USA - A coalition of attorneys general from 43 states and Puerto Rico filed a 510-page lawsuit last week at a US District Court in Connecticut, claiming that “generic drug manufacturers conspired to fix prices and markets of 114 drugs for both minor infections and chronic diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes and HIV.” The suit alleges that Teva, Pfizer, Mylan, and 17 other pharmaceutical companies worked together to create a “fair share” of the generic drug market and thereby avoid price-lowering competition. The lawsuit also names 15 pharma execs in a price-fixing conspiracy that allegedly overcharged states and consumers billions of dollars.
USA - Throughout Britain's literature regarding chickenpox, the infection is described as being mild, common, and as relatively benign; whereas the American writings depict it as a deadly contagion that merits mandatory vaccinations, as an absolutely critical measure for obtaining public safety. Chickenpox is the same condition regardless of where one dwells, so if vaccinations were as scientific as is generally alleged, then the rationales for them would be nearly identical. However, the descriptions of the infection are essentially the opposite, which could lead a thoughtful reader into pondering which establishment is telling the truth about chickenpox, or if neither establishment is.
USA - Analysts from Goldman Sachs have confirmed what many of us have suspected for some time in a recent published report title, “The Genome Revolution”: biotech companies (ie Big Pharma) are not incentivized to cure illnesses. Let me see if I can rephrase that for you, it seems curing people is not a “sustainable business model.” “Hep C treatments are 90% effective in terms of complete cure. But the Hep C business model is unsustainable. In 2015, Gilead Sciences, the maker of Hep C treatments, reported sales of $12.5 billion related to the medications. This year, Gilead Sciences will report in the $3 billion range. That’s a drastic financial decline and the price the biotech company pays for curing an illness completely.”
USA - A professor at the University of California, San Diego, told his students that unborn babies are “parasites” during a class lecture. Now, a scientist from LSU is pushing back against this absurd claim. Breitbart News reported in April that University of California San Diego Professor Pascal Gagnuex told students that fetuses are a “legitimate parasite.” The lecture then compared fetuses to a “cancer” that “rapidly grows,” and “invades” the body. Scientist and associate Professor Michael Behnke of LSU, who specializes in studying parasites, told the College Fix this week that Gagnuex’s description of unborn children is not only incorrect but also “borderline satanic.”
UK - The captain of the HMS Queen Elizabeth has just been relieved of command, reportedly over borrowing the ship’s car for personal use. Yet the US Marines are about to do basically the same with the Royal Navy’s flagship carrier. Commodore Nick Cook-Priest, who took over as captain of the Queen Elizabeth (R08) in October 2018, has just been “reassigned” and ordered to sail the ship back to Portsmouth after a dry-dock refit.
EUROPE - EU leaders are waking up to their worst nightmare: right-wing parties that want to change it from within. A decade ago, Euroskeptics were said to be dangerous because they wanted to leave the EU. Now, they are said to be dangerous because they want to stay in. “We want to change things from within,” Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and interior minister [has said]... “We are working with friends from France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Netherland, Belgium, Austria to create an alternative alliance to the Christian Democrat and Socialist duopoly that has always governed Europe.”
FRANCE - Hundreds of illegal migrants occupied the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in France, preventing people from boarding their flights and demanding to speak to Emmanuel Macron’s prime minister, Edouard Philippe. “France does not belong to the French! Everyone has a right to be here!” yelled one of the migrants, organised by the pro-migration La Chapelle Debout group, through a loudspeaker, as they pressed for their presence in the country to be regularized.
ISRAEL - If you speak to Israelis, some will tell you how Europe is their biggest trading partner, how they love going on holiday there and of their many ancestral family connections. Yet many also say they see Europe as a source of anti-Semitism, a place where the Holocaust is becoming less prominent in the minds of a new generation of young people.
USA - The White House announced Sunday afternoon the first part of its Middle East peace proposal, what officials are calling an economic "workshop" to encourage investing capital in the West Bank, Gaza, and the region, a senior administration official tells CNN. The workshop will take place in Manama, Bahrain, on June 25 and 26, bringing together finance ministers with global and regional business leaders.
BELGIUM - Doctors in Belgium have called for parents who raise their children as vegans to face prosecution after a number of deaths in schools, nurseries and hospitals. It is estimated that 3 percent of Belgian children are forced to follow the strict diet, which rules out any animal products, including dairy and eggs. The Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium published a legal opinion on Thursday, which could influence future court judgments and is the first time a health authority has taken a position on veganism in the country. The opinion said it was unethical to subject children to the diet because it didn’t include animal proteins and vital amino acids which can help growth and prevent health problems. The vegan diet could only be made safe for growing children if complemented with medical supervision, regular blood tests and vitamin supplements, which most parents were not qualified to provide.
USA - You might find your car dying on the freeway while other vehicles around you lose control and crash. You might see the lights going out in your city, or glimpse an airplane falling out of the sky. You've been in a blackout before, but this one is different. In the broadest sense, an EMP is a sudden burst of extreme electromagnetic interference that causes systems using electricity — especially devices controlled by chips or computers — to fail when the load gets too high.
USA - The middle of the country has never seen anything quite like this. As 2019 began, the central portion of the nation was relentlessly hammered by bitter cold and massive snow storms, and many were hoping for better things once spring arrived. But then in March the flooding began, and it hasn’t stopped since. In fact, this is already the longest we have seen flooding along the Mississippi River since 1927, and there is no end in sight.
USA - There is not going to be a trade deal between the United States and China any time soon, and that is going to mean a tremendous amount of pain for the US economy. For months, hope that the US and China would soon reach a trade deal helped to elevate global financial markets, but now that hope has disappeared. In order for a trade deal to happen, the two sides have to talk, and at this point no negotiations are scheduled. And unless one side or the other decides that they are willing to move dramatically from their current positions, there really isn’t any reason to talk. In fact, the Chinese government is openly saying that it is in “no rush” to negotiate with the United States…
CHINA - The Chinese came from nothing; only 40 years ago, they had nothing but a billion impoverished peasants. No money. No technology. No power. Today, they’re on par with the United States. But, if this trend continues – which it will – their economy will be triple the size of the US economy in 20 years.
USA - Trump’s decision to stop Germany’s free-riding on trade and security has put an always uneasy French-German relationship into an open-ended and dangerous crisis. President Emmanuel Macron’s desperate attempt to irrevocably anchor the French volatile body politic into the EU has been denied by German opposition to his proposals of re-founding the European project. For now, the euro is safe. Germans want to make sure that remains an unquestionable prospect by putting their man at the helm of the European Central Bank.