Washington is used to controlling the planet's top tech companies and doesn't want anyone to threaten its surveillance domination. As the United States contemplates a possible ban on TikTok, it relentlessly accuses Beijing of using the popular Chinese-owned social media application as a means of espionage, claiming that the Communist Party has access to user data. Ironically, Washington itself is known to be doing exactly what US politicians are accusing China of doing. Using the unique advantage of having jurisdiction over the world's top internet companies, the US has given itself the right to look into the private communications of foreign citizens anywhere in the world. Combine that data-sharing between intelligence agencies of the US and its allies, and you get the most comprehensive espionage regime in the world. While American politicians and media constantly talk about fears of Chinese espionage, the near-absence of coverage of Washington's own spying efforts ought to be a...

Another ski resort has just blasted into the history books and surpassed its all-time record snowfall. Following the most recent storm, Snowbird, UT, has had 792of fresh snow this season, besting the 783 in 2010/11. Snowbird has seen 28 in the last 24 hours, an incredible 43 in the last 48 hours, and has a 195 base.

At least seven tourists have died and many are feared trapped after a major avalanche struck near a mountain pass in the northeast Indian state of Sikkim. The incident occurred at 11.30am (0600 GMT) on Tuesday near the Nathu La mountain pass, a popular destination for tourists on India's border with China. The avalanche struck a road that connects Gangtok to the Nathu La pass and the nearby Changu lake - another major tourist attraction. The Indian army has said five to six vehicles carrying up to 30 tourists were stuck under the snow after the avalanche. "By 3PM, 14 persons were rescued and taken to nearby Army medical facility. However, seven persons succumbed. The other seven persons were administered first aid and returned to Gangtok," the army statement, cited by several Indian media outlets, said.

Snowfall in what has become a historic blizzard in central Wyoming has begun in Gillette, and it likely won't end until tonight. The National Weather Service in Rapid City, South Dakota, is forecasting a 100% chance of heavy snow throughout the day today, enough so to issue a Winter Storm Warning for Gillette. Patchy blowing snow will be troublesome for travelers, particularly this afternoon. Today's forecast high is 24 degrees but with a northeast wind 16 to 20 mph and gusts reaching 31 mph, wind chills will dip as low as 7 degrees. Total daytime accumulation of 3 to 7 inches is possible. Gillette city officials issued a Level I Snow Emergency on Monday ahead of the storm. Elsewhere in the state, Casper saw the fall of a 40-year snowfall record in this storm with more than 26 inches of snow Monday. The previous record of just more than 24 inches was set in 1982, according to the National Weather Service in Riverton.

Reuters reports that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates dismissed calls to halt the development of more advanced AI chatbots more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4. Last week, an open letter signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio called for a six-month pause in developing new AI tools. Gates stated that the proposed pause in AI chatbot development would not "solve the challenges." According to Gates, the focus should be on effectively integrating AI technology into society. He finds it hard to understand how a pause could work globally with so many firms working on the technology. "I don't think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," the billionaire said on Monday. "Clearly, there are huge benefits to these things... what we need to do is identify the tricky areas," he noted.

Snowplows are busy on Hawaii's Big Island, removing snow that continues to fall on Mauna Kea, the tallest summit on the island and in the state. An April snowstorm has brought several inches of snow to the higher terrain of Hawaii, prompting officials to close roads until they're free of snow and ice. In an update released this morning, the Mauna Kea Rangers wrote, "The access road to the summit of Maunakea is CLOSED to the public at the Visitor Information Station at an elevation of 9,200 feet due to snowy conditions, below-freezing temperatures, high humidity, and wet roadways that will likely develop into icy conditions."

A two-year-old Virginia boy is dead after a dog attacked him in Maryland Tuesday evening, according to Brunswick Police Department. According to officials, Brunswick Police and the Frederick County Division of Fire & Rescue Services (DFRS) were called to a report of a child in cardiac arrest around 5:13 p.m. in the 400 block of West B Street. There they found the toddler suffering from life-threatening injuries from a dog bite. While they tried to treat the little boy, he went into cardiac arrest.

The market and the government will continue to promote and support a neofeudal status quo until they are forced by society to restore the common good and opportunity. Of the three primary dynamics of human endeavor--the market, government and society--we focus almost exclusively on the first two. Society is rarely considered as a force of its own. It is implicitly viewed as reactive to the market economy and government, the churning wake left as the market and government chart the course. In other words, society is secondary to the economy and governance, the venue of fashions, trends, entertainment, culture wars, etc., fodder for media and social media, a reflection of what's happening in the market and government. As I explain in my book Global Crisis, National Renewal, this is a misunderstanding of society's role as a force that changes the economy and governance in profound ways. We give social transformation short shrift because it's not easy to study or understand. Social...

It's never good when you go out on the water to catch some fish and the water tries to catch you instead... Two fisherman in Franca, Brazil were in for a little more than they bargained for when a sinkhole opened up underneath the water and started to pull in their jon boat. The terrifying video shows the two men fighting to keep their boat above water (or mud) as the sinkhole pulls everything in the near vicinity down below. The boat happened to be the perfect size, because the front and the back stayed on land just far enough apart to cover the length of the sinkhole. Almost looked like a classic Saturday morning cartoon gag.

Sadly, gold is now on its way to heights which are unthinkable for most people. To all the people who have asked me over the years why gold doesn't go up, I have replied: "Don't wish for gold to go up substantially for when it does, your quality of life will deteriorate remarkably." And we are now at the point in the world when this is likely to happen. Let me be clear, now is the time to protect whatever assets you have in order to avoid the total asset destruction that is coming next. More about this later in this article. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM WILL NOT SURVIVE I came to the conclusion early in this century that a sick financial system was not going to survive the infestation of vermin in the form of debt that started just over 50 years ago.

A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday off Panama's Pacific coast near the town of Boca Chica. The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 5:18 local time (22:18 UTC) and its epicenter was about 44 miles (71 kilometres) south of Boca Chica. The earthquake occurred at a depth of eight miles (13 kilometres). Panama's civil defense office said there were no immediate reports of damages. But the office said the quake was felt on nearby Coiba Island. National Civil Defense Director Carlos Rumbo told local press that his office had not received reports of damage or injuries, but was continuing to check with people in the provinces along the Pacific coast. Source: Associated Press

Comment: For the original story, see: Conservative judge fires back after Stanford disruption: 'They hate my work and my ideas' James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, who announced a clerkship boycott of Yale Law last year, are adding Stanford to the list. James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, the circuit court judges who announced last year that they would no longer hire clerks from Yale Law School, are adding Stanford to the boycott. "We will not hire any student who chooses to attend Stanford Law School in the future," Ho, who sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, said Saturday evening in a speech to the Texas Review of Law and Politics, a transcript of which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The clerkship moratorium, like the one on Yale, will exempt current law students.

They're calling it 'revenge travel': the desire to make up for the touring opportunities we all lost when we were locked down in our pandemical homes. As a keen professional traveller, I confess I've got a fearsome case of this bug: I've spent the past 20 months going just about anywhere I can, playing catch up. Here's a brief list of the cities I have visited since mid-2021: Tbilisi, Seville, Munich, New Orleans, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Bangkok, Yerevan, Rome, Istanbul, Athens, Da Nang, Nashville, Los Angeles, Florence, Phnom Penh, Tucson. I could add a dozen more, but you get the gist. I've missed a terrific number of domestic social engagements; but I have recently seen quite a lot of the world and, more pertinently, seen how the urban world is coping post-pandemic. Conclusion? Every city has suffered in various ways, and the scars are visible. In East Asia the lingering lesions are psychological: they are all still wearing masks. In Europe, normal unmasked street life has returned,...

The Washington Post has attempted to dismiss claims the liberal financier had funded the district attorney prosecuting Trump. Twitter users corrected the Washington Post's star fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, when he attempted to write off the claim that liberal financier George Soros had funded the Manhattan district attorney who indicted former US President Donald Trump as 'misleading'. Kessler, who rated the 'incendiary claim' that Soros funded Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg 'three Pinocchios' in a Saturday fact-check, accused the Trump campaign and other Republicans who echoed the factoid of "being slippery" and conjuring "stereotypes of rich Jewish financiers secretly controlling events."

A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief then wrestled the gun away and opened fire on the suspect has been charged with attempted murder, police said. The overnight worker, identified by cops as Moussa Diarra, 57, was also hit with assault and criminal possession of a weapon charge in the Saturday incident, which unfolded around 5:30 a.m. as the attendant saw a man peering into cars on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage, the sources said. Believing the man was stealing, the attendant brought him outside and asked what was inside his bag.

Wikipedia is a "politically biased" platform and should eventually be banned in Russia, Valery Fadeev, the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC), has said. The Kremlin, however, cautioned that any talk about blocking the website is premature, as there is currently no adequate alternative. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Fadeev said Wikipedia "should be closed." While the website is a convenient platform for receiving all sorts of information, he said, there are also "a lot of distortions when it comes to politics, history." Fadeev stressed that he is not insisting that the Russian authorities ban the portal right away, but rather only after a viable alternative is launched. Igor Ashmanov, an HRC member, supported this idea, saying that Moscow has no tools to influence Wikipedia. "This is a strategic weapon. We should create equivalents and block it."

Summary Contrary to the claims made by covid vaccine proponents there is hard evidence that most reports of vaccine deaths to the USA VAERS and UK Yellow Card systems are genuine. At most 30% of these reports can be ruled as likely not to have been caused by the vaccine. There is also evidence that the reporting rates for deaths and adverse events to these systems is very low. It is likely that fewer than 10% of deaths and other adverse events ever get reported. With these minimal assumptions we estimate there have been: approximately 120,000 deaths in the USA directly caused by the covid vaccines (between Dec 2020 until 23 March 2023) and 16,000 in the UK (between Dec 2020 until 29 Sept 2022). over 103 deaths per million doses of the covid vaccines in the UK with big differences between the three main vaccines (187 for Astra Zeneca, 68 for Pfizer and 35 for Moderna). For Astra Zeneca that amounts to 1 death in every 5348 doses. Taking account of the small proportion of people...

Email exchanges between Joe Biden's family and business associates show the Bidens planning to cash in on the family name in an academic venture with the University of Delaware while discussing ways to carefully distance Joe himself from financial documents outlining the deal. Team Biden was to receive $12.5 million for the establishment of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware (UD), which launched shortly after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017. The arrangement meant a nice payday for the Bidens and their associates. And, as it turned out, the launch of the Biden Institute coincided with a bonanza in foreign money donations for the university. Correspondences show that UD wanted Joe Biden to raise funds for the university after his institute opened. In the weeks and months following the opening of the Institute, UD received foreign cash donations totaling more than $33 million, including $6.7 million from China. Of that sum, three gifts came directly from the...

Former US President Donald Trump arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney's office on Tuesday afternoon, to be placed under arrest and face a series of charges his attorneys have denounced as a politically motivated "witch hunt" by the New York Democrat Alvin Bragg. The existence of the charges was leaked to the press last Friday, and more details were leaked on Monday, indicating that Bragg is going after the 45th president for the "crime" of allegedly falsifying business records in regard to "hush money" reportedly paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Federal prosecutors declined to pursue the case, and multiple legal scholars have argued that the charges amount to a misdemeanor campaign violation at best. Hillary Clinton paid a fine for the same exact transgression in the matter of funding the notorious "Steele dossier," a series of fabrications accusing Trump of having ties to Russia. Trump himself has denounced the indictment as purely...

A proposed class-action lawsuit over infamous brainwashing experiments at a Montreal psychiatric hospital was before Quebec's highest court Thursday, as victims attempted to remove immunity granted to the United States government. The U.S. government successfully argued in Quebec Superior Court last August that the country couldn't be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA, allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA. U.S. lawyers argued that foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada between the 1940s and 1960s, when the program took place.

Leaders from European countries have recently announced trips to China. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attended the Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province which lasted from March 28 to 31. French President Emmanuel Macron and some EU leaders, including EU Commission President Urusla Von der Leyen, will also pay visits to China. What does this wave of visits signal about China-Europe relations? How should Europe balance its ties with China and the US? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to Michele Geraci (Geraci), former undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, over these issues on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia.

Human history is a story of forgotten lessons. Despite the catastrophic collapse of European democracy in the 1930s, it appears that the tale of the twentieth century - in which citizens, cowed by existential threats, acquiesced in the rejection of liberty and truth in favour of obedience and propaganda, whilst allowing despotic leaders to seize ever more absolutist powers - is perilously close to being forgotten. Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to the apparent nonchalance which has greeted two international legal agreements currently working their way through the World Health Organisation: a new pandemic treaty, and amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, both due to be put before the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, in May next year. As concerned scholars and jurists have detailed, these agreements threaten to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the WHO, national governments, and individuals.

Finland formally joined NATO on Tuesday, its flag unfurling outside the military bloc's Brussels headquarters, in a historic policy shift brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine that drew a threat from Moscow of "counter-measures." Finland's accession, ending seven decades of military non-alignment, roughly doubles the length of the border the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shares with Russia and bolsters its eastern flank as the war in Ukraine grinds on with no resolution in sight. Finland's flag - a blue cross on a white background - was hoisted alongside those of the alliance's 30 other members as a military band played in bright spring sunshine.

New Zealand's newly elected Prime Minister Chris Hipkins struggled to define the term 'woman' when a reporter's question about gender caught him off guard. During his regular afternoon press conference on Monday, Mr Hipkins was asked by Sean Plunket, a broadcast reporter from The Platform, to 'define a woman' on behalf of himself and his government. Mr Hipkins took a moment to gather his thoughts before responding. 'Um,' Hipkins began, before pausing. 'To be honest Sean, that question has come out of left field for me.'

An unusual occurrence of wintry weather in spring swept through the Western Balkans Tuesday, bringing snow and gusts that snarled traffic in the region. Residents in the capitals of Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo woke to the sight of trees and bushes blanketed in snow. In Croatia and Montenegro, strong winds stopped most ferry lines along the Adriatic Sea coastline and delayed a flight from Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, to Belgrade. Authorities in Serbia said that a tree branch fell on two teenage girls in Belgrade, apparently brought down by wet and heavy snow. The girls were taken to a hospital as a precaution. Snow blocked several roads in southern and southwestern Serbia and some villages were left without electricity, police said in a statement, urging caution.

The shock oil production cuts from May outlined by the OPEC+ on Sunday essentially means that eight key OPEC countries decided to join hands with Russia to reduce oil production, messaging that OPEC and OPEC+ are now back in control of the oil market. No single oil producing country is acting as the Pied Piper here. The great beauty about it is that Saudi Arabia and seven other major OPEC countries have unexpectedly decided to support Russia's efforts and unilaterally reduce production. While the 8 OPEC countries are talking about a reduction of one million b/d from May to the end of the year, Russia will extend for the same period its voluntary adjustment that already started in March, by 500,000 barrels. Now, add to this the production adjustments already decided by the OPEC+ previously, and the total additional voluntary production adjustments touch a whopping 1.6 million b/d. What has led to this? Fundamentally, as many analysts had forewarned, the Western sanctions against...

Flash floods caused severe damage in Taita-Taveta County, southern Kenya, on 02 April 2023. Four people are feared dead. Heavy rain fell in hilly areas surrounding the settlement of Kironge in Mwatate Sub-County on 02 April, triggering flash floods. Four people from the same family - an expectant mother and 3 children - were reported missing after their home was swept away late on 02 April. The body of one of the victims was later found. The search for the missing victims is ongoing. Christine Saru Kilalo, Deputy Governor Taita Taveta County, visited the affected community on 03 April. She said the floods have left a "trail of destruction".

"The American press, once the guardian of democracy, was hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives... Disinformation is both the name of the crime and the means of covering it up; a weapon that doubles as a disguise." Jacob Siegel How's the war going? Huh? Do you mean the war over in Ukraine? Or the US government's war against its own people? Well, the first one, the Ukraine War, is mostly destroying Europe though, apparently, they haven't figured that out yet. Europe's industrial economy is toast without affordable Russian natgas. We turned off their pipeline for that in September and nobody in Europe objected. They just sucked it up and went back to smoking cigarettes at their caf tables. A year or so from now, nobody in Europe will have enough money for a cappuccino (or cigarettes) and maybe then they'll start asking the mental mollusks who run things there some questions if they don't just...

Marin says 'democracy is always a wonderful thing' as her Social Democrats come third behind rightwing NCP and nationalist Finns parties... Finland's prime minister, Sanna Marin, has lost her battle to stay in power after her centre-left Social Democratic party (SDP) was narrowly beaten into third place in a cliffhanger election by its conservative and far-right rivals. With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party (NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin's SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%. Marin congratulated the election winners during her concession speech, but hailed an improvement in both her party's vote share and its projected number of MPs. "It's a really good achievement, even though I didn't finish first today. Democracy has spoken, the Finnish people have cast their vote, and the celebration of democracy is always a wonderful thing. We have good reason to be happy...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the embattled ex-president to "keep on fighting" as he prepares to face trial in New York... Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban took to Twitter on Monday to show his support for former US President Donald Trump, who will appear in court in New York on Tuesday. "We are with you," the conservative PM told his political ally. Trump departed his residence in Florida on Monday, bound for the city in which he built his fortune, New York. He is expected to turn himself in on Tuesday to face criminal charges relating to his alleged payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. Crowds of supporters cheered the ex-president's motorcade as it traveled to Palm Beach International Airport. Meanwhile, the Hungarian PM wished his former American counterpart well online.

Christo Grozev of the US government-sponsored Bellingcat endorsed the terror attack that killed a Russian war reporter and injured many others during a public event in St. Petersburg. He also defended Ukraine's attempt to assassinate a Russian philosopher because he was a "propagandist." In the hours that followed the April 2, 2023 bombing of a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia, Christo Grozev of the US government-funded Bellingcat outlet defended the terror attack that killed a war reporter and wounded 30 others. Throughout his eight-minute interview with Sky News, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev offered an unapologetic, de facto endorsement of the terror attack at a public event at the Street Food Bar 1 cafe in St. Petersburg. In order to justify the bombing, Grozev cast it as either a legitimate Ukrainian operation carried out in the context of "hybrid warfare," or a potential Russian false flag.

On Saturday, the New York Police Department announced that a man who shot a thief in self defense will be charged with attempted murder despite being shot twice and having to wrestle the firearm away from the thief. The man, identified as 57-year-old Moussa Diarra, was working in a Manhattan parking garage early Saturday morning when he saw a man looking into vehicles around 5:30 a.m., as reported by the New York Post. When the attendant confronted the suspected thief, he brought him outside of the garage and asked him what was inside of his bag. When the thief, identified as 59-year-old Charles Rhodie, reached into the bag he pulled out a gun thus leading to a struggle. Diarra lunged for the weapon but was shot in the stomach and ear by the thief. Following this, the worker managed to get the gun away from the would be killer and shot Rhodie in the chest. Rhodie was also shot [sic and charged] with attempted murder, assault, burglary, and criminal possession of a weapon. It is...

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials investigating potential health concerns in a small Ohio town impacted by a toxic train derailment became ill during their study, a CDC official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Seven CDC members reported sore throats, headaches, coughing and nausea while in East Palestine, Ohio, weeks after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in early February and a controlled burn leaked hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, into the environment, Belsie Gonzlez, CDC senior public affairs specialist, told the DCNF. The CDC members' symptoms are consistent with health complaints reported by residents and first responders. "Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours. Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects." The CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a branch that specializes in...

The publisher hired a white writer to pen an essay and detail the book's "white supremacist" elements to avoid hiring a black writer and giving them the "emotional labour" of such a task. Pan Macmillan, the publisher of Margaret Mitchell's classic 1936 American novel Gone With The Wind, has added a trigger warning in the preface of the book's most recent publication telling readers that the text is "harmful" and "problematic" because of its "white supremacist" qualities. The Telegraph reports that the publisher specifically hired a white writer, Philippa Gregory, to pen an essay to accompany the trigger warning and detail the book's "white supremacist" elements to avoid hiring a black writer and giving them the "emotional labour" of such a task.

The ongoing church conflict "has the traits of a religious war," Sergey Naryshkin has said Kiev's crackdown on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is part of a Western campaign to undermine religion in Ukraine and its role as the glue that unites the faithful, senior Russian intelligence official Sergey Naryshkin has said. "The current regime in Kiev and its masters in the capitals of Western nations seek not only to ban, but to physically destroy canonical Orthodoxy in the territory of Ukraine," he stated on Tuesday. The official heads the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia (SVR). He made the remarks during a media event in Minsk, where he is meeting with the Belarusian leadership. Western governments realize the value of faith "amid the collapse of ideologies and a fight for world dominance," Naryshkin added. Russian Orthodoxy serves as "a spiritual force, which remains the foundation of unity of Orthodox peoples."

Firefighters in Italy report one person died after a vehicle was swept away by flash floods in the Calabria Region. Stormy weather caused flash floods, landslides and wind damage in Calabria on 03 April. The worst affected areas were the provinces of Cosenza and Crotone. Schools were closed in Savelli in the Province of Crotone due to adverse weather conditions. The commune recorded 118.2 mm of rain on 03 April. Italy's Fire Service Vigili del Fuoco reported 13 interventions carried out by the firefighters in Cosenza Province. Vigili del Fuoco firefighters used a helicopter to search for a man reported missing after being swept away by floods in Corigliano-Rossano. Vigili del Fuoco later reported the man was found dead. Several roads were closed, blocked by floods, fallen trees or landslide debris in the municipalities of Acri and Longobucco.

Two civilians have been killed in an Israeli air raid targeting Syria's capital, state media has reported, noting that missiles also struck the country's southern region. The assault came amid a flurry of similar strikes in recent days, which left several Syrians injured and two Iranian soldiers dead. Missiles fired from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights hit Damascus and other areas in the south early Tuesday morning, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), which cited an unnamed military source. In addition to the two civilians killed, the attack also resulted in "material damage" in Damascus, the source said, adding that Syrian air defenses intercepted most of the incoming missiles.

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck in the ocean off the coast of the eastern Philippines on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said, with local authorities warning of aftershocks and possible damage. The shallow quake hit around 9:00 pm (1300 GMT) about 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Catanduanes Island, off the main island of Luzon, the USGS said. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones, but so far there have been no immediate reports of damage on Catanduanes.

The battle of ideas around Covid has few clashes as hotly contested as Long Covid. Alarmists have hyped the frequency and severity with which infection causes long-term damage. Sceptics see no reason for panic. A new study helps to settle at least part of this debate. The paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA) Network Open looked at "post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) in young people after mild acute infection" to find how common it was and to find risk factors. Participants were aged between 12 and 25. The authors offer this straightforward conclusion: "PCC was not associated with biological markers specific to viral infection." That is, participants were equally likely to suffer from 'Long Covid', whether or not they had suffered from acute COVID-19. The researchers concluded that Long Covid is predicted by "initial symptom severity" and, intriguingly, "psychosocial factors".

With Kari Lake's legal complaint alleging systematic signature verification failures in Maricopa County remanded by the Arizona Supreme Court to trial court, closer examination of the signature verification software used by the county reveals a strikingly low threshold for signatures to qualify as "high-confidence" matches. Since falling about 17,000 votes short in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, Lake has continued to contest the election results in court, arguing that there were ballot chain of custody and signature verification issues in addition to thousands of Republican voters disproportionately disenfranchised on Election Day, when voting machine errors occurred in nearly 60% of the voting centers in Maricopa County. Lake has requested that the election results be invalidated or that she be declared the winner. Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court remanded Lake's claim alleging massive signature verification failure to the trial court,...

So, I went to London to speak to the Left ... no, not "the Left" you're probably thinking of. Not the mask-wearing, Ukrainian-flag-flying Left. Not the pronoun-using, segregationist Left. Not the WEF, WHO, FBI, CIA, DHS, and MI6-loving Left. Not the global-capitalist New Normal Left. The other Left. The old-school Left. The "Covid-denying, conspiracy-theorizing, Putin-loving, far-right-extremist" Left. There were approximately 150 of us, and we gathered in a "homophobic church" in Islington. Yes, Islington, which is more or less the British headquarters of the New Normal Left. We did not care. "Let them come for us," we said. They didn't. It was a Saturday. They were probably out shopping or hunting down imaginary anti-Semites. So, we went ahead and did our thing. Our "thing" was a conference loosely based on leftist opposition to the WEF and its assorted dystopian visions for our future ... you know, eating the bugs, owning nothing, being happy, that kind of stuff. I was invited...

The incident occurred in shallow water at Waddy Point Beach, on Fraser Island, also known as K-gari - a World Heritage-listed island in Australia's Queensland region. The girl was bitten on the back of her head, suffered puncture wounds around one of her ears and was also hurt on her hands. A rescue helicopter was sent to the island to support the victim of the attack, which took place just after 4pm on Tuesday. The young child was treated by paramedics at the scene before being flown, in stable conditions, to Hervey Bay Hospital in central Queensland.

Eight dolphins were found washed up on beaches in the Greater Tokyo Area on Tuesday morning, according to local news reports. The mammals, identified as melon-headed whales, looked like they were struggling to breathe, said Mibu Saito, a local official who visited the site nearby Isumi and Ichinomiya in Chiba Prefecture. "I felt sorry for all those weak dolphins that had washed ashore and we still don't know why they were stranded there," Saito told VICE World News. Of the eight found, four were dead, while the rest were returned to the ocean. A day earlier, 33 dolphins were also found beached just a few hundred meters away. Passersby and surfers tried to carry or roll the dolphins towards the ocean, but two died, Saito said.

A dolphin was found dead on the Baltimore Avenue beach in Cape May Saturday morning, the 24th dolphin to become stranded on a New Jersey beach since December. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center said an adult female common dolphin was found Saturday and was taken by some of its team for a necropsy. Fox Philadelphia reported the dolphin was found on the Baltimore Avenue beach. A porpoise washed up on a beach in the Ortley Beach section of Toms River on Tuesday. Necropsy results are pending from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Porpoises and dolphins are both species of odontocetes or toothed whales. Porpoises have rounder faces and more triangular dorsal fins, while dolphins have more pointed beaks and dorsal fins.

We received 158 reports about a fireball seen over Bretagne, Brussel, Drenthe, England, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Grand Est, Hauts-de-France, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire, Rgion Wallonne, Utrecht, Vlaams Gewest, Wales and Zuid-Holland on Monday, April 3rd 2023 around 05:08 UT. For this event, we received 2 videos and one photo.

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off Sumatra island in western Indonesia on Monday (Apr 3), shaking homes of panicked residents but causing no casualties or damage. The quake's epicentre was at sea southwest of Padangsidempuan city in northern Sumatra at a depth of 84 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported. It occurred around 9.59pm. The country's meteorology and geophysics agency said there was no tsunami warning after the tremor but told residents nearest the epicentre to beware of potential aftershocks.

A new study examining the recent epidemic of teenagers and young adults identifying as transgender has been published and the findings strongly indicate that social contagion is a factor in this new phenomenon. The study by Drs. Michael J. Bailey and Suzanna Diaz, published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, examined a survey of 1655 parent reports to further investigate the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) hypothesis first put forward by Dr. Lisa Littman in 2018. Activists at the time accused Littman of transphobia and claimed her study was invalid, but evidence to support her hypothesis has only grown in the intervening years and this latest study indicates that, at least for some, ROGD is a disturbing reality. The study is much larger than any attempt that has been made to study this cohort to date, and consists of parent reports from an online survey on the website Parents of ROGD Kids. The authors acknowledge the possible bias of their sample, but state that research on...

Part I of a CAM investigation into the origins of the Ukraine War: U.S. and NATO involvement in the February 2014 Coup and Maidan Massacre, and their historical antecedents As I write, the world is on the edge of nuclear and humanitarian crises after a year of the Ukraine "proxy" war with Russia. No single event can be seen as the sole cause, but the most dramatic lurch in the story was the "Revolution of Dignity" in Ukraine in November 2013 to February 2014, notably the horrific massacre of protesters and police in Maidan (Independence) Square on February 20, 2014. Without dismissing the large sectors of Ukrainian society with legitimate grievances against corruption and stagnation, this was a bloody coup d'tat, engineered largely by the U.S. over years with parts played by NATO puppets and local proxies. Viktor Yanukovych was elected in internationally recognized fair elections, and new elections were planned to occur within a year. But powerful interests and a large section of...

Pundits, journalists and public intellectuals don't commit suicide for professional reasons. And not since Diogenes, the Cynic of Athens, have they opted to live in a barrel, keep the company of dogs, and urinate on their audience. Even among the most progressive of current journalists, it's difficult for them not to follow, sit, stay, or bark on the leash and command of their masters. . These days the Substack paywall behind their scoops doesn't pay enough to buy dogfood. Seymour Hersh's million for his Nord Stream story is the exception that proves the rule. Patriotism is the safer, better-paying refuge for journalists, even when they risk indictments for being scoundrels like Evan Gershkovich, the first Moscow Times reporter since Catherine Belton to be recognized in Russia for what he has been doing. Looked at closely, the evidence of espionage against Gershkovich turns out to be much more than a bark up the wrong tree, as Washington officials claim, and Russian government...

Archaeologists found an extremely rare stone relic, an axe-shaped weapon used for rituals in ancient China, engraved with a tiger pattern, in Wuxi City in east China's Jiangsu Province. The relic dates back some 4,500 years, during the Liangzhu Culture period. According to an expert consultation meeting held Saturday on the archaeological site of Dinggeng Relics Site, 16 archaeologists from home and abroad said it was the first time they had seen such a tiger-patterned stone relic, which they believed to be a symbol of power.

For a few milliseconds last Monday night, March 27th, an enormous red ring of light appeared in the sky over central Italy. Valter Binotto photographed it from the small town of Possagno in the foothills of the Italian Alps: This is an "ELVE"--short for Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. It's a rare species of sprite discovered in 1990 by cameras onboard the space shuttle. Binotto may have just taken the best ever picture of one from the ground. "The ELVE was generated by intense lightning in a storm near Ancona about 285 km south of me," says Binotto. One bolt was so strong, it generated an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere. Normal lightning bolts carry 10 to 30 kilo-ampres of current; this bolt was about 10 times stronger than normal.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko mulled the possibility of his nation hosting Russia's strategic nuclear weapons during his annual address to parliament on Friday. The veteran leader's words came as Moscow announced its plans to deploy its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. "I and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can decide and deploy strategic nuclear weapons here, if need be," Lukashenko told lawmakers, adding that the move would show the two nations' readiness to defend their "sovereignty and independence." "We will stop at nothing to protect our nations, our states, our people," the Belarusian leader said, adding that the move would likely serve as an effective deterrent against any hostile moves by the US and its allies. The Belarusian president expressed his hope that strategic nuclear weapons deployment to his country would "sober up all the hawks across the pond for a long time."

Polish authorities have transferred several MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Marcin Przydacz, Polish presidential international policy advisor, said on the air of the RMF radio station on Monday. "As far as I know, several MiG-29s have already been sent," he said. "According to my information, that process is already over, as far as the transfer of the first part is concerned," Przydacz added.

The ANC's South Africa has bet firmly on a dark side of history in selecting its partner of choice in the Russification of its foreign and domestic policy. Its choice is not brd on human rights, or democracy, or international law. Instead, it is a choice rooted deeply in the fiction of the past, not the promise of the future. Following another visit by a Russian delegation entertained by International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor, the ANC announced on 1 April that it would undertake a working visit to the United Russia Party from 30 March to 2 April. The party's official notice observed that the United Russia Party, the party of Vladimir Putin, is "a longstanding ally and friend to the ANC". It was, surprisingly, not an April Fool's gag. Comment: The authors of this article are evidently struggling to cope with the emerging reality and so they litter their otherwise (relatively) informative article with propaganda, misinformation, and a few weak attempts at...

The European Union has become hostile and has "lost" Russia, and Moscow will deal with Europe in a tough fashion if need be, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Tuesday. "The European Union has 'lost Russia. But it is its own fault," Lavrov told the website Argumenty i Fatky. "It is the EU member countries and EU leaders who openly declare it is necessary to inflict, as they call it, a strategic defeat on Russia." Lavrov said Russia had decided how to approach Europe as it was supplying the "criminal regime" in Kyiv with weapons and instructors.

Scientists have set a new record for the deepest fish ever observed at more than 27,000ft below sea level. A juvenile type of snailfish was filmed swimming at 27,349ft - nearly the same height as Mount Everest - in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, south of Japan. Lead scientist Professor Alan Jamieson said the snailfish could be at the maximum depth any fish can survive and probably did so because of trench's warm waters. Although the snailfish was not caught to fully identify its species type, similar snailfish were captured higher up at a depth of 26,319ft which set the record for the deepest fish ever caught.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that from now on, his "doors are closed" to the US ambassador to Ankara, Jeffry Flake, blasting the diplomat's recent meeting with his rival in the upcoming presidential election. Erdogan attended a ceremony in the Bagcilar district of Istanbul on Sunday, dedicated to the official opening of nearly 100 houses and other facilities built in the wake of a series of devastating earthquakes. In a follow-up meeting with a group of officials from the far-right Grey Wolves movement, he focused on the May 14 election and the US envoy's alleged abuse of his diplomatic authority. "We need to teach America a lesson in these elections," Erdogan said, as cited by Anadolu. Ambassador Flake met with the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, on March 29, "as part of continuing conversations with Turkish political parties on issues of mutual interest between our two countries," according to a tweet from the US Embassy.

The director at Boston Children's Hospital said medical school students should learn transgender surgeries in residency programs Boston Children's Hospital co-director at its Center for Gender Surgery called for a drastic increase in capacity for what he called "gender-affirming care" (GAC), including surgeries, for kids as GOP states enact bans on the practices. Oren Ganor is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who specializes in gender-affirming surgeries. He has previously stated in an email that the hospital is "slightly flexible" when it comes to the age of transgender girls seeking genital surgery," according to a local outlet. The policy had not been finalized, he said, "because of the issue around consent for sterilization." The children's hospital clarified to Fox News Digital that it does not provide genital surgeries on kids. A patient needs to live in their new gender for 12 months before the genital surgeries are considered.

Outspoken GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) doubled down on calling Democrats "pedophiles," blasted establishment Republicans and demanded that the US stop the flow of aid money to Ukraine in a wide-ranging and fiery 60 Minutes interview Sunday. Taylor Greene, also known as MTG, made numerous controversial comments during her sit-down with veteran reporter Lesley Stahl and was promptly panned by many across social media. In one of the more shocking moments, the Georgia lawmaker responded, "I would definitely say so" when Stahl pressed her on previous comments she has made about Democrats being "the party of pedophiles."

The Adult Baby and Diaper Lover (AB/DL) communities want people to stop assuming they are attracted to children and according to a report by The Stranger there are a number of reasons a person may engage in AB/DL including "Relaxation, comfort, or stress relief" among other reasons given besides a sexual fetish. A study conducted by Kevin J. Hsu and J. Michael Bailey found that among the 200 AB/DL men surveyed less than five percent had any attraction to minors, which is in line with the studies on pedophilia in the general population.

At least 19 people are reported injured by a suspected IED explosion in a city center caf An explosion that rocked the 'Street Bar' caf in St. Petersburg, Russia on Sunday has claimed at least one life and left 19 people injured, authorities reported. Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maksim Fomin), a military correspondent and blogger, was killed in the incident, according to emergency services.

Germany could "in principle" block access to OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot due to privacy concerns, a spokeswoman for the country's data protection commissioner told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Monday. "In principle, a similar procedure is also possible in Germany," Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Ulrich Kelber's spokeswoman told the paper, referring to the Italian ban. Italy's National Authority for Personal Data Protection ordered ChatGPT temporarily taken offline on Friday, as it investigates a suspected leak of user data by the application last month. The Italian regulator also criticized ChatGPT for not notifying users that it collects and stores their information, and for failing to install any filters to verify user age. Kelber's spokeswoman said that there are currently no plans to ban the chatbot in Germany, and that such a decision would fall under the jurisdiction of the country's individual states.

The Khmelnitsky Cathedral will be handed over to the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine after a violent provocation on Sunday The Holy Intercession Cathedral in the city of Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine has been seized by supporters of the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), after a man dressed in a Ukrainian military uniform staged a provocation at the Sunday service by attacking priests loyal to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Kiev suspects the entity of covertly supporting Russia, despite the fact that the church proclaimed its independence from Moscow after the start of the conflict in February 2022. According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ), no services will be held in the cathedral until Easter. Representatives of the OCU said on social media that they obtained the keys to the cathedral, and that they are currently conducting an inventory review of the property.

So, the Democrats and their Davos benefactors have finally done it. They have finally found something they can indict President Donald Trump on. Apparently 34 somethings, which makes for great headlines. The usual suspects have been thrown their chum both TDS patients and MAGAtards. The social media war is now in full swing. And, frankly, it couldn't be more tiresome. A few get why this is so inane but most are focused (or being focused) on the wrong thing, as always. Jonathan Turley has a good rundown of the questionable legality of this case. But, again, while he's not wrong to focus on that and the shady politics, he also misses the larger implications of this indictment. This is a case so legally tenuous that even the Federal Government, famous for being able to convict a ham sandwich, wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Because indicting Trump for any of these petty things is nothing less than the end of politics and a declaration of civil war.

Big Tech is staffed with hundreds of former Department of Justice employees, some of whom have key insight into government antitrust investigative methods, according to a watchdog's "revolving door" analysis. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and HP have hired at least 360 DOJ employees, mostly since 2011 and in one example dating back to 2000, according to an analysis by the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group. The analysis, which also includes information on DOJ employees who used to work for Big Tech, comes amid the department's antitrust lawsuit against Google and other investigations into tech giants. Tom Jones, president of AAF, told the Washington Examiner: "Normally it is not concerning when individuals move between government and industry because it is usually for professional purposes. Why Americans should be troubled by this revolving door is because it is an ideological relationship where leftists move back and forth between...

House Democrats are lashing out against President Joe Biden after he signaled he would sign a GOP-led bill to end the COVID-19 national emergency despite pressing party lawmakers to oppose the measure when it was introduced earlier this year. The Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Wednesday to lift the national emergency declaration, with dozens of Democrats joining Republicans in backing the measure after being told Biden would not veto the legislation. The decision to change course angered House Democrats, who said Biden's reversal caught them off guard. "It's frustrating," said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI). "This is a problem. And, you know, we've got to have some conversations because this they've got to do better." The House first passed a resolution ending the COVID-19 emergency on Feb. 1, with 197 Democrats voting against the measure at the Biden administration's request. At the time, the White House opposed the bill because it "would create wide-ranging chaos and...

Excluding Palestinian voices and firing journalists who want to speak out about Israeli apartheid makes the mainstream media complicit in Israel's "system of silencing." When Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank face Israeli military courts, they have limited rights, trials are conducted in Hebrew (a language that most defendants do not understand), and the testimony of an Israeli soldier is enough to send the defendant to prison. The conviction rate is over 99%. When Palestinians face major media, their lives are often narrated by non-Palestinians. For example, a study by Maha Nassar in 2020 revealed that non-Palestinians wrote 99% of opinion pieces about Palestinians published by the Washington Post over a period of five decades from 1970-2019. The New York Times did not do much better in the same period. Less than 2% of the opinion pieces they published about Palestinians were written by us.

The Netherlands has decided to declassify data on airstrikes in the Middle East after media expos... The Dutch government agreed to release previously classified information about its air sorties in Iraq and Syria, after media exposed as false claims that no civilians were killed in a 2016 strike by the European nation on a building in Mosul, Iraq. A US military assessment had identified the target as a terrorist HQ. The database, released on Thursday, details Dutch F-16 missions between October 2014 and December 2018, which were part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led military campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). It disclosed over 2,200 weapon deployments relating to over 600 airstrikes. The Dutch Ministry of Defence also pledged to conduct its own investigation into suspected killings of civilians by anti-IS coalition forces. The move was in reaction to an expos published on the same day by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, its current affairs program...

Can you imagine the outcry if an oil and gas company was given legal permission to injure hundreds of whales and thousands of other marine mammals such as dolphins in pursuit of offshore drilling? For maximum Greta-inspired wailing, the oil field could be located in the middle of territory where the last 300 North Atlantic right whales congregate, and a permit is in place to potentially harm 20 members. In May, Vineyard Wind will begin building a massive offshore wind farm numbering 62 giant turbines, 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Permits to harass sea creatures have been secured - not a squeak of concern from green activists and mainstream media. The Vineyard Wind project is only a small part of the planned industrialisation of America's eastern coastal waters, as the Biden Administration ramps up a commitment to so-called green energy. Of course it is not green, and many now argue that it is becoming increasingly clear that the most valuable economic transfers gained...

The publisher of the Japanese translation of Ages of Discord (about to be published) requested a foreword, which presented me with a welcome opportunity to review how this book has fared, and to place it within my overall long-term research program attempting to understand the causes of recurrent waves of social and political instability that afflict all complex human societies organized as states. What follows is a lightly edited At that time, my colleagues and I had made substantial strides in understanding past crises the Age of Revolutions during the long nineteenth century, the General Crisis of the seventeenth century, the late Medieval crisis. Our research also reached back in history to the crises of Antiquity. This work was eventually summarized in Secular Cycles, co-authored with Sergey Nefedov and published by Princeton University Press in 2009. But even before the publication of Secular Cycles, as...

"disingenuous" and designed to "punish" church leaders and "terrorise" parents, a group of faith representatives have claimed. practice of attempting to change or suppress an individual's sexuality or gender identity. This can include practices based around religion such as prayer or threats that being gay would result in being sent to hell. The Scottish Government has committed to a full ban on these practices covering both transgender identity and sexual orientation. However, church leaders today wrote to the new minister for equality, Emma Roddick, demanding the plans be dropped, warning it would criminalise Christians for "teaching what Christians have always taught", noting in the letter that this meant teaching that the Bible is clear "the only place for sexual activity is within a lifelong marriage of one man and one woman, and that God has created each...

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg Let's talk about fake news stories, shall we? There's the garden variety fake news that is not really "news" so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone with a Twitter account, a Facebook page and an active imagination. These stories run the gamut from the ridiculous and the obviously click-baity to the satirical and politically manipulative. Anyone with an ounce of sense and access to the Internet should be able to ferret out the truth and lies in these stories with some basic research. That these stories flourish is largely owing to the general gullibility, laziness and media illiteracy of the general public, which through its learned compliance rarely questions, challenges or confronts. Then there's the more devious kind of news stories circulated by one of the biggest...

Weirdly, President Biden chose to celebrate the March 27 school massacre in Nashville TN by a "transman" (female who "identifies" as a male) by proclaiming Friday March 31 to be "Transgender Day of Visibility"1 . Weren't they visible enough? Even weirder, his National Weather Service tweeted It's raining transpeople now? And the Arizona Democrat Governor's spokeswoman posted an image indicating she wanted to shoot "transphobes".2

In a match made in heaven, a beverage that tries to pass itself as beer has hired as its spokesperson a man trying to pass himself off as a woman. "For decades, we've been putting carbonated backwash in a beer can and pretending it's beer," said Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth. "Who better to represent our brand than a guy throwing on a dress and pretending he's a woman?" Long a staple drink of people who hate actual beer, Bud Light felt putting Dylan Mulvaney's face on a can would also attract people who hate actual women. "As a man acting out the most horrendously offensive stereotypes of women, Mulvaney taps into the soul of people who despise real women," said Mr. Whitworth. "As a company dedicated to serving those who detest real beer, the partnership made perfect sense. The new beer can just shouts, 'Come, enjoy this atrocious substitute for the real thing'." While a few in the media questioned the move, so far Bud Light fans have welcomed drinking out of a can featuring...

This stunning bolide was spotted over Spain on April 2, at 21:28 local time (equivalent to 19:28 universal time). It was brighter than the full Moon. The fireball was observed by a wide number of casual eyewitnesses, who reported it on social networks. The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 49,000 km/h. The fireball overflew Madrid and Toledo (Spain). It began at an altitude of about 88 km over the locality of Torrejn de Velasco (Madrid), moved southwest, and ended at a height of around 24 km over Args (province of Toledo).