Prevention League Triumphs in Extremism Research as Musk Champions Right-Wing Opposition

The Prevention League, a leading Jewish advocacy and anti-hate organization in the nation, has removed over 1,000 pages of extremism research from its website after facing significant backlash from right-wing influencers and Elon Musk on Tuesday night.

The now-deleted “extremist glossary” from the ADL included more than 1,000 entries offering background information on various groups and ideologies associated with racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate. The section dedicated to neo-Nazi groups, militias, and anti-Semitic conspiracies has been redirected to a landing page featuring its extremism research.

Musk and various right-wing accounts on X have recently targeted the ADL over this glossary, which included references to Turning Point USA, associated with the late far-right activist Charlie Kirk. Musk responded to a post on X, criticizing the group for its entries on Christian identity and mistakenly conflating the militant movement with Christianity as a whole. In truth, the term refers to a faction that advocates for racial jihadism against Jews and other minorities.

The ADL did not directly address the backlash in its statements regarding this decision, instead arguing that removing the glossary would enable organizations to “explore new strategies and creative approaches to present data and research more effectively.”

“With over 1,000 entries compiled over the years, the extremist glossary has been a valuable resource for high-level information across a broad array of topics. However, the increase in entries has rendered many outdated,” stated the ADL. “We have observed many entries that have been intentionally misrepresented and misused. Furthermore, experts continue to develop more comprehensive resources and innovative means to convey information on anti-Semitism, extremism, and hatred.”

The decision to remove the glossary comes amid intense criticism faced by the ADL from staff and researchers, particularly concerning Israeli policies and its narrow focus on Musk’s repeated defenses. The organization lost a donor, and a prominent executive resigned following a statement by CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who has praised Musk.

The ADL has not addressed inquiries regarding the comprehensive resources mentioned in its statement. The glossary was launched in 2022 and marketed as the first database designed to aid the media, the public, and law enforcement in understanding extremist groups and their ideologies.

“We consider it the most extensive and user-friendly resource for extremist speech currently accessible to the public,” noted Oren Segal, senior vice president of the ADL Center, in a prior statement. “We believe an informed public is crucial for the defense of democracy.”

ADL pages that contained the 2022 press release now display a message stating, “You are not permitted to access this page.”

Musk has long targeted the ADL, previously threatening to sue the organization for its research documenting the rise of anti-Semitic content on social media platforms. However, the ADL and Greenblatt defended him earlier this year, but after other Jewish groups and lawmakers condemned Musk for a fascist-style salute following Donald Trump’s inauguration. The ADL referred to it as “an unfortunate gesture amid moments of enthusiasm.”

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Musk has consistently tweeted about the glossary’s ADL entries, including those related to Kirk’s TPUSA, labeling the ADL a “hate group” and insinuating that it incites murder. The TPUSA entry did not label the organization as extremist but included a list of its leadership and activists linked to extremists or who have made “racist or biased statements.”

On Wednesday, Musk continued to focus on the ADL, reiterating his classification of it as a “hate group.” He also aligned with another right-wing pressure effort, making a call to boycott Netflix due to a show featuring trans characters.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Diabetes: Simple Strategies for Reversal and Prevention Explained by a Doctor

Visualize your body as a large sugar container. At birth, this container is empty. As the years progress, you consume sugar and refined carbohydrates, gradually filling the container. Each time you eat again, if the container is already full, the sugar spills over the edges.

This scenario mirrors what happens in your body. When you consume sugar, your body releases the hormone insulin, allowing sugar to enter the cells for energy. If you don’t adequately burn off this sugar, your cells become saturated over time, and they can no longer effectively utilize it.

Upon consuming sugar again, there is so much present that insulin cannot transport any more, resulting in excess sugar entering the bloodstream. This sugar travels in the form of glucose, and an overload – known as hyperglycemia – is a primary indicator of type 2 diabetes.

When excess glucose exists in the bloodstream, insulin’s ability to facilitate the transfer of sugar to the cells diminishes. Many refer to this as insulin resistance, but the root issue is not with insulin itself; it’s that the cells are overflowing with glucose.

High blood sugar represents just one facet of the problem. Not only is there an excess of glucose in the blood, but there’s also too much in all the cells. Type 2 diabetes manifests as an overflow of glucose throughout the body.

In response to this excess, the body produces more insulin to combat resistance, pushing more glucose into the already overcrowded cells to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

This approach is temporary, as it fails to address the root cause: the surplus sugar. Continuously transferring excess sugar from the bloodstream to the cells only worsens insulin resistance. Eventually, regardless of increased insulin levels, the body cannot force more glucose into the cells.

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So what happens if you don’t eliminate excess glucose? Initially, the body increases insulin production in an effort to drive more glucose into the cells, perpetuating a cycle of resistance.

Glycemic spikes occur when insulin levels cannot keep up with growing tolerance; that’s typically when a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes is made.

Doctors may recommend medications like insulin injections or the drug metformin, but these just continuously clear glucose from the blood, redirecting it into other organs like the kidneys, nerves, eyes, and heart, creating further issues without resolving the underlying problem.



Remember the container filled with sugar? Insulin has moved sugar from the blood into a body that cannot handle it. So once you eat again, more sugar spills into the bloodstream, prompting insulin to push it back into the body.

The more glucose your body accepts, the more insulin it needs to combat this resistance. Yet, this insulin will lead to increased resistance as cells expand.

Eventually, if your body surpasses its natural insulin production, you may need medication. Initially, one drug is sufficient, but this can escalate to multiple drugs at higher doses.

The concerning truth is: if you require increasingly larger doses of medication to maintain stable blood sugar, your diabetes is actually worsening.

Type 2 diabetes is reversible and preventable…without medications

Recognizing that type 2 diabetes stems from excess sugar in the body points to the solution: eliminate the sugar. Don’t just hide it—remove it altogether. There are essentially two ways to achieve this.

  1. Reduce sugar intake.
  2. Burn off the remaining sugar.

That’s all there is to it. The best part? It’s natural and completely free—no medications, no surgeries, and no costs involved.

Step 1: Reduce sugar

The initial step is to completely eliminate all sugar and refined carbohydrates from your diet. Added sugars lack nutritional value and can be safely omitted. Complex carbohydrates, which are essentially long chains of sugar, and highly refined carbs like wheat flour, digest rapidly into glucose.

The best approach is to minimize or eliminate bread and pasta made from white rice and potatoes, as well as those crafted from white flour.

It’s important to maintain a moderate, rather than high, protein intake. Once ingested, dietary proteins such as meat break down into amino acids. While protein is essential for health, excess amino acids cannot be stored in the body, leading the liver to convert them into glucose. Thus, consuming too much protein can also increase sugar levels, making it advisable to avoid highly processed protein sources like protein shakes, bars, and powders.

What about dietary fats? Natural fats found in avocados, nuts, and olive oil—key components of the Mediterranean diet—are known to minimally affect blood sugar or insulin and have beneficial effects on heart disease and diabetes. Eggs and butter also serve as excellent sources of natural fats.

Dietary cholesterol associated with these foods has proven harmless to human health. Consuming nutritional fats doesn’t contribute to type 2 diabetes or heart disease; rather, it fosters feelings of fullness without introducing sugar into the body.

To limit sugar intake, focus on consuming whole, natural foods. Aim for a diet low in refined carbohydrates, moderate in protein, and high in natural fats.

Step 2: Burn remaining sugar

Exercise—both tolerance training and aerobic activity—can positively impact type 2 diabetes, although dietary adjustments are typically more effective. Fasting is one of the easiest and most reliable methods for burning sugar in the body.

Fasting is essentially the absence of eating. When you eat, your body stores the energy from food. In contrast, when you fast, your body needs to burn stored energy, with glucose being the most accessible energy source. Longer fasting durations can burn away stored sugar.

This may sound drastic, but fasting is the oldest known dietary practice and has been embraced throughout human history without issues. Those on prescription medications should consult their healthcare providers before making changes.

The bottom line? If you don’t eat, your blood sugar will drop. If you refrain from eating, you will lose weight. So, what’s the problem? Largely, it’s unfounded.

A popular fasting strategy includes fasting for 24 hours, 2-3 times a week, or doing 16-hour fasts 5-6 times weekly. The key to reversing type 2 diabetes lies within our reach.

What is essential is an open mind and the courage to challenge conventional beliefs and paradigms.

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This text has been extracted from Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally by Dr. Jason Fung—Out Now (£14.99, Greystone Books).

Available for purchase at Amazon, Foyles, or Waterstones.

Photo credit: Jason Fung

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

California requires indoor workers to adhere to heat stroke prevention measures

summary

  • California is set to implement state-first regulations aimed at protecting indoor workers from the heat.
  • The policy, which could go into effect later this summer, would require employers to provide water, breaks, and places to cool down if indoor temperatures reach 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • The only other states that mandate similar protections are Oregon and Minnesota.

California is poised to pass the state’s first regulations to protect people who work indoors from extreme heat, a policy that could take effect as soon as later this summer.

The California Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) Standards Committee unanimously voted Thursday to approve heycircle circleOak Place RulesThis will send the standards to the state’s Office of Administrative Law for quick final approval, meaning the standards could go into effect by early August.

The heat plan was originally scheduled to go into effect in 2019 but faced a five-year delay. If enacted into law, the policy would protect about 1.4 million warehouse workers, restaurant employees, manufacturing workers, and other indoor workers from dangerously hot working conditions.

The regulations require employers to monitor employees for heatstroke and provide hydration, breaks, and cool areas if indoor temperatures reach 82 degrees Fahrenheit. If temperatures reach 87 degrees Fahrenheit, employers must take further measures, such as providing more breaks, adjusting work schedules, slowing down work pace, and providing air conditioning.

If these rules go into effect, California would join Oregon and Minnesota as the only states with policies to protect indoor workers from the heat. In 2006, California passed heat standards for outdoor workers, including those in agriculture and construction.

Meanwhile, in Texas and Florida, recent state laws have weakened workplace protections against extreme heat by prohibiting cities and counties from enacting local regulations to protect outdoor workers, such as requiring water breaks or time in the shade.

Labor advocates have been pushing for national workplace heat standards for indoor and outdoor workers, but the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has yet to adopt such rules.

Advocates say California-style regulations are needed more urgently than ever as heat waves become more frequent and intense due to climate change.

“This is huge,” said Anastasia Nicole Wright, policy manager at WorkSafe, a non-profit worker advocacy group based in Oakland, Calif. “Workers need these protections as soon as possible.”

But the state’s new requirements don’t protect all indoor workers. For now, they exempt employees of state and local correctional facilities, as well as other prison staff. In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration revised the standards to exempt the state prison system, questioning how much it would cost to bring the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation into compliance with the requirements.

Some labor advocates believe the temperature standards set in California’s policy are still too high.

“The risk of heatstroke depends on both temperature and humidity, but it also has a lot to do with physical demands,” says Tim Shaddix, legal director for the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, an advocacy group based in Ontario, Calif. “If a warehouse worker is lifting heavy boxes for an eight- or 10-hour shift, they’re at risk for heatstroke even when temperatures are in the high 70s.”

Shaddix added that he hopes California’s restrictions will inspire other parts of the country to implement similar rules.

“As summer temperatures rise due to climate change, the problem is only going to get worse, so it’s really important that we see progress and we see more models that encourage other states to follow,” he said. “And that’s the push at the federal level, and we really need that, because we have to make sure that workers across the country are protected.”

More people die from heatstroke each year in the United States than from any other extreme weather event. In 2022, 43 people died from exposure to ambient heat in the workplace, up from 36 in 2021. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Robert Mootrie, senior policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce, said California employers are “moving into compliance mode,” but added that certain industries, such as restaurants, will bear a greater burden because kitchens are essentially hot, enclosed spaces.

Mootrie also said small businesses in particular have expressed concerns about how to best implement the rules when they come into effect in just a few months.

“It doesn’t take much to change your internal practices, train your staff, and talk to your lawyers,” he said. “All of these things take time and resources.”

Regarding workers in California prisons and jails, Cal/OSHA said in a statement that it plans to “proceed with proposing industry-specific regulations for local and state correctional facilities that take into account the unique operational realities of these workplaces,” but did not provide a specific timeline.

Wright expressed disappointment that tens of thousands of prison staff are exempt from the restrictions.

“They’re a big percentage of the workforce,” she said, “but heat is an issue for workers and non-workers alike. Many prisons don’t have central air conditioning, so forcing prisons to take certain measures to ensure temperatures inside prisons are safe for workers would benefit inmates as well.”

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Federal Authorities Push for Introducing Drunk-Driving Prevention Technology in Cars, But Face Challenges

The in-vehicle technology used by Ford, GM and others to ensure drivers pay attention to the road has come a long way. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is still not enough to prevent or reduce the harm caused by drunk driving.

This assessment is included throughout the agency’s new 99-page Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. released Tuesday was a pit stop of sorts on the way to enacting regulations that would require in-vehicle technology to recognize when a driver has been drinking.

NHTSA is currently seeking assistance in determining what technology should be incorporated into vehicles to completely reduce or prevent this problem, in part because NHTSA has no commercially available options. states that it does not exist. After the notice is published in the Federal Register, the public has 60 days to submit comments.

NHTSA says it evaluated 331 driver monitoring systems and found no commercially available systems that adequately handle the identification of alcohol impairment. The magazine noted that there are three DMS systems that claim to detect alcohol-induced impairment, but said they are still in the research and development stage. (We did not reveal the names of those systems.)

However, driver monitoring is not the only option at NHTSA’s disposal. NHTSA embarked on this mission after President Biden ordered the agency to find a solution in 2021 with bipartisan infrastructure legislation. The act charged NHTSA with developing federal motor vehicle safety standards that could determine whether a driver is impaired by passively monitoring the driver. Or it could be by passively (and accurately) detecting whether the blood alcohol concentration is too high, or a combination of both.

Accuracy is key, and NHTSA findings suggest that blood alcohol detection technology is a more viable solution in the short term. After all, dozens of states already require breathalyzer-based alcohol ignition interlocks for repeat offenders or high-BAC offenders. However, this technology is considered ‘active’, meaning that drivers must actively engage with it, which is contrary to the law’s passive requirement.

There may be another option.

Since 2008, NHTSA has been working with the Alliance for Automobile Traffic Safety (ACTS) on a public-private partnership called Driver Alcohol Sensing Systems for Safety (DADSS). As part of that program, DADSS has developed both breath-based and contact-based methods to detect driver impairment. Breath-based methods are also considered active and therefore non-starters, while touch sensors are designed to be embedded in something the driver needs to touch to operate the vehicle (such as a push-start button). NHTSA has “preliminarily determined that such touch sensors may be considered passive.”

ACTS CEO Robert Strassberger said he believes touch sensors may be the best option in the short term, given the technology’s limitations in being passive. He wants to know what the public thinks.

“That’s going to be one of the areas of interest for me when I read the comments that are ultimately submitted. How do people feel about it? Will it ultimately be accepted by consumers? It depends,” he says. “I think one of the things we definitely want to avoid doing is asking drivers to learn a new way of interacting with their cars.”

Timing is critical. Not only does drunk driving kill thousands of people each year and cost the country billions of dollars, final regulations need to be standardized by November 2024.

Judging by the number of questions NHTSA raises in its notice, achieving this goal may be difficult. The agency is raising all sorts of thorny questions, as well as seeking further comment on driver monitoring and the definition of “passive.” For example, if the start/stop button has a touch sensor, how does it know that the driver is pressing it? If the system determines that the driver is too drunk to start the car, Should you prevent your car from starting? What if the driver is trying to escape a wildfire?

“This is very complex rulemaking,” Strassberger said. “There are a lot of details that the agency needs to get right.”

Source: techcrunch.com