1634: Nukes in Space!

Jesus did NOT wash the feet of a prostitute. Instead, the prostitute washed HIS feet!

The only feet he washed was of his disciples, including Judas, the night before he was betrayed.

Anonymity Please: I am a Secret Service Agent formerly based in XXXX. I have been to at least one Dignified Transfer (Soldiers' remains returning to America) at Dover. First, some people on "the socials" slammed Biden for "Moving" the transfer to Delaware to make his schedule easier. To my knowledge, they are all in Dover because that's where the military's Mortuary Service is located. Now, I have no doubt that the plane just happened to land on a Friday, which just happens to be closer to his beach house benefited him, but he did not move the ceremony.

Also, the families are not out on the tarmac. Only the officials are out there next to the plane when the remains arrive. The caskets are transported from the plane to a chapel on the base. The families await the remains at the chapel, and that's where the president or ranking official meets with them. Sometimes they meet while they are awaiting the plane, sometimes after the remains arrive. I am pretty sure that there aren't any press or cameras allowed in the chapel to prevent political grandstanding or scenes around the soldiers and families.

Morgan Stanley Says Firms Are Focused on Costs Like Never Before

Three "Crazy" Reasons Beef Prices Are Going to Skyrocket - 🔔 The Liberty Daily

**Missouri, et al.’s brief****:** Highlighted copy attached. This brief attacks the government’s attempt to paint itself as the victim. Unlike most legal briefs, the summary of facts that led to the suit (“Statement of the Case”) isn’t some sterile law-nerd recitation—it’s a well-told _story_. The best version I’ve read yet. It’s even in present tense, like a Ken Kesey novel.

As for the legal issues, the juiciest is whether the government is violating the 14th Amendment. It’s mostly about the facts, which again are compellingly laid out. At oral argument (March 18), I expect to hear quite a few factual hypotheticals as the Justices try to draw the line between the legitimate exercise of policy prerogatives and stepping all over the First Amendment. Most of the other legal arguments are fairly dry and a little technical—these include standing (how each plaintiff was harmed), equitable factors, and overbreadth—but they’re necessary parts of the preliminary-injunction analysis (which is what SCOTUS is reviewing).

**Amicus briefs****:** To make up for my tardiness on this report, here’s a list of the latest batch of amicus briefs. Let me know if you want me to review any that capture your fancy.

As predicted, Bobby the Op filed one, having been denied permission to intervene. Also, I’ve gone ahead and attached the brief that Steven Crowder (of Louder with Crowder) did, since he’s a vlogger/commentator and vaguely works in your general milieu. I’ve highlighted a few swatches of the brief FYRP. It’s well written, but it makes familiar arguments with Section 230 as its centerpiece; you may not find yourself riveted. The main reason I’m sending it to you is to repeat what I’ve said before: NA could easily do an amicus brief at SCOTUS. And if you ever wanted to do one, I know an old dude in Canyon Lake who’d write one (pro bono . . . shhhh 🤠). Here’s the list—and again, **these are all in support of Missouri, et al.** and against the Biden Administration.

As for a NA amicus brief: (1) If a case is important to y’all, why not have your position considered by the Justices sitting on the highest court in the land, and possibly get a mention somewhere? (2) Yes, sometimes an amicus brief moves the needle, making a difference in an important case.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:39

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)In an unusual session held on Super Bowl Sunday, the US Senate voted to move forward a substantial $95 billion aid package that will support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, with no southern border security provisions. The vote garnered support from RINOs, with a final tally of 67-27.

The vote came in response to Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.)'s steadfast refusal to expedite voting on the bill, which he vehemently criticized as ''rotten'' and detrimental to national interests.

Senator Paul, expressing his staunch opposition, declared he would not allow the bill to pass immediately, emphasizing his concerns over prioritizing foreign aid over domestic issues.

This bill sends the message to Americans that their elected officials don't care about them. I've never met any Kentuckian who says, ''fix the border of Ukraine before you fix our border.''

'-- Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 8, 2024

According to the Hill, Schumer offered Republicans the chance to vote on amendments in exchange for expediting the legislative process.

''By a vote of 67-27, The Senate invoked cloture on Murray substitute amendment 1388 to H.R.815, legislative vehicle for supplemental appropriations,'' the Senate Press Gallery wrote on X.

Sixty-seven senators voted in favor of war funding, while 27 senators opposed the expenditure, all of whom were Republicans.

On Super Bowl Sunday, the following 18 Republican senators supported the Ukraine war funding:

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)Bill Cassidy (R-LA)Susan Collins (R-ME)John Cornyn (R-TX)Joni Ernst (R-IA)Chuck Grassley (R-IA)John Kennedy (R-LA)Mitch McConnell (R-KY)Jerry Moran (R-KS)Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)Mitt Romney (R-UT)Mike Rounds (R-SD)Dan Sullivan (R-AK)John Thune (R-SD)Thom Tillis (R-NC)Roger Wicker (R-MS)Todd Young (R-IN)Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) acknowledged the unusual scheduling.

''I can't remember the last time the Senate was in session on Super Bowl Sunday, but as I've said all week long, we're going to keep working on this bill until the job is done,'' Schumer said.

This comes after the Republican Senators on Wednesday voted against advancing a compromised 'border security bill' that would have allocated more money to foreign countries while largely ignoring the US border.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will move forward with a backup plan.

On Thursday, Schumer fulfilled his promise, and the Democratic-led Senate advanced a streamlined bill aimed at providing aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, but not the southern border that is currently invaded by illegal immigrants.

In a 67-32 cloture vote, the Senate crossed party lines, with several RINO senators joining Democrats to move the foreign aid bill forward.

Following the Sunday's vote, Mitch McConnell released the following statement:

''From the earliest days of Vladimir Putin's escalation in Ukraine, America's closest allies and partners have been paying close attention.

''From halfway around the world in the Indo-Pacific, our friends have made it clear that in the Ukrainian people's fight, they see their own future.

''From Taiwan, 'Ukraine's survival is Taiwan's survival.'

''From Japan, 'security in Europe and security in the Indo-Pacific are inseparable.'

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''From Australia, 'It is absolutely in the interest of every free country that Putin's aggression fails.'

''But why? Why would peaceful people dare to get involved in others' fights?

''Why would leaders in Asia contribute billions of dollars and weapons to help Ukraine defeat Russian aggression?

''Why would the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of South Korea bother with long journeys to wartime Kyiv to express solidarity with Ukraine?

''Why not just pull up the drawbridge and keep quiet?

''Because our allies and partners are not na¯ve.

''Because they know that unchecked aggression begets more.

''Because they know that victory for Russia means a green light for China.

''Because they know that neglecting Ukraine's fight to restore its sovereignty raises the costs of defending their own.

''Our partners don't have the luxury of pretending that the world's most dangerous aggressors are someone else's problem.

''And neither do we.

''So today, it is no exaggeration to say that the eyes of the world are on the United States Senate.

''Our allies and partners are hoping that the indispensable nation '' the leader of the free world '' has the resolve to continue. And our adversaries are hoping for something quite different.

''Friends and foes, alike, pay close attention to what we say here. And how we vote.

''Because American leadership matters. And it is in question.

''But let's be absolutely clear:

''The United States didn't give our Greatest Generation to the fight against Nazi Germany or commit half a century of focus and resources to defeating Soviet communism just out of a sense of altruism. And we aren't helping partners resist authoritarian aggression today out of some warm and fuzzy sense of charity.

''We haven't equipped the brave people of Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan with lethal capabilities in order to win philanthropic accolades.

''We're not urgently strengthening defenses in the Indo-Pacific because it feels good.

''We don't wield American strength frivolously. We do it because it is in our own interest.

''We equip our friends to face our shared adversaries so we're less likely to have to spend American lives to defeat them.

''For years, I've warned about the growing threats to America's national security, and the growing coordination among our adversaries.

''And for years, I've worked to steer greater investments toward the hard power needed to deter them.

''The Russian despot trying to conquer Ukraine also wants to see America weakened.

''The Chinese autocrat hoping to subjugate Taiwan also wants to consign American leadership to history.

''The Iranian regime that equips the slaughter of Israeli Jews and a terrorist war on international commerce also wants to shatter our influence in the region and spill American blood in the process.

''They tell us this by their actions.

''Pretending not to hear them is not an option.

''Delaying until the costs in American lives and treasure rise immeasurably is not an option.

''The time to stand up to these gathering threats is right now.

''Every night, millions of Americans sleep in peace because brave men and women continue to answer the call to serve in our nation's armed forces.

''Every day, millions of Americans turn for their livelihood to an economic order built and underwritten by American leadership.

''And every time that peace and prosperity are threatened, we stand with allies and partners who trust in the righteousness of that leadership and the credibility of our commitments.

''Today, the future of the world I've just described is in question.

''The endurance of an order in which American support is craved and American strength is feared is in doubt.

''And we, the United States of America, have the most to lose.

''Ever since we came to the aid of our allies 80 years ago, America has been an inseparable partner in the security of Europe.

''Not out of charity, but because our own security and prosperity is tied to it.

''Ever since we were attacked in 1941, America has helped guarantee stability and free commerce in the Indo-Pacific.

''Not as a moral gesture, but because we have core interests of our own in this critical part of the world.

''Ever since the establishment of the modern Jewish state of Israel in 1948, America has stood by her.

''Not out of generosity, but because of the enduring values and interests we share '' in security, in democracy, and in peace.

''I know it's become quite fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interests we have as a global power. To bemoan the responsibilities of global leadership. To lament the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great power conflict in human history.

''This is idle work for idle minds.

''And it has no place in the United States Senate.

''In this chamber, we must face the world as it is.

''We must reject the dimmest and most shortsighted views of our obligations, and grapple instead with actual problems.

''As they come. In the harsh light of day.

''And today, the questions facing this body are quite simple.

''Will we give those who wish us harm more reason to question our resolve? Or will we recommit to exercising American strength?

''Will we give those who crave our leadership more reason to wonder if it's in decline? Or will we invest in the credibility that underpins our entire way of life?

''I cannot answer these questions for any one of my colleagues. But none of us can afford to get them wrong.''

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:39

Russian forces in occupied Ukraine are using Starlink terminals produced by Elon Musk's SpaceX for satellite internet in what is beginning to look like a ''systemic'' problem, Kyiv's main military intelligence agency has claimed.

Starlink terminals were rushed in to help Ukraine after Russia's February 2022 invasion and have been vital to Kyiv's battlefield communications. Starlink says it does not do business of any kind with Russia's government or military.

''Cases of the Russian occupiers' use of the given devices have been registered. It is beginning to take on a systemic nature,'' said Ukrainian defence intelligence (GUR) spokesperson Andriy Yusov.

The GUR said terminals were being used by units like Russia's 83rd air assault brigade, which is fighting near Klishchiivka and Andriivka in the partially occupied eastern region of Donetsk.

Starlink terminals are supposed to be ''geofenced'' so they do not function in unauthorised locations. There has been discussion online that, for example, Russian forces may be able to ''spoof'' the geofence to make a terminal in a blocked area appear as if it is in a permitted area. It has also been suggested that Russian soldiers might use ill-gotten terminals in areas of Ukraine that were cleared for Starlink to help the Ukrainians, but have since come under Russian attack or occupation.

In a post on X on Sunday, Musk said: ''To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia '... A number of false news reports claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia. This is categorically false.''

Musk did not appear to address whether Russian soldiers might be obtaining and using Starlink terminals regardless. In its own statement, Starlink also did not say anything about their possible use in occupied areas of Ukraine.

''If SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorised party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed,'' Starlink said.

Neither Musk nor Starlink outlined any pro-active efforts to prevent Russian forces from obtaining terminals or connecting to Starlink; nor did they say whether specific Ukrainian claims were being investigated.

SpaceX does not do business of any kind with the Russian Government or its military. Starlink is not active in Russia, meaning service will not work in that country. SpaceX has never sold or marketed Starlink in Russia, nor has it shipped equipment to locations in Russia. If'...

'-- Starlink (@Starlink) February 8, 2024Ukraine's GUR agency said it had intercepted an exchange between two soldiers discussing setting up the terminals. It posted what it said was an audio clip of the exchange on the Telegram messenger by way of evidence.

The GUR did not say how it thought the terminals had been obtained by Russian forces '' whether for instance they had been procured from abroad or captured from Ukrainian forces.

With Reuters

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:38

Maybe you've heard: Earth, our planet, is not doing great. Tropical forests are getting cut down. Parking lots are replacing bird-filled grasslands. Climate change is fueling forest-razing wildfires. On the whole, natural, plant-filled habitats, seem to be disappearing.

Despite this destruction, scientists keep coming to an odd conclusion: The Earth is growing greener. Not green in the metaphorical ''sustainable'' sense, but in the literal color green.

In the last four decades, the extent of green vegetation '-- i.e., the amount of leaves in a given area '-- has substantially increased across the planet, according to a number of recent scientific studies based on satellite data. There's actually more green space today, not less. And this ''global greening'' phenomenon is not just occurring on land. Large parts of the oceans are getting greener, too, research shows. Our blue planet, it seems, is increasingly a green planet.

Understanding Earth's color is key to understanding Earth and our future on it. ''Greenness'' often corresponds to the planet's ability to absorb carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that drives climate change. The more leaves, the more photosynthesis, a chemical reaction that gobbles up CO2. That's the good news in global greening: It's helping offset some of the impacts of climate change.

But there's more to greening than meets the eye. The changing color isn't so much a sign that forests and other ecosystems are regrowing but that humans are altering the environment on a truly planetary scale '-- often, with dire consequences.

A true-color image of Earth taken by NASA satellites more than two decades ago. NASA Why Earth is getting greenerMuch of what we know about our planet on a global scale comes from satellites. Some of them are equipped with high-tech sensors that measure different wavelengths of light. With help from computer models, these sensors can roughly approximate the amount of leaves in a given area on the ground. More ''greening'' means the ground has more leaves, typically because it has more plants, or those plants have more (or larger) leaves on them.

The global greening effect, which dates back to the 1980s or earlier, isn't tiny. In one 2019 study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, scientists found that the Earth had increased its green leaf area (i.e., the amount of leaves) by 5 percent in the last two decades. That's equivalent to an area the size of the Amazon rainforest covered in a thin layer of leaves. A more recent paper, meanwhile, found that the world is not only leafier, but the rate of greening is actually accelerating across more than half of its land.

Recent trends in global greening. Darker green indicates where the planet is becoming leafier. Chen et al./Nature Sustainability These results are somewhat counterintuitive. In an age of deforestation, you might expect Earth to get browner or more gray, as satellites see stumps in place of trees and runways in place of wetlands. Where is all this green color coming from?

One explanation is air pollution. Carbon dioxide is not only a pollutant but a fertilizer '-- a key ingredient in photosynthesis that helps plants grow. Some farmers inject CO2 into their greenhouses to accelerate plant growth. But now we're fertilizing plants on a global scale: In the last two centuries, NASA reports, humans have increased the CO2 content in the air by roughly 50 percent. All that extra CO2 is accelerating leaf growth, and satellites can see it.

Humans are also just growing more plants. The 2019 Nature Sustainability study found that the dominant driver of recent global greening is a combination of more farming and, to a lesser extent, more tree planting. People are growing more crops on the same amount of land and turning barren patches of soil into verdant farms.

These trends are especially prominent in China and India. Together, these two countries account for roughly one-third of all greening, the study found.

''The intensification of agriculture that's been happening in India over the past four decades is stunning,'' said Joshua Gray, a geospatial scientist at North Carolina State University, who was not affiliated with the 2019 paper.

China, meanwhile, has planted tens of billions of trees, often in plots with just one species, over the last four decades, according to the country's government. The idea behind this massive tree-planting campaign is, among other goals, to stop land from drying out, reduce erosion, and provide people with a source of income from timber.

Green can be goodBroadly speaking, a leafier planet can help the climate. Our oceans and lands, including forests, absorb more than half of the CO2 that countries spew into the air. These ''carbon sinks'' keep global warming from getting worse than it already is, and at least on land, they have been growing for several decades.

Global greening, Gray said, is one reason why the land sink has ballooned.

A phytoplankton bloom near Iceland in the summer of 2010. NASA In the ocean, however, greening is far more mysterious; it's not clear why the sea is getting greener or what that means for the climate. The observed shift in color is likely caused by phytoplankton, a tiny plant-like organism that, like plants, absorbs CO2. Greener seas might mean there's simply more phytoplankton in some areas. Alternatively, there could be a shift in the phytoplankton community toward species that produce more green pigment, according to B.B. Cael, a scientist at the National Oceanography Centre who has studied ocean greening. The difference matters because it determines how much carbon the oceans can absorb.

Better satellite data will help figure some of this out. That's one reason why NASA is expected to launch a satellite called PACE, which will measure ocean color to better understand how plankton communities influence Earth's climate.

NASA engineers test the PACE observatory satellite in a space environment simulator. NASA The big problems behind the green sheenThere's a lot that color alone leaves out, such as what that ''green'' is made of.

To sensors on a satellite, a rainforest in Indonesia and a nearby monoculture of coffee or rubber trees look similar. They both appear green. Yet these two landscapes are dramatically different: The rainforest is home to orangutans and rare plants and helps regulate the local climate, whereas the plantation is relatively devoid of life. Measurements of color alone fail to capture these important differences.

More than that, they can mask ecosystem destruction, said Robin Chazdon, a tropical ecologist and part-time scientist at the World Resources Institute, an environmental group. Companies commonly tear up native forests to plant commercial crops. Satellite data alone struggles to capture these changes in land use.

''It's glossing over the reality of what's actually happened,'' Chazdon said of global greening measurements.

Greening caused by tree planting '-- common in China and India '-- can also be problematic, she said. Planted forests often comprise just one or two tree species and don't offer much in the way of biodiversity or other benefits, like erosion control, she said. In some cases, the trees eventually die.

The growth in green farmland, similarly, has some pretty serious consequences. Industrial farms not only replace native ecosystems but require huge amounts of water and chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides (which are known to harm humans and ecosystems). Consider the Imperial Valley of Southern California. Once a desert, it's now covered in vast stretches of farmland. Those farms have turned the region green '-- and it's visible from space '-- yet they've done so, in part, by draining the Colorado River and fueling a water war in the West.

What's more is that while plants absorb carbon, industrial cropland typically produces more carbon emissions than it absorbs over the long term. Making nitrogen fertilizer and other agrochemicals requires a huge amount of energy, which typically comes from fossil fuels. Plus, much of the carbon absorbed by plants on a farm gets reemitted into the environment after they're harvested.

Farms of corn, wheat, and sorghum in southwestern Kansas, seen by a satellite in 2001. NASA The other problem: While CO2 fertilization can make some crops grow faster, research has also found that it can decrease their nutritional value '-- such as the concentration of protein, and minerals like calcium and magnesium '-- for a number of complicated reasons. So pumping CO2 into the air means more but often less-nutritious vegetation (and globally, more than 2 billion people are nutrient-deficient).

So, yes, greening is complicated. It's not inherently good. Sometimes it's very bad. Context, it turns out, matters a lot.

If there's anything we can glean from color alone it's the scale of human impact. It's not that nature is healing '-- that forests are growing back because we left them alone '-- but that we have drastically changed the atmosphere, the ground, and the ocean. We have changed the very look of our planet, and it's visible from space.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:37

It doesn't matter how shocking beef prices are today. Tomorrow, they're almost certainly going to be even more shocking. In fact, the normalization of beef as a ''premium'' food is already in progress. It's hard to find a fast food burger under $4, and they're generally made with low quality foreign beef rife with fillers and chemicals.

This isn't just Bidenomics having its way with the American people. There is a concerted effort to not only reduce beef consumption, but to eliminate it altogether. We've discussed before how the powers-that-be intend to promote lab-grown ''meat,'' insect products, and plant-based meat-alternatives as the primary sources of protein in American diets, but now the foundation is in place to turn those intentions into reality.

This is why beef prices are rising. It's why it's a safe bet that prices will skyrocket in the near future. Here are three ''crazy'' reasons to not only anticipate the price of normal beef products to become cost-prohibitive, but to proactively address the issue for you and your family.

''Natural'' Attacks on BeefSome are discussing conspiracy theories surrounding weather control and manufactured natural crises as methods to drive the agenda, but one does not need to wear a tinfoil hat to see that there are clearly changes in factors that contribute to farming and ranching. Droughts are real and becoming more common in areas that cattle normally roam.

As noted by Kennedy Hayes as Fox Business:

America is running low on cows, according to new numbers out this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The figures show ranchers have fewer cattle and that is contributing to the cost of beef being more expensive.

According to the USDA, nationwide beef cattle inventory dropped to 28.2 million this year '-- the lowest level since the 1970s and down 2% from a year ago.

Agricultural economists say persistent drought over the last three years, along with high input costs and inflation are putting pressure on both consumers and farmers.

Either the powers-that-be were somehow able to manufacture the crisis ranchers are facing or they're being opportunistic. Their ''luck'' is aiding in achieving their end goals of pricing quality beef out of range for most Americans.

Climate Change CultThe ringleaders of the Climate Change Cult have used faulty science and corporate media mouthpieces to promote the narrative that cows are causing global warming. This flies in the face of real studies showing there were far more cattle, especially in the form of buffalo, roaming North America in centuries past. It also completely ignores studies that show manufacturing lab-grown meat is up to 25 times more damaging to the environment than raising cows in a pasture.

The narrative has been set and the provocateurs have their marching orders. ''Cows are bad,'' they tell their acolytes. Pressure is being applied. Supply chains are being attacked. It won't be long before the idiotic vandals who glue their hands to roads or throw tomato soup on art realize they must resort to full-blown domestic terrorism if they're going to make an impact. Cultist escalation is inevitable. Thank God most self-respecting ranchers are armed.

ControlCitizens have been fighting back, especially in Europe. We're seeing farmers and rancher protesting the climate change agenda that's in the process of putting them out of business. In the United States, cattlemen organizations that have not been bought off are taking actions to save the industry. This is all good news.

Unfortunately, the Globalist Elite Cabal has counterattacks ready. It's not inconceivable that the various cattle industries across western society will be nationalized through public-private partnerships that give bureaucrats, technocrats, and plutocrats control over not just beef, but all food. Conspiracy theorists have been warning about this for decades but only today are we seeing that the groundwork has been laid for such a catastrophic occurrence.

They will say they're doing it to engage in price controls to ''save'' the industries but as we've learned time and again such control measures have the opposite effect. Under the guise of helping the people, they will inflict tremendous harm.

As Henry Kissinger allegedly said, ''Who controls the food supply controls the people.''

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If America is able to recover from the turmoil and things go back to normal, the beef they purchase from Prepper All-Naturals will make for great meals for the family. If things continue to turn south, then having a solid supply of beef that is shelf-stable for up to 25-years could prove to the smartest investment Americans make.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:29

Several CBS News reporters were caught up in layoffs at Paramount Global that claimed 800 jobs, including one who is embroiled in a high-stakes First Amendment fight '-- and another who has reportedly weathered HR probes over his workplace behavior, The Post has learned.

Catherine Herridge '-- an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide '-- was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post.

The carnage provoked outrage from the rank-and-file at CBS, with some focusing their ire on Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who pulled down $32 million in total compensation last year despite the company's ever-shrinking financial profile.

''Everybody in the newsroom is pissed that Bob Bakish is making over $30 million and he's making these cuts,'' one insider fumed.

Elsewhere, some suspected the layoffs were more than just cost-cutting.

Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews '-- a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post.

CBS News has laid off Catherine Herridge, a senior investigative correspondent who is embroiled in a First Amendment case. Catherine Herridge/XSources said CBS News' Washington bureau, where Herridge covered national security and intelligence, was hit particularly hard.

Among the other Washington casualties, sources said, was CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues, who was subjected to HR probes over his workplace behavior, including an alleged incident in which he dressed down a female colleague in a ''20-minute rant.''

When the incident was investigated in 2021, insiders said, Ciprian-Matthews '-- who insiders have accused of promoting minorities while unfairly sidelining white journalists '-- attempted to ''blame'' the female correspondent and eventually gave Pegues a promotion.

Follow the latest on the The Post's coverage of the turmoil at Paramount and CBS:Bloodbath at Paramount claims 800 jobs including CBS News journalists embroiled in controversyParamount Global slashing 800 jobs amid takeover talks, record Super Bowl: reportParamount board takes steps toward sale as Byron Allen submits $14B buyout bidParamount CEO Bob Bakish warns global layoffs are coming as takeover talks swirlDavid Ellison's SkyDance Media wants to buy Paramount, take it private: reportThat's despite prior allegations that Pegues had been ''lashing out'' and ''bullying'' younger female reporters who ''outworked'' him, a former CBS manager told The Post.

''She got rid of her enemies under the guise of budget cuts,'' one source said of Ciprian-Matthews after Tuesday's layoffs.

''She cleared the deck and she had to sacrifice some others like Pegues.''

Herridge had allegedly clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, who was the subject of an HR probe in 2021 over discriminatory hiring and management practices. Getty ImagesThe Post reached out to Ciprian-Matthews for comment.

Wendy McMahon, Ciprian-Matthews' boss, had defended the executive over her handling of the HR probe involving Pegues.

''Any claims of discriminatory behavior are simply false,'' McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News, Stations and CBS Media Ventures, told The Post at the time.

A source said CBS News, which employs just under 2,000 people, got hit with 20 job cuts altogether.

Also among those laid off on Tuesday was Christina Ruffini, a political correspondent who has been featured on ''CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell,'' ''CBS Mornings'' and ''CBS Sunday Morning.''

Jeff Pegues, the chief national affairs and justice correspondent, was let go. Pegues had racked up HR complaints over alleged bullying of female co-workers. Jeff Pegues/InstagramPamela Falk, CBS News correspondent for the United Nations based in New York, was also laid off, according to sources.

CBS News did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Herridge may soon be held in contempt of court for not divulging her source for an investigative piece she penned in 2017 when she worked for Fox News and be ordered to personally pay fines that could total as much as $5,000 a day.

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A source close to the situation said Fox News is paying for Herridge's legal counsel.

Herridge's departure comes as the journalist faces heat for not complying with US District Judge Christopher Cooper's order to reveal how she learned about a federal probe into a Chinese American scientist who operated a graduate program in Virginia.

The scientist, Yanping Chen, had been investigated for years on suspicions she may have lied on immigration forms related to work on a Chinese astronaut program, according to Herridge's report.

Chen has since sued the government, saying details about the probe were leaked to damage her reputation.

She pushed the court to hold Herridge in contempt and make her personally pay daily fees, which could range from $500 to $5,000, rather than allowing CBS or Fox to do so.

Last August, the judge ruled that Chen's need for the evidence ''overcomes Herridge's qualified First Amendment privilege.''

First Amendment advocates have pushed back, arguing that journalists can perform their public service function only if they are able to protect the identities of their confidential sources.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:27

FIRST ON FOX: Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is officially calling on Vice President Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment and seek to remove President Biden from office.

In a Tuesday letter to Harris, Morrisey cites the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur's report last week, which detailed numerous memory lapses by Biden, and other frequent gaffes that Biden has committed during his time in office as reasons for such drastic constitutional action to be taken.

"For too long, Americans have had to stand by and watch as their President has experienced a profound cognitive decline. Over the last few months alone, President Biden has mixed up world leaders and political figures, strained to address basic issues in public speeches, and wandered out of events in a disoriented state," Morrisey wrote in the letter.

MEET 5 DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE BEEN FLOATED AS POSSIBLE BIDEN REPLACEMENTS

"These serious mental missteps have equally serious consequences," he added before detailing multiple instances in which Biden's advanced age and apparent cognitive decline appeared to surface in his interactions with foreign leaders.

Those gaffes included when Biden appeared to fall asleep during the COP26 climate change conference in 2021, and when he was forced to clarify the U.S.'s "One China" policy after committing to defend Taiwan militarily should it be attacked.

"I am writing to urge you to invoke your powers under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and declare that President Biden is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," Morrisey added.

GOP SENATOR FUMES OVER BIDEN ADMIN PROVIDING VETERAN MEDICAL RESOURCES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

President Biden, Vice President Harris and Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (Getty Images)

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and Harris' office for comment.

Hur's damaging report, stemming from the investigation into Biden's mishandling of classified documents, said the president would face no charges partly because his defense would possibly be that "Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

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The report cited examples when investigators said the president's memory lapsed, including when his older son, Beau, died, and caused a heightened concern among Democrats who previously backed the president despite Republican attacks on his ability to serve.

Other elected officials have also called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked after the release of the Hur report, including Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., and Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.

Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on X at @BGillespieAL.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:46

Google is planning to use satellite data, AI technology, and computing power to map methane emissions.Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that's responsible for nearly a third of global warming.Nearly 40% of manmade methane comes from oil, gas, and coal operations.Thanks for signing up!

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A satellite that measures methane leaks from oil and gas companies is set to start circulating the Earth 15 times a day next month. Google plans to have the data mapped by the end of the year for the whole world to see.

The partnership between Google and the Environmental Defense Fund, which in March is expected to launch its satellite known as MethaneSAT, marks a new era of global climate accountability. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas estimated to be responsible for nearly a third of human-caused global warming. Scientists say slashing methane emissions is one of the fastest ways to slow the climate crisis because methane has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a decade.

"Globally, 2023 was the hottest year on record," Steve Hamburg, the EDF's chief scientist and the project lead for MethaneSAT, told reporters. "The need to protect the climate has never been more urgent, and cutting methane emissions from fossil-fuel operations and agriculture is really the fastest way that we can slow the warming right now."

Agriculture '-- particularly cow burps '-- gets a lot of the blame for the methane problem. The International Energy Agency has said farming is the largest source of methane emissions from human activities, but the energy sector is a close second. Oil, gas, and coal operations are thought to account for 40% of global methane emissions from human activities. The IEA says focusing on the energy sector should be a priority, in part because reducing methane leaks is cost-effective. Leaking gas can be captured and sold, and the technology to do that is relatively cheap.

But methane has been difficult to track in near-real time. MethaneSAT is among a new generation of satellites designed to pinpoint sources of the gas almost anywhere in the world, while Google has the computing power and artificial-intelligence prowess to analyze vast amounts of data and map oil and gas infrastructure.

Historically, measuring methane leaks has involved expensive field studies with airplanes and handheld infrared cameras. That approach offers only a snapshot in time, and research took years to be published.

Yael Maguire, a vice president and general manager of sustainability at Google Geo '-- the team behind platforms such as Google Maps and Street View '-- said mapping oil and gas operations was similarly challenging. The locations of wellheads, industrial pumps, and storage tanks can change quickly, so a map needs to be updated regularly. A satellite can meet that demand.

Maguire said the same AI technology that Google used to detect trees, crosswalks, and intersections from satellite imagery would be applied to oil and gas infrastructure. The map would be overlaid with data from MethaneSAT to shed light on the type of machinery most susceptible to leaks.

"We think this information is incredibly valuable for energy companies, researchers, and the public sector to anticipate and mitigate methane emissions in components that are generally most susceptible," Maguire said.

Yellow dots mark the source, while purple, orange, and yellow shading shows how the emissions diffused over a wider area. Google Global methane pledges The satellite launch comes as countries and oil and gas companies aim to drastically reduce methane emissions by 2030 to tackle the climate crisis.

During the UN climate summit in Dubai last year, companies accounting for 40% of global oil and gas production promised to nearly eliminate methane leaks from their own operations this decade. At least 155 countries have also signed the Global Methane Pledge, which calls for a 30% reduction in emissions. The pledge was launched in 2021, but since then, methane emissions have continued to rise.

To help change that trajectory, the US and Europe last year issued regulations cracking down on methane emissions from fossil-fuel infrastructure. The European Union's rules went a step further by targeting oil and gas imports. Europe imports about 80% of its energy, including from the US. By 2027, those imports are expected to meet methane-emissions standards on par with Europe's.

Hamburg said Japan and South Korea, both of which rely on energy imports, were looking at similar laws.

"This means methane is becoming a competitive challenge for the industry, not just a regulatory one," he said. "Achieving real results means that the government, civil society, and industry need to know how much methane is coming from where, who is responsible for those emissions, and how those emissions are changing over time. We need the data on a global scale."

Maguire said Google planned to make the data available free for the public on Google Earth Engine later this year.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:58

Members of Venezuela's most violent gang, El Tren de Aragua, have made their way to New York City, where they have already unleashed their criminal schemes, according to a new report.

In recent weeks New Yorkers have been terrorized by brazen thieves on mopeds who have been snatching the phones and purses of innocent pedestrians. In one of the most brutal incidents yet, a 62-year-old woman was seen being dragged on a Brooklyn street by a thief on a moped - part of a larger crime conspiracy surrounding stolen iPhones.

Last week officials raided the Bronx home of the alleged leader of the operation, Victor Parra, 30, who officials say issued calls for stolen phones on What's App, offering money for migrants to bring the stolen devices to him.

Once he had the devices, a hacker would break into people's Apple Pays and empty their accounts, before the criminals sent the phones to Colombia to be reprogrammed and sold.

It has since emerged that NYPD detectives believe the organized robbery scheme is linked to El Tren de Aragua, which they fear has been sending its gangsters to cross the US-Mexico border as part of a wave of asylum seekers, the New York Post reported.

In one of the most brutal incidents yet, a 62-year-old woman was seen being dragged on a Brooklyn street by a thief on a moped

A group of migrants has been working as a 'ghost' criminal enterprise in New York City

Parra remains on the run, and while the police are yet to publicly confirm the gang's presence in New York, El Tren de Aragua has already had its first kill in Miami, per authorities.

Former Venezuelan police officer Jose Luis Sanchez Valera, 43, was brutally murdered by Tren de Aragua gangster Yurwin Salazar, 23, according to Miami officials.

Sanchez was beaten, tortured, and forced to hand over the keys to his apartment and safe, where his life savings were stashed in gold bars. His terrified niece, with whom he lived, cowered under the bed as the killers tore through the house.

As shocking as this savage murder seems, it is mild compared to what the gang is capable of, say experts.

El Tren de Aragua is less well known than the Mexican cartels or Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, which was born in a Los Angeles prison in the 1980s among migrants from El Salvador.

Mayor Eric Adams went along for the sting operation and later appeared at a press conference with police

But El Tren de Aragua is no less violent, and has been allowed to flourish under the lawless regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, expanding to Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Chile.

A trans sex worker in the Peruvian capital, Lima, was filmed in February 2023 begging for her life before she was shot point blank - her killers pumping 31 bullets into her body.

El Tren de Aragua was moving into the neighborhood and they wanted to replace the local prostitutes with Venezuelan women.

Six were killed in one week, and 18 were shot in the feet as a warning to stop walking the streets.

Two dozen more were murdered in 2023. 35 more are missing.

'They go into local economies where there are Venezuelans and take over the criminal underground using excessive force,' former Border Patrol Agent Ammon Blair told the Post. 'They'll start shooting prostitutes controlled by rival gangs and perform the executions live on social media in order to establish their presence.'

Former Venezuelan police officer Jose Luis Sanchez Valera, 43, was brutally murdered by Tren de Aragua gangster Yurwin Salazar, 23, (pictured) according to Miami officials

In September, Venezuelan authorities, under the direction of dictator Maduro, raided Tocor"n Penitentiary '' the gang's de facto headquarters

The gangsters have used the migration wave to hide among legitimate asylum seekers - over 334,000 Venezuelans crossed the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023 - second to only Mexicans.

Border Patrol detained at least 41 Tren de Aragua members attempting to cross the border between October 2022 and September 2023.

The group has become so brazen in Texas that officials in the state's anti-gang taskforce recently documented the gangsters charging fellow Venezuelans to use the restrooms at the border.

El Tren de Aragua is also feared to be actively recruiting members in the city's shelters.

Emerging in 2012, the name means 'Aragua Train,' a reference to a train workers' union in the Aragua state in Venezuela.

In September, Venezuelan authorities, under the direction of dictator Maduro, raided Tocor"n Penitentiary '' the gang's de facto headquarters. The raid made headlines around the world because of the images that showed the luxury the prisoners had been living in.

Inside the walls of Tocor"n, Tren de Aragua had built a zoo, complete with ocelots, lions and crocodiles; a swimming pool; a children's playground; a baseball stadium with stands; restaurants; and a nightclub, called Tokio.

However, experts say the raid was a sham.

It was nothing more than 'an organized surrender' of Tren de Aragua to Maduro's regime, says Humberto Prado, director of the non-governmental watchdog group, Venezuelan Prison Observatory.

The operation released an estimated 1,000 gang members as well as their infamous leader, Hector Guerrero Flores, alias 'Ni±o Guerrero,' or 'Warrior Child.'

His whereabouts remain unknown '' though Interpol has warned that he may have tried to flee to the U.S., blending in with more than 3.8 million migrants, who have entered the country since President Joe Biden took office.

What is not in question is whether other members of Tren de Aragua have infiltrated America.

'Police authorities in Chicago, New York, and Miami, have already discovered elements of the Tren de Aragua in their cities,' said Joseph M. Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society.

'The same thing that is happening in South America is now going to start happening here in the United States in the Venezuelan migrant communities,' Blair told KTSM.

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Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:52

Washington CNN '--

A federal judge has temporarily blocked an Ohio law seeking to regulate kids' access to social media platforms, saying that the law is likely unconstitutional.

Monday's order by District Judge Algenon Marbley reiterates what Marbley said last month when he issued an emergency order halting the Ohio law from going into effect. Ohio's legislation would have required social media platforms to obtain parental consent before creating accounts for children under age 16.

It's the latest blow to states that have vowed a crackdown on social media in the face of mounting claims that the technology contributes to mental health harms.And it highlights the many legal hurdles facing calls to ban social media for young Americans.

At the time, Marbley said the legislation was ''breathtakingly blunt'' in trying to achieve its goals. On Monday, Marbley used that phrase again.

''Foreclosing minors under sixteen from accessing all content on websites that the Act purports to cover, absent affirmative parental consent, is a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media's harm to children,'' Marbley wrote. ''The approach is an untargeted one, as parents must only give one-time approval for the creation of an account, and parents and platforms are otherwise not required to protect against any of the specific dangers that social media might pose.''

The injunction by the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio is an early-stage victory for NetChoice, a tech industry group that sued to block the legislation and is behind challenges to similar laws in Arkansas, California and Utah.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:46

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Americans have ''no need for alarm'' after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner revealed Wednesday that members of Congress received ''information concerning a serious national security threat.''

''Last month, I sent a letter to the White House requesting a meeting with the president to discuss a serious national security issue that is classified,'' Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at the Capitol.

''In response to that letter, a meeting is now scheduled tomorrow on this matter here at the Capitol with the Gang of Four and with the president's national security adviser Jake Sullivan,'' he added, referring to a group of eight top members of Congress who are regularly briefed on highly classified information.

''I will press the administration to take appropriate action, and everybody can be comforted by that.''

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that members of Congress have received ''information concerning a serious national security threat.'' Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesJohnson added, ''I want to assure the American people there is no need for public alarm. We are going to work together to address this matter, as we do all sensitive matters that are classified. And beyond that I'm not at liberty to disclose classified information and really can't say much more.''

A source told The Post that the information was ''urgent'' and concerned a potential foreign military capability.

The intelligence committee voted to make its contents available to all House members this week, the source added '-- meaning the mysterious alert's substance could quickly become public knowledge due to the notoriously loose-lipped membership of that chamber, regardless of whether it remains classified.

Asked about the nature of the threat during a White House press conference, national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to say whether it was a foreign military threat or if he could assure Americans they should not worry. REUTERSTurner (R-Ohio) said in a statement: ''I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.''

A spokesman for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for further information.

Asked about the nature of the threat during a White House press briefing Sullivan expressed frustration Wednesday with Turner's public airing of the matter when the Gang of Eight was due to be briefed Thursday.

He also emphasized that the House Intelligence chairman's declassification request was ''ultimately'' a decision for President Biden. Getty ImagesThe top presidential adviser on national security declined to say whether it was a foreign military threat or if he could assure Americans they should not worry.

''In a way, that question is impossible to answer with a straight 'yes,''' he said.

Sullivan added, however, ''I will stand here at this podium and assert that, look you in the eye with confidence that we believe that we can, and will and are protecting the national security of the United States.''

Sullivan emphasized that Turner's declassification request was ''ultimately'' a decision for President Biden.

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Senate members of the eight-legislator group due to receive more information were similarly tight-lipped.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told The Post that ''I am aware of the threat but I can't comment on anything classified.''

When asked if Americans should be concerned, Schumer said, ''That's all I'm going to say.''

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and vice chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a joint statement Tuesday afternoon that the panel ''has the intelligence in question, and has been rigorously tracking this issue from the start.''

''We continue to take this matter seriously and are discussing an appropriate response with the administration,'' Warner and Rubio said. ''In the meantime, we must be cautious about potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for U.S. action.''

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Archived Version

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:45

It is not clear what prompted Turner to issue the statement now, as the intelligence has been available to leaders of the House intelligence committee and their top aides in a secure room on Capitol Hill for more than a week, one of the people said.

House intelligence committee members on Tuesday voted to open the intelligence up for viewing for all members. The Senate now has access as well.

It's possible Turner was attempting to raise alarms about Russia's advancements in space as a way of underscoring the need for lawmakers to approve additional aid to Ukraine. The Senate passed the supplemental bill including $60 billion in aid for Kyiv. It is currently under review by the House.

There are varying issues that the administration has viewed as concerning in regard to Russia's activities in space, including certain developments with its satellites and its jamming of U.S. satellites.

One House intelligence committee member said the intelligence was ''disturbing.'' Another said ''it's a serious issue but not an immediate crisis.'' Both members and the people familiar with the intelligence were granted anonymity to speak about classified materials.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said he was ''surprised'' Turner went public with his warning, telling White House reporters he previously reached out to the ''Gang of Eight'' top congressional leaders to hold a classified discussion. Sullivan didn't confirm that the requested meeting, which will include Turner, was about the same matter: ''I'll leave it to you to draw whatever connections you want.''

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a HPSCI member, said in a statement that he expects the Biden administration to make the right call on declassifying intelligence. ''They have used it more frequently and strategically than any other administration. And will make the decision about whether it's important and wise to do so in this instance. It's a serious issue but not a crisis,'' he said.

It's unclear exactly what capability Russia has developed that has concerned officials and lawmakers.

One possibility is Russia's 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile that can fly at speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 8 and is designed to strike land and naval targets.

The hypersonic missile, built by NPO Mashinostroyeniya, entered service last year aboard a Russian frigate, the Admiral Golovko.

Russia began ramping up its hypersonic weapon development in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

U.S. officials have also raised the alarm in recent years about missiles launched from Earth's surface that can destroy satellites in orbit. In 2021, Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test on one of its own satellites, breaking it up into more than 1,500 pieces of debris '-- which can pose a serious threat to other objects in orbit.

The prospect of Russia developing concerning capabilities relating to space comes amid strengthening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.

In December, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised to launch three military spy satellites in 2024. Three months earlier, Kim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny spaceport, Russia's most important launch center, to discuss how the countries can cooperate in space.

Matt Berg contributed to this report.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:39

A bombshell new report has sent shockwaves around the world after an investigation into the high numbers of ''Covid deaths'' during the pandemic uncovered evidence that tens of thousands of elderly people were actually murdered to boost the mortality rates.

The data produced for the report indicated that people were being euthanized using a fatal injection of Midazolam.

The cause of their deaths was then listed as ''Covid,'' indicating that the virus was killing far more elderly people than it was.

The explosive data from the report was made public by Australian politician Craig Kelly, the national director of the United Australia Party.

The report obtained official UK government data on death rates and causes.

The data appears to show that vast numbers of elderly were murdered with an injection of the end-of-life drug Midazolam.

According to Kelly, the patients were euthanized in order to boost ''Covid deaths'' and ramp up public fear to garner support for lockdowns and vaccines.

While alerting the public about the data, Kelly declared that it exposes ''the crime of the century.''

''These deaths were then falsely blamed on Covid, which was the basis of the public fear campaigns used to justify the lockdowns and mass-mandated injections of the public (including children) with an experimental medical intervention that had zero long-term safety data,'' Kelly said in a post on X alongside copies of the data.

''Along the way, a small group pushing the need for mass-mandated injections made billions.

''This paper shows that the UK spike in deaths, wrongly attributed to COVID-19 in April 2020, was not due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was largely absent, but was due to the widespread use of Midazolam injections which were statistically very highly correlated (coefficient over 90 percent) with excess deaths in all regions of England during 2020.

''The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.''

THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY : THE MIDAZOLAM MURDERS

If the data is correct, the only conclusion is that tens of thousands of elderly English were murdered with an injection of the end of life drug Midazolam.

These deaths were then falsely blamed on Covid, which was the basis of'... pic.twitter.com/hGud7b1V1G

'-- Craig Kelly (@CKellyUAP) February 10, 2024

The disturbing data is detailed in the official report.

The abstract of the study notes:

''Macro-data during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom (UK) are shown to have significant data anomalies and inconsistencies with existing explanations.''

The notes continue and say the following:

''This paper shows that the UK spike in deaths, wrongly attributed to COVID-19 in April 2020, was not due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was largely absent, but was due to the widespread use of Midazolam injections which were statistically very highly correlated (coefficient over 90 percent) with excess deaths in all regions of England during 2020.

''Importantly, excess deaths remained elevated following mass vaccination in 2021, but were statistically uncorrelated to COVID injections, while remaining significantly correlated to Midazolam injections.''

The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in the UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.

READ MORE '' Whistleblower: 20% of New Zealand's Vaxxed Population Have Died

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 20:04

Israel has taken a step closer to banning Al Jazeera, after accusing a reporter for the Qatar-based network of working for Hamas.

The Israeli parliament voted 25-4 on Monday to advance a bill that would let West Jerusalem temporarily outlaw foreign media outlets the defense ministry designates as harmful to state security. It is colloquially known as the 'Al Jazeera Law,' in recognition of specifically targeting the outlet.

The measure advanced shortly after an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman accused Al Jazeera reporter Mohamed Washah of being a terrorist.

''In the morning, he's a journalist on the Al Jazeera channel, and in the evening, a terrorist in Hamas!'' Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee said on X (formerly Twitter), posting photos allegedly showing Washah wielding a variety of weapons.

The 'Al Jazeera Law' was drafted by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi last year, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian group's deadly October 7 raid into Israel. Karhi argued that Al Jazeera's reporting constitutes ''incitement against Israel, help [for] Hamas-ISIS and the terror organizations with their propaganda, and encourage violence against Israel.''

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly asked the government of Qatar to have the network ''turn down the volume'' of its coverage of the Gaza conflict.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reacted to the Knesset vote by accusing Israel of ''using national security as an excuse to restrict critical media that do not confirm its narrative of the war,'' and of attempting to censor media coverage of what was going on in Gaza.

Two Al Jazeera employees were seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza on Tuesday. According to the network, reporter Ismail Abu Omar had to have his leg amputated while cameraman Ahmed Matar suffered ''critical injuries to his face.''

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller offered ''sincere condolences'' to the network and said the US ''continue[s] to engage with the government of Israel to make clear that journalists ought to be protected.''

An estimated 1,200 Israelis died in the October 7 Hamas raids. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 28,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run enclave's health ministry.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 04:42

(NEXSTAR) '-- After the last few years, it may not be surprising to hear about rising costs at the grocery store (remember when egg prices skyrocketed during the pandemic?).

Now, experts are warning another grocery item could reach record prices: beef.

The latest Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows beef and veal prices are up 7.7% compared to January 2023. More specifically, ground beef is up 5.5%, beef roasts 6.7%, and beef steaks are up 10.7%.

This comes a week after the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) warned we could soon see record-high beef prices.

So what's behind the price jump? Like we previously saw with egg prices, supply is largely to blame.

At the start of the year, there were 87.2 million cattle and calves in the U.S., AFBF economist Bernt Nelson explains. While that sounds like plenty to support U.S. beef demands, Nelson notes that's the lowest inventory to start a year since 1951, when estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture put the overall count at 82.08 million.

The last time the U.S. experienced such a dip was in 2014 when, according to AFBF, cattle inventory fell to 88.24 million.

Unlike what happened with eggs, the latest limited supply isn't being caused by illness among cattle.

Instead, experts from the Farm Bureau point to drought conditions and the rising costs of supplies to maintain herds. Both have led to farmers reducing their herd sizes, Nelson explains.

''The latest cattle numbers are a stark reminder of the challenges facing America's farmers and ranchers,'' said AFBF President Zippy Duvall in a press release last week. ''Severe weather, high inflation and geopolitical uncertainty are taking a toll on farmers across the country, and families will see the effects in their grocery bills.''

When we last saw cattle counts dip in 2014, beef prices hit a record high in 2014, data analyzed by CNBC shows. Prices dropped in the years after, jumping again in 2020, only to fall later that year. Since early 2021, beef prices have continued to climb.

As for why beef prices are relatively low at the stores now, Nelson points to a high level of beef production. Higher prices may not slow consumers much though, according to Kansas State University's Meat Demand Monitor. A survey of more than 2,000 respondents found an increased willingness to pay higher prices on beef products at the grocery store between November and December 2023. A recent report from Wells Fargo also noted that retailers have noticed consumers are ''more enthusiastic about buying steak when the package price is under $10 per pound.''

However, more respondents (31% more than in November) rank price among the leading aspects they take into consideration when it comes to purchasing protein, the Meat Demand Monitor reports.

It's worth noting that beef prices have dipped marginally since December, coming down about 0.3%, according to the latest CPI. Data from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association shows wholesale prices across various cuts of beef have come down slightly through the first weeks of February, but are higher than prices we saw during the same period of 2023.

As for now, the AFBF says there is ''enough cattle in the supply chain for processing,'' which can help keep prices from increasing aggressively now. That could change in the latter half of 2024 and into 2025, the agency warns.

While prices could increase this year, you may find more deals on beef at the store. Anne-Marie Roerink, principal at 210 Analytics, recently told The Food Institute that she expects retailers to turn to promotions and discounts on beef products through early 2024.

''Even with lower supplies and higher pricing, beef will be the second-highest consumed animal protein at almost 58 lbs. per person annually, according to USDA estimates,'' Courtney Schmidt, Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute sector manager also told the outlet.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 04:41

A vote on an aid bill came after an all-night Senate session in which Republican opponents made speeches denouncing various aspects of the bill. Credit... Valerie Plesch for The New York Times Feb. 13, 2024 Updated 2:08 p.m. ET

A $95 billion foreign aid package passed by the Senate on Tuesday morning includes $14.1 billion for Israel's war against Hamas, though the bill still faces uncertainty in the House.

The $95 billion legislation also sets aside almost $10 billion for humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones around the world, including Palestinians in Gaza.

President Biden has recently escalated his criticism of Israel's campaign against Hamas, calling it ''over the top.'' Aid to Israel has also faced opposition from some Democrats, who have expressed alarm at the death toll in Gaza, which the territory's health ministry says has passed 28,000, most of those women and children.

Mr. Biden has nonetheless continued to press for military support for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In October, he requested the foreign aid package, including the $14 billion for Israel's war effort.

Much of the debate on the measure has focused on the much bigger sum earmarked for Ukraine. Many Republicans oppose sending more money to the government in Kyiv, while others want to prioritize an immigration crackdown at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested that he has no intention of bringing up the bill in the House, where the majority of Republicans have opposed more aid for Ukraine.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 04:39

In her latest apparent bid to secure her place as Trump's running mate, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) has filed an ethics complaint against New York Attorney General Letitia James. Michael Brochstein/ZUMA

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The Trump veepstakes rages on. The latest apparent audition? Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) on Monday filed an ethics complaint against New York Attorney General Letitia James over her handling of the state's $370 million civil fraud trial against Trump.

Stefanik, the fourth-highest-ranking House Republican and chair of the House GOP Conference, alleges that James conducted a ''biased investigation and prosecution'' of Trump that was motivated by ''personal vendetta.'' The formal complaint seeks to have James disbarred or suspended, a request that echoes Trump's claims that James has long demonstrated bias against him. The move by Stefanik comes as Trump reportedly considers her as a potential running mate and days before the judge who presided over the case is reportedly expected to issue his final ruling over how much Trump owes. (Judge Arthur Engoron'--who Stefanik also filed an ethics complaint against in November'--already found Trump liable for fraud before the trial got underway, and the court proceedings that are the subject of Stefanik's complaint essentially amounted to a penalty phase.)

Accordingly, Stefanik's complaint reads like a document intended to appeal to Trump's complaints about the case, which could end in significant financial damage to the former president. Stefanik cites James' own description of ''leading the resistance against Donald Trump in NYC'' as evidence of James' alleged bias against the former president. Stefanik declined, however, to include the full facts of what transpired during the court proceedings, including Trump's repeated attacks against the federal judge and his clerk, the resulting gag order, and subsequent violations of that order.

As my colleague Russ Choma reported at the time, James filed the lawsuit against Trump back in September 2022, accusing him ''of committing a variety of fraudulent business practices for a decade in the run-up and during his presidency.'' James alleged that Trump and his adult children inflated the value of their family businesses to get tax breaks and beneficial terms for loans and insurance coverage.

Spokespeople for Stefanik and the New York State Unified Court System didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones. A spokesperson for the New York Attorney General's office declined to comment on the record.

This is hardly the first time Stefanik has made headlines for her seemingly undying loyalty to Trump. She recently refused to commit to certifying the November election results. During an appearance on Meet the Press last month, she repeated the unfounded and discredited conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen before noting that she'd ''be honored to serve in any capacity in a Trump administration.'' As I reported then, her parroting of Trump's ''Big Lie'' was unsurprising, based on her political evolution:

The onetime moderate, who at one point called Trump misogynistic, rose to her position as the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House by riding this very wave of election denialism, successfully booting Liz Cheney from the post in the process. And in the hours after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Stefanik was one of 147 Republicans who voted to overturn election results.

But the odds of Stefanik becoming Trump's right-hand woman may be a bit bleaker now than back in January, given that Sen. Tim Scott has landed at the top of Trump's list, according to an NBC News report published yesterday.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 04:31

[All numbers here are very rough and presented in a sloppy way. For the more rigorous versions of this, read Tom Davidson , Yafah Edelman , and EpochAI )

I.

Sam Altman wants $7 trillion .

In one sense, this isn't news. Everyone wants $7 trillion. I want $7 trillion. I'm not going to get it, and Sam Altman probably won't either.

Still, the media treats this as worthy of comment, and I agree. It's a useful reminder of what it will take for AI to scale in the coming years.

The basic logic: GPT-1 cost approximately nothing to train. GPT-2 cost $40,000. GPT-3 cost $4 million. GPT-4 cost $100 million. Details about GPT-5 are still secret, but one extremely unreliable estimate says $2.5 billion, and this seems the right order of magnitude given the $8 billion that Microsoft gave OpenAI.

So each GPT costs between 25x and 100x the last one. Let's say 30x on average. That means we can expect GPT-6 to cost $75 billion, and GPT-7 to cost $2 trillion.

(Unless they slap the name ''GPT-6'' on a model that isn't a full generation ahead of GPT-5. Consider these numbers to represent models that are eg as far ahead of GPT-4 as GPT-4 was to GPT-3, regardless of how they brand them.)

Let's try to break that cost down. In a very abstract sense, training an AI takes three things:

Compute (ie computing power, hardware, chips)

Electricity (to power the compute)

Training data

Compute

Compute is measured in floating point operations (FLOPs). GPT-3 took 10^23 FLOPs to train, and GPT-4 plausibly 10^25 .

The capacity of all the computers in the world is about 10^21 FLOP/second, so they could train GPT-4 in 10^4 seconds (ie two hours). Since OpenAI has fewer than all the computers in the world, it took them six months. This suggests OpenAI was using about 1/2000th of all the computers in the world during that time.

If we keep our 30x scaling factor, GPT-5 will take 1/70th of all the computers in the world, GPT-6 will take 1/2, and GPT-7 will take 15x as many computers as exist. The computing capacity of the world grows quickly - this source says it doubles every 1.5 years, which means it grows by an order of magnitude every five years, which means these numbers are probably overestimates. If we imagine five years between GPTs, then GPT-6 will actually only need 1/10th of the world's computers, and GPT-7 will only need 1/3. Still, 1/3 of the world's computers is a lot.

Probably you can't get 1/3 of the world's computers, especially when all the other AI companies want them too. You would need to vastly scale up chip manufacturing.

Energy

GPT-4 took about 50 gigawatt-hours of energy to train. Using our scaling factor of 30x, we expect GPT-5 to need 1,500, GPT-6 to need 45,000, and GPT-7 to need 1.3 million.

Let's say the training run lasts six months, ie 4,320 hours. That means GPT-6 will need 10 GW - about half the output of the Three Gorges Dam, the biggest power plant in the world. GPT-7 will need fifteen Three Gorges Dams. This isn't just ''the world will need to produce this much power total and you can buy it''. You need the power pretty close to your data center. Your best bet here is either to get an entire pipeline like Nord Stream hooked up to your data center, or else a fusion reactor.

( Sam Altman is working on fusion power , but this seems to be a coincidence. At least, he's been interested in fusion since at least 2016, which is way too early for him to have known about any of this.)

Training Data

This is the text or images or whatever that the AI reads to understand how its domain works. GPT-3 used 300 billion tokens. GPT-4 used 13 trillion tokens (another source says 6 trillion). This sort of looks like our scaling factor of 30x still kind of holds, but in theory training data is supposed to scale as the square root of compute - so you should expect a scaling factor of 5.5x. That means GPT-5 will need somewhere in the vicinity of 50 trillion tokens, GPT-6 somewhere in the three-digit trillions, and GPT-7 somewhere in the quadrillions.

There isn't that much text in the whole world. You might be able to get a few trillion more by combining all published books, Facebook messages, tweets, text messages, and emails. You could get some more by adding in all images, videos, and movies, once the AIs learn to understand those. I still don't think you're getting to a hundred trillion, let alone a quadrillion.

You could try to make an AI that can learn things with less training data. This ought to be possible, because the human brain learns things without reading all the text in the world. But this is hard and nobody has a great idea how to do it yet.

More promising is synthetic data, where the AI generates data for itself. This sounds like a perpetual motion machine that won't work, but there are tricks to get around this. For example, you can train a chess AI on synthetic data by making it play against itself a million times. You can train a math AI by having it randomly generate steps to a proof, eventually stumbling across a correct one by chance, automatically detecting the correct proof, and then training on that one. You can train a video game playing AI by having it make random motions, then see which one gets the highest score. In general you can use synthetic data when you don't know how to create good data, but you do know how to recognize it once it exists (eg the chess AI won the game against itself, the math AI got a correct proof, the video game AI gets a good score). But nobody knows how to do this well for written text yet.

Maybe you can create a smart AI through some combination of text, chess, math, and video games - some humans pursue this curriculum, and it works fine for them, sort of.

This is kind of the odd one out - compute and electricity can be solved with lots of money, but this one might take more of a breakthrough.

Algorithmic Progress

This means ''people make breakthroughs and become better at building AI''. It seems to be another one of those things that gives an order of magnitude of progress per five years or so, so I'm revising the estimates above down by a little.

Putting It All Together

GPT-5 might need about 1% the world's computers, a small power plant's worth of energy, and a lot of training data.

GPT-6 might need about 10% of the world's computers, a large power plant's worth of energy, and more training data than exists. Probably this looks like a town-sized data center attached to a lot of solar panels or a nuclear reactor.

GPT-7 might need all of the world's computers, a gargantuan power plant beyond any that currently exist, and way more training data than exists. Probably this looks like a city-sized data center attached to a fusion plant.

Building GPT-8 is currently impossible. Even if you solve synthetic data and fusion power, and you take over the whole semiconductor industry, you wouldn't come close. Your only hope is that GPT-7 is superintelligent and helps you with this, either by telling you how to build AIs for cheap, or by growing the global economy so much that it can fund currently-impossible things.

Everything about GPTs >5 is a naive projection of existing trends and probably false. Order of magnitude estimates only.You might call this ''speculative'' and ''insane''. But if Sam Altman didn't believe something at least this speculative and insane, he wouldn't be asking for $7 trillion.

II.

Let's back up.

GPT-6 will probably cost $75 billion or more. OpenAI can't afford this. Microsoft or Google could afford it, but it would take a significant fraction (maybe half?) of company resources.

If GPT-5 fails, or is only an incremental improvement, nobody will want to spend $75 billion making GPT-6, and all of this will be moot.

On the other hand, if GPT-5 is close to human-level, and revolutionizes entire industries, and seems poised to start an Industrial-Revolution-level change in human affairs, then $75 billion for the next one will seem like a bargain.

Also, if you're starting an Industrial Revolution level change in human affairs, maybe things get cheaper. I don't expect GPT-5 to be good enough that it can make a big contribution to planning for GPT-6. But you've got to think of this stepwise. Can it do enough stuff that large projects (like GPT-6, or its associated chip fabs, or its associated power plants) get 10% cheaper? Maybe.

The upshot of this is that we're looking at an exponential process, like R for a pandemic. If the exponent is > 1, it gets very big very quickly. If the exponent is < 1, it fizzles out.

In this case, if each new generation of AI is exciting enough to inspire more investment, and/or smart enough to decrease the cost of the next generation, then these two factors combined allow the creation of another generation of AIs in a positive feedback loop (R > 1).

But if each new generation of AI isn't exciting enough to inspire the massive investment required to create the next one, and isn't smart enough to help bring down the price of the next generation on its own, then at some point nobody is willing to fund more advanced AIs, and the current AI boom fizzles out (R < 1). This doesn't mean you never hear about AI - people will probably generate amazing AI art and videos and androids and girlfriends and murderbots. It just means that raw intelligence of the biggest models won't increase as quickly.

Even when R < 1, we still get the bigger models eventually. Chip factories can gradually churn out more chips. Researchers can gradually churn out more algorithmic breakthroughs. If nothing else, you can spend ten years training GPT-7 very slowly. It just means we get human or above-human level AI in the mid-21st century, instead of the early part.

III.

When Sam Altman asks for $7 trillion, I interpret him as wanting to do this process in a centralized, quick, efficient way. One guy builds the chip factories and power plants and has them all nice and ready by the time he needs to train the next big model.

Probably he won't get his $7 trillion. Then this same process will happen, but slower, more piecemeal, and more decentralized. They'll come out with GPT-5. If it's good, someone will want to build GPT-6. Normal capitalism will cause people to gradually increase chip capacity. People will make a lot of GPT-5.1s and GPT-5.2s until finally someone takes the plunge and builds the giant power plant somewhere. All of this will take decades, happen pretty naturally, and no one person or corporation will have a monopoly.

I would be happier with the second situation: the safety perspective here is that we want as much time as we can get to prepare for disruptive AI.

Sam Altman previously endorsed this position! He said that OpenAI's efforts were good for safety, because you want to avoid compute overhang . That is, you want AI progress to be as gradual as possible, not to progress in sudden jerks. And one way you can keep things gradual is to max out the level of AI you can build with your current chips, and then AI can grow (at worst) as fast as the chip supply, which naturally grows pretty slowly.

'... unless you ask for $7 trillion dollars to increase the chip supply in a giant leap as quickly as possible! People who trusted OpenAI's good nature based on the compute overhang argument are feeling betrayed right now .

My current impression of OpenAI's multiple contradictory perspectives here is that they are genuinely interested in safety - but only insofar as that's compatible with scaling up AI as fast as possible. This is far from the worst way that an AI company could be. But it's not reassuring either.

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Tue, 13 Feb 2024 22:08

Joe Biden didn't score an endorsement from Taylor Swift on Super Bowl Sunday, as some had predicted. But her boyfriend Travis Kelce is using the president's renewable energy tax credits to finance the film ''My Dead Friend Zoe.''

The SXSW-bound indie, which stars Natalie Morales, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman and Sonequa Martin-Green, marks Kelce's first foray into movies, with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end serving as an executive producer. The investors in the low-budget dark comedy, which include Kelce, are the first to take advantage of 2022's Inflation Reduction Act to finance a film. (''My Dead Friend Zoe'' cost less than $10 million.)

The Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in August 2022, marks ''the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history, enabling America to tackle the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, securing America's position as a world leader in domestic clean energy manufacturing and putting the United States on a pathway to achieving the Biden-Harris Administration's climate goals, including a net-zero economy by 2050,'' according to the U.S. Department of Energy's web site. ''My Dead Friend Zoe'' used money generated by green energy entrepreneur Mike Field's sale of surplus tax credits. (Field is also a producer on the film.)

''Hollywood is risky, right? On a scale of one to 10, Hollywood, it is a 9.5. Especially in terms of independent film,'' says ''My Dead Friend Zoe'' producer Ray Maiello, who runs California-based Radiant Media Studios with Field. ''These federal tax credits take the risk down to like a five.''

Kelce, Maiello and Field are using the same strategy to finance a second film, the Jean-Michel Basquiat documentary ''King Pleasure.'' The Boardwalk Pictures film is being helmed by Quinn Wilson, the former creative director for Lizzo, and is being made with the cooperation of the late artist's estate. Kelce, Maiello and Field could spark a trend in Hollywood of employing the Inflation Reduction Act as a way to raise funds and bolster the flagging indie film sector.

''[Field] and I wanted to branch out and we've been talking about [expanding] for years. And then Biden really incentivized it,'' Maiello adds. ''Biden saw that people can't plan what their tax liabilities are going to be. People don't want to take risks. And so he really opened it up with these federal tax credits and we're combining that with Hollywood. That's the idea.''

Directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, ''My Dead Friend Zoe'' follows a female Afghanistan veteran (Morales) who comes head-to-head with her Vietnam vet grandfather (Harris) at the family's ancestral lake house. The film, which will make its world premiere at SXSW on March 9, is being sold by CAA. Legion M also is involved with the film as producers.

Though Kelce has already indicated that he will be returning for the 2024-25 NFL season to join the Chiefs effort to possibly three-peat as Super Bowl champions, he is making inroads now into Hollywood, in a similar vein as Tom Brady, who recently played himself in the hit comedy ''80 for Brady'' and has been producing as well. Kelce is repped by CAA.

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Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:33

Like many of us, you might find yourself nodding to a familiar digital doomsday chorus that vibrates through offices and coffee shops alike: AI will take my job!

Is this looming threat substantiated, or simply a manifestation of our shared anxiety in the wake of constant technological advancement? A new study from MIT CSAIL, MIT Sloan, The Productivity Institute, and IBM's Institute for Business Value is set to challenge our long-held beliefs. Their research critically examines the economic practicality of using AI for automating tasks in the workplace, with a specific emphasis on computer vision.

Their findings show that currently, only about 23 percent of wages paid for tasks involving vision are economically viable for AI automation. In other words, it's only economically sensible to replace human labor with AI in about one-fourth of the jobs where vision is a key component of the work. ''This indicates a more gradual integration of AI into various sectors, contrasting with the often hypothesized rapid AI-driven job displacement,'' says Neil Thompson, Principal Investigator at MIT CSAIL and the Initiative on the Digital Economy. ''We placed our focus on the field of computer vision, an area where cost modeling has seen significant advancements.''

The study departs from the conventional broad-brush approach to AI's potential impact. Instead, it offers a meticulous examination of AI's feasibility in automating specific tasks. What sets this research apart is its tripartite analytical model. The framework assesses not just the technical performance requirements for AI systems, but also delves into the characteristics of an AI system capable of that performance, and the economic choice of whether to build and deploy such a system.

Many years of experience with computer vision provides abundant data to assess performance and economic viability. By contrast, the data for novel large language models is still developing. Fortunately, experience with computer vision models provides some insight into what the future might hold with the diffusion and adoption of language models. According to the researchers, development, deployment, and running costs might decline and the technology industry could transform to provide AI solutions as a service, eliminating the need for substantial capital investment.

The researchers looked at the ramifications of potential reductions in AI system costs and how such changes could influence the pace of automation. For example, if the costs of implementing AI in workplaces decrease significantly, this could accelerate the rate at which AI is adopted in various sectors, potentially leading to more rapid changes in the job market. Conversely, if computing requirements expand, if data becomes harder to find, and if skilled workers are scarce, higher costs could slow this transition, allowing more time for workers and industries to adapt.

Another critical aspect: AI-as-service platforms. The scientists showed how scalability and wider application could potentially change the landscape of task automation, shifting the focus from individual firm-level deployment to a more expansive, service-based approach. ''The implications of this shift are profound: it could democratize access to AI technologies, allowing smaller businesses and organizations to benefit from AI without the need for extensive in-house resources. Moreover, this could lead to the emergence of new business models centered around AI services,'' says Thompson.

''When the semiconductor industry created an entirely new business model 20 years ago with the separation of design and manufacturing with production outsourcing, fabless semiconductor companies became the standard,'' says Martin Fleming, former IBM Chief Economist and Chief Analytics Officer and now a Fellow at The Productivity Institute, based in the U.K. ''In the years ahead, its possible software, cloud services, and consulting firms will create a new business model with a class of companies specializing in AI-as-a-Service at scale.''

The study's implications extend beyond immediate economic considerations, touching on broader societal impacts such as workforce retraining and policy development. It opens up avenues for further research into AI's scalability, cost-effectiveness, and its potential to create new job categories. As certain jobs are automated, for instance, there will be a growing need for roles focused on managing, maintaining, and improving AI systems, as well as roles in areas where human skills are irreplaceable by AI.

Further, to the extent that reduced AI costs, new AI services, or both succeed in contributing to improved productivity growth at the macroeconomic level, employment and income growth will quicken and living standards will improve. ''Broad economic benefits will only be realized when fundamental transformation occurs in how business is done and how workers work,'' says Fleming.

'‹'‹New business models are beginning to emerge. For example, small jewelers benefit from a diamond classification tool built by NavTech in which a jeweler supplied image is graded to instantly establish quality without the availability of an experienced jeweler.

For autonomous vehicles, Nvidia has built a platform employing high-performance computing, imaging, and AI enabling continuous improvement and deployment through over-the-air updates. Individual vehicle manufacturers no longer have the need to build duplicate capabilities such as stereo camera and route recognition technologies.

''As AI continues to advance and reshape industries, we hope that the findings from this study will be a pivotal reference, guiding future explorations and policy-making in the ever-evolving intersection of technology, economics, and the labor market to help navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the ongoing integration of AI into the workplace," says Thompson.

''Much has been written about the future impact of AI on the labor market, primarily using measures of exposure. However, these estimates often rely on the assumption that if a job can be automated, it will be,'' says Antonin Bergeaud, Associate Professor of Economics at HEC Paris. ''Svanberg and coauthors' research adopts a fresh perspective by meticulously estimating the costs of implementing these technologies, from installation to maintenance. It finds that even an AI system that is 'only' as good as a human would often be prohibitively expensive to adopt, compared to current labor costs in the U.S. The conclusion is striking: a much smaller share of the labor market is at risk of automation than direct estimations based on exposure would suggest. This important result commands a more systematic evaluation of the feasibility of adopting a new technology for an industry, which directly relates to the New Solow Paradox, where firms may fail to adopt an overperforming technology if the barriers are too high.''

Brian C. Goehring, Associate Partner and AI Research Lead at IBM's Institute for Business Value, and two members of Thompson's FutureTech Research Project are also authors on the paper: affiliate researcher Maja Svanberg and Sloan School's Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) postdoc Wensu Li. Their work was funded by MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and is now under review at a journal

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Mon, 12 Feb 2024 22:46

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American energy company

Genie Energy Ltd. is an American energy company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. It is a holding company comprising Genie Retail Energy, Genie Retail Energy International, Genie Energy Services, and Genie Energy Oil and Gas. Michael Stein is the Chief Executive Officer, Genie Energy Ltd.[2]

In 2004, seeking to diversify, IDT Telecom's Founder, Chairman and CEO, Howard Jonas, launched its first Retail Energy Provider or ''REP'' and enrolled its first energy supply customers. Then, in October, 2011, Genie Energy Ltd. (NYSE:GNE), was spun-off from IDT Corporation as an independent public company, at which point Class B common stock of Genie Energy Ltd. began trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol "GNE".

Genie's founder and chairman is Howard Jonas. Michael Stein is the company's Chief Executive Officer of Genie Energy and Chief Executive Officer of Genie Retail Energy. Avi Goldin serves as the company's CFO.

The president of its Israeli subsidiary is Effie Eitam. Genie Energy's Strategic advisory board is composed of: Dick Cheney since 2009 (former vice president of the United States),[3] Rupert Murdoch (media mogul and chairman of News Corp), James Woolsey (former CIA director), Larry Summers (former head of the US Treasury), Bill Richardson (former Governor of New Mexico, ex-ambassador to the United Nations and United States Energy Secretary),[4] Michael Steinhardt, Jacob Rothschild,[5][4] and Mary Landrieu, former United States Senator from Louisiana.

In 2013, IDT Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Genie Energy, acquired both Dallas-based Diversegy, LLC a commercial energy advisory and its network marketing channel, Epiq Energy. They are now wholly owned subsidiaries of Genie Energy Ltd.[6]

Genie Retail Energy [ edit ] This section

needs expansion. You can help by

adding to it.

( January 2016

) Genie Retail Energy (GRE) comprises the company's domestic electricity and natural gas supply companies. Commonly referred to as ''Retail Energy Providers'' or ''REPs'', these companies offer traditional and renewable/green energy supply options to residential and small/medium commercial clients throughout deregulated energy states in the United States. GRE companies purchase electricity and natural gas in the wholesale markets which it resells to residential and small business customers in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Ohio, Rhode Island, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Delaware, Texas, Maryland, and Washington, DC. Commercial natural gas supply customers are also served in the state of Florida. These companies offer a variety of products and services, including fixed rate and variable rate energy supply plans, traditional and green electricity options, and clean, carbon offset natural gas programs. Like other REP's, GRE companies compete against incumbent electric and gas utilities as well as over 100 or more other REPs.

In November 2016, Genie Energy acquired Retail Energy Holdings, LLC. (REH), and added REH's brand, Town Square Energy, and meters to Genie Retail Energy's portfolio.[7] In August 2017, Genie Energy announced a joint venture to enter the retail energy market and begin customer acquisition in the United Kingdom.[8] Also in August 2017, Genie Retail Energy acquired Mirabito Natural Gas, a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based natural gas supplier to commercial customers.[9]

In January 2019, Genie Retail Energy acquired a majority stake in Lumo Energia, a Finnish supplier of renewable electricity,[10] and earlier this year launched Genie Energy Japan, offering customers a variety of high value electricity supply products in the dynamic Japanese retail market.

In 2022 Lumo unilaterally terminated fixed term and fixed price electricity deals of c. 8,000 consumers, thus causing financial damages of even thousands of Euros to each customer. Lumo offered 2 cent/kWh compensation, equaling few million Euros, while selling electricity derivative assets for '‚¬30 million. Finnish consumer protection authority regarded this compensation as inadequate.[11] [12]

Genie Oil and Gas [ edit ] Genie Oil and Gas (GOGAS) explored for conventional oil in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights through its Afek Oil and Gas subsidiary, and pursued oil shale projects through American Shale Oil (AMSO), Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) and Genie Energy Mongolia. AMSO, IEI, and Genie Energy Mongolia are no longer active. 89% of GOGAS was owned by Genie Energy while Jacob Rothschild, Michael Steinhardt and Rupert Murdoch among others held minority interests.[13][14][15]

Afek Oil and Gas [ edit ] In February 2013, Israeli authorities awarded Afek Oil and Gas an exclusive 36-month petroleum exploration license to a 153-square-mile (400 km2) plot in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which the UN recognizes to be Syrian territory.[16][17][18][19] Afek subsequently conducted above-ground geophysical tests and based on its preliminary analysis, has applied for a ten well exploratory drilling program.[20] South of Katzrin in the southern Golan Heights in 2015, Afek discovered a substantial amount of oil and natural gas reserves which would make Israel energy self-sufficient.[a][21][22][23] The company had drilled a series of exploratory wells including Ness-5, just northwest of the Avnei Eitan and Nov moshavim and south of Kibbutz Natur and the town of Katzrin; Ness-3, near the Bnei Yehuda industrial area; Ness-6, located near the entrance of Moshav Kanaf, just southeast of Gamla;[24] and Ness 10 north of the Sheikh-Ali Fault. In November 2017, the company announced that it suspended its exploratory drilling program as the well's target zone does not contain commercially producible quantities of oil or natural gas.[25]

Human rights groups have said the drilling violates international law as Golan Heights is an occupied territory.[26]

American Shale Oil [ edit ] American Shale Oil (AMSO) was a joint venture between Genie Energy and Total S.A.[27] Genie announced in May 2016 that the partners were closing the venture.[28] and its pilot plant facilities located outside of Rifle, Colorado, were subsequently decommissioned and removed. AMSO received in 2006 a Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) lease from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Colorado's Piceance Basin in order to develop a process for generating oil and gas from deep buried oil shale.[29] The lease comprised a tract of 160 acres (65 ha), and was granted for an initial term of 10 years with the possibility of up to a 5-year extension upon proof of diligent progress toward commercial production.[30] AMSO's tech team was headed by Dr. Alan Burnham, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[31] AMSO's proposed technology was called CCR (Conduction, Convection, Reflux).[29]

Israel Energy Initiatives [ edit ] Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) was founded in 2008 to develop oil shale in Israel. In July 2011, the company received a one-year extension of a three-year license to explore oil shale resources on 238 square kilometres (92 sq mi) in Israel's Shefela region.[32] In September 2014, a government planning committee rejected a building permit for the project. The committee decision essentially killed the project, as IEI did not pursue any means of appeal.[33] By the time of the committee ruling most of the staff of IEI, including Chief Scientist Harold Vinegar, had moved to work at the sister company, Afek.

IEI planned to use In-Situ Conversion Process technology for its pilot project, following the format a 1995 trial by Royal Dutch Shell. Shell subsequently shut down its work on developing the technology.

Israel's major environmental organizations, including the Jewish National Fund, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Greenpeace, and the Israel Union for Environmental Defense protested against the IEI license. Environmental concerns include the potential for contaminating Israel's Shfela aquifer, which runs underneath the Shfela oil shale formation, for destroying a rural region of Israel that currently promotes eco-tourism, and for reversing Israel's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of the local community of Adullam and their supporters led the campaign to stop the IEI work, citing both the environmental damage and the questionable economic value of the project.[34]

See also [ edit ] Energy TriangleNotes [ edit ] ^ As of 2015, Israel consumes 270,000 barrels of oil per day.[21] References [ edit ] ^ a b c d e "Annual Report 2018" (PDF) . Genie Energy . Retrieved 2019-05-05 . ^ "Michael Stein Chief Executive Officer, Genie Energy Ltd profile". Bloomberg News . Retrieved 2022-03-20 . ^ "Oil in the Levant attracts intermediaries: Impending oil exploration in the strategic Golan Heights and off the coast of Lebanon has inspired a number of ex-political figures to hone their advisory skills". Intelligence Online. 27 February 2013. Archived from the original on 24 May 2021 . Retrieved 5 January 2021 . ^ a b "Black gold under the Golan". The Economist. 7 November 2015 . Retrieved 10 December 2016 . ^ "Business and Financial Leaders Lord Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch Invest in Genie Oil & Gas". Business Wire. 2010-11-15 . Retrieved 2016-12-19 . ^ "SWA advises IDT Energy on its Acquisition of Diversegy, LLC". SWA Legal . Retrieved 4 July 2017 . ^ "Genie Retail Energy Acquires Retail Energy Holdings, LLC". Genie Energy Press Release. ^ "Genie Energy Launches JV to Pursue UK Retail Energy Market". Genie Energy press release. August 2, 2017. ^ "Genie Energy acquires Florida-based commercial natural gas supplier". Your Oil and Gas News. August 15, 2017. Archived from the original on September 12, 2017. ^ "Genie Energy acquires Finnish renewable power supplier Lumo Energia". Renewable Now. 2019-01-07 . Retrieved 2019-03-23 . ^ "S¤hk¶ | Lumo Energia kaatui, ja nyt entisille asiakkaille tulee jopa tuhansien eurojen lis¤lasku '' "Naurettava", kuvaa asiakas yhti¶n reaktiota". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 2022-09-11 . Retrieved 2022-10-25 . ^ "Lumo Energia lopetti korvausneuvottelut kuluttaja-asiamiehen pyydetty¤ olennaisia tietoja yhti¶n taloustilanteesta". Kilpailu- ja kuluttajavirasto (in Finnish). 2022-10-21 . Retrieved 2022-10-25 . ^ "Business and Financial Leaders Lord Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch Invest in Genie Oil & Gas" (Press release). IDT Corporation. 2010-11-15. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02 . Retrieved 2011-10-06 . ^ "Michael Steinhardt to Become Chairman of IDT Corporation Subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives" (Press release). IDT Corporation. 2010-04-19. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02 . Retrieved 2011-10-06 . ^ Barkat, Amiram (2010-11-22). "Murdoch, Rothschild invest in Israeli shale oil". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved 2011-10-06 . ^ Kelley, Michael (February 22, 2013). "Israel Grants First Golan Heights Oil Drilling License To Dick Cheney-Linked Company". Business Insider . Retrieved 31 August 2013 . ^ "Israel approves drilling for oil in Golan Heights". The Jerusalem Post. 2013-02-02 . Retrieved 2014-05-20 . ^ Barkat, Amiram (20 February 2013). "Israel awards first Golan oil drilling license". Globes . Retrieved 22 February 2013 . ^ "N.J. firm wins original rights to drill in Golan Heights". JTA. 21 February 2013. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013 . Retrieved 22 February 2013 . ^ "Genie Energy Reports First Quarter 2014 Results" (PDF) (Press release). Genie Energy. 2014-05-07 . Retrieved 2015-12-01 . [permanent dead link ] ^ a b Graeber, Daniel J (7 October 2015). "Israel upbeat on Golan oil potential: Israeli company estimates reserve column 10 times larger than global average". UPI . Retrieved 26 October 2015 . ^ "Huge oil discovery on Golan Heights: Estimates are that the amount of oil found will make Israel self sufficient for very many years to come". Globes. 7 October 2015 . Retrieved 26 October 2015 . ^ Graeber, Daniel J (9 October 2015). "Major reserve discovery confirmed in the southern Golan Heights: Leadership of company behind the find seen as close to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu". UPI . Retrieved 26 October 2015 . ^ Udasin, Sharon (7 October 2015). "Still too soon to determine production potential of Golan Heights oil: Afek Oil and Gas say findings have so far revealed a 'very robust oil-bearing strata' ". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved 26 October 2015 . ^ "Genie Energy Suspends Exploratory Oil and Gas Drilling Program in Northern Israel" (Press release). Genie Energy. 2017-11-16 . Retrieved 2019-03-23 . ^ Khoury, Jack (25 February 2016). "Human Rights Groups: Golan Oil Drilling Contravenes International Law". Haaretz . Retrieved 5 April 2016 . ^ "Total buys 50 pct stake in AMSO to sell shale oil". Reuters. January 14, 2009 . Retrieved October 6, 2011 . ^ "First Quarter 2016 Results". Genie Energy. Archived from the original on February 11, 2019 . Retrieved August 2, 2016 . ^ a b Secure Fuels from Domestic Resources: The Continuing Evolution of America's Oil Shale and Tar Sands Industries (PDF) (4th ed.). United States Department of Energy. 2010. pp. 14''15. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 27, 2011 . Retrieved October 6, 2011 . ^ Andrews, Anthony (2008). Developments in Oil Shale (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service. pp. 18''19. CRS RL34748 . Retrieved October 6, 2011 . ^ "Alan K. Burnham Ph.D. Executive Profile". Bloomberg Businessweek . Retrieved October 31, 2011 . [dead link ] ^ 10-k, IDT Corp, October 11, 2011 ^ Udasin, Sharon (2014-09-02). "Jerusalem District Committee rejects Shefla basin oil shale pilot project". The Jerusalem Post . Retrieved 2015-02-12 . ^ Laylin, Tafline (2010-12-08). "Oil & Wine Don't Mix: Over 1,000 Israelis Protest Oil Shale In Adullam" . Retrieved 2011-10-18 .

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Archived Version

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 21:40

Is history about to repeat itself in a big way?

Do you even know this bit of history?

Did you know this isn't the first time Democrats have removed a candidate from the ballot that they didn't like?

It's true, only with President Abraham Lincoln it was TEN states:

This isn't the first time Democrats took their opponent off the ballot. They kept Abraham Lincoln off the ballot in 10 Southern states. The slavery loving Democrats did that.

'-- Feisty'¸Floridian (@The_Real_Feisty) December 20, 2023

Hey, maybe it will be 10 with Trump too when all is said and done, there's still a lot of time to go!

Heck, maybe Trump will get to ''17'' '-- wouldn't that be poetic?

Q.

pic.twitter.com/70YUlNw93u

'-- DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) December 20, 2023

Here are the TEN STATES that turned on Lincoln:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." '' George Santayana

Just like Colorado now, the Democrats, who were mainly slave owners, barred Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln from appearing on the ballots in 10 Southern states during the 1860'... pic.twitter.com/oQdW5tVJZd

'-- Simon Ateba (@simonateba) December 20, 2023

''Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' '' George Santayana

Just like Colorado now, the Democrats, who were mainly slave owners, barred Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln from appearing on the ballots in 10 Southern states during the 1860 presidential election. But Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of the United States, becoming the first Republican president in American history.

NOTE: These states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia.

NOTE: Lincoln did not appear on the ballots in those Southern states because they did not support his candidacy due to his anti-slavery stance. The Democrats wanted to keep slavery forever.

NOTE: Those slave states chose to support other candidates or not include his name on their ballots. However, despite not being on the ballots in those states, he won the election with a majority of electoral votes from the states where he was on the ballot.

MY TAKE: It's ironic that the Republicans now are described as the racists, people who hate black people when actually, they brought slavery to an end, and the Democrats wanted to keep black people enslaved, even going to war to secede. May God help us not repeat history.

Here are even more details:

Yes, Abraham Lincoln was once taken off the ballot in an election. This occurred during the presidential election of 1860, when the United States was deeply divided over the issue of slavery and its expansion into the western territories.

In that election, the Democratic Party split into two factions due to disagreements over slavery. The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while the Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge. Meanwhile, the newly formed Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery, nominated Abraham Lincoln as their candidate.

In the Southern states, where slavery was widely supported, Lincoln's name was deliberately excluded from the ballot. This was done by the Southern Democratic Party as a protest against Lincoln's anti-slavery stance. As a result, Lincoln was not an option for voters in ten Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Despite being left off the ballot in these states, Lincoln went on to win the election, securing a majority of the electoral votes from the Northern states. However, his victory further polarized the nation, and within a few months of his election, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. This ultimately led to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

In summary, Abraham Lincoln was indeed taken off the ballot in an election, specifically the presidential election of 1860 in the Southern states that supported slavery. This event was a significant factor in the growing tensions between the North and the South, which eventually led to the Civil War.

Let's hope the White Hats have done enough this time to avoid a Civil War'....

NATIONAL POLL: Should The U.S. Supreme Court Overturn Colorado's Decision To BAN Trump From The Ballot?

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Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:48

According to a new report from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday, the US economy added 353,000 jobs for the month of January while the unemployment rate held at 3.7%. CNN news was sure to tell us that this was a "shockingly good jobs report" and it "shows America's economy is booming."

At this point, many of us who follow these numbers have become accustomed to the routine: the BLS reports "blowout" jobs numbers each month, and the legacy media dutifully reports that the jobs growth is astoundingly good, proving all is well in the economy.

The media rarely reports on any other economic indicators with nearly as much enthusiasm. The monthly jobs report'--well, one specific statistic within it'--has become something of a proxy for the state of the economy overall.

There are a couple of problems with this approach, of course. The first is that the jobs numbers'--a trailing indicator of economic growth (or decline) are repeatedly contradicted by at least half a dozen other economic indicators. Many of these other indicators are, unlike jobs numbers, leading indicators, and are more useful if we're actually looking for some hints at what is in store.

If we take a larger look around, we find this: The Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index is in recession territory. The same is true of the Richmond Fed's manufacturing survey. The Leading Indicators index keeps looking worse. The yield curve points to recession. Business bankruptcies surged 58 percent in 2023. Net savings turned negative for only the second time in decades. The economic growth we see is being fueled by the biggest deficits since covid.

But, there's also the problem that the jobs report itself isn't so impressive once we look beyond the headline establishment survey jobs data.

The first fly in the ointment of this "shockingly good jobs report" is the results we see from the household survey. The household survey is a survey of actual people who are asked if they are employed. The establishment survey, on the other hand, is a survey only of large employers and the total number of jobs'--i.e., not job holders.

So, if we look at the household survey, we find that there were actually job losses in January. While the establishment survey showed an increase of a whopping 353,000 jobs, the household survey showed a loss of 31,000 employed persons. Moreover, January was the second month in a row for job losses in the household survey. In December, the report showed a loss of 683,000 employed persons. That was the biggest loss since the covid collapse.

How does this square with the huge jobs blowouts in the establishment survey? Part of it can be explained by the fact that the establishment survey does not distinguish between full-time and part-time workers or jobs. It's entirely possible that there are more jobs being added in the economy'--it's just that many of them are going to people holding multiple jobs, and many of those jobs are part time. So, if the economy is filling up with fewer people holding two or more part time jobs, that registers as "blowout" jobs growth. The reality, however, is that fewer people are employed.

Moreover, the household survey also tells us that job growth among the employed was mostly driven by part-time jobs in January. According to the survey, growth in part-time jobs totaled 96,000 while full-time job growth went negative, with a loss of 63,000.

Meanwhile, government jobs in January totaled more than 20 percent of all new year-over-year job growth. Outside of covid, we haven't seen those sorts of numbers since late 2007 as the economy was nearing recession.

And then there is the growth rate of temp jobs. That remained in negative territory last month for the fifteenth month in a row. As the graph shows, drops in temp jobs over the past thirty years has been a clear indicator of an approaching recession.

Finally, we can look at real wage growth. Legacy media sources were careful to crow about how January showed real growth in average earnings. Specifically, average earnings (adjusted to the CPI) increased 1.7 percent, year over year. In a vacuum, that might be a great number. However, workers are still recovering from a 25-month period of falling real average earnings. That meant earnings on average in 2022 were below 2019 earnings, and working only started to come out of that hole in 2023. Indeed, if we look at real earnings growth since February 2020'--the last month before the covid lockdowns'--we find that earning increased a mere 1.53 percent'--or 51 cents'--over that 47-month period. During that same time, home prices increased 46 percent (according to Fannie and Freddie). It's easy to see why housing affordable is now at some of the worst levels we've seen in decades.

In spite of all this, however, American consumers of television news are fed a steady diet of good news about the economy in which each month brings a new "shockingly good" or "robust" jobs report. Even more questionable is the practice of treating the jobs report as if it's an index for the overall economy. However, the jobs report is only something to brag about if one's definition of a strong jobs economy is one in which fewer people have jobs, full-time jobs are disappearing, and government jobs are a growing component of overall job growth.

When we view these numbers in light of declining manufacturing, more bankruptcies, recessionary leading indicators, and negative net savings, we might suspect that the economy is headed for some turbulence ahead.

The Federal Reserve, however, has encouraged the laser-like focus on current jobs data because the FOMC has claimed to be basing much of its economic planning on jobs growth. Approximately every month, for example, Jerome Powell addresses the press with a prepared statement about the Fed's policy being this or that while using jobs numbers to justify its current policy. At least, that is the public face the Fed puts on. The Fed wants the public to believe the Fed is "data driven" and is fine-tuning'--another term for centrally planning'--the economy based on fine detective work from Fed economists. That's the story they tell. The reality is something different, and the Fed is making its decisions based on political expediency. Polls have shown, however, that the average voter tends to base his opinion of the economy on the jobs situation "right now." So, lo and behold, the Fed says it is doing the same.

The economy doesn't work that way, though, and if we want to understand what direction the economy is heading in, we have to rely on sound theory rather than what some Federal bean counters say happened last month.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 22:14

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:43

Sullivan, announced that he will personally conduct a Briefing for the Leaders of the US Congress on a "National Security Threat"

This smells very fishy or bullshitty.... Cynthia

Jake "Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria" Sullivan, announced that he will personally conduct a briefing for the leaders of the US Congress on a certain "national security threat" on Thursday but refused to specify the information.Earlier, the head of the House Intelligence Committee urged Biden to declassify all information about the "national security threat," the details of which have not been disclosed.

adding..

The US Congress was warned about a ''foreign threat,'' NBC News reported.

''A Democratic source familiar with the warning said that this is a ''serious problem that could lead to a destabilizing situation and a threat to national security,'' the channel reports.

According to a CNN source, the ''threat'' may be associated with certain ''Russian capabilities.''

adding more found...

The threat to US national security, which was announced today in Congress and the White House, is associated with the Russian desire to send nuclear weapons into space.

This was reported by a number of American media outlets, citing ''sources familiar with the discussions.''

It is reported that this is not about dropping nuclear weapons on Earth, but rather about their possible use against satellites.

''It's very concerning and very sensitive,'' said one source, who called it a ''big deal.''

Many members of Congress called the problem serious, but not one that would cause public alarm.

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Archived Version

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:14

February 13, 2024 | Part Of Washington Journal 02/13/2024 Washington Journal2024-02-13T07:00:01-05:00 https://ximage.c-spanvideo.org/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwaWN0dXJlcy5jLXNwYW52aWRlby5vcmciLCJrZXkiOiJGaWxlc1wvMmEzXC8wMDFcLzE3MDc4MjU5MzdfMDAxLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciIsImhlaWdodCI6NTA2fX19 Viewers commented on the Biden administration's support for Israel.Viewers commented on the Biden administration's support for Israel.

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*This text was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.

Related Video November 29, 2023 Open Forum, Part 1Viewers responded to the question ''Should the U.S. put conditions on future aid to Israel?''

October 17, 2023 Open Forum, Part 2Viewers commented on the contest for House speaker and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

October 16, 2023 Open Forum, Part 1Viewers commented on the House speaker contest and the war between Israel and Hamas.

October 11, 2023 Open Forum, Part 1Viewers commented on the House speaker election and the Israel-Hamas war.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:55

House Republicans voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Aljandro Mayorkas accusing him with refusal to comply with immigration laws and breach of public trust. Vice President Kamala Harris heads to Germany to reassure NATO allies that they can rely on U.S. support. And exit polls show Indonesia's defense minister will be the new president of a country that plays a role in the South China Sea security. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Roberta Rampton, Miguel Macias, and Mohamad ElBardicy.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Lilly Quiroz.We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Neisha Heinis.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:19

Brian Costello: The Biden National Security Council Helped Cover-Up Tiktok's Propaganda Mission",0);return i.querySelector("template").content}switch(r){case"thead":case"tbody":case"tfoot":case"colgroup":case"caption":return a("

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https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/116802?s=1&r=31

I know some of these witnesses personally. I know the subject matter extensively.

For this post I will assume you have watched the hearing, also please see the recent post about China and U.S. Infrastructure.

Also note this is some what a stream of consciousness as I listened.

The first question sets the tone, Quantum computing and FUD! Mr. Lee is correct that 1) we are not going back to manual systems 2) the current ICS/OT systems are already vulnerable 3) defense is possible.

Safety systems and ''managing for the consequence'' is a key point! If you want an offline system it should be a safety system!

Government is not the F***ing answer!

It is important to note that of the 16 Critical infrastructure sectors Water is one of the least mature and funded.

Attribution is largely bunk! Attribution is very hard to do especially in light of Wikileaks vault 7.

NERC or NERC lite is not the answer, I will admit that NERC-CIP has moved the industry, but that was from zero and we are not there today.

If you accept the premise that Risk = Likelihood x Impact, and that the impact of loss of life or capacity are unacceptable then almost all OT risk trend to the extreme.

OK, so what is really needed for ICS/OT cybersecurity to solve the issue. A market and risk driven model. Legislation will not help, just enrich the companies who have the best lobbyists. The ugly truth is that most infrastructure is not secured. The basic blocking and tackling steps are not in place. Defense in depth, good architecture, and vigilance are the building blocks to solve this issue (IMO). Most CISOs I know want to spend their budget on tools, and I see this as a mistake. If you do not have the people or program in place to use them effectively tools will not protect you. There is way too much shelf-ware in the industry.

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Sign up for our NewslettersGenesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, also brought young son to the church

HOUSTON '' A search warrant has identified the suspect who was killed in the Lakewood Church shooting as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, of Conroe.

The shooting was reported on Sunday around 2 p.m. inside the lobby of the mega-church, located at 3700 Southwest Freeway.

According to the warrant, Moreno walked into the church with an AR-15 rifle. The suspect also brought a young boy with them to the church.

NBC News reports that the rifle had the word ''Palestine'' written on it, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter. It is unknown why the shooter had the word on the rifle and its relevance to the case. Moreno also made several statements during the incident but officials declined to describe those statements.

During the incident, officials said Moreno shot a man.

An off-duty Houston Police Department officer and a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officer engaged with the suspect, according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner. The suspect reportedly told the officers they had a bomb.

One of the officers said they saw the suspect in possession of a ''yellow in color rope and substances consistent with the manufacture of explosive devices, which appeared to be a detonation cord.'' Investigators have not been able to determine whether Moreno's threat of having a bomb was credible.

When Moreno pointed their weapon at the first responding officers, they shot and killed Moreno in self-defense, according to the document.

Pastor Joel Osteen said a 5-year-old boy was shot and another man was struck in the leg during the shooting. It is unknown who shot the child.

Police said the child was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition.

During the search warrant on Monday, investigators seized all electronic devices that belonged to Moreno in hopes they would reveal information or a motive related to the shooting. Moreno, who is transgender and identified as a woman, also had several prior arrests.

KPRC 2 News is working to learn more about Moreno's background and what led her to Lakewood Church.

Officials are investigating a wide range of possible motives given the writings on the weapon but cannot yet conclusively say what led to the shooting. They have not ruled out terrorism or hate crime-related motives.

RELATED:

Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.

About the Author:Brittany Taylor Award-winning journalist, mother, YouTuber, social media guru, millennial, mentor, storyteller, University of Houston alumna and Houston-native.

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More evidence of questionable experiments on civilians has been uncovered in the city of Mariupol

The Russian city of Mariupol was a testbed for large-scale medical research on local civilians while under Ukrainian rule, a trove of recently discovered documents suggests.

RT's Steve Sweeney visited a disused psychiatric ward in the city, which has been undergoing rapid reconstruction after being incorporated into Russia following a referendum in late 2022.

In December of last year, a construction team made a shocking discovery at the disused ward, finding documents as well as medication and medical equipment related to secretive research conducted while the city was part of Ukraine.

The experiments took place for years in at least eight medical facilities across Mariupol, with leading Western biotech corporations allegedly benefiting from them, according to the documents.

''We've found documents that suggested thousands of people have been involved in the experiments, with the trials carried out for major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, and others. Blood and other samples were collected and then sent to labs and clinics in Europe and the US for testing. The results of which are unknown,'' Sweeny explained.

The research was not only conducted on adults, but also on children and babies, the documents suggest. As well as being ethically questionable, the experiments on minors likely made the clinical trials illegal, a Russian doctor told RT on condition of anonymity.

While it's difficult to track all the participants of the experiments, witnesses are now coming forward with their testimonies about the research. A local man whose mother took part in the trials claimed the research was not safe.

''My mother got sick, they gave her drugs. I asked her what medication she was taking, but she did not give me a clear answer. She said that the drugs were simply given from a white box. Her condition worsened over the course of a month and then she died,'' the man told Sweeney.

Watch the full video below:

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REDLANDS, Calif. (KABC) -- The Redlands Police Department has issued a warning on an alleged organized burglary ring they believe is responsible for hundreds of residential burglaries, some of which have been caught on video.

Several homes in the area have been targeted just in the past couple of weeks.

In one incident, surveillance footage shows a group of thieves approaching a home and using a flashlight to check out the inside before breaking in. Footage from another incident in the same area shows a group breaking one of the windows before going into the home.

"Since January 22nd, we've had increasing reports of residential burglaries, all with basically the same MO, window smashes and door kicks on rear doors," said Carl Baker, a spokesperson for the Redlands Police Department.

He said most of the break-ins happened between 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Investigators believe the group may be a part of an organization known to law enforcement as South American theft groups, comprised of thieves who are well-trained and sophisticated.

"We do believe the group operates with a lookout who parks nearby, and alerts their group if they see somebody coming home," said Baker.

It isn't the first time law enforcement has come across this group.

"South American theft groups, also known as crime tourists, or Chilean tourists, burglars, but they're transnational gangs, and they come into this country, or many other countries around the world as well, on 90-day visas and take advantage of our systems and our laws," said former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell who now serves at the director of USC's Safe Communities Institute.

He said these thieves work all across the country. In fact, ABC7 has reported on theft rings in Orange County that operate in the same way.

"They target wealthy households, and often use rental cars, cars that fit into the neighborhood that they're going to be stealing from, oftentimes they'll pre-stage a car there with cameras on the car to be able to watch the house and get a pattern of life of the residents so they know when you're going to be gone, how long you're going to be gone," said McDonnell.

He urges residents to keep an eye out for unusual cars in their neighborhood and keep an eye on their neighbors.

"They go literally all over the world, but we're particularly attractive because of the way the laws are here today," said McDonnell. "They know if they come in, they can do whatever they're going to do, they're going to probably be released on bail or without bail, and then there in the wind."

Anyone with information is urged to contact authorities.

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