The Black Death was one of the world’s largest mortality events ever, wiping out 30-60% of the global population as it swept through North Africa, Europe, and Asia 700 years ago. 

Newly published research in the medical journal Nature reveals the ancient dead had a secret. DNA samples from victims and survivors of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, also known as the bubonic plague, had distinct genetic differences that helped some survive while others succumbed to death. 

Those genetic differences likely altered the evolution of the human genome, as survivors of the plague passed on genes that once helped them survive the awful plague pathogen to offspring and are now linked to a greater chance of autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis today. 

 “We are the descendants of those that survived past pandemics … and understanding the evolutionary mechanisms that contributed to our survival is not only important from a scientific viewpoint, but can also inform on the mechanisms and genetic determinants of present-day susceptibility to disease,” study coauthor Luis Barreiro, a professor of genetic medicine at the University of Chicago, told CNN via email. 

In the study, Barreiro and other researchers found that Black Death survivors in London and Denmark had genes that protected them against the plague pathogen. They found one particular gene, known as ERAP 2, was found to be protective against the virus. Before the plague, 40% of Londoners had the gene — after the epidemic, 50%. The same was for Denmark. About 40% had the gene before the plague, while 70% had it afterward. 

“It’s a LONG process, but in the end you have the sequence of those genes for those people from before, during and after the plague and you can ask: Do the genes one population carried looked different than the ones another population carried,” said coauthor Hendrik Poinar, a professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in an email.

But the gene came at a considerable cost for those who survived the Black Death as it increased future generations’ risks of autoimmune diseases. 

“This suggests that populations that survived the Black Death paid a price, which is to have an immune system that increases our susceptibility to react against ourselves,” Barreiro said.

The results highlight natural selection to present-day and how the Black Death altered more than society but the human immune system. Barreiro doesn’t believe Covid will have the same impact because it doesn’t kill across the age spectrum and primarily kills the elderly who aren’t procreating. 

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Chinese firm’s purchase of land in Florida to build a lab monkey breeding facility is drawing scrutiny over the company founders’ ties to the Chinese military.

JOINN Laboratories CA Inc., the California subsidiary of a biotech firm headquartered in Beijing, in July purchased more than 1,400 acres of land for building a primate facility in Florida’s Levy County, county records show.

With a combined value of $5.5 million, the 10 parcels of land purchased from L & T Cattle & Timber represents one of the largest known Chinese acquisitions of U.S. land in recent years. While construction has not begun, the deal has attracted public attention at a time of heightened concern about Chinese investments in the United States over security and other risks.

The purchaser’s parent company JOINN Laboratories describes itself as a leader in non-clinical drug screening in China. According to its website, the company was founded in 1995 and employs over 1,500 staff. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries in major Chinese and U.S. cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Boston.

Zhou Zhiwen and Feng Yuxia, the couple who founded and control JOINN Laboratories, both graduated from China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. The school is the Chinese military’s top medical institute, which was added to a U.S. trade blacklist last year for supplying biotechnology to the Chinese military.

After graduating, both Zhou and Feng went on to work as researchers at the academy before establishing their business venture, according to Chinese media reports. Zuo Conglin, a board member of JOINN Laboratories, also graduated from the same academy.

These links with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should raise red flags, according to Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.).

“The idea that we would permit a … biotech firm with ties to the Chinese military to breed lab monkeys on U.S. soil is baffling, especially after China unleashed the Covid-19 pandemic on the world,” he told The Epoch Times.

“The Biden administration allowing Chinese Communist Party affiliated companies to buy up American land is unacceptable, especially for these purposes. If the President won’t put his foot down to protect American interests, Congress will.”

Future of Project Uncertain

It’s unclear if JOINN Laboratories can proceed with its plans in Levy County. Because the purchased land is currently zoned for forestry and rural residential, the company would need to rezone the land to industrial to build its lab facility, the county said in a Sept. 22 statement.

The county said that it had been asked about a possible rezoning of the land, and that it replied that “such a request would not receive a favorable staff recommendation” because of “compatibility” issues and that it would create “spot zoning,” referring to the controversial practice of singling out a piece of land for special zoning laws different from the zoning laws around it.

County officials, when reached by The Epoch Times in early October, said it hasn’t received such a formal rezoning request from JOINN Laboratories.

The company did not publicly announce the sale and not much is known about the proposed breeding facility. JOINN Laboratories didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times regarding the purchase and its plans for the site.

It’s unclear whether the company intends to sell the lab monkeys in the United States, China, or elsewhere. Both countries have a high demand for primates for experimental use, and the United States exports a large portion of monkeys from China.

According to Chinese media reports, the average cost for a long-tailed macaque, commonly used for lab research, paid by the Chinese regime has soared from around 30,000 yuan ($4,153) in 2019 to over 130,000 yuan (around $18,000) in early 2022.

JOINN Laboratories currently owns about 18 acres of animal testing facilities in Beijing and Suzhou, a major city in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, according to its 2021 annual report. It is also building another primate breeding base with the capacity of raising 15,000 large animals in Wuzhou of southern China’s Guangxi Province. The quarantine station for the base is now complete, the report stated.

Read more here…

The Miss USA pageant appears to be in complete shambles. 

Not only is Miss USA vice president Max Sebrechts is being accused of “multiple” incidents of sexual misconduct, but the pageant is also in the midst of being accused of being rigged, an allegation that the Miss USA organization has denied. 

Sebrechts is the husband of the national director of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, Crystle Stewart. According to reporting by the New York Post, he allegedly “sent sexually explicit messages to multiple contestants”. The Post obtained photographs and video of Sebrechts stating he was looking for a “no strings attached” relationship. 

The Miss USA pageant said it was “made aware of the allegations against Max Sebrechts regarding his behavior towards 2021 Miss USA contestants” back in December of last year. Since then, Sebrechts was removed from his position. 

“Upon learning this, Miss Universe Organization conducted a review, which resulted in Max being completely removed from any affiliation with the Miss USA organization in January 2022,” a representative told The New York Post. 

Sebrechts also reportedly had an affair in 2018 which the organization became aware of: “Five months after he had been removed, in June 2022, Miss Universe Organization was made aware that Max had an extramarital relationship in 2018, in which graphic text messages and images were exchanged, two years before his wife, Crystle Stewart, was awarded the Miss USA license.”

“At least four” women were on the receiving end of advances from Sebrechts, the report says. 

In one email to a woman, he wrote: “I’ve always wanted to at least tell you that I felt deeply attracted to you despite of my personal situation.” He continued:  “Maybe we could try [something] but def with no strings attached … And of course this is all between us, ok?”

He also wrote to the same woman: “I was terribly attracted to your looks of course. Those tights you were wearing looked awfully sexy on your tight body. I’m at the office right now I’ll send you a pic tonight. Unless I run to the restroom, the thought of imagining you in those tights without underwear has quite an effect on me.”

In at least one instance, he accompanied his email with a photograph:

His advances prompted contestants to send complaints to Paula Shugart, the president of the Miss Universe Organization, the report says. 

The pageant has denied that it took too long to act, stating: “Ms. Shugart was made aware of the allegations in December 2021 and upon learning of them, made the decision to insist on the removal of Mr. Sebrechts from Miss Brand. Paula did act on the accusations, insisting on the removal of Max from Miss Brand and any affiliation with Miss USA.”

But Miss Wyoming Mackenzie Kern claimed that when women complained to Shugart, they were “ignored”. 

“It’s no surprise that this was swept under the carpet,” one insider to The Post. You can read all of Sebrecht’s allegedly inappropriate texts and emails here. 

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A high-level Navy official said Wednesday that the US should prepare for the possibility of China invading Taiwan as soon as this year. “So when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window. I can’t rule it out,” said Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations.

The “2027 window” refers to a claim from retired Adm. Phil Davidson, the former head of US Indo-Pacific Command, who said last year he believes China could invade within six years. Gilday said he was prioritizing a “fight tonight” posture for the US Navy with respect to China and Russia.

Gilday said his assessment was based on comments Chinese President Xi Jinping made this week, although the Chinese leader only reiterated that he seeks “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but won’t rule out the use of force.

“It’s not just what President Xi says, but it’s how the Chinese behave and what they do,” Gilday said. “What we’ve seen over the past 20 years is that they have delivered on every promise they’ve made earlier than they said they were going to deliver on it.”

While US officials are always warning that China is planning to invade Taiwan, Beijing has little interest in doing so as it would require the largest amphibious invasion in military history.

If China chooses to take military action against Taiwan, it would likely initially opt for a blockade, which it simulated in unprecedented exercises around the island in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visiting Taipei.

Gilday’s warning comes as the US is working to send massive amounts of weapons to Taiwan. While done in the name of deterrence, China’s actions and rhetoric make it clear that more US support for Taiwan will make Chinese military action more likely.

“When we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind that has to be a 2022 window or a potentially a 2023 window. I can’t rule that out. I don’t mean at all to be alarmist by saying that, it’s just that we can’t wish that away.” — @USNavyCNO https://t.co/tQLqQWDg1f

— Ian Easton (@Ian_M_Easton) October 21, 2022

During his speech earlier this week, Xi also warned strongly against “interference” from outside forces, and other Chinese officials have explicitly warned that US support for Taiwan’s “independence forces” could lead to war.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

In another foretaste of potential future ‘carbon allowance’ limits, a major bank in Australia has introduced a new feature that links purchases to a customer’s carbon footprint and warns them when they are going over the average.

Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has partnered with Cogo, a “carbon management solutions” company, to launch the new feature, which is part of CBA’s online banking platform.

The bank gives the customer the option to “pay a fee” to offset their carbon footprint, with the average listed as 1,280 kilograms, a long way from the ‘sustainable’ figure of 200 kilograms.

A person’s carbon footprint is calculated and then an ‘equivalent’ metric is show to make the customer feel guilty about it, such as “8 trees being cut”.

“By combining our rich customer data and CoGo’s industry-leading capability in measuring carbon outputs, we will be able to provide greater transparency for customers so that they can take actionable steps to reduce their environmental footprint,” CommBank Group executive Angus Sullivan said in a statement.

The bank has promised to refine the calculation down to showing how much CO2 individual purchases are responsible for.

While initially presented as a handy way for someone to track their consumption habits and the supposed impact they have on the environment, some fear that such schemes could one day become mandatory and place limits on purchases of customers who exceed their ‘carbon allowance.’

As we previously highlighted, allied with climate lockdowns, technocrats want to exploit hysteria over climate change to increase financial control over individuals.

Such a proposal was presented in the science journal Nature by four environmental “experts” as a means of reducing global carbon emissions.

Everyone would be issued with a ‘carbon allowance card’ “that would entail all adults receiving an equal tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national [carbon] targets.”

The authors make it clear that the program would be a “national mandatory policy.”

Carbon units would be “deducted from the personal budget with every payment of transport fuel, home-heating fuels and electricity bills,” and anyone going over the limit would be forced to purchase additional units in the personal carbon market from those with excess to sell.”

Of course, the wealthy would be easily able to afford the offsets, and many of them are directly invested in the trading mechanisms that the scheme would be based on.

The proposal makes clear that the means of measuring a person’s uptake of carbon units for travel would function “on the basis of the tracking the user’s movement history.”

The authors note that mass compliance with COVID-19 lockdown regulations has greased the skids for further intrusive tyranny and that, “people may be more prepared to accept the tracking and limitations related to PCAs to achieve a safer climate” as a result.

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In another big step along America’s path to normalizing the use of a once-taboo plant, major convenience-store chain Circle K will begin selling marijuana at its Florida gas stations. 

Circle K’s foray into the marijuana business will go live in 2023, through a partnership with Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries, a medical and recreational cannabis wholesaler and retailer with a presence in 15 states. Florida’s marijuana market is the country’s second largest, trailing only California.  

Green Thumb CEO Ben Kovler calls the new venture a “game-changer”: 

“The new RISE Express model is a huge step forward in making it easier and more efficient for patients to purchase high-quality cannabis as part of their everyday routine when stopping by their local convenience store.” 

Circle K parent Couche-Tard is a global pioneer. “Legal marijuana has so far been sold only in stand-alone dispensaries in the US and within pharmacies in countries such as Uruguay and Germany,” reports Bloomberg. Couche-Tard also has a Canadian convenience-store cannabis pilot with Fire & Flower.

Under the arrangement, Green Thumb will operate “RISE Express” stores that will be partitioned from the convenience stores and have separate entrances. Since Florida law only allows medical use, there will be no recreational sales. There are many conditions and symptoms that can qualify Floridians to receive a medical marijuana card, and some 700,000 residents have been issued one.  

Circle K has 600 stores in Florida. Starting with a 10-store “test and learn” phase, Green Thumb subsidiary RISE Dispensaries will sell a variety of branded cannabis products, including pre-rolled joints, flower, gummies and vapes. 

With more than 7,000 Circle K stores in 47 states, Circle K is the largest independent convenience store operator in the United States. Green Thumb’s Kovler “there’s appetite” at Circle K to try the model outside Florida too.

The news comes a few weeks after President Biden ordered an “expeditious” review of how marijuana is scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act. It’s currently in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.  

Meanwhile, a new Morning Consult/Politico survey finds 60% of Americans support legalization, including a 47% plurality of Republicans. 

In our new survey, 60% of U.S. voters say #marijuana use should be made legal in the United States, compared with 27% who say it should not be. https://t.co/JFsd013Xjz pic.twitter.com/lVAFnak989

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) October 5, 2022

With a major, mainstream brand now entering the marijuana business, look for the country’s wasteful and destructive prohibition regime to continue crumbling.

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Around 5,000 residents of Riverside County in California received a duplicated ballot ahead of the November midterm elections this week, which officials blamed on a computer system error.

Riverside County Registrar of Voters office said the 5,000 duplicate ballots were erroneously mailed to some voters in Canyon Lake, Menifee, Murrieta, Wildomar, and Winchester after a computer system error “mistakenly generated” the mailing files.

Officials said the error was identified over the weekend before they could be stopped from being delivered to the U.S. Postal Service. 

“It is important to note that none of the duplicate ballots will result in a voter being able to cast more than one ballot,” said Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer in a statement. “I take election integrity seriously and apologize for the inconvenience.

Spencer said that every vote-by-mail envelope has a bar code and that once scanned as accepted at the Registrar of Voters office it automatically locks the voter’s record so that the person can only vote once.

Residents who received two ballots were advised to use vote with one and destroy the second, which Spencer said would be automatically voided once the other is scanned.

“The first ballot received would be processed and the second ballot would be automatically voided,” she said.

The country’s Registrar of Voters office said the computer system error was resolved and procedures have been put in place to prevent the error in the future.

California is one of nine states—including Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington—to mail ballots to all registered voters.

All 50 states offer vote-by-mail, or absentee, ballot options to varying degrees.

California also offers early in-person voting, along with 45 other states. Alabama, Connecticut, Mississippi, and New Hampshire are the only exceptions, although all four provide vote-by-mail ballot options.

California also offers a 29-day period for in-person early voting. This year that is slated for Oct. 10 to Nov. 7.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

“President” Joe Biden described the US economy as, “Strong as hell,” in a recent sound bite. No one except his most ardent supporters, a vanishingly small number in reality, believes that.

He and they point to statistics, “internals” in Biden-speaks, that point to why the US is better off than everyone else. Well, yes, we may be better than everyone else, that doesn’t however mean the economy is “strong as hell.”

It just means it is the most attractive horse at the glue factory, to invoke more Biden-esque rhetoric.

Honestly, I was waiting for a Corn Pop reference, but Fox cut away too quickly.

The headline numbers — jobs, U-3 unemployment, etc. — don’t tell the whole story. If anything they tell a story directly opposite of what they normally would. Why? Math.

U-3 unemployment measures people still in the workforce looking for work, defined by those applying for unemployment. I don’t know about you but we’ve all heard the stories of record job openings. This also means the economy is supposed to be strong.

But then why are real wages negative? Why are they not only lagging inflation but slowing rapidly in nominal terms while headline (and massively understated) inflation is rising.

Taken together these statistics give you a clearer picture of the labor market in the US.

Low wage jobs and job openings remain high as the supply of low and medium skilled workers remains tight. Anyone who wants a job as a waitress, register jockey, customer service folks, etc. can have one. These are the people most likely, by the way, to file for unemployment.

In fact, these are the people unemployment insurance is suppose to target to help them through the job transition.

But when layoffs, which are concentrated in the higher paying jobs and those jobs are literally retired, then those folks 1) don’t file for unemployment and 2) contribute heavily towards real median household wages dropping.

Someone making $100k as a middle manager or department chief isn’t filing for unemployment because, more often than not, they don’t even qualify for benefits. So, again they won’t show up in the normal headline statistics.

In previous recessions when the credit cycle was virtuous and it could be pumped up again by central bank largesse of one form or another, it was always cut the little guy who is easily replaced and hold onto the best mid and upper professionals to keep the company operating smoothly.

Now we have the opposite problem. Companies are top heavy and bottom light.

I can’t throw a stick and not hit a basic business with a help wanted sign out for entry-level jobs in my area of Florida. And Florida’s economy is booming!

My favorite local restaurant had to shut down on Monday’s after COVID last year because, “We can’t find anyone to work. Sorry.” Then they shut down DINNER and were only open until 2pm all week. Slowly they are resuming normal hours. Last night I was pleasantly surprised that Wed-Fri are now normal dinner hours.

This is a nothing fancy, southern burger/ribs and fries joint. But they were able to survive.

But the reality is that the Fed’s restrictive monetary policy is having the desired effect of contracting credit-based asset prices, causing deflation there — housing, Class A office space, used car prices, etc. That, in turn, is putting extreme pressure on leveraged assets based on those things and those entities invested in those leveraged products.

LQD and HYG are down hard this year. HYG is the 3rd worst, year-to-date, in redemptions, $-6.8 Billion. LQD is up $3.1 Billion in AUM. Clearly, looking at this list of ETF in and out flows the shift is out of high risk and into low risk assets, including banks.

The market is clearly signaling it needs higher returns from debt in this environment. As prices on US Treasuries come down they are being bought up all across the yield curve. S&P 500 net flows? Positive. Russell 2000? Negative.

Dividend stock flows, positive. Industrials and Europe, negative.

In response to Biden’s idiocy and reports from Bloomberg that economists’ predictions of the US falling into a recession next year rose to 100%, I was contacted by Sputnik News again to provide some commentary on the matter.

As always, for the sake of full disclosure and clarity here are my full comments and Sputnik’s questions. I hope you find them helpful:

Biden has repeatedly said the US will avoid recession and that any downturn would be “very slight” – why has the President ignored the real situation so far?

Because “Biden” is desperately trying to massage the message coming into the mid-term elections in three weeks.  That he and his staff are still trying to convince people of this at this late date tells you they’ve seen the polling and it is terrible.

All of the main issues the Democrats have tried to persuade voters on – abortion, Ukraine, gun control, January 6th – have failed to resonate.  They rank as the lowest concerns among Americans coming into the election.

Trying to jawbone the economy is a signal they know they are going to lose and want to pivot after the vote to blaming it on the Republicans.  Standard issue American politics.

How much of a blow could such a forecast be ahead of the November midterms?

Not much at this point.  People’s minds are made up.  The only question is how much overt cheating will be done in crucial races to limit the damage.  The Democrats nearly lost control over the New York caucus in 2020 they are on track to lose those seats they won through vote harvesting weeks after election night. 

The president has focused on strong job growth – to what extent can his campaigning help Democrats retain their House and Senate majorities in elections?

Strong job growth?  Really?  With 18 straight months of real wages not keeping pace with inflation?  The Democrats’ core voters are the upper end of the wage-earning scale.  This is a low unemployment situation like we’ve never seen in the US.  There’s a glut of minimum wage job openings and employers paying good money for basic jobs while professional jobs are getting axed by the tens of thousands.

And, oh by the way, those people don’t apply for and in make cases don’t qualify for unemployment benefits.  So, low U-3 unemployment is a result of dislocations in the workforce that are abnormal.

No one is going to thank Joe Biden for giving them access to the fry cook job at the local Wendy’s when they used to run a factory. 

A separate Bloomberg survey of 42 economists predicts the probability of a recession over the next 12 months now stands at 60 percent, up from 50 percent a month earlier. What has changed? Do you believe the recession is inevitable?

Recession is already here.  We’ve had 2 straight quarters of negative GDP growth, which has been their metric for an economic downturn for almost three generations.  Playing word games is nothing more than electioneering.

The Fed is not bluffing about raising interest rates.  The global economy is unbalanced and unsustainable thanks to 14 years of central bank largesse fueling credit bubbles the world over which are now popping.

And the Fed knows this, understands this and also understands that the way out of the current mess is through it not by avoiding it again with more monetary heroin.  This heroin is like the fentanyl crisis here in the US, damaging to us while others prosper.  The offshore dollar markets are the ones who are screaming for a Fed bailout, not the US corporates.

They’ll scream in a while, but not today.  You only need to look at who is angry to know who is getting crushed by the Fed’s defending the US dollar through tight monetary policy. 

The Fed is engineering a controlled demolition of leveraged credit markets.  This is the only path out of complete and utter global economic collapse.  They have the tools, the incentives, and the fiscal room right now to make that happen. 

Talk to me in two years and I’ll likely have a different answer.

If the US does in fact fall into recession, what effect will it have on the international economic situation?  

I feel that with the Fed acting the way it is that they are clawing back capital sent overseas to support globalism through the hyper-financialization of capital markets.  Risk is not assessed through interest rates properly anymore based on the quality of the investment rather on the expectation of central bank policy.

I believe strongly that Jay Powell, the FOMC board and the Fed’s backers on Wall St. understand this and that it is time to reverse what we’ve become used to.  With most of the Global South working to de-dollarize their trade, the Fed has no choice but to do this. 

That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to make it as painful as possible in the process.  Of course, they are. But, at the same time there are many who are truly over-leveraged here without the Fed and the US liquefying their capital markets, and I’m thinking specifically Europe and the UK.

The “Biden” administration realizes now that the American public is with the Fed if it means a return to sound fiscal policy, a return to cultural norms and the end of the Democrats’ woke craziness.

That will be the GOP’s sell after the mid-terms.  GOP leadership will be dragged kicking and screaming into finally embracing America First six years after electing Trump.  And the rest of the world better brace for a very hard landing for everyone over the next few years.

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The Biden administration’s sweeping regulations that curb the sale of semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to China and pull American workers out of the country appear to have a gap that one Chinese chip designer is exploiting. 

Bloomberg said Chinese startup Biren Technology had developed artificial intelligence chips that compete with graphics chips from Nvidia Corp., which can no longer be sold in China due to new export controls on the chip industry. But people familiar with the matter said the sanctions don’t cover Biren’s AI chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. 

Biren has claimed that its chips outperform Nvidia’s A100 AI accelerator — the product that the Biden administration said couldn’t be sold for fears Beijing will use these chips to enhance military capabilities. 

TSMC and Biren concluded the new Chinese chip’s specs fall just short of Biden’s restriction, according to one of the people, which may suggest Washington’s ability to annihilate China’s chip industry doesn’t entirely limit all alternatives to Nvidia’s hardware. 

The gap in new restrictions was also pointed out by Bernstein analysts led by Mark Li in a note to clients:

“Biren has a chip fortunately just below the threshold and the chip hence can still be made by TSMC.” 

Bernstein’s analysis shows that Biren’s flagship BR100 falls just under the connectivity speeds and operations per second of the restrictions. In the meantime, Biren may continue developing its high-end semiconductors that are alternatives to US chips though Washington’s curbs are capping its technological process. 

In response to Washington’s latest restrictions, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology summoned executives from the country’s top chip firms for emergency meetings this week to evaluate the damage. 

And the restrictions might expand in the coming weeks, if not months. South China Morning Post reported Biden administration is exploring new export controls that would limit China to quantum computing and artificial intelligence software. 

As for now, at least one Chinese chip designer has navigated through Biden’s export restrictions to produce advanced chips.  

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Wednesday that two people were indicted for their alleged involvement in a 2020 ballot harvesting scheme in Yuma County.

Gloria Lopez Torres and Nadia Guadalupe Lizarraga-Mayorquin, both of San Luis, face charges of conspiracy and ballot abuse, said the attorney general in a news release. Ballot harvesting is considered a class 6 felony.

Lopez Torres, notably, is currently a sitting San Luis Council member, according to local media.

They are accused of conducting a scheme to collect “early ballots from other voters” and deposit them in a ballot box during the state’s primary election in August 2020.

Torres is accused of collecting seven ballots from Lizarraga-Mayorquin, according to grand jury indictments (pdf) (pdf) that were returned earlier this month. Lizarraga-Mayorquin collected at least one ballot from a third party that was not disclosed.

State law only provides for a family member, household member, or caregiver to collect early ballots from another individual in Arizona, said the office of Brnovich, a Republican, in a news release.

The indictments allege that the unlawful activity started around July 12, 2020, and ran until Aug. 4, 2020—the primary election day. The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office obtained video footage of alleged ballot harvesting near a polling station in San Luis, the indictment said.

Former San Luis Mayor Guillermina Fuentes—who was serving as a local school board member—and another woman, Alma Yadira Juarez, were sentenced last week for their role in the same 2020 ballot-harvesting scheme. Fuentes, a Democrat, was ordered on Oct. 13 to turn herself into the Yuma County Jail, said Brnovich.

Both Fuentes and Juarez pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of ballot abuse.

“A group of subjects, lead by Guillermina Fuentes were seen on video manning a table and appearing to be supporting particular candidates,” the report from the Arizona Attorney General’s office said. “A female identified as Alma Juarez approached the table and made contact with a second female identified as Guillermina Fuentes. Fuentes is ultimately observed taking a ballot from Juarez.”

Since the 2020 presidential election, there have been accusations of voter fraud that swung the election out of former President Donald Trump’s favor.

Arizona has been mired in claims of voter fraud since the 2020 presidential election during which former President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state to President Joe Biden. This case, however, slightly predates that contest.

Read more here…