Today's News: March 11, 2019

Top Headlines
Half of Young Americans Want to Live in Socialist Country, But 67.1% Credit Free Enterprise for High Earnings
CNS News – While half of Millennial and Generation Z Americans say they’d rather live in a socialist country, an even greater percentage believe that free enterprise results in higher earnings.
According to a Harris Poll of 2,035 adults, conducted Feb. 21–25, 2019 and provided to Axios, Millennials and Generation Z respondents were more likely than the national average to agree with the statement that they would “Prefer living in a socialist country.”
Prefer living in a socialist country:

Total: 37.2%
Mill/Gen Z: 49.6%

Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts agree than free enterprise produces high earnings, only slightly lower than the national average.
High earnings result of free enterprise:

Total: 71.2%
Mill/Gen Z: 67.1%

The Millennial and Generation Z contingents are comprised of those Americans 38 years old or younger, Pew Research explains:
“Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 23 to 38 in 2019) is considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward is part of a new generation.
“Since the oldest among this rising generation are just turning 22 this year, and most are still in their teens or younger, we hesitated at first to give them a name – Generation Z, the iGeneration and Homelanders were some early candidates.”
Biochemical Engineer Drops Bombshell Facts About Measles & The MMR Vaccine In Washington – Collective Evolution
The Facts:

Washington State Passed a bill limiting vaccine exemptions for the MMR vaccine for children. The Senate measure now seeks to remove exemptions for any required school vaccinations. Biochemical Engineer Dr. Brian Hooker explains why this is a problem.

Reflect On:

Why are the points made by vaccine awareness advocates never acknowledged or brought up by mainstream media?

The Washington State House just passed a bill eliminating philosophical or personal exemptions from the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. The bill is attempting to remove these exemptions and make the vaccination completely mandatory for all school children. The lower chamber approved the measure in a 57-40 vote, according to The Associated Press. The bill will now head to the state Senate, which is expected to vote on a broader measure related to vaccines in the next week.
The Seattle Times reports that the vote “comes in in the midst of an outbreak that has sickened at least 71 people, mostly children age 10 and younger.”
The measure is sponsored by a lawmaker from that region, Republican Rep. Paul Harris of Vancouver, who said that the measure “will make our communities safer.” There were, of course, representatives opposed to this like Republican Rep. Norma Smith of Clinton, who said that most of the communication she’s gotten from voters in her district was in opposition to the bill. She urged that it’s important to “recognize that this is a complex issue and that we need to respect the decisions made by families. For us to take an action which doesn’t allow them to have a voice, I believe is wrong.”
What nobody is acknowledging is the fact that these outbreaks are happening in highly vaccinated populations. Vaccination coverage of MMR has not dropped, so why is the media saying that parents aren’t vaccinating and therefore measles is making a comeback? Washington State has a very high vaccination coverage for MRR. See for yourself, here.
Furthermore, the mainstream never seems to acknowledge the fact that measles outbreaks have occurred in heavily vaccinated populations throughout history. For example, a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases – whose authorship includes scientists working for the Bureau of Immunization, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA – looked at evidence from the 2011 New York measles outbreak, which showed that individuals with prior evidence of measles vaccination and vaccine immunity were both capable of being infected with measles and infecting others with it (secondary transmission). The study concluded that “measles may occur in vaccinated individuals, but secondary transmission from such individuals has not been documented.” (source)
Facebook plans to stop anti-vaccine content on its platform
Your Central Valley – Facebook says it won’t allow anti-vaccinations posts to spread on its platform.
The company won’t go as far as to disable personal accounts — but says it will begin reducing the distribution of misinformation on vaccines.
Some accounts will be disabled if they’re found to be continuously violating the policy by sharing inaccurate information that could jeopardize public health.
The new changes will also apply to Instagram.
Here’s what Big Pharma and the CDC acknowledge about the HARMFUL side effects of vaccines
NaturalNews – The number of vaccinations mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has risen sharply in recent decades. These medical interventions are touted as full-proof solutions to many previously common “childhood” illnesses, including measles, mumps and chicken pox, as well as more serious diseases like polio and smallpox.
As dependence on vaccination continues to grow, fewer and fewer people know how to boost their immune systems naturally, instead placing all their trust in vaccines to keep them healthy.
This is a dangerous trend, however, because vaccines have the potential for serious side effects and long-term health problems. Interestingly, even the CDC itself openly acknowledges that “any vaccine can cause side effects.” [Emphasis added]
In addition, many vaccines aren’t that effective in the first place. It is therefore important to know how to naturally boost lifelong immunity rather than relying on ineffective and dangerous vaccinations.
There are side effects associated with ALL vaccinations
Vaccines are almost always presented as safe, 100 percent effective solutions with very few – if any – side effects. Parents allow their tiny babies to receive dozens of shots with very few of them ever being told about the serious side effects associated with these medications.
Natural Health 365 compiled a list of just some of the serious side effects associated with vaccines. All of these risks are openly acknowledged on the CDC website and/or on the package inserts of the vaccines themselves.
CLICK HERE for a few of the side effects linked to the most commonly administered vaccines.
Chinese parents told vaccines ‘generally safe’ after scandals
South China Morning Post- Lawmakers move to restore confidence in domestic products as people are discouraged from heading overseas to get their children vaccinated.
The head of China’s largest influenza vaccine supplier has urged mainland parents not to rush to Hong Kong for shots, claiming they might not be as safe as people expect.
An Kang, a National People’s Congress deputy and chairman of Hualan Biological Engineering – which supplied 80 per cent of flu vaccines on the mainland last winter – said there was no significant difference between domestic products and overseas brands.
Jiao Hong, head of the National Medical Products Administration, China’s vaccine regulator, also moved to restore confidence in domestic vaccines which, she said, were “generally safe”.
Jiao told reporters, on the sidelines of the NPC, that a law had been drafted which would require companies to build a sound quality management system, a product tracking system, as well as risk reporting mechanisms.
The Chinese public’s confidence in domestic vaccines hit rock bottom last year when Changchun Changsheng Bio-technology, one of the country’s biggest vaccine makers, was found to have systematically manipulated data and produced hundreds of thousands of substandard DPT vaccines that were given to hundreds of thousands of babies.
Why kids may be at risk from vinyl floors and fire-resistant couches
Science News – Home decor like furniture and flooring may not be notorious polluters like gas-guzzlers, but these indoor consumer products can also be significant sources of potentially dangerous chemicals.
Kids who live in homes with all vinyl flooring or living room couches that contain flame retardants have much higher concentrations of chemicals called semivolatile organic compounds in their blood and urine than other children. Researchers reported those results February 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Manufacturers commonly use semivolatile organic compounds, such as plasticizers and flame retardants, to make electronics, furniture and other household trappings (SN: 11/14/15, p. 10). “Many of these chemicals have been implicated in adverse health outcomes in children — things like ADHD, autism … even cancer,” environmental health researcher Heather Stapleton of Duke University said in a news conference. “It’s important that we understand the primary sources of these chemicals in the home.”
Stapleton and her colleagues investigated the in home exposure to semivolatile organic compounds of 203 children ages 3 to 6. The team collected dust and air samples, along with small pieces of items like couch cushions, from the kids’ homes. The researchers also gathered urine and blood samples from the children.
Children living in homes with all vinyl flooring had concentrations of a by-product of the plasticizer benzyl butyl phthalate in their urine of about 240 nanograms per milliliter on average. Meanwhile, kids living in homes with no vinyl flooring had only about 12 nanograms per milliliter on average. Children with the highest exposure showed 20 to 40 percent of the “reference dose” for benzyl butyl phthalate — that is, the highest daily dose that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe to ingest without negative consequences over a person’s lifetime.
The benzyl butyl phthalate exposures that Stapleton’s team found were lower than the EPA’s safety threshold. But it’s unclear how the levels of this chemical in children’s bodies would change over the course of several more years, Stapleton says. Contact with benzyl butyl phthalate has been linked to respiratory and reproductive disorders.
Children from homes with living room sofas that contain flame-retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, had concentrations of these compounds in their blood serum of about 108 parts per billion on average — about seven times higher than other kids. Stapleton’s team still needs to assess how these concentrations compare with the EPA’s reference dose. Exposure to PBDEs has been linked to several cognitive problems, such as lower IQ and hyperactivity, as well as cancer and other diseases.
World News
U.S. “Gets Its Ass Handed To It” In World War III Simulation: RAND
ZeroHedge – In simulated World War III scenarios, the U.S. continues to lose against Russia and China, two top war planners warned last week. “In our games, when we fight Russia and China, blue gets its ass handed to it” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said Thursday.
RAND’s wargames show how US Armed Forces – colored blue on wargame maps – experience the most substantial losses in one scenario after another and still can’t thwart Russia or China – which predictably is red – from accomplishing their objectives: annihilating Western forces.
“We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” he warned.
In the next military conflict, which some believe may come as soon as the mid-2020s, all five battlefield domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, will be heavily contested, suggesting the U.S. could have a difficult time in achieving superiority as it has in prior conflicts.
Ethiopian Airline Crash Updates: Data and Voice Recorders Recovered
USA Today – The union representing American Airlines flight attendants issued a bulletin Monday telling members they will not be forced to work on Boeing 737 MAX airplanes following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Sunday, the second of that model to go down in less than six months.
Bassani said she has been in contact with top leaders at the airline to request they address “critical safety concerns of our union and our members in flying the 737 Max aircraft.”
Unions representing pilots raised concerns last fall after a 737 Max operated by Lion Air crashed in the Java Sea off Indonesia shortly after takeoff.
They criticized Boeing for failing to disclose a new automatic safety feature on the plane that repeatedly pulled the plane’s nose down as the pilots struggled to control the plane, Indonesian investigators found. Boeing issued a safety bulletin to airlines and pilots a week after that crash to “point them back to existing flight procedures” to override the safety feature. The FAA issued an emergency directive in December requiring airlines to update flight manuals.
UK prime minister fights to save Brexit deal.
AP – Prime Minister Theresa May scrambled to win last-minute changes from the European Union to her Brexit deal Monday, a day before a crucial vote in Britain’s Parliament that could derail the country’s withdrawal from the EU — and cost May her job.
May flew by Royal Air Force jet to Strasbourg, France, for talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, seeking a way to get reluctant British legislators to back a deal that they resoundingly rejected in January.
The House of Commons is due to hold a second vote on the plan Tuesday, but there are few signs either British lawmakers or EU leaders are prepared to make big shifts to stave off another defeat.
Trump endorses permanent daylight saving time
The Hill – President Trump on Monday threw his support behind efforts to keep the United States permanently on daylight saving time, which took effect Sunday morning.”Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!”
U.S. News, Politics & Government
DOJ Finds Letter It Said Didn’t Exist Ordering Scrutiny of Uranium One, Hillary Clinton
The Daily Beast – After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker, who was Sessions’ chief of staff at the time, emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, “As we discussed.” He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department’s Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 13 of that year.
The existence of a letter documenting Sessions’ directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump’s top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn’t exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017––the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions’ letter to Huber.
The request asked for documentation of the directions Sessions gave Huber about the review of the Clinton investigations. After DOJ failed to produce any written directions, American Oversight sued.
The letter, which American Oversight provided to The Daily Beast, is consistent with what the DOJ’s chief of legislative affairs has told Congress: that Huber is scrutinizing the sale of a Canadian uranium mining company with interests in the United States to Rosatom, a Russian state-owned company. Republicans have long alleged that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to oppose the deal because of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
The DOJ hasn’t brought any charges related to the foundation or the transaction. Some Hill Republicans and conservative media commentators have long argued this is because the Department hasn’t sufficiently investigated it. They have called for the appointment of a special counsel to scrutinize the transaction.
Some Republicans say Huber’s work is too little, too late. Democrats, meanwhile, argue it’s evidence of the Trump administration weaponizing law enforcement to target its political rivals.
Read the document HERE
Are these America’s least likely gun owners?
CNN – The number of hate crimes against minority groups has risen over the past three years, leading some to take up weapons for their own protection.
The BBC’s Megha Mohan went to California to find out if the minority gun owner could become the new norm.
Dems pushing CDC to fake “gun violence” science research just like the EPA fakes climate change research
NaturalNews – ne of the reasons why Leftist Democrats love big government is because they can use it to give themselves, their party, and — importantly — their agenda an air of legitimacy.
That’s why majority House Democrats are pushing for more funding for “gun violence research” and they’re looking to a familiar ally to provide it: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has a history of producing ‘politically correct science’ on the subject of guns, especially.
As The Hill reported last week, Democrats are attempting to claim that gun violence has become a “public health emergency,” despite FBI and government statistics to the contrary and all while they work to thwart POTUS Donald Trump’s declaration of a real national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border — just like Barack Obama said it was in 2014.
If they manage to push additional funding through the GOP-controlled Senate to a presidential signature, it would mark the first time in two decades that Congress ponied up tax money for gun violence research. Funding fell off after lawmakers passed an amendment in the 1990s discouraging federal agencies from conducting gun-related research.
“We should not be afraid of research, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on health. “Gun violence is a public health emergency.”
She added: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the nation’s foremost public health agency. And yet, it has been absent from this research agenda for more than 20 years.”
Economy & Business
Trump’s $4.7 trillion budget locks in $1 trillion deficits, raises defense spending, cuts safety net
Washington Post – President Trump’s new budget proposal would sustain a huge gap between spending and tax revenue through 2022, according to an advance copy obtained by The Washington Post. The deficit proposals reflect the White House’s push for low taxes and higher defense spending and are only partially offset by major spending reductions on Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic programs.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have said many parts of the plan stand no chance of becoming law, but the proposal sets up a sharp contrast for the public and voters heading into budget fights later this year and the 2020 election.
…Trump’s “Budget for a Better America” also includes dozens of spending cuts and policy overhauls that frame the early stages of the debate for the 2020 election. For example, Trump for the first time calls for cutting $845 billion from Medicare, the popular health care program for the elderly that in the past he had largely said he would protect.
His budget would also propose a major overhaul of Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans run jointly with states, by turning more power over to states. This would save $241 billion over 10 years.
Other agencies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, State Department, Transprtation Department, and Interior Department, would see their budgets severely gutted.
More broadly, Tump’s budget would impose mandatory work-requirements for millions of people who receive welfare assistance while dramatically increasing the defense budget to $750 billion next year, a 5 percent increase from 2019…
Trump economic adviser: ‘No reason to obsess’ over budget deficit
AP – President Donald Trump’s top economist is brushing off concerns about rising budget deficits and slowing economic growth in advance of the release of the president’s 2020 budget.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says Trump’s budget “points a steady glide path” toward lower federal spending and federal borrowing as a share of the nation’s economy. The budget proposal will be released on Monday.
Kudlow says “there’s no reason to obsess” about the budget deficit, even as it approaches $1 trillion, as long as it remains below 5 percent of the overall economy.
He says the budget will contain a proposed 5 percent across-the-board reduction in domestic spending.
Kudlow tells Fox News Sunday he’s confident that economic growth will top 3 percent in 2019 and beyond. Others have predicted lower growth.
Decline in readers, ads leads hundreds of newspapers to fold
AP – The old Daily Guide office stands for sale in St. Robert, Mo. With the shutdown of the newspaper in September 2018, this area in central Missouri’s Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities across the United States to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University North Carolina.
Bitcoin [BTC] transaction numbers in Venezuela nosedive as country goes through acute power outage
AMB Crypto – The turmoil suffered by the citizens of Venezuela continued to increase in momentum with the latest power outage in the country, hurting the population and the barely functioning economy. Venezuela captured multiple headlines over the past couple of months, with issues ranging from the introduction of Petro and the skyrocketing inflation rate to the internal political crisis between incumbent President Nicolas Maduro and the current interim President Juan Guaido.
Latest reports show that amid the power and communications outage in the country, the transaction rate of Bitcoin [BTC] plunged significantly from 370,000 to 240,000. The fall of more than 100,000 transactions caught the eye of analysts because of Venezuela’s heavy usage of cryptocurrencies, a usage rate comparable with Europe and the United States.
US May Soon Grab Saudi Arabia’s Crown as World’s Biggest Oil Exporter – IEA
Sputnik – According to an annual five-year outlook report by the International Energy Agency, the US became the world’s top oil producer in 2018, and is set to become the world’s biggest oil exporter over the next five years.
The agency suggested that US’ crude oil exports will nearly double, reaching about 9 million barrels per day by 2024, which means it has a tangible chance of surpassing Russia and even Saudi Arabia at that point.
The IEA’s forecast came just a few weeks after the US exported a record 3.6 million barrels of crude oil on a daily basis, with the country being also a major exporter of petroleum products including refined fuels.
“The second wave of the U.S. shale revolution is coming”, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement, as cited by CNBC.
Energy & Environment
Strong Winds Saturday Cause Damage Across the Ozarks
KSMU – Area residents are still cleaning up after wind gusts of more than 60 mph in the Ozarks Saturday. The strong winds uprooted trees, brought down power lines and damaged roofs, including at Logan-Rogersville Upper Elementary. Some trees fell on cars and houses. Heavy rain early in the day caused flooding. At one point, City Utilities reported that approximately 3000 customers were without power.
More rain and high winds are expected later this week. According to the National Weather Service, wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour are predicted for Wednesday and Thursday. Rain is in the forecast tonight through Wednesday.
Science & Technology
The US Government Will Be Scanning Your Face At 20 Top Airports, Documents Show
“This is opening the door to an extraordinarily more intrusive and granular level of government control.”
BuzzFeed – In March 2017, President Trump issued an executive order expediting the deployment of biometric verification of the identities of all travelers crossing US borders. That mandate stipulates facial recognition identification for “100 percent of all international passengers,” including American citizens, in the top 20 US airports by 2021. Now, the United States Department of Homeland Security is rushing to get those systems up and running at airports across the country. But it’s doing so in the absence of proper vetting, regulatory safeguards, and what some privacy advocates argue is in defiance of the law.
According to 346 pages of documents obtained by the nonprofit research organization Electronic Privacy Information Center — shared exclusively with BuzzFeed News and made public on Monday as part of Sunshine Week — US Customs and Border Protection is scrambling to implement this “biometric entry-exit system,” with the goal of using facial recognition technology on travelers aboard 16,300 flights per week — or more than 100 million passengers traveling on international flights out of the United States — in as little as two years, to meet Trump’s accelerated timeline for a biometric system that had initially been signed into law by the Obama administration. This, despite questionable biometric confirmation rates and few, if any, legal guardrails.
These same documents state — explicitly — that there were no limits on how partnering airlines can use this facial recognition data. CBP did not answer specific questions about whether there are any guidelines for how other technology companies involved in processing the data can potentially also use it. It was only during a data privacy meeting last December that CBP made a sharp turn and limited participating companies from using this data. But it is unclear to what extent it has enforced this new rule. CBP did not explain what its current policies around data sharing of biometric information with participating companies and third-party firms are, but it did say that the agency “retains photos … for up to 14 days” of non-US citizens departing the country, for “evaluation of the technology” and “assurance of the accuracy of the algorithms” — which implies such photos might be used for further training of its facial matching AI.
“CBP is solving a security challenge by adding a convenience for travelers,” a spokesperson said in an emailed response to a detailed list of questions from BuzzFeed News. “By partnering with airports and airlines to provide a secure stand-alone system that works quickly and reliably, which they will integrate into their boarding process, CBP does not have to rebuild everything from the ground up as we drive innovation across the travel experience.”
The documents also suggest that CBP skipped portions of a critical “rulemaking process,” which requires the agency to solicit public feedback before adopting technology intended to be broadly used on civilians, something privacy advocates back up. This is worrisome because — beyond its privacy, surveillance, and free speech implications — facial recognition technology is currently troubled by issues of inaccuracy and bias. Last summer, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that Amazon’s facial recognition technology falsely matched 28 members of Congress with arrest mugshots. These false matches were disproportionately people of color.
“I think it’s important to note what the use of facial recognition [in airports] means for American citizens,” Jeramie Scott, director of EPIC’s Domestic Surveillance Project, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “It means the government, without consulting the public, a requirement by Congress, or consent from any individual, is using facial recognition to create a digital ID of millions of Americans.”
“CBP took images from the State Department that were submitted to obtain a passport and decided to use them to track travelers in and out of the country,” Scott said.
“Facial recognition is becoming normalized as an infrastructure for checkpoint control,” said Jay Stanley, an American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst and a participant at meetings that CBP has organized with privacy advocates. “It’s an extremely powerful surveillance technology that has the potential to do things never before done in human history. Yet the government is hurtling along a path towards its broad deployment — and in this case, a deployment that seems quite unjustified and unnecessary.”
“The government is hurtling along a path towards facial recognition’s broad deployment — and in this case, a deployment that seems unjustified and unnecessary.”
A doctor in California appeared via video link to tell a patient he was going to die. The man’s family is upset
CNN – Preparing for the death of a loved one is difficult no matter the circumstances.
But Annalisia Wilharm said she never expected a doctor would deliver the bad news about her grandfather via a video screen on a robot.
Wilharm was sitting by her grandfather’s bedside in the ICU of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont, California, last Monday night when the machine rolled into their room and a doctor, appearing via live video link, offered his grim prognosis. Her grandfather Ernest Quintana, 78, died the next day.
“I think they should have had more dignity and treated him better than they did,” Wilharm told CNN. “No granddaughter, no family member should have to go through what I just did with him.”
Wilharm told CNN her family knew that her grandfather would die soon. But they’re angered by the way the situation was handled and how the news was delivered. She said she and her family hope no one else receives the same treatment.
Water on the Moon BOMBSHELL: NASA satellite observes ‘moving water’ on Moon’s surface
Express – NASA’S instruments in orbit around the Moon have found evidence of water molecules “bouncing” around in the lunar orb’s dayside, a groundbreaking Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) study has claimed.
The incredible Moon discovery follows long-held assumptions the surface of the Moon is dry and inhospitable to liquid water. Up until the last decade or so, NASA said astronomers only expected water to exist in isolated pockets of ice near the Moon’s poles. But a recent slew of discoveries, including NASA’s latest find, have challenged the way scientists understand lunar hydration. Astronomers now believe small amounts of surface water are bound to the Moon’s dusty grey soil or regolith.
Humans, AI compete to predict cherry blossom dates
The Nation – Who can more accurately predict when Japan’s cherry trees will bloom, artificial intelligence or humans? Shimadzu Business Systems Corp., a Kyoto-based subsidiary of Shimadzu Corp., started a unique competition between the two sides.
As of March 1, both human and AI prognosticators were calling for the flowers to appear earlier than in an average year nationwide. But in some locations, the expectations differ by a few days. The results of the competition will be announced on April 5 on the company’s Otenki Japan weather forecast website.
In the company, human weather forecasters had predicted the blooming dates until 2017, but in 2018 the AI replaced them for the first time. However, its 2018 predictions for only 31 percent of 45 locations in the country came within two days of the actual blooming dates. The hit ratio of the AI predictions is lower than the ratio for predictions by Hisashi Kataoka. Kataoka, 41, is the company’s group leader and has worked as a weather forecaster for 17 years. His average hit ratio was 37 percent from 2010 to 2017.
So, the company gave its AI additional information about cherry blossoms’ cycle of being dormant in autumn and winter and developing flower buds in early spring, and about changing weather patterns, such as temperature data. As a result, the ratio improved to 60 percent in a simulation based on last year’s blossoming dates.
Kataoka said: “I held a 63 percent hit record in the past. I’m looking forward to the results.”
Trump calls for cutting National Science Foundation funding by $1 billion
The Hill – President Trump on Monday called for cutting spending at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the government’s top funder of nonmedical research, by about $1 billion.
The White House’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal recommends lowering NSF’s budget to $7.1 billion, from its current level of $8.1 billion. The 12 percent decline would exceed the single-digit reduction to overall nondiscretionary funding in the president’s budget request to Congress.
Health
US government approves experiment to create a type of bird flu that could ‘could kill millions of people’
Dailymail – The US Government has been scorned for lifting its ban on experiments to engineer deadly bird flu which could infect humans.
Research into the viruses will soon be allowed to carry on, despite experts warning people could die if the pathogens break out of laboratories.
Scientists say they want to study the virus ‘to protect human health’ so they can learn more about it and be better prepared for a pandemic.
But Professor Steven Salzberg, a biomedical engineering expert at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said he cannot fathom why the US National Institutes of Health, which has permitted the ‘dangerous’ research, is allowing it to happen.
‘I’ve said it before, more than once,’ he wrote in a column for Forbes magazine.
‘Engineering the flu to be more virulent is a terrible idea… This research has the potential to cause millions of deaths.’
Professor Salzberg claimed two scientists have spent years trying to mutate the avian flu to spread between humans.
But the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Government’s medical research agency, put the research on hold in 2014 because of safety concerns.
Good News
Clinical Research Begins On Cannabis Inhalers in Israel Offering Immediate Pain Relief to Cancer Patients Who Can’t Smoke
Good News Network – As a means of providing immediate pain relief for cancer patients, scientists have begun conducting clinical research on delivering medical cannabis concentrates through an inhaler.
This new method of delivery will increase accessibility for cancer patients who are treated with long-term pharmaceutical cannabis (such as sublingual tablets), and those suffering from acute cancer pain who prefer to avoid smoking cannabis.
“Every piece of clinical research that helps manage treatment using medical cannabis is important. Delivering treatment via inhalation is characterized by a quicker response time than oral or sublingual tablets,” said Dr. Itay Gur-Aryeh, Director of the Pain Unit at Sheba Hospital, Tel Hashomer,
The inhaler includes an attached vaporizer to which the patient adds the measured dose of cannabis extract for inhalation. The cannabis extract includes a precise dose of active ingredients.
Simple Mistake in the Kitchen Turns into Sweet Success for a Homeless Veteran
Good News Network – It had been a little over three decades since Stefan DeArno had been to his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina—but in 2017, his parents’ declining health compelled him to move back to the city.
At 56, the US Coast Guard vet didn’t have money for an apartment, and his parents lived in a tiny house, so he agreed to move into a homeless shelter.
Luckily, a veteran social worker managed to arrange a spot for him at One80 Place, a unique shelter that offers job training programs to its residents.
During his stay at the shelter, DeArno enrolled in their culinary training program. He had always loved to cook, and had spent many childhood days watching his mother and grandmother in the kitchen.
To offer their program trainees some some job experience, the shelter partnered with a local food and wine festival. Besides volunteering, DeArno was encouraged to try and rub elbows with some of the chefs at the event.
It was there that he met Roland Feldman, the owner of the Smoke BBQ restaurant, who was drawn to DeArno’s cheerful attitude and charisma. The chef even took to calling him “Reverend” because of his tidy black and white outfits.
He offered the charming veteran a job—and one day last November, the rookie made a lucky mistake that would change his life forever.
Instead of adding buttermilk to a batch of cornbread, he accidentally used heavy cream. DeArno was afraid it would get him fired, but Feldman waved off the mistake and told him to pop the batter into the oven anyway. When it was finished baking, the cornbread was more moist, fluffy, and golden than usual.
Feldman was so impressed by DeArno’s creation, he offered to go into business him. Today, they are the co-owners of Reverend Cornbread Co.
As a result of the small-venture food startup, DeArno now has a steady flow of income and a place of his own, but he has not forgot the place that gave him hope. Even while caring for his parents, and the new business, he returns to One80 Place to volunteer as a tutor—and he uses his new food truck to hand out hot meals to the homeless.
Happier and healthier: Curcumin-rich turmeric can help ease depression and anxiety, researchers find
NaturalNews – Arthritis, diabetes, cancer, inflammation… the list of conditions that curcumin can help with is pretty impressive, with many common physical ailments benefiting to some degree from the compound found in turmeric. However, curcumin really puts the “super” in “superfood” by not just enhancing physical health but mental health as well – and we can now add addressing all-too-common conditions like depression and anxiety to its list of accomplishments.
A recent study carried out by Australian researchers provides the latest evidence showing how curcumin can treat symptoms of depression and anxiety. The placebo-controlled, double-blind study involved giving 123 participants who had major depressive disorder either a placebo, a high dose of curcumin, a low dose of curcumin, or a combination of saffron and a low dose of curcumin.
After 12 weeks of observation, the researchers revealed that curcumin extracts effectively reduced people’s anxiety and depression. While it made significant improvements in both conditions, it excelled at treating depression. Both doses used in the study – 500 and 250 milligrams of curcumin extract twice per day – were found to be effective, but the addition of saffron did not appear to have any effect.
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