1606: Food Noise

Hey John,

At first when I heard you guys talking about the Israel/Gaza conflict, I

thought, man they're glib, don't they care about people dying? But then

I realized my attitude is what was intended by these events, the way

they have been presented in the media. I can't verify hardly any of it,

and the Big Players are hot to get involved and spend money and stir

people up. We're probably better off just ignoring the whole thing. So

be glib as much as you want.

Keep up the good work,

Anon Mark

If you read the text in the link you will know all you need to know about it. If you don't have the patience, although I recommend to read it, I can tell you that there was no letter but a book. Leo Taxil, a freemason, wrote a book where there are found the last words from the so called letter; the part that starts with "we will unleash the atheists and the nihilists..." The 3 wars were a speculation of William Guy Carr. This is all you can understand from the article I send you but...

It is my oppinion, and from my research, I think that Leo Taxil didn't really left freemasonry for christianity, but he sought to save masonry's behind from the debacle in the aftermath of the satanic panic of the time caused in France by the real letter of Albert Pike where he says that masonry's god is Satan. This caused a comotion within freemasonry in France, like a civil war. Leo Taxil wrote this books about the suposed satanists in freemasonry then he pretended it was all a hoax. He even "fooled" the Pope with his claims, for ten years, but then he claimed he just wanted to make fun of people. It was a psy-op in my oppinion.

Link

Link

The journey began with Netanyahu’s shocking assertion that the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York were “good,” leaving Yatom in disbelief. In subsequent sessions, Netanyahu equated Iran with Nazi Germany and went as far as dubbing Iran’s nuclear energy program a “flying gas chamber,” while suggesting that all Jews were living perpetually in Auschwitz. Yatom’s relentless attempts to guide his patient’s thinking proved fruitless, and as self-serving rationalizations continued to pour forth, they took a devastating toll on Yatom, ultimately leading to his tragic downfall.

Potential Book Unveiled

Yatom’s unfinished manuscript, entitled “Psychotic On Steroids,” was uncovered among his personal belongings. This remarkable find provides a unique and tantalizing glimpse into the profound struggle that characterized his valiant effort to comprehend the labyrinthine depths of the Prime Minister’s thoughts and actions. The manuscript, though incomplete, sheds light on the extraordinary challenges Yatom faced in attempting to guide his illustrious patient towards a rational understanding of reality.

Link

In the morning!

This caught my ear in today's show: you played a clip about increasing infant mortality in the US... where the anchor repeats "another factor is limits on abortion..." but I just read this last week a piece about how abortions have increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

I only see the clip in the show notes, but it looks like the infant mortality bit came from the CDC:'

Link

... it sure looks like they're trying hard to spin this into being about abortion bans. The CDC doesn't mention abortion outright, but their release states "infant mortality rates increased in Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, and Texas."

Well, this is odd. If you look at the data table in the report, while those States did have an increase... but they leave out all the other States which saw increases, some even larger. The footnote indicates this has to do with the p-value; they only highlighted "significant" changes with a p-value < 0.05. I can't check this without far more detailed data than they provide, but as a cheap check it seems like I should be able to look at the raw number of births as a rough proxy (maybe someone better with statistics would point out if this is stupid of me). There are States in the rising rates group with higher birth rates, and higher infant mortality: Arizona, Utah, Oregon, and Wisconsin & Tennessee come in just under Texas' increase in infant mortality. On the other side, Alabama saw a big drop in infant mortality! Maybe I'm too suspicious, but this smells like politicized research written in such a way as to seem not too obviously politicized.

Anyway, there's been a couple stories recently about how abortion across the United States as a whole is going up, not down, after the Dobbs decision. Even if it is going down in some States, there's a lot of people traveling to other States to get abortions.

Link

https://reason.com/2023/09/07/over-a-year-after-dobbs-abortions-have-increased-nationwide/

Of course, Guttmacher (also cited in the Reason article) was even apparently reporting an increase by 2020:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/11/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/

I dunno, but nowadays I wouldn't put it past the CDC to write their reports slanted just a bit to push public policy. Of course with some backchannel messaging to "experts" and reporters to push the story that increasing infant mortality should be linked to abortion policy when they talk about it.

As for the COVID-19 vaccine the CDC recommended for all infants at six months of age... well, it does look like the increase was split with the bigger rise being in neonatal deaths than in postnatal deaths. But then I'm sure a lot of pregnant women have gotten themselves vaccinated, too...

--

Sir Matters

See Trilium docs!

A group of Australian academics has “unreservedly apologised” for including factually incorrect allegations about big consulting firms – produced by a generative AI tool – to a Senate inquiry submission.

In a letter to the Senate, Emeritus Professor James Guthrie AM – a professor in the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance at Macquarie University – admitted to having used Google Bard AI to research information for a submission to a Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the Big 4 consulting firms, with numerous false claims being generated, as reported by The Guardian.

Link

You referenced Greg little back in late SEPT, and it’s the tip of the iceberg of corruption: first with BAH, and now with palantir…

I’ll give you all the inside baseball - the F35s, for example, had to have their financials pushed via excel to Greg’s programs… they can’t even move data into DFAS.

FOS government corruption…

Link

Hello, Adam,

I’m just sending a little insight into some of the things I’ve seen working for a poultry processing plant in Ohio. I would estimate 90%of the production workers are South American, here, and working, under falsified documents. I naively assumed that most had come here under legal circumstances, but I quickly learned that was absolutely not possible. I became aware of what was going on while scheduling the native South Americans in my job as a Production Planner. I would have workers come to me on a random day of the week and tell me they needed to take a week’s vacation, starting the next day, and that they would be traveling to Chicago. No other explanation. They would leave, and when they came back, they had new names and paperwork. So, for example, “Francisco Reyes”, whom I’d known that way for multiple years, would come back as “Santiago Rodriguez”. And, no one was supposed to question how this happened or why. I was astounded, but it happened over and over. There seems to be a network in Chicago that facilitates this and has for years. Whether it’s a government agency or something underground, I don’t know. They all feign ignorance when pressed. But, it is happening.

Just wanted to add a little piece to the ongoing saga of the “legal/illegal” immigrant.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is when you experience severe emotional pain because of a failure or feeling rejected. This condition is linked to ADHD and experts suspect it happens due to differences in brain structure. Those differences mean your brain can’t regulate rejection-related emotions and behaviors, making them much more intense.

Cleveland Clinic

MUSTIE” acronym (Misleading, Unpleasant, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, Elsewhere).

Canada

Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is when you experience severe emotional pain because of a failure or feeling rejected. This condition is linked to ADHD and experts suspect it happens due to differences in brain structure. Those differences mean your brain can’t regulate rejection-related emotions and behaviors, making them much more intense.

Cleveland Clinic

Adam,

On the latest episode, the Sam Bankman-Fried arc hit on a movement called Effective Altruism. I have been socially adjacent to this group for a long time and thought you might appreciate some boots on the ground context

EA falls out of a community called LessWrong. Lesswrong is (was, anyway; I haven't been involved in years) best described as "a male self improvement cult for autistic Jewish programmers". It was started by a fellow named Eliezer Yudkowsky, who drew inspiration from rabbinical teachings and combined it with, for lack of a better word, extremely autistic navel-gazing, in order to write a bunch of guides on cognitive biases, human failings, and how to overcome them.

Yudkowsky had another angle though. This whole project was essentially a scheme by him to get everyone on board with his big idea: AI risk. AI risk, colloquially, is "the fear that Terminator was a non-fiction movie". If you dive into it, there's actually some really important ideas there, along the lines of "how do we make sure AI behaves properly, and does what we _meant_ instead of some monkey's-paw curse? How do we make sure that AI doesn't try to outsmart us, with deadly consequences?". However, these ideas were poorly understood by a lot of the LessWrong people, and poorly communicated, and so they mostly sound ridiculous

The LessWrong community has a few foibles, and one of them is that they are way too naieve and trusting. So, over the past 5-10 years, they've been co-opted by the same trans marxist woke stuff that everyone else was. Now, "AI risk" has been co-opted from what it actually was, to "how do we make AI not right wing".

Anyways, the LessWrong community was constantly experimenting with silly ideas that only an autistic computer programmer could think are good. Consequently, a lot of them are utilitarians and take utilitarianism as axiomatically, obviously true. "Effective Altrusim" originated out of this drive.

When EA started, the sales pitch was pretty simple: most charity is bullshit. You donate to some local charity, they spend 80% of the money on 'overhead' and the remaining 20% of the money on, say, a statue in the town square. If you really like statues and wasting money, that's cool. But if you're someone who really wants to do the utilitarian-best-thing with your money, that's not cool.

The EA movement was intended to be like a community policing function for charities. But it very quickly turned into an exercise of "how do we save the most lives with smallest donations" (Note: deworming pills and mosquito nets for Africa is what they came up with). This has since also become co-opted. Everyone in the LessWrong/EA community is utilitarian but they always take as a given that their definition of utility is universally correct. In reality, the person who picks the utility function can poison this system to generate whatever result they want.

So for example, EA takes as given that human lives are fungible, and that there is no moral difference between saving the life of an American vs a Bangladeshi or whatever. Of course, I think a lot of people disagree with that. After all, I'd rather save the life of my mother, an American, than ten thousand Africans, and I think most other people would feel the same. But the utilitarians say that one life is one life, wherever it is, and this immediately turned everything into a "give money to africa" policy that you can't argue against.

In any case, this sort of 'arguing over what the real utility function is' was the vector by which politicization came in. Then AI started becoming a big deal, and the powers that be noticed that this organization had spent the last 15 years basically declaring themselves the experts of AI. The powers that be did what they do, and co-opted everything. Most of the LW/EA people were too naieve and trusting to understand what happened, and got snowed. Then SBF happened, and that takes us to where we are.

As an aside, there is a very active community of LW/EA people in Austin. I've met five people who took funding from Alameda Capital, and one person who claims to have been to their office in the Bahamas or wherever it was. It is very bizarre, seeing the public reporting, then hearing the private commentary, and seeing two complementary but distinct realities.

I have a love-hate relationship with this community. I think they have some really good ideas. If you have way too much free time, you can check out some of their oldest and goodest ideas here https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/sequences. But at the same time, the community is obviously ridiculous, and has all of the drama you'd expect out of a community that is 90% autistic men, 8% autistic trans women, and 2% autistic women, all of whom make >$200k a year. If you really want to laugh (or cry), check out https://twitter.com/aella_girl (PROBABLY NSFW); this individual is an autistic woman and camgirl/escort who has figured out how to exploit this rationalist community and is single-handedly destroying it in Austin. Her twitter is a pretty representative example of the culture in this community.

I think I might have written in to you about them once before. This is the community that came up with 'bi-hacking', the idea that a bunch of sad lonely men who can't get dates could date each other if only they reverse-conversion-therapy'd themselves into being gay. (It didn't work). This is a community that comes up with these kinds of crazy ideas. They were off doing their own thing, being weirdos that nobody cared about for ten years. Then suddenly the world changed and now everyone cares about them. Their community was not prepared for this and has turned into an even bigger mockery of itself than it was when I quit it in 2018

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but when you talk about things that I have direct personal knowledge of on your show, I want to share that knowledge like a good producer would

Have a great day,

-Tim

I think I gave my bio previously but this involves my time as a USAID (let's say " foreign aid...") investigator .

I hand counted, or directed local African nation military or police staff, to hand count tens of thousands of mosquito bed nets over my time in the job. If I recall correctly, these came bundled in 500 pieces per pallet and 2000 or 5000 per production lot. Each piece was to have specific packaging with information in the right languages and the prominent USA logos.

When asking local counterfeit net sellers in open markets, they always said that the US government logos on real-deal nets told buyers that the nets were top of the line--one guy in Nigeria said "like the Nike swoosh."

Street scammers and local government functionaries were stealing bed nets left and right. At a few bucks each--when bought in the hundreds of thousands bulk--its a modest taxpayer funded intervention against malaria or dengue. But the fraud is rampant.

What the hell would some tech asshole think throwing money at bed nets would make a damn bit of difference? If you don't watch the supply chain like a hawk, you are getting the shitty Chinese nets without the insecticide impregnation--and seeing them resold at 10x the cost. Probably when the buyer is a resident of a country unfriendly to the US where they can't get them for free. Boo boo boo

Best regards,

Bed nets black market expert

Adam—LOL, guess who’s suing Joe Biden and trying to join the SCOTUS appeal? None other than Bobby the Op.

I’ve attached a highlighted copy of Bobby Kennedy’s short motion asking SCOTUS for permission to “intervene” (that is, make himself a party). Savor it.

Long story short, Kennedy filed a parallel lawsuit in the District Court. His case was consolidated with Missouri v. Biden. But he was not part of the appeal because (1) the cases weren’t consolidated until after the original plaintiffs filed their Fifth Circuit appeal, and (2) Kennedy’s motion for a preliminary injunction was separate from that of the original plaintiffs—it hasn’t been ruled on and is in a holding pattern until the appeal is resolved.

Consequently, Kennedy had to sit on the sidelines and watch the Fifth Circuit appeal as a spectator. But now that SCOTUS has granted cert, he understandably wants to be heard because a SCOTUS ruling will affect his case. As you’ll see, his arguments are all well-presented.

Now here’s the sad part: Neither the government nor even the original plaintiffs want to let Kennedy play—they’re all opposing his motion. Their arguments are all technical ones; I won’t bore you with them unless you want details. Suffice it to say that the government wants no part of Kennedy. And while the original plaintiffs are definitely sympathetic to him, I think they may want to keep things streamlined instead of having a potential loose cannon on deck.

I don’t know whether SCOTUS will decide let Kennedy in. But even if they don’t, I would expect to see plenty of “backup” briefing in the form of amicus briefs filed by organizations sympathetic to his cause.

Hi,

We have four cases of poisoning with Coca Cola products in Croatia (mineral water and coke).

One bottle is produced in Austria others in Croatia.

Hate to be conspiratorial, but … from one plant is a “glitch”, from two is … you know …

Take care,

B

It probaly is a saborage.

It started as a whatsapp viral message about one about a case in Rijeka (coastal city where they bottle Coke). Message apparently originated from a hospital.

Police came out with a warning they will arrest and fine author of the message (believing it was a hoax). I thought it was a hoax also until other cases were reported.

My guess is that was attempt to squash a story by the company.

Officialy, they were cleaning bottling machine with some sort of acid and didn’t wash it off properly.

Nobody died yet.

Large chains pulled everything today but vending machines are still full.

Affected products are Romerquelle water (Austria) and Coca Cola… for now

They also anounced to raise the price for Coke in coffe shops from this friday.

B.

Link

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:33

It is with profound sadness that we report the tragic passing of one of Israel's leading psychiatrists, Dr. Moshe Yatom, who served as the personal psychiatrist to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Dr. Yatom was found dead in his home in Tel Aviv, the victim of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Dr. Yatom was renowned for his work in treating the most severe forms of mental illness, earning him a distinguished reputation in the field of psychiatry. His commitment to his patients and his relentless pursuit of innovative therapeutic techniques made him a respected figure within the psychiatric community.

However, the pressures of his work, particularly his decade-long service to Prime Minister Netanyahu, weighed heavily on him. In a heart-wrenching suicide note left behind, Dr. Yatom painted a bleak picture of his struggle to understand and help his high-profile patient7.

His death has sent shockwaves through Israel's psychiatric community, prompting widespread despair and a fear of a therapeutic crisis. The tragic loss of such an esteemed and dedicated professional is deeply distressing.

The news of Dr. Yatom's suicide underscores the immense pressures that mental health professionals often face. It serves as a grim reminder of the importance of mental health awareness and support, not only for patients but also for the caregivers who bear the responsibility of their care.

As we mourn this tragic loss, let us remember Dr. Yatom for his contributions to psychiatry and his dedication to his patients. His life and career serve as a testament to the profound impact that mental health professionals can have on their patients' lives.

Our thoughts and condolences go out to Dr. Yatom's family, friends, and the entire psychiatric community. May his memory serve as a call for increased support and understanding for those struggling with mental health issues, including the professionals who dedicate their lives to helping others.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:03

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 1, 2023

Presiding Judge Jed Rakoff, in the JPMorgan-Epstein Related Suits in NY Federal Court

The Attorneys General of 16 states and Washington, D.C. are challenging the settlement crafted by Big Law firm WilmerHale on behalf of JPMorgan Chase and by the high-profile lawyer, David Boies, on behalf of the sex-trafficked victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein.

The class action settlement agreement was filed with the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York in June. The court set a date of November 9 for the final Fairness Hearing '' a legal requirement for class action settlements where the court must hear from any objectors impacted by the agreement. Depending on the strength of those objections, the Court could decide to reject the settlement as not ''fair, adequate and reasonable'' as required under Rule 23 for class actions, and ask the parties to go back to the drawing board.

The state Attorneys General filing the objection with the court represent two states where much of Epstein's sex trafficking of minors occurred '' New York and New Mexico '' as well as those from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont. Noticeably absent is the Attorney General for Florida, the state where Epstein was able to turn local underage school girls into his sex slaves for years and get a sweetheart 13-month work release deal from prosecutors.

Under the federal law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Attorneys General have the right to bring claims on behalf of sex trafficked victims. The language in the JPMorgan Chase settlement proposes to extinguish those rights according to the State Attorneys General who told the court the following:

''Section 1.25 [of the proposed settlement agreement] releases claims that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Class's harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof. (Emphasis added.)''

''Any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein'' includes a large number of billionaires '' including Epstein's money man, Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of the retailing conglomerate that previously owned Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, and other retail chains; and Leon Black, the former CEO of private equity firm Apollo Global Management who paid Epstein $158 million for questionable reasons that have become the subject of a Senate Finance Committee investigation. There are literally hundreds of high-profile individuals that were listed in Epstein's little black book that could be considered ''connected'' to him.

Many of the individuals listed in Epstein's little black book '' a total of 1,571 '' have had important banking relationships with JPMorgan Chase. Some of those ultra wealthy individuals were referred to the bank by Jeffrey Epstein. Wexner's retailing businesses were longstanding clients of JPMorgan Chase; Leon Black was referred to JPMorgan Chase by Epstein. In a court filing on July 26 by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has since settled its Epstein-related case against JPMorgan Chase for $75 million, it listed the following individuals as people Epstein referred as clients to the bank: Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates; Google co-founder and billionaire Sergey Brin; the Sultan of Dubai, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; media and real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman; and numerous others.

JPMorgan was sued by Epstein victims for facilitating Epstein's child sex-trafficking for more than a decade by providing him with cozy banking services, which included sluicing to him millions of dollars in hard cash from his accounts, sometimes as much as $40,000 to $80,000 a month. The bank failed to file the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) that it is legally required to file with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for those payments in cash. Epstein's quid pro quo with the bank included him referring valuable business deals and clients to JPMorgan Chase. These allegations were substantiated by 22 pages of internal bank emails released in the related case brought against the bank by the U.S. Virgin Islands.

JPMorgan Chase raised a lot of eyebrows on Wall Street when it agreed to settle the case brought by David Boies on behalf of Epstein victims for the stunning sum of $290 million '' with $87 million of that going to Boies and the other lawyers representing the victims.

Wall Street On Parade was the only media outlet that did a deep dive at the time into the details of that settlement agreement to find out exactly what JPMorgan Chase thought it was getting for its hefty $290 million price tag. We called out the warts as follows:

'''...the attorneys for the unnamed victims are requesting $87 million in legal fees from the $290 million settlement amount, plus another $2.5 million in expenses. The victims, on the other hand, are guaranteed no minimum monetary payment but must file a release form before they learn if they will get a dime. This language appears in the settlement documents:

'All Class Members shall be bound by all determinations and judgments in the Litigation concerning the Settlement (including, but not limited to, the releases provided for therein) whether favorable or unfavorable to the Class, regardless of whether such Persons seek or obtain by any means (including, without limitation, by submitting a Questionnaire and Release, or any similar document) any distribution from the Net Settlement Fund.'

'''...In addition to having to first sign a release form in order to file a claim for a monetary award with the Claims Administrator (who is also released from liability), Epstein's victims will have to officially opt-out of this settlement in writing or be 'forever' bound by its terms. Even if the victims never hear about this settlement or never receive a notice about the terms of this settlement, if they don't opt-out in writing, they are bound by the terms of the settlement '' meaning that they can't assert their claims individually against JPMorgan Chase, its executives or personnel that covered up for Epstein, in a lawsuit of their own. The relevant section of the settlement reads:

'No Class Member is relieved from the terms of the Settlement, including the Releases provided for therein, based upon the contention or proof that such Class Member failed to receive actual or adequate notice.'

''The claims that victims are releasing are sweeping in scope. The settlement includes this problematic language in one part of the release:

'This release is intended to release, to the maximum extent allowable under law, any claims, rights and causes of action against Released Defendant Parties of every nature and description'...including both known and Unknown Claims'...whether arising under federal law, state law, statutory law, common law, foreign law, or any other law, rule, or regulation, that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Class's harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof.'

'''...The suggestion that private litigants and their attorneys can quash a government entity's right to bring claims under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act is quite a stretch'...

''The language in the release form that releases 'any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof' does not specify that it is referring just to employees of JPMorgan Chase. It could be read to mean that victims are releasing the powerful friends of Jeffrey Epstein that he referred to the bank as clients. In the tangle of legalese in the settlement documents, a victim '' and potentially, even their outside attorney '-- might not understand exactly what is being released.

''Because Epstein victims who don't opt out in writing will be bound by the onerous terms of this settlement, it is, thus, very critical, that class members actually receive the settlement notice with the opt-out instructions. But instead of the notice being mailed by registered/return receipt mail with a signature required, the settlement documents indicate the notice will be sent by first-class mail or email. Moreover, even if a victim can prove that they didn't receive the notice, they still relinquish their rights to bring a separate lawsuit if they don't file a written opt-out within the time prescribed.

''There is also a 'Confidential Term Sheet' referenced in the settlement documents which we could not locate on the court docket. There is a reference to this term sheet as follows:

'Within 14 days after the end of the Notice Period, Defendant [JPMorgan Chase] has a right to terminate the Settlement pursuant to ¶10 of the Term Sheet.'

''If, indeed, this 'Confidential Term Sheet' has not been made public on the court docket, it would appear to constitute a secret, separate side agreement between the plaintiff attorneys and JPMorgan Chase. That could result in outside attorneys for Epstein victims raising a stink. Or not. Few attorneys are willing to get in the way of a $89.5 million payday for fellow attorneys'...

''The settlement documents propose to name Simone Lelchuk as the Claims Administrator with wide discretion on whether to make monetary awards to victims and how much. Lelchuk was also named as the Claims Administrator in a related case that the same attorneys for Epstein victims settled in May with Deutsche Bank. Lelchuk was one of the two attorneys selected in July of last year to mediate hundreds of sexual assault victim claims that were filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York under the Child Victims Act. Lelchuk and her mediation partner, Jed Melnick, were also named as mediators/Claims Examiners in Harvey Weinstein sexual assault/sexual misconduct cases, with four of the claimants filing an objection that raised ethics violations against the pair. (See paragraph 58 at this link.)'...''

In addition to the objections filed by the 17 Attorneys General, two Epstein victims have also filed objections. The objections filed by Jane Doe 7 have been sealed by the court on the premise that the court needs to protect her identity. Why a redacted document was not substituted, that provides the public with the nature of the objections while redacting any personal identifying information, is not explained by the court.

Another Epstein claimant, Sarah Ransome, filed formal objections through her attorney and also filed her own Declaration that provided context to her objections.

A key objection in the document filed by Ransome's attorney, James Marsh of the Marsh Law Firm in New York City, is this:

''The Plan of Allocation leaves the determination of individuals' settlement amounts entirely up to the Claims Administrator's discretion without providing clear guidelines as to how the Claims Administrator's assessment will be carried out or the amounts that will be assigned based on injury. Allocating funds in this way is completely arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, and inadequate to benefit the Class Members.''

Ransome states the following in her Declaration:

''As a result of this unilateral involuntary class action, all known and unknown survivors have lost the right to contest or reject their settlement offer and still file legal claims against the banks that provided the financial machinery that enabled Jeffrey Epstein's crimes'...

''There are no good options, and I once again feel entrapped and silenced by a class action process more suited to defective products than mass rape and worldwide human trafficking. Although my lawyers have explained that this is not permitted, the Court should allow survivors to reject their settlement offer and proceed to litigate against JP Morgan'...''

The Judge presiding over the case, Jed Rakoff, has given JPMorgan's attorneys and attorneys for the victims until November 6 to file written responses to the objections of the Attorneys General. The objections by the Epstein claimants will be heard on November 9 unless they are resolved before then.

Judge Rakoff is likely rethinking the position he took in June, when he stated in open court that this was ''a really fine settlement.''

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:02

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 9, 2023 ~

WilmerHale Law Partner, Felicia Ellsworth

On October 20 we reported that JPMorgan Chase, a serial recidivist when it comes to crime, had paid $1.085 billion in legal expenses in just the last six months. A nice chunk of that money went to the Big Law firm, WilmerHale, which has been representing JPMorgan Chase this year in multiple lawsuits involving the bank's dark history of financial dealings with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (See Related Articles at the bottom of this article.)

When the largest bank in the United States pays big bucks to a law firm with a roster of 1,000 attorneys, it doesn't expect its $290 million class action settlement with Jeffrey Epstein's victims to blow up in its face just days before the final Fairness Hearing '' a legally required court event to determine if the terms of the agreement are ''fair, adequate and reasonable.''

That Fairness Hearing will be conducted today in Judge Jed Rakoff's courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan at 4 p.m. It's a big embarrassment for both WilmerHale and JPMorgan Chase that 16 state Attorneys General and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia are objecting to the terms of the settlement, along with two Epstein claimants.

Judge Rakoff had given the lawyers that hatched the terms of the settlement until November 6 to file their responses to the Attorneys General challenges. The lawyers included WilmerHale representing JPMorgan Chase and high-profile attorney, David Boies (and others) representing the Epstein victims.

Boies brings a lot of baggage with him as a result of his prior representation of now convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and the strong-arm tactics Boies employed on Weinstein's behalf. (See Ronan Farrow's blockbuster investigative report in The New Yorker, Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies.)

We had anticipated that WilmerHale might file a respectful response to the Attorneys General objections, perhaps agreeing to change the language in the settlement that the Attorneys General found improper. These are, after all, the highest law enforcement offices in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

We could not have been more wrong. The response from WilmerHale effectively blasted the Attorneys General for sticking their nose where it didn't belong.

What the Attorneys General are challenging boils down to this: Under the federal law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Attorneys General have the right to bring claims on behalf of sex trafficked victims. The language in the JPMorgan Chase settlement proposes to extinguish those rights. The State Attorneys General explained it as follows in their filing with the court:

''Section 1.25 [of the proposed settlement agreement] releases claims that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Class's harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof. (Emphasis added.)''

WilmerHale and David Boies' settlement agreement hoped to pay Boies and his fellow lawyers working on behalf of the victims $87 million in legal fees; $2.5 million in legal expenses; and buy blanket immunity going forward for all those JPMorgan executives and the bank's ultra wealthy clients who were regular visitors to Epstein's mansions/brothels; as well as the bank's employees who were funneling $40,000 to $80,000 in hard cash each month to Epstein for over a decade while the bank failed to file the legally-mandated Suspicious Activity Reports.

It's a sweet deal for lawyers and a sweet deal for a recidivist money laundering bank. (See JPMorgan/Jeffrey Epstein Cases Are a Cross Between the Bank's Chinese Princeling Scandal and Madoff Fraud, Using Sex with Minors as a Bribe.) But it's a very bad deal for the public interest.

The lawyer who drafted and signed WilmerHale's response to the objections of the state Attorneys General was law partner, Felicia Ellsworth, the Vice Chair of WilmerHale's Litigation/Controversy Department. Ellsworth goes for the jugular with this in her response:

''Standing between the victims and this compensation are the Attorneys General of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont. These Attorneys General have no stake in this matter: they do not articulate any reason why the settlement would harm their states or their citizens. Just the opposite, their objection undermines the settlement and the victims they claim to support.

''First, there is no procedural mechanism for the Attorneys General'--who are neither parties to the case, nor members of the certified class'--to object to the proposed settlement.

''Second, the Attorneys General identify no legal or equitable flaw in the proposed settlement, whether to their respective States or to their citizens. With no stake in this case, the Court should decline the Attorneys General's invitation to issue an advisory opinion.''

In reality, the challenge from the Attorneys General very specifically identified the legal flaw in the settlement and cited to numerous examples of case law that backed up their arguments. In one section, they explained to the court as follows:

''In adding Section 1595(d) to the civil remedy section of the TVPA, which previously only explicitly recognized victim suits, Congress intended to 'unleash' the power of state law enforcement to prosecute these heinous sex-trafficking crimes, recognizing that, in many circumstances, victims are unable or unwilling to come forward and 'more prosecutors,' 'more investigators,' and 'more resources' are needed to 'address this growing problem throughout our country.''...'This amendment is needed in order to give enhanced powers to State attorneys general that they can provide the extra litigation leverage for individuals who are impacted in a devastating manner.''...If broad releases of non-party state Attorneys General law enforcement actions under the TVPA seeking victim-specific relief were deemed permissible without their express consent, state Attorneys General may be deterred from bringing these important civil law enforcement actions in the future '' upsetting Congress' very purpose in amending the TVPA to add state law enforcement.''

Related Articles:

New Court Documents Suggest the Justice Department Under Four Presidents Covered Up Jeffrey Epstein's Money Laundering at JPMorgan Chase

Former FBI Agent Prepared to Testify that JPMorgan Had Jeffrey Epstein Account for 28 Years '' Not 15 Years '' and ''Impeded'' Criminal Investigation of Epstein

JPMorgan Listed a ''Lolita's Closet'' on the New York Stock Exchange for Jeffrey Epstein's Money Man, Les Wexner

Gary Gensler's SEC Is Drawing a Dark Curtain Around Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, His Money Man Leslie Wexner and Their Ties to JPMorgan

JPMorgan Had a Secret Project that Is Now Spreading Its Scandalous Internal Emails with Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to News Outlets Worldwide

JPMorgan Is Alleged to Have Used Its Hedge Fund's Private Jet to Engage in Sex-Trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein

JPMorgan Chase and Jeffrey Epstein Were Both Involved in a Strange Offshore Company Called Liquid Funding

The Company Under Scrutiny in the Jeffrey Epstein Case Has Semi-Nude Young Females on its Board of Directors' Page

Jamie Dimon's Deposition in Epstein Case Reveals Email Stating that Dimon Was to Be Treated to ''Heavy Snacks'' at Epstein's Home

The Justice Department Has Had the Epstein Case Since July 2006 '' It's Time to Arrest Accomplices

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Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 14:28

Post-vaccine syndrome is a complex disease. Treatment must be individualized according to each patient's presenting symptoms and disease syndromes. Not all patients respond equally to the same intervention. Early treatment is essential; the response to treatment will likely be weaker when treatment is delayed.

This document is designed for healthcare providers caring for patients with symptoms following a COVID injection. While a handful of the therapies can be self-administered, we strongly recommend that patients consult with a healthcare provider before beginning any new treatment. (To find a provider, consult FLCCC's provider directory .)

There are also some important cautions and contraindications that should be carefully reviewed within the more comprehensive and detailed document called '' An Approach to Managing Post-Vaccine Syndrome '' and which should be discussed with a qualified provider as well.

This information is not intended to serve as a substitute for diagnosis, treatment, or advice from a qualified, licensed medical professional. The facts presented are offered as information '-- not medical advice. Any treatment protocol should be discussed with a trusted, licensed medical professional. Never stop or change medications without consulting your healthcare provider.

Treatment approach

It is important to emphasize that, since there are no published reports detailing how to treat vaccine-injured patients, our treatment approach is based on the postulated pathogenetic mechanisms, principles of pharmacology, clinical observations, and feedback from vaccine-injured patients themselves. We are constantly updating the approach as new data emerges and based on consultation with trusted healthcare providers.

Patients with post-vaccine syndrome must not receive further COVID-19 vaccines of any type. Likewise, patients with long COVID should avoid all COVID vaccinations.

Patients with post-vaccine syndrome should do whatever they can to prevent themselves from getting COVID-19. This may include a preventative protocol (see I-PREVENT ) or early treatment in the event you do contract the virus or suspect infection (see I-CARE ). COVID-19 will likely exacerbate the symptoms of vaccine injury.

Once a patient has shown improvement, the various interventions should be reduced or stopped one at a time. A less intensive maintenance approach is then suggested.

The core problem in post-vaccine syndrome is long-lasting ''immune dysregulation.'' The most important treatment goal is to help the body restore a healthy immune system '-- in other words, to let the body heal itself. Our recommended treatment strategy involves two major approaches:

Promote autophagy to help rid the cells of the spike proteinUse interventions that limit the toxicity/pathogenicity of the spike proteinWe recommend the use of immune-modulating agents and interventions to dampen and normalize the immune system rather than the use of immunosuppressant drugs, which may make the condition worse.

Although we have listed suggested therapies below, we strongly suggest that, before initiating any of the below therapeutics, all patients and providers closely review the more detailed and comprehensive document '-- '' An Approach to Managing Post-Vaccine Syndrome '' '-- for information regarding dosing, cautions, contraindications, and other important details.

(Not symptom specific; listed in order of importance)

Intermittent daily fasting or periodic daily fastsIvermectinModerating physical activityLow-dose naltrexoneNattokinaseAspirinMelatoninMagnesiumMethylene blueSunlight and PhotobiomodulationResveratrol(Listed in order of importance)

Vitamin D (with Vitamin K2)N-acetyl cysteineCardio Miracle' and L-arginine/L-citrulline supplementsOmega-3 fatty acidsSildenafil (with or without L-arginine- L-citrulline)Nigella sativaVitamin CSpermidineNon-invasive brain stimulationIntravenous Vitamin CBehavioral modification, relaxation therapy, mindfulness therapy, and psychological supportA note about anesthesia and surgery:

Patients should notify their anesthesia team if using the following medications and/or nutraceuticals, as they can increase the risk of Serotonin syndrome (SS) with opioid administration: Methylene blue Curcumin Nigella Sativa Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

About Ivermectin

Ivermectin is a well-known, FDA-approved drug that has been used successfully around the world for more than four decades. One of the safest drugs known, it is on the WHO's list of essential medicines, has been given over 3.7 billion times, and won the Nobel Prize for its global and historic impacts in eradicating endemic parasitic infections in many parts of the world.

Review the totality of supporting evidence for ivermectin in COVID-19.

It is likely that ivermectin and intermittent fasting act synergistically to rid the body of the spike protein.

It appears that vaccine-injured patients can be grouped into two categories: i) ivermectin responders and ii) ivermectin non-responders. This distinction is important, as the latter are more difficult to treat and require more aggressive therapy.

For ivermectin responders, prolonged and chronic daily treatment is often necessary to support their recovery. In many, if the daily ivermectin is discontinued worsening symptoms often recur within days.

Ivermectin is best taken with or just following a meal, for greater absorption.

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Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 13:48

Four current and former Los Angeles Sheriff's Department employees have died by suicide over 24 hours in a shocking tragedy that has rocked the city's law enforcement community.

Three current employees and one former employee died by suicide in a 24-hour span that began on Monday.

The first death was of Commander Darren Harris, who had served as the sheriff's department's chief spokesperson during his 25-year career. Harris was reportedly found dead in his Santa Clarita home Monday morning with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Later on Monday afternoon, authorities found the body of Sergeant Greg Hovland at his Quartz Hill home. Another employee was found dead just after sunset at a home in Stevenson Ranch. The next day, around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, a fourth sheriff's department employee was reported dead by suicide at a Pomona hospital. Sheriff's homicide detectives responded to the scene.

Already this year, four other sheriff's department employees had died by suicide, an agency spokesperson said.

Sheriff Robert Luna said the department's Homicide Bureau would investigate the deaths and urged deputies to check on each other in the wake of the deaths.

''We are stunned to learn of these deaths, and it has sent shock waves of emotions throughout the department as we try and cope with the loss of not just one, but four beloved active and retired members of our department family,'' Luna said Tuesday in a statement.

''During trying times like these it's important for personnel regardless of rank or position to check on the well-being of other colleagues and friends,'' the sheriff said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP

Luna said the department is ''urgently exploring avenues to reduce work stress factors to support our employees' work and personal lives.'' The sheriff added that the department's Psychological Services Bureau and the Injury and Health Support Unit is working to provide counseling and other resources to the families of the officers.

Since the pandemic, many in law enforcement say police departments have been suffering from flagging morale thanks to a wave of anti-police sentiment that peaked with the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. In some cases, city councils slashed police budgets, leaving some police chiefs feeling abandoned as they are stretched thin trying to keep residents safe.

Many police departments have also seen a mass exodus of officers over the last several years, along with difficulty hiring new officers.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

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Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 13:46

On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.

AP: Photojournalists or Infiltrators?Four names appear on AP's photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.

Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed into Israel, took photos of a burning Israeli tank, and then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

HonestReporting has obtained screenshots of Eslaiah's now-removed tweets on X in which he documented himself standing in front of the Israeli tank. He did not wear a press vest or a helmet, and the Arabic caption of his tweet read: ''Live from inside the Gaza Strip settlements.''

* * *

UPDATE: Shortly after the publication of this article, we were alerted to footage of Hassan Eslaiah next to the Israeli tank. In addition, a photo has surfaced showing Eslaiah with Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar.

And here is footage of Eslaiah after he crossed into Israel and took photos of a burning Israeli tank. He then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

Note that he is not identifiable as a member of the press. But AP & CNN deemed it acceptable to use his services. pic.twitter.com/fA0VI2df2i

'-- HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2023

In the above video, Eslaiah says in Arabic: ''Everyone who were inside this tank were kidnapped, everyone who were inside the tank were kidnapped a short while ago by al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas' armed wing], as we have seen with our own eyes.''

More photos he took in Kfar Azza show Hamas terrorists trying to breach the Kibbutz's fence and a burning house inside the community:

* * *

Masoud, who also works for The New York Times, was there as well '-- just in time to set foot in Israeli territory and take more tank pictures.

Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali were positioned to get pictures of the horrific abductions of Israelis into Gaza.

Mahmud captured the pickup truck carrying the body of German-Israeli Shani Louk and Ali got several shots of abductees being kidnapped into the Strip.

Interestingly, the names of the photographers, which appear on other sources, have been removed from some of the photos on AP's database. Perhaps someone at the agency realized it posed serious questions regarding their journalistic ethics.

Reuters: Lynching as ''Image of the Day''Reuters has published pictures from two photojournalists who also happened to be at the border just in time for Hamas' infiltration: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih.

They both took pictures of a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of the border, but Abu Mustafa went further: He took photos of a lynch mob brutalizing the body of an Israeli soldier who was dragged out of the tank.

Reuters was kind enough to add a graphic warning to the photo caption, but it didn't prevent editors from shamelessly labeling it as one of the ''Images of the Day'' on their editorial database.

Let's be clear: News agencies may claim that these people were just doing their job. Documenting war crimes, unfortunately, may be part of it. But it's not that simple.

It is now obvious that Hamas had planned its October 7 attack on Israel for a very long time: its scale, its brutal aims and its massive documentation have been prepared for months, if not years. Everything was taken into account '-- the deployments, the timing, as well as the use of bodycams and mobile phone videos for sharing the atrocities.

Is it conceivable to assume that ''journalists'' just happened to appear early in the morning at the border without prior coordination with the terrorists? Or were they part of the plan?

Even if they didn't know the exact details of what was going to happen, once it unfolded did they not realize they were breaching a border? And if so, did they notify the news agencies? Some sort of communication was undoubtedly necessary '-- before, after or during the attack '-- in order to get the photos published.

* * *

REACTIONS UPDATE: After publication of this article, a spokeswoman for the Associated Press quoted by the Daily Wire denied any advance knowledge of the attack, although HonestReporting did not make such accusation. ''The Associated Press had no knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks before they happened,'' said Nicole Meir. ''The role of the AP is to gather information on breaking news events around the world, wherever they happen, even when those events are horrific and cause mass casualties. AP uses images taken by freelancers around the world, including in Gaza.''

According to Ynet News, CNN has decided to suspend ties with Eslaiah despite not finding ''any reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work he has done for us.''

A day after the publication, Reuters has issued a statement to which HonestReporting replied as follows:

Please read our report. We did not accuse @Reuters of collusion. We quite rightly raised some serious ethical issues regarding news outlets' association with these freelancers and asked important and relevant questions that everyone deserves answers to.https://t.co/KcdXMd4DYF https://t.co/MmCvA5orDo

'-- HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 9, 2023

The New York Times has yet to respond to media requests for comment.

Israel's Public Diplomacy Directorate at the Prime Minister's office issued a statement saying it viewed with ''severity'' the phenomenon of journalists covering Hamas' atrocities, labeling them as ''accomplices to crimes against humanity.'' The statement added that the Israeli Government Press office has sent an official complaint demanding explanations and ''immediate action'' from the relevant media outlets.

The Jerusalem Journalists Association has called on the relevant international media outlets to launch a thorough inquiry into questions arising from this exposure.

* * *

Either way, when international news agencies decide to pay for material that has been captured under such problematic circumstances, their standards may be questioned and their audience deserves to know about it. And if their people on the ground actively or passively collaborated with Hamas to get the shots, they should be called out to redefine the border between journalism and barbarism.

Found this article informative? Follow the HonestReporting page on Facebook to read more articles debunking news bias and smears, as well as others explaining Israel's history, politics, and international affairs. Click here to learn more!

Photo Credits: Abed Rahim Khatib via Flash90, Structuresxx via Shutterstock

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Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 02:30

After 118 days of the actors guild being out on strike, SAG-AFTRA and the studios on Wednesday reached a tentative deal on a new contract that could see Hollywood up and running again within weeks.

The strike will be over as of 12:01 a.m. PT on Thursday, November 9, we hear, putting an end to more than seven months of labor unrest in Hollywood that saw the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA hit the picket lines in the industry's first joint strike in more than 60 years.

Culminating a dramatic day of studio earnings results and deadline ultimatums, the actors guild's 17-member negotiating committee unanimously voted this afternoon to recommend a tentative agreement to the SAG-AFTRA board.

Specific details of the deal are expected to be revealed when the agreement goes to the board Friday.

Coming just less than a month after Writers Guild members overwhelmingly ratified their own agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, SAG-AFTRA's deal is the culmination of the latest round of renewed negotiations that began October 24. Indicating the seriousness and stakes of the negotiations, Netflix's Ted Sarandos, Disney's Bob Iger, NBCUniversal's Donna Langley and Warner Bros Discovery's David Zaslav frequently directly participated in the talks.

The tentative agreement follows the studios responding last Friday to the guild's last comprehensive counter with a self-described ''historic'' package. That was succeeded less than 24 hours later by an expanded group of studio leaders '-- including execs from Paramount, Amazon, Apple and more '-- joining the Gang of Four to brief SAG-AFTRA on the AMPTP's offer, which was said to include big gains in wages and bonuses as well as sweeping AI protections.

''We didn't just come toward you, we came all the way to you,'' Sarandos told guild leaders Saturday before SAG-AFTRA brass began digging into the fine print. Further talks between the two sides began earlier this week as the guild poured over the studios' latest set of proposals.

After talks throughout this week, the AMPTP told SAG-AFTRA midday today that it needed to know if a deal was possible or not by 5 p.m. PT, saying it was running out of time to save the broadcast season and the 2024 summer movie slate.

The agreement was confirmed about a half hour later.

RELATED: Dispatches From The Picket Lines: Here's How Things Played Out In Los Angeles & New York

If all goes as planned and the board signs off on the tentative deal, eligible members of the 160,000-strong actors guild will vote soon to ratify the new agreement. Also, with SAG-AFTRA pulling the plug on the strike just after midnight and before the ratification vote is completed, people could be back to work soon and production restarted quickly.

Exposing many of the shifts and divisions in the industry over the past decade, today's tentative agreement comes at the end of a long road filled with diversions and potholes.

Overall, the six months of Hollywood strikes is estimated to have cost the Southern California economy more than $6.5 billion and 45,000 entertainment industry jobs after production ground to a halt with the WGA hitting the picket lines in early May and SAG-AFTRA following in mid-July. On an individual level, the labor action garnered passionate unity among guild members. At the same time, a fact not lost on the studios and their strategy, many guild members have suffered crippling financial hardship, as have below-the-line workers, going months without work.

RELATED: SAG-AFTRA Strike Photos: Actors & Performing Artists On The Picket Line

After calling the strike July 14, it took the guild and the studio CEOs' Gang of Four around 80 days before their first official face-to-face talks at SAG-AFTRA headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard. For all the optimism and momentum coming out of the completed WGA deal, those new deliberations between SAG-AFTRA and the studios that began October 2 blew apart on October 11, with the AMPTP leaving negotiations early after the guild tabled an alternative to its contentious revenue-sharing proposal. A few hours later, expecting more scheduled talks the next day, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland received a call saying deliberations were ''suspended.''

''Last night, they introduced a levy on subscribers on top of [other] areas,'' Sarandos said the next day at an industry conference, calling the proposal a ''bridge too far'' and blaming the guild for the talks ending. Later, SAG-AFTRA accused the studios of ''bully tactics'' and using the ''same failed strategy they tried to inflict on the WGA.''

On October 18, after Netflix stated in its Q3 earnings report that talks were ''ongoing'' and Sarandos said the guild ''really broke our momentum'' towards a deal, Crabtree-Ireland called BS. ''The best way to reach a deal and end this strike is for him and the other CEOs to end their walkout from the bargaining table and resume negotiations,'' the SAG-AFTRA national director and chief negotiator told Deadline. ''We have been and remain ready to continue talks '' every day.''

After an appreciated but DOA bid by George Clooney and other A-listers to intervene in getting talks restarted, it looked like the actors strike would pass the 100-day milestone with no end in sight. Then, on October 21 , after Drescher hit out at the ''AMPTPs strategy of non-negotiation'' and ''a blatant propaganda attempt to discredit union leadership and divide our solidarity,'' Bob Iger made a call to Crabtree-Ireland and asked to start a new round of talks.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Fran Drescher, Ted Sarandos, Bob Iger, David Zaslav & Donna LangleyAt 3 p.m. PT on the strike's 100th day, SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP put out a joint statement that they were heading back to the bargaining table on October 24 at the guild's headquarters. That first day of negotiations between the parties was ''not great,'' according to a well-positioned source. As the studios put forth a new offer they hoped would end the stalemate over ''success-based compensation,'' the guild proved unmoved, but also open to further discussion.

Although the parties had agreed to meet on October 25, the guild asked that morning to take the day to go over the studios' proposal of increased bonuses based on the success of streaming shows and movies and a further rise in minimum rates. ''It's a step in the right direction and the negotiating committee is taking the time to do a deep review,'' a guild source told Deadline.

The two sides sat down again face-to-face around noon on October 26 with Crabtree-Ireland telling Deadline he was ''cautiously optimistic'' about deliberations with the studios. The guild slide across the table a self-described ''comprehensive counter'' that attempted to move the two sides closer together, sources said. As open letters from both supportive and impatient guild members flew around town, the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA's negotiating committee were back in active talks on October 27. With both sides taking October 30 to be ''working independently,'' virtual deliberations bled into the weekend with the parties trying to bridge their differences.

On Halloween and in the early days of November, the parties met again. As the parties got ''closer and closer,'' as a guild source told Deadline, on issues, Crabtree-Ireland and Lombardini continued conferring directly, with breakout groups of lawyers and other specialists huddled in search of a deal '' successfully we now know. Followed by two days of consultation by the guild, the November 3 delivery of the studios' response to the guild's latest counter and SAG-AFTRA's November 6 counter response saw the two sides find an AI compromise and began moving things into what we now know was the final phase.

Of course, the deadline that the studios set today for the guild to get back to them on whether or not they had any agreement was a last-minute wild-card. Luckily for all, calmer heads prevailed.

Getting to this new three-year deal took an unexpected strike by the actors guild (who many studios execs thought was bluffing despite an overwhelming strike-authorization mandate), a lot of moving pieces, guild solidarity and some hard negotiating sessions.

RELATED: All The Name Stars Who Walked The Picket Line In The First 100 Days

The actors union joined the WGA on the picket lines when it went on strike July 14. There were a lot of hot summer days when the labor battle remained at a stalemate.

But things shifted after Labor Day. The WGA reached a deal with the AMPTP on September 24 after five months on the picket lines and a final five intense days of deliberations that included the CEO Gang of Four for most of those last sessions. The WGA leadership approved the tentative agreement and ended the strike at 12:01 a.m. PT on September 27. WGA members ratified the deal by a wide margin October 9.

The studios and SAG-AFTRA intended to ride the wave of the WGA deal to set meetings within a week or so on their own talks. However, as the goodwill of the WGA's successful negotiations faded into bitter public call-outs from leaders on both sides, many feared, even with a new round of talks, the actors strike could last well into the holidays, ruining any chance at a partial broadcast networks season and hobbling the 2024 movie slate.

That catastrophe seems to have been averted now.

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Archived Version

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 02:28

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), two of the Senate's most prominent conservatives, clashed on the floor Wednesday when Hawley requested unanimous consent to pass his bill to effectively bar TikTok from operating in the United States.

Hawley's bill would do so by imposing sanctions on TikTok's parent company, ByteDance Limited.

The Missouri senator cited a recent report by The New York Times that TikTok engineers based in China have accessed the driver's licenses, addresses and photos of TikTok users despite the repeated assurances of TikTok executives that China would not have access to Americans' data.

Hawley pointed out that the Chinese law requires corporations make their information and data available to the People's Republic of China's government on request.

And he noted that young people are especially vulnerable to data collection by the Chinese-owned social media app, which he called ''a back door for the Chinese Communist Party to track the keystrokes, the information of every American who has the app on their phone.''

''It is time to put an end to this,'' Hawley declared on the Senate floor, noting that Congress voted last year to strip TikTok off every government device. ''It's time we took the step to protect the American people, to protect the integrity of Americans' personal information and their personal privacy.''

But Hawley's request was slapped down by Paul, a libertarian-leaning conservative, who also objected to moving the same bill on the floor in March.

''If there is a better national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation, I've not heard of it,'' Paul argued, pointing to the app's huge popularity with young people.

''Banning TikTok, a social media app used by primarily young Americans, is a recipe for electoral disaster for Republicans,'' Paul said, noting that 71 percent of young women and 53 percent of young men voted for Democratic candidates for Congress in last year's midterm election.

Paul suggested Hawley was promoting censorship and compared it to ''McCarthyist paranoia.''

''The banning TikTok strategy '... comes while the GOP simultaneously complains of liberal U.S. social media companies canceling and censoring conservatives. So without a hint of irony, many of these same, quote, conservatives now agitate to censor viewpoints they don't like,'' Paul said.

''The concern over TikTok seems to be over what the social media might do, propagating hysteria and fear of subtle communist subversion from the People's Republic of China,'' he said.

Paul said the better solution to combat the influence of TikTok is to ''counter flawed ideas or falsities with more speech and better arguments.''

''Do we really want to emulate China's speech bans. Do we want to intrude on the lives of Americans, deprive them of their First Amendment right to receive and consider information?'' he asked.

Hawley in return did not appreciate Paul's claim that his proposal would crack down on free speech.

''Let's just be clear about one thing. The Chinese Communist government is not covered by the United States's Bill of Rights. The Chinese Communist government does not have free speech rights, and we're not talking about free speech. We're not talking about speech at all,'' he retorted on the floor.

He said the proposed sanctions ''have nothing to do with speech'' and ''have everything to do with spying,'' pointing out that the U.S. government has already banned the sale or import of equipment from the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies.

''The reason to ban TikTok in this country is that it is a spying apparatus,'' Hawley said.

Hawley sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday urging the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conclude its review of TikTok and ban all ByteDance-controlled apps now available to U.S. users.

Halwey has criticized the app for handling pro-Hamas propaganda since the outbreak of war in Israel. He recently noted that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe Hamas's attack on Israeli civilians was justified.

On Wednesday, he highlighted pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses and pro-Hamas rhetoric being chanted by high school students.

''Where are they being fed this propaganda?'' he asked. ''They're finding it on TikTok.''

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Archived Version

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 19:58

472 Photo: Alamy

The House Judiciary Committee released a report Monday detailing information on how major government agencies collaborated with a ''disinformation'' group at Stanford, working to ''censor'' Americans prior to the 2020 election.

Within a detailed 103-page staff-interim report, the committee revealed emails and internal communication between the DH's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) colluding with Stanford University's Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).

BOMBSHELL REPORT ON THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXHUNDREDS of secret reports show how @DHSgov's @CISAgov, The GEC (@StateDept), @Stanford and others worked together to censor AMERICANS before the 2020 election, including true information, jokes, and opinions.

🧵 THREAD:

'-- Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 6, 2023''The First Amendment to the Constitution rightly limits the government's role in monitoring and censoring Americans' speech, but these disinformation researchers (often funded, at least in part, by taxpayer dollars) were not strictly bound by these constitutional guardrails,'' the report stated.

''What the federal government could not do directly, it effectively outsourced to the newly emerging censorship-industrial complex,'' it continued.

The EIP was reportedly created during the summer of 2020 ''at the request'' of the CISA, as a way for the federal government to ''launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny,'' according to the report.

''But as American citizens, including candidates in these elections, attempted to exercise their First Amendment rights on these platforms, their constitutionally protected speech was intentionally suppressed as a consequence of the federal government's direct coordination with third-party organizations, particularly universities, and social media platforms,'' the report stated.

According to one EIP member, the EIP was created ''at the request of CISA.''The head of the EIP also said that EIP was created after ''working on some monitoring ideas with CISA.'' pic.twitter.com/OREVF7GEw1

'-- Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 6, 2023According to the report, the EIP was used as a shell for federal agencies and organizations to quietly censor online content, which they deemed as ''misinformation.'' The process reportedly had the EIP's ''external stakeholders,'' including the federal agencies and organizations, submit misinformation reports to the EIP itself.

Then, EIP's ''analysts'' would report a post on various social media platforms, finding similar content in the process. Finally, the EIP would submit their report and findings to ''Big Tech'' with ''specific recommendations on how the social media platforms should censor the posts.''

The main targets of the censoring, according to the report, were a slew of public figures and outlets, with notable names such as President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

''This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as 'misinformation' while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors,'' the report noted.

Jokes, satire, true information, and political opinions were all targeted by the EIP and federal government, according to the report.

The committee announced that the investigation will remain ongoing.

''The government may not dictate the type or terms of the criticism to which it is subject, even when'--especially when'--the government disagrees with the merits of that criticism,'' the report stated. ''To inform potential legislation, the Committee and the Select Subcommittee have been investigating the Executive Branch's collusion with third-party intermediaries, including universities, to censor protected speech on social media.''

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 19:36

Eli Lilly & Co. logo Daniel Acker/Bloomberg The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a hotly anticipated Eli Lilly obesity treatment, cracking the lid on what is widely expected to be one of the top-selling medicines in history.

The Lilly drug, which will be marketed as an obesity treatment under the name Zepbound, is already sold as a diabetes treatment under the name Mounjaro. It will compete directly with Novo Nordisk 's (ticker: NVO) obesity drug Wegovy.

Lilly (LLY) took a direct shot at Novo on Wednesday, saying it will set a list price for Zepbound of $1,059.87 for a month's supply, which it noted is lower than Wegovy's list price of $1,349.02. That lower price point for Zepbound hints at a coming commercial rivalry with Novo'--and the struggle to secure insurance coverage of the medicine in the U.S.

Lilly shares rose 2.3% following the announcement, while Novo's American depositary receipts fell 1.5%.

Even ahead of its approval, Zepbound has become a cultural phenomenon with few analogues in the history of the pharmaceutical business. Analysts expect unprecedented sales figures: Last year, a Bank of America analyst said combined sales of Mounjaro and the drug now known as Zepbound could hit $100 billion a year.

More recently, in late October, Citigroup analyst Andrew Baum wrote that he expects peak sales of $22 billion for Mounjaro and $37 billion for Zepbound.

The drugs are expected to have enormous impacts across the healthcare system and society at large. Demand for the medicines could put enormous pressure on employers, insurers, and government programs that pay for medicines in the U.S. Estimates suggest that widespread coverage for medicines like Zepbound could create an acute spending crisis for some payers.

At the same time, the health benefits of the medicines could impact the demand for a dizzying range of products, from junk foods to sleep apnea machines to glucose monitors used by diabetes patients.

The FDA said Wednesday that patients without diabetes in one trial lost 18% of their body weight after taking Zepbound for 72 weeks. The agency's action approves Zepbound for adults with obesity, or who are overweight and have at least one weight related condition, such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

Lilly says that Zepbound should be used in conjunction with a lower-calorie diet and increased physical activity.

''Obesity and overweight are serious conditions that can be associated with some of the leading causes of death,'' Dr. John Sharretts, who leads the Division of Diabetes, Lipid Disorders, and Obesity at the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement on Wednesday. ''In light of increasing rates of both obesity and overweight in the United States, today's approval addresses an unmet medical need.''

Lilly shares have risen 65% this year, largely due to investor enthusiasm for the drug now known as Zepbound.

Lilly and its competitors are already working on follow-up medicines to Zepbound. Lilly has a next-generation weight-loss drug called retatrutide now in clinical trials, and is also working on a weight-loss pill called orforglipron.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 17:51

A processing glitch in the network that processes electronic transfers between nearly all U.S. bank accounts led to delays in settling deposits, some of which remain stalled, according to the private company that operates the system.

The Clearing House Payments Co. said Monday that a technical error on Thursday resulted in some payment information sent to banks with account numbers and customer names masked, preventing them from being processed immediately. TCH, as the company is known, is owned by a group of 22 major banks, including Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase.

Many customers have complained about the problem on social media, noting that delayed paycheck deposits have imperiled important automatic payments such as mortgage payments, rent and credit-card bills.

TCH apologized for the error and emphasized that individual banks were not responsible for the situation. It also noted that the issue affected only a ''very small percentage'' of all transactions.

It said it was working with the banks, their customers and the Federal Reserve to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 17:48

An error with voting machines in Pennsylvania, causing votes to change amid an output print error, is sparking outrage online Tuesday.

Officials with the Northampton County Elections Office released a statement Tuesday saying that it appears when voters select "Yes" or "No" for one of the candidates for Pennsylvania Superior Court, the vote is recorded for the other candidate.

The issue is limited to the retention of Pennsylvania Superior Court, affecting Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor P. Stabile, county officials said.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure said voters first noticed the error on the printed voting records produced by the touchscreen machines.

In the release on Tuesday, officials said that the Elections Division of the County of Northampton "notified all poll workers by text message that they are to instruct voters before the voter enters the voting booth that there is an issue with the recording of their vote for the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court."

An election official checks voting machines at Miami-Dade Election Department headquarters on August 8, 2018, in Doral, Florida. Voting machines in Pennsylvania changing votes sparked backlash online Tuesday.In response to news of the error, Congressman Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican, took to X, formerly Twitter, saying, "This is why Americans have a growing distrust of the system. It baffles me how Democrats consistently screw up the execution of elections to the peril and misfortune of the voter. Make Elections Safe and Secure AGAIN!!!"

This is why Americans have a growing distrust of the system. It baffles me how Democrats consistently screw up the execution of elections to the peril and misfortune of the voter.Make Elections Safe and Secure AGAIN!!! https://t.co/XhAMS3vLJo

'-- Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) November 7, 2023Rogan O'Handley, a pro-Trump conservative commentator, said on X, "BREAKING: Voting machines in Pennsylvania shut down after getting caught flipping votes Democrats run that state and will cheat in *any* way possible ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - Get rid of these damn rigged machines!!"

Conservative commentator Laura Loomer also responded on X, saying, "BREAKING: Voting machines in Pennsylvania flipped votes for judges in a tabulation error! Proof the machines flip votes. Election machines cannot be trusted!"

BREAKING: Voting machines in Pennsylvania flipped votes for judges in a tabulation error!Proof the machines flip votes. Election machines cannot be trusted! https://t.co/oDvC8fPSFm

'-- Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 7, 2023Benny Johnson, conservative commentator, also reacted to the news on X, saying, "Voting machines in Pennsylvania are now being shut down after reports of machines 'flipping votes.' And this is why Americans have lost all faith in our electoral process. Add this to the list of election fraud cases we've recently learned about:

-Ballot stuffing schemes in Connecticut

-Voter fraud strategies in New Jersey

-Ballot harvesting operations in Michigan

-Illegal ballot drops in Georgia

When will America acknowledge that our election system has been compromised?"

Newsweek cannot independently confirm Johnson's claims of election fraud.

Voting machines in Pennsylvania are now being shut down after reports of machines ''flipping votes''.And this is why Americans have lost all faith in our electoral process.

Add this to the list of election fraud cases we've recently learned about:

-Ballot stuffing schemes in'...

'-- Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 8, 2023Northampton County obtained a court order Tuesday, according to AP, after the issue with the voting machines was discovered. The court order allowed the machines to continue to be used. When the votes are tabulated, they will be corrected, McClure said, so "Panella's votes will be returned to Panella, and Stabile's will be returned to Stabile."

In a news conference on Tuesday, a representative for Election Systems & Software, the election machine manufacturer, said an error was caused by an employee of ES&S and they "regret the situation" and are committed to "fair, accurate results."

Previous voting machine issues in 2019 were also mentioned in the news conference on Tuesday. According to AP, Northampton County had problems with the company's ExpressVoteXL touchscreen system when an incorrectly formatted ballot in a judicial race forced election workers to count paper ballots.

When reached by Newsweek for comment Tuesday, Northampton County Deputy Director of Administration Brittney Waylen referred Newsweek to the news conference.

Uncommon KnowledgeNewsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

");jQuery(this).remove()})jQuery('.start-slider').owlCarousel({loop:!1,margin:10,nav:!0,items:1}).on('changed.owl.carousel',function(event){var currentItem=event.item.index;var totalItems=event.item.count;if(currentItem===0){jQuery('.owl-prev').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-prev').removeClass('disabled')}if(currentItem===totalItems-1){jQuery('.owl-next').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-next').removeClass('disabled')}})}})})

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:19

The academics* included fictional information created by generative AI in a Senate inquiry submission. (* Not a photo of the actual academics.) Photo: Shutterstock

A group of Australian academics has ''unreservedly apologised'' for including factually incorrect allegations about big consulting firms '' produced by a generative AI tool '' to a Senate inquiry submission.

In a letter to the Senate, Emeritus Professor James Guthrie AM '' a professor in the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance at Macquarie University '' admitted to having used Google Bard AI to research information for a submission to a Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the Big 4 consulting firms, with numerous false claims being generated, as reported by The Guardian.

The other academics in the group are Professor John Dumay (Macquarie University), Professor Jane Andrew (University of Sydney Business School), and Dr Erin Twyford (University of Wollongong), however they were quick to distance themselves from the scandal, making it very clear in their revised submission that the blame was squarely on Professor Guthrie.

''Our original submission contained factual errors due to Professor Guthrie's use of the Google Bard Large Language model generator referenced in the original submission,'' they wrote.

''These errors related to claims of Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PwC audit activities and involvement in financial scandals.''

Bard is Google's conversational generative AI tool that is in direct competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT tool.

What the academics said

The academics' submission included case studies about alleged wrongdoing by large consulting firms that had been produced by Bard but were entirely fictional.

It is believed to be the first time that a Parliamentary Committee has been forced to grapple with the use of generative AI in research and writing submissions to inquiries, which are covered by Parliamentary Privilege and free from any defamation action.

Included in the submission were a number of case studies about consulting and accounting giant Deloitte, including that it had been involved in a ''NAB financial planning scandal'', was sued by the liquidators of collapsed construction firm Probuild, had audited cafe chain Patisserie Valerie, and was auditing Westpac at the time of a scandal.

All of these claims are false.

In a letter to the Senate, Deloitte general counsel Tala Bennett said that there had never been a ''Deloitte NAB financial planning scandal'', that it was not the auditor of Probuild but had been the administrator and is not being sued in relation to this, and that it has never audited Patisserie Valerie or Westpac.

''Deloitte supports academic freedom and constructive discourse in relation to those matters currently before the Committee, however, it considers that it is important to have factually incorrect information corrected,'' Bennett said in a letter to the Committee.

''It is disappointing that this has occurred, and we look forward to understanding the Committee's approach to correcting this information.''

The submission also made false claims about Big 4 consultancy KPMG, also generated by Google Bard.

The submission falsely claimed that KPMG had been involved in a ''KPMG 7-Eleven wage theft scandal'' that led to the resignation of several of its partners.

It also incorrectly said that KPMG had audited the Commonwealth Bank during a financial planning scandal.

But KPMG was not involved with either of these scandals.

It's all my fault

Guthrie has admitted to using generative AI to produce these case studies.

''Given that the use of AI has largely led to these inaccuracies, the entire authorship team sincerely apologises to the Committee and the named Big Four partnerships in those parts of the two submissions that used and referenced the Google Bard Large Language model generator,'' Guthrie's letter said.

''Given we are also accounting academics, we are deeply invested in the public interest and ensuring accountability and transparency in the sector '' which is why we unreservedly offer our apologies and deep regret.

''I now realise that AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased.''

Inquiry chair and Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck said the incident is a ''salient reminder to everyone to check your sources''.

''This shows how out of control things can get if basic facts are not correct.''

Organisations and institutions across every sector around the world are grappling with the widespread adoption and use of generative AI tools such as Bard and ChatGPT.

These generative AI tools are already being used widely in education, law and the public sector, among other areas.

Earlier this year a US lawyer admitted to using ChatGPT for research, leading him to submit a number of ''bogus'' cases to the court.

A brief submitted by the lawyer included a number of previous cases, but these had been entirely made up by ChatGPT.

The federal government itself has warned that generative AI tools should only be used in the public sector in ''low-risk situations'', warning that there is an ''unacceptable risk'' in using them for decision-making or writing application code.

And last week, The Guardian wrote to Microsoft President Brad Smith after the tech giant's AI tools inserted a distasteful poll into the news publication's story about the death of a woman in Sydney.

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:05

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20 pagesAlleged "three World Wars" prediction from famed Mason, scottish rgc pike, has been debunked. Cnn's Terry Melanson says he doesn't derive any satisfaction from a debunking. Having a knack for getting to the bottom of a thing helps with maintaining credibility.

Original TitleAlbert Pike to Mazzini, August 15, 1871_ Three World Wars_ _ Terry Melanson

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:43

Dennis Wong - Optus managing director of networks

Optus has switched on 4.5G network services throughout Macquarie Park, in north-west Sydney, and said the technology will be rolled out in selected capital cities and in the next year.

In partnership with Huawei, the telco has upgraded 20 of its mobile towers in the suburb, which includes a large shopping centre, university campus, and business district - where Optus is headquartered.

The company said 4.5G is expected to reach more than 70 per cent of the Optus network in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Speeds of 1.03Gbps were achieved in testing on 21 February, 2016 and in a live demonstration at the company's headquarters showed peak speeds of 1.18Gbps over a fixed wireless connection with a specially designed 4.5G router.

The live 4.5G demonstration at Optus Australian headquarters showed peak speeds of 1.18Gbps over a fixed wireless connectionWhile no mobile devices currently on sale in Australia are capable of 4.5G, Optus said current customers would experience two to three times faster speeds on their 4G devices in Macquarie Park.

Optus managing director of networks, Denis Wong, said the network was the foundation of the business and investment had allowed the company to branch out into content providing, amongst other offerings.

''4.5G is a key area of investment for our network evolution towards 5G and we are excited to be able to deliver this new initiative to our customers at Macquarie Park,'' he said.

''The [Macquarie Park] precinct is Sydney's technology hub and it is this diversity that will ensure we're able to see how the network performs in a wide variety of scenarios.

''Ultimately, the launch is a step closer to Optus being able to deliver 5G network speeds to customers and will continue to invest in R&D and our partnership with Huawei to achieve this,'' Wong added.

The telco also said a pre-5G Massive Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO) trial was the next step for Optus and partner, Huawei. The two companies came close to achieving 35Gbps speeds during a 5G trial in November.

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:41

Here's what we know about the Optus outage so far:

Millions of Australian customers and businesses have been hit by a widespread outage on the Optus network. Affected services include mobile and fixed-line networks, along with internet connections. The service is now back on.

The Optus CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, told the ABC said it was a ''technical network fault'' but would not go into further detail.

At 5.31pm AEDT the telco apologised to customers and said everyone should be back online. ''We again thank customers for their patience,'' the spokesperson said.

According to Downdetector, reports of an outage began at 4am AEDT. A spike of reports flooded through at 5.45am, when 8,180 reports of an outage were received.

Optus provided a statement online about 6.45am, saying it was ''aware of an issue impacting Optus mobile and nbn services'' and was working to restore services ''as quickly as possible''.

At 10.30am AEDT Rosmarin told ABC Radio Sydney the company had tested a number of ''hypotheses'' about what might have caused the problem but none fixed the issue.

The federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said a protocol was in place to allow Optus customers to ''camp'' on other mobile networks when needing to call 000. There was a marked increase in camping calls on Wednesday.

However, Victoria's health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, urged people not to use Optus-linked phones to call triple zero. She said some Optus users had reported they are unable to get through.

At 12.55pm AEDT, Optus wrote on X that some services across fixed and mobile were gradually being restored. ''This may take a few hours for all services to recover, and different services may restore at different sites over that time.''

Optus also reiterated its ''apology to customers for the nationwide service outage'', and said it was aware of some mobile phones having issues connecting to 000. ''If Optus customers need to call emergency services, we suggest finding a family member or neighbour with an alternative device.''

Shortly after 1pm AEDT Rosmarin announced that there was now a ''path to restoration'' and that some users had had services restored.

The outage caused major service disruptions and delays across the Melbourne train network. It was also affecting phone lines at hospitals across the country.

Rowland and the Coalition's communications spokesperson, David Coleman, have urged Optus to keep its customers updated.

The Communication Workers Union has labelled today's Optus outage as an ''absolute disgrace'' that has left vulnerable people ''relying on landlines without emergency help''.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has released a statement advising Optus customers: ''We can help you with refunds for the time you have been unable to use your service, compensation claims and disputes about your contract.''

Rowland earlier said information about the cause of the outage was limited but suggested a ''deep network problem''. She said there was no information suggesting a cyber-attack as of Wednesday morning.

Rowland advised small businesses to keep receipts as an ''evidentiary base'' for recourse and redress.

The Greens said they would move for an urgent inquiry into the outage in the Senate.

The South Australian premier said his government was already talking to Telstra about switching some of its ''critical services'' away from Optus. Peter Malinauskas also said the state government was ''disappointed with Optus''.

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:39

At least four people fell ill after drinking beverages made by the Coca-Cola company in Croatia over the past week, with the country's health minister advising the public to "drink water."

One person was hospitalized after reportedly drinking R¶merquelle, a flavored mineral water, at a caf(C) in Rijeka, a city in western Croatia, on Saturday. Three others were hospitalized in the capital Zagreb on Tuesday, Dr Rajko Ostojić, the head of the department of gastroenterology at the KBC hospital in Zagreb told local media.

Ostojić, who is also a former health minister, said: "Don't panic. Avoid all carbonated drinks. Drink ordinary municipal water. Zagreb is great, Dalmatian too ... If Croatia has anything, it has great water."

One of the victims reportedly fell ill after drinking a Coca-Cola bought from a vending machine. The Croatian Institute of Public Health is analyzing samples of the drinks to determine what caused the symptoms.

Croatia's Minister for Health Vili BeroÅ earlier confirmed two of the cases of suspected poisoning, saying both had injuries to the esophagus.

Asked if it was safe to drink carbonated beverages, BeroÅ said people should exercise ''general caution.''

''We have two drinks in two cities, bottled in two countries,'' he said. ''It's best to drink water.''

R¶merquelle, which is owned by Coca-Cola, is bottled in Austria; Coca-Cola in Croatia.

In statements on Tuesday, Coca-Cola HBC Croatia said it was aware of an ''isolated incident'' in Rijeka and was cooperating with authorities, and Coca-Cola HBC Austria said it was ''closely monitoring'' the situation.

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Wed, 08 Nov 2023 05:02

Russia may gain as attention is diverted from Ukraine

CNN '--

Apparent divisions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military command are becoming increasingly public, after a bitter back-and-forth over the state of play in the war with Russia.

Igor Zhovka, the deputy head of Zelensky's office, on Saturday condemned an assessment by Ukraine's military chief that the war with Russia is at a ''stalemate,'' deepening a feud in Kyiv which has heightened nerves about Western support for the conflict.

He was responding to an interview with military chief Valery Zaluzhny, who told The Economist on Wednesday that ''we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate'' and ''there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough'' in the war.

Zhovka told Ukrainian television that Zaluzhny's interview will have been ''carefully read, noted down and conclusions drawn'' by the Russians. He said he had received calls from counterparts in partner countries ''in a panic'' asking if the war really is at a stalemate, as described by Zaluzhny.

''Is this the effect we wanted to achieve with this article?'' Zhovka said.

''Perhaps this is a very deep strategic plan, and we will achieve some success in this way. But to be honest, I am very surprised,'' Zhovka added.

The tensions come at a pivotal moment in the war, with Kyiv's slow-moving counter-offensive and the outbreak of violence in the Middle East sparking fears that Western financial and military aid could begin to flag.

Zelensky also disagreed with Zaluzhnyi's assessment during a press conference with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday, but admitted that people are ''tired'' after 18 months of war in the country.

''People are tired. Everyone is tired. There are different opinions ['...] Everyone is human, regardless of status'... But this is not a stalemate. I emphasize this once again. We have already talked about this. This is not some kind of news,'' Zelensky said.

''We all need to get together and resolve the issues, work more with our partners on air defense, unblock the skies, and enable our guys to take offensive actions. This is what we need to think about. Only about this. Not about where we will be tomorrow. But now,'' Zelensky said.

Zaluzhny also laid out in his interview his vision for what Ukraine needs to do and the kind of support needed from partners to break the deadlock.

But his overall characterization of the conflict raised eyebrows in Ukraine and made international headlines. It came as a separate interview, given by Zelensky to TIME, painted the Ukrainian president as an increasingly isolated figure.

''Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,'' Zelensky told TIME, adding that instilling those beliefs in Ukraine's allies ''takes all your power, your energy.''

''Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave. You see it in the United States, in Europe,'' Zelensky was quoted as saying.

He admitted that the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas has diverted attention from Ukraine's fight against Russia, complicating efforts to maintain international enthusiasm for his country's fight.

''Of course we lose out from the events in the Middle East. People are dying, and the world's help is needed there to save lives,'' Zelensky said.

He added to those comments during von der Leyen's Saturday trip to Kyiv.

''It is obvious the war in the Middle East, this conflict takes away the focus. I think it is one of the goals of the Russian Federation'... It's a fact. We see the outcomes,'' Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian leader had previously expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, recommending that world leaders ''go to Israel'' and offer support to the ''people who have been under terrorist attacks.''

Ukraine is meanwhile continuing with a difficult counter-offensive against Russian forces in the south and east.

Kyiv has been able to land more successful blows through the air, and said its air force carried out successful airstrikes on a shipyard in the eastern port city of Kerch in the Russian occupied Crimean peninsula on Saturday.

Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force Mykola Oleschuk congratulated pilots involved in the strikes in a post on Telegram. A Russian appointed official said a shipyard was targeted but air defenses shot down the missiles. CNN cannot independently verify either claim.

The Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, was temporarily shut down for traffic for two hours on Saturday. Russian authorities did not provide a reason for the road closure on the vital artery that connects mainland Russia to the occupied peninsula.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 22:12

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Allergen Warning: This product is produced in an a facility that may also process ingredients containing milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans.

Intended for use by adults 18 years of age and over. Do not use if the seal under the cap is broken or missing. Please contact a healthcare practitioner or email askadoc@twc.health before taking or using this supplement. Keep out of the reach of children.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 21:57

The Israelis are promoting a Red Sea-Mediterranean Sea waterway, the Ben Gurion Canal, as a rival to the Suez Canal. As per the Israelis, the distance between Eilat, a southern Israeli port and resort town on the Red Sea near Jordan, and the Mediterranean is not long and is in fact similar to the distance of the Suez connection between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Although it poses a direct threat to Egypt's Suez Canal but Suez Canal is shorter than the Israeli route and the Suez Canal rarely reaches 100 meters in height making it a better option. At the same time, Israel says this route is good for the ships which are unable to transit the Suez Canal due to restrictions on the size of the ship.History of Canal proposals via IsraelIn the mid-1800, the British considered the proposal of a canal to the Red Sea via the Dead Sea. In 1855, Rear Admiral William Allen FRS, an English naval officer and an explorer proposed an alternative to the Suez Canal titled ''The Dead Sea '' A new route to India.'' But William Allen did not know that the dead Sea was much below sea level. His idea was that a canal that would connect the three water bodies, Red Sea, Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, would be cheaper than the projected Suez Canal.

The US toyed with the idea of digging a canal opposite the Suez Canal in 1963. It was recommended in a memo submitted by Lawrence Livermore Patriot Laps in the US as a response to the decision taken by the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956. The controversial plan was revealed to the world only in 1994. The controversial US proposal involved 520 nuclear blasts to excavate more than 160 odd miles through Israel's Negev desert, instead of traditional methods. The contentious proposal also noted that the project will be aggressively opposed by the Arab states. The canal would connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Aqaba (also called the Gulf of Eilat) and thus the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The Modern ProposalThe idea of Ben Gurion canal has surfaced at a time when the Abraham Accords have radically changed the political landscape of the sensitive region. On 20th October 2020, the unthinkable happened when the Israeli state-owned Europe Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC) and the UAE-based MED-RED Land Bridge inked an arrangement to use the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline to move oil from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

On 2 April 2021, Israel announced that work on the Ben Gurion Canal is expected to begin by June 2021. The initial reference to the Ben Gurion Canal was published about two years back in Hebrew language publications. As per the sources, Israel will build the canal from Eilat on the Red Sea to Mediterranean. Unlike the Suez Canal, the Israeli canal can handle ships going in both directions. This will be achieved by the creation of two canals. Unlike the Suez Canal which is along the sandy shores, the Israeli canal will have rocky walls which means that it scarcely requires maintenance. Israel plans to build small cities, hotels, restaurants and nightclubs along the canal. Each proposed canal is about 50 meters in depth and about 200 meters in width. They will be 10 meters deeper than the Suez Canal. A ship with a length of 300 meters and a width of 110 meters, which is the largest size of ships in the world, will be able to pass through the canal. The Suez Canal is 193 km long and the trans-Israel canal would be about 100 km longer.

The canal construction will take about 5 odd years involving about and 300,000 engineers and technicians who will be recruited from around the world. Israel has projected an income of about USD 6 billion a year or more from the canal. This is in addition to the fact that Israel will have the largest artery connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. The cost of making this canal is estimated to be between $16 billion to $55 billion depending upon sources.

Ben Gurion Canal VS Suez Canal An estimated 12% of world maritime trade passes through the Suez Canal making the route far from indispensable. Egypt can either build a new canal parallel to the Suez Canal or expand the existing one at a third of the cost proposed by Israel. The key reason for the construction of the Ben Gurion Canal is that merchant vessels sailing to and fro Asia and Europe have an alternative to sailing around Africa's southern tip. Africa's southern tip route is more time consuming and expends more fuel. A shipper will have to choose from faster navigation via the Israeli Canal or the cost-saving, but delayed transit due to the wait time, of the Suez Canal. The Ben Gurion Canal will also drastically reduce the possibility of a crisis in world trade like the one seen during the Suez Canal blockage.The military aspectThe Suez Canal was built to profit from international trade and was opened on 17th November 1869. In 1888, the maritime powers of the era signed the Convention of Constantinople, which stated bluntly that the canal should be open to ships of all nations in times of both peace and war. Acts of hostility in the waters of the canal and the construction of fortifications on its banks were forbidden by the convention. Great Britain joined the convention in 1904.

There were instances when naval ships were denied access to the Suez Canal, which included denial to Spanish Navy ships during the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Russian Navy during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and the Italian Navy during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36. In the two World Wars, no party was denied canal use, but the Allied Forces dominated the canal. Israel was denied canal use following the armistice between Israel and its Arab opponents in 1949. The canal itself was a battleground during the Suez Crisis of 1956-57 and the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967. Egypt had physically barricaded both ends of the canal during the second crisis. All three conditions of the Constantinople Convention were broken during these events. The canal was reopened in June 1975 and a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979 resulting in all ships, including those of Israeli registration, having access to the canal.

During the March 2021 Suez Canal blockade, the Pentagon said that the ongoing stoppage of traffic caused by a grounded container ship in the Suez Canal would affect the movement of U.S. Military vessels, but stressed that the Defense Department had alternative means of supporting operations in the area. ''We are not going to talk about specific operational impacts. The Suez Canal is an essential maritime chokepoint, and the longer passage is suspended, the more impact it will have on civilian and military transits. However, we have alternate capabilities to mitigate impact and support to our operations in U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility throughout any extended blockage,'' said Rebecca Rebarich, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet.

The incident made the world rethink the responses to the choke points. A flurry of alternative routes was proposed, including the sea routes and Landrail routes. Israel too announced the Ben Gurion Canal.

Ben Gurion Canal will give Israel the freedom from blackmail arising out of access to the Suez Canal. Arab states have been leveraging the Red Sea to pressure Israel and in response, Israel has decided to gain more control of the Red Sea. Not just the Arab states, even the African states around the Red Sea have conflicts among themselves and their strategies to deal with it are a concern to the Red Sea stakeholders. These African countries have cultural and economic affinities with the Arab states.

The strategic and mineral-based economic potential of the Red Sea attracts even the big powers. In the past, it was an area of rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union which still continues in a milder manner.

One of the main military benefits for Israel is that it gives Israel the strategic options as the Ben Gurion Canal will totally take away the importance of Suez for the US Military if needed in the aid for Israel.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 21:54

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canal project in Israel

Ben Gurion Canal compared to the Suez CanalThe Ben Gurion Canal Project or Israeli Canal is a proposed canal project through the state of Israel. It would connect the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea. David Ben Gurion, for whom it would be named, is considered the Founding Father of Israel and was the first Prime Minister of Israel. The canal would rival the Suez Canal that runs through Egypt, which has had many disturbances in its history, such as the Israeli blockage through the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran, Closure of the Suez Canal (1956''1957), Closure of the Suez Canal (1967''1975), and the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction. It would be almost one third longer than the 120.1 mi (193.3 km) Suez Canal, at around 182 mi (292.9 km). The cost of creating the Israeli canal is estimated to be between $16 - $55 billion USD.[1]

Route [ edit ] Starting from the Southern end at the Gulf of Aqaba, by the port city of Eilat in Israel on the Israeli and Jordanian border, through the Arabah Valley for about 100 km between the Negev Mountains and the Jordanian Highlands and veers West before the Dead Sea basin and the Dead Sea which is 430.5 metres (1,412 ft) below sea level,[2] and heads through a valley in the Negev Mountain Range, then heads North again to get around the Gaza Strip and link up with the Mediterranean Sea.

NASA photos [ edit ] Initial plan in 1963 [ edit ] One path studied took a straighter line through the Negev Desert hills, another path studied went North through the Arabah valley and cut west before the Dead Sea basin through the hills and curves North again above the Gaza Strip.In July 1963, the United States Department of Energy and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created a classified document that outlined a plan to use 520 buried nuclear explosions to help in the excavation process through the hills in the Negev Desert. The document was declassified in 1993.[3][4]

Suez Canal Revenue [ edit ] The Suez Canal set a new record with annual revenue of $9.4 billion in USD for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023.[5]

Suez Canal monthly revenue In USDSee also [ edit ] Arab-Israeli ConflictThai CanalNicaragua CanalSulawesi CanalDead SeaJordan RiverNegev DesertRed Sea''Dead Sea Water ConveyanceHigh-speed railway to EilatList of interoceanic canalsList of places on land with elevations below sea levelReferences [ edit ] https://thearabweekly.com/ship-crisis-revives-russian-israeli-talk-alternatives-suez-canal

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 21:52

November 06, 2023 09:10 PM

Federal Communications Commission C ommissioner Brendan Carr is calling the Biden administration's "digital equity" plan for all internet services and infrastructure an "unlawful power grab."

"President Biden's plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country. Never before, in the roughly 40-year history of the public Internet, has the FCC (or any federal agency for that matter) claimed this degree of control over it. Indeed, President Biden's plan calls for the FCC to apply a far-reaching set of government controls that the agency has not applied to any technology in the modern era, including Title II common carriers," Carr said in a statement on Monday.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ELDERS SOUND THE ALARM ON BIDEN

Carr previewed an important FCC vote next week on Nov. 15 about whether to implement the president's plan.

"Congress never contemplated the sweeping regulatory regime that President Biden asked the FCC to adopt'--let alone authorized the agency to implement it," he said.

Carr explained that the Biden administration's "broadband policies are failing" and the "costs of building Internet infrastructure in this country have skyrocketed" due to his economic policies. While the FCC has been looking to expand "new, 5G services," it has "needlessly blocked and delayed new broadband infrastructure builds" because of "regulatory red tape."

The commissioner said President Joe Biden has chosen to blame "the private sector and free market capitalism itself for the Administration's own policy shortfalls" and is pushing the FCC to adopt "a one-page section of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act)," which has "new rules of breathtaking scope, all in the name of 'digital equity.'"

"For the first time ever, those rules would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions'--from how [internet service providers] allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive. Talk about central planning," Carr warned.

If passed, the FCC would be empowered, for the first time, to regulate every ISP's service termination terms, use of customer credit, account history, credit checks, and account termination, among many other items.

"There is no path to complying with this standardless regime. It reads like a planning document drawn up in the faculty lounge of a university's Soviet Studies Department," Carr said.

He added, "The Biden Administration's plan empowers the FCC to regulate every aspect of the Internet sector for the first time ever. The plan is motivated by an ideology of government control that is not compatible with the fundamental precepts of free market capitalism."

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Former FCC policy adviser Evan Swarztrauber said of Biden's plan, "To call it 'extreme' or 'radical' doesn't do this proposal justice,"

"Biden is turning 'digital discrimination' into a pretext for regulating everything. For equity," Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, said of the Biden plan for the FCC.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:14

The Nipah virus - one of the 75 paramyxoviruses - could be 'catastrophic' for humanity if it jumps to humans, one disease ecologist warns, with the virus group one of the fastest spreaders

Scientists have shed light on what the next global pandemic could hold ( Image: Getty Images)

Scientists have issued a warning over what could be the next deadly global pandemic.

There are currently an estimated 1.6million viruses out there in the world's animal and bird population, scientists believe, and more than half have the ability to infect humans with a large portion doing just that on a daily basis.

And while Covid-19 is by no means a thing of the past with cases on the rise again, public health experts are already looking to the next pandemic and how it could hit us. Of the many bugs which could mutate and hit us, scientists believe that one of the paramyxovirus group poses a big threat, with the group currently "simmering in the background".

The group has 75 viruses, including many well-known illnesses such as measles, mumps and respiratory tract infections. Last month it was added to the list of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' pandemic pathogens to watch.

One of the group - the Nipah virus - is of particular concern, experts have said. The virus is known to result in fatal encephalitis with a mortality rate of 40-75%, compared with the 1% rate amongst Covid-19 patients.

And while there is some comfort in the knowledge that paramyxoviruses are much slower shapeshifters than the flu and coronaviruses, virologists say they are much faster at spreading between humans. The World Health Organisation has already highlighted Nipah virus and its close cousins as some of its top-priority pathogens.

The possibility of a Nipah virus pandemic was the inspiration for the 2011 blockbuster Contagion, which starred Kate Winslet and Gwyneth Paltrow in a dystopian world struck by a terrifying illness. In the film, the killer infection spreads between bats and pigs before hitting Paltrow's character as she takes a business trip to Hong Kong, killing her days later.

Benhur Lee, a virologist at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, told The Atlantic the flu virus has already been "sequenced to death", but that this wasn't possible for paramyxoviruses as most people struck by more than one do not survive, making it difficult to develop vaccines.

Raina Plowright, a disease ecologist for Cornell University, said that while there hasn't yet been a recorded pandemic caused by paramyxoviruses, the group seemed poised to make the jump. Such a scenario was would be "absolutely catastrophic" for the human race, dwarfing the death toll of Covid.

Virologist Paul Duprex told the title meanwhile that rubulaviruses, one of the paramyxovirus subfamily that includes mumps, are also a cause for concern. He describes measles as "literally the most transmissible human virus on the planet" able to spread through the air, and have been hosted by humans, apes, pigs and dogs.

It comes as a public survey found most Brits believe the Government is woefully underprepared for the next global health crisis to hit. The YouGov poll found two-thirds of the electorate believed Downing Street was either "not very prepared" (36%) or "not prepared at all" (30%). Just 2% replied saying the country was "very prepared".

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the symptoms of Nipah initially include one or several of the following:

Fever Headache Cough Sore throat Difficulty breathing Vomiting Severe symptoms may follow, such as:

Disorientation, drowsiness, or confusion Seizures Coma Brain swelling (encephalitis)

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:14

Experts have warned that the next global pandemic could be 'absolutely catastrophic' for the human race, and much more deadly that the Covid outbreak. Scientists have identified a virus which could cause the next pandemic after it was added to a global watchlist of dangerous diseases.

Researchers fear the next pandemic could be caused by a paramyxovirus such as Nipah. There are 75 known paramyxoviruses including mumps and measles - described as the most infectious viruses known to man. Raina Plowright, a disease ecologist for Cornell University, told The Atlantic that while there hasn't yet been a recorded pandemic caused by paramyxoviruses, the group seemed poised to make the jump. Such a scenario was would be "absolutely catastrophic" for the human race, dwarfing the death toll of Covid.

There are currently an estimated 1.6million viruses, scientists believe, and more than half have the ability to infect humans. Of the many which could mutate and hit us, scientists believe that one of the paramyxovirus group poses a big threat, with the group currently "simmering in the background".

The Nipah virus is known to result in fatal encephalitis with a mortality rate of 40-75%, compared with the 1% rate amongst Covid-19 patients. Virologists say paramyxoviruses are much faster at spreading between humans. The World Health Organisation has already highlighted Nipah virus and its close cousins as some of its top-priority pathogens.

The possibility of a Nipah virus pandemic was the inspiration for the 2011 blockbuster Contagion, which starred Kate Winslet and Gwyneth Paltrow in a dystopian world struck by a terrifying illness. In the film, the killer infection spreads between bats and pigs before hitting Paltrow's character as she takes a business trip to Hong Kong, killing her days later.

Benhur Lee, a virologist at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, told The Atlantic the flu virus has already been "sequenced to death", but that this wasn't possible for paramyxoviruses as most people struck by more than one do not survive, making it difficult to develop vaccines.

Virologist Paul Duprex told the title meanwhile that rubulaviruses, one of the paramyxovirus subfamily that includes mumps, are also a cause for concern. He describes measles as "literally the most transmissible human virus on the planet" able to spread through the air, and have been hosted by humans, apes, pigs and dogs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the symptoms of Nipah initially include one or several of the following:

Fever Headache Cough Sore throat Difficulty breathing Vomiting Severe symptoms may follow, such as:

Disorientation, drowsiness, or confusion Seizures Coma Brain swelling (encephalitis)

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:13

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez speaks during a news conference in Havana, Cuba, October 19, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Carrillo/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

HAVANA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly called for the 31st time on the United States to end its decades-long trade embargo against Cuba as the communist-run island suffers its worst economic crisis in decades, with shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

The non-binding resolution was approved by 187 countries and opposed only by the United States and Israel, with Ukraine abstaining.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in a speech before the assembly that the "blockade prevents Cuba from accessing food, medicines, and technological and medical equipment."

Havana is also prohibited from exporting to the neighboring United States, Rodriguez said, curtailing access to a massive market for its goods and costing Cuba nearly $5 billion in losses in 2022 alone.

"The blockade (embargo) qualifies as a crime of genocide," said Rodriguez, who said the U.S. policies were deliberately aimed at promoting suffering among the Cuban people in order to force change in the government.

The trade embargo was put in place following Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution and has remained largely unchanged, though some elements were stiffened by former President Donald Trump. The web of U.S. laws and regulations complicate financial transactions and the acquisition of goods and services by the Cuban government.

U.S. diplomat Paul Folmsbee, in a brief speech opposing the resolution, said the embargo was aimed at promoting "human rights and fundamental liberties in Cuba" and that the U.S. made exceptions for humanitarian purposes.

"The United States continues to be a significant source of humanitarian goods to the Cuban people and one of Cuba's main trading partners," the diplomat said.

He noted that the United States last year sold Cuba $295 million worth of agricultural products.

The long-running dispute between Cuba and the United States shows little sign of detente, despite some modest gestures of goodwill under the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden has taken small steps to ease restrictions on Cuba, boosting consular services but doing little to repeal the Trump sanctions.

Reporting by Nelson Acosta, editing by Dave Sherwood and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:12

SANTA FE, N.M. '-- New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will renew executive orders declaring gun violence a public health emergency Friday.

The renewal extends the emergency to Dec. 1, 2023.

Highlights from the updated data from Albuquerque and Bernalillo County since Sept. 8, include:

1,441 arrests 86 guns seized 2,511 traffic citations issued ''The work of local and state partners, especially law enforcement, in the last two months is yielding real results for the Albuquerque community. But now is no time to slow down, and we will continue our efforts to eradicate gun violence,'' Gov. Lujan Grisham said. ''This executive order sends a clear message that the safety and well-being of residents are our top priorities. We stand united in our resolve to combat gun violence and protect our communities.''

The public health orders also direct New Mexico State Police to host gun buyback events. Three events are being held Saturday in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Espa±ola.

''These are opportunities for our communities to come together and make a real impact on gun safety,'' said Troy Weisler, New Mexico State Police chief. ''We aim to reduce the risks associated with firearms by providing a safe, anonymous way to surrender unwanted weapons.''

The gun buyback events will take place on Nov. 4, 2023, from 8 a.m. through 2 p.m. at the following locations:

Albuquerque: Expo New Mexico at 300 San Pedro Gate 6 (south of Lomas) Las Cruces: New Mexico Game and Fish at 2715 E. Northrise Dr. Espa±ola: Robert ''Gordy'' Vigil Regional Sportsplex at 2000 Industrial Park Rd. This initiative provides an opportunity for individuals to anonymously surrender unwanted guns and firearms. In return, participants will receive Visa and/or American Express gift cards.

No questions will be asked about the ownership of the firearms or their origin. The objective of these buyback events is to prevent unwanted or unneeded weapons from causing harm or being used to commit acts of violence.

Buyback event details:

$200.00 Visa and/or American Express gift card for handguns $300.00 Visa and/or American Express gift card for rifles, shotguns, and assault weapons Firearms may be functional or non-functional The governor will also renew the executive order around substance misuse. The updated executive orders will not have any changes from the prior versions and keep the current public health orders on gun violence and substance misuse in place.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:09

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Young adult novel in the "Tom Swift" series of the early 1900's

Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle; or, Daring Adventures in Elephant Land is a young adult novel published in 1911, written by Stratemeyer Syndicate writers using the pen name Victor Appleton. It is Volume 10 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap. The novel is notable for inspiring the name of the Taser.[1]

Plot [ edit ] While Tom Swift is working on his latest new invention, the electric rifle, he meets an African safari master whose stories of elephant hunting sends the group off to deepest, darkest Africa. Hunting for ivory is the least of their worries, as they find out some old friends are being held hostage by the fearsome tribes of the red pygmies.

Swift builds two major inventions in this volume. The first is a replacement airship, known as The Black Hawk. This new airship is to replace The Red Cloud, which was destroyed during his adventures in Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice. This airship is of the same general construction as The Red Cloud, but is smaller and more maneuverable.

Of foremost notice is Swift's invention of the electric rifle, a gun which fires bolts of electricity. The electric rifle can be calibrated to different levels of range, intensity and lethality; it can shoot through solid walls without leaving a hole, and is powerful enough to kill a rampaging whale, as in their steamer trek to Africa. With the electric rifle, Tom and friends bring down elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo, and save their lives several times in pitched battle with the red pygmies. It also can discharge a globe of light that was described as being able to maintain itself, like ball lightning, making hunting at night much safer in the dark of Africa. In appearance, the rifle looked very much like contemporary conventional rifles.

Racist content [ edit ] The Thomas Swift series included racist depictions of its non-white characters:

In the book, the black people are rendered as either passive, simple and childlike, or animalistic and capable of unimaginable violence. They are described in the book at various points as ''hideous in their savagery, wearing only the loin cloth, and with their kinky hair stuck full of sticks'', and as ''wild, savage and ferocious ... like little red apes."

Homages [ edit ] Sixty years later a non-lethal weapon delivering an electric shock was developed by Jack Cover and marketed by Taser International under the name "Taser", an acronym for Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle. The middle initial 'A' is used to produce a word more pronounceable than "TSER", as no other name than "Tom Swift" is used for the book's hero.[1]

2015 film [ edit ] The cinematographic adaptation rights were acquired in 2007. Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle is a documentary film (later retitled "Killing Them Safely") about TASER International, the primary manufacturer of TASER weapons for law enforcement. The film premiered on April 17, 2015, in World Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. National USA release of the film occurred on November 27, 2015.[3]

See also [ edit ] Pulsed energy weaponTom SwiftList of Tom Swift booksReferences [ edit ] External links [ edit ] Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle e-text at Project Gutenberg

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:07

WASHINGTON '-- Former President Barack Obama quietly advised the White House over the past five months on its strategy to address artificial intelligence, engaging behind the scenes with tech companies and holding Zoom meetings with top West Wing aides at President Joe Biden's request, according to aides to both men.

The joint effort culminated Monday when Biden signed an executive order establishing some government oversight of AI development. It's the first time Biden has tapped his former boss to help shape a key policy initiative, aides said, and he did it because Obama shares his views on the issue and brings a certain heft that could help move the process along quickly.

''You have to move fast here, not at normal government pace or normal private-sector pace, because the technology is moving so fast,'' White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recalled Biden saying. ''We have to move as fast, or ideally faster. And we need to pull every lever we can.''

AI is one of the things that keep both Biden and Obama up at night, their aides said.

Zients said Biden, like Obama, has viewed AI as a technology that demands urgent attention given that it comes with great promise but also potentially dire consequences, depending on how it's used.

The current and former presidents discussed the issue on a phone call in June, aides to both of them said. They agreed on the goal of maximizing the technology while limiting the risks, according to Obama and Biden aides.

After that, Biden asked Obama to consult with his team to develop a policy that encourages innovation but also directly addresses the dangers of AI, their aides said. They then continued the discussion during a lunch at the White House, they said.

They agreed that they have a ''shared vision,'' their aides said, and that the federal government should take swift action.

Over the rest of the summer and into fall, Obama kept in regular touch with Zients, deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and national security adviser Jake Sullivan to offer input on the executive order, Biden and Obama aides said. They said their two teams were in touch about a dozen times, including as the administration finalized the order ahead of Monday's announcement.

At a signing ceremony for the executive order Monday, Biden called AI ''the most consequential technology of our time,'' citing fears that AI-enabled cyberattacks and AI-formulated bioweapons could endanger the lives of millions. But if it is used properly, he said, the technology can be incredibly beneficial to developing new drugs and cancer research.

Obama was particularly helpful in laying the groundwork for tech companies to voluntarily sign on to have their AI models pressure-tested before they're released to the public, Biden and Obama aides said. Part of his approach was to urge industry leaders to consider risks beyond national security, including information integrity, bias and discrimination.

''He helped really set the frame of mind that companies can innovate while also being responsible and that companies need to be accountable,'' Zients said.

Obama also reached out to advocacy groups that are concerned about AI, as well as leading academics and researchers who know most about the issue, aides said. He used the conversations to inform the guidance he offered the White House, the aides said.

Obama told industry leaders that it was something he has been concerned about since his second term, when he tasked his administration with releasing a report on the future of artificial intelligence. He sees the swift rise and potential dangers of some social media platforms in recent years as a clear warning sign.

''Those people created platforms that helped us connect in new and exciting ways, but they also failed to anticipate the harm their tools could do. By the time it became clear, much of the damage had already been done,'' he wrote this week. ''We can't make the same mistake again.''

The White House is particularly worried about the role AI could play in amplifying misinformation around key elections.

Already, former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, is amplifying baseless conspiracy theories that imply Obama is somehow secretly still in power, for which there is no evidence.

A longtime ''tech skeptic,'' Biden has experimented with ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, and voice-cloning technology, aides said. He has even seen deepfakes of himself, his aides said, some of which were credible enough that he joked to staff members, ''When the hell did I say that?''

In April, Biden got a demonstration that included ChatGPT's summarizing the Supreme Court's New Jersey v. Delaware ruling with three prompts: for a first grader, for an associate out of law school and as the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song. Biden had kidded Springsteen about the case at a National Medal of Arts ceremony weeks earlier, given their respective roots and what the ruling says about the rights to the Delaware River.

What he saw ''deepened his conviction'' to move fast, a senior administration official said.

Monica Alba Monica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 19:58

Part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, woodcut print from the Apocalypse of Albrecht D¼rer (1497''1498), Staatliche Kunsthalle KarlsruheEschatology (; from Ancient Greek á¼--σχαÏÎς ((C)skhatos ) 'last', and -logy) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or the world itself. The end of the world or end times[2] is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negative world events will reach a climax. Belief that the end of the world is imminent is known as apocalypticism, and over time has been held both by members of mainstream religions and by doomsday cults. In the context of mysticism, the term refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and to reunion with the divine. Various religions treat eschatology as a future event prophesied in sacred texts or in folklore.

The Abrahamic religions maintain a linear cosmology, with end-time scenarios containing themes of transformation and redemption. In later Judaism, the term "end of days" makes reference to the Messianic Age and includes an in-gathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the righteous, and the world to come. Some forms of Christianity depict the end time as a period of tribulation that precedes the second coming of Christ, who will face the rise of the Antichrist along with his power structure and false prophets, and usher in the Kingdom of God. In Islam, the Day of Judgment is preceded by the appearance of the MasÄḥ ad-Dajjāl, and followed by the descending of ÊĪsā (Jesus), which shall triumph over the false Messiah or Antichrist; his defeat will lead to a sequence of events that will end with the sun rising from the west and the beginning of the Qiyāmah (Judgment Day).

Dharmic religions tend to have more cyclical worldviews, with end-time eschatologies characterized by decay, redemption, and rebirth (though some believe transitions between cycles are relatively uneventful). In Hinduism, the end time occurs when Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, descends atop a white horse and brings an end to the current Kali Yuga, completing a cycle that starts again with the regeneration of the world. In Buddhism, the Buddha predicted his teachings would be forgotten after 5,000 years, followed by turmoil. It says a bodhisattva named Maitreya will appear and rediscover the teachings of the Buddha Dharma, and that the ultimate destruction of the world will then come through seven suns.

Since the development of the concept of deep time in the 18th century[citation needed ] the calculation of the estimated age of planet Earth, scientific discourse about end times has considered the ultimate fate of the universe. Theories have included the Big Rip, Big Crunch, Big Bounce, and Big Freeze (heat death). Social and scientific commentators also worry about global catastrophic risks and scenarios that could result in human extinction.

Etymology [ edit ] The word "eschatology" arises from the Ancient Greek term á¼--σχαÏÎς ((C)schatos), meaning "last", and -logy, meaning "the study of", and first appeared in English around 1844.[3] The Oxford English Dictionary defines eschatology as "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind".[4]

Linear cosmology [ edit ] Judaism [ edit ] Scroll of Book of IsaiahThe main tenets of modern Jewish eschatology, in no particular order, include:[5]

God will redeem Israel from the captivity that began during the Babylonian Exile in a new Exodus.God will return the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.God will restore the House of David and the Temple in Jerusalem.God will raise up a regent from the House of David, the Jewish Messiah, to lead the Jewish people and the world and to usher in an age of justice and peace, the Messianic Age.Non-Jews will recognize that the God of Israel is the only true god.God will resurrect the dead.God will create a new heaven and earth.[6]Judaism usually refers to the end times as the "end of days" (aḥarit ha-yamim, אחר×ת ×--×מ××'), a phrase that appears several times in the Tanakh. The end times are addressed in the Book of Daniel and in numerous other prophetic passages in the Hebrew scriptures, and also in the Talmud, particularly Tractate Avodah Zarah.

The idea of a Messianic Age, an era of global peace and knowledge of the Creator, has a prominent place in Jewish thought, and is incorporated as part of the end of days. A well-known passage from the Book of Isaiah describes this future condition of the world: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer study warfare" (2:4).[5] Maimonides (1135''1204) further describes the Messianic Era in the Mishneh Torah: "And at that time there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry. For the good will be plentiful, and all delicacies available as dust. The entire occupation of the world will be only to know God; ... the people Israel will be of great wisdom; they will perceive the esoteric truths and comprehend their Creator's wisdom as is the capacity of man. As it is written (Isaiah 11:9): 'For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea.'"[7]

Kabbalah [ edit ] In Kabbalah, the Zohar[8] maintains that the seven days of the week, based on the seven days of creation, correspond to the seven millennia of creation. The seventh day of the week, the Shabbat day of rest, corresponds to the seventh millennium, the age of universal rest, or the Messianic Era. The seventh millennium begins with the year 6000 AM, and is the latest time the Messiah can come. A number of early and late Jewish scholars have written in support of this, including the Ramban,[9] Isaac Abarbanel,[10] Abraham Ibn Ezra,[11] Rabbeinu Bachya,[12] the Vilna Gaon,[13] the Lubavitcher Rebbe,[14] the Ramchal,[15] Aryeh Kaplan[16] and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis.[17]

Zoroastrianism [ edit ] Frashokereti is the Zoroastrian doctrine of a final renovation of the universe when evil will be destroyed, and everything else will then be in perfect unity with God (Ahura Mazda). The doctrinal premises are:

Good will eventually prevail over evil.Creation, initially perfectly good, was subsequently corrupted by evil.The world will ultimately be restored to the perfection it had at the time of creation.The "salvation for the individual depended on the sum of [that person's] thoughts, words and deeds, and there could be no intervention, whether compassionate or capricious, by any divine being to alter this". Thus each human bears the responsibility for the fate of his own soul, and simultaneously shares in the responsibility for the fate of the world.[18]Zoroastrian eschatology is considered one of the oldest in recorded history. The birth of its founder, Zoroaster, is unknown, with scholarly dates ranging from 500 BCE to 1,500 BCE. Pliny the Elder even suggests there were two Zoroasters.[19] However, with beliefs paralleling and possibly predating the framework of the major Abrahamic faiths, a fully developed concept of the end of the world was not established in Zoroastrianism until 500 BCE. The Bahman Yasht describes:

At the end of thy tenth hundredth winter, the sun is more unseen and more spotted; the year, month, and day are shorter; and the earth is more barren; and the crop will not yield the seed. And men become more deceitful and more given to vile practices. They will have no gratitude. Honorable wealth will proceed to those of perverted faith. And a dark cloud makes the whole sky night, and it will rain more noxious creatures than water.

A battle between the righteous and wicked will be followed by the Frashokereti. On earth, the Saoshyant will arrive as the final savior of mankind, and bring about the resurrection of the dead. The yazatas Airyaman and Atar will melt the metal in the hills and mountains, which will flow as lava across the earth and all mankind, both the living and resurrected, will be required to wade through it. Ashavan will pass through the molten river as if it were warm milk, but the sinful will burn. It will then flow down to hell, where it will annihilate Angra Mainyu and the last vestiges of wickedness.

The righteous will partake of the parahaoma, which will confer immortality upon them. Humanity will become like the Amesha Spentas, living without food, hunger, thirst, weapons or injury. Bodies will become so light as to cast no shadow. All humanity will speak a single language, and belong to a single nation with no borders. All will share a single purpose and goal, joining with Ahura Mazda for a perpetual and divine exaltation.[20][18]

Gnosticism [ edit ] The Gnostic codex On the Origin of the World (possibly dating from near the end of the third century AD) states that during what is called the consummation of the age, the Sun and Moon will become dark as the stars change their ordinary course. Kings will make war with each other, and thunder will cause the world to be shaken. The corrupt Archons will mourn. The sea will be troubled by fighting of the kings who became drunk from the flaming sword. Finally, great thunder will come from Sophia, the woman in the firmament above the forces of Chaos. She will cast the corrupt gods into the abyss where they will fight each other until only their chief Yaldabaoth remains and destroys himself. Next the heavens of the Archons will collapse on each other before the Earth sinks into the abyss. Light will cover the darkness and eliminate it then form into something greater than anything that ever existed before. The source of the darkness will dissolve, and the deficiency will be taken from its root. Those who were not perfected in the unconceived one will receive glories in their realms and kingdoms of the immortals, but those who were will enter a kingless realm. All will be judged according to their deeds and gnosis.[21]

Christianity [ edit ] Christian eschatology is the study concerned with the ultimate destiny of the individual soul and of the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testaments.

Christian eschatological research looks to study and discuss matters such as the nature of the divine and the divine nature of Jesus Christ, death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, the Tribulation, millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New Earth in the world to come.

Eschatological passages occur in many places in the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. In the Old Testament, apocalyptic eschatology can be found notably in Isaiah 24''27, Isaiah 56''66, Joel, Zechariah 9''14 as well as in the closing chapters of Daniel, and in Ezekiel.[22] In the New Testament, applicable passages include Matthew 24, Mark 13, the parable of "The Sheep and the Goats" and the Book of Revelation'--Revelation often occupies a central place in Christian eschatology.

The Second Coming of Christ is the central event in Christian eschatology within the broader context of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. Most Christians believe that death and suffering will continue to exist until Christ's return. There are, however, various views concerning the order and significance of other eschatological events.

The Book of Revelation stands at the core of much of Christian eschatology. The study of Revelation is usually divided into four interpretative methodologies or hermeneutics:

The Futurist approach treats the Book of Revelation mostly as unfulfilled prophecy taking place in some yet undetermined future.The Preterist approach interprets Revelation chiefly as having had prophetic fulfillment in the past, principally in the events of the first century CE.The Historicist approach places Revelation within the context of history, identifying figures and passages in Revelation with major historical people and events. This view was commonly held by the early Christian church, then among the predecessors to Protestantism, such as John Wycliffe,[23][need quotation to verify ] Joachim of Fiore[24] and later by the majority of Protestant Reformers, such as Martin Luther,[25][26] John Calvin,[27] and John Wesley.[28] Further supporters of this view included Isaac Newton[29] (1642''1727), among others.[30][31]The Idealist approach sees the events of Revelation as neither past nor future actualities, but as purely symbolic accounts, dealing with the ongoing struggle and ultimate triumph of good over evil.Date [ edit ] First-century Christians believed Jesus would return during their lifetime. When the converts of Paul in Thessalonica were persecuted by the Roman Empire, they believed the end of days to be imminent.[32] Scholarly consensus would hold that Jesus, and following him the early Christians, understood the endtime as being imminent.[33]

While some who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible insist the prediction of dates or times is futile, others believe Jesus foretold signs of the end of days. The precise time, however, will come like a "thief in the night" (1 Thess. 5:2). They may also refer to Matthew 24:36 in which Jesus is quoted as saying:

"But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."

Great Tribulation [ edit ] In the New Testament, Jesus refers to this period preceding the end times as the "Great Tribulation" (Matthew 24:21), "Affliction" (Mark 13:19), and "days of vengeance" (Luke 21:22).

The Book of Matthew describes the devastation:

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand). Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down. ...Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes, and woe unto them that are with child. ...For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

The resulting chaos will affect pregnancies, newborns, and a scourge will spread throughout the flesh, save for the elect. The vivid imagery of this section is repeated closely in Mark 13:14''20.

The Gospel of Luke describes a complete unraveling of the social fabric, with widespread calamity and war:

Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

And he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

In the Book of Revelation, the "great tribulation" (Rev. 7:14b) refers to a time of affliction upon God's people.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy [ edit ] The Profession of Faith addresses Catholic beliefs concerning the last days.[34] Catholicism adheres to the amillennial school of thought, promoted by Augustine of Hippo in his work The City of God.

Protestantism [ edit ] Contemporary use of the term End Times has evolved from literal belief in Christian millennialism. In this tradition, Biblical apocalypse is believed to be imminent, with various current events as omens of impending Armageddon. These beliefs have been put forward by the Adventist movement (Millerites), Jehovah's Witnesses, and dispensational premillennialists. In 1918 a group of eight, well-known preachers produced the London Manifesto, warning of an imminent second coming of Christ shortly after the 1917 liberation of Jerusalem by the British.

Millennialists and Amillennialists [ edit ] The Antichrist, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1521). Here the Antichrist is shown wearing the triple crown of the Roman papacy.Protestants are divided between Millennialists and Amillennialists. Millennialists concentrate on the issue of whether the true believers will see the Great Tribulation or be removed from it by what is referred to as a Pre-Tribulation rapture.

Amillennialists believe the end times encompass the time from Christ's ascension to the last day, and maintain that the mention of the "thousand years" in the Book of Revelation is meant to be taken metaphorically (i.e., not literally), a view which continues to cause divisions within Protestant Christianity.

There is a range of eschatological belief in Protestant Christianity. Christian premillennialists who believe the end times are occurring now, are usually specific about timelines that climax in the end of the world. For some, Israel, the European Union, or the United Nations are seen as major players whose roles were foretold in scripture. Within dispensational premillennialist writing, there is the belief that Christians will be summoned to Heaven by Christ at the rapture, occurring before a Great Tribulation prophesied in Matthew 24''25; Mark 13 and Luke 21. The Tribulation is described in the Book of Revelation.

"End times" may also refer to the passing of an age or long period in the relationship between man and God.[35] Adherents to this view cite the Second Epistle to Timothy and draw analogies to the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Post-Exilic Hebrew books of prophecy such as Daniel and Ezekiel are given new interpretations in this Christian tradition, while apocalyptic forecasts appear in the Judeo-Christian Sibylline Oracles which include the Book of Revelation ascribed to John, the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter, and the Second Book of Esdras.

Fundamentalists [ edit ] Most fundamentalist Christians anticipate biblical prophecy to be literally fulfilled. They see current wars, natural disaster and famine as the birth pains which Jesus described in Matthew 24:7''8 and Mark 13:8. They believe mankind began in the garden of Eden, and point to the Valley of Megiddo as the place where the current world system will terminate, after which the Messiah will rule for 1,000 years.

Adventists and Millerites [ edit ] Icon of the Second Coming. Greek, ca. 1700 A.D.Religious movements which expect that the second coming of Christ will be a cataclysmic event are generally called adventism. These have arisen throughout the Christian era, but were particularly common after the Protestant Reformation. Emanuel Swedenborg considered the second coming to be symbolic, and to have occurred in 1757. Along with others, he developed a religious system around the second coming of Christ, disclosed by new prophecy or special revelation not described in the Bible. The Millerites are diverse religious groups which similarly rely upon a special gift of interpretation for predicting the second coming.

The difference between the 19th-century Millerite and adventist movements and contemporary prophecy is that William Miller and his followers, based on biblical interpretation, predicted the time of the Second Coming to have occurred in 1844. Contemporary writing of end time has suggested the timetable will be triggered by future wars and moral catastrophe, and that this time of tribulation is close at hand.

Seventh-day Adventists believe biblical prophecy to foretell an end time scenario in which the United States works in conjunction with the Catholic Church to mandate worship on a day other than the true Sabbath, Saturday, as prescribed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8''11). This will bring about a situation where one must choose for or against the Bible as the will of God.[36]

Preterists [ edit ] Another view of the end times is preterism. It distinguishes the time of the end from the end of time. Preterists believe the term last days (or Time of the End) refers to, neither the last days of the Earth, nor the last days of humankind, but the end of the Old Covenant between God and Israel; which, according to preterism, took place when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE.

Preterists believe that prophecies'--such as the Second Coming, the desecration of the Jewish Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the rise of the Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, the advent of The Day of the Lord, and a Final Judgment'--had been fulfilled when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and completely destroyed its Temple.

Proponents of full preterism do not believe in a coming resurrection of the dead. They place this event (as well as the Second Coming) in the year 70. Advocates of partial preterism do believe in a coming resurrection. Full preterists contend that partial preterists are merely futurists, since they believe the Second Coming, the Resurrection, the Rapture, and the Judgment are yet to come.

Many preterists believe first-century Christians experienced the Rapture to rejoin the Christ.

According with Preterism's interpretation of end times, many "time passages" in the New Testament foretell a Second Coming of Christ, with last days to take place within the lifetimes of his disciples: Matt. 10:23, Matt. 16:28, Matt. 24:34, Matt. 26:64, Rom. 13:11''12, 1 Cor. 7:29''31, 1 Cor. 10:11, Phil. 4:5, James 5:8''9, 1 Pet. 4:7, 1 Jn. 2:18.

Dispensationalists [ edit ] Dispensationalism is an evangelical futurist Biblical interpretation that foresees a series of dispensations, or periods, in which God relates to human beings under different Biblical covenants. The belief system is primarily rooted in the writings of John Nelson Darby and is premillennial in content. The reestablishment of Israel in 1948 provided a major impetus to the dispensationalist belief system. The wars of Israel after 1948 with its Arab neighbors provided further support, according to John F. Walvoord.[37] After the Six-Day War in 1967, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, it seemed plausible to many Fundamentalist Christians in the 1970s that Middle East turmoil may well be leading up to the fulfillment of various Bible prophecies and to the Battle of Armageddon.

Members of the dispensationalist movement such as Hal Lindsey, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, all of whom have Dallas Theological Seminary backgrounds, and some other writers, claimed further that the European Economic Community, which preceded the European Union, would become a United States of Europe, which would in turn become a Revived Roman Empire ruled by the Antichrist. The Revived Roman Empire also figured into the New Testament writers' vision of the future. The fact that in the early 1970s, there were (erroneously thought to be) seven nations in the European Economic Community was held to be significant; this aligned the Community with a seven-headed beast mentioned in Revelation. This specific prophecy has required revision, but the idea of a Revived Roman Empire remains.

Dispensationalism, in contrast to the Millerite Adventist movement, had its beginning in the 19th century, when John Nelson Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren religious denomination, incorporated into his system of Biblical interpretation a system of organizing Biblical time into a number of discrete dispensations, each of which marks a separate covenant with God. Darby's beliefs were widely publicized in Cyrus I. Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible, an annotated Bible that became popular in the United States.

Since the majority of the Biblical prophets were writing at a time when the Temple in Jerusalem was still functioning, they wrote as if it would still be standing during the prophesied events. According to preterism, this was a fulfillment of the prophecies. However, according to Futurists, their destruction in AD 70 put the prophetic timetable on hold. Many such believers therefore anticipated the return of Jews to Israel and the reconstruction of the Temple before the Second Coming could occur.[38][39]

Post-tribulation pre-millennialism [ edit ] A view of the Second Coming of Christ as held by post-tribulational pre-millennialists holds that the Church of Christ will have to undergo great persecution by being present during the great tribulation.

Specific prophetic movements [ edit ] William Miller predicted the end of the world in 1843, known as the Great Disappointment.In 1843, William Miller made the first of several predictions that the world would end in only a few months. As his predictions did not come true (referred to as the Great Disappointment), followers of Miller went on to found separate groups, the most successful of which is the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Members of the Bahʼ­ Faith believe Miller's interpretation of signs and dates of the coming of Jesus were, for the most part, correct.[40] They believe the fulfillment of biblical prophecies of the coming of Christ came through a forerunner of their own religion, the Bb. According to the Bb's words, 4 April 1844 was "the first day that the Spirit descended" into his heart.[41] His subsequent declaration to Mull Husayn-i Bushru'i that he was the "Promised One"'--an event now commemorated by Bahʼ­s as a major holy day'--took place on 23 May 1844. It was in October of that year that the Bb embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he openly declared his claims to the Sharif of Mecca.[42][43] The first news coverage of these events in the West was in 1845 by The Times,[44] followed by others in 1850 in the United States.[45] The first Bahʼ­ to come to America was in 1892.[42] Several Bahʼ­ books and pamphlets make mention of the Millerites, the prophecies used by Miller and the Great Disappointment, most notably William Sears's Thief in the Night.[46][47][48]

Restorationism (Christian primitivism) [ edit ] End times theology is also significant to restorationist Christian religions, which consider themselves distinct from both Catholicism and Protestantism.

Jehovah's Witnesses [ edit ] Former Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn. The society made a number of emphatic claims of impending last days and ensuing chaos between 1879 and 1924.The eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses is central to their religious beliefs. They believe Jesus Christ has been ruling in heaven as king since 1914 (a date they believe was prophesied in the Bible) and that after that time a period of cleansing occurred, resulting in God's selection of the Bible Students associated with Charles Taze Russell as his people in 1919. They also believe that the destruction of those who reject the Bible's message[49] and thus willfully refuse to obey God[50][51] will shortly take place at Armageddon, ensuring that the beginning of the new earthly society will be composed of willing subjects of that kingdom.

The religion's doctrines surrounding 1914 are the legacy of a series of emphatic claims regarding the years 1799,[52] 1874,[52] 1878,[53] 1914,[54] 1918[55] and 1925[56] made in the Watch Tower Society's publications between 1879 and 1924. Claims about the significance of those years, including the presence of Jesus Christ, the beginning of the "last days", the destruction of worldly governments and the earthly resurrection of Jewish patriarchs, were successively abandoned.[57] In 1922 the society's principal magazine, The Watchtower, described its chronology as "no stronger than its weakest link", but also claimed the chronological relationships to be "of divine origin and divinely corroborated ... in a class by itself, absolutely and unqualifiedly correct"[58] and "indisputable facts",[52] and repudiation of Russell's teachings was described as "equivalent to a repudiation of the Lord".[59]

The Watch Tower Society has acknowledged its early leaders promoted "incomplete, even inaccurate concepts".[60] The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses says that, unlike Old Testament prophets, its interpretations of the Bible are not inspired or infallible.[61][62][63] It says that Bible prophecies can be fully understood only after their fulfillment, citing examples of biblical figures who did not understand the meaning of prophecies they received. Watch Tower Society literature often cites Proverbs 4:18, "The path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established" (NWT) to support their view that there would be an increase in knowledge during "the time of the end", and that this increase in knowledge needs adjustments. Watch Tower Society publications also say that unfulfilled expectations are partly due to eagerness for God's Kingdom and that they do not call their core beliefs into question.[64][65][66]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [ edit ] Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe there will be a Second Coming of Jesus to the earth at some time in the future. The LDS Church and its leaders do not make any predictions of the date of the Second Coming.

According to church doctrine, the true gospel will be taught in all parts of the world prior to the Second Coming.[67] They also believe there will be increasing war, earthquakes, hurricanes, and man-made disasters prior to the Second Coming.[68] Disasters of all kind will happen before Christ comes.[69] Upon the return of Jesus Christ, all people will be resurrected, the righteous in a first resurrection and the unrighteous in a second, later resurrection. Christ shall reign for a period of 1000 years, after which the Final Judgement will occur.

Realized eschatology [ edit ] Realized eschatology is a Christian eschatological theory that holds that the eschatological passages in the New Testament do not refer to the future, but instead refer to the ministry of Jesus and his lasting legacy.[70][71]

Islam [ edit ] Diagram of "Plain of Assembly" (Ard al-Hashr) on the Day of Judgment, from an autograph manuscript of Futuhat al-Makkiyya by Sufi mystic and Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi, ca. 1238. Shown are the 'Arsh (Throne of God), pulpits for the righteous (al-Aminun), seven rows of angels, Gabriel (al-Ruh), A'raf (the Barrier), the Pond of Abundance, al-Maqam al-Mahmud (the Praiseworthy Station; where the Prophet Muhammad will stand to intercede for the faithful), Mizan (the Scale), As-Sirāt (the Bridge), Jahannam (Hell), and Marj al-Jannat (Meadow of Paradise).[72]Muslims believe there are three periods before the Day of Judgment with some debate as to whether the periods could overlap.[73][74][75]

Sunni [ edit ] Sunnis believe the dead will then stand in a grand assembly, awaiting a scroll detailing their righteous deeds, sinful acts and ultimate judgment.[note 1][76] Prophet Muhammad will be the first to be resurrected.[77] Punishments will include adhab, or severe pain and embarrassment, and khizy or shame.[78] There will also be a punishment of the grave between death and the resurrection.[79] Several Sunni scholars explain some of the signs metaphorically.

The signs of the coming end time are divided into major and minor signs:Following the second period, the third is said to be marked by the ten major signs known as alamatu's-sa'ah al- kubra (The major signs of the end).[note 2] They are as follows:

A huge black cloud of smoke (dukhan) will cover the earth.[note 3]Three sinkings of the earth, one in the East.[note 3]One sinking of the earth in the West.[note 3]One sinking of the earth in Arabia.[note 3]The false messiah'--anti-Christ, Masih ad-Dajjal'--shall appear with great powers as a one-eyed man with his right eye blind and deformed like a grape. Although believers will not be deceived, he will claim to be God, to hold the keys to heaven and hell, and will lead many astray.[80] In reality, his heaven is hell, and his hell is heaven. The Dajjal will be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls.[note 4]The return of Isa (Jesus), from the fourth sky, to kill Dajjal.[81]Ya'jooj and Ma'jooj (Gog and Magog), a Japhetic tribe of vicious beings who had been imprisoned by Dhul-Qarnayn, will break out. They will ravage the earth, drink all the water of Lake Tiberias, and kill all believers in their way. Isa, Imam Al-Mahdi, and the believers with them will go to the top of a mountain and pray for the destruction of Gog and Magog. God eventually will send disease and worms to wipe them out.[note 5][82]The sun will rise from the West.[83][84][85]The Dabbat al-ard, or Beast of the Earth, will come out of the ground to talk to people.[note 6]The second blow of the trumpet will be sounded, the dead will return to life, and a fire will come out of Yemen that shall gather all to Mahshar Al Qiy'amah (The Gathering for Judgment).[86]Shia [ edit ] Many of the signs shown above are shared by both Sunni and Shia beliefs, with some exceptions, e.g. Imam Al-Mahdi defeating Al-Masih ad-Dajjal.

Concepts and terminology in Shia eschatology include Mi'ad, the Occultation, Al-Yamani, and Sufyani. In Twelver Shia narrations about the last days, the literature largely revolves around Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is considered by many beliefs to be the true twelfth appointed successor to Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad al-Mahdi will help mankind against the deception by the Dajjal who will try to get people in to a new world religion which is called "the great deception".[87][need quotation to verify ]

Ahmadiyya [ edit ] Ahmadiyya is considered distinct from mainstream Islam. In its writing, the present age has been witness to the evil of man and wrath of God, with war and natural disaster.[88] Ghulam Ahmad is seen as the promised Messiah and the Mahdi, fulfilling Islamic and Biblical prophecies, as well as scriptures of other religions such as Hinduism. His teaching will establish spiritual reform and establish an age of peace. This will continue for a thousand years, and will unify mankind under one faith.[89]

Ahmadis believe that despite harsh and strong opposition and discrimination they will eventually be triumphant and their message vindicated both by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ahmadis also incorporate the eschatological views from other religions into their doctrine and believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmed falls into this sequence.[90]

Bahʼ­ Faith [ edit ] Bah'­ House of Worship, Delhi, IndiaIn the Bahʼ­ Faith, creation has neither a beginning nor an end;[91] Bahʼ­s regard the eschatologies of other religions as symbolic. In Bahʼ­ belief, human time is marked by a series of progressive revelations in which successive messengers or prophets come from God.[92] The coming of each of these messengers is seen as the day of judgment to the adherents of the previous religion, who may choose to accept the new messenger and enter the "heaven" of belief, or denounce the new messenger and enter the "hell" of denial. In this view, the terms "heaven" and "hell" become symbolic terms for a person's spiritual progress and their nearness to or distance from God.[92] In Bahʼ­ belief, Bah'u'llh (1817-1892), the founder of the Bahʼ­ Faith, was the Second Coming of Christ and also the fulfilment of previous eschatological expectations of Islam and other major religions.[93]

The inception of the Bahʼ­ Faith coincides with Great Disappointment of the Millerite prophesy in 1844.

Ê>>Abdu'l-Bah taught that Armageddon would begin in 1914,[94] but without a clear indication of its end date.[95] Bahʼ­s believe that the mass martyrdom anticipated during the End Times had already passed within the historical context of the Bahʼ­ Faith.[96][97] Bahʼ­s expect their faith to be eventually embraced by the masses of the world, ushering in a golden age.

Rastafari [ edit ] Haile Selassie I is viewed as god incarnate in Rastafari.Rastafari have a unique interpretation of end times, based on the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation. They believe Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I to be God incarnate, the King of kings and Lord of lords mentioned in Revelation 5:5. They saw the crowning of Selassie as the second coming, and the Second Italo-Ethiopian War as fulfillment of Revelation. There is also the expectation that Selassie will return for a day of judgment and bring home the "lost children of Israel", which in Rastafari refers to those taken from Africa through the slave trade. There will then be an era of peace and harmony at Mount Zion in Africa.[98]

Cyclic cosmology [ edit ] Hinduism [ edit ] The Vaishnavite tradition links contemporary Hindu eschatology to the figure of Kalki, the tenth and last avatar of Vishnu. Many Hindus believe that before the age draws to a close, Kalki will reincarnate as Shiva and simultaneously dissolve and regenerate the universe. In contrast, Shaivites hold the view that Shiva is incessantly destroying and creating the world.[99]

In Hindu eschatology, time is cyclic and consists of kalpas. Each lasts 4.1''8.2 billion years, which is a period of one full day and night for Brahma, who will be alive for 311 trillion, 40 billion years. Within a kalpa there are periods of creation, preservation and decline. After this larger cycle, all of creation will contract to a singularity[citation needed ] and then again will expand from that single point, as the ages continue in a religious fractal pattern.[75][need quotation to verify ]

Within the current kalpa, there are four epochs that encompass the cycle. They progress from a beginning of complete purity to a descent into total corruption. The last of the four ages is Kali Yuga (which most Hindus believe is the current time), characterized by quarrel, hypocrisy, impiety, violence and decay. The four pillars of dharma will be reduced to one, with truth being all that remains.[100] As written in the Gita:

Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānirbhavati BhārataAbhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānam sṛjāmyahamWhenever there is decay of righteousness in Bharata (Aryavarta)And a rise of unrighteousness then I manifest Myself![101]

At this time of chaos, the final avatar, Kalki, endowed with eight superhuman faculties will appear on a white horse. Kalki will amass an army to "establish righteousness upon the earth" and leave "the minds of the people as pure as crystal."

At the completion of Kali Yuga, the next Yuga Cycle will begin with a new Satya Yuga, in which all will once again be righteous with the reestablishment of dharma. This, in turn, will be followed by epochs of Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and again another Kali Yuga. This cycle will then repeat until the larger cycle of existence under Brahma returns to the singularity,[citation needed ] and a new universe is born.[98]The cycle of birth, growth, decay, and renewal at the individual level finds its echo in the cosmic order, yet is affected by vagueries of divine intervention in Vaishnavite belief.

Buddhism [ edit ] There is no classic account of beginning or end[102]in Buddhism; Masao Abe attributes this to the absence of God.[103]

History is embedded in the continuing process of samsara or the "beginningless and endless cycles of birth-death-rebirth".[104] Buddhists believe there is an end to things[105] but it is not final because they are bound to be born again. However, the writers of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures establish a specific end-time account in Buddhist tradition: this describes the return of Maitreya Buddha, who would bring about an end to the world.[106] This constitutes one of the two major branches of Buddhist eschatology, with the other being the Sermon of the Seven Suns. End time in Buddhism could also involve a cultural eschatology covering "final things", which include the idea that Sakyamuni Buddha's dharma will also come to an end.[107]

Maitreya [ edit ] The Buddha described his teachings disappearing five thousand years from when he preached them,[108] corresponding approximately to the year 4300 since he was born in 623 BCE.[109] At this time, knowledge of dharma will be lost as well. The last of his relics will be gathered in Bodh Gaya and cremated.[citation needed ] There will be a new era in which the next Buddha Maitreya will appear, but it will be preceded by the degeneration of human society. This will be a period of greed, lust, poverty, ill will, violence, murder, impiety, physical weakness, sexual depravity and societal collapse, and even the Buddha himself will be forgotten.[75]

This will be followed by the coming of Maitreya when the teachings of dharma are forgotten. Maitreya was the first Bodhisattva around whom a cult developed, in approximately the third century CE.[110]

The earliest known mention of Maitreya occurs in the Cakavatti, or Sihanada Sutta in Digha Nikaya 26 of the Pali Canon. In it, Gautama Buddha predicted his teachings of dharma would be forgotten after 5,000 years.

At that period, brethren, there will arise in the world an Exalted One named Maitreya, Fully Awakened, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, an Exalted One, a Buddha, even as I am now. He, by himself, will thoroughly know and see, as it were face to face, this universe, with Its worlds of the spirits, Its Brahmas and Its Maras, and Its world of recluses and Brahmins, of princes and peoples, even as I now, by myself, thoroughly know and see them.

'--'ŠDigha Nikaya, 26

The text then foretells the birth of Maitreya Buddha in the city of KetumatÄ in present-day Benares, whose king will be the CakkavattÄ Sankha. Sankha will live in the former palace of King Mahāpanadā, and will become a renunciate who follows Maitreya.[111][112]

In Mahayana Buddhism, Maitreya will attain bodhi in seven days, the minimum period, by virtue of his many lifetimes of preparation. Once Buddha, he will rule over the Ketumati Pure Land, an earthly paradise sometimes associated with the Indian city of Varanasi or Benares in present-day Uttar Pradesh. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha presides over a land of purity. For example, Amitabha presides over Sukhavati, more popularly known as the "Western Paradise".[113]

Bodhisattva Maitreya from the second-century Gandharan art periodA notable teaching he will rediscover is that of the ten non-virtuous deeds'--killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, idle speech, covetousness, harmful intent and wrong views. The ten virtuous deeds will replace them with the abandonment of each of these practices. Edward Conze in his Buddhist Scriptures (1959) gives an account of Maitreya:

The Lord replied, 'Maitreya, the best of men, will then leave the Tuá¹£ita heavens and go for his last rebirth. As soon as he is born he will walk seven steps forward, and where he puts down his feet a jewel or a lotus will spring up. He will raise his eyes to the ten directions and will speak these words: "This is my last birth. There will be no rebirth after this one. Never will I come back here, but, all pure, I shall win Nirvana."'

'--'Š

Buddhist Scriptures[114]Maitreya currently resides in Tushita, but will come to Jambudvipa when needed most as successor to the historic Śākyamuni Buddha. Maitreya will achieve complete enlightenment during his lifetime, and following this reawakening he will bring back the timeless teaching of dharma to this plane and rediscover enlightenment.[115] The Arya Maitreya Mandala, founded in 1933 by Lama Anagarika Govinda, is based on the idea of Maitreya.

Maitreya eschatology forms the central canon of the White Lotus Society, a religious and political movement which emerged in Yuan China.[116] It later branched into the Chinese underground criminal organization known as the Triads, which exist today as an international underground criminal network.[citation needed ]

Note that no description of Maitreya occurs in any other sutta in the canon, casting doubt as to the authenticity of the scripture. In addition, sermons of the Buddha normally are in response to a question, or in a specific context, but this sutta has a beginning and an ending, and its content is quite different from the others. This has led some to conclude that the whole sutta is apocryphal, or tampered with.[115]

Sermon of the Seven Suns [ edit ] In his "Sermon of the Seven Suns" in the Pali Canon, the Buddha describes the ultimate fate of the Earth in an apocalypse characterized by the consequent appearance of seven suns in the sky, each causing progressive ruin until the planet is destroyed:

All things are impermanent, all aspects of existence are unstable and non-eternal. Beings will become so weary and disgusted with the constituent things that they will seek emancipation from them more quickly. There will come a season, O monks when, after hundreds of thousands of years, rains will cease. All seedlings, all vegetation, all plants, grasses and trees will dry up and cease to be. ...There comes another season after a great lapse of time when a second sun will appear. Now all brooks and ponds will dry up, vanish, cease to be.

'--'Š

AÅguttara-Nikăya, VII, 6.2 Pali Canon[75]The canon goes on to describe the progressive destruction of each sun. The third sun will dry the Ganges River and other rivers, whilst the fourth will cause the lakes to evaporate; the fifth will dry the oceans. Later:

Again after a vast period of time a sixth sun will appear, and it will bake the Earth even as a pot is baked by a potter. All the mountains will reek and send up clouds of smoke. After another great interval a seventh sun will appear and the Earth will blaze with fire until it becomes one mass of flame. The mountains will be consumed, a spark will be carried on the wind and go to the worlds of God. ...Thus, monks, all things will burn, perish and exist no more except those who have seen the path.

'--'Š

AÅguttara-Nikăya, VII, 6.2 Pali Canon[75]The sermon completes with the Earth immersed into an extensive holocaust. The Pali Canon does not indicate when this will happen relative to Maitreya.[75]

Norse mythology [ edit ] Norse mythology depicts the end of days as Ragnar¶k, an Old Norse term translatable as "twilight of the gods". It will be heralded by a devastation known as Fimbulvetr which will seize Midgard in cold and darkness. The sun and moon will disappear from the sky, and poison will fill the air. The dead will rise from the ground and there will be widespread despair.

There follows a battle between'--on the one hand'--the Gods with the †sir, Vanir[117] and Einherjar, led by Odin, and'--on the other hand'--forces of Chaos, including the fire giants and j¶tunn, led by Loki. In the fighting Odin will be swallowed whole by his old nemesis Fenrir.[118] The god Freyr fights Surtr but loses. V­°arr, son of Odin, will then avenge his father by ripping Fenrir's jaws apart and stabbing the wolf in the heart with his spear. The serpent J¶rmungandr will open its gaping maw and be met in combat by Thor. Thor, also a son of Odin, will defeat the serpent, only to take nine steps afterwards before collapsing in his own death.[119]

After this people will flee their homes as the sun blackens and the earth sinks into the sea. The stars will vanish, steam will rise, and flames will touch the heavens. This conflict will result in the deaths of most of the major Gods and forces of Chaos. Finally, Surtr will fling fire across the nine worlds. The ocean will then completely submerge Midgard.[120]

After the cataclysm, the world will resurface new and fertile, and the surviving Gods will meet. Baldr, another son of Odin, will be reborn in the new world, according to V¶lusp. The two human survivors, L­f and L­f¾rasir, will then repopulate this new earth.[121]

No end times [ edit ] Taoism [ edit ] The Taoist faith is not concerned with what came before or after life, knowing only their own being in the Tao. The philosophy is that people come and go, just like mountains, trees and stars, but Tao will go on for time immemorial.[citation needed ]

Analogies in science and philosophy [ edit ] A diagram showing the life cycle of the SunResearchers in futures studies and transhumanists investigate how the accelerating rate of scientific progress may lead to a "technological singularity" in the future that would profoundly and unpredictably change the course of human history, and result in Homo sapiens no longer being the dominant life form on Earth.[122][123][improper synthesis? ]

Occasionally the term "physical eschatology" is applied to the long-term predictions of astrophysics about the future of Earth and ultimate fate of the universe.[124][125] The Sun will turn into a red giant in approximately 6 billion years. Life on Earth will become impossible due to a rise in temperature long before the planet is actually swallowed up by the Sun.[126] Even later, the Sun will become a white dwarf.

See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] ^ Quran 74:38 ^ Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Hadith 6931 ^ a b c d Sahih Muslim ^ Muslim, Book 41, Hadith 7034 ^ Quran 21:96 ^ Quran 27:82 References [ edit ] ^ "BBC '' Religions '' Christianity: End Times". BBC Online. 2011-07-19 . Retrieved 2017-11-10 . ^ Dictionary '' Definition of Eschatology. Webster's Online Dictionary. ^ "Eschatology, n.", def. a, Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2016-05-18. ^ a b "Jewish Eschatology". Jewish Encyclopedia . Retrieved 1 May 2012 . ^ Ginzburg, Yitsḥaá¸" (2007). Kabbalah and Meditation for the Nations. GalEinai Publication Society. ISBN 978-965-7146-12-5. ^ Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 12:5 ^ Zohar, Vayera 119a ^ Ramban on Genesis (2:3) ^ Abarbanel on Genesis 2 ^ Ramban quoting Ibn Ezra at Leviticus (25:2) ^ Bachya on Genesis 2:3 ^ Safra D'Tzniusa, Ch. 5 ^ Sefer HaSichos 5750:254 ^ Derech Hashem 4:7:2 ^ Page 318, The Real Messiah Kaplan, Aryeh (1 August 1991). The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology: Illuminating Expositions on Jewish Thought and Practice by a Revered Teacher. Mesorah Publications. ISBN 9780899068664 . Retrieved 2 September 2015 . ^ Fleisher, Malkah (27 October 2008). " 'It's Erev Shabbos of the World' '' Jewish World '' News". Israel National News. ^ a b Boyce, Mary (1979). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 27''29. ISBN 978-0-415-23902-8. . ^ West, Martin Litchfield (2013). Hellenica: Volume III: Philosophy, Music and Metre, Literary Byways, Varia. OUP Oxford. pp. 89''109. ISBN 978-0-19-960503-3. ^ Taylor, Richard P. (2000). Death and Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 312. . ^ Marvin Meyer; Willis Barnstone (2009). "On the Origin of the World". The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala . Retrieved 2022-02-01 . ^ Bauckham, R. J. (1996). "Apocalyptic". In D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, & D. J. Wiseman (Eds.), New Bible Dictionary (3rd ed., p. 53). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. ^ Tyndale, William, Parable of the Wicked Mammon, c. 1526, (facsimile copy of later printing, no ISBN, Benediction Classics, 2008), pp. 4''5. ^ Smith, John Howard (2021-02-05). A Dream of the Judgment Day: American Millennialism and Apocalypticism, 1620''1890. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-753375-8. ^ Luther, Martin, "Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Matthew 24:15''28", Church Postil, 1525 ^ J. H. Merle D'aubigne's History of the Reformation of the Sixteen Century, book vi, chapter xii, p. 215. ^ Calvin, John, "Lecture Fifty-Second", Commentary on Daniel, Volume ^ "Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible: Matthew: Matthew Chapter 24". www.sacred-texts.com. ^ All Roads Lead to Rome, by Michael de Semlyen. Dorchestor House Publications, p. 205. 1991 ^ Gregg, Steven (1997). Revelation: Four Views. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-0840721280. ^ Elliott, Edward Bishop (1862). Horae Apocalypticae. Vol. IV (5th ed.). London: Seely, Jackson and Halliday. pp. 562''563. ^ See 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and Son of perdition. ^ Collins, John; Boyer, Paul; Tabor, James; Fredriksen, Paula. "Apocalypticism Explained | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE | PBS". pbs.org . Retrieved 2020-09-16 . ^ An explanation of these beliefs appears on the Holy See's website ^ Chang Soppe, Seok Lyun (2014). God's Mystery That Is Christ. WestBow Press. ISBN 978-1490815947. ^ "How Seventh-day Adventists View Roman Catholicism". Archived from the original on 6 December 2006 . Retrieved 4 July 2009 . '' Main Statements of Belief from the official Adventist Church website. ^ John F. Walvoord (1990) [1974]. "Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis". ^ "Proclamation of the 3rd International Zionist Congress". Christian Action For Israel. 25 February 1996. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012 . Retrieved 27 November 2012 . ^ "The Untold Story: The Role of Christian Zionists in the Establishment of Modern-day Israel". Rabbi Jamie Cowen. 13 July 2002 . Retrieved 27 November 2012 . ^ Momen, Moojan (1992). "Fundamentalism and Liberalism: towards an understanding of the dichotomy". Bahʼ­ Studies Review. 2 (1). ^ Momen, Moojan (2007). "Messianic Concealment and Theophanic Disclosure" (PDF) . Online Journal of Bahʼ­ Studies. 1: 71''88. ISSN 1177-8547 . Retrieved 14 April 2012 . ^ a b Cameron, Glenn; Momen, Wendi (1996). A Basic Bahʼ­ Chronology. Oxford, UK: George Ronald. pp. 15''20, 125. ISBN 0-85398-404-2 '' via Bah'­ Library Online. ^ Shoghi Effendi Rabbani. God Passes By. p. 9. ^ Momen, Moojan (1999). "Early Western Accounts of the Babi and Bahʼ­ Faiths". Encyclopedia articles. Bah'­ Library Online . Retrieved 2 February 2012 . ^ "Early mention of Bb­s in western newspapers, summer 1850". Historical documents and Newspaper articles. Bahʼ­ Library Online. 17 September 2010 . Retrieved 14 April 2012 . ^ Sears, William (1961). Thief in the Night. London: George Ronald. ISBN 0-85398-008-X. ^ Bowers, Kenneth E. (2004). God Speaks Again: An Introduction to the Bahʼ­ Faith. Bahʼ­ Publishing Trust. p. 12. ISBN 1-931847-12-6. ^ Motlagh, Hushidar Hugh (1992). I Shall Come Again (The Great Disappointment ed.). Mt. Pleasant, MI: Global Perspective. pp. 205''213. ISBN 0-937661-01-5. ^ "The House-to-House Ministry'--Why Important Now?". The Watchtower. 15 July 2008. pp. 5''6. ^ You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, p. 155. ^ Revelation'--Its Grand Climax at Hand!, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1988, p. 6. ^ a b c The Watchtower, 1 March 1922, page 73, "The indisputable facts, therefore, show that the 'time of the end' began in 1799; that the Lord's second presence began in 1874." ^ "Our Faith" (PDF) . The Herald of the Morning. September 1875. p. 52. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-12. ^ The Watchtower, July 15, 1894, p. 1677 Archived April 1, 2019, at the Wayback Machine: "We see no reason for changing the figures'--nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God's dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble." ^ 1 September 1916 The Watchtower, pages 264''265 Archived 2009-07-13 at the Wayback Machine ^ Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1920, page 97, "Based upon the argument heretofore set forth, then, that the old order of things, the old world, is ending and is therefore passing away, and that the new order is coming in, and that 1925 shall mark the resurrection of the faithful worthies of old and the beginning of reconstruction, it is reasonable to conclude that millions of people now on the earth will be still on the earth in 1925. Then, based upon the promises set forth in the divine Word, we must reach the positive and indisputable conclusion that millions now living will never die." ^ Holden, Andrew (2002). Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 0-415-26609-2. ^ "The Strong Cable of Chronology", Watch Tower, 15 July 1922, page 217, "The chronology of present truth is, to begin with, a string of dates ... Thus far it is a chain, and no stronger than its weakest link. There exist, however, well established relationships among the dates of present-truth chronology. These internal connections of the dates impart a much greater strength than can be found in other [secular, archeological] chronologies. Some of them are of so remarkable a character as clearly to indicate this chronology is not of man, but of God. Being of divine origin and divinely corroborated, present-truth chronology stands in a class by itself, absolutely and unqualifiedly correct." ^ The Watchtower, 1 May 1922, page 132, "To abandon or repudiate the Lord's chosen instrument means to abandon or repudiate the Lord himself, upon the principle that he who rejects the servant sent by the Master thereby rejects the Master. ... Brother Russell was the Lord's servant. Then to repudiate him and his work is equivalent to a repudiation of the Lord, upon the principle heretofore announced." ^ Jehovah's Witnesses'--Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (Watch Tower Society, 1993), chapter 10. ^ Revelation '' Its Grand Climax, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1988, page 9. ^ "False Prophets". Reasoning From the Scriptures. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. p.137:Have not Jehovah's Witnesses made errors in their teachings?. ^ "To Whom Shall We Go but Jesus Christ?". Watchtower. 1 March 1979. p. 23. the "faithful and discreet slave" has alerted all of God's people to the sign of the times indicating the nearness of God's Kingdom rule. In this regard, however, it must be observed that this "faithful and discreet slave" was never inspired, never perfect. Those writings by certain members of the "slave" class that came to form the Christian part of God's Word were inspired and infallible [the bible], but that is not true of other writings since. ^ Why have there been changes over the years in the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses?,"Jehovah's Witnesses", Reasoning From the Scriptures, 1989, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, page 205 ^ "Allow No Place for the Devil!", The Watchtower, 15 March 1986, page 19 ^ "Keep in Step With Jehovah's Organization", Watchtower, 15 January 2001, page 18. ^ Matthew 24:14 KJV ^ Doctrine and Covenants 45:26 ^ doctrine and covenants 45:26 ^ George Eldon Ladd; Donald Alfred Hagner (1993). A Theology of the New Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 56. ISBN 0802806805. Archived from the original on 2019-06-24 . Retrieved 2019-06-03 . ^ McKim, Donald K. (2014). Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (2nd ed.). Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Publishing. p. 106. ISBN 978-1611643862 . Retrieved April 3, 2017 . ^ Begley, Wayne E. The Garden of the Taj Mahal: A Case Study of Mughal Architectural Planning and Symbolism, in: Wescoat, James L.; Wolschke-Bulmahn, Joachim (1996). Mughal Gardens: Sources, Places, Representations, and Prospects Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., ISBN 0884022358. pp. 229''231. ^ Yahya, Harun (1 January 2008). Clarity Amidst Confusion: Imam Mahdi and the End of Time. Global Publishing. Kindle Edition. p. 64. ^ Richardson, Joel (7 April 2006). Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah. Pleasant Word-A Division of WinePress Publishing. p. 284. ISBN 9781414104409. ^ a b c d e f Hooper, Rev. Richard (20 April 2011). End of Days: Predictions of the End From Ancient Sources. Sedona, AZ. p. 156. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) [permanent dead link ] ^ Muhammad, S. Umar (1999). "Muslims' Eschatological Discourses on Colonialism in Northern Nigeria". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Oxford University Press. 67 (1): 59''84. doi:10.1093/jaarel/67.1.59. JSTOR 1466033. ^ Esposito, John (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512558-4, p.264 ^ "Reward and Punishment", Encyclopedia of the Qur'an(2005) ^ Leor Halevi, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/opinion/04iht-edhalevi.1.5565834.html ^ Christine Huda Dodge (18 April 2009). The Everything Understanding Islam Book: A complete guide to Muslim beliefs, practices, and culture. F+W Media. p. 182. ISBN 9781606507248. [permanent dead link ] ^ John L. Esposito (13 July 2011). What Everyone Needs To Know About Islam. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 28. ISBN 9780199794133. ^ Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (2009). Islam: A Concise Introduction. p. 46. [permanent dead link ] ^ Ø·ÙÙع اÙشمØ" من مغربها [Rising of the sun from the west] (in Arabic). ^ Alwi Shihab (2011). Examining Islam in the West. Gramedia Pustaka Utama. p. 16. ISBN 9789792267716. ^ Ø·ÙÙع اÙشمØ" من مغربها [Rising of the sun from the west] (in Arabic). 26 March 2018. ^ Yahya, Harun (1 January 2008). Clarity Amidst Confusion: Imam Mahdi and the End of Time. Global Publishing. Kindle Edition. p. 64. ^ The Wrath of Yeshua '' Page xxxv, Leo Paul Giampietro '' 2008 ^ "Prophecies of the Promised Messiah -- www.aaiil.org" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 May 2011 . Retrieved 27 March 2010 . ^ The Review of Religions, January 2009, Vol.104, issue 1. pp. 18''22 ^ HFaith and Philosophy of Islam '' Page 180, Shamim Akhter '' 2009 ^ Smith, Peter (2008). An Introduction to the Baha'i Faith. Cambridge University Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-521-86251-6. ^ a b Smith, Peter (2000). "Eschatology". A concise encyclopedia of the Bahʼ­ Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 133''134. ISBN 1-85168-184-1. ^ Buck, Christopher (2004). "The Eschatology of Globalization: The Multiple Messiahship of Bah'u'llh Revisited (pp. 143''178)". In Sharon, Moshe (ed.). Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the BābÄ-Bahā'Ä Faiths. Boston: Brill. ISBN 9004139044. ^ 'Abdu'l-Baha (1959). Tablets of the Divine Plan (First written Apr 1, 1916 ed.). Wilmette, Illinois: Baha'i Publishing Trust. p. 45 (Western States, Msg #1). ^ Universal House of Justice (October 1985). The Promise of World Peace. Haifa, Israel: Baha'i World Center. p. 1. ISBN 085398-216-3. ^ Smith, P. (1999). A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bah'­ Faith. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications. pp. 98 & 247''248. ISBN 1-85168-184-1. ^ Stephen Lambden. "Catastrophe, Armageddon and Millennium: some aspects of the Bb­-Baha'i exegesis of apocalyptic symbolism". Bahai-library.com . Retrieved 12 November 2011 . ^ a b Browne, Sylvia; Harrison, Lindsay (2008). End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4406-3141-2. ^ BBC. "Shiva". bbc.co.ke. BBC . Retrieved 23 March 2021 . ^ "Vishnu Purana". Astrojyoti.com . Retrieved 21 November 2011 . ^ "The Mahabharata, Book 6, Bhagavad Gita Chapter IV, Section 7". Sacred-texts.com. 12 November 2012 . Retrieved 12 November 2012 . ^ Lopez, Donald S. (2001). The Story of Buddhism. New York: Harper. p. 33. Unlike so many other traditions, the Buddhist scriptures contain no classic account of an end time, an apocalypse, an eschaton. quoted in:Netland, Harold; Yandell, Keith (2009). "The Dharma or the Gospel?". Buddhism: A Christian Exploration and Appraisal. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. p. 196. ISBN 9780830838554 . Retrieved 7 July 2019 . ^ Abe, Masao (1985). "Buddhist Nirvana '' Its Significance in Contemporary Thought and Life". In LaFleur, William R. (ed.). Zen and Western Thought. Library of Philosophy and Religion (reprint ed.). Basingstoke: Macmillan. p. 214. ISBN 9781349069941 . Retrieved 7 July 2019 . Since there is no God in Buddhism, there is no creation or last judgment, but rather Emptiness. Thus, for Buddhism, history has neither beginning nor end. ^ Netland, Harold; Yandell, Keith (2009). Buddhism: A Christian Exploration and Appraisal. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. p. 196. ISBN 9780830838554. ^ Vetter, Tilmann (1988), The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism, Brill. ^ Birx, H. James (2009). Encyclopedia of Time: Science, Philosophy, Theology, & Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. p. 409. ISBN 9781412941648. ^ Bryant, Clifton; Peck, Dennis (15 July 2009). Encyclopedia of Death & Human Experience: 1-. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. p. 422. ISBN 9781412951784. ^ Johnston (F.S.S.), James (1889). Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World: Held in Exeter Hall (June 9th-19th), London, 1888. J. Nisbet & Company. ISBN 978-0-8370-6891-6. ^ Vidyabhusana, Satis Chandra (1988). A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Schools. Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. ISBN 978-81-208-0565-1. ^ "Maitreya". Britannica Encyclopedia. 20 July 2023. ^ Pitaka, Sutta; Nikaya, Digha; Canon, Pāli. "Cakkavatti Sutta: The Wheel-turning Emperor". Basic Buddhism. p. 26. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. ^ Vipassana.info, Pali Proper Names Dictionary: Metteyya ^ "ãŠå½Œå‹'上ç--Ÿç¶'ã‹è‡ãŠå½Œå‹'下ç--Ÿç¶'ã‹ç°ä>>‹" (PDF) . Retrieved 27 November 2012 . ^ Conze, Edward (30 July 1959). Buddhist Scriptures . Penguin Classics. pp. 256. ISBN 0140440887. ^ a b Richard Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988, pages 83''85. ^ Mote, Frederick W. (2003). Imperial China 900-1800. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01212-7. ^ Dan. "The Aesir-Vanir War". Norse Mythology for Smart People . Retrieved 2022-09-07 . ^ Larrington (1996:266). ^ Larrington, Carolyne (1999). The Poetic Edda. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 0-19-283946-2. ^ Bellows, Henry Adams (2004). The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-43710-8. ^ Byock, Jesse (2005). The Prose Edda. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044755-5. ^ Sandberg, Anders. An overview of models of technological singularity ^ "h+ Magazine | Covering technological, scientific, and cultural trends that are changing human beings in fundamental ways". Hplusmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2010-12-23 . Retrieved 2011-09-09 . ^ Ćirković, Milan M. "Resource letter: PEs-1: physical eschatology." American Journal of Physics 71.2 (2003): 122''133. ^ Baum, Seth D. "Is humanity doomed? Insights from astrobiology." Sustainability 2.2 (2010): 591''603. ^ Zeilik, M.A.; Gregory, S.A. (1998). Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics (4th ed.). Saunders College Publishing. p. 322. ISBN 0-03-006228-4. Further reading [ edit ] Carroll, John T. (2000). "Eschatology". In Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-9053565032. Craig C. Hill, In God's Time: The Bible and the Future, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002. ISBN 0-8028-6090-7.Dave Hunt, A Cup of Trembling, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, (Oregon) 1995 ISBN 1-56507-334-7.Jonathan Menn, Biblical Eschatology, Eugene, Oregon, Wipf & Stock 2013. ISBN 978-1-62032-579-7.Joseph Ratzinger., Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press 1985. ISBN 978-0-8132-1516-7.Robert Sungenis, Scott Temple, David Allen Lewis, Shock Wave 2000! subtitled The Harold Camping 1994 Debacle, New Leaf Press, Inc. 2004, ISBN 0-89221-269-1.Stephen Travis, Christ Will Come Again: Hope for the Second Coming of Jesus, Toronto: Clements Publishing 2004. ISBN 1-894667-33-6.Jerry L. Walls (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, New York: Oxford University Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-973588-4.External links [ edit ] Wikimedia Commons has media related to

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Greg Little is exiting his post as the Pentagon's inaugural deputy chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for enterprise platforms and business optimization to join Palantir, DefenseScoop has exclusively learned.

''Confirmed '-- Greg Little is leaving at the end of July and will go to work for Palantir after his departure,'' a Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) spokesperson said in an email on Monday.

Little was one the first officials tapped to lead the Defense Department's nascent CDAO before it reached full operating capability in June 2022. There, he's made a mark steering the development of a new approach and underlying digital tool '-- called Pulse '-- that applies real-world data to modernize the Pentagon's performance measurement processes and create sharper accountability across the sprawling enterprise.

Before becoming deputy CDAO, Little defined the first financial management data analytics vision and strategy for the DOD and led the largest Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Release 12 Technical Upgrade in North America, among other activities during his time at the Pentagon, according to his bio.

His impending exit comes as CDAO leadership is urgently moving to improve the morale of the office, following an internal review that demonstrated employees' dissatisfaction with management.

It's not yet clear what Little's role will be at Palantir. The AI and big data analytics company works extensively with DOD and other federal agencies.

Little did not respond to multiple requests for comment from DefenseScoop on Monday.

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A new COVID-19 variant has been detected in the U.S.JN.1 is causing a growing number of cases around the world. There are concerns that the variant is very infectious.SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is mutating yet again. The latest variant getting buzz is JN.1, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) flagged in a report issued late last week.

In the report, CDC officials say that they're ''learning'' about JN.1, noting that it's not overly common in the U.S. right now. Still, infectious disease experts say there's a reason why this variant was flagged'--and why researchers are keeping an eye on it.

So what is JN.1 and why is it getting attention right now? Here's everything you need to know about the latest variant.

What is JN.1?JN.1 is a COVID-19 variant that descended from BA.2.86, explains infectious disease expert Amesh Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. JN.1 is ''another Omicron variant,'' he says.

''BA.2.86 has more than 20 mutations on the spike protein and there was a concern when it was first detected a while back that, wow, this might be a real problem,'' says Thomas Russo, M.D., professor and chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo in New York.

JN.1 has an additional mutation on its spike protein from BA.2.86, which is what SARS-CoV-2 uses to latch onto your cells and make you sick, Dr. Russo says.

JN.1 symptomsAs of now, there's no data to suggest that JN.1 causes different symptoms than previous COVID-19 variations, says William Schaffner, M.D., a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. ''It's an Omicron variant and looks to be similar,'' he says. In case you need a refresher, the CDC says those symptoms may include:

Fever or chills Cough Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Fatigue Muscle or body aches Headache New loss of taste or smell Sore throat Congestion or runny nose Nausea or vomiting DiarrheaHow contagious is JN.1?That's still being determined. ''There is some data that suggest JN.1's parent BA.2.86 may be more transmissible than previous variants,'' Dr. Russo says. ''Since JN.1 is a derivative of BA.2.86, there is a concern that it may be more transmissible.''

But Dr. Adalja points out that, while there were a lot of concerns around BA.2.86 when it was first detected, it didn't really spread. ''There's no evidence that this variant'--at this time'--is going to behave any different,'' Dr. Adalja says.

Should we be worried about JN.1?As of right now, JN.1 only makes up less than 0.1% of COVID-19 viruses, per the CDC. That said, it's gaining steam in other countries.

''JN.1 has been described in a number of countries, including the U.S., Iceland, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands,'' Dr. Russo says. ''It's also increasing in frequency in France'--it seems to be taking off.''

JN.1 also has a mutation on its spike protein that ''seems to make it much more immune evasive than its parents,'' Dr. Russo says, adding that the variant is ''quite devious.''

JN.1, like BA.2.86, is different from other strains, too, Dr. Russo says. ''As a result, we may be at risk of getting more infections,'' he says.

Will the COVID-19 vaccine protect against JN.1?It's hard to say at this point. The CDC notes that the spike protein is the part of the virus that vaccines target and, as a result, the updated COVID-19 vaccine should work against JN.1. The CDC also points out that existing data show that the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccines help our immune systems block BA.2.86. ''We expect JN.1 will be similar,'' the CDC says.

''The updated vaccine is closer to JN.1 than our old vaccine,'' Dr. Russo says. ''The hope is that, even if we see more cases with JN.1, the updated vaccine will protect against severe disease.''

How to protect against JN.1 and other variants JN.1 and other COVID-19 variants are out there and will continue to swirl around, Dr. Adalja says. ''This is an endemic respiratory virus,'' he says. ''It is one of the viruses that humans will always deal with.''

But Dr. Schaffner says there are things you can do to lower your risk of getting sick. ''Please take advantage of'' the updated COVID booster, he says. ''Its acceptance has been so dismal across the country. We in public health and infectious diseases are very concerned about that.''

If you're considered high risk for COVID-19 complications, Dr. Schaffner says it's time to consider wearing a mask again. ''If you're going to the supermarket, religious services, a concert'...whenever you're in public indoor spaces with other people, put that mask back on,'' he says.

And, if you happen to get COVID-19, contact your doctor to see if you qualify for an antiviral medication. ''The key thing is to make sure that high-risk individuals are protected with updated vaccines and are quickly prescribed an antiviral if they become infected,'' Dr. Adalja says.

This article is accurate as of press time. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly evolves and the scientific community's understanding of the novel coronavirus develops, some of the information may have changed since it was last updated. While we aim to keep all of our stories up to date, please visit online resources provided by the CDC, WHO, and your local public health department to stay informed on the latest news. Always talk to your doctor for professional medical advice.

Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men's Health, Women's Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a master's degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.

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2023-06-19Consumers, Health Care Professionals Consumer Information Information about the product including what the product is used for, dosage, warnings, proper use and side effects. This summary will not tell you everything about the product. Contact your healthcare professional if you have any questions about the product.

2023-06-192023-06-16Health Care Professionals, Researchers Product Monograph The Product Monograph is a scientific document that describes the properties, claims, indications and conditions of use of the product and contains any other information that may be required for optimal, safe and effective use.

The Product Monograph includes three sections:

Part I: Health Professional Information;Part II: Scientific Information; andPatient Medication Information2023-06-16 Consumers Regulatory Decision Summary The Regulatory Decision Summary explains Health Canada's decision for the product seeking market authorization. The RDS includes the purpose of the submission and the reason for the decision.

2020-07-27 Consumers Regulatory Decision Summary (Supplement) The Regulatory Decision Summary explains Health Canada's decision for the product seeking market authorization. The RDS includes the purpose of the submission and the reason for the decision.

2022-04-22 Consumers Regulatory Decision Summary (Supplement 2) The Regulatory Decision Summary explains Health Canada's decision for the product seeking market authorization. The RDS includes the purpose of the submission and the reason for the decision.

2022-06-15 Consumers Regulatory Decision Summary (Supplement 3) The Regulatory Decision Summary explains Health Canada's decision for the product seeking market authorization. The RDS includes the purpose of the submission and the reason for the decision.

2022-06-29 Consumers Regulatory Decision Summary (Supplement 4) The Regulatory Decision Summary explains Health Canada's decision for the product seeking market authorization. The RDS includes the purpose of the submission and the reason for the decision.

2023-06-16 Health Care Professionals, Researchers Summary Basis of Decision The Summary Basis of Decision explains why the product was approved for sale in Canada. The document includes regulatory, safety, effectiveness and quality (in terms of chemistry and manufacturing) considerations.

2020-12-02 Consumers, Health Care Professionals Summary Safety Review '' Kidney and Renal Summary Safety Review - Assessing the Potential Risks of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) and Acute Renal Failure (ARF)

A Summary Safety Review complements other safety related information to help Canadians make informed decisions about their use of health products. Each summary outlines what was assessed in Health Canada's review, what was found and what action was taken by Health Canada, if any.

2021-04-09 Consumers, Health Care Professionals Summary Safety Review '' Sinus Summary Safety Review - Assessing the Potential Risk of Sinus Bradycardia

A Summary Safety Review complements other safety related information to help Canadians make informed decisions about their use of health products. Each summary outlines what was assessed in Health Canada's review, what was found and what action was taken by Health Canada, if any.

2021-08-182023-08-04Health Care Professionals, Researchers Post-Authorization Activity Table (PAAT) The Post Authorization Activity Table includes brief summaries of the activities that occur after the approval of the product. It is updated on a monthly basis.

2023-08-04 Researchers Clinical Information After Health Canada completes the regulatory review process for a product, the clinical information included in a submission is made publicly available for non-commercial purposes.

2020-10-30 Health Care Professionals, Researchers Authorization Terms & Conditions For COVID-19 authorizations, Health Canada can impose specific terms and conditions on the authorization. This allows Health Canada to continue to gather information on the safety, effectiveness and/or quality of the product as more studies are completed.

2020-07-27 Consumers, Health Care Professionals, Researchers Public Advisories and Risk Communications Public Advisories and Health Product Risk Communications are two ways that Health Canada communicates safety issues. They are published when Health Canada has important updates or other information to share about the product, such as new approvals, information on shortages, or risks.

Clicking the link will retrieve any advisories and risk communications that Health Canada has issued about the product. If no advisories have been issued, no results will be returned.

Various Consumers, Health Care Professionals Update on remdesivir: continued monitoring An update from Health Canada on the continued monitoring of the use of remdesivir for COVID-19.

2020-11-26

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 17:54

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. They published and contracted the many pseudonymous authors doing the writing of the series from 1899 through 1987, when the syndicate partners sold the company to Simon & Schuster.[1]

History edit Created by Edward Stratemeyer, the Stratemeyer Syndicate was the first book packager to have its books aimed at children, rather than adults. The Syndicate was wildly successful; at one time it was believed that the overwhelming majority of the books children read in the United States were Stratemeyer Syndicate books, based on a 1922 study of over 36,000 children country-wide.[2]

Stratemeyer's business acumen was in realizing that there was a huge, untapped market for children's books. The Stratemeyer Syndicate specialized in producing books that were meant primarily to be entertaining. In Stratemeyer's view, it was the thrill of feeling grown-up and the desire for a series of stories that made such reading attractive to children. Stratemeyer believed that this desire could be harnessed for profit. He founded the Stratemeyer Syndicate to produce books in an efficient, assembly-line fashion and to write them in such a way as to maximize their popularity.

The first series that Stratemeyer created was The Rover Boys, published under the pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield. The Rover Boys books were a roaring success: A total of 30 volumes were published between 1899 and 1926, selling over five million copies.[3] The Bobbsey Twins first appeared in 1904 under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope, and Tom Swift in 1910 under the pseudonym Victor Appleton.[4]

Stratemeyer published a number of books under his own name, but the books published under pseudonyms sold better. Stratemeyer realized that "he could offer more books each year if he dealt with several publishers and had the books published under a number of pseudonyms which he controlled."[5] Stratemeyer explained his strategy to a publisher, writing that "[a] book brought out under another name would, I feel satisfied, do better than another Stratemeyer book. If this was brought out under my own name, the trade on new Stratemeyer books would simply be cut into four parts instead of three."[6]

Some time in the first decade of the twentieth century Stratemeyer realized that he could no longer juggle multiple volumes of multiple series, and he began hiring ghostwriters, such as Mildred Benson, Josephine Lawrence, Howard R. Garis[4] and Leslie McFarlane.[7] Stratemeyer continued to write some books, while writing plot outlines for others.

While mystery elements were occasionally present in these early series, the Syndicate later specialized in children's mystery series. This trend began in 1911, when Stratemeyer wrote and published The Mansion of Mystery, under the pseudonym Chester K. Steele. Five more books were published in that mystery series, the last in 1928. These books were aimed at a somewhat older audience than his previous series. After that, the Syndicate focused on mystery series aimed at its younger base: The Hardy Boys, which first appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane and others; and Nancy Drew, which first appeared in 1930, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson, Walter Karig, and others. Both series were immediate financial successes.[7]

In 1930, Stratemeyer died, and the Syndicate was inherited by his two daughters, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier. Stratemeyer Squier sold her share to her sister Harriet within a few years. Harriet Stratemeyer introduced such series as The Dana Girls (1934), Tom Swift Jr., The Happy Hollisters, and many others. In the 1950s, Harriet began substantially revising old volumes in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, updating them by removing references to outdated cultural elements, such as "roadster". Racial slurs and stereotypes were also removed, and in some cases (such as The Secret at Shadow Ranch and The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion) entire plots were cast off and replaced with new ones. In part, these changes were motivated by a desire to make the books more up-to-date. Grosset & Dunlap, the primary publisher of Stratemeyer Syndicate books, requested that the books' racism be excised, a project that Adams felt was unnecessary.[8] Grosset & Dunlap held firm; they had received an increasing number of letters from parents who were offended by the stereotypes present in the books, particularly in The Hardy Boys publications.[8]

In the late 1970s, Adams decided it was time for Nancy and the Hardys to go into paperback, as the hardcover market was no longer what it had been.[clarification needed ] Grosset & Dunlap sued, citing "breach of contract, copyright infringement, and unfair competition".[9] The ensuing case let the world know, for the first time, that the Syndicate existed; the Syndicate had always gone to great lengths to hide its existence from the public, and ghostwriters were contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship.

Grosset & Dunlap was awarded the rights to The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew volumes that they had published, but the Syndicate was judged free to take subsequent volumes elsewhere.[10] Subsequent volumes were published by Simon & Schuster.

Adams died in 1982. In 1984, Simon & Schuster purchased the syndicate from its partners '-- Edward Stratemeyer Adams, Camilla Adams McClave, Patricia Adams Harr, Nancy Axelrod and Lilo Wuenn '-- and turned to Mega-Books, a book packager, to handle the writing process for new volumes.[11]

Writing guidelines edit "They don't have hippies in them," [Adams] said ... "And none of the characters have love affairs or get pregnant or take dope."[12]

All Stratemeyer Syndicate books were written under certain guidelines, based on practices Stratemeyer began with his first series, the Rover Boys.[4]

All books would be part of a series.To establish more quickly if a series was likely to be successful, the first several volumes would be published at once. These first volumes are often called "breeders".[13]The books would be written under a pseudonym. This would provide apparent continuity of authorship, even when an author died, and would disguise the fact that series were written by multiple ghostwriters and plot-outliners.The books would look as much like contemporary adult books as possible, with similar bindings and typefaces.[13]The books would be of a predictable length.Chapters and pages should end mid-situation, to increase the reader's desire to keep reading.[13]Each book would begin with a quick recap of all previous books in that series, in order to promote those books.[13]Books might also end with a preview of the next volume in the series: "Nancy ... could not help but wonder when she might encounter as strange a mystery as the recent one. Such a case was to confront her soon, The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes".[14]The books would be priced at 50 cents, rather than the more common 75 cents, $1.00, or $1.25.[15]Characters should not age or marry. Protagonists of early series such as the Rover Boys, Tom Swift, and Ruth Fielding did grow up and marry, but sales dropped afterwards, prompting the Syndicate to make a rule that characters never marry.[16] Criticism edit For decades, libraries refused to carry any Syndicate books, considering them to be unworthy trash.[7] Series books were considered to "cause 'mental laziness,' induce a 'fatal sluggishness,' and 'intellectual torpor. ' "[17] Series books were considered to ruin a child's chances for gaining an appreciation of good literature (which was subsequently shown by one study not to be the case),[18] and to undermine respect for authority: "Much of the contempt for social conventions ... is due to the reading of this poisonous sort of fiction."[19]

Franklin K. Mathiews, chief librarian for the Boy Scouts of America, wrote that series books were a method, according to the title of one of his articles, for "Blowing Out the Boys' Brains",[20] and psychologist G. Stanley Hall articulated one of the most common concerns by asserting that series books would ruin girls in particular by giving them "false views of [life] ... which will cloud her life with discontent in the future".[21]

None of this hurt sales and Stratemeyer was unperturbed, even when his books were banned from the Newark Public Library as early as 1901, writing to a publisher: "Personally it does not matter much to me. ... Taking them out of the Library has more than tripled the sales in Newark."[22]

Foreign publications edit Some syndicate series were also reprinted in foreign countries. An early foreign version was a Ted Scott Flying Stories book, published in Germany in 1930 as Ted Scott Der Ozeanflieger. The artwork was generally changed when reprinted in other countries, and sometimes character names and other details were as well. For example, in Norway, translations of the Nancy Drew books were first published in 1941, the first European market to introduce the girl detective. ''The translators changed the color of Nancy's car, shortened the text, and made the language easier to read; but they made no substantive changes'' to the stories.[23] By the 1970s, Nancy Drew stories had ''been translated into Spanish, Swedish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.[24]

Other series reprinted outside the States include The Dana Girls, The Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins (in Australia, France, Sweden, and the UK). These other series first appeared around the 1950s outside the United States.

The second Stratemeyer Syndicate series to be reprinted outside the United States appears to have been the first two books in the Don Sturdy series, although exact dates of printing are unknown. Those were The Desert of Mystery and The Big Snake Hunters. There are two British versions known of the latter book; both were printed by The Children's Press, one in the 1930s and the second, with different cover art, in the 1950s.

See also edit List of Stratemeyer Syndicate series Notes edit ^ Plunkett-Powell, Karen (1993). The Nancy Drew Scrapbook: 60 Years of America's Favorite Teenage Sleuth. St. Martin's Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-0312098810. ^ Romalov (1995), 118. ^ Rehak (2006), 8. ^ a b c Billman. ^ Keeline, "Stratemeyer Syndicate." ^ Rehak, (2006), 25. ^ a b c Andrews, Dale (2013-08-27). "The Hardy Boys Mystery". Children's books. Washington: SleuthSayers. ^ a b Rehak (2006), 243. ^ Johnson, Deirdre. Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Page 16. ^ Johnson, 17. ^ Plunkett-Powell (1993), 29. ^ Klemesrud (1968). ^ a b c d Billman, Carol. The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. ^ Keene, Carolyn. The Moonstone Castle Mystery. Page 178. ^ Plunkett-Powell, Karen. The Nancy Drew Scrapbook. Page 16. ^ Kismaric and Heiferman (2007), 20. ^ Romalov (1995), 115. ^ Ross (1997). ^ Rehak (2006), 97. ^ Romalov (1995), 117. ^ Romalov, Nancy Tillman. "Children's Series Books and the Rhetoric of Guidance: A Historical Overview." In Rediscovering Nancy Drew. Dyer, Carolyn Stewart, and Nancy Tillman Romalov, eds. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995. Page 116. ^ Rehak, Melanie. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. NY: Harcourt, 2005. Page 97-98. ^ Skj¸nsberg, Kari. "Nancy, a.k.a. Kitty, Susanne, Alice'--in Norway and Other European Countries." The Lion and the Unicorn, Volume 18, Number 1, June 1994, pp. 70-77. ^ Wertheimer, Barbara S. and Carol Sands. "'Nancy Drew' Revisited." Language Arts, Vol. 52, No. 8 (NOV/DEC 1975), pp. 1131-1161. References edit Billman, Carol (1986). The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate . Ungar. ISBN 0-8044-2055-6. Johnson, Deirdre (1993). Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate . Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-4006-6. Keeline, James D (2008). Cornelius, Michael G; Gregg, Melanie E (eds.). "The Nancy Drew Mythtery Stories" in Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-3995-9. Keeline, James D. "Stratemeyer Syndicate". Archived from the original on 31 January 2009 . Retrieved 19 April 2009 . Kismaric, Carole; Marvin Heiferman (2007). The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Fireside. ISBN 978-1-4165-4945-1. Klemesrud, Judy (4 April 1968). "100 Books - and Not a Hippie in Them." The New York Times, p. 52. Accessed through ProQuest Historical Newspapers on 22 May 2009.Plunkett-Powell, Karen (1993). The Nancy Drew Scrapbook: 60 years of America's favorite teenage sleuth. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09881-2. Rehak, Melanie (2006). Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. Harvest. ISBN 0-15-603056-X. Romalov, Nancy Tillman (1995). Dyer, Carolyn Stewart; Romalov, Nancy Tillman (eds.). "Children's Series Books and the Rhetoric of Guidance: A Historical Overview" in Rediscovering Nancy Drew. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-501-5. Ross, Catherine (May 1997). "Reading the Covers Off Nancy Drew: What Readers Say About Series Books". Emergency Librarian. 24 (5). External links edit Children's literature portal Edward Stratemeyer & the Stratemeyer Syndicate '' (c)2000 by James D. KeelineStratemeyer Syndicate at Library of Congress, with 4 library catalog recordsWorks by the Stratemeyer Syndicate at Faded Page (Canada) [dead link ] Works by Stratemeyer Syndicate at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Project Gutenberg ebooks online edit Edward StratemeyerVictor Appleton; Richard Barnum;Gerald Breckenridge;Nicholas Carter;Lester Chadwick;Allen Chapman;Alice B. Emerson; Howard Roger Garis;Mabel C. Hawley;Laura Lee Hope; Gertrude W. Morrison;Margaret Penrose;Homer Randall;Roy Rockwood;Frank V. Webster;Arthur M. Winfield;Mildred A. Wirt (Benson);Clarence YoungNot found 2023 as Gutenberg authors: Franklin W. Dixon; Carolyn Keene; Eugene Martin

Archival collections edit Stratemeyer Syndicate records at U. of Oregon (guide) at ArchivesWestStratemeyer Syndicate records (guide) at New York Public LibraryStratemeyer Syndicate records (guide) at Archives at Yale

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 16:01

Hackers routinely target companies like Atlassian that make widely used software because it gives them access to many other companies that can subsequently be targeted for industrial espionage, state intelligence or ransomware.

The Australian government has been working to bolster the country's cybersecurity in the wake of the Optus and Medibank hacks last year, appointing a new co-ordinator for the issue.

But security issues like the Confluence flaw, known as a ''zero-day'' vulnerability, are notoriously difficult to tackle because they are unknown until exploited.

How it worksThe security hole, which Atlassian first reported on October 4, allows hackers to access Confluence systems and create administrator accounts.

That could either let them access sensitive information which is held in Confluence itself or, if the system has details of the victim's wider IT setup, execute further hacks.

The version of Confluence that runs in Atlassian's cloud is not affected. The company has urged customers running older versions of Confluence on their own systems to immediately upgrade to later versions that do not have the vulnerability.

The Chinese Embassy in Canberra did not immediately reply to a request for comment, but the Chinese government has long denied it has any role in hacking overseas.

An Atlassian spokeswoman said it encouraged customers to share evidence of any compromised systems to support its response.

''Our priority is the security of our customers' instances during this critical vulnerability, and we are collaborating with industry-leading threat intelligence partners, such as Microsoft, to obtain additional information that may assist customers with responding to the vulnerability,'' the spokeswoman said.

But Atlassian has also said it cannot confirm if a customer's Confluence system has been hacked, instead urging them to look for clues that it might have happened.

''If any evidence is found, you should assume that your instance has been compromised and evaluate the risk of flow-on effects,'' Atlassian's advice to customers reads.

If hackers have got into a Confluence system, Atlassian says, they can ''perform any number of unfettered actions'' including stealing content, system credentials and installing smaller pieces of malicious code called plug-ins.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 15:06

A key lesson of the pandemic. June 10, 2020, in Williamsburg. Photo: JOHN TAGGART/The New York Times/REDUX

June 10, 2020, in Williamsburg. Photo: JOHN TAGGART/The New York Times/REDUX

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On April 8, 2020, the Chinese government lifted its lockdown of Wuhan. It had lasted 76 days '-- two and a half months during which no one was allowed to leave this industrial city of 11 million people, or even leave their homes. Until the Chinese government deployed this tactic, a strict batten-down-the-hatches approach had never been used before to combat a pandemic. Yes, for centuries infected people had been quarantined in their homes, where they would either recover or die. But that was very different from locking down an entire city; the World Health Organization called it ''unprecedented in public health history.''

The word the citizens of Wuhan used to describe their situation was fengcheng '-- ''sealed city.'' But the English-language media was soon using the word lockdown instead '-- and reacting with horror. ''That the Chinese government can lock millions of people into cities with almost no advance notice should not be considered anything other than terrifying,'' a China human rights expert told The Guardian. Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post that ''these kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective.''

The Chinese government, however, was committed to this ''zero-COVID'' strategy, as it was called. In mid-March 2020, by which time some 50 million people had been forced into lockdowns, China recorded its first day since January with no domestic transmissions '-- which it offered as proof that its approach was working. For their part, Chinese citizens viewed being confined to their homes as their patriotic duty.

For the next two years, harsh lockdowns remained China's default response whenever there was an outbreak anywhere in the country. But by March 2022, when the government decided to lock down much of Shanghai after a rise in cases in that city, there was no more talk of patriotism. People reacted with fury, screaming from their balconies, writing bitter denunciations on social media, and, in some cases, committing suicide. When a fire broke out in an apartment building, residents died because the police had locked their doors from the outside. And when the Chinese government finally abandoned lockdowns '-- an implicit admission that they had not been successful in eliminating the pandemic '-- there was a wave of COVID-19 cases as bad as anywhere in the world. (To be fair, this was partly because China did such a poor job of vaccinating its citizens.)

One of the great mysteries of the pandemic is why so many countries followed China's example. In the U.S. and the U.K. especially, lockdowns went from being regarded as something that only an authoritarian government would attempt to an example of ''following the science.'' But there was never any science behind lockdowns '-- not a single study had ever been undertaken to measure their efficacy in stopping a pandemic. When you got right down to it, lockdowns were little more than a giant experiment.

June 16, 2020, in Bloomington, Minnesota. Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

March 25, 2020, in Chicago. Photo: Taylor Glascock/The New York Times/REDUX

Despite the lack of scientific evidence, lockdowns didn't come out of nowhere, at least not in the U.S. They had been discussed '-- and argued over '-- by scientists since 2005, when (as the story goes) President George W. Bush read John M. Barry's book The Great Influenza, about the 1918 pandemic. ''This happens every hundred years,'' Bush is supposed to have said after finishing the book. ''We need a national strategy.''

In fact, there were people thinking about pandemic mitigation long before Bush read Barry's book. The leader of this ad hoc group was D.A. Henderson, perhaps the most renowned epidemiologist of the 20th century '-- the man who, decades earlier, had led the team that eradicated smallpox. Richard Preston, the author of The Hot Zone, would later describe this feat as ''arguably the greatest life-saving achievement in the history of medicine.''

By the time Bush began pushing his administration to come up with a pandemic plan, Henderson was 78 years old. Ten years earlier, he had sat in on a series of top-secret briefings where he listened to a Russian defector describe how he had led a team that was trying to adapt the smallpox virus for bioweapons. Henderson became so concerned that he started a small center focused on biodefense '-- which meant, in effect, defending against a pandemic. He and his colleagues at the center had spent years trying to persuade government officials to take pandemics seriously '-- without much success. When the Bush administration began debating what its pandemic strategy should include, it was only natural that Henderson be involved.

The men Bush chose to lead the effort believed that lockdowns could be an important component of a mitigation plan. They were heavily influenced by a model developed by Laura Glass, a 14-year-old high-school student from Albuquerque (aided by her scientist father), that purported to show that keeping people away from one another was as effective as a vaccine. (This story is told, overexcitedly, in Michael Lewis's book The Premonition.)

Henderson vehemently disagreed. For one thing, he didn't trust computer models, which churned out estimates based on hypotheticals. Just as important, they couldn't possibly anticipate the complexity of human behavior. ''There is simply too little experience to predict how a 21st-century population would respond, for example, to the closure of all schools for periods of many weeks to months, or the cancellation of all gatherings of more than 1,000 people,'' he said.

In addition, he felt that the worst thing officials could do was overreact, which could create a panic. In 2006, as the debate inside the Bush administration was nearing its conclusion, he co-authored a paper in a final effort to change the minds of those devising the strategy. The paper concluded: ''Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen as less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move towards catastrophe.''

The Bush team's final document, published by the CDC in February 2007, stopped short of mandating lockdowns but came as close as its authors dared, calling for the use of ''social distancing measures to reduce contact between adults in the community and workplace.'' One of the leaders of the effort, a government scientist named Richard Hatchett, would later tell Lewis what he really believed: ''One thing that's inarguably true is that if you got everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn't let them talk to anyone, you would not have any disease.''

Which is true as far as it goes. There were other questions, though, that were at least as relevant. Could the kinds of lockdowns that are achievable in the real world, where hundreds of millions of people can't live in isolation chambers, be an effective tool against a pandemic? Did the virus truly go away during a lockdown or simply hide, waiting to reemerge when it ended? And finally, did the many social, economic, and medical downsides make them, in the aggregate, not worth whatever short-term benefits they might yield?

Henderson, who died in 2016, never stopped making the latter case. ''D.A. kept saying, 'Look, you have to be practical about this,''' says his former deputy, Tara O'Toole. '''And you have to be humble about what public health can actually do, especially over sustained periods. Society is complicated, and you don't get to control it.'''

As the United States gains more and more distance from the COVID pandemic, the perspective on what worked, and what did not, becomes not only more clear, but more stark. Operation Warp Speed stands out as a remarkable policy success. And once the vaccines became available, most states did a good job of quickly getting them to the most vulnerable, especially elderly nursing-home residents.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of policy failures of which to take stock. We do an accounting of many of them in our new book, The Big Fail. But one that looms as large as any, and remains in need of a full reckoning in the public conversation, is the decision to embrace lockdowns. While it is reasonable to think of that policy (in all its many forms, across different sectors of society and the 50 states) as an on-the-fly experiment, doing so demands that we come to a conclusion about the results. For all kinds of reasons, including the country's deep political divisions, the complexity of the problem, and COVID's dire human toll, that has been slow to happen. But it's time to be clear about the fact that lockdowns for any purpose other than keeping hospitals from being overrun in the short-term were a mistake that should not be repeated. While this is not a definitive accounting of how the damage from lockdowns outweighed the benefits, it is at least an attempt to nudge that conversation forward as the U.S. hopefully begins to recenter public-health best practices on something closer to the vision put forward by Henderson.

February 3, 2020, in Wuhan, China. Photo: Stringer/Getty Images

After China came Italy, the second country to be hit hard by the coronavirus. The Italian government responded with a lockdown almost as tough as China's. By the time it was lifted, in early June, 34,000 Italians had died of COVID-19, up from 630 when the lockdown was first imposed.

Those were frightening numbers. But when Neil Ferguson saw what had transpired in Italy, he saw an opportunity. For Ferguson, the head of the infectious disease department at Imperial College London, the Italian government's decision to follow China's example meant that lockdowns were suddenly a real-world policy option in Western democratic societies, not just in an authoritarian country like China. As a disease modeler, he believed the same thing Richard Hatchett believed: that if he could lock everyone in a room, the virus would go away. But he had long assumed attempting to do so was politically impossible.

Ferguson is an important epidemiologist, renowned for his estimates, derived from computer models, of possible deaths from a newly emerged virus. As soon as he learned of the outbreak in Wuhan, he and several colleagues began modeling the coronavirus. On March 17, Ferguson laid out the team's findings at a press conference. Their model predicted that, without serious countermeasures, a staggering 81 percent of the population in the U.S. and Britain would become infected, and that 510,000 people in Britain and 2.2 million Americans would die of COVID by late 2020. In addition, the authors wrote, ''We predict critical care bed capacity would be exceeded as early as the second week in April, with an eventual peak in ICU or critical bed care demand that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries.''

For Ferguson, the purpose of the report wasn't just to release their shocking estimates; it was also to push the American and British governments to commit to lockdowns for the long haul. ''[T]his type of intensive intervention package,'' the authors wrote, ''will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) '-- given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed.'' It worked. In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson had initially planned to keep the country open. Instead, he ordered a lockdown within a week of Ferguson's press conference. (Shortly after Johnson imposed the lockdown, Ferguson was visited twice by his mistress. For obvious reasons, this caused a furor when it was discovered. Ferguson was the first, though hardly the last, Establishment bigwig to ignore the COVID-19 rules they demanded of everyone else.)

As for President Donald Trump, he never used the word lockdown, but he was worried enough to call for the country to adopt social distancing as a mitigation strategy. Schools, restaurants, businesses '-- they all closed. White-collar employees who were able to work from home did so. More than once, Trump mentioned that 2.2 million lives were at stake, referring to Ferguson's estimate. Trump's order wound up lasting six weeks.

Most governors issued their own ''stay-at-home'' orders, usually stricter than Trump's. Even Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida '-- who would soon become an outspoken opponent of mainstream mitigation measures '-- reluctantly went along for a brief period. But there were important questions that no one advocating for lockdowns addressed, maybe because in the urgency of the moment the questions didn't occur to them. How long would they last? And even if lockdowns did slow the virus's progression, what would happen when they were lifted?

Regardless, in the space of two months, lockdowns had gone from being unthinkable to being an unquestioned tool in the pandemic toolkit.

March 17, 2020, in Paris. Photo: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images

July 5, 2020, in Melbourne. Photo: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

When state public health officials explained to the country's governors why lockdowns were necessary, they talked primarily about ''bending'' or ''flattening the curve.'' And when governors then explained the strategy to their constituents, they used the same rationale. ''If we change our behaviors,'' said California governor Gavin Newsom in announcing his state's lockdown on March 19, ''we can truly bend the curve to reduce the need to surge.'' The day after Newsom, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a lockdown plan for New York. He called it his PAUSE program '-- Policies Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone '-- but really, it was the same thing.

What did flattening the curve mean? Here's what it didn't mean: It did not mean that if people stayed in their homes, COVID-19 would fade away (even if that idea was often suggested in non-expert contexts). Rather, flattening the curve meant delaying the virus spread to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with COVID patients. During their early press conferences, many governors would display a chart showing a sharp increase in the estimated rate of COVID-19 infections. That's what would happen without lockdowns, they explained. Then they would display a second chart showing a more gradual upturn once lockdowns and other mitigation measures took effect. Simply put, flattening the curve was about helping hospitals manage the crisis rather than ending the crisis. Even those who later criticized lockdowns largely agreed on this point. As David Nabarro, the World Health Organization's COVID-19 envoy (and an eventual lockdown critic), put it, ''The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large we'd rather not do it.''

In many blue states, however, that rationale was forgotten over time, and many people remained confined to their homes or apartments not just for a few weeks but for a year or more '-- even after the vaccine became available. And many of the country's biggest cities continually reimposed lockdowns whenever there was an uptick in COVID cases '-- not just telling people to shelter in place, but also closing small businesses and restaurants, outlawing sports events and social gatherings, and shutting down in-school learning.

Which naturally leads to the obvious question: Did lockdowns help keep Americans alive? Studies were mixed '-- in their findings, their methodology, even their definition of lockdown. For instance, in August 2020, eClinicalMedicine, an offshoot of the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, printed a study that concluded that ''full lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 testing were not associated with reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.'' In March 2021, Christian Bj¸rnskov, an economist at Aarhus University in Denmark, compared weekly mortality rates in 24 European countries that used mitigation measures with varying degrees of severity. ''[T]he findings in this paper suggest that more severe lockdown policies have not been associated with lower mortality,'' the economist wrote. ''In other words,'' he added, ''the lockdowns have not worked as intended.''

Michael Osterholm, the prominent epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, also doesn't think lockdowns did any good. ''There is actually no role for lockdowns,'' he says. ''Look at what happened in China. They locked down for years, and when they finally relaxed that effort, they had a million deaths in two weeks.'' As for flattening the curve, ''that's not a real lockdown,'' Osterholm says. ''You're just reducing contact for a few weeks to help the hospitals.''

Dr. Anthony Fauci was probably the best-known defender of lockdowns as a life-saving measure. But the policy continues to have many defenders within the public health establishment. Howard Markel, a doctor and medical historian at the University of Michigan, believes they succeeded. ''The amount of lives saved was just incredible,'' he says. Markel pointed to an August 2023 study by the Royal Society of London that concluded that ''stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, and restrictions on gathering size were repeatedly found to be associated with significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 transmission, with more stringent measures having greater effects.''

Still, the weight of the evidence seems to be with those who say that lockdowns did not save many lives. By our count, there are at least 50 studies that come to the same conclusion. After The Big Fail went to press, The Lancet published a study comparing the COVID infection rate and death rate in the 50 states. It concluded that ''SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 deaths disproportionately clustered in U.S. states with lower mean years of education, higher poverty rates, limited access to quality health care, and less interpersonal trust '-- the trust that people report having in one another.'' These sociological factors appear to have made a bigger difference than lockdowns (which were ''associated with a statistically significant and meaningfully large reduction in the cumulative infection rate, but not the cumulative death rate'').

In all of this discussion, however, there is a crucial fact that tends to be forgotten: COVID wasn't the only thing people died from in 2020 and 2021. Cancer victims went undiagnosed because doctors were spending all their time on COVID patients. Critical surgeries were put on hold. There was a dramatic rise in deaths due to alcohol and drug abuse. According to the CDC, one in five high-school students had suicidal thoughts during the pandemic. Domestic violence rose. One New York emergency-room doctor recalls that after the steady stream of COVID patients during March and April of 2020, ''our ER was basically empty.'' He added, ''Nobody was coming in because they were afraid of getting COVID '-- or they believed we were only handling COVID patients.''

So in attempting to gauge the value of lockdowns, the most appropriate way is to look not just at COVID deaths but at all deaths during the pandemic years. That's known as the ''excess deaths'' '-- a measure of how many more people died than in a normal year. One authoritative accounting was compiled by The Spectator using data gathered by the OECD. It showed that during the first two years of the pandemic '-- 2020 and 2021 '-- the U.S. had 19 percent more deaths than it normally saw in two years' time. For the U.K., there was a 10 percent rise. And for Sweden '-- one of the few countries that had refused to lock down its society '-- it was just 4 percent. An analysis by Bloomberg found broadly similar results. In other words, for all the criticism Sweden shouldered from the world's public health officials for refusing to institute lockdowns, it wound up seeing a lower overall death rate during the pandemic than most peer nations that shut down schools and public gatherings. It is not unreasonable to conclude from the available data that the lockdowns led to more overall deaths in the U.S. than a policy that resembled Sweden's would have.

March 20, 2020, in Los Angeles. Photo: AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images

There were other negative consequences too. In the U.S., lockdowns forced hundreds of thousands of small business closures. They exacerbated inequality, as Amazon warehouse workers and meatpackers showed up to crowded workplaces while the ''Zoom class'' locked down at home. Worst of all, though, it had a devastating effect on children whose schools were closed as part of a lockdown. During the first weeks of the pandemic it probably made sense to close schools given how little was known about the coronavirus. Better safe than sorry. But by the time school started up again in the fall of 2020, two things were clear. The first was that remote learning was a disaster. The second was that there was surprisingly little transmission among kids in school. Well-to-do parents moved their children to private schools, many of which reopened their classrooms. But most big-city public-school systems continued to rely on remote learning well into the 2020''2021 school year. It was a tragic policy choice.

In ProPublica and The New Yorker, the journalist Alec MacGillis vividly described the consequences in Baltimore. With no classrooms to go to, thousands of students abandoned school. The school system made free laptops available, but few students took the trouble to get one. Teachers gave up trying to prod those who didn't log onto their remote classes. Plus, teachers had kids of their own to take care of, which made it difficult to teach.

The anti-lockdown scientist Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University recalls a photograph in the San Jose Mercury News during the early months of the pandemic. It showed two children, 7 or 8 years old, sitting with Google Chromebooks outside a Taco Bell. ''They were on the sidewalk doing schoolwork because that was the only place they could get free Wi-Fi,'' Bhattacharya said. ''Their parents weren't there because they had to go to work. I mean, that should have ended the lockdown right then and there. It should have at least ended school closures.''

Public schools have an importance that goes beyond education. It's where many of the rituals of childhood and young adulthood take place. For children who live in unstable homes, school offers some stability. Public schools serve free breakfast and lunch to disadvantaged kids. And they're a place where parents know their children are safe when they're at work. One consequence of lockdowns was that millions of children had to fend for themselves because their parents couldn't afford to quit their jobs to take care of them.

One child psychiatrist, who works with underprivileged autistic kids, began the pandemic believing in the importance of lockdowns and other mitigation measures. But over time, she changed her mind.

''What really drove me was my clinical experience,'' she said. ''What happens to a child when every single support is removed from them? What's the impact on the family and the siblings? What I was seeing was complete regression. It was devastating, and the downsides of lockdowns and school closings were not being openly discussed in the mainstream media. I was horrified. Why aren't we talking about this?'' She described the situation she saw as 2022 wore on as a ''sickening mental-health crisis.''

The science also weighed heavily in favor of opening schools. By mid-summer 2020, when cities were trying to decide whether to reopen schools in September, 146,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. Fewer than 20 were children between the ages of 5 and 14. More schoolchildren died from mass shootings in a typical year. Emily Oster, a Brown University economist, conducted a survey of about 200,000 children who were back in classrooms. The infection rate, she discovered, was 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among teachers '-- an astonishing low number. Oster then set up what she called the National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, which eventually tracked 12 million kids in both public and private schools and continued to collect infection-rate data over the next nine months. Not once did the student rate hit one percent during any two-week span.

''We do not want to be cavalier or put people at risk,'' Oster wrote in The Atlantic. ''But by not opening, we are putting people at risk, too.''

March 15, 2020, in Manhattan. Photo: VICTOR J. BLUE/The New York Times/REDUX

Over the entirety of the pandemic, the essential facts about schools never changed. The infection rate for teachers in Sweden, where most schools stayed open, was no higher than the infection rate for teachers in Finland, which had closed its schools. In early 2021, three CDC scientists acknowledged in the Journal of the American Medical Association: ''As many schools have reopened for in-person instruction in some parts of the U.S. '... there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.''

So why did so many big-city schools stay closed long after the evidence was clear? There were three reasons. The first, and most understandable, was fear. No matter how small the chance, no parent wanted his or her child to die from COVID-19. And no teacher wanted to become infected while in school and bring COVID-19 home. Because kids often brought colds and flus to school '-- which then spread to others '-- both parents and teachers had a hard time accepting that that was not how the virus spread. Here, for instance, was a typical comment from a teacher in Westchester, reacting to a series of New York Times' articles about reopening schools:

Tell me how to get a 6-year-old to not sneeze on his friends let alone play and work from a distance (mucus, saliva, pee, poop, this is all part of our day at the lower levels of education). Tell me how each child is going to have her own supplies for the day as shared supplies are no longer an option. No more Legos, no more books. Tell me how to comfort a hysterical child from a distance of six feet.

That it was well established that the coronavirus was not spread through saliva or pee or by sharing books didn't matter. Too many people were simply unable to judge risk rationally '-- a problem due in part to unwillingness of government officials to talk honestly about COVID-19. In 2020, for instance, COVID-19 ranked below suicide, cancer, accidents, homicide, and even heart disease as a cause of death for children under the age of 15, according to CDC data. Yet public-health experts did not stress any of this '-- on the contrary, many of them emphasized instead that children could get COVID-19 without explaining how small the risk was. Is it any wonder, then, that COVID-19 seemed to be the only thing parents and teachers focused on?

The second factor was Trump. On July 6, he tweeted, ''SCHOOLS MUST REOPEN IN THE FALL!!'' The next day, at a White House event, the president said, ''We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools. It's very important for our country. It's very important for the well-being of the student and the parents.''

In this case, Trump happened to be right; it was important. But by this late stage in his presidency, most Democrats assumed that anything he said was a lie. If Trump said schools should reopen, that was reason enough for them to assume they should stay closed. The sense that opening up was a Trump-endorsed policy seems to have energized opposition to it in blue America '-- even as data accumulated that the harm being done to the country's children outweighed any potential benefit.

The third reason was the teachers' unions. Public-school teachers were unionized, and their unions '-- American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) '-- were allies of, and contributors to, the Democratic Party, which dominated most major urban areas. They held enormous sway over big-city school systems.

No one can doubt that teachers were afraid of dying of COVID-19. They truly believed they were putting themselves in harm's way if they went back into a classroom full of children. But instead of helping their members see how small the risk truly was, the teachers' unions embraced the fight to keep teachers away from the classroom.

By the time September 2020 rolled around, at least a dozen of America's biggest cities started the school year remotely. They included Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Houston '-- all cities with the kind of large, disadvantaged communities that would suffer the most if schools were closed. In most cases, city officials said they were trying to move from remote learning to at least a hybrid model, in which students would spend several days a week in classrooms and the rest of the week online.

In school districts that did open their schools that fall, the results were remarkably aligned with Emily Oster's data. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio was finally able to get the schools open in late September; between Thanksgiving and the end of the year, the city's positivity rate rose from 3 percent to 6 percent. The positivity rate in the public schools also rose '-- from 0.28 percent to 0.67 percent. ''The safest place in New York City is, of course, our public schools,'' said de Blasio. To the holdout unions, those numbers didn't matter. Ultimately, only 15 percent of school districts offered full-time classroom instruction during the fall 2020 semester.

By 2022, journalists, academics, and even some public-health officials were finally coming to grips with the enormous damage done to children '-- especially disadvantaged children '-- because of remote learning. A lengthy analysis by two professors in The Atlantic toted up some of the issues. First, millions of kids simply gave up on learning. In New York, even after schools had reopened, the chronic absentee rate was 40 percent '-- up from 26 percent before the pandemic. Studies showed that public-school children got less exercise (no recess) and ate more junk food (no free hot meals) during the pandemic. According to a CDC survey, during the first six months of 2021, nearly half the high-school students surveyed ''felt persistently sad or helpless.'' Parental emotional abuse was four times higher than in 2013, and parental physical abuse nearly doubled, The Atlantic reported.

A study by three major research institutions, including Harvard's Center for Education Policy Research, showed that the longer a school relied on remote learning, the further behind their students were. ''In high-poverty schools that were remote for more than half of 2021, the loss was about half of a school year's worth of typical achievement growth,'' said Thomas Kane, the director of the Harvard center.

Although test scores in 2023 would suggest that students were slowly catching up, those scores didn't take into account the kids who had dropped out entirely. One analysis found an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. They had simply gone missing.''The pandemic has amounted to a comprehensive assault on the American public school,'' concluded the authors of The Atlantic article. Yet as late as the fall of 2022, there were still those who refused to acknowledge the damage done by lengthy school closings.

One such person was Anthony Fauci. In August 2022, Fauci announced that he planned to retire at the end of the year. Over the next few months, he made the rounds to discuss how the country had fared during the pandemic. Invariably, he was asked whether he regretted his forceful advocacy of lockdowns, especially given its effect on children. At one forum, he said, ''Sometimes when you do draconian things, it has collateral negative consequences '... on the economy, on the schoolchildren.'' But, he added, ''The only way to stop something cold in its tracks is to try and shut things down.''

What he could never acknowledge was that ''shutting things down'' didn't stop the virus, and that keeping schools closed didn't save kids' lives. Then again, to understand that, you had to be willing to follow the science.

Excerpted from The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind, by Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean (Portfolio, October 2023).

COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:12

How is rejection sensitive dysphoria treated, and is there a cure?While there's much that experts don't know about RSD, there are still ways that experts can treat it. The treatment approaches can also take different forms, and it's common to use multiple treatment approaches at the same time.

MedicationsMedications are the main way to treat RSD. The drugs in question typically treat ADHD and related conditions. That's because treating these conditions affects the same brain areas responsible for RSD symptoms, so treating one condition affects both. Other conditions have very similar effects on the same brain areas as RSD, and treatments for those conditions can often help.

Because RSD isn't an officially recognized medical condition, there aren't any medications specifically approved to treat it. Instead, healthcare providers use a practice known as ''off-label prescribing.''

Off-label prescribing means a healthcare provider prescribes a medication for conditions other than the ones they're specifically approved to treat. This kind of prescribing is legal, medically acceptable and justified when evidence shows a medication has a low risk of causing harmful side effects and is effective for off-label use.

The following medication types can treat RSD:

Alpha-2 receptor agonists. This type of medication activates a specific type of chemical receptor found on neurons (brain cells) in specific brain areas. Medications that activate those receptors, such as clonidine and guanfacine, make those areas more active. Activating those brain areas makes it easier for your brain to regulate internal communication, reducing the effect of RSD.Stimulant medications. These medications increase the levels of certain neurotransmitters in your brain. Neurotransmitters are chemical messenger molecules that your brain uses to communicate and activate or deactivate certain processes. Increasing certain types of neurotransmitters can increase activity in specific brain areas. That's how stimulant medications such as amphetamine/dextroamphetamine (commonly known as Adderall®) and methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin®) make brain areas that regulate communication more active.Monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) medications. This class of medications treats depression, but experts also know medications such as tranylcypromine can help with RSD. However, you can't take these medications at the same time as other common medications for ADHD. You also have to be careful with what you eat because certain foods (such as aged or strong cheeses, aged meats, etc.) can interact with MAOIs and cause a dangerous spike in blood pressure.PsychotherapyPsychotherapy (also known as mental health therapy) can help people with RSD. Therapy doesn't stop RSD from happening or affect the symptoms. Instead, therapy can help a person learn how to process and manage feelings so they're less overwhelming. That can help a person with RSD feel more in control of their emotions.

What are the possible side effects or complications of treatment?The possible side effects and complications of the various treatments depend on various factors, especially the treatments themselves. Because of that, your healthcare provider is the best person to tell you what side effects or complications are possible or likely, and what you can do to limit how they affect you.

How do I take care of myself or manage the symptoms on my own?If you think you have RSD, it's important to see a healthcare provider to get a diagnosis of a related condition like ADHD and then to follow up with a mental health provider. Some people can learn to manage RSD on their own, but it's difficult to do so. That's because RSD happens based on how your brain functions.

People with RSD also commonly have other mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. In most cases, it takes a combination of medication and mental health therapy to learn to live with this condition. Your provider can recommend treatment options and guide you on what you can do to help yourself as you learn to manage RSD.

How soon after treatment will I feel better?The time it takes to notice a difference from treatment depends on the treatments you receive. Medications can help with the symptoms, but mental health therapy offers the best chance of learning to live with RSD.

Because no two people's brains are alike, and conditions like ADHD and RSD affect people differently, the time it takes to notice changes and improvements can also vary. Your healthcare provider is the best person to tell you more about when you should expect to notice changes and what else you can do to help yourself manage this condition.

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Mon, 06 Nov 2023 20:20

A process is being undertaken in our public schools and libraries that many are not aware of. It is an effort that will systematically erase our history, traditions, and many of the literary heroes of our childhood, allowing it all to be rewritten so as not to 'offend'.

The attached article outlines a process of weeding out books, once available to the public and students, using the ''MUSTIE'' acronym (Misleading, Unpleasant, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, Elsewhere).

However, the directive seems confusing to many libraries and most have explained they simply removed books based on a date of publication prior to 2008, with no other criteria being considered.

As an example, the Peel District School Board (PDSB) explains, ''Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data are removed,'' and will only be replaced if they are ''accurate, serve the curriculum, align with board initiatives and are responsive to student interest and engagement. The PDSB claims to ensure that the books available will be ''culturally responsive, relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the diversity of our school communities and the broader society''.

Somehow the arbitrary date of 2008 has been chosen as the starting point for the publishing of acceptable and inclusive literature.

All the great literary novels of our childhood will be gone, as will history texts that speak of slavery or any of the other current 'sensitive' subjects. We are witnessing a rewriting of our known history for the education of future generations.

Since when is it such a terrible thing to be offended that it has become acceptable to erase that which offends? Being offended promotes critical thinking, self-evaluation, and positive action. Being offended by history ensures we are not likely to repeat these offences.

We must ensure future generations learn from the mistakes of the past and not just focus on the emotional aspect of their response, and have the right to express their distaste, both for and against these policies. That is freedom of speech and expression.

Rewriting history does nothing to benefit humanity.

To read the CBC News article written by Nicole Brockbank and Angelina King, click here

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Mon, 06 Nov 2023 20:16

Social Justice UsageSource: Bhambra, Gurminder K., Delia Gebrial and Kerem Nisancioglu (eds.). Decolonising the University. Pluto Press. Kindle Edition, p. 2.

''Decolonising'' involves a multitude of definitions, interpretations, aims and strategies. To broadly situate its political and methodological coordinates, ''decolonising'' has two key referents. First, it is a way of thinking about the world which takes colonialism, empire and racism as its empirical and discursive objects of study; it re-situates these phenomena as key shaping forces of the contemporary world, in a context where their role has been systematically effaced from view. Second, it purports to offer alternative ways of thinking about the world and alternative forms of political praxis.

New Discourses CommentaryLiteral decolonization refers to the withdrawal of colonial powers from a country it had seized control of and exploited. Decolonization can also refer to the undoing of broader effects of that colonialism, such as systems of government, law, culture, religion, and language and recovering prior systems. This is not what is meant in the Social Justice application of the term, though it is where the roots of the term come from.

In the Social Justice sense, which has adopted postmodern (mostly French) concepts of power and knowledge, decolonization is understood more broadly still. As indicated above, it seeks to read everything through a framework of colonialism and uncover how it has shaped all sorts of power dynamics in society, particularly in the realms of discourse'--ways of speaking about things. Thus, it is common to hear that everything from university curricula to hairstyles needs to be ''decolonized.'' Further, because this approach to decolonialism is postmodern, science and reason as ways of obtaining knowledge are considered the property of white, Western men. It is therefore imperialistic (or colonizing) to expect people from other cultures to use them. A need to value ''other ways of knowing'' is therefore central to the decolonial methodology.

Decolonization is therefore best understood as a deconstructive and reconstructive project within Social Justice to remove ''white'' and ''Western'' influence or centrality from essentially any and everything. Decolonizing university curricula often entails reducing the quantity of material studied that came from Western, white (and male) authors and researchers and replacing it with material that came from non-white and non-Western sources (see also, citational justice and research justice). Decolonizing hairstyles would refer to problematizing interest in, appreciation for, or appropriation of them by white people and challenging or disrupting ''white'' cultural expectations about them, which may only exist in tendentious accounts from critical race Theory or in the form of microaggressions (see also, cultural racism).

It is worth noting that decoloniality'--a disposition toward decolonizing, in this sense'--is explicitly a project within educational spaces under the critical pedagogy of Theorists like Joe Kincheloe. That is, there has been a deliberate project to train our educators in colleges of education to take up a decolonizing mindset and to make their teaching into activism in that direction.

Related TermsCitational justice; Colonialism; Critical pedagogy; Critical race Theory; Cultural appropriation; Cultural racism; Deconstruction; Discourse; Knowledge(s); Imperialism; Microaggressions; Orientalism; Postcolonial; Postcolonial Theory; Postmodern; Power (systemic); Power-knowledge; Research justice; Science; Social Justice; Western; Western-centric; White

LanguagesEspa±olRevision date: 7/13/20

'‡ Back to Translations from the Wokish

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Mon, 06 Nov 2023 19:48

The Players

The US Power GridDennis Quaid hosts an alarming look into the potential of life without power. A dynamic legion of energy, economic, national security, and infrastructure experts fearlessly expose our most critical global threat: the vulnerability of our nation's power grids. Together they inform the public of imminent threats and the infinite horrors in store from prolonged power loss. Buckle down and power up with this series of shocking scenarios.

Utility CompaniesThe U.S. power grid is aging and already struggling to meet current demand. It faces a future with more people '-- people who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces. Our electric utility companies have not implemented sufficient precautions to protect our grid and are well aware of the dangers. Numerous readily available grid safety solutions exist. These viable innovations must be rapidly instituted to protect our grid against known threats and hazards. As the demand for grid protection expands, brilliant minds will undoubtedly develop even more innovative ideas to secure our grid and protect our power. Promising fortification concepts have been developed by wise executives and utility engineers who understand that strict guidelines and protection measures may (hopefully) become required by law. Consistent citizen pressure must continue to pass legislation requiring utility companies to implement existing protective protocols while encouraging them to forge further state-of-the-art safeguards. Our goal at 'GDPU' is to ensure the grid never goes down! We've taken the time to list examples of immediate/interim solutions and sensible steps to secure our existing grids while we push for developing reliable, resilient microgrids.

State and Federal OfficialsOur state and federal officials understand the dangers of grid failure but haven't successfully passed legislation to remedy the problem. Unfortunately, the current cybersecurity standards designed by ''the industry'' and ''approved'' by the federal government are dangerously insufficient. Their security standards lean towards negligence and apply only to the ''bulk power system.'' The current cybersecurity standards clearly state: companies are NOT required to seek detection, mitigation, or even removal of malware (like the virus Russia employed to terminate electricity in Ukraine and then implanted in our systems). Even more shocking: these standards do not protect against catastrophic cyber-physical threats such as ''Aurora'' and don't apply to imperative systems that allow grid operators to control the flow of electricity. Federal regulators have long been warned about these severe deficiencies. We must continue to push and encourage the federal government, state legislators, and public service commissioners to mandate upgraded cybersecurity standards to protect our power grid.

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Last month Music Business Worldwide broke the news that major changes were coming to Spotify's royalty model in Q1 2024. The most controversial of those changes? A new minimum annual threshold for streams before any track starts generating royalties on the service.

At the time of our report, we couldn't confirm a precise number for this minimum threshold. Now we can: It's 1,000 plays.

The news was first nodded to by a guest post from the President of the distribution platform Stem, Kristin Graziani, published on Thursday (November 2).

MBW has subsequently confirmed with sources close to conversations between Spotify and music rightsholders that 1,000 streams will indeed be the minimum yearly play-count volume that each track on the service has to hit in order to start generating royalties from Q1 2024.

We've also re-confirmed Spotify's behind-the-scenes line on this to record labels and distributors right now: That the move is ''designed to [demonetize] a population of tracks that today, on average, earn less than five cents per month''.

Five cents in recorded music royalties on Spotify in the US today can be generated by around 200 plays.

As we reported last month, Spotify believes that this move will de-monetize a portion of tracks that previously absorbed 0.5% of the service's 'Streamshare' (i.e. 'pro-rata'-based) royalty pool.

Spotify has told industry players that it expects the new 1,000-play minimum annual threshold will reallocate tens of millions of dollars per year from that 0.5% to the other 99.5% of the royalty pool.

In 2024, Spotify expects this will move $40 million that would have previously been paid to tracks with fewer than 1,000 streams to those with more than 1,000 streams.

One source close to the conversations between Spotify and music rightsholders told us: ''This targets those royalty payouts whose value is being destroyed by being turned into fractional payments '' pennies or nickels.

''Often, these micro-payments aren't even reaching human beings; aggregators frequently require a minimum level of [paid-out streaming royalties] before they allow indie artists to withdraw the money.

''We're talking about tracks [whose royalties] aren't hitting those minimum levels, leaving their Spotify royalty payouts sitting idle in bank accounts.''

MBW itself nodded to Spotufy's new 1,000-play threshold in a commentary posted on Thursday entitled: Talking ''garbage'': How can Spotify and co. sort the dregs of the music business from the hidden treasures?

In that MBW Reacts article, we referenced comments made by Denis Ladegaillerie, CEO of Believe '' parent of TuneCore '' made on a recent podcast interview with Music Business Worldwide.

Ladegaillerie specifically expressed disagreement with the idea of a 1,000-stream monetization lower limit on music streaming services.

He said: ''Why would you not pay such an artist [for getting less than 1,000 streams]? It doesn't make any sense.

''What signal as a music industry do you send to aspiring artists if you go in that direction?''

The MBW Reacts article cited the example of Believe-distributed I±igo Quintero, who recently hit No.1 on Spotify's global streaming chart with his hit Si No Ests.

We wrote: Had Quintero been monetarily discouraged via a Spotify-style system during [his early career], might he have been downhearted enough to give up?

If we're only talking about a minimum payout threshold of up to 1,000 streams a year? Probably not.

But if that threshold [moves] upwards in the future, to, say 10,000 streams '' or 20,000 streams? Who knows.

Stories like this highlight the importance of the music industry's leading streaming platforms '' especially Spotify '' striking the right balance between punishing [so-called] ''garbage'' while leaving the early green shoots of tomorrow's ''professional artists'' unharmed. Music Business Worldwide

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Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:41

Breaking News The European Parliament and Member States have just reached an agreement on the introduction of digital identity. ''I just left the room where we had negotiations about the digital identity'--and I have bad news,'' announced Dutch Member of the European Parliament Rob Roos on Wednesday.

Originally Published on Vigilant News

On X, in a post attached with a video, he wrote:

BREAKING: Very bad news. The European Parliament and Member States just reached an agreement on introducing the Digital Identity, #eID. Directly afterwards, #EU Commissioner Breton said: ''Now that we have a Digital Identity Wallet, we have to put something in it'...'', suggesting a connection between #CBDC and eID. They ignored all the privacy experts and security specialists. They're pushing it all through. I am not optimistic. But it is not too late yet. Parliament still has to vote about this. Let your MEP know that you oppose the Digital Identity and that you want your MEP to vote against it!

The following is MEP Roos' video statement:🚨 BREAKING: Very bad news. The European Parliament and Member States just reached an agreement on introducing the Digital Identity, #eID.Directly afterwards, #EU Commissioner Breton said: "Now that we have a Digital Identity Wallet, we have to put something in it'...",'... pic.twitter.com/SVC5exas9b

'-- Rob Roos MEP ðŸ‡"🇱 (@Rob_Roos) November 8, 2023I just left the room where we had negotiations about the digital identity'--and I have bad news. The member states and the European Parliament came to an agreement. That means that probably not far from now, the digital identity will be [in] effect in the European Union. Right after this agreement, Commissioner Breton said, ''Now, we have the digital identity wallet; we have to put something in it.'' And what he meant was the digital Euro, also known as a central bank digital currency.

And this is a very bad development. They always promise us not to make this connection. And even a lot of experts, privacy experts, and security experts, warned also last week [that] this is a very bad idea for our privacy and our freedom. And still, this digital identity is pushed through.

MEP Roos offered a glimmer of hope in a call to action, urging voters to write their representatives:

But it's not too late because we still have to vote on this in the plenary (meeting). So what you can do: send your MEP from your member state an email and tell him or tell her that you are against this tool.

Total ControlCatherine Austin Fitts, financial expert and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Bush (H.W.) administration, has long warned about the dangers of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currencies).

Access Denied: Implementing Complete Control Through Centralized Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

Let's say I want to mandate a vaccine. Your financial transaction ability can be turned off; your access to your financial assets can be denied or stopped if you don't do what you're told.

Do Not ComplyAs George Orwell, Author of 1984, once said, ''Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.''

If this doesn't end now, what you know as freedom will be turned into privileges that can be turned on and off in an instant. Look to China; that's what they intend to bring to the West. And digital IDs + CBDCs are the exact tools needed to make it a reality.

As Catherine Austin Fitts said, ''Your access to your financial assets can be denied or stopped if you don't do what you're told.'' So rather than waiting for complete tyranny to hit you upside the head, it's more important than ever to start resisting now.

Originally Published on Vigilant News

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Power LunchGuggenheim analyst Seamus Fernandez joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss Eli Lilly's latest drug to get FDA approval, whether it'll become the biggest-selling drug of all time, and who will be on the hook in paying for Eli Lilly's new drug.

04:02

2 hours ago

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Thu, 09 Nov 2023 02:32

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, several voting machines in multiple districts across Northampton County had to issue emergency paper ballots due to ''votes getting flipped and not recording properly'' on their voting machines.

Shortly after the error occurred Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure was clearly frustrated about the problems at the polls and told Lehigh Valley News ''I'm livid at the election folks and ES&S.''

ES&S (Election Systems & Software) ExpressVoteXL machines were used in Northampton County elections.

Shortly after the machine errors occurred Northhampton County held an emergency press conference and invited Linda Bennett the Senior Vice President of Customer Operations at Election Systems & Software to explain why votes were switched in the retention race between Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor Stabile for the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

When asked by an attendee of the press conference why the voting machines had errors Bennett responded ''It was a human error, based on someone from our team that programmed the election.''

She continued ''They made a mistake putting the printed text on the card as opposed to the screen. '... Someone from our team inadvertently put the wrong name.''

WATCH:

Senior VP of Customer Operations of Election Systems & Software the company responsible for PA Votes 'Flipping' Says: ''It was a human error someone from our team PROGRAMMED the election. pic.twitter.com/BxrwVOaWlY

'-- Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) November 8, 2023

Per ABC News:

McClure blamed a coding error by voting machine company Election Systems & Software, which he said the county's elections staff failed to pick up during testing.

Omaha, Nebraska-based ES&S acknowledged fault. A company spokesperson, Katina Granger, said the problem was caused by human error, was limited to Northampton County and only affected the judicial retention question.

''We deeply regret what has occurred today,'' said Linda Bennett, the company's senior vice president of customer operations.

It's not the first time Northampton County has had problems with the company's ExpressVoteXL touchscreen system. In 2019, an incorrectly formatted ballot in a judicial race forced election workers to count the vote on paper ballots.

This is why Americans have a growing distrust of the system. It baffles me how Democrats consistently screw up the execution of elections to the peril and misfortune of the voter.

Make Elections Safe and Secure AGAIN!!! https://t.co/XhAMS3vLJo

'-- Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) November 7, 2023

Watch the entire emergency press conference here:

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2:59:02The Charlie Kirk Show3 hours ago

One Year Out + Trump Testifies | Sen. Cruz, Billboard Chris, Homan, Habba | LIVE 11.7.2390.4K

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 20:07

WASHINGTON '-- During a trip to the White House in June, former President Barack Obama made it clear to his former running mate that he was committed to doing whatever it takes to support his re-election, three sources familiar with the meeting confirmed to NBC News.

As part of a visit that included a private lunch, the two presidents discussed how much was at stake in 2024, especially because of the continued strength of former President Donald Trump's base, two of the sources said.

The Washington Post was first to report Wednesday that Obama had expressed concern during the private lunch about Trump's strengths, including his base, conservative media that's friendly to Trump and a politically polarized electorate. Sources familiar with the meeting declined to offer additional details.

''Just as he always has, President Obama looks forward to supporting Democrats up and down the ballot next fall, and no race has bigger stakes than President Biden's re-election,'' Eric Schultz, an Obama spokesperson, told NBC News.

''Our strategy will be based on driving impact. We place a huge emphasis on finding creative ways to reach new audiences, especially tools that can be directly tied to voter mobilization or volunteer activations. We are deliberate in picking our moments because our objective is to move the needle,'' Schultz added.

The Biden-Obama conversation came as multiple Democratic strategists have made the case that the president may be best positioned to win re-election in a rematch against Trump, compared with other potential GOP opponents.

As NBC News reported on the day of Obama's White House visit in June, officials in both camps were careful to characterize it as just ''another check-in conversation,'' a clear effort to convey that such interactions were hardly uncommon. Biden and Obama had spoken by phone just a few weeks earlier, after the successful resolution of the debt ceiling debate.

Politics was clearly on the agenda during the June lunch. While at the White House, Obama and Biden recorded several videos that were used to raise money for Biden's re-election campaign ahead of the quarterly filing deadline. And in a fundraising email in Obama's name, the former president said: ''Our democracy is at stake right now. '... We're seeing a dangerous strand of anti-democratic sentiment. We've got to fight back against it.''

Mike Memoli Mike Memoli is an NBC News correspondent.

Kristen Welker Kristen Welker is the moderator of "Meet the Press".

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Tue, 07 Nov 2023 19:01

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''The View'' host Sara Haines lamented the Democrats' lack of options going into the 2024 presidential election, saying that the party didn't really have the ''privilege'' of a candidate other than President Joe Biden.

Haines began by referencing the most recent poll numbers '-- which have only gotten worse for Biden as he approaches the last year of his term. She then noted that even if Biden were to step aside, the traditionally logical next choice seemed to be a non-starter as well '-- mainly because Vice President Kamala Harris was doing worse in polls than Biden.

WATCH:

Sara Haines argues Democrats don't have "the privilege of another candidate" and noted "Vice President Harris is polling even worse" than him and "You can't step over her." pic.twitter.com/T32MyWX1uj

'-- Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 6, 2023

The conversation began with cohost Ana Navarro, who said that Democrats should be looking at Biden's poor poll numbers as a call to action.

Saying that it was ''a wake-up call to organize, to mobilize, to register people, to talk about the accomplishments of this administration,'' Navarro added, ''Stop clutching your pearls and get to work.''

Haines responded by expressing her concern that Democrats didn't have many options left, saying, ''With all the disclaimers about polls in general, I do think these numbers were really echoing what we've been hearing lately, of people saying they had concerns of certain things.''

''I see it more as a campaign strategy, because I think the privilege of another candidate is just not there. What's the '-- when they talk about Biden stepping down, what's the next choice? Where do you go from there?'' she asked. ''Because now you talk about Vice President Harris, who is polling, if we would go with the polling, even worse. But you can't step over her, so what are you doing in this one-year runway?''

Haines went on to say that the one thing she had seen that shocked her was polling indicating that former Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) might do well in a head-to-head match-up with former President Donald Trump '' who is currently leading a still-crowded field by a wide margin in the Republican primary.

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