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SpaceX wrote on its website and social media platform X that the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle’s third flight could be as soon as next Thursday. 

The company said, “The third flight test of Starship could launch as soon as March 14, pending regulatory approval.”

The third flight test of Starship could launch as soon as March 14, pending regulatory approval → https://t.co/bJFjLCiTbK pic.twitter.com/yHqoWFSKdY

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 6, 2024

Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration closed an investigation into the second flight, which paved the way for the third flight. However, a launch license would need to be obtained first. 

The third flight is set to follow a different track than the first two. It shows the Starship completing an orbit before re-entry and splashing down near Hawaii approximately 90 minutes after launch from the Starbase complex in South Texas. 

More from SpaceX about the third launch:

The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.

Earlier this week, Elon Musk posted on X: “Starship Flight 3 preparing for launch.” 

Starship Flight 3 preparing for launch https://t.co/nBNIIKuzGI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 4, 2024

Remember, a launch license is key before blastoff. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who tested positive for COVID-19 and took ivermectin as a treatment recovered faster than a comparison group, a new study found.

The time to self-reported recovery was a median of two days faster among the ivermectin recipients, according to the large UK study.

The quicker recovery period was statistically significant.

People who received ivermectin were also less likely to be hospitalized or die, with 1.6 percent of ivermectin recipients being hospitalized or dying versus 4 percent of the comparison group, which received typical care, which in the UK is largely focused on managing symptoms.

Ivermectin recipients also enjoyed a reduction of severe symptoms and sustained recovery, according to the study.

The paper was published by the Journal of Infection on Feb. 29.

The study covered an open-label trial that involved 2,157 ivermectin recipients and 3,256 who received typical care from June 23, 2021, to July 1, 2022. Participants were randomized and reported symptoms and recovery.

Researchers Say Findings Don’t Support Using Ivermectin

The authors, including Christopher Butler, a University of Oxford professor and joint chief investigator of the trial, downplayed the positive findings in part because the hazard ratio of 1.14 was lower than what authors pre-specified as a meaningful ratio, or 1.2. Hazard ratios are a way to determine whether a treatment is beneficial.

The authors also focused on the lack of differences in the number of days participants felt sick in the previous two weeks, impact on work, and likelihood of using the health care system at 3, 6, and 12 months following treatment.

“Overall, these findings, while evidencing a small benefit in symptom duration, do not support the use of ivermectin as treatment for COVID-19 in the community among a largely vaccinated population at the dose and duration we used,” the authors said.

Funding for the research came from the UK government.

Conflicts of interest included one researcher receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, and other authors receiving grants from the University of Oxford.

The trial, known as PRINCIPLE, was touted by investigators as “the world’s largest clinical trial of possible COVID-19 treatments for recovery at home and in other non-hospital settings.”

“Ivermectin is readily available globally, has been in wide use for many other infectious conditions so it’s a well-known medicine with a good safety profile, and because of the early promising results in some studies it is already being widely used to treat COVID-19 in several countries,” Dr. Christopher Butler, a University of Oxford professor and joint chief investigator of the trial, said when it was announced ivermectin would be assessed. “By including ivermectin in a large-scale trial like PRINCIPLE, we hope to generate robust evidence to determine how effective the treatment is against COVID-19, and whether there are benefits or harms associated with its use.”

Doctors Weigh In

Dr. Pierre Kory, an American physician who was not involved in the trial, said that the authors wrongly downplayed how ivermectin improved recovery from COVID-19.

“PRINCIPLE was a profoundly positive study that was instead analyzed and written up as a negative one,” Dr. Kory, who has long promoted ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, wrote in an essay.

He accused the authors of undertaking “statistical chicanery” by coming up with the pre-specified hazard ratio (HR), noting that no such level was used in other parts of the PRINCIPLE trial.

“A hazard ratio does not need a pre-specified level. If the HR is > 1.0, and it is statistically significant, it is a robust finding,” he said.

The positive findings should also be interpreted in the context of recipients only receiving one dose per day across three days and being directed not to eat food before ivermectin, Dr. Kory said.

Dr. Butler and his co-authors said “no food should be taken two hours before or after administration” despite previous research finding that taking ivermectin with food increases plasma concentration.

Participants also received ivermectin a median of five days after symptom onset, a period of time considered by some to be too late to have much of an impact. Ivermectin works best when applied within 24 hours of symptom manifestation, according to a meta-regression of ivermectin studies.

Dr. Butler did not respond to a request for comment.

There have been additional studies that found ivermectin worked against COVID-19. The drug, commonly used for purposes such as combating malaria, has divided scientists since 2020, when doctors around the world began using it to treat COVID-19.

Some other research, including a U.S. trial, has found that ivermectin did not improve time to recovery.

Dr. David Boulware, another American doctor, who helped run that trial, argued on X that the faster recovery recorded in the UK trial was similar to the quicker recovery reported in an open-label trial of molnupiravir, an antiviral sometimes used to treat COVID-19.

“Molnupiravir also had a 2 day faster improvement in symptoms over ‘usual care’ yet no benefit existed in double-blind trial,” Dr. Boulware said on X. “Placebo effect influences self-reported symptoms.”

Much of Europe has set itself the goal of switching away from heavily polluting fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources.

In the chart below, Statista’s Anna Fleck shows a snapshot of the energy landscape in Europe right now, using data from the Statistical Review of World Energy 2023. It reveals that while there’s some variation in energy types across the bloc, fossil fuels still make up the lion’s share of the energy sources the continent is most reliant on. Sweden and Norway are exceptions to the rule, standing out for their hydroelectric power usage, while Finland is nearly tied between oil and renewables consumption (0.33 and 0.32, respectively).

You will find more infographics at Statista

The 2022 map looks pretty different from the previous iteration. For example, France’s biggest source for energy consumption had been nuclear in 2021 rather than oil. According to Eurostat, France saw a drop in nuclear energy due to reactor maintenance and repairs. What this map fails to show, however, is that even with the decline, nuclear still made up around a third (31.6 percent) of the country’s energy mix in 2022, and was only just behind oil (34.7 percent).

The other notable difference is the shift away from natural gas as the biggest energy source in several countries, even if it still came in second position in many cases. This follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rush in Europe to reduce dependency on Russian gas and to diversify energy sources.

For example, in 2021, natural gas was the biggest source of energy in the United Kingdom, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Turkey, Belarus and Russia. In 2022, this had dropped to just three countries – Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. That year, Ukraine had relied on natural gas and coal to a similar degree (0.98 exajoules and 0.95 exajoules, respectively).

Ukraine’s overall consumption of fuel dropped from a total of 3.36 exajoules in 2021 to 2.33 exajoules in 2022. Even though natural gas became the biggest source of energy there, the country’s consumption of it was lower than the year before (0.98 exajoules in 2021, 0.69 exajoules in 2022).

Authored by Lear Zhou via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chenguang Gong, a Chinese American who has been accused of stealing U.S. infrared missile detection technology, was listed as one of 558 “young talents” in the 12th Thousand Talents Plan run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2016.

The Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, where Chenguang Gong will be on trial. (Bin Han/The Epoch Times)

The list of talents was issued by the Task Force Office of Overseas High-Level Talent Recruitment Programs under the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CCP.

A complaint by the U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed that Mr. Gong transferred 3,600 files from his work laptop to three personal storage devices from March 2023 to April 2023.

It also claimed that Mr. Gong possessed in his personal storage devices files marked as “confidential” that appeared to belong to several of Mr. Gong’s former employers. These devices were taken from his temporary residence in Thousand Oaks, California, following an FBI search on May 8, 2023.

Mr. Gong, 57, of San Jose, was arrested on Feb. 6 and was bailed out on a $2.5 million bond following a hearing in San Jose the next day. He was indicted on Feb. 27 by the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Office, making it a formal criminal case.

The case has since been transferred to the Central District Court in Los Angeles, where Mr. Gong made his first appearance on Feb. 20.

A post-indictment arraignment hearing will be decided upon soon.

The Thousand Talents Plan

The Chinese regime offers hefty financial incentives—including research funding, salaries, and housing—via many different talent recruitment programs to entice overseas Chinese and foreign experts into working in China’s science and tech sectors.

Through these programs, the CCP hopes to quickly turn China into an industrial and innovation powerhouse, one that ultimately outperforms Western countries.

The program known as the Thousand Talents Plan was initiated in 2008 and went underground after U.S. authorities realized its underlying goal in 2018.

The FBI explains on its website that all of China’s talent plans incentivize their participants to steal foreign technology. The website states that while the United States welcomes international collaboration in research and development, American businesses should take measures to keep their intellectual property safe and should understand that talent plans encourage illegal conduct.

“Even if talent plan participants who steal information are eventually caught and prosecuted, the damage done to your organization by intellectual property theft may be irreversible,” the FBI warns.

The ‘Victim Company’

Pamela Reese, director of the Malibu-based company Marketing & Communications of HRL Laboratories, confirmed with The Epoch Times in an email that it is the “Victim Company” mentioned in the complaint. Mr. Gong worked with the company’s Visual Systems Laboratory from January 2023 to late April 2023.

“When HRL became aware of suspicious activity being conducted by Gong, the company immediately began an investigation, terminated his employment, and notified relevant authorities,” Ms. Reese said. “HRL has continued to cooperate with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on its case against Gong and will provide ongoing support as needed.”

HRL Laboratories is under active contract to develop new sensors with enhanced performance for use in space-based missile warning and tracking, space-based surveillance, and airborne infrared countermeasures systems, including by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The alleged stolen trade secrets include methods, designs, techniques, processes, specifications, testing, and manufacture of the advanced Readout integrated circuits used in HRL’s infrared sensors, and the mechanical cooling systems of these circuits.

The sophisticated integrated circuits technology is required to achieve low noise, a high dynamic range, a high resolution, and a fast readout rate when collecting electrical signals from infrared photodetector arrays and outputting the data in a standard format.

These trade secrets are foundational technologies that support the business of HRL Laboratories, Leslie Momoda, executive vice president of the company, told FBI agents according to the complaint.

If other entities were to obtain the designs or development roadmaps for these key technologies, they would be able to replicate and improve them, making HRL less competitive, according to Ms. Momoda.

“Additionally, if the Victim Company’s Trade Secret Information was obtained by a foreign government, it would compromise U.S. national security,” Ms. Momoda told the FBI agents.

Suspicious Resignation

“As a top physical science and engineering research organization who regularly works with U.S. government customers, HRL has robust information security practices designed to detect and document suspicious activity,” Ms. Reese told The Epoch Times.

However, according to the complaint, HRL Laboratories only began monitoring Mr. Gong’s network activity right after he sent in his resignation on April 14, 2023, claiming that he was not doing a good job.

The resignation was suspicious because Mr. Gong had been working for HRL for less than three months, and he had performed well.

Daniel Maier, Director of Security of HRL Laboratories, told FBI agents that his department discovered that between March 30, 2023—two weeks before Mr. Gong submitted his resignation—and at least April 25, 2023, Mr. Gong transferred more than 3,600 files from his work laptop to three personal storage devices, a Verbatim USB flash drive and two Western Digital disk drives.

Vice President of Vision Systems Lab Raphael Ricardo told FBI agents that Mr. Gong was given access to the HRL’s full data repository in light of Mr. Gong’s managerial role. In other words, Mr. Gong was granted access to the full history, specifications, and roadmap of HRL’s products.

“It would also have required time and effort to export hundreds of CAD design files, which contained the technical blueprints for the Victim Company’s products and technologies, from the Victim Company’s UNIX system to a Microsoft Windows operating system,” FBI special agent Igor Neyman wrote in his affidavit attached to the complaint.

So far, only the Verbatim USB flash drive was found when the security team of HRL searched Mr. Gong’s belongings on April 26, 2023. The FBI believes the flash drive was used as temporary storage due to its relatively low capacity.

The FBI didn’t locate the two Western Digital drives or another possible digital device that contains files transferred from the intermediate Verbatim flash drive.

Theft From Other Companies

“GONG took and retained thousands of documents, stored on a variety of digital devices, that appear to belong to several of GONG’s former employers,” the complaint states. “Many of these documents bear confidentiality markings indicating their sensitive nature.”

The relevant companies Mr. Gong has worked with include Texas Instruments (“Company 2,” from 2010 to May 2014) and international defense, aerospace, and security company BAE Systems Inc. (“Company 3,” from May 2015 to October 2019).

A proposal of a high-performance AD/DA converter, which Mr. Gong submitted multiple times to various Chinese entities, appears to relate to technology Mr. Gong worked on at Texas Instruments, the complaint states.

The applications of the proposal in 2013 and 2014 allowed Mr. Gong to get onto the 2016 Thousand Talents Plan’s “Young Talents” list.

The FBI found CAD files containing the technical designs and blueprints for integrated circuits or other products from at least “Company 2” and “Company 5” in Mr. Gong’s personal digital devices that were confiscated following a search warrant, according to the complaint.

“I took a risk (because I worked for [Company 3], an American military industry company) and thought I could do something for the country’s high-end military integrated circuits,” Mr. Gong wrote in a letter to a talent plan recruiter after he traveled to China in September 2019 to attend an in-person presentation regarding his high-performance converter proposal in Hangzhou.

In a video presentation included with Mr. Gong’s 2020 submission, Mr. Gong used a video containing the model number “LTN4323” of a high-performance 4K resolution CMOS sensor developed by BAE Systems Inc.

Mr. Gong stated that his product extensions included a “low-light/night vision dual-use CMOS image sensor” for use in military night vision goggles and civilian applications.

Mr. Gong faces 10 years in federal prison if convicted.

The last decade has witnessed a remarkable surge in the global number of millionaires.

By 2022, 1.1% of the world’s adults were millionaires, up from 0.6% in 2012. So, how to know if you belong to the top 1% in your country?

In this infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Omrio Wallach illustrates the net wealth required to enter the club in selected countries and territories. The data is sourced from the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2024.

The 1% Club

The individual net wealth required to join the top 1% can vary across countries.

European hubs top the list, with small countries like Monaco or Luxembourg having extremely high wealth barriers to joining the top 1%.

According to this year’s report, Monaco leads with $12.9 million required to join the 1% club. Currently, more than 30% of Monaco’s estimated 38,000 residents are millionaires.

Luxembourg follows at $10.8 million, with Switzerland at $8.5 million securing the third position.

The U.S. ranks fourth at $5.8 million. Despite having the most ultra-wealthy individuals, the country’s high population base brings the law of averages into play.

In the Asia Pacific region, Singapore leads the pack with a requirement of $5.2 million, while Hong Kong comes second at $3.1 million.

Interestingly, a person in Hong Kong needs almost three times more wealth to join the 1% club compared to someone in Mainland China.

How to Join the 1% Club?

To be part of the top 1% club of one’s country or region often requires a combination of advanced education, entrepreneurship, strategic investments, and even luck. While there’s no guaranteed path to entry, consistency and time are key factors.

In the U.S., for instance, many individuals and families who have surpassed the 1% threshold have done so over time.

Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new study found that COVID-19 infection can cause cognitive deficits that persist for over a year and lower IQ scores in severe cases. Those with persistent symptoms that resolved had small cognitive deficits similar to those with a shorter illness duration.

(Magic mine/Shutterstock)

In a large-scale observational study published on Feb. 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers invited 800,000 people with varying levels of COVID-19 exposure and duration to take an online cognitive assessment and follow-up survey. Cognitive difficulties have been implicated in numerous syndromes following COVID-19, including long COVID, suggesting infection may have lasting effects on the mental processes of the brain.

The study’s authors hypothesized there would be measurable cognitive deficits after COVID-19 that would scale with the severity and duration of the illness. They also speculated that objective impairments in executive and memory function, especially poor memory and brain fog, would be observable in those with persistent symptoms.

Using an assessment tool for cognitive function, researchers estimated global cognitive scores among participants with a history of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection who had symptoms for at least 12 weeks—whether resolved or not—and among a control group of uninfected participants. While cognitive and memory deficits were small for people with mild infection who recovered from COVID-19 quickly, impairments were more pronounced in those with severe disease.

Greater Impairment With More Severe Disease

Of 112,964 participants who completed the survey, those who recovered from COVID-19 with symptoms that resolved in less than four weeks or by 12 weeks post-infection had similar small deficits in global cognition compared with those who had never had COVID-19.

Participants who had mild COVID-19 with resolved symptoms experienced a 3-point drop in IQ compared to uninfected participants. Those with unresolved persistent symptoms had a 6-point loss in IQ, and those with COVID-19 admitted to the intensive care unit experienced a 9-point loss in IQ. Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 caused an additional loss in IQ of nearly 2 points compared to those who were not reinfected. An IQ, or intelligence quotient, is a number used to represent the relative intelligence of an individual.

According to the study, memory, reasoning, and executive function tasks were the strongest indicators of impaired cognitive function, and these scores correlated with brain fog symptoms reported by participants. More significant deficits were seen in those with unresolved persistent symptoms and those infected with earlier variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus compared with those who never had COVID-19. Additionally, study participants who were hospitalized had greater deficits in cognitive function compared to those who were not hospitalized. 

“By using an innovative cognitive test which has also been completed by people who did not have COVID-19, this important and well-conducted study provides the first accurate quantification of the scale of cognitive deficits in people who had COVID-19,” Maxime Taquet, a fellow in psychiatry at the National Institute for Health and Care Research at the University of Oxford, said in a statement. 

Mr. Taquet said researchers found a small but obvious association between COVID-19 and cognition that was more pronounced at extremes.

“The risk of having more severe cognitive problems was almost twice as high in those who had COVID-19 compared to those who did not, and three times as high in those who were hospitalized with COVID-19,” he noted.

In an editorial published Feb. 29 in the NEJM, Drs. Ziyad Al-Aly and Clifford Rosen said the study’s results are concerning and have broad implications that require further evaluation to determine the functional impact of a 3-point loss in IQ and why one group of participants was more severely affected than another. 

“Whether these cognitive deficits persist or resolve along with predictors and trajectory of recovery should be investigated. Will Covid-19-associated cognitive deficits confer a predisposition to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia later in life? The effects on educational attainment, work performance, accidental injury, and other activities that require intact cognitive abilities should also be evaluated,” they wrote. 

Study Implications for People With Long COVID

The study’s participants were part of a larger community sample of nearly 3 million people in the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) study assessing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England. Although the researchers did not say whether participants in the study had long COVID, people with long COVID frequently report persistent cognitive impairment.

There is no accepted universal definition for the condition, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) broadly defines long COVID as “signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue to develop after acute COVID-19 infection” that can last for “weeks, months, or years.” The term “long COVID” also includes post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, long-haul COVID, and post-acute COVID-19.

Nearly 7 percent of U.S. adults surveyed by the CDC in 2022 said they’ve experienced long COVID. Although U.S. regulatory agencies claim vaccinating against COVID-19 can reduce the risk of developing long COVID and the current paper suggests vaccination with two or more doses may provide a slight cognitive advantage, a recent paper published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine did not find a significant link between the presence of comorbidities or infection severity and the emergence of long COVID symptoms.

The NEJM study has several limitations, including reliance on subjective reporting to identify individuals with ongoing symptoms and self-selection bias. People with long COVID may have enrolled in the study, but those with more severe impairments may not have been able to participate in the survey. Additionally, certain groups were overrepresented in the study compared with the base population. Baseline cognitive data before SARS-CoV-2 infection was also unavailable, so researchers could not assess cognitive change or infer causality.

Just when you though you’ve hit “peak transgender”, you ain’t see nothing yet…

That’s because soldiers in Spain are starting to change their genders from male to female to earn benefits that are only available to females, according to a new report from the NY Post. 

The benefits include higher pay and better sleeping quarters and the gender switch has been made possible due to the military’s honoring of a “self-identification law” which was put in place in 2023 to help transgender people. 

The report points out that 41 men in Spain’s north-Africa autonomous city Ceuta now list as female after the law change. Only four have changed their name and a a “majority” of them have kept – wait for it – their male genitals and even their beards, according to the report. 

Army Corporal Roberto Perdigones commented: “On the outside, I feel like a heterosexual man, but on the inside, I am a lesbian. And it is the latter that counts. This is why I made the legal change to become a woman.”

“I’m the bearded lady. What are you, one of the freaks?”

He added: “For changing my gender, I have been told that my pension has gone up because women get more to compensate for inequality. I also get 15 percent more salary for being a mother.”

“I even have a private room in the barracks, all to myself, with a private bathroom. This is because I cannot be with men as I am a woman, and I did not consider it appropriate to be with biological women out of respect for them,” he added. 

The Post reports that the transgender legislation, enacted on December 22, 2022, permits individuals aged 14 and above to alter their identity without requiring psychological or medical assessments, though those between 14 and 16 require consent from parents or guardians.

Children aged 12 and older can change their gender identity with judicial approval. Additionally, Spain’s left-wing administration aims to increase female representation in the Guardia Civil and National Police to 40 percent. Conservative critics have labeled these measures as “woke” progressive actions.

“I have already seen several cases among my colleagues, and it is going to increase,” one civil guard source concluded.