1660: Doom Goblin

Across two experiments, we find robust evidence that the debunking conversation with the AI

reduced belief in conspiracy theories by roughly 20%. This effect did not decay over 2 months

time, was consistently observed across a wide range of different conspiracy theories, and

occurred even for participants whose conspiracy beliefs were deeply entr

enched and of great

importance to their identities. Furthermore, although the dialogues were focused on a single

conspiracy theory, the intervention spilled over to reduce beliefs in unrelated conspiracies,

indicating a general decrease in conspiratorial worldview, as well as increasing intentions to

challenge others who espouse their chosen conspiracy. These findings highlight that even many

people who strongly believe in seemingly fact

resistant conspiratorial beliefs can change their

minds in the face of sufficient evidence.

Link

A surge of companies now claim to offer hyper-accurate detection services, but their capabilities are largely untested.

Link

ITM gentlemen,

In your last show you did a great job enlightening us about what is going on in the beef and dairy industry. I see some strange coincidences in the Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery and the cattle industry. (reef fish include, groupers, snappers, tilefish ect.) In the last 25 years the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has become more and more restrictive in the participation and regulation of the GOMs fisheries. In the last 25 years the only fishery that has improved and been sustainable is the Red Snapper fishery.

My theory on why this is happening is to collapse the Reef Fish fishery so that all the small time players get out and only a few large corporations own and control the whole thing. If you look at the reality show [Ice Cold Catch](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24253042/ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24253042/") you will see that a large portion of the North Atlantic cod is owned and caught by two large long line boats that are owned by corporations. The fish have to be owned through catch quotas before they can actually be caught. The crew members make a pittance for their time at sea fishing compared to the amount of money generated by the fish sales. (sharecroppers of the sea)

On the other hand, I have a fellow commercial fishing friend who believes that most of these regulations are imposed by interests that import seafood. Between 70 and 80% of the seafood consumed in the USA is imported. ([Seafood Imports](https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2021-05/fus-2019-fact-sheet-v4.2-webready.pdf?null "https://media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2021-05/fus-2019-fact-sheet-v4.2-webready.pdf?null")) If you make all of your money importing seafood would you want the domestic seafood industry to be healthy?

What is an ongoing theme of the No Agenda show? "Life is a scam!" So what is the racket going on in the beef and dairy industry? Did you know that meat sold in the USA labeled "Product of USA" does not have to be raised and slaughtered in the USA. The only thing that has to happen is some of the butchering or processing has to occur in the USA to be labeled " [Product of USA](https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2023/03/06/usda-proposes-new-requirements-product-usa-label-claim "https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2023/03/06/usda-proposes-new-requirements-product-usa-label-claim") ." The idea of removing real meat from the shelves of grocery stores might not be the move here. Between foreign production and a lab grown meat push these might be the underlying causes of scares such as the "bird flu in beef" or "Measels in milk" hype that is trying to be perpetrated on the US public right now.

Here is my prediction for beef from my 23 years of commercial fishing and 10 years of owning a small beef herd. In the GOMs reef fish fishery an Individual Catch Share system (IFQ) was implemented for red snapper in 2005 and then for the grouper and tilefish fishery in 2010. If you had historical landings prior to the implementation of the IFQ system the NMFS averaged your catch and "gave" you that amount of fish to catch every year. So if you averaged 30,000 lbs of red snapper every year and the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) annually during that period was 1 million lbs you would then own 3% of the TAC. At any time the NMFS could say the fishery was healthy or poor condition and change the TAC. Lets say the NMFS cut the TAC to 100,000 lbs. You still own 3% of the TAC but your now only allowed to catch 3,000 lbs of red snapper. If you want to catch more fish you either have to lease or buy IFQ from other fishermen who have quota.

Lets apply this system to beef. Historically you have 100 head of cattle in a total domestic cattle population that is maintained at lets say 20 million. You get issued Individual Herd Quota. (IHQ) You can either maintain your 100 head or you could lease part or all your IHQ to other ranchers. If the government then decides that there are too many head of beef and it's killing the planet they could cut the Total Allowable Beef (TAB ) by 50% to 10 million head and you would be forced to send half of your herd to slaughter. What this does for the consumer is drive the price of domestic beef through the roof. Grouper for example before the IFQ system was always around $18 to $24 a lb. Now it's around $45 a lb. The wealthy person doesn't care about such a price increase and still buys what they want. If the poor folks want to eat fish they have to go to the grocery store and buy communist Vietnamese tilapia that was raised in a ditch full of sewage. Domestic beef price will continue to go up and imported meat will flood our shelves all while large corporations try to encourage us to eat meat "that has no mother!"

None of this is about saving the planet it's all about setting up a scheme to make money while poisoning the general population. It's a win win.

If you want a more in depth conversation feel free to email or give me a call 813 431 8508. Keep up the good work!

Standin by,

capt. ben

Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow’s milk have ticked up 21% to as much as 65% compared with the same periods a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ.

Link

Under the recently announced Climate-Smart Commodities program, the USDA has appropriated $3.1 billion in tax subsidies to one hundred and forty-one new private Climate-Smart projects, ranging from carbon sequestration to Climate-Smart meat and forestry practices.

Hello Adam,

In the morning...

Boots on the ground report from a Health Coach/Educator

for a large Family Medicine organization in Texas. I have been doing

this for over 9 years now and I have noticed several issues that have

only become worse after the GLP1 drugs have come

out.

First so many ADULTS do not eat any vegetables at all

and tell me they physically can't eat them because they taste gross.

Some refuse flat out to eat them. This is weird to me because they are

adults (the children I work with I understand).

A lot of adults do not know basic cooking skills or how to cook in

general or what a well balanced meal should look like. This is a failure

of the school system for removing all home ec classes. I spend a lot of

time teach patients how to cook.

Now to the medications. Most patients do not think these

are forever medications, they all assume they will come off of them

eventually. However anytime they stopped the meds they all report that

they gained weight immediately and all their

cravings came back way worse than they were before. Also, several had

high creatinine levels in their blood after about 6 months on the

medications. Creatinine is a waste product that comes from the breakdown

of muscle tissue and digestion of protein. Normally

high creatinine levels indicates kidney problems, possible kidney

disease, and these patients are put on more medications and low protein

diets.

I'm sure there are more expert producers out there that

can provide more clinical information. My whole job focus is to help

patients manage chronic illness with lifestyle changes, not medications,

so I do my best to give patients hope that

they can get off medications with diet and exercise.

Love is Lit,

Nicole

Novo Nordisk is criticized for focusing on profit, but the prime minister calls the products 'fantastic'.

Link

‘Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health,’ states a letter in opposition from 22 state attorneys general.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has watered down some provisions of its pandemic agreements ahead of the upcoming World Health Assembly on May 27. Critics in the United States, however, say the changes don’t do enough to address the concerns over the policy.

Provisions in prior drafts of the WHO pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHRs) together aimed to effectively centralize and increase the power of the WHO if it declares a “health emergency.”

Link

Airbus

Link

The post, a picture on X of a video gamer leaning forward on their chair as if to indicate he’s taking the game seriously, marked Roaring Kitty’s first post on the platform — or on Reddit — since 202

ITM Benevolent Dictators of NA Nation,

I'm listening to Sunday's show and am at the point where Adam is ranting about dropping Google (Gmail, YouTube, etc.) or whatever other company is invested in Israel. If they are not phonies, are they prepared to do more than wave pre-printed signs and live in green tents.

I am curious: are any of the protesters I keep hearing about on college campuses calling for their fellow students to pay back any scholarships that were funded by these colleges?

If their contention is that their school is benefiting from investments in Israel, has any effort been put forth for them to put their money where their mouth is and return (with interest, of course!) any financial aid that they may have received?

Resist we much and good karma to all...

-Travis

On April 12, 2024, the Internal Revenue Service began notifying thousands of taxpayers that their tax return information was subject to a data breach perpetrated by an independent contractor working for the IRS. During 2018 through 2020, Charles Littlejohn stole the tax return information of thousands of high-net-worth individuals and their related entities and disclosed it to ProPublica and other entities. ProPublica used this tax return information to publish a series of articles about high-profile taxpayers, disseminating sensitive financial data to the public. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to disclosing return information without authorization and was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2024. Now, four years after the data breach, the IRS is notifying affected taxpayers, who are pondering the impact of the breach and what to do about it.

Link

Link

The Unit White Paper - Fractal Monetary Unit

ITM Adam,

I thought you may be interested to see what

foods are approved by Texas WIC, the government’s supplemental food

program for low income families. We were on it in Missouri when my

oldest son was younger. We were not approved for food stamps, because

the WIC income threshold was higher. (This was the case for a lot of our

friends. If you go over the food stamp income by a cent, you suddenly

go from a full month’s food stamp grocery budget to nothing.)

You’ll

notice that they say they are “high protein” but that THE ONLY MEAT YOU

CAN GET IS CANNED FISH (we didn’t even have that in Missouri). You’ll

notice that what it is definitely high in is SUGAR. We also had so much

juice and frozen juice that we didn’t use, because I couldn’t imagine

giving my child juice at every meal. We couldn’t afford meat often, so

our firstborn was basically vegetarian. When he became zinc deficient

and underweight, I got a prescription for Pediasure that WIC covered

($90 for a flat of them, if I remember). That’s when my son began having

40-minute tantrums in which he felt absent. His blood sugar was

spiking from Pediasure, which I discovered other parents experienced,

too. We finally got to a better place financially and went Paleo for a

season, and my son put on weight and improved immediately. All of our

other kids have had grass-fed meat, raw milk, and pasture-raised eggs,

and I’ve never had an underweight toddler again.

https://www.wicoffice.net/texas-wic-food-list

(You need to click on pictures for them to be readable)

I look forward to today’s show!

Krystle

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 May 2024 16:10

John FrancisLet's talk about mifepristone, aka the hard-to-pronounce drug that when used in combination with other hard-to-pronounce drug misoprostol is actually extremely safe and effective at ending unwanted pregnancies in the privacy of your own home. You've probably seen mifepristone in the news recently. Why, you ask? Because certain members of the right wing are completely fixated on ruthlessly attacking reproductive rights and eliminating body autonomy in our country. Ah, I love it here.

The TL;DR is that back in early April, a conservative district court judge in Texas tried to invalidate the FDA's approval of mifepristone, claiming safety concerns. Just a few hours later, a Washington district court judge issued the opposite ruling. It got kicked up to the Supreme Court, and after a few more chaotic legal moves, SCOTUS ultimately decided to preserve access to mifepristone'--for now. Mark your calendar for May 17 when the appeals court will hear oral arguments in the Texas case.

In light of that frustrating mess, we thought it was high time for people who have *actually* used mifepristone to self-manage abortions at home to take the floor. So we partnered with Hey Jane, a virtual clinic that provides abortion pills to patients through the mail. Below, five women open up about how their abortion medication was, in a lot ways, a hugely positive, easy and convenient, life-changing experience.

''It was extremely easy and convenient to access.''When I found out I was pregnant over the summer, I knew I wasn't ready. I felt so guilty. I'm a mom to a darling 5-year-old daughter, but I struggle with mental health issues'--I wasn't in the right place to welcome a new child. I chose to use medication abortion through the mail because it felt way less stigmatized. Plus, it was extremely easy and convenient to access. I ordered the medications online and felt incredibly comfortable doing so; it didn't feel weird or sketchy at all. I didn't even think about using insurance and paid about $350 total out of pocket. My partner, best friends, and therapist all supported me and my choice throughout the entire process. I felt like I had the care and support I needed. '--Christina, 33

''I never once felt judged.''Where we live in California is pretty conservative and there aren't a lot of abortion clinics, and the clinics that are available are pretty expensive, but there's a Planned Parenthood maybe about an hour away. An abortion was gonna run me over $1,000. I could afford it, but it was steep. Plus, at the time, COVID-19 was still running rampant, and a lot of the clinics that I called said I had to go alone. This was such a scary time in my life and that was the last thing I wanted. I called around and googled and Hey Jane came up, and I was like, 'Wait, hold on a second, this is about $250 and gets shipped to my door?' I was so relieved. I had the convenience and the privacy and comfort of being home with my partner rather than alone in a clinic.The whole process was clear, kind, and so caring. I never once felt judged. That was the biggest thing for me because I was already judging myself as a woman and human for what I'm doing'--I didn't need that extra layer of someone else deeming what I'm doing as wrong or having their own feelings projected onto me. I started bleeding rather quickly, and I was nervous about the amount, so I discussed that with my nurse in the Hey Jane app. She was super supportive. I'm a very nervous person, so to have that extra level of care was awesome. I can't stress this enough: You can have safe abortions at home. '--Olivia, 30

''It was so nice to be able to do it in the comfort of my own home.''When I found out I was pregnant, the earliest appointment at Planned Parenthood wasn't for three weeks. I couldn't wait that long and I didn't want to let it go on longer and have it be a bigger process. But I thought the clinic was my only option.My mom sent me an article of places to get abortion pills and I recognized Hey Jane on the list because I had seen them on TikTok. I felt like I could trust them. I went to the site, typed in all the information they asked for, then ordered the pills. That was a Friday, and they came the following Monday. It all honestly felt like I was just having like a really heavy period but only for like four hours. I took the second set of pills before bed, got up a few times in the night to use the bathroom, and then when I woke up in the morning, there was very minimal bleeding. With medical abortion, there's really no recovery time. The day after I took the pills, I went back to my regular routine.It was so nice to be able to do it in the comfort of my own home and to have my partner be able to be there too. I'm very grateful for that because it took away this idea of a scary process. It was like, 'Okay, this is a thing people do.' It's not something to be afraid of'--it's a very easy medical procedure.'--Maya, 21

''It was really empowering.''I was with a friend when I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive. We both were freaking out. She previously had an abortion in a red state and said it was a horrible experience. But later, she had another one in New York through Hey Jane, and that's how I learned about them. I had no idea it was an option. You don't even have to go to the doctor because Hey Jane has an app with a 24/7 medical team. When I got my pills, I took the first one and did high strenuous activity all day and had no side effects'--it didn't even hurt my super-sensitive stomach. Honestly, it was almost like nothing. The second set was different: The bleeding started shortly after and it was pretty painful. I just slept it off and had a good support system between my boyfriend being with me and my friend regularly checking on me.To be able to go through that process in my own space on my own time and have a little bit more control was really empowering. I didn't have to think about it so much. It was just kind of, like, this is my choice that I've made and no one's second-guessing me or trying to dissuade me from my decision. It was awesome that I got to choose when I did it, where I did it, and how I did it. I was in complete control. '--K., 25

''It felt so much safer and more discreet.''I found out I was pregnant about 12 hours before my husband and I went on vacation. We were traveling to Indiana to spend time with friends (ironically, right around the time their governor said he was going to ban the morning after pill), and my friends were telling me, ''If you're here for three weeks, you're going to be further along in your pregnancy so if you're gonna do something, you'd better do it in Colorado.'' But I didn't have time. So I was literally in the passenger seat of the car while my husband drove, scrolling to find information about potentially getting an abortion in Indiana and I found Hey Jane in my search. It was amazing because I was able to do the whole process all from my car on my phone. The medication was waiting for me at home when I got back. As I opened the package, I read the directions probably 500 times'--just to make sure'--but it was really thorough. When I realized I can do this at home, I was beside myself with relief, just crying. You can walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic, and they are wonderful places, but you can't guarantee that you're not going to see your neighbor or that your boss isn't going to drive by. They could make an offhand comment in your workplace or when you're picking your child up from school. It felt so much safer and more discreet. '--Stephanie, 42

Interviews have been lightly edited for clarity.

From the CEO of Hey Jane Abortion Pills Are Here to Stay, Lawsuit or Not Christen A. Johnson is the lifestyle editor at Cosmopolitan where she covers health and wellness, money, career, pets, home, food, travel and more for print and digital. She also dabbles in culture writing, and wrote Cosmo's first-ever digital cover story. Before joining the magazine, Christen was a lifestyle features reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Several of her health and style stories made the paper's front page. When Christen isn't digging through antique stores, she's likely drooling over home renos on HGTV, sharing her latest therapy revelation, redoing old workouts from her college basketball days, or trying to perfect her homemade buttermilk biscuit recipe. Follow her on Insta for BTS ~ editor life ~ tingz!

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Archived Version

Thu, 16 May 2024 13:51

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the 1889 monument in Plymouth, Massachusetts, previously called the Pilgrim Monument. For the 1910 Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Massachusetts, see

Pilgrim Monument.

United States historic place

The National Monument to the Forefathers, formerly known as the Pilgrim Monument,[1] commemorates the Mayflower Pilgrims. Dedicated on August 1, 1889, it honors their ideals as later generally embraced by the United States. It is thought to be the world's largest solid granite monument.[2]

Overview [ edit ] Located at 72 Allerton Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the 81-foot-tall (25 m) monument was commissioned by the Pilgrim Society. The original concept dates to around 1820, with actual planning beginning in 1850. The cornerstone was laid August 2, 1859 by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, under the direction of Grand Master John T. Heard. The monument was completed in October 1888, and was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on August 1, 1889.[3]

Hammatt Billings, Boston architect, illustrator and sculptor, originally conceived the monument as a 150-foot-tall (46 m) structure comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes. Shortly before his death in 1874, Billings reduced the size of the monument, which was to be made entirely of granite quarried in Hallowell, Maine.[4] The project was then passed to Billings' brother Joseph who, along with other sculptors including Alexander Doyle, Carl Conrads, and James Mahoney, reworked the design, although the basic components remained. The monument, which faces northeast to Plymouth Harbor (and, roughly, towards Plymouth, England), sits in the center of a circular drive, which is accessed from Allerton Street from the east. The plan of the principal pedestal is octagonal, with four small, and four large faces; from the small faces project four buttresses. On the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of "Faith" with her right hand pointing toward heaven[5] and her left hand clutching the Bible. Upon the four buttresses also are seated figures emblematic of the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth; counter-clockwise from the east are Morality, Law, Education, and Liberty. Each was carved from a solid block of granite, posed in the sitting position upon chairs with a high relief on either side of minor characteristics. Under "Morality" stand "Prophet" and "Evangelist"; under "Law" stand "Justice" and "Mercy"; under "Education" are "Youth" and "Wisdom"; and under "Liberty" stand "Tyranny Overthrown" and "Peace". On the face of the buttresses, beneath these figures are high reliefs in marble, representing scenes from Pilgrim history. Under "Morality" is "Embarcation"; under "Law" is "Treaty"; under "Education" is "Compact"; and under "Liberty" is "Landing". Upon the four faces of the main pedestal are large panels for records. The front panel is inscribed as follows: "National Monument to the Forefathers. Erected by a grateful people in remembrance of their labors, sacrifices and sufferings for the cause of civil and religious liberty." The right and left panels contain the names of those who came over in the Mayflower. The rear panel, which was not engraved until recently, contains a quotation from Governor William Bradford's famous history, Of Plymouth Plantation:

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all praise.

The overall scheme was designed by architect Hammatt Billings. The 36-foot figure of Faith was based on a 9-foot plaster model by William Rimmer in 1875,[6] that was enlarged and altered by Joseph Edward Billings and a sculptor named Perry (probably John D. Perry). The subsidiary statues were executed by area sculptors including Alexander Doyle, Carl Conrads, and James H. Mahoney.[7]

National Register [ edit ] The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 30, 1974. Originally under the care of the Pilgrim Society, it was given to the Massachusetts government in 2001.[8] It and Plymouth Rock constitute the Pilgrim Memorial State Park. Although intended as national in scope, the Forefathers Monument is not a federal "National Monument" as understood today from the Antiquities Act of 1906.

Film [ edit ] Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure, a 2012 documentary hosted by Kirk Cameron, features the history of the monument and the values of those it commemorates.[9]

Images [ edit ] The Monument at sunset, 2007

Monument and the surrounding park

Detail of statue of Faith

Seated Figures [ edit ] Morality

Law

Education

Liberty

Panels on Monument [ edit ] Detail of front panel

Passengers of the Mayflower (part 1)

Passengers of the Mayflower (part 2)

Detail of William Bradford quote

See also [ edit ] Pilgrim MonumentNational Register of Historic Places listings in Plymouth County, MassachusettsReferences [ edit ] ^ Toomey, Daniel P. (1892). Massachusetts of To-day. Columbia publishing company. p. 2. ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Planning and Engineering, Resource Management Planning Program, September 2006. "Resource Management Plan: National Monument to the Forefathers, Plymouth, Massachusetts", p 1. Accessed 8 October 2012. ^ Plymouth Guide. "Forefathers Monument". Archived from the original on May 11, 2006 . Retrieved May 16, 2006 . ^ Michael Shepherd. "Hallowell to Celebrate a Long Forgotten Past Saturday" . Retrieved July 18, 2013 . ^ Billings, Hammatt; Billings, Joseph; Rimmer, William; Perry, John D.; Doyle, Alexander; Conrad, Karl; Mahoney, James H. (24 October 2017). "National Monument to the Forefathers" '' via siris-artinventories.si.edu Library Catalog. ^ Armstrong, Craven et al, ''200 Years of American Sculpture'', David R. Godine, Publisher in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1976 p. 302 ^ O'Gorman, James F. (September 1995). "The Colossus of Plymouth: Hammatt Billings's National Monument to the Forefathers". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 54 (3). University of California Press: 278''301. doi:10.2307/990993. JSTOR 990993. ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. "Resource Management Plan, National Monument to the Forefathers". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007 . Retrieved May 18, 2006 . ^ Kirk Cameron (2012), Monumental - In Search of America's National Treasure , retrieved 2012-03-28 Further reading [ edit ] Baker, Billy (November 24, 2019). "How does an 81-foot-tall monument to the Pilgrims become invisible?" . The Boston Globe . Retrieved November 24, 2019 . External links [ edit ] National Monument to the Forefathers from SIRIS. 41°57'²36'"N 70°40'²34'"W >> / >> 41.96000°N 70.67611°W >> / 41.96000; -70.67611

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 May 2024 04:14

Slovakia, a nice country in the heart of Europe, is unique in one important respect: it is the only country, out of the whole world, whose leader denounced COVID vaccines and announced a COVID inquiry into excess deaths, corrupt influence of Pfizer, and ill effects of COVID vaccines.

ht tps://twitter.com/SaiKate108/status/1751552779045552521Many of us were wondering what would the outcome of this investigation be. Will excess deaths be finally correctly attributed? Will the cozy relationships between Pfizer and the media it sponsored be disclosed? What answers can we finally get, when a government is led by an honest man wanting to get to the bottom of the ''pandemic response''?

Today, we have the answer.

https://apnews.com/article/slovakia-prime-minister-shooting-robert-fico-handlova-bdaaf0bba01035a700145a67d871a482Robert Fico was shot and is now ''fighting for his life'' after multiple bullet wounds. Here's a short video of the shooting:

The assassin, Juraj Cintula, is an operative of ''Progressive Slovakia.'' He is also the founder of the '' Rainbow Literary Club ''.

Juraj Cintula is a 71-year-old civilian. Was he capable of planning an assassination by himself? Was it possible for him to penetrate the state leader's security and get to the right place at the right time, without help? In my opinion, that would be quite unlikely. He was probably not acting alone.

Did he get any help or money? If so, from whom? What are the interests whom Mr. Cintula served? I cannot speak with certainty. My guess would be as good as yours.

All we know is that the state-level investigation into COVID, possibly the only honest country-level inquiry, will likely be ''postponed.''

Are you surprised?

Share

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Archived Version

Thu, 16 May 2024 03:51

The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has sent a cease and desist letter to Spotify for allegedly hosting lyrics, music videos and podcast content that contain their members' copyrighted musical works without proper licenses. The organization, which represents music publishers in the U.S., says that it ''demands'' that these alleged unlicensed works ''be removed from the platform or Spotify will face copyright liability for continued use of these works.''

The letter comes a week after Billboard released an estimate, claiming that Spotify will pay about $150 million less in U.S. mechanical royalties to music publishers and songwriters in the next year than what publishers and songwriters were previously expecting. This is because Spotify added audiobooks into its premium, family and duo plans, and the company claims that the move now qualifies them as a bundle, which pays a discounted royalty rate from normal standalone subscriptions, given Spotify now has to pay for books and music from the same subscription price.

The cease and desist letter, obtained by Billboard, covers a separate issue to last week's announcement, but the timing suggests the NMPA is hoping to push back against Spotify's practices on several fronts. The letter continues: ''Spotify appears to be engaged in direct infringement by hosting unlicensed musical works in its lyrics, videos and podcasts and by distributing unauthorized reproductions, synchronizations, displays and derivative sues of these musical works to its users. Making matters worse, Spotify profits from such infringement.''

Written by NMPA's executive vp and general counsel Danielle Aguirre, the letter did not cite any specific unlicensed works or say how many instances there are of unlicensed works on Spotify and warned about both unlicensed works as well as works that ''will soon become unlicensed'' by its members. When asked for a list or a ballpark number of the unlicensed works, NMPA declined to comment. If the NMPA ever gets to the point of filing a lawsuit against Spotify for these alleged offenses, however, the organization would then provide more detail.

Many music publishers currently have licenses in place with Spotify for their lyrics and video content. Unlike the government-regulated process of setting U.S. mechanical royalty rates, lyric and video licenses are direct deals between the publisher and the streaming service, and each negotiation is unique, but for lyrics specifically, some publishers will license through third party aggregators like Musixmatch. These deals are not considered to be major money makers for publishers or streamers, and although their duration can vary, the licenses typically run for 1-2 years, according to a source close to the matter.

The NMPA also cites a recent Wall Street Journal article that claimed Spotify is working on tools that would allow subscribers to ''speed up, mash up and otherwise edit songs from their favorite artists'' in its letter to Spotify, warning the streaming platform that if ''any such feature'' is released by Spotify ''without the proper licenses in place from our members'' it ''may constitute additional direct infringement.''

Spotify and the NMPA have a history of not getting along, but since late 2022, it appeared the two were on relatively good terms. After a contentious five years of back-and-forth over how to set the U.S. mechanical royalty rate for streaming for 2018-2022, the NMPA, Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and streaming services, like Spotify, came together to collectively settle the next rate period together (2023-2027), hoping to avoid another lengthy and costly fight. The result was something David Israelite, president and CEO of the NMPA, touted at the time as the ''highest streaming rates in the history of digital streaming,'' due to a raise in the headline rate.

Part of the compromise for that settlement, however, included an update to how bundles were treated, which was considered a potential benefit to streaming services. As the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) put it in their statement against Spotify's bundling practices, music publishers believe Spotify used a ''loophole'' to ''circumvent the [Copyright Royalty Board] settlement.'' Israelite went further, calling the bundle reclassification a ''potentially unlawful move'' when it was first announced, even though Spotify believes it rightfully qualifies. Recently, the NMPA admitted a lawsuit against Spotify for bundling was ''likely.''

A spokesperson for Spotify replied to the letter, saying: ''This letter is a press stunt filled with false and misleading claims. It's an attempt to deflect from the Phono IV deal that the NMPA agreed to and celebrated back in 2022. We paid a record amount to benefit songwriters in 2023, and we are on track to exceed this amount [globally] in 2024. Spotify is a platform for licensed content. We are committed to the integrity of our platform, and we have a clear process in place for rightsholders to contact Spotify about any content they believe is unlicensed.''

Read the full letter below:

Dear Mr. Kaefer [vp and global head, music and audiobook business] and Ms. Konstan [general counsel of Spotify]:

I write on behalf of the National Music Publishers' Association (''NMPA'') regarding copyright infringement of our members' musical works on the Spotify platform. As the voice of our members, NMPA protects, promotes, and advances the interests of music creators and enforces the rights of publishers, and their songwriter partners, who own and/or control musical work copyrights.

Music is essential to Spotify's service; it is the reason subscribers utilize the Spotify platform every day. Spotify's primary use of musical works via interactive streams and downloads is subject to the antiquated compulsory license under 17 U.S.C. § 115 and consent decree-governed public performance licenses.

Regardless of the mechanical and public performance licenses Spotify may have, however, the use of lyrics and music in videos and podcasts on its platform requires rights that must be negotiated directly with rightsholders in a free market.

It has come to our attention that Spotify displays lyrics and reproduces and distributes music videos and podcasts using musical works without the consent of or compensation to the respective publishers and/or administrators (our members) who control the copyrights in the musical compositions. As such, these uses of musical works on the Spotify platform are not licensed or will soon become unlicensed.

U.S. copyright law generally grants copyright owners the exclusive right to, among other things, reproduce, distribute, display, perform publicly, and create derivative works from their copyrighted works under 17 U.S.C. § 106. Violation of these exclusive rights constitutes copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501.

Spotify thus appears to be engaged in direct infringement by hosting unlicensed musical works in its lyrics, videos, and podcasts, and by distributing unauthorized reproductions, synchronizations, displays, and derivative uses of these musical works to its users. Making matters worse, Spotify profits from such infringement.

Accordingly, on behalf of our members, NMPA demands that unlicensed lyrics, music videos, and podcasts be removed from the platform or Spotify will face copyright liability for continued use of these works.

We also understand that Spotify wishes to offer a ''remix'' feature allowing Spotify subscribers to ''speed up, mash up, and otherwise edit'' their favorite songs to create derivative works. Spotify is on notice that release of any such feature without the proper licenses in place from our members may constitute additional direct infringement.

NMPA further demands that Spotify preserve all electronically stored information (''ESI''), as defined by Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, along with any paper files, in Spotify's possession, custody, or control that is relevant to use of our members' unlicensed works. Spotify must also cease any auto-deletion operations affecting ESI relevant to this matter.

This letter is not intended as a full recitation of the facts or claims that may be made against Spotify by NMPA, its members, and/or other copyright owners, and is made without prejudice to all rights or remedies against Spotify and all others acting in concert with Spotify, including without limitation, monetary damages and attorneys' fees as provided under 17 U.S.C. §§ 502-505.

Sincerely,

Danielle Aguierre

UPDATE: This article was updated May 15 at 12:00 p.m. e.t. to include a statement from Spotify.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 19:23

U.S. President Joe Biden announces increased tariffs on Chinese products to promote American investments and jobs in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 14, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images

DETROIT '-- President Joe Biden's plan to quadruple tariffs on China-made electric vehicles is unlikely to stave off the threat of more Chinese cars on the auto sales market in the U.S.

The 100% tariff announced Tuesday, up from a current import tax of about 25%, covers EVs imported from China but could still leave room for the often-cheap Chinese models to undercut domestic prices and leaves loopholes for imports made by Chinese automakers in other countries, like neighboring Mexico. It also does nothing to address current or future gas-powered vehicles imported from the Communist country to the U.S.

Automotive and trade experts say the increased tariffs are a near-term protectionism act that may delay but won't stop Chinese automakers from coming to the U.S. with EVs.

"They're going to be here. It's inevitable. It's just a matter of time," said Dan Hearsch, Americas co-leader of automotive and industrial practice at consulting firm AlixPartners. "Western automakers, Western suppliers really ought to be upping their game and preparing to take this on or play with them. It's one or the other."

The EV tariffs, including other increases regarding battery materials, were among new tariff rates on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Chinese competitionFor decades, Chinese auto companies have said they will begin selling vehicles in the U.S. under their own brands, but none have succeeded.

The quality of Chinese automakers' vehicles has gotten significantly better in recent years, as Being has helped by subsidizing their operations to grow domestic production. The increase in domestic automakers has led to a rapid deterioration of market share in the country for global automakers such as General Motors.

Global players have made more inroads in the U.S. market in recent years. The so-called Big Three U.S. automakers '-- GM, Ford Motor and Chrysler, now owned by Stellantis '-- have watched their market share in the country deteriorate from 75% in 1984 to about 40% in 2023, according to industry data.

GM and others have found it hard to compete against budget and mainstream Chinese vehicles, including EVs. For example, a small EV from Warren Buffett-backed BYD called the Seagull starts at around $10,000 and reportedly banks a profit for the increasingly influential Chinese automaker.

Though the Seagull isn't yet sold on U.S. soil, BYD is expanding its vehicles globally, and some believe it's only a matter of time before more China-made vehicles arrive in the U.S.

Even with the new 100% tariff, its pricing would likely be in line with or better than many EVs currently on sale in the U.S.

"Ultimately, we think protectionism from the West could remain a near-term overhang for Chinese EV/parts makers aiming for rapid global expansion, but we think it is unlikely to halt China's EV push in the long run," Morgan Stanley analyst Tim Hsiao said in an investor note this week.

Read more CNBC news on Chinese EVsThough some automakers currently import gas-powered vehicles from China into the U.S., the numbers are small. Wall Street analysts, citing the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, report fewer than 75,000 vehicles were imported to the U.S. last year.

Vehicles made in China and currently sold in the U.S. include GM's gas-powered Buick Envision, Ford's Lincoln Nautilus and two all-electric vehicles from Geely-owned Volvo and its spinoff EV startup Polestar.

Polestar, with a small lineup of vehicles, is notably reliant on its Chinese imports. The company, in a statement, said it is "currently evaluating the announcement of tariff increases from the Biden Administration," saying it believes "free trade is essential to speed up the transition to more sustainable mobility through increased EV adoption."

Green goalsBiden's focus on China-made EVs '-- and the exclusion of gas-powered vehicles in the higher levies '-- fits with the White House's clean energy agenda, which has emphasized electric vehicle production and adoption as well as enhanced U.S. charging infrastructure.

"EVs are where we're focused in terms of placing tariffs, because that's where we've made hundreds of billions of dollars of public investments. We've made those investments to build resilience in our clean technology supply chains. And so that's our focus here," a senior administration official told reporters this week.

It's possible U.S. officials are taking a warning sign from Europe, where Chinese automakers have quickly flooded markets with gas-saving EVs and undercut domestic automakers.

Chinese companies accounted for 8% of Europe's all-electric vehicle sales as of September and could increase their share to 15% by 2025, the European Union said in October 2023. The EU believes Chinese EVs are undercutting the prices of local models by about 20%.

The Biden administration's new EV tariffs could have a ripple effect on other countries, including in Europe, if they're successful in stemming Chinese exports, according to Coco Zhang, vice president of ESG research at ING Group.

She said similar tariffs elsewhere could force Chinese companies to move more quickly to establish local production operations or joint ventures with other companies in an attempt to lower export costs.

"From China's perspective, if there can be supply or other sorts of partnerships, they can still find their way going into the U.S. market," Zhang said.

Such moves would be reminiscent of how Japanese automakers such as Toyota Motor and Nissan Motor as well as South Korea's Hyundai Motor, including Kia, entered the U.S. market in recent decades.

'' CNBC's Rebecca Picciotto and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 19:15

AbstractThe UNIT fractal monetary ecosystem introduces a practical approach to creating essentially ''apolitical money'' that can be freely used as a storage of value or currency for payments via any open payment and clearing system, while providing long-term purchasing power stability. The UNIT ecosystem is proposed as a solution to the basic lack of trust problem stemming from the politicization of the use of a single global currency and constraints on its use for valuation and settlement of trade and capital flows.

We introduce the fractal monetary framework, which allows global financial system to function without directly using any national currencies for international trade and reserves. The UNIT is designed to serve as a convenient and stable global currency alternative within the existing financial infrastructure. It is also expected to be more resilient than any national currency to political exigences of the day.

Fractal design ensures that the composition of each UNIT token's basket of underlying assets (or ''reserve basket'') is invariant across the nodes of the network as it scales. The intrinsic value of each UNIT token always remains proportional to the total value of the UNIT reserve basket measured in gold and is expected to remain less volatile than the value of any of the components of the basket.

The UNIT token is not a cryptocurrency since the intrinsic value of each UNIT token is linked to a basket of underlying assets, which includes 40% gold. At the same time, the UNIT token is not a stablecoin, since its value is not directly derived from the basket of underlying assets and by design, there no mechanism for reverse conversion of the UNIT into the basket of underlying assets. After an initial period, the market value of UNIT tokens is expected to become primarily a function of supply and demand, not of the value of the underlying basket.

New UNIT tokens can be emitted (or ''minted,'' the terms used interchangeably in this document) at UNIT nodes in exchange for depositing assets corresponding to the current value of the UNIT reserve basket, measured in gold. Minting is decentralized and is performed according to the UNIT governance rule-book, in the absence of constant coordination among issuers of the underlying currencies.

The integrity of the UNIT ecosystem is preserved by blockchain-based node synchronization and elimination of the need to re-balance gold holdings between UNIT nodes, thus minimizing costs and risks. UNIT tokens are not subject to any capital controls or price manipulation. They can be freely bought and sold or used as currency for payments via any open payment and clearing system.

In addition to the intended use of the UNIT as a currency for traditional and alternative payment systems, resilience of the UNIT ecosystem is further enhanced by a secure proprietary UNIT payment protocol designed to transact with UNIT tokens, which will be open for access in line with the UNIT rule-book.

Further development of the UNIT ecosystem foresees launch of new elements with additional functionality, including mercantile and capital stock exchanges, where commodities and financial instruments will be priced and settled in UNIT tokens. It is expected that issuance of financial instruments denominated in the UNIT will follow in due course and will enable the use of the UNIT for storage of value, investment, and reserves.

IntroductionIn this document, we introduce the UNIT fractal monetary ecosystem that offers unique benefits to all participants. The UNIT ecosystem aims to provide a convenient global currency alternative, which will be resilient to political interference and will continue to function in the absence of full consensus and constant coordination among the ecosystem participants.

UNIT enhances sovereignty of individual states who no longer need to rely on other countries' domestic currencies for trade and foreign exchange reserves and can pursue independent domestic monetary policies, focused on growth and price stability, while retaining complete exchange rate and interest rate control.

Governance of UNIT ecosystem structured as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (or ''DAO'') can be substantially enhanced by cooperation with an international intergovernmental organization (or ''IIO'') endowed with International Legal Personality, as governed by the current intergovernmental agreement and the 1980 Budapest Convention. Such an IIO may act as the custodian for the decentralized autonomous organization that underpins the UNIT ecosystem.

Research conducted over several years arrived at the conclusion that while the global economy functioned and expanded over several decades by relying on a single global currency for its trade, borrowing and investment needs, fundamental flaws of the post-Bretton-Woods system have never been adequately addressed.

The recent politically-driven explosion in local currency usage for bilateral trade, while aiming to reduce reliance on a single global currency, highlights a host of old problems. As most of the currencies used in these transactions are subject to capital controls, these currencies typically have limited circulation outside of their home countries and suffer from lack of liquidity, convertibility, and legal clarity on how and where they can be productively invested abroad.

The geopolitical paradigm shift underway presently highlights inherent vulnerabilities and conflicts of interest of the current system and leads to a search for an alternative global currency that could be introduced into existing financial infrastructure with minimal disruption (a ''drop-in alternative'').

We are of the opinion that none of the countries whose currencies could potentially take on this role are able or willing to allow their currency to become a viable alternative global currency for a number of well-founded reasons. At the same time, given the present divergence of political and economic interests, consistent and sustainable global policy coordination among trading countries remains difficult to achieve.

Consequently, the primary purpose of the UNIT as a new alternative global currency is to make global trade and capital flows more resilient to external interference (i.e., to serve as ''apolitical money''). Such interference can be applied via various channels, such as payment and settlement systems, custody network, supra-national loans, or even denomination of the major commodity contracts. The approaching introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (''CDBC'') makes the search for such a resilient solution even more urgent. The secondary purpose of the UNIT is to create a viable alternative for storage of value that would provide long-term purchasing power stability.

The underlying financial framework and basic technical design that we outline in this document do not require cooperation of individual countries. The UNIT can be used as a drop-in global currency alternative within existing infrastructure and by extension allows for such essentials as convenient and widely-adopted electronic payment and information dissemination systems, trade finance, credit origination, and fractional reserve banking, while addressing the fundamental problem of trust within the global financial system and protecting financial sovereignty of the ecosystem participants from political interference.

Fractal Monetary DesignWe propose a solution to an alternative global currency problem by applying the fractal paradigm as broadly defined by Mandelbrot [1], where each node of the fractal network is a scaled-down replica of the whole.

Such a fractal network follows predefined evolution principles and simple governance rules. New nodes can be created and added by consensus among the existing nodes in the fractal network, and each new node contains a scaled replica of the whole as well.

The integrity of such a fractal network is preserved by a blockchain-based [2] synchronization and re-balancing mechanism that uses a variant of the Byzantine Fault Tolerance based Proof-of-Stake Consensus protocol [3].

The unique feature of the proposed decentralized monetary system is the anchoring of values of each component of the reserve basket to gold. The composition and pricing of the underlying basket is defined and measured in terms of gold.

We define the fractal unit ("the UNIT token") as a fungible monetary transactional element of the UNIT ecosystem representing a share of the total UNIT reserve basket consisting of 40% gold and fiat currencies freely convertible into gold.

A self-similar basket is present at each node of the fractal network, while the value of assets at all nodes adds up to the total value of the UNIT reserve basket, all measured in gold.

New UNIT tokens can be minted at the UNIT node level without the need for a central emitting authority or coordination among the issuers of underlying currencies. Further, new UNIT nodes can be launched in new jurisdictions with relative ease.

Emission of new UNIT tokens is made by exchanging a scaled replica of the UNIT reserve basket for new UNIT tokens and sharing the updated number of emitted UNIT tokens with the rest of the fractal monetary ecosystem and general public. Owning a share of the UNIT reserve basket at the UNIT node level is identical to owning a share of a scaled basket at the UNIT ecosystem level.

In the UNIT basket composition, there are no permanently fixed ratios for the underlying components, with the exception of two conditions stipulated in the UNIT rule-book and tested at the moment of emission of additional UNIT tokens: the gold content (40%) requirement and the maximum value (30%) requirement for any other component of the basket, valued in gold.

New UNIT tokens can be minted as needed at any time, upon delivery of the underlying components at a UNIT node. Composition and pricing of each component of the basket measured in gold is transparent and public.

This approach minimizes costs related to holding and moving a significant physical gold inventory, as modeled by Black [4]. We extend Black's analysis further by removing the assumption that gold is valued in terms of something other than gold itself.

The fractal design provides the following immediate benefits for participants of the UNIT ecosystem:

Transformation of relatively illiquid components (local currencies) into a liquid and transparently-priced whole via emission of new UNIT tokens in exchange for the underlying components;''Re-anchoring'' of price discovery and price formation to gold, away from using any national currency as a reference point;Minimization, or complete elimination, of the need to re-balance gold holdings, reducing operational risks and costs to participants. Gold remains within the jurisdiction of the emitting UNIT node;Mitigation of major practical and legal constraints for new UNIT node creation within sovereign borders. In particular, it removes the key hurdle for sovereign and national institutions to join the ecosystem, as there is no requirement for gold (which might be a part of foreign exchange reserves of a nation state) to be sent abroad. Instead, a new UNIT node can be created on sovereign territory, using existing infrastructure, and with the nation's gold reserves remaining within national borders, albeit in a different legal form. Over the last few decades, the world witnessed several episodes when gold stored in a foreign central bank was not returned to the nation which originally sent the gold abroad. If gold never leaves sovereign borders, these risks are mitigated;Prevention of possible TARGET2-type imbalances [5] and reduction of the exposed surface of the fractal system through explicit removal of a redemption mechanism for minted UNIT tokens. There will be no possibility to exchange them back into the basket of gold and currencies with one notable exception. A "UNIT node buyout" remains possible and removes an important constraint that may have prevented sovereign actors from joining the ecosystem. Any UNIT node can exit the UNIT ecosystem with its contents subsequently distributed, if the UNIT tokens previously emitted at the node are returned to the UNIT ecosystem in whole, in exchange for the proportional share of the basket components. To preserve the integrity of the ecosystem, the returned UNIT tokens are canceled simultaneously;Feasible workaround for the "Impossible Trinity" or the Mundell-Fleming Trilemma [6], as the UNIT ecosystem does not force any participating governments to abandon their monetary policies, no matter how restrictive. If a local currency is used to pay for imports, by definition it already is at least partially convertible. Any and all constraints and conditions placed on this currency will be captured by its price expressed in gold, as long as the price discovery mechanism is reliable. In the next section, we discuss this important point in more detail. For now, we note that this partial currency convertibility is not incompatible with capital account controls, as the local currency used to pay for imports is typically constrained from freely re-entering domestic money supply;Preservation of national sovereignty and independent monetary policies of the countries whose central banks can employ policies most beneficial to domestic growth and price stability. The UNIT ecosystem reduces pressure for interest rate convergence among participating countries, or indeed for any additional restrictions on monetary policy. This is contrary to the situation that emerges when other countries' currencies are used for trade: the local central banks in those circumstances are under pressure to align their interest rate policies with the policies of the country's trading partners or competitors. This also stands in contrast to, for example, a scenario modeled by Benigno [7]. Such improvement is possible due to point (4) above: the fractal monetary ecosystem does not create a direct feedback mechanism to the national monetary policies of the countries issuing underlying local currencies, which are included in the UNIT reserve basket. As the exchange rates are not "fixed" to gold or any other currencies, currencies in the UNIT basket will not see an increase in the "Impossible Trinity" pressures.Outline of the basic UNIT frameworkUNIT is the currency within a decentralized monetary fractal ecosystem. This ecosystem is capable of seamlessly increasing its capacity and usability by adding nodes in various jurisdictions.

The core element of the ecosystem is a UNIT node defined as an online entity linked to a physical (offline) hub containing a proportionally-identical basket of assets including gold and local currencies that follows governance principles set in the UNIT rule-book.

New UNIT nodes can be added by consensus among the existing UNIT nodes, whereby each new UNIT node shall contain a proportional replica of the UNIT reserve basket sufficient to mint a minimal quantity of UNIT tokens set by the UNIT rule-book.

Additional elements may be added to the UNIT ecosystem as it matures. These may include, depending on user demand and priorities: precious metals, currency, and mercantile exchanges, as well as capital stock exchanges. These additional elements might in due course facilitate the direct use of UNIT tokens in price discovery and payment for global trade, as well as in capital market transactions.

The UNIT ecosystem enables unconstrained economic transactions between all participants in fungible UNIT tokens, whose value is measured in gold and which can be used for:

Price discovery for trade, services and capital transactions;Payments via any open payment system or inter-bank transfers, just as in any other currency (we propose the code UNT), including blockchain-based payment systems or the dedicated UNIT payment system;UNIT node validation protocol which will refer to minted UNIT tokens as a part of the staking process;Fractal de-centralized ecosystem governance as UNIT nodes will vote on proposals suggested by IIO for optimization of resource allocation and development of the UNIT.IIO may act as a nonprofit auditing body based on the principles of international law and is not governed by any national monetary regulatory authority. In order to achieve transparency and wide adoption, the UNIT ecosystem requires a regular audit of UNIT nodes where users may store physical gold that is used within the ecosystem. IIO will govern and oversee the audit process, set development direction, and propose changes to the UNIT rule-book that may be required as the ecosystem evolves.

Sustainability of the UNIT ecosystem requires the following key conditions:

Transparent price discovery mechanism of each component of the UNIT reserve basket in gold terms. It is preferable to have multiple inputs for each price, as pricing in different venues may be affected by the differences in local regulatory regime, logistics costs, and availability of supporting infrastructure;Distributed secure gold storage, which may or may not be directly linked to the price discovery venues. As new UNIT tokens are minted, incremental gold that is deposited at the UNIT nodes will be distributed across the secure storage, in order to minimize operational risks;UNIT nodes serving as custodians by accepting replicas of the UNIT reserve basket and minting new UNIT tokens in exchange. They ideally will be located in favorable jurisdictions and linked to a physical (offline) hub with adequate transport connections and supporting infrastructure. UNIT nodes publicly broadcast UNIT basket composition and number of minted UNIT tokens, protecting the integrity of the network and enabling transparent pricing of UNIT tokens.The key integrity-enforcement mechanism of the UNIT ecosystem is the super-majority vote by the nodes, in proportion to the value of UNIT tokens previously minted by each node.

Any needed changes in rules and regulations compiled in the UNIT governance rule-book proposed by IIO, as well as the evolution of the UNIT reserve basket, can be introduced and enforced in the future by this consensus building mechanism.

UNIT Basket CompositionWe note that if two willing parties are transacting across borders in a local currency, and if imported goods are exchanged for this "off-shore currency" (OFC, domestic currency used to pay for imports), there exists an effective value of the OFC that makes such a trade economically attractive for both parties. While the benefits for importers in this case are obvious, exporters are only compensated fairly if they can further use the OFC in trading with third parties at a market-clearing value of the OFC that is not directly related to the original transaction.

This market-clearing value can materially diverge from the official exchange rates set by local authorities, especially in the presence of capital controls or other restrictions on the capital account. We posit that an efficient method for finding a consistently reliable market clearing value of OFC is to create a mechanism for transparent and free price discovery of OFC value in gold terms. Such clearing levels measured in spot gold correspond to the values that makes it economically attractive for an exporter to receive OFC in exchange for its exports, and subsequently trade with third parties using the foreign OFC that was obtained. This clearing level will reflect any and all practical and legal uncertainties that may apply in each individual case and will be objectively captured by the amount of gold that can be purchased at any given time in exchange for OFC from parties not related to the original export-import transaction.

Consequently, each UNIT token is a share of the UNIT reserve basket of assets, which is created and evolves according to the following simple rules:

All items in the UNIT reserve basket must be freely tradable in gold terms for spot delivery at one of the UNIT nodes. If the condition of free price discovery in gold terms is not satisfied, the currency cannot be deemed suitable for the UNIT reserve basket;The gold content of the UNIT reserve basket as a share of the total value in gold terms which is required for emission of a new UNIT token equals 40%;The value of any non-gold component of the UNIT reserve basket delivered for minting of a new UNIT token must not exceed 30% of the total, measured in gold terms;The exact composition of the UNIT reserve basket at any time is public knowledge and is broadcast by all UNIT nodes.The purpose of these rules is to preserve stability and continuity of prices expressed in UNIT tokens, to remove uncertainty from new UNIT tokens' and UNIT node creation, and to allow for long-term flexibility that may be required due to changes in policies, liquidity, or geopolitical realities.

There is plenty of analysis and historical evidence convincingly demonstrating why a currency fully-backed or even dominated by gold would not serve well as money. Perhaps the best intuitive explanation of why gold should not dominate the fractal financial system is the one by Hayek [8], who noted that "I do believe that if today all the legal obstacles were removed which prevent...an issue of private money...people would from their own experience be led to rush for the only thing they know and understand, and start using gold. But this very fact would after a while make it very doubtful whether gold was for the purpose of money really a good standard. It would turn out to be a very good investment, for the reason that because of the increased demand for gold the value of gold would go up; but that very fact would make it very unsuitable as money...If they [people] were free to choose the money, in terms of which they kept their books, made their calculations, incurred debts or lent money, they would prefer a standard which remains stable in purchasing power...in terms which it is equally likely that the price of any commodity picked out at random will rise as that it will fall. Such a stable standard reduces the risk of unforeseen changes in the prices of particular commodities to a minimum, because with such a standard it is just as likely that any one commodity will rise in price or will fall in price."

To maximize the utility of the fractal UNIT as money, following Hayek's logic, the value of UNIT should not be dominated by gold, just anchored by it. Gold for the fractal UNIT provides the function of an "outside money" anchor, as the term is used by Pozsar [9] and was originally defined by Gurley and Shaw [10].

We describe the basket re-balancing mechanism in the next section which proposes a practical implementation of this principle.

The best argument for why 40% is the appropriate share of gold for the fractal monetary system perhaps comes from Mr. Wexler, vice president of the Whitney Central National Bank of New Orleans, who in the 1913 Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency at the US Senate noted in the context of the gold backing Federal Reserve Notes [the US were still on the gold standard at the time]: "I think 33 percent would be sufficient; yes. We have suggested that there should be 40 per cent...We have raised it [from 33% to 40%], because we believe that it would be better to make the notes so absolutely good and impregnable that we would rather err on the side of too much reserve than too little reserve" [11].

Hayek's condition of long-term purchasing power stability would remain satisfied even if one of the currencies in the basket were to increase in value and liquidity due to, for example, a wider international adoption for trade, as its dominance would be checked by the 30% value limit in the UNIT reserve basket.

Basket Re-BalancingOther things being equal, emission of new UNIT tokens does not create a requirement to re-balance the UNIT reserve basket. This is due to the fact that if all four conditions for emission of new UNIT tokens mentioned previously are satisfied, new UNIT tokens are minted in exchange for an exact replica of the UNIT reserve basket at that time.

A need for UNIT reserve basket re-balancing may arise if, due to the relative moves in value of the underlying components in gold terms, minting new UNIT tokens by accepting a replica of the UNIT reserve basket would constitute a violation of conditions (2) or (3) as presented in the section above.

To minimize costs and maximize resilience, there is no requirement for gold bullion to be re-balanced among UNIT nodes at all. Instead, re-balancing is done by adjusting the local currency portion of the UNIT reserve basket (the non-gold part of the basket, the "NGP"), if needed.

As all components of the UNIT reserve basket are valued in gold terms, risk of arbitrage between outstanding and newly-minted tokens is mitigated by keeping the gold-equivalent value of newly-minted UNIT tokens identical to the value of outstanding UNIT tokens and re-distributing incremental changes to the NGP across UNIT nodes as needed, in order to re-equalize proportions in the changed basket among the nodes of the fractal monetary system.

Basket re-balancing scenarios fall into two broad categories: Condition (2) violations and Condition (3) violations.

In a Condition (2) violation scenario, the value of NGP in the deliverable basket deviates from 60% of the total in gold terms. Minting new UNIT tokens in this case would require the basket delivered in exchange for emission of new UNIT tokens to contain exactly 40% of gold, while the value of NGP required would be reduced or increased (while preserving relative weights of components of the UNIT reserve basket at that time) to equal exactly 60% of the total delivered basket, measured in gold terms.

In a Condition (3) violation scenario, value of one of the local currencies exceeds 30% of the UNIT reserve basket. Minting new UNIT tokens in this scenario will require a smaller proportional share of the currency in question in the NGP of the deliverable basket, compensated for by the increase in the values of other NGP components, measured in gold terms.

In both scenarios, therefore, the share of gold in the basket delivered in exchange for new UNIT tokens would equal 40% of the total value, and the share of NGP in the basket would remain fixed at 60%. In both scenarios, the need for re-balancing is conditional on minting new UNIT tokens only, and is implemented by re-distributing incremental changes to the NGP, in order to re-equalize the proportional composition of assets at each UNIT node.

Importantly, there is no ongoing requirement for any re-balancing among UNIT nodes beyond the new UNIT token emission: composition of the UNIT reserve basket remains unchanged after the emission, regardless of relative price moves of the UNIT reserve basket components, unless new UNIT tokens are minted subsequently. This approach facilitates price discovery at the UNIT level directly, driven by supply and demand for UNIT tokens, rather than some reference values. This design also reduces costs, operational risks, as well as the attack surface of the fractal monetary system.

Inter-nodal arbitrage risk is eliminated by keeping the composition of underlying assets synchronized at each node after each new UNIT token is minted. The risk of arbitrage between UNIT tokens already in circulation versus newly-minted UNIT tokens is mitigated by the requirement to deliver the exact replica of the UNIT reserve basket in exchange for new UNIT tokens, or by the re-balancing protocol outlined above, in case re-balancing conditions are triggered at the time of the emission.

Due to the variation in liquidity, arbitrage of UNIT tokens versus the UNIT reserve basket components will remain possible. Arbitrage activity of this kind would be a welcome part of the ecosystem, as it would improve liquidity and price discovery for all participants.

IncentivesWe expect various economic agents to join the UNIT ecosystem, driven by different incentives. The most urgent need may be for exporters who may have accumulated large positions in local currencies as a result of bilateral trade.

At the same time, importing countries may be looking for ways to potentially sterilize the currency used to pay for imports and minimize the risk of this currency re-entering the domestic money supply in a disruptive fashion. Using UNIT tokens allows both exporters and importers to balance their interests.

Further, governments on both sides of cross-border trade might consider collecting export and import taxes and levies in the currency that can be used to finance trade and reserves, generating a revenue stream denominated in UNIT tokens.

Critically, UNIT tokens represent an attractive alternative to using other countries' domestic currency for trade, investment, and reserves.

The UNIT ecosystem offers its members the following further advantages:

Decentralization - trade and financial flows shared by a large number of participants;Inclusivity - UNIT ecosystem is open for all participants;Efficacy - transaction costs, infrastructure requirements, and the speed of clearing/settlement will be comparable to or better than bilateral trade in local or global currencies;Transparency - clear rules and procedures monitored and enforced by a reputable international organization;Fairness - impossibility of asymmetrical information or asymmetrical advantages within the ecosystem;Security - focus on cyber and physical safety of assets and information;Sustainability - UNIT ecosystem is designed for resilience when facing economic and political disruptions, as well as attacks by third parties.A fully-developed UNIT ecosystem should be able to survive an abrupt loss of any of its nodes. While disruptions related to the currency components of the UNIT reserve basket are relatively easy to mitigate, a loss of a material part of the gold which anchors the underlying basket may jeopardize the integrity of the system.

Distributed storage across multiple secure locations may be a part of the solution, but it will likely need to be augmented by a portion of UNIT tokens held in reserve funded by interest income on local currencies forming the UNIT reserve basket.

In order to accelerate the buildup of such reserves at the ecosystem level, emission of new UNIT tokens may incur a small additional fee to cover the infrastructure costs of the system. As liquidity and resilience of the system increases, these fees are likely to materially decline.

ConclusionWe propose a solution to the alternative global currency problem by introducing an independent decentralized fractal monetary framework which avoids using national currencies for international trade and reserves.

Each UNIT token represents a proportional share of the basket of underlying assets, containing gold and local currencies. New transactional units can be minted at the node level without the need for a central emitting authority or coordination among the issuers of underlying currencies by exchanging a replica of the basket for new UNIT tokens.

With further resilience enhancements, the UNIT ecosystem may reach the level of robustness sufficient to continue functioning in scenarios of extreme disruptions and conflicts.

ReferencesMandelbrot, Benoit B. (1983). The Fractal Geometry of Nature. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7167-1186-5.Nakamoto, Satoshi (2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. www.bitcoin.orgDeirmentzoglou, Evangelos; Papakyriakopoulos, Georgios; Patsakis, Constantinos (2019). "A Survey on Long-Range Attacks for Proof of Stake Protocols". IEEE Access. 7: 28712''28725. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2901858. eISSN 2169-3536. S2CID 84185792. (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8653269).Black, Fischer (2010). Business Cycles and Equilibrium, Updated Edition. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-49917-7.Michels, Juergen, et al. (2011). Making sense of Target imbalances. (https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/making-sense-target-imbalances).Mundell, Robert A. (1963). "Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates". Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. 29 (4): 475''485. doi:10.2307/139336. JSTOR 139336.Benigno, Pierpaolo, et al. (2019). Cryptocurrencies, Currency Competition, and the Impossible Trinity. NBER Working Paper 26214. (http://www.nber.org/papers/w26214).Hayek, Friedrich A. (2008). A Free-Market Monetary System. Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-37-4.Pozsar, Zoltan (2022). Bretton Woods III. Credit Suisse Economics, 7 March 2022.Gurley, John G. and Shaw, Edward S. (1960). Money in a Theory of Finance. Brookings. ISBN 0-8157-3322-4.Banking and Currency: Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Sixty-Third Congress, First Session, on H.R. 7837 (S. 2639) in Three Volumes (1913). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/congressional/1913sen_bankcurr_v1.pdf

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Wed, 15 May 2024 19:12

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240513/de-dollarization-bombshell-the-coming-of-brics-decentralized-monetary-ecosystem-1118409748.html

De-Dollarization Bombshell: The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem

De-Dollarization Bombshell: The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem

Sputnik International

Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.

2024-05-13T15:00+0000

2024-05-13T15:00+0000

2024-05-13T17:31+0000

economy

brics

business

vladimir putin

anton siluanov

russia

dollar

sanctions

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Welcome to The Unit '' a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit's conceptualizers, this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.He knows all about it first-hand: a seasoned financial professional with experience in investment banking, asset management and corporate matters, Subbotin leads the Unit project under the auspices of IRIAS, an international intergovernmental organization set up in 1976 in accordance with the UN statute.The Global Majority has had enough of the centrally controlled monetary framework put in place 80 years ago in Bretton Woods and its endemic flaws: chronic deficits fueling irresponsible military spending; speculative bubbles; politically motivated sanctions and secondary sanctions; abuse of settlement and payment infrastructure; protectionism; and the lack of fair arbitration.In contrast, the Unit proposes a reliable, quick and economically efficient solution for cross-border payments. The - transactional - Unit is a game-changer as a new form of international currency that can be issued in a de-centralized way, and then recognized and regulated at national level.The Unit offers a unique solution for bottlenecks in global financial infrastructure: it is eligible for traditional banking operations as well as for the newest forms of digital banking.The Unit can also help to upend unfair pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new '' fair and efficient '' Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign direct investment (FDI).The strength of the Unit, conceptually, is to remove direct dependency on the currency of other nations, and to offer especially to the Global Majority a new form of apolitical money - with huge potential for anchoring fair trade and investments.It is indeed a new concept in terms of an international currency - anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%). It is neither crypto nor stablecoin '' as it's shown here.The Beauty of Going FractalThe Global Majority will instantly grasp the primary purpose of the Unit: to harmonize trade and financial flows by keeping them outside of political pressure or ''rules'' that can be twisted at will. The inevitable consequence translates as financial sovereignty. What matters in the whole process are independent monetary policies focused on economic growth.That's the key appeal for the Global Majority: a full ecosystem offering independent, complementary monetary infrastructure. And that surely can be extended to willing Unit partners in the collective West.Now to the practical level: as Subbotin explains, the Unit ecosystem may be easily scalable because it comes from a fractal architecture supported by simple rules. New Unit nodes can be set up by either sovereign or private agents, following a detailed rule-book in custody of the UN-chartered IRIAS.The Unit organizers employ a distributed ledger: a technology that ensures transparency, precluding capital controls or any exchange rate manipulation.This means that connection is available to all open DEX and digital platforms operated by both commercial and Central Banks around the world.The endgame is that everyone, essentially, may use the Unit for accounting, bookkeeping, pricing, settling, paying, saving and investing.No wonder the institutional possibilities are quite enticing '' as the Unit can be used for accounting and settlement for BRICS+; payment and pricing for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); or as a reserve currency for Sub-Saharan Africa.And now comes the clincher: the Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia next month, which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan.That means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.Will Musk and the NDB Be on Board?As it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers '' whom I followed for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow - is to inform the general public about the new system.The Unit team is not interested at all in getting straight into political hot waters or to be cornered by ideologically-laden arguments. Direct references to inspiring but sometimes controversial concepts or authors like Zoltan Pozsar may bury the Unit concept into pigeon holes, thus limiting its potential impact.What may lie ahead could be extraordinarily exciting, as the Unit appeal could extend all the way from Elon Musk to the BRICS's New Development Bank (NDB), hopefully engaging an array of crucial actors. After a positive evaluation by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov '' who remains on the post in the new Russian government - it's not far-fetched to imagine Putin and Xi discussing it face to face this week in Beijing.As it stands, the major takeaway is that the Unit should be seen as a feasible, technical solution for the theoretically Unsolvable: a globally-recognized payment/trade system, immune to political pressure. It's the only game in town '' there are no others.Meanwhile, the Unit conceptualizers are open for constructive criticism and all manners of collaboration. Yet sooner or later the battle ranks will be lined up '' and then it will be a matter of seriously upping the game.''Academically Sound, Technologically Innovative''Vasily Zhabykin, co-author of the Unit white paper and founder of CFA.Center, Unit's technological partner at Skolkovo Innovation Hub in Moscow, crucially stresses: the Unit ''represents apolitical money and can be the connector between the Global South and the West.''He's keen to point out that ''the Unit can keep all the wheels turning unlike most of the other concepts that feature 'dollar killers', etc. We do not want to harm anybody. Our goal is to improve efficiency of currently broken capital and money flows. The Unit is rather the 'cure for centralized cancer'''.Subbotin and the Unit team ''are keen to meet new partners who share our approach and are ready to bring additional value to our project.'' If that's the case, they should ''send us 3 bullet points on how can they help and improve the Unit.''A bold follow-up step should be, for instance, a virtual conference on the Unit, featuring leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, Yannis Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Hudson, among others.By email, Glazyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) , summed up the Unit's potential:''I have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. It is academically sound, technologically innovative and at the same time complementary to the existing banking infrastructure.Launching it under the auspices of an UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the need for change.A decentralized approach to emission of potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along its optimal path.The New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and sustainable economic growth.''A clear, practical example of possible Unit problem-solving concerns Russia-Iran trade relations. These are two top BRICS members. Russian trade with Iran is unprofitable due to sanctions '' and both cannot make payments in US dollars or euros.Russian companies suffer significant losses after switching to payments in national currencies. With each transfer, Russian businesses on average lose as much as 25% due to the discrepancy between the market rate in Iran and the state rate.And here's the key takeaway: BRICS+ as well as the Global Majority can only be strengthened by developing closer geoeconomics ties. The removal of Western speculative capital shall free up local commodity trading, and enable the pooling of investable capital for sustainable development. To unlock such a vast potential, the Unit may well be the key.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240421/us-confiscation-of-russian-assets-will-supercharge-de-dollarization-1118035188.html

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de-dollarization, decentralized monetary system, pepe escobar, brics, fdi, foreign direct investment, eurasian mercantile exchange

de-dollarization, decentralized monetary system, pepe escobar, brics, fdi, foreign direct investment, eurasian mercantile exchange

15:00 GMT 13.05.2024 (Updated: 17:31 GMT 13.05.2024 ) Exclusive

Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.

Welcome to

The Unit '' a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.

According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit's conceptualizers, this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.

BRICS nations tackle dollar weaponization and financial system flawsBruno Martarello De Conti of the University of Campinas highlights the importance of BRICS amid the dysfunctionality of the current international monetary and financial system, particularly the dominance of'... pic.twitter.com/jWp0OHfMLY

'-- Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 2, 2024He knows all about it first-hand: a seasoned financial professional with experience in investment banking, asset management and corporate matters, Subbotin leads the Unit project under the auspices of IRIAS, an international intergovernmental organization set up in 1976 in accordance with the UN statute.

The Global Majority has had enough of the centrally controlled monetary framework put in place 80 years ago in Bretton Woods and its endemic flaws:

chronic deficits fueling irresponsible military spending; speculative bubbles; politically motivated sanctions and secondary sanctions; abuse of settlement and payment infrastructure; protectionism; and the lack of fair arbitration.

In contrast, the Unit proposes a reliable, quick and economically efficient solution for cross-border payments. The - transactional - Unit is a game-changer as a new form of international currency that can be issued in a de-centralized way, and then recognized and regulated at national level.

Pepe Escobar: State terror attack on Iranian Embassy is an attack on expanded BRICS and SCO ''The state terror attack on Damascus, which shredded the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity, crucially was also an attack on both the expanded BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation'... pic.twitter.com/tbijxotOIP

'-- Sputnik (@SputnikInt) April 10, 2024The Unit offers a unique solution for bottlenecks in global financial infrastructure: it is eligible for traditional banking operations as well as for the newest forms of digital banking.

The Unit can also help to upend unfair pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new '' fair and efficient '' Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign direct investment (FDI).

The strength of the Unit, conceptually, is to remove direct dependency on the currency of other nations, and to offer especially to the Global Majority a new form of apolitical money - with huge potential for anchoring fair trade and investments.

It is indeed a new concept in terms of an international currency - anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%). It is neither crypto nor stablecoin '' as it's shown

here.

The Beauty of Going FractalThe Global Majority will instantly grasp the primary purpose of the Unit: to harmonize trade and financial flows by keeping them outside of political pressure or ''rules'' that can be twisted at will. The inevitable consequence translates as financial sovereignty. What matters in the whole process are independent monetary policies focused on economic growth.

That's the key appeal for the Global Majority: a full ecosystem offering independent, complementary monetary infrastructure. And that surely can be extended to willing Unit partners in the collective West.

Pepe Escobar: Global South youth flocks to 'isolated' Russia (https://t.co/Ec4kkvXKfi)''President Putin is once again quite sharp: he emphasized how a clear distinction applies between citizens of the world '' including the Global North '' and the intolerant, extremely aggressive'... pic.twitter.com/ANMMSTh1D9

'-- Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 5, 2024Now to the practical level: as Subbotin explains, the Unit ecosystem may be easily scalable because it comes from a fractal architecture supported by simple rules. New Unit nodes can be set up by either sovereign or private agents, following a detailed rule-book in custody of the UN-chartered IRIAS.

This means that connection is available to all open DEX and digital platforms operated by both commercial and Central Banks around the world.

The endgame is that everyone, essentially, may use the Unit for accounting, bookkeeping, pricing, settling, paying, saving and investing.

No wonder the institutional possibilities are quite enticing '' as the Unit can be used for accounting and settlement for BRICS+; payment and pricing for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); or as a reserve currency for Sub-Saharan Africa.

And now comes the clincher: the Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia next month, which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan.

That means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.

Will Musk and the NDB Be on Board?As it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers '' whom I followed for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow - is to inform the general public about the new system.

The Unit team is not interested at all in getting straight into political hot waters or to be cornered by ideologically-laden arguments. Direct references to inspiring but sometimes controversial concepts or authors like Zoltan Pozsar may bury the Unit concept into pigeon holes, thus limiting its potential impact.

What may lie ahead could be extraordinarily exciting, as the Unit appeal could extend all the way from Elon Musk to the BRICS's New Development Bank (NDB), hopefully engaging an array of crucial actors. After a positive evaluation by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov '' who remains on the post in the new Russian government - it's not far-fetched to imagine Putin and Xi discussing it face to face this week in Beijing.

The Decline of the West Sputnik columnist Pepe Escobar reviews French historian Emmanuel Todd's latest book, which focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West's downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO's deficit'... pic.twitter.com/N7zbXn60CF

'-- Sputnik (@SputnikInt) January 18, 2024As it stands, the major takeaway is that the Unit should be seen as a feasible, technical solution for the theoretically Unsolvable: a globally-recognized payment/trade system, immune to political pressure. It's the only game in town '' there are no others.

Meanwhile, the Unit conceptualizers are open for constructive criticism and all manners of collaboration. Yet sooner or later the battle ranks will be lined up '' and then it will be a matter of seriously upping the game.

''Academically Sound, Technologically Innovative''Vasily Zhabykin, co-author of the Unit white paper and founder of CFA.Center, Unit's technological partner at Skolkovo Innovation Hub in Moscow, crucially stresses: the Unit ''represents apolitical money and can be the connector between the Global South and the West.''

He's keen to point out that ''the Unit can keep all the wheels turning unlike most of the other concepts that feature 'dollar killers', etc. We do not want to harm anybody. Our goal is to improve efficiency of currently broken capital and money flows. The Unit is rather the 'cure for centralized cancer'''.

Subbotin and the Unit team ''are keen to meet new partners who share our approach and are ready to bring additional value to our project.'' If that's the case, they should ''send us 3 bullet points on how can they help and improve the Unit.''

A bold follow-up step should be, for instance, a virtual conference on the Unit, featuring leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, Yannis Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Hudson, among others.

''I have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. It is academically sound, technologically innovative and at the same time complementary to the existing banking infrastructure.

Launching it under the auspices of an UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the need for change.

A decentralized approach to emission of potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along its optimal path.

The New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and sustainable economic growth.''

A clear, practical example of possible Unit problem-solving concerns Russia-Iran trade relations. These are two top BRICS members. Russian trade with Iran is unprofitable due to sanctions '' and both cannot make payments in US dollars or euros.

Russian companies suffer significant losses after switching to payments in national currencies. With each transfer, Russian businesses on average lose as much as 25% due to the discrepancy between the market rate in Iran and the state rate.

And here's the key takeaway: BRICS+ as well as the Global Majority can only be strengthened by developing closer geoeconomics ties. The

removal of Western speculative capital shall free up local commodity trading, and enable the pooling of investable capital for sustainable development. To unlock such a vast potential, the Unit may well be the key.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 17:52

Austin-based Indeed.com is laying off about 1,000 people, or about 8% of the online job-search site's global workforce, CEO Chris Hyams announced in a letter to employees Monday.

Asked how the cuts might affect Indeed's Austin headcount, a spokesman said the company would not be commenting beyond Hyams' letter. Indeed.com '-- one of the city's largest tech firms '-- reported last summer that it employed 2,800 people in Austin, down about 100 employees from a year earlier. The company declined to provide an updated head count Monday.

"I am sad to share the news that we have made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount through a layoff," Hyams said in the letter. "Unlike last year, where our reduction was driven by cost savings, we are taking this action because we need to simplify our organization to make it easier and faster for us to make decisions, and help us to more effectively grow revenue and hires."

"As difficult as these changes are, our new structure will help us to simplify and work more effectively as one team, reignite growth in revenue, and drive toward our 2030 goal to help 100 million people get jobs."

More:Job-search site Indeed makes the move to its new downtown Austin headquarters

In March 2023, Indeed announced it was cutting 2,200 jobs, or about 15% of its global workforce. The company, which makes money through sponsored job postings, cited a cooldown in the overall job market and demand for its technology.

More:Austin-based job site Indeed announces 2,200 layoffs worldwide

For the latest round of job cuts, Hyams said, "While the reductions touch many groups and regions, they are not across the board like last year; rather they are mostly concentrated in the U.S. and are more focused on R&D (research and development) and some Go-to-Market teams."

Hyams said the company's leadership worked with its human resources, legal, and diversity, equity and inclusion teams "to ensure objectivity and equity in the decision-making process."

"The final selections have had no measurably disproportionate impact on women and under-represented genders or the under-represented minority population in the U.S.," Hyams said.

He added: "Within the hour, employees outside of Ireland, the UK, and Australia will hear whether or not you have been impacted by this decision. If you are impacted, your email will include a link to the details of your separation package, which will vary by region. Package amounts have been increased for most employees over last year, and include severance, healthcare payment where applicable, and outplacement services, among others."

Last year, Hyams said, the company faced "a global slowdown in hiring, which led to multiple consecutive quarters of revenue loss. We reduced our headcount, instituted multiple cost-saving measures, and instilled investment discipline across the company. These measures worked, and we are now operating with stable profitability.

More:Accenture to lay off hundreds in second round of Austin-area cuts announced since May

"However, while the global economy has improved in several areas over the past year, we are not yet set up for sustainable growth," Hyams wrote. "Despite our efforts so far, our organization is still too complex, we still have significant duplication of effort and too many organizational layers that slow down decision-making. We have been working to simplify every aspect of our business, but without meaningful change, we can't get where we need to go."

He said the company will be "significantly restructuring" its R&D team and reducing layers of management, and taking other measures designed to "simplify decision-making and create clarity."

Indeed executives have scheduled a global town hall meeting for employees Tuesday, at which Hyams said there will be more information about the overall organizational structure, to be followed by other meetings with company leaders to answer employees' questions.

"Our work is driven by the deep understanding of just how important a job is in a person's life," Hyams wrote. "We all know what it means to lose that. For those of you who are leaving, this is incredibly hard. We are committed to bringing as much support to you as possible in the days and weeks ahead. You helped millions of people get jobs, and helped Indeed to be a better place."

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 17:45

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Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 17:24

Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.

This story isn't about the Vietnam War, draft dodgers, CIA operations, President Nixon, or President Kennedy. It is about all of them. A story that spans across presidencies and decades and lands squarely with President Trump and the world we live in today. It is about plans being laid generations ago. Moves and countermoves which bring us to our current political landscape...

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace - a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

That's how I saw it, and see it still. How Stands the City?

Internet Archive: New York Times: Transcript of Reagan's Farewell Address to American People

... and maybe a message that was passed down through the decades.

I know who shot John. '-- President Richard Nixon

Unfortunately, to tell it, I am going to have to run through several world events, which in all honesty could be described in richer detail but were barely mentioned in order to find the shortest route to the 40,000 foot view. There is a lot of information to convey and short attention spans to contend with.

November 1, 1955: War broke out in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It wouldn't be until March 8, 1965 when the first US ground troops arrived in Da Nang to engage in battle.

On July 28, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson announced an increase to the draft. It wouldn't be until December 1, 1969 that the first draft lottery was held.

The US has been no stranger to Anti-War movements . They have been around since the Revolutionary War. The war in Vietnam was no different. And as you can see, protests were as common in the 1960's as they are today.

As such, there were several young men who dodged the draft . Actions taken to get out of the war were ranged from burning draft cards to fleeing the country. One famous draft dodger, who would later become President of the United States, was Bill Clinton.

In the 1992 presidential campaign, when the first President Bush confronted Bill Clinton '-- who, like Cheney, avoided military service entirely '-- conservatives could hardly speak or write a paragraph about Clinton that didn't accuse him of being a draft dodger. In October 1992, Bush himself assailed Clinton. "A lot of being president is about respect for that office and about telling the truth and serving your country," Bush told a crowd in New Jersey. "And you are all familiar with Governor Clinton's various stories on what he did to evade the draft."

Washington Post: Murtha and Mudslingers

Attending college was one way to avoid going to war. Bill Clinton , who won the Rhodes Scholarship in 1968, took full advantage of that. He studied abroad at Oxford University in England in 1968 and again in 1969. While he was there, he took part in the Vietnam War protests and organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969.

Internet Archive: New York Times: THE 1992 CAMPAIGN; A Letter by Clinton on His Draft Deferment: 'A War I Opposed and Despised'Colonel Eugene Holmes was the officer in the United States Army who helped Bill Clinton enroll in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas. He was a highly decorated soldier who survived the Bataan Death March and three and a half years as a POW during World War II. This was his response when Bill Clinton ran for president.

Bill Clinton came to see me at my home in 1969 to discuss his desire to enroll in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas. We engaged in an extensive, approximately two (2) hour interview. At no time during this long conversation about his desire to join the program did he inform me of his involvement, participation and actually organizing protests against the United States involvement in South East Asia. He was shrewd enough to realize that had I been aware of his activities, he would not have been accepted into the ROTC program as a potential officer in the United States Army.

The next day I began to receive phone calls regarding Bill Clinton's draft status. I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC program. I received several such calls. The general message conveyed by the draft board to me was that Senator Fullbright's office was putting pressure on them and that they needed my help. I then made the necessary arrangements to enroll Mr. Clinton into the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas.

I was not ''saving'' him from serving his country, as he erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated December 3,1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes Scholar to serve in the military as an officer. In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of following through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas or to attend the University of Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program at the University. He never enrolled at the University of Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after attending Oxford. I believe that he purposely deceived me , using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification.

The December 3rd letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and subsequently taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my executive officer, was placed into the ROTC files so that a record would be available in case the applicant should again petition to enter the ROTC program. The information in that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States Military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in purposefully defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for later military service. These actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his integrity.

Charlie Company Vietnam 1966-1972: Col Holmes

The question remains was this the ONLY actions that Bill Clinton took to dodge the draft? Why was Senator Fullbright so interested in getting Bill Clinton into the University of Arkansas' ROTC program? Who were those other phone calls from regarding Bill Clinton and the ROTC program?

After his efforts to enroll in the University of Arkansas ROTC program, he enrolled in Yale Law School in 1970. It was here that he met Hillary Rodham in 1971.

Operation CHAOS or Operation MHCHAOS was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) domestic espionage project, which targeted the American people , domestically and abroad, from 1967 to roughly 1973 domestically. (The "MH" designation is to signify the program had a worldwide area of operations.) The program continued on overseas after it was "officially" shut down in the United States. However, the exact dates of the operation and the full extent of what it entailed are not exactly known.

What is known is that it was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson during his presidency. It was later expanded during Richard Nixon 's presidency. Whether either of these two were directly aware of the operation is unknown.

It's mission was to uncover possible foreign influence on anti-war and other protest/radical movements that had surfaced at the time. The operation was launched under the direction of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms , by chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton , and headed by Richard Ober . There was a fourth person involved, or at least aware, of Operation MHCHAOS whose name will come up later '-- John Doar .

Despite judicial rulings, many of the files regarding this operation was either destroyed or "misplaced" by the CIA in order to cover-up their crimes, who were CIA assets, names of targeted individuals, and so on.

Here is a transcript from this video:

Domestic intelligence operation conducted in the United States between 1967 and 1973 and designed to identify and monitor anti-war organizations and individuals and to provide information on persons of interest traveling abroad.

In 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency, responding to a directive from president Lyndon B. Johnson, began operating an internal surveillance program that was tasked with uncovering potential links between the Anti-War Movement and foreign governments.

Richard Helms, CIA Director from 1966 to 1973, launched the initiative and gave broad authority to his Chief of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, to conduct surveillance and gather information on individuals and organizations that might have had ties to overseas governments . To carry out his mandate, Angleton used a wide variety of already in place CIA personnel and operations including the use of foreign agents and offices.

Upon the advent of the Richard M. Nixon administration in 1969, all domestic surveillance relating to dissent and anti-war activities were brought under the Chaos umbrella. Nixon had a visceral dislike for the counterculture and anti-war movements and was convinced that enemies of the United States, and even of his administration, had infiltrated these activities and were giving them aide and support.

Soon some 60 CIA agents working abroad were conducting surveillance on US citizens abroad using electronic eavesdropping, as well as physical surveillance to gather information on persons of interest . Clandestine surveillance in the United States also picked up in the early 1970's.

Operation Chaos kept close tabs on groups, such as Women's Strike for Peace, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers, among many others. The purview of operation chaos quickly spun out of control. However, when the CIA began conducting surveillance on groups and individuals who did not have any direct links to the Anti-War Movement. The Women's Liberation Movement had become a target by the early1970's, as had a Jewish organization B'nai B'rith. Indeed the CIA even targeted the Israeli Embassy to determine if B'nai B'rith had any links to the Israeli government.

Reportedly, the agency was so intent on monitoring correspondence from the Israeli Embassy, that it formed its own bogus trash removal company which allowed it to sort through discarded mail.

In his first report to President Johnson in November 1967, Helms reported that Operation Chaos had found no substantial links between anyone in the Anti-War Movement and foreign governments. The five reports that succeeded this one all drew the same basic conclusion. Yet the CIA's activities were not only extended, but broadened, especially during Nixon's first term.

By the time Chaos was ended in 1973, it is estimated that the CIA had compiled 7,000 files on individual Americans and 1,000 files on various groups and organizations. Furthermore a list of some 300,000 Americans have been compiled presumably as persons of interest although there was little information on them.

All of this domestic espionage had been conducted without American's knowledge or permission.

As the Watergate scandal unfolded in 1973, laying bare the excessive secrecy and dirty tricks of the Nixon White House , Operation Chaos was liquidated. Indeed the Nixon Administration feared that if the operation was revealed, the administration's already tenuous hold on power might be undermined entirely.

But Chaos did not stay secret for very long.

On December 22, 1974, just four months after Nixon's forced resignation from office, the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed the basic outlines of Operation Chaos in the New York Times.

In the immediate aftermath of the Watergate Scandal, the revelation sparked bipartisan outrage and triggered several investigations. The following year, US Representative Bella Abzug conducted an investigation via the House Subcommittee on government information and individual rights. The revelations coming from the hearings were troubling to all and triggered a larger investigation '-- the US Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, also known as the Rockefeller Commission, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

After the specifics of Operation Chaos and other CIA activities had come to light, the government, and especially the CIA, attempted to downplay the impact of the CIA's programs on civil liberties.

Dick Cheney, then President Gerald R. Ford's Deputy Chief of Staff, warned that the Commission should resist congressional attempts to encroach on the executive branch prerogatives.

George H.W. Bush, CIA Director in the last days of the Ford Administration, downplayed the Commission's findings '-- saying only that Operation Chaos resulted in some improper accumulation of material on legitimate domestic activities.

The CIA was recruiting students in the US, sending them overseas to provide a cover story, and bringing them back to infiltrate what they called radical groups, like the Anti-War Movement.

One thing that gets overlooked, surveillance wasn't just being carried out on American civilians. It was also being carried out in the White House.

'' The CIA had no involvement in the break-in ,'' declared the duly sworn witness, Richard Helms, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, his voice starting to rise. Helms spoke to seven U.S. senators seated at the desks not ten feet in front of him. '' No involvement whatever ,'' Helms emphasized with a broadside of rattling consonants. ''And it was my preoccupation, consistently from then to this time, to make this point and to be sure that everybody understands it.''

The History Reader: Watergate: ''The CIA had no involvement in the break-in''

Here is a transcript of that video:

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean if you look at what happened to Richard Nixon, which I of course did not understand at all. Richard Nixon was taken out by the FBI and CIA and with the help of Bob Woodward, who was a Washington Post reporter, who had been a naval intelligence officer working in the White House '-- working in the Nixon White House. And then he shows up like a year later. And he's this brand new reporter. He's never been a journalist at all. He's a Naval Intel Officer. The famous Bob Woodward, we all revere. And he's at the Washington Post. And somehow he gets the biggest story in the history of the Washington Post. He's the lead guy in that story.

Well, I worked in a newspaper. I've been in the news business my whole life. That is not how it works. You don't take a kid like his first day from a totally unrelated business and put him on the biggest story. But he was he was that guy.

And who is his main source for Watergate? Oh! The number two guy at the FBI.

Ohhh! So you have the Naval Intelligence Officer working with the FBI official to destroy the president. Okay. So that's a Deep State Coup. How else would you describe that? If that happened in Guatemala, what would you say?

And yet the way it was framed, in the way that I accepted for decades, was this intrepid reporter fought power. No, no, no.

This Intrepid reporter, Bob Woodward, was a tool of power '-- secret power '-- which is the most threatening kind '-- to bounce the single most popular president in American History, Richard Nixon, from office before the end of his term. And replace him with who? Oh! Gerald Ford, who sat on the Warren Commission.

Now how did Gerald Ford get to be Richard Nixon's Vice President? Well, because Carl Albert, the Democrat Speaker of the House, told him you must choose him. We will only confirm him '-- when they sent the actual elected Vice President away for "tax evasion", Spiro Agnew of Maryland.

So you have a complete setup! Gerald Ford, the only unelected president in American history, actually sat on the Warren Commission.

Something else that I accepted at face value until I looked at it. I was like that's completely insane.

You didn't want to interview Jack Ruby in your investigation of the assassination? Okay. You're fake! Yeah. He was on the Warren Commission.

And so sorry for the long story. But the point is that happened in front of all of us, but the way it was framed cloaked the obvious reality of it. The people who broke into the Watergate Office Building '-- from which the name is taken, Watergate '-- was, I think it was six of them or seven of them. All but one was a CIA employee. That's real. It's like look it up on Google. So the whole thing...

Richard Nixon was elected by more votes than any president in American history in the 1972 election. He was the most popular by votes, which is the only way we can really measure popularity, the most popular president in his re-election campaign. And two years later, he's gone on undone by a Naval Intel Officer the number two guy at the FBI and a bunch of CIA employees.

You tell me what that is. Those are the facts. Those are not disputed facts. That's not crackpot. That's just... Look it up.

JOE ROGAN: So why did they want to get rid of Nixon?

TUCKER CARLSON: Um... You know there are a lot of theories on that. I mean we don't... First of all, we don't need to know motive to know what happened. "They" '-- meaning unelected federal employees '-- got rid of Richard Nixon, which is the most anti-democratic way to make a leadership change that there is. Okay.

I should just say at the outset, I actually kind of believe in democracy. Obviously, it's not working well obviously. It's ending globally. There will never be another liberal democracy unfortunately. But I'm attached to it because I was born here. I really believe in it, and it's better than any other system. So that's why I'm pissed.

What was their motive?

There are a lot of theories on this. There's an amazing conversation. It's on tape between Richard Nixon, when he was still president. I think it was in 1973. And I think it was Richard Helms , the head of the CIA, though I may have f*** that up. But it was the head of the CIA. I think it was Helms.

And Nixon says, "I know why they killed Jack Kennedy."

So Nixon was a student of history '-- obviously a flawed and complicated person '-- but a very, very smart person. And he was really interested in why this guy who'd been president, just one president before him, was murdered. And he didn't think it was a lone gunman who was mysteriously assassinated two days later by another lone gunman. Like it's so obviously bulls***. And he knew that. And he said to the CIA Director who '-- and you can listen to the tape '-- it's on the internet '-- is totally silent on this question.

So I think there was the impression... I don't think... I know that Nixon understood that the bureaucracy was really in control of the country. It wasn't elected officials and that's a massive threat, because it's true. So and there may have been other reasons too that I'm not privy to.

Look all I... And by the way, I didn't even know any of this despite having moved to Washington in high school and been around this stuff a lot. A lot, a lot. I didn't know any of it. And I know Bob Woodward personally. So I didn't. And I know Carl Bernstein personally. I even work for Carl Bernstein briefly. So I knew some of the actual players in this. But I didn't connect the obvious dots because they weren't framed that way.

That's the point I'm making. It's the way that you frame things. You can have all the information of available on Wikipedia, which is also controlled by the intel agencies. But it there's still information on there. The information can be out there in the public domain. It's a matter of seeing it for what it is, right?

JOE ROGAN: Yeah. So Nixon said that he knew why they killed JFK. Did he elaborate?

TUCKER CARLSON: Nope. And it's worth listening to. It's a very weird conversation that takes place in the Oval Office, which famously had tape recording devices in it. Obviously, this became a big feature during the Watergate hearings. But yes that conversation, and I may be mangling it slightly, but it's on the internet and absolutely worth listening to. And the CIA director has this kind of sinister silence.

So like, if I'm the president, you're the CIA director, and I say I know why the guy who was just president years ago was killed, the obvious answer would be like, "Well, why? Why? Why? Do you... What? You know why he was killed! You've got insight into the assassination of a US President!" He doesn't say anything '-- which is like a very weird response.

Like what? Just gonna' throw that out there?

Like if you say to me, you know, we're taking a leak. You're at the next urinal. And you're like, "I figured out the secret to life." And I'm like, "Huh! Okay." That's like not a good response, right?

Tucker Carlson was absolutely correct in what he said here. Nixon was setup to take a fall. The people involved were all intelligence agents or tied to intelligence agencies at one time or another.

Empirically speaking, Helms's claim that the Agency had no involvement in the break-in was dubious. Four of the seven men arrested at the Watergate office complex in the early hours of June 17, 1972, had worked on or collaborated with CIA operations to overthrow the government of Cuba. A fifth burglar had held a senior position in the Agency's internal police force , the Office of Security.

''No involvement'' implied no connection or association with the burglary. Yet two of the burglars, Howard Hunt and James McCord, had retired from the Agency two years before and gone into business with Helms's personal blessing and CIA institutional support. The Agency's statement, reported as fact, that Hunt and McCord ''were former employees with whom we have had no dealings since their retirement'' was simply false. A month before his arrest, McCord bought electronic gear with Agency help. In retirement Hunt continued to meet with his long-time case officer, Tom Karamessines, the deputy director of operations and one of Helms's closest confidantes.

A third burglar, Rolando Mart­nez, was known in the Langley cable traffic as AMSNAP-3. He had worked for the Agency as a full-time boat captain from 1963 to 1971, running hundreds of sabotage, infiltration, and terrorism missions into Cuba . Then he was kept on as an informant.

A fourth burglar, Bernard ''Macho'' Barker, was a police captain in Havana who had become a CIA source in the 1950s. Known by the code name AMC-LATTER-1, Barker recruited ''a number of valuable agents'' in Cuba , according to one classified memo. He went on to serve as deputy to Hunt in Operation Zapata, the CIA's failed attempt to rout Fidel Castro's socialist government in April 1961. As a prelude to the landing of the CIA-trained brigade at the Bay of Pigs, Hunt and his men planned to assassinate Castro, but Cuban security forces broke up the plot and several of Hunt's men went to prison.

A fifth burglar, Frank Sturgis, had briefly served in Castro's government and then joined the exiles in Miami, where he cultivated a reputation for violence. If Helms had checked the file '-- and he usually did '-- he knew that Sturgis had once participated in a plot to kill Castro, which the Miami station considered and rejected. No one in the Senate Caucus Room would have guessed that the Watergate crew included three aspiring assassins , and Helms didn't leave them any wiser.

It was true that the CIA, as an organization, did not select the target for the break-in. But Hunt, the former undercover man working in the Nixon White House, had brought the four Cubans into the operation. Without Hunt there would have been no team of burglars at the Watergate. And unbeknownst to senators and spectators, Hunt was a longtime personal friend of Helms , whom the director had groomed for fame. At the witness table, Helms transmuted tacit involvement into total innocence.

The History Reader: Watergate: ''The CIA had no involvement in the break-in''

That seems like an awful lot of CIA agents all involved in operations, assassination plots, and regime changes in Cuba. What did they have against President Richard Nixon? More importantly, what did President Nixon have on them?

And then there was the anonymous media source only known by the name Deep Throat. Who was he?

Vanity Fair was the magazine that finally uncovered the identity of "Deep Throat" . This was later confirmed by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who originally broke the Watergate story. W. Mark Felt was the number two guy at the FBI during Watergate.

And just to keep you hanging, here is a shameless promotional teaser'...

Richard Nixon successfully blackmailed President Bill Clinton.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 May 2024 16:47

","longer_truncated_body_json":null,"longer_truncated_body_html":null,"truncated_body_text":"A version of this interview was first published by Croatian magazine Bitno. It has been adapted and reprinted with permission. At the age of 25, Marko Puri\u0161i\u0107 already had a successful career as a musician. He performed for audiences of thousands, and he was a sought-after songwriter.","wordcount":935,"postTags":[{"id":"2904bfb4-b544-4efd-b968-cabb07a00892","publication_id":228030,"name":"News","slug":"news","hidden":false},{"id":"51e4f862-7e7d-4030-8b66-09addfd252c0","publication_id":228030,"name":"Eurovision","slug":"eurovision","hidden":false},{"id":"9d135dc3-14b1-412e-8809-683347521e16","publication_id":228030,"name":"Church in Croatia","slug":"church-in-croatia","hidden":false}],"publishedBylines":[{"id":21393502,"name":"The Pillar","handle":"thepillar","previous_name":null,"photo_url":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/df06dc34-ffdf-43a9-a3a7-95ec534af251_300x300.png","bio":"The Pillar:\n\nSerious, smart, faithful Catholic news and analysis.","profile_set_up_at":"2023-04-11T12:57:57.721Z","publicationUsers":[{"id":14525,"user_id":21393502,"publication_id":228030,"role":"admin","public":true,"is_primary":false,"publication":{"id":228030,"name":"The Pillar","subdomain":"thepillar","custom_domain":"www.pillarcatholic.com","custom_domain_optional":false,"hero_text":"News and analysis covering the Catholic Church.","logo_url":"https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e1d84de5-dbcf-4987-8cad-e8e485283932_300x300.png","author_id":21393502,"theme_var_background_pop":"#ff0000","created_at":"2020-11-30T17:52:24.662Z","rss_website_url":null,"email_from_name":"The Pillar","copyright":"The Pillar","founding_plan_name":"Founding Member","community_enabled":true,"invite_only":false,"payments_state":"enabled","language":null,"explicit":false}}],"is_guest":false,"bestseller_tier":null}],"reaction":null,"reaction_count":0,"comment_count":5,"child_comment_count":5,"is_geoblocked":false,"truncated_description":null,"hasCashtag":false,"truncated_body_html":null,"post_paywall_content_for_google":null,"cover_image_alt":null,"cover_image_caption":null,"html":"

A version of this interview was first published by Croatian magazine Bitno. It has been adapted and reprinted with permission.

Marko Puri\u0161i\u0107. Credit: Eurovision.At the age of 25, Marko Puri\u0161i\u0107 already had a successful career as a musician. He performed for audiences of thousands, and he was a sought-after songwriter.

But despite his musical success, Puri\u0161i\u0107 felt empty \u2014 until a religious conversion that changed his life.

Better known by his stage name, Baby Lasagna, Puri\u0161i\u0107 released the hit song Rim Tim Tagi Dim earlier this year. He won a national music contest in his home country of Croatia and went on to represent the nation at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, where he placed second earlier this month.

Since his conversion a few years ago, Puri\u0161i\u0107 said he knows how to distinguish between the happiness of succeeding in a musical competition and the true joy that comes from following Christ.

But just a few years ago, that was not the case.

\u201CI was a god to myself, and everything was subordinated to me. And inside? Darkness, brokenness and sadness. I cried for days on end sometimes,\u201D he told Bitno in March.

\u201CI couldn't be around people, and I would escape to the isolation of my flat. I felt pressured, just like my heart was clenched mercilessly in someone else's fist. I was tired and despaired all the time, and soon I became depressed.\u201D

When the heaviness became unbearable, he recounted, he called his father, who took him to meet a priest whom his dad was close friends.

That conversation marked a turning point for Puri\u0161i\u0107.

\u201CHaving met with him, the darkness slowly began to disappear, and happiness and a feeling of fulfilment took its place,\u201D he said.

\u201CFor the first time I wanted to listen in the church, and not just talk,\u201D he explained. \u201CWhat do you want to tell me, God? How can you help me? And I received an answer. It was not some kind of audio recording directed at my ears, it was more of a feeling in my heart, with which God let me know: \u2018You are mine\u2019.\u201D

\u201CGod became a living person for me at that moment. When I remember those words, I start to cry,\u201D he said.

Born in Umag, Croatia, Puri\u0161i\u0107 had grown up attending church with his parents regularly.

But he said that while he went through the motions of the faith, he viewed Catholicism as a kind of folklore, meant to give him good luck.

\u201CI went to church, but I behaved the way I wanted to. Even when I prayed, that was always subordinated to my current wants and needs,\u201D he recalled.

At one point, he said, he was part of a band with anti-Christian iconography.

When he made the decision to embrace his faith, Puri\u0161i\u0107 knew he would need to give up certain elements of his life.

\u201CI quit listening to some bands I used to like, especially those whose iconography and songs were anti-Christian, but that happened naturally. Just like a bodybuilder who wants to win some contest gives up pizza. It just doesn't go together.\u201D

But ultimately, he said, \u201CI didn't lose anything, and I gained everything. With God I got myself back.\u201D

Living the faith does not mean that his problems have disappeared, he clarified.

\u201CAfter my conversion, I thought - naively - that my life would be easier. Darkness disappeared from my heart, replaced by light, but some suffering is still there,\u201D he said. \u201CI expected God to be some sort of a manager, who will direct my life and solve my problems, but I encountered challenges and struggle instead. But I would say I am making progress in that struggle.\u201D

Puri\u0161i\u0107 admitted that sometimes he has a feeling that his time for God is slipping from his hands because of his new fame and increasing preoccupations it brings. That is why he often wonders if this kind of life really is for him.

\u201CIt was always a dream of mine to make a living making music, but sometimes I'm not sure if that's God's will for me,\u201D he admitted. \u201CI\u2019m inspired by saints, by their modesty and poverty, so I wonder if you can combine those two things. But then again, perhaps it's necessary to bring something that isn't merely sex, drugs and cheap ditties in this sludge we call music. That's the next thing I will discuss with my spiritual advisor.\u201D

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When it comes to saints, Puri\u0161i\u0107 said his particular role models are Saint Padre Pio and Saint Paul. He also draws inspiration from the Russian literary classics and classical music.

Despite the demands of his musical career, Puri\u0161i\u0107 takes care to nourish his faith.

\u201CI read several chapters from the Bible every morning, because I think it is important to know His Word. I also listen to Christian music. I watch \u2018The Chosen.\u2019 I think every single episode made me cry,\u201D he said.

\u201CActually, I find things that console me everywhere around me. But the Eucharist is the thing that means the most to me, and during Advent I love to go to Rorate Masses. Last year I missed it only once,\u201D he continued.

As Puri\u0161i\u0107 continues to discern his future, he said his focus is on his ultimate heavenly goal.

\u201CI would like to be like those saints who wanted to die for their Lord. Like Saint Peter, who asked to be crucified with his head down,\u201D he said. \u201CThere is a voice in me that tells me I am not brave enough or strong enough. But there is a louder voice, that says: \u2018Do not be afraid\u2019.\u201D

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Prime Minister of Slovakia since 2023

Not to be confused with former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies,

Roberto Fico.

Robert Fico ( Slovak pronunciation: [ËrÉ--bert ËfitsÉ--] ; born 15 September 1964) is a Slovak politician. He has served as the Prime Minister of Slovakia since 2023, having previously served in the position from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018. He founded the Direction '' Social Democracy (Smer) party in 1999 and has led that party since its foundation. Fico holds a record as the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history, having served for a total of over 10 years. First elected to Parliament in 1992, whilst within Czechoslovakia, he was later appointed to the Council of Europe. Following his party's victory in the 2006 parliamentary election, he formed his first Cabinet. His political positions have been described as populist.

After the 2010 parliamentary election, Fico served as an opposition member of parliament, effectively holding the position of the leader of the opposition. Following a motion of no confidence against the Iveta Radičov cabinet, Fico was re-appointed as prime minister after leading Smer to a landslide election victory in the 2012 parliamentary election, winning 83 seats and forming a government with an absolute majority in Parliament, the first such since 1989.[1] In 2013, Fico declared his candidacy for the 2014 presidential election. Fico lost the election to his political rival Andrej Kiska, in the second round of voting on 29 March 2014.[2]

On 15 March 2018, due to the political crisis following the murder of Jn Kuciak, Fico delivered his resignation to President Andrej Kiska, who then charged Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini with the formation of a new government.[3][4]

During the 2023 parliamentary election, Fico ran on a campaign to cease military support to Ukraine during its invasion by Russia.[5][6] His party Direction '' Social Democracy (Smer), won the most votes in the election, with 22.95% of the vote, winning 42 seats.[7] Fico formed a coalition with Voice '' Social Democracy (Hlas) and the Slovak National Party, and began his fourth term as prime minister on 25 October. The Fico government has flatly refused to join a Czech-led coalition of about 20 states in procuring military aid for Ukraine.[8]

On 15 May 2024, Fico was hospitalized in an assassination attempt.

Early life [ edit ] Fico was born on 15 September 1964, in the town of Topoľčany in the northwestern Nitra Region. His father, Ľudovit Fico, was a forklift operator, and his mother, Emilie Ficov, worked in a shoe store. He has two siblings. His brother Ladislav is a construction entrepreneur, and his sister Lucia Chabadov, who is fourteen years younger, is a prosecutor.[9][10] Fico grew up and lived with his family in the village of HruÅovany, until the age of six, when they moved to the nearby town of Topoľčany.

Education [ edit ] Fico has described his childhood ambitions as wanting to become either a politician, a sports reporter, or an archaeologist.[11] After completing elementary school, he enrolled in the local Gymnasium of Topoľčany, graduating in the summer of 1982. Later the same year he enrolled in the Law Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia. His teachers were impressed with him, and one of his teachers from university, the future prime minister Jozef Moravč­k, described him as "ambitious, very confident and very involved in discussions." He graduated as juris doctor in 1986 specializing in criminal law.[citation needed ]

After graduating from university, Fico completed his mandatory military service as an assistant military investigator, stationed in the now-Czech town of Janovice, between 1986 and 1987. He later worked for the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as with the Justice Ministry until 1992.[1] During this period he wrote and completed his PhD degree, with a thesis on "The death penalty in Czechoslovakia". In the early 1990s, he undertook studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London under a Masaryk scholarship.[12] In 2002, he completed his postgraduate study, earning him the title of associate professor.[13]

Early career (1992''2006) [ edit ] Fico joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1986, having applied in 1984. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and the collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Fico joined the Party of the Democratic Left (SDĽ), a successor of the Communist Party of Slovakia. He was first elected as Member of Parliament in 1992. From 1994 to 2000 Fico represented Slovakia as its legal counsel at the European Court of Human Rights but lost all 14 cases which he handled.[14] In 1998 he was elected deputy chairman of the party. Later in 1998, Fico ran for the post of general prosecutor, but his party endorsed another candidate instead, arguing Fico was too young.[15]

In the 1998 elections that saw the fall of the government of Vladim­r Mečiar, Fico received the biggest number of preferential votes among his party colleagues. A year later, when support for the SDĽ dropped below the threshold required to get into parliament, he left the party, saying he was disappointed with the way the government worked.[15]

As early as in the autumn of 1998, a four-person group consisting of Fico, his associate Frantisek Hatr, political strategist Fedor FlaÅ­k, and media executive Monika FlaÅ­kov-BeÅov had begun to discuss and lay plans for launching a new political party on the left. These plans were driven by the falling popularity of the existing parties, and the rising popularity of Fico.[11][16]

Almost immediately after leaving SDĽ, the group founded Direction '' Social Democracy (SMER), which Fico first labelled a party of the third way, with himself as leader. Fico established himself as an opposition politician criticizing the unpopular reforms of the right-wing government of MikulÅ Dzurinda.[15] In order to keep SMER from repeating the fate of his previous party, Fico introduced a strict set of regulations for his new party, called the "clean hands" policy. The rules stipulated that no one with ties from the previous communist regime or people who had background with other political parties was allowed to hold party office. This created a new generation of politicians uninvolved in previous corruption scandals; among them was Monika FlaÅ­kov-BeÅov, Robert KaliÅk and Pavol PaÅka.[11] Another rule was that all party chapters on the regional and local levels were to be 100% financially self-sufficient, and all financial donations were to be made public to the media.[16]

Between 2002 and 2006 Smer was the main opposition party in the Slovak parliament. In 2004, it merged with nearly all the leftist parties active on the Slovak political scene, including its parent party SDĽ, becoming the dominant single political party in Slovakia.[15]

First premiership (2006''2010) [ edit ] In the 2006 Slovak parliamentary election, SMER won with 29.1% of the votes. The election victory came after a campaign focused on reversing the deeply un-popular austerity reforms within the healthcare and education sectors, reforms which were pushed through by then ministers Rudolf Zajac and Martin Fronc.[17] They subsequently formed a coalition government with Vladim­r Mečiar's People's Party '' Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and Jn Slota's Slovak National Party (SNS). SNS is a right-wing populist party which has been known for making anti-Roma and anti-Hungarian comments,[18] including a drunken public speech by Jn Slota, in which he threatened to "get in tanks and level Budapest to the ground."[19][20]

A large part of Fico's election victory in 2006 was attributed to his loud criticism of the previous right-wing government's economic, tax, social, pension and legislative reforms. The reforms were generally perceived as very positive and successful by such international bodies as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD.[21]

One reaction to the coalition came from the EU-wide Party of European Socialists (PES), who suspended SMER's application to join the PES. In late February 2008, however, the Assembly of PES conditionally reinstated the application after both SMER and SNS signed a letter committing themselves to respect minority rights.[22][23]

Fico has never publicly condemned SNS' remarks and speeches, and government-level relations between Slovakia and Hungary deteriorated in his first term in office. Several meetings between the two countries' prime ministers were abruptly cancelled, and those few that did take place resulted in little improvement of relations.[24]

On 10 April 2007, the Deputy Director of the Slovak Land Fund and HZDS nominee Branislav Br­za signed a contract on the basis of which restitutors from eastern Slovakia became the owners of lucrative land in the Tatra village of Veľk½ Slavkov. These restitutors then quickly sold the land to the company GVM for 13 million Slovak crowns (Slovak currency prior to Euro). The figurehead of the company was a friend of Mečiar Milan BaliÅ. Br­za did so while his boss Hidegh(C)ty was on vacation. April 10 was the last day when Br­za had full power acting on behalf of his boss in the absence of his boss. This was the seventh suspicious contract he had signed up to that point.[25][26]

Such practices were previously criticized by Fico as they were common during the tenure of his Coalition partner HDZS leader Mečiar. This scandal almost led to the collapse of the Coalition. It led to the Minister of Agriculture for HDZS Miroslav JureÅa resigning. Fico demanded Br­za to resign. Estimated damage to the state was half a billion Slovak crowns. Justice was delivered on 8 September 2015 when Br­za was deemed guilty and sentenced to 2 years probation.[27][28]

Leader of the Opposition (2010''2012) [ edit ] Before the 2010 elections, Fico's party was in a relatively strong position according to several polls. However, just before the election a political scandal broke out, described as one of the gravest in the country's 17-year history.[29] A voice recording surfaced in which a voice strongly resembling that of Fico[30] claims that he raised several million euros in undeclared funds for the 2002 election as well as calling for a "parallel financial structure" to be created for the financing of Smer's election campaign. Slovak media sources such as Sme carried the news about the recording in great detail; however, Fico dismissed it as a forgery.[29]

Fico also attacked the media sources that published information about the recording, saying "Should I go over there and give you a smack because you are scoundrels? What you are doing is unheard of. You are masturbating on the prime minister every day."[29] Sme announced Fico has since been questioned on the matter. Former Minister of Justice Daniel LipÅic told the press he has "handed the recording to the general attorney office." In the election, Fico's SMER remained the biggest party in Parliament, with 62 seats. However, his coalition partners were decimated, with the HZDS being completely shut out. Unable to find a partner willing to give him the 14 seats, he needed to stay in office, Fico resigned. He said he "respects the election result" and expressed his desire to lead a resolute opposition after his narrow loss.[31]

Second premiership (2012''2018) [ edit ] 2012 parliamentary election [ edit ] Following the fall of the centre-right coalition government that replaced his, Fico's Smer-SD returned to power being the first party since the breakup of Czechoslovakia to win an absolute majority of seats. Fico initially sought to form a national unity government with SDKU or KDH, but when this failed he formed the first one-party government in Slovakia since 1993.

2014 presidential election [ edit ] Fico with UK Prime Minister David Cameron, 4 February 2016On 18 December 2013, Fico officially announced his candidacy for the upcoming 2014 presidential election.[32] "I understand my candidacy as a service to Slovakia," Fico said on December 18. He argued that he did not see his candidacy as an adventure, an escape or an attempt to culminate his political career. His campaign ran under the motto "Ready for Slovakia."[15] On 9 January 2014, the Slovak Parliament, under Speaker Pavol PaÅka, officially approved the candidatures of Fico and 14 other candidates.[33]

Fico was defeated by the independent candidate Andrej Kiska, whose support from the Slovak right wing led him to victory by a wide margin (approximately 59%''41%) in the second round of voting on 29 March 2014.[34]

2016 parliamentary election [ edit ] Fico meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka in Budapest, Hungary, on 4 July 2017Fico with President of the European Council Donald Tusk and Estonian Prime Minister J¼ri Ratas in Tallinn, Estonia, 2017Fico's party won the 2016 parliamentary elections, amassing a plurality of seats, but failed to win a majority.[35] On 7 March 2016, President of Slovakia Andrej Kiska invited each elected party, with the exception of Kotleba '' People's Party Our Slovakia, for post-election talks. Fico was given the first opportunity by the President to form a stable coalition.[36] On 17 March, incumbent Fico informed president Andrej Kiska that he would form a four-party government coalition, including Smer''SD, the Slovak National Party, Most''H­d and Network.[37]

Resignation [ edit ] On 14 March 2018, Fico publicly stated that he was ready to tender his resignation as prime minister in order to avoid an early election as well as to "solve the political crisis" involving the murder of investigative journalist Jn Kuciak.[38][39] Kuciak also examined the work of the Italian mafia 'Ndrangheta in Slovakia. According to the police, Mria TroÅkov, who is an assistant to Robert Fico, could have ties to 'Ndrangheta.[40] Fico's announcement came after a meeting with President Kiska. In that meeting, Fico laid out a number of specific conditions that needed to be met by the president in order for him to resign.[41]

Those conditions were amongst others, that the result of the 2016 Slovak parliamentary election be respected, that the current ruling government coalition must continue, and that Smer-SD as the largest party currently in parliament, name the next prime minister. Fico stated that he already had a candidate in mind. Slovak media widely reported that the next prime minister would be Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini.[41] On 15 March, President Kiska formally accepted the resignation of prime minister Fico and his cabinet, and thereby tasked Pellegrini with forming a new government.[42]

Third premiership (2023''present) [ edit ] This section

needs expansion. You can help by

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( December 2023

) Fico's new cabinet was sworn in on 25 October 2023.[43] Fico attended a two-day EU summit that began the next day.[44]

In 2023, Fico referred to adoption by same-sex couples as a perversion, stated that he would never support same-sex marriage: "gender ideology in schools is unacceptable".[45]

Assassination attempt [ edit ] On 15 May 2024 around 14:30, Fico was injured in a shooting in Handlov in front of the city's House of Culture after a government meeting,[46][47] and was subsequently hospitalized.[48] A suspect was detained by police.[46] Fico is reportedly in a life-threatening condition, having suffered wounds to his stomach, arms, and legs.[49][50]

Domestic policy [ edit ] Labour policies [ edit ] At the start of his second term as Prime Minister in 2012, Fico introduced a new Labour Code, which granted entitlement to a lay-off notice period as well as severance pay, reduced overtime, making layoffs more expensive for employers, shorter temporary work contracts and more power for trade unions. In addition, it curbed the 'chaining' of fixed-term employment contracts, whereby currently it is possible to extend a fixed-term employment contract three times over three years.[51] The Code was revised in 2014 when it introduced severe restrictions of the work on agreement performed outside regular employment. Under the latest revision, employers will be able to conclude agreements with employees for 12 months only.[52]

Finance [ edit ] One of few modifications Fico's government did implement was a slight modification to the unusual flat tax system introduced by the previous government, in a way that slightly decreased or eradicated a tax-free part of income for higher income earners. A lower value added tax was imposed on medications and books, though in spite of his election promises Fico failed to extend this onto a wider group of products such as groceries. Among the measures were controversial legislative changes which effectively banned private health insurance companies from generating profit. As a result, Slovakia is being sued by several foreign shareholders of local health insurers through international arbitrations.[53]

Road toll failure [ edit ] In 2010, Fico faced large-scale protests and a blockade of major cities by truckers upset about what they considered to be badly implemented tolls on the highways. Truckers demanded that fuel prices be lowered to compensate for the tolls.[54] Fico initially refused to speak with representatives of the truckers, saying he would not "be blackmailed", but a few days later capitulated. The cuts given to truckers will amount to about '‚¬100,000,000.[54]

Food price regulation failure [ edit ] In 2007, Fico unsuccessfully tried to regulate retail food prices, an unprecedented effort in a generally free market European Union.[55]

Threatened nationalization [ edit ] In August 2008, Fico threatened the foreign shareholders of a local gas distributor SPP (the French Gaz de France and the German E.ON) with nationalization of their subsidiary and seizure of their ownership shares in a dispute over retail gas prices.[56][57]

Foreign policy [ edit ] European Union [ edit ] Robert Fico standing with Donald Tusk, Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, September 2016In foreign relations with Europe, Fico's government faced controversies due to its affiliation with the internationally isolated parties of Vladim­r Mečiar and Jn Slota.[58][59] However, under his leadership, Slovakia entered the Eurozone in 2009, and Fico himself in a speech to the Oxford Union praised Slovakia's entry into the European Union as a "success story." Fico opposed Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, which he called a "major mistake".[60][61] Slovakia has not recognised Kosovo as a sovereign state; one of Fico's three cabinets have recognised Kosovo and he continued to iterate his opposition towards recognition afterwards.[62]

Responding to the 2013 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, Fico declared that the "EU is no religious obligation" as well as that the EU was "so in love with itself" that it is convinced there is no better alternative to it in the world. He subsequently condemned the use of violence, but said that the protests were an internal affair in Ukraine.[63]

Commenting on Brexit in November 2016, Fico stated that it was unclear what the United Kingdom wanted, adding that it "must suffer" more than the 27 countries who will remain in the bloc. He also stated that the UK will not be allowed to make EU workers "second-class citizens" while still receiving the benefits of the single market. In light of election of Donald Trump, he commented that it might spur Europe to bolster its military.[64][65]

Fico and other V4 leaders with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the V4-Israel summit in Budapest, 19 July 2017In August 2017, Fico said: "The fundamentals of my policy are being close to the (EU) core, close to France, to Germany. I am very much interested in regional cooperation within the Visegrd Four but Slovakia's vital interest is the EU.[66]

In 2022 and 2023, Fico was a loud critic of the Von der Leyen Commission and her foreign and military policies in relation to Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also expressed disagreements with the Commission in questions of immigration. Simultaneously, he continued to applaud and support his party's former presidential candidate and European Commissioner MaroŠŠefčovič.[62]

Immigration and Islam [ edit ] Fico rejected European Commission's plan to distribute refugees and economic migrants from the Middle East and Africa among EU member states, saying: "As long as I am prime minister, mandatory quotas will not be implemented on Slovak territory."[67] He has subsequently sought to associate refugees and Muslims with terrorism, claiming that "thousands of terrorists and Islamic State fighters are entering Europe with migrants[68] and stating: "We monitor every single Muslim in Slovakia."[69]

In May 2016, he stated that Slovakia will not accept "one single Muslim" migrant into the country, weeks before the country was scheduled to take over the presidency of EU. He further stated "When I say something now, maybe it will seem strange, but I'm sorry, Islam has no place in Slovakia. I think it is the duty of politicians to talk about these things very clearly and openly. I do not wish there were tens of thousands of Muslims."[70]

On 30 November 2016, the Slovak parliament under Fico government passed a bill that requires all religious movements and organizations to have a minimum of 50,000 verified practicing members in order to become state-recognized, up from 20,000.[71][72][73]

Russia [ edit ] Fico with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 7 April 2010Compensating for his lack of close political allies within the EU, the former head of the Czech Social Democratic Party, JiÅ­ Paroubek, being a notable exception, Fico sought to strengthen relations with several non-EU countries such as Serbia and Russia. This broke with a pro-NATO, Western-focused trend established after the 1998 Slovak election.[74]

After coming to power in 2006, Fico declared that Slovakia's relations with Russia would improve after eight years of "neglect." Fico referred to "Slavonic solidarity," which was a central theme of the Slovak National Awakening in the 1850s. On April 4, 2008, during a visit by Russian prime minister Viktor Zubkov, Fico said: "In Slovakia, there have been efforts to deliberately ignore Slavonic solidarity."[74] Slovakia modernised Russian MiG fighters in Russia and did not buy new jets from the West.[75] Fico accused Georgia of provoking Russia, when attacking South Ossetia in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war.[76]

Under his premiership, the Slovak foreign ministry rejected the Crimean referendum which incorporated Crimea into Russia. However, Fico himself, remained silent on the issue.[77] In 2023, Fico iterated the stance that Crimean annexation was done in violation of international law. Simultaneously, he stated that the Ukrainian recapture of Crimea would not solve the Russo-Ukrainian War.[62] Regarding the EU sanctions against Russia in 2014, Fico denounced them as "senseless," and a "threat to the Slovak economy."[78] He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,[79] but was also critical towards European sanctions against Russia, arguing that the sanctions improve Russian autarky and only harm the Russian population and Europeans, rather than the regime.[62]

Fico invited the Russian diplomat Igor Bratchikov to speak at the celebration of the Slovak National Uprising on 29 August 2022.[80]

Ukraine [ edit ] Responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Fico opposed helping Ukraine defend itself militarily. He also opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO and argued that the accession of Ukraine to the European Union by 2025 was unrealistic.[62][81]

Fico said that sending Ukraine weapons to defend itself has only encouraged more violence, and said that efforts should instead focus on reaching a ceasefire and pushing Russia and Ukraine toward peace talks. In September 2023, he said in an interview: "Why don't we force the warring parties, use the weight of the EU and the U.S. to make them sit down and find some sort of compromise that would guarantee security for Ukraine?"[82][83] He praised the peace plans to end the war put forward by the Vatican, Brazil and China.[84] Fico said Slovakia would continue to help Ukraine in a humanitarian way and his government would do everything possible to start peace talks.[85]

In 2023, Fico said Ukraine's Azov Battalion was "clearly a fascist regiment".[86] During a rally on 30 August, he claimed that the War in Donbas started in 2014 when "Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering the Russian population of Donbas".[87][88]

Hungary [ edit ] Press conference following the meeting of leaders of Visegrd Group, Germany and France, 6 March 2013Tension between Slovakia and Hungary, unstable from the past, was inflamed in 2006 following the parliamentary election and Fico's decision to include nationalist Jn Slota and his Slovak National Party into his governing coalition. Slota was known for his fierce anti-Hungarian rhetoric, including that "Hungarians are a tumor on the Slovak nation that needs to be immediately removed."[89] In the wake of the election several incidents occurred which further inflamed nationalist sentiment on both sides, including the alleged beating of a Hungarian woman in South Slovakia. Fico reacted by condemning the extremism, but rebuked the Hungarian government by declaring "The Slovak government doesn't need to be called on to strike against extremism."[90] The row heated up again in September 2007, when Fico's government introduced a law making the BeneÅ decrees inviolable. This was in response to demands from ethnic Hungarian politicians that compensations should be made to persons affected by the decrees.[91]

In May 2008, Fico labelled Hungary a potential threat during a speech commemorating the 161st anniversary of the day that Slovaks demanded national equality with other nations within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Fico used the anniversary to openly criticise the political situation in Hungary and warn about the influence it might have on Slovakia. Especially he warned against the Hungarian right-wing politician Viktor Orbn, and his party Fidesz, which he called an "extreme nationalist party."[92] Since then, however, relations between the two countries have slightly improved.[93]

By 2022, Fico's relationship with Orbn's government in Hungary had warmed considerably. In 2022, Fico welcomed Orbn's re-election in Hungary, praising his nationalistic approach and stance on the Russo-Ukrainian war.[94] Similarly, Hungarian Foreign Minister P(C)ter Szijjrt" welcomed Fico's return to office in 2023, noting "Robert Fico has the same views on the war, migration and gender issues as us".[95]

United States [ edit ] Fico was a vocal opponent of the one-time planned construction of new U.S. anti-ballistic missile and radar systems in military bases in neighbouring Czech Republic and Poland[96] and one of his first steps upon taking office was withdrawing Slovak troops from Iraq. Fico described the Iraq War as "unjust and wrong" and said that the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 "caused huge tensions. To speak about any democracy in Iraq is a fantasy", adding that "the security situation [in Iraq] is catastrophic".[97] In November 2013, Fico visited the U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington D.C., where they spoke about the US-Slovak partnership, which Fico's spokesperson said is "based on shared democratic values and principles," after which he affirmed the strategic partnership between the two countries.[98]

Fico and SMER-SD were vocal opponents of the Slovak''American Defence Cooperation Agreement as disadvantageous to Slovakia, attacking Cabinet of Eduard Heger, especially Minister of Defence Jaroslav Naď, as well as President Zuzana Čaputov, accusing the latter of being an "American servant", in reference to promotion of American military and political interests in Slovakia.[62]

Israel [ edit ] In October 2023, he condemned the Hamas-led attack on Israel, but rejected "considerations of razing the Gaza Strip to the ground or denying humanitarian aid in this area."[99] In December 2023, Fico criticized the "hypocrisy" of the EU, which was reluctant to talk about the high civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip.[100]

Relationship with the media [ edit ] In November 2021, Fico described journalists as "Soros' corrupt gang of swines for whom water is already boiling."[101] He says that the media is "obsessed" with him and his party; they want to "destroy" it and are "waging a jihad against it."[102]

In 2022, Fico repeatedly stated that journalists were an "organized criminal group with the aim of breaking Slovak statehood" and called on the Slovak Police Force to investigate them.[103]

During his press conferences he often verbally attacks, belittles and taunts the present journalists, often accusing them of bias and attacks on his government. On several occasions he has openly and on record used profanities against specific journalists ("idiots," "pricks, "prostitutes", "snakes", "hyenas").[104][105] He has also been recorded ridiculing journalists' physical appearance.[106] In 2009, Fico repeatedly described the Slovak press as a "new opposition force" that was biased and was harming national and state interests. Fico also accused the press of failing to "stand behind the common people."[107] In November 2016, he termed journalists questioning him about allegations of public procurement rules during Slovakia's EU presidency, as "dirty, anti-Slovak prostitutes." He also stated the accusations were a targeted attack to smear the country's presidency of EU.[108]

In July 2012, Fico declared "Eternal Peace" between him and the Slovak press. He also stated his desire to change his attitude towards the media, saying "I think it is enough" and that he does not plan any further lawsuits against media outlets except in extraordinary situations. Fico further said: "You have to spend an incredible amount of energy on it [lawsuits], it means several years of conflict, one conflict takes usually five or six years [to resolve]," adding that lawsuits involve "legal fees, paying a lawyer, everything around that."[109]

In June 2023, Reporters Without Borders asked Fico to stop legitimizing harassment of journalists. This occurred after Fico participated in a discussion with Daniel Bombic, a Slovak YouTuber known as Danny Kollar, for whose arrest three international warrants had been issued due to alleged online harassment and extremist crimes. Matej Pr­belsk½, a journalist of Aktuality.sk who reported on the discussion, received multiple hateful messages and comments, including calls for violence, after Bombic asked his followers to "transmit their comments and impressions" to Pr­belsk½, saying that "the score-settling will follow". RDF reasoned that Fico was legitimizing harassment of journalists by participating in the discussion and not denouncing the calls for violence against Pr­belsk½.[110][111]

Personal life [ edit ] Fico is married to Svetlana Ficov (n(C)e Svobodov), a lawyer and associate professor from Žilina.[112][113][114] They were classmates while both were studying law at the Comenius University in Bratislava, and they married in 1988.[112][115] They have one son together, Michal, who studied at the University of Economics in Bratislava.[116] Apart from his native Slovak, Fico is fluent in English and Russian.[13]

Religion [ edit ] Fico has rarely discussed his religious life in public. In his application to join the Communist Party in 1984, Fico stated that he was "strictly atheistic", as was required in order to be accepted. According to the testimonial from college added to the application, he held a "scientific Marxist-Leninist worldview" and "no problems with regards to religion."[117]

In a promotional video during presidential election campaign in 2014, Fico said he grew up in a Catholic family and that he considers himself a Catholic. He discussed his baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation and how the Catholic faith had impacted his childhood.[118] He stated: "Perhaps if I did my profile in relation to the Catholic Church, I would end up better off than any MP of the KDH." He also described growing up with his grandfather, a man who "very strictly respected the rules of standard Christian life," stating that it profoundly impacted him.[119] However, historian and former researcher of the National Memory Institute Patrik Dubovsk½ consider it being an attempt to manipulate public opinion, because "confirmation was in direct conflict with Communist Party membership, whose political programme was based on atheism." During the communist period, religiously active people were severely persecuted, especially after the repression of Charta 77.[117]

During a televised debate, Fico refused to answer a television presenter's question about whether he is a Christian or an atheist, and said that he considered it a private matter.[120] Regarding the sacraments, Fico said that he was baptised as an infant and the Holy Communion with Confirmation followed afterwards, as he said it was with every child who grew up in his home village.[121]

[ edit ] In August 2010, Fico was photographed around midnight in a gay bar in downtown Bratislava together with a woman, who was later revealed to be 25-year-old Jana Halszov, a secretary at the Smer-SD party headquarters. It was later revealed that Halszov had been given extensive privileges, including her own parking space in the Parliament car park, without being a member.[122][123] In addition, both her sister and step-mother had recently been given jobs within various ministries.[124]

In August 2013, Fico was photographed while embracing and kissing his now-secretary Halszov, after taking her for a private dinner at a chateau in ČereÅany, 160 kilometres from Bratislava.[125] The photos created another round of speculation about the true nature of their relationship as well as whether or not he had used public funds to pay for the dinner.[126][127][128]

In 2020, Slovak daily newspaper Denn­k N identified Katar­na Szalayov as Fico's lover. She used a luxury car worth around '‚¬40,000, even though her net monthly salary of the prosecution office employee was around '‚¬600. After leaving the prosecution office, Szalayov gained employment in the law firm of Robert KaliÅk, former deputy prime minister during Fico's cabinets and incumbent member of SMER''SD party presidium.[129]

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Businessneweurope.eu. 11 June 2010. Archived from the original on 13 February 2013 . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ Balogov, Beata (11 June 2010). "Daily publishes a recording resembling Fico's voice". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ "Vote 2010: Fico accepts election defeat, returns mandate". The Slovak Spectator. 23 June 2010 . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ "Fico throws his hat into presidential ring". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 2 January 2014 . ^ Minarechov, Radka (10 January 2014). "15 candidates to run for president". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 19 January 2014 . ^ Skacel, JiÅ­; Lopatka, Jan (30 March 2014). "Political newcomer Kiska trounces PM Fico in Slovak presidential election". Reuters. ^ Cunningham, Benjamin (7 March 2016). "5 takeaways from Slovakia's election". Politico . Retrieved 8 March 2016 . ^ "President Kiska will authorise Fico to form government". The Slovak Spectator. 7 March 2016 . 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ISSN 0261-3077. ^ "Slovakia campaign rhetoric raises LGBTQ concern". France24. 26 September 2023 . Retrieved 31 December 2023 . ^ a b "Slovakia's prime minister injured in shooting". Newsday. Associated Press. 15 May 2024 . Retrieved 15 May 2024 . ^ "Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico 'shot' - live updates". The Daily Telegraph. 15 May 2024 . Retrieved 15 May 2024 . ^ "Slovak PM Fico in hospital after shooting". BBC. 15 May 2024 . Retrieved 15 May 2024 . ^ JOCHECOV, KETRIN; BUSVINE, DOUGLAS (15 May 2024). "Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico shot". Politico. ^ "Slovak PM Robert Fico in hospital after shooting". www.bbc.com . Retrieved 15 May 2024 . ^ Liptakova, Jana. "Revamped Labour Code gets mixed reception". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 16 March 2014 . ^ "Government approves limiting the duration of work on agreement". The Slovak Spectator. 27 February 2014 . Retrieved 16 March 2014 . ^ "Slovakia will face arbitration for health insurance profit ban". Slovak Spectator. 17 July 2008. ^ a b "Slovakia gives in to truckers' demands" . Financial Times. 12 January 2010. Archived from the original on 11 December 2022 . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ "Fico attacks retail chains over rising prices". Institute of Economic and Social Studies. 22 July 2007. Archived from the original on 21 July 2009. ^ "Fico threatens nationalisation to stop energy increases". The Slovak Spectator. 18 August 2008. ^ "Slovak PM threatens to expropriate utilities-paper". Reuters. 18 August 2008. ^ "Euro-socialists suspend Fico's Smer party". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ "Fico giving new face to Slovak foreign policy". Slovak Spectator. 22 January 2007. ^ "Slovakia: Declaration violates basic international law". B92. 25 February 2008. Archived from the original on 3 December 2012. ^ Villikovska, Zuzana. "PM calls Kosovo independence a 'major mistake' ". The Slovak Spectator . 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The Slovak Spectator. 16 November 2015. ^ Matharu, Hardeep (27 May 2016). "Slovakian Prime Minister says 'Islam has no place in this country' '' weeks before it takes over EU presidency". The Independent. ^ "Slovakia toughens church registration rules to bar Islam". Reuters. 30 November 2016. ^ "Slovakia tightens law to bar Islam from becoming state religion". 5 December 2016. ^ Samuels, Gabriel (1 December 2016). "Slovakia bars Islam from becoming state religion". The Independent. ^ a b Lesn, Ľuba. "Searching for the right tone with Russia Major Discussions On Security Are Reserved For Superpowers". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ "Russland ¼bergibt Slowakei modernisierte MiG-29 nach Nato-Standards | Wirtschaft | RIA Novosti" (in German). De.rian.ru. 29 February 2008. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011 . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ "Slovak Prime Minister Knows Who Provoked this War in the Caucasus". HNonline.sk. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011 . Retrieved 12 October 2011 . ^ "Slovakia rejects Crimea referendum" . Retrieved 9 June 2014 . ^ "Fico still critical of sanctions". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 2 September 2014 . ^ "Vladimir Putin used to be popular in Slovakia. Then he invaded Ukraine". Euronews. 29 March 2022. ^ Krempask½, Jn (30 August 2022). "Diplomati o ruskom veľvyslancovi na oslavch SNP: To, čo urobil Fico vo Zvolene, je hanebn(C)". Sme (in Slovak) . Retrieved 1 May 2023 . ^ Morris, Loveday (25 June 2023). "A pro-Russian tide in Slovakia could threaten Europe's unity on Ukraine". The Washington Post . Retrieved 5 September 2023 . ^ "Slovakia's Election Threatens to Upend Western Unity on Ukraine". Voice of America. 27 September 2023. ^ "We won't send another bullet to Kyiv, says Slovakia's PM frontrunner". The Daily Telegraph. 29 September 2023. ^ "Fico says West's arms deliveries to Kyiv 'supports killings' ". Euractiv. 18 May 2023. ^ "Slovakia's poll winner defies European consensus on Ukraine". Reuters. 1 October 2023. ^ "Robert Fico stated that "there are fascists in the Ukrainian army" ". Newsyou. 4 October 2023. [dead link ] ^ Court, Elsa (18 September 2023). "AP: Slovak election frontrunner vows to stop support for Ukraine". The Kyiv Independent. ^ Cameron, Rob (30 September 2023). "Ukraine war: Slovakia's Robert Fico eyes comeback in Saturday's election". BBC. ^ "KubiÅ tries to calm Hungarian worries". The Slovak Spectator. 28 August 2006 . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ "Anti-Hungarian displays continue". The Slovak Spectator. 28 August 2006 . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ Lesn, Ľuba. "Slovak-Hungarian tensions heat up". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ Lesn, Ľuba. "Fico's Hungarian warning". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ Boyd, John (20 May 2012). "PMs Orban and Fico Promise Better Relations". The Daily. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. ^ "EU democratic leaders turn their back on Orbn". 6 April 2022. ^ "Hungary welcomes victory of Slovakia's Fico in elections, foreign minister says". Reuters. 1 October 2023. ^ "U.S. missile defence in Europe angers Russia". CBC. 5 March 2007. ^ "Slovaks pull soldiers from Iraq, PM says war wrong". Reuters. 3 February 2007. ^ "Obama meets Fico in White House". The Slovak Spectator. 23 November 2013 . Retrieved 21 January 2014 . ^ "Fico Condemns Hamas Attack on Israel, Rejects Idea of Razing Gaza to Ground". News Agency of the Slovak Republic. 19 October 2023. ^ "Fico: EU Countries Hypocritical about Situation in Gaza". News Agency of the Slovak Republic. 15 December 2023. ^ "Novinri sº Sorosova skorumpovan banda prasiat, vyhlsil Fico v parlamente". SITA (in Slovak). 3 November 2021. ^ "Robert Fico: Opozičn(C) m(C)di chcº zlikvidovaÅ¥ Smer". Pravda (in Slovak). 15 August 2019. ^ "Medzinrodn organizcia Report(C)ri bez hran­c kritizuje Roberta Fica". Denn­k N (in Slovak). N Press. 25 January 2022. ^ "The Media's Role in Slovakia". Association of European Journalists. 25 December 2008. Archived from the original on 20 March 2009 . Retrieved 6 March 2009 . ^ "Fico: Journalists are "idiots" ". The Slovak Spectator. 7 November 2008. ^ "Fico zverejnil VIDEO ºtoku na novinrov: Prostitºtky, slizk­ hadi...teraz je to zchodov½ pavºk!". Topky (in Slovak) . Retrieved 21 November 2021 . ^ Balogov, Beata. "Fico drops cartoon lawsuit". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 20 January 2014 . ^ "Slovakia's PM calls journalists 'dirty anti-Slovak prostitutes' ". The Guardian. 23 November 2016 . Retrieved 9 December 2016 . ^ "Fico sues 7 Plus publisher". The Slovak Spectator. 16 September 2013 . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ "RSF asks former Slovak PM Robert Fico to stop legitimising harassment of journalists". RSF. 26 June 2023 . Retrieved 14 July 2023 . ^ "Report(C)ri bez hran­c žiadajº Fica, aby nelegitimizoval Åikanu novinrov". Denn­k N. 26 June 2023 . Retrieved 14 July 2023 . ^ a b "Manželky prezidentsk½ch kandidtov: Ktor bude prvou dmou?". Nov½ čas . Retrieved 6 March 2014 . ^ Burcik, Matus (12 July 2011). "Pre Boreca pracuje Ficova manželka". Sme (in Slovak) . Retrieved 16 December 2012 . ^ Mihailikova, Maria (14 August 2009). "Ficovu manželku Ått plat­ za skºmanie paragrafov". Pravda.sk (in Slovak) . Retrieved 16 December 2012 . ^ Devanova, Andrea. "SpoločnosÅ¥ a politika Budºci premi(C)r - s"lov½ hrč s fotografickou pam¤Å¥ou". Hospodrske noviny (in Slovak). Archived from the original on 6 October 2014 . Retrieved 20 January 2014 . ^ Petkova, Zuzana (14 February 2011). "Prvo stle berie aj bez prij­mačiek". Sme.sk (in Slovak) . Retrieved 16 December 2012 . ^ a b Benediktovičov, Mria. "Fico v prihlÅke do KSČ: Som pr­sny ateista". Sme (in Slovak) . Retrieved 19 January 2014 . ^ Terenzani, Michaela. "Confusion arises over Fico's religious background". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 20 January 2014 . ^ Balogov, Beta (13 January 2014). "The president's speech". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 19 January 2014 . ^ BlaÅko, Peter (12 March 2014). "Sledovali sme online: Do Kisku sa pustil Fico aj KÅažko. Pre scientol"giu". Hospodrske noviny (in Slovak). Archived from the original on 17 March 2014 . Retrieved 23 March 2014 . ^ "Robo, kedy si stratil vieru v Boha? Premi(C)r Fico zatĺka, či je veriaci, alebo nie". Plus jeden deÅ (in Slovak) . Retrieved 23 June 2014 . ^ "Smerčka Janka z gay baru: V parlamente parkovala na v½nimku". Nov½ čas . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ "Fico a mlad tajomn­Äka Janka: Ich vzÅ¥ah odhalil Nov½ Čas!". Nov½ čas. 30 August 2013 . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ Bolech, Daniela. "Rodina Ficovej tajomn­Äky Halszovej: Sestra aj macocha robia pre Ått". Nov½ čas . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ "Mlčal ako hrob: Fico sa k fotke s Halszovou priamo nevyjadril". Nov½ čas . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ "PM Fico Caught in Passionate Embrace with Secretary". 28 August 2013 . Retrieved 16 September 2013 . ^ "Prv(C) foto Ficovej ženy od zverejnenia chºlostiv½ch zberov: Prestala Svetlana nosiÅ¥ obrºÄku?". Nov½ čas . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ Minarechova, Radka (11 October 2013). "Fico dismisses calls to explain dinner". The Slovak Spectator . Retrieved 7 March 2014 . ^ Pribelsk½, Matej (4 August 2022). "Ficova priateľka po odchode z prokuratºry pracuje u KaliÅka. Nenechal som si ujsÅ¥ talent, hovor­". Aktuality.sk (in Slovak). External links [ edit ] The Fico Threat, by Martin M. Simecka (March 2009 essay)Fico profile"Slovakia's election: Slovakia turns left". The Economist. 11 March 2012.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 16:28

WASHINGTON '' A West Virginia man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election.

Derrick Evans, 36, of Prichard, West Virginia, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia to a felony charge of civil disorder. According to court documents, on Jan. 6, Evans '' then a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates - made his way to the East Side of the Capitol, where he observed the crowd greatly grow in size. At about 1:45 p.m., he saw and video-recorded rioters overwhelming law enforcement and breaching the barriers blocking the East Plaza. He followed the crowd toward the Capitol building, going to the East Rotunda doors. There, rioters screamed at, pushed, pulled, and otherwise assaulted law enforcement attempting to secure the building.

In a video that Evans live-streamed to his public Facebook account and later deleted, he was approximately 20 feet away from the Rotunda Doors before they were breached. He narrated what he saw and heard, making remarks such as ''Here we go! Here we go! Open the doors,'' and ''The door's cracked We're goin' in!'' Once he made it through the doors, Evans exclaimed, ''We're in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!'' Evans entered the Capitol at approximately 2:40 p.m. He walked through the Rotunda and Statuary Hall and left the building approximately 10 minutes later.

Evans was arrested on Jan. 8, 2021. He faces up to five years in prison and a potential fine of up to $250,000. He is to be sentenced June 22, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia.

The case is being investigated by the FBI's Charleston, West Virginia Resident Agency of its Pittsburgh Field Office and the FBI's Washington Field Office. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.

In the 14 months since Jan. 6, more than 775 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 245 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 15:51

Bernie Sanders and his New York acolyte, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are urging a return to one of American progressivism's signal failures: public housing. In an article for MSNBC, the two wrap their support for this dead-end idea in the fashionable cause of climate change.

They propose a ''Green New Deal for Public Housing'' that would invest $234 billion in America's projects, much of that going to ''electrify'' and ''decarbonize'' our public-housing stock. They argue that switching the projects' power from fossil fuels to electricity would be ''the equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars off the road,'' while helping America develop ''the skills and technology needed to decarbonize all housing in our country.'' What's more, they claim, the effort would ''cut residents' bills by up to $613 million a year.''

Sanders and Cortez rightly acknowledge that many of the nation's more than 900,000 public-housing units are in terrible shape. They note that the projects have ''a maintenance backlog of tens-of-billions of dollars.'' The two lawmakers overlook, however, that government mismanagement is responsible for those delays, such as the New York City Housing Authority's $80 billion capital-repairs backlog.

Government's maladministration of these units often has devastating effects on residents. In a 2023 class-action complaint, for example, tenants at the Harlem River Houses assert that NYCHA failed to maintain their units' plumbing and electrical systems, and to remove mold and mildew. Yet Sanders and Cortez propose entrusting such failing public authorities with a multibillion-dollar investment.

The bill's problems extend beyond its misguided faith in government. Even assuming the proposed new ''green'' infrastructure works, it's unclear where the power to generate that energy transition will come from. The Biden administration continues to thwart the development of gas- and coal-powered utility plants. New York, for its part, closed the Indian Point nuclear plant, which once provided a quarter of the city's power. An unreliable grid poses a huge obstacle for any project of Sanders and Cortez's scale.

The two socialists also claim that their proposal will somehow redress how ''The U.S. has lost 1 in 4 public housing units to privatization, demolition and underfunding over the last decade.'' But public housing is far from an unalloyed good, and its social costs cannot be ignored. Many of the residents in these developments are single mothers prioritized for apartments because of their low incomes. In this way, public housing enables and facilitates single parenthood. Worse still, steering low-income households into new public housing maintains families as renters, rather than homeowners, preventing them from accumulating wealth through property ownership. Tenants on average spend more than 20 years in NYCHA housing, illustrating how many public-housing residents become long-term dependents.

The Sanders''Cortez plan is deeply misguided'--but we do have an obligation to maintain existing public housing as long as it continues to stand. In New York, that involves such crucial tasks as repairing the roofs and brick facades that let water seep in, accumulating mold and mildew and causing asthma. The best way to ensure such work gets done is not to recommit ourselves to public ownership, as the two socialists would, but to turn to private management, as NYCHA, to its credit, is doing in 61 of its properties.

The two lawmakers are not wrong to assert that the nation faces a housing shortage. But the best way to serve those of modest means is to clear the way for the construction of modest homes. New York has shown the way with the Nehemiah Homes in the South Bronx and Brooklyn'--small one- and two-family houses that have served those moving directly from public housing. Encouraging upward mobility through the housing market, not long-term government dependance, should be the goal.

It's a well-worn clich(C) by now that insanity is repeating the same mistake and expecting different results. But by proposing to expand our national investment in public housing, that's exactly what Sanders and Cortez have in mind.

Howard Husock is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book on the history of public housing.

Photo: Bus Photography/Moment via Getty Images

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Wed, 15 May 2024 15:41

On April 12, 2024, the Internal Revenue Service began notifying thousands of taxpayers that their tax return information was subject to a data breach perpetrated by an independent contractor working for the IRS. During 2018 through 2020, Charles Littlejohn stole the tax return information of thousands of high-net-worth individuals and their related entities and disclosed it to ProPublica and other entities. ProPublica used this tax return information to publish a series of articles about high-profile taxpayers, disseminating sensitive financial data to the public. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to disclosing return information without authorization and was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2024. Now, four years after the data breach, the IRS is notifying affected taxpayers, who are pondering the impact of the breach and what to do about it.

Background on Tax Disclosure RulesI.R.C. § 6103 prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of tax returns or return information by any officer or employee of the United States, any State or any local law enforcement agency, or any other person who has had access to returns or return information. A return includes any tax or information return, declaration of estimated tax, or claim for refund, including any supporting schedules or attachments. Tax return information is defined broadly to include (i) a taxpayer's identity, (ii) information about the nature, source or amount of his income, receipts, deductions, exemptions, assets, liabilities, net worth, or tax liabilities, withholdings, deficiencies, or payments, (iii) whether the taxpayer has been subject to an examination or investigation, and (iv) any other information provided to, collected, or prepared by the IRS. A disclosure includes any act of making known a return or return information to any person in any manner.

The Internal Revenue Code provides civil and criminal penalties for unauthorized disclosures under I.R.C. § 6103. A taxpayer may bring a civil action for damages against the United States where any officer or employee knowingly or negligently makes an unauthorized disclosure under I.R.C. § 6103. Where a taxpayer establishes that an unauthorized disclosure has occurred, he or she may recover the greater of (i) statutory damages of $1,000 per disclosure; or (ii) the sum of actual damages. Punitive damages may also be awarded where the plaintiff establishes that the unauthorized disclosure was willful or grossly negligent. Civil actions for violations of I.R.C. § 6103 must be brought within two years of the plaintiff's discovery of the unauthorized disclosure.

The willful disclosure of tax returns and return information may also be punishable as a felony under I.R.C. § 7213. Littlejohn was prosecuted under this statute.

What Does the IRS Disclosure Notification Say?The IRS issued Letters 6613-A to affected taxpayers notifying them of the Littlejohn data breach. The letters state that an IRS independent contractor was charged with the unauthorized disclosure of the affected taxpayer's return or return information between 2018 and 2020. The letters indicate that the Department of Justice is prosecuting this matter. Affected taxpayers who want more information about the status of the criminal prosecution or the Crime Victims' Rights Act are directed to the Department of Justice's website at Justice.gov/criminal-vns/case/united-states-v-charles-littlejohn. Affected taxpayers who have questions about the Crime Victims' Rights Act may also email the Department of Justice at CRM-PEN.Victims@usdoj.gov. These taxpayers can also send email inquiries seeking additional information to the IRS at Notification.7431@irs.gov, but it is unclear what information the IRS will provide. According to the letters, I.R.C. § 7431 authorizes civil actions for unauthorized disclosures of return information. Letters 6613-A direct affected taxpayers to consult with an attorney to determine whether they have a private right of action in connection with the unauthorized disclosure.

What Options Are Available for Affected Taxpayers?' Safeguarding Your Personal Identity

Although four years have elapsed between the unauthorized disclosures and the IRS notification, taxpayers who have received Letters 6613-A should consider taking steps to safeguard their personal identity. These steps may include (i) applying for an Identity Protection PIN from the IRS to prevent third parties from filing fraudulent tax returns using their social security number or EIN; (ii) periodically reviewing their tax transcripts to ensure there is no fraudulent activity; (iii) monitoring their credit reports to ensure their personal information has not been used for fraudulent activity; and (iv) asking the IRS if it plans to provide identity monitoring services to those affected by the breach.

' Pursuing a Civil Action

Affected taxpayers may also consider pursuing a civil action against Littlejohn and/or the IRS. Currently, there is one case pending against the IRS in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida involving Littlejohn's unauthorized disclosures. Recently, the court denied the government's motion to dismiss the plaintiff's I.R.C. § 7341 claim but dismissed the plaintiff's alternative Privacy Act claim for failure to allege actual damages. The outcome of the case remains to be seen, but it demonstrates that there are multiple issues to consider in determining whether to pursue a civil action against the IRS.

'' Will an Independent Contractor Be Treated as an IRS Employee?

Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison and is unlikely to be able to satisfy a judgment, so affected taxpayers may wish to pursue claims against the IRS. It is an open question whether Littlejohn would be treated as an IRS employee under the statute and whether the IRS would be held liable for his conduct. In the pending case involving the disclosures made by Littlejohn, the government argued in its motion to dismiss that Littlejohn was not an IRS employee. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied the motion on the I.R.C. § 7431 claim and allowed the case to proceed to discovery.

'' Can the Plaintiff Prove Damages?

There are many issues concerning the ability to establish damages. The statutory damages awarded under I.R.C. § 7431 are minimal (i.e., $1,000) unless the plaintiff can prove actual damages, which may be challenging. In addition to showing that the damages occurred, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant's conduct caused the damages. This may be difficult to establish in the absence of actual harm linkable to this particular breach, especially where over four years have elapsed between the unauthorized disclosure and the IRS's notification of the data breach.

The minimum statutory damages are $1,000 per disclosure. Here, where Littlejohn disclosed the return information to a news organization, which published a series of articles, how many disclosures occurred? The circuit courts are split on the issue of whether the disclosure constitutes a single disclosure to the news organization or should be treated as multiple, separate disclosures to the publication's readers.

Finally, I.R.C. § 7431 allows for punitive damages where the disclosure is willful. The circuit courts are also split on the issue of whether a plaintiff must establish actual damages before punitive damages can be imposed.

'' Did the IRS Notify Affected Taxpayers within a Reasonable Time?

I.R.C. § 7431 requires that the IRS notify a taxpayer if any person is criminally charged with an unlawful disclosure of the taxpayer's return or return information ''as soon as practicable.'' Whether the IRS's four-year delay in notifying affected taxpayers satisfies this requirement is an open question given the criminal investigation and prosecution that was proceeding during those years.

Fund ConsiderationsIn addition to the many individuals affected by Littlejohn's actions, many partnerships, funds, and other entities were also victims of the breach. These entities may wish to consider their obligation to notify impacted investors, whom the IRS may not have notified directly.

ConclusionFour years have passed since Littlejohn's unauthorized disclosures. Nevertheless, affected taxpayers who receive Letters 6613-A should take steps to safeguard their personal identify. Affected taxpayers may also wish to consult with an attorney to determine whether a civil action is appropriate and worthwhile in their circumstances.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 14:45

Grace Cary | Moment | Getty Images

Inflation fell slightly in April as easing price pressures for groceries and other areas of consumer balance sheets were partially offset by higher gasoline prices and stubbornly high housing costs.

The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 3.4% in April from a year ago, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday. That's down from 3.5% in March.

The report "is consistent with inflation, while still uncomfortably high, slowly coming back to earth," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

CPI gauges how fast prices are changing across the U.S. economy. It measures everything from fruits and vegetables to haircuts, concert tickets and household appliances.

The April inflation reading is down significantly from its 9.1% pandemic-era peak in 2022, which was the highest level since 1981. However, it remains above policymakers' long-term target, around 2%.

The decrease in April marks progress in the inflationary fight, which had somewhat flatlined in the first quarter of the year after falling consistently through much of 2023.

The inflation trendline will determine how soon Federal Reserve officials start throttling back interest rates, which influence borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.

"After getting stuck at the beginning of the year, we're starting to see [inflation] moderate again," Zandi said. "And I expect to see that going forward."

Food inflation has 'basically gone to zero'Gasoline prices increased 2.8% in the month from March to April, an increase from 1.7% the prior month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

"You saw prices at the pump rise again in April," said Michael Pugliese, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.

Average U.S. gasoline prices jumped about 13 cents in April, to $3.65 a gallon as of April 29, according to weekly data published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That increase is largely due to dynamics in the market for crude oil, which is refined into gasoline, economists said. Higher fuel prices can filter through to many other areas of the economy since they factor into transportation and distribution costs for goods, for example.

Gas prices have since retreated a bit to $3.61 per gallon as of May 13, according to the EIA.

Among other consumer staples, grocery prices decreased by 0.2% from March to April, meaning they deflated rather than inflated, according to CPI data. "Food at home" prices rose 1.1% in the past year.

"Food inflation has basically gone to zero," Zandi said. "I think that's really important for most American families, not only for their own financial situation but because of how they perceive the economy."

Progress on housing has been slowEconomists generally like to consider an inflation measure that strips out energy and food prices, which can be volatile, to determine prevailing inflation trends. That reading, known as "core" CPI, fell to an annual 3.6% in April from 3.8% in March.

Shelter, the largest spending category for the average household, is by far the largest component of "core" CPI. Annual housing inflation declined to 5.5% in April from 5.7% in March.

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Positive data trends like moderating prices for newly signed rental leases suggest housing inflation should continue to ease, economists said. However, that process hasn't happened as quickly as expected.

"It's one of the reasons we've seen slow progress" in the inflation fight, said Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

Shelter and gasoline inflation combined contributed more than 70% of the monthly CPI increase for all items, according to the BLS.

Other "notable" areas of core inflation over the past year include motor vehicle insurance (prices are up 22.6%), personal care (3.7%), medical care (2.6%) and recreation (1.5%).

Meanwhile, other consumer categories have seen improvement.

For example, prices for new and used vehicles decreased 0.4% and 6.9% in the past year, respectively. Those lower costs should filter through to help motor vehicle insurance inflation fall, too, economists said.

Supply and demand imbalancesAt a high level, imbalances in supply and demand are what trigger out-of-whack inflation.

For example, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains for goods. Americans' buying patterns also simultaneously shifted away from services '-- such as entertainment and travel '-- toward physical goods since they stayed at home more, driving up demand and fueling decades-high goods inflation.

Those dynamics have largely unwound, economists said. Rather, inflation is now "more of a services story than it is a goods story," Pugliese said.

Wage growth has been one contributor to services inflation, for example, economists said.

The services sector of the U.S. economy tends to be more sensitive to labor costs. Record-high demand for workers as the pandemic-era economy reopened pushed wage growth to its highest level in decades; the labor market has since cooled and wage growth has declined, though remains above its pre-pandemic level.

"Until we observe meaningful signs of deterioration in either the labor or housing markets, we expect continued stickiness in inflation measures," Joe Davis, global chief economist at Vanguard, wrote Tuesday.

Wage growth has surpassed the inflation rate over the last year, meaning consumers have been able to buy more with their paychecks. So-called "real" average hourly earnings rose 0.5% from April 2023 to April 2024.

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Tue, 14 May 2024 21:18

Google I/O 2024, more than ever before, was literally all about AI. But the event was less impressive than it was, somehow, a bit boring.

If you watched the Google I/O 2024 keynote today, you might not remember a lot of specific announcements. That's because everything was all about the same topic '' AI. Over the course of over two hours, the event saw big announcements that went quickly '' like AI Overviews rolling out to all users in Search '' and others that just felt out of place in Google's biggest event of the year.

In years past, Google I/O was about more than one subject. The event usually kicked off with Sundar Pichai discussing Google's advancements in AI and Search before moving on to consumer-facing products like Android, Chrome, Workspace, and more. Technically speaking, that also happened this year; it was just all about the same central theme '' AI.

What were the big announcements?

Some standouts include ''Ask Photos'' in Google Photos, which can sift through your library to find useful information. Then there's Gemini Live and Project Astra, multimodal AI experiences that produce impressively fast responses to voice and video input in real-time. There was also the ability for Android to scan calls on your device using AI and flag potential scams. There was also ''Veo,'' an impressive generative AI for video, and a useful side panel in Gmail, Docs, and more that uses Gemini 1.5 Pro to help you condense information.

Genuinely, a lot of it was rather exciting.

So why did the event as a whole feel boring?

In part, it's because a whole lot of it was playing catch-up. Google has been in a constant game of cat and mouse when it comes to AI innovation, largely competing with OpenAI. Everyone's chasing expanded context windows, new features, better performance, and so on.

The day before Google I/O, OpenAI hosted an event where it revealed GPT-4o and new multimodal capabilities within ChatGPT. It's a lot of the same stuff Google showed off here. By doing that, OpenAI definitely stole a bit of Google's thunder, but not entirely.

Frankly speaking, aside from the fact it wasn't live, Google's demo was arguably the more impressive one. Watching the clip of Project Astra in action and hearing ''do you remember where my glasses are'' only for the AI to correctly say where it saw them moments earlier was amazing.

But the impact of that incredible demo was undercut by the 1.5 hours and literally 100 more mentions of AI that followed.

OpenAI's event, compared to Google's, was fast-paced and easy to digest. Ironically, those two are the main goals of Google's various AI products, but I/O just didn't deliver in the same way. AI is not easy to explain, especially when you get into the technical details, and a big part of the problem of the keynote, I feel, was that far too much time was spent on those technical details and just shouting from the rooftops about how its models are technically better. Those would have been better served by dedicated sessions later on in the day, rather than the biggest spotlight Google gets for the entire year. And as a result, other key products for Google, including Android, are just not going to get the attention they deserve.

Google I/O 2024's keynote absolutely had some highs, but as it just kept going, all of the excitement was diluted.

And what made matters worse was that, after the first hour and all of the big reveals, Google circled back to a lot of what was already announced. That felt messy and confusing, and again undercut the impact Google was trying to make.

The entire keynote was just a two-hour reminder that ''hey, we're good at AI too!''

Google doesn't need to do that. The products need to speak for themselves.

At Google's scale, the timing of their arrival doesn't feel nearly as important as the way in which they're shown off. Google is good at AI, and doing things that literally no one else is capable of with things like Google Photos and Gmail integration. It's those unique and impressive integrations that Google needs to be focusing on, not just trying to steal the spotlight from someone else.

More from Google I/O 2024:Google's AI-powered Search starts rolling out to everyone today'Gemini Live' lets you talk to Gemini as Google demos 'Project Astra' on glassesGoogle infusing AI into Android with Gemini app and on-device NanoGemini Advanced now uses 1.5 Pro as Google details more Extensions, custom 'Gems' Gmail on Android, iOS getting more Gemini: Q&A, better Smart Reply, SummarizeGemini 1.5 Pro-powered side panel launching in Gmail, Google Docs, and more Google Photos 'Ask Photos' will let you search your images with voice and text promptsGoogle launches 'Veo,' an AI video generation tool alongside Imagen 3 upgradeFollow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, and Instagram

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Tue, 14 May 2024 19:53

Statsministeren sparer ikke p¥ superlativerne.

Det er "fantastisk". Og hun er "k...mpe tilh...nger".

Sp¸rgsm¥let er egentlig kritisk og g¥r p¥, hvorfor den h¸je priss...tning skal forhindre amerikanere i at nyde godt af Novo Nordisks diabetes- og fedmemedicin, Ozempic og Wegovy, der ellers er genstand for hendes rosende ord.

Det er en debat, som den amerikanske senator og formand for sundhedsudvalget i det amerikanske Senat, Bernie Sanders, skubber p¥ med et debatindl...g i Politiken mandag, og som Enhedslistens politiske ordf¸rer, Pelle Dragsted, har taget op i Folketingets sp¸rgetime med statsministeren.

Men Mette Frederiksen (S) dv...ler ved de revolutionerende slankemidler, der g¥r deres sejrsgang over hele verden med danske Novo Nordisks logo p¥ pakken.

- Jeg m¥ bare sige, at jeg er selv r¸rt over at m¸de mennesker, der har k...mpet mod overv...gt og fedme i rigtig, rigtig lang tid, og som har f¥et deres liv og deres krop tilbage p¥ grund af de her pr...parater, siger statsminister Mette Frederiksen og forts...tter den hurtige talestr¸m:

- Jeg er k...mpe tilh...nger af dem! Det m¥ jeg sikkert ikke sige som statsminister, men jeg kan bare se, hvor stor en forskel det g¸r i rigtig mange menneskers liv. Det l¸fter virkelig livskvaliteten.

"Kan ruinere sundhedssystemer over hele verden"

Problemet er dog - if¸lge Enhedslisten og Bernie Sanders - at priserne er markant h¸jere for amerikanere end for canadiere, tyskere eller danskere. For h¸je.

Det er i mine ¸jne udtryk for et selskab, der t...nker lidt for meget p¥ profit og lidt for lidt p¥ mennesker.

Pelle Dragsted, politisk ordf¸rer for Enhedslisten- Denne vigtige medicin kommer ikke de millioner af patienter til gode, der ikke har r¥d til den. Hvad mere er, hvis ikke priserne bliver s...nket kraftigt, kan de to l...gemidler ruinere ikke bare det amerikanske sundhedsv...sen, men sundhedssystemer over hele verden, skriver han i Politiken.

Den sidste del - nemlig omkostningerne for sundhedsv...snet - har ogs¥ skabt debat herhjemme.

Den demokratiske senator, Bernie Sanders, gjorde sig bem...rket herhjemme, da han i fors¸get p¥ at blive demokraternes pr...sidentkandidat fremh...vede kvaliteterne ved det danske velf...rdssamfund. Som formand for Senatets Sundhedsudvalg er han g¥et i krig mod h¸je medicinpriser. (Foto: (C) Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press)

Priserne, Bernie Sanders henviser til, lyder eksempelvis p¥ 9.335 kroner for en m¥neds Wegovy-behandling i USA sammenholdt med 410 kroner i Tyskland. Men de bliver affejet som "faktuelt forkerte" af Novo Nordisk selv, fordi den slags listepriser ikke tager h¸jde for de meget forskellige sundhedssystemer, medicinmarkeder og procedurer for priss...tning af pr...parater i USA og Europa.

I Danmark koster Wegovy mellem 1.320 kroner og 2.360 kroner om m¥neden - afh...ngigt af dosen.

Principiel profit

Der er tilskudssystemer, forsikringsaftaler og rabatordninger i de forskellige lande, som g¸r prissammenligningen vanskelig, men Novo Nordisk beskriver selv, hvordan prisen allerede er faldet med 40 procent i USA, siden Ozempic blev introduceret i 2018. Det er ikke mere end nogle dage siden, prisen blev reduceret sidst, s¥ noget kan den danske medicingigant alts¥ ogs¥ selv g¸re.

Wegovy st¥r sammen med pr...peratet Ozempic, der er baseret p¥ det samme stof, for den succes, som Novo Nordisk oplever i ¸jeblikket. (Foto: (C) SCOTT OLSON, Ritzau Scanpix)

Og de burde g¸re mere, mener Enhedslistens Pelle Dragsted.

- Det er i mine ¸jne udtryk for et selskab, der t...nker lidt for meget p¥ profit og lidt for lidt p¥ mennesker, siger han i debatten overfor statsministeren.

I princippet er hun enig:

Jeg er jo totalt for s¥ lave priser p¥ medicin som overhovedet muligt, for det er s¥ afg¸rende for menneskers liv.

Statsminister Mette Frederiksen (S)- Jeg er jo totalt for s¥ lave priser p¥ medicin som overhovedet muligt, for det er s¥ afg¸rende for menneskers liv, lyder det fra Mette Frederiksen.

Men, siger hun:

- Jeg m¥ ogs¥ v...re ...rlig at sige, at jeg kender ikke til de konkrete forhold i USA, og hvad det er, der g¸r, at priss...tningen ser ud, som den g¸r, men helt principielt, p¥ vegne af verdens befolkninger, er jeg tilh...nger af, at medicinpriser er s¥ lave som muligt.

En dansk sans for retf...rdighed?

Kritikken, som Bernie Sanders har rettet mod Novo Nordisk, g...lder ogs¥ konkurrerende producenter, som Eli Lilly, og det er langt fra f¸rste gang, den bliver rejst.

Det aktive stof i Ozempic og Wegovy er det samme: Semaglutid, et stof som Novo Nordisk kun har patent p¥ i USA og EU i otte ¥r endnu. (Foto: (C) David J. Phillip, Associated Press)

Medicinalfirmaerne deltog i maj sidste ¥r i en h¸ring i Senatet om emnet, og s¥ sent som i slutningen af april sendte Bernie Sanders et brev til Novo Nordisks administrerende direkt¸r, Lars Fruergaard J¸rgensen, med samme budskab.

Med debatindl...gget fors¸ger han at g¥ en ny vej: Via "jer danskeres" - og dermed ogs¥ statsminister Mette Frederiksens - sans for social retf...rdighed.

Jeg vil gerne appellere til jer danskeres grundf...stede sociale retf...rdighedssans.

Bernie Sanders, senator og formand for Senatets Sundhedsudvalg- Jeg vil gerne appellere til jer danskeres grundf...stede sociale retf...rdighedssans for at f¥ jer til at hj...lpe med kraftigt at tilskynde Novo Nordisk, den st¸rste og mest rentable virksomhed i jeres land, til markant at reducere de uh¸rt h¸je priser p¥ Ozempic og Wegovy i USA og andre dele af verden, skriver han.

Novo Nordisks patenter p¥ GLP-1-molekylet semaglutid, som er det aktive stof i b¥de Ozempic og Wegovy, l¸ber frem til 2032 i USA og Europa, i Kina udl¸ber det allerede om et par ¥r.

Det er forventningen - ogs¥ hos Novo Nordisk selv, at salget af semaglutid-produkterne vil lade det danske firma indkassere et trecifret milliardbel¸b.

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Tue, 14 May 2024 19:46

Wall Street ' s DEI Retreat Has Officially Begun. As DEI gets more divisive, companies are ditching their teams.

These are not headlines I thought I'd be reading in 2024, but it's a happy day when legacy news sites as hegemonic as Bloomberg and The Washington Post are using such clear language to flag the retreat of DEI from corporate America.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bills itself as a framework for promoting fair treatment and full participation for all people in the workforce, with a special focus on groups historically hurt by discrimination, like women, racial minorities and LGBT individuals.

What DEI has generally looked like in practice, however, is a new brand of bigotry to replace the old, where a person's outward identity trumps their merit or performance. Meanwhile, those possessing genuine talent but the wrong attributes (think male, white or straight) have found themselves punished for factors out of their control.

American philosopher Dr Peter Boghossian was part of the infamous Grievance Studies Affair project, and later made headlines for resigning from his prestigious post at Portland State University after the school became overrun with DEI ideology. He has offered more honest definitions for this contentious three-letter acronym.

Diversity, according to Boghossian, means people who look different but think alike. Equity, he says, means making up for past discrimination with current discrimination. And Inclusion, he argues, means restricting speech.

Nowhere have Boghossian's DEI definitions proven more prescient than at Harvard University, which became embroiled in a months-long scandal late last year as the woke worldview of then-President Claudine Gay unravelled in real time before a watching world.

Ms Gay's failures were at least threefold.

First, she carved a path of effectively destroying the careers of dissident Harvard scholars, even if they were from racial minorities: economist Roland Fryer and law professor Ronald Sullivan being two prominent examples.

Second, following unconscionable pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus, she was asked during a Capitol Hill deposition whether calling for genocide against Jews ran counter to Harvard's harassment policy, and she equivocated, bigly .

Third and perhaps most unforgivably for an Ivy League president, some 50 instances of plagiarism were latterly uncovered in her rather threadbare canon of scholarship.

There is no doubt that the fall of Claudine Gay was a turning point for wokery in America's institutions. If reporting from Bloomberg and WaPo is anything to go on, it also marked the beginning of the end for DEI.

Writes Bloomberg :

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has made a surprising change to its '' Possibilities Summit'' for Black college students: It ' s opened the program to White students.

At Bank of America Corp., certain internal programs that used to focus on women and minorities have been broadened to include everyone.

And at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., executives are being urged to reconsider hard metrics for workforce diversity. Lose them, lawyers have advised.

This is what diversity, equity and inclusion looks like on Wall Street today: anxious, fraught '-- and changing fast.

From C-suites down, American finance is quietly reassessing its promises to level the playing field. The growing conservative assault on DEI, coupled with pockets of resentment among White employees, have executives moving to head off accusations of reverse discrimination. It ' s not just Wall Street. In recent weeks, Zoom Video Communications Inc. cut its internal DEI team amid broader layoffs and Tesla Inc. removed language about minority workers from a regulatory filing.

The seemingly small changes '-- lawyerly tweaks, executives call them '-- are starting to add up to something big: the end of a watershed era for diversity in the US workplace, and the start of a new, uncertain one.

The news from WaPo is just as bright:

DEI jobs peaked in early 2023 before falling 5 percent that year and shrinking by 8 percent so far in 2024, according to Revelio Labs data shared with The Washington Post. The attrition rate for DEI roles has been about double that of non-DEI jobs, says Revelio, which tracks workforce dynamics.

In recent weeks, Zoom axed its internal DEI team amid broader layoffs, and Snap cut workers who worked on retention and engagement efforts for employees from underrepresented groups. Meta, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, Wayfair and X were among major corporations making steep cuts in 2023, slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more, Revelio ' s data shows.

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Tue, 14 May 2024 19:30

It's a sore subject.

''Ozempic breasts'' are the latest side effect of the weekly injection, with some women complaining about sagging breasts. Experts say this is a completely normal occurrence when people lose a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time '-- it's not unique to Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs used for diabetes or weight loss.

''In the breast area, rapid fat loss can leave the skin envelope empty, causing the breasts to look deflated and the nipples facing downward,'' Dr. Ronald F. Rosso, medical director at Peninsula Plastic Surgery in Torrance, California, explained to Heathline last week. ''This appearance is very similar to what happens after patients have had more traditional weight loss procedures such as gastric bypass.''

Dr. Walter J. Joseph, a California aesthetic plastic and reconstructive surgeon, said that Ozempic users who have been pregnant and breastfed their children may be at greater risk for ''sad-looking'' breasts that mean less cleavage and less fullness.

Women can try to ease their discomfort by wearing a supportive bra everywhere except for the shower, Dr. Elie Levine, director of plastic surgery at Plastic Surgery & Dermatology of NYC PLLC, told Heathline.

''Ozempic breasts'' are the latest side effect of the weekly injection, with some women complaining about sagging and tender breasts. Getty Images Experts say droopiness is a completely normal occurrence when people lose a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time '-- it's not unique to Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs used for diabetes or weight loss. Christopher SadowskiPlastic surgery may also be an option. Skin-tightening procedures have soared as Ozempic becomes more popular and grumbles about ''Ozempic butt'' (a droopy patootie) and ''Ozempic face'' (hollowed-out cheeks) rise.

In a breast lift, also known as mastopexy, a plastic surgeon removes sagging skin, reshapes the remaining tissue, and repositions the nipple so it's facing forward instead of down. A breast lift can also be done with implants.

Dr. Christopher Costa, founder of Platinum Plastic Surgery in Las Vegas, advises patients to wait until they achieve '-- and maintain '-- their desired weight before deciding on plastic surgery.

A 2022 study found that participants regained two'thirds of their weight loss within the first year after stopping their GLP'1 usage.

''Your body after Ozempic may be completely different,'' Costa told Heathline. ''That means accepting that overall breast volume and shape may be affected. If you're not ready for a cosmetic procedure, it's OK to embrace your new look. Go shopping for new clothes to fit your new size and bust to create the best version of yourself.''

Some GLP-1 users have also lamented that their breasts feel swollen.

''I'm on week 3 of semaglutide (.25 dose) and have had virtually zero side effects, but the last week my breasts have been so heavy and sore! Like first trimester sore, tender, the works,'' one Redditor described last month. ''They feel bigger too. I haven't had any weight loss so I don't think it's due to that.''

Swelling may be reduced by massaging the breasts to increase circulation, said Levine, who also recommends ibuprofen, Tylenol or a cool compress to relieve symptoms.

Costa said more research is needed to directly link the medications to hormonal changes that can cause breast swelling.

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Tue, 14 May 2024 19:29

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While the border crisis has become a major liability for President Biden, threatening his reelection chances, it\u2019s become a huge boon to a group of nonprofits getting rich off government contracts.

Although the federally funded Unaccompanied Children Program is responsible for resettling unaccompanied migrant minors who enter the U.S., it delegates much of the task to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that run shelters in the border states of Texas, Arizona, and California.

And with the recent massive influx of unaccompanied children\u2014a record 130,000 in 2022, the last year for which there are official stats\u2014the coffers of these NGOs are swelling, along with the salaries of their CEOs.

\u201CThe amount of taxpayer money they are getting is obscene,\u201D Charles Marino, former adviser to Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, said of the NGOs. \u201CWe\u2019re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.\u201D

The Free Press examined three of the most prominent NGOs that have benefited: Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc. These organizations have seen their combined revenue grow from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022, the last year for which federal disclosure documents are available. And the CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation, with one of them\u2014the chief executive of Southwest Key\u2014making more than $1 million.

Some of the services NGOs provide are eyebrow-raising. For example, Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to offer migrant children \u201Cpet therapy,\u201D \u201Chorticulture therapy,\u201D and music therapy. In 2021 alone, Endeavors paid Christy Merrell, a music therapist, $533,000. An internal Endeavors PowerPoint obtained by America First Legal, an outfit founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, showed that the nonprofit conducted 1,656 \u201Cpeople-plant interactions\u201D and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023.

Endeavors\u2019 2022 federal disclosure form also shows that it paid $5 million to a company to provide fill-in doctors and nurses, $4.6 million for \u201Cconsulting services,\u201D $1.4 million to attend conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists. In 2021, the NGO shelled out $8 million to hotel management company Esperanto Developments to house migrants in their hotels. Endeavors, which gets 99.6 percent of its revenue from the government according to federal disclosure forms, declined to comment to The Free Press.

The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, funds the nonprofits through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, and its budget has swelled over the years\u2014from $1.8 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2023. The ORR is expected to spend at least $7.3 billion this year\u2014almost all of which will be funneled to NGOs and other contractors.

When asked about the funding increase during a January media event, Krish O\u2019Mara Vignarajah, the chief executive of Global Refuge said, \u201CWe\u2019ve grown because the need has grown.\u201D The nonprofit did not make Vignarajah available for an interview.

But while it\u2019s true the number of migrants has exploded in recent years, critics say these enormous federal grants far exceed the current need. The facilities themselves are generally owned by private companies and are leased to the NGOs, which house the unaccompanied minors and attempt to unite them with family members or, if that\u2019s not possible, people who will take care of them\u2014their so-called sponsors. The ORR does not publicly list the specific number of shelters it funds in its efforts to house migrants, a business The New York Times once described as \u201Clucrative\u201D and \u201Csecretive.\u201D

While some NGOs have long had operations at the border, \u201Cwhat is new under Biden is the amount of taxpayer money being awarded, the lack of accountability for performance, and the lack of interest in solving the problem,\u201D said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that researches the effect of government immigration policies and describes its bias as \u201Clow-immigration, pro-immigrant.\u201D

Consider Global Refuge, based in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2018, according to its federal disclosure form, the Baltimore-based nonprofit had $50 million in revenue. By 2022, its revenue totaled $207 million\u2014$180 million of which came from the government. That year, $82 million was spent on housing unaccompanied children. Global Refuge also granted $45 million to an organization that facilitates adoptions as well as resettling migrant children.

Now Global Refuge employs over 550 people nationwide, and CEO Vignarajah said in January that the nonprofit plans to expand to at least 700 staffers by the end of 2024.

Vignarajah, a former policy director for Michelle Obama when she was first lady, took the top job at Global Refuge in February 2019 after she lost her bid to be elected governor of Maryland. She has since become one of the most prominent advocates for migrants crossing the southern border, appearing frequently on MSNBC and other media as an immigration advocate. Her incoming salary was $244,000, but just three years later, her compensation more than doubled to $520,000.

In 2019, Global Refuge housed 2,591 unaccompanied children while spending $30 million. Three years later, the NGO reported that it housed 1,443 unaccompanied children at a cost of $82.5 million\u2014almost half the number of migrants for more than double the money.

In a statement to The Free Press, Global Refuge spokesperson Timothy Young said that while in care, \u201CUnaccompanied children attend six hours of daily education and participate in recreational activities, both at the education site and within the community.\u201D

The man with the $1 million salary is Dr. Anselmo Villarreal, who became CEO of Southwest Key Programs, headquartered in Austin, Texas, in 2021. (Villarreal took a drop in pay compared to his predecessor, Southwest Key founder Juan Sanchez, who paid himself an eye-popping $3.5 million in 2018.)

Despite a number of scandals in the recent past, including misuse of federal funds and several instances of employees sexually abusing some of the children in its care, Southwest Key continues to operate\u2014and rake in big government checks. In 2020, the year of Covid-19, its government grant was $391 million; by 2022, its contract was nearly $790 million.

Southwest Key\u2019s federal disclosure forms show that in 2022, six executives in addition to Villarreal made more than $400,000, including its chief strategist ($800,000), its head of operations ($700,000) and its top HR executive ($535,000). Its total payroll in 2022 was $465 million.

Endeavors, Inc., based in San Antonio, Texas, is run by Chip Fulghum. Formerly the chief financial officer of the Department of Homeland Security, he signed on as Endeavors\u2019 chief operating officer in 2019 and was promoted to CEO this year.

In 2022, Fulghum was paid almost $600,000, while the compensation for Endeavors\u2019 then-CEO, Jon Allman, was $700,000. Endeavors\u2019 payroll went from $20 million in 2018 to a whopping $150 million in 2022, with seven other executives earning more than $300,000.

Perhaps the most shocking figure was the size of Endeavors\u2019s 2022 contract with the government: a staggering $1.3 billion, by far the largest sum ever granted to an NGO working at the border. (In 2023, Endeavors\u2019 government funds shrank to $324 million because the shelter was closed for six months. Endeavors says this was because the beds were not needed, the border crisis notwithstanding.)

Despite these astronomical sums, the Unaccompanied Children Program is fraught with problems and suffers from a general lack of oversight. Because so many unaccompanied youths are crossing the border, sources who worked at a temporary Emergency Intake Site in 2021 said the ORR pressured case managers to move children out within two weeks in order to prepare for the next wave of unaccompanied children.

In 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis empaneled a grand jury to conduct an investigation, which showed how the ORR continually loosened its safety protocols so children could be connected to sponsors more quickly\u2014and with less due diligence. The same report revealed that because there\u2019s often no documentation to prove a migrant\u2019s age at the time Border Patrol processes them, 105 adults were discovered posing as unaccompanied children in 2021. One of them, a 24-year-old Honduran male who said he was 17, was charged with murdering his sponsor in Jacksonville, Florida.

\u201CWe used to have DNA testing to make sure we had these family units,\u201D Chris Clem, a recently retired Border Patrol officer, told The Free Press. But since the border crisis, the ORR has abandoned DNA testing, according to congressional testimony by the General Accountability Office. In 2021, ORR revised its rules so that public records checks for other adults living in a prospective sponsor\u2019s home were no longer mandatory.

Tara Rodas, a government employee who was temporarily detailed to work at the California Pomona Fairplex Emergency Intake shelter in 2021, told The Free Press she also uncovered evidence of fraud within the sponsorship system. \u201CMost of the sponsors have no legal presence in the U.S. I don\u2019t know if I saw one U.S. ID,\u201D said Rodas. \u201CThere were no criminal investigators at the site, and there was no access to see if sponsors had committed crimes in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.\u201D

Last October, the ORR published a series of proposed changes to its regulations in the Federal Register that will effectively codify the more relaxed standards. The new regulations, which will go into effect in July, will allow background checks and verifying the validity of a sponsor\u2019s identity\u2014but wouldn\u2019t require them.

\u201CIt is mind-boggling that ORR has not seen fit to adjust the policies for (unaccompanied children) placements, except to make them more lenient,\u201D Jessica Vaughan at the Center for Immigration Studies told The Free Press. \u201CThey could do a much better job, but they only want to streamline the process and make the releases even easier.\u201D The Administration for Children and Families did not respond to emailed questions from The Free Press.

Deborah White, another federal employee temporarily detailed to the Pomona Fairplex facility in 2021, told The Free Press: \u201CUltimately, the responsibility is on the government. But the oversight is obviously not adequate\u2014from the contracting to the care of the children to the vetting of the sponsors. All of it is inadequate. The government blames the contractor and the contractor blames the government, and no one is held accountable.\u201D

Maddie Rowley is an investigative reporter. Follow her on X @Maddie_Rowley. And read Peter Savodnik\u2019s piece, \u201CA Report from the Southern Border: \u2018We Want Biden to Win.\u2019\u201D

Reports like this one require time and resources. To support more of our independent journalism, become a Free Press subscriber today:

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Tue, 14 May 2024 19:21

CNN '--

New analyses of the longest clinical trial yet of the weight-loss drug Wegovy are shedding light on how quickly it helps people lose weight, how long they sustain that weight loss and how safe the medicine is over four years of use.

The analyses '' of a trial called Select, whose results showed last year that Wegovy significantly reduced heart risk in addition to helping with weight loss '' also suggest that the drug may protect the heart in ways beyond weight loss alone, researchers said, raising new questions about how the wildly popular medicines in this drug class should be used '' and covered by insurers.

''The implications are profound,'' said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and scientist at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital who was not involved in the research, noting that a second study this week showed a similar finding for heart failure. ''We have not encountered a drug with such a breadth of heart benefits.''

More than 25,000 people in the US are starting Wegovy every week, drugmaker Novo Nordisk said this month. And in a KFF poll released Friday, 6% of respondents said they were currently using a drug in this class, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists. That translates to more than 15 million Americans.

One important question about these blockbuster medicines is how widely '' and how long '' they've been studied. The Select trial, which was funded by Novo Nordisk, showed last year that Wegovy reduced the risk of a heart attack, stroke or heart-related death by 20% in people with existing cardiovascular risk with obesity or who are overweight. It included more than 17,600 people from 41 countries between 2018 and 2021 and followed them for several years.

Researchers have continued to mine the data, and the new analyses, presented Monday at the European Congress on Obesity and published in the journal Nature Medicine, show results for people taking Wegovy as long as four years. Here are some major takeaways:

The analysis showed an average weight loss of just over 10% for people who used semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, compared with 1.5% for study participants who got a placebo. The researchers, led by Dr. Donna Ryan of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, noted that the trend showed that participants on the medication typically lost weight for about 65 weeks, or a year and three months, before reaching a plateau.

A previous clinical trial showed even greater average weight loss for Wegovy: about 15% on average over 68 weeks, compared with 2.4% for people who got a placebo. The researchers on the new analysis noted that, in addition to some differences in the people who enrolled in each trial, the previous study was designed specifically for weight loss and included more structured lifestyle interventions about diet and exercise compared with the Select trial, which was designed to test whether the drug prevented cardiac events.

The results showed that the 10% average weight loss for people using Wegovy was sustained for up to 208 weeks, or four years.

Patients stayed on the medicine while they sustained the weight loss. Other studies have shown that many people regain weight after stopping the drugs, including one published in December from Novo Nordisk competitor Eli Lilly: People using the GLP-1 drug Zepbound, which uses the active ingredient tirzepatide and targets a second hormone called GIP, lost an average of 21% of their body weight over 36 weeks. The participants were then split into two groups, and those who stayed on the medicine lost an additional 5.5% of their body weight, while those who unknowingly switched to a placebo regained 14% of their weight.

However, not everybody regained so much weight. The study also looked at how many people maintained at least 80% of the weight loss after the initial 36 weeks, and while many more who continued on the drug did '' almost 90% - almost 17% of people who were switched to a placebo maintained that much weight loss without the drug.

In the new analysis, the researchers reported that after two years, about 68% of people taking Wegovy had lost at least 5% of their body weight, while 21% of people on a placebo did. Almost 23% of people on Wegovy lost at least 15% of their body weight, compared with 1.7% on a placebo. And almost 5% of people on the drug lost more than 25% of their body weight, compared with 0.1% on placebo, showing that the top-line findings from studies are just averages; everyone has a different experience with medicines.

Overall, more people on Wegovy decided to stop participating in the trial because of side effects than people who got a placebo: 17% of those on the drug versus 8% on placebo, a result that was previously reported. And the side effects were ones that are widely known with these medicines: mainly gastrointestinal disorders like nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and constipation, which usually affected people in the first few months of the study as the dose of the medicine increased.

The researchers noted that there were no new safety signals seen in the latest analyses. Acute pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas, wasn't seen at a higher rate among those on Wegovy than placebo, although gallbladder disorders like gallstones were: 2.8% for people on Wegovy, compared with 2.3% for people on placebo. Both are included in warnings in the drug's prescribing information because they'd been seen previously in trials.

A key question when the full results of the Select trial were initially presented was whether the 20% reduction in heart risk was driven by weight-loss alone or some other protective effect of the drug. The new analysis suggests that there is something else at play.

That's because the reduction in risk of heart attack or other events was seen even in people using Wegovy who didn't lose weight.

''You probably don't even need to lose weight to get the cardiovascular benefit'' with semaglutide and similar medicines, said Dr. Daniel Drucker, a pioneer of research into GLP-1 at the University of Toronto who wasn't involved in the new analyses. ''That's because that's what GLP-1 does: It's cardio-protective, at least in animals, independent of whether or not you have diabetes, independent of whether you have obesity, and you don't require weight loss '' it's not the whole story.''

An analysis led by John Deanfield of University College London found that the reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events in the study for those on Wegovy, compared with placebo, was similar among people who lost 5% or more of their body weight and those who lost less than that or even those who gained weight.

''This suggests alternative mechanisms of improved cardiovascular outcome beyond reduction in adiposity,'' or body fat, the researchers concluded.

A separate study published Monday about heart failure, for which Wegovy has shown a major benefit, suggested the same thing, Krumholz said.

''These two studies show that these anti-obesity medications are also heart-health drugs,'' he wrote in an email. ''The benefits to the heart for people with established cardiovascular disease or a certain type of heart failure occur regardless of the amount of weight loss.''

Drucker suspects that GLP-1 drugs provide these kinds of benefits by reducing inflammation.

''We can't ignore the reduction in blood pressure or triglycerides, and the reduction in body weight must help a little bit, and glucose must help a little as well,'' he said.

But based on his lab's research, he said, ''one of my favorite theories is inflammation, because we know that people with cardiovascular disease do have increased inflammation in their blood vessels and in the heart.''

Drucker said studies have shown that GLP-1 drugs tamp down harmful inflammation, which his lab is studying. He even noted that he receives communications from people with conditions like Covid-related brain fog, ulcerative colitis and arthritis '' driven by inflammation '' who think their symptoms have improved while using GLP-1 medicines. Those links would need to be borne out in clinical studies to be considered definitive.

The results in the Select trial, he said, raise the question of whether people who don't have obesity or aren't overweight but who have had a heart attack or stroke could benefit from taking a drug like Wegovy to prevent another event '' another thing that would need to be studied.

And, Drucker said, the results suggest that insurers should cover the medicines, which cost about $1,000 per month or more without it, more widely.

''We probably really need to rethink these criteria for reimbursing the medicines, because they are going to be helpful in terms of actually improving health and saving lives and saving health care dollars in people with obesity and heart disease even without much weight loss,'' he said. ''You don't even need to lose weight to have a reduction in heart attack, strokes and death.''

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Archived Version

Tue, 14 May 2024 19:17

The French capital Paris will be split into zones this summer, with anyone wanting to enter certain areas required to show a pass on their phone.

Special measures will be in place throughout the city as part of increased security around the Olympic Games, which start in July.

Anyone wishing to enter certain zones, including residents, will have to apply for a special Pass Jeux (games pass) on a platform run by police.

It mostly applies to people driving, but even pedestrians will need to show a QR code to enter an area called the 'grey zone' around the River Seine in the centre, where the opening ceremony will take place.

The codes will be checked at access points along the entrance to each zone, manned by officers.

Applications for the passes opened today, with people needing to upload various documents to be authorised.

The opening ceremony grey zone will be in place 24 hours a day for an eight-day period from July 18 to July 26.

After the official start of the games, this zone will be lifted but drivers will still need to show their pass at the perimeters of the 'red' and 'blue' zones which cover significant areas of the city, while grey zones will cover the exact areas where events are taking place.

The policy has echoes of the 'Covid pass' system during the pandemic, when many countries introduced QR code passes stored on phone apps, for people to prove they had been vaccinated and access certain venues or transport.

To be granted a pass, people must show proof of identity, an identity photo, their address, and potentially other documents including vehicle registration document or proof of their employer.

It comes after high profile terror attacks in France, including an attack on Bastille Day celebrations in Nice where 86 were killed, and coordinated attacks in 2015 including on the Bataclan concert hall which left 130 people dead.

More TrendingRead More StoriesThe UK government warns that terrorists are 'very likely to try to carry out attacks in France', saying methods have included knife attacks, shootings, bombings and vehicle attacks.

Zones prohibiting road traffic once the games begin are designed to 'protect the flow of spectators from the Olympic and Paralympic venues', organisers said.

'They will be activated each day of the event on the site, 2.5 hours before the first competition and 1 hour after the last.'

Applying for a QR code games pass is free, and people who already have tickets to events do not need to apply for a separate pass, unless they want to access the area in advance.

To check if you will be affected, the games pass website lets you check addresses on an interactive map.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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Archived Version

Tue, 14 May 2024 13:38

The porn star at the center of Donald Trump's criminal case has earned far more after her secret hush-money deal slipped out, although it's not as much as the former president's lawyers suggested.By Zach Everson, Forbes StaffDonald Trump would not be facing 34 criminal counts in New York if not for an adult-film actress named Stormy Daniels, who claims she had sex with the real-estate mogul. Trump denies the allegation, and his lawyers are working to undermine Daniels' credibility in his ongoing trial, painting her as an opportunist. ''That story has made you a lot of money, right?'' one of Trump's attorneys asked Daniels on May 7.

''It has also cost me a lot of money,'' Daniels replied.

Indeed, the story has led to quite a saga, complete with massive swings in Daniels' finances. There was the initial payoff, then the fame, the strip-club tour, the lawsuits, books, theft and more lawsuits. It's difficult to get a precise figure for how much Daniels has made off the scandal, but Forbes put together a ballpark tally, excluding tax payments and lots of legal expenses.

The conclusion: Daniels likely bolstered her earnings by several hundred thousand dollars. A nice sum, but a long way from the ''millions of dollars'' Trump's attorney suggested Daniels made.

Part I: Selling the Story +Roughly $100,000Ballpark tally: $100,000The alleged incident happened in 2006, in a Nevada hotel. Five years later, Daniels told her story to In Touch, expecting to receive $15,000 when the article ran. But it never did. Daniels testified that she heard Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, threatened to sue the magazine.

In 2016, with Trump running for president, Daniels had another chance to cash in. Trump, using Cohen as a middleman, bought her silence for $130,000. After paying an attorney and publicist, she walked away with $96,000.

There could have been a bit more, too. Daniels sued her attorney, Keith Davidson, for allegedly breaching his fiduciary duty and Cohen, for aiding and abetting the attorney. Daniels dropped the Davidson case but reached an undisclosed settlement with Cohen in May 2019, according to the Los Angeles Times. Daniels declined to answer most of Forbes questions, stating she's not doing interviews until after Trump's trial concludes.

Part II: Fame Is Fortune +Roughly $20,000Ballpark tally: +$120,000The Wall Street Journal broke news of the payoff in 2018, making Stormy Daniels a household name. Despite the hush-money deal, she sensed a chance to capitalize. ''She wanted to talk about her life and reinvigorate her career,'' Davidson testified on May 2.

Attention led to opportunities. Daniels signed a more-lucrative deal to direct and perform in adult films. She embarked on a ''Make America Horny Again'' tour of the nation's strip clubs, with appearance fees reportedly doubling and bookings tripling. Industry experts told Forbes at the time that the scandal would likely double Daniels' annual income, estimated to previously be in the low six figures.

Michael Avenatti, her attorney back then, said at the time that the extra publicity added less than $20,000 to her net income, with higher earnings offset by more expensive security costs.

Daniels also hawks merchandise tied to the encounter, such as Stormy Saint of Indictments candles ($40) and ''Stormy 202Whore'' t-shirts ($25).

Fame, of course, can come with a cost. In addition to the security expenses, Daniels testified that the newfound attention led her to hire tutors for her daughter and move to a safer place to live.

Part III: Courtroom Costs -$560,000Ballpark tally: -$440,000In March 2018, Daniels sued Trump and Cohen for defamation while attempting to get out of her nondisclosure agreement. She later dropped the defamation claim. Trump and Cohen agreed not to enforce their agreement, and the judge ordered them to pay her legal fees of $44,000. Trump appealed, lost again and was ordered to cover an additional $54,000 of legal expenses. Neither Daniels nor her attorneys have seen the money, though.

In April 2018, Avenatti released a sketch of a man who allegedly had threatened Daniels in a Las Vegas parking lot. Trump tweeted that the drawing was ''a total con job.'' Avenatti sued for defamation on behalf of Daniels, who testified on May 7 that she did not want to file the case. ''It just seemed really risky,'' she said.

It was. A judge tossed the suit and ordered Daniels to pay Trump's legal fees of $293,000. She appealed twice, lost both times and ended up on the hook for $660,000 of Trump's legal fees. ''I will go to jail before I pay a penny,'' she tweeted in March 2022, a statement she stood by on the stand last week. Trump is currently suing in Florida to recoup the money.

Part IV: Media Money Roughly +$980,000Ballpark tally: $540,000Around April 2018, Daniels signed a book deal with St. Martin's Press that included an $800,000 advance. Her agent took the standard 15%, but Avenatti stole about $300,000. He had only repaid half by the time he was indicted in May 2019 on charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was convicted, sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay Daniels $149,000 of restitution. He's in jail through 2035, though, and is on the hook for $11 million in restitution to other victims, so it may be a while before Daniels gets her money.

''I haven't received anything from Avenatti,'' Daniels told Forbes. ''And he stole even more from me than what was covered in the book trial.''

Daniels also sued her literary agent, Lucas Janklow, in 2022 for allegedly failing to pay her $175,000. Daniels sought an additional $150,000 for punitive damages and emotional distress. She dropped her suit in October 2023, though, and any settlement terms were not made public.

In 2018, Daniels sold the rights to her book and other materials for $125,000 to the creators of a documentary named Stormy, which is currently available on Peacock. Daniels testified Tuesday that she only received $100,000 and does not expect to get the rest. She's also been selling tickets to viewing parties at bars, but she testified on Thursday that the proceeds just cover her travel, security and other expenses.

Daniels claims Trump promised her a part in The Celebrity Apprentice, which she never got, but she did star in a 2022 season of The Surreal Life, a reality show on VH1 that gets eight celebrities to live together. The gig paid her $200,000, she testified on Thursday. While she had made appearances in mainstream media before her alleged affair became public, such as in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, it seems unlikely she would have commanded a fee that high without the fame she picked up in connection with Trump.

Part V: Police Payout +$450,000Ballpark tally: $990,000Daniels took to the courts again in January 2019, accusing members of the Columbus, Ohio police department of violating her civil rights the previous year when they set up a sting to bust her for allegedly violating a state law banning strippers from touching patrons. The city approved a $450,000 settlement with Daniels in November 2019.

Does Daniels think it was all worth it? She didn't sound like she did on the stand, when she pined for the days when fewer people knew her name. ''I was writing and directing very successful films,'' she said. ''I wrote and directed one of the most expensive adult movies ever.''

''My horse that I purchased in Ireland was ranked eighth in the country,'' she added. ''That was a dream of mine. My daughter was a straight-A student. I owned a house in Texas with really wonderful friends. My neighbors in my neighborhood, they had no idea that they lived next door to Stormy Daniels. They just knew that they lived next to'--I won't say my daughter's name'--mom. And it was really good, actually.''

MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Meet The Greek Shipping Billionaires Getting Rich Off Russian Oil By Giacomo Tognini Forbes Buffett's 2024 Investment Wisdom: Psychology Matters As Much As Financials By John Dobosz Forbes This Pandemic Boom Town Is Also A Surprisingly Wonderful Place To Retire By Emily Mason Forbes Billionaire Jim Simons' Last Interview: The Hedge Fund Legend On The Universe, Making Money And Giving It Away By Hank Tucker

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Tue, 14 May 2024 03:50

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Tue, 14 May 2024 01:18

This article is about the 1889 monument in Plymouth, Massachusetts, previously called the Pilgrim Monument. For the 1910 Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Massachusetts, see

Pilgrim Monument.

The National Monument to the Forefathers, formerly known as the Pilgrim Monument,[1] commemorates the Mayflower Pilgrims. Dedicated on August 1, 1889, it honors their ideals as later generally embraced by the United States. It is thought to be the world's largest solid granite monument.[2]

Overview edit Located at 72 Allerton Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the 81-foot-tall (25 m) monument was commissioned by the Pilgrim Society. The original concept dates to around 1820, with actual planning beginning in 1850. The cornerstone was laid August 2, 1859 by the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, under the direction of Grand Master John T. Heard. The monument was completed in October 1888, and was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on August 1, 1889.[3]

Hammatt Billings, Boston architect, illustrator and sculptor, originally conceived the monument as a 150-foot-tall (46 m) structure comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes. Shortly before his death in 1874, Billings reduced the size of the monument, which was to be made entirely of granite quarried in Hallowell, Maine.[4] The project was then passed to Billings' brother Joseph who, along with other sculptors including Alexander Doyle, Carl Conrads, and James Mahoney, reworked the design, although the basic components remained. The monument, which faces northeast to Plymouth Harbor (and, roughly, towards Plymouth, England), sits in the center of a circular drive, which is accessed from Allerton Street from the east. The plan of the principal pedestal is octagonal, with four small, and four large faces; from the small faces project four buttresses. On the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of "Faith" with her right hand pointing toward heaven[5] and her left hand clutching the Bible. Upon the four buttresses also are seated figures emblematic of the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth; counter-clockwise from the east are Morality, Law, Education, and Liberty. Each was carved from a solid block of granite, posed in the sitting position upon chairs with a high relief on either side of minor characteristics. Under "Morality" stand "Prophet" and "Evangelist"; under "Law" stand "Justice" and "Mercy"; under "Education" are "Youth" and "Wisdom"; and under "Liberty" stand "Tyranny Overthrown" and "Peace". On the face of the buttresses, beneath these figures are high reliefs in marble, representing scenes from Pilgrim history. Under "Morality" is "Embarcation"; under "Law" is "Treaty"; under "Education" is "Compact"; and under "Liberty" is "Landing". Upon the four faces of the main pedestal are large panels for records. The front panel is inscribed as follows: "National Monument to the Forefathers. Erected by a grateful people in remembrance of their labors, sacrifices and sufferings for the cause of civil and religious liberty." The right and left panels contain the names of those who came over in the Mayflower. The rear panel, which was not engraved until recently, contains a quotation from Governor William Bradford's famous history, Of Plymouth Plantation:

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all praise.

The overall scheme was designed by architect Hammatt Billings. The 36-foot figure of Faith was based on a 9-foot plaster model by William Rimmer in 1875,[6] that was enlarged and altered by Joseph Edward Billings and a sculptor named Perry (probably John D. Perry). The subsidiary statues were executed by area sculptors including Alexander Doyle, Carl Conrads, and James H. Mahoney.[7]

National Register edit The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 30, 1974. Originally under the care of the Pilgrim Society, it was given to the Massachusetts government in 2001.[8] It and Plymouth Rock constitute the Pilgrim Memorial State Park. Although intended as national in scope, the Forefathers Monument is not a federal "National Monument" as understood today from the Antiquities Act of 1906.

Film edit Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure, a 2012 documentary hosted by Kirk Cameron, features the history of the monument and the values of those it commemorates.[9]

Images edit The Monument at sunset, 2007

Monument and the surrounding park

Detail of statue of Faith

Seated Figures edit Morality

Law

Education

Liberty

Panels on Monument edit Detail of front panel

Passengers of the Mayflower (part 1)

Passengers of the Mayflower (part 2)

Detail of William Bradford quote

See also edit Pilgrim MonumentNational Register of Historic Places listings in Plymouth County, Massachusetts References edit ^ Toomey, Daniel P. (1892). Massachusetts of To-day. Columbia publishing company. p. 2. ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Planning and Engineering, Resource Management Planning Program, September 2006. "Resource Management Plan: National Monument to the Forefathers, Plymouth, Massachusetts", p 1. Accessed 8 October 2012. ^ Plymouth Guide. "Forefathers Monument". Archived from the original on May 11, 2006 . Retrieved May 16, 2006 . ^ Michael Shepherd. "Hallowell to Celebrate a Long Forgotten Past Saturday" . Retrieved July 18, 2013 . ^ Billings, Hammatt; Billings, Joseph; Rimmer, William; Perry, John D.; Doyle, Alexander; Conrad, Karl; Mahoney, James H. (24 October 2017). "National Monument to the Forefathers" '' via siris-artinventories.si.edu Library Catalog. ^ Armstrong, Craven et al, ''200 Years of American Sculpture'', David R. Godine, Publisher in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1976 p. 302 ^ O'Gorman, James F. (September 1995). "The Colossus of Plymouth: Hammatt Billings's National Monument to the Forefathers". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 54 (3). University of California Press: 278''301. doi:10.2307/990993. JSTOR 990993. ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. "Resource Management Plan, National Monument to the Forefathers". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007 . Retrieved May 18, 2006 . ^ Kirk Cameron (2012), Monumental - In Search of America's National Treasure , retrieved 2012-03-28 Further reading edit Baker, Billy (November 24, 2019). "How does an 81-foot-tall monument to the Pilgrims become invisible?" . The Boston Globe . Retrieved November 24, 2019 . External links edit National Monument to the Forefathers from SIRIS. 41°57'²36'"N 70°40'²34'"W >> / >> 41.96000°N 70.67611°W >> / 41.96000; -70.67611

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Mon, 13 May 2024 21:09

Colorado health authorities are closely monitoring 70 dairy farm workers after a potential exposure to the bird flu virus on a northeastern farm. This situation follows a recent announcement of a second possible bird flu outbreak affecting a dairy herd in the state.

The virus has now been detected in 36 dairy herds across nine states, one of which is located in Colorado. As the virus transitions between birds and cattle, it is at risk of mutating further, according to experts, potentially enhancing its capability to infect humans.

Rachel Herlihy, MD, MPH, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Chief Epidemiologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health, stated that while the overall risk to humans is low, it varies based on exposure levels.

She noted that approximately 70 farm workers in Colorado have been under observation, and to date, none have exhibited symptoms.

As of now, no such cases have been reported, according to statements from local health officials.

''We're still putting the puzzle pieces together,'' said Maggie Baldwin, Colorado's state veterinarian, during a virtual town hall meeting on May 8.

The presence of bird flu was confirmed in the dairy cows in late April.

According to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP):

At a public town hall on Zoom today, veterinary and public health officials from Colorado today detailed the background of H5N1 findings in the state since 2022, described the state's response to recent detections, and fielded questions from the public.

On April 26, the USDA reported the first detection in a Colorado herd, which raised the number of affected states to nine. The next day, the Colorado Department of Agriculture said the affected dairy cows were located in the northeastern part of the state. The state veterinarian's office received a notification on April 22 about a herd with clinical signs consistent with highly pathogenic avian flu in cattle.

Samples submitted to the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory tested presumptive positive on April 24 and were confirmed by the USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory the following day.

On May 1, Colorado's agricultural commission and the CDA agriculture commissioner approved an emergency rule to limit the spread of the virus. Colorado has 106 dairies and about 200,000 dairy cows.

At today's town meeting, Maggie Baldwin, DVM, Colorado's state veterinarian, said investigators are still assessing how the Colorado cows were exposed to the virus. ''We're still putting the puzzle pieces together.''

She added that whole-genome sequencing will help tell the story, adding that the state's farmers have been very helpful. ''The goal in getting an answer is stopping additional spread,'' she said.

Baldwin said there are still several unknowns, including the length of the incubation period in cattle, the mechanism of transmission, how long the animals shed the virus, and whether H5N1 poses a risk to nonlactating cattle or other livestock species.

In a recent Senate Committee briefing, Dr. Robert Califf, the head of the FDA, announced proactive measures being implemented in preparation for a potential bird flu pandemic that could prove deadly to a significant portion of the infected population.

Dr. Califf reported that only one human case has been confirmed so far'--a farm worker in Texas this past March.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) previously issued a health alert after confirming the first human case of the novel avian influenza A(H5N1) in the state.

Trending: MUST SEE! UK's Winston Marshall Gives Nancy Pelosi a Proper Spanking at Oxford Union '' Calls Out Joe Biden's Dementia '' Nasty Nancy FINALLY Receives the Public Humiliation She Deserves! '' VIDEO

The infected individual fell ill after coming into contact with dairy cows believed to be carrying the avian flu, with conjunctivitis being the primary symptom reported. This incident marks only the second time the avian influenza A(H5N1) virus has been identified in a human in the United States.

The case is linked to recent findings of the virus in dairy cows, as announced by the Texas Animal Health Commission.

In March 2024, testing for influenza was conducted on several animals in Texas and Kansas due to signs of illness. These animals included wild birds, cats, and dairy cows. Some of these tests returned positive for avian influenza A(H5N1), marking the first time the virus has been detected in cattle within the United States.

The man developed pink eye but no respiratory symptoms, according to Mirror.

''This virus, like all viruses, is mutating,'' Dr. Califf claimed to the lawmakers. ''We need to continue to prepare for the possibility that it might jump to humans.''

The FDA's primary concern centers on the possibility of the virus mutating to affect human lungs'--a scenario previously observed in other regions where the mortality rate has escalated to 25 percent, or one in every four infected individuals.

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Mon, 13 May 2024 20:31

'Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn't to protect public health,' states a letter in opposition from 22 state attorneys general.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has watered down some provisions of its pandemic agreements ahead of the upcoming World Health Assembly on May 27. Critics in the United States, however, say the changes don't do enough to address the concerns over the policy.

Provisions in prior drafts of the WHO pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHRs) together aimed to effectively centralize and increase the power of the WHO if it declares a ''health emergency.''

The release of the latest draft of the amendments, dated April 17, are the first public update on the IHR draft, which was initially made public early 2023.

''In most areas, and for all of those which most concerned us from a legal perspective, the interim draft reflects a major retreat by the WHO Working Group from the text of the original proposals,'' write English solicitors Ben and Molly Kingsley in an April briefing paper regarding the new amendments.

Some WHO-watchers remain wary, however.

''Practically all the bad things are still there,'' Dr. Meryl Nass, a U.S.-based physician and vocal critic of the WHO agreements, told The Epoch Times.

''The language is gentler, but since there is so much to be decided later it is not clear the gentler language is meaningful,'' Dr. Nass said.

''My best guess is that they are desperate to get something passed, so the options are likely to be either a vanilla version of the treaty '... or a delay. But they fear delay because people are waking up.''

The WHO and its advocates'--including celebrities, politicians, and religious groups'--have launched a global campaign urging the 194 member states to sign the documents.

''Give the people of the world, the people of your countries, the people you represent, a safer future,'' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a May 3 Geneva meeting. ''I have one simple request: please, get this done, for them.''

He urged any countries that don't support the agreements to refrain from encouraging other states to oppose it.

By Kevin Stocklin

Read Full Article on TheEpochTimes.com

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Mon, 13 May 2024 19:44

May 9, 2024

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Logo via Spotify

Last month, Spotify announced a new set of subscription price hikes across its platform. Following the service's first-ever markup in July of 2023, this follow-up raised U.S., U.K., and Australian monthly rates for individual subscribers by $1 and duo and family rates by $2 to cover the cost of audiobooks, a service introduced to the platform last year which premium members can access at no additional cost. In this move, the streaming giant also unveiled a new basic tier, which excludes access to audiobooks for the former premium rate. Today, a dispatch from Billboard music publishing reporter Kristin Robinson identifies a pernicious nuance to Spotify's revised subscription tiers, enabling the service to dramatically slash its songwriter payouts.

Rather than boosting mechanical royalty rates in line with subscription prices, Spotify is using the added audiobook feature in its existing premium tier to stake a claim to a new ''bundle'' disbursement rate. By dividing the new premium rate by the combined value of standalone audiobook ($9.99) and premium bundle ($10.99) subscriptions, the service values music at only 52% of the total bundle value, or $5.70 per subscriber. By Robinson's estimation, this sweeping cut will result in a staggering $150 million loss in royalty value for songwriters and publishers in the first 12 months, compared to projected earnings if the bundle had not been introduced.

The bundle royalty rate currently only applies in the U.S., but may well trigger similar shifts in other major markets like Australia, Canada, and the U.K., all of which have adopted the same precursor subscription price hike. The National Music Publishers Association is reportedly exploring options to combat this change. ''It appears Spotify has returned to attacking the very songwriters who make its business possible,'' NMPA President and CEO David Israelite offered upon the initial announcement of the revised subscription tiers. ''Spotify's attempt to radically reduce songwriter payments by reclassifying their music service as an audiobook bundle is a cynical, and potentially unlawful, move that ends our period of relative peace. We will not stand for their perversion of the settlement we agreed upon in 2022.''

A spokesperson for Spotify adds, ''Spotify is on track to pay publishers and societies more in 2024 than in 2023. As our industry partners are aware, changes in our product portfolio mean that we are paying out in different ways based on terms agreed to by both streaming services and publishers. Multiple DSPs have long paid a lower rate for bundles versus a stand-alone music subscription, and our approach is consistent.''

Spotify's new royalty model arrives in the wake of backlash in October 2023, when the service introduced a 1,000-stream threshold to make music eligible to collect compensation, excluding roughly 40% of music on the app from monetization in an effort to curtail fraud and ''non-music'' uploads. In lighter news, the service recently teased a possible remix function, allowing users to speed up, mash-up and otherwise edit their favorite tracks and ensuring that rights applications and streaming proceeds are accurately directed to the original artists. Plus, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are back on the platform at long last.

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Mon, 13 May 2024 19:36

Seasoned veterinarians and livestock producers alike have been scratching their heads trying to understand the media's response to the avian flu. Headlines across every major news outlet warn of humans becoming infected with the ''deadly'' bird flu after one reported case of pink-eye in a human.

The entire narrative is predicated upon a long-disputed claim that Covid-19 was the result of a zoonotic jump'--the famed Wuhan bat wet-market theory.

While the source of Covid is hotly contested within the scientific community, the policy vehicle at the center of this dialectic began years prior to Sars-CoV-2 and is quite resolute in force and effect.

In 2016, the Gates Foundation donated to the World Health Organization to create the OneHealth Initiative. Since 2020, the CDC has adopted and implemented the OneHealth Initiative to build a ''collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach'--working at the local, regional, national, and global levels'--with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.''

In the aftermath of Covid-19, the OneHealth Initiative began taking shape, due largely in part to millions of tax dollars appropriated through ARP (American Rescue Plan) funding.

Through its APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Investigation System) the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) was given $300 million in 2021 to begin implementing ''a risk-based, comprehensive, integrated disease monitoring and surveillance system domestically'...to build additional capacity for zoonotic disease surveillance and prevention,'' globally.

''The One Health concept recognizes that the health of people, animals, and the environment are all linked,'' said USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt.

According to the USDA's press release, the Biden-Harris administration's OneHealth approach will also help to ensure ''new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices,'' by ''making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America.''

In other words, the federal government is using regulatory enforcement to intervene in the marketplace, in addition to subsidizing corporations with tax dollars to direct a planned economic outcome'--ending meat consumption.

Climate-Smart Commodities '' Planning the Economy through Subsidized InterventionUnder the recently announced Climate-Smart Commodities program, the USDA has appropriated $3.1 billion in tax subsidies to one hundred and forty-one new private Climate-Smart projects, ranging from carbon sequestration to Climate-Smart meat and forestry practices.

Private investors such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos '' who just committed $1 billion to the development of lab cultured meat-like molds, and meat grown in petri dishes, to

Ballpark, formerly known for its hot dogs but is now harvesting python meat, is rushing to cash in on this new industry, and the OneHealth/USDA certification program.

Culling The Herd '' Regulatory Intervention in the Marketplace Meanwhile, the last vestiges of America's food freedom and decentralized food sources are quietly being targeted by the full force of the federal government.

The once voluntary APHIS System is poised to become the mandatory APHIS-15, which among many other changes, ''the system will be renamed Animal Health, Disease, and Pest Surveillance and Management System, USDA/APHIS-15. This system is used by APHIS to collect, manage, and evaluate animal health data for disease and pest control and surveillance programs.''

Among those ''many changes'' that APHIS-15 is undergoing, one should be of particular interest to the public'--the removal of all references to the voluntary* Bovine Johne's Disease Control Program.

''Updating the authority for maintenance of the system to remove reference to the Bovine Johne's Disease Control Program.''

In addition to removing references to the once-voluntary herd culling program, the USDA is also implementing mandatory RFID ear tags in cattle and bison.

According to the USDA/APHIS-15, expanded authority places disease tracing in their jurisdiction and the radio frequency ear tags are necessary for the ''rapid and accurate recordkeeping for this volume of animals and movement,'' which they say ''is not achievable without electronic systems.''

The notice clearly spells out that RFID tags ''may be read without restraint as the animal goes past an electronic reader.''

''Once the reader scans the tag, the electronically collected tag number can be rapidly and accurately transmitted from the reader to a connected electronic database.''

However, industry leaders and lawmakers alike have said the database will be used to track vaccination history and movement, and that this data may be used to impact the market rate of cattle and bison at the time of processing.

Centralized Control of Processing/Production via Public-Private Partnership AgreementsIn addition to the vast new authority of the USDA funded through the OneHealth Initiative, and the ARP, the EPA has also created its own unique set of regulatory burdens upon the entire meat industry.

On March 25, 2024, the EPA finalized a new set of Clean Water Act rule changes to limit nitrogen and phosphorus ''pollutants'' in downstream water treatment facilities from processing facilities. While the EPA's interpretation of authority and jurisdiction over wastewater is concerning long-term, the broader context of consolidated processing under four multinational meat-packing companies is of much greater concern for the immediate future.

With few exceptions, in the United States it is illegal to sell meat without a USDA certification. Currently, the only way to access USDA certification is through a USDA-certified processing facility.

According to the EPA, the new rules will impact up to 845 processing facilities nationwide, unless facilities drastically limit the amount of meat they process each year.

With processing capabilities being the number one barrier to market for livestock producers, and billions of dollars in grants being awarded to Climate-Smart food substitutes, the amount of government intervention into the marketplace becomes very clear.

The Rise of Authoritarianism and Economic Fascism '' Control the SupplyThe United States, once a consumer-demand free market society, is currently witnessing the use of government force, and intervention tactics to steer and manipulate the marketplace. Similar to 1930's Italy, this is being achieved by the state within the state, through the use of selectionism, protectionism, and economic planning between public-private partnership agreements.

The long-term and unavoidable problem with economic fascism is that it leads to authoritarian and centralized control, from which escape is impossible.

As each industry becomes centralized and consolidated under the few, consumer choice simultaneously disappears. As choice disappears, so does the ability of the individual to meet their specific and unique needs.

Eventually, the individual no longer serves a role outside of its usefulness to the state'--the final exhale before the last python squeeze.

Breeauna Sagdal is a seasoned researcher, writer, and communicator. She has nearly a decade of experience in policy-based journalism.

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Mon, 13 May 2024 15:52

The City of San Francisco is handing out bottles of beer, glasses of wine and shots of vodka to homeless alcoholics - and spending $5m a year on the program.

The alcoholic drinks are served by nurses as part of the city's 'managed alcohol program', which has been running for four years, as a way of taking care of vulnerable homeless people.

The program is designed to curb the amount of alcohol homeless people drink. It still allows them some, but in a more managed way, in the hope of curbing their addiction in a controlled manner.

Nurses assess patients and typically serve them the equivalent of 1-2 drinks between three and four times a day '-- handing out either 1.7 ounces of vodka or liquor (about a shot), 5 ounces of wine (1 glass) or 12 ounces of beer - about three-quarters of a pint.

Experts involved in the program say that it has actually helped to keep homeless alcoholics out of hospitals, jails, and even from dying.

San Francisco's managed alcohol program provides beer and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics as part of a harm reduction strategy and operates out of this former hotel

The program, running for four years, aims to curb excessive drinking among the homeless while preventing hospitalizations and deaths

Despite criticisms about enabling addiction, officials argue it saves money by reducing emergency services usage. Pictured, a homeless man is seen on the sidewalk

Before the program was set up, those who drank alcohol to excess were among the city's highest users of the emergency services.

The program has doubled in size since it began in 2020. While at first there were 10 beds available for those suffering from alcoholism, there are now 20 beds available on the premises of a disused hotel in the Tenderloin District.

But it comes at a cost, with the city pouring money into the program to the tune of $5 million a year as nurses serve shots of vodka and beer several times a day, based on 'patients' specific healthcare plans.

The focus is not so much on insuring those taking part become completely sober, but improving their overall health drop by drop.

While the program may be raising spirits among the homeless community, some residents appear to have learned of the city's efforts only recently and believe the taxpayer funded program to be money down the drain.

Professor at the UCSF School of Nursing, Shannon Smith-Bernardin, helped set up the program in San Francisco

Adam Nathan, CEO of an AI company and chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco's advisory board noted that drugs are not being handed out to drug addicts and so questions why would alcohol be given to alcoholics.

'The whole thing is very odd to me and just doesn't feel right. Providing free drugs to drug addicts doesn't solve their problems. It just stretches them out. Where's the recovery in all of this?', Nathan posted to X.

The program's thinking is based around 'harm reduction' which looks to cut the negative health effects from alcohol and drug use rather than the complete cessation of such vices.

Homelessness and deaths from overdoses have plagued the city in years gone by, but critics argue such programs only allow addictions to continue.

The Salvation Army, which pushes for the complete abstinence of alcohol, has criticized the city for spending public funds on the initiative.

Even San Francisco's own mayor, London Breed appears to be at odds with her own public health department, believing the technique of harm reduction was not actually reducing the harm, but making things far worse.

'Are we just going to manage people's addictions with our taxpayer dollars in perpetuity forever? It seems like that's basically what we're saying,' said Tom Wolf, who is in recovery for heroin addiction, to the San Francisco Chronicle. 'I think we should be spending that money on detox and recovery.'

But a professor at the UCSF School of Nursing, Shannon Smith-Bernardin, who helped set up the program in San Francisco explained how the aim is to stabilize the amount of alcohol being used by the homeless people 'so they're not binge drinking or stopping drinking and having seizures and then '... start figuring out what's next.'

Aside from pouring the pints, and serving the shots, the program also allows those taking part to receive medication and therapy in a further drive to reduce the alcohol cravings.

Nathan has brought the program on his social media feed earlier this week, posting details of what he discovered after walking into the former hotel where the scheme operated. He was appalled by what he had seen.

'I'm no doctor or "expert" on issues of drug policy. But I am a taxpayer. When did this Managed Alcohol Program get approved? Where were the public hearings? Why is it hidden away in an old hotel? Who approved a $2 million budget for it?' Nathan asked on X.

Even San Francisco's progressive mayor, London Breed appears to be at odds with her own public health department, believing the technique of harm reduction was not actually reducing the harm, but making things far worse

'While there have been some limited studies showing some promise, I have to point out a couple of things that troubled me,' Nathan continued.

'1. The Department of Public Health is spending $2 million of taxpayer dollars to give free alcohol to mostly homeless people struggling with alcoholism.

'2. It's set up so people in the program just walk in and grab a beer, and then another one. All day,' he explained.

Public health officials have defended the program stressing that Nathan's tweets only served to mislead the public and misrepresent the program.

Quite apart from wasting public money, public health officials in San Francisco stress the manage alcohol program has in fact, save the city $1.7 million over a period of six months in what would have otherwise been emergency room visits or hospital stays.

Officials say that visits to the city's sobering center fell by 92 percent while emergency room visits dropped by over 70 percent.

It is unclear if those who arrive for free booze are breathalyzed first to see if they've been drinking on their own, meaning they could potentially be too drunk for the freebie.

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Mon, 13 May 2024 13:55

In a world desperate not to be fooled by artificial intelligence, Deep Media is a rising star.

The Bay Area start-up '-- which claims it can identify eerily lifelike, AI-created images, audio and video with 99 percent accuracy '-- has won at least five military contracts worth nearly $2 million since late 2022, including a $1.25 million deal to develop a custom detector to help the Air Force counter Russian and Chinese information warfare. Last month, its CEO, Rijul Gupta, testified before a Senate subcommittee about the threat AI ''deepfakes'' pose to U.S. elections.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 16:07

Disney tops April's Media Distributor Gauge, claiming 11.5% of time spent watching TV.NEW YORK '' May 14, 2024 '' Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today launched The Media Distributor Gauge, a first of its kind, cross-platform view of total TV consumption across broadcast, cable and streaming, aggregated and ranked by media company. The new insight removes the siloes of traditional television versus streaming, and puts all content distributors on a level playing field to allow for additional perspective of TV viewing today. This new view is being released in addition to The Gauge' report for April 2024, which is detailed below.

''With more programs available across platforms, it's vital for creators, advertisers and the industry at large to understand what and where audiences are watching,'' said Karthik Rao, CEO of Nielsen. ''The Media Distributor Gauge is a perfect complement to the The Gauge and serves as the first convergent TV comparison of its kind. Together, these reports paint the most complete picture of TV viewing today, which is critical as we head into the Upfront.''

This new insight is created by mapping all the various national media distributors '-- including broadcast and cable networks and streaming services '-- up to their parent company. Nielsen calculates the total minutes viewed on the TV screen for each network's services and aggregates those totals based on initial distributor mapping, ultimately arriving at a share of total TV usage for each parent company. The minimum reporting threshold for a parent company in The Media Distributor Gauge is a 1.0% share of TV. Similar to the fluctuation of monthly TV usage tracked in The Gauge, rankings within the media company view will also demonstrate shifts that correlate with the seasonality of TV viewing.

In Nielsen's first report of The Media Distributor Gauge, 14 media companies achieved a 1.0% or greater share of total TV usage. As the top performer in April, Disney accounted for 11.5% of TV viewing, with 42% of its share attributable to viewing on Disney+ and Hulu. YouTube was the No. 2 overall company with a 9.6% share of TV in April, followed by NBCUniversal at 8.9%, Paramount at 8.8%, and Warner Bros. Discovery at 8.1% to round out the top five. Netflix was sixth with 7.6% of TV, and the second-highest streaming distributor reported.

The Gauge': Nielsen's monthly snapshot of total TV usage in April 2024April saw record-breaking viewership: the NCAA women's basketball tournament coverage on broadcast and cable, and Amazon Prime Video's new original series Fallout, which set a new high watermark for the streamer as its most successful program to date. From an overall usage perspective, time spent watching TV was fairly flat both month-over-month (down 2%) and on an annual basis (down 0.6%).

Across the primary viewing categories:

Cable was the only category in The Gauge to escape decline as it achieved a second consecutive monthly increase in share, moving up from 28.3% of TV in March to 29.1% (+0.8 pt.) in April. Cable sports viewing increased 28% vs. March, bolstered by NCAA basketball tournament coverage, NBA playoffs and the NFL draft. Women's NCAA basketball finals and semifinals coverage accounted for four of the top six cable telecasts in April, and the WNBA draft notched 17th. While cable viewing increased about 1% on a monthly basis, a year-over-year comparison shows viewing has declined 8.2% vs. April 2023, and its share has lost 2.4 points.Broadcast viewing was down 3% in April, which equated to a 22.2% share of TV (-0.3 pt.). Similar to cable, women's sports were the bright spot in the broadcast category this month. The NCAA women's basketball championship game drew 17.6 million viewers on ABC (plus over 1 million more tuned in on ESPN), making it the top broadcast telecast in April by a large margin. The drama genre accounted for 29% of broadcast viewing, driven by Tracker, NCIS and Young Sheldon on CBS, and Chicago Fire and Chicago Med on NBC.Streaming viewership declined 1.9% from March to April, prompting the category to lose just 0.1 share point to account for 38.4% of total television. Amazon Prime Video saw the largest increase among streaming services this month with a 12% monthly increase for 3.2% of TV (+0.4 pt.). Prime Video's April success was driven by its original series Fallout, which also topped all streaming titles this month with over 7 billion viewing minutes. YouTube, despite a 3% monthly decline in viewing, added a 15th month to its streak as the top streaming platform in The Gauge with a 9.6% share of TV in April.About The Gauge'The Gauge' is Nielsen's monthly snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that occurs through a television screen. It was expanded in the April 2024 report to include The Media Distributor Gauge, which reflects total viewing by media distributor across these categories. Underpinned by Nielsen's National TV measurement and Streaming Platform Ratings services, in addition to complimentary insights from its Streaming Content Ratings service, The Gauge provides the industry with a holistic look at the various content audiences are watching. The latest edition of The Gauge is always available at nielsen.com/thegauge.

About NielsenNielsen shapes the world's media and content as a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their audiences'--now and into the future. Nielsen operates around the world in more than 55 countries. Learn more at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram).

Lauren Pabstlauren.pabst@nielsen.com

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Wed, 15 May 2024 16:01

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Wed, 15 May 2024 15:59

Children are being "blackmailed into stripping for strangers" through their smartphones, a prominent Conservative MP has warned amid a debate on young people's mental health.

Miriam Cates urged the government to "protect children" from a "real and present danger" in a Westminster Hall debate in parliament.

Ms Cates is one of the leading voices behind a campaign to ban smartphones for those under the age of 16.

She told MPs: "This government does have less than a year left in office, but if we could pass the Coronavirus Act (2020) in just one day, surely, surely, we can use these next few months to introduce effective legislation to protect children from a real and present danger."

Image: Pic: PA Politics latest: Sunak's speech 'should be investigated', say Lib Dems

Ms Cates, who co-chairs the New Conservatives group of backbench Tory MPs, said: "Imagine if it was a daily occurrence for our children to be propositioned for sex or blackmailed into stripping for strangers.

"Imagine if every mistake your child made was advertised on public billboards, so that everyone could laugh and mock until the shame made life not worth living.

"But this is not a horror movie, this is not some imaginary Wild West, this is the digital world that our children occupy, often for hours a day.

"Our kids are not okay."

Earlier this year, the Penistone and Stocksbridge MP told Rishi Sunak during Prime Minister's Questions that he should consider a ban on smartphones for under-16s for the sake of their mental health.

Ms Cates, a former teacher, said at the time there had been a "marked increase" in poor teenage mental health since 2010, and that it was "time to consider banning social media and perhaps even smartphones for under-16s?"

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1:18 Tory MP Miriam Cates asked Rishi Sunak if it was time to ban smartphones for under-16s.In the Westminster Hall debate, Ms Cates compared the concerns about the reported link between smartphones and poor mental health with the Intoxicating Liquors Act 1901, which ended the sale of alcohol to children, and the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the female age of consent from 13 to 16.

"We will look back and ask why we allowed paedophiles, predators, greedy capitalists and foreign enemies unfettered access to our children online," she said.

During the debate, other MPs raised their concerns about the impact of smartphones and bullying on social media on children, with SNP MP Alyn Smith referring to Murray Dowey, a 16-year-old boy in his Stirling constituency, who died by suicide after falling victim to "sextortion".

Read more:Brianna Ghey's mum says mobile phones should be made specifically for children under 16Smartphone use is an addiction for a quarter of youngsters - study shows

Sextortion is a form of blackmail in which a child is tricked into sending sexual images of themselves to abusers, who then threaten to share the pictures with friends, family or more widely on the internet if they are not paid money.

Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant called for "many more mental health professionals into schools", adding: "Social media I think has turbocharged some of the worst aspects of humanity."

Last year, parliament passed the Online Safety Act which requires tech firms to "prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise", according to the government.

More than 24,000 people have so far signed a petition calling on the government to ban smartphones and camera phones for under-16s.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 15:58

Video shows Slovakia's Prime Minister bundled into car after being shot multiple times

CNN '--

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico was in a life-threatening condition in hospital Wednesday after he was shot multiple times in an assassination attempt.

The shooting took place after an off-site government meeting in the central Slovak town of Handlova. The suspected gunman was among a small crowd of people waiting to greet the prime minister on the street outside the cultural center, where the meeting took place, local media reported.

Footage from the scene shows the injured prime minister being bundled into a vehicle by his staff, before it speeds away with him inside. Fico was taken to a local hospital and then transferred by helicopter to a major trauma center about 20 miles (30 kilometers) away in Banska Bystrica.

A statement posted on Fico's official Facebook page and his party's website called the attack ''an asassination attempt.''

''He was shot multiple times and is currently in a life-threatening condition. The next few hours will be decisive,'' according to the statement.

No one else was injured in the attack, according to Slovak Labor Minister Erik TomÅ.

The official statement said the PM was taken to Banska Bystrica instead of the capital city of Bratislava because ''an acute intervention'' was necessary. Handlova is about two hours' drive from the capital Bratislava.

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputov said the suspected gunman was detained by the police. She said law enforcement agencies will release more information when they can and asked the public not to spread unconfirmed rumors. A video from the scene showed a man on the floor being detained by several officials.

Čaputov condemned what she called a ''brutal and reckless'' attack on the 59-year-old politician. ''I'm shocked. I wish Roberto Fico all the strength in this critical moment to recover from the attack,'' Čaputov wrote on Facebook. Speaking at a news conference later in the afternoon, she said the attack was ''an attack on democracy as well.''

An eyewitness who was at the scene where Fico was shot said the attack felt like a ''nightmare'' after hearing three ''quick'' shots, fired one after the other as if you were to ''throw a firecracker on the ground.''

''I heard three shots, it was quick one by one like if you throw a firecracker on the ground,'' eyewitness Lubica Valkova told Reuters, adding that ''he (Fico) fell next to the barrier.''

''I think it is a nightmare, I'll tell you I think I will not wake up from this,'' the 66-year-old said. ''That this is not possible to happen in Slovakia.''

Valkova said she had been waiting a long time to shake Fico's hand and was taking pictures of him when he walked out of the building in Handlova.

''At this moment we heard something like a bang, we thought someone made a joke and threw a firecracker on the ground, that was my first reaction,'' Valkova recalled.

The Slovak resident told Reuters she had been waiting from 10 a.m. local time. She claimed police did not search people who were waiting at the event, adding that ''we could have shown our empty hands.''

In what was a stunning comeback for the controversial politician, Fico won a third term as Slovakian prime minister last October after running a campaign that criticized western support for Ukraine. Fico had pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine and promised to block Ukraine's NATO ambitions in what would upend Slovakia's staunch backing for Ukraine.

Ahead of the election, Fico made no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and blamed ''Ukrainian Nazis and fascists'' for provoking Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Russia's president has used to justify his invasion.

While in opposition, Fico became a close ally of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, especially when it came to criticism of the European Union.

Fico previously served as Slovakia's prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018. He was forced to resign in March 2018 after weeks of mass protests over the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fianc(C)e, Martina KuÅn­rov. Kuciak reported on corruption among the country's elite, including people directly connected to Fico and his party SMER.

European leaders immediately condemned the attack. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted: ''I strongly condemn the vile attack on Prime Minister Robert Fico. Such acts of violence have no place in our society and undermine democracy, our most precious common good. My thoughts are with PM Fico, his family.''

And Hungarian Prime Minister Orban added: ''I was deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico. We pray for his health and quick recovery! God bless him and his country!''

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed ''solidarity with the people of Slovakia'' following the ''appalling'' assault on Fico. ''We strongly condemn this act of violence against our neighboring partner state's head of government. Every effort should be made to ensure that violence does not become the norm in any country, form, or sphere,'' he posted on X.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 15:51

It's no secret that we as a country are facing enormous challenges. We have a national housing crisis. We're experiencing the existential threat of climate change. Our health care system is broken and dysfunctional. And while the very rich get richer, more than 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

We're proud to tell you that, as progressive members of Congress, we have introduced legislation in the House and the Senate that, when passed, would be a major step forward in addressing all of these issues. It's called the Green New Deal for Public Housing.

The U.S. has lost 1 in 4 public housing units to privatization, demolition and underfunding over the last decade.

Let's start with the climate crisis. The last 10 years have been the 10 hottest on record, 2023 was by far the hottest year in recorded history, and 2024 so far has been even warmer. Global deaths due to extreme heat are expected to increase by 370% in the next decade if no action is taken, according to a study published in the Lancet. The United States Forest Service predicts that sea level rise due to climate change will destroy 70 million homes worldwide over the next 30 years.

As the world's largest historical contributor to carbon emissions, the United States must be a leader in tackling climate change. This bill would electrify all public housing in this country '-- over 900,000 units '-- and eliminate public housing's carbon pollution. This investment would slash annual carbon emissions by 5.7 million metric tons '-- the equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars off the road '-- while developing the skills and technology needed to decarbonize all housing in our country. By retrofitting the energy systems of public housing, we would also deliver energy cost savings of up to 70 percent, cutting residents' bills by up to $613 million a year.

We are also in the midst of a housing crisis. In America today, more than 650,000 Americans are homeless and there is virtually no county or state where a working-class family can afford a decent, two-bedroom apartment. We have a housing shortage of approximately 7.3 million rental homes for low-income renters. As a result, over 12 million families spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent. Meanwhile, private investment firms are buying up homes in working-class neighborhoods as they make record-breaking profits.

Further, our public housing stock is badly in need of reinvestment. The U.S. has lost 1 in 4 public housing units to privatization, demolition and underfunding over the last decade. The public housing infrastructure that remains has a maintenance backlog of tens-of-billions of dollars. And to make a bad situation even worse, a little-known provision from the 1990s known as the Faircloth Amendment effectively prevents the construction of any new public housing in the United States.

The Green New Deal for Public Housing addresses the severe shortage of low-income and affordable housing by building and rehabilitating millions of units of public housing. This is housing for low-income and working-class Americans, senior citizens and people with disabilities '-- some of the most vulnerable people in the nation. We would invest up to $234 billion over a 10-year period to rebuild our public housing stock, creating safe, comfortable homes for 1.7 million Americans and spurring investments in housing across the country.

We do not have to accept the status quo, where millions of families across this country are on the brink of eviction.

Low-income communities also face a variety of health issues because of pollutants in or near their housing. Low-income residents are more likely to live near pollution sources like chemical plants or incinerators and have far higher rates of asthma due to pest infestations, deteriorated asbestos, lead hazards, mold, inadequate ventilation and temperature control, or overcrowded conditions. The Green New Deal for Public Housing repairs public housing to eliminate major pollutants like mold, lead, dust and gas, and it invests in new on-site health clinics and services for public housing residents. In New York City alone, this proposal would cut asthma rates by an estimated 18 to 30 percent.

If these crises weren't enough, we are also dealing with a failed economic system. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of our population. Even as per capita productivity has exploded, the average American worker today makes about $50 a week less than he or she did some 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation. Young people in particular struggle to find good-paying jobs. This legislation creates some 280,000 good-paying, union jobs over the next decade, jobs primarily designed to go to the young people and the working people who live in public housing. These workers would receive valuable job training not only to fix up public housing, but to be productive workers all over our economy. The bill would also create union apprenticeship programs for public housing residents, allowing them to gain the skills for high-paying, unionized careers in green energy.

This legislation makes massive investments in cutting carbon emissions, protecting our climate, improving the lives of nearly 2 million people, saving public housing authorities substantial sums of money and creating over a quarter of a million jobs. This is a win-win-win bill.

We do not have to accept the status quo, where millions of families across this country are on the brink of eviction and affordable social and public housing remains out of reach. We do not have to accept the fact that in the richest nation in the history of the world, more than 650,000 people go to sleep each night without a roof over their heads.

We can imagine a better world, where housing is plentiful, affordable and sustainable '-- where all Americans have a place to call home, where public housing has community centers for our seniors, playgrounds for our children and energy sources that don't filling up our lungs with pollution.

This better world is possible. All it requires is the necessary political will.

Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents New York's 14th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Wed, 15 May 2024 14:17

May 14, 2024 2024-05-14T14:08:41-04:00 https://ximage.c-spanvideo.org/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwaWN0dXJlcy5jLXNwYW52aWRlby5vcmciLCJrZXkiOiJGaWxlc1wvZGQ4XC8wMTJcLzE3MTU3MTA2NjVfMDEyLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciIsImhlaWdodCI6NTA2fX19 Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Barman in Kyiv and played guitar and sang Neil Young's ''Rockin' in the Free World.''Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Barman in Kyiv and played guitar and sang Neil Young's ''Rockin' in the Free World.''

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Wed, 15 May 2024 12:33

Russia's new offensive gained momentum Wednesday around Ukraine's second-largest city, the latest gutpunch for Kyiv as it struggles to contain this new front in the war following delays in crucial military aid from the United States.

Even as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country to reassure it of allied support and announced a new $2 billion arms deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy canceled all upcoming foreign trips '-- a signal of how seriously the Ukrainians are taking the advancing Russian military.

Ukraine's army said it had withdrawn some of its forces from more areas around the crucial northeastern city of Kharkiv, while local officials said Russian troops had taken up positions inside the key frontline town of Vovchansk.

It's part of a new, armored assault launched by Russia last week, which risks stretching Ukraine's army to breaking point. And Kyiv fears Moscow may also be massing troops for new border incursions elsewhere.

The delay in new U.S. support has offered the Kremlin a window for a summer offensive that was threatening to make crucial gains on the battlefield while its forces bombarded Kharkiv from the air.

A woman surveys the destruction to an apartment complex near Kharkiv on Tuesday as Russian airstrikes hit Ukraine's second-largest city. Vlada Liberova / Libkos via Getty ImagesUkraine has sent reinforcements to defend the area along its northern border, from which thousands of residents have been evacuated since the assault began last Friday.

But late Tuesday it said that some troops had to withdraw.

''Due to the impact of fire and assault actions of the enemy, in order to save the lives of our servicemen and avoid losses, the units carried out a maneuver and moved to more advantageous positions,'' Ukraine's armed forces said on Facebook.

Zelenskyy has previously said that Russia was planning a large offensive this summer. Moscow faltered badly during the war's opening phases, Western military analysts agree, but has since reversed that trend and strengthened its position.

The Russian forces attacking Ukraine have swelled to more than 500,000, a significant numerical advantage over their neighbors, according to Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.

It was unclear whether the new northeastern thrust was Russia's main effort or an attempt to draw Ukraine's beleaguered forces away from other flashpoint areas in the south and east.

''Russia's aim is not to achieve a grand breakthrough, but rather to convince Ukraine that it can keep up an inexorable advance, kilometer by kilometer, along the front,'' Watling said in an email.

In Vovchansk, 3 miles from the Russian border, the city's police chief Oleksii Kharkivskyy posted a video in which heavy fighting could be heard nearby. ''The situation is extremely difficult,'' he said. ''The enemy is taking positions on the streets.''

Later, Ukraine's military said its soldiers had "partially pushed" Russian troops from the town.

More than 7,500 people from nearby border areas of the Kharkiv region had been evacuated, local officials said.

It might not stop there.

Ukrainian officials are also expecting Russia to make a "hard push" further west in the Sumy region, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the New York Times.

While fighting raged in the northeast, back in the capital, Kyiv, Blinken was attempting to reassure his hosts.

''We know this is a challenging time,'' Blinken said Tuesday after meeting with Zelenskyy.

While in town, Blinken, a keen guitarist, joined a Ukrainian band on stage to play Neil Young's rock classic, ''Rockin' in the Free World.''

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Opinion | 'High-Functioning Anxiety Isn't a Medical Diagnosis. It's a Hashtag.' https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/opinion/mental-health-awareness.html By Lucy Foulkes

Video by Amanda Su and Adam Westbrook

Ms. Foulkes is an academic psychologist at Oxford University. Ms. Su is an Opinion Video reporting fellow. Mr. Westbrook is an editor and producer with Opinion Video.

Soaring rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents. Medical groups declaring a ''national emergency.'' The surgeon general calling for an ''all of society'' response to a ''devastating'' mental health crisis among young people.

By all indications, kids these days are in rough shape, giving additional urgency to Mental Health Awareness Month, which began on May 1. But in the Opinion video above, Lucy Foulkes, an academic psychologist at Oxford University, argues that the problem may not be a lack of awareness but rather too much.

Amid an enormous societal push to destigmatize mental illness and encourage more conversation about emotions, young people have been flooded with mental health information on social media and elsewhere. But much of it is unreliable and counterproductive.

''I'm deeply concerned that this awareness craze,'' Foulkes says, ''is ironically making their mental health worse.''

Amanda Su is a reporter for the Opinion Video department of The New York Times and is a member of the 2023-24 class of Times fellows, a program for journalists early in their career.

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