Lee Ardis

‘One Christian Killed Every 2 Hrs’: Biden State Dept. Refuses To Place Nigeria On Persecution Watchlist, Despite Genocide Of Christians

The Biden State Department once again has refused to designate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), despite Christians being killed by militant Muslim groups almost daily with no effective intervention by the Nigerian government.

Over the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and pleas from religious freedom advocates, the Biden administration, for the second year, left Nigeria off of a list of 12 other nations designated as CPCs in an announcement on Dec. 2. The Trump State Department had designated Nigeria as a CPC, but the Biden administration dropped that label in 2021.

The CPC designations are announced annually by the State Department to spotlight the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

Since 2011, the terrorist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have murdered more than 40,000 Christians in Nigeria, in addition to thousands more killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen, Genocide Watch reports. In 2021 alone, according to the persecution watchdog group Open Doors, some 4,650 Nigerian Christians were murdered by these groups—equal to one Christian killed every two hours.

Open Doors estimates that Nigerians made up nearly 80% of the world’s Christian martyrs in 2021.

The State Department’s announcement revealed a sharp disagreement over Nigeria between the Biden administration and the members of the USCIRF, which is an appointed commission mandated by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.

Putin says one missile will trigger ‘hundreds’ of warheads in stark message on nuclear deterrence

Russia expert counters Putin suggestion that he will change Moscow’s nuclear doctrine

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday once again drew international attention when he warned that if even one missile enters Russian territory, “hundreds” of warheads will respond.

“I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal of a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles are in the air,” Putin said from a summit in Kyrgyzstan, Russian news outlet RIA reported. “It is impossible to stop them.”

“There will be nothing left of the enemy, because it is impossible to intercept a hundred missiles. This, of course, is a deterrent — a serious deterrent,” he added.

Putin made headlines after he appeared to suggest that he may make changes to Russia’s nuclear deterrence doctrine by employing a first-strike policy, which he referred to as a “disarming strike” — a strategy he said is motivated by the current U.S. deterrence policy.

Russia already has this strategy embedded in its nuclear doctrine.

Washington does have a policy that allows it to use a nuclear weapon, not only in retaliation to a nuclear attack but also in response to non-nuclear threats — and so does Moscow, explained Rebekah Koffler, a Russia expert and former Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer for Russian Doctrine & Strategy.

“What this was, from the intelligence standpoint, is ‘strategic messaging,'” she said, adding that Putin’s comments signaled that “Russia may use nuclear weapons in Ukraine if the US/NATO continue to provide weapons to Ukraine — especially those that Ukraine can use to strike deep into Russia proper.”

Airborne microplastics: Equivalent of 3 million plastic bottles per year found in Auckland’s atmosphere

Seventy-four metric tonnes of microplastics have been found in Auckland’s atmosphere, the equivalent of three million plastic bottles per year, researchers say.

The University of Auckland research, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found the microplastics were of such small sizes that there was concern they could be inhaled and accumulate in the human body.

Nanoplastics, the smallest particles, can potentially enter cells, cross the blood-brain barrier, and may build up in organs such as the testicles, liver and brain. Plastics have also been detected in the placenta.

“Microplastics have also been detected in human lungs and in the lung tissue of cancer patients, indicating that the inhalation of atmospheric microplastics is an exposure risk to humans,” the paper noted.

The levels of microplastics in Auckland’s air were much higher than those recorded in London, Paris and Hamburg in recent years, with the study utilising a method which could detect particles as small as 0.01 of a millimetre, researchers said.

Lead author Dr Joel Rindelaub said “The smaller the size ranges we looked at, the more microplastics we saw”.

“This is notable because the smallest sizes are the most toxicologically relevant.”

US Set To Send Ukraine Patriot Missiles In Major Escalation

CNN’s chief Pentagon correspondent is reporting the breaking news based on multiple anonymous US defense officials – including a senor Biden administration official – that the White House is currently finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine.

“The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine that could be announced as soon as this week, according to two US officials and a senior administration official,” CNN writes. “The three officials told CNN that approval is expected.”

If approved, this could be a tipping point in the conflict leading to direct confrontation between nuclear-armed powers given transfer of Patriots would mark the longest-range missiles sent to Ukraine thus far.

Washington has so far been reluctant, despite Kiev officials since nearly the start of the invasion making repeat pleas for the US to help “close the sky” – as President Zelensky many months ago urged Congress.

As The Guardian reviewed of the dangers involved in sending the Patriot:

“Long sought by the Ukrainians, the missiles have a range of up to 300km, but so far the US and its allies, including the UK, have declined to supply them because they could be used to hit targets inside Russia. Supplying them would help “bring the war to an end as soon as possible”, Johnson said.

Salt Lake City Faces Toxic Dust Storms Amid Declining Water Levels

Salt Lake City, Utah, was already in trouble. Between vast open-pit mining operations in the surrounding areas, oil refineries, and a unique mountain range that traps pollution in a winter ‘inversion layer,’ the cities surrounding the Great Salt Lake have grappled with air quality issues for years.

“We have 2.5 million residents along the edges of the lake,” said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist researching the Great Salt Lake dust. “These dust plumes come off and make the air unhealthy regardless of what’s in it.”

Now, as NBC News reports, declining water levels in the Great Salt Lake have created new challenges as dust laden with toxic metals threaten the region.

Since Mormon pioneers settled the valley in the mid-1800s, the lake’s volume is down 67% – thanks to a combination of irrigation projects, which account for roughly 75% of the loss, and the ongoing megadrought, which accounts for the remainder of the drop, according to research from Utah State University.

This isn’t an issue caused by climate change, according to the report. Residents are simply consuming too much water for agriculture, residential use and industry, from overtaxed rivers that feed the terminal lake. Humans diverting water has reduced the Great Salt Lake by around 11 feet – while increased evaporation has added to the problem by around half-a-foot.

Hostility Against Churches Is on the Rise in the United States

Family Research Council analyzed publicly available data from the past five years to determine whether there has been a statistically significant increase in acts of hostility against churches in the United States over time.

Between January 2018 and September 2022, at least 420 acts of hostility against U.S. churches occurred. The types of acts identified include vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more. There also appeared to be an increase in frequency over the course of the reporting period.

This increase in religious hostility should not be taken lightly. Such acts are destructive and have the potential to intimidate a religious community. Therefore, they deserve to be condemned.

Major Energy Breakthrough: Milestone Achieved in US Fusion Experiment

The National Ignition Facility achieves ignition in a fusion reactor.

It was touted as a “major scientific breakthrough” and, it seems, the rumors were true: On Tuesday, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that they have, for the first time, achieved net energy gain in a controlled fusion experiment.

“We have taken the first tentative steps toward a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world,” Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a press conference Tuesday.

The triumph comes courtesy of the National Ignition Facility at LLNL in San Francisco. This facility has long tried to master nuclear fusion — a process that powers the sun and other stars — in an effort to harness the massive amounts of energy released during the reaction because, as Hruby points out, all that energy is “clean” energy.

Despite decades of effort, however, there had been a major kink in these fusion experiments: the amount of energy used to achieve fusion has far outweighed the energy coming out. As part of the NIF mission, scientists had long hoped to achieve “ignition,” where the energy output is “greater than or equal to laser drive energy.”

Some experts have remained skeptical that such a feat was even possible with fusion reactors currently in operation. But slowly, NIF pushed forward. In August last year, LLNL revealed it had come close to this threshold by generating around 1.3 megajoules (a measure of energy) against a laser drive using 1.9 megajoules.

Dark Chocolate May Pose Health Hazard, Report Says. Many Bars Contain Levels Of Lead, Cadmium.

A new report indicates that dark chocolate, often touted as a healthy food to add to your diet, may in fact contain elements dangerous to your health.

Consumer Reports examined 28 different dark chocolate bars sold to consumers and found that every single one of them contained amounts of cadmium and lead. Children ingesting lead can suffer brain and nervous system damage as well as slower growth and development in addition to hearing and speech problems. Low levels of cadmium have been linked to kidney cancer and fragile bones.

“For 23 of the bars, eating just an ounce a day would put an adult over a level that public health authorities and CR’s experts say may be harmful for at least one of those heavy metals,” Consumer Reports stated. “Five of the bars were above those levels for both cadmium and lead.”

“To determine the risk posed by the chocolates in CR’s test, we used California’s maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead (0.5 micrograms) and cadmium (4.1mcg),” Consumer Reports acknowledged.

“There are risks for people of any age,” Tunde Akinleye, the food safety researcher who led the Consumer Reports project, stated.

UN General Assembly demands Israel surrender its nuclear weapons after 149-6 vote

Only a handful of countries supported Israel’s right to nuclear self-defense in a recent U.N. vote.

The U.N. General Assembly considered a resolution Wednesday calling for Israel not to develop, produce, test, or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.

Additionally, the resolution called for the Jewish nation to “renounce possession of nuclear weapons” and to assent to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, thereby placing “all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy safeguards.”

149 nations voted in favor of the resolution. Only six voted against it.

What are the details?

The U.N. general assembly demanded that Israel agree to “accede to the [Middle Eastern nuclear non-proliferation] Treaty without further delay, and not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce their possession and to place all its unsafeguarded nuclear facilities under full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.”

Israel, India, Pakistan, and South Sudan have not signed the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty.

Israel has never formally acknowledged possessing nukes. However, former President Jimmy Carter told MSNBC in 2014 that Israel has “300 or more” nuclear warheads, and leaked emails from former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated the nation had at least 200 nukes in its arsenal.

The resolution calling for Israel’s disarmament was advanced by Palestine and various other countries including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the six nations that opposed the resolution were Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Palau, the U.S., and Liberia.

Ukraine, which voted with the Palestinians against Israel on another resolution in November, was among the 26 nations that abstained from the resolution.

American Girl is accused of ‘stripping away all innocence’ in book that teaches children as young as THREE how to change gender by asking doctors for puberty blockers

The popular American Girl doll brand is facing backlash for pushing children as young as three years old into changing their gender.

A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image, contains lines that give advice to prepubescents on how to change their gender – without their guardians’ blessing. Parents have since slammed the book’s contents as ‘deceptive and dangerous.

A passage in the book – marketed to girls aged between three and 12 advises: ‘If you haven’t gone through puberty yet, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body’s changes, giving you more time to think about your gender identity.’

It also provides a list of resources for organizations the children can turn to ‘if you don’t have an adult you trust’.

The book, penned by resident American Girl author Mel Hammond, is currently available on shelves in bookstores across the country and on the company’s website.

The release of the book comes amid a wave of increasingly woke content from the American Girl brand.

Earlier this year, its parent company Mattel, recently put a transgender Barbie doll on the market. Before that, American Girl, which sells more than 30million dolls a year, shilled an Asian doll when anti-Asian hate crimes were skyrocketing across the US.

The company has yet to comment on the contentious content.

In the book, it normalizes being transgender, and pushes children to use puberty blockers.