Today's News: October 19, 2018

World News

BREAKING NEWS: Caravan of thousands of Honduran migrants TURN AROUND after being met by armed police at Mexican border in Guatemala – but a small breakaway group have already crossed over and are marching towards America
Daily Mail – The largest group in the caravan, around 2,000-3,000 people, turned back two blocks from the Mexican border in Guatemala on Friday.
The border is being heavily protected on both sides by Mexican and Guatemalan troops
The migrants retreated on Friday morning to discuss how they would approach.
On Thursday night, a smaller, breakaway group managed to get over the border.
They are now marching towards the US and White House officials are monitoring them.

100 Isis Terrorists Caught In Country Allowing Caravan To Transit – Guatemalan president acknowledges ‘smuggling corridor’
Infowars – Some 100 ISIS terrorists have been caught in Guatemala, where a caravan of thousands of migrants is headed to the United States.
Judicial Watch cited a report in Guatemala’s Prensa Libra of the admission by Guatemala’s president.
“Why should Americans care about this?” Judicial Watch questioned. “A caravan of Central American migrants is making its way north. Let’s not forget that Guatemala is one of the countries that bombarded the U.S. with illegal immigrant minors under Barack Obama’s open border free-for-all. They came in droves from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala through the Mexican border and for years Uncle Sam rolled out the welcome mat offering housing, food, medical treatment and a free education.”
Judicial Watch pointed out a terrorist “could have easily slipped in considering the minors, coined Unaccompanied Alien Children, were not properly vetted and some turned out to be violent gangbangers who went on to commit heinous crimes in their adopted land of opportunity.”

Putin delivered a threatening sermon against Russia’s enemies
Boasting that Russia’s nuclear arsenal has already surpassed its competitors, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a fire and brimstone warning to his nuclear rivals Oct. 18, 2018.
In the event of a nuclear war, “the aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable, and he will be destroyed,” Putin said at an international policy forum in Sochi. “We would be victims of an aggression and would get to go to heaven as martyrs. They will simply drop dead. They won’t even have time to repent.”
“We have run ahead of the competition,” he bragged.
“No one has precision hypersonic weapons. Others are planning to start testing them within the next 1½ to 2 years, and we already have them on duty,” Putin claimed, potentially referencing the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile.
The Avangard hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, which Putin said can travel up to 20 times the speed of sound, hitting a target “like a meteorite, like a ball of fire,” is set to enter service in the near future.
This weapon can reportedly carry a conventional or nuclear warhead with an explosive yield ranging from 150 kilotons to one megaton, the Russian news outlet TASS introduced in March 2018.
he US military, facing competition from both Russia and China on hypersonic weapons, is scrambling to catch up. The Army, Navy, and Air Force are jointly working to develop advanced hypersonic systems for next-level warfighting. The US is also interested in modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
While Putin delivered his message focused on the nuclear destruction of Russia’s enemies, he insisted that his country would never strike first.
“Only when we become convinced that there is an incoming attack on the territory of Russia, and that happens within seconds, only after that we would launch a retaliatory strike,” he said. “It would naturally mean a global catastrophe, but I want to emphasize that we can’t be those who initiate it because we don’t foresee a preventive strike.”

The Story Of David And Goliath Gets Archaeological Evidence Backing It Up
The Daily Wire – Scoffers beware: the Biblical tale of David and Goliath just got more real than ever, thanks to an archaeological discovery that fits the Biblical description of Goliath’s armor.
In the Biblical tale, roughly 3,000 years ago, David, when he was still a young shepherd and not yet the immortal king, engaged in single combat on behalf of the Jews against Goliath, the huge champion of the Jews’ arch-enemies: the Philistines.
As Haaretz reports, in 2017 archaeologists found shards of pottery in Philistine Gath that were inscribed with names similar to Goliath’s. In the first book of Samuel, it states, “He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze … on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.”
Haaretz notes, “Now, if the story had been 7th or 6th century B.C.E. fiction, written hundreds of years after the event, the author would have had no idea how warriors had been garbed in the earlier Bronze Age. … To sum up, Goliath seems to have worn contemporary Bronze Age gear, scribes did exist shortly after his time and possibly within it, and the biblical descriptions suit other ancient texts referring to armies led by champions, rather than as the impersonal institutions of later texts. … The accurate description of a Bronze Age warrior’s equipment opens up the possibility that a memory was handed down over several centuries, embellished to be sure, but with a core of truth.”

Pompeo asks Mexico to help tackle migration ‘crisis’
The Hill – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is quickly approaching a “moment of crisis” on immigration as a “caravan” of over 4,000 migrants makes its way up Central America toward Mexico, while placing much of the onus on America’s southern neighbor to deal with the situation.
“We are quickly reaching a point which appears to be a moment of crisis,” said Pompeo during a press conference in Mexico with Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray Caso.
“Foreign Secretary Videgaray and I spoke about the importance of stopping this flow before it reaches the U.S. border. We are deeply aware that the way that Mexico will handle this, the way that you will handle this is your sovereign decision. Mexico will make its decision, its leaders and its people will decide the best way to achieve what I believe are our shared objectives,” he added.
Pompeo repeatedly emphasized the importance of immigration as an issue facing the U.S. and echoed President Trump’s calls for Washington to undertake significant immigration reform.
“The challenge related to securing our southern border is also a challenge for American sovereignty. We’ve got to fix U.S. laws in order to handle this properly as well. That is an American burden, a uniquely American burden, and as President Trump has said, something that we need to address inside of our country to make sure that we do this well,” he said.

Amid Global Turmoil, Iran Sends More Threats To US
The Constitution – The Middle East has never been known as a land of peace and harmony…at least in modern times.
So it should come as no surprise that the United States is facing dueling, sticky situations in the region this week.
First, there is the matter of keeping Saudi Arabia’s Crown in check, after anti Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi was likely killed this week in what has been called an “interrogation accident”.
Now, on the eastern edge of the tumultuous land mass, the Iranian government is also raising US eyebrows with a boisterous declaration of their own.
The range of Iranian land-to-sea ballistic missile has been increased to a terrifying 700km (435 miles), a senior military official warned on Tuesday.
It comes as tensions rose between Iran and the United States over new sanctions.
“We have managed to make land-to-sea ballistic, not cruise, missiles that can hit any vessel or ship from 700 kilometres,” Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ airspace division, said.
Iran has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if Washington tries to strangle Tehran’s oil exports.
US President Donald Trump had previously ruffled feathers in Tehran by effectively nullifying former President Barack Obama’s “nuclear deal” – a bargain that republicans have long been critical of due to the inability to create an effective enforcement policy.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Exorcist to hold mass for Kavanaugh to counteract witches ‘hexing’ him
The Hill – A Catholic exorcist said he plans to hold a mass for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh next weekend after a group of witches announced their plans to gather in Brooklyn to publicly hex him.
“Conjuring up personified evil does not fall under free speech,” Father Gary Thomas, who serves as an exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, Calif., told The National Catholic Register.
A wider group of Catholics and exorcists also plan to pray and fast for “the protection” of Kavanaugh, who is Catholic.
A manager at a Catholic apostolate told the Register he was “inspired” to pray for the newly-appointed justice to grant him “spiritual protection” and also hopes God will shed “mercy” on those involved in the coordinated effort to hex Kavanaugh.
The report arrives just days after a group of self-identified witches captured national headlines for announcing their plans to publicly hex the justice.
The event, which is being held at occult bookstore Catland Books, will target “all rapists,” according to the event’s Eventbrite page.
“We will be embracing witchcraft’s true roots as the magik of the poor, the downtrodden and disenfranchised and [its] history as often the only weapon, the only means of exacting justice available to those of us who have been wronged by men just like him,” the event read.
“[Kavanaugh] will be the focal point, but by no means the only target, so bring your rage and all of the axes you’ve got to grind. There will also be a second ritual afterward — ‘The Rites of the Scorned One’ which seeks to validate, affirm, uphold and support those of us who have been wronged and who refuse to be silent any longer.”
Organizer Dakota Bracciale told Time magazine that the effort to hex Kavanaugh is an “act of resistance,” coming weeks after the judge was accused of sexual assault.

Dozens of Brooklyn ‘Antifa Witches’ Are Planning to Put a ‘Hex’ on Kavanaugh
Armed with coffin nails, effigies, and dirt from a graveyard, they’ll be casting a spell “all about causing suffering”—just in time for Halloween!
Vice – Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite several sexual assault allegations against him, but people still seem adamant about fighting his appointment, from protesters in DC, to students staging walkouts, to #MeToo leaders vowing to take their anger out at the polls. Still, now that impeachment is the only way to actually get him off the bench, a handful of self-proclaimed “Antifa witches” in New York City are turning to more, uh, creative means.
The folks behind Catland Books, “Brooklyn’s premiere occult bookshop,” are going to draw on some dark magic and host a “ritual to hex Brett Kavanaugh” this Saturday. Armed with coffin nails, effigies, and dirt from a graveyard, they’ll be casting spells on Trump’s SCOTUS pick in an effort to make his life a complete fucking nightmare, USA Today reports. We reached out to Catland to get a better idea of exactly what that might look like, but we weren’t able to speak with them in time for publication. Regardless, the ritual’s Facebook page spells things out pretty well.
“Basically, it’s all about causing suffering,” Catland’s co-owner Dakota Bracciale told Newsweek. “And we intend to make Kavanaugh suffer.”
Tickets to the ceremony are already sold out—a bummer for the roughly 13,000 people on Facebook who say they’re interested in going. But even if you can’t show up with a pentacle and a rat’s skull or whatever, you can’t still support the cause: Catland is taking donations, and giving 50 percent of the proceeds to Planned Parenthood and the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit that helps out homeless LGBTQ youth.

Elizabeth Warren’s Other Cherokee Scandal: Her Fight Against Tribal Sovereignty – Warren has a nasty history with tribal nations
Infowars – Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential aspirations may have ended before they began this week thanks to her team’s bizarre decision to proudly broadcast the results of a DNA test that shows she may have had a relative 10 generations removed that was of indigenous American heritage.
As Senator Warren was once promoted as “Harvard Law School’s…first woman of color,” the results seem to only confirm that she misrepresented her ancestry in her past career as a law professor.
Not only has the decision been met with a blistering condemnation from the Cherokee Nation, but it has once again made her the butt of President Trump’s jokes.
Lost in the laughing at Warren’s expense however, is a larger issue exists over how American politicians continue to treat tribal sovereignty.
After all, if Warren had used her position as senator to serve as an advocate for the Cherokee Nation’s right to self-determination, her history of misrepresenting her genetic connection to the tribe would perhaps be more excusable. Say what you will about Rachel Dolezal, she at least cared enough to be an advocate for the African American community. Instead, Warren’s political record is one that has regularly promoted the continued imperial rule of Washington on land that is tribal in name only.
Though never officially serving as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Warren has been widely credited as being the guiding force behind the creation of the agency. The CFPB was created as part of the Obama Administration’s response to the financial crisis, a powerful financial regulator that lacks the traditional checks of other executive agencies. Under the lead of former director Richard Cordray, the CFPB went to work becoming a heavy handed regulator in its fight against “unfair, deceptive and abusive” practices.
Soon, various tribal financial services businesses found themselves in the cross hairs of the enthusiastic CFPB. The result is that the agency has been described by Dr. Gavin Clarkson, a tribal finance expert, as “the most hostile federal agency towards Indian tribes since Indian Affairs was in the War Department.”
One example is a variety of short-term lending operations that various tribes started up to try to capitalize on the growth of e-commerce. In theory, tribal sovereignty should have given these ventures a competitive advantage over other US lenders who had to deal with the Washington red tape. Unfortunately Obama’s Justice Department decided these operations represented a “national security risk” and worked with the CFPB to shut them down as part of Operation Choke Point – in spite of pleas from tribal advocates that doing so would be economically devastating.

Henry Kissinger Heckled At NYU, Told To “Rot In Hell”
ZeroHedge – Multiple protesters heckled former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Tuesday while he delivered a speech at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
NYU invited Kissinger, who was celebrating the 45th anniversary of receiving his Nobel Peace Prize Award, as part of a series entitled “In Conversation with Lord Mervyn King.”
Roughly 100 people gathered to protest Kissinger, according to NYU News. Some held signs calling him a “war criminal” while others shouted “rot in hell” and “hey, Kissinger, what do you say? How many kids have you killed today?”
Kissinger’s Nobel prize has been widely criticized by those who say that he participated in war crimes during the Vietnam war.
Protesters could also be seen holding signs reading “injustice must end” and “you can fight imperialism with violence.”
NYU students, as well as local groups, organized the protest “No War Criminals,” claiming that “Kissinger is regarded as criminal internationally, having formed imperialist policy that caused human rights crises in South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.”
The 27 groups involved in organizing the protest were comprised, in part, of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America, NYU Against Fascism, and the NYU branch of the International Socialist Organization.
The groups penned and signed a letter urging the “NYU community” to reconsider hosting Kissinger.
“Mr. Kissinger has left a legacy of economic devastation, physical destruction, violence, human misery, and death,” the letter states. “His greatest contributions to U.S. history are those of illegal bombing campaigns, failed military threats, direct involvement in coups and support for dictatorships, and the elongation of devastating, bloody wars for his own political gain.”
“He was the architect of programs which were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the destabilization of several nations, and the enabling of brutal, genocidal regimes,” the letter continues. “He leaves behind a legacy of decisions and policies so violent and horrific that any acknowledgement [sic], or validation of him by NYU is an indefensible act at odds with the values NYU claims to represent and the values of the NYU student body and faculty at large.”
“The event went forward as planned, but during the course of it, there were a handful of brief interruptions; those who stood up and shouted were promptly escorted from the room by our public safety officers,” NYU spokesman John Beckman told Campus Reform on Wednesday.
“Our rules are clear: NYU values and respects dissent, but it is impermissible for dissent to take the form of shouting down an invited speaker,” Beckman added. “Those who do so make themselves subject to sanctions.”
A spokesman for Kissinger declined to comment when contacted by Campus Reform.

Their Population Control Agenda Is Working – The Birth Rate In the United States Has Fallen To Another All-Time Record Low
DC Clothesline – he elite have worked very hard to slow down birth rates all over the world, and their efforts appear to be working. Just as we have witnessed in so many other countries, the birth rate in the United States continues to fall. In fact, it just plunged to yet another new all-time record low. So why would the elite want this to happen? Well, they believe that climate change is the greatest threat that our planet is facing, and they also believe that humans are the primary driver of climate change, and so they are convinced that if they can get people to have fewer babies they are actually “saving the world”. And according to the most recent CDC numbers, they have made a tremendous amount of progress in accomplishing that mission…
US birth rates have plummeted to historic lows, new CDC figures reveal.
Since 2007, fertility rates have plummeted 18 percent in large cities, 16 percent in mid-sized counties, and 12 percent in rural areas.
As expected, the average age that women have their first child continues to climb – now at 24.5 years old in rural counties and 27.5 in metropolitan areas.
In addition, new numbers from the United Nations Population Fund show that 40 percent of all births in the United States now occur outside of marriage…
An increasing number of births happen outside of marriage, signaling cultural and economic shifts that are here to stay, according to a new report from the United Nations.
Forty percent of all births in the U.S. now occur outside of wedlock, up from 10 percent in 1970, according to an annual report released on Wednesday by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the largest international provider of sexual and reproductive health services. That number is even higher in the European Union.
The traditional family has been one of the primary targets for the elite for a very long time, and we have been witnessing a cultural shift that is absolutely breathtaking.

DOJ charges Russian with interference in Midterm elections.
Washington Post – The Justice Department on Friday charged a Russian woman for her alleged role in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2018 U.S. election, marking the first criminal case prosecutors have brought against a foreign national for interfering in the upcoming midterms.
Elena Khusyaynova, 44, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said she managed the finances of “Project Lakhta,” a foreign influence operation they said was designed “to sow discord in the U.S. political system” by pushing arguments and misinformation online about a host of divisive political issues, including immigration, the Confederate flag, gun control and the National Football League national-anthem protests.
The charges against Khusyaynova came just as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that it was concerned about “ongoing campaigns” by Russia, China and Iran to interfere with the upcoming midterm elections and the 2020 race — an ominous warning just weeks before voters head to the polls.

Texas Dems under investigation after sending voting applications with citizenship box pre-checked to non-citizens
Fox News – The Texas Democratic Party is under investigation after being accused of sending out voter-registration applications to non-citizens with the citizenship box already checked “Yes.”
The possible violation was first raised Thursday by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a nonprofit specializing in election integrity, which alerted both state and federal authorities.
Following the reports of the alleged violation, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the issue is “is being investigated” and “there will be serious consequences” if confirmed.
“A complaint says the Texas Democratic Party asked noncitizens to register to vote, sending applications with citizenship box pre-checked. This is being investigated. If true there will be serious consequences,” he wrote in a tweet.

Veteran News

Decorated Silver Star Veteran, POW Sentenced to 7 Years for a Gun He Bought 40 Years Ago
Activist Post – Plano, TX — Alfred Pick served his country honorably. After going on over 100 combat missions in Vietnam, Pick was given the military’s third highest honor, the Silver Star. He was also captured and did time as a POW. Now, after escaping a cage in Vietnam 40 years ago, the country he laid down his life for is throwing him back in a cage—over a decades-old gun.
At a gun show 40 years ago, Pick bought the rare M-14 rifle, similar to the one he used in Vietnam while he served in the Army. He put this rifle in a case, along with 14 other extremely rare guns and proudly displayed them in his Texas home for four decades.
“This gun was very rare at that time it was rare to see one so he instantly had a connection to it,” said Pick’s attorney Ryne Sandel. “Over the course of his life he and his wife and collected about 14 weapons, many of them were collectors items.”
As CBS DFW reports, Pick lived in Plano’s Air Park neighborhood along with other pilots who enjoy a runway right outside their homes. The 70-year-old Vietnam veteran even served as the president of his homeowners association. Thus, when the ATF raided his home last year it came as a shock to friends like Mark Shackelford.
“He’s always been a good person to me,” Shackelford said.
When federal agents raided this American Hero’s home, they were looking for and seized the rare M-14 rifle that pick bought in the early ’80s at a Fort Worth gun show.
“He was a gun collector and it was probably the piece de resistance of his collection… he had shown it to me. I’ve never seen it taken it out of the case,” said Shackelford.

Economy & Business

The Federal Reserve Plans to Roll Out Its ‘Patriot Act’ AML Bitcoin Cryptocurrency by 2020

Edward Griffin – Dick Allgire of Crypto Viewing reports that the Federal Reserve plans to have a cryptocurrency system, and their spokesman, Sean Rodriguez, announced the coming transformation of our nation’s payment system is set for 2020, under the ‘Faster Payment Environment.’ The Federal Reserve is endorsing the AML Bitcoin that is compliant with the Patriot Act and biometric identification.

Energy & Environment

“Smart” meters are wildly inaccurate: Study finds that readings can be 581% higher than actual use
NaturalNews – As reported by Natural Health 365, a study published in the journal IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Magazine, conducted by researchers from the University of Twente and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, found that some smart meters give readings far higher than the actual amount of energy consumed. In fact, some of these meter readings were over 580 percent higher than they should have been.
Paying more to make you sicker
In the Netherlands, the government’s stated objective is to have a smart meter in every home by 2020, and at the time of the study they had already been installed in many homes. The research team set out to check how accurate the readings delivered by these smart meters would be, and their findings were shocking, to say the least.

Science & Technology

For Next Weapon in Anti-Protest Arsenal, US Military Building Plasma Gun Capable of Vaporizing Human Flesh
By John Queally (Common Dreams) — From wood batons to stun batons to water cannons to sound cannons to. . . frickin’ plasma lasers that can “vaporize” your skin?
Recent reporting out of the Pentagon reveals that the U.S. military is working on perfecting what they called a Scalable Compact Ultra-short Pulse Laser System (SCUPLS)—or plasma gun, for short—intended for mounting on a truck or a tank.
Billed as the military’s latest “crowd control” technology, what this has typically meant is a new “non-lethal” weapon designed for use by militaries or police forces against unruly demonstrators or those standing against powerful state actors or corporate forces.
According to U.S. government documents, the aim of the ongoing project is to develop “a lightweight and energy efficient next-generation Ultra-Short Pulse Laser (USPL) system that can produce sustainable and controllable plasma at range capable of inducing a full spectrum of scalable non-lethal effects.” As a so-called “scalable” weapon, it will be able to shoot not only piercing sounds, but also “burn off” or “vaporize” human skin, and ultimately could be used to kill its target.
As the Daily Mail recently explained, the weapon will be able to “produce a range of effects”:

At the lowest setting, the weapon can produce speech, and it will be able to warn people up to 3,200 feet (1,000m) away by delivering voice messages.
When it gets closer, the weapon will deliver a ‘Flash-bang effect’ by sending an ‘acoustic blast of ~ 165+ dB at minimum distance of 100 meters’.
It will also be able to send a ‘Flash blind effects (6-8 million candela)’ momentarily blinding people at minimum distance of 100 meters
The highest setting of the current model will let loose ‘Full scalable thermal ablative effects’ through common natural clothing (i.e., fabric, denim, leather, etc.) at minimum distance of 100 meters. This would painfully vaporize the outer layer of skin – rather than burning it will be turned into gas.

Vaporizing skin? Yes, that’s precisely what “scalable thermal ablative effects” means.
Ultimately, as the government’s program plan lays out, the weapon would “have direct application to many other U.S. Government agencies as well as civilian law enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of Justice, the Secret Service, and Customs and Border Protection also desire this full spectrum of effects capability. The ability to non-lethally interdict a threatening person or persons has utility in many security and crowd control applications to include several municipal applications.”

Giant galaxy supercluster found lurking in early Universe
AFP – Scientists have discovered a primitive “supercluster” of galaxies forming in the early Universe, just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.
The structure, nicknamed Hyperion, is the largest and most massive to be found so early in the formation of the Universe, which sprang into existence around 13.7 billion years ago.
Its titanic mass is one million billion times that of the Sun.
“This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high redshift, just over two billion years after the Big Bang,” said Olga Cucciati, a researcher at the Astrophysics and Space Sciences Observatory in Bologna and lead author of a study detailing the discovery.

China Plans to Launch ‘Artificial Moon’
Time – The night skies might soon have company: Chinese scientists are planning to launch an artificial moon into orbit by 2020 to illuminate city streets after dark.
Scientists are hoping to hang the man-made moon above the city of Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, according to a report in Chinese state media. The imitation celestial body — essentially an illuminated satellite — will bear a reflective coating to cast sunlight back to Earth, where it will supplement streetlights at night.
Scientists estimated that it could be eight times more luminous than the actual, original moon. It will also orbit much closer to Earth; about 500 km (310 miles) away, compared to the moon’s 380,000 km (236,000 miles).
But the ambitious plan still wouldn’t “light up the entire night sky,” Wu Chunfeng, chief of the Tian Fu New Area Science Society, told China Daily. “Its expected brightness, in the eyes of humans, is around one-fifth of normal streetlights.”

Health

Artificial Sweeteners Are Toxic to Gut Bacteria, Study Reveals
Mercola – Animal research shows all artificial sweeteners currently approved and deemed safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cause DNA damage in, and interfere with the normal and healthy activity of, gut bacteria.
Artificial sweeteners reviewed in this study include aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, neotame, advantame and acesulfame potassium-k.
Saccharin caused the greatest, most widespread damage, exhibiting both cytotoxic and genotoxic effects, meaning it is toxic to cells and damages genetic information in the cell (which can cause mutations).
Aspartame and acesulfame potassium-k were both found to cause DNA damage. Neotame was found to cause metabolic disruption, and raised concentrations of several fatty acids, lipids and cholesterol.
Other recent research shows artificial sweeteners damage vascular function and cause cellular changes that may be important during the onset and progression of diabetes and obesity.

Mugwort: A Weed to Some, but a Beneficial Herb to Others
Mercola – However, not all weeds are inherently bad — some can actually be beneficial to your health, like mugwort.
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is an aromatic plant with a rich history, with many ancient cultures having numerous uses for it. Its botanical name is derived from Artemis, the Greek goddess for chastity, virginity, the hunt and the environment.
Mugwort plays an important role in Chinese acupuncture, with a history going back around 3,000 years.5 It is used in moxibustion, a process where mugwort leaves are gathered into sticks or cones the size of a cigar, and then burned over an acupuncture point to help release energy.
Moxibustion can help treat menstrual cramping, stimulate a regular menstrual cycle and may even aid unborn infants to move into the correct position prior to delivery. In a study published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, researchers noticed that performing moxibustion at the tip of the fifth toe yielded positive results for infants in the breech position.
Native American tribes in California also use mugwort in their folk medicine tradition. It is believed to help with common conditions such as pain, colds and allergies.
Different Uses of Mugwort You May Like
Despite being classified as a weed, mugwort surprisingly has several practical applications, which you may find useful. The most well-known include:9

Cooking ingredient — Mugwort leaves are known for their bitter flavor. You can use them for flavoring meat or fish, or even add them to a green smoothie.
Dream pillow — This is a small pillow filled with one or more aromatic herbs, which can help provide a relaxing sleep. Mugwort is a popular choice for this particular product.10
Natural insecticide — Mugwort’s aroma is useful in helping keep pests out of your garden. If you plan to try this method, keep mugwort in a pot because it can spread rapidly throughout your garden if planted on soil.
Incense — Create a mugwort incense to help kill bad bacteria and spread a wonderful aroma around your home.

Children’s Lack of Sleep Is a Hidden Health Crisis
Mercola – In England, the number of children and teens aged 16 years and under admitted to a hospital due to a sleep disorder rose from about 6,500 in 2012-2013 to nearly 9,500 in 2017.
Most of the admissions were due to sleep apnea, with 8,274 admissions alone in 2017-2018.
Obesity in children could be playing a role in sleep apnea, as it puts extra stress on the upper airway, which can cause it to collapse, leading to sleep apnea.
High school students who sleep six hours or less each night are twice as likely to engage in risky behaviors as those who sleep for eight hours (and only 30 percent of the students in the study averaged eight hours of sleep a night).
Among high schoolers, sleeping less than six hours a night was also linked to a threefold increased risk of considering or attempting suicide.

Pet News

Probiotics prevent gastrointestinal parasitic disease in goats
NaturalNews – Probiotic supplementation is known to provide multiple benefits for farm animals, leading to the increasing popularity of probiotic cleansing among livestock owners. A study published in the American Journal of Animal and Veterinary Sciences sought to determine how probiotic drenching affected the population of gut parasites in young goats and obtained very interesting findings.
Gut parasites are an important consideration for any livestock farmer because of their impact on the health of farm animals. Left unchecked, these parasites may cause severe and often fatal diseases in livestock.
For instance, the barber pole worm (Haemonchus contortus) occupies the stomach of goats and suck the animals’ blood from there. An infestation of Haemonchus leads to severe blood loss, anemia, diarrhea, dehydration, and death.
Coccidiosis is caused by coccidia, parasites belonging to the same class of organisms as the pathogens that cause malaria. This parasitic condition is also characterized by diarrhea, anemia, and dehydration. Kid goats are especially susceptible. Although they may appear normal outwardly, infected goats may exhibit weakness, loss of appetite, and even retarded growth rates. At its worst, coccidiosis results in death.
Chemical medications are the most common treatment solutions for parasitic diseases, but their potential side effects on the health of both animals and the humans who consume products from said animals leave much to be desired. Moreover, when it comes to parasites, prevention is always better than cure. (Related: Chickens that drink untreated water don’t grow as fast as poultry given clean water.)
Probiotics, more fondly known as friendly gut bacteria, have been shown to have many health benefits for both humans and animals. In humans, particularly, maintaining a healthy probiotic population can improve one’s immunity and lower the risk of certain diseases. Gut bacteria are also crucial to maintaining an overall healthy digestive tract.
The many benefits of probiotics are why many livestock farmers turn to them to improve the health of their animals. Supplements are usually administered at a regular basis and from a young age to help the animals build a strong immunity.