As XBB.1.5's prevalence grows, COVID-19 activity falls

 COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths fell nationwide this week, even as the highly transmissible omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 grew to account for about half of all U.S. infections, according to the CDC's COVID-19 data tracker weekly review published Jan. 20. 

Seven updates:

Variants

1. Based on projections for the week ending Jan. 21, the CDC estimates that XBB.1.5 accounts for 49.1 percent of cases, up from 37.2 percent a week prior. 

2. BQ.1.1 accounts for 26.9 percent of cases, while BQ.1 accounts for 13.3 percent. Other omicron subvariants make up the rest.

Cases

3. As of Jan. 18, the nation's seven-day case average was 47,459, a 23.9 percent decrease from the previous week's average. 

Hospitalizations

4. The seven-day hospitalization average for Jan. 10-16 was 5,014, a 16.4 percent decrease from the previous week's average. 

Deaths 

5. The current seven-day death average is 565, down 6.1 percent from the previous week's average. Some historical deaths have been excluded from these counts, the CDC said. 

Wastewater surveillance 

6. About 46 percent of U.S. testing sites are reporting moderate to high virus levels in wastewater. Of these surveillance sites, 48 percent are seeing some of the highest levels since Dec. 1, 2021. 

7. About 28 percent of sites are reporting an increase in virus levels, and 61 percent of sites are seeing a decrease.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/as-xbb-1-5s-prevalence-grows-covid-19-activity-falls-7-updates.html

Tenn. cuts HIV program with Planned Parenthood ties

 Top Tennessee health officials attempted to oust Planned Parenthood from a program designed to prevent and treat HIV before eventually deciding to forgo federal funding for the program, despite warnings that doing so will have a devastating impact on marginalized communities, documents show.

The decision is the latest development in a ruby red state where abortion is already banned. Republicans leaders, however, have actively tried to cut off public ties with the organization for any other services, due to its long history of offering and defending abortion care.

According to a letter from Planned Parenthood, Tennessee’s Department of Health in November alerted the organization that it would no longer receive HIV prevention grants starting in 2023, as well as warn that the state was terminating its partnership with Planned Parenthood to provide HIV testing.

The letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to the health agency’s general counsel, Mary Katherine Bratton, on Nov. 16.

The document states that United Way — which distributes the HIV federal funding grant on the health agency’s behalf — said the department wanted to sever ties with Planned Parenthood “for reasons wholly unrelated to the purpose of the program.”

“As United Way reported: ‘TDH said given the current political climate we are not moving forward with funding Planned Parenthood,’ and TDH ‘can no longer directly or indirectly fund (Planned Parenthood),’” wrote Planned Parenthood’s attorney Alan E. Schoenfeld.

Schoenfeld added that Planned Parenthood wanted to avoid litigation and requested a meeting later that month. The issue was eventually dropped until this week, when the Department of Health announced it was choosing to walk away from the federal HIV prevention, detection and treatment funding and instead would rely on state funding for such efforts starting June 1. The Commercial Appeal was the first to report the announcement.

The department’s move was a shock to many of the participating organizations tasked with providing vital HIV services across the state. Planned Parenthood, which has worked with the state to distribute free condoms for more than a decade, declared that Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s administration was choosing the “nuclear option” in order to avoid having to work with the organization.

“This is yet another public health crisis manufactured by Gov. Lee,” said Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. “They are using Planned Parenthood as the entry way to take down the whole sexual and reproductive health care system. We’re often the most public target, but this affects so many groups.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health declined to directly answer questions about why they attempted to cut Planned Parenthood from the HIV program in November. Instead, they provided a Jan. 17 letter explaining that “prior administrations” had decided to accept the federal funding for HIV surveillance but the state has determined “it is in the best interest of Tennesseans for the State to assume direct financial and managerial responsibility for these services.”

“The funding for this HIV prevention program is very important and it’s important that it is spent effectively and efficiently in the ways that best serve Tennessee,” Lee told reporters Friday. “We think we can do that better than the strings attached with the federal dollars that came our way and that’s why we made that decision.”

Tennessee’s health agency’s website says the CDC grant helps fund: “HIV counseling, testing and referral, HIV partner counseling and referral services, HIV health education and risk reduction programs, HIV prevention for positive individuals, public information programs, a toll-free HIV/STD hotline, capacity building programs, and a quality assurance and evaluation component.”

The website goes on to say that state funding provides additional support for HIV testing, but it does not give an amount.

Separately, Lee appointed Ralph Alvarado as the new health commissioner in late November. Alvarado is a former Kentucky state senator who has publicly opposed most abortion access. Alvarado officially took over the role on Monday, just two days before the department announced it would cut off the HIV federal funding.

Planned Parenthood has since been removed from the health agency’s website that lists community organizations that distribute free condoms.

“There’s nothing pro-life about punishing people who are living with HIV and enabling this virus to spread undetected,” said Democratic state Sen. London Lamar of Memphis.

Lamar added that public health efforts have helped slow the spread of HIV in Tennessee and that cutting off federal funding “endangers the lives of Tennesseans.”

Planned Parenthood has partnered with Tennessee’s Department of Health to provide HIV testing since 2008, when Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen was in office. Four years later, under then Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the health agency attempted to remove Planned Parenthood from the program — a move that was ultimately challenged in court.

A district court later found that the department had targeted Planned Parenthood “based upon their First Amendment activity for advocating abortion” and issued a permanent injunction preventing the state from dissolving any partnership with the organization because of their abortion care advocacy. That injunction is still in place.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has been forced to stop all abortion services ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last year.

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-health-hiv-and-aids-tennessee-state-government-planned-parenthood-598ba8f96d4ce1b495d9291790f103b9

SHOT Show Exhibitors Promote Gun Safety, Suicide Prevention

 by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is as committed to promoting gun safety as it is to gun rights, Bill Brassard, senior director of communications and director of the Child Safe program for the NSSF, told The Epoch Times.

“It’s about much more than firearms,” Brassard said.

There are at least seven organizations committed to gun safety, suicide prevention, and mental health services among the more than 2,400 exhibitors at the event.

“Attitudes are definitely changing,” Brassard said.

“Five years ago, they would not have had a presence here.”

Brassard spoke from the Project ChildSafe booth at the NSSF’s 45th Annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. SHOT stands for the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade show.

(Right) Ken Stacy, (North American representative for Lokaway safes) and (Left) Corkey Whempner (Lokaway sales representative) display one of their company’s gun safes during the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s 45th annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 18, 2023. (Michael Clements)

One of the exhibitors Brassard referenced is Hold My Guns (HMG), a non-profit that arranges temporary gun storage. Whether for a military deployment, a mental health crisis, or the need to prevent unauthorized firearms access, HMG connects clients with federal firearms license (FFL) holders who can legally store their guns so they are ready to be returned.

Sarah Joy Albrecht is the founder and executive director of HMG. She said that in an era of red flag laws and increased attempts to restrict gun ownership, HMG was started to help gun owners temporarily create distance from their firearms without government involvement.

“This is a non-legislative approach,” Albrecht told The Epoch Times.

“This is our community helping our own.”

According to Albrecht, HMG arranges a transfer of firearms to an FFL. Since it is a legal transfer, the owner must be able to pass a federal background check. The guns are logged into the FFL’s records and kept in their secure storage until they are returned to the owner. She said HMG partners with FFLs, who will store the firearms for a nominal fee. The FFL partners require that the storage is legal, but other than that, no questions are asked.

Albrecht said one of HMG’s main objectives is suicide prevention. Her family has been directly affected by suicide, and she started HMG to prevent such tragedies. She pointed out that more than half of all gun-related deaths are suicides. But news reports list those with gun crime statistics. This compounds the stigma of suicide, she said.

Dustin Culbreth (vice president for product development of Vaultek) demonstrates the modular features of one of his company’s long gun safes during the National Shooting Sports Foundations 45th annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 18, 2023. (Michael Clements)

“How much more likely is that person to seek help?” Albrecht asked. “(HMG) empowers people to make good decisions during a crisis. This is an option that serves our community.”

Brassard said HMG and other safe storage options are essential in suicide prevention by creating time and distance between the person and the guns.

“It gives the person a chance to find help,” Brassard said.

NSSF has also partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Walk the Talk America in addition to starting programs like Project ChildSafe and NSSF Have a Brace Conversation. These organizations are working to educate the public and firearms retailers on recognizing warning signs that a person may be dealing with mental health issues and how to help them find assistance.

Brassard said the programs have been well received.

Along that line, NSSF and the American Foundation for Suicide prevention develop materials for firearms retailers, ranges, and manufacturers to make it easier for their customers to find the support they need when they need it. All the materials are free.

NSSF provides educational materials and services through its Have a Brave Conversation program. The program offers a free toolkit containing brochures, posters, counter cards, and window clings for firearms-related businesses and organizations that want to prevent suicide.

NSSF Suicide Prevention Partners

Walk the Talk America (WTA) has been operating for nearly five years. It hosts free and anonymous mental health screenings in addition to educating clinicians about gun culture, promoting responsible gun ownership, and protecting Second Amendment rights and psychological well-being. WTA works with manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, ranges, veterans’ groups, community groups, and government agencies.

In addition to suicide prevention, NSSF has made protecting children a priority. This is why NSSF began its Project ChildSafe program, Brassard said. NSSF has provided more than 40 million gun locks to gun owners through local police departments. Brassard said the locks are provided free of charge and come with information on safe gun handling and storage.

NSSF has partnered with 15,000 law enforcement agencies around the United States through the Project ChildSafe program. He said that NSSF safety programs are almost always welcomed by gun owners and those in the firearms industry. He said that as gun ownership has increased in the past several years, so has the desire of gun owners to do what is right.

“It’s really a matter of responsible gun ownership,” Brassard said.

Brassard said proper storage is a big part of responsible gun ownership. The quandary is how to prevent unauthorized access while maintaining availability.

High Tech Storage

Dustin Culbreth told The Epoch Times that safe manufacturers are bridging the gap between secure storage and easy access. Culbreth is vice president for product development at Orlando, Florida-based Vaultek.

“We manufacture smart safes with built-in, cutting-edge technology,” Culbreth said.

In addition to biometric technology, Culbreth said Vaultek safes are programmable. Vaultek’s small pistol safes can be programmed for up to 20 sets of fingerprints, meaning family members, friends, and others who may need access to the firearm will have it. They also come with a smartphone app that will alert the gun owner if someone tries to move or break into the safe.

The app keeps a log of when and how the safe is accessed so the owner can always know what is going on with his firearms. In addition, he said Vaultek safes have backup methods of opening the safes if the technology fails.

Tamper Resistant Latch

Ken Stacy is the North American representative for Lokaway, an Australian safe manufacturer. In addition to incorporating high tech into its safe designs, Stacy said Lokaway has developed a unique pry-resistant latch system.

“This latch system is much more secure,” Stacy told The Epoch Times.

Stacy said Lokaway works to keep its products affordable while focusing on security. He said that anyone shopping for a gun safe should remember they are investing in their family’s safety as well as secure gun storage.

“If you’re going to spend any money on a security device, buy one that works and protects your kids,” Stacey said.

SHOT show runs through Jan. 20 at The Venetian Expo and Caesar’s Forum in Las Vegas, Nev. It features over 2,400 exhibitors on 800,000 net square feet of floor space. This is the 24th SHOT Show to be held in Las Vegas.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shot-show-exhibitors-promote-gun-safety-suicide-prevention

Schools For The New "Cognitive Economy"

 by Charles Lipson via RealClear Wire,

We are in the midst of a post-industrial revolution as profound and disruptive as the tectonic changes that launched the West’s rise to prosperity, providing ordinary people with a cornucopia of goods and services. The latest economic revolution – built on tiny computer chips, enormous data, and ubiquitous connectivity – differs from its predecessors in at least one crucial way. Unlike the first revolution (cotton spinning) and the second (heavy industry, from oil and steel to autos), this one relies on a highly educated work force. The least skilled are being displaced by smart machines, which are built and programmed by a skilled and adaptive workforce.

This rapidly changing environment might be called a “cognitive economy.” It requires workers who are not only literate but numerate. That means effective training in math and science and the skills to continue that learning over a lifetime. In the United States, we simply don’t have the schools to meet those needs.

Our failing public education system doesn’t prepare enough students for this cognitive economy, whether the jobs involve writing code, analyzing data, developing artificial intelligence, or operating sophisticated machines. In city after city, our public schools are consigning most students – the ones who don’t get into selective, magnet schools – to the scrap heap of this job market. Soon, the only way to support them will be never-ending transfer payments. If students from the least-advantaged households are to grasp the American Dream, if our economy is to lead this global transformation, then these dismal results have to change.

Bad schools are not solely responsible for students’ shortcomings. Their families and neighborhoods share the blame. Too many children are raised by single parents, who are poorly educated themselves. They live in neighborhoods where violence is pervasive, nutrition is spotty, and educational achievement is mocked. They enter school with serious deficits. All too often, they leave the same way.

Instead of compensating for these deficits, our public schools often compound them with unruly classrooms, low standards, and lousy instruction. Standardized testing shows just how bad the results are. In Illinois, for instance, only 1 in 5 students performs at grade level in either math or English. In Chicago, the results are even worse, and those for black students are worst of all. Among Chicago’s African American students, only 1 in 10 performs at grade level. These results would have been damaging 50 years ago. In today’s economy, they are devastating.

What can be done? The easy answer – more funding – is wrong. According to one study, Chicago spends $29,000 per student annually, which is not unusual for a big city. The problem is not how much we spend per student but how little we get for the money.

The obvious solution would be for our schools to imitate the most successful parts of our economy. Our economy – the richest in human history – has historically been premised on the belief that competition is good, monopolies are bad, and failing organizations should either adapt or pay the price. Where there is genuine competition, consumers will choose the best options, and businesses will strive to provide them – or go under. Public schools don’t face those incentives and don’t pay a price for their failure. The rest of us do, especially the ill-served students, who will pay a terrible price for the rest of their lives.

The best way to change this mess is to introduce competition and choice. Lots of it. That means letting school funding follow each student and letting families choose where to educate their children. For that to work well, state legislatures and local school districts must provide enough money to fully fund a student’s education. Otherwise, poor families are left out and richer ones will simply use the extra funds to top up their private tuition payments. It means students with special needs should be given extra funding.

Equally important, full funding is necessary to create a vibrant marketplace, where new schools (both non-profit and for-profit) compete for those dollars. That funding should be flexible enough to permit parents to spend some money for tutoring and online courses, such as language training or advanced math. They should be allowed to roll over their unspent money into next year’s tuition and, eventually, into community college or four-year universities.

The argument here is not that new schools or older parochial ones are inherently better. They may or may not be. The point is that competition forces all schools, public and private, old and new, to strive to improve so they can compete in the marketplace. It weeds out those that don’t provide what parents demand, just as competition killed off Yugo cars and Detroit’s old clunkers. Consumers turned to better-built Japanese cars and forced GM and Ford to improve – or go bankrupt.

Competition will do the same for schools. To survive and prosper, they will be forced to provide what parents demand, whether that is advanced math or after-school activities (for parents with 9-to-5 jobs). Some will seek competitive advantage by hiring the best teachers, paying them accordingly, and firing the worst. In short, a competitive market will force schools to innovate, improve, and adapt to what parents want for their children.

The biggest obstacle to these changes is obvious: the entrenched power of teachers unions and their leverage over politicians who control education policy. Political scientists have long known that concentrated, well-organized groups, like these public-sector unions, typically wield more power than diffuse groups, like parents. They know that highly motivated, single-issue constituencies, like these unions, typically wield more power than groups concerned with many issues, like all families.

The good news is that the pendulum is finally swinging toward parents, as school failures become painfully obvious and political candidates seize the issue, as Glenn Youngkin did so effectively in Virginia. Some states, like Florida, Wisconsin, and Arizona, have moved aggressively to increase school choice, both to please current voters and to attract young families. If these “laboratories of democracies” succeed, other states will follow. Let’s hope so, both for the students’ sake and the country’s growth.

Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/schools-we-need-new-cognitive-economy

Davos Plans For Next Pandemic - Suggests National Digital Infrastructures To Track Vaccination

 The World Economic Forum's Davos discussions often require some "reading between the lines" to understand what is really being said by the globalist participants, but not much interpretation is needed these days.  Ever since the pandemic event along with the lockdowns and the attempts to introduce vaccine passports, establishment representatives have been far more open about their agenda and their intentions for the future. 

After all, it was Klaus Schwab that called covid a "rare but narrow window of opportunity" to implement the "Great Reset" of the current economic and political order.  The past few years have shown that the Davos crowd still clings to the fading pandemic panic as the "good old days" when they could have had anything they wanted, including total centralization.

The globalists continue to refuse to address their many failures, but panels like the following say it all - They realize that the truth has hit the mainstream and far too many people are now questioning the validity of the restrictions, mandates, masks and the mRNA vaccines.  All of these measures have proven to be mostly useless in preventing viral spread, and now the negative side effects of the vaccines are being admitted to, at least to a point.  All in all, the pandemic was not the golden opportunity that Klaus Schwab and the WEF expected.    

Their hopes and dreams now turn to a future pandemic, perhaps one with a far higher death rate that creates more exploitable public fear.

 

Of special note in this panel, which includes former British PM Tony Blair and current head of Pfizer Albert Bourla, are comments made about the lack of unified agreement on political response - They do not go into detail here, but they may be referring to the refusal of some governments to pursue ongoing mandates and vaccine passports.  Public resistance to such actions led directly to apprehension among government officials as to how far they could push their luck.  Clearly, they decided they were playing with fire because many of these leaders backed off.  It was as if someone flipped a switch and the covid doom mongering suddenly slowed to a mere flicker of its former intensity.

The group concludes that global institutions in the future need to put constant pressure on governments and, ostensibly, constant pressure on national populations in order to get the results they desire.

By extension, Africa is mentioned a few times during the panel as an example of the need for "equity" in pandemic response.  What they don't talk about is Africa's lack of covid deaths despite around 65% of the continent being unvaccinated according to the New York Times world vaccine tracker. The African example as a control group for the unvaccinated has been a thorn in the side of globalists for the past couple years and obviously they want to change that.

Another very interesting comment is made by Tony Blair, who calls for national digital infrastructure for tracking vaccinations.  Blair suggests that to keep various national governments on board with the agenda, they would have to be convinced pandemic issues are "continuing issues."

Albert Bourla addresses the possibility and challenges of producing vaccines in an even faster time frame to respond to new viral events.  His conclusion?  That regulators need to continue to keep doors open for Big Pharma in terms of expediency even when there is not a pandemic in play.  The average vaccine takes at least 10 years of study for safety and long term side effects; the covid vaccines were developed and administered in less than a year under emergency authorization.  This new standard of minimized safety obstacles is what Big Pharma and the WEF want for all vaccines and drugs in the future.      

Bourla then admits to something, in a offhanded way, that many people have suspected; that the biggest challenge in the enforcement of mandates and widespread vaccination was public skepticism.  Bourla and others refer to this as the "politicizing" of the mandates, but it was really just resistance to authoritarianism, and it is something that frustrated globalist planning at every step.  This can only be a good thing. 

At no point do the panel participants acknowledge the numerous studies showing the ineffectiveness of masking, the ineffectiveness of the lockdowns, the ineffectiveness of the vaccines, and the risks they entail.  The reasons for public resistance are not important to them, only the ways in which they can gain greater compliance during the next viral event. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/davos-plans-next-pandemic-suggests-national-digital-infrastructures-track-vaccination

The Need For COVID Reparations

 by Adam Coleman via The Epoch Times,

I’m no different from many Americans who still possess anger at how people were mistreated for questioning narratives, forced into struggling economic positions, and repeatedly lied to about the efficacy of lockdowns and vaccines by the most powerful people and institutions in the world.

I still possess animosity toward the formerly respectable so-called experts who’ve become compromised by their political biases and the fear of losing their high status in society if they were to divorce from the narrative and marry objectivity. How can I trust again a media apparatus that guilted an entire population of people into getting an experimental vaccine while simultaneously being sponsored by Big Pharma?

We all want a way to move forward, because anger only breeds more anger, not forgiveness. But it’s also not advisable for us to gloss over the damage that was done to appease the conscience of the people who are now remorseful for their participation in perpetuating falsehoods and who cheered on the social demise of dissenters.

Despite the call for a blanket amnesty discussed in the Atlantic’s op-ed titled “Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty,” I believe we should strive for something that’s more succinct in providing a form of justice that would relieve much of the bitterness that we’ve been carrying for years: COVID reparations.

Often when we discuss reparations, it’s with the concept of throwing an arbitrary amount of cash at people in hopes that it satisfies enough of them in the process, but what I’m advocating for is a reparation that’s socially restorative, fair, and directly benefits the people who were impacted by the injustice.

First, there needs to be a satisfactory acknowledgment of guilt and an apology directly aimed at the American public who were unjustly harmed. For example, there needs to be a recognition of the people who are vaccine injured, and while they’re the minority, their situations are disregarded by people, including medical professionals, who continue to cling to the fallacy that COVID-19 vaccines provide no side effects.

There needs to be a national recognition of the mental damage inflicted upon our children due to seemingly indefinite isolation because of extended lockdowns and school closures, causing youth suicide attempts to soar.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2020, the proportion of mental health-related emergency department visits among adolescents aged 12–17 years increased by 31 percent compared with 2019. From Feb. 21 to March 20, 2021, emergency department visits due to suspected suicide attempts were 50.6 percent higher among girls aged 12–17 years than during the same period in 2019.

You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge, and we can’t move forward without public acknowledgment of all the negative consequences that stemmed from an overreaching and politically blinded governmental apparatus and how they encouraged the private sector to mimic their approach.

There should be restitution for the citizens who were forced out of their jobs and other opportunities for refusing to get vaccinated, because this action was motivated by the falsehood of the vaccination stopping the spread, which was overtly stated by many bureaucratic figures, including the CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.

In cities such as New York City, people, like my wife, were forced into an unfair predicament of taking a vaccine that they weren’t fully comfortable being injected with or losing their income, all based on the falsehood of it being the extinguisher of the spread of this virus.

As part of the restitution, every employee who was negatively affected by this should be allowed their positions back or given financial severance compensation directly from their employer, and there should be the immediate reenlistment of military members who were forced out due to this refusal.

Any small business owners who were forced out of business while corporate conglomerates like Amazon, Target, and Walmart were permitted carte blanch operational status should be allowed to file lawsuits against their local government that used edict to choose the economic winners and losers.

Lastly, there should be guarantees of non-repetition by removing all unelected bureaucratic figureheads who perpetuated vaccine falsehoods on behalf of Big Pharma, advocated for lockdowns without regard for our economic survival or impact on our children’s health, and fostered an environment where questioning medical decisions for yourself made you a dissident instead of normal.

Laws should be created to prevent the federal government from providing blanket immunity from lawsuits to pharmaceutical companies, because those companies will undoubtedly put more emphasis on the speed of production and profits over ethics and safety for the American public.

There are countless actions that could be made to show actual repentance for the irreverence shown toward the American public, but there needs to be conscious action alongside the rhetoric of progressing forward.

We haven’t truly learned the lessons from our recent mistakes if we’re willing to continue to pretend that the wounds that were created by our overzealousness aren’t still infected with unresolved acrimony.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/need-covid-reparations

Feds have seized nearly $700M from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

 Federal authorities have seized almost $700 million from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, mostly from shares of Robinhood that he owned. 

A court filing from Friday shows that the federal government seized more than 55 million shares of Robinhood stock along with tens of millions of dollars from each of several bank accounts. 

Bankman-Fried was arrested last month in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States to face charges including wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit fraud as part of an alleged scheme to defraud investors. 

Prosecutors have alleged that Bankman-Fried used funds from investors for his own purposes to fund investments from his hedge fund, Alameda Research, buy real estate and to make political donations. 

He pleaded not guilty to all charges earlier this month. He has said he has not stolen any money, and FTX’s customers should be able to get their money back despite the cryptocurrency exchange’s bankruptcy declaration in November. 

Federal authorities have said Bankman-Fried used the money that investors intended to put into FTX to buy the Robinhood shares. 

The total value of the shares seized is more than $500 million. Five of the sums that officials seized were accounts held in the name of “FTX Digital Markets,” while three were for all money, assets and funds contained in three accounts for Binance, another cryptocurrency exchange.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3822008-feds-have-seized-nearly-700m-from-ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried/