FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ADMITS MEDICAL MARIJUANA WORKS ON BRAIN TUMORS BUT STILL PLANS TO PROSECUTE PATIENTS (Source thegrio.com) Recent animal studies have shown that marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others. Evidence from one animal study suggests that extracts from whole-plant marijuana can shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumors. “It couldn’t be any clearer that marijuana has medical value,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “When even NIDA and the surgeon general are acknowledging that marijuana can help people who are suffering, it is time for the Obama administration to reschedule the drug. The attorney general can initiate that process today, and there’s no reason for him not to, especially when polling shows that such a huge majority of Americans supports medical marijuana.”

Radiation from 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan detected on B.C. coast (Source theglobalmail.com) Ocean-borne radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear-reactor meltdown in Japan has been detected at the British Columbia shoreline, marking the first time Fukushima contamination has made landfall in North America. Previous monitoring by Canadian government agencies had detected air-borne contaminants showing up in B.C. kelp and seawater in the weeks following the nuclear disaster in 2011. And last November, researchers detected radioactivity 150 kilometres offshore of northern California. But no radiation had been found along beaches or shorelines where volunteers had been sampling since 2013. That has now changed, with the announcement that ocean-borne contamination showed up in a sample collected by a volunteer from a dock in Ucluelet on Feb. 19. “When I speak to people in public, the primary question they have is about the safety of seafood that comes from the Pacific and from our coastal waters,” Jay Cullen, a chemical oceanographer with the University of Victoria who leads InFORM, a radioactivity monitoring network, said on Monday. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a U.S.-based research partner in InFORM, said on Monday its scientists had detected small amounts of radioactivity in the Ucluelet sample. The sample contained trace amounts of cesium-134 and cesium-137 – two forms of radioactive cesium that do not occur in nature. Cesium-137 is found in all the world’s oceans as a result of nuclear weapons testing. The substance has a relatively long, 30-year half-life – meaning it takes 30 years for one-half of the cesium-137 in a sample to decay. Cesium-134, however, has a two-year half-life, meaning that if it shows up anywhere in the ocean, it is a recent addition – and the only recent source of Cesium-134 has been Fukushima.

Larry Summers: Past Month a Radical Turning Point for U.S. Economic Power (Source thetrumpet.com)

The world just missed the biggest financial event since America abandoned the gold standard. It’s “time U.S. leadership woke up to new economic era,” wrote former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in a scathing message posted on April 5. America’s failure to convince even our closest allies to oppose China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—a bank designed to challenge U.S. economic hegemony—should be a “wake up call,” he said. According to Summers, this is the biggest financial event since the United States led the world off the gold standard in 1971. Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia—and virtually every major U.S. ally—have joined the AIIB in direct opposition to U.S. wishes. He wrote: This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. True, there have been any number of periods of frustration for the U.S. before, and times when American behavior was hardly multilateralist, such as the 1971 Nixon shock, ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold. But I can think of no event since Bretton Woods comparable to the combination of China’s effort to establish a major new institution and the failure of the U.S. to persuade dozens of its traditional allies, starting with Britain, to stay out of it. But after correctly identifying the symptom (the world looking for an alternative to the U.S. dollar) and the cause (failed leadership)—Summers completely misdiagnoses the solution. Summers’s solution to the world out of control is more of the exact policies that led to the problem in the first place. He argues that if we would just spend more, the social problems would abate and geopolitical pressures subside. At best, Summers’s solution of increased borrowing and spending will postpone the coming greater depression. It has no chance of preventing it. America has passed the point of no return. Summers is a policy insider. His views reflect the establishment view ascribed to by the Federal Reserve. So don’t expect America’s leaders to change course. Expect more of the same. And that means another bigger economic crash is guaranteed. The world is looking for a solution to the dollar problem—even radical ones like embracing a Chinese state-owned international bank. That says a lot about the state of the global economy and the level of dollar dislike in the world.

Watch Out: Putin Views Ukraine In Spiritual Terms (Source valuewalk.com) Whenever those with nuclear arms view their life and key objectives in spiritual terms, a hard-line, inflexible world view isn’t far behind. As Russia prepares to fight in Eastern Europe, Vladimir Putin is viewing the conflict in spiritual terms as he looks to build a new empire, a Newsweek piece notes. Global players with access to nuclear weapons who view their mandate from “spiritual” terms can lead to illogical ends, which is the concern. Stephen Blank, a senior fellow for Russia at the American Foreign Policy Council, observes that Putin consider an independent Ukraine as a fantasy that threatens the very existence of Russia itself. Putin has said that he “always saw the Russians and Ukrainians as a single people. I still think this way now.” For Putin—and for much of Russia as well, even without the constant incitement of Kremlin propaganda—there is no such thing as a separate Ukrainian people, national identity, culture or history. Viewing Ukraine from the standpoint of a runaway child who has temporarily lost his way and now needs to return to the homeland isn’t likely to end in peace, and it is here that Blank notes a devolution in Russian society, becoming a society of war.  Blank observes the regional dysfunction from Russia’s point of view, taking a strident note: If no Ukrainian state has the right to exist, the entire settlement of 1989 to 1991 in Eastern Europe, and especially in the former Soviet Union, is illegitimate and a standing threat to the Russian state. Thus Putin not only aims to overthrow the entire post–Cold War order in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, he is also saying that the Russian state as such not only cannot tolerate an independent Ukraine, it can only survive as an empire. Blank thinks that Russia isn’t going to take a live and let live attitude with Russia, instead the variable in results will likely center on not if there will be continued military conflict, but what form that conflict will take. Blank advocates looking at Russia and its regional aspirations from a different perspective. Ukraine isn’t just a minor irritant in Russia’s back yard, it is an issue upon which Putin believes the survival and growth of him empire rests: This is what is at stake in Ukraine. It is not just a quarrel over the fate of Ukraine. It is a war for the future of Russia and beyond that for the long-term future of European and Eurasian security. For this regime, unlike Gorbachev’s, will not go peacefully. In a country that is arming itself to the hilt, and that possesses nuclear weapons, that is a terrifying future. Thus inactivity today only ensures and accelerates the onset of the much larger conflict that Putin’s action will inevitably bring upon Russia. And the war drums beat again and again.  

How the U.S. thinks Russians hacked the White House (Source cnn.com) Russian hackers behind the damaging cyber intrusion of the State Department in recent months used that perch to penetrate sensitive parts of the White House computer system, according to U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. While the White House has said the breach only ever affected an unclassified system, that description belies the seriousness of the intrusion. The hackers had access to sensitive information such as real-time non-public details of the president’s schedule. While such information is not classified, it is still highly sensitive and prized by foreign intelligence agencies, U.S. officials say. The White House in October said it noticed suspicious activity in the unclassified network that serves the executive office of the president. The system has been shut down periodically to allow for security upgrades. The FBI, Secret Service and U.S. intelligence agencies are all involved in investigating the breach, which they consider among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems. ​The intrusion was routed through computers around the world, as hackers often do to hide their tracks, but investigators found tell-tale codes and other markers that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government. A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment. Neither the U.S. State Department or the Russian immediately embassy responded to a request for comment. The State Department computer system has been bedeviled by signs that despite efforts to lock them out, the Russian hackers have been able to reenter the system. One official says the Russian hackers have “owned” the State Department system for months and it is not clear the hackers have been fully eradicated from the system. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in a speech at an FBI cyber conference in January, warned government officials and private businesses to teach employees what “spear phishing” looks like.

The attacks on the State and White House systems is one reason why Clapper told a Senate hearing in February that the “Russian cyber threat is more severe than we have previously assessed.”

Drug-Resistant Stomach Bug Increasing in US (Source Live Science) Americans who travel abroad are bringing back a drug-resistant stomach bug. The bacteria caused several outbreaks in the United States in the past year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria, called Shigella sonnei, can cause diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever and is typically treated with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. But between May 2014 and February 2015, there were 243 cases of Shigella sonnei in 32 states, and the vast majority were resistant to ciprofloxacin, the report found. Some of the largest outbreaks occurred in Massachusetts (45 cases), and Pennsylvania (18 cases). Among patients who gave information about whether they had traveled abroad, about half said they had, mostly to the Dominican Republic and India. There was also an outbreak of 95 cases in San Francisco that was not linked with international travel. Some of the U.S. outbreaks occurred among children in child care facilities, homeless people and gay and bisexual men. Shigella causes about half a million cases of diarrhea in the United States each year, and the disease can be spread from person to person, or through contaminated food or water, the CDC says. Patients usually get better in about a week without treatment, but antibiotics are often used because they can reduce the duration of symptoms and the time when a person is infectious. The bacteria was already resistant to the antibiotics ampicillin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, but as the new report shows, resistance to the most effective drug, ciprofloxacin, is increasing. “These outbreaks show a troubling trend in Shigella infections in the United States,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement. “Drug-resistant infectionsare harder to treat and because Shigella spreads so easily between people, the potential for more — and larger — outbreaks is a real concern.” International travelers can reduce their risk of getting Shigella or another types of diarrhea by washing hands frequently, eating only hot foods and drinking from sealed containers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

‘Blood Moon’ rises: Total lunar eclipse over the US (Source RT) The moon will pass through the Earth’s shadow and turn blood-red in the early hours of the morning on Saturday, in a brief total eclipse best visible from the western part of the US. It will be the third in a series of four total lunar eclipses, or a “tetrad,” that began in mid-April last year. The second occurred in October 2014, and the last will be on September 28 this year. Tetrads are very rare: only seven more are expected by the year 2100. Saturday’s eclipse will also be the shortest in a century, with the moon spending just four minutes and 43 seconds completely in Earth’s shadow. However, the time it will take for the moon to become completely occluded will be abnormally long, a whole 102 minutes, writes Space.com. This is because the moon will have just reached apogee, its farthest point from the Earth. The eclipse will be visible from all parts of the US, though those in the east will only see the beginning stages before the 06:16 ET sunrise. People in the west will have a full view of the total eclipse, at 04:58 PT. The current tetrad is only the fourth time in 500 years that all four ‘blood moons’ fall on Jewish holidays.

The Fourth Reich Is Here, Says German Newsmagazine (Source thetrumpet.com) Modern Germany is a new reich, at least in an economic sense, Der Spiegel concluded in the cover article of its March 21 issue. With a circulation of over 1 million, Der Spiegel is one of Germany’s most popular and well-respected newsmagazines. An English version of the article is available on its website, and is worth reading in full. “People have even begun talking about the ‘Fourth Reich,’ a reference to the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler,” states the article’s introduction. “That may sound absurd given that today’s Germany is a successful democracy without a trace of national-socialism—and that no one would actually associate Merkel with Nazism. But further reflection on the word ‘reich,’ or empire, may not be entirely out of place. The term refers to a dominion, with a central power exerting control over many different peoples. According to this definition, would it be wrong to speak of a German Reich in the economic realm?” After a detailed analysis of Germany’s past and present domination of Europe, the article concludes that no, it would not be wrong. “[A]n empire is in play, at least in the economic realm,” the article states. “The eurozone is clearly ruled by Germany, though Berlin is not unchallenged. It does, however, have a significant say in the fates of millions of people from other countries.” After concluding that Germany has “a significant say in the fates of millions of people from other countries,” Spiegel warns that “[s]uch power creates a significant amount of responsibility, but the government and other policymakers nevertheless sometimes behave as though they were leading a small country.”

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry devoted a recent television program to this subject. “Germany does not have a strong leader, according to many critics, and they’ve been voicing those views quite often of late,” he said. Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Flurry both have forecast that the next step in Germany’s history will be the arrival of the strong leadership it currently lacks. Their forecasts are based upon the truths written in the Bible.

A Russian ‘Doctor of Military Sciences’ says Moscow should just nuke Yellowstone if tensions boil over (Source Business Insider) Earlier this week, the Russian president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems outlined two geophysically weak US regions to attack in order to combat NATO’s aggression toward Russia. In his article, Konstantin Sivkov justifies the option of “complete destruction of the enemy” because NATO has been “moving to the borders or Russia.” Sivkov, listed as a “Docter of Military Sciences,” described scenarios that involved dropping a nuclear weapon near Yellowstone’s supervolcano or the San Andreas Fault. In the past 2.1 million years, Yellowstone’s volcano has violently erupted three times and “blanketed parts of the North American continent with ash and debris,” according to the US Geological Survey. Some scientists argue that Yellowstone’s active supervolcano is long overdue for a colossal eruption. “Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States, a country just disappears,” he said, according to a translationby Sydney Morning Herald. According to a Discovery Channel documentary, an eruption of this magnitude would bury North America, drape the atmosphere in a sulfur haze, dim sunlight, and plunge the world into a volcanic winter. Another option would be to drop a nuclear bomb near California’s San Andreas Fault. “A detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States,” he said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald’s translation. Since last year’s illegal annexation of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to international criticism and economic sanctions placed on his country by flexing his nation’s military muscle around the world. The crisis in Ukraine reflects a turning point in NATO’s stance on Putin and emphasizes a growing concern stemming from the origins of NATO, which was formed for collective territorial defense.

Russia Threatens Nuclear War To Drive NATO Out Of Baltics (Source valuewalk.com) Russia has threatened to use nuclear force against the United States and its allies if NATO moves more forces into the Baltic states or if attempts are made to return Crimea to Ukraine. A meeting that took place behind closed doors between intelligence figures in the town of Torgau, Saxony (Germany) last month, reportedly revealed that the Russian President Vladimir Putin will view any attempt from NATO’s side to return Crimea to Ukraine or to step up its presence in the Baltics as declaration of war and threatened a “spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military” to retain his control in the region. According to notes seen by The Times and made by the US party at the Elbe Group meeting, Putin is also planning imminent “destabilizing actions” in the Baltic states in order to withstand NATO’s promise to defend pro-Western countries from Russian expansionism. According to the notes, it would most likely be “destabilizing actions that would be even harder to trace back to Russia than those of eastern Ukraine,” and added that “the same conditions that existed in Ukraine and caused Russia to take action there” exist in the three Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), where a large percentage of people regard themselves as ethically Russian. Such disturbances could include cyberattacks and triggering local ethnic tensions in all three countries, which was done in Crimea by the Kremlin last year. The notes also suggest Russia would avoid “injections of troops and heavy weapons in favor of other tools.” A year after annexing the Crimea peninsula, Putin admitted in an interview aired on March 15 that he ordered the Russian troops to execute a well-planned operation to take over Crimea. Furthermore, Putin admitted that “we were ready to do this” when asked about his willingness to use Russia’s nuclear forces. The notes also said that Russia’s security experts tend to believe that the US wants to destroy their country at any cost. “In this type of scenario, the United States should also understand it would also be at risk,” the document said.