American Fertility Rates Fall Well Below Replacement Rate

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By IF Studies. The United States just hit a 40-year low in its fertility rate, according to numbers just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 2017 provisional estimate of fertility for the entire U.S. indicates about 3.85 million births in 2017 and a total fertility rate of about 1.76 births per women. These are low numbers: births were as high as 4.31 million in 2007, and the total fertility rate was 2.08 kids back then. The United States has experienced a remarkable slump in fertility over the last several years, as I’ve explained elsewhere.

Since 2007, fertility has fallen the most for the youngest women, but in the last year, declines have set in for women in their 30s as well. Fertility declines increasingly seem to be about much more than just postponed fertility, or else these women must be planning to have some very fertile 40s.

At least through 2016, this trend appeared to be mostly driven by changes in marital status. Births to never-married women are down more than births to ever-married women: age-adjusted marital fertility is down 14% since 2007, while age-adjusted never-married fertility is down 21%, as of 2016. Preliminary data from several states suggest these trends are likely to continue in 2017. . .

That’s because the decline in fertility has been far greater among minorities than among non-Hispanic whites. If we take age-specific birth rates from the peak-fertility year of 2007 and apply them to each age cohort in 2008-2016, the most recent complete data, we can create a counterfactual scenario of how many babies would have been born if age-adjusted fertility rates had not fallen after 2007. From 2008 to 2016, the deficit turns out to be between 4.1 and 4.6 million missing babies: basically, an entire year’s worth or more of childbearing vanished. (Read more from “American Fertility Rates Fall Well Below Replacement Rate” HERE)

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Men in Their 30s Hit by Impotence Epidemic as Half Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction

By The Mirror. Half of men in their 30s struggle to get an erection, studies have shown.

Surprise polling reveals this age group is most likely to struggle keeping it up, with 49% blaming stress and 24% blaming boozing too much. . .

Nearly half (43%) of men aged 18-60 across the UK are suffering impotence, with four in ten men blaming stress, followed by tiredness (36%), anxiety (29%) and boozing too heavily (26%).

Researchers polled 2,000 men for Coop Pharmacy and found largest affected age group of men with erectile dysfunction is those in their thirties, with half (50%) reporting difficulties getting or maintaining an erection.

This compares to 42% in their 40s, 41% in their 50s, and 35% of under 30s. (Read more from “Men in Their 30s Hit by Impotence Epidemic as Half Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction” HERE)

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“All the Rage” in Sweden and on the Farm: The Mark of the Beast May Be Closer Than You Think

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By Futurism. . .[A] growing number of people — including, for whatever reason, about 3,000 Swedes — are opting for something even more invasive, and arguably practical: a surgically inserted microchip, according to the Associated French Press.

The chip itself essentially acts as a digital keychain. NFC (near-field communication) is a way of sending information wirelessly from a passive chip to a reader, but only when they are about 4 cm (1.6 in) apart (you might have heard of radio frequency identification, or RFID — NFC is a more sophisticated form of it). A chip in the hand can help people do things like sign into the gym, unlock doors to cars and offices, and make credit card payments. Over time, as the technology progresses, the implant will be able to do even more. . .

But now, people who get the implant aren’t counterculture biohackers — they’re the everyman. This is especially true in Sweden, where these chips are so mainstream that, since June 2017, people have been able to buy train tickets with their microchips.

More bodies equipped with microchips doesn’t necessary sound like good news to everybody, however. NFC chips right below the skin give corporations a fair amount of control over you — they could track where you are, how long you take for lunch every day, or how many times you went to the bathroom, if the chip were scanned by a reader. And since most chips are offered through big companies, it’s just a matter of time until this happens. And opting out of this kind of data collection is a lot more convoluted when you’ve got a chip implanted in your bodily tissues. If you want to go off the grid in even the smallest way, you can leave your wallet at home, but removing a microchip requires bit more, uh, effort. (Read more from “All the Rage” in Sweden and on the Farm: The Mark of the Beast May Be Closer Than You Think” HERE)

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Subcutaneous Fitbits? These Cows Are Modeling the Tracking Technology of the Future

By Technology Review. . .These cows are the first to try a device called EmbediVet, created by a startup named Livestock Labs. For now, they’re just going about their normal lives, unintentionally providing data that helps train an artificial neural network. The hope is that in the near future, this AI will help farmers figure out quickly and easily how well cows and other livestock are eating, whether they’re getting sick or about to give birth—things that are typically done today just by watching and waiting but are difficult to spot when you’ve got hundreds or thousands of animals to keep an eye on.

Embedded RFID sensors and other trackers have long been used in livestock, though generally just for identifying each animal. There are already some behavior-tracking wearables out there, such as collars, that use sensors to pinpoint events like cud-chewing and illness. But Livestock Labs claims that once EmbediVet is implanted—currently in a surgical procedure done under local anesthetic—it’s less annoying to the cow than a wearable and, potentially, a more powerful way to collect useful data and spot bovine behavior patterns over time. . .

Within months, Livestock Labs readied a new device—now called EmbediVet—for testing in cattle. Covered in a clear resin, it includes an ARM processor and Bluetooth and long-range radios, as well as a thermometer, accelerometer, and heart-rate monitor and pulse oximeter for measuring heart rate, blood oxygen levels, temperature, and basic activity. It runs on a coin-cell battery the company expects will last for about three years.

Why do it? Rood thinks that this kind of device can be more accurate than a wearable one such as a collar or an anklet, especially when it comes to tracking a metric like body temperature, which correlates with disease, in thick-skinned animals. (Read more from “Subcutaneous Fitbits? These Cows Are Modeling the Tracking Technology of the Future” HERE)

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Russia Finishes Construction of Longest Bridge in Europe, Defies International Community with New Link to Crimea

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By Yahoo. President Vladimir Putin drew condemnation from the US, Europe and Ukraine on Tuesday after he opened a new bridge linking mainland Russia and Moscow-annexed Crimea by driving a truck across it to the peninsula.

Putin dressed in jeans and a casual jacket was shown by Russian state television behind the wheel of a construction truck to drive 19 kilometres (12 miles) across the bridge, which links the Taman peninsula in southern Russia to Ukraine’s Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.

“I want to sincerely congratulate you with this remarkable, festive and, in the full sense of the word, historic day,” Putin told workers upon arrival on the Crimean side of the bridge.

“In different historical eras, even under the tsar, people were dreaming of building this bridge,” Putin told cheering workers.

He was referring to Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, who first proposed such a bridge, but the outbreak of World War I prevented it going ahead. (Read more from “Russia Finishes Construction of Longest Bridge in Europe, Defies International Community with New Link to Crimea” HERE)

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Vladimir Putin Celebrated the Controversial Opening of Russia’s Bridge to Crimea by Driving a Truck over It – Without Wearing a Seat Belt

By Business Insider. Russian President Vladimir Putin drove Kamaz truck across a new, controversial bridge to Crimea without wearing a seat belt – which is against the law in Russia, according to a reporter from The Atlantic.

The new bridge from Russia to the annexed peninsula Crimea opened on Tuesday six months ahead of schedule. But several in the Russian media noticed that Putin was driving the truck across the bridge without his seat belt buckled.

(Read more from “Vladimir Putin Celebrated the Controversial Opening of Russia’s Bridge to Crimea by Driving a Truck over It – Without Wearing a Seat Belt” HERE)

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Fox News Settles Discrimination Lawsuits

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Fox News and its parent company 21st Century Fox said they have reached settlements with 18 former employees of the news channel who had filed lawsuits that included allegations of racial and gender discrimination.

Terms of the settlements weren’t disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter said the cases were settled for around $10 million. There are no nondisclosure agreements as part of the settlements, the person said.

The first suit, filed in March 2017 in New York state court, was brought by two black women who worked in the payroll department at Fox News. They alleged that they were subject to racial slurs and insults by their superior and that they were subjected to a hostile work environment.

Other employees from payroll and accounting subsequently joined the suit, as did Kelly Wright, an on-air personality. Wright argued that discrimination based on his race had kept him from advancing at the network. Wright is leaving the network.

21st Century Fox FOX, +0.96% and News Corp NWSA, +0.63% , the parent of the Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch, share common ownership. (Read more from “Fox News Settles Discrimination Lawsuits” HERE)

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Leaker of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records Makes Another Explosive Accusation

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New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow says that the person who leaked Michael Cohen’s financial records talked to him and explained why they did it – because they believe they discovered a cover up. . .

The law-enforcement official says “records of bigger, potentially more sensitive, swaths of suspicious transactions appeared to be missing from a government database,” explained Ronan Farrow.

According to the report, the official noticed that two “suspicious-activity reports” were missing from the record. Believing that the records were being “withheld” from law enforcement, he leaked them to the media.

The reports are required to be filed in a database by banks to flag activities that appear suspicious. The database is called FINCEN and can be accessed by law enforcement and other government personnel. They are not necessarily criminal activity but could be used as evidence. . .

The leaker says he knows the consequences of his actions, but that they could not ignore the potential corruption of the FINCEN system. “We’ve accepted this as normal, and this is not normal,” the official said. “Things that stand out as abnormal, like documents being removed from a system, are of grave concern to me.” (Read more from “Leaker of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records Makes Another Explosive Accusation” HERE)

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Obama’s Presidential Center Sued for Corrupt Scheme

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A public park advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing Obama Presidential Center organizers of pulling an “institutional bait and switch” by reneging on its original planned purpose of building an official presidential library in historic Jackson Park.

The Chicago City Council approved an ordinance in 2015 for the parkland to be leased to the Obama Foundation for the purpose of housing former President Barack Obama’s official presidential library, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Tuesday.

But operations have since changed. Obama now plans to use the parkland to build a $500 million personal museum and monument dedicated to his person. The National Records and Archives Administration will operate his presidential library somewhere else.

The lawsuit, Protect Our Parks, Inc. filed against the city of Chicago and the Chicago Park District, argues public parkland is “prohibited by law” from being given to a private entity such as the Obama Foundation for private use. . .

The complaint accuses the City of Chicago of dealing with the Obama Foundation “in a classic Chicago political way, known as a short con shell game, a corrupt scheme to deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab, one that will endure for centuries to come, regardless of future changing public park needs and increasingly consequential environmental conditions.” (Read more from “Obama’s Presidential Center Sued for Corrupt Scheme” HERE)

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This Is CNN: The Only Thing More Absurd Than Trump in Green Sniper’s Scope Is the ‘Reason’ It Was Published

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CNN’s Chris Cillizza is under fire after tweeting an image of a sniper’s crosshairs over a picture of President Donald Trump.

The CNN editor-at-large tweeted then deleted the image of the green sniper’s scope over Trump’s face in a tweet captioned, “Donald Trump, pointing to heavens to commemorate police officers killed in the line of duty.”

. . .

“I’ve deleted a GIF about President Trump. We use @GifGrabber to make our GIFs and it defaults to the image below as a first frame. To clear up any unintended confusion, I’ve removed the tweet,” Cillizza explained.

(Read more from “This Is CNN: The Only Thing More Absurd Than Trump in Green Sniper’s Scope Is the ‘Reason’ It Was Published” HERE)

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Amazon Caves to Democrats’ Racial Diversity Demands

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After facing public backlash for initially defending its “complex” meritocratic system, Amazon said on Monday it’s implementing a racial diversity rule a left-wing, billion-dollar “activist” investment group pushed on the tech giant.

“The Amazon Board of Directors has adopted a policy that the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee include a slate of diverse candidates, including women and minorities, for all director openings,” Amazon said in its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

Amazon is now applying the “Rooney Rule” to its board of directors hiring process. It first required NFL teams to interview at least one racial minority for head coach and senior football operation positions but is now applied in other industries. . .

CtW Investment Group was described as “an activist shareholder group” by Stefanie Johnsonan, an associate professor at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business, in the Harvard Business Review. . . .

Also in CtW’s “About Us” section is a disclaimer it “does not exercise or seek to exercise any discretionary authority or discretionary control regarding management of any plan, disposition of any plan assets, proxy voting decisions, appointment of plan trustees, or any other aspect of plan management or administration.” (Read more from “Amazon Caves to Democrats’ Racial Diversity Demands” HERE)

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FBI Releases Pro-2nd Amendment Statement, Cites ‘Preparation’ by Police and Citizens

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A report released by the FBI in April underlined the necessity of the Second Amendment, pointing out that nearly half of the incidents in which active shooters were confronted by citizens, the incident ended with an armed citizen successfully stopping the shooter.

A total of 50 active shooter incidents occurred in the United States in 2016 and 2017; of those 50, 10 involved the shooters being confronted by citizens. Of those ten, four were stopped by an armed citizen who stopped the shooter. The FBI report states, “Armed and unarmed citizens engaged the shooter in 10 incidents. They safely and successfully ended the shootings in eight of those incidents. Their selfless actions likely saved many lives. The enhanced threat posed by active shooters and the swiftness with which active shooter incidents unfold support the importance of preparation by law enforcement officers and citizens alike.” (Read more from “FBI Releases Pro-2nd Amendment Statement, Cites ‘Preparation’ by Police and Citizens” HERE)

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Bombshell: FBI Used Secret Program to Gather Information on Trump Campaign, No Judge Needed

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By The Intercept. The FBI routinely uses secret orders known as national security letters to demand information that recipients might not actually have to give up, internal documents indicate. The letters are among the FBI’s most potent instruments, because they function like subpoenas without requiring the approval of a judge. Internal guidelines suggest that the bureau has been using them to pursue sensitive electronic data and phone records — despite the fact that such attempts overstep the bureau’s legal authority.

The Intercept obtained the FBI’s rules for national security letters as they are spelled out in two different guides: a document detailing current guidelines for agents using the letters and an uncensored 2011 version of the FBI’s main operating manual, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. Both documents are marked “unclassified” or “for official use only.” The first document has not been previously released. The DIOG has been made public only in heavily redacted form.

The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year. They are controversial in part because they carry the force of law but are created entirely outside the judicial system: To issue one, an FBI official just needs to attest that the information sought is relevant to a national security investigation. The letters have also been criticized because they are shrouded in secrecy. Companies that receive them are for the most part forbidden from notifying their customers or the public. The government has fought to keep even basic rules governing them secret. (Read more from “Bombshell: FBI Used Secret Program to Gather Information on Trump Campaign, No Judge Needed” HERE)

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Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation

By The New York Times. Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.

The agents summarized their highly unusual interview and sent word to Washington on Aug. 2, 2016, two days after the investigation was opened. Their report helped provide the foundation for a case that, a year ago Thursday, became the special counsel investigation. But at the time, a small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane. (Read more from “Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation” HERE)

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