Facts Matter

Recently, I was playing in the woods with my son when we decided to go the path least taken. Two roads diverged in the wood, and we took the one less traveled—the one that was overgrown, the one that had bushes everywhere. When we came out and got back to the car, I checked my legs, and found that I had a few new friends. Several ticks were stuck to my leg, sucking out my blood.

Not a big deal. I killed them, and then took one, placed it in a ziplock bag, and saved it, just in case I needed to have it tested if I started to develop symptoms of Lyme disease.

This experience sent me down a rabbit hole of research, looking into the symptoms of Lyme disease as well as its origins. That research led me to a very unexpected place.

There is a credible body of research that suggests Lyme disease didn’t come about naturally, but rather that it was accidentally released into the wild by the federal government. Right off the bat, I’ll tell you there is no 100 percent definitive proof that this is the case.

But the evidence that does exist paints a fairly compelling picture—compelling enough that the current sitting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, recently said, “It is possible (and perhaps likely, though not proven) that the emergence and spread of Lyme disease may have been caused by this research program, which included large open-air testing of intentionally infected ticks on U.S. soil.”

When you have the director of America’s NIH saying this, it obviously can’t be ignored.

So, let me present to you the full story here, and then you can make up your own mind as to whether it’s believable or not.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Recently, I was playing in the woods with my son when we decided to go the path least taken. Two roads diverged in the wood, and we took the one less traveled—the one that was overgrown, the one that had bushes everywhere. When we came out and got back to the car, I checked my legs, and found that I had a few new friends. Several ticks were stuck to my leg, sucking out my blood.

Not a big deal. I killed them, and then took one, placed it in a ziplock bag, and saved it, just in case I needed to have it tested if I started to develop symptoms of Lyme disease.

This experience sent me down a rabbit hole of research, looking into the symptoms of Lyme disease as well as its origins. That research led me to a very unexpected place.

There is a credible body of research that suggests Lyme disease didn’t come about naturally, but rather that it was accidentally released into the wild by the federal government. Right off the bat I’ll tell you there is no 100 percent definitive proof available that this is the case.

But the evidence that does exist paints a fairly compelling picture—compelling enough that the current sitting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Jay Bhattacharya recently said, “It is possible (and perhaps likely, though not proven) that the emergence and spread of Lyme disease may have been caused by this research program, which included large open-air testing of intentionally infected ticks on U.S. soil.”

When you have the director of America’s NIH saying this, the evidence obviously can’t be ignored.

So, let me present to you the full story here, and then you can make up your own mind as to whether it’s believable or not.

Right now, our friendly neighbors to the north (in the Canadian Province of Alberta) are in the process of breaking away from Canada.

The first major milestone has already been achieved—a referendum will be put to the people later this month. Meaning, on Monday, Oct. 19, of this year, the people of Alberta will be asked whether the province should remain in Canada or begin the process of secession.

Alberta is often referred to as the “Texas of Canada.” It has a lot of oil production. Politically, it’s very conservative. And it has a strong ranching/cowboy culture.

Also, it borders the United States, specifically Montana.

So the question now becomes twofold: first, will the majority of people in Alberta choose to secede, and second, if they do, will Alberta become its own sovereign nation—or will it become the 51st state of America?

Which might sound far-fetched, but, given the current makeup of the U.S. federal government, it might actually not be.

During his 2nd term in office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as an American state. But realistically, in a real-politick sense, Trump would probably not actually want liberal Canada as a new state.

But what if, instead of the whole pie, America just gets the conservative, oil-rich province of Alberta?

And so today, let’s go through why so many Albertans want to secede, how it would actually work under Canadian law, what the likelihood of success is, and then, lastly, if it goes through, the likelihood of Alberta becoming the 51st state.

If you happen to love cereal, then there is something that you should know. Recently, there have been some positive developments within the Make America Healthy Again movement’s effort to improve the safety and quality of American cereals.

Specifically, Kellogg’s announced that by the end of this year, all of their cereals will be free from petroleum-based artificial food dyes. Meaning, brands like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks are giving up their unrealistically vibrant colors.

Fear not, though, as they’ve apparently found a way to substitute these petroleum-based food dyes that they’ve been using for years with food coloring from natural sources.

Which kind of just raises the question—if it was really so easy, why didn’t they do it sooner?

Let’s go through the details together.

The city of Nashville, the global home to country music, is anything but “boring.” That was until Elon Musk’s The Boring Company began to dig tunnels underneath it.

The first of these tunnel loops is set to go live in about five months and promises to alleviate congestion and make traveling from downtown to the airport simpler.

The state is now expanding this project so locals within Nashville can travel from one area to another underground.

Let’s go through the details of this innovative, new technology together.

Apple settled a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for a cool $250 million.

And it’s worth mentioning that over half of that money is actually earmarked for customers. Meaning that if you’re like me (and you’ve purchased an iPhone recently) then there’s a good chance you can get a piece of that settlement.

Let me briefly give you the history of the case, as well as how you can check whether you qualify for the money.

A few months ago, when President Donald Trump began floating the idea of taking over Cuba using military force, many people were understandably surprised.

Since then, however, the State Department has put out reports and statements making the case for why Cuba is such a threat to the United States, calling the regime “an espionage superpower.”

A recent report says the Cuban regime has waged a 70-year-long war against the United States—not with kinetic weapons of course, but instead by using the dark arts of sabotage and subversion, including by propping up anti-U.S. socialists in central and south America and sending over spies who then spent decades hidden inside America with top security clearances. And then, there’s what the State Department calls Cuba’s greatest weapon: the ability to control people in our cities and towns through ideological alignment. It’s the old Soviet tactic of, “If you hate American imperialism, work for Cuba behind the scenes.”

Apparently, it’s been effective—so let’s go through it together.

There are some big moves happening in the gold market.

Last week, the Central Bank of the Netherlands confirmed that they moved 86 tons of gold out of North America—moving it to London.

Earlier this year France did something similar, removing all of their gold reserves from the U.S.—in favor of keeping them at home.

Germany did the same as well a few years ago. Their central bank moved the 111 tons of gold that they had in New York, and they brought it home to be kept in Germany.

All this is atop record-breaking gold buying from the central banks across the world: including China, Russia, India, Poland, Uzbekistan, Hungary, Kazakhstan, and a long tail of central banks in smaller countries buying up the precious metal.

And so, in order to get an idea of what’s happening in the market, I got a chance to speak with Machi Block from American Hartford Gold to get a peek at the market from someone who has a finger on the pulse of the industry.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Anthropic recently settled a $1.5-billion civil suit over the illegal downloading of millions of books used to train its large language model.

It was the single largest copyright infringement settlement in U.S. history.

This past weekend, over 30 music companies filed a class-action lawsuit alleging Anthropic illegally downloaded song lyrics from the same torrent sites and intentionally removed copyright information.

How this case shakes out could very well dictate whether the live music industry is still a thing a generation from now. Let's go through the details together.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Let’s delve into the history of the “prank video” format, and how it’s developed to where it is today, where TikTok stars are going into businesses pretending to work there in order to get access to unauthorized staff-only areas.