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by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Noi Mahoney, writing for the trade publication “FreightWaves” has reported that 3,500 job cuts have been announced since April 30th, just two weeks ago, in freight-related jobs.

Mass layoffs from freight-related jobs continue across US

Excerpts:

More than 3,500 job cuts have been announced since April 30, according to media reports and Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices.

Since Jan. 1, more than 30,000 freight-related layoffs have been announced, impacting workers in food production and distribution, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and logistics.

Manufacturing, food production industries hit hard

Among the companies facing layoffs this month, manufacturers and food producers announced the most reductions.

Steel maker Cleveland-Cliffs recently announced it will lay off about 950 workers as it idles two Pennsylvania plants, along with a factory in Illinois. The company cited weak demand as one of the main reasons for the decision.

Atlanta-based Smurfit Westrock said it is closing four factories and laying off a total of 650 workers. The packaging manufacturer is closing plants in Texas and Minnesota, as well as two in Germany.

Georgia-Pacific Corp. is permanently closing its plywood mill in Emporia, Virginia, and laying off 554 employees. The shutdown is due to a decline in plywood demand caused by a slower housing market, company officials said in a news release.

Other manufacturers announcing plant closures include Elkay Plumbing Products Co. in Savanna, Illinois, affecting 135 workers; and plastics maker Berry Global Inc., which is closing a plant in Lannett, Alabama, and laying off 112 people.

Food production and distribution firm Weinstein Industries LLC and its sister company Midwest Perishable Industries are closing two meat processing centers, as well as its transportation and warehousing arm, PDS Industries LLC. The closures will result in 115 layoffs.

Amsted Rail Co. Inc., which makes railcar components, said it is laying off 74 workers from a factory in Granite, Illinois. The company cited a “business slowdown” in a state filing as its reason for the workforce reduction. (Full article.)

And while Wall Street has surged this week based on the alleged China – USA trade agreement from last weekend, those daring to oppose the majority are issuing dire warnings.

Here’s today’s news headlines posted on our Telegram Channel.

Investors really want to believe Trump on tariffs — but the truth will hit them soon

From David Blond of MarketWatch:

Excerpts:

Trump is already on his back foot. He’s upset the world order for no good reason except vanity and a misunderstanding of international trade.

Trump disregards the fact that U.S. deficits have provided the excess dollars that have fueled global commerce and finance — and propelled the U.S. stock market to stratospheric valuations.

China, despite Trump’s bluster, holds a better hand than America. Trump has squandered America’s global influence and role as a trusted partner and ally. Moreover, China knows better than Trump when the pain of the disruption will impact the American economy.

China can read the news and the polls as well as everyone else.

The Geneva agreement lets Trump claim a great victory even as he retreats. But even a lower 30% tariff is a major tax on imports — that is, once shipping resumes and container ships can be repositioned during this short window to jump-start trans-Pacific trade.

Yet the damage to the U.S. economy has already been done. It takes a lot of mistakes to reduce an economy as large and complex as the United States from strong growth to near-recession in 100 days — but Trump has accomplished this.

The Geneva trade negotiations mark the end of the American century and the beginning of China-Asia dominance. China has prepared for this transition since its official re-entry into the world trading system in 2001, when it joined the World Trade Organization.

It has invested in mines and roads in developing countries, sold those countries low-cost goods, and provided low-cost loans to struggling governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Xi doesn’t need to worry about midterm elections or legalistic doctrines and rules.

He can weather any storm. Trump can’t.

America, on the other hand, has not prepared for the consequences of the weakening of its status in the world or of the U.S. dollar’s pre-eminence.

Investors are largely ignoring this now, but it will show up in U.S. stock and bond prices once Americans fully comprehend just how damaged the U.S. economy will be when shortages at stores and factories shrink demand for workers and U.S. unemployment rises.

Even if Trump gets the deal he wants from every country, few American companies will be able to take advantage of it.

The Chinese century has begun.

Full article.

The market’s mirage: Investors might be misreading the trade truce

From Quartz:

Wall Street is cheering a U.S.-China tariff “pause.” But beneath the optimism are economic risks that haven’t gone away

Excerpts:

Markets surged on this week’s de-escalation in the U.S.-China trade war. But the so-called “breakthrough” is riddled with caveats — and investors may be celebrating too soon.

To hear many on Wall Street tell it, the global economy just dodged a bullet. Stocks soared. Treasuries rallied. Analysts at Wedbush called it a “dream scenario.”

But beneath the market’s exuberance lies a messier reality: The trade war isn’t close to over, and the “deal” investors are cheering may be less a breakthrough than a well-branded pause.

“I think this rally is just too much too fast until we get more specificity as far as what the real trade terms are going to be, what they may have as far as impacts on the economy overall, as well as what individual companies will be affected and which ones aren’t,” Dave Sekera, Morningstar’s chief strategist, said in a note Monday.

Perhaps most important, the 90-day pause leaves the door open for the sky-high tariffs to return if talks falter.

Analysts at Jefferies described the move as more PR than policy, writing that it suggests “the U.S. is more desperate than China to deliver the ‘de-escalation’ message to the market.”

In other words: The optics may matter more than the outcomes.

Full article.

As Trump basks in Gulf Arab applause, Israel massacres children in Gaza

by Soumaya Ghannoushi of Middle East Eye

From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, a race is underway – not to end the genocide in Gaza, but to outspend one another for US favour

Excerpts:

US President Donald Trump’s tour of Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha is not diplomacy.

It is theatre – staged in gold, fuelled by greed, and underwritten by betrayal.

A US president openly arming a genocide is welcomed with red carpets, handshakes and blank cheques. Trillions are pledged; personal gifts are exchanged.

And Gaza continues to burn.

Gulf regimes have power and wealth. They have Trump’s ear. Yet they use none of it – not to halt the slaughter, ease the siege or demand dignity.

In return for their riches and deference, Trump grants Israel bombs and sets it loose upon the region.

This is the real story.

At the heart of Trump’s return lies a project he initiated during his first presidency: the erasure of Palestine, the elevation of autocracy, and the redrawing of the Middle East in Israel’s image.

Full article.

Digital Prison in the Making? WikiLeaks Blasts Palantir for Spying & Gaza Massacre

From Sputnik:

The CIA-linked military tech firm thrives under Donald Trump, despite dark controversies. WikiLeaks has outlined a string of warnings about Palantir’s ties to spying, possible war crimes, and human rights abuses.

Gaza Killware
Palantir provided an AI-powered targeting tools to Israeli forces that they used in deadly strikes on civilians and aid workers in Gaza, according to The Nation.

Left off the WikiLeaks List? Palantir’s Ukraine AI War Lab
Time reported that Palantir turned Ukraine into an “AI war lab” in June 2022, offering its services for free.

In February 2023, CEO Alex Karp bragged that Palantir was responsible for “most of the targeting” by Ukrainian forces — whose military has a record of striking residential areas and civilian infrastructure.

ICE Deportations & Family Separation
Palantir’s software has been used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for workplace raids, deportations, and family separations, according to Vice and The Intercept.

The Intercept also reported in 2017 that Palantir tools allowed ICE to track US citizens using biometric data and access classified intelligence — even from the CIA.

Full article.

Massive solar storm causes worldwide blackouts as experts warn the worst is yet to come

Image source.

From Daily Mail:

Excerpts:

The sun has unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year, triggering strong radio blackouts across the globe.

Just after 11:30 a.m. ET, a massive X2.7-class solar flare erupted from a newly emerging from a cold, dark region known as AR4087.

X-class flares are the most intense in the solar storm scale — capable of disrupting communications, damaging satellites, and even threatening power grids on Earth.

Tuesday’s flare was rated an X2.7, placing it on the lower end of the most dangerous class of solar flares,  but still powerful enough to impact large swaths of the planet.

Experts warn that more flares may be on the way as sunspot AR4087 rotates into direct alignment with Earth in the coming days, increasing the chances of further solar storms.

Full Article.

Look at the image from Space.com that I posted above of where these flares just occurred, which is over the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. Interesting….

You can see AI everywhere – except in Big Tech’s Profits

I have been saying this for a couple of years now, and more and more people are coming to the same conclusion. AI is the biggest stock market bubble probably in the history of the U.S. And most of these “deals” Trump is making with the rich oil kingdoms in the Middle East will continue to fuel this bubble.

While AI does have some practical use that will increase production, most of what investors are investing in with AI are false promises for the future, and investing in science fiction.

What is AI really giving back to tech investors? Here’s the hard truth.

By Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith at MarketWatch

AI boosters cling to fanciful forecasts — even if meaningful revenue and productivity has yet to materialize

Excerpts:

Nobel Laureate Robert Solow once said that “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity figures” — an observation now called the Solow paradox. Likewise, today we see AI everywhere but in productivity.

Even worse, we don’t see it in revenue, which should appear long before productivity improvements.

Computer revenue rose steadily from the 1950s through the 1980s before a productivity bump appeared in the early 1990s.

Substantial revenue has yet to materialize from AI, and it may be decades before we see a productivity bump.

Nonetheless, AI hypesters cling to their fanciful forecasts.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently predicted that “within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers — humans won’t be needed ‘for most things.’” He was speaking to late-night comedian Jimmy Fallon, but he wasn’t joking.

Others have made similar claims over the years. Remember IBM’s Watson supercomputer?

When the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston began using Watson in 2013, it announced Watson’s coming in a press release:

“First he won on ‘Jeopardy!,’ now he’s going to try to beat leukemia. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center announced Friday that it will deploy Watson, IBM’s famed cognitive computing system, to help eradicate cancer.”

Five years and $60 million later, MD Anderson fired Watson after “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations.”

AI’s dominance always seems to be five to 10 years away.

Recall the esteemed computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton — known as “the godfather of AI” — declaring in 2016:

“If you work as a radiologist, you’re like the coyote that’s already over the edge of the cliff but hasn’t yet looked down, so it doesn’t realize that there is no ground underneath him. I think we should stop training radiologists now; it’s just completely obvious that within five years, deep learning is going to do better than radiologists.”

The number of radiologists practicing in the U.S. has increased since then.

Let’s instead talk about what’s really happening. Where are the profits?

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said recently that AI won’t replace programmers anytime soon; Microsoft researchers concluded that programmers spend most of their time debugging, a task that LLMs struggle with.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that, from a value standpoint, AI supply is far outpacing demand.

In mid-April, Microsoft announced that it was “slowing or pausing” the construction of several data centers, including a $1 billion Ohio project.

Moreover, a co-founder of Infosys has said that AI “hype is at unprecedented levels,” while OpenAI admitted that its newest model still hallucinates more than a third of the time on standard benchmark tests.

Full article.

The Healing Power of Music! Medicine for the Soul and More Effective than Drugs

Here is an article with videos that we published over a decade ago, that some Italian website apparently just found and is getting traffic today.

With so much negative news today, take 6-and-a-half minutes to watch this video (above), as it will soften your cold, hard heart.

Music is better for senior citizens in fighting dementia than psych drugs.

Is listening to uplifting music a part of your daily routine? It is for me! I would probably go insane if I didn’t regularly listen to worship music every day and sing along.

See:

Senior Care: Music Beats Drugs in Fighting Dementia

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Comment on this article at HealthImpactNews.com.

This article was written by Human Superior Intelligence (HSI)

See Also:

Understand the Times We are Currently Living Through

Where is Your Citizenship Registered?

The Bewitching of America with the Evil Eye and the Mark of the Beast

Jesus Christ’s Opposition to the Jewish State: Lessons for Today

Distinguishing True Prophets from False Prophets in These Evil Modern Times

Who Controls the World? by Dr. A. True Ott

Exposing the Christian Zionism Cult

Insider Exposes Freemasonry as the World’s Oldest Secret Religion and the Luciferian Plans for The New World Order

Identifying the Luciferian Globalists Implementing the New World Order – Who are the “Jews”?

The Brain Myth: Your Intellect and Thoughts Originate in Your Heart, Not Your Brain

Fact Check: “Christianity” and the Christian Religion is NOT Found in the Bible – The Person Jesus Christ Is