Marijuana users have higher levels of heavy metals in blood: study

 Marijuana users have elevated levels of cadmium and lead in their blood and urine compared to those who abstain, a troubling new study found.  

Analyzing data from a group of more than 7,200 adults, researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found that the 358 people who reported using marijuana within the past 30 days had 27% higher blood lead levels, compared to those who said they refrained from both marijuana and tobacco. 

The authors found marijuana users also had 21% high urine lead levels, in addition to 22% higher blood cadmium levels and 18% higher urine cadmium levels, compared to those who didn’t use either marijuana or tobacco. 

The researchers studied data from blood and urine samples collected between 2008 and 2015 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics

They separated 7,254 participants into five categories: non-marijuana/non-tobacco use, exclusive marijuana use, exclusive tobacco use, and dual marijuana and tobacco use. They then measured five different metals in the individuals’ blood and 16 in their urine.

“Because the cannabis plant is a known scavenger of metals, we had hypothesized that individuals who use marijuana will have higher metal biomarker levels compared to those who do not use,” said Katlyn McGraw, a study author and a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University.

“Our results therefore indicate marijuana is a source of cadmium and lead exposure,” she added.

There is no safe amount of lead exposure, according to the World Health Organization. Even low levels of exposure can affect children’s brain development, resulting in behavioral and learning problems. In adults, lead exposure can lead to elevated risks of high blood pressure, heart problems and kidney damage.

Even low levels of exposure to cadmium or lead can lead to serious health issues.

Shutterstock

Cadmium is classified as a carcinogen by the WHO and exposure, even at low levels, over time through air and water or tobacco smoke can cause kidney disease and fragile bones.

“For both cadmium and lead, these metals are likely to stay in the body for years, long after exposure ends,” Tiffany Sanchez, an author of the study and an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, told NBC News. 

The study’s findings were published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/02/marijuana-users-have-higher-levels-of-heavy-metals-in-blood/

Hoax-Funding LinkedIn Founder Intro'd Epstein To Trump's Inner Circle To Meet 'Top Russian Diplomat'

 Was Jeffrey Epstein involved in a plot to tie the 2016 Trump campaign to Russia?

A disturbing new report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman introduced Trump's inner circle to Jeffrey Epstein, who then introduced them to a 'top Russian diplomat.'

As a reminder, Hoffman;

• Bankrolled an online disinformation hoax against Roy Moore, conducted by a former Obama administration official - who also created the "Hamilton 68" propaganda website purporting to track Russian bots. Hoffman later apologized when caught.
• Bankrolled Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll.
• Gave $600,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS - the opposition research firm which prepared documents for the infamous 'Trump Tower' setup meeting with Don. Jr. and facilitated the Hillary Clinton-funded Steele Dossier.
• Was a major Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 US election.

According to the Journal, Hoffman emailed people in Trump's orbit to introduce them to Epstein, who then invited one of them - Peter Thiel - to meet with Russia's ambassador to the UN!

In March 2014, fellow billionaire and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democrats, emailed Thiel to introduce Epstein and arrange a meeting at Thiel’s San Francisco home. 

“Meet one of the guys who invented derivatives, Jeffrey Epstein?” Hoffman wrote, echoing an inaccurate claim Epstein sometimes made. Hoffman wrote that Epstein was “mostly fun, very interesting guy, you may find him perverse, but very smart on biology, computation, macro econ.” 

Hoffman said he regrets all his interactions with Epstein and that he made the introduction to help fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

...

Epstein scheduled lunches with venture capitalist Peter Thiel and real-estate investor Thomas Barrack in 2016, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. At the time, both were high-profile financial backers of Trump’s campaign. 

Epstein invited Thiel and Barrack to separate meetings with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Churkin, who died of an apparent heart attack in early 2017, had at least eight meetings scheduled with Epstein between 2015 and Churkin’s death, the documents show. -WSJ

So, Epstein - pal to the Democrats and a prolific pedophile, had extensive dealings with a Russian diplomat that he tried to connect with Trump's inner circle?

The report also notes that "The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, don’t make reference to any meetings or conversations between Trump and Epstein," and "don’t specify Epstein’s purpose in scheduling meetings with Trump’s associates or the Russian ambassador."

Notably, these Epstein-Russia meetings happened when the Russiagate hoax was in full swing with the FBI's involvement.

Yet, according to Thiel, the October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured "nothing memorable."

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel speaking at the Republican National Convention in July 2016. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

"I was rather naive," Thiel told the outlet, "and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been."

Meanwhile, a Trump campaign spokesman said: "None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago."

As the Journal further notes:

Epstein met with and donated to Democrats more often than Republicans, according to the documents and campaign donation records. The Journal has reported that his schedules included meeting several people who had served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his townhouse, Epstein hung a painting that depicted Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels. 

In 2019, a spokesman for Bill Clinton said the former president had cut off ties more than a decade before and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The spokesman said then that Bill Clinton took four flights on Epstein’s plane and once visited the townhouse, each time with his Secret Service team and for reasons related to the Clinton Foundation’s work. The spokesman declined to comment for this article.

Public records show Epstein donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign for the Senate, and tax records indicate he donated $25,000 in 2006 to what is now the Clinton family’s global philanthropic foundation. A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment.

After his conviction, Epstein maintained connections with some former members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, including Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary, and Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary. He also met with Clinton alumni leaving the Obama administration, including Ruemmler and the current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns.

Which begs the question, was Epstein just another prong in the Democrats' attempts to tie Trump to Russia in 2016?

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hoax-funding-linkedin-founder-introduced-jeffrey-epstein-trumps-inner-circle-meet-top

Biden admin's overtime rule would hurt small businesses, trade groups warn

 The Biden administration's proposed rule to increase overtime for millions of workers could negatively affect small businesses already struggling with inflationary pressures, according to several trade groups.

The U.S. Department of Labor's proposed rule "Restoring and Extending Overtime Protections" would require employers to pay overtime to certain workers making less than about $55,000 per year — a dramatic increase from the $36,000 current threshold. 

Timed for Labor Day, the Biden administration's proposal, announced Wednesday, was quickly met with criticism from retail and hospitality trade groups. 

In a statement, the National Retail Federation noted that the Labor Department's "proposed threshold is well above the rate of inflation," and added that the administration may not have the authority to "tie the hands of future administrations through automatic increases."

The Biden administration's proposed overtime rule would be disruptive to small businesses, trade groups warn (Getty Images | Getty Images / Fox News)

The last time the threshold increased was in 2020, when workers making less than $35,568 annually were required to receive time-and-a-half overtime pay. Before that, the threshold for overtime was set at $23,660 in 2004. 

Several trade groups contested that the Biden administration's latest proposal was too rapid an increase in such a short period of time.

"The Labor Department’s proposal to implement yet another overtime salary threshold increase is a massively disruptive change that would create negative economic impacts for both hotel workers and employers," said American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) president and CEO Chip Rogers.

"Small business owners continue to grapple with the rising costs of conducting business and inflationary pressures. If implemented, DOL’s proposal would result not only in crushing increases in labor costs for employers, but also significant tax hikes and administrative costs as well," Rogers said.

Blasting the "one-size-fits-all" approach, the AHLA contended that the rule ignores the "flexible work arrangements" that are common in the industry, and would reduce opportunities for growth, lead to reduced hours for workers and consolidate jobs. The AHLA also said the rule's automatic increase in overtime thresholds every three years would put severe burdens on small businesses.

Other critics of the proposal predicted the rule would make it harder for entry-level workers to find jobs in some industries.

Biden's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, announced the overtime rule just ahead of Labor Day (The White House YouTube)

"Massive increases in labor costs like this simply cannot be absorbed by businesses," said the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity in a statement. "It will reduce opportunities, especially for recent graduates and younger professionals hoping to begin their careers."

The Biden administration touted the proposed rule as a victory for workers. 

"For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers’ rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones," said acting Labor Secretary Julie Su this week. "Workers deserve to continue to share in the economic prosperity of Bidenomics."

The proposed rule could run into a difficult legal precedent set after the Obama administration's attempt to increase the overtime threshold. 

A federal court in Texas blocked Obama's attempt to raise the salary threshold under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to $47,476, finding that the overtime standard was so high that it made the overtime exemption for managers irrelevant. 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-admins-overtime-rule-hurt-small-businesses-trade-groups-warn

'Election Variant' Prompts NYC Mask Advisory

 New York health authorities are asking residents to mask up during Labor Day weekend amid the latest wave of Covid-19 cases, and a broader resurgence of hysteria over the disease which generally laughs at face masks & kills less than 0.01% of those who contract it - with newer strains generally weaker than their predecessors, as tends to happen.

And according to the CDC, the latest variant of the virus - BA.2.86, "may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines," but notes "At this point, there is no evidence that this variant is causing more severe illness."

NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan and NY Gov. Kathy Hochul have teamed up to urge extra precautions this weekend, including "proven prevention tools" such as masks.

According to the latest data from the New York City Health Department, there have been 825 daily cases of COVID-19 on average over the past week. While this is several times higher than the seven-day average of 230 cases reported on July 4, it is far lower than the 2,000-plus cases around this time in 2022.

Even though overall COVID-19 indicators are much lower than a year ago, some institutions have started to adopt mask mandates, sparking pushback in some circles and a "we will not comply" trend on social media. -Epoch Times

Former President Donald Trump has openly called fear-monger over new COVID-19 variants nothing more than a ploy to force vote-by-mail in order to rig another election.

"We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates," Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social.

Read the NYC advisory below (via The Conservative Treehouse),

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/election-variant-prompts-nyc-mask-advisory

Robinhood to buy back Bankman-Fried's stake from US govt for $605.7 million

 Robinhood said on Friday it had entered into a share repurchase agreement with the United States Marshal Service (USMS) for $605.7 million to buy back stock from Sam Bankman-Fried's Emergent Fidelity Technologies.

The shares of Robinhood were seized and subsequently transferred to the custody of the U.S. government after Bankman-Fried's FTX and Emergent filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to criminal fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from FTX's November 2022 collapse.

Robinhood shares climbed more than 3% in premarket trading on the news.

The online brokerage said the 55.3 million shares would be sold at $10.96 apiece.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan approved the deal, court records showed. Kaplan, who is overseeing Bankman-Fried's criminal case, called Robinhood's proposed share purchase agreement "appropriate" and "in the best interest of the relevant stakeholders" in an Aug. 28 order unsealed Friday.

Robinhood first disclosed its intention to buy back the stake in February and said the company's board had authorized it to pursue purchasing most or all of the stock.

Just six months before his company filed for bankruptcy last November, Bankman-Fried revealed a 7.6% stake in Robinhood but said he did not have any intention of taking control of the retail trading platform. He told Reuters at the time that FTX was "excited about Robinhood's business prospects and potential ways we could partner with them."

Bankman-Fried rode a boom in the value of bitcoin and other digital assets to build a net worth of an estimated $26 billion and become an influential political donor in the United States, but FTX's collapse wiped out his fortune.

Kaplan earlier this month ordered Bankman-Fried be jailed ahead of his October trial, finding that the former billionaire likely tampered with witnesses while confined to his parents' Palo Alto, California, home on $250 million bail.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robinhood-usms-sign-share-repurchase-122852013.html

This hadn't happened on the U.S. Treasury market in 250 years. Now it has.

 The 10-year Treasury bond is on track for a third year of losses in 2023, something that hasn't happened in 250 years of U.S. history.

In short, it has never happened, say strategists at Bank of America.

The return for investors putting money in that bond BX:TMUBMUSD10Y stands at negative 0.3% so far in 2023, after a 17% slump in 2022 and a 3.9% drop in 2021, the bank's strategists, led by Michael Hartnett, pointed out in a note on Friday.

That reflects a "staggering 40% jump in U.S. nominal GDP growth" -- factoring in growth and inflation -- "since the COVID lows of 2020," they said, providing this chart:

Bond returns have suffered this year as the Federal Reserve has continued its interest-rate-hiking campaign aimed at getting inflation under control. The "big picture in the 2020s vs. the 2010s is lower stock and bond returns, which we would expect to continue given political, geopolitical, social [and] economic trends," said Hartnett and the team.

This year has been better for stocks DJIA SPX, but the bounce since COVID pandemic restrictions began to be lifted has been very concentrated in U.S. stocks, especially the technology sector, with breadth in global markets "breathtakingly bad," the analysts said. Breadth refers to the number of stocks actively participating in a rally.

Breadth is the worst since 2003 for the MSCI ACWI, which captures large- and midcap-stock representation across 23 developed markets and 24 emerging ones.

As for the latest weekly flows into funds, Bank of America reported that $10.3 billion went to stocks, $6.5 billion to cash and $1.7 billion to bonds, with $300 million draining from gold .

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding steady on Friday at 4.102% after data showed the U.S. economy generated 187,000 jobs in August, but the unemployment rate rose to 3.8% from 3.5%, and job gains were revised lower for July and June.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20230901493/this-hadnt-happened-on-the-us-treasury-market-in-250-years-now-it-has

Key Milestones for Apogee Therapeutics

 Lead program, APG777, a novel subcutaneous half-life extended anti-IL-13 antibody, discovered by Paragon, enters first-in-human clinical trial

Apogee Therapeutics' recently announced upsized IPO further demonstrates the value of best-in-class antibodies for immunological and inflammatory disorders

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paragon-therapeutics-recognizes-key-milestones-120000233.html