Newsburst – November 23, 2023

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Editor’s Note: This is a “real-time” report, with news from Italy…it’s already the 24th there! 😊

Sixty years ago today, on 22 November 1963, popular and beloved President John F. Kennedy arrived in Dallas-Texas, where the Secret Service protectors assigned to ride on the back of his open limousine were inexplicably ordered not to do their job, a few minutes later, President Kennedy had his head blown apart in a public execution, and when Judge Andrew Napolitano asked why he didn’t release all of the still secret files about this execution, President Donald Trump told him: “Judge, if you saw what I saw, you would know why I can’t release them”.

A “newspaper of record” is a major national newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative, which the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post are officially designated as being for the United States government, none of whom acknowledged the 60th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s public execution today. The only major American news outlet marking the anniversary of this tragic day was Fox News in its opinion article “JFK Assassination: 60 Years Later We Know The Truth About The Real Killer” written by Hoover Institution senior fellow Paul Gregory, wherein he dismisses all evidence to solely blame Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination, but very accurately states: “On November 22, 1963, we lost not only a popular young president, but we also lost our national innocence… We lost our trust in government… Once lost, it has not returned and never will”.

A positive association found between autism prevalence and childhood vaccination uptake across the U.S. population. – Abstract: The reason for the rapid rise of autism in the United States that began in the 1990s is a mystery. Although individuals probably have a genetic predisposition to develop autism, researchers suspect that one or more environmental triggers are also needed. One of those triggers might be the battery of vaccinations that young children receive. Using regression analysis and controlling for family income and ethnicity, the relationship between the proportion of children who received the recommended vaccines by age 2 years and the prevalence of autism (AUT) or speech or language impairment (SLI) in each U.S. state from 2001 and 2007 was determined.

NHS England has sparked controversy by handing the US spy tech company Palantir a £330m contract to create a huge new data platform, leading to privacy concerns around patients’ medical details. The move immediately prompted concerns about the security and privacy of patient medical records and the suitability of Palantir to be given access to and oversight of such sensitive material. NHS England has given Palantir and four partners including Accenture a five-year contract to set up and operate the “federated data platform” (FDP). Palantir is known for working closely with intelligence agencies and military organisations around the world, such as the CIA and UK Ministry of Defence.

The Last Generation climate change group has been designated as a “criminal organization” by the Munich Regional Court, which announced the ruling on Thursday after considering ten complaints from the climate activists over searches and seizures. The court dismissed the complaints, ruling that the Last Generation meets the requirements to be considered an organized crime group – arguing that committing crimes does not necessarily need to be the only purpose of a group to be designated as such. The court said the group’s activities, including disrupting traffic and damaging property, constitute a significant threat to public safety and order.

Over the past several years, there have been a series of coups in Africa – precisely, eight coups in three years. The last one occurred in Gabon. At the time, the media discussed Africa’s anger at colonialist France and the pro-French governments that toppled like dominoes. For Paris, that was a real disaster, since African countries had only formally escaped from under its ‘wing’ and were still subordinated to France politically and economically. Moreover, Africa is rich in minerals, oil, gas, gold, and other resources. For example, Niger supplies about 15% of France’s uranium needs.

French Foreign Trade Minister Olivier Becht has dismissed reports of his country’s declining influence in Africa as a scheme by opponents to undermine France’s presence on the continent. Becht made the comments in an interview published by Nigeria’s Business Day newspaper on Thursday. The diplomat, who is in Nigeria for a two-day visit, insisted that, despite anti-French sentiment in several former colonies, France is not being pushed out of Africa.

The Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research hub working for the US Department of Energy, confirmed on Wednesday that it had suffered a “massive data breach” Sunday night. A group of “gay furry hackers” called SiegedSec has claimed responsibility. “We’re willing to make a deal with INL. If they research creating irl catgirls we will take down this post,” SiegedSec wrote in a message announcing the leak on Monday.

Ex-Obama adviser Stuart Seldowitz has been fired from his lobbying job after he was caught on video threatening a Muslim street vendor with deportation and torture, and calling the Islamic prophet Mohammed “a rapist.” In a series of videos that surfaced online on Tuesday, Seldowitz accuses the New York vendor of supporting Palestinian militant group Hamas. “You support killing little children,” Seldowitz says to the man in one exchange, to which the vendor retorts, “You kill children, not me.” “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian children, you know what? It wasn’t enough!” Seldowitz declares.

A team of researchers believe they have identified the remains of the lost Monastery of Deer, just 80 meters away from the ancient site of the Deer Abbey in Scotland. The discovery sheds light on the production of Gaelic entries, or ‘addenda,’ in the Book of Deer, and their connection to the lost monastery. It’s understood that the earliest written Scots Gaelic was constructed at the site. The find was lead by archaeologists Alice Jaspars and Ali Cameron, who also serve as co-directors of the excavation near the ruins of Deer Abbey. “These addenda include reference to the foundation of the monastery, alongside other land grants in the Northeast of Scotland. It is now our belief that in our 2022 excavation, we found the lost monastery where these were written,” says Jaspars.

Sports fans often experience intense emotions when watching their favorite teams compete and, now, researchers are working to pinpoint just how these moments manifest in the human brain. Francisco Zamorano Mendieta, a key researcher in the study, explained via a statement that the study “aims to shed light on the behaviors and dynamics associated with extreme rivalry, aggression, and social affiliation within and between groups of fanatics.” Officials at Clínica Alemana de Santiago in Chile explored the neural underpinnings of joy and disappointment among football enthusiasts by employing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of 43 male Chilean fans, split between supporters of Colo-Colo (22) and Universidad de Chile (21).

Known traditionally as Soun Nan-leng (‘Reef of Heaven’), Nan Madolis a megalithic complex made up of over 90 man-made islets built on coral fill and spread 200 acres over a lagoon edging Pohnpei’s surrounding barrier reef. Pohnpei (formerly Ponape) is the third-largest member of the Federated States of Micronesia, a spray of over 600 islands so-named after their minuscule size. Pohnpei is a compound meaning ‘upon an altar’, in reference to a cloud-capped mountain at the island’s center: at its summit is a basalt altar and a mangrove tree which symbolically represents the birth of the isle from its ocean bed.