March 28, 2024

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Knowledge is Power

Today's News: August 07, 2018

World News
 
Chinese Crackdown on Christians Continues as Xi Implements Plan to ‘Sinicize’ Religion
Washington Free Beacon – The Chinese government claims to guarantee religious freedom to its citizens, but evidence continues to mount that President Xi Jinping is carrying out the greatest persecution of Christians in the country since the days of Mao Zedong.
A new report from the Associated Press shows the Chinese government is increasingly hostile to Christians even as it cracks down on other religious groups across the nation. With an officially atheist government that wrote religious freedom into its constitution in 1982, China has long had an uneasy relationship with religious believers, but Xi is now implementing a five-year plan to “Sinicize” Christian churches.
 
Russia Warns of Severe Consequences if Georgia Joins NATO
Washington Free Beacon – Russia’s prime minister said Tuesday that any attempt to bring Georgia into NATO would risk “horrible” conflict.
Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in an interview with the Kommersant daily broadcast by Russian state television, called NATO’s plans to offer membership to Georgia in the future “absolutely irresponsible” and a “threat to peace,” the Associated Press reports.
 
U.S. News, Politics & Government
 
4-H exec who pushed LGBT agenda gets booted
WND – Four months after WND’s exclusive reports exposing a stealth campaign to impose radical LGBTQ policies, including mandatory transgender bathrooms and pronoun usage, on the youths in rural Iowa’s 4-H program, the head of that state’s 4-H and primary advocate of the radical “inclusion” agenda has been dismissed from his position.
USA Today reported John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas, the organization’s leader of youth development, was terminated after the program was abandoned in late May under severe public and legal pressure.
 
Facebook rejects Republican candidate’s ad
WND  – Facebook rejected an ad for a Republican congressional candidate that included images depicting her parents’ persecution under the Khmer Rouge communist regime in Cambodia, deeming it too graphic.
 
Missouri Union Goes on Trial for Forced Dues
Washington Free Beacon – A Missouri worker is accusing his union of violating his rights to pay partial union dues.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 53 will head to trial before the National Labor Relations Board, the federal government’s top labor arbiter, to contest accusations that it illegally withheld information about dues from an objecting worker. The complaint, filed by James Feagin, an employee at New-Mac Electric Cooperative, Inc., alleges that the union did not provide adequate accounting explanations for agency fees, which allow workers to pay partial fees to cover representational or grievance costs without funding political or lobbying activities. Feagin was forced to hand over partial fee payments that were the equivalent of 94 percent of dues payments, which came to $38 per month or between 1 and 4 percent of pay. The lack of transparency violated his labor rights, according to the complaint.
 
Alleged MS-13 kingpin pleads with judge to improve jail conditions
Fox – An alleged major drug trafficker known as “Reaper” — who’s accused of being a kingpin in the brutal MS-13 gang — told a judge life in lockup is unbearable and complained about a lack of phone access and the “discrimination” he faces at a New York county jail.
Miguel Angel Corea Diaz, 35, begged State Supreme County Justice Patricia Harrington to intervene while he’s locked up in Nassau County, Newsday reported Monday. Corea Diaz claimed he was “suffering.”
 
Paper faces contempt for story on school shooting suspect
Townhall – A Florida newspaper faced an ethical dilemma after a school district’s mistake exposed details that were supposed to be redacted from its lengthy examination of the education of school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz.
 
Star witness Gates testifies he committed crimes with Manafort
Reuters – Rick Gates, a longtime business associate of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, on Monday testified at trial that he helped Manafort file false tax returns and hide his foreign bank accounts.
 
Fmr Education Secretary Admits US Students are Failing Because Education System ‘Runs on Lies’
Free Thought Project – Typically, when Americans hear someone say that the education system in the United States “runs on lies,” they would expect the statement to come from a disgruntled parent or student—but now it is coming from the former Secretary of Education, as he admits that the U.S. lies to families on a daily basis by promising them a quality education through public schools.
Arne Duncan, who served as education secretary for the Obama Administration, now appears to be calling out all sides of the spectrum for failing to prioritize the next generation. In an interview with CBS’ Face The Nation, Duncan argued that politicians are never held accountable for failing students and teachers.
 
Science & Technology
 
FDA Acquiring ‘Fresh’ Aborted Baby Parts to Make Mice With Human Immune Systems
cnsnews – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed a new contract on July 25 to acquire “fresh” human fetal tissue to transplant into “humanized mice” so that these mice will have a functioning “human immune system,” according to information published by the FDA and the General Services Administration.
“The objective is to acquire Tissue for Humanized Mice,” said a June 13 FDA “presolicitation notice” for the contract.
The contractor, the notice said, would “provide the human fetal tissue needed to continue the ongoing research being led by FDA.
 
Massive glowing ‘rogue’ planet spotted ‘drifting’ in space
True Pundit – A massive glowing “rogue” planetary-mass object has been discovered, surprising scientists with not only its size, but also the fact it’s not orbiting a star.
The object, named SIMP J01365663+0933473, has a magnetic field more than 200 times stronger than Jupiter’s and is nearly 13 times the size of the gas giant. At its size, it’s right between the size of a planet and a failed star, so scientists will need to study it further to determine exactly what it is.
“This object is right at the boundary between a planet and a brown dwarf, or ‘failed star,’ and is giving us some surprises that can potentially help us understand magnetic processes on both stars and planets,” said Caltech graduate student Melodie Kao, who led the study, in a statement.
 
The 2018 Perseid meteor shower promises spectacular views this week
Fox –     The best meteor shower this year is here: The Perseids peak this weekend, promising dazzling views for skywatchers in dark areas.
The Perseid meteor shower is always popular, but this year’s peak — which occurs on the nights of Aug. 11 to 12 and Aug. 12 to 13 — will be particularly spectacular this year because the moon will be a thin crescent and set early, leaving a dark canvas for the meteors’ bright streaks and fireballs.
 
A good guy with a gun has saved many lives in Florida – something the media rarely report
Fox – A heroic citizen with a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun was able to save countless lives in Florida last week.
 
Health
 
Saunas Help Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s, Other Diseases
Newsmax – If you love leisurely sauna baths, you may be reaping more health benefits than you imagined. New research published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings examined sauna bathing, an activity that has been a tradition in Finland and other European countries for thousands of years. They found that beyond its use for pleasure, sauna bathing has been linked to several health benefits, which include reduced risk of vascular diseases such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and neurocognitive disease such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
 
Spanish Study Sees Improvement in Alzheimer’s 21 Days After Starting Coconut Oil
Health Impact News – There have been several studies from countries outside the U.S. that show the health virtues of coconut oil for Alzheimer’s Disease. Meanwhile, pronouncements from the USA’s Alzheimer’s Association and medical press releases, warning against using coconut oil, have persisted.
These international studies’ conclusions fly in the face of our “expert” opinions that, as a saturated fat, coconut oil threatens heart health.  This misinformation continues even as medical practitioners of all types are realizing that the lipid theory of heart disease as the leading contributor to poor heart health is simply not true.
Actually, arterial inflammation is caused by excessive sugar and concentrated fructose isolates, such as HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), which are the main dietary culprits of arterial and heart disease.
 
FDA Approves Experimental Hepatitis B Vaccine for Adults Despite Higher Incidence of Heart Attacks
Health Impact News – In February 2018, the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved the recommendation for a new hepatitis B vaccine, Heplisav-B (HepB-CpG) targeting for adults over the age of 18.1
Heplisav-B is manufactured by Dynavax Technologies Corp. and the new vaccine is given in a two-dose series versus the three dose recommendation for Merck’s Recombivax hepatitis B vaccine licensed in 1986 and Glaxo Smith Kline’s Engerix-B vaccine licensed in 1989.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had twice rejected Dynavax’s application for licensure for Heplisav-B in the past four years because of safety signals.2
In Dynavax’s third attempt, the FDA granted the license in November 2017, despite unresolved safety concerns. Below is the sequence of events leading to licensure of Heplisav-B.
 

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