Today's News: April 19, 2021

World News

France ‘enabled’ 1994 Rwanda genocide, report says

Study commissioned by Rwandan gov’t alleges France ‘did nothing’ to prevent ‘foreseeable’ April and May 1994 massacres.

Al Jazeera – The French government bears “significant” responsibility for “enabling a foreseeable genocide,” a report commissioned by the Rwandan government concludes about France’s role before and during the horror in which an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered in 1994.

The report, which The Associated Press has read, comes amid efforts by Rwanda to document the role of French authorities before, during and after the genocide, part of the steps taken by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to improve relations with the Central African country.

UK opposition leader thrown out of pub in Covid row

BBC – The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has been thrown out of a pub in Bath after he was confronted by the landlord over lockdown restrictions.

Rod Humphris, who co-runs The Raven pub, said he was unhappy with Labour’s response to government lockdown measures.

He said the economy had been sacrificed “because old people are dying”.

Sir Keir, who was on a walkabout in the city, said he “profoundly disagrees”.

The Labour leader was on a campaign visit to Bath ahead of the May elections.

Mr Humphris, who initially challenged Sir Keir in the street, said he had been a Labour voter all his life but the party had “failed him”.

He said the Labour leader had allowed “children to wear masks in school when there’s never been any evidence for it”.

When Sir Keir stepped inside the pub for a visit that had been pre-arranged with one of the owners, Mr Humphris told him to “get out of my pub”.

The co-owner, Tim Perry, has since apologised to Labour.

The pub has tweeted that there was “no intention to hijack Keir Starmer’s visit to Bath” and that Mr Humphris’ views “are his own”.

On why he asked Sir Keir to leave, Mr Humphris later said: “I had heard that the Labour Party were coming round and he turned up and I told him what I thought of him, basically.

“I think he has utterly failed us as the leader of the opposition. He has completely failed to ask the questions that needed asking, like, why did we throw away our previous pandemic preparedness?

“Why have we just accepted lockdown? Why have we just accepted the loss of all our freedoms?”

The 54 year old, who said he does not agree with coronavirus lockdowns, said the Labour leader had walked in to his pub without asking.

Speaking afterwards, Sir Keir said he “profoundly disagrees” with Mr Humphris’ view.

He said people on the frontline were risking their lives dealing with the pandemic and “the vast majority recognise the lockdown is necessary and the restrictions are necessary”.

The Labour Party press office tweeted that it will “not be amplifying” the footage of the Labour leader being confronted.

The tweets said: “A clip circulating online shows Keir Starmer being confronted by someone spreading dangerous misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Keir argued that our NHS staff have been working tirelessly to protect public health and that restrictions – while painful – have been absolutely necessary to save lives.”

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Kevin McCarthy: I Will ‘Bring Action’ Against Maxine Waters for ‘Inciting Violence’ if Pelosi Doesn’t

Daily Wire – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) demanded on Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) take action against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) over remarks that Waters made over the weekend, otherwise he will be forced to take action.

“Maxine Waters is inciting violence in Minneapolis — just as she has incited it in the past,” McCarthy said in a statement. “If Speaker Pelosi doesn’t act against this dangerous rhetoric, I will bring action this week.”

McCarthy’s remarks come after Waters attended a protest on Saturday night in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where police shot and killed a man last week after he tried to flee while being arrested. Waters’ remarks also come just days before a verdict will be reached in the Derek Chauvin case involving the death of George Floyd.

“We’re looking for a guilty verdict. We’re looking for a guilty verdict. And we’re looking to see if all of this [inaudible] that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd,” Waters said. “If nothing does not happen, then we know, that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice, but I am very hopefully and I hope that we’re going to get a verdict that will say guilty, guilty, guilty. And if we don’t, we cannot go away.”

When asked about what activists should do if Chauvin is not convicted, Waters said that they must “stay on the street.”

“And we’ve got to get more active. [We’ve] got to get more confrontational,” she said. “[We’ve] got to make sure that they know we mean business.”

Antifa — ‘a myth,’ ‘an idea, not an organization’ — meets after street ‘action’ to discuss strategy, warns each other to keep things secret

‘You weren’t at this autonomous action. So you don’t go home and talk about it. You didn’t see anything, you didn’t talk to anybody.’

The Blaze – It appears that Antifa militants — you know, those figments of conservatives’ collective imagination, those black-clad, violent leftists who are at best “an idea, not an organization” and at worst a “myth” — have miraculously exited the pages of storybooks and landed in apparent real life.

Say what?

Conservative radio host Jason Rantz of KTTH-AM posted cellphone video — seemingly recorded on the sly — showing a group of “radical activists, including Antifa” holding an outdoor meeting in Seattle Friday night following their usual street hijinks.

During their chat, the “comrades” — a term actually uttered by one freedom fighter — discuss strategy, pat themselves on the back after they “fought with the pigs,” and emphasize not to discuss with anyone that they’ve met or their activities, as well as other methods to keep authorities at bay.

Shockingly, one militant tells the group that “autonomous doesn’t mean unorganized. So we do have to make decisions as a crew, as a team.” Seriously, since when do myths and ideas band together like … an organization?

Another militant suggests next time out they divide themselves into groups dressed as “black bloc” and “plain clothes” in order to prevent police from identifying members according to attire. In addition, another militant reminds members to look at the “Seattle [Black Lives Matter] calendar” and other groups’ activities to keep informed.

Prior to departing, one militant adds, “Once we de-bloc and leave, you weren’t at this autonomous action. So you don’t go home and talk about it. You didn’t see anything, you didn’t talk to anybody.” Another group member chimes in, “Our general policy is, ‘I didn’t see s**t or know s**t.’ If somebody asks you what you did Friday night — ‘nothin’.'”

Others also offer tips about phones, primarily to keep them turned off, to “get a burner if you can,” nont to have phones “tied to you personally,” and to make them password-protected with “no bio, no face, no thumb.”

Toward the end, another woman tells the group, “While we’re not necessarily out in the streets every night, we are doing actions every night. We’re sharing information, we’re watching livestreams, we’re educating ourselves, we’re educating our peers, our families, our friends. So keep that momentum up.” She adds that there’s plenty to be done to aid the “revolution.”

The militants also express a desire for “more organization” as well as concerns about being “infiltrated,” especially since they’re in a “vulnerable location” and “the longer we stay here, the easier it is for them to start picking out people as they walk out.”

Content warning: Language:

After Friday night “direct action” in Seattle didn’t quite go as planned, the radical activists, including Antifa,… https://t.co/fNNvLBTAx9

— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@(((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio)1618788378.0

Anything else?

Last July, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.), chairman of House Judiciary Committee, was caught on video stating that Antifa violence in Portland, Oregon, taking place night after night — and documented in numerous videos and news reports — is a “myth that’s being spread only in Washington, D.C.“

Last September, then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a debate with then-President Donald Trump parroted the words of FBI Director Christopher Wray, saying that “Antifa’s an idea, not an organization.“

But speaking to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last week, Wray was willing to concede that Antifa is “more of a movement. There are certainly local and regional nodes, individuals who self-identify with Antifa who commit violent attacks, citing that as their motivation. And we have a number of predicated investigations into such individuals.”

Biden administration to change immigration terms for “alien,” “assimilation”

Axios – The Biden administration will prohibit U.S. immigration enforcement agencies from using using terms like “alien,” “illegal alien” and “assimilation,” the Washington Post reports.

The state of play: Memos expected to be sent by the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) frame the new language recommendations as a way of humanizing U.S. immigration policy, after four years of the Trump administration’s hardline approach.

Details:

“Aliens” will now be referred to as “Noncitizens or migrants.”
“Illegal” will become “undocumented.”
“Assimilation” will be switched to “integration.”

Between the lines: Unions associated with CBP and ICE broadly endorsed Trump in the election, and the agencies have not shied away from using these terms over the years.

Immigration advocates have argued that terms like “alien” are dehumanizing and dated.
The Biden administration is already facing criticism for its handling of the surge of migrants at the border, with unaccompanied children arriving at staggering rates.

What they’re saying, per the Post:

Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller: “As the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, we set a tone and example for our country and partners across the world. We enforce our nation’s laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact. The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody.”
Acting ICE director Tae Johnson: “In response to the vision set by the Administration, ICE will ensure agency communications use the preferred terminology and inclusive language.”

The other side: “By statute, ‘alien’ literally means a person not a U.S. citizen or national. That is not offensive, and neither is ‘assimilation,'” Robert Law, a former Trump administration official now working at the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, told Axios’ Stef Kight in February.

Police accountability isn’t infrastructure and Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes isn’t exactly elaborating on what he meant by that when he said it. I’m not sure even he knows what he meant when he said it. It was just a way to get cheap clout from the left.

Child care is up to the parent and the government getting involved in it has a horrific track record. Climate action has many different definitions and is hotly contested by every political-ideological faction. Finally, Supreme Court expansion is just a naked partisan power grab by Democrats.

None of these is infrastructure. It’s really just a Democrat wish list.

Computer chips may have something of an argument if these computer chips are being used in our actual infrastructure. In other words, if our computer systems make traffic lights work better, keep the trains going on time, help keep the water clean, and make the DMV lines quicker, then yeah. That can count as parts of our infrastructure that wouldn’t be a horrible thing to invest in. However, Biden, who talked about computer chips said “chips, like the one I have here — these chips, these wafers, are batteries, broadband; it’s all infrastructure. This is infrastructure,” and if anyone can translate what he means here, please email me.

My guess is that he’s talking about the long-called plan of making the internet a government-controlled public utility which no one should be comfortable with. Government controlling the flow of so much information is asking for censorship on a scale you couldn’t imagine.

That leaves affordable housing, which was proposed by Rep. Marilyn Strickland of Washington.

Strickland, along with Rep. Scott Peters of California, proposed to build “affordable housing” near transit systems to better be able to transport workers to their jobs as many live too far away from the cities they work in due to housing costs. They also plan to improve transit ways to better facilitate this.

Transit is definitely infrastructure and one of the big reasons we give up a chunk of change to the government every year. Good roads that are improved on as a city grows are essential.

Is affordable housing infrastructure? That’s the argument currently happening, but I’m going to fall into the “no” camp as the concept brings with it a lot of issues the Democrats aren’t mentioning. For one, they want to zone a lot of this affordable housing in areas that would actually further burden schools and clog roads. What’s more, it’s often government zoning rules that make housing less affordable, and lifting restrictions on development would help home affordability.

That likely won’t happen, though, especially in major cities where land development is stopped by Democrats and left-leaning activists. You’ll also notice that a lot of this affordable housing isn’t being proposed where these politicians live.

So no, attaching the word “infrastructure” to things doesn’t make the thing infrastructure.

Here are Some of the Things Democrats Think are Infrastructure Now

Red State – Democrats have gotten into the habit of calling everything they like and every bill they want to pass “infrastructure” because calling it that makes the thing they’re talking about seem essential to the health and well-being of this nation.

Fun fact: It’s not.

Fox News has combed through some of the things we’ve been told are infrastructure by Democrats and compiled a list I’ll simplify for you below. Enjoy, because enjoyment is infrastructure.

affordable housing
police accountability
computer chips
climate action
Supreme Court expansion
paid leave
child care

And these are just things elected Democrats are saying. We’re not going to pay attention to the hoards of Twitter lunatics tweeting out things like “hormone therapy for gender transitioning is infrastructure.” The people who jokingly tweet out “your mom is infrastructure” are more grounded in reality.

First, let’s define infrastructure. According to Merriam-Webster, infrastructure is “the system of public works of a country, state, or region.”

Well, right off we can throw out police accountability, paid leave, climate action, child care, and Supreme Court expansion. Paid leave is up to the private business that employs the person taking paid leave. Handing money to people because they just decided to quit working for a while isn’t economically intelligent in the least. A lot of people would love to just sit around watching Netflix while a private company is forced by the government to pay for their third trip to Taco Bell that day. A company should be able to craft its own policies around paid leave. What’s more, the government shouldn’t be assisting in it either.

Economy & Business

Bitcoin price crashes in massive cryptocurrency sell-off

The price of bitcoin plunged dramatically over the weekend as rumours of a crackdown on money laundering sparked a sell-off frenzy.

News.com.au – Cryptocurrencies were hit by a flash crash over the weekend that saw the price of bitcoin plunge by a dramatic 15 per cent in 24 hours – its sharpest slide in months.

The tumble happened just days after the world’s top digital coin hit a record high of more than $US64,000 ($A82,755) on Wednesday, amid excitement for the arrival of digital currency exchange Coinbase on Wall Street.

But on Sunday the price of bitcoin fell from about $US59,000 ($A762,90) to $US51,000 ($A67,238) before rebounding. It was the steepest slump in the price of bitcoin since February.

The price of other cryptocurrencies also plunged over the weekend, including XRP and Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, which fell almost 18 per cent before recouping some losses.

Dogecoin, which began as a joke and rose in popularity in 2013, appeared to be holding steady. Last week Dogecoin saw a massive rally, with its price soaring by 400 per cent in just seven days.

The weekend’s carnage has been attributed to unconfirmed reports the US Treasury would crack down on money laundering carried out through digital currencies.

But other factors may have been behind the crash, with analysts warning for months of a potential cryptocurrency bubble.

Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign exchange company OANDA, said cryptocurrencies had been ripe for a pullback.

“The market has become overly aggressive and bullish on everything,” he said.

“It could have been any bearish headline that could have triggered this reaction.”

Analysts said overexcitement for Coinbase’s public trading could also explain the massive sell-off.

“With hindsight it was inevitable,” Galaxy Digital founder and investor Michael Novogratz said in a tweet on Sunday.

“Markets got too excited around $USCoin (Coinbase) direct listing. Basis blowing out, coins like $USBSV, $USXRP and $USDOGE pumping. All were signs that the market got too one way.”

Speaking to MarketWatch, Mr Novogratz warned of a “washout” ahead.

“In the next week, certainly we could have some volatility because of the excitement around Coinbase,” he said.

“I’ve seen a lot of weird coins like Dogecoin and even XRP have huge retail spikes, which means there’s a lot of frenzy right now,” he added. “That never ends well, and so we’ll probably have a washout at one point.”

Others said the weekend’s sell-off could have been fuelled by a blackout in China’s Xinjiang region, which reportedly powers a lot of bitcoin mining, according to Fox Business.

Luke Sully, chief executive of digital asset treasury specialist Ledgermatic, told the outlet people “may have sold on the news of the power outage in China and not the impact it actually had on the network”.

“The power outage does expose a fundamental weakness; that although the Bitcoin network is decentralised the mining of it is not,” he added.

Many cryptocurrency markets operate 24/7, which allows for price swings at unpredictable hours, and it is the one of the few markets open on weekends to trade in, Bloomberg reports.

Despite the weekend’s plunge and rebound, Bitcoin is still up 89 per cent so far in 2021, as it continues to gain mainstream acceptance as an investment and method for payment.

However, it was dealt a blow last week when Turkey’s central bank decided to ban the use of cryptocurrencies for payments from the end of April, citing concerns about a lack of “supervision mechanisms” and “central authority regulation” for digital assets.

Dogecoin Traders Whip Up Frenzy in Push Toward $1

WSJ – Traders are whipping up a “Doge Day” frenzy on online forums to push the price of the meme cryptocurrency toward $1, in a further sign of overheating in parts of the market.

The mania around dogecoin, which was started as a joke and designed to serve no purpose, has sent the price soaring by over 8,000% this year. In comparison, the S&P 500 generated about 1,900%, including dividends, over the past three decades.

The cryptocurrency traded as high as roughly 43 cents on Monday, after notching a record of 45 cents on Friday. It started the year worth less than 1 cent.

The recent rush into dogecoin is being propelled by users sharing memes and tweets on Twitter and Reddit forums.

Its steep ascension means the market is valuing the cryptocurrency at over $50 billion, or more than Ford Motor Co. and Marriott International Inc. If traders hit their target of pushing the price to $1 by Tuesday, it could be worth more than blue-chip companies like Advanced Micro Devices Inc., CVS Health Corp. and General Motors Co.

L.A. Set to Be Largest City to Offer Guaranteed Income for Poor

Bloomberg – Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is proposing a guaranteed income program for poor residents, making it the largest U.S. city to test such a policy.

Garcetti will ask the City Council on Tuesday to set aside $24 million in next year’s budget to send $1,000 monthly payments to 2,000 low-income families in America’s second-largest city, the mayor said in an interview. Funds from council districts and other sources could bring the total to $35 million.

Candidates for the one-year program would be selected from the city’s 15 districts, based on each area’s share of those living below federal poverty guidelines. Garcetti is targeting households with at least one minor, and suffering some hardship relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Science & Technology

YouTube CEO wins ‘Free Expression Award’ sponsored by YouTube, then boasts how platform censors content creators

RT – Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of Google’s video platform YouTube, was awarded the Freedom Forum Institute’s ‘Free Expression Award’ on Friday in a ceremony sponsored by her own company – despite YouTube’s track record of censorship.

In the digital awards ceremony, YouTube video creator Molly Burke praised Wojcicki as a free speech leader before the YouTube CEO detailed in her acceptance speech how much the platform censors its users.

“The freedoms we have, we really can’t take for granted,” Wojcicki declared, adding that “we really have to make sure we’re protecting them in every way possible.”

Wojcicki, however, went on to argue that “we also need to make sure there are limits,” and revealed that the company removed nine million videos in the last quarter, 90% of which were taken down by machines.

She also said there is “a lot of content that technically meets the spirit of what we’re trying to do, but it is borderline, and so for that content we will just reduce – meaning we’re not going to recommend it to our users.”

Social media users mocked the irony of Wojcicki receiving an award for free speech, and the video of the ceremony on YouTube had garnered more than 400 dislikes and just one like at the time of writing.

“This is the worst form of gaslighting I’ve ever seen,” commented one user, while another questioned, “What’s next, Facebook getting an award for respecting privacy?”

One YouTube content creator posted a photo showing at least 15 of his videos banned from the platform for “inappropriate content,” and a Twitter user wrote, “Free Expression Award? Are they having a laugh[?] Didn’t she just censor the governor of Florida speaking with medical experts[?]”

YouTube banned a video of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis talking about the benefits and cons of children wearing Covid-19 face masks with a panel of scientists earlier this month, calling it “medical misinformation.”

Several high-profile users have been banned from YouTube, including Infowars founder Alex Jones, British rapper Wiley, and former White House adviser Seb Gorka, while many others have faced various degrees of censorship from content-hiding to demonetization.

Former president Donald Trump, conservative television network One America News (OAN), and the government of Pakistan have also received temporary bans over the past few years.

YouTube content creators have frequently spoken out against the platform’s censorious policies, with some of the largest figures moving to competing websites in protest. Though many content creators remain on YouTube’s platform, an increasing number are using it as a secondary website where their content is posted up to a week after it debuted on another service.

NASA flies a helicopter on Mars, first time aircraft flown on another planet

Small, four-pound helicopter reached an altitude of about 10 feet in what NASA called a ‘Wright brothers moment’

Washington Post – NASA successfully flew its four-pound helicopter from the surface of Mars early Monday, the first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet, a feat NASA officials compared to the Wright brothers first flight in 1903.

At about 3:30 a.m., the twin, carbon-fiber rotor blades began spinning furiously, and the chopper, called Ingenuity, lifted off the surface of the Red Planet, reaching an altitude of about 10 feet, where it hovered, turned and landed softly in an autonomous flight that lasted just 30 seconds, the space agency said.

Inside the flight operations center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, engineers broke into applause when confirmation of the flight arrived, more than three hours after the flight, in a data burst that traveled 178 million miles from Mars to Earth.

Huawei denies spying accusation in the Netherlands

BBC – A report accusing Huawei of having once had “unlimited access” to phone calls made using one of the Netherlands’ leading operators, KPN, has been published by a Dutch newspaper.

The report was compiled by the CapGemini consultancy in 2010 but never released.

Those affected would have included former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

The Chinese technology giant has completely denied the allegations.

Health

Walgreens Store Injects People With Saline Instead of COVID Vaccine in Mix-Up: Company

Newsweek – AWalgreens pharmacy mistakenly administered saline injections instead of COVID-19 vaccines in a mix-up, the company has confirmed.

A spokesperson told local news outlets that a “limited number” of people were affected by the mistake, which occurred at a store in Monroe, North Carolina. Those affected had been informed, Walgreens said, and were offered a vaccine shot for when they were able to return.

“We are investigating what happened and have taken immediate steps to review our procedures with the location to prevent this from occurring again,” the company said in a statement.

A woman who reported being among those affected said that her experience had taken place on March 20, when she and her husband were due to receive the Pfizer vaccine at a store on Fincher Street.

The patient, Lisa Strawn, said she was told a pharmacist forgot to mix the vaccine, resulting in only a saline shot being administered.

“I asked the guy, I said, ‘How did you figure out that we only got saline?'” she told WCCB Charlotte. “And he said, ‘Well at 5:00 when she called me and said she had a lot of vaccine leftover, what was she to do with it?’ and he said ‘You shouldn’t have any vaccine left over,’ so that’s how they discovered it.”

According to the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), saline injections can be used as a source of hydration and electrolytes. Patients with conditions such as congestive heart failure, liver disease or kidney disease would require administration with particular caution.

Cancer-causing chemical found in hand sanitizers made during the pandemic

Dr. Leonard Coldwell – Some hand sanitizers made to meet the surge in demand amid the coronavirus pandemic contain high levels of a cancer-causing chemical known as benzene, according to a study conducted by the online pharmacy, Valisure.

Valisure analyzed 260 bottles of hand sanitizer across 168 brands in its laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut. The analysis showed that 44 bottles had detectable levels of benzene, while 21 bottles contained levels of benzene above the approved limit of two parts per million (ppm).

Valisure also detected “unacceptably high levels” of methanol and acetaldehyde. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies acetaldehyde as a Group 2B carcinogen, meaning it is possibly carcinogenic to humans. Methanol is a highly toxic alcohol that can cause death if ingested.

On March 24, the pharmacy filed a citizen petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking the agency to recall the products identified in the analysis. Valisure also asked the FDA to conduct its own analysis of hand sanitizers and to develop documents defining the limit of benzene for all hand sanitizers.

Valisure’s analysis was verified by the Chemical and Biophysical Instrumentation Center at Yale University and Boston Analytics.

Benzene found in multiple hand sanitizer brands

Some of the most contaminated products identified in the Valisure report were from artnaturals, Candles Inc. and The Creme Shop. Among those sampled, the sanitizer made by artnaturals contained the most benzene at 16 parts per million, which is eight times higher than the the limit approved by the FDA.

Valisure also found that the products with the highest levels of benzene only appeared on shelves back in April or May 2020, when people began exhausting the supplies of bigger, more popular brands like Purell.

It isn’t clear how benzene came to be present in the hand sanitizers. However, Valisure surmised that they may have been contaminated with benzene because the chemical is used to purify germ-killing alcohol. But benzene is supposed to be removed from the final products before they are sealed and packed.

“These findings are alarming and reveal a serious potential risk to public health,” Valisure stated in its petition. The pharmacy previously found high levels of other cancer-causing chemicals in drug components manufactured overseas for products sold in the U.S. market.

Adverse health effects of benzene exposure

Benzene is a colorless and flammable liquid that evaporates when exposed to air. Natural sources of this highly toxic chemical include volcanoes and forest fires. Benzene is also a natural part of crude oil, gasoline and cigarette smoke.

Benzene is one of the 20 most commonly used chemicals in the United States. It is typically used as a starting material for producing other chemicals, including those used in plastic products, lubricants, rubbers, dyes, detergents, drugs and pesticides. In the past, benzene was also used to make industrial solvents.

Experts consider benzene a cancer-causing substance. In fact, the IARC classifies it as a Group 1 carcinogen. This group of cancer criminals includes asbestos, which is known to cause lung cancer.

Exposure to benzene can lead to several short- and long-term health effects. Below are the immediate or short-term adverse health effects of benzene exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

Drowsiness
Skin irritation
Dizziness
Irregular heartbeat
Headaches
Tremors
Confusion
Unconsciousness
Death

Benzene can also be ingested from contaminated foods or drinks. Ingesting benzene can lead to convulsions or, in extremely serious cases, death.

Just 2 days of increased sugar intake can harm your gut health, warn researchers

Dr. Leonard Coldwell – A common trick to maintain a low-sugar diet is to indulge your sweet cravings from time to time. You might adhere to a strict diet during the weekdays and loosen up a bit over the weekend as a reward for dieting. But a study shows that it takes only a couple of days to ruin good gut health.

Researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada found that short-term increases in sugar intake can increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease. Their finding, which was published in Scientific Reports, is a reminder that eating healthy must be sustained in order to keep your gut in good shape.

“Surprisingly, our study shows that short-term sugar consumption can really have a detrimental impact, and so this idea that it’s OK to eat well all week and indulge in junk food on the weekend is flawed,” said Karen Madsen, one of the study researchers.

Increased sugar intake is bad for the gut

Previous studies have shown that diets can affect your susceptibility to disease. Western diets, for example, have been implicated in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. But it’s still unclear when a poor diet begins to take a toll on your health, much less how it does so.

To investigate, the researchers placed adult mice on a chow diet or a high-sugar diet and treated them with dextran sodium sulfate to induce ulcerative colitis, one of the major forms of inflammatory bowel disease. Disease severity was assessed daily.

After two days, the mice on the high-sugar diet were at great risk of developing colitis. Their immune response also weakened while their gut permeability increased, allowing more bacteria and toxins to enter their bloodstream.

“We wanted to know how long it takes before a change in diet translates into an impact on health. In the case of sugar and colitis, it only took two days, which was really surprising to us. We didn’t think it would happen so quickly,” said Madsen.

The researchers attributed these effects to sugar’s impact on the gut bacteria. Eating sugary foods decreases the amount of “good” gut bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids, which are critical for a strong immune response. Meanwhile, sugar feeds “bad” bacteria that promote inflammation and weaken your immunity. (Related: 6 Common artificial sweeteners found to be toxic to gut bacteria.)

Fortunately, the researchers found that supplementing with short-chain fatty acids helped reduce the negative effects of a high-sugar diet. Having these supplements as an option will be great for people struggling to change their bad eating habits.

“People want to eat what they want to eat, so short-chain fatty acids could possibly be used as supplements to help protect people against the detrimental effects of sugar on inflammatory bowel disease,” said Madsen.

How to curb sugar cravings

Check out the following tips to curb your sugar cravings: (h/t VeryWellFit.com)

Avoid artificial sweeteners. Replacing sugar with low- or no-calorie sweeteners is a band-aid solution to resisting your food urges. Instead of addressing the root of the problem, it only encourages eating behaviors that intensify cravings.
Get a good night’s sleep. Sleep deprivation can increase your appetite. Sleep seven to nine hours every night to keep your appetite down.
Make room for nutrient-dense foods. Fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients that are important for good health. Snack on fresh foods like blueberries and carrots instead of processed sweets.
Taper intake. Eating more sweets only amplifies your cravings. Wean yourself off sugar by drastically limiting intake.
Eat healthy carbs. Aim to get most of your carbs from whole foods like whole grains, corn and dairy.

Eating healthy is a lifelong, everyday commitment that pays dividends. If you feel tempted to indulge your cravings, refer to these tips to keep your gut healthy and your overall health in tip-top shape. Check out Fresh.news for more about nutritious foods to eat instead of sweets.