March 29, 2024

The Power Hour

Knowledge is Power

Today's News: December 06, 2019

World News

France on strike: Trains stuck, Versailles shut, unions firm
AP – Frustrated travelers are meeting transportation chaos around France for a second day on Friday, as unions dig in for what they hope is a protracted strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to redesign the national retirement system.
Most French trains were at a halt – including Paris subways – and traffic jams multiplied around the country.
The Chateau of Versailles remained shut for a second day because of the nationwide strike, and the Louvre Museum warned visitors to expect delays and some closed galleries. The Eiffel Tower reopened Friday after an all-day closure Thursday, but tourists from around the world remained challenged by strike-related disruptions.
At least 800,000 people young and old marched on Thursday, as strikes shuttered schools and some public services and disrupted hospitals and refineries. Police fired repeated volleys of tear gas and protesters set fires on a rampage around eastern Paris. Most demonstrators were peaceful, however, and the violence by an extremist fringe didn’t deter unions from urging people across French society to join the new protests next week.
Huge waves and disease turn Marshall Islands into ‘war zone’
Star Adviser – The level of alarm is already high in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, as the Pacific island nation struggles with rising sea levels and the after-effects of decades of U.S. nuclear testing on its atolls.
This week, the picture grew even bleaker, as climate change, disease and political unease collided and officials put out an international plea for help.
It is too early to tell how this past week will be remembered in the annals of Marshall Islands history, but it is likely not to be forgotten.
As votes were being counted in an historic election that will affect the nation’s future relationships with the United States and China, its capital city was flooded, its two hospitals were packed with patients suffering from dengue fever or flu, and its president was pleading with the international community to act decisively on climate change.
Although election results are unlikely to be known until later this month — votes are hand counted and collected from 29 atolls spaced over 750,000 square miles of ocean — the results could tilt the nation’s parliament, the Nitijela, and, therefore, unseat the current president, Hilda Heine.
The Marshall Islands is “facing death row,” Heine, the nation’s president, told a meeting of international leaders at the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Madrid, Spain.
Speaking over a video feed from Majuro, the nation’s most populated atoll, she said failure to commit to drastic emissions cuts is akin to “passing sentence on our future, forcing our country to die.”

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola; at least 2 dead, multiple injured
NBC – At least two people were killed and multiple others were injured after a shooting at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Navy.
The shooter at Naval Air Station Pensacola has also been confirmed dead, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and the Navy.
“Active shooter is deceased. One additional fatality has been confirmed. Unknown number of injured people being transferred to local hospitals,” a Navy tweet said.
statement from nearby Baptist Health Care said the hospital received eight patients. Their conditions were not immediately clear.
Jason Bortz, the public affairs officer for the Navy base, said the shooting was reported at about 6:30 a.m. local time. The base was still on lockdown at 9 a.m., and it would be closed for the remainder of Friday, with only essential personnel allowed to enter, according to authorities.
Dem Rep. Green: ‘No Limit’ to How Many Times We Can Try to Impeach Trump
Breitbart – Thursday on C-SPAN, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) discussed impeachment, saying “there is no limit” to how many times the House and Senate can try to impeach President Donald Trump.
Green said he suspects Trump will have additional offenses in the future, so he believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will “move forward” with a vote to impeach Trump for his alleged quid pro quo demand with Ukraine and then try again “at a later time” if they find more during their investigations.
“A president can be impeached more than once,” Green advised. “So, we can do this: we can move forward with what we have on the table currently, we can take this before the Senate and we can still investigate other issues, and when the president has committed additional offenses – and my suspicion is that he will – we can take those before the Senate.”
He continued, “There is no limit on the number of times the Senate can vote to convict or not a president, no limit to the number of times the House can vote to impeach or not a president. So, my belief is that [Pelosi] will probably say we’re going to move forward with what we have now, but we’re not going to end investigations and that there may be possible opportunities to do other things at a later time.”
Some Journalists Wonder If Schiff Has Their Phone Records
Breitbart – Some journalists are beginning to worry that their phone records may have been caught up in snooping conducted by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and revealed in the House Intelligence Committee’s 300-page impeachment report.
In the report, which Schiff unveiled on Tuesday, the committee uses AT&T phone records to draw connections between Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), and his staff; President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani; investigative journalist John Solomon; and now-indicted Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas.
The report lists phone calls between the named individuals — though it does not describe the content of the calls — and suggests that all were part of a scheme to “smear” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The “smear campaign” forms part of Democrats’ case against the president.
Nunes revealed Wednesday evening that Schiff had used a subpoena of phone numbers, unrecognized at the time, to construct a record of the Ranking Member’s phone conversations — though Nunes disputes the suggestion that he was part of the effort to attack Yovanovitch.
While some media outlets — for example, CNN — have used the details in Schiff’s report to promote his theory that Nunes was part of the plan (with no evidence to support that claim), other journalists have begun to wonder if their phone calls were also swept up in Schiff’s probe.
Fox News White House correspondent John Fox, for example, took to Twitter to suggest that his phone number, too, was likely in Schiff’s records, but simply had not been published.
Rule Forcing Visa Applicants to Provide Social-Media Info Targeted by Lawsuit
WSJ – The Trump administration was accused of imposing a form of unconstitutional surveillance by requiring most U.S. visa applicants to provide information on social-media accounts, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday—the latest legal test of the president’s campaign to more tightly control entry into the country.
The suit, which claims the requirement chills free speech, was filed by two documentary film organizations in a federal court in Washington.
Bloomberg Unveils Extreme Gun Control Plan
Infowars – Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has announced a radical anti-Second Amendment program, calling for outright bans and a requirement for every gun buyer to obtain a permit.
Appearing in Aurora, Colorado Thursday, the location of the 2012 movie theatre shooting, Bloomberg vowed to put an end to a “nationwide madness” where firearms are concerned.
“I’m just getting started,” Bloomberg declared, adding that “As president, I will work to end the gun violence epidemic once and for all.”
“I promise you I will never back down from this fight,” he said. “That’s the kind of president this country needs and you deserve.”
Bloomberg went on to outline a gun control plan that includes every proposal that has ever been attempted, and has failed.
Banana Duct-Taped to a Wall “Art Installation” Sells For $120,000
Piece called ‘Comedian’ – presumably because the artist is laughing all the way to the bank.
Infowars – An “art installation” which consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall has sold for $120,000 at an art fair in Miami, Florida.
Organizers at the Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition said two editions of the ‘work’, created by “artist” Maurizio Cattelan each sold for $120,000 while the price of a third edition has been raised to $150,000.
The work is called ‘Comedian’ – presumably because Cattelan is laughing all the way to the bank.
“The banana is many things – a symbol of global trade, a witty double entendre, and a classic device for humour,” claimed a spokesperson for the art fair.
Art journalist Sarah Cascone says the piece is the “talk of the town in Miami right now,” with Cattelan having bought the banana from a Miami supermarket.
“You can tell if a society is collapsing when stuff like this becomes prevalent,” commented on Twitter user in response to the “art”.

Economy & Business

Supreme Court confronts homeless crisis and whether there’s a right to sleep on sidewalk
LA Times – The Supreme Court meets Friday to consider for the first time whether the Constitution gives homeless people a right to sleep on the sidewalk.
The justices are weighing an appeal of a much-disputed ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that held last year that it was cruel and unusual punishment to enforce criminal laws against homeless people who are living on the street if a city doesn’t offer enough shelters as an alternative.
The appeals court’s opinion quoted Anatole France’s famous comment that “the law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges,” and from there, it announced a principle of human rights to strike down city laws that “criminalize the simple act of sleeping outside on public property.”
As precedent, Judge Marsha Berzon cited parts of a 1968 Supreme Court opinion in which several justices questioned whether “chronic alcoholics” may be punished for being drunk in public if they cannot control themselves.
“This principle compels the conclusion that the 8th Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter,” she wrote for the three-judge panel. She described the ruling as “narrow…That is, so long as there no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors on public property.”
The dissenters — and officials in California and the other eight western states covered by the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction — said the ruling was anything but narrow.
The ruling “shackles the hands of public officials trying to redress the serious societal concern of homelessness,” dissenting Judge Milan Smith wrote.
Unless they can provide shelter for all, “local governments are forbidden from enforcing laws restricting sleeping and camping,” he said. “City officials will be powerless to assist residents lodging valid complaints about the health and safety of their neighborhoods.”

Energy & Environment

Study Estimates That 40% Of Tropical Plants In Africa On Verge Of Extinction
Waking Times – According to new research published in the journal Science Advances, a third of tropical African plants are at risk of extinction. A team led by Dr. Thomas Couvreur of the French National Institute for Sustainable Development, collected data across Africa, documenting 22,000 different species of plants on the continent.
Couvreur says that his team found evidence that a large number of rare plant species in Africa were going extinct.
“Our results underline the high level of extinction risk of the tropical African flora. Thirty-three percent of the species are potentially threatened with extinction, and another third of species are likely rare, potentially becoming threatened in the near future,” the study concluded.
Couvreur says that not enough attention has been paid to the loss of plant biodiversity all over the world.
“While the conservation status of the majority of vertebrate species has been assessed, the same cannot be said for plants, although they are critical to earth ecosystems. This is especially true in tropical regions where the flora is very diverse but remains poorly documented,” Couvreur said.
The research warns that many countries in western Africa are among the worst affected, with some eastern regions facing serious loss of plant biodiversity as well, including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. In these areas, the researchers fear that 40% of the wild plants could be lost.

Science & Technology

A World With a Billion Cameras Watching You Is Just Around the Corner
Global numbers to grow almost 30% as higher image quality allows better facial recognition
WSJ – As governments and companies invest more in security networks, hundreds of millions more surveillance cameras will be watching the world in 2021, mostly in China, according to a new report.
The report, from industry researcher IHS Markit, to be released Thursday, said the number of cameras used for surveillance would climb above 1 billion by the end of 2021. That would represent an almost 30% increase from the 770 million cameras today. China would continue to account for a little over half the total.
Woman lives after heart stops for SIX HOURS
The Times – A British teacher in Spain whose heart stopped beating for more than six hours was revived in a case that doctors said was “exceptional in the world”.
Audrey Schoeman, 34, was brought back to life after suffering cardiac arrest induced by hypothermia on November 3 when she was caught in a Pyrenees snowstorm with her husband, Rohan.
She was rescued, flown to Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona and survived thanks to close co-ordination between rescuers and medical staff.
“It is an exceptional case in the world; the longest cardiac arrest documented in Spain,” Eduard Argudo, the doctor who led the hospital’s operation to save her life, said during a press conference with Mrs Schoeman yesterday. “
UBER reports more than 3,000 sex assaults
AP – In a story first published on Dec. 5, 2019, about the safety of Uber’s ride-hailing service, The Associated Press erroneously reported the number of reported rapes in 2018. There were 235 reports of rape, not 229. There were 229 rapes reported in the previous year, 2017.
Despite Expert Warnings and Accidents, Elected Officials Still Push for Self-Driving Car Legislation
Activist Post – According to many experts, Automated Vehicles won’t necessarily make the roads safer – not by a long shot.  That has not deterred American elected officials who apparently haven’t watched the NOVA video, “Look Who’s Driving” and/or haven’t read recent disturbing reports on Automated Vehicle (AV).  Either that – or they simply don’t care that they are risking our lives and limbs by continuing to push for more of these dangerous and lethal vehicles on the road.
From The Hill:
This lack of legislation contrasts last year’s governing body, when the House passed the Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution (SELF DRIVE) Act within the first year, a bill that would have created federal standards for autonomous vehicles.
However, both the SELF DRIVE Act and the AV START Act stalled out in the Senate at the end of 2018, following sustained opposition by a group of Senate Democrats, who had concerns around safety and security language in the bills.
Other consumer organizations also had concerns around this bill. Officials from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Consumer Reports, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Auto Safety describing the bill voiced their worries in an op-ed to The Hill last year, deeming it a threat to public safety due to its safety language.
[…]
Other sections not yet circulated from the former bills dealt with cybersecurity protections for autonomous vehicles, including provisions that would require vehicle manufacturers to develop cybersecurity plans before selling the vehicles, and those to boost protections against the cars being hacked.
[…]
The urgency for the introduction of a new bill on self-driving cars is increasingly clear, as the majority of major car manufacturers have already begun testing autonomous vehicles, and as one fatality involving a self-driving car has already taken place.
“Shadow Banning” Is Written Into Twitter’s New Terms
Activist Post – Twitter has written “shadow banning” aka, censorship, into their new terms.  The platform will now intentionally “limit the visibility” of some users. Expect those who dissent from the official narrative to be the ones censored.
Critics have accused Twitter of censorship for quite some time now.  But this time, it’s official. The company has admitted they will attempt to silence those critical of the ruling class. According to RT, the news terms will be taking effect in January of 2020. While the new terms don’t look like much to write home about, some tweaks to the language could have larger repercussions for users, limiting their reach behind the scenes without their knowledge.

Health

New details emerge on drug that may slow Alzheimer’s disease
Excitement and skepticism have surrounded the drug since its developers stopped studies earlier this year because it didn’t seem to be working.
NBC – A company that claims to have the first drug to slow mental decline from Alzheimer’s disease made its case to scientists Thursday, disclosing more results that may help explain why one study of the experimental medicine succeeded and another failed.
Excitement and skepticism have surrounded aducanumab since its developers stopped studies earlier this year because it didn’t seem to be working, then did a stunning about-face in October and said new results suggest it was effective, at a high dose.
Thursday’s presentation at an Alzheimer’s conference in San Diego convinced some experts that it deserves serious consideration, but important questions remain, and it’s not clear whether the drug can or should win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. Changes during the study and unusual analyses make the results hard to interpret, and the true size of the risks and benefits is unclear.
“I don’t see how you can conclude anything other than that another trial needs to be done,” said the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. David Knopman. He is on an FDA panel likely to review the drug but won’t participate because he was involved in one of the studies.
Laurie Ryan, a dementia scientist at the National Institute on Aging, agreed. The FDA ultimately will decide the drug’s fate, but “we need more evidence” than what these studies provide, she said.
Some doctors who consult for the drug’s developers disagreed. Dr. Paul Aisen, a dementia specialist at the University of Southern California, said the results overall were “consistent and positive” for benefit at a high dose.
“It represents a major advance for the field,” he said.
Subway Loses Lawsuit Against Journalists Who Discovered Chicken Strips Only 43% Actual Chicken
ZeroHedge – Four years after learning their longtime spokesman was a giant pedophile, Subway has suffered yet another embarrassment after a Canadian court threw out a $210 million lawsuit against journalists who tested the company’s meat, only to discoer that Subway chicken contains as little as 42.8% actual chicken.
In February 2017, the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Marketplace DNA tested six different pieces of chicken from five fast food restaurants – finding that poultry from A&W, McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, and Wendy’s contained between 88.5% and 89.4% chicken DNA.
53.6% for their oven roasted chicken contained actual chicken, and 42.8% of their chicken strips. According to the CBC, the rest of it was soy protein, according to VICE.
Needless to say, Subway was a little upset – filing a $210 lawsuit against the CBC, claiming the study was “recklessly and maliciously” published and that the DNA test “lacked scientific rigor.”
The company claims lost customers, lost reputation, and that they had lost a “significant” amount of sales according to the report.
“The accusations made by CBC Marketplace about the content of our chicken are absolutely false and misleading,” the company said after the report was published.
Nearly three years later, the suit has been tossed.
But at the end of November, the The Ontario Superior Court threw Subway’s lawsuit out, ruling that the CBC’s program was an example of investigative journalism, and was protected under an anti-SLAPP (“Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”) statute that “encourages individuals to express themselves on matters of public interest,” without the fear that they’ll be sued if they speak out. (John Oliver covered SLAPP lawsuits and how they’re used to stifle public expression on a recent episode of Last Week Tonight.) –VICE
“The Marketplace report dealt with the ingredients of sandwiches sold by popular fast food chains. It relayed the results of DNA tests performed by the Trent laboratory, which indicated that two types of Subway chicken products contained significantly less chicken DNA than other products tested,” wrote Justice E.M. Morgan in his ruling.
“Furthermore, the Marketplace report raised a quintessential consumer protection issue. There are few things in society of more acute interest to the public than what they eat. To the extent that Subway’s products are consumed by a sizable portion of the public, the public interest in their composition is not difficult to discern and is established on the evidence.”
VICE notes, however, that Justice Morgan did highlight that Subway’s claims had substantial merit because their own testing revealed just 1% soy filler, not the 40% claimed by the CBC.
The CBC stands by their results, and hired their own expert to vouch  for the lab’s testing.
Cellphone-linked face injuries are on the rise
AJS – Increase began about the time smartphones were introduced, research finds
Add facial cuts, bruises and fractures to the risks from cellphones and carelessly using them.
That’s according to a study published Thursday that found a spike in U.S. emergency room treatment for these mostly minor injuries.
» Study: Cellphone use is causing ‘horns’ to grow in skulls of young people
The research was led by a facial plastic surgeon whose patients include a woman who broke her nose when she dropped her phone on her face. Dr. Boris Paskhover of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School said his experience treating patients with cellphone injuries prompted him to look into the problem.
Paskhover and others analyzed 20 years of emergency room data and found an increase in cellphone injuries starting after 2006, around the time when the first smartphones were introduced.
Some injuries were caused by phones themselves, including people getting hit by a thrown phone. But Paskhover said many were caused by distracted use, including texting while walking, tripping and landing face-down on the sidewalk.
Most patients in the study weren’t hospitalized, but the researchers said the problem should be taken seriously.
World’s First “Magic Mushroom” Microdosing Nasal Spray Announced
Natural Blaze – Pharmaceutical companies and other private entities have been making significant investments into psychedelic therapies, especially psilocybin, the active ingredient in many of the most popular “magic mushrooms.”
Psilocybin was first designated as a “breakthrough therapy” by the FDA last year.
And now, one company has an interesting psilocybin-based medicine for depression that they hope will soon be on the market. Silo Wellness‘ new product is a psilocybin nasal spray intended to be used for microdosing. The company says that consuming the substance as a nasal spray will help with some of the side effects typically associated with psilocybin, including nausea.
Silo Wellness CEO, Mike Arnold, said that the nasal spray allows for a more precise dose as well. In a press release Arnold explained:
We need to be able to give patients predictable dosing so they can self-titrate into the desired levels of sub-psychedelic or psychedelic treatment. We solved the age-old problem with plant- and fungus-based medicine: How do you know how much is a dose? How do you avoid taking too much, like the cannabis edibles dilemma? We also managed to solve one of the common complaints of some mushroom users: taste and upset stomach.
Despite the FDA’s “breakthrough” designation, the mushrooms that contain psilocybin are still federally illegal in the United States, although some jurisdictions—like Denver—have moved to decriminalize the substance. As a result of the legal status of psilocybin in the U.S., Silo Wellness was forced to develop its nasal spray in Jamaica.

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