World News
Top UK hedge fund tycoon warns: ‘Revolution’ if Brexit fails
Financial News – Crispin Odey, the Brexit-backing hedge fund manager, has warned of a “revolution” if politicians fail to ensure the UK leaves the European Union — and says a previous report that he was resigned to Brexit’s failure was based on a misunderstanding.
The high-profile investor, who donated generously to the Vote Leave campaign in 2016, was quoted last weekend as saying Brexit “ain’t gonna happen” because “I just can’t see how it happens with that configuration of parliament”.
But speaking to Financial News, Odey said his comment referred only to the short-term political outlook, and that he believes that Brexit can — and must — happen in the long run.
South Korean animal rights group director accused of secretly euthanizing hundreds of dogs
Fox – The director of one of South Korea’s most prominent animal rights groups is being asked to step down by employees of one of the country’s largest shelters, after being accused of secretly euthanizing hundreds of dogs despite operating on a “no kill” policy.
Park So-yeon, who heads the Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) group, admitted in a Facebook post that their shelter has euthanized some dogs, but only as a last resort if they were sick or overly aggressive.
But Lim Hee-jin, a senior manager at CARE, told South Korean investigative website Newstapa that Park was instrumental in the needless euthanization of more than 230 dogs over the last three years.
Animal rescue, specifically dog rescue, is a contentious issue in South Korea. As more South Koreans are beginning to own dogs as pets, many shelters like CARE proclaim they provide a home for dogs that were once destined for the meat trade. That reputation, however, reportedly proved to be too much of a strain on the resources at CARE, and many dogs were euthanized as a result.
CARE rose to notoriety in 2017, when South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a known animal rights enthusiast, adopted the country’s “first dog,” Tory, from the shelter. Since then, the shelter’s “100% no kill” policy has inspired as many as 23,000 members to join their cause, leading to two billion won (about $1.8 million) in donations annually, the Telegraph reports.
Fox – Satellite images shot Thursday and obtained exclusively by Fox News have revealed a new Russian deployment of Iskander missile batteries and launchers near the border with Ukraine.
The intelligence report by Imagesat International show the new deployment in Krasnodar, 270 miles from the border with Ukraine.
The images show an Iskander compound, with a few bunkers and another hangers compound.
Trump Again Threatens to Leave NATO (That’s a Good Thing)
Money Maven – President Trump again threatens to leave NATO. Some are shocked. I say: please do.
The New York Times reports Trump Discussed Pulling U.S. From NATO.
Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.
In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States.
Now, the president’s repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump’s efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration’s Russia ties.
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Letter Sent HOUR Before Departure
Fox – Trump denies Pelosi aircraft for foreign trip in response to call for State of the Union delay
American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp says that the president needs to give the State of the Union address no matter what happens.
President Trump on Thursday abruptly denied military aircraft to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a foreign trip just minutes before the congressional delegation was set to depart, in a stunning response to her call to delay the State of the Union address amid the government shutdown.
In a curt letter, Trump said her trip has been “postponed.”
>> Read Trump’s letter to Pelosi postponing her foreign trip amid government shutdown
Michael Cohen levels new allegation, claims he worked to rig online polls at Trump’s direction
Fox – Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer who was recently sentenced to three years in prison, leveled a new allegation Thursday at President Trump by claiming his former boss directed him to rig online polls ahead of the 2016 presidential race.
Fox – The State Department announced Thursday that it has found funding to recall most of its furloughed employees who have gone without pay since the start of the government shutdown last month.
In a statement posted on the State Department’s website, Deputy Under Secretary for Management Bill Todd said the government is making additional funding available to pay the salaries of employees and expects most employees to be back at work starting Jan. 22, with overseas workers starting back January 20.
“As a national security agency, it is imperative that the Department of State carries out its mission,” Todd said in his statement. “We are best positioned to do so with fully staffed embassies, consulates, and domestic offices.”
Economy & Business
USA Weighs Lifting China Tariffs to Hasten Trade Deal
WJS – U.S. officials are debating ratcheting back tariffs on Chinese imports as a way to calm markets and give Beijing an incentive to make deeper concessions in a trade battle that has rattled global economies.
Energy & Environment
Earthquake Rattles Mudslide-Ravaged Malibu On 25th Anniversary Of Northridge
CBS – A micro earthquake struck early this morning in Malibu, where residents are already dealing with heavy rainfall and mudslides Thursday.
The magnitude-2.8 earthquake was reported at 12:35 a.m. at a depth of just over one mile, with an epicenter just a few miles inland from Point Dume, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
A Malibu public works crew is on its way to assess the area, but there were no initial reports of damage.
The quake comes on the 25th anniversary of the Northridge Quake, which ravaged much of the Los Angeles area with a magnitude-6.7 earthquake.
Science & Technology
USA to develop space-based missile defense
AP – Declaring that space is the new warfighting domain, President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed the U.S. will develop an unrivaled missile defense system to protect against advanced hypersonic and cruise missile threats from competitors and adversaries.
Trump said in a Pentagon speech that the U.S. will do what it takes “to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time, any place.”
Trump did not mention Russia, China or North Korea in his roughly 20-minute speech. But the Pentagon’s new strategy makes clear that its plan for a more aggressive space-based missile defense system is aimed at protecting against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and countering advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China.
AMAZON sets conference on robotics, AI
France 24 – Amazon announced plans Thursday to hold a conference open to the public on robotics, space and artificial intelligence, as well as to discuss future applications of emerging technologies.
The re:MARS conference in Las Vegas will include “visionary talks, interactive workshops, technical deep dives, roundtables, hands-on demos, and more,” an Amazon statement said.
The conference called Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space on June 4-7 grew out of a private, invite-only event hosted by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in recent years.
“We’re at the beginning of a golden age of AI,” Bezos said in the statement.
Cellphone Location Data for Sale on Black Market, Investigation Reveals
The New American – T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint sell their customers’ location data to third parties, who then dispose of the data themselves, with the information ending up available to anyone willing to pay the price.
This is the remarkable story revealed in an investigation conducted by Motherboard and reported this week. Here’s the background:
Nervously, I gave a bounty hunter a phone number. He had offered to geolocate a phone for me, using a shady, overlooked service intended not for the cops, but for private individuals and businesses. Armed with just the number and a few hundred dollars, he said he could find the current location of most phones in the United States.
The bounty hunter sent the number to his own contact, who would track the phone. The contact responded with a screenshot of Google Maps, containing a blue circle indicating the phone’s current location, approximate to a few hundred metres [sic].
Queens, New York. More specifically, the screenshot showed a location in a particular neighborhood — just a couple of blocks from where the target was. The hunter had found the phone (the target gave their consent to Motherboard to be tracked via their T-Mobile phone.)
The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint … sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks.
hat’s a lot to unpack, but the upshot is this: There are private companies that buy the ability to track your GPS location from the world’s premier telecommunications companies and then sell that data to individuals, without regard to whether all the parties in the stream of commerce can legally control that data.
Health
Venom From Vampire Bats May Revolutionize Treatments For Hypertension, Heart Failure
Study Finds – It turns out Dracula may have some good in him after all. Australian scientists say the venom from vampire bats may pave the road to new treatments for a slew of medical conditions.
But that road, they note, has also been dealt some bumps in the form of dangerous Mexican drug traffickers.
The authors believe the new research, led by a team at The University of Queensland, prove that the creepy, blood-drinking mammals have more to offer humans than hair-raising lore. A new class of blood pressure-regulating peptides in the venom from the vampire bats may help “revolutionize treatments” for ailments including hypertension, heart failure, kidney diseases, and burns.
Brain benefits with long-chain DHA/EPA fatty acids
NaturalNews – Supplementing with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids could enhance neural blood flow possibly preventing memory decline as we age.
A small study by researchers in the UK and Australia enrolled 48 borderline hypertensives aged 40–85 years. Participants were required to consume four capsules of fish oil (EPAX 1050) or a corn oil placebo, daily for 20 weeks.
Each fish oil capsule contained 400mg DHA and 100mg EPA, yielding a total dose of 2g long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) per day.
Cerebrovascular function was assessed at the beginning and the end of the study period, at rest and whilst performing a number of cognitive tasks.
Findings, published in the journal Nutrients, showed that cerebrovascular responsiveness (CVR) – the ability of blood flow to the brain to adapt – increased 26% in women with hypercapnia (elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream which can sometimes occur with shallow breathing when at rest). There was no change in men. Blood tests suggested that the improvement was related to the EPA component of the supplement.
In contrast, changes in cerebral blood flow in response to neural activity (referred to in the study as neurovascular coupling increased significantly in men only when blood EPA levels were increased.
“These preliminary observations indicate that LC omega-3 PUFA supplementation has the potential to enhance blood flow in the brain in response to both hypercapnic and cognitive stimuli,” the study said.
Additional findings found no associated improvement of mood or cognition in either men or women.
“The lack of change in mood or cognition could have been due to inadequate intakes of either eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or DHA, too brief a period of supplementation or an inappropriate choice of participants for our study,” the researchers concluded.
“Despite a lack of change in mood or cognition outcomes, the present study adds to a growing number of studies suggesting that long-chain (LC) omega-3 PUFA supplementation can influence brain functions at least in part by enhancing cerebrovascular function, which may potentially delay future cognitive decline.”
Bay Oil: The Essential Oil for Men
Mercola – The leaves of the West Indian bay tree, called “the spice tree” in some areas of the Caribbean, are known for their culinary uses, such as for cooking stews, soups and porridge.1 But did you know that the essential oil derived from these leaves is valuable as well?
Bay essential oil is known to contain antimicrobial compounds and other beneficial properties.2 It also has a spicy and smoky masculine aroma that make it appealing to men. Discover more about this herbal oil by reading the information below.
Benefits of Bay Oil
One of the main benefits of bay oil is its ability to help ease pain brought on by neuralgia, which is severe pain that occurs due to a damaged nerve. It can also assist in stimulating blood vessel contraction, and in alleviating poor circulation.16
Bay oil can help reduce pain from joint and muscle problems (including sprains and arthritis), and alleviate coughs and colds, viral infections and flu. It also functions as a decongestant and can be used to help ease respiratory problems when inhaled.17
Bay oil, along with thyme oil, also shows antifungal activity. In a 2008 study, out of 26 plant species tested, thyme and bay oils were the most effective against Phytophthora cactorum and Cryphonectria parasitica.18
Further research19 has demonstrated the antibacterial effects of bay essential oil, along with nine other essential oils — cinnamon, grapefruit, lemongrass, thyme, clary sage, wintergreen, clove, allspice and camphor. These oils were tested on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA).
Researchers found that these oils were more efficient in eliminating the bacterial strains than vancomycin, the primary drug used for MRSA and MSSA treatment. West Indies bay oil, as well as bay laurel oil, exhibited bacteria-fighting properties against other pathogenic species, such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli, and listeria.20
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