Le Show; 2022-10-16

From deep inside your audio device of choice. Ladies and gentlemen, remember COVID? A couple of weeks ago, President Biden said this. The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. It's what the pandemic is over. Well, to verify that or not, I'm talking today to a distinguished epidemiologist, Eric Feigel-Deng is an American public health scientist and an epidemiologist and chief of COVID task force at the New England Complex Systems Institute, formerly a faculty member and researcher at Harvard Medical School and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the co-founder of the World Health Network. Dr. Deng, welcome to the show. I've noticed in several kinds of news stories that the journalism profession tends to identify people as, quote, scientists, unquote,

and leaves blank what their specialization might possibly be and what relevance it may have to the story. But one of the reasons I started reading you is that you weren't a self-identified as a scientist. You're a self-identified as an epidemiologist, which meant to me you probably know what you're talking about when it comes to this pandemic. So this came to your attention what January of? Yeah, January 2020 was when the Wuhan crisis started and I have my ears the ground of a lot of things in China. I was originally born there and I'm an epidemiologist. So a lot of the alarm bells have been going on inside our circle of how bad will this get? Is this a locally-contained thing? And many academics are too shy to say what is on their minds that this could be the biggest pandemic in over 100 years since the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

And in many ways also, there wasn't hard data. The thing is many people didn't want to act until they absolutely know something is true. And then oftentimes in a pandemic, it's too late, right? To act fast in a pandemic is what is needed. But if you're going to sit on your butt until you know it's certain, then it's going to be too late. And between my epidemiology background and my contacts in China, it was pretty obvious that China has lost control. If China has lost control of the world, it's certain to lose control the moment it gets out of China and a hat. And so that's why I blew the whistle that's trying to say that this is going to be the worst thing we ever seen in over 100 years. And millions of people will be infected and likely die. And that's exactly what happened unfortunately. But of course, people called me fear of mongering and misinformation in the early days in January of 2020.

But by the time it hit New York City in March and April, I think that's when people actually woke up that, man, this is real, right? This is not just some far away disease in a far away corner of the earth. This is in front of us. Have you come to a conclusion as to the origin of the way that this entered the human environment? There's a lot of theories of, you know, man-made versus natural. I think it's likely natural. But I think what could still be is was it natural as in just naturally if in bats crossed over to humans at a wet market or natural as in it's a natural virus, but it slipped out of containment in a lab somewhere but it's not engineered in any way. It's just, you know, they were doing testing on it, which is very common and it slipped out. I'm not sure. But I think it's likely natural.

We haven't seen any evidence that it's bioengineered in any way. And I definitely want to downplay any of those theories until there's actual rock heart evidence. And my ears are open, but in many ways, the evidence clearly suggests it's a natural origin. But regardless, the issue is we're actually, by letting the virus infect the world, we're actually allowing the virus to evolve and to be better adapted to humans than any engineered virus could be. Because after billions and billions of people have been infected, the virus is now very, very fine-tuned and honed in on our physiology and how to evade pass infection. And now it's getting evasive that it's also starting to evade vaccines. The first generation of vaccines we had, and that's why I encourage people to get the new updated vaccine by valentine vaccine. But the virus after two and a half years is perfected itself in many ways and infecting humans.

And that's what I'm really worried about what the huge future may hold. Because many people are now asleep at the wheel. People are now saying pandemic is over, even our president said it. And of course, his own coronavirus team says no, no, no, no, no, it's not. But even if his own staffers are saying no, no, no, no, it's not. The cats out of the bag, the president has said it. And many COVID minimizers, COVID deniers, anti-vaxxers are now winning this message of, oh, COVID is over, nothing to worry about. And this is the worst time to do it because we have one window right now to get people vaccinated before the winter surge comes. And this winter surge is bad between COVID and flu. We're going to have a really bad flu season because Australia has had a really epically bad flu season as well. Hospitals are already filling up. Pediatric hospitals, ICUs are also filling up already now. As we speak, fever medications are sold out in many states and in Canada as well.

So I think we're in a really bad shape. And minimizing and saying COVID is over is going to harm us a lot in the long run. As I read public journalism, there's already the beginning of a spike in Europe and there are new variants appearing on the scene. Is that true? Oh, yeah, there's, it's now become an alphabet soup. They're all mostly Omicron subtypes. But the subtypes have now divergent to this huge popery of different varieties. And all of them, most of them have actually shown extreme amount of evasiveness against prior infection immunity and prior vaccination immunity. Again, this is the, this is the product of what happens when you let the virus spread unchecked through billions of people because yes, most people don't die.

But for every person infected and the virus further mutates to learn how to best adapt to this person and infect the next person. And if adapt to that person, infect the next person. And that's why we have this popery. There's groups of people who are now giving informal names like Sarah Briss and Hydra. And because the governments have stopped naming them, they basically gave up naming beyond Omicron. But right now, the new variants are so much further from Omicron than Omicron ever was from the original virus that we're in like a different league. Like we're, if we properly named these new variants by Greek letters, we would already be out of letters. We would be beyond Omega. And that's the biggest worry because some of these variants are so evasive that you can get infected even after being boosted. You can get infected definitely after past infections.

And people, I think forget that, you know, unless you give it a new name, people think that, oh, I previously got COVID and I'm therefore immune. That's not true anymore. You were previously infected by prior variant that you're now immune again for a short period against that previous variant. But these new variants are so, so night and day different that I think we're going to be in a huge, dangerous wake-up call whenever winter comes and these variants are surging, which they already are. Do we know yet if these are more virulent or more likely to kill, more likely to have serious impacts on the human system? We don't know that exactly. We know that they're more evasive against your immune system therefore more likely to infect you. And I want to remind people, there's severity and then there's contagiousness. And if I had to choose two worlds of a virus

that's more severe, less contagious or more contagious and less severe, between these two, which is the worst virus that will kill more people and send more people to hospital and main people with long COVID, it is almost always the more contagious virus that's less severe. And remember last year during the first Omicron wave after Thanksgiving, December, January when tons of people got infected, there was this, oh, Omicron is mild, it's mild. Well, it's not really that much milder. It's actually more severe to kids, by the way. So more kids have actually died since last December than all the preceding two years combined. But this issue of the mild is so misleading because yes, less people died in the Omicron wave per capita. But actually more people, it just as many people died

in that wave as some of the many other prior waves because it was so contagious. And if you balloon the denominator of people infected, that will ultimately send more people to hospital. And that's part of epidemiology. It's the math. You just surge a number of people infected, exposed to something. And that is ultimately what will drive a more infections and be more hospitalizations and deaths. And of course, long COVID, which is right now very, very prevalent. Yeah, I want to talk some more about long COVID in a minute, but a couple more dumb questions. And so is the main avenue for these new variants still the spike protein or has it changed even that method of a pro? Yeah, so the mutations are mostly mutation in the spike protein. The spike protein is the main mechanism for which the virus attaches to our cells and has a lock-in-key access.

Basically, the spike protein is figured out lock-in-key access into one of our receptors. Also, if we have immunity, as in we recognize, say, the prior old Wuhan strain or the old alpha or delta variant, our antibodies don't target the new variants that well. And therefore, evade, and therefore, can still get into our bodies in our cells and then multiply and become a virus factory. It's still the spike protein, but the issue is that whether there's other parts of the virus we can target, perhaps someday develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine, that is something we can potentially still exploit. But it's a game of whack-a-mole that you design something that adapts to this spike, the spike mutates because it learns from, again, millions of people infected that the better ways to dodge antibodies like that. And so it's a dodgeball game right now.

And the virus is winning because we can't vaccinate and people fast enough, and infection-based immunity is a very dangerous game. And the mutations are just coming out, are just, we know that they'revasive because we've done lab tests at people's prior infections and prior vaccinations. Don't protect you from these new variants. These new variants are as foreign as the other coronaviruses from like 20 years ago. So I think this is why people just have to realize, even if you don't think that you're gonna go to hospital, that by you transmitting it and more people getting infected, that will ultimately send more people to hospital. Think of a highway, a four-lane highway, the vaccine and the other immunity shuts down two lanes of the four-lane highway. But now that people think that they're immune, they think they're invulnerable.

Now they're gonna put more traffic across this highway, the bridge is not gonna collapse most of the time, but you're sending more people across this highway and in many ways that increases exposure and will ultimately get more people sick. And that's the biggest worry, especially once the fall is gone, right now there's a lot of outdoor activities. This is not too hot, not too cold. But once the winter comes, people gather inside. That's when these super spreading outbreaks are gonna happen again and we know it's gonna happen because it happens every winter, whenever the weather gets cold, the air gets dry and the virus spreads more easily. Well, do we know how many people have died because of the various strains of COVID-19? Yeah, so globally, as of like six months ago, the WHO, I'm on the WHO, we estimate at least 15 million, but that's an underestimate.

And the economists' latest update is well over 20 million, closer to 25 million. And that number is going to go up to 25 million. Fatalities, excess deaths. So excess pandemic deaths are in the range of over 20 million and approaching 25 million soon. We know that in the United States, excess deaths was already like over a million, like we hit a million officially in I think April, May, but we were already over a million excess deaths by January of 2022. And right now, we're probably in the 1.2, 1.3 million excess deaths. And it's only gonna go up again. We're in the low before the storm. And people have said it before. If you think about it, in April, 2021, after the vaccines came out, the spring weather came out. Cases were really low, deaths were really low. And that's when CDC says masks are needed.

We don't need it. And boom, voila, the Delta variant hit and a lot of people died, like especially in the south where people weren't vaccinated. I think people argue, oh, did Florida have excess deaths? If you time it by after people had chance to get vaccinated, Florida excess deaths was really, really high. One of the highest in the country because Florida had one of the lowest vaccination rates compared to other states. And New York had high deaths, but early pandemic before the vaccine came out. But people dropped their guard, thinking, oh, cases are low, hospitalizations and deaths are low. In April, 2021, we don't need masks. And of course, what happens? The Delta variant comes and kills a lot of people. And I wanna remind people that Delta variant in India, after India had a way previously, they thought India was a herd immune. And then in India, three to five million people died

within three or four months from the Delta variant where it originated. So the amount of minimization really gets people killed. And people can say, oh, we're vaccinated now, but you're vaccinated, most people are vaccinated against the original strain. These new strains are light years, light years different than anything you had before. And that's the biggest worry. And there's no booster campaign for the new bi-valent vaccine yet. Like the latest report shows half of Americans have even heard of it. And only about four or five percent of Americans have gotten the bi-valent booster shot, which is abysmally low. And only a third of children are even two-shot vaccinated not to mention boosted. So we're in a world of herd. When you say bi-valent, this is a vaccine that attacks both the Delta and the Omicron strains of... It attacks the BA-5 variant.

The BA-5 variant at the current moment is still the dominant variant in the United States and worldwide. But it's quickly being displaced by these new variants. But the BA-5 is at least closer genetically to these new variants than the old vaccine, which is the Wuhan 1.0 spike protein. If you think about it, all our vaccines prior to these new bi-valents are basically the old Wuhan spike protein virus. And we are generations, leapeaters, beyond the old Wuhan strain. That's like an ancient strain. Now that doesn't exist, it's extinct. Even the Delta variant is extinct now almost. But the BA-5 is a dominant strain, but most people are not immunized from BA-5. Even in the last spring, when people had... There's, remember the White House Correspond Center and the gridiron outbreaks and many of the outbreaks

in April, May, that was BA-2. That's also extinct. The BA-2 strains also extinct. We have to get on what is currently happening. And unless people have this update mentality, that viruses have... You need software upgrades for your antivirus software, right? We need an upgrade. But no one has been advocating that you need to patch your software upgrade, just like you do to protect against viruses on your iPhone or PC or laptop. I started reading about another vaccine that has apparently been or is nearing approval in this country that is not an mRNA vaccine called Novavax. Right, it's approved already. Novavax is approved. And if you go to vaccines.gov, you can actually search for what places have Novavax. It's very limited.

And the problem is officially Novavax is authorized as a two-shot primary series vaccine. It's not officially authorized as a booster. So which means the only people who can quote-unquote technically get the Novavax are people who've never been vaccinated before. And in this day and age, if you haven't gotten vaccinated yet, you're pretty much a pretty anti-vax or vaccine resident that it's very hard to get you vaccinated. But the Novavax potentially has more broader coverage against the variants than just mRNA. Now, the problem is the better thing right now I'd say is to get it as a booster for those who previously got the old vaccine, the mRNA. But officially it's not authorized for that purpose. But there's many people who are doing it. So if you are savvy, you can go and find the Novavax

using the vaccines.gov search tool and talk to your doctor or pharmacist and see if you can get it. That's Novavax because it's a different protein-based vaccine. It's potentially better against newer variants. But of course, it's not widely tested against all the newer variants. But in the variants so far, we've seen it has better coverage than the old Wuhan 1.0 mRNA. But the new mRNA vaccine that's currently rolled out is really good against the newer variants. And so I really recommend people get the newer booster shot if it's available. And it is widely available in the US. So let's move to the subject that, frankly, personally, has always been the most disturbing part of this whole phenomenon, which is so-called long COVID.

Washington Post, about a month ago, ran a story that supposedly cataloged many of the known symptoms of long COVID and that the end of a long list came the one that sort of got my attention. Brain shrinkage. I don't think America needs more of that. Yeah, seriously, the studies on long COVID are very worrisome. It shows that effects not just neurological but cardiovascular and many other diseases, but the neurological effects effects 44 different neurological diseases according to one of the latest studies. And against peer reviewed, so it's reliable. But we're talking about early dementia, Alzheimer's, brain fog, tremors, brain swelling, cephalitis.

We're talking about a lot of neurological. Encyciatric diseases has also been shown to be diagnosed as higher after COVID in many months. And of course, heart attacks and strokes, these risks stay elevated even after more than 10 weeks after your COVID has receded. And we're talking about 30%, 40% higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, which is incredibly a lot. And so, for example, in September, we actually estimated what is the top causes of deaths besides long COVID aside, COVID is actually still number two. And it's contributing to a lot of other heart attacks and strokes. And we still think long COVID is affecting a huge swath of diseases.

And in terms of employment, a lot of people are asking, where's all the workers? Well, the worker workforce participation is at a really, really low level in the US and the UK where they've done labor studies. We're talking about federal reserve and treasury departments and labor departments worried about this because a lot of workers are just not coming back into the workforce because they're not feeling well enough to work. And a lot of that is due to long COVID. And the wages are really high right now, businesses are trying to get workers, but they're not coming back. And they're trying to lure people back, but they're not coming back because of the debilitating effects of long COVID. And I think that is something that we can't discount. And it's like this invisible effect of people say, oh, COVID, mitigations are hurting airline business and tourism. Well, I would say like the economic impact of long COVID is much worse, much worse.

And it's not just affecting those who are in the 60s or 70s or people who are retired. Again, COVID has this assumption by many minimizers that it's just affecting the elderly and young people who are immune to COVID and we quickly recover. That's just not true. There's actually a British study that shows the IQ deficit of COVID. If you're on a ventilator, you lose seven points after you recover, assuming you cover. But if you're hospitalized, you lose five. If assuming you weren't ventilated. But even if you weren't hospitalized, you can lose anywhere from three to four points if you have some moderate symptoms. And one to two points, if you had mild symptoms. And to put that into perspective, you know how like we don't let kids eat lead paint? We don't let kids drink leaded water and the big scandal in Flint with leaded water. Well, lead poisoning in kids is the equivalent of two points of IQ loss.

If we don't allow our society to have two points of IQ loss in our children and adult population, by the way, why do we allow long COVID and COVID infection to sweep through our society and just wave it off and like, oh, you'll recover, you'll be all good. Get back to work. No, the debilitating effects of long COVID is much worse. And it's not just rare. It's anywhere from 15 to 20 to 30% of the population, depending on your age group. But it is a huge swath of your population and to have IQ loss, even if it's like two points, is something that we shouldn't allow ourselves to accept in society. And we don't for lead paint, leaded gasoline, leaded water. But with COVID, oh, it's totally fine. And that this kind of like hypocrisy and minimization, dismissiveness is something that's just absolutely abondable. There is, as I understand it, no organized attempt

to deal with trying to find a, pardon the expression, cure for long COVID, or is there? Well, there's certain theories right now that is, is long COVID like a permanent damage or temporary? Or is it also like some hit, the virus still being hidden in your body somewhere that your body hasn't fully cleared yet? And it's still disrupting your systems at a low level. Because some viruses stay in your body for many years. As you know, by the way, some works, some cold sores, they're all viruses that crop up every once in a while because they're still inside your body. And they can live in your neurological systems for a long time because your immune system, basically, in your brain and your neurons, the CNS system is very separated from the rest of your body

and your body can't easily clear it. So there's, thinking that maybe there could be treatments in the future, they're still developing this. Again, there's no official long COVID cure or treatment yet. But we're still trying to develop treatments for this. There's also a new generation of nasal vaccines, nasal vaccines being that they think nasal vaccines will prevent infection better than these intramuscular shots of vaccine shots that we've been all been getting. And nasal vaccines could also potentially penetrate in more areas than just muscular vaccines as well. So we don't know whether it's a matter of eradicating these hidden virus that our regular immune system hasn't been able to access or if we can repair some of these damage long-term. This is like the big mystery. And I think this is where a lot of research needs to go to because the debilitating effects

of long COVID on our population is something that's going to drive up health care costs for many, many, many years to come. And of course, hamper the labor force and the workforce and the productivity of everyone else. So the elephant in the room, finally, is of course all of the discussion from the anti-vax point of view. And a person I've known for years has turned out to be one of the major spokespeople for that in another country. And they're claiming that media and other media are soft-pedaling the information supposedly that there are lots of deaths being caused by the mRNA vaccine. What do you have to say about that? Well, I think that's not supported epidemiologically.

Because first of all, you have to look at what is the total net effect? Are we talking about getting vaccinated infected or unvaccinated infected? And COVID will always kill more and damage more people if you're infected with COVID. And vaccines will reduce your risk of infection to some degree. Again, some degree depends on the variant. And of course, will dramatically reduce your risk of going to hospital and, of course, dramatically reduce your risk of dying. Now, is there some sometimes elevated risk of blood clots? Yes, sometimes. And we've mostly stepped away from a lot of these adenovirus vaccines. And is there some a small increase in myocarditis? Yes, but very small. And myocardis is not a severe outcome. It's a mild outcome compared to all the other things

that COVID causes where heart attacks and strokes and whatnot. And epidemiologists have been studying excess deaths for years. And for example, excess deaths in children, you can't say that that's vaccines, because most kids didn't even get vaccines until recently. And most of the excess deaths were actually prior to vaccines even being approved for in the youngest kids. And we see that excess deaths. And that's from COVID. And in terms of partitioning, what is excess deaths from COVID or vaccines, it is COVID, definitely. We're talking the difference between someone who's boosted and someone who's unvaccinated. We're talking about 10, 20 ex-difference in deaths. As in, those who are unvaccinated have 10, 20, and in some situations, some of your groups 30 ex-difference in the risk of dying. And we just completely ignore the excess deaths

of those who are actually infected with COVID. So those who emphasize these anti-backstories who emphasize the risk of vaccine, they always, always conveniently ignore the risk of actual infection from the actual COVID virus, from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And I think that's where people will cherry-pick numbers to show there's excess adverse risks from the vaccine. No, that isn't incredibly, credibly low. And they also try to distort and say, look, oh, the pandemic, all these excess deaths, that's vaccine deaths. No, most of these deaths we've actually looked up. If you actually look at the data, beyond just of media COVID deaths, you look at the excess deaths of those who had died from 30 to 90 days, two months and three months, these excess, if you just count, those who previously got COVID, 30 to 90 days after,

COVID explains all these excess deaths. And of course, if a hospital gets overwhelmed and someone with a heart attack can't get to the hospital, I would say that's a COVID pandemic excess deaths that's due to COVID overwhelming hospitals and still due to the virus indirectly. So all together, that we know that the vast majority of excess deaths is actually COVID or indirectly COVID. And if you just count up those, not just the immediate 30 days we died of COVID, but from, you know, 30 to 90 days, basically all that excess deaths is basically explained by COVID infection, not by vaccination. And so there's so much data I could walk you through. But those who are anti-vax will cherry pick the data to suit their needs. And the latest is Florida's analysis, which is incredibly flawed. It's not peer-reviewed and has been widely criticized

by epidemiologists and public health scientists across the board as being a completely flawed and cherry-picked analysis. But again, the narrative of those who want to believe in the anti-vax narrative, they're naturally a very, or how should I say it? Sometimes gullible to a lot of these cherry-picked data because, you know, epidemiology is complicated. It's a very complicated mathematical science. And those who want to see or believe that vaccines are dangerous, they will follow these crazy misinformation peddlers and unfortunately follow to their deaths or follow them to their own detriment with long COVID. Dr. Ding, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and to ask these questions some, some dumber than others.

As I say, I've read you on Twitter and I'm not a big charts person, but you certainly fill your feed with an awful lot of hard information in both verbal and visual forms. So I recommend it. It's something where I guess as winter comes, we're all gonna get a head full of all this stuff again. I mean, informationally. And I appreciate you sort of preparing us for that. And thanks for your time today. Thanks. Stay safe, everyone. All your worries, just stay safe, stay safe. When an early autumn walks the land, and she'll the breeze, and touches with her hand,

the summer trees, perhaps you'll understand what memories I own. There's a dance pervillion in the rain, all shattered blue, a winding country lane, all across the ground, a frosty window pane, shows me a town grown lonely, that spring of ours that started, so April hot it seemed made for just a boy and girl.

I never dreamed it you, and if all could come and view so early, darling if you care, please let me know I'll meet you anyway. I miss you so, let's never have to share, another early autumn. Darling if you care, please let me know I'll meet you anyway.

I miss you so, let's never have to share, another early autumn. From Southern California this is Lesho and now. Here's a statement from the Portland Thorns,

a female soccer team. The Portland Zorns were created to be a beacon of what is possible in women's sports. Today I'm holding myself accountable for not doing enough. The Thorns players and the league, my Tyler's effort to actively make sure what happened in 2015 never happens again. I apologize to our players, the organization and the Portland community for the mistakes we made, including not being publicly transparent about the coach termination, organizations, failures and mistakes were all been living my responsibility. This is Merritt Paulson, the CEO of the team. It's devastating to me, my goal of creating the shining example of what a woman sports team could be has now become synonymous with abhorrent and predatory behavior. Part of me holding myself accountable is recognizing that someone else needs to take the reins of the organization and operational decision making.

Immediately I'm removing myself as CEO and announcing a global search for a CEO of the organization. I want to go to Portland. Stanford President Mark Tessier-Livian has apologized on behalf of the University and pledged to act on recommendations of a task force, report, that identified efforts to limit admission of Jewish students to Stanford in the 1950s. They didn't know about that? Should've asked my mom. In findings released Wednesday a task force appointed by Tessier-Livian, reported that Stanford administrators took steps to limited missions of Jewish students in the 1950s and quote, regularly misled parents and friends of applicants, alumni, outside investigators and trustees who asked about such practices. The task force also provided a number of recommendations both to address actions by past administrators and to support the University's Jewish community today.

What there is of it. Especially in light of the panel's findings. They called on the University to acknowledge and apologize for the admissions practices and subsequent denials in the past and the task force recommended enhanced education and training to address biases, greater attention to Jewish religious observances in university scheduling, housing, and dining, and clarification of the University's relationship with Stanford Hill A. In a University-wide communication test to a Levine, apologized in fact on behalf of the University and pledged action on the recommendations. This ugly component of Stanford's history confirmed by this new report is saddening and deeply troubling, said the President. On behalf of Stanford University, I wish to apologize to the Jewish community into our entire university community, both for the actions documented in this report and for the University's denials of those actions

in a period that followed these actions were wrong, they were damaging, and they were unacknowledged for too long. Maverick Carter, the CEO of the company that makes the show called The Shop, has publicly apologized to the show's guests and crew following the recent appearance by Kanye, now a West. Maverick has confirmed the scheduled episode not going to air, because the rapper used the platform to, quote, reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes. Unquote, Maverick also shared his regret, overbooking, ye, for the talk show, which is hosted by LeBron James. He said he mistakenly believed the rapper was quote, capable of a respectful discussion. Unfortunately, says Maverick, talking about ye, he used the shop to reiterate more hate speech

and extremely dangerous stereotypes we've made the decision not to air this episode, or any of Kanye's remarks. While the shop embraces thoughtful discourse and differing opinions, we have zero tolerance for hate speech of any kind. I take full responsibility for believing Kanye wanted a different conversation, and apologize to our guests and crew. Hate speech should never have an audience. Unquote, LeBron was reportedly not present at the taping, where ye uses appearance to double down on his recent expressions of anti-Semitism, including his tweeted wish to go quote, death, con, three, un-Jewish people, Jewish people, all in capital letters. He was also banned from Instagram after he shared a screenshot from the conversation where he claimed that Diddy, aka Sean Combs, was being manipulated by Jewish people. He got more controversy last week when he debuted shirts with the phrase,

life matter, and Paris Fashion Week. He also appeared on the Tucker Carlson show, which included further anti-Semitic comments from Ye, and claimed that fake children have been put in his house to sexualize and manipulate his kids. He sounds healthy to me. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is in damage control, mode after a launch of its Epsilon rocket was terminated with a self-destruct command this week. Epsilon's Japan's small, cheap launch platform, a solid fuel-powered craft can carry payloads totaling 590 kilograms into orbit, you figure it out. Designed for low-cost operations, and an ability to carry several small satellites on each launch. The Wednesday launch was Epsilon 6.

Eight satellites came along for the ride, two of them commercial payloads, none of them made it into orbit. Japanese press report the rocket veered off course while its first stage was firing. Mission scientists decided the craft could not enter orbit, so they sent the self-destruction message around 10 minutes into the flight. Japan hadn't lost a rocket since 2003. This failure was concerning because it was just the fifth flight of the Epsilon launcher and was designated an innovative satellite technology demonstration. Keiko Nagauka, Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. There's a portfolio. I apologize on behalf of the Space Agency for not meeting the expectations of the Japanese people in the industry. He leads as launch the task force to determine why the failure happened. ESPN's Troy Ackman made waves this week when discussing NFL's hypersensitivity to roughing the passer penalties.

Quote, my hope is the competition committee looks at this in the next set of meetings, and you know, we take the dresses off, he said. The comment oozes, according to NBC Sports, with casual misogyny, implying the women are weak and men are tough. Ackman apologized for the comments during a Thursday appearance on a sports radio show. I mean, my comments were dumb, he said. Just shouldn't have made them. Just dumb remarks on my part. I guess, quoting Herschel Walker. He's just not that smart. CNN is removed a report and apologized after two of its journalists entered the Thailand Child Care Center. Recording inside the crime scene there, the journalists were detained after the incident, though they were later cleared and no charges were pressed. CNN officials in a statement that he sought permission from the Thailand Health Department officials, but these officials were not authorized to grant this permission.

If this team had understood the building in its rooms were off limits, they would not have entered. And finally, Los Angeles City Council President Nuri Martinez has resigned from her position after she and two other council members were recorded making racist remarks. In the end, she says, it's not my apologies that matter most. It will be the actions I take from this day forward. I hope you will give me the opportunity to make amends. Unquote. And she resigned, as I say, from the council. Los Angeles Times reported that she called a black child a little monkey. The NAACP chapters also called on two other Latino members of the council, as well as the president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, also involved in the taped conversations to resign. The labor representative suggested that another city council member

puts his young son out in public like a lawn jockey. Those were the racist statues used to invoke the antebellum south. Martinez also heard making fun of indigenous people from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, who have recently migrated to Los Angeles. She referred to them as, quote, short little dark people, unquote, and called them ugly. The apologies of the week, ladies and gentlemen, copyrighted feature of this broadcast. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is our friend, a very good friend, the Adam. EDF, the French Energy Giant, ward last May, that nuclear electricity production this year would be lower than previously forecast because half its reactors are out of action. The timing couldn't have been worse thanks to its nuclear industry. Our industry France is usually Europe's biggest net exporter of electricity. The closures turn the country into a net power importer for the first time, according to the economist, just as the continent faced, as you know,

an energy crunch, partially because of Russian attempts to mess with the natural gas pipeline that goes into Europe. Last month, EDF announced that even by 2024, output will still be well below normal levels. France's current nuclear troubles, partly due to the routine maintenance of the country's 56 reactors, half of which are about 40 years old. Why, that's the second childhood, isn't it? Echanging reactor needs periodically to be shut down on a rotating basis for inspection, and it, you know, they're hard to rotate. During the pandemic, scheduled maintenance was interrupted by lockdowns. The real crunch, though, came after corrosion issues were detected late last year at one reactor. By last month, no fewer than 25 reactors were out of action. Ten for routine maintenance, the rest for corrosion analysis, and repairs. The new French administration has pivoted away from de-emphasizing nuclear power

in its energy portfolio, but the new reactors authorized will take many years to come online. It's a slow thing to build a nuclear reactor, it turns out. Industry bosses and politicians, here's a surprise, blame each other. News of our friend, the Adam. And finally, news of the godly. The head of a lay committee looking to do historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church, said this week the problem in the past had been, quote, wide spread, unquote, and on some occasions reach, quote, truly endemic proportion, unquote. Pedro stretched. A psychiatrist, well, no wonder, who heads Portugal's Independence Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Catholic Church, said the panel has compiled a list of 424 alleged victims.

Before the committee started its work in January, senior church officials had claimed that only a handful of cases had occurred. Hmm, the panel, created by the Portuguese bishops' conference, is looking into alleged abuse from 1950 to the present, involving miners aged 2 to 17. Its full report comes out this January, information obtained so far indicates that, quote, a significant number of Catholic church priests and members allegedly have committed sex abuses since 1950. That was what Streck told the news conference in Lisbon. Adding the problem not only existed, it became widespread. He said the further back in time his panel went, it found serious situations that lasted for decades, and in some cases reached truly endemic proportions. The victims were both boys and girls, although most were boys, he said. Some alleged abusers were named by more than one victim. Hundreds of abusers had been identified, Streck said.

The alleged abuse, pardon me, includes indecent exposure, penetration, and images of abuse. The statute of limitations has expired on most of the allegations, apart from those 17 complaints have been forward to the Portuguese Attorney General's office. Another 30 may still be sent. No names are being published, although a confidential annex of all the names of church members reported to the committee will be included. That will be sent to the bishop's conference and to the police. Hey, let's get the police involved. What a concept. Streck said the panel had no information about any abuses committed by foreign priests. A senior Portuguese Catholic church official who had been named in investigations involving alleged cover-ups of priest sex abuse said this week, his conscience is clear. Head of the Portuguese bishop's conference, José O'Neilus, denied any wrongdoing or improper conduct in the cases from 2011 to 2014. He also presides over the shrine at Fatima.

I'm not worried, he said. He conceded about what happened years ago that quote, these kinds of cases are handled differently now, unquote. He didn't elaborate. He said there was no cover-up in cases being investigated now by the Portugal Attorney General's office. After supposedly he covered up for abuse or priests in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony. It shames everyone on O'Neilus, said of the alleged abuse, admitting quote, the church isn't perfect, and I think it never will be, unquote. Bless you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes this week's edition of the show.

Back next week at the same time, over the same radio stations, and at the time of your choice on the audio device of your choice. It's all up to you. I'm just your humble servant. Not that humble. And it would be just like me being humble if you'd agreed to join with me then. Would you? I already thank you very much. Uh-huh, typically show shoppo to Pam Hallstead, Thomas Walsh and W.W.N.O. New Orleans, and the San Diego desk for contributing to this show. The email address for this program, your chance to get cars I talk to, shirts, and the playlist of the music here, all, and so much more at harrysherer.com. The show comes to you from century of progress, productions, and originates through the facilities of W.W.N.O. New Orleans flagship station of the Changes EZ Radio Network.

So long, from the home of the homeless. The W.W.N.O. New Orleans, and the U.S. The W.W.N.O. New Orleans, and the U.S.

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