher with clients following sex-reassignment surgeries '-- in this case, a breast removal operation.

'As a practice that serves the transgender and non-binary community, it is not uncommon for us to be the target of attacks and complaints,' the clinic said in an email to DailyMail.com, adding that the FTC did not appear to be pursuing the complaint.

As well as being catchy, the videos explain the various types of surgery that are available to those unhappy with the gender they were assigned at birth. Dr Gallagher has said gender-affirming surgeries are essential for youngsters who may otherwise commit suicide.

'The mission of our social media is to amplify transgender voices, celebrate transgender lives and most importantly to provide education that empowers our patients to navigate the complex process of surgical transition,' added the statement.

The clinic, in the city's Coral Gables neighborhood, has fallen victim to a 'growing number of death threats' including an 'online terror plot' as a result of the 'current political climate' it added.

The FTC was not able to quickly confirm it had received the complaint.

The watchdog is charged with protecting consumers from unfair and misleading advertising. It processes complaints from the public, launches investigations, sets guidelines and launches suits. It has special rules for marketing to children.

One of Dr Gallagher's social media posts, which features comments from a prospective patient, who says they 'cannot wait' for 'top surgery' as they are 'only 15'

The Gallagher Plastic Surgery, in Miami's Coral Gables neighborhood, opened in 2020. The clinic says the posts 'celebrate' a marginalized group, critics say she 'deceptively' nudges 'vulnerable' teens into sex change operations

Putting numbers on the explosion of children seeking gender care The US has seen an explosion in recent years in the number of children who identify as a gender different from what they were designated at birth. Thousands of families are weighing profound choices in an emerging field of medicine as they pursue what is called gender-affirming care for their children.

The spotlight fell on trans-identifying Sunny Bryant, 8, earlier this year, when Texas lawmakers declared illegal the hormone treatments she was planning to take upon reaching adolescence

In 2021, about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data Komodo Health, a technology company, compiled for Reuters. Gender dysphoria is defined as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person's gender identity and the one assigned to them at birth.

Overall, the analysis found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021. Reuters found similar trends when it requested state-level data on diagnoses among children covered by Medicaid, the public insurance program for lower-income families.

Gender-affirming care covers a spectrum of interventions. It can entail adopting a child's preferred name and pronouns and letting them dress in alignment with their gender identity '-- called social transitioning.

It can incorporate therapy or other forms of psychological treatment. And, from around the start of adolescence, it can include medical interventions such as puberty blockers, hormones and, in some cases, surgery. In all of it, the aim is to support and affirm the child's gender identity.

These medical treatments don't begin until the onset of puberty, typically around age 10 or 11.

But families that go the medical route venture onto uncertain ground, where science has yet to catch up with practice. While the number of gender clinics treating children in the US has grown from zero to more than 100 in the past 15 years '-- and waiting lists are long '-- strong evidence of the efficacy and possible long-term consequences of that treatment remains scant.

Puberty blockers and sex hormones do not have US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for children's gender care. No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs' long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear.

New Yorkers took to the streets of Manhattan to participate in the Reclaim Pride Coalition's (RPC) fourth annual Queer Liberation March, which in June focussed on transgender rights among other issues

And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs' label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them.

More broadly, no large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning. The same lack of clarity holds true for the contentious issue of detransitioning, when a patient stops or reverses the transition process.

The National Institutes of Health, the US government agency responsible for medical and public health research, told Reuters that 'the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.'

The NIH has funded a comprehensive study to examine mental health and other outcomes for about 400 transgender youths treated at four US children's hospitals. However, long-term results are years away and may not address concerns such as fertility or cognitive development.

'-- By Reuters

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:14

UN Security Council resolution drafted by the US and Mexico calls 'Barbecue' one of Haiti's most influential gang leaders.

Published On 14 Oct 2022 14 Oct 2022

The United Nations Security Council is considering creating a sanctions regimen to impose an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo on anyone who threatens the peace, security or stability of Haiti, according to a draft resolution reported by several news agencies.

The first person to be sanctioned would be Jimmy Cherizier, who goes by the nickname ''Barbecue'' and is described in the United States and Mexico-drafted resolution as one of Haiti's most influential gang leaders.

''Cherizier and his G9 gang confederation are actively blocking the free movement of fuel from the Varreux fuel terminal,'' the text says. ''His actions have directly contributed to the economic paralysis and humanitarian crisis in Haiti.''

Gangs last month blocked the entrance to Varreux to protest against a government announcement of a cut in fuel subsidies. Fuel supplies dried up and Haitians also face a shortage of drinking water amid a deadly outbreak of cholera.

''One of the challenges in effectively dealing with insecurity is the nexus between the gangs and some of the elites in Haiti and outside of Haiti who are supporting them and directing them for their own purposes,'' US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington on Thursday.

''So we've been working together at the United Nations '... to impose sanctions on those who are actually taking actions that support violence and support gangs,'' he said at a joint news conference with visiting Mexican officials.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed that one or several countries send ''a rapid action force'' to help Haiti's police remove a threat posed by armed gangs, according to a letter to the Security Council, seen by Reuters news agency on Sunday.

In July, the council threatened targeted sanctions against criminal gangs and human rights abusers in Haiti and called on countries to stop a flow of guns to the Caribbean country.

The US State Department this week announced visa sanctions against those who support Haitian gangs, responding to the humanitarian crisis created by the gang blockade.

US Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols, who is leading a delegation of officials to the Caribbean nations, said in an interview with a local television station that Barbecue and the G9 gangs are directly contributing to the deaths of Haitians.

''Yesterday, the United States designated 11 individuals for visa sanctions,'' Nichols said, adding that he could not name the individuals per US policy.

He said 1.2 million people in Haiti are at risk for cholera. Health experts say the gang blockade is making it more difficult to control the outbreak, which was announced this month.

The 15-member Security Council could vote as early as Monday on the draft sanctions resolution, diplomats said. To be adopted a resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes by Russia, China, the US, France or Britain.

China has been pushing for the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on criminal gangs in Haiti.

A UN mission in Haiti works with the government to strengthen political stability and good governance, rights protection and justice reform and to help with organising free and fair elections.

UN peacekeepers were deployed to Haiti in 2004 after a rebellion led to the removal and exile of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Peacekeeping troops left in 2017 and were replaced by UN police, who left in 2019.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:13

On August 24, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb sent an urgent email about my reporting to a contact at Twitter.

Gottlieb is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a close colleague of many federal officials - and a senior board member of Pfizer, which has made $70 billion selling mRNA vaccines.

In his email, Gottlieb forwarded an article I had written about Dr. Anthony Fauci on this Substack and complained, ''This is whats promoted on Twitter. This is why Tony needs a security detail.''

'--

Thus Gottlieb '-- whom Pfizer pays almost $400,000 a year to serve on its board, including its highest-level ''executive committee'' '-- began the final act in a secret months-long conspiracy to suppress my basic American right to free speech.

The conspirators included corporate, private, and federal actors.

They wanted to block my reporting about the failure of the mRNA Covid vaccines. They wanted to suppress debate about the necessity for vaccine boosters or mandates.

They wanted Twitter, the most important global platform for journalism, to ban me, even though Twitter had repeatedly found my posts did not violate its rules. They wanted to soil my reputation as a reporter and damage me and my family financially.

For a time, they succeeded.

It should go without saying that my Substack piece about ''Tony'' did not threaten or harass him in any way. It merely called him ''arrogant'' and a ''skilled courtier'' and mocked his infamous comment that criticizing him was ''attacking science.''

No matter.

Four days after Gottlieb sent that email - and just 24 hours after he had a secret conference call with Twitter employees about me - Twitter permanently banned me, claiming I had violated its rules on Covid misinformation.

Even then, Gottlieb was not done trying to silence me. He pursued me after the ban, quickly informing Twitter when he learned that I had taken over another account to provide a new avenue for my reporting.

'--

SUPPORT THIS REPORTING AND MY COMING LEGAL BATTLE AGAINST PFIZER AND THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

'--

For a time, the conspirators must have believed they'd won.

But like the mRNA vaccines they have tried to force on people around the world, their success lasted only a few months and has now turned into an ugly, messy failure.

I filed a federal lawsuit over the ban against Twitter in San Francisco in December. In July Twitter settled the suit, restored my account, and admitted it had been wrong to suspend me.

Now, thanks to internal Twitter documents and emails that I have obtained as part of that lawsuit, the full extent of the conspiracy to censor me is emerging.

(Incredibly, on Saturday, Oct. 8, Twitter locked my account and barred me from making new posts, again for supposedly breaking its Covid misinformation rules. I believe Twitter simply wants to punish me because it knows this article will prove embarrassing to it, and at a minimum wishes to keep me from breaking this news on its platform.)

'--

The conspiracy to censor me appears to have begun in earnest in April 2021, as I raised questions about the safety and efficacy of the mRNA Covid vaccines.

At its heart was Gottlieb's colleague and friend Andy Slavitt. Slavitt and Gottlieb know each other well. In April 2020, they co-authored a letter to Congress demanding expanded Covid contact tracing efforts. They also appeared together on interviews, including on Slavitt's own ''In The Bubble'' podcast, which Pfizer sponsors.

From January through June 2021, Slavitt served as senior advisor to the Biden Administration's Covid response team. On April 21, 2021, Slavitt and other Biden Administration officials spoke to Twitter officials to complain about vaccine ''misinformation.''

Afterwards, a Twitter employee told other employees in a private discussion over Slack that the White House had ''one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn't been kicked off from the platform.'' The employee distinguished the question from others White House officials had asked, which the employee called ''pointed but fair.''

Another employee wrote in a different Slack discussion that Slavitt had attacked me directly, calling my reporting an obstacle to convincing the ''persuadable public'' to take Covid vaccines.

But Twitter did not want to take action against me.

Jack Dorsey, the company's founder, had begun following me in May 2020, and a Twitter executive had repeatedly assured me that I was not violating any of its rules. Twitter employees confirmed that view to each other in private. ''I've taken a close look at his account, and I don't think any of it is violative,'' a Twitter employee wrote following the White House meeting.

Nonetheless, under pressure from Slavitt, Twitter agreed to still another review of my account to try to find violations that would enable it to suspend me without breaking its terms of service:

'--

Yet for almost three months after this ''deep dive,'' Twitter took no action against me.

Then, in July 2021, the censorship efforts took on a new urgency.

The reason was simple. The vaccines had begun to fail, much more quickly the public had been told to expect. In Israel, the first country to complete a mass vaccination campaign with Pfizer's mRNA shot, infections soared. Hospitalizations and deaths rapidly followed.

The Biden Administration and Pfizer began preparing vaccinated people to take a third mRNA ''booster'' dose, despite a lack of clinical trial data on the safety or effectiveness of a booster. The administration also began to consider imposing politically divisive employment- and education-related vaccine mandates, despite earlier promises it would not.

So silencing vaccine skeptics became a top priority - for the White House and Pfizer. No one was more skeptical, or had a larger audience, than I did - as Slavitt had told Twitter in April.

Publicly, the conspirators did not focus on me. Instead, they spoke generically about their interest in combatting what they referred to as vaccine ''misinformation,'' and broadly encouraged Twitter and social media companies to do the same.

On July 16, Gottlieb told MSNBC, ''I think the social media platforms do have an obligation to police the kind of misinformation that we're seeing'--things that are truly false'--and we've seen them step in to do that,'' he said.

On the same day, President Biden said social media companies were ''killing people'' by allowing dissenters to raise questions about the mRNA shots.

The pressure had immediate impact.

A few hours after Biden's comment, Twitter locked me out of my account for the first time. On July 27, it gave me a third ''strike,'' and on July 30, a fourth - this time for a tweet that did nothing but accurately reflect the results of a Pfizer clinical trial.

Meanwhile, Slavitt - who was now outside the White House - continued to press Twitter to ban me.

In a sign of just how closely Pfizer, Slavitt, and the Biden Administration were communicating, Pfizer chairman Albert Bourla appeared on a podcast with Slavitt on July 28, 2021 - the same day that Bourla traveled to the White House for a meeting that had been scheduled only one day before. The meeting was not publicly disclosed until the White House published its visitor logs months later.

Meanwhile, Gottlieb was also in touch with the Biden Administration.

Gottlieb is a Republican, but he spoke regularly to Democratic officials even before Biden's inauguration. In December 2020, he told USA Today that he had ''had a couple of discussions with the [Biden] transition team just to give them some advice'... I'm available. I pick up the phone, I call people back, and I try to be helpful to whoever I can.''

Gottlieb remained in ''pretty regular'' contact with Slavitt and other Biden Administration officials throughout the winter and spring of 2021, according to a comment Slavitt made on his podcast on July 7, 2021.

Gottlieb had joined Pfizer's board barely two years earlier, in June 2019, only three months after resigning as FDA commissioner. But he rapidly became a crucial member. He is the head of the board's regulatory and compliance committee and one of seven members of the executive committee. He was an aggressive advocate for Pfizer's mRNA shot, including signing a letter in August 2021 demanding that colleges and universities impose vaccine mandates on their students and staff.

'--

Twitter gave me my fourth strike on July 30, 2021 for the tweet about Pfizer's clinical trial results. Per Twitter's policy, the strike included a seven-day suspension, so the platform allowed me back on August 6.

At that point Slavitt, the White House, and Pfizer had every reason to believe Twitter would permanently ban me within days. My fourth strike clearly was invalid under Twitter's own policies - it was a simple statement of fact about Pfizer's clinical trial results. By imposing the strike, Twitter was essentially arguing it could take action against me at any time for any reason.

Yet nearly all of August passed without Twitter imposing a fifth strike and suspending my account, even as I continued to post aggressively.

By August 24, Gottlieb had had enough of Twitter's inaction.

He went to Twitter himself, invoking ''Tony.'' As they discussed how to respond, Twitter officials planned to keep their conversation with him broad rather than focusing on me, but a Slack chat at the time of Gottlieb's call with them on August 27 shows that my name came up quickly.

The next day, August 28, Gottlieb sent Twitter one more email - this one simply cutting and pasting what at the time was my final Tweet. The fact that he said nothing else suggests a phone call or text message alongside the email, though at this point I cannot be sure.

In any case, Gottlieb, Slavitt, and the White House had forced Twitter's hand. That night, Twitter gave me my fifth strike and what the conspirators thought would be my permanent suspension - a fact that Andy Slavitt was quick to point out.

'--

Now the sordid saga is unraveling - even as people around the world are rejecting Pfizer's technology in the most profound way, by largely refusing to take more mRNA Covid shots. Several governments have now discouraged or banned healthy adults under 50 from taking more boosters, and demand for the fall Omicron booster appears to be near zero.

But I do not intend to allow Gottlieb, Pfizer, Slavitt, and the White House simply to escape or forget their effort to muzzle me.

James Lawrence, who represented me in my lawsuit against Twitter, has already sent ''demand letters'' to Gottlieb, Pfizer, and Slavitt notifying them that we plan to sue. We have several grounds, likely including a conspiracy to interfere with my civil rights - in this case, my First Amendment right to free speech.

Such lawsuits are extraordinarily rare, but so is the conduct that we have already unearthed. Pfizer has essentially complete immunity from product liability for its mRNA shot, so this suit may provide the ONLY opportunity to learn what the company knew about the problems with its vaccine in mid-2021, and how it schemed with the Biden Administration on boosters and mandates.

I will do everything I can to ensure the sun rises on this conspiracy '' not just for me, or everyone whose rights to speak and debate came under attack, but for the untold millions of Americans who desperately wanted to avoid taking mRNA vaccines in the fall of 2021 and were forced to do so at risk of their jobs and educations.

The insane government coercion of 2021 is, thankfully, behind us. But the battle over what happened last year has only begun.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:12

The eye of Hurricane Katrina never passed over New Orleans. The city was forecast to be directly in the path of the storm, but on Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina hit just east of the city, sparing it from extensive wind damage. For a brief moment, it seemed that New Orleans had held up well.

This is important context for understanding the weight of what happened next: The levees failed, flooding the city. Fifty-three different levee breaches left 80% of New Orleans underwater. The floods knocked out power and communication. Hundreds of people died, more than half of them Black.

Much of the subsequent news coverage framed the catastrophe as the consequence of a natural disaster. But in reality, wide-scale governmental failure had led to the levees' neglected condition. And more failure followed, as George W. Bush's administration lagged on its Katrina response.

So, when Kanye West went off script at the NBC fundraising telethon shortly after the storm, startling the nation with unusual honesty, he became our guy, a precise spokesperson for Black people watching a nation fail Black people... again. It's often remembered as a brash event, a daring act. What gets written out of our remembrance is how nervous, emotional, and uneasy West seemed. Just a minute or so before that outburst, after West had taken his cue from copresenter Mike Myers, he paused, then launched into a rant that seemed improvised and incoherent, but emotionally resonant: ''I hate the way they portray us in the media,'' he said. ''If you see a Black family, it says, 'They're looting,' and if you see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.''' When West punctuated his appearance with the now-famous statement '-- ''George Bush doesn't care about Black people'' '-- it became codified in pop culture history.

In the intervening years, West, now going by Ye, has said lots to cement him as our guy. He's been an outspoken critic on Black issues, like how schools fail Black children or the racism of the criminal justice system. But he has said even more to lose him that status. This month, he continued to destroy the goodwill he has left, first by wearing a White Lives Matter T-shirt to his Yeezy Season 9 launch at Paris Fashion Week, and then posting antisemitic tweets claiming that he will go ''death con 3'' on ''JEWISH PEOPLE.'' If anyone is still supporting West, they're not publicly admitting it anymore. LeBron James's interview show The Shop pulled its episode featuring him. JPMorgan Chase has notified West he will not bank with them anymore. Public support for him is cratering in a way we have not seen before, not even after the rapper told TMZ in 2018 that slavery was a choice, or after he said iconic abolitionist Harriet Tubman ''never actually freed the slaves.''

West is not alone in losing the status of being our guy. Kendrick Lamar has found himself begging '-- pleading on his latest album '-- to be taken off the moral pedestal we put him on. Lamar is lashing out, pushing back against the idol status he has long held, and featuring accused rapist Kodak Black (Black was indicted on first-degree sexual assault charges but pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of first-degree assault and battery) on his record seems like proof that he's not interested in being a moral metronome. Dave Chappelle, who once took it upon himself to speak for Black people and extract laughter from the painful reality of racism through lacerating comedy, now seemingly finds his raison d'etre in needlessly provoking rage with anti-trans jokes that feel like a betrayal of the legend he has built as a fearless critic of myopic thinking. He is now comfortable with tasteless anti-trans bits on the stage and shutting down low-income housing offstage.

West, Lamar, and Chappelle were once heroes to me. They made it their business to be symbols for young Black men. They used their art to name injustice, portray it vividly, render it clearly, and blast those responsible for it. They filled a cultural void and served as spokespeople. Now, they are no longer fit for the job '-- West has mistaken hateful screeds and personal grudges as speaking truth to power, Chappelle has lost the plot on where he should direct his fiery skill, and Lamar simply doesn't want the job anymore.

The influential German artist Joseph Beuys introduced the concept of ''social sculpture,'' a way of transforming real life into art; he also believed in art's ability to transform society. Sometimes his installations unsettled people, like his ''I Like America and America Likes Me,'' in which he spent time with a live coyote. He was known for provoking ''raw emotional responses'' from the audience (''fury particularly pleased him,'' the Guardian notes).

It's perhaps not a surprise that West sees himself as a kind of avatar for Beuys: A few days after the White Lives Matter maelstrom, West claimed in a since-deleted Instagram post that he is ''the most relevant performance artist on the planet... I am Joseph Beuys Andy Kaufman David Hammons.'' Andy Kaufman, of course, turned his whole life into performance art and rarely broke character. David Hammons is an influential Black artist who famously taunted and berated the art world that celebrated him. (''The art audience is the worst audience in the world,'' Hammons once said. ''It's overly educated, it's conservative, it's out to criticize and not understand. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience?'') When West introduced the Yeezy presentation with an angry but misplaced rant '-- aimed at the fashion world for not accepting him, during a VIP fashion show at Paris Fashion Week for industry gatekeepers '-- the Hammons jumped out.

Those of us who looked up to West have grown accustomed to twisting ourselves into intellectual pretzels to find justifications for his stunts. Some of us have been doing it since the 2009 MTV VMAs, when he interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech onstage. Or again when he declared Bill Cosby innocent. It becomes easy to sustain because you don't want to believe the worst about your heroes. Even this time around, some might find it hard to resist contextualizing West's provocations in the context of performance art, something like, ''Ye isn't actually antisemitic, he was doing social sculpture, playing with our emotions to make a point!''

This sounds far-fetched, but much of what happened with West in the last two weeks is still in keeping with a longstanding theory that West has been engaged in an elaborate performance art piece since at least 2018. It's partly the legacy of West's previous bravery, his glorious truth-telling, the reason some of us elevated him in the first place. ''I am a god,'' he rapped, and we agreed.

But now, West has crossed a new line. If his slavery comments were ignorant, his antisemitism is downright dangerous. The rapper has long flirted with antisemitism '-- he has casually repeated the baseless antisemitic conspiracy that Jews run the world, and has frequently rapped positively about Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who has been explicitly antisemitic for much of his public career, railing against ''Satanic Jews.'' But West's tweets transcend flirtation and veer into the territory of violent threats.

West's dangerous antisemitism is particularly acute because he has courted America's Christian right. Last week, West appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News, where the host called the rapper a ''kind of Christian evangelist.'' Carlson told his viewers not to discount West's views as the ideas of someone with mental illness. Just a few days later, West tweeted his ''death con 3'' sentiment. In a cultural moment when antisemitism has grown among evangelical Christians, who is listening to West? And how closely are they listening?

West's consistent pattern of outrage generation preceding a new album or a new fashion line or a new tech gadget cannot be ignored. And it often works. West gets the attention he craves, and it does wonders to boost the profile of the business endeavor he is pushing at the time. Donda, his 2021 album, was catapulted to an Album of the Year Grammy nomination despite a colossally messy rollout.

Unfortunately, Black people are the only canvas West has. West is no longer an entertainer but a multi-industry business with one clear marketing strategy: provoke Black people, aimlessly and without ends, for the purposes of directing attention toward the newest product. With the White Lives Matter stunt, West is once again manipulating Black rage and Black pain and using that momentum in the service of Ye Inc.

I guess you could say Kendrick Lamar never asked for this. How could he have known how high he would be elevated? How could he have known that ''Alright'' would become the anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement? How could he have known that thousands would take to the streets and find refuge in the hope it offered? Regardless of whether he anticipated becoming a spokesperson for Black pain, his 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly solidified him as a leading chronicler of the weight of racism. As Black Lives Matter was ascendant, Lamar rose to meet the moment.

All the same, he doesn't want the job anymore. Lamar makes that clear on his latest album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, a complicated tapestry of recklessness and poise. On his previous albums, Lamar has done an excellent job of looking outward: Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City is an album about God. To Pimp a Butterfly tangles with the meaning of freedom. DAMN, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, is about redemption and damnation. Throughout his career, Lamar has been praised for his rich rendering of Black life and his close observations of the world he occupies. Critics have already speculated that he might be the greatest rapper of all time. But on Mr. Morale, the stenographer becomes a memoirist; Lamar hesitantly gives us an album in his own image.

Mr. Morale is littered with Lamar's anxieties, the main one being that if he is too honest, he might be canceled. Fundamentally, the album's project is to merge two Kendricks: the one he is believed to be by people who admire him, and the one he actually is. ''I ain't taking shit back / Like it when I'm pro Black / But I'm more Kodak Black,'' he raps on ''Savior.'' Mr. Morale is, above all, an admission that Lamar has politics some listeners won't like. He concludes ''Father Time'' by poignantly asking men to ''Give the women a break / Grown men with daddy issues,'' only to cede the floor on the next track to Kodak Black, who has been accused of sexual assault, but pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Lamar's cringey respectability politics have been an ongoing debate '-- the rapper was accused of victim-blaming after, in the wake of the protests in Ferguson after police killed Michael Brown, Kendrick told Billboard: ''When we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don't start with just a rally, don't start from looting'--it starts from within.'' But in Mr. Morale, Lamar abdicates any claims to moral authority. The album is the resignation of a poet laureate who doesn't want the laurels anymore.

Yet if Mr. Morale is a cry of disinheritance, what is left? Lamar remains vague and noncommittal. His demand on the album is to be messy, offensive, even hurtful without apology. ''Niggas killed freedom of speech / Everyone sensitive,'' he declares on ''Worldwide Steppers.'' He carelessly litters a tribute to a transgender relative with a slur. He doesn't much care if we're on board with the project, or what we get out of it '-- ''I am not for the faint of heart,'' he growls '-- because it's more important to him that he rid his psyche of any expectations we've put on his shoulders by heaping so much acclaim upon him. Lamar is saying: You are asking too much of me. I am not your guy '-- find somebody else.

The most powerful moment in Dave Chappelle's 2021 Netflix special The Closer happens because of an interruption. After the comedian mentions the North Carolina anti-trans bathroom bill, someone in the crowd lets out a loud ''whoop!''

Chappelle is quick to interject. ''No, no, no,'' he retorts, and then spends a few minutes explaining the cruelty of the law. It is an electrifying moment, immediately reminiscent of Chappelle's most poignant career move: In 2004, the comedian walked away from a $50 million deal with Comedy Central because he worried that white people were laughing at all the wrong jokes about racism. That intolerance for misinterpretation, the refusal to facilitate humor for racists, made him a legend. Now here he was again, correcting an audience member who interpreted his jokes as calls for malice.

''I am not indifferent to the suffering of someone else,'' Chappelle proclaims in The Closer, which was ostensibly his last comedy special for a while. Having been criticized for multiple jokes at the expense of women, gay people, and trans people, the comedian pushes back. I am not cruel, he seems to be saying. I just want to be able to joke about what I want.

It's a compelling argument. But over the span of Chappelle's Netflix deal, which began in 2016 and is reportedly worth tens of millions, the comedian has courted outrage. The Closer has an answer for this, too. The jokes about #MeToo? Chappelle says that was about challenging the movement for centering wealthy women. The jokes about queer people? The comedian frames those as a challenge to how gay people retreat into the safety of whiteness in the face of threats (because, apparently in this conception, queer people of color don't exist).

In a particularly muddled stretch, Chappelle tells the story of a slave who was freed and then went and bought slaves because ''he was invested in a construct of 'this is what successful people do.''' Chapelle says this explains his jokes about trans people: because Chappelle is a man with kids and a wife, he claims he is ''invested in the gender construct.'' Here, Chappelle offers an unsatisfying and unnuanced conclusion: ''This does not mean that I don't think another point of view can't exist.'' What does it mean to be invested in the gender construct? What does it mean to be bought into a worldview just because it benefits you? Chappelle does not push any further. This is especially frustrating to watch from a comedian who has built a name on pushing further, on playing with discomfort.

In June 2022, Chappelle was in his hometown of Washington, DC, delivering a speech to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the arts high school he credits with his early success. But the event '-- celebrating the school's theater, newly renamed after him '-- had been delayed: The ceremony was meant to take place in December 2021, but after The Closer led to backlash online and in the school community, the school rescheduled.

His speech in DC was turned into a Netflix short released in July. ''The more you say I can't say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it, and it has nothing to do with what you're saying I can't say,'' Chappelle said. ''It has everything to do with my right, my freedom of artistic expression.'' For Chappelle, it seems, the importance of being unrestrained comes at the expense of anything else. ''If you have a better idea, then express it, and you can beat me. It's that easy.''

Chappelle spends a significant portion of the speech addressing the controversy over The Closer. ''No matter what they said about The Closer, it was still the most watched comedy special in the world,'' he told the crowd. ''And I am still of the mind '-- and I say this with all humility '-- it is a masterpiece. I challenge all my peers to make its equal. They cannot.''

Just a few weeks after the speech was released online, after a Chappelle performance in Minneapolis was moved due to protesters, the comedian called people who protested ''transgender lunatics'' and called monkeypox a ''gay disease.''

During his school speech, Chappelle tells the audience that it will ''maybe be decades before you see someone in my genre as proficient as me. I am maybe a once-in-a-lifetime talent. I am telling you the truth.'' And for the most part, it is actually true. Chappelle has done more than enough to be in the running for most talented comedian of my lifetime. He has pioneered an ethos of piercing clarity mixed with a penchant for inventing catchphrases that bleed through to the wider culture (see: ''Rick James, bitch!'' or anyone who shouts ''Kobe!'' while throwing anything to anyone). But contemporary Chappelle is largely out of ideas '-- he has been frequently repeating himself, singularly obsessed with what he feels he is entitled to say, at the cost of all the things he perhaps should be saying instead. His brilliant 2020 special in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd was a brief respite from his one-note late-career turn; it showed us the Chappelle who can masterfully paint the evils of white supremacy is still around. He's just choosing a different fight.

Offstage, Chappelle was briefly embroiled in another controversy after he spoke in opposition to an affordable housing portion of a proposed development in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he lives. The comedian plans to open multiple businesses in the town, including a comedy club and a restaurant, but threatened the town council to ''take it all off the table'' if the proposal goes ahead. (His rep denied that Chappelle is against affordable housing.)

Where Chappelle was once uneasy with power and questioned how it changes people, he now seems satisfied to wield it without probing the meaning of his own influence. If he once spoke for us, who does he speak for now?

West, Lamar, and Chappelle share an acute anxiety about cancel culture that runs through all of their recent work. ''What the fuck is cancel culture, dawg,'' Lamar raps defiantly on ''N95,'' asserting his right to ''say what I want.'' In the middle of his antisemitic rants, West tweeted, ''Who you think created cancel culture?''

All three overstate the power of cancel culture, rendering it as a malignant, organized force coming for their livelihoods when it is, at best, an aggregation of an online posture toward a person or an idea. Public opinion may have turned against them in some quarters, but West continues to hold major cultural sway in music and in fashion, raking in millions from both. Lamar's Mr. Morale debuted at No. 1 and became the first hip-hop album of the year to reach a billion streams on Spotify. Chappelle was paid $24.1 million for The Closer, and between 2018 and 2020 won three consecutive Grammys for Best Comedy Album.

It seems the Black men I grew up admiring have grown suspicious of having their power questioned. Just a few weeks ago, Jay-Z was on Twitter Spaces, waxing defensive about eat-the-rich criticisms. The rapper compared being called a capitalist to the n-word.

A part of me understands their anxiety. West, Lamar, and Chappelle all came up in an era when they had to frequently be suspicious of the motives behind criticisms of Black men. Usually, those criticisms had racist underpinnings. But, used to protecting themselves from racist critiques, they've overcorrected, deflecting reasonable questions from the people they once uplifted. West is never going to give us an explanation for the White Lives Matter shirt, beyond ''because they do.'' Lamar has no interest in elaborating on his resignation letter. Chappelle is still capable of deep introspection, but does not seem interested in pursuing it. None of these men has been meaningfully canceled '-- if we have stopped listening to what they have to say, the blame for that lies squarely on their shoulders. '—

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:12

Full frame sun, Climate change, Heatwave hot sun, Global warming from the sun and burning

Chuchart Duangdaw | Moment | Getty Images

The White House is coordinating a five-year research plan to study ways of modifying the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth to temper the effects of global warming, a process sometimes called solar geoengineering or sunlight reflection.

The research plan will assess climate interventions, including spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, and should include goals for research, what's necessary to analyze the atmosphere, and what impact these kinds of climate interventions may have on Earth, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Congress directed the research plan be produced in its spending plan for 2022, which President Joe Biden signed in March.

Some of the techniques, such as spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, are known to have harmful effects on the environment and human health. But scientists and climate leaders who are concerned that humanity will overshoot its emissions targets say research is important to figure out how best to balance these risks against a possibly catastrophic rise in the Earth's temperature.

Getting ready to research a topic is a very preliminary step, but it's notable the White House is formally engaging with what has largely been seen as the stuff of dystopian fantasy. In Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction novel, "The Ministry for the Future," a heat wave in India kills 20 million people and out of desperation, India decides to implement its own strategy of limiting the sunlight that gets to Earth.

Chris Sacca, the founder of climate tech investment fund Lowercarbon Capital, said it's prudent for the White House to be spearheading the research effort.

"Sunlight reflection has the potential to safeguard the livelihoods of billions of people, and it's a sign of the White House's leadership that they're advancing the research so that any future decisions can be rooted in science not geopolitical brinkmanship," Sacca told CNBC. (Sacca has donated money to support research in the area, but said he has "zero financial interests beyond philanthropy" in the idea and does not think there should be private business models in the space, he told CNBC.)

Harvard professor David Keith, who first worked on the topic in 1989, said it's being taken much more seriously now. He points to formal statements of support for researching sunlight reflection from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the creation of a new group he advises called the Climate Overshoot Commission, an international group of scientists and lawmakers that's evaluating climate interventions in preparation for a world that warms beyond what the Paris Climate Accord recommended.

To be clear, nobody is saying sunlight-reflection modification is the solution to climate change. Reducing emissions remains the priority.

"You cannot judge what the country does on solar-radiation modification without looking at what it is doing in emission reductions, because the priority is emission reductions," said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative. "Solar-radiation modification will never be a solution to the climate crisis."

Three ways to reduce sunlightThe idea of sunlight reflection first appeared prominently in a 1965 report to President Lyndon B. Johnson, entitled "Restoring the Quality of Our Environment," Keith told CNBC. The report floated the idea of spreading particles over the ocean at a cost of $100 per square mile. A one percent change in the reflectivity of the Earth would cost $500 million per year, which does "not seem excessive," the report said, "considering the extraordinary economic and human importance of climate."

The estimated price tag has gone up since then. The current estimate is that it would cost $10 billion per year to run a program that cools the Earth by 1 degree Celsius, said Edward A. Parson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA's law school. But that figure is seen to be remarkably cheap compared to other climate change mitigation initiatives.

A landmark report released in March 2021 from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine addressed three kinds of solar geoengineering: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning.

Stratospheric aerosol injection would involve flying aircraft into the stratosphere, or between 10 miles and 30 miles skyward, and spraying a fine mist that would hang in the air, reflecting some of the sun's radiation back into space.

"The stratosphere is calm, and things stay up there for a long time," Parson told CNBC. "The atmospheric life of stuff that's injected in the stratosphere is between six months and two years."

Stratospheric aerosol injection "would immediately take the high end off hot extremes," Parson said. And also it would "pretty much immediately" slow extreme precipitation events, he said.

"The top-line slogan about stratospheric aerosol injection, which I wrote in a paper more than 10 years ago '-- but it's still apt '-- is fast, cheap and imperfect. Fast is crucial. Nothing else that we do for climate change is fast. Cheap, it's so cheap," Parson told CNBC.

"And it's not imperfect because we haven't got it right yet. It's imperfect because the imperfection is embedded in the way it works. The same reason it's fast is the reason that it's imperfect, and there's no way to get around that."

One option for an aerosol is sulfur dioxide, the cooling effects of which are well known from volcanic eruptions. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, for instance, spewed thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing global temperatures to drop temporarily by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A giant volcanic mushroom cloud explodes some 20 kilometers high from Mount Pinatubo above almost deserted US Clark Air Base, on June 12, 1991 followed by another more powerful explosion. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991 was the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century.

Arlan Naeg | Afp | Getty Images

There's also a precedent in factories that burn fossil fuels, especially coal. Coal has some sulfur that oxidizes when burned, creating sulfur dioxide. That sulfur dioxide goes through other chemical reactions and eventually falls to the earth as sulfuric acid in rain. But during the time that the sulfur pollution sits in the air, it does serve as a kind of insulation from the heat of the sun.

Ironically, as the world reduces coal burning to curb the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, we'll also be eliminating the sulfur dioxide emissions that mask some of that warming.

"Sulfur pollution that's coming out of smokestacks right now is masking between a third and a half of the heating signal from the greenhouse gases humans have already emitted into the atmosphere," Parson said.

In other words, we've been doing one form of sunlight reflection for decades already, but in an uncontrolled fashion, explained Kelly Wanser, the executive director of SilverLining, an organization promoting research and governance of climate interventions.

"This isn't something totally new and Frankenstein '-- we're already doing it; we're doing it in the most dirty, unplanned way you could possibly do it, and we don't understand what we're doing," Wanser told CNBC.

Spraying sulfur in the stratosphere is not the only way of manipulating the amount of sunlight that gets to the Earth, and some say it's not the best option.

"Sulfur dioxide is likely not the best aerosol and is by no means the only technique for this. Cloud brightening is a very promising technique as well, for example," Sacca told CNBC.

Marine cloud brightening involves increasing the reflectivity of clouds that are relatively close to the surface of the ocean with techniques like spraying sea salt crystals into the air. Marine cloud brightening generally gets less attention than stratospheric aerosol injection because it affects a half dozen to a few dozen miles and would potentially only last hours to days, Parson told CNBC.

Cirrus cloud thinning, the third category addressed in the 2021 report from the National Academies, involves thinning mid-level clouds, between 3.7 and 8.1 miles high, to allow heat to escape from the Earth's surface. It is not technically part of the "solar geoengineering" umbrella category because it does not involve reflecting sunlight, but instead involves increasing the release of thermal radiation.

Known risks to people and the environmentThere are significant and well-known risks to some of these techniques '-- sulfur dioxide aerosol injection, in particular.

First, spraying sulfur into the atmosphere will "mess with the ozone chemistry in a way that might delay the recovery of the ozone layer," Parson told CNBC.

The Montreal Protocol adopted in 1987 regulates and phases out the use of ozone depleting substances, such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) which were commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioners, but that healing process is still going on.

Also, sulfates injected into the atmosphere eventually come down as acid rain, which affects soil, water reservoirs, and local ecosystems.

Third, the sulfur in the atmosphere forms very fine particulates that can cause respiratory illness.

The question, then, is whether these known effects are more or less harmful than the warming they would offset.

"Yes, damaging the ozone is bad, acid deposition is bad, respiratory illness is bad, absolutely. And spraying sulfur in the stratosphere would contribute in the bad direction to all of those effects," Parson told CNBC. "But you also have to ask, how much and relative to what?"

The sulfur already being emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is causing environmental damage and is already killing between 10 million to 20 million people a year due to respiratory illness, said Parson. "So that's the way we live already," he said.

Meanwhile, "the world is getting hotter, and there will be catastrophic impacts for many people in the world," said Pasztor.

"There's already too much carbon out there. And even if you stop all emissions today, the global temperature will still be high and will remain high for hundreds of years. So, that's why scientists are saying maybe we need something else, in addition '-- not instead of '-- but maybe in addition to everything else that is being done," he said. "The current action/nonaction of countries collectively '-- we are committing millions of people to death. That's what we're doing."

For sunlight-reflection technology to become a tool in the climate change mitigation toolbox, awareness among the public and lawmakers has to grow slowly and steadily, according to Tyler Felgenhauer, a researcher at Duke University who studies public policy and risk.

"If it is to rise on to the agenda, it'll be kind of an evolutionary development where more and more environmental groups are willing to state publicly that they're for research," Felgenhauer told CNBC. "We're arguing it's not going to be some sort of one big, bad climate event that makes us all suddenly adopt or be open to solar geoengineering '-- there will be more of a gradual process."

A man waits for customers displaying fans at his store amid rising temperatures in New Delhi on May 27, 2020. - India is wilting under a heatwave, with the temperature in places reaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and the capital enduring its hottest May day in nearly two decades.

Jewel Samad | Afp | Getty Images

Research it now or be caught off guard later?Some environmentalists consider sunlight relfection a "moral hazard," because it offers a relatively easy and inexpensive alternative to doing the work of reducing emissions.

One experiment to study stratospheric aerosols by the Keutsch Group at Harvard was called off in 2021 due to opposition. The experiment would "threaten the reputation and credibility of the climate leadership Sweden wants and must pursue as the only way to deal effectively with the climate crisis: powerful measures for a rapid and just transition to zero emission societies, 100% renewable energy and shutdown of the fossil fuel industry," an open letter from opponents said.

But proponents insist that researching sunlight-modification technologies should not preclude emissions-reduction work.

"Even the people like me who think it's very important to do research on these things and to develop the capabilities all agree that the urgent top priority for managing climate change is cutting emissions," Parson told CNBC.

Keith of Harvard agreed, saying that "we learn more and develop better mechanism[s] for governance."

Doing research is also important because many onlookers expect that some country, facing an unprecedented climate disaster, will act unilaterally to will try some version of sunlight modification anyway '-- even if it hasn't been carefully studied.

"In my opinion, it's more than 90 percent likely that within the next 20 years, some major nation wants to do this," Parson said.

Sacca put the odds even higher.

"The odds are 100 percent that some country pursues sunlight reflection, particularly in the wake of seeing millions of their citizens die from extreme weather," Sacca told CNBC. "The world will not stand idly by and leaders will feel compelled to take action. Our only hope is that by doing the research now, and in public, the world can collaboratively understand the upsides and best methods for any future project."

Correction: The Climate Overshoot Commission has not issued a formal statement of support for sunlight reflection.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:12

Russian President Vladimir Putin makes his annual New Year address to the nation in Moscow on Dec. 31, 2021. (Kremlin.ru via Reuters)

ASTANA'--Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there was no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia was not looking to destroy the country.

Putin told a news conference at the end of a summit in Kazakhstan that his call-up of Russian reservists would be over within two weeks and there were no plans for a further mobilization.

He also repeated the Kremlin position that Russia was willing to hold talks, although he said they would require international mediation if Ukraine was prepared to take part.

Taken together, Putin's comments appeared to suggest a slight softening of his tone as the war nears the end of its eighth month.

But Putin'--who has said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia's ''territorial integrity'''--also warned of a ''global catastrophe'' in the event of a direct clash of NATO troops with Russia.

He was speaking after a week when Russia has staged its heaviest missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since the start of its invasion of Feb. 24'--an action that Putin has said was retaliation for an attack that damaged a Russian bridge to unilaterally annexed Crimea.

''We do not set ourselves the task of destroying Ukraine. No, of course not,'' Putin said.

He said there was ''no need for massive strikes'' now because most designated targets had been hit.

Putin answered ''No'' when asked if he had any regrets, saying failure to act in Ukraine would have been even worse.

''I want it to be clear: what is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly, but we would have got the same thing a little later, only in worse conditions for us, that's all. So we are acting correctly and in a timely manner.''

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:12

A Union Pacific locomotive is pulling a train of containers southbound, just north of Union Station, Los Angeles, California. [Photo by Downtowngal / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0]Take up the fight for rank-and-file control! Join the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee by sending an email to railwrfc@gmail.com, texting (314) 529-1064or filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

Suspicion and anger is mounting among railroaders as two more smaller unions have claimed passage of their contracts in narrow votes.

On Wednesday, the Mechanics Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-MD) announced that its contract passed by 54 percent. SMART-MD is under a different contract from the much larger Transportation Division (SMART-TD), which includes train crews. The following day, the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers (NCFO) declared its contract was passed by 58 percent. Neither union released more information about the voting, including turnout or vote totals.

Workers were immediately suspicious of the results. The SMART-MD vote raised eyebrows in particular because the results had not been expected for another two days. One worker said on Facebook that SMART MD members from Conrail in Detroit never received ballots. The World Socialist Web Site has not been able to independently verify this claim.

Workers are doubly skeptical due to apparent similarities with the IBEW vote late last month, where there is significant evidence of irregularities, including a large number of electricians who never received mail-in ballots or received them too late to be submitted before the deadline. According to the IBEW's own internal figures, the number of ''undeliverable'' and ''questionable'' ballots was larger than the official margin of victory of 150 votes.

A survey of engineers conducted by the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee found that 46 percent of respondents either did not receive a ballot or received a ballot too late to vote. Out of all those surveyed, 91 percent were opposed to the contract, 90 percent felt the votes were not counted ''correctly or honestly,'' and 93 percent supported a re-vote.

Workers' opposition is being increasingly acknowledged in the mainstream press. A recent Associated Press article cited one electrician who said she never received a ballot. ''That has her questioning the validity of that vote because several coworkers also allegedly didn't get ballots,'' the report said.

On Thursday, the WSWS received a hostile response when we spoke with NCFO President Dean Davita over the phone to try to get more information about the contract ratification vote.

Davita refused point blank to give any further breakdown of the vote outside of the reported margin of victory. ''I'm not going to give you exact numbers,'' he said. ''It was ratified by a 58.7 percent margin, and we had a good turnout. Members participated and they made their decision.''

When asked why he wouldn't give exact numbers, Davita replied, ''I'm the president of the union, and that's my decision.''

Whatever the case may be, however, the SMART-MD and NCFO votes were held under conditions of duress and intimidation, with the unions leaning heavily on the threat of a congressional injunction to push the deal through. However, the unions have also been deliberately strengthening Congress' hand by extending self-imposed strike deadlines until past the midterm elections. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen's national convention earlier this week, where she was treated as an honored guest.

The unions have simply chosen to ignore overwhelming strike votes, in some cases by 99 percent or more. When machinists voted by 60 percent last month to reject a contract from the IAM union and in favor of a strike by 80 percent, the union responded by simply announcing another contract, nearly identical to the first, less than two days before their extended strike deadline. However, when they are able to obtain narrow votes to ratify contracts after campaigns in which their main ''pitch'' is that workers have no choice other than to accept, they claim this represents the inviolable will of the membership.

Nevertheless, the maneuvers of the union apparatus have failed to stem the tide of opposition among the rank and file, which found expression in the rejection by maintenance of way workers of their contract earlier this week. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWED) is the third-largest union in the industry, and the largest of the non-op unions. The BMWED responded by unilaterally extending its strike deadline to ''five days after Congress reconvenes,'' giving Washington all the time it needs to prepare anti-strike legislation.

This week, members of the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee carried out a successful informational picket in Lincoln, Nebraska, in which they distributed copies of the committee's latest statement, ''After rejection of BMWED contract: Fight against union sabotage! Prepare a strike before the midterm elections!'' The committee held a successful online public meeting Wednesday evening which was attended by hundreds of workers. At the close of the discussion, the committee conducted a straw poll which found that 86 percent believed their coworkers would honor the picket line if workers at another facility walked out, and 77 percent supported the setting of a strike date by the rank and file.

Railroad mechanics confront IAM bureaucracy in Kansas City meetingOn Thursday, a highly charged union meeting was called for machinists in the Kansas City area, which was attended by the local general chairman and a special assistant to the international president. ''This is pretty unprecedented,'' one worker told the Rank-and-File Committee beforehand. ''We believe that it's because they know [the BNSF Argentine Yard, where an informational picket was held by the Committee late last month] is a big thorn in their side.''

One worker who attended the Thursday meeting, who said his ''head was still on fire'' the day following, told the WSWS, ''Our general chairman opened it up by stating, 'We are not here to sell this contract, we are only here to provide the facts.' And then they proceeded to sell it to us for an hour and a half. It was met with great opposition.''

Another worker said one of her coworkers rose to denounce the ''false narrative that this is the largest pay raise in 48 years, without acknowledging inflation and record profits.'' Her coworker then asked why the IAM had chosen to twice defy workers' vote to strike. The response from the IAM was to absurdly claim that not striking ''actually strengthened our bargaining position,'' then claimed that Congress would intervene to block a strike. When challenged that workers should go on strike anyway, the IAM official moved on without a response.

Up nextBalloting is scheduled to begin Monday for the two largest unions, BLET and SMART-TD, which cover the engineers and conductors. These workers are a hotbed of opposition in the industry because of the constant on-call status to which train crews are subjected, leaving them unable to schedule time off to spend with their families or even for doctor's appointments. It was the contracts for the engineers and conductors that the Biden administration directly intervened into in early September, in a bid to prevent strike action once the ''cooling off'' period expired on September 16.

As with the other unions, the BLET and SMART-TD are stringing workers along as long as possible by conducting the vote over the course of an entire month. The voting is not scheduled to conclude until November 16, more than a week after the midterm elections.

SMART-TD has been issuing statements urging workers to update their contact and address information with the union, clearly in response to the uproar over the IBEW vote. However, many IBEW workers reported not receiving ballots even though their addresses are current and they have lived in the same place for years.

There is no sign that the unions are yielding to the pressure of workers. On the contrary, they are digging in their heels. This only underscores the need for independent action by railroaders to enforce rank-and-file control over and against the apparatus, and to prepare the ground for strike action. This means the development of a network of rank-and-file committees at yards and terminals around the country.

Sign up for more information about how to join or build a rank-and-file committee in your workplace

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:07

Elon Musk speaks at an event in Hawthorne, Calif., in 2019. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

Jack Shafer is Politico 's senior media writer.

In addition to being the world's wealthiest man, Elon Musk also seems to be exhibiting the symptoms of histrionic personality disorder. HPD, as it's known in the psychiatric sciences, resides in the ''Cluster B'' garden of personality disorders and is associated with narcissism, attention-seeking behaviors and manipulation. HPDers tend to be charming and lively, often verging into flirtatiousness and excitability. Although the medical literature is silent on the subject of excessive procreation and HPD '-- Musk has birthed nine children in collaboration with four different uteruses (his wife's, his girlfriend's, a surrogate's, and a senior employee's) '-- the tycoon's breeding tendencies are consistent with the erratic and volatile conduct of those who suffer with the disorder.

This month, Musk dialed in additional attention to himself. Presumably, there haven't been enough headlines about his on-again, off-again purchase of Twitter, his alleged romantic interludes, his dope smoking on Joe Rogan, his Tesla overpromising and all the other publicity stunts to stoke his sense of self-importance, so he's drafted himself as a citizen-diplomat to end the Russian war on Ukraine. What better venue to promote his plan than on Twitter, where on Oct. 3 he proposed a 43-word peace plan that essentially sounded as if it had been scripted by Vladimir Putin, an HPD case if ever there was one, while sitting at his long table.

Musk's diplomatic foray earned him condemnation from Ukrainian and European leaders, as did a newsletter item by political consultant Ian Bremmer, alleging that Musk had told Bremmer that he had discussed terms of negotiation with Putin, a charge Musk denies, as does the Kremlin. Until Musk's next act of grandstanding, pundits and comedians will be asking two questions: Have Musk's HPD symptoms grown out of control? And, should citizens meddle in foreign policy?

Oddly, nobody accused Musk of conducting his own foreign policy in late February when he tweeted the news that he had activated his Starlink satellite internet service over Ukraine. His peace plan, as na¯ve and toadying as it might be, killed nobody, whereas Starlink's activation likely sent thousands of Russian soldiers to their graves by giving the Ukrainian military a decided advantage over its Russian invaders. By allowing reliable battlefield communications and the spotting and destruction of Russian targets, it has changed the course of the war. As Andrew S. Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it to me today, Starlink is ''a massive force multiplier that gives them a true edge over the Russian where this war is actually being decided. It far outweighs the significance of any of Musk's public utterances.''

The governmental masters of foreign policy have always exhibited mixed feelings about citizen diplomacy. Officially, the U.S. government wants its citizens to act like diplomats. On this State Department page, the Foggy Bottom poohbahs exhort us all to conduct ourselves as citizen diplomats in our international interactions and to use travel and social media to advocate for our country. But our government also keeps on the books the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from corresponding with foreign governments over disputes with the United States unless officially authorized.

Musk appears to have brushed up against '-- if not violated '-- the law if he did talk peace to Putin, as the United States has declared itself on Ukraine's side. Luckily for Musk, the government almost never enforces the act. Even if Musk did engage in Loganspeak to Putin, his violation would put him in plentiful company. Sens. George McGovern and John Sparkman were accused of violating the act in the 1970s when they contacted the Cuban government. Jesse Jackson caught Logan Act hell several times in his career. Richard Nixon did, too, when it was learned that he told South Vietnam to spurn peace negotiations during his 1968 campaign for president, as did Jimmy Carter when he met with Syria's Bashar al-Assad in 2008. Some also invoked the Logan Act after it was revealed that while working on the Trump presidential transition, Michael Flynn gave Russia foreign policy advice.

The question of whether U.S. citizens should conduct foreign policy with U.S. adversaries has been mooted by the fact that the government consistently fails to enforce the act. The debate might slosh and lap around cable news for a couple of nights, the State Department might bare its hairy chest and growl at Musk, but nobody is going investigate him for breaking the law for issuing a peace tweet and allegedly talking about the war with Putin.

What we can expect in the future from Musk, of course, will be more of the same '-- more assistance for Ukraine, more attempts at mediating the conflict and most of all, more spectacle. The mental scrapbook where he logs his publicity stunts contains an infinite number of blank pages, and he's only started to stow his many narcissistic HPD memories. Like Donald Trump before him, he's not happy unless we're talking about him. And like Trump, he answers to nobody and can do whatever he wants. On Earth, in space, and maybe soon on Mars.

******

Disclosure: Andrew S. Weiss is a friend. Here's an unpaid plug for his forthcoming book, Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin. Send plugs to [email protected] . No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed was cured of HPD. My RSS feed talks to Putin weekly.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:07

People walk by a Covid-19 testing site at Times Square on May 12, 2022 in New York City.

Liao Pan | China News Service | Getty Images

The U.S. faces at least seven different versions of Covid-19 omicron as the nation heads into winter when health officials are expecting another wave of viral infections.

Although the omicron BA.5 variant remains dominant in the country, it is starting to lose some ground to other versions of the virus, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on Friday.

Omicron BA.5 has splintered into several new but related variants that include BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7. The U.K. Health Security Agency, in a report earlier this month, said these three variants are demonstrating a growth advantage over BA.5, which was the most contagious version to date.

In the U.S., omicron BA.5 makes up about 68% of all new infections, down from about 80% at the beginning of October. BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7 are now causing about 17% of new infections combined, according to the CDC data.

About 3% of new infections are attributable to BA.2.75. and BA.2.75.2, which are related to the omicron BA.2 variant that caused a bump in cases during the spring but was pushed out.

Scientists at Peking University in China found that omicron BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 were the most adept at evading immunity from prior BA.5 infection and several antibody drugs. The study, published earlier in October, has not been peer reviewed.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid response coordinator, said earlier this week that U.S. health officials are closely monitoring these variants because they are good at evading prior immunity.

"The reason we're tracking them is because they either have a lot more immune invasiveness or they render many of our treatments ineffective," Jha said. "Those are the two major things that get our attention."

But Jha said the new omicron boosters that the U.S. started rolling out last month should provide better protection than the first-generation vaccines against these emerging variants. The boosters target BA.5 and the emerging variants are all omicron and most descend from BA.5.

Jha called on all eligible Americans to get the new boosters by Halloween so they will have full protection for Thanksgiving when family holiday gatherings kick into full swing.

But the scientists at Peking University said the immune evasiveness of variants like BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 could mean that the BA.5 booster shots will not provide sufficiently broad protection.

It's unclear how much more effective the boosters will prove in the real world. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots without direct human data, relying instead on clinical trials from a similar shot that was developed against the original version of omicron, BA.1.

Pfizer and BioNTech on Thursday published the first human data from their BA.5 shots. They triggered a significant boost to the immune system against omicron BA.5 in a lab study that looked at blood samples from adults ages 18 and older, the companies said.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:06

Bank of America recently shut down a new account associated created for the In the Litter Bos podcast hosted by Jewels Jones and conservative pundit and best-selling author ''Catturd.'' Jones described the situation as the left exerting control through any means necessary: ''They are going to control you at any means or any methods that they possibly can. They're going to exert their control over you.''

On Thursday's episode of the In the Litter Box podcast, Jones explained that she realized there was a problem with her new bank account '-- created for the podcast '-- when she wasn't able to wire money to Catturd.

Please help me trend this tonight because it's true. Retweet '...#BankOfAmericaIsCommieTrash

'-- Catturd ' (@catturd2) October 12, 2022

''I called the bank, and they sent me around and around and around, and I said, 'Look, can I just make an appointment and come in? I would like to talk to you about my account. It's frozen,''' Jones explained.

''So I made an appointment. Of course, when I got there, they claimed I didn't have an appointment,'' she continued. ''I walked into the bank and they said, 'Well, why don't you just have a seat, we'll have the manager come out.'''

Jones went on to explain that when the manager came out to speak with her, ''it was almost like he could not wait to see me.''

''He was really thrilled to tell me that my account had been shut down, that he wasn't going to give me any explanation, he had no reason to give me an explanation, and that I would be receiving a letter from Bank of America and the powers that be in the mail, and a check if they owed me any money,'' she said.

The manager said, ''We don't have to give you a reason. This is a decision that's final. We don't have to give you any reason at all,'' according to the podcast host.

''I was so shocked,'' Jones said. ''I have been kicked off of social media '-- but when they start messing with your actual finances and your money, that's a whole other level.''

Catturd added that the bank account was likely shut down because when Bank of America employees saw Jones' name on it, and then looked up which social media account her podcast was associated with, they found ''Catturd.''

''All I know is that I have been targeted, and it hasn't just happened on social media, but now that they have moved on to my personal finance, this is pretty scary,'' Jones said.

''It's the situation that we're in right now with these elites and the establishment running the show,'' she added. ''They are going to control you at any means or any methods that they possibly can. They're going to exert their control over you.''

Catturd, never known for his restraint and subtlety, responding to the situation by causing #BankOfAmericaIsCommieTrash to trend on Twitter.

Bank of America did not respond to Breitbart News' request for comment.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:04

Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2022

Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer since 14 October 2022. He previously served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport from 2010 to 2012, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2012 to 2018, and Foreign Secretary from 2018 to 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Surrey since 2005.

The son of a senior officer in the Royal Navy, Hunt was born in Kennington and studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2005, and was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Disabled People and later as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Hunt served in the Coalition Government as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport from 2010 to 2012, where he led the drive for local TV, resulting in Ofcom awarding local TV broadcasting licences in respect of several cities and towns. Hunt also oversaw the 2012 London Olympics, which received widespread acclaim. His previous business interests have seen him become one of the richest members of parliament.[1][failed verification ]

Hunt served as Secretary of State for Health, later Health and Social Care, from 2012 to 2018. He served under both the Cameron premiership and May premiership and became the longest-serving Health Secretary in British political history. During his tenure, he oversaw the imposition of a controversial new junior doctors' contract in England after a dispute in which junior doctors undertook multiple strikes; the first such industrial action for 40 years.

Following the resignation of Boris Johnson over the Chequers Agreement, Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in July 2018. He was a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership election in 2019, finishing second to Johnson, and resigned following Johnson's appointment as Prime Minister. He served as Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee from 2020 to 2022, a promiment role due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After Johnson's resignation in July 2022, Hunt launched a second Conservative leadership bid, but was eliminated in the first ballot. On 14 October 2022, Hunt was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Liz Truss, following the dismissal of Kwasi Kwarteng.

Early life and education Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt was born on 1 November 1966 in Lambeth Hospital, Kennington, and raised in Shere, Surrey, near the constituency he represents in Parliament.[2][3] He is the eldest son of Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt,[4] who was then a Commander in the Royal Navy assigned to work for the Director of Naval Plans inside the recently created Ministry of Defence,[5] and his wife Meriel Eve n(C)e Givan (Lady Hunt until her death in 2022), daughter of Major Henry Cooke Givan.[6] The Hunt family were landed gentry, of Boreatton, Baschurch, Shropshire. A cousin was Agnes Hunt, pioneer of orthopaedic nursing.[7] Through a paternal great-grandmother, Hunt is a descendant of Sir Streynsham Master, a pioneer of the East India Company.[8] He is also a distant relation of Elizabeth II and Sir Oswald Mosley.[9] His father worked in NHS management after he retired from the navy and his mother was a nurse in the 1950s and 60s.[10]

Hunt was educated at Charterhouse where he was Head of School.[4] He then read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, and took a first class honours Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He became involved in Conservative politics while at university, where David Cameron and Boris Johnson were contemporaries.[11] He was active in the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA), and was elected to serve as president in 1987.[11]

Early career After university, Hunt worked for two years as a management consultant at OC&C Strategy Consultants, and then became an English language teacher in Japan.[12] On his return to Britain, he tried his hand at a number of different entrepreneurial business ventures, with three failed start-ups including an attempt to export marmalade to Japan.[13][14] In 1991, Hunt co-founded a public relations agency named Profile PR specialising in IT with Mike Elms, a childhood friend.[12] Hunt and Elms later sold their interest in Profile PR to concentrate on directory publishing.

Hunt had been interested in creating a 'guide to help people who want to study rather than just travel abroad'[15] and, together with Elms, founded a company known as Hotcourses in the 1990s, a major client of which is the British Council.[16] Hunt stood down as director of the company in 2009; however, he still retained 48% of the shares in the company, which were held in a blind trust before Hotcourses was sold in January 2017 for over £30 million to Australian education organisation IDP Education. He personally gained over £14 million from the sale and in doing so became the richest Cabinet member.[16][17][18]

Political career Early parliamentary career (2005''2010) In the 2005 general election, Hunt was elected to represent the constituency of South West Surrey with a majority of 5,711.[19]

After supporting David Cameron's bid for leadership of the Conservative Party, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Disabled People in December 2005. In the same year, he was a co-author of a policy pamphlet Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party which included statements supporting denationalising the NHS and suggested replacing it with "a new system of health provision in which people would pay money into personal health accounts, which they could then use to shop around for care from public and private providers. Those who could not afford to save enough would be funded by the state".[20] Hunt later denied that the policy pamphlet expresses his views.[21] In David Cameron's reshuffle of 2 July 2007, Hunt joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

In 2009, Hunt was investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.[22][23] The commissioner found: "Mr Hunt was in breach of the rules in not reducing his claims on the Additional Costs Allowance in that period to take full account of his agent's living costs. As a result, public funds provided a benefit to the constituency agent ... Mr Hunt received no real financial benefit from the arrangement and that the error was caused by his misinterpretation of the rules."[23]

Hunt's offer to repay half the money (£9,558.50) was accepted.[23] Hunt repaid £1,996 for claiming the expenses of his Farnham home while claiming the mortgage of his Hammersmith home.[23] The commissioner said: "Mr Hunt has readily accepted that he was in error, and in breach of the rules of the House, in making a claim for utilities and other services on his Farnham home in the period during which it was still his main home. He has repaid the sum claimed, £1,996, in full. It is clear that, as a new Member in May 2005, his office arrangements were at best disorganised."[23] The Legg Report showed no other issues.[24]

Culture Secretary (2010''2012) When the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition following the 2010 general election, Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (combining the roles of leading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with that of Minister for the Olympics). He was consequently appointed a Privy Councillor on 13 May 2010.[25]

In June 2010, Hunt attracted controversy for suggesting football hooliganism played a part in the death of 96 football fans in the Hillsborough disaster; when it has been established that a lack of police control and the presence of terraces and perimeter fences were the causes of the tragedy. Hunt later apologised.[26]

In September 2010, The Observer reported "raised eyebrows" when Hunt's former parliamentary assistant, Naomi Gummer, was given a job within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on a fixed-term civil service contract after Hunt had proposed departmental cuts of 35''50 per cent. The head of the Public and Commercial Services Union questioned Hunt's motives saying, "Political independence of the civil service is a fundamental part of our democracy and we would be deeply concerned if this was being put at risk by nepotism and privilege." Gummer is the daughter of a Conservative life peer, Lord Chadlington, who was a director of Hotcourses between 2000 and 2004.[27]

As Culture Secretary, Hunt devised and championed a plan to give Britain the fastest broadband speeds in Europe. There was initial scepticism about his plans with concerns they could lead to BT regaining its monopoly.[28] He also spearheaded the drive for local TV and as a result of this policy Ofcom awarded local television licences to Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Preston, Sheffield, Southampton, and Swansea.[29] In terms of culture policy, his main focus was to boost philanthropy given the spending cuts that the arts along with other sectors was experiencing. Changes were made to the inheritance tax - including measures to encourage private gifts to the arts.[30]

During Hunt's tenure, competition and policy issues relating to media and telecommunications became the responsibility of the Culture Secretary; they were removed from the purview of the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, after Cable was recorded stating that he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch.[31]

In April 2012, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that Hunt had reduced his tax bill by over £100,000 by receiving dividends from Hotcourses in the form of property which was promptly leased back to the company.[32] The dividend in specie was paid just before a 10% rise in dividend tax and Hunt was not required to pay stamp duty on the property.[32]

News Corporation attempted takeover of BSkyB and Leveson Inquiry Hunt was given the quasi-judicial power to adjudicate over the News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB. Hunt chose not to refer the deal to the Competition Commission, announcing on 3 March 2011 that he intended to accept a series of undertakings given by News Corporation, paving the way for the deal to be approved.[33][34] Following a series of scandals concerning phone hacking, a House of Commons motion was planned that called on News Corporation to abandon the bid. The bid was eventually dropped.[35] Hunt was alleged to have had improper contact with News Corp. Emails released to the Leveson Inquiry detailed contacts between Hunt's special advisor Adam Smith and Fr(C)d(C)ric Michel,[36] News Corp's director of public affairs and therefore a lobbyist for James Murdoch. The revelations led to calls from the Labour opposition and others for Hunt's resignation.[37] Smith, Hunt's special adviser, resigned on 25 April[38] shortly before Hunt made an emergency parliamentary statement in which he said that Smith's contact with Michel was "clearly not appropriate". Hunt said Lord Justice Leveson should be able to investigate and rule on the accusations and requested the earliest date possible to give evidence to the Inquiry to set out his side of the story.[39]

Hunt appeared before the Leveson inquiry on 31 May 2012, when it emerged that Hunt had himself been in text and private email contact with James Murdoch.[40][41] Journalist Iain Martin claimed that at a 2010 event held at UCL which Murdoch attended he saw Hunt hide behind a tree to avoid being seen by journalists.[42] Hunt later told the Leveson Inquiry that "I thought, this is not the time to have an impromptu interview, so I moved to a different part of the quadrangle... there may or may not have been trees!"[43]

Lord Justice Leveson cleared Hunt of bias when the report was published, stating that "in some respects, there was much to commend in Mr Hunt's handling of the bid".[44] He concluded: "What was not evident from the close consideration of events which the Inquiry undertook was any credible evidence of actual bias on the part of Mr Hunt. Whatever he had said, both publicly and in private, about News Corp or the Murdochs, as soon as he was given the responsibility for dealing with the bid the evidence demonstrates a real desire on his part to get it right. His actions as a decision maker were frequently adverse to News Corp's interests. He showed a willingness to follow Ofcom's advice and to take action, to the extent recommended by the regulators, in response to the consultation."[44]

London 2012 Olympics As Culture Secretary, Hunt was the government minister responsible for the 2012 London Olympics and 2012 London Paralympics. When it transpired that contractors G4S could not provide enough security staff for the Games, Hunt announced that soldiers would be drafted in and that he had been forced to "think again" about the default use of private contractors.[45] Hunt took the decision to double the budget for the Danny Boyle-directed opening ceremony which received acclaim, and overall the Games were considered a huge success internationally.[46][47][48][49] According to Danny Boyle, the artistic director for the opening ceremony, the Government initially suggested removing the section of the opening ceremony about the NHS, although Hunt denied this.[50]

The Games received widespread acclaim for their organisation, with the volunteers, the British military and public enthusiasm praised particularly highly.[51][52][53] In the aftermath, Hunt set up the school games as an Olympic Legacy project. Although there was criticism at the time of cuts in the school sports budget,[54] 11,953 schools took part in the School Games in the first year.[55] Hunt also campaigned to increase the emphasis on the importance of the tourism industry, especially the potential of the Chinese tourist market.[56]

Health Secretary (2012''2018) Hunt during a trip to the US, in 2013

Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Health in the 2012 cabinet reshuffle, succeeding Andrew Lansley.[57] During his tenure, Hunt pursued an ambitious agenda to address patient safety,[58] regional variations in premature deaths,[59] health tourism[60]and A&E waiting times.[61][18] He oversaw increased spending on the NHS but was criticised for controversial reforms,[62][63] manipulating figures[64] and increased privatisation.[65] In a major break from a policy previously favoured by Conservative and Labour governments, Hunt declared patient choice was not key to improving NHS performance.[66] He also defended the universal coverage provided by the NHS, including against US President Donald Trump.[67] He has supported reducing the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 12 weeks[68] and homoeopathy if recommended to patients by a doctor.[69][70][71]

In 2012, Hunt attempted to downgrade casualty and maternity units in Lewisham.[72] Hunt stated the cuts were necessary because neighbouring South London Healthcare NHS Trust had been losing more than £1m every week.[73] But a campaign led by GP Dr Louise Irvine defeated Hunt in court in 2012 on this issue,[72] with the judge ruling that Hunt acted outside his powers when he announced casualty and maternity units at Lewisham Hospital would be downgraded.[73]

In March 2014, Hunt announced that the Government would not give a recommended 1% pay rise to NHS non-medical staff receiving progression pay (around 55% of total non-medical staff).[74] Following a pre-election report in April 2015 that hospital chiefs shared an average 6% pay rise totalling £35 million, Hunt promised to investigate if the Conservatives won the election.[75]

In July 2015, Hunt became the subject of the first petition on a new UK Government website to reach the threshold of 100,000 signatures required for a petition to be considered for debate in Parliament. The petition called for a debate on a vote of "No Confidence" in Hunt as Health Secretary,[76][77] and ultimately recorded 222,991 signatures leading to a debate on the motion being scheduled in September 2015.[78] However, the Petitions Committee would not have had the power to initiate a vote of no confidence so instead debated the contracts and conditions of NHS staff.[79][80][81]

In December 2015, an undercover Daily Telegraph investigation showed that in some cases locum agencies, Medicare and Team24 owned by Capita were charging some hospitals higher fees than others and giving false company details. The agencies were charging up to 49% of the fee. Hunt criticised those who sought "big profits" at the expense of the NHS and taxpayers and promised to "reduce the margins rip-off agencies are able to generate."[82]

Hunt became the longest-serving Health Secretary in British political history on 3 June 2018.[83]

Hunt supported Britain remaining in the European Union (EU) in the 2016 referendum. After the result which supported Brexit was announced, Hunt suggested a second referendum on the terms of any exit deal with him personally backing one in which the UK would stay in the Single Market.[84][85]

In 2016, Hunt called for a reduction in the number of foreign doctors working in the NHS after the UK left the EU.[86] At the Conservative Party Conference later in the month, Hunt pledged, by 2025, the NHS would be "self-sufficient in doctors". He announced an increase of up to 1,500 extra places at medical schools in the UK in 2018, with it being partly funded by an increase in international medical student fees. Hunt also stated UK medical students would be forced to work in the NHS for at least four years or have to repay the cost of their training, around £220,000.[87][88]

In 2017, Hunt stated he supported Brexit, citing the "arrogance of the EU Commission" in responding to the UK Government in the Brexit negotiations.[89]

In April 2018, The Daily Telegraph revealed that Hunt breached anti-money laundering legislation by failing to declare his 50 per cent interest in a property firm to Companies House within the required 28 days. Hunt also failed to disclose his interest in the property firm on the Parliamentary Register of Members' interests within the required 28 days.[90] Hunt later rectified the error. A spokesman for Hunt said that Hunt's "accountant made an error in the Companies House filing, which was a genuine oversight." In response, a spokesman for Downing Street agreed with the Cabinet Office that there was no breach of the ministerial code. The Labour Party referred Hunt to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.[91] The Guardian revealed that a company part-owned by Hunt bought seven luxury flats at Alexandra Wharf, Southampton, with the help of a standard bulk discount from property developer and Conservative donor Nicholas James Roach.[92]

NHS weekend cover In July 2015, Hunt indicated he would be prepared to impose a new consultant contract on doctors in England which would remove the opt out for non-emergency work at weekends to prevent "about 6,000 avoidable deaths" resulting from "Monday to Friday culture" in the NHS and to reintroduce "a sense of vocation" in consultants.[93] The comments angered doctors who responded by sharing photographs of themselves working at weekends via social media using the hashtag #ImInWorkJeremy.[94][95][96] Hunt was criticised by statisticians David Spiegelhalter and David Craven, BMA council chair Mark Porter and Shadow Health Secretary Heidi Alexander for his claims not merely misrepresenting the facts but potentially causing patients to delay hospitals visits and put themselves at risk. His critics described the Hunt Effect where patients who needed medical attention at a weekend had been deterred from doing so because they were persuaded it would be better to wait until a Monday.[97][98][99]

In October 2015, Hunt was accused by the editor of The BMJ Fiona Godlee of repeatedly misrepresenting a study published in the journal on the weekend effect. He had used the study as evidence when stating reduced staffing levels of doctors at weekends directly led to 11,000 excess deaths. Godlee asserted the study's authors did not specify the excess deaths were avoidable or staffing levels were the cause.[100][101][102] The lead author of the study Nick Freemantle stated they did not identify a cause for excess deaths or establish the extent to which they were avoidable.[103] Co-author NHS Medical Director Bruce Keogh in response to Hunt's comments in October stated "It is not possible to ascertain the extent to which these excess deaths may be preventable".[104]

In January 2016, Hunt was criticised by stroke doctors for using out-of-date data to show stroke patients were more likely to die if admitted at weekends. They wrote there had been significant improvements since 2004''12, when Hunt's data came from, and new data showed there was "no longer any excess of hospital deaths in patients with stroke admitted at the weekend."[105][106] Stroke specialist David Curtis said even the outdated statistics did not support Hunt's claims.[107] In February, a leaked internal report by the Department of Health stated the department was unable to prove a link between increased consultant presence, availability of diagnostic tests, and reducing weekend mortality and length of stay. It highlighted the seven-day NHS could cost an additional £900 million each year, required the recruitment of 11,000 more staff including 4,000 doctors and 3,000 nurses, and community and social services could struggle to handle more discharges at the weekend.[108]

In May 2016, another study also concluded there was no evidence people were more likely to die in hospitals at the weekend.[109][110][111] In August, internal Department of Health risk management documents were leaked. They described 13 major risks in delivering the "truly seven-day NHS" pledge promised by the Conservatives prior to the 2015 general election. These included a lack of staff and funding for the policy. The documents also stated no advance impact assessments had been made to show how the policy would affect the delivery of NHS services.[112][113][114] Chief executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson described the seven-day NHS plan as "impossible to deliver" due to a lack of funding and staffing. He also highlighted pressures on the NHS with 80% of acute hospitals in England in financial deficit compared to 5% in 2013 and an increase of missed A&E waiting time targets from 10% to 90% in the same time period.[115][116] In May 2016, a report by the House of Commons public accounts committee criticised Hunt's plan for a seven-day NHS, saying "no coherent attempt" had made to understand staffing needs, the plan was "completely uncosted", and contained "serious flaws".[117][118][119][120]

Junior doctors' contracts and strikes Under Hunt, the Department of Health announced a new junior doctors' contract in England which would increase doctors' basic pay but extend "normal hours" for which they would not be paid a premium.[121][122][123] In September 2015, the British Medical Association (BMA) said they would not re-enter negotiations unless Hunt dropped his threat to impose the contract and balloted their members for industrial action.[124] They argued the contract would include an increase in working hours with a relative pay cut of up to 40%.[121][125][126][127] Hunt tried reassuring the BMA no junior doctor would face a pay cut, before admitting those who worked longer than 56 hours a week would face a fall in pay but said working these long hours was unsafe.[128][129][130][131] In November 2015, he said he would offer a basic pay increase of 11%, but still removing compensation for longer hours.[132][133][134]

On 19 November 2015, the result of a BMA strike ballot was announced, with 98% voting for full strike action.[135][136] An agreement was not reached by the junior doctors committee's deadline, so the BMA announced a strike would go ahead.[137][138]

The first day of strike action was in January 2016 and involved junior doctors only providing emergency care.[139] A second day of strike action occurred in February 2016 where doctors again provided only emergency care.[140][141][142] Following these strikes, Hunt announced he would unilaterally impose the new contract without agreement or further negotiation, with NHS trusts instructed to introduce it in August.[143][144] In response, the BMA announced three 48-hour long strikes and issued a legal challenge over the contract.[145]

Further talks after the strikes resulted in an agreement to be put to a referendum.[146][147][148] In the July referendum, 58% of BMA members rejected the offer.[149] Following this, Hunt rejected holding any further talks with the BMA and announced the imposition of the new contract on junior doctors starting from October.[150]

In February 2016, Hunt was polled as the "most disliked" frontline British politician.[151] He acknowledged there would be "considerable dismay" and announced an urgent inquiry led by Academy of Medical Royal Colleges chair Susan Bailey into junior doctors' morale and welfare.[152][153] The Academy Trainee Doctors' Group voted unanimously not to participate in the review under the offered terms.[154][155] He said he had lessons to learn but denied any personal responsibility for the dispute.[156]

Also, in 2016, both Stephen Hawking and Robert Winston called for an inquiry into claims made by Mr Hunt regarding the NHS had sufficient funding, with Hawking saying Hunt had "cherry-picked research, causing a devastating breakdown of trust between Government and the medical profession".[157]

Foreign Secretary (2018''2019) Hunt meeting with US Secretary of State

Mike Pompeo in Brussels, May 2019

Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in July 2018 following the resignation of Boris Johnson.[158] Hunt said "My principal job at a time of massive importance for our country is to stand four square behind the Prime Minister so that we can get through an agreement with the European Union based on what was agreed by the Cabinet last week at Chequers."[159] In July 2018, Hunt expressed fears over the UK potentially leaving the EU without a deal. He said that it would be "incredibly challenging economically" and that "It would lead to a fissure in relations which would be highly damaging for that great partnership that we have had for so many years, which has been so important in sustaining the international order."[160]

Hunt supported the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen and described Saudi Arabia as a "very, very important military ally". In August 2018, he defended Britain's alliance with Saudi Arabia after a bomb dropped on a school bus in Yemen killed 51 people, including 40 children, although he said he was "deeply shocked" at the deaths.[161] Amid global outrage over the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Hunt rejected calls to end the UK's arms sales to Saudi Arabia, saying: "There are jobs in the UK ... at stake so when it comes to the issue of arms sales we have our procedures."[162] In February 2019, he urged Germany to lift ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and warned that Germans are risking "a loss of confidence in Germany's credibility as a partner",[163] although he admitted: "Over 80,000 children [in Yemen] have died of starvation, there are about a quarter of a million people starving at the moment, and around 20 million people don't have food security '' they don't know whether they're going to be able to get the food they need in the days ahead."[164] Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), said Hunt "played an utterly central and complicit role in arming and supporting the Saudi-led destruction of Yemen".[165]

In July 2018, Hunt visited China and met China's foreign minister Wang Yi. Hunt said that the "UK-China Strategic Dialogue is an important opportunity to intensify our cooperation on shared challenges in international affairs, ranging from global free trade to non-proliferation and environmental challenges, under the UK-China Global Partnership and 'Golden Era' for UK-China relations".[166] In October 2018, he criticised the Xinjiang re-education camps and human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in China, saying: "British diplomats who visited Xinjiang have confirmed that reports of mass internment camps for Uighur Muslims were 'broadly true'."[167]

Hunt was critical of Russia and Iran. On 23 August 2018, Hunt met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the 'threat' from both countries.[168][169] In April 2019, Hunt condemned the United States for recognising Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights, saying: "We should never recognise the annexation of territory by force. (...) We want Israel to be a success and we consider them to be a great friend but on this we do not agree."[170] In June 2019, he stated he shared the US Government's assessment that Iran was to blame for two attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.[171]

Hunt supported the continued efforts of the UK Government to leave the European Union. During the September 2018 Conservative conference, Hunt likened the European Union to the former USSR, saying: "It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving. The lesson from history is clear: If you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out won't diminish." This comment was strongly criticised.[172] While on a February 2019 Brexit-related visit to Ljubljana, he caused anger by congratulating his hosts on "making really remarkable transformation from a Soviet vassal state to a modern European democracy." In fact Slovenia, as part of Yugoslavia, had previously been non-aligned.[173][174]

In November 2018, Hunt threatened the United Arab Emirates with "serious diplomatic consequences" after it sentenced British research student Matthew Hedges to life in prison for allegedly spying for the UK. Hunt said that the verdict "is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances".[175] Hedges was released at the end of November, after intense negotiations.[176]

Following the April 2019 arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London's Ecuadorian Embassy, Hunt thanked the Ecuadorean President Len­n Moreno for his cooperation.[177]

Conservative Party leadership candidate (2019) 2019 leadership campaign logo

Hunt announced his campaign to become the leader of the Conservative Party on 24 May 2019, following the resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May.[178] On 20 June 2019, he was named one of the final two candidates.[179] Hunt was defeated by Boris Johnson, having secured only one third of the vote. His campaign was was given £10,000 by a close associate to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.[180][165]

Following Boris Johnson's election as party leader, Hunt was offered the role of Secretary of State for Defence in Johnson's Cabinet but decided to turn it down.[181]

Backbencher (2019''2022) Returning to the backbenches, Hunt founded Patient Safety Watch in October 2019, with the charity seeking to establish data to report on patient safety and harm in care, continuing the work on safety he started as Health Secretary. He chairs the organisation and said he planned to invest considerable sums of money into it.[182]

Hunt held his seat at the 2019 general election.[183] He was elected as the new chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee in January 2020, succeeding Sarah Wollaston.[184] In February 2020, Hunt called for an inquiry into the National Health Service after the publishing of many reports regarding infant mortality in NHS hospitals.[185]

In March 2020, Hunt voiced criticism of the Government's response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, hitting out at the Government still allowing "external visits to care homes" and "not preventing mass gatherings".[186]

Hunt voted against Boris Johnson in the 2022 vote of confidence and urged other colleagues to do the same.[187]

His book, Zero: Eliminating unnecessary deaths in a post-pandemic NHS, argues for "candour, a no-blame culture and a sincere determination to treat every mistake as an opportunity to learn how to do better next time". He writes that in the NHS there are 150 preventable deaths each week and draws on the experience of the airline industry to advocate a shift from a blame culture to a learning culture.[188]

Conservative Party leadership candidate (2022) 2022 leadership campaign logo

Following the resignation of Boris Johnson, Hunt announced he would be standing in the subsequent Conservative Party leadership election. He criticised Johnson for investing in infrastructure instead of "wealth creation", and proposed policies including a moratorium on business rates in deprived areas and a cut to corporation tax to 15% instead of a proposed rise to 25%.[189] He also said he would retain the rise in National Insurance rates and would not cut personal taxation until he "[got] the economy growing".[190] Hunt said Esther McVey would be deputy prime minister if he were to become prime minister.[191] He was eliminated in the first round of voting on 13 July, receiving 18 votes.[192] He endorsed Rishi Sunak after being eliminated.[193]

Chancellor of the Exchequer (2022''present) Following the dismissal of Kwasi Kwarteng on 14 October 2022, after the poorly received September 2022 mini-budget, Hunt was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.[194]

Personal life Hunt's wife, Lucia Guo, comes from Xi'an in China. Hunt first met Guo in 2008, when she was working at Warwick University recruiting Chinese students for the university.[195][196] They married in July 2009 and have a son and two daughters;[197][198] Guo and the three children are low-profile and rarely appear in public.[199]

Hunt speaks Japanese, having studied the language for two years while working in Japan as an English language teacher in the 1990s.[200]

Hunt has named his personal political heroes as Margaret Thatcher and William Wilberforce.[13] Hunt is an Anglican Christian.[201]

Hunt has advocated for pro-active good mental health through actions including exercise, social contacts, gratitude and sleep.[202]

In June 2022, he revealed that "every member of his family" has had cancer, and he himself has recovered from "a minor one".[203]

Honours 2010: Appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, giving him the honorific title "The Right Honourable" for life.[204]2020: Grand Officer of the Equestrian Order of St Agatha, San Marino[205]Publications Zero: Eliminating unnecessary deaths in a post-pandemic NHS (London: Swift Press, 2022) ISBN 978-1800751224Notes ^ Known as Secretary of State for Health until January 2018. References ^ Jeremy Hunt in line for £14.5m windfall with Hotcourses sale. The Guardian. 16 January 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2022. ^ "Births". The Times. 2 November 1966. p. 2. ^ "Jeremy Hunt opens Radisson Edwardian Guildford '' and shares hotel tipping advice... '' Places". Surrey Life. 3 November 2011. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016 . Retrieved 27 July 2015 . ^ a b "Profile: Jeremy Hunt". BBC News. 31 May 2012. Archived from the original on 17 August 2015 . Retrieved 27 July 2015 . ^ "Appointments in the Forces". The Times. 9 May 1966. p. 14. ^ "Forthcoming marriages". 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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:04

FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko walks next to Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova as they attend a bilateral meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (not pictured) at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, U.S. October 11, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo reuters_tickers This content was published on October 14, 2022 - 18:56 October 14, 2022 - 18:56By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The shareholders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Friday selected Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko as the next rotating chair of the boards of governors of both institutions in 2023.

The decision, which was announced during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, means that Marchenko will also chair next year's annual meeting of the institutions, which is scheduled to be held in Morocco.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war's massive impact on the global economy have dominated this year's meetings, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urging international donors to provide $55 billion in additional funding next year to keep his country's economy running and fund some initial reconstruction.

World Bank President David Malpass told shareholders of both institutions on Friday that the World Bank Group had mobilized $13 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine since the war began, including grants, guarantees, and linked parallel financing from the United States, Britain, Europe and Japan.

"I remain horrified by Russia's actions and call for Russian forces to leave Ukraine," Malpass said in his most explicit remarks on the war to date.

Marchenko said his selection was unanimously approved by all governing member countries of the two global lenders, and marked the first time that Ukraine would lead the institutions since it joined 30 years ago.

The move was unanimously approved since there was no objection during the business portion of the plenary, a source close to the discussions said. Russia is a member of the institutions and could have objected, but did not.

"It is a great honor to represent Ukraine" in the international financial arena, Marchenko said in a statement released by his ministry, adding that Ukraine would be able to increase its cooperation with international financial organizations and the member countries of the World Bank and IMF.

World Bank and IMF members choose a new chair for the board of governors on a regional rotation basis. Egypt is in that role this year, but it will rotate in 2023 to Europe and Central Asia.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington; Additional reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:03

A UN official claimed Russia is using rape as its ''military strategy'' in Ukraine '-- providing soldiers with drugs to sexually assault civilians.

''When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it's clearly a military strategy,'' Pramila Patten, UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, told the AFP.

Patten added that the UN has verified ''more than a hundred cases'' of rape or sexual assault since the invasion began in February. Victims have largely included girls and women, but boys and men have been raped, too.

In September, the head of the organization's Independent International Commission of Inquiry into Ukraine wrote that Russian forces were committing war crimes against civilians, including rape, torture and unlawful confinement.

Russian Army reservists receiving all-season field uniforms and kits at a Southern Military District training center. ZUMAPRESS.com Valdimir Putin addresses a rally and a concert marking the annexation of four regions of Ukraine on Sept. 30. AFP via Getty ImagesThe commission head noted that victims of sexual and gender-based violence ranged from four to 82, and in some some cases, family members have been forced to watch the acts.

''Reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg,'' Patten told the AFP, but added that it is difficult to maintain accurate statistics during an active violent conflict. ''The numbers will never reflect reality, because sexual violence is a silent crime.''

Russia has denied war crime allegations.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 16:13

Trump pens letter to Jan. 6 committee members

Trump slams Jan. 6 committee members for subpoena vote in 14-page letter 02:48 A day after the House Jan. 6 select committee voted unanimously to subpoena former President Trump , he responded with an angry letter to committee Chairman Bennie Thompson to complain about its work. The select committee has been investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 , and its root causes, with the aim of determining who was responsible for the mayhem and preventing it from happening again.

Trump did not mention the subpoena, and instead railed at the committee; he said he was writing "to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt." He also attacked the committee for not looking into election fraud and appeared to defend the targets of the committee, who, he claimed were just acting "as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself."

What's next after the Jan. 6 committee's vote to subpoena Trump Thompson said in Thursday's hearing that Trump "is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him."

The former president also brought up crowd size in the letter, complete with an appendix of photos of the crowd, and assailed the committee in his first line in all capital letters: "THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!"

The ex-president's attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election have all failed in court, and election security officials nominated or appointed by Trump declared the 2020 election the "most secure in history."

Trump claimed he recommended and authorized "thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety and security at the Capitol and throughout Washington, D.C., on January 6th because I knew, just based on instinct and what I was hearing, that the crowd coming to listen to my speech, and various others, would be a very big one, far bigger than anyone thought possible."

"As it turns out, it was indeed one of the largest crowds I have ever spoken [at] before, a very wide swath stretching all the way back to the Washington Monument," he continued. "The massive size of this crowd, and its meaning, has never been a subject of your Committee, nor has it been discussed by the Fake News Media that absolutely refuses to acknowledge, in any way, shape or form, the magnitude of what was taking place."

Here is Trump's response to the Jan. 6 committee.

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In: Donald Trump Kathryn Watson Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:54

(C) iStock/iStock Florida plans to revoke or suspend the teaching licenses of elementary school educators who teach students about gender identity or sexuality, according to a new rule published by the state's Department of Education.

The rule, proposed in August and approved by Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. in September, is intended to enforce a 2021 state law that forbids instruction on gender identity and sexuality for children in kindergarten through third grade. The measure, the Parental Rights in Education Act, is known by opponents as the ''don't say gay'' law.

The Florida Department of Education has done little to publicize its rule on teachers' licenses. The rule appeared online around the same time that the state was taking damage from Hurricane Ian, which has left more than 100 dead. News of the rule was first reported Tuesday by the newsletter the Progress Report.

The rule states that any teacher who ''intentionally provide[s] classroom instruction'' to K-3 students on those two topics will face ''revocation or suspension of the individual educator's certificate, or the other penalties as provided by law.''

The 2021 law already requires schools to create a system via which parents can report teacher noncompliance with the law. If a school system does not address a parent's concerns, the law makes it easy for parents to sue and says the Florida Department of Education can launch an investigation of the district.

This Florida teacher married a woman. Now she's not a teacher anymore. The rule on teachers' licenses drew immediate condemnation from some teacher groups and LGBTQ advocates. Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of LGBTQ rights group GLSEN, said in a statement Thursday that the Florida rule ''will harm LGBTQ+ students, who we know benefit by having supportive teachers and inclusive curriculum in the classroom.''

A spokesman for the education department said in a statement Thursday evening that ''it should not be surprising that educators are at risk of having their certificates sanctioned if they violate state law. The proposed amendment will change nothing for teachers who follow the law and are focused on providing high-quality classroom instruction aligned to state academic standards.''

The 2021 law goes beyond elementary schools, also limiting instruction on gender identity and sexuality for higher grades by saying those lessons cannot take place ''in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate'' for students of any age. The law has been widely criticized by LGBTQ advocates and educators who contend it harms LGBTQ teachers and students. It has led some LGBTQ teachers in the state to leave their jobs.

As word begins to trickle out about the rule on teachers' licenses, some LGBTQ Florida teachers are feeling alarmed.

Cassandra Oetinger-Kenski, a third-grade language arts teacher in Palm Beach County, said she is horrified, confused and attempting to figure out how this rule will change her ability to teach. Oetinger-Kenski, 38, is married to a woman.

She learned of the rule during a Thursday phone conversation with a reporter. Her attention was caught by the phrase about ''intentionally'' providing instruction, which she made several efforts to parse.

''If a child asks me about my husband and I say I don't have a husband, I have a wife, am I then being stripped of my license?'' Oetinger-Kenski asked. ''Also, in my class I have kids with two dads and two moms.''

The new rule, Oetinger-Kenski said, ''forces me to withhold information from my students, to lie. ... Heterosexual people aren't our entire population. That's not the truth.''

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:52

Widespread shortages of Adderall and other versions of the drug used for treating attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are deepening in the U.S., causing desperation in patients who rely on the medication to focus.

The largest Adderall manufacturer in the U.S., Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., said last month that a labor shortage from earlier in the year disrupted production, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Pharmacists, manufacturers and patients are reporting shortages of ADHD drug Adderall nationwide. (Photo by Jb Reed/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Ticker Security Last Change Change % TEVA TEVA PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES LTD. 7.95 -0.26 -3.17% A Teva spokesperson said at the time that the company expects shortages at the retail level to be resolved in coming weeks, but pharmacies are now reporting shortages of the ADHD treatment from an array of other drugmakers.

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) reported shortages of several versions of the amphetamine from numerous manufacturers this week, as reports sprout up nationwide of the impact that low supplies are having on patients who are unable to fill their prescriptions.

UNITEDHEALTH COMPLETES CHANGE HEALTHCARE MERGER AFTER COURT REJECTED DOJ CHALLENGE

"It frightens people," Dr. Robert Shulman, a psychiatrist at Rush University Medical Center, told FOX 32 in Chicago. "It frightens parents who have kids who are starting school right now. It frightens adults who are reliant on the medicine to get them through the work day. Patients can't get their medicines, and we get a lot of phone calls, so it's a lot of extra work, and the patients have to call around to pharmacies to look and see where there is a supply."

Shulman says there are several factors contributing to the shortages, including record-high prescriptions for the drug following the COVID-19 lockdowns, a surge in recreational use of the stimulant, and manufacturing limits put in place by the federal government.

A spokesperson for Sandoz, a Novartis company that makes a generic version of Adderall, told FOX Business Friday that there is no shortage of their product in the market and that the company is "meeting all current customer orders," but pointed to regulatory factors that could be contributing to the situation with the drug.

BIOGEN SHARES SOAR ON ALZHEIMER'S DRUG DEVELOPMENTS

The spokesperson explained that Sandoz, as with other drugmakers, forecasts manufacturing based on customer pre-orders and is granted permission to fulfill the predicted level of ordering by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. If a customer orders more than what drugmakers forecast due to increased demand, manufacturers are unable to fulfill those orders, and they are considered "back-ordered."

The Novartis AG Institutes for BioMedical Research building in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Photographer: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Ticker Security Last Change Change % NVS NOVARTIS AG 75.56 -0.47 -0.62% Drug companies must petition the DEA for an increase in production volume in that instance. Some requests are granted, and others are denied. The DEA did not immediately respond to FOX Business' request for comment on whether the agency has recently raised manufacturing limits for Adderall or plans to do so.

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When reached by FOX Business for comment, a spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not confirm any shortages of Adderall-type drugs but said in a statement that the agency "continues to monitor supply for ADHD medications and [is] in communication with the manufactures regarding supply."

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Archived Version

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:52

Police in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have launched a new pilot programme which will see them confiscating expensive clothing and jewellery from young people if they look too poor to own them.

Officers say the scheme will see them target younger men in designer clothes they seem unlikely to be able to afford legally '' if it is not clear how the person paid for it, it will be confiscated.

The idea is to deter criminality by sending a signal that the men will not be able to hang onto their ill-gotten gains.

Rotterdam police chief Frank Paauw told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf: ''They are often young men who consider themselves untouchable. We're going to undress them on the street.

''We regularly take a Rolex from a suspect. Clothes rarely. And that is especially a status symbol for young people. Some young people now walk with jackets of '‚¬1800. They do not have any income, so the question is how they get there.''

He said the young men targeted often have no income and are already in debt from fines for previous convictions but wearing expensive clothing.

This ''undermines the rule of law'' which sends ''a completely false signal to local residents'', he explained.

The trial is due to start in the Rotterdam West section of the city and police say they will target one gang in particular.

The scheme comes after a previous pilot which looked at the expensive cars suspected criminals drove despite not having an income.

Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican

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A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip

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A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st

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The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes

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A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India

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The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC

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An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution

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A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month

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Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month

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Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican

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A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California

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A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho

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Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally

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A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port

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Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk

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Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy

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A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin

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Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha

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Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland

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Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk

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The team is also looking at shell companies, drug crime and illegal gambling. In 2016, Rotterdam was able to confiscate '‚¬11.5m.

But critics have attacked the idea saying it is a ''slippery slope'' towards racial profiling.

City ombudsman Anne Mieke Zwaneveld told AD: ''We realised that [they] do not want to create the appearance that there is ethnic profiling but the chances of this happening are very large.''

She said it would be very legally difficult to prove officers were justified in taking people's coats in the middle of the street: ''It is not forbidden to walk around in the street. In addition, it is often unclear how such a piece of clothing is paid and how old it is.''

Jair Schalkwijk,a spokesman for a national anti-profiling organisation Control Alt Delete, believes the policy is against a previous promise by police not to target people who look like ''typical criminals''.

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Archived Version

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:50

In a letter, the House Financial Services Committee (FSC) asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) for their CBDC assessment.The House Committee analyzed whether the Federal Reserve has the authority to issue a CBDC without authorizing legislation.SWIFT stated it had the necessary connections to become the standard for cross-border CBDC transactions.Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) have been the talk of the crypto town for a while now. While many countries, such as China, Nigeria, etc., have already launched their CBDCs, the likes of the US are still figuring it out. Thus to forward this effort, representatives of the House Financial Services Committee have taken a step.

FSC goes to DoJ for CBDCThe House Committee members published a letter sent to the Department of Justice highlighting their request for CBDC assessment and legislative proposals.

Dated October 5, the letter asked for the DoJ to share their assessment of whether or not legislative changes would be necessary to issue a CBDC. The DoJ was asked to report on the same by President Biden's executive crypto order back in March.

The Committee also spent a significant amount of resources weighing the risks as well the benefits that would come with a CBDC. In its letter, the FSC stated,

''The Committee's review has included analyzing whether the Federal Reserve has the authority to issue a CBDC without authorizing legislation. Committee Republicans emphasized in our CBDC principles that the Federal Reserve does not have the legal authority to issue a CBDC absent action from Congress.''

As per the letter, the DoJ has only ten days to reply to the request setting the deadline at October 15.

On the other hand'...As US authorities continue to seek an optimal solution, SWIFT has single-handedly suggested the solution to the impending CBDC problem. Thanks to its network of 11,500 Central Banks across 200 countries, SWIFT can act as the medium of cross-border payments. SWIFT aims to become the standard of CBDC transfers.

In a statement on October 5, SWIFT said,

''SWIFT has successfully shown that Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenised assets can move seamlessly on existing financial infrastructure '' a major milestone towards enabling their smooth integration into the international financial ecosystem,''

Going forward, SWIFT might play a huge role in this space.

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Archived Version

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 14:37

President Joe Biden appeared to grab a young girl by her shoulder telling her 'no serious guys till you're 30' while posing for a photograph with the teen and her friends at Irvine Valley College in Irvine, California, on Friday.

The president visited the community college to meet with older adults and tout his administration's efforts to reduce inflation and drive down costs.

But as the visit came to and end, he stood to pose with some of those who had gathered to hear his remarks.

Aside from explaining how he might curb inflation and lower the cost of prescription drugs, the president also dished out dating advice.

'Now, a very important thing I told me daughters and granddaughters - no serious guys until you're 30!' he told a bemused teen.

Biden stood to take a photograph with the girl. As he did so, he appeared to sniff the girl's hair before imparting the 'fatherly' relationship advice.

President Joe Biden was speaking at a community college in California on Friday when he was seen grabbing a girl by the shoulder as he gave dating advice

The creepy moment was captured by reporter Kalen D'Almeida who then posted the video to his Twitter account

President Joe Biden grabs a young girl by the shoulder and tells her ''no serious guys till your 30'' as she looks back appearing uncomfortable, secret service appears to try to stop me from filming it after Biden spoke @ Irvine Valley Community College | @TPUSA @FrontlinesShow pic.twitter.com/BemRybWdBI

'-- Kalen D'Almeida (@fromkalen) October 15, 2022President Joe Biden speaks about lowering costs for American families at Irvine Valley Community College in Irvine, California on Friday

Biden could be seen greeting Labor Organizer Susan Meyer. He also placed his hands on her shoulders during the event

The girl appears to be genuinely uncomfortable and laughs nervously as she turns around to look at the commander-in-chief, who continues to rest his hands on her shoulder.

'I'll keep that in mind!' she responds while laughing it off.

The creepy moment was captured by reporter Kalen D'Almeida who then posted it to his Twitter account.

D'Almeida noted how a secret service agent appeared to try to stop him from filming as the awkward encounter took place.

In March, Biden also took it upon himself to give the exact same dating advice to a group of eight-year-old, third-grade schoolgirls, saying 'the only thing I want you girls to remember, no serious guys 'til you're 30 years old.'

Many Twitter users were deeply uncomfortable with the president's behavior on Friday.

President Joe Biden sits and talks with another group of students in the school library

A nine-year-old gives President Joe Biden a hug during a March 2022 school visit

Many Twitter users were deeply uncomfortable with the president's behavior

'What a creep. That poor girl doesn't want his repulsive hands on her, nor him breathing into her face. And what business is it of his as to who she dates and when? He's disgusting and inappropriate, among many other things,' tweeted Vanessa Peveto.

'Serious question'... Why does he always do this? I can't tell you how many videos I've seen of him telling little girls stuff like, 'Remember, no dating until you're older', etc... It's just flat out weird,' declared another user.

'He has no concept of social cues. Look at the body language, the way she pulls back as she's clearly uncomfortable all the while he leans in further. Inappropriate. Creepy,' explained one Twitter follower.

'Why the hell can't he keep his hands and thoughts to himself around girls and young women- haven't his handlers talked to him in depth about this??' wrote another angrily.

Vice President Joe Biden leans in to say something to Maggie Coons, next to her father Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., after Biden administered the Senate oath to Coons during a ceremonial re-enactment swearing-in ceremony in 2015

Then-Vice President Joe Biden talks to customers, including a woman who pulled up her chair in front of the bench Biden was sitting on during a campaign stop in September 2012 in Ohio

Ashton Carter, right makes remarks after he was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Defense in 2015, while his wife Stephanie is seen with Biden who has his hands on her shoulders

Biden appears to almost kiss a woman during a Senate swearing-in ceremony in 2015

Eva Longoria is seen, left, with the president's hand firmly around her back during a campaign stop in Nevada in November 2014

The creepy antics are the latest to occur in Biden's 50 years in politics.

Biden has a history of making eyebrow-raising remarks about girls and women.

In May 2020, Biden gave his teen granddaughter a kiss on the lips while giving a speech at a campaign trail event ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

The former Vice President was spotted clutching then-19-year-old Finnegan Biden's hand as they arrived at a campaign event at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa on Sunday.

The following year, in May 2021, Biden was slammed for 'creepy' remarks he made about a young girl during a speech at a Virginia military base.

Joe Biden gave his 19-year-old granddaughter Finnegan Biden a kiss on the lips while giving a speech at a campaign trail event in Dubuque, Iowa in May 2020

On that occasion he went off-script to point out an 'elementary school- aged' girl as he delivered an address at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

'I love those barrettes in your hair, man,' the President said to the girl, who was sitting at the side of the stage

'I tell you what, look at her, she looks like she's 19 years old, sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed,' Biden bizarrely continued.

The girl's mother had reportedly introduced Biden to the stage prior to his speech.

Footage of Biden's odd remarks was shared to The Post Millennial's Twitter page, with many users perturbed by what they heard.

Joe Biden was slammed for 'creepy' remarks about a young girl's appearance he made during a speech at a Virginia military base in May 2021

'Your president people... there is a reason they don't let him talk in front of cameras often..' one stated.

A second person chimed in: 'This would be front page news on the New York Times and the lead story on CNN for two weeks if Trump did this. And no, this isn't whataboutism,' one person remarked.

Another defended Biden, but did concede that there was media bias.

'He's socially awkward. He says it like he's trying to be sweet. Innocent in his head meanwhile everyone else is like 'Uhhh what??'' the person wrote on Twitter.

'[But I] Gotta agree with some comments here. If Trump said it then it would have been front page news. That's how biased our news outlets are.'

Ssocial media users were left perturbed by Biden's comments, but others came to his defense

Last year, during an event in Florida, Biden told a group of underage female dancers: 'I'm coming back and I want to see these beautiful young ladies, I want to see them dancing when they are four years older too!'

In 2019, he told a 10-year-old girl: 'I'll bet you're as bright as you are good-looking.'

He has also been photographed over the years kissing and touching young girls and women during public events.

During his presidential campaign, three women also came forward accusing him of acting inappropriately.

Biden responded with a public statement, saying: 'In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort.

'And not once '-- never '-- did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention.'

Former Senate staffer Tara Reade has also accused the President of assaulting her while she worked for him back in 1993. He has vigorously denied the allegation on multiple occasions.

Vice President Joe Biden kisses a niece of incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in January 2015

Biden tweeted a two minute video to respond to criticisms over personal space in April 2019

JOE BIDEN'S 'CREEPY' MOMENTS January 2015: Biden is pictured kissing the head of Mitch McConnell's young niece as her uncle is sworn in as Senate Majority Leader

January 2015: The then-Vice President is pictured leaning in close to speak with the young daughter of Democrat Senator Chris Coons

February 2015: Biden is caught on camera touching Stephanie Carter as her husband, Ashton, was sworn in as Secretary of Defense.

The photo led Biden to be dubbed 'Creepy Joe' and Creepy Veep' in a Telegraph article published just days later.

Mrs Carter later said of the photo that it had been 'misleadingly extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends'.

Biden is caught on camera touching Stephanie Carter as her husband, Ashton, was sworn in as Secretary of Defense

March 2019: Former Nevada state assemblywoman Lucy Flores goes public, accusing Biden of inappropriately kissing and touching her at a 2014 event

April 2019: D.J. Hill comes out claiming Biden made her feel 'very uncomfortable' when he touched her in Minneapolis in 2012

April 2019: Caitlyn Caruso claims Biden gave her a hug that lasted 'just a little bit too long' when she was a teenage student attending an event devoted to sexual assault in 2016

April 2019: Biden addressed the claims of inappropriate touching in a video, stating: 'I always try to be in my career, always tried to make a human connection.

'That's my responsibility, I think. I shake hands, I hug people. I grab men and women by the shoulders and say you can do this, whether they're women, men, young, old. It's the way I've always been and tried to show that I care about them and I'm listening.'

May 2019: Biden tells a 10-year-old girl: 'I'll bet you're as bright as you are good looking'

March 2020: Former Senate staffer Tara Reade accuses Biden of sexually assaulting her in a hallway in 1993. He vigorously denies the allegation.

October 2020: Biden told a group of underage female dancers: 'I'm coming back and I want to see these beautiful young ladies, I want to see them dancing when they are four years older too!'

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 12:19

The second Global COVID-19 Summit, co-hosted by United States, Belize, Germany, Indonesia, and Senegal, convened over partners and organizations from around the world to accelerate collective efforts to get shots into arms, enhance access to tests and treatments, protect the health workforce, and finance and build health security for future pandemics and other health crises.

The Summit garnered new financial commitments totaling $3.2 billion, not yet announced, above and beyond pledges made to date in 2022. This includes nearly $2.5 billion for COVID-19 and related response activities and $712 million in new commitments toward a new pandemic preparedness and global health security fund at the World Bank. (Note: This builds on $250 million previously pledged for this fund.) We encourage partners to join, as much more is needed to control COVID-19 and build better health security.

Commitments[1] from Government, Other Partners, and Entities

African Union: Will expand and continue its Saving Lives and Livelihoods Program to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for the African people, support the delivery of the vaccines, and support vaccination rollout programs at country level and increase vaccine manufacturing in Africa in partnership with Africa CDC and the Mastercard Foundation and other partners. Will also, through coordination by Africa CDC, strengthen public health institutions, increase local capacity for producing medical products, strengthen the health workforce, and establish action-oriented partnerships through its New Public Health Order Program. Australia: Pledged additional AUD $85 million in 2022 to COVAX and has delivered on the first half of its commitment made at the first Global COVID-19 Summit, to share 60 million vaccine doses by the end of 2022. Announced a AUD 375 million second phase for the Health Security Initiative for the Indo-Pacific region as well as committed AUD 100 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.Austria: In 2022, committed to provide EUR 1.6 million annually to CEPI from 2022-2024 for a total of EUR 4.8 million. Delivering up to 14 million vaccine doses by mid-2022. Committed to remain active in donating vaccines and providing financial support and emergency assistance. Belgium: Will provide an additional EUR 15 million for COVID-19 vaccination efforts, including EUR 10 million for the ancillary costs needed for vaccine delivery and EUR 5 million for COVAX.Belize: Will accelerate efforts to vaccinate 70% of the population by September 2022 and promote boosters for at risk populations. Will support an extensive public education campaign to overcome vaccine hesitancy. Will construct a BZE1 6.8 million hospital to better serve community health needs and to expand and provide an additional BZE 3.2 million to the National Health Insurance Program.Brazil: The Government of Brazil reaffirmed its commitment to donate up to $86.7 million to COVAX AMC, and it has already donated 5.6 million doses. It further underscored its success in vaccinating more than 77 percent of the Brazilian population against COVID and supplementing its national health system with an extra $20 billionBelize: Will accelerate efforts to vaccinate 70% of the population by September 2022 and promote boosters for at risk populations. Will support an extensive public education campaign to overcome vaccine hesitancy. Will construct a $16.8 million hospital to better serve community health needs and to expand and provide an additional BZE 3.2 million to the National Health Insurance Program.Botswana: Commits to vaccinate at least 80 percent of its population according to the Country's National Vaccine Deployment plan, implementing the second stage of Phase 4 (5''12-year-olds) by mid-2022 pending successful consultation. Commits to sharing lessons learned on its success with other countries to help them reach Botswana's levels of vaccination success , the third highest vaccination rate in Africa. Will continue to focus on improving and accelerating vaccine uptake and coverage. Commits to setting policy to offer and avail free treatment to all people who are infected with COVID-19, have mild to moderate as well as severe illness, or are at risk for death due to risk factors, with treatment modalities are based on Botswana's updated treatment guidelines. Commits to manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines to improve local and regional equitable vaccines supply chain by the end of 2022, drawing lessons from the global demand-supply mismatch and non-equitable distribution of vaccines.Canada: Will provide CAD 732 million in funding for the Access to COVID-19 Tools-Accelerator (ACT-A), enabling Canada to meet its fair share for the 2021-2022 ACT-A budget cycle, assessed at CAD 747 million. This funding includes a previous allocation of CAD 220 million to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), announced by the Prime Minister on April 8, 2022 at the Gavi COVAX AMC Summit, and builds on the CAD 15 million announced by the Prime Minister on October 30, 2021, in support of COVAX Manufacturing Task Force partners. Canada is contributing to the international pandemic response and will continue to work with partners to ensure that we strengthen our collective ability to prevent, prepare and respond to disease outbreaks going forward.Colombia: Will continue to vaccinate the nearly 2 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and other vulnerable populations. Will share lessons learned on linking joint efforts with the private sector. Will provide technical assistance for mass vaccination campaigns, to improve supply chain logistics, and for surveillance of possible adverse events related to vaccination. Will also contribute to the discussions within the WHO on ways to strengthen prevention, preparedness, and response to pandemics. Will make efforts to increase the number of migrants registered in the social security system from 400,000 to 700,000 in 2022.C´te D'Ivoire: Will increase vaccine demand creation and uptake, and accelerate vaccine coverage while immediately prioritizing fully vaccinating and providing boosters to key sub-populations such as teachers, healthcare workers, people with comorbidities, and adolescents. Will strengthen genomic sequencing to identify new variants. Will expand and sustain health system capacity and financing; increase domestic health budgets; and improve funds disbursement to enable timely salary, incentive, and other supportive payments for health care workers. Committed to continue promoting the One Health approach and strengthening the national One Health platform.Denmark: Will provide over USD 10 million for vaccine rollout via ACT-A (COVAX). Minister M¸ller Mortensen expressed support for strengthening WHO and support for WHO agreement on pandemic preparedness, prevention, and response.European Union: The European Union budget will provide 300 million euro for vaccination support. Will provide 100 million euro for other ACT-A pillars. Will provide $450 million USD for the pandemic preparedness and global health security financial intermediary fund at the World Bank.France: Will provide EUR 220 M to ACT-A : 100 million euros to COVAX, 50 million euros to WHO, and 70 million euros to strengthen vaccine production capacity in developing countries, including Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa.Georgia: According to the National Vaccine Deployment Plan, intends to vaccinate at least 65% of population by mid-2022. Will use the Financial Incentives scheme to continue to motivate citizens over 50 years old. Pediatric doses of Covid-19 vaccine will be made available for 5-12 year old kids In order to provide access to novel drugs, will continue to procure antivirals the treatment of mild Covid-19 patients with the high risk of hospitalization in March 2022. Has extended its COVID-19 vaccination and treatment program for all Ukrainian citizens who entered the country after the war crisis. Is implementing an active information and communication campaign with support from USAID, WHO, European Commission and other international partners. Commits to a full program accelerating vaccine coverage while immediately prioritizing fully vaccinating and providing boosters to at-risk populations, accelerating vaccine coverage for vulnerable populations, saving lives with access to tests and treatments, supporting health and frontline workers, and expanding and sustaining health capacity and financing including support for the establishment of a global health security and pandemic preparedness fund.Germany: Will contribute EUR 50 million toward the establishment of a new global health security and pandemic preparedness fund housed at the World Bank. Committed EUR 1.1 billion to ACT-A's 2021/2022 replenishment cycle earlier in 2022 and an additional EUR 224 million for bilateral projects to help increase vaccine uptake. Part of Germany's overall contribution are EUR 850 million targeted support for vaccine logistics and strengthening of absorption capacities, especially in African countries (''LastMile Initiative'') bilaterally and multilaterally through ACT-A. All contributions are subject to parliamentary approval.India: Will continue to extend boosters coverage to eligible populations and expand vaccinations to those under age 18, and continue working towards complete vaccination coverage for India's adult population. With the increased funding allocated for the 2022-2023 domestic health budget, will provide insurance coverage for healthcare workers, increase the number of health and wellness centers. Will increase the number of integrated public health and regional disease control laboratories, as well as bio-safety labs. Is increasing zoonotic surveillance, and will continue to supply vaccines and work on extending a SARS -CoV2 genomic consortium to neighboring countries.Indonesia: Will provide $5 million to CEPI for the period of 2022-2026, adding to the $1 million contribution made in 2020. Will continue accelerating vaccination efforts to achieve the WHO vaccination goal of the 70% population, including for the 189 million people of Indonesia by June 2022, while ensuring equitable access to vaccines across income and age groups, and those most at risk. Earmarked Rp122,54 trillion of the 2022 national budget to continue vaccination efforts, care for COVID-19 patients, provide health worker and tax incentives, and support local governments. As Co-Chair of COVAX AMC EG, commits to contribute to the global effort to ensure equitable access to vaccines and getting shots in arms, and to increase local and regional vaccine production capacity and research capability, including for vaccines beyond COVID-19 pandemic, including through the use of WHO mRNA technology hubs. In the framework of ACT-A, will continue to accelerate global equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE through its roles as Co-Chair of the Tracking and Accelerating Progress Working Group and as Member of the Facilitation Council, the Financial and Resource Mobilization Working Group, and the Vaccine Manufacturing Working Group. As G20 President, supports the establishment of a new financing facility to ensure adequate and sustained financing for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, with a central coordinating role of the WHO, and supported by the World Bank and in close cooperation with international partners. Commits to strengthen the central role of WHO in coordinating global health actions through leadership in the Working Group on Strengthening WHO Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies together with the United States. Through multilateral cooperation , seeks political and financial support for developing countries, including as Co-Host of COVAX AMC Summit and Second Global COVID-19 Summit, and ACT-A diplomatic outreach with likeminded partners.Italy: Will donate an additional 31 million doses through COVAX and pledge 200 million euros via the ACT-Accelerator and in order to strengthen global preparedness. Japan: Will contribute up to $500 million to COVAX and expand the scope of the Last One Mile Support of additional $30 million US dollars to 17 new Latin American and the Caribbean and African countries. Pledges to contribute $300 million to CEPI. Will provide assistance of up to $200 million USD through JICA to enhance local production capacity for pharmaceutical and medical products including vaccines in Africa. Total contributions increase from $3.9 billion USD announced at the first Summit to $5 billion USD.Liechtenstein: Provided CHF 300,000 to COVAX in 2022.Nepal: Will accelerate vaccine coverage and immediately prioritize fully vaccinating and providing boosters to at-risk populations. Will provide a detailed plan and targets at the national and sub-national level for getting shots into arms and overcoming key barriers for at-risk populations, and will track and report on full vaccination and booster rates by key subgroups. Will designate a ''high-level leader'' to coordinate with donors, multinational development banks, and the COVID-19 vaccine delivery partnership. Will also develop a national and community level strategy to expand access to testing and prompt treatment, focusing on those at highest risk and integrating COVID-19 testing /treatment with existing health systems, and will update relevant testing and treatment guidelines. Will improve and expand community access to testing and treatments and pharmacovigilance programs. Will support health and frontline workers by providing PPE and water, sanitation, and hygiene access, and training.New Zealand: Will provide NZD 2.25 million to UNICEF to fund COVID-19 diagnostics in Vietnam and to maintain essential health services in the Philippines, and NZD 8 million to the Global Fund's COVID-19 Response Mechanism for lifesaving tests, treatments and personal protective equipment. Will continue its support in the Pacific region to enable access to and uptake of vaccines within comprehensive public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as continuing its support for health security and health systems strengthening.Nigeria: Will support vaccination efforts for 112 million citizens above age 18 towards a vaccination goal of 70% of the population being vaccinated by December 2022. Will expand access to COVID 19 testing and treatment, focusing on those at highest risk, and will integrate testing/treatment into existing health systems while prioritizing COVID-19 for monthly reporting on the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Reporting system platform. Will train an additional 10,000 frontline healthcare workers by December 2022 on basic infection prevention and control measures, ensuring availability of oxygen, and eliminate stock-outs of PPE. Will strengthen laboratory capacity for genomic sequencing and specimen bio-banking for both diagnostics and surveillance activities, and will implement a national bio-bank policy. Will designate highest-level leadership to coordinate relevant government sectors to achieve these goals, in collaboration with the international community and its development partners, and will progressively increase domestic health budgets. Will promote businesses in Nigeria to integrate health security into organizational policies and business goals.Norway: Provided USD 222 million to the 2021/2022 budget cycle of ACT- A. Supports establishing a global health security and pandemic preparedness fund housed at the World Bank.Pakistan: Will accelerate vaccine coverage from 82 percent to 90 percent and provide boosters to eligible and at-risk populations, including school-aged children eligible for vaccines (age 12-18), by summer 2022. Plans to launch a second iteration of its robust national vaccination campaign in late May, striving to vaccinate hard-to-reach populations.Palau: Will maintain a proactive and robust response to the ongoing pandemic, maintain and enhance existing services and plans including non-COVID essential services, and will strengthen social protection programs for the vulnerable and affected population.Philippines: The Philippine government committed to measures to boost efforts for expanding health care capacity that adheres to global standards, to adopt systematic approaches for effectively implementing emergency programs, and to develop a Comprehensive Pandemic Response Framework that will safeguard the country from future pandemics.Republic of Korea: Will provide $300 million USD for ACT-A over 3 years, from 2023-2025. This builds on the $212 million USD committed to ACT-Accelerator since its launch. Support developing countries move toward vaccine self-sufficiency by establishing WHO Global Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Hub. Express political support for the pandemic preparedness and global health security fund at the World Bank.Rwanda: Will vaccinate five- to eleven-year-old children with at least one dose by the end of 2022 and will vaccinate at least seventy percent of the total population with the primary series (two shots) by June 2022. Will double booster coverage from thirty percent to sixty percent of those eligible, and will continue to expand the Government of Rwanda's capacity to locally manufacture vaccine.Saudi Arabia: Provided $2.8 million to the WHO in 2022 to provide logistical support for vaccine delivery in order to vaccinate ten percent of Yemenis.Senegal: Commits, with Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD), to facilitating the new $200 million Madiba (Manufacturing in Africa for Disease Immunization and Building Autonomy ) biotechnology platform, which will include production of vaccines against COVID-19 and other diseases. In support of the project, Senegal has mobilized financing of $91 million, including an EIB loan of $79 million, and has made a 3.3 Hectares site available. The project also benefits from grants from IFC, DFC, EIB, EU, and AFD, amounting to $14 million. Spain: Will provide EUR 100 million to support new COVID-19-related bilateral projects. Will provide USD 200 million for the purchase of 30 million vaccines for donation through COVAX and bilaterally, as needs dictate. When combined with previous donations, Spain will have pledged to donate up to 100 million vaccines, remaining as one of the largest vaccine donor worldwide.South Africa: South Africa is committed to work with African leaders to achieve vaccine coverage through mass campaigns across the continent. We continue to advocate for a TRIPS waiver in the WTO to improve global access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Committed to getting more life-saving vaccines to those in need, South Africa is donating 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 10 million doses of the J&J vaccine to other African countries. It has contributed $10 million to the Global Fund and plans to contribute financial support to the ACT-Accelerator. As an AU Champion will work towards a goal of 200 million tests administered by the end of 2022 by resourcing and supporting member states to implement Africa CDC's Enhanced Surveillance Strategy, which includes community-based testing, wastewater testing, and sentinel surveillance. In the same capacity, we tabled at the AU Summit in February and got an endorsement for a common agenda for manufacturing vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and health products on the continent. The continent's largest COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plant opened in South Africa last year, and mRNA hubs for tech transfer have been opened in South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Kenya and Nigeria. Multilateral agencies and philanthropists need to be procured vaccines and boosters from African manufacturers to ensure the developing capabilities of the continent are retained. Finally, South Africa supports the formation of the Fund as a mechanism to finance global health security.Sweden: Committed its health experts to help improve international global health architecture and help advance policies on improved pandemic preparedness. Donated 10 million vaccine doses to COVAX.Taiwan: Pledges an additional contribution of $1.5 million to support the fight against COVID. Will continue to provide PPE and medical equipment to fight COVID worldwide, having contributed $70 million in this effort since April 2020.Tanzania: Will vaccinate 70% of eligible Tanzanians by fall 2022.Thailand: Will donate over 3.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, worth $14.5 million, in 2022. Will continue investing in the development of COVID-19 vaccines and cooperate with global partners on vaccine testing, research and development, and production. Will continue working actively on disease prevention and health emergency preparedness in neighboring countries to better address particularly communicable and emerging diseases. Supports in principle the initiative to establish the pandemic preparedness and global health security fund at the World Bank.United Arab Emirates: Will provide $10 million in financial contributions for the ACT-Accelerator and $50 million in-kind assistance of equipment.United Kingdom: Since December, has committed £265 million [$327 million] to the global response to COVID-19 as part of the commitment to ending the acute phase of the pandemic in vulnerable countries and future pandemic preparedness, including £105 million to expand testing capacity globally and boost oxygen supplies, and £160m as part of the UK-hosted Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit to support CEPI to reduce the time to develop vaccines against new health threats '' including new COVID variants '' to just 100 days. The UK has spent over £2.1 billion since 2020 to help end the pandemic, address its social and economic impacts and to support global efforts to fund, and distribute vaccines fairly.United States: Committed an additional $200 million to the pandemic preparedness and global health security financial fund at the World Bank in 2022, bringing the U.S. total pledge to this fund to $450 million to date. In FY 2023, the President's Budget calls for an additional $4.75 billion for this fund. Committed to share U.S. Government COVID-19 vaccine-related intellectual property and research tools for greater global access. Committed to rapid review of generic products for global COVID-19 response. Committed to pilot ''test and treat'' strategies for the most vulnerable populations in low and middle-income countries to help prevent hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. Committed to additional vaccination support through Global VAX. Committed to expand investments in bilateral global health security programs. Committed to expand dose donations to include boosters and pediatric doses to accelerate global vaccine coverage. Committed to improving guidance for vaccine development to enhance protection. These commitments build on previous commitments announced in 2022, including support for a financing facility for COVID-19 vaccine purchases and delivery through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and advancing COVID-19 vaccine research and development through the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Commitments[2] from Non-Governmental Organizations, Private Sector, Philanthropies

In addition, we have received commitments from more than 50 organizations, including local and international non-governmental organizations, businesses, philanthropies, advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, and other members of civil society. To date, new commitments in 2022 outlined below exceed $700 million for vaccinating the world, saving lives now, and building better health security.

Abbott: Abbott will make available to low and middle income countries (LMICs) a dedicated portion of its global manufacturing capacity for WHO EUL-approved antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag RDTs), amounting to a minimum of 20 million tests per month and a total of 240 million tests for an entire year, a commitment that amounts to nearly a quarter of the global goal of ensuring access to 1 billion tests in 2022 announced in September.Abt Associates: Commits to convening a global coalition to identify health system innovations that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic that can be adapted and scaled to transform future health systems and Build Better Health Security. As a trusted partner of the governments of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, Abt Associates developed tools and innovations in our work and will share them broadly. We invite other countries and partners to engage in this collaboration.Access to Advanced Health Institute and Immunity Bio: commit to manufacturing next-generation T-Cell vaccines for pandemic preparedness that are stable at room temperature, rapidly modifiable to address current and emergent pathogens, and provide potent, broad and durable protection in sub-Saharan Africa at the billion dose scale by 2025. Commit to bringing the latest immune-stimulating cell therapy and vaccine technology through clinical trials and centers of excellence to develop licensed vaccines and breakthrough immunotherapies that address the pandemics of infectious disease and cancer around the Globe. Committed to expend $1 billion USD over the next 5 years to produce billions of doses of vaccines, fusion proteins, and natural killer cell therapy at our million square feet of 11 plants we currently own globally.Africa Frontline First (AFF): Commits to raising $15M by September 2022 in the first phase of its work to build better health security. AFF is a collaborative new financing initiative led by Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to professionalize 200,000 community health workers across 10 African countries by 2030. This workforce will expand critical surveillance, testing, and treatment for emerging disease threats, maintain life-saving care during emergencies, and provide quality jobs, particularly for women.Amref Health Africa, HQ: Commits to increase access to and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in thirty-one countries in Africa. The activities will be led across 11 projects with multiple partners to support the administration of over 4.5 million vaccine doses across 31 countries in East and Southern Africa, training over 15,000 community health workers, and facilitating access to vaccines in hard-to-reach areas. To ensure delivery of this commitment, $46,117,000 has been secured to date.The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Commits up to $125 million to Build Better Health Security through vaccine research and development, enhanced integrated disease surveillance, workforce capacity development, and expanded access to pandemic tools in low- and middle-income countries. These new investments, which are an extension of the foundation's longstanding commitment to health equity, are aimed at ending this pandemic and ensuring the world is prepared to prevent another pandemic.BlackRock Foundation: Commits $5 million to ensure immediate, equitable access to Covid-19 diagnostic tools across the world, in partnership with FIND '' the global alliance for diagnostics '' to keep people safe, halt new variants in their tracks and address urgent clinical needs. BlackRock will support FIND to deliver on the goal of increasing the number of daily Covid-19 tests taken in low-income countries from 7.3 per 100,000 individuals to 100 per 100,000 by the end of 2022.Catholic Relief Services '' US Conference of Catholic Bishops (CRS): Commits to work with its in-country teams to increase vaccine coverage and uptake, directly supporting COVID-19 vaccinations in 22 countries and mobilizing at-risk populations in over 100 countries. CRS will engage local stakeholders to facilitate collaboration and connect local partners with donors to advance localized funding. CRS will mobilize American Catholics to advocate for an equitable global response and will engage with peer organizations through the INGO COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative. Commits to leveraging its network of over 1500 partners to communicate essential information to reduce COVID-19 transmission, illness and death. CRS will serve as the Global Fund C19RM lead in Republic of Congo, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone, leading on procurement for tests and other commodities. CRS will address the secondary impacts of COVID-19, such as education disruption, the loss of primary caregivers, fraying social cohesion, and increasing hunger and malnutrition. Commits to using its available resources to identify, finance, and fill gaps in health systems in the countries in which it operates. CRS will continue implementing activities to address vaccine hesitancy, conducting primary research to inform vaccine strategies, supporting faith-based organizations, and financing critical health workforce trainings. Further, CRS will continue to work with Ministries of Health and other health service providers to strengthen the capacity of resilient health systems.Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI): Commits to ensuring affordable and effective antiviral COVID-19 treatment is available in low- and middle-income countries. CHAI has negotiated agreements with generic suppliers to make generic Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir '' NIR/r) available at under $25 USD per treatment course for treatment of COVID-19. Equitable access to oral antiviral medications, especially for high-risk populations, will help save lives and limit the impact of future surges.Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI): Commits to helping fill the gaps in vaccine research and development that threaten to undermine progress against COVID-19, working in partnership with institutions in low- and middle-income countries. Such research, including clinical trials on ''mix-and-match'' and fractional dosing, will help to inform COVID-19 vaccination strategies globally. Commits to funding the development of broadly protective COVID-19 vaccines and working to enable equitable access to these globally. Will work to reduce global pandemic risk by delivering innovative R&D programs that help to develop safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines in 100 days. This includes advancing vaccines against known threats; producing a library of prototype vaccines against critical viral families; investing in vaccine manufacturing innovations; advancing enabling science programs critical to rapid vaccine development; and connecting stakeholders to enable rapid countermeasure development, effective response and equitable access.CORE Group: Will work with country partners to provide training on addressing vaccine misinformation through social behavioral change norms and provide evidence-based communication training and tools to increase demand and uptake for COVID-19 vaccine. CORE Group will conduct knowledge sharing events and sessions at the regional and global levels, to share innovative ideas of addressing vaccine hesitancy, share tested and translated resources, and convene civil society to improve COVID19 vaccine uptake. Will convene global stakeholders to ensure implementation strategies around health security with a One Health approach and advocate for greater representation of civil society, including people with disabilities, women and children, and under-served communities, to be included in the planning and discussions around their own health security. We commit ensuring evidence-based technical direction and collaboration around Covid-19, global health security, through an integrated multi-sectoral approach, at our October 2022 Global Health Practitioner Conference.COVAX: Will continue to help close the equity gap by supplying COVID-19 vaccines and working with partners to help lower-income countries turn vaccines into vaccinations and strengthen health systems. COVAX is mobilizing funds to support AMC country readiness and delivery, roll out donated doses and launching the Pandemic Vaccine Pool as a contingent financial mechanism so we can respond rapidly to new pandemic risks and bolster regional manufacturing.COVID Collaborative: COVID-19 has now left a staggering 10.4 million children worldwide orphaned by the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver. Many of these children face abuse, violence, and institutionalization. That is why COVID Collaborative, in collaboration with Oxford University, and with support from The New York Life Foundation, commits to advocate for and catalyze country-level policies to incorporate family-based care for COVID-bereaved children into national COVID-19 response plans, focusing on high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa.Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte): Commits up to US $3 million to make publicly available a playbook that outlines processes and protocols that enable society to provide and scale health-care support and resources, thereby helping to address COVID-19 variants and surges, in support of the goal to Build Better Health SecurityFIND: Commits to enhancing efforts for timely testing, including self-testing, in vulnerable groups, providing vital information to assess transmission in diverse populations and formulate strategies to prioritize those most at risk. These efforts will also help focus testing and treatment strategies. Commits to supporting LMIC governments in the development and roll-out of scaled up testing and test-and-treat programmes, focused on vulnerable populations and equitable global access, as well as maintaining the data gathering and reporting systems that will allow global, regional and national decision-making based on the best possible information about the state of the pandemic. Commits to identify and work with partners for the development and validation of multipathogen diagnosis and care pathways, which must include COVID-19. These new tools and diagnostic pathways will also be designed and tested to strengthen surveillance systems for both endemic and pandemic-prone pathogens, and link to the use of enhanced capacity for genomic sequencing.Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Commits to partner with other organizations to lead advocacy for new investments in pandemic preparedness that are grounded in human rights, integrated with health systems, and include multiple stakeholders. The organization will help mobilize global advocacy to remind donors that the US is hosting the replenishment of the Global Fund, another effective tool in building health systems and preparing for the next pandemic alongside a new pandemic preparedness fund.Family Health International (FHI) 360: Commits to engaging in at least 20 LMICs with governments, local organizations, and communities to build their capacity to provide COVID-19 vaccine service delivery and generate demand for COVID-19 vaccines. FHI 360 commits to documenting and sharing innovative ideas and approaches to overcoming vaccine hesitancy globally. Commits to converting technical tools and resources to global goods and taking proactive efforts to make these tools available to LMICs and promote their use for strengthening COVID-19 response programs. FHI 360 commits to enhance health workers' capacity to deliver oxygen to patients in clinical settings and improve oxygen ecosystems in at least 25 LMICs, to promote equitable access to the highest quality clinical services possible. Commits to support at least 15 LMICs to achieve their health security goals and achieving International Health Regulations (IHR) targets and achieve Sustainable Development Goals. FHI 360 commits to developing new tools and technologies to support these efforts.Global Health Council (GHC): Commits to continued advocacy with U.S. congressional leaders to accelerate financing for COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. Global COVID-19 supplemental funding is urgently needed to support these national and sub-national campaigns to make progress toward the 70% target, prioritizing groups like frontline health workers, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. GHC will continue to bolster commitments amongst stakeholders within multilateral organizations and ensure these bodies are sustainably-resourced and well-equipped to address the world's most pressing health needs.Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC): Committed to amplify evidence of gaps in upstream vaccine research and development (R&D) for the COVID-19 response and work to ensure political support and additional resources to support R&D of next-generation vaccines designed to better reach the last mile and address emerging variants and for strengthening regional research and manufacturing capacities. This includes expanding multisector support for clinical research, strengthening regulatory pathways, and mobilizing sustainable financing for regional manufacturing hubs. Will hold public- and private-sector stakeholders accountable to unlocking funding and advancing research to expand the pipeline of affordable, easy-to-deploy diagnostics and therapeutics, particularly for use in low-resource settings. Will galvanize partners to push for more efficient regulatory pathways for novel COVID-19 technologies; bolstered testing, surveillance, genomic sequencing, and data sharing to better detect and monitor emerging variants; and strengthened regional manufacturing capacities. Supports the creation of a new pandemic preparedness fund and will leverage its network to highlight how the fund should be utilized to bolster country and regional pandemic research and development (R&D) capacities. GHTC is also supporting the Global Health Security Agenda R&D Task Force to develop a tool that enables countries to assess their R&D preparedness capabilities with the goal of aligning emerging financing with articulated R&D gaps.Google.org: Donating an additional $150 million in Search ads to the World Health Organization, Gavi, government agencies, and nonprofits to ensure users searching on COVID-19 related topics such as vaccines, testing, or economic recovery initiatives are connected with credible sources. This brings Google.org's total in-kind global commitment to COVID-19 recovery to over $1 billion.HelpAge USA: Commits to promoting the dignity, wellbeing, and voice of older people. We are working with partners at global, regional, national, and local levels to develop and implement inclusive community engagement and advocacy strategies that effectively support COVID-19 vaccine access and uptake among older people and achieve global vaccine equity. Our organization's goal aligns with the summit's objective to vaccinate the world.Henry Schein, Inc.: Henry Schein commits to working in partnership with the WHO to develop platforms for supply chain data collection to strengthen the resilience of the global healthcare supply chain. This work represents an expansion of the Pandemic Supply Chain Network (PSCN), a public-private partnership founded in 2015. Henry Schein serves as private sector lead of the PSCN, with more than 60 companies participating together with the WHO and other multilaterals. Henry Schein is contributing its core competencies to support this effort, and a cash donation of $25,000.The Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition 2 (Unilever and the UK Government's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)(HBCC2): Will encourage vaccine uptake and combat vaccine hesitancy alongside continued hygiene messaging, using its hygiene and behaviour change platform to incorporate vaccine confidence messaging where vaccines are available. The coalition will reach millions through incorporating vaccine messages into public campaigns and programmes, and create digital tools that support people with information on COVID-19 vaccines, including where it is available and how to access it (where applicable). Will help millions of people by supporting measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 in 18 countries across Africa and Asia by provision of critical WASH products and services as hygiene remains the first line of defence against the virus until vaccines reach all. The coalition will provide communities with hygiene advice and training, products, and handwashing facilities in institutions such as schools, health centres and public places. Will work with national governments and institutions to strengthen local capacity and build resilience of health systems and communities against new COVID-19 variants and future pandemics. The hygiene vulnerabilities and inequalities the pandemic has exposed must be eradicated if we are to defeat the virus and improve health security for all. HBCC2 will advocate for increased investment in hygiene and pandemic preparedness at national and global level.International Rescue Committee (IRC): Commits to extending the capacity of governments to deliver Covid-19 vaccines in humanitarian settings as soon as delivery funds and doses become available to us. Based on our current infrastructure and capacity, we can deliver 32 million doses, fully vaccinating 16 million people. With $160 million dollars and sufficient doses, we could reach nearly all eligible people in the fragile and conflict affected settings where we work across 30 countries.IPG Health/McCANN HEALTH: Committed to working with countries to develop more effective ways to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake.Living Goods: Commits to supporting community health workers (CHWs) to ensure high levels of uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Living Goods commits to supporting government operations for widespread COVID-19 vaccine rollout to the individuals in the rural communities served by Living Goods-supported CHWs. Finally, Living Goods commits to encouraging uptake of COVID-19 vaccination among frontline health workers and other high-risk populations. Commits to working in partnership with governments to train all staff and community health workers (CHWs) we support in COVID-19 prevention, early case detection, reporting procedures, and personal safety measures. Living Goods commits to supporting CHWs to educate communities on prevention, testing and where to receive care. Living Goods commits to using digital tools to support CHWs to conduct COVID-19 case screenings and connect CHWs with disease surveillance networks. Commits to partnerships with the governments of Kenya, Uganda, Burkina Faso, and others to build resilient community health systems that can withstand shocks. This includes supporting governments to strengthen digital tools that enable the delivery of health services and ensure pandemic preparedness. Over the next five years, Living Goods commits to supporting 32,000 CHWs and their supervisors to reach 18 million people across five countries with quality care.Management Sciences for Health: Is costing vaccine delivery to the last mile so that countries, multilateral institutions, and donors can prepare to effectively deliver critical COVID-19 vaccines and achieve the goal of vaccinating the world. This work will help countries better allocate financial resources through evidence-based and sustainable strategies. To date, the organization has supported the vaccination of almost 17 million people across several countries. Management Sciences for Health is committed to Saving Lives Now by continuing to provide access to critical health services, medicines, and other therapeutics across countries, including in fragile and conflict-affected states. The organization continues to focus on strengthening pharmaceutical-sector governance, national public health institutions, regulatory and information systems, infection prevention and control measures, response coordination mechanisms, and emergency supply chains for COVID-19 commodities across governments, the private sector and civil society. Management Sciences for Health is announcing new investments in learning critical lessons from the COVID-19 response by convening a global workshop to examine critical gaps in health security and develop impactful, responsive, and essential recommendations for better pandemic preparedness. MSH is committed to working with country policymakers and government officials to ensure the necessary national policies are in place so that countries are better prepared for future threats through a multihazards approach to pandemic preparedness.MedAccess: Commits to provide a $100 million guarantee to accelerate access to COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX cost-sharing mechanism. The guarantee is part of a $200 million risk sharing facility, with the Open Society Foundations, that will help COVAX respond to country demand for additional doses to meet national vaccination targets.Mastercard Foundation: Mastercard Foundation is deploying USD $200 million in partnership with a collaborative of seven African higher education institutions to strengthen the resilience of public health systems in Africa and enabling them to contribute to economic development, and prosperity. To do so, this initiative will train 30,000 front-line health providers and policy shapers and is projected to create 20,000 health sectors jobs; and to enable 2,000 health ventures to improve and expand primary health services and products in the next 10 years.Merck & Co., Inc. (Merck): Committed to make two million patient courses of its investigational oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine, LAGEVRIO (molnupiravir), available to USAID at Merck's best access price to increase access in lower-income countries. This builds on previous efforts, including an agreement with UNICEF to supply up to 3 million courses of LAGEVRIO and voluntary licenses to generic manufacturers and the Medicines Patent Pool facilitating access in over 100 low and middle income countries. Committed to provide $5 million annually in 2022-2024 to support efforts to understand how to build vaccine confidence and reach underserved populations through use of social media. This builds on Merck's earlier funding to help establish The Vaccine Confidence Fund to support research exploring how online communications can influence offline health behavior and build vaccination confidence, and its related announcement with multi-sector stakeholders of the Alliance for Advancing Health Online.Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI): Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI): Commits to support the Financial Intermediary Fund by using the Global Health Security Index as a tool to inform pandemic preparedness needs'--so resources can be allocated to countries most in need and to address the most significant gaps. NTI also commits to contribute $35,000 to the Fund once established'--reflecting our view that catalytic funding is needed to guard against current and future biological threats.Nursing Now Challenge: Commits to engaging its network to build advocacy skillsets for early-career nurses and midwives to deepen their storytelling skills and to launch local, regional and global efforts to vaccinate the world. The NNC network of immunization advocacy champions will be led by early-career nurses and midwives. They will lead their own vaccine advocacy campaigns and will deliver their voices to at least three global policy forums and quarterly online events.Open Society Foundations: Open Society Foundation's impact investment arm, the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), commits to provide a $100 million procurement guarantee designed to strengthen COVAX's capacity to increase the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Together with an additional $100m guarantee from MedAccess, the guarantees would free up an additional $200m in donor funds, and position COVAX to deploy an additional 190 million vaccine dosages to low- and middle-income countries globally in 2022.Osprey Foundation: Committing $4,000,000 to faith-based organizations that can positively influence COVID-19 vaccine access and uptake in sub-Saharan Africa. Commits to increase vaccine demand in several sub-Saharan African countries by supporting faith leaders and their networks to overcome disinformation and address the root causes of vaccine hesitancy for their communities in both digital and non-digital realms. Concurrently, Osprey Foundation will fund faith-based interventions to improve the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines by strengthening the core of last-mile vaccine infrastructure, improving vaccine readiness, and supporting effective vaccine rollout initiatives.Pandemic Action Network: Commits to press governments, multilateral agencies, and donors to galvanize the necessary investments, coordination, and incentives to support delivery of accelerated, robust, and equitable global vaccination plans to achieve equitable global immunization levels. In support of this and all Summit goals, Pandemic Action Network commits to mobilize at least 100 new partners, and Network partners commit to invest at least US$175 million by the end of 2022. Commits to support efforts to drive forward a dynamic global test-to-treat strategy, increase transparency on pricing and supply of tools to fight COVID-19, and advocate to prioritize access to testing, timely reporting, and treatments. The Network also commits to and to create a steady drumbeat of advocacy, coordination, and civic engagement and hold partners accountable for their commitments. In 2022, commits to work with the World Bank, WHO, governments, and other stakeholders to design and launch a dedicated new global fund for pandemic preparedness; mobilize significant new political and financial commitments for the fund; promote cross-country, cross-regional cooperation, and sharing best practices and lessons learned to inform more effective and equitable preparedness and response plans and implementation, to be ready either for the next COVID surge or next potential pandemic.PATH: Commits to supporting COVID vaccination campaigns by providing training, mentorship and supervision to health workers tasked with vaccination and to deploying and scaling digital tools to track vaccination and generate demand through targeted social media campaigns. This includes a $5 million investment to reach an estimated 20 million vaccine-hesitant individuals in two years. Additionally, PATH will support the development of a new affordable COVID-19 vaccine that could be manufactured in Brazil, Thailand and Vietnam. Commits to working with stakeholders to improve oxygen delivery in 10 countries. PATH will work with local partners to build their diagnostics capacities and support the advancement of more affordable and reliable COVID diagnostics in LMICs. PATH will stand up interoperable digital systems in four countries to provide the country governments with the information they need to identify and manage outbreaks vaccination coverage, manage vaccine supplies, and track vaccination records. Commits to leveraging our technical expertise to equip world leaders with the information they need to design a better architecture for global health security. PATH commits to advocating for the funding needed to establish the new global health security and pandemic preparedness fund and holding leaders accountable for other commitments made during the 2nd COVID-19 Summit. PAX sapiens: Will work with engaged civil society, philanthropic, government, and private sector actors to identify and promote sustainable funding sources for pandemic prevention, new approaches to information sharing, institutional design, and standards for data collection and sharing, and to encourage new donors to support pandemic prevention. PAX's work will include grantmaking through the previously announced commitment of $200 million, convening and engagement with other organizations, and developing new information for effective prevention.PerkinElmer: Commits to saving lives now by making COVID-19 tests available to all low- and middle-income countries for under $5 per test based on volume commitment and supply chain feasibility. PerkinElmer knows that detecting COVID-19 is still a public health challenge in many places and believes this will enable critical access to diagnostics. PerkinElmer remains dedicated to continuing to develop accessible diagnostic solutions to address the global public health challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.Pfizer Inc.: Will work to solve concrete challenges to vaccine distribution: working with partners, including UPS, to enable extended use of its shippers to deliver 9.3 million doses to regional vaccination centers in 36 states in Nigeria; expanding its partnership with drone delivery service Zipline to enable transportation of more 380,000 mRNA vaccines on 1,485 drone flights to remote areas; and completing studies to support the extension of transportation time to 48 hours at 2-8 degrees. Pfizer's COVID-19 oral treatment could significantly change the COVID-19 treatment paradigm, potentially reducing illness severity, hospitalization rates and deaths among a broad population of patients, subject to regulatory authorization or approval. Working with partners such as UNICEF, Pfizer will supply nirmatrelvir [PF-07321332] tablets and ritonavir tablets to countries in need, including emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This agreement is part of Pfizer's comprehensive strategy to work toward worldwide equitable access.Platform for ACT-A Civil Society & Community Representatives (co-hosted by WACI Health, Global Fund Advocates Network (GFAN) and STOPAIDS): Will advocate for support of the TRIPS waiver and sharing of vaccine equipment and doses with COVAX and countries. Will advocate for and coordinate community CSO input on a test and treat strategy. Will mobilise support to fully fund ACT-A, advocating for robust health system perspectives, supporting greater community representation in ACT-A and future mechanisms.Private Sector Roundtable on Global Health Security (PSRT): The Private Sector Roundtable on Global Health Security (PSRT) '' a cross-industry coalition of companies committed to leveraging private sector expertise to strengthen health security '' commits to expand efforts to build regional/country capacity in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. We will seek to partner with a regional institution and three low-middle-income countries in that region to provide a suite of tools, trainings and expert guidance over the next three years to Build Better Health Security.Rotary International: Commits to providing access to our public health infrastructure and network built to facilitate polio eradication and provide free health services to vaccinate the world. Rotary Family Health Days and National Immunization Day campaigns are available to accelerate vaccine coverage in multiple regions with at-risk populations in high-risk countries. With Rotary's 1.4 million members worldwide, and over 55,000 African members, our health infrastructure, and relationships with local and national government health departments remain active. Rotary can quickly mobilize, as strategy, structure, accountability, and funding become available.The Rockefeller Foundation: The Rockefeller Foundation's Global Vaccination Initiative commits USD 55 million to support country-led efforts to fully vaccinate 90% of the most at-risk populations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Funding will support programs to increase vaccine demand '' access, trust, and information '' while leveraging data from trusted, credible sources to strengthen health systems to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.Sabin Vaccine Institute: Commits $9 million through its Global Immunization program in 2022 to better understand and address vaccine delivery, acceptance and demand barriers in LMICs; bolster collaboration among immunization professionals; foster action to address barriers in universal vaccination development; and better apply epidemiology to maximize vaccine rollout effectiveness. Sabin commits to fostering the action of 3,000+ close-to-community professionals delivering vaccinations in LMICs '' including health workers, program managers, researchers and journalists.Seed Global Health: Research estimates that for every $1 allocated to vaccine production, $5 is needed for delivery, with majority cost being associated with health worker training, support, and protection. Establishing integrated health worker networks from the last mile to the facility is critical to enabling access to vaccinations. . Seed Global Health commits to partnering with governments to train and deploy the health workers required to put shots in arms while supporting counter-misinformation campaigns to reduce vaccine hesitancy. Health workers deliver every element of pandemic response and preparedness. Commits to scale our direct work in training and care to sustain essential services to an additional 3 million people; to protect education to strengthen the pipeline of health workers; to respond to emergencies on the frontlines, modeling new methodologies of diagnosis and care; and to align and mobilize the political commitment and resources to support health workers and save more lives. Health workers are the backbone of resilient health systems and pathway to economic recovery and global health security. Commits to mobilize a social contract for health workers, to galvanize action beyond applause. Centered on core principles that provide the evidence-based rationale, framework and accountability, this compact will mobilize and align investments, policies, and programming around long- term country-led planning, to scale-up and protect fit-for-purpose health workforces in service to the world.The Task Force for Global Health: Will partner with countries to strengthen immunization programs and field epidemiology training. Through Hepatitis, Polio and Neglected Tropical Diseases programs, we'll support COVID-19 efforts for the most vulnerable. We'll distribute medical supplies/equipment and support public health worker mental health and resilience. We'll convene thought leaders to envision building upon COVID-related investments for sustainable systems. We'll advance the scientific understanding of rare adverse events after COVID-19 vaccinations, advancing evidence-based decision-making.Thermo Fisher Scientific: In partnership with Afrigen Biologics and Labotec, we are providing cutting-edge technology and personalized capacity building to enable production of the first locally designed and constructed COVID vaccine for Africa. Our support for this WHO-coordinated, end-to-end, sustainable mRNA vaccine production hub includes facility design and bacteria cultivation tools to support DNA plasmid creation, as well as investing in time and expertise to transfer technical knowledge and support so scientists and healthcare leaders can create their own future. As part of our Mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer, we have a responsibility to provide access to COVID-19 diagnostic solutions that reach every population, community and individual, regardless of geography or socioeconomic circumstance. We will continue to provide low price, high-quality diagnostic solutions to Governments, United Nations and other global partners because testing is the cornerstone of a continuum of care and treatment of COVID-19 globally. We recognize the importance of building upon lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to collaborate with Governments, the United Nations and other global partners to create resilient systems to better prevent, detect and respond to the next emerging pathogen. This includes helping to create federated, open pathogen surveillance systems, designing and funding knowledge transfer programs to enable the next generation of scientists in LMICs, and investing in local manufacturing models.United Nations Foundation: The United Nations Foundation supports Building Better Health Security through encouraging high ambition, sustained attention, and diverse coalitions to strengthen multilateral capacities for preparedness and response. This includes convening and engaging partners to support Geneva-based processes; supporting solutions for incremental financing, including a Financial Intermediary Fund housed at the World Bank; and engaging Member States in New York and capitals to diversify and broaden a high ambition coalition for this agenda.UPS Foundation: Commits to the pro-bono delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to countries below the average vaccination rate for Africa. In 2022, the UPS Foundation also plans to deliver 2 million doses to Cameroon, up to 3 million to Ethiopia, and up to 4 million to Zambia. The UPS Foundation commits to expanding upon its existing Ghana medical drone network in 2022 to provide the delivery of critically needed supplies and expand access to quality health care. In-country transportation has been committed for 1 million doses to new Zipline drone distribution centers in Nigeria and Kenya. In Malawi, the UPS Foundation is funding in-country drone delivery provided by Swoop Aero and Village Reach with plans to reach 3 million people. In partnership with UNICEF, the UPS Foundation is funding 'Ultra Cold Vaccine Training' in Malawi, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya. UPS Healthcare: Commits to delivering 5.9 million vaccines to Nigeria in addition to the 9.3 million previously delivered. The shipment is funded through UNICEF and USAID, and coordinated with technical expertise from UPS and donated ultra-cold chain equipment. To date, UPS Healthcare has delivered more than 1.4 billion COVD-19 vaccine doses to over 110 countries. Wellcome Trust: As a founding partner of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations we committed $150M to CEPI this year, as part of Wellcome's commitment to spend £16B over the next ten years on science to improve health. This includes funding for Infectious Disease and Pandemic Preparedness, to help buildnetworks to detect outbreaks before they escalate, to trainpublic health professionals and enhance capacity globally, and expand Research and Development of countermeasures. Wellcome also supports mobilising additional funds to prevent future pandemics, and is providing £10 million in seed funding toward establishing the pandemic preparedness and global health security Financial Intermediary Fund at the World Bank, signalling our early philanthropic commitment to working in partnership with others in the fund. We applaud this Summit which comes at a critical moment. We believe these collective commitments will contribute to ensuring equitable health security for all and the world has the knowledge and networks in place to prevent and respond to emerging threats whilst remaining committed to long standing endemic health issues of importance to communities.Women in Global Health: Commits to advocate for: Equal leadership representation in global health governance, including pandemic decision making and advisory bodies; a new social contract for women health workers with safe, decent and equally paid work. This includes protection from harm and personal protective equipment designed for women's bodies; and addressing the gender dimensions and impacts of pandemic policies and programmes, using sex disaggregated data.[1] All commitments made in 2022 are counted toward the goals of the 2nd Global COVID-19 Summit. Of these, approximately $3.1 billion were raised in new funds, not yet announced.

[2] All commitments made in 2022 are counted toward the 2nd Global COVID-19 Summit. Of these, approximately $700 million was raised in new funds, not yet announced.

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Archived Version

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 08:48

The United States has drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution encouraging ''the immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force'' to Haiti in response to the rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian situation there, according to a copy of the resolution obtained by The Washington Post.

The drafting of the resolution follows a push by U.N. Secretary General Ant"nio Guterres for the creation of an international force to bolster the Haitian National Police as powerful armed gangs destabilize the country, disrupting the supply of fuel and electricity to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The resolution is the first sign the Biden administration may be willing to participate in a Haiti mission that has a military component. U.S. officials have been noncommittal when asked about requests to send U.S. forces to lessen the violence and misrule that has led to a shortage of clean drinking water and threatens to worsen a cholera outbreak.

The resolution does not identify specific countries that would participate in the rapid reaction force, nor does it spell out what roles those nations would play.

Neither the White House nor the State Department immediately responded to requests for comment about the draft resolution, which was first reported by the McClatchy news organization. A spokesperson for the Haitian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment either.

A Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, declined to comment.

A person familiar with discussions underway within the U.S. government, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the matter is considered sensitive, said that any American military personnel involved in a Haiti mission would likely provide logistical support only. This person said they were unaware of any plans to put U.S. ''boots on the ground.''

Steep fuel price hikes spark violent protests in Haiti

The United States has long been reluctant to deploy military forces in Haiti. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would accelerate the provision of humanitarian aid to Haiti, and ''increase and deploy'' security assistance for the country's national police ''in coming days.'' He did not specify what that could entail, saying only that the aim was to ''strengthen their capacity to counter gangs and reestablish a stable security environment under the rule of law.''

In this week's proposal, Guterres recommended that countries send a rapid-response force that would be followed by a mission led by the United Nations. In the draft resolution reviewed by The Post, which a diplomat said was up to date as of Friday, the United States is ''encouraging the immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force to support the [Haitian National Police], as recommended in the Secretary General's letter.''

It is unclear the degree to which other members of the U.N. Security Council support such a move, if China or Russia would veto the proposal, or if the current draft may change substantially before being proposed by the United States as soon as Monday.

The resolution also imposes an arms embargo, asset freeze and travel ban on criminal elements in Haiti. It singles out Haitian gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, who is known as Barbecue, as someone who has ''engaged in acts that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Haiti and has planned, directed, or committed acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.''

In Haiti, a man named Barbecue test the rule of law

Last month, Cherizier, who leads the group G9 Family and Allies, blocked access to Varreux Terminal in Port-au-Prince, the capital. The port is responsible for about 70 percent of the fuel distributed in the country.

Cherizier is seeking a change in the leadership of the country, governed since last year by Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who assumed power after the assassination of President Jovenel Mo¯se. Mo¯se's killing remains unsolved.

The blockade has exacerbated a dire economic and social situation in Haiti. Hospitals are running out of fuel in the middle of a resurgence of cholera early this month. Banks are open three days a week, as opposed to six normally. At least one bank branch is scheduled to close next week due to fuel scarcity.

Cholera resurfaces in Haiti as gangs hinder access to water, hospitals

According to the World Food Program, 4.7 million people in Haiti face varying degrees of hunger, with an estimated 19,000 experiencing what the organization considers catastrophic levels.

Port-au-Prince is increasingly becoming an isolated island with gangs, often tied to the political and economic class, blocking the main roads, all but eliminating connection to the north and the south of the country. Their grip renders it extremely difficult for humanitarian assistance to reach those in needs.

Outgunned by the gangs, the Haitian National Police has lost control of the situation. Local media reported that in recent days a gang seized an armored vehicle and stole the equipment inside.

On Saturday, the State Department issued a statement saying U.S. and Canadian military aircraft arrived in Port-au-Prince that day to deliver ''vital Haitian government-purchased security equipment, including tactical and armored vehicles,'' to Haiti's authorities.

''The equipment will assist the [police] in their fight against criminal actors who are fomenting violence and disrupting the flow of critically-needed humanitarian assistance,'' the statement said.

Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report. M(C)rancourt reported from Port-au-Prince.

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Archived Version

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 20:25

Will Wilkerson, then an executive at former president Donald Trump's start-up Trump Media & Technology Group, was at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., coffee shop with company co-founder Andy Litinsky last October when Trump called Litinsky with a question: Would he give up some of his shares to Trump's wife, Melania?

Trump Media, the owner of the fledgling social network Truth Social, had just been boosted by a huge merger agreement and a flood of investment that had made the stake worth millions of dollars. Trump had already been given 90 percent of the company's shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement, leaving everyone else to split the rest.

Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump ''the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn't pay,'' Wilkerson said in an interview. ''Trump didn't care. He said, 'Do whatever you need to do.' ''

Five months later, Litinsky, who first met Trump in 2004 as a contestant on the TV show ''The Apprentice,'' was abruptly removed from the company's board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president's wife. Litinsky thought so, too, according to an email Wilkerson and his attorneys shared with The Washington Post and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that email, Litinsky complained that Trump was ''retaliating against me'' by threatening to '' 'blow up the company' if his demands are not met.''

Litinsky did not respond to emails and phone messages. It is unknown whether he still retains his shares.

The email '-- one of hundreds of previously unreported company messages, documents, photos and audio recordings that Wilkerson has provided to the SEC in connection with a whistleblower submission '-- reveals a stunning portrait of the animosity that has built up inside Trump Media since its high-profile debut last year.

Promoted as the centerpiece of Trump's post-presidential business ambitions, the company had marketed itself as a budding media empire, with enterprises planned in social media, video streaming, live events and online payments '-- a powerful rival not just to Twitter but Disney, Google and Amazon.

But inside the company, Wilkerson said, those plans gave way to bitter infighting, technical failures and a chaotic jockeying for power among Trump allies that undermined its potential and left some employees crying at their desks.

Wilkerson, who was fired from his job Thursday as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to The Post, filed the whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August. The complaint, drafted by Wilkerson's attorneys, alleges that the company's bid to raise money via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, relied on ''fraudulent misrepresentations '... in violation of federal securities laws.''

The SEC, a federal watchdog agency, allows members of the public to submit tips, complaints and referrals about suspected financial wrongdoing via a document the agency calls a Form TCR. Whistleblowers can be granted confidentiality protections and, in some cases, financial awards. Litinsky did not join in the complaint.

Read Wilkerson's full SEC whistleblower disclosure

Wilkerson is cooperating with investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, said his attorneys, Phil Brewster, Patrick Mincey and Stephen Bell. Among the materials he filed with the SEC's whistleblower office is a detailed, day-to-day computer log compiled by company co-founder Wes Moss, Litinsky and Wilkerson about their daily company-related activities.

He also provided to The Post a copy of that log as well as numerous other memos, photographs and videos that chronicled the creation of Trump Media. All of the materials Wilkerson shared with The Post were previously provided to government investigators, his attorneys said.

The SEC and the SDNY declined to comment.

In an SEC filing in December, Digital World acknowledged that the SEC was investigating and had sought documents related to the merger with Trump Media. In another filing in June, Digital World said it had become aware that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to its board members seeking documents related to its initial public offering filings and ''communications with or about multiple individuals.'' The investigations, the company said, could ''impede or prevent'' the merger.

Wilkerson said he was still working for the company on Oct. 6 when his SEC complaint was first reported by the Miami Herald. A Trump Media attorney sent Wilkerson a letter that night suspending him for what the lawyer said was a ''blatant violation'' of his nondisclosure agreement.

After interviewing Wilkerson alongside his attorneys, The Post on Wednesday sent a detailed list of claims and questions raised by Wilkerson's allegations to representatives for Trump, Trump Media and the Trump Organization, Trump's long-running family business.

Only Trump Media responded, saying in a statement that Trump, as company chairman, had hired former congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as CEO to ''create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.'' The company said it was already a success, having launched on the Apple and Google app stores, ''executed multiple feature updates'' and attracted millions of users. ''Ignoring these achievements, The Washington Post sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.'' The statement did not directly address any of Wilkerson's claims.

Trump Media fired Wilkerson on Thursday, citing his ''unauthorized disclosures'' to The Post. Brewster, his attorney, called the termination ''patent retaliation against an SEC whistleblower of the worst kind.''

Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that is pushing to take Trump Media public, has asked shareholders to give the company more time to finalize the merger, which would unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump Media but is effectively frozen pending the outcomes of the federal investigations. Digital World and its chief executive, Patrick Orlando, did not respond to requests for comment.

The revelations to the SEC from Wilkerson, the most prominent company official to speak publicly about its operations, come at a turbulent time for Trump Media's business. Investors, discouraged by the halted merger, have sent the SPAC's share price plunging from a high of $175 to less than $18 on Friday. Roughly 4 million users follow Trump on the company's sole product, Truth Social '-- far below his Twitter peak of 88 million. The company has pledged to investors it would surpass 50 million total users by 2024.

In past public statements, Nunes, Orlando and Trump have argued that Trump Media will ultimately prove to be a successful business. But Wilkerson said he expects its internal problems could lead the company to fall apart.

''We weren't trying to be Trump Org 2.0,'' he said. ''We always saw Trump as the rocket fuel to send this thing to space. I wanted this to succeed more than anything. '... But these are glaring issues, and they're threatening me now for calling them out. I couldn't stay quiet anymore.''

Truth Social faces financial peril as worry about Trump's future grows

Wilkerson, 38, isn't a traditional Trump critic.

When Litinsky and Moss, another former ''Apprentice'' contestant, first started discussing the idea of a multipronged Trump media business after Trump's November 2020 election loss, the men had asked for his help developing the business, Wilkerson said. A former executive producer for Litinsky's conservative radio show, Wilkerson was excited about monetizing the following of a person he considered a master marketer with 40 years as a political and household name.

Wilkerson shared a photo from that time of the men sketching the original concept on a whiteboard, titled ''Trump's New Media Empire,'' that would ultimately compose the company's public pitch, including new business lines (''Trump Digital Subscription,'' ''Trump Documentaries'') and a chain of ''Trump technologies,'' including in servers and online payments.

After Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump was banned from major social networks, the men drew up plans for a tech platform that would be ''resilient to cancel culture and the impact of bias against the right,'' according to the daily log Wilkerson shared with The Post and the SEC.

How social media 'censorship' became a front line in the culture war

To meet with Trump, the men sought help from another ''Apprentice'' contestant, Bradford Cohen, a Florida criminal-defense attorney who represented two rappers, Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, to whom Trump had granted clemency on his final day in the White House.

In late January, three weeks after the riot, Cohen, Litinsky and Moss met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his opulent home and club in Palm Beach, Fla., to discuss the idea. Over cheeseburgers, Diet Cokes and ice cream, the men offered to build Trump a media company that he would own 90 percent of without putting in any of his own money, Wilkerson said. He was interested, and Trump Media was born. Cohen and Moss did not respond to requests for comment.

Raising money, however, proved to be a major challenge. The investment bankers they called rejected them because of fears over Trump's post-election behavior, Wilkerson said. So they started cold-calling SPACs. Known as ''blank-check companies,'' SPACs sell shares to investors before merging with a private company, allowing the combined business to make money on the stock market without abiding by the traditional transparency requirements of a public listing.

They ultimately found a willing partner in Orlando, a financier in Miami who had recently launched a SPAC, Benessere Capital Acquisition, with $100 million in its coffers. In late February, Orlando, Wilkerson and other Trump allies outlined the vision for Trump in a Mar-a-Lago dining hall, taking photos to remember the moment.

''We viewed ourselves at the time as the Avengers,'' Wilkerson said. ''We were an unstoppable force.''

Jan. 6 Twitter witness: Failure to curb Trump spurred 'terrifying' choice

The next several months were a frantic rush to meet with potential partners, hire workers and build the business, Wilkerson said. The daily logbook shows the men flying to meetings with conservative media figures and exchanging proposals at bars, golf clubhouses and pizza joints. The team, Wilkerson said, also gave Trump regular in-person updates at Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower and his golf club in Bedminster Township, N.J.

But as the company became more legitimate, it also started running into problems. Trump's umbrella company, the Trump Organization, disputed a long-signed agreement between the start-up and Trump himself, demanding more control over how Trump's likeness would be used, Wilkerson said. And Trump's adult sons '-- Donald Jr. and Eric '-- began asking for large stakes in the company, Wilkerson said, even though they had been almost entirely uninvolved. Representatives for the Trump family business did not respond to requests for comment.

''They were coming in and asking for a handout,'' Wilkerson said. ''They had no bearing in this company '... and they were taking equity away from hard-working individuals.''

Orlando brought his own issues. In June 2021, he'd raised tensions when he sent Trump a birthday letter in which he devoted hundreds of words to Trump's ''thought leadership'' and ''quick and genius guidance'' during a recent meeting discussing the company's name and logo.

''I was unaware of the extent of your brilliance,'' Orlando had written. ''On your birthday, my only wish is that you realize how proud we are of your successes to date.'' The letter agitated the co-founders, Wilkerson said, who found it mawkish and overly familiar.

Moss and Litinsky were further unnerved when Orlando routed roughly $8 million into Trump Media, via an unknown group called the ES Family Trust, but refused to say where it had come from, Wilkerson said. Their previous investments had come from people they knew, but this money appeared to have been routed from a bank in the Caribbean island of Dominica through a cryptocurrency company, according to wire transfer and financial documents from the transaction that Wilkerson shared with The Post and the SEC. Digital World and Orlando did not respond to requests for information about the transaction or other reporting in this article.

Trump SPAC faces grand jury investigation

When Orlando had first gotten involved, he'd suggested merging Trump Media with Benessere, the already-public SPAC. But Orlando also began suggesting a second option, Wilkerson said: one of Orlando's newer SPACs, Digital World, that had yet to be launched but could raise much more money. In his complaint to the SEC, Wilkerson said the original SPAC ''could not sufficiently capitalize [Trump Media] at a valuation that was acceptable'' to Trump and the company's leaders, and that it would also ''result in Orlando making less money compared to substituting Orlando's future SPAC.''

Digital World's registration form, filed with the SEC in May 2021 and signed by Orlando, said the SPAC and its representatives had not ''initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target.'' But in Wilkerson's complaint, he claims that Digital World and Trump Media had ''substantive communications'' regarding a merger that he alleged violated SEC rules.

On April 14, 2021, Moss and Litinsky learned in a meeting with Orlando that the Benessere deal was no longer viable but that Digital World could be an option, Wilkerson said; an entry in the computer log notes that day that ''the BENE deal is OFF!!!!''

After leaving the meeting, Wilkerson said, the men were so stunned by the suggestion of something they believed to be improper that they wondered whether it was a government setup or if Orlando had been wearing a secret recording device. The log quotes Litinsky in calling it the ''roughest day so far'' and says, ''Patrick [Orlando] pitches [us] plan b, I get scared, is he wearing a wire?''

The men arranged a brief follow-up meeting with Orlando shortly after '-- this time, to record their conversation with him, during which they stated their concerns. ''We can only engage in discussions after they're public. That's the rule,'' Litinsky can be heard saying on the recording, a copy of which Wilkerson shared with The Post and the SEC.

Orlando responded, ''That's exactly the rules we have to play by.'' He then added, ''We have to be very smart. Obviously, we can talk hypothetically about if there were another vehicle,'' at which point Litinsky cuts him off. Later, Orlando says, ''We'll make some magic happen.'' The men exchange some more pleasantries before parting ways.

Three months later, in late July, an entry in the log said Moss eventually talked to ''djt on phone to discuss potential plan b.''

The Post asked three SPAC experts about whether a SPAC's leadership knowing its target merger partner, and not disclosing it before filing its initial public offering document, known as a Form S-1, would violate SEC rules.

John Coates, a former acting director of the SEC's corporate finance division, told The Post, ''If the identity of a merger partner is known before a Form S-1 is filed and goes effective, it must be disclosed, whether it's a SPAC or not. For a SPAC, a known merger partner is even more obviously material to investors.''

Michael Klausner, a Stanford University law professor, said it would violate SEC regulations and argued that ''a failure to disclose the SPAC's plans would be an end-around the IPO rules.''

Michael Ohlrogge, a New York University law professor, said the failure to tell investors could violate the SEC's rules against material misstatements and omissions, but that there can be gray areas in instances where a sponsor runs multiple SPACs and targets a company with one SPAC after having seriously considered it with another. For example, in one instance involving a maritime shipping company, he said, the SEC halted its review of the SPAC's filings but eventually allowed the merger to proceed.

Digital World held its initial public offering in September 2021 and announced its plan to merge with Trump Media one month later. The SPAC ultimately raised roughly $300 million, not including a separate $1 billion bundle '-- known as a ''private investment in public equity,'' or PIPE '-- from an unidentified group of investors set to pay out once the merger is complete.

In one video Wilkerson shared from October 2021, Orlando can be seen standing in the Trump Media office toasting with a large bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne.

In a video Will Wilkerson sent to the SEC, Digital World and Trump Media executives toast an investment deal on Oct. 26, 2021. (Video: Will Wilkerson)

''I really want to build a $100 billion company. I think this is the team to do it,'' he said. ''Andy and Wes and the entire team '... I'm so happy to be working with you guys. We're going to see a lot of each other for decades to come.''

Trump's Truth Social in trouble as financial, technical woes mount

The log cites daily notes of Moss, Litinsky and Wilkerson strategizing how to handle the Trump family's growing interest in the business's rising fortunes; one person advised them, for instance, that Trump Jr. ''needs a bedtime story and some love,'' an entry shows.

The timeline entries also show the men growing accustomed to dealing with Trump's sudden reversals and rage. On Sept. 23, 2021, the log records cite Litinsky saying, ''President trump calls me in morning to yell at me because don jr is upset.'' The next day, ''Don jr calls Wes and yells at him.'' On Oct. 12, ''djt calls in crazy mood and he tries to renegotiate the entire deal '... don jr walks in room and wants to get paid.'' On Oct. 30: ''djt is pissed.''

Tensions also began to grow inside the company over who was in control. Litinsky, Moss and Wilkerson, eager to hire a point person to handle financial marketing and public scrutiny, had in November gotten dinner at an Atlanta steakhouse with then-Rep. Nunes, a Trump loyalist and prominent Republican critic of Silicon Valley, Wilkerson said. Two months later, Nunes resigned from Congress to become the company's CEO with Trump and the co-founders' support.

Company filings show Nunes is paid a base salary of $750,000 a year that could increase to $1 million in the second year, plus bonuses and equity. He had no prior experience leading a tech company.

Wilkerson has expressed sharply critical views of Nunes's leadership of the company. He told The Post that, in Nunes's first days at the office, Nunes began exhorting workers to come in early and stay late and berating company officials over what he saw as flawed decision-making. Wilkerson added that he believed this fueled acrimony among the company's more established employees.

He began ''bringing in a camp of people who were Nunes loyalists,'' Wilkerson said, ''to the point where it became very fractious and hampered our ability to be productive.''

A small team of developers raced to build Truth Social from the company's WeWork office floor in Atlanta, Wilkerson said. In February, shortly before it opened to the public, Wilkerson published the first post, or ''truth,'' to Trump's profile: ''Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!'' In a video he shared with The Post, Wilkerson can be shown hitting the button and saying, ''History has been made.''

Will Wilkerson posted the first post, or "truth," on former president Donald Trump's Truth Social profile in February 2021. (Video: Will Wilkerson)

FBI attacker was prolific contributor to Trump's Truth Social website

But days later, the site had an embarrassing launch, including a 13-hour outage and an overwhelming waiting list for new accounts. Wilkerson said many of the issues had been the fault of third-party vendors, including the video site Rumble, which he said had been delayed in preparing server hardware for the site's debut.

Rumble spokesman Brian Doherty denied his company bore any responsibility for Truth Social's difficult launch. Truth Social, he said, has run fully off Rumble's servers since April and the company looks ''forward to continuing to support'' Trump Media.

In March, Wilkerson said, the company underwent a major shake-up. The board of directors, once composed of Trump, Litinsky and Moss, dropped Litinsky and added Nunes, Trump Jr. and a former Nunes aide, Kash Patel. Within days, the company's chiefs of technology, product development and legal affairs resigned. Wilkerson said he remembers some other employees tearfully processing the sudden upheaval.

''It was such a violent removal of the founders of this thing,'' he said. ''It was a very jarring experience, and it set this company on a path where it may not be able to be redeemed.''

'What value does the company have?'

Truth Social's website has stabilized, and Trump has taken to using it as his primary online megaphone. But the site's audience remains tiny compared with major social networks and '-- unlike its original proposal, promising a ''big tent'' for all kinds of political thought '-- it has been criticized for featuring largely pro-Trump comments and memes. Elon Musk, Twitter's likely next owner and the world's richest man, told the Financial Times last week that Truth Social is ''a right-wing echo chamber'' that ''might as well be called Trumpet.''

The Digital World's merger freeze also has thrown the company's future into doubt. The company originally promised to close the merger by last month, but Orlando has since begun asking shareholders to vote to push back the deadline in hopes of resolving the federal investigations and sealing the deal.

Digital World '-- with help from its sponsor, Arc Capital, an investment firm based in Shanghai '-- has paid roughly $3 million to give itself until Dec. 8 to finish the merger. The company has delayed shareholder meetings three times, including earlier this week, without announcing whether it has received approval for an extension from the required 65 percent of shareholders.

The company has warned that a failed vote could force it to liquidate, without Trump Media pocketing any of the money it had raised. In an SEC filing last month, Digital World said investors had sent termination notices between Sept. 19 and 23, pulling out roughly $138 million from the PIPE.

The company, which has submitted SEC filings suggesting it has ''enough operating capital'' to last ''until at least next spring,'' recently changed its headquarters address from an office in Miami's upscale Brickell financial district to a mailbox in a UPS Store in the Miami neighborhood of Coconut Grove.

Trump says he won't rejoin Twitter. Some advisers don't believe him.

Truth Social's hallmark '-- Trump's involvement '-- has been undermined by the possibility that a Musk-owned Twitter could restore Trump's account. Trump has insisted he would not rejoin Twitter even if he is reinstated, though some Trump advisers told The Post they think he wouldn't be able to resist.

Trump has also undermined confidence in the deal, saying in a Truth Social post last month that he may just end up skipping out on the SPAC deal and taking the venture private because he's ''really rich.''

''If he takes his bat and his ball and goes home, what value does the company have at that point?'' Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson said he hopes that by speaking out he will help protect the company's shareholders from possible harm. His attorneys said the information he has shared should shield him as a protected whistleblower from company retaliation, and they have questioned the terms of Trump Media's nondisclosure agreement.

''It is drafted to silence him, to prevent him from talking, and to punish him if he does so,'' his attorney Phil Brewster said.

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Sat, 15 Oct 2022 15:18

PremiumIn his last note, Michael Hartnett, whose call to short the S&P almost 1000 points higher just two months ago is becoming more legendary by the day, predicted that as markets increasingly rebel against QT and the Fed's tightening cycle, they would force themselves to break amid the selling deluge which is also why he predicted that stocks would suffer new lows first, ostensibly as soon as late October, before the return of buybacks around Halloween sparked a furious bear market rally scramble, which lasts for a few months, before reversing violently into the new year when risk assets finally crash to their cycle lows - somewhere at or below 3,000 on the S&P - at which point the full-blown central bank panic which has already started to pick up speed, together with declining inflation and collapsing job market, both of which will become apparent after the midterms, will finally unleash the long-awaited Fed pivot sparking the next bull market (there is of course more in his last not, which we discussed here).

Which brings us to his latest note (available to pro subs) where, you guessed it, there is no break from his ultra-bearish views - now that him and Michael Wilson are competing whose S&P price target will hit 0 first - and extending on the point he made last week writes that "investors close to the point where all they want is to be hugged''...

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Sat, 15 Oct 2022 15:16

One year after the Fed was rocked by a trading scandal which cost the jobs of three Fed henchmen, including Dallas and Boston Fed presidents, Kaplan and Rosengren, and Fed vice-chair Richard Clarida (who couldn't wait to be sacked for cause or otherwise just to get back to Pimco) after financial disclosures showed they had been trading extensively in individual stocks in 2020 during a period in which the Fed engaged in extraordinary market interventions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, moments ago Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic joined the club of inglorious Fed traders when he revealed he had improperly disclosed financial transactions for the past five years because he incorrectly interpreted policies governing personal investments.

As the WSJ reports, according to amended disclosures filed Friday, dozens of sales or purchases of mutual funds and other investment vehicles by Bostic hadn't previously been disclosed. Adding insult to injury, more than 150 of those transactions had settled on dates when they weren't allowed because they were during blackout periods before and after Fed policy meetings. And the cherry on top: last year Bostic also held more than $50,000 in Treasury securities, exceeding the then-permitted limit on such holdings for Fed officials.

In other words, the first black and openly gay president of the Atlanta Fed was violating pretty much every rule in the book. His excuse? It was "inadvertent."

Bostic said the lapses were due to his flawed interpretation of central bank policies. He said he had sought to correct his filings and overhaul how he manages his personal accounts ''as soon as I became aware that my financial reporting did not meet the expressed or implicit expectations necessary to maintain the public's trust.''

He added, ''At no time did I knowingly authorize or complete a financial transaction based on nonpublic information or with any intent to conceal or sidestep my obligations of transparent and accountable reporting.''

In a statement Friday, Bostic said that he was not aware of the specific trades or timing of the transactions, which were made by a third party manager in accounts where he did not have ability to direct trades. He detailed the transactions in corrected disclosure forms posted to the Atlanta Fed's website.

''I take very seriously my responsibility to be transparent about my financial transactions and to avoid any actual or perceived conflicts of interest,'' Bostic said in the statement adding that he "sincerely regrets" if his actions raise questions (they do). So "seriously" that it took Bostic one year after the Fed's trading scandal to go over his own disclosures and find that pretty much nothing had been disclosed in them.

The chairwoman of the Atlanta Fed's board, Elizabeth Smith, said the board had accepted Bostic's explanation and that the directors were confident Mr. Bostic hadn't sought to profit from any private policy-setting deliberations.

''We are satisfied with his revised financial disclosures and the changes he has made in managing his investments,'' Smith said in a statement released Friday. ''The board is also satisfied that President Bostic has established procedures to ensure that future violations do not occur.''

Statement from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Board Chair Elizabeth A. Smith

For immediate release: October 14, 2022

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's board of directors has been made aware of inaccuracies in President Raphael Bostic's forms that disclose his personal financial assets and transactions. Furthermore, we learned of transactions that took place during blackout periods and of holdings that violated guidelines set out by the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC.

After reviewing the documents and discussing these issues with President Bostic and the Atlanta Fed's chief ethics officer, the board acknowledges the violations and accepts President Bostic's explanation. My board colleagues and I have confidence in President Bostic's explanation that he did not seek to profit from any FOMC-related knowledge.

The directors appreciate that President Bostic has thoroughly corrected his financial forms, going back to when he first joined the Atlanta Fed. We are satisfied with his revised financial disclosures and the changes he has made in managing his investments. The board is also satisfied that President Bostic has established procedures to ensure that future violations do not occur.

We are also aware that the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will review this matter. We welcome this review and will cooperate fully to ensure this matter is effectively resolved.

In response to the Fed's latest trading scandal, Jerome Powell had asked its inspector general to conduct an independent review.

''We look forward to the results of their work and will accept and take appropriate actions based on their findings,'' said a Fed spokesperson.

Powell unveiled sweeping personal-investing restrictions on senior officials a year ago to address the stock-trading controversy. Those restrictions took effect earlier this year, and Bostic's violations were uncovered by Fed ethics officials in Washington as part of a review of officials' disclosures this year. In other words, contrary to his excuse, it wasn't a voluntary disclosure but instead Bostic merely got caught.

As the WSJ reports, since becoming the bank's president in 2017, Bostic placed his financial holdings into accounts managed by a third party that neither he nor his personal investment adviser had the ability to direct. Bostic said he had taken these steps in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest.

But in a seven-page letter disclosing the violations, Bostic said he had recently learned that while he didn't have the ability to direct individual trades, those trades should have been listed on his disclosures. Moreover, Bostic said the third-party manager had conducted transactions during restricted periods even though such transactions were approved outside of those so-called blackout periods.

Bostic's disclosures also showed dozens of transactions'--none of them in individual stocks'--during the most turbulent periods in March and April 2020. Readers can go through these at the following links:

2021 Atlanta Fed President Financial Disclosure2020 Atlanta Fed President Financial Disclosure (previously filed 2020 form)2019 Atlanta Fed President Financial Disclosure (previously filed 2019 form)2018 Atlanta Fed President Financial Disclosure (previously filed 2018 form)2017 Atlanta Fed President Financial Disclosure (previously filed 2017 form)For some context, below is Bostic's latest financial disclosure (pdf link)

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Sat, 15 Oct 2022 15:00

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday confirmed a nationwide shortage of the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder medication Adderall, more than two months after some pharmacies reported difficulties filling prescriptions.

The shortage affects the immediate-release form of Adderall, a stimulant that helps manage ADHD symptoms.

The FDA said in a statement that it was in ''frequent communication with all manufacturers of amphetamine mixed salts, and one of those companies, Teva, is experiencing ongoing intermittent manufacturing delays.''

Teva Pharmaceuticals is the country's largest manufacturer of Adderall. It first reported delays in filling orders in August, attributing them to a labor shortage on its packaging line that it said had since been resolved.

Spokesperson Kelley Dougherty said Thursday that Teva expects ''inventory recovery in the coming months.''

''Teva has active supply of both branded Adderall and its generic version and continues to produce and refill the channel regularly at levels above historical demand. It is possible that some people may encounter a backorder (intermittently) based on timing and demand, but these are only temporary,'' she said in a statement.

Dougherty added that Teva expects ''intermittent delays through end of year.''

The supply from the other Adderall manufacturers isn't enough to meet the need, the FDA said.

The FDA suggested that ''patients should work with their health care professionals to determine their best treatment option,'' which may include alternatives like the drug's extended-release formulation.

The shortage has been ''a mess'' for people who take ADHD stimulants, said Dr. Gabrielle Shapiro, a psychiatrist and a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Shapiro, who sees patients of all ages, said the challenge is particularly acute for children who have been off their medication as the new school year has started.

''Parents are panicked. Their children are being sent home from school or told they cannot come back if they are not on their meds,'' said Shapiro, who is also a member of the American Psychiatric Association's council on children, adolescents and their families'‹'‹. ''I have high school students that are trying to take their SATs and do their applications for college, and they can't focus. They can't get them done.''

''I have high school students that are trying to take their SATs and do their applications for college, and they can't focus. They can't get them done.''

Psychiatrist Dr. Gabrielle Shapiro

Adderall is a controlled substance regulated by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Dougherty said Teva is ''working closely with our manufacturing facility and the DEA to see what additional volume we may be able to support in the future.''

Emily Hoffman, 34, of Seattle, said she has ping-ponged between pharmacies trying to find one with Adderall in stock. Recently, she said, she had to go a week without her medication.

''The fact that it's controlled means you can't ask for the prescription early," she said. "I have to call when I'm down to my last pill or two.''

At Parker's Pharmacy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sales director Tylan Jones said that he has been able to fill Adderall prescriptions for current patients but that there have been delays. He has had to turn away patients from other pharmacies because there isn't enough supply for both current and new customers, and pharmacies are subject to limits on how much of a controlled substance they can distribute.

''We don't want to neglect our patients that we're currently filling here, so, unfortunately, we have to send some patients on their way,'' Jones said.

''Patients sometimes get very frustrated, aggravated, sometimes even aggressive,'' he said. ''But I would say usually it's just patients are disappointed and anxious.''

While Adderall has been in short supply before '-- the FDA reported a shortage from September 2019 through this May '-- Jones said this shortage has been unusually difficult.

'''‹'‹It is something we've seen before, but not to the severity, this bad, before,'' he said.

The shortage has hit pharmacies differentlySome pharmacies have been having trouble filling Adderall prescriptions since the summer. A survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association conducted from July 25 through Aug. 5 found that roughly 64% of about 360 independent pharmacies that responded were having difficulty obtaining Adderall.

Large pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens told NBC News in late August that they weren't experiencing widespread problems, although many people who had unsuccessfully tried to fill their prescriptions at those pharmacies voiced frustration on social media at the time.

CVS said Thursday it was ''aware of intermittent shortages of generic amphetamine medication in the supply chain.''

As for the patients who say the shortages have stretched as far back as August, CVS Health spokesperson Matt Blanchette said only, ''We are working with our patients to meet their needs.''

Walgreens didn't answer questions about its current Adderall supply other than to reiterate that the FDA had confirmed a nationwide shortage.

''Questions about supply and availability need to be directed to manufacturers,'' it said.

A crucial tool in managing ADHDADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by inattentiveness, impulsivity and/or hyperactivity that is severe enough to interfere with school, work and other aspects of life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, based on data from 2016 to 2019, that about 10% of children are diagnosed with it, with boys more likely to receive diagnoses.

Adderall and other stimulant drugs are commonly used to manage ADHD, and demand is higher than ever: Adderall prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. spiked to 41.4 million last year, up by 10.4% from 2020, according to IQVIA, an analytics provider for the life sciences industry. Experts say more awareness about ADHD has contributed to the increase, although there is also concern that stimulants have been overprescribed, because the drug can be abused if it's taken improperly or without a prescription.

In May, Walmart and CVS announced they would stop filling prescriptions for controlled substances from telehealth startups such as Cerebral and Done Health, which prescribe stimulants and gained footing during the pandemic.

For those who need it, Shapiro said, going without ADHD medication can be disastrous.

''They'll feel badly about themselves,'' she said. ''You have a kid that was doing well in school, doing their homework, and all of a sudden they're bouncing off the wall.''

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Source: World | The Epoch Times

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 04:43

Location of the Bandiagara region in Mali in 2022. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

BAMAKO, Mali'--A passenger bus struck an improvised explosive device in central Mali, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens of others, authorities said Friday, blaming Islamic extremists with links to al-Qaeda.

The explosion took place Thursday afternoon in the village of Tile in Bandiagara region, the Malian military said in a statement. Among the victims was a 5-year-old girl. Some 38 other passengers were taken to regional hospitals for treatment.

''The bus leaving for Koro hit an improvised explosive device that was placed by terrorists and deliberately aimed at innocent civilian targets,'' military spokesman Col. Souleymane Dembele said in the statement.

The force of the blast destroyed the bus and sent it 30 meters off the road, Dembele added.

The attack has not been claimed but bears the hallmark of al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups who are known for placing mines on roads to target Malian army vehicles and United Nations peacekeepers.

Mali's military blamed the explosion specifically on the Katiba Macina group, also known as the Macina Liberation Front, which is active in central Mali. The militants are aligned with JNIM, an al-Qaeda linked extremist organization.

In December 2021, an attack by gunmen identifying themselves as jihadists on a public transport bus killed at least 30 people, most of whom burned to death in the vehicle.

Bandiagara was once a tourist hub for Western travelers coming to hike through Mali's Dogon country. However, the Islamic extremists who once were contained to the country's north have infiltrated the central part of Mali, making the area unsafe for tourism.

In 2012 extremists held the main centers of northern Mali but French troops pushed the rebels out of the towns in 2013. But the jihadists continued to operate in Mali's vast northern desert areas, attacking government targets.

Security concerns across the country have deepened since the French military withdrew its troops from Mali. France's decision to move its forces to neighboring Niger came after relations sharply deteriorated with Mali's junta leader Col. Assimi Goita, who seized power in an August 2020 coup.

By Baba Ahmed

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Fri, 14 Oct 2022 19:09

_____ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ | |___| |_ ___ | |_| |_ ___ |_|___| |_ ___ ___ ___ ___| |_ | _|___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___|_|___ | | | | .'| '_| -_| | _| | -_| | | | _| -_| _| | -_| _| | _| _| -_| -_| | .'| . | .'| | | |_|_|_|__,|_,_|___| |_| |_|_|___| |_|_|_|_| |___|_| |_|_|___|_| |_| |_| |___|___| |__,|_ |__,|_|_|_| |___|

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Fri, 14 Oct 2022 18:44

Cap'n Proto is an insanely fast data interchange format and capability-based RPC system. ThinkJSON, except binary. Or think Protocol Buffers, except faster.In fact, in benchmarks, Cap'n Proto is INFINITY TIMES faster than Protocol Buffers.

This benchmark is, of course, unfair. It is only measuring the time to encode and decode a messagein memory. Cap'n Proto gets a perfect score because there is no encoding/decoding step. The Cap'nProto encoding is appropriate both as a data interchange format and an in-memory representation, soonce your structure is built, you can simply write the bytes straight out to disk!

But doesn't that mean the encoding is platform-specific?

NO! The encoding is defined byte-for-byte independent of any platform. However, it is designed tobe efficiently manipulated on common modern CPUs. Data is arranged like a compiler would arrange astruct '' with fixed widths, fixed offsets, and proper alignment. Variable-sized elements areembedded as pointers. Pointers are offset-based rather than absolute so that messages areposition-independent. Integers use little-endian byte order because most CPUs are little-endian,and even big-endian CPUs usually have instructions for reading little-endian data.

Doesn't that make backwards-compatibility hard?

Not at all! New fields are always added to the end of a struct (or replace padding space), soexisting field positions are unchanged. The recipient simply needs to do a bounds check whenreading each field. Fields are numbered in the order in which they were added, so Cap'n Protoalways knows how to arrange them for backwards-compatibility.

Won't fixed-width integers, unset optional fields, and padding waste space on the wire?

Yes. However, since all these extra bytes are zeros, when bandwidth matters, we can apply anextremely fast Cap'n-Proto-specific compression scheme to remove them. Cap'n Proto calls this''packing'' the message; it achieves similar (better, even) message sizes to protobuf encoding, andit's still faster.

When bandwidth really matters, you should apply general-purpose compression, likezlib or LZ4, regardless of yourencoding format.

Isn't this all horribly insecure?

No no no! To be clear, we're NOT just casting a buffer pointer to a struct pointer and calling it a day.

Cap'n Proto generates classes with accessor methods that you use to traverse the message. These accessors validate pointers before following them. If a pointer is invalid (e.g. out-of-bounds), the library can throw an exception or simply replace the value with a default / empty object (your choice).

Thus, Cap'n Proto checks the structural integrity of the message just like any other serialization protocol would. And, just like any other protocol, it is up to the app to check the validity of the content.

Cap'n Proto was built to be used in Sandstorm.io, and is now heavily used in Cloudflare Workers, two environments where security is a major concern. Cap'n Proto has undergone fuzzing and expert security review. Our response to security issues was once described by security guru Ben Laurie as ''the most awesome response I've ever had.'' (Please report all security issues to kenton@cloudflare.com.)

Are there other advantages?

Glad you asked!

Incremental reads: It is easy to start processing a Cap'n Proto message before you havereceived all of it since outer objects appear entirely before inner objects (as opposed to mostencodings, where outer objects encompass inner objects).Random access: You can read just one field of a message without parsing the whole thing.mmap: Read a large Cap'n Proto file by memory-mapping it. The OS won't even read in theparts that you don't access.Inter-language communication: Calling C++ code from, say, Java or Python tends to be painfulor slow. With Cap'n Proto, the two languages can easily operate on the same in-memory datastructure.Inter-process communication: Multiple processes running on the same machine can share aCap'n Proto message via shared memory. No need to pipe data through the kernel. Calling anotherprocess can be just as fast and easy as calling another thread.Arena allocation: Manipulating Protobuf objects tends to be bogged down by memoryallocation, unless you are very careful about object reuse. Cap'n Proto objects are alwaysallocated in an ''arena'' or ''region'' style, which is faster and promotes cache locality.Tiny generated code: Protobuf generates dedicated parsing and serialization code for everymessage type, and this code tends to be enormous. Cap'n Proto generated code is smaller by anorder of magnitude or more. In fact, usually it's no more than some inline accessor methods!Tiny runtime library: Due to the simplicity of the Cap'n Proto format, the runtime librarycan be much smaller.Time-traveling RPC: Cap'n Proto features an RPC system that implements time travelsuch that call results are returned to the client before the request even arrives at the server!

Why do you pick on Protocol Buffers so much?

Because it's easy to pick on myself. :) I, Kenton Varda, was the primary author of Protocol Buffersversion 2, which is the version that Google released open source. Cap'n Proto is the result ofyears of experience working on Protobufs, listening to user feedback, and thinking about howthings could be done better.

Note that I no longer work for Google. Cap'n Proto is not, and never has been, affiliated with Google.

OK, how do I get started?

To install Cap'n Proto, head over to the installation page. If you'd like to helphack on Cap'n Proto, such as by writing bindings in other languages, let us know on thediscussion group. If you'd like to receive e-mailupdates about future releases, add yourself to theannouncement list.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 16:38

Moderna CEO St(C)phane Bancel says the new COVID-19 booster shot is going to help people live ''a normal life'.

Mr Bancel said he was ''not worried'' about the slower uptake of booster doses.

''I think people are going to get comfortable with the fact that we've updated the vaccine,'' he said.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 16:15

CNN host Michael Smerconish spoke with former cable news executives Phil Griffin, who ran MSNBC from 2008 to 2021, and Jeff Zucker, who ran CNN from 2013 to 2022, for an in-depth conversation on the state of media today and its impact on political polarization.

The conversation took place at the Un-Convention, held last week in Philadelphia, billed as ''an exploration of political reforms to improve our election systems and policy ideas to govern a divided country.''

At one point during the fascinating conversation, Smercornish grilled both Griffin and Zucker about their network's limited coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop ahead of the 2020 election '' a topic now used by the right to declare the media both un-trustworthy and in the pocket of the Democrats.

''I think that the Hunter laptop was worthy of more airing than it received right before the election,'' Smerconish began, setting up his question.

''Either of you agrees with me on that? Do you regret? How about if I ask you this way, specifically, do you regret not dealing with it before the election?'' he then asked Zucker.

''Well, I mean, I think I think we, the question is, we did deal with it. But to the degree that, you know, you would have thought was appropriate. I think the answer is in the final two weeks, you know, it was looked at. We did not know enough about it,'' Zucker answered.

''There was not you know, there was not within two weeks of the election, the ability when the messenger on that story was Rudy Giuliani,'' Zucker continued as the audience groaned, adding:

Okay. No, I mean but I mean, that's the problem. It's like you're going to give a lot of legitimacy to Rudy Giuliani delivering, you know, he's got the goods. So part of the issue with that story was who was delivering the goods? Okay. That's one. That doesn't mean that we didn't look into it.

We did. We did look into it. But first of all, you know, with regard to the son of the candidate, you know, he was the son of the candidate. He wasn't the candidate. The question that you'll come back with is, well, but what role did the candidate play in his business dealings? You know, frankly, with ten days or two weeks to go, it was looked at by very credible organizations, including The Wall Street Journal '--Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal '-- and they found nothing at that time.

Okay. So my point is, it's easy to say we should have spent more time on that. Listen, do I think it's legitimate to look at. Sure. Do I think that like it's a legitimate criticism to say that in the ten days, 14 days prior to the election, you didn't spend enough time on it? Not really.

''What do you think?'' Smerconish then asked, turning to Griffin.

''He was never arrested. The Justice Department was looking into it, never reported it until he is the son of a candidate. I don't think it's a main story until that happens,'' Griffin replied, adding:

Now, we looked into it. You know, NBC News did, Tom Winter and Ken DiLanian did a great job. They met with Rudy. He brought a couple of pages printed out from the so-called, from the, from the computer. They asked for a digital copy of it. They didn't get it. But I don't think it was a big story before the election because he was never found. He was never charged.

Zucker then jumped back in and turned the tables on Smercornish, asking, ''Did you cover it?''

''Did I tell you not to cover it?'' Zucker followed up as Smercornish answered.

''I regret it. I regret it,'' Smerconish conceded after Zucker pushed a bit more.

''I talked about it, but I talked about it extensively on radio. But no, Jeff's right. I didn't. And I second guess myself now, I don't think it's a huge story, but I don't think it's a huge story. But I think I look bad by not talking about it at all. I should have said something about the damn issue. That's what I'm talking about,'' Smerconish argued.

''But you didn't know all the facts at the time either,'' noted Zucker.

''No, but I think that we looked partisan by not giving it some air,'' Smerconish shot back.

''I don't disagree with that. But I think you have to be careful to, just because somebody throws a smoke bomb into the arena'... You know, I think listen, it is worth real examination. But, you know, in the 11 days prior to the election, it involves the son of a candidate, you know, who clearly has issues and troubles. You know, what is the extent to which you should do it? We reported on it, but we didn't report on it to the degree that you're saying you thought would have been proper. Okay. That's fine,'' Zucker concluded.

''Do you regret giving Trump as much air as you gave him in 2016?'' hit back Smerconish.

''Of course I do. I've admitted this publicly,'' Zucker replied as the conversation moved on to coverage of Trump.

Watch the full interview above.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 16:04

Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis on GETTR : Dr. Peter McCullough confirms Pfizer defrauded the governments with mRNA injections. Anyone who took it has a higher risk of death. Insurance companies blowing up with deaths especially in the young. The mRNA injection accelerates death from all other causes. Blood clots causing death.Javascript is required to run this app. You need to enable it in your browser.

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 16:01

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:44

In May The World Economic Forum promoted the EU's new plan to use mealworms in food in their bid to reduce meat consumption.

The globalists are pushing for the peasants to eat bugs, weeds and synthetic 'meat' because bugs ''consume fewer resources than traditional livestock.''

''Livestock around the world is responsible for around 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions relating to human activity. The need for land '' whether for grazing animals or growing crops to feed animals '' is ''the single greatest driver of deforestation, with major consequences for biodiversity loss,'' the paper says.

synthetic 'meat'

The European Union will be using mealworms, eaten whole, or in powder form in food. The European Union (EU) has ruled that the larval stage of the Tenebrio molitor beetle, the mealworm, is safe for people to eat and it will shortly be on the market as a ''novel food'''' the WEF said.

TRENDING: SIMPLY THE BEST: Kari Lake Challenges Katie Hobbs to Debate on The View with Joy Behar and Whoopi as Moderators (VIDEO)

In July US Public Broadcasting joined the globalists and urged Americans to eat ''tasty'' insects and bugs to help battle global warming.

And now this'...

Schools in The Netherlands are now serving mealworms and insects to children. They want to get them used to eating bugs.

These are some wicked people .

ðŸ‡"🇱 WEF agenda in full force: Hundreds of schools in The Netherlands have started a campaign introducing 10-12 y/o kids to mealworms & insects as a 'sustainable' meat substitute. The goal is to bring about ''behavioral changes through unprejudiced children''pic.twitter.com/jiQTbvzTFZ

'-- Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) October 15, 2022

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:39

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:37

Barack Obama : If we want our democracy to function, we have to show up this election for the Governors, Secretaries of State and'... https://t.co/sY6FIFjKOD

Sat Oct 15 15:06:11 +0000 2022

Protect Our Election : @BarackObama That phrase "down the ballot" is SO important, since our elections are administered at the county and/'... https://t.co/EnJdtXKe4H

Sun Oct 16 15:36:52 +0000 2022

The48thRonin : @BarackObama If we want our democracy to function, weshouldn't allow extra-judicial killing of anyone, including c'... https://t.co/okXsr3koqJ

Sun Oct 16 15:33:25 +0000 2022

Joe Hall : @BarackObama We need Katie Hobbs to win in Arizona.

Sun Oct 16 15:30:29 +0000 2022

TeresaAz2022 : @BarackObama Yes. Exactly. And vote STRAIGHT RED down the ballot !

Sun Oct 16 15:28:48 +0000 2022

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:32

Viral News NY : #happeningnow in Washington Square park in NYC. Activists chant " BIRDS AREN'T REAL " Protesters state the governme'... https://t.co/3AnqjKWmUG

Sat Oct 15 21:45:40 +0000 2022

USA Escort : @ViralNewsNYC ðŸ¤--ðŸ¤--ðŸ¤--ðŸ¤--

Sun Oct 16 15:31:43 +0000 2022

James Robinson : @ViralNewsNYC I don't know what the hell is real any more. Maybe this is some kind of promotion for a movie, maybe'... https://t.co/ymNj4pWr82

Sun Oct 16 15:30:31 +0000 2022

Arizona Mule ... 🌵'¸ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸ðŸŠðŸ•'›º¸ðŸŽ£ : @ViralNewsNYC @elliott_correia Another nothing burger ... They'd protest oxygen if someone handed them a sign.

Sun Oct 16 15:18:42 +0000 2022

Roddy Nada : @ViralNewsNYC I would believe that more if I always had one sitting on window seal and never left.

Sun Oct 16 15:14:04 +0000 2022

🕶🌞Timeclock : @ViralNewsNYC The best of our public education on full display

Sun Oct 16 15:10:48 +0000 2022

Squonk263211 : @ViralNewsNYC @elliott_correia Seriously. Who raised these fools?

Sun Oct 16 14:51:51 +0000 2022

Mr. Nobody : @ViralNewsNYC @briannalyman2 I think I love these people. I don't dispute that the technology MAY exist for bird "'... https://t.co/OA8YaG4bS3

Sun Oct 16 14:49:52 +0000 2022

Sparkles468 : @ViralNewsNYC This is what psychosis looks like

Sun Oct 16 14:23:54 +0000 2022

Loony one : @ViralNewsNYC This is either ironic or shills sent to discredit actual conspiracies

Sun Oct 16 14:13:08 +0000 2022

: Michelle-J: Cox : @ViralNewsNYC Paid actors. Kabuki Theater.

Sun Oct 16 13:43:57 +0000 2022

Blu Collar : @ViralNewsNYC Flat earthers have found a new hobby I see'...'....ðŸ

Sun Oct 16 13:43:38 +0000 2022

Sorley Boy : @ViralNewsNYC Birdgate!

Sun Oct 16 13:29:32 +0000 2022

Behind Enemy Lines 68 : @ViralNewsNYC This is fake trolling just like Patriot Front.

Sun Oct 16 12:33:54 +0000 2022

L'Homme en noir - The Man in Black : @ViralNewsNYC Where is @RealKidPoker ?

Sun Oct 16 12:33:52 +0000 2022

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:26

Kurrco : Kanye West says George Floyd passed away because of fentanyl and that the cop's knee ''wasn't even on his neck like'... https://t.co/nC8P7jAwxM

Sun Oct 16 05:32:49 +0000 2022

theend : @Kurrco RIP kanye, this is KKKanye

Sun Oct 16 15:25:58 +0000 2022

Yoyovivas : @Kurrco Uh his knee wasn't on his neck...? https://t.co/hdAuEiHZB0

Sun Oct 16 15:25:42 +0000 2022

color coordinate : @Kurrco It always gets me how the ''powers that be'' always make some sorta signaling when shit is going where it sho'... https://t.co/yeazOISEjZ

Sun Oct 16 15:25:40 +0000 2022

AbsolutelyApril : @Kurrco https://t.co/i43FpKskOi

Sun Oct 16 15:25:37 +0000 2022

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Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:23