WORLD NEWS
Burning Man? Klaus Schwab Opens Doors In Davos To Psychedelic Shamans
In 2022, Davos elites will have an opportunity to celebrate “oneness” and “connectedness” with magic mushrooms, administered in part by psychedelic shamans of Burning Man. What could go wrong with global leaders tripping out while deciding the future of the whole world? ⁃ TN Editor
Welcome to the Dose. Sure, Davos has always sought to raise global consciousness — addressing topics like food scarcity and climate change. But psychedelic drugs? These substances are still illegal in most places. Finding out that influential shamans and companies will present at this year’s World Economic Forum inspired me to take a look at what the industry has to gain from a platform with the global elite.
Psychedelics industry targets power players
The World Economic Forum, a gathering of the global elite now synonymous with the quaint Swiss town of Davos where it’s held, isn’t the usual place you’d expect to find a shaman, do breathwork or get rooted in your body.
But this year’s gathering of government leaders and corporate executives will host a “House of Psychedelics” program with almost 40 sessions and speakers, including researchers, entrepreneurs, investors — and some who consider themselves shamans. While not part of the core Davos agenda, which doesn’t permit commercial activity, the program has a space on the town’s main promenade, which traditionally showcases Fortune 500 companies to the conference’s attendees.
The program, a first for Davos, shows how far the psychedelics industry has come, organizers said.
“It’s a really big shift for world leaders to inquire about how they might be able to use psychedelics,” said Marik Hazan, chief executive officer of Energia Holdings Inc., the New York-based business hosting the event. Energia is a holding company for Tabula Rasa Ventures, an incubator for psychedelic companies, and Hazan is a managing partner at Tabula Rasa. The program aims to spark conversations about rolling out psychedelics responsibly for medical use and encourage countries and companies to include such treatments in health coverage.
The industry is arriving at Davos amid a renaissance of popular interest in the drugs. Most are still considered illegal, although a number of cities and states have decriminalized some. Stock values for companies have lagged while they await results from long-range clinical trials to test the efficacy and risks of substances such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. The AdvisorShares Psychedelics ETF has lost over 50% of its value this year.
Other topics on tap include ethical debates, such as how to guard against abusive practices in an industry where people are incredibly vulnerable while under the influence of drugs. “What about a Coke bottle in a clinic?” Hazan asked. He said the idea of “putting products in front of people undergoing an experience” needs to be discussed.
But at Davos, business is never out of focus. Other sponsors of the event include Maya Health, a data platform, and Irwin Naturals, a vitamin and supplement company. Some of the larger organizations attending include Compass Pathways, Field Trip Health and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.
Two shamans who plan to attend also don’t shy away from business topics, saying they are deeply entwined in what they do.
Florencia Bollini specializes in 5-Me0-DMT, known as the “God molecule” for the short but intense experiences it invokes. She’s also the founder of two fledgling companies in the psychedelics space. Los Angeles-based Nana is based on a digital platform that will distill Bollini’s decade of experience serving psychedelic substances in the underground. The other, Brighton, England-based Rewire, is seeking $5 million in seed funding that Bollini said will develop a method for 5-MeO-DMT that will improve its efficacy and decrease the risk of negative experiences. Clinical trials are planned for next year.
She expects the Davos experience to be different from her annual pilgrimages to Burning Man, the famous Nevada festival, where she showcases her feminine approach to psychedelic medicine. “It’s important to educate politicians about what heals,” Bollini told me of her mission. “This is a big moment for psychedelics. After working so long now, we are ready to reveal a solution that we know works, because we’ve seen it in the underground over and over again.”
This past weekend, some 100 million people worldwide celebrated their faith in the universal values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, marking the 30th anniversary of Falun Gong’s introduction to the public. However, the adherents in China still remain at high risk of being persecuted.
In a disturbing incident, a 74-year-old Chinese man was arrested after police suddenly broke into his home, claiming they wanted to give him a COVID-19 vaccine. He was eventually detained for eight months and persecuted for his faith in Falun Gong before being reportedly declared dead while he was still alive, according to Minghui.org—an all-volunteer organization dedicated to reporting on the suppression of Falun Gong in China.
Liu Qingfei was arrested when police from the Liaozhong police bureau in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China, took him away on Aug. 28, 2021, without showing any search or arrest warrants. The officers raided his home and confiscated his personal belongings, including Falun Gong-related information materials that expose the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of the spiritual system.
On Aug. 20, a day after his arrest, Liu suffered a heart attack during the interrogation session at the police station and was “very weak and sweating,” according to the report. However, Liu’s arrest was approved several days later, on Sept. 10, 2021, which gave the authorities the official go-ahead to hold him at Liaozhong District Detention Center.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice consisting of five sets of slow-moving meditative exercises and based on the moral tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. By the year 1999, there were 70 million to 100 million people practicing Falun Gong in China, according to official estimates at the time; the count exceeded the CCP’s membership by many folds.
The CCP viewed the practice’s spiritual nature and moral influence as a threat to its iron-fist reign rooted in atheism, materialism, and struggle. Under the leadership of then-Party Chief Jiang Zemin, the communist regime went ahead to launch an unprecedented nationwide persecution campaign to eradicate the peaceful meditation system in July 1999.
Over the past almost 23 years, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to abductions, imprisonment, and brutal torture, and countless have been killed for their organs.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Senate Advances $40 Billion Ukraine Bill, Overruling Sen. Rand Paul’s Objections
The Senate on May 16 decided in a bipartisan vote to advance a $40 billion military aid package to Ukraine, invoking cloture on debate over the objections of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The 80–11 vote included the support of vast swaths of both parties; 11 Republicans voted against invoking cloture. The bill will now await a final vote in the Senate, which may come as early as May 18.
In comments on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) decried Paul’s effort last week to block the legislation.
“Senator Paul’s obstruction of Ukraine funding is unacceptable, and only serves to strengthen Putin’s hand in the long run,” Schumer said.
“I would urge the senator from Kentucky to reconsider his objection,” Senate president pro tempore Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said later.
The bill, the latest in a series of billion-dollar aid packages to the European nation, was blocked by Paul on May 11, even though House and Senate leaders were unanimous in their agreement to proceed with passing the package.
Paul refused to advance the bill until changes were made to the legislation that would ensure an inspector general could monitor exactly how the billions of dollars were being spent. Ultimately, the Senate invoked cloture without making any changes to the final draft of the bill.
“My oath of office is to the U.S. Constitution, not to any foreign nation, and no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said on the Senate floor on May 12.
“We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy. … Gasoline alone is up 48 percent, and energy prices are up 32 percent over the last year. Food prices have increased by nearly 9 percent. Used vehicle prices are up 35 percent for the year, and new vehicle prices have increased 12 percent or more,” he continued.
Paul noted that inflation “doesn’t just come out of nowhere” while pointing to deficit spending, noting that the United States spent almost $5 trillion on “COVID-19 bailouts” which have led to sky-high inflation.
“Americans are feeling the pain, and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” Paul said.
Following Paul’s successful effort to temporarily halt the bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Ukrainian leaders during a weekend visit to Kyiv that the bill would still pass with the support of an “overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress.”
Southwest Flight Attendant Fired Over Pro-Life Views to Have Her Day in Federal Court, Judge Rules
A federal judge has ordered that fired Southwest Airlines flight attendant Charlene Carter’s religious discrimination lawsuit against the company and its union would proceed to trial, after the judge denied a request to dismiss the lawsuit.
The case, known as Carter v. Transport Workers Union of America Local 556, civil action 3:17-cv-2278, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. On May 5, Judge Brantley Starr, a Trump appointee, denied (pdf) a motion for summary judgment brought by the union and the airline.
Starr ruled that the suit should go to trial because “genuine disputes of material fact preclude summary judgment” on all claims.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix, whose organization is representing Carter in court, hailed the court ruling.
“This decision is an important step towards long overdue justice for Charlene,” Mix said in a statement. “The ruling rejects several attempts by Southwest and union officials to deny Ms. Carter’s right to bring this case in federal court and enforce her RLA-protected speech and association rights.
“Further, the decision acknowledges that, at its core, this case is about an individual worker’s right to object to how forced union dues and fees are spent by union officials to take positions that are completely contrary to the beliefs of many workers forced under the union’s so-called ‘representation,’”
Carter’s story goes back to 1996 when, as a Southwest employee, she joined the Transportation Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 556. A pro-life Christian, she quit the labor union in 2013 upon learning her union dues were being spent to promote social causes that violate her conscience and religious beliefs.
Despite resigning from the union, Carter was still required to pay fees in lieu of union dues as a condition of her employment. State-level right-to-work laws don’t exempt her from forced fees because airline and railway employees fall under the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA), which permits union officials to have a worker fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. Despite this, the RLA protects the rights of employees to remain nonmembers of the union, to criticize the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing the union’s current leadership.
When Carter discovered in 2017 that TWU local President Audrey Stone and other union officials used union dues to attend a pro-abortion event in the nation’s capital and that the company had accommodated local members wishing to attend by rearranging their work schedules, she took to social media to challenge Stone’s leadership. The airline demanded a meeting with Carter, informing her that Stone felt harassed by Carter’s activism.
A week later, the airline fired Carter. Not long after, Carter sued.
Trump Says There’s ‘No Way’ Musk Will Buy Twitter Owing to Large Number of ‘Bots or Spam Accounts’
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said there is “no way” that Elon Musk will buy Twitter at “such a ridiculous price” while pointing to the number of fake accounts and bots on the social media platform.
Trump took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to make the comments shortly after billionaire tech mogul Musk announced that his deal to buy Twitter was “temporarily on hold” until detailed information becomes available supporting that bots or fake accounts make up fewer than 5 percent of users on the platform.
“There is no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially since realizing it is a company largely based on BOTS or Spam Accounts,” Trump wrote.
“Fake anyone?” he added. “By the time you get rid of them, if that can even be done, what do you have? Not much? If it weren’t for the ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee, Elon would have already been long gone.”
The former president went on to tout his own platform, adding that in his opinion it was “much better than Twitter” and is “absolutely exploding” with “incredible engagement!”
In his post regarding fake or spam accounts on May 13, Musk shared a Reuters report from early May stating that Twitter had estimated in a filing that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.
Twitter said in its April 28 filing (pdf) that “there are a number of false or spam accounts in existence on our platform.”
“We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5 percent of our mDAU [monetizable daily active users] during the quarter,” the company added.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users,” Musk said in his Twitter post.
The announcement sent shares of Twitter tumbling.
However, Musk followed it up with a second post shortly after noting that he is “still committed” to the acquisition and explained that his team will do a “random sample of 100 followers of Twitter” to find out the percentage of fake accounts.
“I invite others to repeat the same process and see what they discover,” the Tesla CEO added.
It was announced last month that Musk would take Twitter private for $54.20 a share, putting the firm’s value at about $44 billion. The businessman has said that if he is successful in purchasing Twitter, he intends to authenticate all real humans on the platform.
“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying,” Musk said in an April 21 post. He followed that message up with a pledge to “authenticate all real humans.”
Elsewhere, Musk has said he will reinstate Trump’s Twitter account should his deal prove successful, stating that the social media platform’s decision to ban Trump was “morally bad.”
Judge Sentences Jan. 6 Capitol Window-Smasher to 4 Months in Jail
A California man tackled by police as he was smashing windows at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to four months in jail on May 13 by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington.
Hunter Allen Ehmke, 21, of Glendora, California, was sentenced on one felony count of destruction of government property.
Chutkan, a 2014 appointee of President Barack Obama, also ordered Ehmke to pay the $2,821 cost of the multi-pane window and serve three years of supervised release.
According to prosecutors, Ehmke approached a window adjacent to the giant Columbus Doors at about 2:15 p.m. on Jan. 6. He climbed onto the window sill and kicked several panes. He then punched two additional panes, knocking one inside the building.
Police guarding the Rotunda doors raced to the window, knocked Ehmke from his perch, and tackled him. He was handcuffed as eight police officers surrounded him and ordered hostile bystanders to stay back.
Plea Bargain
Police took Ehmke’s driver’s license and ordered him to leave Capitol property; he was told a warrant would be issued for his arrest. He was arrested in California on Jan. 13, 2021, and was indicted on four charges on Jan. 27, 2021.
Ehmke accepted a plea agreement on Jan. 14, 2022, for felony destruction of property, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
“Though Ehmke did not enter the Capitol and did leave when directed to do so by police, his destructive acts at the front of the mob contributed to the overall violence and events of Jan. 6,” U.S. Department of Justice attorney Anne Veldhuis wrote in a 21-page sentencing memorandum.
“His actions show an overall willingness to engage in destructive conduct and to incite others.”
Ehmke’s attorney, Cara Halverson, argued that probation and restitution for the damaged window would be an appropriate punishment.
“Though his conduct was indeed serious, it cannot be conflated with the many other, wider failures that occurred that day,” Halverson wrote in a 26-page sentencing memorandum.
“And it should not be used as a proxy for those, including the former president, the rally’s organizers and speakers, and other nefarious, organized groups, that arguably bear much greater responsibility for what happened on Jan. 6.”
Large sections of Ehmke’s sentencing memo are redacted because the information was filed under a court seal. The public portions talk about him overcoming the use of marijuana and psychedelic drugs.
He has been drug-free since November 2020 and now attends community college full-time. His mother spoke at the sentencing hearing about a previously undiagnosed medical condition.
As Lake Mead Dries Up, a Gruesome Discovery Is Made in a Barrel
As Lake Mead in Nevada recedes further due to the ongoing drought, it slowly gives up its secrets.
On May 7, two sisters walking along the sandy banks at Lake Mead National Recreation Area found human skeletal remains.
It would be the second of two gruesome discoveries made at the man-made reservoir this year.
A week earlier, on May 1, a woman from Las Vegas found a rusty barrel at Lake Mead’s Callville Bay. The barrel contained the skull and bones of an apparent homicide victim in disco-era clothing—Kmart brand, no less.
“The first thing that crossed my mind was a question—was this a mob hit? The person was shot in the head. That’s a common technique that’s used by the mob. They were stuffed into a barrel and dumped into a lake,” said Geoff Schumacher, author, journalist, and vice-president of exhibits and programs at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas.
How many more bodies will surface in time, he asked.
Since 2000, the water level at Lake Mead has dropped consistently to just over 1,000 feet at its present depth, leaving in its muddy wake beer cans and various other debris—even a sunken motorboat near the 2021 water level at Callville Bay.
“[Lake Mead] has lots of secrets, and they’re going to start popping up—whether it’s drowning victims or murder victims or objects of great interest or value,” Schumacher told The Epoch Times.
Both findings have television’s “NCIS: Las Vegas” written over them. In realtime, detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) are investigating.
Schumacher said he’s conducting a separate investigation—poring over missing person reports and news articles hoping to identify the victim.
“We believe this is a homicide [due to] a gunshot wound,” said LVMPD Homicide Section Lt. Ray Spencer in a May 3 statement.
The Clark County Coroner’s office in Las Vegas said: “All information is still pending” regarding the victim’s identity.
Wildfire Threat Score Now Assigned To Every Home In America
Is there truly an increase in risk of wildfire destroying your home? And if so, is it due to global warming? Your answers don’t really matter because you have already been assigned a “threat score” that will used by investors, real estate agents, insurance companies, bankers and mortgage companies to charge you more or less depending on their findings. ⁃ TN Editor
Raging New Mexico and California wildfires may offer an ominous outlook for a growing swath of America, and not just in the West.
Wildfire risk is increasing, likely due to global warming, and its destruction is becoming ever more expensive. Of the wildfires that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tracked since 1980, 66% of the damage has occurred in the last five years. Insured damage from wildfires last year totaled $5 billion, according to a Yale University report, marking the seventh consecutive year of insured losses above $2 billion.
Wildfire risk modeling is more crucial than ever to help protect lives and property, and new technology from a Brooklyn-based nonprofit, First Street Foundation, is mapping the threat with house-by-house specificity.
First Street uses everything from property tax data to satellite imagery and assigns a wildfire risk score that factors in construction type, roof type, weather and exposure to natural fuels like trees and grass.
“We calculate every individual property and structure’s risk across the country, be it a commercial building, or be it an individual’s home,” said Matthew Eby, founder and executive director of First Street Foundation. “What you’re able to see from that is that one home might have the same probability as another of being in a wildfire, but be much more susceptible to burning down.”
Certain homes may be more vulnerable because of their building materials, the defensible space around them or the roof type, for example. The company models the immediate risk to Americans’ homes and then adjusts for projected climate change.
Fauci Reveals What He Would Do If Trump Is Reelected
White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci revealed what he would do if former President Donald Trump wins the presidency in 2024.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, when asked if he would stay around under a new Trump administration, Fauci said he would not.
“Uh, well, no,” Fauci replied, laughing. When asked by CNN if Fauci would “not serve with Trump again,” Fauci replied: “Right, for sure. Yeah.”
Fauci was also asked about the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.
“I think just history will speak for itself about that. I don’t need to make any further comments on that … It’s not productive,” he said.
There have been more COVID-19-related deaths under the Biden administration than under the Trump administration. In about 10 months under the final period of the Trump administration, data suggests there were about 425,000 deaths in the United States. Under President Joe Biden’s first year, there were about 455,000 COVID-19 deaths, according to federal data.
“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, these people,” Trump said in October 2020 during a campaign conference call, referring to the doom-and-gloom predictions that were being made along with COVID-19-related restrictions. “Every time he goes on TV, there’s a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him,” he said at the time.
In March of last year, Trump told a podcast of Fauci: “I thought rather than firing him, you know, I listened to him, but I didn’t do what he said because, frankly, his record is not a good record.”
“I like him personally,” the former president added. “He’s actually a nice guy. He’s a great promoter. He’s really a promoter more than anything else.”
“And if I would’ve listened to them?” Trump asked. “And then they went to the other extreme, like the entire country should lock up. I didn’t go for that. And you know, it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t go for that.”
In March, Fauci, 81, hinted at retiring from being in charge of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he’s held since 1984.
For more than 50 years, Fauci has served as a public health expert in various capacities, although he was appointed as lead White House COVID-19 adviser by Biden last year.
“I can’t stay at this job forever. Unless my staff is going to find me slumped over my desk one day. I’d rather not do that,” Fauci said at the time.
Trump, meanwhile, has not publicly committed to running for president in 2024, although he has strongly hinted that he might.
“They’re going to find out the hard way starting Nov. 8 and even more so starting November 2024,” Trump said during a recent Conservative Political Action Conference in February, referring to the Democratic Party’s chances.
US Senator Hospitalized Following Stroke
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) was hospitalized over the weekend after suffering a stroke.
Van Hollen, 63, the second Democrat senator to suffer a stroke in recent months, was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after experiencing lightheadedness and severe neck pain while giving a speech in western Maryland.
“An angiogram indicated that I had experienced a minor stroke in the form of a small venous tear at the beach of my head,” Van Hollen said in a statement late May 15. “Fortunately, I have been informed that there are no long-term effects or damage as a result of this incident, but my doctors have advised that out of an abundance of caution I remain under observation for a few days.”
Van Hollen said he plans to return to Washington by the end of the week.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he was sending good wishes and prayers for Van Hollen, who he said “gave an excellent and inspiring speech at the Western Maryland Democratic Summit even as he apparently suffered this mild stroke.”
The Senate is currently divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats. That means a single senator missing time can impact votes.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) suffered a stroke in January and was not able to perform all of his duties for over a month.
The senator, 49, was back in Washington on March 3.
Ray Luján’s stroke set back plans to quickly confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s pick for the Supreme Court.
Jackson ended up being confirmed in April, with three Republicans—Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mitt Romney (R-Utah)—joining Democrats.
Van Hollen was a U.S. representative for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District until 2017, when he assumed his current position. He is running for reelection.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running for a Senate seat representing his state, was also hospitalized with a stroke, his campaign announced over the weekend.
Fetterman, who remains in the hospital, is staying in the race and urged people to vote for him.
Fetterman is one of a number of candidates running for a seat held by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is not running for another term.
Each Senate race in the midterm elections is key as the parties aim to either maintain slim control of the upper chamber—Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties in her position as president of the Senate—or flip control.
The Pennsylvania primaries are set for May 17. The Maryland primaries are slated to take place on July 19. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 8.
Supreme Court Rules Against Illegal Alien Who Falsely Claimed Citizenship
A divided Supreme Court ruled 5–4 on May 16 against a longtime illegal alien who falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen on a driver’s license application, upholding a law that prevents federal courts from reviewing factual findings made by the Department of Justice in deportation proceedings.
The new ruling suggests that federal law isn’t sympathetic to individuals who falsely hold themselves out as U.S. citizens.
The majority opinion (pdf) in the case, Patel v. Garland, court file 20-979, was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Four conservative members of the court—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh—joined Barrett’s opinion.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a strongly worded dissenting opinion, which was joined by the court’s three liberal justices—Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
Pankajkumar Patel is a citizen of India who has lived in the United States since entering the country unlawfully in February 1992. He is married and has three children.
Patel checked a box on a driver’s license application in Georgia identifying himself as a U.S. citizen. He later claimed that he checked the box inadvertently, then tried to obtain lawful permanent resident status under a process authorized by Congress called “adjustment of status” that allows individuals who are physically present in the country to upgrade their immigration status to lawful permanent resident without having to leave the country.
In 2012, deportation proceedings began before an immigration judge. Patel said his application for adjustment of status was a defense to deportation and renewed his request to be processed for a green card. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security countered that the false claim of U.S. citizenship undermined his defense. The immigration judge agreed.
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) then held that Patel was inadmissible under federal law because he “falsely represented” himself as a U.S. citizen for a benefit under state law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit declined jurisdiction to review whether Patel was inadmissible for representing himself as a U.S. citizen. The 11th Circuit separately held, contrary to a precedent-setting BIA decision, that the relevant federal law makes noncitizens inadmissible even if their misrepresentation of citizenship is immaterial to the government benefit sought.
Barrett wrote in the decision that Congress “has comprehensively detailed the rules by which noncitizens may enter and live in the United States.”
“When noncitizens violate those rules, Congress has provided procedures for their removal. At the same time, there is room for mercy: Congress has given the Attorney General power to grant relief from removal in certain circumstances,” she wrote.
But federal courts “have a very limited role to play in this process. With an exception for legal and constitutional questions, Congress has barred judicial review of the Attorney General’s decisions denying discretionary relief from removal. We must decide how far this bar extends—specifically, whether it precludes judicial review of factual findings that underlie a denial of relief,” Barrett wrote.
“It does.”
In his dissent, Gorsuch claimed that a bureaucratic error doomed Patel.
Businesses Suing Whitmer for Losses Due to COVID Shutdown, Allege Uncompensated ‘Taking’
A coalition of five bowling alleys and family entertainment centers is suing Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, for losses incurred due to her mandatory COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020.
Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services director Robert Gordon is also a defendant in the case.
The plaintiffs allege that the shutdowns imposed by Whitmer and Gordon were a “taking” of their businesses without just compensation in violation of both the state and the U.S. Constitution.
The case has been winding its way through the federal courts since January 2021.
The coalition lost the first round of the legal battle when the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan ruled against it.
Oral arguments were recently held before a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.
Plaintiff’s chief counsel David Kallman told The Epoch Times after the appeals court hearing, “The oral arguments from both sides were vigorous. The judges asked a lot of questions. It was the kind of proceeding that makes you proud to be a lawyer.
“Even the defense acknowledges that we are presenting ‘novel’ arguments.
“Michigan is the only state in the nation where a governor’s public health emergency powers were overturned as unconstitutional.
“If we lose in the court of appeals, we will take this case to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Scott Bennett, executive director of the Independent Bowling and Entertainment Centers Association, told The Epoch Times,
“The governor’s actions were devastating to our industry.
“Things went from ‘two weeks to slow the spread’ to indefinite shutdowns.”
Bennett said that the forced closures were not based on solid scientific proof that bowling alleys and family entertainment centers would spread the virus any more than the Walmart stores or the GM plants that were allowed to remain open.
“They were allowed to operate with hundreds and even thousands of people in them but we had to shut down. We feel our industry was unfairly singled-out.
“We cannot stand for a repeat of such arbitrary treatment and don’t want the people of Michigan to forget what was done to them.”
With the recent uptick in COVID cases and the approaching mid-term elections, Bennett said his members that survived the 2020 shutdowns feel like it can happen all over again.
“It’s like operating day-to-day with a hammer held over your head. The uncertainty is altering business plans. The value of our businesses is dropping through the floor,” Bennett said.
DeSantis Bans ‘Picketing and Protesting’ Outside Homes in Florida
Individuals who protest outside private residences in the state of Florida will now face a fine or prison time under a new bill signed on Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Republican governor signed the bill, known as HB 1571, shortly after protests erupted outside the homes of Supreme Court justices in the wake of the leaked majority draft opinion indicating that the Roe v. Wade decision would be struck down.
“Sending unruly mobs to private residences, like we have seen with the angry crowds in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices, is inappropriate,” said DeSantis in a statement. “This bill will provide protection to those living in residential communities and I am glad to sign it into law.”
Specifically, the newly-signed bill will allow law enforcement officials to issue a warning to any individual found “picketing or protesting outside of a dwelling” with “specified intent.”
Individuals who do not disperse from the residence after the warning has been issued may be arrested. The bill also makes residential picketing punishable as a second-degree misdemeanor.
Second-degree misdemeanors are punishable by up to 60 days in jail and/or six months probation and a $500 fine.
The law will take effect Oct. 1.
EXCLUSIVE: Key NIH Research Executive Received 70 Secret Royalty Payments; Colleague Got 7
Two key National Institutes for Health (NIH) executives in positions of influence on decisions about who gets grants from the agency received a total of 77 previously undisclosed royalty payments from outside firms between 2010 and 2014.
The secret royalty payments, which were first reported by The Epoch Times, are among thousands estimated to total at least $350 million paid between 2010 and 2020. Long-time NIH Director Francis Collins received 14 payments, Anthony Fauci, who heads NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), received 23, and Clifford Lane, Fauci’s chief deputy, got eight payments.
Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak conceded during questioning last week by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) that the undisclosed royalties have the “appearance of a conflict of interest,” but he insisted that the agency has sufficient internal safeguards to prevent such problems. Federal law and ethics regulations bar federal employees from activities that present either the appearance or an actual conflict of interest.
Dr. Michael Gottesman has been the NIH’s deputy director for intramural research (DDIR) since 1994. According to his official resume on the NIH website, Gottesman “coordinates activities and facilitates cooperation among the 24 Institute- and Center-based Scientific Directors to achieve the scientific, training, and public health missions of the NIH Intramural Research Program.
“He provides guidance for the entire intramural program and reports to [Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak]. He oversees and ultimately approves the hiring of all NIH principal investigators, and he is the institutional official responsible for human subjects research protections, research integrity, technology transfer, and animal care and use at the NIH.
“During his tenure as DDIR, Dr. Gottesman has created the post-baccalaureate training program, the Graduate Partnerships Program (which permits graduate students to conduct thesis research at NIH); implemented loan repayment programs; institutionalized an intramural tenure track and new career tracks for clinical investigators; created the NIH Intramural Database (providing online information about all researchers and research at NIH); and spearheaded multiple other programs in the realm of diversity, equity, research integrity, and leadership.”
Gottesman announced in July 2021 his resignation from the DDIR position, pending the selection of his successor. He plans to remain as Chief of the Laboratory of Cell Biology in the NIH’s National Cancer Institute after his DDIR successor is chosen.
Gottesman received 70 royalty payments during the five-year period from 2010 to 2014, according to documents recently obtained by the non-profit government watchdog Open the Books (OTB) as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for extensive data on all payments from 2o10 to the present.
—> Make sure to tune in to The Power Hour live tomorrow for an interview with Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com
Christian denied driver’s license, state cites U.S. federal law ‘666’
While renewing one’s driver’s license may seem like a routine task for most Americans, an Arizona man who has been a licensed driver in the Grand Canyon State for four decades is now being denied a renewal because he does not have a Social Security Number – and he doesn’t want one, believing it to be tied to Bible prophecies about the end-times “mark of the beast.”
“I have been licensed in Arizona for 40 years,” Mike Palmer told WND.
“Recently I turned 65, and so my license automatically expired. In the interim, the Arizona Legislature implemented a ‘requirement’ for a Social Security Number.”
“I’m a fundamental Christian,” he continued. “My security is in God, not in the state. And, too, I believe that an Social Security Number is a precursor to the mark of the beast. So I do not have one, akin to a vow of poverty.”
Palmer contacted the state about his situation, and received the following response from Susan Pacheco with Constituent Services at the director’s office of the Motor Vehicle Department:
Dear Mr. Palmer, Your record and request to apply without a social security number has been reviewed. Unfortunately, we cannot issue a credential without it. You must present a valid social security number in order to obtain a license in the state of Arizona. There is no exception in the state or federal law that would allow you to present any other type of document, such as an affidavit like the one the US State Department accepts for passport issuance.
We are bound by the relevant state and federal statutes, Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 28-3158 and 42 United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A) § 666.
“Interestingly,” says Palmer, “the federal law that the Arizona MVD cites for authority is USCA § 666, which is a sign to me that I’m right. The Social Security Number IS a precursor to the mark.”
Even on the state’s webpage with instructions on how to obtain a driver’s license, it mentions the requirement for a Social Security Number, along with the associated federal statute whose section number just happens to be 666, which is “the number of the beast,” biblically speaking.
The New Testament states: “Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, because it is the number of a person. Its number is 666” (Revelation 13:18 CSB).
Palmer told WND: “There is no ‘rational basis’ (legal term) for this, because having a SSN has nothing to do with driving. It was done to catch deadbeat dads.”
But is Palmer still on the road?
“Yes, I am still driving – illegally the state might say, although I argue that I am ‘substantially’ compliant,” he indicated.
“First, as it goes to trying to be a good Christian and submitting to the governing authorities (when they give lawful orders), I am a pilot with a valid medical. That is, my eyes have been checked by the federal government and are good for both driving an airplane and a car.
“Second, after my license expired, I called a state certified driving school and I took a two-hour refresher course to show that I am a safe driver and that I know the laws. I ‘passed’ with flying colors.
“While driving is said to be a ‘privilege,’ I take care of an 86-year-old widow and drive her around (doctors, groceries, etc.) in her vehicles. In her case, this is a necessity. If it were only me in my car I would happily be civilly disobedient and willing to endure whatever punishment the state doles out. But I am concerned about her liability if I am involved in an accident unlicensed in her car.”
Palmer does not appear willing to let this matter rest.
“I suppose my next step will be to try to find a civil-rights attorney to try to have this new law ruled unconstitutional.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Twitter Has Lost All of Its Stock Gains Since Elon Musk Disclosed Stake
Since Elon Musk purchased a significant share in Twitter several weeks ago, the company has given up all its gains.
Last month, Musk disclosed that he bought a 9 percent stake in the social media platform. But as of Monday afternoon, shares of Twitter dropped another 6 percent, sending its price down to $38.25—the lowest closing price it’s had since April 1, or the last trading session before Musk revealed he took the 9 percent minority ownership of the company.
About three weeks later, Musk and Twitter’s board announced the billionaire would purchase the company for $44 billion.
Late last week, Musk said that the deal to buy Twitter was placed on hold until he finds out more details about fake accounts and bots that are present on the platform. Hours later, he wrote that he’s “still committed to acquisition.”
“You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize. Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference,” he wrote on Saturday in a Twitter post. “I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening.”
When a user asked Musk to “elaborate on process of filtering bot accounts,” he replied: “I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.”
Musk posted during the early hours of Sunday that he has yet to see any analysis that shows that the social media company has fake accounts of fewer than 5 percent. He later said, “There is some chance it might be over 90 percent of daily active users.”
Twitter on Thursday told news outlets that it would freeze hiring, while confirming that two top executives were let go from the company, including its head of consumer product Kayvon Beykpour. CEO Parag Agarwal asked him to leave, according to Beykpour in a series of Twitter posts.
“Some have been asking why a ‘lame-duck’ CEO would make these changes if we’re getting acquired anyway,” Agarwal wrote in a series of tweets. “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios.”
Meanwhile, Musk confirmed last week that he would allow President Donald Trump to return to Twitter after the deal is finished, although Trump has said he wouldn’t return to Twitter because he wants to stay on his own platform, Truth Social.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump told Fox News in April. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it, and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”
FDA Chief Provides Update on Nationwide Baby Formula Shortage
The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says a shuttered Michigan facility that produces baby formula could be up and running again in two weeks, although Abbott Laboratories says it could take up to 10 weeks before formula products reach shelves amid a nationwide shortage.
“We now have a path forward,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, who was named to his position earlier this year, told NBC News on May 16. “Abbott is responsible for the timeline, but I’m very comfortable with what they said about two weeks. … That’s entirely within the realm of possibility and I think quite likely.”
Earlier this year, the FDA stated that it was investigating Abbott’s plant in Sturgis, Michigan, amid reports that infants were sickened with a type of bacteria. The facility, in the meantime, has remained shut down.
Across the country, a significant shortage of baby formula has left parents scrambling for alternatives. Some lawmakers called on the Biden administration to take action, while Republicans noted that formula products were sent to an illegal immigrant holding center in Texas.
Retail product analytics firm Datasemmbly stated in an update last week that 43 percent of baby formula products nationwide are out of stock.
“Datasembly’s real-time hyper-local data analysis shows that baby formula stock was relatively stable for the first half of 2021, with out-of-stock (OOS) fluctuation between 2-8 percent. The OOS detail shows that in April 2022 baby formula shortages hit 30 percent and jumped to 40 percent at the end of month,” according to the firm.
And the company’s CEO, Ben Reich, noted that the shortage “has been compounded by supply chain challenges,” recalls, and inflation.
“The category started to see stocking challenges beginning in July 2021, and the situation has continued to worsen into 2022. With our real-time, highly granular data, Datasembly will continue to provide new insights as they become available,” he said.
Abbott Laboratories stated the company has flown millions of cans of baby formula to the United States to help deal with shortages. Millions of cans of infant formula powder have already been sent from Abbott’s facility in Cootehill, Ireland, to the United States, the firm stated.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives’ Oversight panel has opened an investigation into the shortage.
“It is critical that your company take all possible steps to increase the supply of formula and prevent price gouging,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair House committee, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, wrote in a letter to several manufacturers.
White House Unveils Plan to Address Housing Supply Shortages
The White House has released a new plan aimed at increasing the housing supply in the United States.
Pillars of the plan include giving incentives to jurisdictions that allow more dense building, making it easier to build newly manufactured housing units and exploring ways to lower the cost of items crucial for constructing homes.
President Joe Biden wants to “help close America’s housing supply shortfall in 5 years, starting with the creation and preservation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years,” the White House said in a statement.
“When aligned with other policies to reduce housing costs and ensure affordability, such as rental assistance and downpayment assistance, closing the gap will mean more affordable rents and more attainable homeownership for Americans in every community,” the statement reads.
Prospective home buyers have faced surging prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prices were up by nearly 20 percent in the year ending in February, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index.
Real estate experts have spoken of a diminished supply and a strong appetite from buyers as driving prices up, in addition to the inflation crisis with which Biden has grappled.
As of March 2021, the annual supply of new units was running about 100,000 below demand, creating a bigger and bigger shortfall, Moody’s Analytics said in a report.
Biden vowed in a recent speech to make combating inflation his top priority, and the administration stated that the housing plan is part of that effort, saying that it will help reduce price pressures in the economy.
The plan drew some positive reviews, including from David Dworkin, president and CEO of the nonprofit National Housing Conference.
The plan’s prongs “represent the most comprehensive national housing policy we have seen in a generation,” Dworkin wrote in a blog post, praising the focus on incentivizing zoning changes to allow denser development.
Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said the announcement was a major step “toward easing the burden of housing costs and bridging the gap in affordable housing.”
Not everyone agreed.
“The new Biden housing plan is intent on turning suburbs into dense areas like cities whether residents want that or not,” Dan Gainer, vice president of free speech America and business for the Media Research Center, wrote on Twitter.
The new plan comes after the administration announced in September 2021 its intention to help create nearly 100,000 new homes within three years.
Nestlé flies baby formula to the U.S. amid shortage
Nestlé, the owner of Gerber baby food, has flown in extra baby formula to the U.S. from Switzerland and the Netherlands to help alleviate the ongoing baby formula shortage.
The company has imported shipments of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA from the Netherlands and Alfamino from Switzerland, a Nestlé spokesperson told Axios in a statement.
Those formulas were specifically chosen because they “serve a critical medical purpose as they are for babies with cow’s milk protein allergies,” they added.
Both formulas were already being imported, which enabled Nestlé to act quickly.
The company is also reviewing new guidance issued by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to determine “where we may be able to tap into the Nestlé global nutrition network to help.”
FDA Chief Califf: Agency Likely to OK Abbott’s Baby Formula Plant Reopening
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said on Monday the agency is likely to approve the reopening of Abbott Laboratory’s baby formula manufacturing facility in Sturgis, Michigan, in two weeks after ensuring that the product is safe and any problems have been rectified.
“We have an obligation to watch to make sure the problems have been rectified and the formula will be safe, remembering that normal formula has over 30 constituents that must be there as a substitute for breast milk,” Califf told NBC “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie. “Very soon, you should hear an announcement about moving forward, and of course, Abbott is responsible with the timeline but I’m very comfortable with what they said about two weeks … [it’s] entirely within the realm of possibility, and I think quite likely.”
Abbott closed its Sturgis facility earlier this year after complaints surfaced of infants becoming ill with bacterial contamination. The company says its plants are “not likely the source of infection,” after the FDA cited five separate cases of illness in babies that were given the company’s formula, with two of the babies dying.
The Average Price for a Gallon of Gas in LA County is Back Above $6
The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County surpassed $6 for the first time since April 1 on Sunday, increasing 3.8 cents to $6.013.
It rose again on Monday, another 1.7 cents to an average $6.03 per gallon.
The average price has risen for 19 consecutive days, increasing 23.9 cents by Sunday, including 5.6 cents Saturday, its largest increase since March 19, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service.
Crypto Currency Crash: $300 Billion in Market Value Lost Last Week
Crypto was in full-blown crash mode last week, wiping out more than $300 billion in market value. TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin that is supposed to trade at a “stable” $1 value, crashed to a few cents on the dollar. Its sister cryptocurrency, Luna, likewise imploded.
Then there was Bitcoin, which Warren Buffett has called “rat poison squared.” Bitcoin plunged further last week and is now down more than 30 percent year-to-date. So much for the hype that it would be an inflation hedge like gold.
Coinbase, the big crypto exchange, knocked more wind out of the sails of the crypto market on Tuesday of last week when it filed its 10-Q (quarterly report) with the Securities and Exchange Commission and essentially said it had no idea what might happen to $256 billion it held for customers. The filing illuminated its shareholders and customers as follows:
“As of March 31, 2022, we held $256 billion in custodial fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on behalf of customers. Supported crypto assets are not insured or guaranteed by any government or government agency. We have also entered into partnerships with third parties, such as with the Centre Consortium, as a reseller of USDC, where we or our partners receive and hold funds for the benefit of our customers. Our and our partners’ abilities to manage and accurately safeguard these customer assets requires a high level of internal controls. As our business continues to grow and we expand our product and service offerings, we must continue to strengthen our associated internal controls and ensure that our partners do the same. Our success and the success of our offerings requires significant public confidence in our and our partners’ ability to properly manage customers’ balances and handle large and growing transaction volumes and amounts of customer funds. In addition, we are dependent on our partners’ operations, liquidity, and financial condition for the proper maintenance, use, and safekeeping of these customer assets…Moreover, because custodially held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors. This may result in customers finding our custodial services more risky and less attractive and any failure to increase our customer base, discontinuation or reduction in use of our platform and products by existing customers as a result could adversely impact our business, operating results, and financial condition.”
Imagine walking into your federally-insured bank to make a deposit into your savings account and being handed a notice that said it had no idea what might happen to your deposits.
Coinbase went public in April of last year and traded as high as $368.90 intraday last year. It closed the trading week last Friday at a share price of $67.87, a decline of 82 percent from its 52-week intraday high.
If the words “pump and dump” are floating around in your head, you can be forgiven. In 2018, Bill Harris, the former CEO of Intuit and PayPal, wrote a detailed critique of Bitcoin for Vox under the headline: “Bitcoin is the greatest scam in history.” Harris wrote:
“In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen. In a pump-and-dump game, promoters ‘pump’ up the price of a security creating a speculative frenzy, then ‘dump’ some of their holdings at artificially high prices. And some cryptocurrencies are pure frauds. Ernst & Young estimates that 10 percent of the money raised for initial coin offerings has been stolen.”
Two Nasdaq stocks which hold large positions in Bitcoin on their balance sheets, MicroStrategy and Tesla, also saw their share prices plunge last week.
Tone deaf Goldman Sachs, however, somehow interpreted last week’s market action as a signal to double down. According to the Financial Times over the weekend, “Goldman Sachs and Barclays have invested in Elwood Technologies, the cryptocurrency trading platform founded by British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard, in a fresh bet on the mainstream adoption of digital assets.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
A Visual Guide to the Science Behind Cultured Meat
The CEO of Canada-based CULT Food Science says, “We will be the global leader in cell-based foods through investment and tech development.” The only perceived problem is consumer acceptance. Nevertheless, this crowd visualizes a complete takeover of food creation for a sustainable humanity. ⁃ TN Editor
What is Cultured Meat?
To start, cultured meat is defined as a genuine animal meat product that is created by cultivating animal cells in a controlled lab environment—eliminating the need to farm animals for food almost entirely.
“Cultured meat has all the same fat, muscles, and tendons as any animal…All this can be done with little or no greenhouse gas emissions, aside from the electricity you need to power the land where the process is done.”
– BILL GATES
Because cultured meat is made of the same cell types and structure found in animal tissue, the sensory and nutritional profiles are like-for-like. Let’s dive into how these products are made.
Bill Gates is a self-proclaimed expert on everything, but he has a serious screw loose somewhere in his brain. The argument is made about “genuine animal meat product” when the only relation is that some cells from animals are used in the manufacturing phase. This does not make it a “genuine animal meat product”. Secondly “essentially equivalent” argument is made that “cultured meat is made of the same cell types”. This is false and misleading. If cultured “beef” and natural beef are side by side on the same plate, one is fake and the other is real.
The FDA is supposed to “approve” every edible product on the market. Whenever the FDA sees the “substantially equivalent” phrase, products get a free pass to your plate.
Third, the fake meat industry constantly skirts the genetic modification issue by using the words “natural” and “genuine”. In fact, all bio-science companies consider genetic modification as a staple tool to make “better” products and that necessarily includes the fake meat industry. Their products are not “substantially equivalent” to the real thing. ⁃ TN Editor
The Science and Technology Behind Cultured Meat
The main challenge facing the cultured meat market is producing products at scale. But thanks to the vast amount of research in the stem cell biology space, the science behind cultured foods is not entirely new.
Given that we are in the very early days of applying these learnings to producing food products, those looking to invest in companies contributing to the industry’s growth stand to benefit. Here is an overview of some of the technologies that underpin the industry that you should know:
- Bioprocess Design
This is the process of using living cells and their components to create new products. According to experts like the Good Food Institute, bioprocess design holds the key to unlocking cultured meat production at scale.
Specifically, innovation in bioreactor (where the cells grow) design represents a massive opportunity for companies and investors alike.
- Tissue Engineering
Tissue engineering techniques are used to produce cultured meat that resembles real meat textures and flavors. The first step is taking tissue from the animal for the purpose of extracting stem cells and creating cell lines.
The extracted stem cell lines are then cultivated in a nutrient rich environment, mimicking in-animal tissue growth and producing muscle fibers inside a bioreactor. The muscle fibers are processed and mixed with additional fats and ingredients to assemble the finished meat product.
- Cell Lines
Cell lines refer to the different types of cells that can be propagated repeatedly and sometimes indefinitely.
Access to cell lines is a major challenge facing the industry today and is an area that requires significantly more research. This is because there is not just one cell type that can be used in cellular agriculture to produce cultured food products.
- Cell Culture Media
Cells (or cell cultures) require very specific environmental conditions. Cell culture media is a gel or liquid that contains the nutrients needed to support growth outside of the body.
More research in this space is needed to determine optimized formulations and make these products more affordable.
- Scaffolding
Scaffolds are 3D cell culture platforms that mimic the structure of complex biological tissues, such as skeletal muscle. This platforms can be created through the use of 3D Bioprinting.
Scaffolds are predominantly made up of collagen and gelatin. The problem is these are both animal-derived ingredients which defeats the purpose of cell-based products. Therefore, more sustainable plant-derived options are also being explored.
HEALTH
Are You Getting the Right Quercetin?
You may not be, judging from recent test results showing some brands are not delivering what they advertise.
Quercetin is a flavonoid with many health benefits, including anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and antiviral effects, including for COVID. For this reason, quercetin spiked in popularity during the pandemic. But recent lab tests remind us that we should do our homework before selecting a supplement brand, as some do not seem to deliver the potency they advertise.
NOW Foods, one of our recommended supplement companies, recently tested 24 quercetin brands. Twenty out of the 24 brands tested were found to have less than 90 percent of the potency listed on the label; 14 of the 24 brands had less than 50 percent of the labeled potency. Two of the 24 brands advertised vegetarian capsules, but were found to contain gelatin. One product had no detectable quercetin.
NOW also notes there are deceptive labeling practices that can trick consumers. Some products may claim they contain 500mg quercetin on the front label, but reading the back listing shows a listing of 500mg (20% potency), so you may only be getting 100mg.
—> Get your HIGH QUALITY PLANT BASED VEGETARIAN QUERCETIN from thepowermall.com
Eating Carrots and Celery Protects Against the Negative Effects of Pollution
Air pollution is major global health problem, responsible for over 4 million deaths each year. And here, in the U.S., many cities in California and major cities in other states are notorious for poor air quality and smog. But a new study published in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, reveals that eating more apiaceous vegetables such as carrots, celery, parsnips and parsley, can help mitigate the negative effects of air pollution.
According to Study Finds, scientists at the University of Delaware found that eating more of this family of vegetables protects the body from acrolein accumulation. Acrolein is a hazardous substance that is a lung and skin irritant with a strong, acrid odor that is present in large quantities in both cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust.
The researchers led by Jae Kyeom Kim, an assistant professor in the College of Health Sciences’ Behavioral Health & Nutrition Program at the University of Delaware, found that apiaceous vegetables, which are high in phytonutrients, were able to mitigate the toxic effects of acrolein.
“Kim’s research discovered that apiaceous vegetables supported detoxication through an increase in antioxidant enzyme activity,” said Dr. Jillian Trabulsi, in a university news release. “The results suggest that apiaceous vegetables may provide protection against acrolein-induced damages and inflammation because in the liver, the vegetables enhance conversion of acrolein into a water-soluble acid for bodily secretion.”
Kim suggests that it takes less than two cups of vegetables daily to accomplish this detoxification, but he plans to perform human clinical trials to verify this intervention.
“When we calculated this, we determined the actual daily calorie amount of apiaceous vegetables for humans is roughly 1 and 1/3 cups per day,” said Kim. “It doesn’t require a high intake to see a difference, and this is an achievable amount in daily life.”
Kim and his team stress the importance of improving your diet to combat the buildup of toxicants found in air pollution.
COVID RELATED NEWS
FDA authorizes Pfizer COVID booster for children 5-11
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11.
JAMA study: Pfizer COVID shot’s protection fades in weeks
A peer-reviewed paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that immunity against the omicron coronavirus variant fades rapidly after a second and third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The research by Danish scientists published in JAMA Network Open on Friday found antibody responses fell within weeks after second and third Pfizer doses, Forbes reported.
The proportion of antibodies dropped from 76% four weeks after the second shot to 19% at weeks 12 to 14. The antibodies dropped even faster after the third dose, the booster shot.
Between the third and eighth week, antibodies fell 5.4-fold for omicron.
Last week, in a segment on “Good Morning America,” ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton warned it’s possible that repeated boosting actually can weaken the immune system.
She said that getting a booster shot is a good idea for older people who have chronic underlying conditions.
“But everyone else, don’t think that more boosting is the answer,” Ashton said. “We don’t know that that’s the case yet.”
Last month a top FDA official said a fourth COVID booster shot should be seen as a “stop gap” measure, concluding “we simply can’t be boosting people as frequently as we are.”
FDA Declines to Authorize Common Antidepressant as COVID Treatment
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has decided not to authorize the antidepressant fluvoxamine to treat COVID-19, saying that the data has not shown the drug to be an effective therapeutic for fighting the virus.
“Based on the review of available scientific evidence, the FDA has determined that the data are insufficient to conclude that fluvoxamine may be effective in the treatment of nonhospitalized patients with COVID-19 to prevent progression to severe disease and/or hospitalization,” the agency said in a document published on Monday.
University of Minnesota professor Dr. David Boulware submitted the emergency use authorization request to the FDA that would have allowed doctors to prescribe fluvoxamine maleate to treat COVID-19 in non-hospitalized patients.
The generic drug belongs to an old, widely-used class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.
Boulware said that his request is less urgent with the availability of drugs like Pfizer Inc’s Paxlovid, but he still believes the data supports the drug’s use in some COVID patients.
“There are effective therapeutics that are available. But not everyone has access to them. Not everyone can tolerate them. Some people have contraindications,” Boulware said in an interview. “And if you go elsewhere in the world, low- and middle-income countries, they have access to no therapeutics.”
Boulware’s submission relied on data from three trials, especially a study of 1,497 non-hospitalized COVID patients in Brazil.
While the Brazilian study met its primary endpoint, showing a roughly 30% drop in hospitalizations in the group that received fluvoxamine, the FDA said there were uncertainties about the assessment, which measured reduction in emergency department visits lasting more than 6 hours.
Boulware said FDA had used a different measure to count hospitalizations in other drug trials, including only acute care that lasted at least 24 hours.
“The standard that they were holding for fluvoxamine was a different standard than the other big pharma trials, with Paxlovid and (Merck’s) molnupiravir and the monoclonals,” he said of other authorized COVID therapeutics.
17,000 doctors call for end to COVID-19 emergency
Decrying “disastrous” COVID-19 public health policies, more than 17,000 physicians and medical scientists from around the world are calling on nations to lift health emergency declarations, restore scientific integrity and address “crimes against humanity.”
Among the signatories is Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA technology behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, who argues that the concerns raised in the declaration go beyond COVID-19, threatening constitutional rights.
The fourth declaration of the Global COVID Summit states that the COVID policies imposed over the past two years “are the culmination of a corrupt medical alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare institutions, along with the financial trusts which control them.”
“They have infiltrated our medical system at every level, and are protected and supported by a parallel alliance of big tech, media, academics and government agencies who profited from this orchestrated catastrophe,” the signatories declare.
The “corrupt alliance” continues “to advance unscientific claims by censoring data, and intimidating and firing doctors and scientists for simply publishing actual clinical results or treating their patients with proven, life-saving medicine.”
“These catastrophic decisions came at the expense of the innocent, who are forced to suffer health damage and death caused by intentionally withholding critical and time-sensitive treatments, or as a result of coerced genetic therapy injections, which are neither safe nor effective,” they say.
Senator warns Biden against giving the WHO control of American lives
President Joe Biden walks with a cup of coffee Tuesday, March 2, 2021, along the Colonnade of the White House to the Oval Office. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott is spotlighting the Biden administration’s proposed amendments to World Health Organization regulations that would give the U.N. agency’s director-general unilateral authority to declare a health emergency in the United States.
The WHO, the senator wrote on Twitter, “has served as a puppet for the Chinese Communist Party & helped Communist China cover up info on COVID-19.”
“The Biden admin must NOT give this sham of a health agency national sovereignty over the U.S. & control over Americans’ lives & health.”
As WND reported, the International Health Regulations amendments will be subject to votes at the upcoming annual meeting of the WHO’s governing legislative body, the World Health Assembly, May 22-28 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Dr. Peter Breggin, the acclaimed reformer in the field of psychiatry, is helping lead a campaign to raise awareness of the Biden administration’s move.
The administration quietly submitted the amendments to the WHO on Jan. 18, notes Breggin in an article with his wife Ginger Breggin, who has been a partner for nearly four decades in helping reform psychiatry.
Rheumatologist: 40% of my 3,000 vaxxed patients reported injury
A veteran rheumatologist says about 40% of the approximately 3,000 vaccinated patients in his practice have reported a vaccine-related injury.
And 5% of the vaccinated patients are still injured, according to Dr. Robert Jackson in an interview with Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation.
Jackson, consistent with a study published in the British Journal of Medicine, said has seen 12 patients die following COVID vaccination. Normally, he sees only one or two deaths annually in his practice’s patient base of 5,000.
Jackson said about 5% of his patients developed a new condition that makes them susceptible to blood clotting.
Kirsch noted Jackson is intentional about recording adverse vaccine invents, asking his patients what happened to them following vaccination, which most doctors do not do.
Rheumatology patients – with an autoimmune condition – are more susceptible to adverse reactions to COVID vaccines, according to studies.
But these patients were excluded from the initial COVID vaccine trials.
Global COVID Summit Declaration IV
A Joint Statement, representing 17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists to End the National Emergency, Restore Scientific Integrity, and Address Crimes Against Humanity
The time is now. As most readers of this substack are now well aware, this is not just about COVID. The constitution hangs in the balance. Please help us to get these messages spread far and wide. The 17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists in our organization, who are not financially conflicted and remain committed to the Hippocratic Oath, are doing our part. Now we ask that you help us to help you. We need your help.
>>> Video: MUST WATCH: Global COVID Summit – Declaration IV – Restore Scientific Integrity
Did Pfizer Commit Huge Fraud in Its COVID Vaccine Research?
In November 2021, Brook Jackson, a whistleblower who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID jab trial in the fall of 2020, warned she’d seen evidence of fraud in the trial
With the release of Pfizer trial data — which they tried to withhold for 75 years — additional problems suggestive of fraud and data manipulation are coming to light
Trial site 1231, located in Argentina, somehow managed to recruit 10% of the total trial participants, 4,501 in all, and they did so in just three weeks, and without a contract research organization — a feat that has many questioning whether fraud was committed
The lead investigator for trial site 1231 is Dr. Fernando Polack, who also happens to be a consultant for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (RBPAC), a current adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, an investigator for Fundación Infant, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, and the first author of Pfizer’s paper, “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine,” published at the end of December 2021
Site 1231 held a second enrollment session, given the designation of “site 4444.” The 4444 trial site data raise another red flag. It supposedly enrolled 1,275 patients in a single week, from September 22 through 27, 2020 — the last week that recruitment could take place to meet the data cutoff for the FDA meeting in December 2020. Was “site 4444” fabricating data to create the appearance that the jab was having an effect?
>>> Video: Pfizer fraud or not? (Sites 1231 and 4444) (16 minutes)
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