World News
Newly discovered fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls reveal hidden ancient Bible texts
NBC – A new set of Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient fragments of biblical texts dating back almost 2,000 years and thought to have been hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome, have been found in an Israeli desert.
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday that a four-year archaeological project uncovered portions of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, including the books of Zechariah and Nahum. It was the first such discovery in 60 years.
Also uncovered was a 6,000-year-old skeleton of a partially mummified child and a 10,500-year-old basket, which Israeli authorities said could be the oldest in the world. A CT scan revealed the child’s age was between 6 and 12 — with the skin, tendons and even hair partially preserved.
Among the recovered texts, which are all in Greek, is Nahum 1:5–6, which says: “The mountains quake because of Him, And the hills melt. The earth heaves before Him, The world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His wrath? Who can resist His fury? His anger pours out like fire, and rocks are shattered because of Him.”
The authority said these words differ slightly from other Bible versions, shedding a rare light on how biblical text changed over time from its earliest form.
The first set of Dead Sea Scrolls to be discovered were found by a Bedouin shepherd in the same area in 1947 and are considered among the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century, although biblical scholars disagree on their authorship.
France’s branch of IKEA on trial over alleged spying on employees
RT – The subsidiary of Swedish retailing giant Ikea has been put on trial in France. The company, along with many of its former bosses, is facing allegations of running an intricate spying scheme to snoop on employees.
The trial kicked off in a court in Versailles, southwest of Paris, on Monday following nearly a decade-long investigation. The prosecutors allege the company set up a major “spying system” across its operations in the country, illegally collecting data about existing and prospective employees, including such sensitive information as criminal records. The charges include illegal gathering of personal information, receiving illegally gathered personal information, and violating professional confidentiality. Some of the charges carry a maximum prison term of 10 years.
Apart from the whole company going on trial as a corporate entity, 15 individuals have been prosecuted as well. The list includes former store managers and top executives, namely ex-CEO Stefan Vanoverbeke and his predecessor, Jean-Louis Baillot. The former director of risk management of Ikea France, Jean-Francois Paris, is believed to be the mastermind behind the whole scheme.
In addition to the former Ikea bigwigs, the prosecuted group also includes four police officers who have allegedly provided the company with confidential information.
Ditch the dollar & scrap Western payment systems with us to avoid US sanctions’ sting, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov tells China
RT – Beijing and Moscow could together reduce their vulnerability to Western sanctions by divesting from the dollar and building their own financial systems to rival international versions, Moscow’s top diplomat has told Chinese media.
In a press conference held as part of a visit to the Asian country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “the United States has declared its mission is to limit the technological development opportunities of both the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.”
Amid a wave of sanctions from Washington, he added, the two nations can shore up their economies by “switching to settlements in national currencies and in world currencies, alternative to the dollar.” Lavrov added that “we need to move away from the use of Western-controlled international payment systems.”
Covid third wave will ‘wash up on UK shores’
BBC – Boris Johnson has warned the effects of a third wave of coronavirus will “wash up on our shores” from Europe.
The PM said the UK should be “under no illusion” we will “feel effects” of growing cases on the continent.
His comments come amid a row over Covid vaccine supplies, after the president of the European Commission warning the EU could “forbid” doses made in the bloc from being exported to the UK.
EU leaders will hold a virtual meeting on Thursday to discuss their plans.
Officials confirmed the PM spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday about the ongoing issue, which would affect exports of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine made in Europe.
Mr Johnson said he “talked to EU friends repeatedly” during the pandemic and had been “reassured… over the last few month they don’t want to see blockades”.
Downing Street also said the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, had told Mr Johnson earlier this year that the EU was not intending to restrict exports of vaccines.
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Arizona Commits to Full Hand Recount, ‘Broad and Detailed’ Audit of Machines
Western Journal – Arizona will conduct a full hand recount of the votes cast last fall in Maricopa County, according to state Senate Republicans who have been pushing for a review of the election results for months.
The imminent action was announced Thursday.
“This audit will be broad and detailed: the team will include, but is not limited to, testing the machines, scanning the ballots, performing a full hand count and checking for any IT breaches,” Senate President Karen Fann said in a release.
“When all the work is done, there will be a full report for the Senate and County to review. Our voters expect this audit, and it can be a big step in returning trust and confidence in our election process,” the statement said.
In December, the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee voted to issue subpoenas and seize machines made by Dominion Voting Systems that were used in Maricopa County.
At the time, GOP senators said this would be a way to lay to rest any concerns about the integrity of the election, amid unproven claims that the machines could be targets for ballot manipulation. In response, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors refused.
Since that time, Senate Republicans have been battling county officials over access to the voting machines, and last month won a lawsuit to access to the ballots, according to the Arizona Republic.
Biden’s Gaffes And Stumbles Prove ‘He’s Not In Charge,’ Fox News Host Says
Daily Caller – Fox News host Steve Hilton said Friday that President Joe Biden’s gaffes and stumbles prove “he’s not in charge.”
“The capacity of our commander-in-chief is a vital public issue. It’s not just this gaffe, there’s one of these almost every day where he seems to forget where he is or what he’s doing, he stumbles and mumbles,” Hilton said on Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus.”
Biden referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “President Harris” on Thursday during an announcement at the White House. The president also repeatedly stumbled and fell once on Friday as he was boarding Air Force One, video footage shows.
Hilton said Biden “clearly at the very least doesn’t have the energy to do the job” and called the commander-in-chief a “president in name only,” based on the centrist president’s apparently progressive agenda. The Fox News host said strongholds within the Democratic Party are controlling Biden’s agenda, even though the commander-in-chief campaigned “with a very clear centrist message.”
“Yet what do we have? We have an agenda that is completely driven by the power bases within the Democratic party, which is very clear; the government unions, the woke left and of course the permanent bureaucracy pushing for things like going back to the Iran deal,” Hilton said.
“He’s not in charge. That’s why this is a massive issue of public importance,” Hilton said.
Leaked Photos Reveal Biden’s Detention Cells for Migrant Children on Border
Breitbart – U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) released a series of leaked photos to Axios showing the deplorable, overcrowded conditions of migrant children being held in South Texas. A short time later, James O’Keefe released additional disturbing photos depicting children having to sleep on floor mats in overcrowded facilities which were rapidly opened amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Congressman Cuellar, who lives along the Texas border with Mexico, told Axios these unaccompanied migrant children are living in eight “pods” designed to hold up to 260 people. However, Border Patrol officials are actually holding more than 400 unaccompanied male minors in the spaces, the Texas congressman said.
Economy & Business
Bitcoin ATMs Are Landing At Gas Stations, Delis And Convenience Stores Near You
ZeroHedge – The trend of Bitcoin ATMs has already started in some delis and gas stations in places like Montana, the Carolinas and New York City.
Companies like CoinFlip and Coin Cloud have installed “thousands” of the ATMs across the country, according to Reuters. Coin Cloud has 1,470 machines around the United States and is aiming for 10,000 by the end of 2021.
Quad Coin founder Mark Shoiket said: “I just assumed there was demand and people wanted bitcoin everywhere.” He just recently flew to Montana to find 7 new places to install bitcoin ATMs, including a local vape shop.
There’s currently 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the United States. About 10,000 of those have popped up over the last 5 months, the report notes. Some people use the ATMs because they sometimes feel more comfortable interacting with a physical machine, while others do it for anonymity purposes. Fees can range from 6% up to 20% of a total transaction.
There’s now Bitcoin ATMs in every state except Alaska.
51 year old Pittsburgh resident Rebecca White said: “When we do our grocery shopping and we have $60 left, I will stop at the bitcoin ATM.”
Pamela Clegg, director of financial investigations and education at cryptocurrency compliance firm CipherTrace, said: “The growth of the ATM market – it is not even a gentle increase, it is almost a 45% increase. The growth is quite astonishing.”
But regulators have been watching the pop-up of the machines closely. The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, for example, recently published a report called “Scams, Suspicious Transactions and Questionable Practices at Cryptocurrency Kiosks.”
Coin Cloud CEO Chris McAlary said: “We expected the worst as Covid hit, but stimulus payments came out and that helped quite a bit. Some people took stimulus and bought digital currency with it.”
CoinFlip CEO Daniel Polotsky said: “There are people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t like to use them.”
Bitcoin Depot, from Atlanta, has also grown its number of ATMs from 500 to more than 1,800 in the past year. Customers are mostly “25-40 years old”. General Bytes, a Bitcoin ATM manufacturer, said that demand “soared” and the company ran out of stock last year.
They sold 3,000 machines last year. 90% of those machines went to North America, the report says.
Meet “Digit,” A Humanoid Robot Testing Package Delivery From Curb To Doorstep
ZeroHedge – The virus pandemic has accelerated the push by some companies to develop driverless automobiles for deliveries. But there’s a common problem developing among many of these robot-delivery vehicles. How do packages go from the delivery vehicle to the customer’s doorstep?
Some have proposed drones, while others, such as Oregon-based Agility robotics, have proposed a bi-pedal robot deployed from the rear of a robot-delivery van that will walk the package to a customer’s doorstep without the risk of face-to-face interaction.
Agility intends to solve not the last-mile delivery problem but the last-foot delivery issues from robot-van to customer’s doorstep.
The goal of the robot, dubbed “Digit,” is to reach complicated areas where traditional robots would have issues traversing, such as stairs, tight spaces, and other complex terrains.
Agility Robotics founder Jonathan Hurst told local news station KOBI that Digit “can lift a 40-pound package.” He said, “the robot catches itself when it falls and reorient to get back up.”
Hurst outlined the most significant problem in last-mile deliveries:
“Once you’ve got an autonomous vehicle that does a lot of it on the road. But now you’re stuck at the curb, right? And in order to really provide that service that people want, you need to then get from the curb to the doorstep. And that’s where we solve this problem.”
Agility has sold two prototype robots to Ford Motor Company, who experimented with the bi-pedal robot launched from the rear of an autonomous delivery van to take a package from the vehicle to the customer’s doorstep.
“So many jobs that are basically robot jobs, they’re the dull, dirty, dangerous kinds of things that are injury prone and incredibly repetitive,” Hurst said. “That’s how you can then really increase the value of the jobs that the people get to do.”
Health
Social Distancing and Wearing Masks Could Last ‘Years’, Says Govt Scientist
Breitbart – Wearing masks and social distancing could go on for “years”, says Public Health England’s chief of immunisation.
Dr Mary Ramsey claimed on Sunday that social distancing and other practices like wearing a face-covering would go on for “quite a long period of time”.
“People have got used to those lower-level restrictions now, and people can live with them, and the economy can still go on with those less severe restrictions in place.
“So I think certainly for a few years, at least until other parts of the world are as well vaccinated as we are, and the numbers have come down everywhere, that is when we may be able to go very gradually back to a more normal situation,” Dr Ramsey said, according to the BBC.
“We have to look very carefully before any of these restrictions are lifted,” she added.
Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a “roadmap” for coming out of lockdown, starting with schools reopening on March 8th and progressing through different phases until a complete reopening in the summer.
While Prime Minister Johnson said he hoped lockdown could end by June 21st, he would make no promises to commit to that date.
Professor Jeremy Brown, a member of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation (JCVI) claimed on Sky News on Sunday that “there will be a wave of infections crossing the country” if all restrictions are completely lifted too soon.
Brown also said that “some degree of social distancing or protection is going to be required” until at least July, or infections will rise.
The United Kingdom has administered at least one dose of vaccine to half of its adult population and is on track to vaccinate all adults by the end of July.
In December, England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said that even if vaccinated, wearing masks and frequent use of hand sanitiser could become habits that people maintain “for years”, and it “may be a good thing if they do”.
IBM Partners With Moderna for COVID Reset
Mercola – Better hang on folks, as technocracy’s plan to digitize you to the blockchain so you can be manipulated and controlled as a digital asset is being deployed — just as they said they would.
Please understand, though, that this technocracy blockchain implementation is centralized, which is the primary problem as it is under the government’s control. This is in radical contrast to decentralized crypto assets like bitcoin, which I believe actually offers a solution to the impending tyranny and seizure of our finances.
Health Passports Are Here
Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that “health passports” would be implemented, and in recent months the reality of what we’re facing is getting clearer. Make no mistake: The voluntary “health passes” now being rolled out are just the tip of the iceberg.
Before long, they will become mandatory, at which point unvaccinated individuals will be effectively excluded from society. This is the slippery slope I’ve warned about that will create two separate classes of citizens: those with approved and verified health status, and the “untouchables.”
Not only will these passes — once mandatory — restrict your ability to move about and engage in social activities if you’re unvaccinated, but you will also face financial penalties. Even your ability to obtain employment will ultimately be based on your medical decisions.1
Evidence of this can be found in IBM Watson Health’s announcement that IBM’s Digital Health Pass will be integrated into Salesforce’s Work.com “to help businesses, schools and governments verify vaccine and health status.”2
In short, we will soon find ourselves in an iatrarchy, meaning we’re governed by physicians’ decisions (although the ruling agency is more likely to be Bill Gates than a qualified medical expert), and if you refuse, you’re penalized. Other descriptive terms include medical technofascism and medical technocracy.
Regardless of how you describe it, the fact is you will no longer have the right of self-determination. You will no longer have the right to decide what medical risk-taking you’re willing to submit to, and which you’d rather do without. Your body and your health will no longer be yours to preside over.
If you want to have the ability to shop, socialize, get an education and work, you’ll have to hand over your body, and all your biological data, for the medical technocracy to do with what it will. It’s hard to imagine a less free society than that.
IBM Partners With Moderna
IBM and Moderna have taken the next step toward tracking vaccinated individuals in real time by teaming up to produce COVID-19 digital health passes to allow people to “return to the activities and things they love.” As reported by Raul Diego in a March 10, 2021, Mint Press News article:3
“According to a company press release,4 the collaboration will ‘focus on exploring the utility of IBM capabilities in the U.S.,’ such as a recently unveiled pilot program for a COVID-19 Digital Health Pass in the State of New York, which effectively deputizes private businesses to enforce government-imposed Covid-19 regulations.”
IBM and Moderna will “explore technologies, including artificial intelligence, blockchain and hybrid cloud” to “support smarter COVID-19 vaccine management,” according to the press release.5 In short, the partnership is aimed at facilitating data sharing between “governments, health care providers, life science organizations and individuals,” but this data is not restricted to health data.
As reported by Diego,6 other “multiple blockchain ledger applications” being leveraged include IBM’s Blockchain Transparent Supply and Food Trust services, which shares food sourcing and supply-chain data, and its Blockchain World Wire cross-border payment processing service.
Want to age gracefully? Eating plenty of this substance to slow down the aging process
NaturalHealth 365 – Most people probably don’t think of anti-aging when they hear the word fiber (although bowel regularity certainly may come to mind). But it turns out that one of the key benefits of fiber is helping people maintain healthier, more youthful bodies throughout their lifespan.
What is fiber, you might ask? Fiber (including soluble and insoluble) is a type of plant material that can’t be broken down by enzymes in the digestive tract. It’s also one of those nutrients that’s best consumed from the food you eat rather than from added supplements (for reasons we’ll get into later). And research involving over 1,600 healthy adults suggests that it’s also a key player in aging gracefully.
The most underrated anti-aging nutrient helps prevent cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other age-related chronic diseases
In 2016, a team of researchers from the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Australia published the results of their 10-year study involving over 1,600 healthy adults. They poured over the participants’ health and lifestyle habits and found that those adults who consumed the greatest amount of dietary fiber — about 29 grams per day — were the most likely to have enjoyed “successful aging,” which the researchers defined as being free of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease and having good physical and cognitive health.
The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.
Fiber has also been shown to protect against inflammation and immune dysfunction, likely thanks to its ability to support the growth of healthy gut bacteria, as well as reduce the risk of high cholesterol, metabolic dysfunction, osteoarthritis, and obesity – the last of which has been shown to accelerate the aging process.
Given how beneficial fiber is, it’s tempting to assume we all should be taking fiber supplements – or at least eating lots of food that has been fortified with added fiber. (In packaged foods, added fiber includes beta-glucan, cellulose, chicory root, inulin, pectin, psyllium, and xanthan gum.)
But while Mayo Clinic notes that it’s likely not harmful to consume fiber supplements, most experts recommend that you should prioritize eating foods that are naturally rich in fiber, including (organic) whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables. That’s because these natural fiber sources also tend to be higher in other nutrients including vitamins and minerals, whereas processed foods made with added fiber are often far less nutrient-dense yet higher in calories.
How much fiber is enough fiber? Here’s your recommended daily intake, according to experts
The typical American consumes about 10 to 15 grams of fiber per day – not enough, according to the USDA. The general rule is to aim for about double that, or anywhere from 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day. Ideally, your fiber should come from food – not supplements.
Per serving size, fruits and veggies that boast the most amount of fiber include avocados, raspberries, oranges, apples, blueberries, pears, strawberries, carrots, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and squash. Legumes, including black beans and lentils, are great options. And as for whole grains, look for things like quinoa, wild rice and millet.
More Stories
Today’s News: April 26, 2024
Today’s News: April 25, 2024
Today’s News: April 24, 2024