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In the latest evidence of the ongoing erosion of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement, investment titan Vanguard has doubled the amount of assets covered by a program that gives investors the power to choose a proxy-voting philosophy — while also adding two more voting options within that program.  

“Vanguard Investor Choice is grounded in the foundational belief that empowering investors to influence how their proxies are voted helps create a healthier corporate governance ecosystem,” said John Galloway, Global Head of Investment Stewardship at Vanguard. The program will now cover nearly 4 million investors and almost $250 billion in assets — still a small slice of the more than $10 trillion in Vanguard assets under management. 

Vanguard also announced that it is working with retirement plan sponsors to extend the pilot program’s availability to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants. Here’s the updated list of funds eligible for the program, with the three new additions in italics: 

• Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund
• Vanguard Russell 1000 Index Fund
• Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF
• Vanguard Mega Cap Index Fund
• Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Index Fund
• Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund 
• Vanguard Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation Fund 
• Vanguard Tax-Managed Small-Cap Fund

The decades-long rise of passive investing has put the Big Three indexers — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street –in a position of major power to steer corporate agendas. It’s also put them in the crosshairs of angry investors and federal and state Republican officials who think shareholder returns should be the only consideration when voting proxies. 

Giving investors the power to choose their own proxy-voting philosophy for shares held on their behalf extricates Vanguard and other firms from competing pressures applied by ESG enthusiasts and opponents. Vanguard now provides a choice of five such proxy philosophies for funds that are covered by the expanding Investor Choice pilot program: 

• Vanguard-Advised Funds Policy: Shares are voted “in a manner that seeks to maximize long-term shareholder returns.” 

• Company Board-Aligned: The fund investor’s proportionate share of votes on each measure is cast in alignment with the recommendations of the company’s board of directors

• Glass Lewis ESG: Glass Lewis is a proxy advisor; in this option, the investor’s shares go all-in on the woke agenda that emphasizes “climate action,” diversity, “equity” and social issues

• Third Party Wealth-Focused Policy:  An investor’s shares are voted per the recommendation of Egan-Jones, which will focus on maximizing shareholder value without consideration of political or social factors

• Mirror Voting Policy: Votes an investor’s proportionate shares in approximately the same proportions as the votes cast by other shareholders. (This follow-the-crowd approach replaces a “not voting” policy that directed Vanguard to not cast any vote on any proposal.)

The last two are new for the 2025 proxy-vote season. In September, Vanguard shared data on the breakdown of choices made by investors in the Investor Choice pilot using the previous set of options. Putting aside the outlier ESG US Stock ETF fund, Vanguard investors overwhelmingly favored non-ESG voting, with around 75% choosing to go with either the company board recommendation or Vanguard’s judgement on the best option for shareholder returns:  

Although they’ve shown varying degrees of dedication to ESG, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street are routinely lumped together and subjected to blanket condemnation for promoting the philosophy to society’s detriment. However, Vanguard announced earlier this year that it didn’t support a single one of 400 ESG shareholder proposals during the 2024 US proxy-vote season. 

BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard collectively own a *giant* chunk of nearly all public companies. They foist environmental & social agendas (“ESG”) onto their portfolio companies via proxy voting & shareholder engagement. The corporate virtue-signaling game is a symptom of a… https://t.co/mNXvaUsExR

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 19, 2023

In December 2022, Vanguard withdrew from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, a coalition that once had 300 asset managers signed on to reduce greenhouse gases and lower the earth’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. “[Vanguard is] not in the game of politics,” CEO Tim Buckley told the Financial Times at the time. In mid-February of this year, JPMorgan and State Street quit the Climate Action 100+ pact, while BlackRock reduced its involvement in the initiative. 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Suicides increased among U.S. military service members in 2023, continuing a gradual rise seen over the past decade, according to the Department of Defense’s annual report on suicide in the military.

A total of 523 service members—including active, reserve, and National Guard—died by suicide in 2023, up from 493 in 2022, according to the Pentagon’s report, while the total force rate of suicide deaths per 100,000 service members was 9 percent higher than in 2022, at 25.6 per 100,000.

The Pentagon’s report highlighted an upward trend since 2011 among active-duty military members: A total of 363 active-duty service members died by suicide in 2023, up from 331 in 2022 and 328 in 2021.

The report noted that military suicide rates have been comparable to those seen across the wider U.S. population between 2011 and 2022.

The findings “urgently demonstrate the need for the Department to redouble its work in the complex fields of suicide prevention and postvention. One loss to suicide is one too many,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a Nov. 14 statement.

The defense secretary said the Pentagon is focused on long-term, sustained initiatives to prevent suicide and is taking a “comprehensive” and “integrated” approach to increasing protective factors and decreasing the risk of suicide among service members.

“Our efforts aim to meet the military community where they are in their personal and professional lives—whether through bolstering financial readiness and support, building healthy relationships, improving mental health, or supporting them through life transitions,” Austin said.

The defense secretary noted that there has been a decrease from previous years in the number of military family members (spouses and dependent children combined) who died by suicide.

A total of 146 military family members died by suicide in 2022 compared to 165 in 2021, and 200 in 2020, according to the report. Numbers for 2023 were unavailable due to the time it takes to process data for this category.

The report noted that the complexity of suicidal behavior means it is difficult to identify a single root cause that might explain the trend.

Pentagon Working to Combat Suicide Rates

Overall, in 2023, 158 deaths were attributed to suicide among active-duty Army personnel, according to the report. Another 72 were reported among active-duty members of the Air Force, 70 among Navy members, and 61 among Marine Corps members, while two suicides were reported among members of the Space Force.

Among reserve members, 44 suicides were reported in the Army, 10 in the Marine Corps, eight in the Navy, and seven in the Air Force.

Similar to previous years, the majority of the deaths (around 60 percent) were among males under the age of 30, the Pentagon report found.

Firearms were the primary method of suicide deaths for service members and their families, according to the Pentagon, which noted the importance of promoting awareness regarding safely securing and storing firearms.

Speaking on Thursday, Austin touted the work the Pentagon is doing to tackle rising suicide rates among military personnel, including establishing the Suicide Prevention Response and Independent Review Committee in 2022 to conduct a review of clinical and nonclinical suicide prevention and response programs.

That review has resulted in more than 100 recommendations so far, Austin said.

In 2025, the Department of Defense also plans to invest $250 million in suicide prevention, Austin and other officials noted.

“We are dedicated to fighting for our Service members by fostering supportive team cultures and tackling the stigma of asking for help and other barriers to care,” Austin said.

“We continue working hard to improve the delivery of mental health care, bolster suicide prevention training, and educate people about lethal means safety. There’s still much more work to do, and we won’t let up.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, considering suicide, or engaging in substance abuse, dial or text the U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak with a counselor. If you’re in the UK, call the Samaritans at 116123.

The prices of natural gas at the key regional hubs in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Western Canada have hit this year the lowest level on record, amid rising production in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and high inventory levels in these regions.

Monthly average natural gas spot prices at the northwestern U.S. and western Canada border pricing hubs reached historic lows in the first ten months of 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday, citing data from Natural Gas Intelligence.

The Western Canada benchmark, Westcoast Station 2, saw the daily spot natural gas price average $1.04 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) through October, with the lowest monthly average of $0.31 per MMBtu in September.

The Westcoast Station 2 pricing hub is near Fort St. John, British Columbia, close to natural gas production activities in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

At the key pricing hub for the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Northwest Sumas, the daily spot price averaged $1.87 per MMBtu in 2024 through October and reached its lowest monthly average this year of $0.97 per MMBtu in May. The monthly average price at Northwest Sumas for the first 10 months of this year was the lowest for this period of any year since the EIA began collecting data for this hub in 1998.

As Charles Kennedy writes at OilPrice.com,  the key reasons for the low regional gas prices were the high natural gas production in the WCSB since the end of 2022 and relatively high natural gas exports into the western United States.

To compare, the monthly average of the U.S. benchmark, Henry Hub, daily spot price was at $2.20 per MMBtu in October 2024, the EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) showed earlier this month.

The U.S. administration expects the Henry Hub price to average around $2.90 per MMBtu in 2025, as global demand for U.S. LNG exports, a component of U.S. natural gas demand, continues to increase.

Authored by Sam Faddis via AND Magazine,

As the mainstream press in the United States continues to obsess with imaginary threats from Trump’s army of “fascist” supporters, the Europeans are focused on the very real possibility that the Biden–Harris administration is going to start World War III on its way out the door. All over the continent, military and civilian authorities are working hard on civil defense preparations and planning for armed conflict with Russia.

Sweden is sending out five million pamphlets to its citizens telling them how to prepare. The pamphlets include instructions on stockpiling food and finding shelter during a nuclear attack. Excerpts from the document include:

“An insecure world requires preparedness. The military threat to Sweden has increased and we must prepare for the worst – an armed attack.”

“The global security situation increases the risks that nuclear weapons could be used. In the event of an attack with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, take cover in the same way as in an air attack.”

“Shelter provides the best protection. After a couple of days, the radiation has decreased significantly.”

“If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.”

The Swedes are not alone. Norway and Finland are doing the same thing, preparing their populations for nuclear war.

Finland has launched a new website advising people on how to prepare, and the Norwegians recently mailed out their own booklet giving people tips on how to prepare for the end of the world. The Norwegian booklet includes advice on how citizens should prepare themselves to live self-sufficiently for a week, with a list of long-life items to keep such as cans of beans, energy bars and pasta, and medicines in case of a nuclear event.

The Finnish website includes detailed instructions on how Finns should react in the event of war:

“The warning signal is a regularly rising and falling sound that lasts for one minute used to warn people of an immediate outdoor hazard.

In the event of a war, the signal is used to alert people about incidents as well as air strikes, for example.

In case of a military attack, you must immediately seek shelter in the nearest civil defence shelter or the best available shelter.”

The website also provides detailed guidance on how to try to continue to live in an area that has been irradiated.

“Prepare for a radiation hazard as follows:

• Learn the steps to seek shelter indoors and how to carry them out at home. Also learn them together with family members.

• Learn how to switch off ventilation at home.

• Make sure you have durable tape at home that you can use to seal off windows, doors and other areas with air flow.

• Know which communication channels are used: the 112 application, television, radio and the websites of the authorities

• Buy medicine iodine tablets at home according to the recommendation.”

The Germans are making their own preparations for the coming apocalypse. The German military is now advising companies on something called Operations Plan Germany. The paper is a thousand pages long and classified, but details have begun to leak publicly. For example, it lists all buildings and infrastructure facilities to be protected for national security reasons. It also provides significant detail on how Germany will transport hundreds of thousands of soldiers east to engage with Russian forces.

In Prague, a network of Cold War-era bunkers has now seen renewed interest. A spokeswoman from the Czech Republic’s Fire Rescue Service told RFE/RL recently that, beginning in 2023, the service began updating “requirements for the shelter system and the shelters themselves.” She did not elaborate on what those updates were.

Meanwhile, wasting no time after Biden’s approval of the use of American-made ballistic missiles against targets deep into Russian territory, Ukraine attacked a military installation in Russia’s western Bryansk region. “For the first time, Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck Russian territory with ATACMS ballistic missiles.” 

Putin, for his part, made good on his pledge to respond. He signed a decree updating and expanding Moscow’s nuclear doctrine to allow for the use of atomic weapons in case of an attack on Russia by a nonnuclear actor that is backed by a nuclear power. The updated doctrine says Russia would consider using nuclear weapons after receiving “reliable information about the launching of a massive attack against it and missiles crossing the Russian border.”

Lest anyone think that the prospect of a Russian nuclear attack on Europe is purely the stuff of science fiction, we should recall that secret documents obtained earlier this year by the Financial Times revealed an extensive Russian plan to target strategic sites deep inside Europe with nuclear missiles. This plan was part of a broader strategy to overwhelm NATO forces and win a conflict with the alliance. The documents included maps of targets in countries such as the United Kingdom and France.

The Europeans understand exactly what is happening and are bracing for what may now be inevitable. Joe and Kamala, and whoever advises them, are shoveling more fuel on the fire and doing their level best to start a world war as they head for the door.

Authored by John Konrad of gCaptain,

A day after the C-Lion1 and BCS subsea data cables in the Baltic Sea, connecting Finland and Germany as well as Sweden and Lithuania, were damaged, specifics of the incident remain unconfirmed.

The incident is reminiscent of a similar event in 2023 when the Balticonnector between Finland and Estonia was damaged. Hong Kong-registered container vessel NewNew Polar Bear was later found to have dragged its anchor across the pipeline.

Danish authorities appear to have narrowed down a possible culprit to Chinese bulker Yi Peng 3, which traveled over the reported incident site at the time of the failure. Its AIS track shows the vessel drifting back and forth for around an hour the morning of November 18.

By the time Yi Peng 3 reached Danish waters the country’s Navy had dispatched several vessels shadowing the vessel. Online reports suggest that a Danish pilot was placed onboard the vessel during the afternoon of November 19 as it continued passing through Danish Straits.

AIS data show several Danish patrol vessels in the vicinity of Yi Peng 3 and shorebased webcams confirm Navy vessels loosely following in its wake.

The foreign ministers of Germany and Finland issued a joint statement expressing concern about the incident. “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the statement reads.

“A thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies,” the statement continued.

Incidents with damage to subsea cables and pipelines across Europe have increased in recent years, including in the Arctic. In 2022 Norway reported that an undersea fiber optic cable connecting a satellite ground station on Svalbard to the Norwegian mainland was severed. Norwegian media reported a Russian vessel traveling back and forth several times over the damaged section.

The Finnish investigation of the NewNew Polar Bear incident concluded that the vessel dropped its anchor during a storm dragging it over the Balticonnector pipeline. The vessel had been spotted with a missing anchor during its first port call following the incident.

After initial stonewalling by Chinese authorities Finnish counterparts launched their own investigation and eventually admitted that the pipeline’s damage was caused by NewNew Polar Bear. Like Yi Peng 3, NewNew Polar Bear had departed from a Russian port prior to the incident.

Via Rystad Energy,

• Africa’s deepwater oil and gas production is expected to increase significantly in the coming decade, driven by new discoveries and projects.

• Recent successes in Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have spurred interest in deepwater exploration across the continent.

• Challenges such as security concerns and fiscal incentives need to be addressed to fully unlock Africa’s deepwater potential.

Africa’s deepwater segment has always played a key role in terms of adding significant discovered volumes, which has helped Africa sustain its hydrocarbon production.

The contribution of this segment in Africa’s hydrocarbon production mix was between 20- 25% last decade and is expected to increase between 35-40% by 2035.

From the under-construction and pre-FID projects, Rystad Energy estimates that there will be about 3.5 million boepd of new deepwater supply (pre-FID and under-construction projects) in Africa by 2035.

Success in countries such as Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have triggered substantial interest in exploring the deep waters, and many more countries such as Sao Tome & Principe, Liberia and Sierra Leone are also becoming important countries for companies to secure acreages for exploration efforts in the medium and long term.

In terms of deepwater resource sanctioning, Africa saw a surge in sanctioning between 2015 and 2019 on a rolling 5-year period, as various discoveries, such as Eni’s Zohr in Egypt and TotalEnergies’ Mozambique LNG project, expected to produce from Golfinho and Atum discoveries in Area 1, in Mozambique were sanctioned.

Post-COVID-19, the continent has had a muted period of deepwater sanctioning activity, with the average annual deepwater resources sanctioned between 2015-19 dropping to about 330 million boe, compared to an annual average of close to 1890 million boe in 2015-19.

However, thanks to the recent success in Namibia and progress in other discovered projects such as Area 4 in Mozambique, further phases of Baleine development in Cote d’Ivoire, and several projects in Nigeria, Africa is at the cusp of a new wave of deepwater sanctioning activity.

If project timelines follow through, Africa could see annual average deepwater resource sanctioning activity surpassing 2 billion boe in the 2025-29 period.

The continent hosts the potential to take the number above 3 billion boe. However, such projects would probably need more fiscal incentives and, in some cases, an improvement in the security situation for associated facilities onshore.

Further, prioritization by Majors of the most lucrative projects in their portfolios, as they plan for an uncertain future, would also define the trajectory of such projects.

However, some of the gas projects can be secured further by advancing various gas-to-power projects within the continent, such that electricity access rates also improve significantly.

Authored by John Kiriakou via Consortium News,

I spent the past two weeks on my ancestral island of Rhodes, Greece, helping my cousin settle his late father’s estate. It’s no surprise that everybody — and I mean literally everybody — wanted to talk about this month’s US presidential election. 

Greece has long had an anti-American streak stemming from U.S. support for the 1967-1974 military dictatorship that killed, tortured, and imprisoned thousands of people just because of their political views. Indeed, the governing conservative New Democracy Party (ND) wins elections only because there are so many socialist and communist parties that they split the left-wing vote and allow the conservatives to govern.

But much to my surprise, every leftist I’ve spoken to, including just about everybody in my own family from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to the Socialist Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) has offered full-throated support to Donald Trump.

After hearing this over and over again, I decided to probe a little to get to the bottom of how lifelong socialists and communists can support a billionaire businessman who leads a capitalist and conservative political party. But the reasons for their admiration of Trump were quite simple. They saw Donald Trump as the anti-war candidate. 

The Greeks don’t know anything about American domestic policy; nor do they care. They generally give you a blank stare when you mention abortion or health care or the environment. But they care about war. 

They hate what is happening to the Palestinians and Lebanese, despite the fact that their government is unabashedly pro-Israel (as is Donald Trump.) They hate that the United States has armed one Orthodox Christian country, Ukraine, against another, Russia. And they hate that the United States has done nothing about the 50-year-long Turkish military occupation of Cyprus. 

The Greeks genuinely believe that if anybody is going to end the Ukraine war or tell the Israelis to stop killing civilians in Palestine and Lebanon, it’s going to be Donald Trump. (I disagree strongly that Trump has any love whatsoever for the Palestinians. Indeed, he’s been Benjamin Netanyahu’s lapdog for years.)

But the Greeks argue that Democrats have only made the international situation worse, so why not give Trump another chance to make things better, like he did with North Korea, at least temporarily.

There’s another issue that the Greeks agree with Trump on, too. That’s the issue of immigration. The Greeks are well known for their hospitality. There’s even a word for it: Filoxenia, which means “love of the stranger.”

When Afghanistan and Iraq began falling apart, private Greek citizens actually stood on the beaches to welcome them as they washed ashore in rafts and to give them food and clothes. That changed when the European Union gave Turkey billions of dollars to hold refugees in Turkey and the Turks instead began forcing them across the border into Greece and just pocketing the money.

The Greeks, in turn, built a wall along the land border with Turkey. That enraged the Turks, of course, but the wall actually worked. And when Trump started talking about building a wall along the southern border with Mexico, the Greeks were all in. 

As a progressive American voter, and a truly independent one at that, I’m not optimistic about the next four years. Abortion is of primary importance to me. So are the environment, workers rights, health care and education. I support easier immigration and an easier and quicker path to citizenship. Donald Trump will likely destroy all of that.

With that said, I believe that there are two areas where Trump is right.  One is his support for a less interventionist foreign policy. The other is criminal justice reform. Trump issued a lot of pardons when he was president. He issued a lot of commutations. And he worked to do something about the sentencing disparities between white people convicted of crimes compared to people of color. At least there was that.

Donald Trump already has served one term as president. Consequently, he’ll be a lame duck beginning the moment he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 with nobody on Capitol Hill owing him anything. He’ll be permanently out of office in four years. 

Is it possible that we could be pleasantly surprised, then, on some of these issues? I expect to be far more disappointed than anything else. But I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer. I’m going to try to convince myself that some good will come of this. I don’t know exactly what it’ll be. 

John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Jews and homosexuals are no longer safe in Berlin and should hide their identity in certain neighborhoods, Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik has claimed.

In a wide-ranging interview with Berliner Zeitung about security risks, anti-Semitic danger zones in Berlin, and the effects of austerity measures on police work, Slowik warned that the German capital has become less tolerant in areas with high Arab populations and the police have insufficient resources to tackle the problem.

While she maintained that Berlin is “as safe as many other cities in Germany and safer than some other European capitals,” Slowik admitted there are parts of the city where heightened vigilance is necessary.

“Basically, there are no no-go areas,” she said.

“However, there are areas — and we have to be honest at this point — where I would advise people who wear a yarmulke or are openly gay or lesbian to be more careful. In many metropolises, you should be vigilant in certain public places to protect yourself from any crime.”

Slowik pointed to neighborhoods with large Arab populations as particular areas of concern.

“Unfortunately, there are certain neighborhoods in which the majority of people of Arab origin live who also have sympathies for terrorist groups,” she explained.

“Open anti-Semitism is expressed there against people of Jewish faith and origin. We have initiated over 6,200 investigations since Oct. 7, 2023. A large proportion are hate postings on social media, another large proportion are damage to property, and a significant proportion are propaganda crimes.”

She added, however, that 1,300 of these investigations involved violent crimes, many of which were directed at police officers during protests and public gatherings. “I am very concerned that people from the Jewish-Israeli community in Berlin are aware of the total number of anti-Semitic crimes and that this increases their fear of becoming the target of an attack.”

Protests against Israel have become a daily occurrence in Berlin following the Israeli response to the Hamas terror attack in October 2023. Slowik detailed the difficulty of managing these intimidating demonstrations, stating, “Various organizers have been registering meetings regularly since Oct. 7 last year. Sometimes there is hysterical chanting and slogans that are difficult for the majority of society to bear. But all of this is allowed on German roads.”

When asked whether hardcore demonstrators could be quantified, Slowik said, “We have had over 360 meetings, a large proportion of which were loud. We are registering people in the lower three-digit range who commit crimes at gatherings. However, as the police, we regularly supervise and accompany meetings with thousands of participants who behave largely peacefully.”

She acknowledged the challenges of banning demonstrations, which are protected under German law. “A ban is not a panacea or a permanent solution. After Hamas’ attack on Israel, we banned 24 gatherings in the weeks that followed. It was about celebrating those murdered in Israel. So criminal offenses were approved under the guise of the right to assembly. Since then, it has been about current topics that are covered by freedom of expression.”

The depleted police force is struggling financially

Beyond the challenges of managing public safety, Slowik expressed deep concern about the financial state of Berlin’s police force. Chronic budget shortfalls have left officers struggling to maintain operations.

“For years, the police have only been equipped in such a way that the funds are usually spent in the fall, and we then have to juggle our way through until the end of the year and find leftovers, also to finance fuel or to pay support staff for large locations,” Slowik said.

She revealed that 2024’s investment funds fell far short of requirements. “This year, instead of €14 million in investment funds, which we urgently needed, only €6 million was made available to the (State Criminal Police Office) LKA. This despite the fact that the senator for the interior has already asked all areas of her department to pay in order to support her police. In 2025, we will have even less, even though we have fully justified that we need €100 million more. Criminals are taking advantage.”

Slowik stressed the urgent need for technological upgrades, including AI-driven video surveillance, to relieve pressure on officers. “We urgently need object-related video surveillance, especially at embassies, also using AI. That would relieve us enormously. When it comes to property protection, we have never had such a dire situation.”

The lack of funding extends to infrastructure and staffing. Slowik described the dire state of police properties, revealing that the renovation backlog has doubled under her tenure. “When I took office, the renovation backlog in police properties was €1.1 billion. It has now grown to €2.2 billion. This is also and especially due to the increased construction costs, but also because the deterioration of buildings is progressing exponentially.”

She also highlighted issues with the police vehicle fleet. “Our fleet now needs €50 million immediately in order to be properly positioned again. Up to 40 percent of our cars are in the workshop every day. This will also affect the response times of the radio cars.”

Despite some improvements, such as modernized control centers and faster water patrol boats, Slowik emphasized that these advancements are overshadowed by the scale of the challenges. “We currently need 380 law enforcement colleagues from the police and criminal police to support the 1,500 property security forces to meet the calls for protection since Oct. 7. This roughly corresponds to the number of personnel in a police department and two operational units. This will be noticeable in the city,” she explained.

Slowik’s candid remarks underscore the multifaceted challenges facing Berlin’s police force. From rising intolerance and safety concerns in Arab neighborhoods to protests and financial shortfalls, the city’s law enforcement is stretched thin at a time when cultural segregation and crime are on the rise.

Read more here…

Authored by Ellen Wan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Blood types play a crucial role not only in ensuring safe blood transfusions but also in influencing various health risks. Numerous studies suggest that genetically determined blood types may increase susceptibility to both infectious and non-infectious diseases, including COVID-19, heart disease, and allergies.

Blood is categorized into four main types—A, B, AB, or O—based on the types of antigens present on the surface of red blood cells. Antigens are proteins found on red blood cells that trigger an immune response when encountering unfamiliar substances, such as certain bacteria, Dr. Douglas Eric Guggenheim, a physician at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, explained in a 2020 Penn Medicine article.

Increased Risk of Viral Infections

A 2023 study from Harvard Medical School, published in the journal Blood, found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, preferentially targets type A blood cells.

“We show that the part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that’s key to enabling the virus to invade cells displays affinity for blood group A cells, and the virus in turn also shows a preferential ability to infect blood group A cells,” Dr. Sean R. Stowell, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a press release.

Type A blood cells are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection than type O blood cells, Stowell noted. “Among a group of several thousand people, some studies suggest that those with blood group A may be 20 percent more likely to be infected after exposure to SARS-CoV-2 compared with those who have blood group O.” Subsequent experiments indicated that the Omicron variant demonstrated an even stronger preference for infecting type A blood cells than the original virus.

Other recent studies have explored the mechanisms linking blood type to susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2.  One study showed that levels of ACE2 protein, the receptor that the virus binds to for cell entry, were significantly higher in people with type A blood compared to other blood types. The researchers also found that the binding rate of the spike protein to red blood cells was highest in people with type A blood and lowest in people with type O.

Despite these associations, when assessing a person’s risk of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, factors such as age and pre-existing chronic conditions, like heart disease, tend to have more significant effects on the risk of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection than blood type.

Increased Risk of Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancer because it tends to grow quickly, can rapidly invade surrounding organs, and is often difficult to detect early. One study found a statistically significant association between ABO blood group and pancreatic cancer risk. Compared to people with type O blood, those with blood types A, AB, and B had a 32, 51, and 72 percent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer, respectively.

Additionally, a comprehensive review found that people with type A blood were more susceptible to Helicobacter pylori, a known risk factor for stomach cancer, thus increasing their likelihood of developing the disease. In contrast, type O blood was associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including colorectal, gastric, and breast cancer.

Higher Risk of Other Serious Conditions

Blood type has been found to be associated with an increased risk of other several serious health conditions.

Increased Risk of Heart Disease

Blood type may also be linked to the risk of developing heart disease. A meta-analysis from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, analyzing health data from nearly 90,000 individuals over more than 20 years, found that people with type O blood had the lowest risk of developing coronary heart disease. After adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors, participants with blood types A, B, and AB had an increased risk of coronary heart disease by 6, 15, and 23 percent, respectively, when compared to people with type O blood.

Increased Risk of Allergic Diseases

There is also a clear association between blood type and allergic diseases. A review found that people with type O blood were more prone to allergic rhinitis and asthma compared to those with non-O blood group. In contrast, people with non-O blood types had a higher likelihood of developing atopic dermatitis, with the highest prevalence among those with type B blood, followed by type A.

Read the rest here…

Wealth distribution varies significantly across the world’s regions, reflecting the economic disparities shaped by differences in development, resource availability, and financial access.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the share of adults in each global region who fall into four wealth bands (figures in USD):

• Under $10K

• $10K to $100K

• $100K to $1M

• Over $1M

The data comes from the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024 and encompasses 56 markets representing an estimated 92.2% of total global wealth.

The UBS report’s data does not include a majority of African countries.

Global Wealth by Region in 2023

The majority of adults in the lowest wealth bracket (under $10K) are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, where nearly 70% of people in this wealth bracket being from the region.

On the other end, the highest wealth bracket (over $1M) is dominated by the Americas along with the grouped region of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

The Americas, which includes North and South America, have the highest share (42.7%) of global adults with wealth over $1 million, showing a concentration of high net worth individuals in this region.

At the country level, the U.S is home to nearly 22 million people with a wealth exceeding one million dollars, the highest number of millionaires in any country according to analysis by UBS.

This means that in 2023, the U.S. hosted 38% of the world’s millionaires.

Mainland China ranked second with just over 6 million millionaires, almost twice the number of the third-ranked country, the United Kingdom.

To see the global distribution of the ultra-wealthy, check out this graphic that visualizes where the 626,619 individuals with a net worth of $30 million or more live.