TV scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson has elicited backlash after claiming that DNA doesn’t determine whether a person is male or female.
Yes, really.
Here he claims that every day anyone can decide “today I feel like I am female or male.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson takes pride in “communicating science”. Here he explains that XX/XY chromosomes don’t determine if you are male or female, and instead, each day you can wake up and decide that “today I feel like I am female or male” 🤯
Sure, DNA doesn’t matter. I’m going to wake up tomorrow and decide I’m 7 foot tall. Or maybe I’ll decide to be Asian. 🤦♂️ It’s seriously pathetic that people who really know better play this game.
Imagine trading a lifetime of integrity for a thumbs up from the alphabet brigade.
Your periodic reminder that just because someone is on television as an “expert” in one area that does not mean they’re an expert in that area, other areas or even smart. For example: Bill Nye is not a scientist and never has been, he’s an actor. https://t.co/zJUBjZXY84
@neiltyson what the hell? This is not based in Science but a religion, an ideology. What is wrong with you? Instead of pandering to people and spreading false information you should’ve stayed quiet. https://t.co/BcqutHX77c
No, xx and xy determine male and female. However if society (or some in it) wish to create new definitions and ideas they are free to do so. Others are free not to adopt them. It’s no better to force tyranny on a majority than to force tyranny on a minority. https://t.co/nIx6ERf4ZM
— Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️♂️💼🥋 (@SharylAttkisson) August 16, 2024
“Why can’t you just shut up and trust the SCIENCE?!?!?”
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
Kamala Harris’ Proposed Price Controls May Lead To “Communism, Mass Starvation, & End Of America”
At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, unveiled her communist-style economic plan of ‘price controls.’ Her argument has been evil capitalism and corporations for rampant inflation, despite the reality that reckless government spending under her and President Biden is the primary driver of sky-high prices, particularly in the grocery store.
What’s hilarious is that even Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell criticized VP Harris’ economic plan to implement price controls to stop “price gouging” on groceries.
“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” Rampell wrote. She titled the op-ed, “When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?”
On Saturday morning, Elon Musk reposted one food industry insider’s step-by-step summary of what would happen if Harris’ economic price control plan was implemented. Musk wrote, “Accurate conclusion (read the whole post).”
“I worked in M&A in the food industry,” Robert Sterling wrote on X. He provided readers with a detailed step-by-step summary of what would happen:
The government announces that grocery retailers aren’t allowed to raise prices.
Grocery stores, which operate on 1-2% net margins, can’t survive if their suppliers raise prices. So the government announces that food producers (Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Tyson, Hormel, et. al.) also aren’t allowed to raise prices.
Not all grocery stores are created equal. Stores in lower-income areas make less money than those in higher-income areas, as the former disproportionately sell lower-margin prepackaged foods (“center of the store”) instead of higher-margin fresh products like meat (“perimeter of the store”). Because stores in lower-income areas aren’t able to cover overhead (remember, even if their wholesale costs are fixed, their labor, utilities, insurance, and other operating expenses aren’t fixed… yet), grocery chains start to shut them down. Food deserts in rural areas and in low-income urban areas alike become worse.
Meanwhile, margins for food producers are also quickly eroding. Their primary costs (ingredients, energy, and labor) aren’t fixed, and their shrinking gross profits leave less cash flow available to cover overhead, maintain facilities, and reinvest in additional production capacity.
Grocery chains, which have finite shelf space, start to repurpose their stores (those they didn’t have to shut down, I should say) to sell more non-price-controlled items—everything from nutrition supplements to kitchenware to apparel—and less price-controlled food products. Your local Kroger or Safeway starts to look and feel more like a Walmart.
Food producers stop making products with lower margins. Grocery chain start competing with each other to secure inventory. Since they can’t compete by offering stronger prices (remember, producers aren’t allowed to raise prices here, and, even if they could, grocery chains no longer have the gross profit to bear price increases), they compete on things like payment terms.
Small grocery chains start to shut down entirely, or get sold to larger chains like Kroger. In addition to not being able to cover fixed costs, a major reason for this is because they can no longer reliably secure delivery of products, due to producers prioritizing sales to larger customers, which are able to leverage their stronger balance sheets to offer superior payment terms.
Smaller food producers—which typically sell via distributors, rather than directly to grocery chains—start to go out of business. Because these producers have an additional step their value chains, and because they have lower volumes over which to spread their fixed costs, their cost structure is inherently disadvantaged compared to major food producers. When grocery stores aren’t able to raise prices, cutting product costs becomes all the more important, and deprioritizing purchases from smaller producers is an easy way to do so.
As supply chains break down, lines start to form outside grocery stores every morning. Cities assign police officers to patrol store parking lots, and food producers draft contingency plans to assign armed escorts to delivery trucks.
The federal government announces a program to issue block grants for states to purchase and operate shuttered grocery stores. The USDA also seizes closed-down production facilities.
The government announces that prices for all key food costs—corn, wheat, cattle, energy, etc.—are also now fixed, to stop “profiteers” from gouging the now-government-operated food industry.
Shockingly, the government struggles to operate one of the most complex industries on the planet. The entire food supply chain starts imploding.
Communism, mass starvation, and the end of America quickly ensue.
In a separate post, Sterling noted, “The impact on small rural communities would be terrible. I hate driving through small towns in the Midwest and seeing a DG next to a closed-down grocery store that operated from 1900 to 2018.”
Really appreciate it, brother. And, to your point, the impact on small rural communities would be terrible. I hate driving through small towns in the Midwest and seeing a DG next to a closed-down grocery store that operated from 1900 to 2018.
“Inflation is experienced at the grocery store, but always manufactured by the government. It’s the same story every time. The politicians who create it by printing money, villainize and blame companies that have nothing to do with it — to distract from their reckless spending,” Cameron Winklevoss wrote on X.
Inflation is experienced at the grocery store, but always manufactured by the government. It’s the same story every time. The politicians who create it by printing money, villainize and blame companies that have nothing to do with it — to distract from their reckless spending. https://t.co/EJkng1004Q
We’re glad Americans just woke up in a big way – in recent days – to understand finally far-left radical VP Harris is nothing more than a communist-pusher.
More than 700 illegal immigrants crossed the English Channel from France to the U.K. on Sunday as the new left-wing government in Westminster struggles to contain the long-running crisis…
Home Office figures released on Monday revealed a total of 703 migrants were escorted to British shores, a new record since Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour Party took office last month.
The figure is the third-highest daily total this year, with illegal immigration showing no signs of slowing down under the new administration.
Illegal immigration and asylum are at the forefront of the political debate in Britain currently and were key issues during the general election campaign.
The left-wing Labour Party pledged to scrap the former Conservative government’s Rwanda scheme, which would have seen all migrants who arrive illegally in Britain deported to the African country for offshore asylum processing — a policy former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hoped would deter migrants from making the perilous journey across the waterway and thwart the criminal gangs exploiting the crisis.
Starmer scrapped the scheme in his first few hours in Downing Street, a move that has certainly not helped stop the boats.
Since the start of the year, 18,342 asylum seekers have been registered arriving on British shores, a 13 percent increase over the same period last year. So far this year, 25 people have died during the dangerous crossing.
Mass immigration and a lack of integration have dominated political discourse in Britain recently following the mass stabbing of young girls at a dance class in the northwest town of Southport by a 17-year-old son of two Rwandan asylum seekers last month.
The attack led to mass rioting across the country and a controversial crackdown on free speech by Starmer’s party with dozens of people consequently jailed for posting comments about mass immigration that were deemed to have incited racial hatred.
At critical moments over the past 25 years, the New York Times has aided the interests of a power faction within the Chinese Communist Party responsible for atrocities against practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong.
On top of implicating itself ethically, the paper has also, as a result, distorted its China coverage and misled its readers, as revealed by an analysis of The New York Times’ China coverage as well as interviews with half a dozen experts on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics and geopolitics.
Due to the paper’s disproportionate influence on policy, its skewed coverage has likely led to a loss of life and treasure that is difficult to quantify, some experts said.
The New York Times has for decades positioned itself as a global newspaper, insisting on a necessity of access to China, according to former staffers. That meant convincing the communist regime that the paper’s presence would benefit it.
The paper has never explained what price it has paid for access to the country.
“There’s always the issue of, if you want to be a global newspaper, what do you have to do to keep China happy and stay in business there?” Tom Kuntz, a former editor at the paper, told The Epoch Times.
“There’s always been tensions, and I know they’ve, like a lot of companies, tried to maintain access to China.”
Bradley Thayer, a former senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, expert on strategic assessment of China, and a contributor to The Epoch Times, was more blunt.
“If they don’t cover the regime the way the regime wants to be covered, they’re going to be blackballed. They’re not going to be able to return,” he told The Epoch Times.
“So all of these individuals have a vested interest, if you will, in toeing the Party line.”
Covering Chinese politics, The New York Times has ascribed sincerity where deception is expected and glossed over where it should have dug deeper, all in a pattern of affinity with the interests of a CCP clique aligned with former Party leader Jiang Zemin, multiple experts affirmed.
Jiang’s influence has waned since 2012, when incoming CCP leader Xi Jinping exhibited an unexpected dexterity in eliminating his opponents. Only a minority of Jiang’s acolytes have maintained influence since his death in 2022. Despite the shift in power, however, The New York Times has maintained the pro-Jiang pattern.
The New York Times did not respond to a detailed list of emailed questions for this article.
Privileged Position
The paper developed a special connection with Jiang in 2001, when its then-publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and several editors and reporters were granted a rare audience with the dictator.
The paper ran a flattering interview headlined “In Jiang’s Words: ‘I Hope the Western World Can Understand China Better.’”
Within days, the CCP unblocked access to The New York Times’ website in China.
A month later, the CCP unblocked several other Western news sites, including those of The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the BBC. The sites were blocked again within a week.
The New York Times, on the other hand, remained accessible. Users then reported that content on the site was being blocked selectively, giving the paper a chance to benefit from access to the Chinese market to the degree that it kept within bounds acceptable to the CCP.
The interview came at a sensitive time for Jiang. He had only a little more than a year left before he was supposed to hand over Party control to Hu Jintao, fulfilling the succession line stipulated by Deng Xiaoping, his predecessor.
But things weren’t going well for Jiang. His persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, a political campaign that was supposed to whip the Party and the nation into conformity under his control, was failing to reach its goals. Even worse, foreign media, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, were taking apart the CCP’s anti-Falun Gong propaganda and highlighting accounts of wrongful detention and torture.
The New York Times, by contrast, appeared most helpful to Jiang’s campaign. By the time of the 2001 interview, the paper ran several dozen articles on Falun Gong, almost all of them profusely parroting the propaganda portraying the practice as a “cult” or a “sect.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline consisting of slow-moving exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It was introduced to the public in China in 1992, and by the end of the decade, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people were practicing it.
When in January 2001 CCP state media claimed that several people who set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square in Beijing were Falun Gong practitioners, The Washington Post dispatched a reporter to fact-check the story. The New York Times, on the other hand, immediately took the CCP line as fact.
If the paper employed its much-touted investigative acumen, it would have discovered, as others have, that the incident was staged. After the first man allegedly set himself alight in the middle of the square, four policemen somehow managed to obtain several fire extinguishers, rush to the scene, and put out the fire, all in less than one minute.
Given the distances involved on the giant square, that wouldn’t have been physically possible—unless the officers already had the fire extinguishers ready and knew in advance where on the square they would be needed that day, several independent investigations concluded, pointing out dozens of other inconsistencies.
Even without any investigation, the incident made little sense. The victims supposedly followed a belief that burning themselves alive would bring them to heaven. But Falun Gong includes no such belief. In fact, its literature treats suicide as killing a human life, which it explicitly prohibits.
The New York Times didn’t even find it strange that since Falun Gong’s public introduction in 1992, of the tens of millions of people practicing it, none of them had publicly set themselves on fire until that day, and none had done so since.
Even after The Washington Post investigation traced several of the alleged victims back to their hometown and found that none had ever been seen practicing Falun Gong, The New York Times continued to parrot the CCP’s propaganda.
Jiang was apparently pleased with The New York Times, calling it during the 2001 interview “a very good paper.”
Getting in Jiang’s good graces on the Falun Gong issue would have been particularly critical, as it struck at the heart of a core principle of CCP politics, several experts affirmed.
Partners in Crime
One of the bedrocks of the CCP’s internal politics is ensuring one’s own safety, particularly upon retirement. Cadres are well aware of the pitiful fate of many high-ranking comrades. Infamously, Liu Shaoqi, once No. 2 to the CCP’s first leader, Mao Zedong, was purged during the Cultural Revolution, arrested, and tortured to death.
When Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, looked for somebody to helm the CCP after him in 1989, he picked Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Party secretary who supported the CCP’s deployment of military to crush the 1989 student protests.
“Because Jiang was implicated in the repression of the students, Deng could trust Jiang to be his successor. Jiang could not in the future use the massacre against Deng without implicating himself,” explained Matthew Little, a senior editor of The Epoch Times, in a 2012 analysis.
The persecution of Falun Gong played much the same role for Jiang, who encouraged his cronies to build “political capital” by backing the campaign. Some did so with fervor, escalating the persecution to a point of unspeakable barbarity, particularly in encouraging torture to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith, The Epoch Times previously reported.
These officials, tied by shared complicity in the atrocities, were at the core of Jiang’s power faction, sometimes called the “Shanghai gang.”
In exchange for their support, Jiang let the gang abuse their offices and plunder state-owned assets, setting the tone for a nationwide culture of corruption.
That culture served a dual purpose for Jiang. On one hand, it allowed him to buy supporters, especially in the 1990s, when he struggled to form a power base among CCP cadres, who generally saw him as incompetent, according to an unofficial biography of Jiang published by The Epoch Times.
On the other hand, he could eliminate his rivals in the name of “anti-corruption.”
But the sword of anti-corruption cuts both ways. As Xi later demonstrated, it could be applied selectively against the Jiang faction, too.
The bond through culpability in the Falun Gong repression was more solid. The crimes became so extensive that none of the culprits would have risked their revelation, some China experts said.
There was a problem, though: Jiang’s designated replacement, Hu Jintao, showed little enthusiasm for the Falun Gong campaign.
“Jiang tried to push Hu to persecute Falun Gong and found he was quite reluctant,” said Li Linyi, a China commentator, expert on CCP internal politics, and Epoch Times contributor.
“Their relationship started to deteriorate after that. Jiang just felt more and more concerned about Hu.”
Just as the CCP under Deng redressed some victims of the Cultural Revolution, Hu could, at least theoretically, redress Falun Gong, blame Jiang, and purge his faction.
“There was a huge price for redressing the Cultural Revolution,” he said. “Not only did some top CCP leaders get purged, but the CCP admitted they made a big mistake. That is not good for them in order to hold power in China in the long term. The CCP is still criticized for what they did during the Cultural Revolution.”
CCP leaders would only backtrack on Falun Gong as a last resort, if they felt it would save the regime, he said.
That didn’t mean, however, that Hu and his supporters couldn’t use the Falun Gong issue to endanger Jiang and his faction in other ways. Indeed, there’s evidence that they have.
“All [Jiang’s] policies could have continued to be carried out by Hu Jintao, except this one. … The only thing Jiang Zemin worried about was the policy of persecuting Falun Gong,” said Heng He, a veteran China commentator with NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times.
Jiang was thus extremely motivated to constrain Hu and prop up his own image, several experts confirmed.
The New York Times proved helpful in this pursuit.
Shoring Up a Dictator’s Legacy
By 2002, The New York Times was in pro-Jiang mode. Parroting the Party propaganda, the paper declared that Falun Gong had been successfully “crushed.”
Citing CCP sources, it suggested that Falun Gong was already passé and that it only ever had 2 million practitioners. It went as far as claiming that the figure cited by Falun Gong sources, 70 million, was baseless.
Yet a few years earlier, before the persecution began, multiple Western and Chinese media, including The Associated Press and The New York Times, provided figures of 70 million or 100 million, generally attributing them to estimates by the Chinese State Sports Administration, which had the best insight due to a massive survey of Falun Gong practitioners it conducted in the late 1990s.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the US didn’t know about Ukraine’s plans to invade Russia’sKurskRegion, but that’s unbelievable since there’s no way that its intelligence services didn’t even catch a hint of it, not to mention likely participate in the preparations.
Putin even reaffirmed during a meeting on Monday with high-ranking government officials about this crisis that Ukraine is the West’s proxy for waging war on Russia. Here are the five reasons why the US is still playing dumb:
1. Maintain Plausible Deniability For Escalation Control
Admitting complicity in Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s universally recognized territory would make the US a direct participant in these unprecedented hostilities and thus place enormous pressure upon Moscow to respond against it and/or other NATO countries like Poland. The US doesn’t want that to happen, ergo why it also forced Ukraine to call off its reportedly planned assassination of Putin last month as explained here, so dishonestly denying knowledge of its proxy’s plans is par for the course and not unexpected.
2. Avoid Embarrassment & Responsibility Once Ukraine Fails
It’s unlikely that Ukraine will be able to indefinitely hold the territory that it captured inside of Russia so it’s a question of when and not if it fails. Accordingly, the US wants to avoid the embarrassment associated with that once it happens and also reduce the chances that Russia feels pressured to respond against it and/or other NATO countries as written above. The US is basically letting Ukraine hold the bag after everything inevitably fails apart so that Russia’s full fury is directly solely against its proxy.
3. Propagate David-vs.-Goliath Optics For Boosting Morale
By pretending to be caught off guard by what just happened, the US is lending false credence to the optics that the latest phase of the already decade-long Ukrainian Conflict that began almost two and a half years ago is a modern-day David vs. Goliath story. This is meant to boost morale inside of Ukraine amidst its drastic slump caused by the ramping up of forcible conscription there and increase support among the Western public for continuing to fund this proxy war in the face of growing fatigue.
4. Keep Up The Charade Of A “Gentlemen’s Agreement” Gone Bad
RT’s Sergey Poletaev introduced an intriguing theory into the global information ecosystem earlier this week when he wrote that “The relative calm along the 1,000-kilometer border for two and a half years likely wasn’t coincidental. We can suggest there were agreements between Moscow and Washington, specifically with the administration of US President Joe Biden.” If there’s any truth to that, then lying about not being aware of Kiev’s plans could be an attempt by the US to try to hoodwink Putin yet again.
5. Troll Russia After It Previously Denied Supporting Donbass
Russia always denied militarily supporting Donbass throughout the eight years between “EuroMaidan” and the specialoperation, but the US insisted that this was a lie and that Russia had “invaded” Ukraine, albeit at a limited scale. Whatever the truth may be, playing dumb about its support for Ukraine’s indisputable invasion of Russia is also an attempt to troll Russia for denying the dubious claim that it “invaded” Donbass before 2022.
There’s no truth to the US’ denial that it knew nothing about Ukraine’s plans to invade Russia, but claiming otherwise advances its escalation control and soft power interests.
Those who play along with this are insulting the intelligence of their targeted audience, some of whom might feel pressured not to call them out though due to fear of being aggressively harassed online and “canceled”.
All objective observers know the truth, especially those in the Global South, which is all that matters for Russia.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling on the Commerce Department to open an investigation into the business practices of Chinese budget online retailer Temu.
In a letter dated Aug. 14 to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Scott warned that the fast-growing Temu represents “a new challenge” to efforts to ensure fair trade practices in the United States.
“To protect our nation’s economic interests and the well-being of our citizens, I believe it is imperative that we address this issue promptly,” Scott wrote.
Temu’s platform, which began in the United States in September 2022, is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, which also operates the Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. In January, the research firm Marketplace Pulse estimated that more than 100,000 China-based sellers were operating on Temu.
Scott identified five areas of concern surrounding Temu—product safety and quality, labor practices, unfair competition, data privacy, and counterfeit goods—as reasons why the Commerce Department must take action against the shopping platform.
The Florida senator warned that products sold on Temu “are not subject to the rigorous safety tests and inspections that other competitor products made elsewhere around the world undergo.”
“There are concerns that Temu may be a conduit for counterfeit products,” he added.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported on Aug. 14 that toxic substances were found on women’s accessories, such as hats and sandals, being sold on three Chinese online platforms, including Temu, citing the South Korean city government of Seoul.
“There are reports of unsafe working conditions, labor abuses, and human rights violations associated with [the] production of products for Temu,” Scott wrote. “We need to ensure that the products sold on Temu are not manufactured using forced labor or other unethical practices that violate international labor standards.”
In June last year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published a report warning consumers that “there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor.”
“Temu does not have any system to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA),” the report reads.
The law bans imports from China’s far-western region of Xinjiang—where the Chinese regime has been accused of committing genocide against Uyghurs—unless companies can prove products weren’t produced with forced labor.
Scott also questioned Temu’s ability to sell products at lower prices than U.S. retailers, suggesting that it could result from “unfair trade practices or the exploitation of loopholes in our import regulations.”
In February, Scott and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking his administration to end the “de minimus” trade rule because it’s a loophole that “unfairly benefits foreign companies and overseas e-commerce platforms such as Temu.” Under the rule, imports under $800 in valuation can enter the United States without paying duties and taxes and with little or no customs inspection.
“De minimis shipments, now numbering 3 million a day, are at an elevated risk of violating UFLPA, containing counterfeit goods, exacerbating the fentanyl crisis, or posing a serious health danger to consumers,” the two senators wrote in their letter.
Scott pointed out in his Aug. 14 letter that data security should be another concern.
“Given Temu’s Chinese ownership, we must investigate potential risks to American consumers’ data privacy and security,” Scott wrote. “Concerns regarding exploitation of Temu application users lead U.S.-based companies to announce warnings and ‘how-to’ guides on removing the Temu application from its application purchasing platform and user devices.”
In China, there are different laws, including the National Intelligence Law, that can compel Chinese companies to hand over data collected within China and elsewhere to Beijing’s intelligence agencies.
Scott asked the Commerce Department to “launch a comprehensive investigation” into Temu, work with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to assess potential risks, evaluate the need for new regulations, and submit a detailed report to Congress on its findings.
The Florida senator also requested a meeting with Raimondo to discuss the issue.
The Commerce Department and Temu officials didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
Oakland Neighbors “Take Matters Into Their Own Hands” To Fight Reckless Driving Sideshows
Neighbors in Oakland have had enough with reckless driving and, since their years of complaints are going unnoticed, they’re banding together and doing something about it.
Frustrated by years of reckless driving, Oakland homeowners took action by placing dirt- and rock-filled tires on busy streets.
On Tuesday, city crews faced hecklers while removing the tires from East 21st Street, according to Fox KTVU.
Odelson Souza said his 2 year old son was almost hit by a speeding car on the sidewalk, telling Fox: “Look, please help us. Who else we gonna call? Superman?”
Three months ago, neighbors created makeshift roundabouts with reflective tape on 18th Avenue. On Tuesday, they illegally parked two cars to prevent city crews from dismantling one.
Neighbor Lauren Blanchard said: “Well, we are protesting this. It feels crushing. We want the city to pay attention to our neighborhood.”
One neighbor said: “They almost killed someone. There’s a school up there. Kids have been hit on this street. There are people whose cars have been crashed into and totaled.”
He continued: “Enough of the performative, you know, making everyone feel better, renaming streets after dead rap artists. Do your [expletive] job.”
“So disappointed with the city’s inability or unwillingness to respond to clear and present danger,” another neighbor, Wendy Jung, said.
Sean Maher, Oakland’s Citywide Communications and Engagement Director responded: “We all want safer streets, but increasing the risk to the public by installing hazards is not the solution. The city will be promptly removing these unauthorized, dangerous installations.”
The report says neighbors have committed to installing more barriers until the city acts.
In a ceremony earlier this week, CIA Director William Burns awarded the head of the Qatari State Security Agency the George Tenet medal for his work on strengthening intelligence cooperation between the US and Qatar, Axios reported Thursday. The two intelligence agencies especially during the decade-long proxy war to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
Both Burns and Al-Khulaifi have played important roles in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a potential ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner exchange.
One reason for the award is Qatari efforts to release the remaining 111 Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza, one source with knowledge of the issue told Axios.
Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons and detention camps, where recent reports suggest that torture and rape is common.
Another source said Burns gave the award to his Qatari counterpart in “appreciation of his role in maintaining national and regional security, and the exceptional support he provided to the CIA in preserving the interests and security of the US and Qatar.”
Another important reason for the award was the cooperation between the CIA and Qatari intelligence in counterterrorism and the ability of the Qatari State Security Agency to prevent and foil threats and attacks in West Asia, the source told Axios.
Both the US and Qatar have long been known for their support of terrorist groups in the region.
Starting in 2011, the US and Qatar worked closely with other regional states to support Al-Qaeda in Syria.
Saudi & Qatari governments funded and gave logistical support to ISIS confirms email from Hillary Clinton to the man who was to become her campaign chair, John Podesta https://t.co/tlWxkEZ8FNpic.twitter.com/mpyIb7QchL
The Syrian branch of the terror group, the Nusra Front, led a jihadist insurgency against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad under the cover of US-sponsored anti-government protests.
Kevin Plank’s Race Farm Listed For $22 Million Amid Under Armour Troubles
Baltimore-based Under Amour has been undergoing a broad multi-year restructuring plan. Earlier this year, founder Kevin Plank returned to the helm, hoping to reverse the sales slump and boost profits.
Given that UA shares have been a trainwreck since the company was accused of defrauding shareholders about revenue growth in a bid to beat Wall Street’s forecasts in 2017, Plank, the third largest shareholder, has seen his paper wealth evaporate.
In June, UA agreed to pay $434 million to settle the lawsuit that accused Plank of intentionally deceiving investors about the company’s financial health between Sept. 16, 2015, and Nov. 1, 2019. UA will use cash and a revolving credit facility to pay the settlement.
With UA in the dumps, about 21 miles north of the company’s headquarters in Baltimore City, situated in some of the best steeplechase country in the US, Plank’s 530-acre horse farm, called “Sagamore Farm,” was “briefly listed for $22 million,” according to local media Baltimore Banner.
Here’s more from the local media outlet:
The listing by the real estate firm Compasswas publicly available online on Monday morning. Denie Dulin, the listing agent, said the Glyndon estate might be sold privately and declined to comment further.
“It’s not publicly being marketed yet,” Dulin said.
Plank bought Sagamore Farm from a developer in 2007 through an LLC. It’s unclear how much he paid. Property records do not disclose a sale price.
In 2010, several years after Plank bought the race farm, he told the Baltimore Sun paper that he planned to win a ‘Triple Crown.’
The real estate agent did not explain why Plank decided to sell the race farm. Plank has been locked in a zoning dispute with local conservation groups after he proposed building a whiskey distillery on the historic farm. The timing of the sale also comes amid UA restructuring efforts.
Meanwhile, Plank, who previously supported former President Trump, hosted a closed-door fundraiser for far-left Democrats at Sagamore’s main house in mid-May.
See Gov. Wes Moore clapping on the right side of the image. And no, this is not a deep fake.
The nearly two-decade partying at the Plank family’s ‘frat house’ at Sagamore is coming to an end—better start focusing on turning around the sinking UA ship.
California officials are pushing for school districts to convert available property into housing for teachers, school staff, and, in some cases, students.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a summit on Aug. 14 featuring state leaders to address what his office called the “critical need for affordable housing and workforce housing, and exploring strategies for accelerating access to homeownership for working and middle-class Californians,” according to a news release.
Thurmond’s housing initiative, announced on July 30, was officially launched at the summit. The initiative’s objective is to use 75,000 acres of surplus land owned by school districts throughout the state to construct 2.3 million housing units.
“California is facing a housing crisis—and it doesn’t have to be. … This initiative [is] all about: activating the resources and expertise that we all have within our great state, so we can make sure that our community members from all walks of life have access to the California Dream.”
The superintendent previously announced financial incentives for districts that take necessary steps to build staff housing, and the California Department of Education has sponsored a workshop for education officials to learn about real estate development.
Thurmond’s program is in accordance with the Teacher Housing Act of 2016, which permits school districts to seek out housing project funding sources, such as federal and state tax credits. Additional legislation, such as a 2022 law that became effective in January, provide added benefits.
Schools could also use the $10 billion school facilities bond, known as Proposition 2, to construct teacher housing and fix classrooms and other buildings if it succeeds this fall.
Some districts have already started working on housing for school employees. Among the properties owned by Los Angeles Unified are a 26-unit building set aside for low-income families and a 90-unit complex that just opened in April.
A 135-unit building is set to debut this fall by San Francisco Unified. A 70-unit development has been held by Santa Clara Unified for almost 20 years.
The San Mateo County Office of Education is working with a nonprofit dedicated to public-private housing to purchase an existing apartment complex for local teachers. The Marin County Office of Education collaborated with the state and the county to construct housing for educators on property held by the state, close to San Quentin Prison.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the California Teachers Association for comment.
This is just one of the changes taking place in California schools. The state introduced a number of new laws governing safety, health, and inclusivity for the upcoming school year.
Among those laws is a recess requirement, which requires public schools to provide at least 30 minutes of recess on regular days and 15 minutes on shortened days to allow students time for physical activity.
Another law prohibits school staff from disclosing a student’s gender identity, sexual orientation, or gender expression to parents without the student’s consent. Additionally, climate change education is now required in science curricula for grades 1–12.
K–12 schools must integrate media literacy into their curricula, helping students critically evaluate media content to help them combat misinformation. Schools serving grades 7–12 must also educate students on the dangers of opioids, including fentanyl, and include this information in their safety plans.
Another change affects suspension policies: Schools can no longer suspend students in grades K–12 for disruptions or defiance. Instead, school administrators must provide in-school interventions or support. Meanwhile, students are now allowed a full day per semester to attend religious events, up from the previous four-hour limit.
The Associated Press and Sophie Li contributed to this report.
