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Georgia Republicans have introduced yet another omnibus bill that would drastically change the state's voting laws, this time transforming a two-page proposal about absentee applications into a 93-page omnibus released an hour before a committee meeting. As it passed the Senate, SB 202 would prohibit third-party groups from mailing multiple absentee applications to Georgians that have already requested, received or returned a mail-in ballot. Violators would face a fine. But Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) introduced a substitute that adds 50 other sections to the bill, including banning people from giving food and water to voters waiting in line, limiting early voting days for larger counties, and adding ID requirements to absentee ballots. In Wednesday's Special Committee on Election Integrity, Fleming walked through several additions to the bill but left some out. The first section reads that the General Assembly "finds and declares" a number of things about the 2020 election cycle and proclaims that "the changes made in this legislation in 2021 are designed to address the lack of elector confidence in the election system on all sides of the political spectrum, to reduce the burden on election officials, and to streamline the process of conducting elections in Georgia by promoting uniformity in voting." But most of the consternation around last year's elections come from Republican lawmakers who pushed false claims of voter fraud and their constituents, egged on by former President Donald Trump who made a series of calls to Georgia officials asking them to overturn his defeat and "find" votes. Several Democrats and public commenters expressed concern about the lengthy nature of the bill and the short notice given, with the substitute being shared with some people only about 90 minutes before the hearing. "I mean, we got the bill an hour before and whether we had known what was in HB 531 or not, it's also a combination of SB 241," Rep. Rhonda Burnough (D-Riverdale) said. "I just want to know, is this a different procedure than the other committees? ... because something's not right." Cindy Battles with the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda said voting rights groups and elections officials were given a proposed substitute to SB 241 over the weekend and were surprised to hear about a new, different bill. "It does change things, it does add things," she said. "To really understand what it does is complicated: it's complicated for y'all, it's complicated for us, therefore it's got to be complicated for the voters and for the county elections officials who are going to have to make this work." The most controversial language in the bill would standardize early voting days and hours, forcing most counties to be open longer and add a weekend day of early voting, while preventing larger, more Democratic-leaning counties from having a full slate of weekend voting. Some of the eliminated days include the highest proportion of Black voters during early voting, and county officials large and small have expressed concerns with the changes. A recent analysis by GPB News and the Center for Public Integrity found many proposed voting changes would disproportionately impact nonwhite voters and prevent local officials from taking steps to cut down on lines. While the newest iteration of a voting omnibus is not yet posted on the legislature's website, many of the provisions in this substitute were passed by the House in HB 531. Fleming's 66-page omnibus limits the location and number of drop boxes, requires a driver's license number or state ID number to request an absentee ballot, and would remove the Secretary of State as chair of the State Election Board, among other changes. HB 531 passed the House and is currently in the Senate Ethics Committee, where lawmakers have heard several days of testimony about Fleming's bill and could hear a new substitute version on Thursday. The Senate's omnibus bill, SB 241, passed with the bare minimum number of votes after Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan boycotted the debate and forced Pro Tem Butch Miller to preside. Four other Republicans opted not to vote on the measure. It is not clear why the House opted to use SB 202 instead of SB 241 as a vehicle to make their changes, but SB 241 contained language that would end no-excuse absentee voting ‚ î something top Republicans have opposed. The House and the Senate must agree on one version of the bill, most likely through a conference committee, before anything could get to Gov. Brian Kemp's desk. New language in SB 202 would limit provisional ballots for out-of-precinct voters to those who show up after 5 p.m. and sign a statement that they could not make it to their original precinct, plus add a proposal to make digital scans of ballots available through open records requests. The bill would also allow Georgians to initiate an unlimited number of challenges to voter registrations or eligibilities, and the challenge must be heard within ten business days of being filed. After the 2020 election, groups such as True The Vote unsuccessfully tried to challenge tens of thousands of voters across the state. Many sections of the bill deal with limiting the powers of the Secretary of State and State Election Board, while also outlining ways that county election supervisors or appointed boards could be removed. Other language that has been in previous bills would shorten Georgia's runoff period to four weeks, in part by sending military and overseas voters instant-runoff ranked-choice ballots, which ask voters to rank their choices in order of preference for each race and would only be opened if a runoff occurs. A code section proposed by the secretary of state's office last year would require large precincts with lines longer than an hour at certain points in the day to add more machines, more staff or split up the polling place.

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In the summer of 1967, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued the first in a series of memos outlining how the bureau would deal with what it deemed ⠜black nationalist hate groups.⠝ The memos, sent to the FBI offices participating in Cointelpro, the bureau⠙s covert (and illegal) counterintelligence program, are as infuriating and terrifying as they are outlandish. They claimed that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were ⠜violence-prone.⠝ They declared that the FBI must prevent ⠜a true black revolution⠝ and likened a potential coalition of domestic Black political groups to Kenya⠙s Mau Mau rebellion. They even posited that Martin Luther King Jr. and Elijah Muhammad were peers, as if there were no substantial differences in their outlooks and tactics. The memos were more a racist projection than a work of intelligence. Judas and the Black Messiah takes its title from these memos, in which Hoover warns of a ⠜messiah who could unify, and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.⠝ The film, directed by Shaka King, focuses on the FBI infiltration of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Plotted like a thriller, the biopic uses the operation to explore the Black Power era and condemn the government apparatus that snuffed it out. The titular messiah is Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the charismatic chairman of the chapter, who was the group⠙s spokesperson and one of its key organizers until his assassination by Chicago police working with the FBI. Judas is William O⠙Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), an informant who provided the information that led to Hampton⠙s death. The juxtaposition of these opposing visions of Blackness⠔radicalism versus complicity⠔powers the film, staging Hampton⠙s death and O⠙Neal⠙s deceit as a showdown between a Black revolutionary and a Black saboteur. When the filmmaker Terence Nance was shown an early cut of the film, he reportedly responded by saying, ⠜It kind of makes you question, which ancestor are you?⠝ The stark binary of savior and traitor has mixed results. In some ways, it makes the story juicier and more propulsive. King structures the story as a gritty thriller, introducing us to O⠙Neal on the night he stages a carjacking and following him as he⠙s recruited by the FBI, welcomed by the Panthers, and later swept up by the consequences of his actions. Stanfield⠙s performance is deliciously squirrelly, swinging between comedy, bluster, and confusion. He imbues O⠙Neal with an intense longing, treating the mole⠙s dueling allegiances like unrequited loves. Though the FBI uses O⠙Neal⠙s criminal record as a cudgel, the scenes where he interacts with his handler (Jesse Plemons), mostly in a swanky restaurant, feel like illicit rendezvous. And when O⠙Neal is with Hampton, he⠙s conspicuously in awe of the man⠙s words. Hampton, whom Kaluuya brings to life with fiery confidence, leads a steadier life⠔but he too flirts with major change. As he educates new recruits, gives speeches, and traverses Chicago to form alliances with other political groups like the Young Lords and the Young Patriots Organization, he⠙s pursued by Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), who is drawn to the Panthers after one of his outreach efforts. In one especially magical scene, they bond over a Malcolm X speech playing on vinyl, quoting the recording to each other with wide, conspiratorial grins. As they grow closer, Johnson questions the constant mentions of death and violence in Hampton⠙s speeches. Her conviction that he choose life over martyrdom is directed at the audience as well as Hampton. These competing threads of subterfuge, tenderness, and creative license help Judas and the Black Messiah escape the usual staidness of biopics, which tend to exalt historical figures and traffic in hagiography rather than storytelling. But the film is curiously circumspect about the experience of Black Power. In its fixation on the FBI⠙s efforts to ensnare Hampton, it presents the Panthers more as a target than a party, never quite inhabiting their perspective. Beyond Hampton⠙s arresting lectures and prescient coalition-building, scant attention is paid to the inner workings of the Chicago chapter or the national organization. Allusions to Panthers in exile (Eldridge Cleaver), incarcerated leaders (Huey P. Newton), and dead comrades (Bunchy Carter) are so fleeting they feel like minor details. Current Issue View our current issue And then there⠙s the film⠙s uneven interest in the experiences of the members who flank Hampton as he moves about the city. While one real-life Panther, Jake Winters, is mourned in a touching conversation between Hampton and Winters⠙s mother after he is killed in a police shootout, another Panther, the fictional Judy Harmon, is never mentioned again after surviving another intense gun battle with Chicago police. Meanwhile, a leader of the Illinois chapter, Bobby Rush, appears throughout the movie but says little. At one point, as Hampton contemplates his return to prison, he asks, ⠜Is the party about me or is it about the people?⠝ The film tacitly chooses Hampton. Historical dramas, by their nature, are filled with omissions. But it⠙s striking that the film has so little interest in Black Power as a collective experience⠔how it empowered groups and communities that were otherwise ignored, how it competed with other political ideologies, how it was pursued differently by the Panthers⠙ many contemporaries, some of whom the Panthers disparaged. The film rejects the notion of Hampton as a messiah, but it declines to advance or explore another framework. Betrayal is a constant theme in films about the Panthers and other Black militants, from Mario Van Peebles⠙s ham-fisted Panther to Tanya Hamilton⠙s haunted Night Catches Us to Spike Lee⠙s clumsy BlacKkKlansman, which begins with the infiltration by law enforcement of a Black radical group. Even the Afrofuturist superhero fantasy Black Panther is fueled by this theme: The rakish villain Erik Killmonger is motivated by the death of his father, who was killed for betraying the Wakandan state. While there⠙s clearly precedent for this motif⠔the informants the FBI hired to infiltrate the Panthers were largely Black⠔Judas and the Black Messiah highlights how reductive the theme can be. In focusing on O⠙Neal⠙s betrayal, the film narrows the FBI⠙s gross abuse of power into a character study. For all of the movie⠙s nods to the fullness of the Chicago Panthers, it⠙s O⠙Neal who drives the narrative, tonally and thematically. Alongside the standard beats of an undercover-cop story⠔planting evidence, wearing a wire, nearly being outed⠔sequences from O⠙Neal⠙s real-life appearance in the civil rights documentary series Eyes on the Prize are reenacted and used as interludes throughout. Shot with stark, bright lighting that contrasts with the rich, dark hues of the rest of the film, these moments emphasize O⠙Neal⠙s duplicity, reminding us that he will survive all the chaos he⠙s helping to foment. This all makes for gripping psychodrama and riveting plotting, but too often it places O⠙Neal alone in the center of the turmoil. The film nods at the other Panthers⠙ struggles, and flashes of personality emerge in asides and deviations from the plot, from one Panther antagonizing a cop by reading Claude McKay⠙s poem ⠜If We Must Die⠝ to another heroically confronting two officers conducting an unwarranted pat-down of some Black men. But only O⠙Neal and Hampton feel whole. The rest of the Panthers⠔with the exception of Johnson, who visibly hardens over the course of the film thanks to sterling acting by Fishback⠔seem like props rather than characters. They⠙re often filmed surrounding Hampton rather than interacting with him, as though they were his vassals, not his comrades. In an interview, King argued that O⠙Neal⠙s waffling makes for a more compelling story. ⠜Fred Hampton came into this world fully realized,⠝ he said. ⠜He knew what he was doing at a very young age. Whereas William O⠙Neal is in a conflict; he⠙s confused. And that⠙s always going to make for a more interesting protagonist.⠝ But while the tension and intrigue of O⠙Neal⠙s changing loyalties propel the story, the singularity of his experience grows contrived and narrows the political scope of the narrative being told. Centering on O⠙Neal, the film overvalues the weight of his particular betrayal and ignores the larger story of the Panthers and the structures that were devoted to their failure. The film⠙s main mode is restraint, a style that occasionally suits its depiction of the government⠙s leering gaze. A movie about the Black Panthers would seemingly lend itself to spectacle and provocation, but King insists on vérité and immersion. Every galvanizing Hampton speech is a spatial experience as well as a rhetorical one, the camera roving the rooms and crowds the chairman addresses. As he deplores fascism and advocates for community power, we see faces scrunching and lighting up and grimacing, bodies moving, fists raised. Hampton was a phenomenal public speaker, so this is to be expected. But King gets something else too: In the scene in which Hampton returns to Chicago from prison and gives a riveting homecoming speech, the editing highlights the feedback between speaker and audience. Switching between tableaux and profiles, the room shrinks and expands in cadence with Hampton⠙s inflections, accenting the communal and individual impacts of his words. The sequence feels designed to insist that Hampton was not the center of gravity, not the messiah. Violence, too, is used cautiously. When cops assault the Panther headquarters, the shootout is punctuated by reaction shots from a crowd of enraged onlookers. King clearly casts the cops as encroachers but doesn⠙t revel in the Panthers⠙ holding their ground, instead emphasizing the one-sidedness of the exchange. When the Panthers give up and are brutalized while being handcuffed, the camera cuts away from the blows and lingers on the concerned faces of the witnesses. Compared with a film like Kathryn Bigelow⠙s Detroit, in which police brutality is gratuitously at its center, King makes clear that the purpose of the scene is state power rather than Black affliction. The move tacitly anticipates a viewer already inundated with images of Black death. The movie⠙s climax, a nighttime police raid that leaves Hampton and another Panther dead, is just as controlled. There⠙s no dwelling on the beliefs of the perpetrators, who are obscured in darkness as they sweep through Hampton⠙s apartment, guns blazing. There⠙s no lingering on the bullet holes that pock the walls. The victims, who have every reason to be outraged, don⠙t cry. We don⠙t even see Hampton die; instead, we see Johnson experience his death, Fishback⠙s face a stoic visage as gunfire flashes behind her. The film⠙s even keel can render it inert, especially when it depicts the FBI, which King resists embellishing despite the outrageous nature of Cointelpro. But in moments like this, King⠙s austerity is pure clarity. Fred Hampton was assassinated by his government.

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Former President Barack Obama delivered a passionate and deeply political tribute to the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) at Lewis's funeral service on Thursday. Lewis was one of the nation's foremost civil rights leaders beginning in the 1960s, and Obama spoke of how even as a very young man, Lewis endured beatings and other violence to advance the cause of voting rights for Black Americans. Obama called for legislation restoring the Voting Rights Act, much of which was gutted by the Supreme Court's decisions in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Abbott v. Perez (2018). He also endorsed other democratic reforms, including an end to partisan gerrymandering, extending statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and making Election Day a national holiday. And then he called upon the Senate to remove an obstacle that has consistently stood in the way of civil rights legislation throughout American history. "If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that's what we should do," said Obama. The filibuster typically allows a bloc of 41 senators to prevent legislation from passing, and Republican filibusters stymied much of Obama's policy agenda during his presidency. A common metric used to measure how frequently filibusters occur is the number of "cloture" motions filed by the majority in order to break a filibuster. The number of such cloture motions more than doubled after Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) became the Senate Republican leader in 2007, and McConnell continued to use the filibuster aggressively after Obama took office two years later. Obama has criticized the widespread use of the filibuster in the past. He told Vox's Ezra Klein in 2015 that the Senate should eliminate "the routine use of the filibuster in the Senate," for example. But Obama's remarks at Lewis's funeral ‚ î in which he didn‚ ôt just oppose the filibuster but also noted the role it played in preserving Jim Crow ‚ î is probably his strongest statement in opposition to the filibuster to date. The filibuster is a historical accident that became a tool of white supremacy The filibuster itself predates Jim Crow and was created entirely by accident. In 1805, shortly after he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, Vice President Aaron Burr returned to the Senate to deliver a farewell speech and suggested that the Senate make changes to its rules. Burr proposed eliminating the "previous question motion," a process that was rarely used prior to his speech, and the Senate followed Burr's advice in 1806. But the previous question motion was hardly superfluous. Indeed, this motion was the only process allowing the Senate to cut off debate among members. No one recognized Burr's error for 35 years ‚ î until 1841, when the first filibuster occurred. Without a way to end debate, rogue senators could delay Senate action indefinitely by insisting on "debating" a proposal forever. Since then, the Senate has changed the rules many times to make it easier to break a filibuster, but most legislation still cannot pass over a filibuster unless 60 senators join together to invoke cloture. That means that unless Democrats win an absolutely crushing majority in November ‚ î they would have to gain 13 seats in the Senate, a nearly impossible feat ‚ î Republicans will be able to block nearly any voting rights bill through the filibuster. Unless, of course, the filibuster is eliminated, something the Senate could do at any time with just 51 votes. If Republicans were to use the filibuster to stop legislation expanding voting rights, they would join a long and inglorious tradition of illiberal senators filibustering civil rights legislation. From 1875 until 1957, Congress did not enact a single civil rights bill, even as Jim Crow flourished in the South. Congress could not even pass civil rights legislation that enjoyed majority support. Between the end of World War II and 1957, when a modest bill finally became law, the House passed five civil rights bills. But white supremacist senators were able to block each of these five bills using the filibuster. Democrats appear to be turning sharply against the filibuster It took Democrats more than four agonizing years to realize just how severely the filibuster had hobbled their ability to govern while Obama was president, and even then they made only modest reforms to the filibuster ‚ î allowing most presidential nominees to be confirmed with just 51 votes but leaving the legislative filibuster largely intact. Indeed, just a few years ago, much of the Democratic caucus appeared committed to maintaining the filibuster. In April 2017, Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) organized a letter calling on Senate leadership to "preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions" that allow senators to filibuster legislation. More than two dozen Democrats joined this letter, and a total of 61 senators signed it. Related How the filibuster broke the US Senate And yet, even Coons ‚ î once one of the Senate's most outspoken opponents of eliminating the filibuster ‚ î is now singing a different tune. "I will not stand idly by for four years and watch the Biden administration's initiatives blocked at every turn," Coons told Politico in June. "I am gonna try really hard to find a path forward that doesn‚ ôt require removing what's left of the structural guardrails, but if there's a Biden administration, it will be inheriting a mess, at home and abroad. It requires urgent and effective action." Likewise, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden recently signaled support for eliminating the filibuster if Senate Republicans are too "obstreperous." There is a very real chance, in other words, that the incoming Senate will have 51 votes to eliminate the filibuster ‚ î or to at least pare it back sufficiently to allow voting rights legislation to become law. If Democrats do win control of the federal government, the chances of such law becoming a reality will almost certainly hinge on whether Senate Democrats are willing to target the filibuster.

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QAnon, the viral pro-Trump conspiracy theory alleging that world is run by a band of satan-worshipping pedophiles, is gaining steam in the yoga and wellness community. On social media, some teachers and influencers are posting QAnon-related messaging‚ îalthough it doesn‚ ôt always explicitly mention QAnon by name. On pastel backgrounds and in pretty fonts they call COVID-19 a hoax, encourage gun ownership, warn about human trafficking, and celebrate Donald Trump as a "light worker" in his quest to "save the children." Yoga teachers including Hala Khouri and Seane Corn‚ îcofounders of the yoga and social justice organization Off the Mat, Into the World‚ îstarted seeing posts like these in their feeds near the beginning of the Coronavirus lockdown this spring. Khouri has said she believes the debunked viral documentary Plandemic, which spread misinformation about COVID-19, was an entry point to QAnon for many in the wellness community. (The documentary was removed by both Facebook and YouTube in May.) In March, celebrity OB/GYN Christiane Northrup, MD, started sharing QAnon-related "save the children" messaging, along with videos and memes that disparage vaccines and mask-wearing and encourage distrust of mainstream media. Northrup also shared Plandemic with her more than 750,000 followers on social media. In an interview with Jezebel, Khouri discussed how she was "slammed" by many members of her Facebook community when she questioned the veracity of the documentary. Soon after, an explosion of posts pushing back on mask-wearing and a proliferation of memes warning of a government-led holocaust via vaccine flooded her feeds. see also Do Politics Belong in Yoga? Yoga Teachers and Wellness Leaders Respond to QAnon Khouri, Corn, and other high-profile members of the wellness community like Jeff Krasno, the creator of the yoga festival Wanderlust and now the director of Commune‚ îa wellness video and podcasting platform‚ îwere so disturbed by QAnon's allegations that they were moved to publicly denounce it. On September 13, Corn posted this statement, created by a concerned group of yoga and wellness leaders, to her 108,000 followers on Instagram: Corn told Yoga Journal that she believes QAnon messaging is manipulative and exploitative‚ îdesigned to incite chaos and division in the lead-up to the upcoming presidential election. "I just wanted to alert people that QAnon is a cult and it's dangerous and it's got its roots in white supremacy culture," says Corn. "People should be aware of misinformation that is being targeted directly at the wellness community." By the end of September, Corn's post had around 10,000 likes. After accruing thousands of comments, many from QAnon supporters spreading disinformation, Corn decided to disable comments on September 24. "As much as I may have helped people to gain awareness, I may have also introduced people to QAnon theories and beliefs," she said. see also 8 Steps Yogis Can Take to Turn Political Anxiety Into Mindful Activism The Roots of QAnon According to believers of QAnon, the leaders of the cabal consist of top democrats and liberal entertainers; dark forces who threaten humanity. "Q" is the name of a supposed high-clearance intelligence officer who drops cryptic messages about the cabal on various websites. According to The New York Times, Q has "dropped" almost 5,000 messages so far, many repeating warnings about satanic rituals that have previously made their way into mainstream culture: If you lived through the 80s, you might remember evening news stories claiming Satanists were infiltrating daycares and schools to abuse children. Another QAnon claim, that cabal members kill and eat children to gain special powers from their blood, is a recycled Blood Libel conspiracy theory rooted in anti-semitism from the turn of the Twentieth Century, which helped to fuel Nazism across the world. Conspirituality Why are some members of the spiritual community putting stock in this conspiracy theory? Two of the issues QAnon distorts‚ îchild abuse and human trafficking‚ îare legitimate concerns, and many in the wellness community, including Corn, feel passionately about stopping them. (Corn has been working to fight human trafficking for decades. She recommends a few organizations that she's personally cooperated with in both the United States and India: Children of the Night and Apne App.) More generally, spiritual seekers are attracted to the idea of hidden and secret knowledge, and the existence of a grand cosmic plan, according to British writer and philosopher Jules Evans, who's written extensively about the intersection of mysticism and conspiracy theories. "People prone to spiritual experiences may also be prone to unusual beliefs like conspiracy theories, which could be described as a paranoid version of a mystical experience," Evans says. "Conspirituality" is a term that was used by academic Charlotte Ward in 2011 in the Journal of Contemporary Religion. It is described as a "a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fueled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews." Conspirituality is also a podcast, hosted by Derek Beres, Julian Walker, and Matthew Remski, that explores the cult-like behavior of QAnon and its theories. see also 11 Yoga Practices for Working Through Stress and Anxiety How to Spot QAnon, Protect Yourself from Disinformation, and Respond In an interview with cult survivor and researcher Remski on the Conspirituality Podcast, Corn warned of the dangers of "Pastel QAnon" and their pleas to "protect children." If you look closely, you might see QAnon hashtags attached to the posts, mixed in with other hashtags used by anti-trafficking campaigns: #savethechildren, #endsextrafficking, #eyeswideopen, #thegreatawakening, #dotheresearch, #followthewhiterabbit. (See a list of QAnon terminology here, compiled by the Conspirituality Podcast.) According to Evans, "We need to learn how to balance our intuition with critical thinking, otherwise we can fall prey to ideas which are bad for us and our networks." If you see QAnon-related posts in your social feeds and want to start a conversation with the person who posted, Krasno recommends avoiding posting in their comments, as that can give the post more weight and help it spread further. He also recommends avoiding using words like ‚ òconspiracy‚ ô or ‚ òconspirituality.‚ ô "[These words] immediately cast any sort of skepticism in a negative light, and many conspiracies have been proven through hard-nosed journalism, including theories about Jeffrey Epstein, Watergate, and child sex trafficking," he says. The word conspiracy can put people on the defensive and erode the common ground you are trying to create in an effort to bridge your worldview with others‚ ô, he explains. "You also have to be sensitive to the fact that some folks who support QAnon are survivors of sex trafficking and abuse," says Krasno. "And now they feel heard, and have agency and community." see also A Sequence for Building Resilience in This Political Climate When Krasno does engage with members of his community posting QAnon messages, he tries to frame his responses around discernment and media literacy, asking them if they know the source of the information they are sharing and whether it is reliable‚ îwhether it meets journalistic standards, has come from multiple expert sources, and was fact-checked. "I remind myself that we are all susceptible to being imperceptibly influenced by misinformation, and then I ask others to be aware of that as well," Krasno says. If your own opinions have changed over the last several months, he suggests asking yourself why. "One of the hardest things in the world now is to differentiate fact from fiction," he says, especially when misinformation is prolific online. "I also challenge people to get off of social media for a day, or even a week, to see how they feel," Krasno adds. "The goal of QAnon and other similar movements is to propagate chaos by constantly agitating people, tapping into sympathetic nervous system responses that inspire you to fight. When people get off of social media for a while, they usually feel better, more relaxed, and happier." see also A Yoga Sequence to Train Your Brain to Relax

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Now think about what the cost has been of the uncritical support given to Trump by evangelical Christians. For now, focus just on this: Christians who are supporters of the president have braided themselves to a man who in just the past few days and weeks tweeted a video of a supporter shouting "white power" (he later deleted it but has yet to denounce it); attacked NASCAR's only Black driver, Bubba Wallace, while also criticizing the decision by NASCAR to ban Confederate flags from its races; threatened to veto this year's annual defense bill if an amendment is included that would require the Pentagon to change the names of bases honoring Confederate military leaders; referred to COVID-19 as "kung flu" during a speech at a church in Phoenix; and blasted two sports teams, the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians, for considering name changes because of concerns by supporters of those franchises that those team names give undue offense. These provocations by the president aren‚ ôt anomalous; he's a man who vaulted to political prominence by peddling a racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn‚ ôt born in the United States‚ îhe later implied that Obama was a secret Muslim and dubbed him the "founder of ISIS"‚ îand whose remarks about an Indiana-born judge with Mexican heritage were described by former House Speaker Paul Ryan as "the textbook definition of a racist comment." Read: The unofficial racism consultants to the white evangelical world The white supremacist Richard Spencer, describing the neo-Nazi and white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, told The Atlantic, "There is no question that Charlottesville wouldn‚ ôt have occurred without Trump. It really was because of his campaign and this new potential for a nationalist candidate who was resonating with the public in a very intense way. The alt-right found something in Trump. He changed the paradigm and made this kind of public presence of the alt-right possible." And David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, called the march a "turning point" for his own movement, which seeks to "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump." For his whole life, before and since becoming president, Trump has exploited racial divisions and appealed to racial resentments. The president is now doing so more, not less, than in the past, despite the fact‚ îand probably because of the fact‚ îthat America is in the grips of a pandemic that he and his administration have badly bungled and that has claimed more than 130,000 American lives. As The New York Times‚ ô Maggie Haberman pointed out on July 6, "Almost every day in the last two weeks, Mr. Trump has sought to stoke white fear and resentment." White evangelicals are the core of Trump's political support, and while the overwhelming number of the president's evangelical supporters may not be racist, they are willing to back a man who openly attempts to divide people by race. That would be enough of an indictment, but the situation is actually a good deal worse than that, since Trump's eagerness to inflame ugly passions is only one thread in his depraved moral tapestry.

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Pope Francis' Views on Same-Sex Civil Unions Were Cut From a 2019 Vatican Interview A Mexican broadcast company says Francis made the comments to its correspondent more than a year ago, and people close to the company say the Vatican then edited them out.

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The first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament has 32 literal winners and 32 literal losers. You can learn all about them by checking a scoreboard. In this space, you can find a list of winners and losers that include some of those teams, plus individuals, conferences, ideas, and various other nouns both proper and common. Here are a handful after Friday, the first full day of March Madness action. Winner: Oral Roberts The Golden Eagles beat No. 2 Ohio State in overtime, 75-72, becoming the first 15 seed to win a tournament game since 2016, when Middle Tennessee knocked off Michigan State. It's not the biggest tourney upset of all time, but it's in the next tier below No. 16 UMBC beating top seed Virginia in 2018. ORU's strength all season was its shooting, both from the foul line and 3-point range, where they ranked first and 13th in Division I, respectively. They shot well below their averages but won anyway because the Buckeyes couldn't hit anything. Ohio State was a brutal 5-of-23 from deep and an arguably even more brutal 9-of-18 from the line. OSU's defense also let it down late; the Buckeyes needed only one stop at the end of regulation to close out a narrow win, but they couldn't get it and lost in the extra period. Now, Oral Roberts will play Florida for a spot in the Sweet 16, and will continue its quest to become the best free throw shooting team of all time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Loser: the Big Ten The other big upset of the day was No. 13 North Texas beating No. 4 Purdue (also in overtime), 78-69. There's still a solid chance the Big Ten will put a team in the Final Four, with Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois all having decent chances to make it to the semis and a handful of other teams still alive. But there's nothing more fundamental to college sports than overreacting to small-sample postseason results to denigrate a conference in a year in which it was otherwise great, and two of the Big Ten's upper-class teams going down to the Summit League and Conference USA will provide all the ammo anyone needs to take the B1G down a peg or two. As a bonus, Michigan State blew a double-digit lead on Thursday night to lose to UCLA in the first four, also in overtime. By all means, chant OVER-rated‚ îclap clap clap clap clap if you please. Advertisement Advertisement Winner: No. 12 seeds Conventional wisdom holds that the best way to pick tournament upsets is to go with a No. 12 seed to knock off a No. 5. The difference between the seed lines is wide enough that 12-over-5 games have a significant upset feel, but they happen regularly enough that they're not total long-shot bets. Since 2000, only four tournaments have passed without a No. 12 pulling out a win in the round of 64. And indeed, 12th-seeded Oregon State cruised past Tennessee on Friday, 70-56. Pick 12 seeds. It's a good idea. Loser: the NCAA The NCAA is always a loser. The organization exists to take the public heat for the exploitative labor practices that make its member schools many millions of dollars each year. But it's a particularly big failure this March, not just because current college players have joined the chorus criticizing it, but because the NCAA got caught offering brazenly worse amenities to players in the women's tournament in Texas than to the men playing in Indiana. The majority of issues blamed on "the NCAA" are more the fault of its hundreds of member schools, but the failure to treat women's basketball equitably this week is on the NCAA office, which manages basketball championships. Of many NCAA failures, the most dumbfounding might have been that it outfitted women's weight rooms with a tiny fraction of the equipment the men got: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Let me put it on Twitter too cause this needs the attention pic.twitter.com/t0DWKL2YHR ‚ î Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 19, 2021 Fortunately, a worthy hero came riding in to salvage the situation. Advertisement Winner: Capitalism @NCAA Our teammates have worked quickly to get truckloads of fitness equipment ready to send to the women's @ncaawbb @marchmadness bubble ‚ ì we are standing by to deliver it and have your facility outfitted within hours! Let's make this happen. pic.twitter.com/6QJJjrrDgx ‚ î DICK'S Sporting Goods (@DICKS) March 19, 2021 Advertisement Congratulations to Dick's Sporting Goods for identifying an opening and hitting it with unprecedented speed. This is the tale of how a nonprofit's failure to provide adequate resources to a women's tournament that makes less money than its accompanying men's event turned into a giant corporation's storytelling opportunity. What's more American than that? Advertisement Loser: North Carolina In all likelihood, the best the Tar Heels could've done as the South Region's No. 8 seed was to get by Wisconsin in the round of 64 and then roll over against a much better Baylor. UNC is one of the youngest teams in the country, and 2021 was never going to be their year. Still, it would've been nice to see a few signs of life against the Badgers. None appeared in a drab 85-62 loss in which UNC never led. The Badgers couldn't miss, but UNC was barely even there. Roy Williams' program has now completed a second straight year as a non-factor nationally. Save for a lousy two-year run under Matt Doherty, one of the two coaches sandwiched between Dean Smith and Williams, the Heels haven't had two years this uninspiring since Smith's early days in the ‚ ò60s. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Winner: Cade Cunningham Oklahoma State's star guard and the likely No. 1 pick in the NBA draft had one of his worst shooting games ever against No. 13 Liberty. He was 3-of-14 from the field and had to drop in seven free throws (on nine tries) to get to 15 points. But the fourth-seeded Pokes won anyway, and Cunningham got a neat feather in his cap, as noted by Justin Ferguson of the Auburn Observer: Assuming he's the top pick, he'll join Zion Williamson as the only two players to go No. 1 in the last six years who've won an NCAA tournament game. That's a cool achievement! And given that NBA front offices demonstrably don't care about tourney results, his bad shooting night is no big deal. It's also a win for fans that we'll get to watch him in the round of 32. Advertisement Winner: Atmosphere I've been a sports nihilist the last 12 months. A lot of games aren't that fun to watch without the fans bringing some ambience. Hockey looks weird with giant tarps covering the rows behind the glass. English Premier League games don't feel quite right without raucous crowds audibly cursing the ancestors of visiting players. And college basketball‚ îthe sport where home-court advantage is typically most vital‚ î‚ ìfelt utterly bizarre with few or no fans in attendance. But the mostly empty arenas in Indiana on Friday didn't bother me much. Maybe that's because the NCAA tournament has never really been a fan-driven event. It's played at sterile neutral sites even in normal times, where the crowds are full of fans with no rooting allegiance, who just happen to live in the host city. The joy of postseason college basketball comes from the players themselves, and they brought plenty of it to start this March Madness.

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The co-hosts at Fox & Friends are furious that ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, allegedly isn't deporting as many undocumented immigrants under President Joe Biden as it did under President Donald Trump. Brian Kilmeade blasted what he says is a decision by ICE management to tamp down deportations while awaiting instructions from the new Biden administration ‚ ì and he's furious they are supposedly forced to get permission from superiors in Washington, D.C., presumably at Homeland Security. "But now, a look at ICE and the reorientation of ICE has many concerned, especially those people on ICE, who go out and try to round up people, criminals, who snuck in here illegally especially those who have committed crimes," Kilmeade said, immediately implying that all undocumented immigrants are criminals. "Now, according to a according to the new ICE operational plan, they will no longer seek to deport immigrants for crimes such as driving under the influence," Kilmeade alleged. "Really?" he asked, interrupting himself, apparently believing DUIs warrant deportation, "and assault and will focus instead of national security threats and recent border crossers, there's a belief out there quite a senior ICE official that this Biden administration, couldn't even make this up, they had nothing to do with the decision." "They are now going to have to get permission from Washington to go and pick up some of these, some of these hoodlums who are nesting somewhere in this country," Kilmeade said, seeming to use an old deumanizing slur comparing immigrants to insects and rodents. Watch Kilmeade:

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If you were looking forward to traveling to Japan for the Tokyo Olympics this year, you're going to have to change your plans. Organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Games ‚ î which had already been delayed by one year because of the coronavirus pandemic ‚ î announced Saturday that international spectators will be barred from the Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Citing the restrictions on international travel, organizers said in a statement that there was no guarantee that Japan would be allowing international visitors to enter the country by the summer. The decision to bar foreign fans was made "to give clarity to ticket holders living overseas and to enable them to adjust their travel plans at this stage," the statement said. Japan has banned most foreign entry into the country as part of its COVID-19 restrictions, and only recently lifted a state of emergency in some prefectures. Tickets purchased by those overseas will be refunded. Organizers said that 600,000 tickets were sold outside of Japan. There had been speculation in the months leading up to the announcement about whether the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee would allow foreigners at the games. Committee President Seiko Hashimoto hinted in early March that they would not. That the games were scheduled to go ahead at all was contentious; a poll by national outlet NHK earlier this year found that a vast majority of Japanese wanted the games to be canceled or postponed again. "In many ways the Tokyo 2020 Games will be completely different to any previous Games," Hashimoto said in a statement Saturday. "We are currently working on specific plans to share support remotely from around the world and help bring people together in ways suited to our current times." The postponement of the 2020 Olympics last year was the first time in the modern era that the timing of the games was affected by an event other than war. Organizers said that it would still be called the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. There have been more than 455,000 COVID-19 cases in Japan to date, and 8,802 deaths. Its vaccine rollout is still in the early stages, with only frontline workers eligible to be vaccinated. As of Saturday, Japan has administered 0.46 doses per 100 people.

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A new set of Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient fragments of biblical texts dating back almost 2,000 years and thought to have been hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome, have been found in an Israeli desert. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday that a four-year archaeological project uncovered portions of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, including the books of Zechariah and Nahum. It was the first such discovery in 60 years. Also uncovered was a 6,000-year-old skeleton of a partially mummified child and a 10,500-year-old basket, which Israeli authorities said could be the oldest in the world. A CT scan revealed the child's age was between 6 and 12 -- with the skin, tendons and even hair partially preserved. The basket in situ. Yaniv Berman / Israel Antiquities Authority Among the recovered texts, which are all in Greek, is Nahum 1:5‚ ì6, which says: "The mountains quake because of Him, And the hills melt. The earth heaves before Him, The world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His wrath? Who can resist His fury? His anger pours out like fire, and rocks are shattered because of Him." The authority said these words differ slightly from other Bible versions, shedding a rare light on how biblical text changed over time from its earliest form. The first set of Dead Sea Scrolls to be discovered were found by a Bedouin shepherd in the same area in 1947 and are considered among the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century, although biblical scholars disagree on their authorship. Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics Most of those scrolls are in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem but both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have disputed their ownership. Qumran in the West Bank, the site where the first scrolls were found, is part of land seized by Israel in the 1967 war and would be part of a future Palestinian state.

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Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) speaks during a House Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 16, 2020. (Stefani Reynolds/Reuters) Representative Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) has warned against overturning the election results in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district, in a break with House Democratic leadership. Phillips said that the House should refrain from interfering in that election, where Republican Marianne Miller-Meeks defeated Democratic opponent Rita Hart by a mere six votes. “Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats,” Phillips wrote on Twitter on Monday. “But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America. Just because a majority can, does not mean a majority should.” Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats. But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America. Just because a majority can, does not mean a majority should. https://t.co/pXaOYBIMue — Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) March 22, 2021 Under the Constitution, the House has the power to make the final determination in certain cases of contested elections. Hart appealed to the House to review the results of her race against Miller-Meeks, which was initially certified by the Iowa state board of elections. Hart contends that 22 ballots were improperly disqualified during the elections and that if those ballots were counted, she would win. The effort to potentially overturn the result of the election is backed by House leadership, Politico reported on Monday. The House has considered 110 similar cases over the past 90 years, but only overturned the results in three instances. Overturning the results would require a vote by the full chamber, where Democrats hold a slim 219-211 majority. Some Democrats, including Phillips and moderate North Carolina representative David Pryce, are skeptical of the move. Phillips was first elected in 2019 and is the first Democratic representative in his district since 1961. The effort to overturn the results has also put Democrats in a rhetorical bind following former President Trump’s efforts to discredit the 2020 presidential election and to overturn his defeat. Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a frequent target of Trump and his allies after certifying President Biden’s victory in the state, criticized Democrats for interfering in the Iowa election on Friday. “Georgia’s election workers…sacrificed much in pursuit of free and fair elections,” Raffensperger wrote in an open letter. “In light of what Georgia has gone through in the last few months…I am greatly alarmed that members of Congress would consider overturning the will of the voters as certified by the state, as narrow as it is.” Send a tip to the news team at NR.

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Early this month, Democrats pushed through President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pork-barrel COVID-19 bill with only Democratic support. Then, House Democrats passed H.R.-1, the so-called "For the People Act," in a totally partisan 234 to 193 vote. There is a reason you are seeing all these party line votes. It's because the Democratic Party is not operating as individuals representing distinct districts of Americans. The Democratic Party is operating as a machine — a machine designed to drive a single agenda and impose it nationally. In vote after vote, we are watching Democrats, many of whom represent politically mixed, diverse districts and states, falling in line to vote for whatever U.S. House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tell them to— with no regard for what the people they represent back home want. No Democratic senator or House member seems to care or question what is in these bills. They are simply doing what they are told. Soon, the US Senate will vote on H.R. 1. As I have been saying for weeks, it should be called the "For the Corrupt Politicians Act." Among other things, this bill will nationalize federal elections, overriding state election laws across the country. This includes circumventing some state voter ID laws that are intended to protect the integrity of elections. It will also prohibit requiring identification, notarization, or witnesses for absentee ballots in every state. The bill also moves to politicize the Federal Election Commission — the bipartisan entity that regulates federal campaign funding. Currently, the commission has six members — three Republicans and three Democrats. In the spirit of the Democrats "For the Corrupt Politicians Act," the legislation would change the membership to five, so that whichever party was currently in power could control the body charged with enforcing election law. How is this in the spirit of making elections fair and just? If all this isn’t enough, H.R.-1 will also create a tax-funded revenue stream for federal campaigns, which effectively means that conservative taxpayers in Florida will be paying for the re-election campaigns of radical Democrats in California — and Democrat taxpayers will be footing the bill for Republicans in red states. These measures are just crazy — and deeply unpopular with Americans. Increasingly, we are going to see Democratic members of the House and the Senate put in the position of having to decide whether to vote for the people they represent or the Harris-Biden-Pelosi-Schumer Democratic Machine. Just consider the decisions Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will have to make when H.R.-1 comes to the Senate for a vote. First, according to recent surveys about H.R.-1 by McLaughlin & Associates, only 32 percent of Arizonans are even aware that this federal election takeover bill exists. An overwhelming 66% of Arizonans say Congress should not pass federal election laws to override their state’s election laws. Even more Arizonans (70%) reject the idea that the federal government should override Arizona’s voter ID laws. While H.R.-1 does not universally abolish voter ID laws, it opens the door to doing so. According to the survey, 69% of Arizona’s believe voters should show photo ID to cast ballots — either in-person or by mail. As to the restructuring of the FEC, 77% of Arizonans oppose the effort to make it a partisan body. The same percentage of Arizonans reject the idea of a "New York City-style" campaign finance system that funnels taxpayer dollars to political candidates. If these numbers don’t move Kelly and Sinema to break away from the Democratic Machine on H.R.-1, however, McLaughlin’s survey revealed a few more key results: 69% of Arizonan’s believe H.R.-1 benefits the politicians — not the people. 63%want their Senators to vote against the bill. 52% say they are less likely to vote for a senator who votes in favor of H.R. 1. Arizona is just one example. McLaughlin has also done surveys for West Virginia, Montana, and the whole country on H.R.-1, which I will discuss in a following column. The American system was designed to resist and break political machines like the one Kamala Harris, Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer are building. This system will be tested when H.R.-1 comes to the Senate. Democrats across the country are going to have to decide whether they will vote with their people or with the Democratic Machine. To read, hear, and watch more of Newt’s commentary, visit Gingrich360.com. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the "Contract With America" that helped the Republican Party reclaim a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Newt was also a Republican candidate for president of the United States in 2012. Today, Newt is chairman of Gingrich 360, a full-service American consulting, education, and media production group. He is the host of the "Newt's World" podcast and is a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is "Trump and the American Future." Read New Gingrich's Reports — More Here.

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It is said that the next ten years will see more dramatic innovation and change than the last 100 years combined. This is a very promising, exciting and realistic vision for our nation given the pace of technology innovation. But what happens to our economic future during that period as we consider multi-trillion dollar deficits and punishing tax proposals growing as far as the eye can see? With historically massive government spending running full steam ahead, the repercussions remain unclear: Is the inflation threat that damaged markets, housing, and business in the 1970s and 1980s a real danger to our savings and livelihoods sooner than we imagine? Democratic revenue raising proposals such as the Wealth Tax, Financial Transaction Tax, higher corporate, personal income and capital gains taxes will inevitably resurface in force to the detriment of economic growth - how badly will it impact our markets, our paychecks and our savings? Will the federal government spending spree actually accelerate dependence leading to a widening wealth gap? Will investment dollars eventually be scared out of the market hindering the ability to power this innovation rocket ship? The recently signed Covid relief bill is the largest expansion for the welfare state since The Great Society. Less than 10 percent of the exorbitant $1.9 trillion cost is actually dedicated to COVID related needs. The majority of the funds are directed toward state bailouts, student-debt forgiveness, health insurance subsidies, unemployment benefits, and state pension fund bailouts. State and local government pensions have been mismanaged for decades wracking up over $4.2 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Through poor management, failure to follow through on state contributions, and miscues on liability payouts, public pensions have long failed to properly account or repair these deficiencies. Because multi-employer pension funds have carelessly overestimated their long term investment returns, the Biden stimulus bill will now create an $86 billion federal assistance program for 186 of these struggling pension funds with no strings attached. It is claimed this will enable the plans to pay out full benefits for the next 30 years. But this fails to solve the issue of the sub-standard management of those plans. And politicos are comfortable dragging their feet because they know their terms expire long before major problems surface. Taxpayers have been funding public-sector pensions for years through state income taxes, and that is where the taxpayer contribution should end. Of course, the Biden administration has now decided to ignore this and is willing to make this expensive bailout but only for UNION retirees. What about the rest of us? Our economy will be pulling out of the COVID-19 lockdown recession very quickly. The markets are rightly anticipating stronger economic growth in 2021 leading to improvement in our saving and investment performance. So a plan to stay steady and add to investments for now would be a reasoned strategy to enjoy the ride. However, we need to focus on next year and the time to follow. These monstrously huge spending sprees never take place without consequences. Higher taxes are definitely coming and Inflationary pressures are already being felt in material goods. We will see how this pressure eventually makes its way to our bond markets with higher interest rates and added volatility in global stock markets. For too long, we have been told that deficits don't matter. Soon, we will see if that's true. Massive deficits plus soaring tax rates have never equaled prosperity. Clara Del Villar is Director of Senior Initiatives at FreedomWorks Foundation. Her financial industry career included senior roles in Investment Management, Private Asset Management, and Capital Markets. Her entrepreneurial ventures involved digital media as Founder, CEO of The Hispanic Post; energy tech as founder of InEnergy and health tech. She is a former advisor at 60Plus Foundation. Currently, she is a Board Director at General American Investors Co. and Executive Committee of Weill Cornell Women's Health Symposium. She earned a BSFS at Georgetown University. Read Clara Del Villar's Reports — More Here.

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Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament (MP) and another MP got into a physical brawl Monday night over the latter’s reported insults to the Kurdistan Regional Government and its leaders, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported. Yousef al-Kalabi, an Iraqi MP and former spokesperson for the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), allegedly incensed the Kurdish MPs with “verbal abuse,” Rudaw learned from MP Mayada Muhammad, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Neither Muhammad nor Rudaw identified the Kurdish MPs who participated in the fight. As of press time, Kalabi has not publicly commented on the fight. The PMF is an Iran-backed coalition of mostly Shia Muslim militias, some of which the United States officially designates as terrorist organizations. In March 2018, the Iraqi government formally recognized the PMF as a branch of the national armed forces in recognition of their efforts fighting the Islamic State. Muhammad did not specify any of Kalabi’s comments, saying instead that “Kalabi transgressed the sanctities of the Kurdistan region and its leaders.” He did, however, assert his belief that Kalabi sought to exacerbate already tense struggles between the Kurds and federal authorities. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), headquartered in Erbil, northern Iraq, has been at odds with the government in Baghdad for years over a range of issues, including the region’s independence. In 2017, the KRG staged a “non-binding” independence referendum in which over 90 percent of voters backed the KRG becoming an independent nation. No Middle Eastern nation, including Iraq, recognized the legitimacy of the vote and the U.S. rejected Kurdish self-sovereignty, despite viewing the Kurds as a critical ally against the Islamic State. The KRG’s military, the Peshmerga, played critical roles in the battles to liberate Iraqi territories from ISIS, including in Mosul, a city of 2 million people prior to Islamic State occupation. The Peshmerga also prevented ISIS from conquering the oil-rich, ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk after the Iraqi military fled. A subsequent armed conflict between the KRG and Baghdad saw the Kurds lose significant territory in the north, including Kirkuk. PMF fighters played a significant role on the side of Baghdad. Though the Kurds retain representation in Baghdad, tensions remain high between Erbil and the federal government. Monday night’s fistfight comes amid the latest row between them over a budget dispute and looming vote on a judicial reform package, Rudaw noted. The KRG is currently seeking additional funds from the federal government for the 2021 budget while the proposal remains unfinished. Simultaneously, the parliament remains deadlocked over the proposed addition of four Islamic members, two Shia and two Sunni, to the federal court committee who would hold veto power and an array of other legal tools to alter legislation. The Muslim members would presumably come from Arab, rather than Kurdish, communities.

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PARIS (AP) — Residents of Paris and several other regions of France spent their first weekend under a limited monthlong lockdown. While the French government insisted the rules would be less strict than in the past, the measures have been criticized as messy. A travel authorization certificate posted online was so ridiculed by French media for its unnecessary complexity that the Interior Ministry scrapped it within hours. For now, simple proof of residence is required to stroll within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius. The form the French government still obliges citizens to fill out to travel greater distances – up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) also was not accessible online because of a technical glitch. A website Sunday simply said, “Available soon.” Under the new restrictions, nonessential shops were closed but people are not required to spend most of the day confined at home. The government announced the measures on Thursday as the coronavirus picked up speed again in some parts of France. The country reported 35,327 new confirmed cases on Saturday, when the number of COVID-19 patients in French intensive care units rose to 4,353, the most so far this year, the Health Ministry reported. “When you look at the numbers, they’re unsustainable, and it is going to become ever-harder as the virus continues to circulate,” Anaelle Aeschliman, a nurse at the Ambroise Pare clinic in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, told The Associated Press. “I admit I was a bit disappointed that we aren’t being locked down nationwide.” The French government has tried hard to avoid imposing a third nationwide lockdown. President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that “lockdown” was not the appropriate term to describe the new regional restrictions.

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Read: Wait, so how much of the ocean is actually fished? Human appetites and needs are indisputably transforming ecosystems and wildlife in the modern world. But the more clues archaeologists uncover from the European past, the more they understand how dramatically these same influences have been shaping fish populations for hundreds of years. Richard Hoffmann, an environmental historian, has been studying the complex interplay between humans and the aquatic environment for most of his career. He’s read a medico-dietary analysis of the Catholic saint Hildegard that names 37 fish taxa; he’s found tax records for the price of fish; and he’s reviewed zooarchaeological analyses on the rise and fall of fish populations across Europe. All these details help him reconstruct which fish were on the menu for different social classes, how big those fish grew, and when they disappeared. Asking those questions often means confronting myths. “Some people think everyone in the past was rapacious,” Hoffmann says. “You also get the opposite myths of hyper-abundance.” One false tale that originated in the 17th century alleged that salmon and sturgeon were so abundant during the Middle Ages that servants had contracts stipulating they wouldn’t be served those fish more than a few times a week. The reality is more complicated. In Europe, aquatic animals have been traded at least since the days of the Roman Empire. But it was during the early Middle Ages, with the arrival of widespread Christianity, that the animals became a popular source of protein. That’s partially due to the roughly 130 days a year when the faithful were exhorted not to eat meat, because fish didn’t count in that category. At the same time, expanding agrarian populations were cutting down forests to create fields and diverting rivers to fill defensive moats around castles and towns, Hoffmann writes in one paper. From the ninth century A.D. to the 11th, the number of grain mills built along rivers in England exploded from about 200 to 5,624. Species that came into fresh water to spawn, such as salmon and sturgeon, began declining. New regulations, such as King Philip’s, were put into place to manage fish populations. A Scottish statute from 1214 required all dams to include an opening for fish and barrier nets to be lifted every Saturday, for instance. Soon highly sophisticated aquaculture ponds stocked with carp also provided regular access to fish for the landed elite. This decline in freshwater populations coincided with a sudden, commercial-scale boom in sea fishing, which began around A.D. 1000 and is known as the “fish event horizon.” In one study, archaeologists collected cod bones in London from 95 Roman, medieval, and postmedieval sites. The number of bones jumped circa the year 1000, and isotopic sampling showed that in the following centuries, fish came from farther and farther away, indicating long-distance trade. In the southern English town of Southampton, the remains of marine species (such as cod) began to outnumber freshwater species (such as eel) by 1030.

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Sen. Kamala Harris takes the stage for a campaign stop at Keene State College in Keene, N.H., April 23, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Most of the field seems to think that Twitter likes and retweets will count as primary votes, and that there’s an appetite for left-wing radicalism. In the 1920 presidential election, Warren Harding won in a landslide by promising a “Return to Normalcy.” Today’s Democrats would be wise to make that same pledge for 2020. They probably won’t, however, which is why President Trump might get re-elected. Harding’s concept of normalcy has been ridiculed and reviled by progressives and liberal historians for 100 years. Some falsely claim it was merely a call for a return to the isolationism of the prewar years. But Harding wasn’t just tapping into the unpopularity of the First World War; he also spoke to Americans’ worries about the widespread domestic turmoil and tumult of the Progressive Era. Race riots, labor violence, anarchist terror bombings, the Red Scare, Prohibition, widespread censorship, political oppression, and mass arrests were also on voters’ minds. Even important and necessary progressive advances — such as women’s suffrage — caused disruption. Harding offered voters a breather from the rapid social change. Nothing in the last two years — or two decades — approaches the turmoil of the Woodrow Wilson administration, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of Americans feel like they’ve been through the wringer. That feeling has defined our politics for a long time — from the Clinton scandals to the Iraq War to the financial crisis and the fights over Obamacare — bringing us one “change election” after another. But politicians often seem to miss that the change many voters are looking for is a reversion from the abnormal to the normal. Given the roaring economy, with near full employment and rising wages, a normal president would lie back and avoid fueling the unease that has kept Trump from breaking through the 50 percent approval ceiling. But he is clearly incapable of doing that, which creates an opportunity for Democrats to win, despite a healthy economy. Democrats seized such an opportunity in the 2018 midterms. The president’s constant trolling of the political and media establishment is music to the ears of his biggest supporters, but it is an unsettling and deafening din to the most important constituency in American politics: the vast, mostly moderate middle. While activist firebrand freshmen (freshpersons?) such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) get all the attention from both the liberal and conservative press, most of the Democrats elected in the 2018 landslide were moderates from purplish districts that will decide the 2020 election. They ran on health care and other issues, but also on the promise to be a check on Trump’s “abnormalcy.” Promising to turn down the political temperature, reducing not just the drama of Washington but the centrality of it in our lives and conversations, would still leave lots of room for a Democrat to advance his or her agenda. Right now, Joe Biden is the only major Democratic presidential contender who seems both interested in and capable of pursuing such a strategy. The rest of the field seems to think that Twitter likes and retweets will count as primary votes, and that there’s an appetite in the country for left-wing radicalism on par with what they see as Trump’s right-wing radicalism. Rather than vow to keep the economic boom going while returning Washington to normalcy and enacting reasonable reforms with bipartisan support, they talk about socializing medicine, making slavery reparations, forgiving student loans, banning guns through executive orders, and implementing a Green New Deal. And the media obsess over impeachment. All that stuff is super popular with young, college-educated activists and journalists, all of whom are wildly overrepresented on social media. But most Democrats belong to what CNN’s Harry Enten calls the “hidden Democratic Party.” Enten notes that a majority of Democrats are over the age of 50, at least half call themselves moderate or conservative, and a majority don’t have college degrees. Biden’s lead in the polls is explained almost entirely by his support from older Democrats. Moreover, many blacks and Latinos — crucial to the Democratic coalition — aren’t nearly as “woke” as progressives often assume they are. They often have a more pragmatic and transactional view of politics, for a slew of reasons. Even Ocasio-Cortez underperformed with blacks and Latinos, defeating the incumbent Democrat by running up tallies from richer and whiter precincts. The college-educated barista socialist constituency dominates in states that the Democrats will win no matter what. But the battleground will be in states that narrowly went for Trump. Biden, a logorrheic and gaffe-prone 76-year-old with a terrible track record in presidential contests, is best positioned to beat Trump, but first he has to survive the death by a thousand tweets that the vocal minority has in store for him. (C) 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC

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The following column originally aired on "The Michael Savage Show" podcast, available for download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts are heard. Reparations? I've been paying them all my life through affirmative action, through high taxation, through the cost of policing and prisons. Now, let me be clear. I'm an immigrant’s son. I have never taken a nickel from a slave. My family has never profited from slavery. Black people did not build anything that my family profited from ever, despite what the leftist vermin want to want you to believe. They’re telling you we all benefited from it? Now let's look into this reparations lie. There are some rich white families who have profited from slavery and if people have grievances, that's who they should go to. There are corporations who may have initially profited from slavery. That's who they should go to. The King of Spain profited greatly from slavery. The Arabian Kings profited greatly from slavery. Let them go to the King of Spain, and the Arabian Princes, and take the money from them. Good luck. But I, as an American, an immigrant’s son, never kept a slave, never benefited from slavery. We worked our behinds off. Now, one of the biggest lies ever promulgated by the Black Revisionist historians is the reparation lie. It is an absolute lie to say that black slavery built America. Well, that's like saying the Chinese who were conscripted to build a railroad, built California. Well, they didn't build California, they built the railroad tracks. Moreover, you never hear the Chinese screaming for reparations. When have you last heard the Chinese screaming that someone owes them something? If it is true that their antecedents were virtual slaves, building the railroads in California, how is it that the Chinese of today have done so well in America? Two generations later, you don't hear them screaming that anybody owes them anything. They decided to make it on their own through hard work and brains. I could say I am owed reparations for what I have paid. I encourage you to fight back. I have had jobs stolen from me as a result of affirmative action where unqualified minorities were given positions I was more qualified for. The balance sheet is not complete. I am owed money. I don't owe anybody anything. I am an immigrant's son. How about your children not being given scholarships, but instead being given to minorities who did not score as high as they did? Think about it. Stand up to the left wing and fight back. Do you think it can’t happen under Biden? Look around. It is happening. Until we stop the reparations rackateers, we will be reliving the nightmare so many populations have lived before us. All promised a utopia free from the oppression of capitalism and the nuclear family. We have seen this arc, beginning with the French Revolution to the American leftist revolution. It has morphed from climate hysteria to racial hysteria. In order to defeat them we must fight their ideas. A National Radio Hall of Fame recipient, Savage has hosted his radio show for more than 25 years and launched The Savage Nation Podcast in January of 2019 with one of the most successful podcast debuts. A prolific New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Savage’s latest book is "Our Fight for America: The War Continues." To read more of his reports — Click Here Now. © SAVAGE ENTERPRISES,LLC, 2021 All Rights Reserved.

RIGHT

There have been some crazy tweets over the years, but suggesting that interracial marriage is a form of racism takes the cake. Comedian Bill Burr (a cis white male) was a presenter at this year's Grammy Awards on Sunday, during which he mispronounced the name of the winner of the Regional Mexican Music award, Natalia Lafourcade. The mistake sent feminists on Twitter over the edge. In this clip, Chad Prather had a some fun at the expense of one outraged Twitter user, who suggested that a cis white male like Burr (who is married to a black woman, Nina Hill) sometimes enters an interracial marriage because they are "racist." Watch to hear from Chad. Can't watch? Download the podcast. Use promo code CHAD to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV. Want more from Chad Prather? To enjoy more of Chad's comedy, craziness and common sense, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

RIGHT

Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” network host Lisa Ling reacted to the Atlanta-area massage parlor shootings that left eight dead, six of which were Asian women. Law enforcement in Georgia is saying the attack was not racially-motivated. Ling noted there is a “pattern of attacks on Asians” recently. She asked “how many people have to die” for hate crimes against Asians “to be taken seriously.” “[A]fter this attack on the massage parlor, I saw people posting messages about solidarity and about standing up for Asian people, but how many people have to die for this to really be taken seriously, for there to be more than lip service?” Ling wondered. “I mean, there is real fear among Asian people about going outside of their own homes right now. Asian people are being scapegoated like they have for a century in this country. And this has to stop. This has to stop. We cannot be continued to be scapegoated, and this is frankly a pattern of scapegoating that happens in this country.” “Yesterday, it was Muslim and Southeast Asian people after 9/11,” she continued. “When there’s an economic downturn, it’s the Latin population, you know? It’s always the black community being scapegoated for so many things. And during the Cold War, it was gay people. This scapegoating of entire populations has to stop in this country.” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

RIGHT

TOPLINE An 11-year-old boy in the U.K. died last week after inhaling toxic chemicals, a TikTok trend called “chroming,” which is a practice experts warn can lead to health issues like brain damage, cardiac arrest and even death. KEY FACTS Chroming involves inhaling dangerous chemicals and substances like nail polish remover, hairspray, aerosol deodorant, lighter fluid, gasoline, paint thinners, spray paint and permanent markers as a form of recreational drug use, according to the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. Breathing in these inhalants in highly concentrated mixtures can create a brief “euphoric effect,” but it’s “dangerous” and can also lead to dizziness, vomiting, cardiac failure and brain damage, according to the American Addiction Centers. Long-term effects of inhaling toxic substances can lead to memory loss, a lower IQ, an inability to concentrate and impaired judgment, according to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Research. A more widely known version of chroming involves inhaling “whippits,” (also called “laughing gas” and “hippy crack”) a slang term for cartridges filled with nitrous oxide that’s legally used to inflate balloons, though inhaling these cartridges is illegal. BIG NUMBER 684,000. That’s how many adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 huffed or inhaled toxic chemicals in 2015, according to a 2017 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A total of 1.8 million people 12 years and older performed the practice that same year, though inhalant use typically decreases with age. KEY BACKGROUND Tommie-Lee Gracie Billington, 11, was found dead in a friend’s house on March 2 in the United Kingdom, according to a report by The Times of London. Billington suffered a suspected cardiac arrest after participating in the chroming TikTok challenge during a sleepover, though local police said his death is currently unexplained. “I will make sure to the best of my ability that your name and your beautiful face will become the reason that other children's lives will be saved and other families don't have to suffer this deep, deep hurt,” Billington’s grandmother, Tina Burns, said in a Facebook post. Chroming has led to the death of at least one other adolescent in recent years. Australian teenager Esra Haynes went into cardiac arrest at a friend’s sleepover after participating in the chroming challenge in March 2023. Haynes inhaled chemicals from an aerosol deodorant can, which resulted in her being on life support for eight days and caused severe brain damage. Haynes’s family decided to remove her off life support and she later died. TANGENT Another name for chroming is huffing, which also involves using inhalants as a recreational drug. Inhalants are common household products that produce chemical vapors and are inhaled to create mind-altering or psychoactive effects, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Around one-in-five kids have used inhalants by the eighth grade, the DEA reports. When inhaled, these chemicals are absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream, and can make their way into other organs. Inhalants can cause cognitive abnormalities ranging from mild impairment to severe dementia. Regular inhalant use is associated with high rates of depression, anxiety and other substance abuse issues, according to the Australia-based Alcohol and Drug Foundation. This doesn’t necessarily mean inhalants cause these disorders, but that use can bring them on or make them worse. People who regularly use inhalants are also more likely to experience stressful events, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.

NEUTRAL

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2024/03/08/what-is-chroming-uk-boy-dies-after-participating-in-dangerous-tiktok-challenge/?sh=2b3aee187d0b

What Is ‘Chroming’? UK Boy Dies After Participating In ‘Dangerous’ TikTok Challenge

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The third-party presidential movement No Labels decided Friday to field a presidential candidate in the 2024 election after months of weighing the launch of a so-called “unity ticket” and discussions with several prospects. Delegates voted in favor of moving forward during an online convention of 800 of them from every state, said Mike Rawlings, a former Dallas mayor who is affiliated with No Labels. No Labels was not expected to name its presidential and vice presidential nominees Friday. Instead, the group will announce its candidate selection process on March 14, Rawlings said in a statement. “Even though we met virtually, their emotion and desire to bring this divided nation back together came through the screen,” Rawlings, Friday’s convention chair, said about the delegates in a written statement. The decision to move forward comes as a number of would-be candidates have already turned down the idea of running, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who suspended her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination after former President Donald Trump won big across Super Tuesday’s GOP primary map. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan had weighed running for president under the No Labels banner but has since decided to seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from his state. Retiring West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, has said he will not run for president. Romps by Trump and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, on Super Tuesday all but ensured a November rematch of the 2020 election. Polls suggest many Americans don’t have favorable views of Biden or Trump, a dynamic No Labels sees as an opening to offer a bipartisan ticket. But Biden supporters worry No Labels will pull votes away from the president in battleground states and are critical of how the group won’t disclose its donors or much of its decision-making. The executive director of the group MoveOn, which is aligned with Democrats, said a No Labels ticket would help Trump win. “Any candidates who join the No Labels presidential ticket will be complicit in making it easier for Donald Trump and MAGA extremists to win a second term in the White House,” Executive Director Rahna Epting said in a written statement. Third Way, another group that is aligned with Democrats and opposes a No Labels ticket, noted No Labels was moving forward without having first found a candidate. “Time and again, voters, candidates, and election experts have told No Labels that a third-party presidential ticket can’t win and would help Trump,” Third Way Executive Vice President Matt Bennett said in a written statement. No Labels had been weighing whether to present a ticket aimed at appealing to voters unhappy with Biden and Trump. The group’s strategists have said they’ll give their ballot line to a bipartisan ticket, with a presidential nominee from one major party and a vice presidential nominee from the other, if they see a path to victory. Group officials have said they are communicating with several potential candidates but have not disclosed any names. No Labels has stockpiled cash from people it has declined to name, including former Republican donors who have become disenchanted with the party’s direction in the Trump era, and has worked to secure ballot access in every state.

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Newsnation

https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/2024-election/ap-third-party-movement-no-labels-says-it-will-field-a-2024-presidential-ticket/

Third-party movement No Labels says it will field a 2024 presidential ticket

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Gov. Kathy Hochul’s five-point plan to make subways safer may not have had the intended effect, as riders say seeing armed National Guardsmen during their commute is jarring and too extreme. She appeared on PIX11 Morning News to respond to the criticism, saying she stands by her decision to deploy the National Guard into subway stations. “My No. 1 priority as the governor of the state of New York is to keep people safe,” Hochul said. She said she respects what Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD are doing for the city, but there is still anxiety among straphangers following a string of subway violence. “Even though the statistics say that it is safer than it was before… now you’re dealing with the psychological toll that deters people from wanting to go on the subway,” Hochul said. She called the members of the National Guard, “our neighbors.” “They’re there just as a deterrent to those who might think that they can get away with committing crimes,” Hochul said. When pressed by PIX11 Morning News anchor Hazel Sanchez about deploying more NYPD officers into subways, Hochul said that the National Guard is already at her immediate disposal. To bring in more police officers would require going through funding and creating a budget, Hochul added. “It takes a lot longer,” she said. Hochul also discussed the city’s migrant crisis, bail reform and President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

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Newsnation

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/northeast/kathy-hochul-nyc-subway-safety-plan/

Gov. Hochul responds to NYC subway safety plan backlash

The labor market showed some rare signs of weakness in February, as the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to its highest level since the Federal Reserve began hiking rates in early 2022, though job growth was above economists’ forecasts. KEY FACTS The U.S. added 275,000 jobs in February, topping consensus economist estimates of 200,000. The unemployment rate came in at 3.9%, higher than forecasts of 3.7%, where it was in January. That’s the highest unemployment rate since January 2022. Average hourly wages rose by 0.1% from January to February on a seasonally adjusted basis, well below January’s 0.6% month-over-month growth and estimates of 0.3%, with annual wage growth coming in at 4.3%. KEY BACKGROUND Wage growth is well above inflation, which most recently came in at 2.8% as measured by the Federal Reserve’s favored core personal consumption expenditures metric, as the swelling of Americans’ pay stubs outpaces how much they need to spend on goods and services. Though it’s up from its 54-year low of 3.4% set early last year, the national unemployment rate has stayed comfortably below 4%, a fairly surprising feat considering inflation’s downward trend. A commonly accepted tenet of economic theory is the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment, meaning a significant decline in inflation typically brings an equal bump to jobless rates. The Fed’s ongoing tightening cycle is not a painless one for workers, evidenced by high-profile corporate layoffs, limited job switching and much lower wage growth than during the 2021-22 pay boom. It is widely expected the Fed will begin cutting interest rates at some point this year, a change which would likely stimulate the labor market as corporate budgets lighten with dwindling borrowing costs. WHAT TO WATCH FOR The next major economic report is Tuesday’s consumer price index report, which economists project to reveal a modest uptick in core inflation.

NEUTRAL

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/03/08/unemployment-rate-spikes-to-2-year-high/?sh=dd847ae64ef6

Unemployment Rate Spikes To 2-Year High

TOPLINE Projections for Singapore’s economic growth in 2024 have received a significant boost due to the city-state being the only Southeast Asian stop for Taylor Swift’s globetrotting Eras tour, Bloomberg reported. KEY FACTS Citing its survey of economists, Bloomberg reported Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2024 is now projected to grow at 2.9%, while annual growth is expected to be 2.5%—up from earlier predictions of 2.3%. On Friday evening, Swift will be performing the fifth show of her ongoing six-concert tour of Singapore—with each show drawing over 50,000 attendees. Economists cited in the report noted the large influx of foreign tourists attending the concerts will add between $225 to $300 million (SGD 300-400 million) to Singapore’s economy in Q1. NEWS PEG Shortly after Swift announced her tour dates for Singapore last year, hotel bookings in the city-state surged 10% for March 2024, according to hotel analytics firm Smith Travel Research. The firm’s data also showed that Singapore’s hotel occupancy levels in early March will be significantly higher than any other period in the first eight months of 2024. Travel site Trip.com told CNN that sales for flights into Singapore between March 1 and 9 rose 186% due to Swift’s concert. Low-cost airline JetStar Asia told several news outlets that demand for flights from Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta to Singapore rose 20% during the same period. KEY BACKGROUND The projected boost to Singapore’s economy likely vindicates its government’s decision to offer Swift a special deal to keep the city-state as the exclusive destination in Southeast Asia for the Era’s tour. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressed the matter earlier this week, saying his government’s agencies “negotiated an arrangement with her to come to Singapore and perform, and to make Singapore her only stop in Southeast Asia.” He said the star musician received “certain incentives” to the singer from the government’s post-pandemic tourism fund as part of the deal, with disclosing the actual amount paid. Singapore’s Culture and Youth Minister Edwin Tong, however, shot down speculation that Swift was being paid between $2-3 million per show by the government, telling Channel News Asia that the actual numbers were “nowhere as high.” The outlet reported that the actual incentive is likely around $2-3 million for her entire tour.

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Forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/08/swifts-eras-tour-boosts-projections-for-singapores-2024-gdp-report-says/?sh=759b0fefdde5

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Could Boost Singapore’s GDP By Over $200 Million, Report Says

The U.S. economy added higher-than-expected 275,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9 percent, the highest level since January 2022, on the back of a jump in returning workers to the labor market. Adult women saw their unemployment rate jump slightly to 3.5 percent, while adult men fell to 3.5 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Adult white women saw their unemployment rate tick up to 3.2 percent from 2.9 percent in January, explained by a jump in their participation rate (returning workers), which rose to nearly 58 percent from 57.6 percent the previous month. Black women's unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4 percent, the lowest since November 2021, while their participation rate jumped by a half-point to 63.4 percent. The unemployment rate doesn't necessarily suggest job losses. It captures the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labor force. An increase in labor force participation can help tick up the unemployment rate. The February job numbers showed that payrolls were 75,000 higher than economists forecast and above the monthly average gains of 230,000 over the last year in what analysts suggested was evidence of a resilient labor market. But hiring from December and January was revised down by a combined 167,000 jobs, suggesting that the labor market was slowing, even though hiring was still robust. "We continue to see solid job growth and unemployment below 4 percent. Job growth even picked up between January and February given January's sizable downward revision," Kory Kantenga, a senior economist at LinkedIn, said in a note shared with Newsweek. "So the labor market conditions are keeping many of us who want to work employed." Wages accelerated at a slower pace last month compared to January. Average hourly earnings rose on a yearly basis by 4.3 percent, outpacing Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, which stood at 3.1 percent in January, a positive sign for Americans. "Wage growth figure was also good news for workers, who saw 25 straight months of real wage declines in 2021 and 2022 when inflation skyrocketed but have now seen real wage growth return since May," ZipRecruiter chief economist Julia Pollak said. The job gains were widespread with hiring seen in health care, government, food and services, construction and transportation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Jobs gains remained broad-based in February with the private sector adding 223,000 jobs, the largest increase since May 2023," EY senior economist Lydia Boussour said. But the February employment readings pointed to "mixed signals from the labor market," she added. "Beneath the strong headline print, prior estimates of job growth in December and January were revised down by a cumulative 167,000 jobs, the unemployment rate rose to a two-year high of 3.9 percent and wage momentum cooled," Boussour said. What job numbers mean for borrowing costs The U.S. economy and the labor market has been grappling with elevated interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to battle inflation. Price increases have cooled closer to the central bank's 2 percent target but still a bit away from the goal, leading policymakers to keep borrowing costs at their highest in more than two years. Economists suggest that the February jobs report shows the Fed was getting close to its goal of slowing the economy enough to help inflation get down to target. "The February jobs report doesn't look recessionary. But it does suggest the Fed is getting closer to mission accomplished, calming the hot job market that contributed to high inflation in 2022 and 2023," said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. "The February jobs report increases confidence that the Fed will pivot to rate cuts in the second quarter of 2024." Some analysts said that the jobs rate will help contribute to policymakers slashing borrowing costs by the summer. "Today's payroll report coupled with downward revisions has the Fed funds futures market focused on a June rate cut," said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial. A cut in rates could have huge significance for the housing market, which has seen mortgage rates soar since the Fed began hiking rates in March 2022 in what was the most aggressive monetary policy tightening since the 1980s. Housing economists said that a strong labor market was a positive for the housing market. Americans with jobs means that they are earning and building their ability to buy homes. But it could also mean that policymakers may keep rates elevated for longer as they try to get price increases to their target. "The strength in the job market, along with an economy that is still growing at a moderate pace, are positives for the housing market, as it supports home purchase activity and helps borrowers to stay current on their mortgage payments," said Joel Kan, Mortgage Bankers Association's deputy chief economist. "However, the labor market's continued resiliency is one of several factors keeping mortgage rates from declining much further in the near term, as it increases the likelihood that the Fed will not rush to cut rates."

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Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com/job-market-shifts-affect-women-differently-1877453

Job Market Shifts Affect Women Differently

Louisiana's new insurance commissioner, Tim Temple, is stepping up efforts to attract more home insurers to the state amid a deepening insurance crisis, marked by skyrocketing premiums and companies exiting the hurricane-prone market. With homeowners facing high insurance costs and a dwindling pool of insurers since hurricanes Laura and Ida, Temple's regulatory reforms aim to stabilize Louisiana's volatile market. He aims to strike a balance between protecting homeowners and providing insurers with the flexibility needed to manage risks effectively. "We want Louisiana to be stable and predictable," Temple said. "It will be stable and predictable, whether you're a consumer or an insurance company." By revising the "three-year rule" and implementing a "file-and-use" system for rate changes, the commissioner's strategy seeks to make Louisiana a more appealing market for insurance companies, offering hope for relief to the state's beleaguered homeowners as the legislative session approaches on March 11. "The crisis we're in is unlike anything that anyone that's lived in the state has seen before," Temple said late last month. Louisiana's homeowners have been caught in a relentless cycle of insurance premium hikes due to natural disasters, with rates soaring on average by 27 percent from May 2022 to May 2023, according to PolicyGenius' Home Insurance Report issued late last year. The steep increase is a direct consequence of the state being hit by a series of hurricanes that wreaked havoc on the state. Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta in 2020 inflicted $10.6 billion in insured losses across Louisiana, according to PolicyGenius, leading to more than 320,000 claims by policyholders. The situation worsened with Hurricane Ida in 2021, which accounted for $13.1 billion in damages and more than 460,000 claims. Adding to the state's woes, Hurricane Ian in 2022 resulted in an estimated $30 billion in insured losses. The consecutive years of destructive weather events have propelled the state into a deepening insurance crisis, culminating in 22 insurance companies either declaring insolvency or exiting the Louisiana market, PolicyGenius said in its report. The void has pushed homeowners toward the state-funded insurer, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance, as a last resort, which has resulted in higher costs for homeowners, given that Citizens was granted a 63 percent rate increase in 2022, and that it is statutorily required to charge 10 percent above market rates. Temple's plan is, in part, addressing the pressing need for a competitive market. "I want you doing business in the state of Louisiana," Temple said. "I want to work with you so that you can do business in the state of Louisiana because I want your competition benefiting the consumers and the state of Louisiana. "[We're going to] make sure the companies come in, they've got the right business plan, they've got the right management in place, they've got the right financial reserves, they've got the right reinsurance so that when a catastrophe happens, they have the financial resources." The commissioner, who was appointed in January, is advocating for the introduction of "file-and-use" legislation, a move that would allow insurers to implement rate changes immediately after filing, without awaiting prior approval. The method, which is used in other states, promises to expedite the rate adjustment process, enabling insurers to react to the changing dynamics of the market and potentially leading to more competitive pricing. "We're not asking the Legislature, we're not asking you as citizens, we're not asking you as businesses to support, you know, experimental legislation," Temple said. "These are all things that have worked, they've been proven to work in other states." The proposed relaxation of the stringent three-year rule, which currently restricts insurers from non-renewing policies arbitrarily after three years, is seen as another step toward making Louisiana an attractive market for insurance companies.

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Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com/louisiana-insurance-crisis-homeowners-plea-reforms-commissioner-tim-temple-1877409

Home Insurance Rules Could Change as State Grapples With Crisis

The FBI tracked the phone location of Donald Trump's personal assistant to prove he hid boxes of presidential documents before federal agents raided Trump's Florida estate, new documents show. The former president is facing 40 federal charges over his handling of sensitive materials retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House in January 2021. He is accused of obstructing efforts by federal authorities to return them. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Newsweek contacted Trump's attorney via email for comment Friday. Walt Nauta, Trump's former personal assistant, and Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker, are accused of moving boxes of sensitive materials around Trump's Florida home to prevent federal agents from finding them and conspiring to delete security footage that had been sought under a subpoena. Nauta and De Oliveira have pleaded not guilty to all federal charges against them, including conspiracy to obstruct justice. Newsweek contacted their lawyers for comment via email Friday. In a filing to Judge Aileen Cannon Thursday, prosecutors requested the redaction of several documents, giving insight into the scale of the investigation into Nauta. The filing shows agents obtained search warrants in Washington, D.C., for Nauta's "Verizon cell site data" and for his "Google location data." The cell-site data would show which phone towers Nauta's phone was nearest to on the days he is accused of hiding documents in Mar-a-Lago. Similarly, the Google location data, also collected from Nauta's phone, would show his location at the time of the alleged crime. According to the filing, other search warrants prosecutors want redacted include ones for Nauta's work Apple iCloud, his Microsoft email, and his car and phones. The prosecutors also want to redact an unexecuted search warrant for Nauta's residence and phone. No explanation was given for why the search warrant was not executed. Other documents prosecutors want redacted include Nauta's FBI interviews and the grand jury testimony in his case. Prosecutors wrote in their filing that they want the search warrants redacted to avoid identifying the FBI agents involved because of fear of threats. They also wrote that there have already been threats to witnesses in the case. Special Counsel Jack Smith explained to Cannon in Thursday's filing that he opposes the public release of the names or job titles of witnesses, fearing they will be subjects of a hate campaign. Smith wrote that witnesses had received threats in the classified-documents case. He also wrote that the government's redactions "are truly minimal, representing portions of only 13 pages out of 268 pages of briefing" and follow "the articulation of threats that witnesses have already faced in this case and the potential for threats if names and identifying information are disclosed." Smith went on to argue that there were few criminal prosecutions in which the government had produced so much disclosure material, "especially in a circumstance where the potential for threats and intimidation to Government witnesses is real and verifiable."

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Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-walt-nauta-florida-classified-documents-1877391

FBI Tracked Donald Trump's Assistant, Court Filings Show

The Pentagon released newly declassified information on Friday relating to unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The U.S. Department of Defense All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released a report on Friday detailing declassified information about UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) dating back to 1945. One portion of the report said that the Pentagon previously considered a program that sought to reverse-engineer any extraterrestrial space crafts that were found on Earth. The report showed that the program was never fulfilled. "In 2021, without sufficient justification, the scope of an IC [Intelligence Community] Controlled Access Program was expanded to protect UAP reverse-engineering. This program never recovered or reverse-engineered any UAP or extraterrestrial spacecraft. This IC program was disestablished due to its lack of merit," the report said. Newsweek reached out to the Department of Defense via email for comment. Interest among Americans and elected officials over UFOs and UAPs has increased over several months. In July 2023, Air Force veteran David Grusch testified before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee about his knowledge of UFOs and UAPs, saying that "the U.S. Government is operating with secrecy—above Congressional oversight—with regards to UAPs." "My testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country—many of whom also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation, and classified oral testimony," Grusch said. What we know: The AARO report said that the agency discovered a program called Kona Blue in 2012, which was brought to the Department of Homeland Security to possibly "reverse-engineer any recovered off-world spacecraft that they hoped to acquire." "It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected—this material was only assumed to exist by KONA BLUE advocates and its anticipated contract performers," the report said. Views: Republican Representative Tim Burchett has repeatedly called for further investigation into UFOs and UAPs throughout the U.S. and if the federal government attempt to cover-up any sightings or recoveries. "So the people doing the cover up of #ufo #uap say they find no cover up classic self fulfilled prophesy," Burchett wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, responding to the report on Friday. What's next: In January, Representatives Robert Garcia and Glenn Grothman introduced the Safe Airspace for Americans Act, which seeks to establish new channels for pilots to report UAPs and UFOs. While speaking with Fox News in January, former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and whistleblower Ryan Graves said that the legislation could potentially "close the gap" in reporting channels for pilots and the intelligence community.

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Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com/new-declassified-ufo-information-revealed-pentagon-1877404

New Declassified UFO Information Revealed by Pentagon

A petition currently circulating among the residents of Kansas' capital could change the way property tax increases work in Topeka, giving the public the power to decide on potential hikes. Kansas' statewide average property tax increased by 6.4 percent between 2022 and 2023, according to the Kansas Policy Institute. Places like Shawnee County saw even higher jumps, with a 9.66 percent increase in property taxes bringing residents to voice their frustration at public meetings in August and September 2023. There are two ways in which property tax bills can be increased in Kansas, at the moment: through a decision by taxing authorities or through an increase in home valuations. The rise in property taxes for Kansas residents is mainly due to rising home values in the state. In Kansas, the typical home value was $214,347 as of January 31, according to Zillow's latest data, up 4.2 percent from the previous year. A 5-year graph on the real estate marketplace's website shows that prices have been steadily climbing since late 2019, despite a slight flattening during the housing market correction of late summer 2022 and spring 2023. According to Zillow, the average home value nationwide is $342,941, up 3.1 percent from January 31. The petition currently circulating in Topeka, launched by local resident Earl McIntosh, calls for a new ordinance that would require a public vote before the city's taxing authorities decide to hike property tax rates. The change would apply to private, commercial, and agricultural properties. Speaking to local news station WIBW, McIntosh described rising property taxes as "the biggest issue in Topeka right now." The goal of his petition, he said, is to create a city ordinance stating that the city of Topeka cannot raise property taxes without a public vote. It would effectively ban city authorities from bringing in more property tax revenue than the so-called "revenue neutral" sum they collected in the previous year for 10 years unless residents agree to it. As of Thursday, the petition had about 1,100 signatures. To be certified by city authorities, it needs 3,000 validated signatures. "If we get certified, then it goes back to the city of Topeka, and then the City Council has 20 days to pass it. And if they don't pass it within 20 days, then it goes to a public vote," McIntosh told WIBW. "All we're asking and we've written it in our ordinance that they explained to us why they need to raise our property taxes, and how much they need." Newsweek called McIntosh for comment but left a message because the call was made outside standard working hours. The petition drive in Topeka reflects similar frustration currently felt by Americans in several states across the country over rising property tax bills. In Michigan, resident Karla Wagner has launched a petition trying to eliminate property taxes in the state entirely. Several homeowners wrote to Newsweek about skyrocketing property tax bills in Texas despite recent efforts by Governor Greg Abbott to offer some relief to struggling residents.

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Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com/property-taxes-increase-kansas-reaction-1877268

Americans Want to Take Property Taxes Into Their Own Hands