WORLD NEWS
Colombia Will Launch A Central Bank Digital Currency
In order to “prevent tax evasion,” the nation of Colombia is launching a central bank digital currency. An official at the country’s tax and customs agency has hinted that there is a national digital currency plan.
Luis Carlos Reyes, the head of the Colombian Tax and Customs National Authority, claimed that the government of newly inaugurated Colombian President Gustavo Petro will seek to create a digital currency to prevent illicit financial activity like tax evasion. A central bank digital currency is a must for all ruling classes going forward. They need to be able to see everything you do, buy, sell, and generate as income so they can take at will or shut it off if you upset them.
This has been in the works for a long time, and it’s coming everywhere.
Colombia’s digital currency plans are part of the country’s new monetary policy measures aiming to increase the transparency of financial transactions, the official said in an interview with the local magazine Semana. According to the report, tax evasion in Colombia is estimated to account for 6% or 8% of the country’s gross domestic product.
The ruling classes cannot have people start to understand that they shouldn’t be stolen from.
The official did not specify what kind of digital currency exactly the Colombian government will be looking to launch, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or rather an asset-backed national currency similar to Venezuela’s Petro digital currency project.
The news comes shortly after new Colombian president Petro has sworn into office on Aug. 7. As previously reported, Petro is known for expressing support for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). Back in 2017, Petro suggested that BTC could remove power from the government and return it to the people. “Virtual currency is pure information and therefore energy,” Petro said at the time. –Coin Telegraph
CBDC is going to make sure that your slavery to the rulers is permanent.
Torrential rain, floods in Sudan kill 77 and destroy 14,500 homes
Flooding in Sudan has killed scores of people and destroyed an estimated 14,500 homes as seasonal rains pound the country, causing rivers to flood and destroying property.
The death toll since the rainy season began in May now stands at 77, the spokesman for Sudan’s National Council for Civil Defence, Brigadier General Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rahim, said on Thursday.
China Announces ‘Fertility-Friendly’ Policy Guidelines to Reverse Birth Rate Collapse
China’s central government issued new “fertility-friendly” guidelines on Tuesday designed to increase the Chinese population, which is currently projected to contract sometime before 2025 following decades of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy, the Global Times reported.
Relaying the edict on August 16, the Chinese state-run newspaper wrote:
“A total of 17 Chinese government departments on Tuesday jointly released a guideline on support policies in finance, tax, housing, employment, education and other fields to create a fertility-friendly society and encourage families to have more children, as the country faces growing pressure from falling birth rates.
Tuesday’s guideline was released to implement policies to support each couple to have a third child, push the government, institutions and individuals to fulfill their responsibilities in creating a friendly environment for marriage and fertility, and promote population growth, according to the guideline.
Detailed support policies listed in the guideline included promoting prenatal and postnatal care, further developing nursing systems, improving the mechanism for maternity leave and insurance, offering preferential house-purchase policies to families with more than one child, adding high-quality education resources, creating a fertility-friendly employment environment, and setting up a complete service system on population.”
The pro-fertility guidelines released by Beijing on August 16 additionally stipulated a goal of preventing “unwanted pregnancies” and decreasing the number of “non-medical abortions” among Chinese women.
Yang Wenzhuang, the director of population and family affairs at China’s National Health Commission, predicted on July 21 that China’s population will contract by the year 2025. He announced the grim forecast during the 2022 Annual Conference of the China Population Association, according to the Global Times.
“Birth data for 2021 released by 29 provinces and regions in China so far showed that the number of new births in 2021 was the lowest in decades in several provinces,” the newspaper observed on July 24.
Report: U.N. Staff Impregnated Girls as Young as 10 in Democratic Republic of Congo
Peacekeepers and other personnel employed by the United Nations (U.N.) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since 2018 have allegedly impregnated at least 60 different local girls and women during their times of service in the troubled country, with the youngest accuser alleging she was just ten years old when she was impregnated by a U.N. staff member, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported on Monday, citing an original study by the University of Birmingham published by the media outlet The Conversation last week.
A team of researchers funded by Britain’s University of Birmingham and the Canadian government published a study on August 9 “based on 2,858 interviews with Congolese community members, including 60 in-depth interviews with victims of sexual misconduct who conceived children with peacekeepers, and 35 interviews with children who were born as a result.”
A senior Eurocrat has called for a “Civil Protection Force” directly under the control of Brussels to be established to fight the impact of climate change.
EU crisis management tsar has called for the creation of a “Civil Protection Force” directly under Brussels control for the ostensive purpose of fighting the impact of climate change.
The suggestion has prompted one MEP to accuse Brussels of “using any excuse to grab more power”, with the union’s green agenda policy having already resulted in chaotic scenes in the likes of the Netherlands.
According to a report by POLITICO, crisis management chief Janez Lenarcic has claimed that the impact climate change is having on EU member states is in
“…we have a growing sense that more Europe is needed in civil protection,” Lenarcic said while suggesting that EU treaties should be changed so as to hand Brussels the power to establish such a force that would be able to provide this “protection”.
Such a sentiment however has been outright rejected by critics however, with one elected representative within the European Parliament, Cristian Terhes MEP, warning Breitbart Europe that the EU’s “unelected bureaucrats are using any excuse to grab more power”.
“These European bureaucrats are not the solution, but the cause of many problems that the EU is facing, and the deeply damaging energy crisis is just a proof of that,” Terhes said, emphasising that EU bigwigs “don’t want to be accountable to the people”.
“Handing to these irresponsible and unaccountable bureaucrats even more power would just simply be irresponsible,” the European Conservatives and Reformists Group politician continued.
“What Europe needs is a rebirth of national and sovereign democracy, with creativity and power for local people rather than one size fits all bureaucratic control from the centre of Brussels,” he went on to say.
Japan wants young people to drink more alcohol. It’s just not sure how to convince them
The Japanese government has been hit in the pocket by an unusual problem — its young people aren’t drinking enough.
Since the pandemic began, bars and other premises selling alcohol have been hit hard by Covid-19 restrictions, causing sales — and liquor tax revenues — to plummet in the world’s third-largest economy.
The government’s solution? Launch a contest to find new ways to encourage young people to drink more.
The “Sake Viva!” campaign, overseen by the National Tax Agency, invites participants to submit ideas on how to “stimulate demand among young people” for alcohol through new services, promotional methods, products, designs and even sales techniques using artificial intelligence or the metaverse, according to the official competition website.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
DHS-FBI brief casts conservatives as ‘domestic violent extremists’
American citizens who after the Russia hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping debacle and the burying of the Biden influence-peddling case view the FBI’s raid on Donald Trump’s estate with skepticism fit the profile of a potential “domestic violent extremist,” according to an intelligence bulletin distributed jointly by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Aug. 12 bulletin, obtained by Project Veritas, explains to local law enforcement officials across the nation that the Mar-a-Lago raid has prompted calls for violence against federal law enforcement and government officials. The intent of the bulletin is to assist in “effectively deterring, preventing, preempting, or responding to terrorist attacks against the United States.”
The recent developments, the brief states, “highlight the heightened threat since 2020 by domestic violent extremists (DVEs) motivated by a range of ideologies, who have grievances against a variety of targets including law enforcement.”
The FBI and DHS have observed since the Aug. 8 raid an increase in threats posted online that include a “threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion.'”
The bulletin spotlights people who believe the outcome of the 2020 election was fraudulent “and other claims of government overreach.”
The upcoming midterm elections, the brief warns, could become “an additional flashpoint around which to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including federal law enforcement personnel.”
Andrew Yang Promotes Technocracy With New Political Party
Almost as common as recognition that America’s two dominant political parties represent complementary threats to the republic are bloodless appeals to the mushy middle as an alternative. Like clockwork, smart political figures propose tepid, middle-of-the-road policies that, for some reason, they think will appeal to an impassioned and divided electorate. The latest such effort is the merger of three organizations into a rebooted version of Andrew Yang’s centrist Forward Party, a movement based on the dubious premise that “every problem has a solution most Americans can support (really).”
“The United States badly needs a new political party—one that reflects the moderate, common-sense majority,” one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Yang, former Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R–N.J.), and former Rep. David Jolly (R–Fla.) wrote in The Washington Post last week. “Today’s outdated parties have failed by catering to the fringes. As a result, most Americans feel they aren’t represented.”
Whitman, it should be noted, was (and may still be; the moribund organization still has a website) on the board of directors of Americans Elect, another such centrist effort to challenge the major parties. That organization achieved the difficult task of getting on the ballot in a majority of states for the 2012 presidential election before its byzantine nomination process failed to pick a candidate.
Since then, satisfaction with the country’s path has declined even as polarization increased. Political violence is now a real part of American life. In this fractured environment, Forward Party backers see opportunity to create a new broad-based, non-ideological political party.
“Most third parties in U.S. history failed to take off, either because they were ideologically too narrow or the population was uninterested,” Yang, Whitman, and Jolly wrote in the Post. “But voters are calling for a new party now more than ever.”
In fact, Gallup finds that a bare-bones 13 percent of Americans are happy with the country’s direction, and a record 62 percent of respondents want to see a third party challenge Republicans and Democrats. Yang, Whitman, and Jolly approvingly cite this support across partisan identifications for another party as evidence that America is ready for their moderate alternative. But, when you dig deeper and ask people what they want of their political representation, the data, like the country, is fragmented.
“The survey asked Republicans and Republican-leaning independents what direction they would like to see the party move in the future. A 40 percent plurality want the party to become more conservative, while 34 percent want it to stay the same and 24 percent to become more moderate,” Gallup added. “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are evenly divided on the direction their party should go—34 percent want it to become more liberal, 34 percent more moderate, and 31 percent to stay where it is.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be reorganized, its director said on Aug. 17, after a review found that the agency didn’t respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky informed the approximately 13,000 CDC employees of the move, which include changes to the agency in an attempt to make quicker decisions, be more accountable, and improve communication.
The changes are spurred by a review that started in April, which found the agency’s “traditional scientific and communication processes were not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CDC told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
A copy of the review hasn’t been made public.
“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Walensky, a Biden appointee, said in a statement.
“As a long-time admirer of this agency and a champion for public health, I want us all to do better and it starts with CDC leading the way. My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness. I look forward to working with the incredible people at CDC and our partners to realize the agency’s fullest potential to benefit the health and well-being of all Americans,” she added.
The changes are expected to take months.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on the proposal, nor did the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent department.
The public health agency has attracted criticism during the pandemic for its recommendations and messaging surrounding COVID-19 precautions, vaccines, and treatments, including its efforts to get virtually every American vaccinated, regardless of health status or whether they’ve recovered from COVID-19, and its promotion of mask-wearing, including among children as young as 2. Supporters say the efforts have helped save lives, while critics say they have damaged trust in public health and are not based on sound science.
During the initial pandemic response, the CDC was headed by Dr. Robert Redfield, a Trump appointee.
Alan Dershowitz: Arresting or Convicting Trump Won’t Keep Him Out of 2024 Race
Former President Donald Trump will likely not be arrested on charges stemming from the FBI’s raid last week, according to a former Harvard Law School professor.
“Yes, it’s possible [but] I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Tuesday about whether Trump would be arrested. People who believe that prosecution and an indictment would keep Trump away from the 2024 campaign are “dead wrong,” he remarked.
“He can run for president even if he’s indicted, convicted, and wearing striped shirts, prison garb,” he added to the channel. “The Constitution provides only four bases for disqualification for president, and being convicted of a crime is not one of them. Congress can’t change the criteria that are in the Constitution for the election of the president.”
Echoing statements made by Trump and some Republicans, Dershowitz said the affidavit used to justify the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago should be released.
“You can redact the names of agents, you can redact sources and methods, but what we want to know is what the basis of probable cause that they have,” he said.
A U.S. magistrate judge in the case, Bruce Reinhart, ordered the unsealing of a warrant and property receipt. The warrant shows Trump is under federal investigation for possibly several U.S. Code violations, while the receipt shows agents found allegedly classified and top secret material at Trump’s home.
FBI Returned Passports Seized in Mar-a-Lago, Trump Says
Former President Donald Trump said on Aug. 16 that the FBI returned the three passports that the agency seized during its raid of his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI just returned my passports. Thank you!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Unfortunately, when they Raided my home, Mar-a-Lago, 8 days ago, they just opened their arms and grabbed everything in sight, much as a common criminal would do. This shouldn’t happen in America!”
The FBI “stole” three of Trump’s passports during the Aug. 8 raid on his resort, the former president wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 15. Trump said the seizure was “an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country.”
Earlier on Aug. 15, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich posted an email authored by DOJ national security official Jay Bratt that shows Bratt confirming the possession of the passports and arranging their return to Trump’s team.
Jim Burling, an executive at a nonprofit public interest law firm, said the FBI wouldn’t have inadvertently taken the former president’s passport.
“The FBI is too careful. If they took it, they knew what they were doing. I would give them credit for knowing what they’re doing, I would hope,” Burling told The Epoch Times. “Passports are generally taken if somebody is considered to be a flight risk.
“We’re not dealing with an ordinary citizen. We’re dealing with a former president. I mean, do people seriously think he’s going to try to go to Lebanon so he couldn’t be extradited? Just to say that is to recognize the absurdity of it.”
Lance Corporal Catherine Arnett is on the brink of court martial for decisions made in opposition to what she considers an “unlawful order” to take a COVID-19 vaccination shot.
Immediately following the secretary of defense’s order to vaccinate against COVID-19 on Aug. 24, 2021, Arnett sought religious exemption—which was denied the following month. Having submitted her appeal against the decision in November, it was denied in January 2022. This began an administrative separation process from the Marine Corps, prompting Arnett to declare she “cannot consent to it.”
The 24-year-old Lance Corporal held firm in her beliefs, telling The Epoch Times that “if your mandate is illegal, then your separation orders are illegal.” In April 2022, Arnett received a letter from her command, giving her 30 days to leave Japan and report to California’s Camp Pendleton to be processed for separation. The Marine Corps does not separate individuals from duty stations overseas or outside the continental United States.
Thus, Arnett continues to refuse to board a plane, explaining that “[the order] to get on the plane [is] inextricably linked to the vaccine mandate.” If the “unlawful order” of the vaccine mandate were not in place, she would have chosen to serve longer, aspiring to become a drill instructor. Instead, her decision to seek religious accommodation and subsequent refusal to leave Japan for separation from the Marine Corps has had consequences that may lead to a court martial.
Arnett was charged under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for disobeying a direct order. She was also charged under Article 87 for deliberately failing to board an aircraft to the United States.
Because Arnett has less than six years of service, under military regulations, the Marine Corps does not have to give her an administrative separation board to decide whether to retain or separate her from service. After her religious accommodation appeal was denied, she was accused of misconduct and commission of a serious offense for not getting the COVID-19 vaccination shot, Arnett said. She was told that she would be administratively separated within 30 days.
Arnett’s court martial trial is set to begin on Aug. 23, only one month shy of the expiration of her current enlistment and her ability to leave the Marine Corps under normal terms. It is her intention to remain in Japan until Sept. 18, which would fulfill the four-year contract she made with the Marine Corps.
Arnett is hopeful the vaccine mandates will be defeated in the courts sooner than later, saying, “God willing, I would like to remain in the Marine Corps.” She recognizes that she has chosen a difficult path, admitting that her decisions have left her feeling alienated. “I’ve basically been exiled from my squadron,” she said, adding that there seems to be an “unspoken rule” that she does not interact with other service members. She described the experience as “very isolating.”
Parent Rights Group Fights Critical Race Theory With Anti-Union Campaign
To allow schools to be free of Critical Race Theory (CRT) parents must break the unions, parental rights activists say.
This school year, Moms for Liberty leaders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich have mounted a nationwide campaign to end union control of schools.
“Let’s start the new school year right—by ending the reign of the powerful teachers’ unions who care more about pushing woke ideology and rewriting forms to say ‘birthing parent’ instead of ‘mom’ or ‘dad,’ than they do about improving reading scores or closing the growing learning gaps in our country,” the group’s press release reads.
Teachers have pushed CRT into the classroom at a time when many students are failing to learn how to read, said Justice.
According to nationwide surveys, only about a third of 4th Grade students read proficiently at a 4th Grade reading level in 2019.
At the same time, reports of teachers giving children political instruction in CRT, transgenderism, and other left-wing ideologies have increased greatly.
This push comes from teachers’ unions, said Descovich.
Teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have long been bastions of Democratic political power, she said.
Rather than ensuring teachers get good pay while giving children a good education, they have focused on making education ideological, said Justice.
“What we’ve seen over the past 40 years in education in America is a real shift away from giving children practicable skills to making them into social justice warriors,” she said.
Moms for Liberty encourages teachers to leave these unions to stop their promotion of left-wing education, Descovich said.
“It’s vital that teachers understand there [are] options out there, they do not have to be a member of the union,” she said.
For many parents, COVID-19 led to new discoveries about schools, Descovich said. During the pandemic, parents got to see the lessons their kids received. Often, they didn’t like what they saw.
“I think they’ve been shocked to see gender ideology being pushed in the classrooms, the division between race, the Critical Race Theory,” she said.
While the pandemic was a time for parents to learn, now is a time for them to act, Moms for Liberty leaders said.
“The start of the 2022-2023 school year is a perfect time to end the woke union bosses’ death grip on innovation, excellence, and freedom in public education,” the Moms for Liberty press release reads.
Pence Says Republicans Shouldn’t Criticize FBI for Mar-a-Lago Raid
Former Vice President Mike Pence broke with former President Donald Trump and other Republicans and said Wednesday they should stop criticizing the FBI following the bureau’s raid targeting the former president’s home.
“I also want to remind my fellow Republicans, we can hold the attorney general accountable for the decision he made without attacking the rank-and-file law enforcement personnel at the FBI,” said Pence during an event at St. Anselm College.
“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” Pence stated, according to The Associated Press. “Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop. Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police.”
Pence also told a crowd he would give “due consideration” if he is asked to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee.
Trump and some Republicans say the FBI has unfairly targeted conservatives and has not done enough to curb left-wing extremists, including those who threatened pro-life groups and pregnancy centers this summer after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Some have also pointed to how some Jan. 6 detainees have been treated while under federal custody.
Donald Trump Thinking About Releasing Surveillance Footage of FBI Raid at Mar-a-Lago
Former President Donald Trump is considering releasing the footage he has of the FBI raiding his home, according to reports.
CNN cited anonymous Trump “allies” and people “close to Trump” who encouraged the president to release the footage.
Speculation about what Trump will do with the footage of the FBI continues to build.
The former president confirmed on social media the FBI demanded all of the security cameras be turned off during the raid, but they did not stay off.
“What is that all about?” He asked. “We said no!”
The former president’s son Eric Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday that they would release the footage, “At the right time.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Target profit plunges 90% as inflation-weary shoppers pull back
Target reported profit plunged 90% in the second quarter, falling far short of expectations, as inflation-weary customers pulled back on spending on nonessential items.
Retailers, including Target, have been forced to cut prices on general merchandise, such as clothing, electronics and home goods, because of excess inventory of goods. Consumers had to shift more of their spending to higher priced food and gasoline.
But Target reported that its price cuts did little good: It ended the quarter with 1.5% more inventory than it had three months earlier and 36% more than it had a year ago.
The company said it reduced the amount of discretionary items it held in warehouses, but Target noted the sales on those items “put significant pressure on our near-term profitability.”
Target’s quarterly net income fell to $183 million, down significantly from $1.8 billion during the same period a year ago.
Elon Musk Said He’s Buying Manchester United, Then Said He’s Joking
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that he’s buying Manchester United, but said hours later that it was only a “joke.”
“Also, I’m buying Manchester United [you’re] welcome,” the billionaire wrote on Twitter. Manchester United’s stock rose by 17% percent in pre-market trading shortly after Musk published his Twitter post, reported CNBC.
Characteristic of Musk’s non-linear logic in Twitter posts, his statement was a reply to an earlier tweet about his political views, in which he said he supports “the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party.”
The billionaire’s post stirred up the internet. Within six hours of posting, the post had over half a million “likes” on Twitter.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
WEF: The Future Of Work Is In The Metaverse
The global pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of work and the work experience. Stranded at home, millions of workers across the globe replaced daily commutes, office desks and watercooler chats with Zoom calls. Cue the next evolution in the virtualization of work, the metaverse; essentially an application of spatial computing that will see us using our avatars to work, meet, learn, socialize, play, trade and transact in fully immersive virtual environments. Media hype notwithstanding, the metaverse is already here.
At the same time, another technological revolution is brewing, the so-called decentralized web, or “Web3”. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies are perhaps the best-known applications of this new iteration of the web, while decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) running on public blockchains are already ushering in a revolutionary way to reimagine how human communities, businesses, and labour, get organized.
Decentralized autonomous organizations in web3
DAOs exploit smart contract architectures and digital tokens verified on public blockchains, such as Ethereum, in order to give members of a DAO the possibility to directly participate in its governance. Decision making thus becomes collective and based on how many votes – expressed in the number of tokens – a certain proposal in the DAO gets. There are no barriers to entry, and owning tokens in a decentralized autonomous organization is permissionless. Since all rules are coded in smart contracts and all transactions are recorded on a blockchain, a DAO is fully transparent to its members. If the DAO is purposed with developing ideas, or software, then the IP is open-sourced, at least for now.
The combination of the metaverse and a decentralized web3 has the potential to radically transform operating models and the labour market. As Zarkadakis explains in Cyber Republic, as decentralized autonomous organizations are adopted more widely, new types of businesses will emerge that would look more like cooperatives and less than corporations, significantly reducing agency costs. In such decentralized organizations, leadership will rely on soft power and empathy, using culture and shared values to align the interests of disparate stakeholders to a common mission and purpose.
In a DAO there are no officers, or directors, or managers, and therefore leadership roles are more fluid and impermanent, giving more opportunities to members to rise up. DAOs may decide to prioritize social goods – such as job security – above operational efficiency. This shift from hierarchical structures to flat, widely distributed networks and ecosystems run by stakeholder communities instead of boards and executives, will have a profound impact on work too.
NASA’s Giant Moon Rocket Emerges for Debut Launch
NASA’s gigantic Space Launch System moon rocket, topped with an uncrewed astronaut capsule, began an hours-long crawl to its launchpad Tuesday night ahead of the behemoth’s debut test flight this month.
The 322-foot-tall rocket is scheduled to embark on its first mission to space–without any humans—on Aug. 29. It will be a crucial, long-delayed demonstration trip to the moon for NASA’s Artemis program, the United States’ multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the lunar surface as practice for future missions to Mars.
The Space Launch System, whose development during the past decade has been led by Boeing Co., emerged from its assembly building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida about 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday and began a four-mile trek to its launchpad.
Moving less than 1mph, the rollout will take roughly 11 hours.
HEALTH
Warning Signs of Kidney Disease: Most People Don’t Realize They Have It
The kidneys are vital to our health. They filter out toxins and deliver important nutrients to the bloodstream. However, when people develop chronic kidney disease (CKD), their kidneys become damaged and over time may not clean the blood as well as healthy kidneys. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CKD can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and early death. Approximately 37 million Americans suffer from CKD and most don’t know it.
“There are a number of physical signs of kidney disease, but sometimes people attribute them to other conditions,” says Dr. Joseph Vassalotti, chief medical officer at the National Kidney Foundation. “Also, those with kidney disease tend not to experience symptoms until the very late stages, when the kidneys are failing or when there are large amounts of protein in the urine. This is one of the reasons why only 10% of people with CKD know they have it.”
Here are some signs to look for:
Decreased need to urinate or difficulty urinating. “This sign could indicate a blockage somewhere in the urinary tract,” says Sean Marchese, a registered nurse with over 15 years of direct patient experience. “If left untreated, urinary waste can back up and create high levels of toxins within the kidneys. Kidney stones, blood clots and an enlarged prostate are common signs or urinary difficulty.”
- Increased need to urinate. On the other hand, if you feel the need to urinate more often, especially at night, this can also signal kidney disease. When the kidneys filters are damaged, it can cause an increase in the urge to urinate. Sometimes this can be a sign of a urinary infection or enlarged prostate in men, says the National Kidney Foundation.
- Retaining fluid in the extremities. According to Eat This, Not That!, a regular sign of kidney damage is retaining fluid in the legs, fingers, hands or abdomen. If you notice pressure marks that take time to fade, talk to your doctor about these potential signs of kidney damage.
- Chest pain, shortness of breath or irregular heartbeat. Marchese says that kidney damage can cause issues in the cardiac and respiratory systems when the organs cannot regulate blood pressure. “High blood pressure can make breathing difficult or cause the heart to work harder, leading to palpitations or an irregular heart rhythm,” she says.
Blood in the urine. Healthy kidneys keep blood cells in place, but when they are damaged, these blood cells can start to “leak” out into the urine, says the National Kidney Foundation.
- Dry, itchy skin. Advanced kidney disease may involve mineral and bone disease because the kidneys are no longer able to keep the right balance of minerals and nutrients in the blood, resulting in skin changes.
To keep kidneys healthy, Marchese recommends avoiding high levels of over-the-counter medications such as aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and other pain medications. “You should also undergo regular diabetes and blood pressure screenings with your primary care doctors and maintain a healthy lifestyle,” she adds.
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Ever Had Migraine Auras? Maybe This Will Help
Migraine headaches can happen with or without auras, which are often visual disturbances such as blind spots or flashing lights, or they may include numbness or tingling, trouble speaking, tinnitus or muscle weakness
Auras are more often associated with classic and common migraines. You may significantly reduce your migraine frequency by avoiding factors you identify that trigger your migraines
Common triggers include certain foods and beverages, sleep loss or oversleeping, stress, dehydration, hunger and sudden intense physical exertion; aspartame is an insidious trigger as it is found in many sugarless or low-calorie food products
Medications used to prevent a migraine headache can have dangerous side effects; consider using natural options, including vitamin B2 and D, CoQ10 or ubiquinol deficiencies and acupuncture and melatonin. Natural options that help abort a migraine headache include peppermint oil, caffeine and ginger
How to Deal With a Life-Changing Diagnosis
A cancer diagnosis is a devastating blow. Oftentimes, the trauma of the diagnosis is further worsened by well-intentioned people who simply don’t know how to respond to the news
The popular notion that “everything happens for a reason” can be particularly toxic when faced with a life-threatening illness
When speaking to someone who is suffering, don’t try to relate to their suffering by comparing it to something you’ve experienced. The way we experience suffering is uniquely our own, so hearing stories about someone else’s situation typically isn’t helpful
Don’t offer solutions and treatment strategies unless asked; don’t tell them their suffering is “part of God’s master plan” or has some greater purpose. Instead, make yourself available, be present with them and let them express how they feel about their diagnosis
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
Beekeeping: Harvesting Honey Guide
There are many reasons beekeepers might want to harvest honey. Local raw, unfiltered honey is a delicious natural sweetener with many benefits. It’s no wonder it’s considered liquid gold!
The biggest thing that often surprises new beekeepers is harvesting honey from a beehive is not guaranteed. Many factors go into whether a particular hive will produce excess honey from year to year. Some things that can affect your harvest include size of colony, local landscape, weather patterns and pest pressures. Increase the chances of a bountiful harvest by carefully supporting your colony’s health year-round.
If your colony is producing excess honey, harvesting is not always as simple. Here are some sweet tips for your next honey harvest.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Top Biden officials are set to announce new steps to accelerate the US response to monkeypox
Top Biden administration officials announced new steps Thursday to accelerate the US response to the spread of monkeypox amid high demand for vaccines and treatments.
That includes boosting supply with an additional 1.8 million doses of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine, accelerating the US Department of Health and Human Services’ vaccine distribution timeline. HHS is also launching a new program aimed at making vaccines available and engaging with at-risk communities at large events attracting LGBTQ communities. And the administration is pre-positioning doses of an antiviral treatment for individuals who test positive.
The details, compiled in a White House fact sheet, were shared first with CNN.
>> Related: US Announces 1.8 Million Additional Monkeypox Vaccine Doses Starting Monday
Doctor Warns of Suspicious Pattern Behind Monkeypox Outbreak
There has been much speculation that the novel coronavirus was a bioweapon developed in a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lab. Now, an American doctor has a theory that the new monkeypox outbreak may also have similar nefarious origins.
Dr. Syed Haider told The Epoch Times that the development of the monkeypox outbreak seems identical to the way COVID-19 was introduced to the world.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), monkeypox is a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus, which is part of the same family of viruses that causes smallpox. The symptoms of monkeypox are similar to those of smallpox, but are much milder and rarely fatal.
Monkeypox was discovered in 1958, after two outbreaks of the pox-like disease infected colonies of monkeys being kept for research. However, the source of the disease remains unknown. While African rodents and monkeys might harbor the virus and infect people, the first human case of monkeypox wasn’t recorded until 1970.
Prior to the 2022 outbreak, cases of monkeypox in humans had been reported in several Central African and West African countries. However, nearly all cases outside of Africa were linked to international travel.
About a year after the COVID-19 outbreak, Haider said he learned about “Event 201,” which was a tabletop exercise conducted a few months before the coronavirus began to spread.
“It really set the tone for the response by governments all around the world,” Haider explained. “They followed the recommendations that were developed during that tabletop exercise in terms of lockdowns and masks and how to deal with misinformation online. They addressed all of these topics.”
Haider noted that in March 2021, before the current monkeypox outbreak, there was another tabletop exercise hosted by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Munich Security Conference. This time, it was for “a strange variant of monkeypox” that was hypothetically bioengineered and released to the world on May 15, 2022, by a terrorist group as a weapon. This hypothetical strain of monkeypox was also defined as resistant to the vaccines that are already available for smallpox, which Haider said are supposed to work on monkeypox as well.
“The bizarre thing is the actual outbreak started within a day or two of the date predicted in the tabletop exercise,” Haider said.
UK Official Stats: 1 In Every 482 People Died After mRNA Injection
The UK Government has revealed that 1 in every 482 people vaccinated against Covid-19 in England sadly died within a month of receiving a dose of a Covid-19 injection.
For months on end, Government institutions have claimed they do not hold any data on deaths by vaccination status. But they have been lying to you.
On the 6th July, a UK Government institution known as the Office for National Statistics, published a dataset on deaths by vaccination status in England between 1st January 2021 and 31st May 2022, which can be found here, and it makes for horrific reading.
Table 9 of the dataset contains figures on ‘Whole period counts of all registered deaths grouped by how many weeks after vaccination the deaths occurred; for deaths involving COVID-19 and deaths not involving COVID-19, deaths occurring between 1 January 2021 and 31 May 2022, England’.
White House COVID Czar Admits 6-foot Social Distancing Rule ‘Not the Right Way’
White House COVID-19 czar Ashish Jha on Tuesday admitted that the six-foot social distancing rule that was implemented in early 2020 isn’t actually effective.
Over the past several years, “a lot of time” was spent “talking about six feet of distance, 15 minutes of being together. We realize that’s actually not the right way to think about this,” he said during a White House briefing on COVID-19.
“That’s not the most accurate way to think about this,” Jha said, adding that it is about “the quality of air you’re breathing around you.”
In a crowded indoor area with poor ventilation, people can “get infected” with COVID-19 “in minutes,” Jha said, adding that being outdoors you can be “outside for long periods of time” and not get infected.
Jha made those comments in regards to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) having relaxed guidelines around COVID-19. That included dropping the six-foot social distancing rule.
The agency last week rescinded a number of rules and made key updates to its recommendations, now stating that unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals should essentially be treated the same, while explicitly saying that those with a prior infection have protection against severe illness.
Starting in early 2020, federal health agencies issued a recommendation that people keep at least six feet of distance away from one another. Health departments, businesses, corporations, and schools across the United States then adopted the rule, leading to restric
CANCEL CULTURE
NYT Smears Me Again With Classic Orwellian Doublespeak
In July 2021, The New York Times (NYT) published the hit piece, “The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online,” in which they made several blatantly false claims about me
In the NYT’s July 2021 hit piece, the author, Sheera Frenkel, cited an article I’d published in which I declared the COVID shots a medical fraud, as they don’t prevent infection, provide immunity or stop transmission. According to Frenkel, that was misinformation
In early 2021, Bill Gates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mainstream media, Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Biden all said that if you got the shots, you would not get COVID and you would not transmit it to others. Fast-forward to today, and the reality of the situation is self-evident. The shots do not prevent infection or spread. Biden and Fauci, both double jabbed and boosted, have themselves admitted contracting COVID twice
Now, the NYT is upping the ante with an entire documentary dedicated to yours truly, titled “Superspreader”
The NYT documentary premieres Friday, August 19, 2022, at 10 p.m. Eastern and 10 p.m. Pacific time, on FX and Hulu
Disney+ Banishes Episode of Aussie Children’s Cartoon ‘Bluey’ for Dog Fart
A full episode of the popular Australian children’s cartoon show ‘Bluey’ was banned in the U.S. by Disney+ after it was deemed “inappropriate” and outside the streaming service’s strict guidelines.
The scene that caused the axing did not involve a same-sex kiss. Nor was a controversial contemporary issue such as a children’s drag show, drag queen story hours, or telling prepubescent children their personal pronouns need to be made public.
It involved a dog farting, news.com reports.
The hugely popular three-season children’s animated adventure follows the adventures of its titular character, a Blue Heeler puppy who lives with her family and finds herself thrust into a series of bewildering situations.
Earlier this month, the third season premiered on Disney+ and fans quickly spotted that one episode titled Family Meeting was missing from the line-up, the Daily Mail reports.
ICYMI
FBI Bulletin Warns of Bomb Threat, Spike in Calls for ‘Civil War’ After Raid of Trump’s Resort
>> READ THE LEAKED JOINT INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN HERE
Next Wave of Stimulus Checks Coming, Even With Inflation Nearing 40-Year High
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