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INAUGURATION
In the News US to Witness
NEWS

A lawyer who represented

Untraditional
the Trump campaign in a legal
challenge to the Pennsylvania Inauguration
election results was forced
out of his post as a law pro-
fessor at Chapman University
This Week
in California. ... A3 Unprecedented measures
put in place in DC will make
Fifty-five people in the
United States have died after
the event likely the smallest
receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, inauguration in history
according to the Vaccine Ad-
BY EMEL AKAN
verse Event Reporting Sys-
tem. ... A5
WASHINGTON—President-elect
Gun sales in the United Joe Biden is set to be sworn in as
States set a record in 2020, president on Jan. 20 amid unpar-
FBI statistics show. ... A3 alleled security measures and the
Data on the citizenship pandemic lockdown, making it one
status of U.S. Census respon- of the most untraditional inaugura-
dents won’t be finalized or re- tions in U.S. history.
leased until after President
Donald Trump leaves office,
the Census Bureau says. ... A6 Certainly, the country was
Los Angeles County pub- in worse shape and people
lic health officials say the UK Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on the were more on edge in 1861
COVID-19 strain has been CCP INTERFERENCE South Lawn of the White House on Dec. 12, 2020. with Lincoln. There’s no
found in the county. ... A7
comparison to that.
The city of Washington
has been highly militarized,
including fences, barricades,
DNI: China ‘Sought to Influence’ David Pietrusza,
political historian and author

2020 US Federal Elections

security checkpoints, and
heavily armed guards, ahead
of President-elect Joe Biden’s
inauguration. ... A8
Rep. Lou Correa says that
he has tested positive for CO-
VID-19 and will miss Biden’s
inauguration. ... A5
Like many predecessors, Biden is
going to be sworn in on the steps of
the Capitol building. But the tradi-
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe alleges CIA management tional parade down Pennsylvania
Avenue, which normally draws hun-
pressured analysts to withdraw their assessment on China’s actions dreds of thousands of Americans, has
OLIVIER DOULIER-POOL/GETTY IMAGES been canceled, to be replaced by a
BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV actions as election interference be- virtual parade. Inaugural balls have

D
A spokesman for Trump
says the president has not
yet decided who will repre-
sent him during the upcoming
impeachment trial. ... A4
Biden’s administration will
release White House visitor
logs to the public, a spokes-
woman says. ... A4
The leader of Black Lives
Matter Utah has disavowed the
“racial justice” activist who was
arrested for participating in the
breach of the U.S. Capitol. ...A5
CHINA
After Chinese regulators
scuttled the IPO for fintech
giant Ant Group, it remains
unclear whether foreign inves-
tors will have recourse. ...A9
A COVID-19 superspreader
has been detected in north-
eastern China as hospitals
in one Chinese province are
overwhelmed amid a surge in
cases. ... A9
BUSINESS
People won’t be able to start
filing taxes until Feb. 12 to allow
additional time for the testing
of systems following tax law
changes, the IRS says. ...A17
U.S. retail sales fell for a third
straight month in December as
renewed measures to slow the
spread of COVID-19 triggered
job losses. ...A17
OPINION
James Gorrie: Will Biden
Unwind Trump’s China Poli-
cy?... A13
Josh Hammer: Trump’s
Parting Shot to China Should
Be Full US Recognition of Tai-
wan... A14
Yang Wei: Chinese State
Media Is Celebrating the Unit-
ed States’ ‘Downfall’... A16
FEATURES
Free Flow of Water at Issue in India–China Skirmish
Walking is the very best
form of exercise and a neuro-
logical tonic, experts say. ...B1
A research review has ce-
mented the case for vitamin
C as a standard therapeutic
for viral infections. ...B6
DON’T DELAY.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY.
READEPOCH.COM
Published in New York,
Washington, Houston, Chicago,
Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
irector of National In-
telligence (DNI) John
Ratcliffe assessed that
China interfered in the
2020 federal elections, according
to a letter transmitted to Congress.
In the letter, Ratcliffe alleges that
intelligence about China’s elec-
tion interference was suppressed
by management at the CIA, which
pressured analysts to withdraw
their support for the view.
Citing a report by the Intelligence
Community’s analytic ombudsman
Barry Zulauf, the director of national
intelligence said that some analysts
were reluctant to describe China’s
CCP VIRUS
Wuhan
Virology Lab
Scientists
Had CCP
Virus-Like
Illness in
Autumn 2019
BY IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
Several researchers at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology fell ill with
symptoms similar to those caused
by the CCP virus in the autumn
of 2019, contradicting claims by a
senior researcher from the facility
who said there were no infections
among the staff scientists.
The revelation is part of a fact sheet
released by the U.S. State Depart-
ment on Jan. 15, which slams the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
for obsessive secrecy around the
INDIA–CHINA
BY VENUS UPADHAYAYA
NEW DELHI—The India–China bor-
der standoff that intensified with a
bloody skirmish in June of last year
was actually a Chinese pilot project to
test a global expansion strategy based
on the stoppage of trans-border riv-
ers, an Indian defense analyst says.
“[China] blocked the water of the
Galwan river, and there was a mas-
sive build-up, I suspect, in response
to the massive infrastructure build-
up that started in 2019 [by India],”
cause they disagreed with the poli-
cies of President Donald Trump.
The Washington Examiner pub-
lished Ratcliffe’s letter and the om-
budsman report on Jan. 17, 10 days
after publishing an original report
on the documents. The ODNI didn’t
immediately respond to requests
from The Epoch Times to authen-
ticate the documents.
“Based on all available sources
of intelligence, with definitions
consistently applied, and reached
independent of political consider-
ations or undue pressure—that the
People’s Republic of China sought
to influence the 2020 U.S. federal
elections,” Ratcliffe wrote.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the Wuhan Virology Lab in Wuhan, Hubei Prov-
ince, China, on Feb. 23, 2017.
origin of the CCP virus, commonly
known as the novel coronavirus.
The Chinese Center for Dis-
ease Control reported a cluster of
pneumonia-like cases of unknown
origin on Dec. 21, 2019. But months
later, new evidence emerged sug-
gesting that Chinese authorities
were aware of the first CCP virus
case on Nov. 17. The U.S. govern-
GOOGLE MAPS
A satellite image of the point where the
Galwan River meets the Suyok River.
The CIA logo at the agency’s headquar-
ters in Langley, Va, on Jan. 21, 2017.
The report by Zulauf was sent to
Congress on Jan. 7 alongside an in-
telligence community assessment
of interference in the 2020 election.
In the report, Zulauf states that the
Continued on A2
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ment wasn’t informed about the vi-
rus until Dec. 30 of that year from
Taiwan.
Little is known about the first
patients who caught the virus; the
CCP hasn’t eliminated a connec-
tion to the Wuhan Institute of Vi-
rology (WIV), which isn’t far from
the seafood market that initially
Continued on A9
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a senior research
fellow with the New Delhi-based In-
stitute of Peace and Conflict Studies,
told The Epoch Times over the phone.
On its 73rd Army Day, India hon-
ored on Jan. 15 its 20 soldiers killed in
the June 15, 2020, bloody clash in the
Galwan valley, which Iyer-Mitra said
occurred in response to the stopping
of the Galwan river 100 meters on the
Chinese side of the disputed border.
He said India’s action saved the in-
terests of the wider world.
Continued on A11
been canceled as well.
The viewing stand near the White
House has been dismantled, mak-
ing this event likely the smallest
inauguration in history, in terms
of physical attendance. While a low
turnout is expected, the event will
be unusually tight in security and
law enforcement.
This inauguration is unique in its
own way, according to David Pi-
etrusza, political historian, author,
and expert on presidential electoral
history.
In terms of people being so on edge,
the flooding of troops and security
into Washington, and the COVID-19
Continued on A3
US–CHINA
US Government
Directed to Find
Ways to Minimize
Purchases of
Chinese Goods,
Services
BY CATHY HE
President Donald Trump on Jan. 15
directed federal agencies to look at
ways to reduce purchases of goods
and services from China, in a bid
to guard against espionage risks
posed by the regime.
Trump instructed departments
and agencies to conduct a review
and propose “regulatory and policy
changes, including potential exec-
utive actions” to “minimize” the
procurement of Chinese goods and
services, national security adviser
Robert O’Brien said in a statement.
The move is the latest in a flurry
of actions in the final days of the
Trump administration to focus on
Continued on A2
SOCIAL MEDIA
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
ON TWITTER SUSPENSIONS
“Americans’
rights are being
stripped,
and they
aren’t being
heard by
the people
they elected
to represent
them,”
Greene said.
Read more on A2

Accuracy The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as an independent newspaper with the goal to restore accuracy and
integrity in media. We have received numerous awards for our reporting, including from the Society of Professional
& Integrity Journalists, the Society for News Design, and the New York Press Association.
A2 | NATION MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A woman enters a building housing Employment Development Department

offices in Los Angeles on May 4, 2020.

California Unemployment Benefits

Fraud Might Top $9 Billion
GQ PAN
A paramilitary police officer stands guard in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 8, 2020.
A security firm investigating Cali-
fornia’s fraudulent pandemic un-
the EDD paid up to $4 billion to
fraudsters, including a Sacramen-
to-area woman, who previously
worked for the EDD and collected

China ‘Sought to Influence’ employment claims warned that

the scope of the fraud could be
more than twice as much as pre-
$21,000 in unemployment ben-
efits using the name and Social
Security number of Democratic

2020 US Election, Director of viously estimated.

At least 10 percent of unemploy-
ment claims before the state Em-
Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The scam
wasn’t exposed until Bank of
America, which administers the

National Intelligence Assesses ployment Development Depart-

CONTINUED FROM A1
analysts working on Russia and
China applied different stan-
dards to their reporting on elec-
tion interference. While labeling
Russia’s activity as clear election
interference, the analysts were re-
luctant to do the same for China.
“Given analytic differences in
the way Russia and China ana-
lysts examined their targets, Chi-
na analysts appeared hesitant to
assess Chinese actions as undue
influence or interference,” Zulauf
wrote.
“These analysts appeared re-
luctant to have their analysis on
China brought forward because
they tended to disagree with the
Administration’s policies, saying in
effect, I don’t want our intelligence
used to support those policies.”
Neither the ombudsman re-
port nor the letter from Ratcliffe
includes details on China’s med-
dling. Zulauf redirected an inter-
view request by The Epoch Times
to the ODNI, which didn’t im-
mediately respond to an emailed
request.
The analytic ombudsman’s re-
port assesses that politicization oc-
curred in relation to both Russia’s
and China’s election interference.
Zulauf assessed that neither intel-
ligence community leaders nor
analysts are at fault, blaming the
hyperpartisan atmosphere in the
United States instead.
“In most cases, what we see is
the entire system responding
to and resisting pressures from
outside, rather than attempts to
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
politicize intelligence by our lead-
ers or analysts.”
The report states that the ana-
lysts who assessed Russia’s elec-
tion interference had complained
that the intelligence community
management was reluctant to de-
liver their assessments to govern-
ment clients because the work was
not “well received.”
“Analysts saw this as suppres-
sion of intelligence, bordering on
politicization of intelligence from
above,” Zulauf wrote.
The Epoch Times previously
documented a multi-pronged
election influence campaign
linked to the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP).
In a Dec. 3 op-ed, Ratcliffe said
the CCP “poses the greatest threat
to America today, and the greatest
threat to democracy and freedom
worldwide since World War II.”
“The intelligence is clear: Beijing
intends to dominate the U.S. and
the rest of the planet economically,
militarily, and technologically,”
he wrote. “Many of China’s major
public initiatives and prominent
companies offer only a layer of
ment (EDD) installed controls last
October may have been fraudu-
lent, according to Blake Hall,
founder and chief executive of the
company ID.me., the Los Angeles
Times reported. Hall’s company
was hired by the EDD in October
and has blocked nearly 470,000
phony claims since.
Hall told the LA Times that the
amount of fraudulent payout be-
tween March and September 2020
might reach $9.8 billion. The EDD
has sent out $113 billion in unem-
ployment benefits since March,
when the CCP virus pandemic hit
California.
He added that a lot of those
funds went to foreign crime or-
ganizations that filed unemploy-
ment claims with stolen identity
information, and used “money
mules” in the United States to pick
up benefit debit cards sent out by
the EDD.
“When the Russians and the Ni-
gerians and the Chinese are the
players on the field, they are going
to put up some points,” Hall said.
“This is a very sophisticated cyber-
attack that’s being run at scale.”
It was previously estimated that
EDD’s benefit debit cards, flagged
the unemployment claims made
in the senator’s name.
In addition, hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars in unemployment
benefits went to prison and jail
inmates, many of whom weren’t
held in California, according to a
law enforcement task force led by
district attorneys.
“The volume of fraud as well
as the types of inmates involved
is staggering,” the district at-
torneys wrote in a letter to Gov.
Gavin Newsom. They added that
inmates on death row, those serv-
ing life sentences and life without
possibility of parole, rapists, child
molesters, human traffickers, and
other violent criminals, were re-
ceiving unemployment checks,
and that many of those checks
were sent out of state.
According to a December anal-
ysis obtained by the LA Times,
more than 2,000 claims deemed to
be at high or moderate risk of fraud
were from inmates of the Florida
Department of Corrections or
county jails in that state. Overall,
the report estimates that some $42
million in claims went to out-of-
state prison and jail inmates.
CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

camouflage to the activities of the President

Chinese Communist Party.” Donald Trump
Congress certified Joe Biden as speaks to the
the president-elect on Jan. 7. In the media before
two months leading up to the cer- boarding Air
Force One to
tification, Trump challenged the
visit the U.S.–
outcome of the election in seven Mexico border
states, citing unconstitutional wall in Texas,
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) speaks to media at the U.S. Capitol in Washing- changes to election laws and po- at Joint Base
ton on Jan. 27, 2020. tentially illegally cast votes. Andrews,
Md., on Jan.
12, 2021.
SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Trump Directs Government to

Temporarily Suspended by Twitter
JACK PHILLIPS
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-
Ga.) announced her personal
Twitter account was temporarily
suspended by the social media
company.
According to a statement from
her office on Jan. 17, the Repub-
lican freshman congresswoman
said the San Francisco-based
company claimed she made
posts that could lead to a “risk of
violence.”
Officials at Twitter didn’t re-
spond to a request for comment
by press time.
“Just days after the Silicon Valley
Cartel launched a multi-front at-
tack to chill free speech in America
by deplatforming President Don-
ald Trump and purging an un-
known number of conservatives,
Twitter has decided to suspend
my personal account without ex-
planation,” Greene said in a state-
ment. “The borderline monopo-
listic stranglehold a few Big Tech
companies have on the American
political discourse is out of control.
“If a conservative dares to utter
a political opinion that is deemed
Review Ways to Minimize Purchases
of Chinese Goods, Services
unapproved by the internet police,
they are now subject to false accu- CONTINUED FROM A1 not to disclose their cooperation.
sations of ‘inciting violence’ simply The Chinese regime “remains
for having a conservative view ... a range of threats posed by the free to coerce and coopt PRC man-
the censorship has got to stop.” Chinese Communist Party (CCP). ufacturers and services providers
Greene said that the posts U.S. officials have long sounded to target the United States Govern-
flagged by Twitter asserted the alarm that Chinese technology, ment for espionage and informa-
that Georgia Secretary of State both software and hardware, may tion advantage,” he said.
Brad Raffensperger and his chief be used by Beijing for spying, citing The adviser added that some
operating officer, Gabriel Ster- security laws that mandate com- of this activity could further the
ling, were responsible for alleged panies to cooperate with Chinese regime’s military goals under its
voter fraud in the state on Nov. 3 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) intelligence when asked; all firms “military-civil fusion” strategy,
and during the Jan. 5 Senate run- outside the U.S. Capitol in Washing- are ultimately beholden to the which seeks to harness private
off elections. ton on Jan. 4, 2021. CCP. Security concerns have been industry to spur China’s military
It came more than a week af- raised over a bevy of technologies, modernization.
ter Twitter suspended President violent threats. from Chinese-made drones to tele- Citing the Chinese regime’s ef-
Donald Trump’s account follow- Parler has since filed a lawsuit com equipment giant Huawei to forts to steal U.S. government per-
ing his remarks to supporters in against AWS to restore its service, social media apps such as TikTok. sonnel data and military plans,
Washington on Jan. 6, as the U.S. while arguing that AWS is engag- Federal agencies are al- O’Brien said the United States
Capitol was breached during a ing in monopolistic practices. The ready barred from buying goods needs to take “corresponding ac-
joint session of Congress. Later, suit noted that Twitter is a major or services from five Chinese firms tions to protect American inter-
Trump called on demonstrators client of AWS. including Huawei and surveillance ests.” In 2014, Chinese hackers
not to engage in violence and law- In her statement, Greene called equipment makers Hikvision and breached the U.S. Office of Person-
lessness. on Congress to protect free speech Dahua. nel Management, which resulted
Meanwhile, social media plat- on social media platforms. O’Brien referred to China’s 2017 in the theft of roughly 23 million
form Parler, which was champi- “Americans’ rights are being National Intelligence Law that “ob- records of federal employees.
oned by right-wing commentators, stripped and they aren’t being ligates individuals, organizations, “We must adjust our regulations
was suspended by Amazon Web heard by the people they elected and institutions to assist the PRC and policies and take other nec-
Services (AWS) earlier this month. to represent them,” she said. “And [People’s Republic of China] se- essary actions to reduce the risk
Amazon said the platform failed with Big Tech silencing them, they curity and intelligence services in of PRC technical and human es-
to moderate users’ content and literally can’t be heard. The cen- carrying out a wide variety of intel- pionage activities directed at the
asserted that some users made sorship has got to stop.” ligence work,” and requires them Federal Government,” he said.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 NATION | A3
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

Trump Lawyer Ousted as

Law School Professor
MATTHEW VADUM
A lawyer who represented the
Trump campaign in a legal
challenge to the Pennsylvania
election results was forced out
of his post last week as a law
professor at Chapman Uni-
versity in California for rep-
resenting President Donald
Trump as a client.
But what especially earned
the ire of left-wing activists at
the famous conservative legal
scholar’s school was that John
C. Eastman spoke alongside
the president at the Jan. 6
“Stop the Steal” rally in Wash-
ington. Violence began at the
U.S. Capitol during certifica-
tion of the presidential elec-
tion results while the rally was
still going on at the other end
of the Washington Mall. There
is no evidence that Eastman,
or Trump, did anything un-
lawful by speaking at the rally.
Nevertheless, Chapman
University President Daniele
Struppa promptly denounced
Eastman for engaging in
constitutionally protected
free speech.  Struppa ac-
cused  Eastman in a Jan. 8
statement of playing “a role
in the tragic events in Wash-
ington, D.C., that jeopardized
our democracy.”
“Eastman’s actions are
in direct opposition to the
values and beliefs of our in-
stitution. He has now put
Chapman in the position of
being publicly disparaged for
the actions of a single faculty
member, and for what many
call my failure to punish and
fire him,” Struppa wrote.
Struppa also said, “This
week has also demonstrated
that this country has a great
deal of work to do for social
justice and equity.”
Lisa Leitz, a professor of
peace studies at Chapman,
was one of 169 faculty mem-
bers who signed an open let-
ter addressed to the univer-
sity demanding Eastman be
fired. She told a local media
outlet that Eastman’s ap-
pearance at the rally and his
Trump campaign activities
have damaged the university.
“It associates us with a rac-
ist insurrection against the
U.S. democracy, and it under-
mines the credibility of every
faculty member,” she said.
On Jan. 13, Struppa an-
nounced  that a settlement
had been reached with East-
man and that he would be
leaving his post “effective
immediately.”
Struppa wrote that East-
man’s departure “closes
this challenging chapter for
Chapman and provides the
most immediate and certain
path forward for both the
Chapman community and
Dr. Eastman.”
“Chapman and Dr. East-
man have agreed not to en-
gage in legal actions of any
kind, including any claim
of defamation that may cur-
rently exist, as both parties
move forward,” he wrote.
“The university is not able
to comment further on the
specifics of confidential per-
sonnel matters and will make
no further statements on this
matter.”
In a statement the next day,
Eastman accused members
of the university’s board of
trustees of publishing “false,
defamatory statements about
me without even the courtesy
of contacting me beforehand
to discuss.”
“Had they bothered to
discuss the matter with me,
they could have learned that
every statement I have made Constitutional scholar John Eastman during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 4, 2013.
is backed up with documen-
tary and/or expert evidence, campaign. “when he threatened & pres- ocrats rammed through an
and solidly grounded in law,” In November, it pledged sured [Georgia Secretary of article of impeachment based
Eastman wrote. to spend a minimum of State Brad Raffensperger] to on the phone call, approving
Eastman’s lawsuit that drew $500,000 on advertising at- overturn the will of Georgia it 232–197 in the U.S. House
political heat was one of sev- tacking the law firms of Jones voters.” of Representatives without
eral legal challenges to elec- Day and Porter Wright Morris “How does that make you the customary committee
tion results in multiple states and Arthur for representing feel? Tell them,” the tweet hearings.
brought by Trump’s cam- Trump and the Pennsylvania states. Mitchell was forced out
paign and Trump supporters. Republican Party, a legal pub- In fact, Trump didn’t de- from her law firm, Foley and
With just over a week before lication reported. mand that Raffensperger, Lardner, where she was a
Inauguration Day, the  Su- “These firms are architect- a Republican, tamper with partner.
preme Court on Jan. 11 threw ing Donald Trump’s unwar- election results or threaten The New York State Bar
out a number of requests for ranted and dangerous attacks him. A leaked recording of Association is considering
expedited consideration of on our democracy. ... Their the Jan. 2 telephone call re- disbarring Trump lawyer
the claims. The case, known employees should resign in vealed that Trump merely and former New York Mayor
as Trump v. Boockvar, is still protest,” the group wrote in informed the state official of Rudy Giuliani. Democrats
pending in the high court. a tweet. how many votes he needed have also said they may press
The Lincoln Project doxxed to secure Georgia’s electoral to have pro-Trump attorneys
Intimidation the lawyers of both firms on votes. Sidney Powell and Lin Wood
Intimidating lawyers has be- Twitter, posting their Linke- “I just want to find 11,780 disciplined.
come an important weapon dIn pages and the names and votes,” Trump said on the le- Contacted by The Epoch
in the left’s arsenal in the contact information of attor- gally privileged call that was Times, Eastman commented
Trump era. neys helping Trump. an attempt to settle ongoing briefly.
For example, the Lincoln On Jan. 3, the Lincoln Proj- litigation. “I can’t talk about the agree-
Project, a super PAC founded ect urged Twitter users to Despite an absence of evi- ment other than what is in my
by Republicans opposed to call attorney Cleta Mitch- dence of “high crimes and statement and the Universi-
Trump, has targeted lawyers ell’s Milwaukee “home of- misdemeanors,” a constitu- ty’s statement,” he said.
for harassment for providing fice” because she was on the tional requirement for im- “But yes—I think there are
legal services to the Trump conference call with Trump peachment, on Jan. 13 Dem- reprisals.”

Gun Sales Surged in 2020 on Pandemic

Anxiety, Political Uncertainty
TOM OZIMEK
Gun sales in the United States set a
record in 2020, FBI statistics show,
in a year scarred by the COVID-19
pandemic and marked by social
and political tensions.
In 2020, federal authorities car-
ried out more than 39.5 million
firearms background checks,
which serve as a proxy for gun
sales.
Staff at the National Instant
Criminal Background Check
System (NICS) processed nearly 4
million checks in December, the
busiest month on record. Since it
was begun in 1998, the NICS sys-
tem has processed more than 300
million checks, including over 1.5
million denials.
But while the gun sales trend has
seen a steady rise since 2005, when
nearly 9 million checks were done,
the past year saw extraordinary ac-
tivity, with almost 40 percent more
checks compared to 2019.
While gun sales tend to spike
in election years, experts say new
trends were visible in 2020, a year
marked by pandemic anxiety, so-
cial unrest, and political uncer-
tainty.
Mark Hanish, Ammo’s president
of global sales and marketing, told
the Financial Times in an inter-
view ahead of the election that
part of the surge in gun sales was
among people who previously
didn’t own firearms, because of a
combination of the pandemic, the
election, and concern about “civil
unrest and uncertainty.”
“In past [election] run-ups, your
traditional folks who were already
gun owners would purchase more.
This is brand new people,” he told
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
the publication.
In a study conducted ahead of
the November election, research-
ers  found that concerns about
the pandemic drove a surge in gun
sales in California and increased
owners’ propensity to store their
firearms loaded and not locked.
People who bought firearms dur-
ing the outbreak cited concerns
over lawlessness, prisoner releases,
the government going too far, gov-
ernment collapse, and gun stores
closing, according to the study.
“Violence is a significant public
health problem that has become
entwined with the coronavirus
pandemic,” the researchers wrote,
noting that the virus itself and “ef-
forts to lessen its spread have com-
pounded this burden.” Lockdown-
related isolation, unemployment,
and a sense of hopelessness—fac-
tors the researchers said contrib-
ute to violence—all intensified
amid the outbreak.
Regardless, firearms manufac-
turers have benefited from the
windfall.
“There has never been a sus-
tained surge in firearm sales quite
like what we are in the midst of,”
Jim Curcuruto, research director
for the National Shooting Sports
Foundation, told the Financial
Times.
One of the factors that may have
played into the gun sales surge
ahead of the November election
was the fear of losing gun rights
in the event of a victory by Pres-
ident-elect Joe Biden, who has
called for a number of measures,
including prohibiting online gun
sales and incentivizing states to
introduce “red flag” laws and gun-
licensing regimes.
A man loads
a magazine
into a Sig
Sauer P320
compact semi-
auto pistol at
a gun shop in
Richmond,
Va., on Jan.
13, 2020.
US Prepares for One of the Most Unusual
Inaugurations in History
CONTINUED FROM A1
pandemic, “there’s no really great
precedent for that,” he told The Ep-
och Times.
But there are different examples
in history where things didn’t go
like clockwork and weren’t un-
eventful, he said.
According to historians, Abra-
ham Lincoln’s first inaugural was
the most stressful one, as the threat
of war hung heavy in the air. Six
weeks after his inaugural speech,
the Civil War, which claimed about
2 percent of the American popula-
tion, erupted.
“Certainly the country was in
worse shape and people were
more on edge in 1861 with Lincoln.
There’s no comparison to that,” Pi-
etrusza said.
While security ahead of the Civil
War was a big deal, measures that
have been put in place this year in
preparation for Biden’s inauguration
also are unprecedented, he noted.
This is the first time an inaugura-
tion has been declared a National
Special Security Event, not days
before, but a full week before the
actual event.
Authorities have taken aggressive
measures in the city amid growing
concerns that the civil unrest and
violence observed on Jan. 6 may
be repeated during inauguration
week. As many as 25,000 National
Guard members from all 50 states,
three territories, and the District of
Columbia will be stationed in the
nation’s capital.
The security measures have
brought the city to almost a com-
plete halt. More than a dozen Metro
stations around the National Mall
and U.S. Capitol building were
closed in the days before the inau-
guration; the streets of Washington
are eerily empty.
Buses, streetcars, and other forms
of public transportation, even bi-
cycles, have been shut down. Most
stores are closed, and many have
been boarded up.
President Donald Trump said
earlier that he wouldn’t attend
the swearing-in ceremony of Biden.
He made the announcement one
Security around the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 15, 2021.
day after Congress certified Biden
as the winner of the 2020 election.
Trump won’t escort Biden in a
motorcade to the Capitol, which is
another break from tradition. How-
ever, it isn’t the first time a president
has refused to attend the inaugura-
tion of his successor.
John Adams, the second president
of the United States, left Washing-
ton before Jefferson’s inauguration
in 1801.
The situation that year was very
divided, and in some ways similar
to 2021. Jefferson’s supporters char-
acterized his opponent, Adams, as
a lover of monarchy, while Adams’s
supporters pictured Jefferson as a
radical. Some say Adams didn’t
attend Jefferson’s inauguration to
prevent any violence at the event.
John Quincy Adams, the sixth
U.S. president, left Washington a
day before, declining to attend An-
drew Jackson’s ceremony in 1829.
Other presidents who didn’t watch
their successors take the oath of of-
fice were Martin Van Buren (1841)
and Andrew Johnson (1869).
It’s “unfortunate” that Trump isn’t
attending the ceremony, John Gizzi,
Newsmax’s chief political colum-
nist, told The Epoch Times.
“As someone who’s witnessed,
not only the transfer of power, but
the tradition of the incoming presi-
dent paying tribute to the outgoing
president, that is something that
surely is going to be missing,” he
said. “You miss not only the hand-
CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES
off, so to speak, but you also miss
the tradition of graciousness.”
For more than 200 years, the tra-
dition of inauguration parades,
celebrations, and displays of pa-
triotism have continued despite
scattered protests, including at
Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
“The pomp and pageantry are
as American as you can get,” Gizzi
said.
“Hearing the orchestras, seeing
the president and vice president
waving from the cars, sometimes
getting out and marching with the
crowd—all of that is something
that’s so richly American to the
point that it’s timeless. When that
is removed, it takes a little bit of the
mystique of the transition away,”
he added.
This year’s inauguration, accord-
ing to Gizzi, is most compared to
the fourth and final inauguration
of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was
sworn in on Jan. 20, 1945, at the
White House on the portico over-
looking the backyard.
Roosevelt preferred to hold a
simple ceremony because of World
War II, which claimed the lives of
hundreds of thousands of Ameri-
can citizens. That presidential in-
auguration lasted only 15 minutes.
This time, there won’t be a lot of
pomp because of the coronavirus,
Gizzi said.
Kay Rubacek from NTD TV
contributed to this report.
A4 | NATION
Trump Hasn’t Chosen Impeachment Defense
Team, Campaign Spokesman Says
ZACHARY STIEBER
A spokesman for President Don-
ald Trump’s campaign says the
president hasn’t yet decided who
will represent him during the up-
coming impeachment trial.
“President Trump has not yet
made a determination as to
which lawyer or law firm will
represent him for the disgrace-
ful attack on our Constitution
and democracy, known as the
‘impeachment hoax,’” J. Ho-
gan Gidley, a Trump campaign
spokesperson, said in a state-
ment on Jan. 17.
“We will keep you informed.”
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani
claimed on Jan. 16 that he was
going to help defend the presi-
dent during the trial.
“I’m involved right now ... that’s
what I’m working on,” Giuliani
told ABC News. Giuliani, who
was at the White House on Jan.
16, didn’t respond to an inquiry.
The House of Representatives
impeached Trump on Jan. 13;
lawmakers allege Trump incited
the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capi-
tol, in part through his speech
that day in Washington.
A timeline shows Trump was
still speaking to supporters
when protesters began breaking
through police lines some two
miles away, and the president
has defended his speech as “to-
Parler CEO: ‘No Indication’ Big
Tech’s Warnings Were ‘Deadly
Serious’ Until Last Minute
JACK PHILLIPS
Parler CEO John Matze, whose so-
cial media company is still reeling
after Amazon Web Services (AWS)
suspended the company’s ac-
count, said there was no indication
from Amazon, Apple, or Google
before they pulled their services.
After the violence at the Capitol
on Jan. 6, Apple and Google re-
moved the Parler app from their
respective Google Play and Apple
App Store apps. And on Jan. 11,
AWS removed Parler from its serv-
ers after giving the upstart “free
speech” social media platform a
short notice.
“It’s very, very interesting that
they all, on the exact same day
without previously indicating,
they never indicated to us that
there was any serious or material
problem with our app,” Matze told
Fox News in an interview on Jan.
17. “But on the same day, you know,
all on the same day, they send us
these very threatening notices.
“So we said, ‘OK, let’s call this.
Let’s see what you know, let’s see
what Google said. Oh, they actual-
ly never emailed us and we have no
TRUTH CAN BE BLOCKED BUT NEVER STOPPED
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President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from the Ellipse, near the White House, on Jan. 6, 2021.
tally appropriate.”
It isn’t clear when the impeach-
ment trial will start, since House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
is keeping secret for now when
the body will transmit the arti-
cle to the Senate. Even if it were
transmitted, Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
has declined to call the Senate
way to contact them. OK, so Google
is out. Apple ... we called our rep,
and they basically shrugged it off
and made no indication that this
was deadly serious, despite ... their
email being very serious.”
Matze alleged that “Amazon, as
usual, [was] basically saying, ‘Oh, I
never saw any material problems.
There’s no issues.’”
“You know, they played it off very
nonchalantly. And so we had still
even, you know, on the 8th and
the 9th, you know, we had no real
indication that this was, you know,
deadly serious,” he said.
Parler’s services are currently of-
fline until it finds a new hosting
service. On Jan. 17, a message from
Matze appeared on the Parler.com
front page, saying, “Hello world, is
this thing on?”
“Now seems like the right time
to remind you all—both lovers
and haters—why we started this
platform,” Matze wrote. “We be-
lieve privacy is paramount and
free speech essential, especially
on social media. Our aim has al-
ways been to provide a nonparti-
san public square where individu-
als can enjoy and exercise their
Pass it on, one friend at a time
I saw a Facebook ad that pulled me in. I do
not have a local paper that doesn’t read
like the whole thing is an opinion piece.
Having true factual reporting and an opinion
section for opinions is so refreshing. I enjoy
reading The Epoch Times shows me how a
newspaper should be and I’m grateful for it.
into session. The upper congres-
sional chamber is scheduled to
be on break until Jan. 19.
Trump is set to leave office on
Jan. 20, when President-elect Joe
Biden is sworn in.
Trump was impeached in 2019.
In a trial in 2020, he was repre-
sented by a number of lawyers,
including White House counsel
Parler founder and CEO John Matze speaks to The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek
on “American Thought Leaders” in 2019.
rights to both. We will resolve any
challenge before us and plan to
welcome all of you back soon. We
will not let civil discourse perish!”
Officials at Amazon didn’t im-
mediately respond to a request by
The Epoch Times for comment.
Parler last week filed a lawsuit
against AWS, demanding that the
firm reinstate the social media
company’s service while alleging
that AWS engaged in monopolistic
practices.
“This case is not about suppress-
ing speech or stifling viewpoints.
It is not about a conspiracy to
restrain trade,” AWS said in re-
sponse on Jan. 13.
“Instead, this case is about Par-
— ABBY LONDON
ReadEpoch.com/Friends
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow, and
Alan Dershowitz.
None have said so far that
they’ll represent Trump again.
Dershowitz told the Boston Her-
ald last week that he wouldn’t be
part of Trump’s defense team.
“I’m going to be defending him
in the court of public opinion,”
he said.
SCREENSHOT/THE EPOCH TIMES
ler’s demonstrated unwillingness
and inability to remove from the
servers of Amazon Web Services
(‘AWS’) content that threatens the
public safety, such as by inciting
and planning the rape, torture,
and assassination of named pub-
lic officials and private citizens.”
Before the Big Tech firms moved
against Parler, the social media
platform was the fastest-growing
one at the start of the year.
“We were No. 1 on the App Store.
We were above Facebook, we were
above TikTok, we were above You-
Tube, above Instagram, above
every app on the App Store in the
United States,” Matze said. “We
were No. 1 before we got the ax.”
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Biden White
House Will Make
Visitor Logs Public:
Spokeswoman
ZACHARY STIEBER
President-elect Joe Biden’s ad-
ministration will release White
House visitor logs to the public,
a spokeswoman says.
“For the sake of clarity—The
Biden–Harris Administration
will return to the policy of re-
leasing White House visitor logs.
Also true that visitors will be lim-
ited for some time because safety
during the pandemic is top pri-
ority,” Jen Psaki, the incoming
White House press secretary,
said in a Jan. 15 statement.
She issued the statement after
Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPil-
low, left the White House after
meeting with President Don-
ald Trump. Lindell was holding
mysterious notes that appeared
to include the words “martial law
if necessary.”
Psaki said she wouldn’t expect
Lindell to be at the White House
during the new administration.
She had earlier on Jan. 15 re-
fused to answer directly when
asked whether the Biden ad-
ministration would publish visi-
tor logs.
Trump’s administration an-
nounced in 2017 it would keep
the logs of who visited the White
House secret. The decision was
because of “the grave national se-
curity risks and privacy concerns
of the hundreds of thousands of
visitors annually,” a White House
spokesperson said at the time.
Presidents before President
Barack Obama had similar
policies.
Obama’s White House re-
leased visitor logs, even after a
court ruled that the logs could
be shielded from public view. The
court ruling came after watch-
dog Judicial Watch sought access
records from most of 2009. Judi-
cial Watch’s effort came because
that time period was before the
Obama administration released
logs. The Obama administration
records are still available online.
An appeals court last year af-
firmed that the Trump admin-
istration could keep the identi-
ties of visitors to both the White
House and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
resort in Florida shielded.
“Compelled disclosure of the
visitor logs would affect a presi-
dent’s ability to receive unfet-
tered, candid counsel from out-
side advisors and leaders, both
domestic and foreign, who were
aware that their visits to the White
House would be subject to public
disclosure,” the court stated.
In another case, the White
House settled with groups and
published some logs pertaining
to several federal agencies.
In a tweet in 2019, Psaki, a
White House spokesperson
during the Obama administra-
tion, said publishing logs was “a
headache at the time, but good
for democracy.”
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
55 People Have Died
in US After Receiving
COVID-19 Vaccines:
Reporting System
ZACHARY STIEBER
Fifty-five people in the United
States have died after receiving
a COVID-19 vaccine, according
to reports submitted to a federal
system.
Deaths have occurred among
people receiving both the Mod-
erna and the Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccines, according to the Vac-
cine Adverse Event Reporting Sys-
tem (VAERS), a federal database.
The system is passive, meaning
reports aren’t automatically col-
lected and must be filed. VAERS
reports can be filed by anyone,
including health care providers,
patients, or family members.
VAERS reports “often lack de-
tails and sometimes can have
information that contains er-
rors,” according to the reporting
system’s website. Still, reports on
VAERS represent “only a small
fraction of actual adverse events,”
the site states, although under-
reporting is believed to be less
common for serious events.
In some cases, patients died
within days of being vaccinated.
One man, a 66-year-old senior
home resident in Colorado, was
sleepy and stayed in bed the day
after getting Moderna’s vaccine.
Early the next morning, he “was
observed in bed lying still, pale,
eyes half open and foam coming
from mouth and unresponsive,”
the VAERS report states. “He was
not breathing and with no pulse.”
In another case, a 93-year-old
South Dakota man was injected
with the Pfizer-BioNTech vac-
cine on Jan. 4 around 11 a.m.
About two hours later, he said he
was tired and couldn’t continue
with the physical therapy he was
doing. He was taken back to his
room, where he said his legs felt
Black Lives Matter Utah Leader Disavows
Activist Charged in Capitol Breach
ZACHARY STIEBER
The leader of Black Lives Matter
Utah is disavowing the “racial jus-
tice” activist who was arrested for
participating in the breach of the
U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
He seems like
he’s kind of a loose
cannon.
Lex Scott, founder of Black
Lives Matter, Utah
“We do not want to be associated
with John Sullivan,” Lex Scott, the
founder of Black Lives Matter Utah,
told Fox News.
Sullivan was charged last week
with being on restricted grounds,
civil disorder, violent entry, and
disorderly conduct after he admit-
ted to being inside the Capitol while
protesters stormed the building.
Sullivan has repeatedly posted
online about Black Lives Matter,
John Earle Sullivan, in a mugshot.
heavy. Soon after, he stopped
breathing. A nurse declared a
do-not-resuscitate order.
While Moderna and Pfizer
didn’t immediately respond to
requests for comment,  Abigail
Capobianco, a spokeswoman for
the Food and Drug Administra-
tion (FDA), told The Epoch Times
via email, “Any reports of death
following the administration of
vaccines are promptly and rigor-
ously investigated jointly by FDA”
and the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention (CDC).
Officials at the agencies work
with health care providers to ob-
tain medical histories and clinical
follow-up information and con-
duct a clinical case review, she
said, adding, “It is important to
note that it is generally not possi-
ble to find out from VAERS data if a
vaccine caused an adverse event.”
Health officials on the VAERS
website caution that a report to
the system doesn’t prove a vac-
cine caused the adverse event;
proof that the event was caused
by the vaccine is not required in
order for the system to accept the
report.
In addition to the deaths, people
have reported 96 life-threatening
events following COVID-19 vacci-
nations, as well as 24 permanent
disabilities, 225 hospitalizations,
and 1,388 emergency room visits.
Neither the CDC nor the FDA
has a central database of reported
adverse events. Nancy Messonni-
er, director of the CDC’s National
Center for Immunization and Re-
spiratory Diseases, said on Jan. 6
that severe allergic reactions to
COVID-19 vaccines were happen-
ing at a rate of 11.1 per million vac-
cinations, compared to the rate of
1.3 per million flu shots.
As of Jan. 15, 10.5 million Ameri-
expressing support for the move-
ment. He founded a group called
Insurgence USA, whose website
says its founding was spurred by
the death of George Floyd, a ral-
lying point for Black Lives Matter,
and advocates against police bru-
tality, another point in alignment
with the so-called racial justice
movement. Sullivan is “one of the
few black men organizing for ra-
cial justice in Utah,” his personal
website says.
Scott sought to distance Black
Lives Matter from Sullivan. She
said he never joined the Utah chap-
ter, attended a meeting, or helped
with its mission.
“He seems like he’s kind of a loose
cannon. So we’ve just been distanc-
ing ourselves from him—but he’s
like this thorn in my side that won’t
go away,” she said. “John is a new
activist. He got here in June, be-
cause a lot of bandwagon trendy
people came in.”
Black Lives Matter was founded
in 2013 by self-described Marxist
activists who were angered by the
UTAH COUNTY JAIL
Health care workers administer a COVID-19 vaccination at Ritchie Valens Recreation Center in Pacoima, Calif., on Jan.
13, 2021.
Deaths have oc-
curred among
people receiving
both the Moderna
and the Pfizer-
BioNTech vac-
cines, according
to the Vaccine
Adverse Event Re-
porting System.
cans have received a COVID-19
vaccine. Federal health officials
have said that adverse events are
being investigated but that the
vaccines are still safe.
“These are safe and effective
vaccines. We have good data to
show that,” Messonnier said.
One death following a vaccina-
tion attracted attention earlier
this week. Gregory Michael, a
56-year-old medical worker at
Mount Sinai Medical Center in
Miami, was injected on Dec. 18,
2020. Sixteen days later, he died.
Michael’s wife Heidi Neckel-
mann said on Facebook that her
husband was “very healthy” be-
acquittal of George Zimmerman in
the killing of black teenager Tray-
von Martin. Hundreds of Black
Lives Matter demonstrations have
involved violence.
Local chapters are run separately
from the national movement. Scott
said the Utah chapter makes mem-
bers sign contracts promising not to
incite violence or destroy property.
Video footage from the Capitol
showed Sullivan calling to burn
the Capitol down as he entered
the building with dozens of others
on Jan. 6. He told The Epoch Times
that he took steps to blend in with
protesters supporting President
Donald Trump because he has a
reputation of being an anti-fascist,
or a member of the far-left, anar-
cho-communist network Antifa.
Black Lives Matter and Antifa often
participate in events together.
Antifa activists also have at-
tempted to distance themselves
from Sullivan, calling him a “likely
infiltrator.”
Sullivan on Jan. 6 also urged U.S.
Capitol Police officers to leave their
posts, telling them they would be
hurt if they didn’t. He was near
Ashli Babbitt, a pro-Trump Air
Force veteran, when she was shot
dead while trying to climb into the
Speaker’s Lobby.
Sullivan, who was wearing a
ballistic vest and a gas mask and
entered the Capitol through a
broken window, described him-
self as armed at one point during
the mayhem, according to court
filings. He has claimed to be an
independent journalist, although
he lacked press credentials, the FBI
said. Sullivan was released without
bail on Jan. 15.
Petr Svab contributed
to this report.
fore being vaccinated. She said he
was admitted to an intensive care
unit with a diagnosis of acute id-
iopathic thrombocytopenic pur-
pura, a blood disorder, allegedly
caused by a reaction to the vac-
cine. He eventually died.
“He was a pro-vaccine advo-
cate, that is why he got it himself,”
Neckelmann wrote. “I believe that
people should be aware that side
effects can happen, that it is not
good for everyone, and in this
case destroyed a beautiful life, a
perfect family, and has affected so
many people in the community.
Do not let his death be in vain,
please save more lives by making
this information news.”
Pfizer told news outlets in a
statement that no evidence cur-
rently shows a link between that
death and its vaccine.
“Pfizer and BioNTech are aware
of the death of a health care pro-
fessional 16 days after receiving
a first dose of BNT162b2,” Pfizer
said in a statement. “It is a highly
unusual clinical case of severe
thrombocytopenia, a condition
that decreases the body’s ability
to clot blood and stop internal
bleeding.”
“We are actively investigating
MATT MCCLAIN-POOL/GETTY IMAGES
Rep. Correa Announces
COVID-19 Diagnosis,
Says He’ll Miss Inauguration
ZACHARY STIEBER
Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) has
tested positive for COVID-19,
and will miss President-elect Joe
Biden’s inauguration.
Correa, 62, tested positive on
Jan. 15, nine days after he and
other legislators had gathered in
Washington for a joint session of
Congress to count electoral votes.
He didn’t shelter in place with
colleagues on Jan. 6 when pro-
testers stormed the U.S. Capitol;
his office said he stayed outside
to help the U.S. Capitol Police.
The test was routine. It came
nearly a month after Correa had
received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vac-
cine.
“In my community, everyone
knows someone affected. CO-
VID-19 has hit us hard, and for
months, families have struggled
while our community attempts
to contain the virus. Even in
quarantine, I will continue to
work for them and ensure my
struggling neighbors in Central
Orange County have the assis-
tance they need to survive,” Cor-
NATION | A5
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP PHOTO
this case, but we don’t believe at
this time that there is any direct
connection to the vaccine,” the
company said. “There have been
no related safety signals identi-
fied in our clinical trials, the post-
marketing experience thus far, or
with the mRNA vaccine platform.
To date, millions of people have
been vaccinated and we are close-
ly monitoring all adverse events in
individuals receiving our vaccine.
It is important to note that serious
adverse events, including deaths
that are unrelated to the vaccine,
are unfortunately likely to occur
at a similar rate as they would in
the general population.”
A Pfizer spokesperson told The
Epoch Times via email earlier this
month that the company “closely
monitor[s] all reports following
vaccination.” Moderna hasn’t re-
sponded to requests for comment
on its involvement in monitoring
serious adverse events in people
who get its vaccine.
The updated VAERS data came
after Norway changed its COV-
ID-19 vaccination guide to direct
officials not to give “very frail”
people the vaccines, citing 13
deaths among people who were
vaccinated.
Rep. Lou
Correa
(D-Calif.)
during a House
Judiciary
Committee
hearing on
Capitol Hill in
Washington
on July
28, 2020.
rea said in a statement.
Because Correa entered isola-
tion, he won’t be able to attend
Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
“While this diagnosis will
prevent me from attending the
much-anticipated inauguration
of President-elect Joe Biden, I
look forward to working with
the new administration to unite
our country and help the mil-
lions of people devastated by
the pandemic. Americans need
help, and that help is finally on
the way,” he said.
Dozens of members of Con-
gress have tested positive for
COVID-19 over the past year; all
have recovered or are currently
in quarantine.
Rep.-elect Luke Letlow (R-La.),
who tested positive, died from a
heart attack that a doctor said
was likely related to the disease.
Correa is the fifth House mem-
ber to test positive since Jan. 6.
The others were Reps. Pramila
Jayapal (D-Wash.), Brad Schnei-
der (D-Ill.), Bonnie Watson Cole-
man (D-N.J.), and Chuck Fleis-
chmann (R-Tenn.).
A6 | NATION
Twitter Says Chinese Regime Tweets Denying Forced
Labor in Xinjiang Don’t Violate Rules
TOM OZIMEK
A Twitter spokesperson told Fox
News on Jan. 14 that recent tweets
by China’s communist regime de-
nying the existence of forced labor
in Xinjiang Province and accus-
ing the United States of making up
lies about the documented human
rights violations there don’t break
the social media platform’s rules.
Chinese foreign ministry spokes-
person Hua Chunying posted a se-
ries of tweets on Jan. 14, claiming
that forced labor “is the biggest lie
of the century aimed to restrict and
suppress the relevant Chinese au-
thorities and companies and con-
tain China’s development.”
But according to widespread in-
vestigative reporting, China’s com-
munist authorities have ramped
up their suppression of ethnic
Uyghur minorities in the Xinji-
ang region. This includes mass
internment of around 1 million
people, compulsory reeducation
programs, highly intrusive human
and digital surveillance, religious
suppression, enforced sterilization
of women, and forced labor.
An extensive investigation by The
Associated Press, which included
interviews with some 30 former
detainees, found that China’s
communist officials subjected
hundreds of thousands of Uyghur
women to pregnancy checks and
forced them to undergo steriliza-
tion procedures and abortions.
The Chinese regime has rejected
the accusations, claiming that the
camps are vocational training cen-
ters and that the associated pro-
grams are meant to curb religious
extremism and prevent terrorism.
One of Chunying’s tweets also
accused the United States of mak-
ing up lies and taking “egregious
actions” that violate international
trade rules and “damage the inter-
ests of companies and consumers
all over the world including those
in the U.S.”
A propaganda video with cheer-
ful music accompanied Chu-
nying’s tweets, featuring smiling
Biden Priorities for First 10 Days in Office
Include ‘Systemic Racism,’ ‘Climate Crisis’
IVAN PENTCHOUKOV
A preview of the executive ac-
tions that President-elect Joe
Biden will take shortly after as-
suming the presidency shows
that “the racial equity crisis” and
the “climate crisis” are among his
top four priorities for the first 10
days in office.
“We face four overlapping
and compounding crises: the
COVID-19 crisis, the resulting
economic crisis, the climate cri-
sis, and a racial equity crisis,”
according to a Jan. 16 memo by
incoming White House chief of
staff Ron Klain.
“All of these crises demand ur-
gent action.”
Klain noted that the executive
actions will be “bold” but said,
“the legal theory behind them is
well-founded.”
In his first full week in office,
Biden “will take significant early
actions to advance equity and
support communities of color
and other underserved commu-
nities,” Klain said. Biden will also
move “to address the climate cri-
sis with the urgency the science
demands.”
Klain says congressional action
will be necessary to deliver on the
president-elect’s agenda and cit-
ed an immigration bill that Biden
will send to Congress on his first
day in office.
Last week, Biden introduced
his legislative priorities for tack-
ling the CCP virus pandemic.
The proposed legislation in-
cludes an apparently unrelated
mandate for a $15 federal mini-
mum wage, which Congress
has estimated will wipe out an
workers at factories in Xinjiang,
speaking about how “a lot of our
living habits have been changed
and improved.”
The video is characteristic of the
type of propaganda materials pro-
duced by the Chinese regime in
seeking to whitewash its repres-
sive actions in Xinjiang. The BBC
reported on such misinformation
efforts after being granted stage-
managed access to several intern-
ment camps in 2019.
“We were being taken into places
that appeared to have been care-
fully spruced up—with satellite im-
ages revealing that much of the se-
curity infrastructure had recently
been removed,” BBC reporter John
Sudworth wrote. He described
detainees, with “smiles fixed in
place,” speaking of volunteering to
have their “thoughts transformed”
and performing choreographed
music and dance routines meant to
impress on journalists that inmates
previously “infected by extremism”
were being “reborn” thanks to their
internment.
A Twitter spokesperson told Fox
News that China’s foreign ministry
tweets didn’t violate the company’s
rules.
Twitter did not respond to a re-
quest for comment by press time.
Twitter recently removed  a
post by the Chinese Embassy in
Washington claiming that Uyghur
women have been de-radicalized,
“emancipated” from extremism,
and were no longer “baby-making
machines.” The post linked to an
article by state mouthpiece China
Daily, denying allegations of forced
sterilization in Xinjiang.
Twitter said the post “violated the
Twitter rules” but didn’t provide
details.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
criticized the Chinese Embassy
tweet that claimed Uyghur women
were “emancipated.”
“Uyghur women are not ‘eman-
cipated’ by forced abortions and
sterilizations,” Pompeo wrote in
his tweet.
Twitter’s conduct in restricting
President-elect Joe Biden speaks during an announcement at The Queen in
Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 16, 2021.
Biden will ‘will
take significant
early actions to ad-
vance equity and
support communi-
ties of color.’
estimated 1.3 million jobs. The
president-elect plans to intro-
duce his legislative priorities for
a CCP virus recovery bill in the
coming weeks.
On Inauguration Day, Biden
will take roughly a dozen execu-
tive actions, including an order
for extending a pause of federal
student loan payments, rejoin-
ing the Paris climate accord,
and canceling President Donald
Trump’s ban on travel from na-
tions posing a terror threat to the
United States.
Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in
the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, on Sept. 4, 2018.
A sign hangs at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Jan. 11, 2021.
content on its platform has been
in the spotlight for years, including
concerns about what some argue
is a double standard.
Recently, Twitter shut down
the account of President Donald
Trump in the wake of the Capitol
breach last week, sparking al-
legations of suppression of free
speech and exacerbating partisan
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
On the same day, the president-
elect will impose a mask man-
date on federal property and
interstate travel. The mandate is
part of Biden’s “100 Day Mask-
ing Challenge,” according to the
memo. The list of actions on the
first day also includes an exten-
sion of nationwide restrictions on
evictions and foreclosures.
On Jan. 21, Biden’s second day
in office, the president-elect “will
sign a number of executive ac-
tions to move aggressively to
change the course of the CO-
VID-19 crisis and safely reopen
schools and businesses, includ-
ing by taking action to mitigate
spread through expanding test-
ing, protecting workers, and
establishing clear public health
standards,” the memo states.
Klain noted that the list of ac-
tions isn’t exhaustive, with more
actions expected to be added to
the to-do list in the coming days.
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
NOAH BERGER/AP PHOTO
divides. The company alleged that
Trump had incited violence.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, in a
tweet on Jan. 13, acknowledged
that the company’s decision to
remove Trump was divisive and
set a dangerous precedent.
“Having to take these actions
fragment [sic] the public conver-
sation. They divide us. They limit
Census Bureau: Citizenship Data Won’t Be
Released Until After Trump Leaves Office
ZACHARY STIEBER
Data on the citizenship status of
U.S. census respondents won’t be
finalized or released until after
President Donald Trump leaves
office, putting his push to exclude
illegal immigrants from appor-
tionment in jeopardy, the Census
Bureau says.
Trump in 2019 ordered executive
agencies to share with the bureau
information about U.S. citizens and
noncitizens, after an attempt to add
a citizenship question back to the
census was stymied by litigation.
In a separate order last year, the
president ordered the government
to exclude illegal aliens from the
calculations used to apportion
congressional seats.
But the Census Bureau failed to
meet its statutory deadline for sub-
mitting the apportionment data,
and on Jan. 16 said it wouldn’t
have the information on citizen-
ship ready before President-elect
Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
Reports, estimates, or data re-
lating to Trump’s two executive
orders “will not be finalized, re-
ported or publicly disclosed prior
to the change of Administration
on January 20, 2021,” the bureau
stated.
It also said that neither the Cen-
sus Bureau nor the Department of
Commerce will report or publicly
disclose any population counts or
estimates relating to the popula-
tion as of April 1, 2020, “including
counts or estimates of the illegal
alien/undocumented immigrant
population, prior to the change of
Administration.”
Biden opposes most of Trump’s
immigration agenda, including
the effort to exclude illegal immi-
grants from apportionment. That
THOMAS PETER/REUTERS/FILE PHOTO
the potential for clarification, re-
demption, and learning. And sets
a precedent I feel is dangerous: the
power an individual or corpora-
tion has over a part of the global
public conversation,” Dorsey wrote
on Twitter.
“I do not celebrate or feel pride
in our having to ban [Trump] from
Twitter, or how we got here. After
a clear warning we’d take this ac-
tion, we made a decision with the
best information we had based on
threats to physical safety both on
and off Twitter. Was this correct?
“I believe this was the right de-
cision for Twitter. We faced an
extraordinary and untenable cir-
cumstance, forcing us to focus all
of our actions on public safety.
Offline harm as a result of online
speech is demonstrably real, and
what drives our policy and en-
forcement above all.”
Twitter’s move to ban Trump
was met with criticism from world
leaders, including the president of
France and the chancellor of Ger-
many.
means the data may never see the
light of day.
The bureau attributed the delay
in reporting the data to a Jan. 15
court order in a lawsuit brought by
the National Urban League. The
order stipulated a 21-day stay. But
Department of Justice attorneys
told the court in a filing in the case
before the order that the bureau
wouldn’t be in a position to final-
ize the apportionment data or citi-
zenship information “until many
weeks after January 20.”
“To the extent such population
counts or estimates are developed
after the change of Administra-
tion but prior to the end of the
stay, Defendants would provide
Plaintiffs with 7 days’ detailed no-
tice prior to reporting or publicly
disclosing them,” the bureau said.
The White House hasn’t imme-
diately responded to requests for
comment.
Trump’s attempt to gather in-
formation on citizenship and
exclude illegal immigrants from
apportionment data was widely
opposed by Democrats, who
feared losing seats in the House of
Representatives and, subsequent-
ly, Electoral College votes, if aliens
weren’t counted. A flurry of litiga-
tion tried to prevent the gathering
and exclusion from happening,
but the Supreme Court ruled last
month that what the Trump ad-
ministration was doing was legal.
Since then, the bureau an-
nounced that it wouldn’t meet the
Dec. 31, 2020, statutory deadline
for handing in numbers used to
apportion congressional seats—it
couldn’t give a date by which the
numbers would be ready—and the
Census Bureau director ordered
workers to stop complying with
Trump’s citizenship mandate.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 NATION | A7

Facebook Temporarily Bans Ads for Gun Accessories,

Protective Equipment
NOAH BERGER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

JANITA KAN policies, such as blocking

Facebook says that it’s
temporarily banning ads
that promote firearm acces-
sories and protective gear
in the United States until
after President-elect Joe
Biden’s inauguration.
Facebook has
been ramping up
its content polic-
ing and other
measures in re-
cent days leading
up to Biden’s inau-
guration.
In an update, the plat-
form’s policymakers said
the move, which will last
through Jan. 22, was made
“out of an abundance of
caution.” The company
didn’t respond to a request
for comment by press time.
Facebook said it has al-
ready banned ads for weap-
ons, ammunition, and fire-
arms enhancements such
as silencers, and the move
expands the ban for acces-
sories such as gun safes,
vests, and gun holsters in
the United States.
The social media platform
has been ramping up its
content policing and other
An employee in Facebook’s “War Room,” during a media demonstration in Menlo Park, Calif., on Oct. 17, 2018.
measures in recent days
leading up to Biden’s inau-
guration.
Last week, the platform
said  it was removing all
content that contained the
phrase “stop the steal.” The
phrase  was used by sup-
porters of President Don-
ald Trump to question the
integrity of the 2020 general
election. Trump supporters
held multiple rallies across
the country under the “Stop
the Steal” slogan following
the Nov. 3 election.
The social media compa-
ny said that the move is an
attempt to remove content
that “could incite further
violence during these next
few weeks.” Content will be
removed under the compa-
ny’s “Coordinating Harm”
policy.
The company said on Jan.
15 that it was also tracking
signals of violence and oth-
er threats in Washington, as
well as in states across the
country.
“In the lead up to Inaugu-
ration Day, we have imple-
mented a series of addi-
tional measures to continue
preventing attempts to use
our services for violence,”
Facebook officials said in a
statement.
The platform has also
paused ongoing political
advertising and has imple-
mented specific measures
to reduce opportunities
for abuse in groups. These
measures include: block-
ing the creation of any new
Facebook events that occur
in close proximity to  the
White House, the U.S. Capi-
tol building, and any state
capitol buildings through
Inauguration Day; and re-
stricting features for users
in the United States based
on repeat violations of its
accounts from creating live
videos or events.
Facebook’s announce-
ments come as many Big
Tech companies ramp up
efforts to police content that
they claim could lead to
potential harm offline. The
companies’ latest round of
content policing was an-
nounced in response to the
civil unrest and acts of vio-
lence at the U.S. Capitol on
Jan. 6 that marred other-
wise peaceful protests.
Much of the modera-
tion has impacted con-
servatives, people who
are deemed supporters of
President Donald Trump,
and the president him-
self. Trump has since been
suspended on most main-
stream social media plat-
forms following the Capitol
breach.
The targeted moderation
by Facebook, Twitter, and
others have raised con-
cerns  over First Amend-
ment rights and the lack
of checks and balances on
decisions made by these Big
Tech companies. Efforts to
limit or eliminate liability
protections under Section
230 of the 1996 Commu-
nications Decency Act for
tech companies that have
engaged in censoring or
political conduct have been
heavily discussed in the
past year.

UK Strain of CCP Virus Found in Los Angeles,
as California Officials Report 700 Daily Deaths
JACK PHILLIPS
Public health officials in Los An-
geles County said that the UK
COVID-19 strain discovered late
last year was found in the county,
warning that a surge of the CCP
virus will continue into the near
future at the very least.
The B.1.1.7 strain of the CCP
virus—a novel coronavirus that
emerged in Wuhan, China, in
2019—was first found in the UK
several months ago, and officials
believe it’s more contagious. How-
ever, officials have said that there
are no signs suggesting that it’s
more deadly, although the new
variant could hamper efforts to
curb the spread of the virus.
Los Angeles County on Jan. 16
surpassed 1 million overall CCP
virus cases, officials said.
“The presence of the U.K. vari-
ant in Los Angeles County is trou-
bling, as our healthcare system is
already severely strained with
more than 7,500 people currently
hospitalized,” Barbara Ferrer,
county public health director, said
in a statement.
Last week, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) said the more contagious
UK strain has been detected in at
least 10 states so far, including New
York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
The B.1.1.7 variant was previously
discovered in San Diego and San
Bernardino counties in California.
It was first reported by state au-
thorities in a rural area in Colo-
rado, hours away from Denver. Of-
ficials said in December—when it
was found—that the patient hadn’t
traveled.
Federal health officials warned
that models have shown that the
B.1.1.7 strain of the virus has the
potential to increase “the U.S. pan-
demic trajectory in the coming
months” and “warrants universal
and increased compliance with
mitigation strategies, including
distancing and masking.”
As a result, “our community is
bearing the brunt of the winter
surge, experiencing huge num-
bers of cases, hospitalizations and
deaths, five-times what we expe-
Nurses attend to a CCP virus patient in the intensive care unit at Providence
Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, Calif., on Dec. 18, 2020.
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer speaks at a press
conference in Los Angeles on March 4, 2020.
rienced over the summer,” Ferrer
stated on Jan. 16.
“This more contagious variant
makes it easier for infections to
spread at worksites, at stores, and
in our homes. We are in the midst
of a public health emergency, so
please do everything you can to
protect yourselves and those you
love.”
Ferrer said that people who can
work from home should do so, add-
ing that there should be no “crowd-
ing anywhere.”
“Wash your hands every hour
and wipe down frequently touched
APU GOMES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ROBYN BECK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
surfaces multiple times a day. We
need to use the tools at hand to
keep each other from becoming
infected,” she stated.
California as a whole is strug-
gling with the CCP virus. On Jan.
15, officials told the San Francisco
Chronicle that the Golden State re-
corded 700 deaths from the virus
in one day, the highest since the
start of the pandemic.
Officials noted that vaccination
efforts appear to be falling behind,
and only about a third of doses allo-
cated to the state have been used so
far, according to the SF Chronicle.
GOP Rep. Meijer Says Impeachment
Vote May Have Ended His Career
GQ PAN
Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) said on
Jan. 17 that joining with nine House
Republicans in voting to impeach
President Donald Trump may have
ended his political future.
In an interview on ABC News’
“This Week,” Meijer, a first-term
Republican, told host George
Stephanopoulos said he doesn’t
regret it.
“I may very well have [ended my
career], but I think it’s also im-
portant that we have elected lead-
ers who are not thinking solely
about what’s in their individual
self-interest, not what is going to
be politically expedient, but what
we actually need for our country,”
Meijer said.
“The president brought some
necessary energy. He brought
some necessary ideas. He shook
the tree. He was a change agent,”
he said of Trump. “The challenge
was he didn’t know when to stop,
and he didn’t draw a line, and to
me, political violence is the line
that we must draw.”
Meijer’s comments came after
Jason Miller, chief strategist for
the Trump campaign, warned last
week that Republicans who back
the impeachment of Trump would
likely be voted out of office.
“If you’re a Republican House
member, or you’re a Republican
senator, I don’t know how else to
say this: you are probably self-se-
lecting to end your political future
if you vote for the impeachment
of President Trump,” Miller said
Then-Republican congressional candidate Peter Meijer speaks at a cam-
paign event in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 14, 2020.
on Steve Bannon’s “War Room”
podcast.
Elected officials, he said, “un-
derstand their own elections,”
and Trump voters “will hold any-
one who votes for impeachment
accountable.”
Before House members voted
on the article of impeachment
charging Trump with “inciting
violence,” Deputy Minority Whip
Tom Cole (R-Okla.), urged his col-
leagues not to join the Democratic-
led effort, warning that it would
only further divide the country.
“I can think of no action the
House can take that is more likely
to further divide the American
people than the action we are
contemplating today,” he said.
“Emotions are clearly running
high, and political divisions have
never been more apparent in my
lifetime. We desperately need to
seek a path toward healing for the
American people.”
Cole also warned about the dan-
ger of rushing the impeachment
proceedings without necessary
due-process safeguards.
“In moving ahead now, the
majority is foregoing an investi-
gation, committee hearings, fact
witnesses, and expert witnesses,”
Cole said. “They’re foregoing an
opportunity for members to ask
questions, to review the evidence,
to hear new pieces of evidence,
and to consult with experts on im-
peachment and the constitution.
And they’re forgoing an opportu-
nity for the president, as accused,
to be heard.”
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A8 | NATION
Washington
Highly Militarized
Ahead of Biden’s
Inauguration
JANITA KAN
Fences with coiled barbed wire,
security checkpoints, barricades,
and heavily armed guards are
what you would expect in a mili-
tary encampment for a warzone,
not in downtown Washington.
But these are only some of the
measures that have been put in
place in preparation for Presi-
dent-elect Joe Biden’s inaugura-
tion next week.
Federal authorities have said
they’re tracking an “extensive”
amount of “concerning online
chatter” about potential threats
to the inauguration, including
armed protests, potential threats
linked to the Capitol breach, and
other types of potential threats.
The fortification of the city, par-
ticularly around the White House
and U.S. Capitol, began over the
past few days and is expected to
ramp up nearing Jan. 20.
Videos by reporters, workers,
and residents in the area show
street closures, workers put-
ting up miles of barricades and
fencing, shops and offices being
boarded up, and an increased
military presence. Military ve-
hicles can be seen parked on
downtown streets, and armed
guards are checking identifica-
tion for people leaving and enter-
ing the city.
The locked-down city has been
separated into “Green” and “Red”
zones as part of the 2021 Presi-
dential Inaugural Subcommit-
tees’ transportation plan. The
U.S. Secret Service has posted a
list of all the street closures on its
website, many of which began at
6 a.m. on Jan. 16, and are sched-
uled to end at 6 a.m. on Jan. 21. A
number of bridges and interstate
highways into Washington are
also scheduled to close at 6 a.m.
on Jan. 19.
As many as 25,000  National
Guard  members  from all 50
states, three territories, and the
District of Columbia will be sta-
tioned in the city next week, the
U.S. Army confirmed, which is an
increase of 5,000 from numbers
earlier this week. The number of
guardsmen sent to Washington
exceeds the number of U.S. forces
in Afghanistan, which has been
reduced to 2,500, the Pentagon
said on Jan. 15.
National Guardsmen were
given the authorization to be
armed on Jan. 12 in order to
support law enforcement in the
Capitol and the city, according
to a statement by the D.C. Na-
tional Guard. The authorization
came after a request by federal
authorities. Troops have been on
24-hour watch in the U.S. Capi-
tol, and off-duty troops have been
Woman Who Allegedly Posed With Pelosi’s
Nameplate During Capitol Breach Is Charged
ZACHARY STIEBER
The woman who was spotted
holding House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) nameplate dur-
ing the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S.
Capitol has been charged.
Emily Hernandez was seen
inside the Capitol holding the
nameplate, according to an im-
age published in a court filing
from the FBI.
At least three tipsters contacted
the bureau after seeing the image
broadcast by a news outlet. One
recognized Hernandez through
their association on social media;
a high school friend of Hernandez
confirmed the woman’s identity
to the FBI.
A different photo showed a
photographed sleeping in build-
ing hallways.
The increased number of Na-
tional Guard members will be
there to supplement the already
ramped-up forces  from the
FBI, U.S. Secret Service, Depart-
ment of Homeland Security, U.S.
Capitol Police, and D.C.’s Metro-
politan Police Department.
Before resigning from office,
former Acting Department of
Homeland Security Secretary
Chad Wolf said in a statement
on Jan. 11 that he had instructed
the U.S. Secret service to begin
National Special Security Event
operations for the inauguration
from Jan. 13.
The  Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) has also
increased its security measures
ahead of the inauguration. TSA
Administrator  David Peko-
ske said in a statement that the
agency is currently processing
hundreds of names with law
enforcement agencies as part of
a risk assessment. The agency
will also add additional layers
of security at all three D.C.-area
airports.
“Those security layers include
more law enforcement and
explosives detection canine
teams, random gate screening,
increased number of Federal Air
Marshals on certain flights, and
additional Visible Intermodal
Prevention and Response teams
to provide greater security pres-
ence at certain rail transporta-
tion hubs,” Pekoske said.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and
security officials have also urged
Americans to stay home to watch
the inauguration virtually.
“We know this is the right re-
quest for our public safety and
our public health,” she said on
Jan. 15.
D.C. officials estimate the in-
auguration will cost roughly
$45 million due to the increased
security measures. So far, Con-
gress has approved $34.9 million,
Christopher Rodriguez, director
of D.C.’s Homeland Security and
Emergency Management Agen-
cy, said in a press conference on
Jan. 15.
Rodriguez said the amount
was keeping in mind deficits that
the district had run “because of
the heightened number of first
amendment demonstrations”
seen throughout 2020.
In 2017, security for President
Donald Trump’s inauguration
cost around $27 million, ac-
cording to Rodriguez—around
$7 million more than the $19.995
million approved by Congress.
Civil Liberties
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) has criti-
woman the FBI says is Hernan-
dez outside the Capitol on Jan.
6, holding the nameplate and an
American flag.
FBI agents found that Hernan-
dez posted a video to her Snap-
chat showing her inside the
Capitol and holding the name-
plate. They also received photos
appearing to show Hernandez at
the scene.
The nameplate is estimated to
cost $870 to replace.
Hernandez was hit with five
charges on Jan. 15, including il-
legally entering the Capitol, dis-
orderly conduct, and stealing a
thing of value of the United States.
She faces jail time if convicted.
Hernandez couldn’t be reached
for comment; she hasn’t retained
Virginia National Guard soldiers are issued their M4 rifles and live ammunition on the east front of the U.S. Capitol in
Washington on Jan. 17, 2021.
Fences block off the South Lawn of the White House on Jan. 16, 2021.
The heightened
security in the
nation’s capital
is a telltale sign
that authorities
and officials are
extremely worried
that the civil un-
rest and violence
observed on Jan. 6
may repeat
next week.
a lawyer, according to informa-
tion about the case from the U.S.
District Court for the District of
Columbia.
Hernandez is one of five women
to be charged with participating
in the Capitol breach, accord-
ing to court records.  Authorities
have arrested over 125 people
and have identified more than
200 suspects.
Pelosi told reporters last week
that the Capitol breach was “an
armed insurrection against
America.” She led the House in
impeaching President Donald
Trump over claims that he in-
cited the breach. Trump and his
supporters have defended the
president, noting that he on Jan.
6 called for protesters to demon-
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
cized the way the government
and authorities have reacted to
the events on Jan. 6, noting that
civil liberties of the individual
can be lost “very quickly” dur-
ing times of crisis.
“You know government. They
either underreact or overreact. So
I think there was too little secu-
rity obviously last week, and now
we’re going to become a milita-
rized zone,” Paul said in an inter-
view with Fox News’ “Ingraham
Angle.”
“And they’re checking con-
gressmen as they come in to see
if they have a sharp pencil or a
sharp pen. So, it’s gotten ridicu-
lous. And so we’ll see what hap-
pens, and whether it’s perma-
nent. But most people who write
about civil liberties say that in
times of war, or in times of stress,
or in times of crisis, you lose your
civil liberties very quickly.”
He also noted that once Ameri-
can’s civil liberties are lost, “it’s
very difficult to get them back.”
“Because government, once it
grows large, never wants to give
up on this. But yes, we have to
resist this. And we have to have
security, obviously. But I think
living in a wartime state with ...
we have troops in the Capitol,
A woman identified by the FBI as Emily Hernandez holds a nameplate taken
from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on
Jan. 6, 2021.
strate peacefully.
A Colorado man, meanwhile,
was charged last week after au-
thorities say he threatened to kill
Pelosi.
SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES
they’re staying in the Capitol.
They’re platooning and camping
in the Capitol. So I understand
that last week, we weren’t pre-
pared, and that was a real prob-
lem, and I regret everything that
happened last week with that, but
going forward, this week, I think
we—there’s a danger of overre-
acting,” he said.
Others are worried that the D.C.
lockdown could hurt businesses
already struggling due to pan-
demic lockdowns.
Vice President Mike Pence dur-
ing a security briefing on Jan. 14
said the Trump administration
is committed to ensuring a safe
transition of power to Biden.
“We all lived through that day—
January 6. And as the president
made clear yesterday, we are
committed to an orderly transi-
tion and to a safe inauguration.
The American people deserve
nothing less,” Pence said.
The U.S. Capitol Police on Jan.
16 announced that it had ar-
rested a man at an inaugural
security checkpoint on Jan. 15
who had presented a non-gov-
ernment-issued credential. The
man, Wesley Allen Beeler, 31, of
Virginia, was carrying a hand-
gun in plain sight in his vehicle,
and a search of his car revealed
numerous rounds of ammuni-
tion, authorities said.
He’s been charged with  car-
rying a pistol without a license,
possession of an unregistered
firearm, and possession of un-
registered ammunition.
Beeler told media following
his release on Jan. 16 that he
was working as hired security in
downtown Washington, accord-
ing to The Washington Post. He
said he had forgotten that his fire-
arm was in his truck when he left
home in Virginia, where he has a
license to carry.
“I pulled up to a checkpoint af-
ter getting lost in D.C. because
I’m a country boy,” he told the
newspaper. “I showed them the
inauguration badge that was
given to me.”
FBI
Cleveland Meredith drove to
Washington with guns and am-
munition, authorities said. He
was ordered held without bond,
pending trial.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
Ant Group’s Scuttled
IPO Leaves Foreign
Investors in the Dark
FAN YU
News Analysis
Early investors in China’s fintech
giant Ant Group thought they
were in line for a massive pay-
day—that is, until Ant’s highly
anticipated initial public offering
last year was suddenly scuttled
by Chinese regulators.
Venture capital and private
equity firms such as Silver Lake
and Carlyle Group believed they
had a winner in the bag. After
all, they were early investors in a
massively valuable startup, and
the IPO process was a familiar
playbook almost guaranteed to
make money for early investors.
The success of Ant’s $35 billion
blockbuster IPO was a foregone
conclusion.
Until suddenly, it wasn’t.
By now, Ant’s failed IPO and
founder Jack Ma’s rhetoric lead-
ing up to it have all been well
documented. Institutional and
retail investors who were slated
to purchase shares in the IPO
were stuck with little more than
disappointment or perhaps, in
hindsight, relief. Their initial
deposits have been refunded by
underwriting banks.
In the weeks that have followed,
Ant’s prospects have grown in-
creasingly dim. Initially, it was
believed that Ant could return to
public markets within months,
after some superficial restruc-
turing. But it’s becoming more
evident that the cuts demanded
CCP Virus
Outbreaks
in Northern
China
Continue to
Worsen
NICOLE HAO
The CCP virus outbreak in Hebei
Province continues to worsen as
two hospitals reportedly had large
numbers of medical staff members
who have tested positive for CO-
VID-19, the disease caused by the
Chinese Communist Party virus.
Meanwhile, authorities detected
a superspreader in Jilin Province
and scrambled to find all those who
were in contact with the person in
recent days.
Public transportation throughout
the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin,
Liaoning, and Hebei, as well as the
Beijing and Inner Mongolia regions
were suspended. Over 50 million
people are currently under some
form of lockdown.
Hebei Province
In a phone interview, Amy Wang,
who currently lives overseas but is
originally from Gaocheng district,
Shijiazhuang city—a current virus
hotspot—recalled that her family
members informed her that many
medical staff at the Gaocheng
People’s Hospital and Gaocheng
Chinese Medicine Hospital were
diagnosed with COVID-19.
She asked that her current lo-
cation information be withheld,
for fear that her family members
still living in Gaocheng could be
punished by authorities if they
found out about her speaking to
the media.
“If one doctor or nurse is diag-
nosed, the whole department that
he/she works in would be closed
quickly and all patients would be
removed to a quarantine center,”
she said.
The Epoch Times was able to
contact several patients at the Gao-
cheng People’s Hospital, who con-
firmed that they were removed from
the facility and taken to quarantine
by Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) regulators are more than
skin deep.
Ant has a sprawling business
encompassing asset manage-
ment, insurance, lending, and
mobile payments. Its most fa-
mous product is Alipay, the popu-
lar online payments platform.
While regulators have stopped
short of directly demanding a
breakup of Ant, deep overhauls
are necessary. It may need to set
up a separate holding company to
house its lending and credit busi-
nesses, ensure it has sufficient
capital, adhere to banking regula-
tions, and build up its compliance
and governance functions. Ant is
reportedly coming up with a plan
and timetable for its restructur-
ing process, according to a recent
Bloomberg report.
All of this could make Ant—
whatever its final form—a far less
valuable company. What valua-
tion Ant will ultimately generate
is too early to determine. But
in the most severe scenarios, it
could be a fraction of its pre-IPO
valuation, purportedly eclipsing
$300 billion.
That staggering valuation
hinged upon Ant’s nimble fintech
growth potential. And it had at-
tracted billions of venture capital
funding from some of the world’s
leading investors, including War-
burg Pincus, Silver Lake, Sequoia
Capital, Carlyle Group, and sev-
eral sovereign wealth funds.
Today, these investors’ invest-
People line up to be tested for COVID-19 outside a hospital in Beijing on Jan.
5, 2021.
centers. But the hospital didn’t ex-
plain why they were being removed.
“Don’t come to visit our hospital.
Our situation is very bad now,” a
hospital telephone receptionist
told The Epoch Times. The person
declined to elaborate, only noting
that the facility lacked the capacity
to treat any more patients.
Calls to different departments of
the Gaocheng Chinese Medicine
Hospital went unanswered.
Meanwhile, a copy of an internal
Hebei government document, is-
sued on Dec. 4, 2020, that details
emergency plans to respond to
an outbreak was obtained by The
Epoch Times.  Marked as “not
for public disclosure,” the docu-
ment, from the Office of the Hebei
Leading Group for Response to the
Epidemic, laid out three possible
scenarios for a potential surge in
COVID-19.
Scenario 3 was the most serious,
which would be community spread
occurring in the main urban areas
of two or more major cities of the
province.
Despite the document describ-
ing prevention measures, today’s
outbreak already has the charac-
teristics of the third scenario—with
Shijiazhuang and Xingtai experi-
encing upticks in cases.
A second document issued by
a special Shijiazhuang team in
charge of traffic rules during quar-
antine, dated Jan. 5, detailed “three
lines of defense” to block travel and
set up security checkpoints in dif-
ferent parts of town, focusing on
areas with cluster infections, bus
stations, and railway stations.
While those measures were
People visit a showroom of Ant Financial in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang Province, China, on June 8, 2018.
ments in Ant look troubling.
A number of foreign inves-
tors contributed more than $10
billion into a Ma-controlled
offshore subsidiary of Ant called
Ant International, in a pre-IPO
fundraising round in 2018, ac-
cording to a recent Financial
Times report.
The investors who contrib-
uted into the Ant International
financing are high profile. They
include U.S. private equity firms
Carlyle Group and Warburg
Pincus, venture capital firm
Silver Lake, U.S. asset managers
T. Rowe Price and BlackRock,
Swiss investment bank Credit
Suisse, as well as sovereign funds
Temasek and GIC of Singapore,
and Malaysia’s state fund Khaza-
nah Nasional Berhad.
Since the IPO was called off
in November 2020, those Ant
International investors have
received very little clarity on
GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
meant to isolate infections and
prevent COVID-19 from spreading,
the outbreak continues to advance
beyond city borders and into other
provinces and regions.
Superspreader in Jilin
Chinese state-run Xinhua reported
on Jan. 17 about a superspreader,
a 45-year-old man surnamed Lin,
who had transmitted the virus to at
least 102 people in the province. Lin
is a lecturer on healthy eating hab-
its and travels frequently to give lec-
tures on behalf of different health
food companies.
According to the Jilin provincial
health commission, Lin contracted
the virus from infected passengers
who sat in the same train car while
traveling on Jan. 5 to Harbin city,
the provincial capital, from Nancha
county in Heilongjiang Province.
Xinhua reported that Lin also vis-
ited Gongzhuling, Tonghua, and
Changchun cities in Jilin Prov-
ince and several other cities in
Heilongjiang by taking buses and
trains. Authorities said the people
who attended Lin’s recent lectures
in Jilin came from different parts
of the province.
Jilin officials are treating him as
a superspreader and plan to isolate
any of his close contacts at quaran-
tine centers.
On Jan. 17, at least 17 neighbor-
hoods in Changchun, Tonghua,
and Gongzhuling were designated
as “medium-risk regions” for virus
spread and were fully locked down.
Residents aren’t allowed to leave
their homes at all.
Alex Wu contributed to this report.
next steps, the report said, citing
people close to the investors.
No information regarding Ant’s
IPO likelihood, potential form of
restructuring, or an estimated
timing have been provided to
these investors.
In addition, these investors ap-
pear to have very little recourse.
The offshore entity the foreign
investors invested in holds no
voting rights nor any claim to
Ant’s commercial assets.
Ant Group has held three
equity financing rounds, with
the most recent one (Series C,
raising $14 billion) in 2018 head-
lined by major international
investment firms including the
above-mentioned Ant Inter-
national financing, according
to data from Crunchbase. The
Series C round was raised with
pre-money valuation of approxi-
mately $136 billion.
The company’s first two financ-
Wuhan Virology Lab Scientists
Had CCP Virus-Like Illness in
Autumn 2019, US Says
CONTINUED FROM A1
was thought to be the origin of
the outbreak.
“The U.S. government has
reason to believe that several
researchers inside the WIV be-
came sick in autumn 2019, be-
fore the first identified case of
the outbreak, with symptoms
consistent with both COVID-19
and common seasonal illnesses,”
the State Department fact sheet
reads. “This raises questions
about the credibility of WIV se-
nior researcher Shi Zhengli’s
public claim that there was ‘zero
infection’ among the WIV’s staff
and students of SARS-CoV-2 or
SARS-related viruses.”
The State Department pointed
out that accidental viral out-
breaks aren’t new in China, in-
cluding the 2004 SARS outbreak
in Beijing which originated in a
lab. The department added that
any meaningful investigation of
the origins of the outbreak must
include interviews with the re-
searchers in the Wuhan lab who
fell ill in the fall of 2019.
The U.S. govern-
ment has reason to
believe that several
researchers inside
the [Wuhan Institute
of Virology] became
sick in autumn 2019,
before the first iden-
tified case of the
outbreak.
U.S. State Department
“The CCP has prevented inde-
pendent journalists, investiga-
tors, and global health authorities
from interviewing researchers
at the WIV, including those who
were ill in the fall of 2019. Any
credible inquiry into the origin of
the virus must include interviews
with these researchers and a full
CHINA | A9
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
ing rounds (Series A and B) were
seeded by domestic Chinese
investment firms including
Chinese Investment Corp. and
the National Council for Social
Security Fund. Those rounds
were raised at much lower valua-
tions. For example, the April 2016
Series B round led by China’s
Primavera Capital and China
Investment Corp. was raised with
pre-money valuation of $55.5
billion, according to Crunchbase
estimates. These earlier Chinese
investors have a much smaller
chance of losing money on their
investments.
As for Ant, the company has
provided no public update on
how it plans to address Beijing’s
concerns. And if the Chinese
Communist Party’s ultimate goal
is to cut Ma down to size, more
government obstacles could ap-
pear in front of Ant, Alibaba, or
Ma himself.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A worker inside the Wuhan Virol-
ogy Lab in Wuhan, Hubei Province,
China, on Feb. 23, 2017.
accounting of their previously
unreported illness,” the depart-
ment said.
The State Department claims
that the WIV was conducting re-
search on viruses similar to the
CCP virus as early as 2016. The re-
gime has been secretive about the
research and the State Depart-
ment is demanding transparency.
“WHO investigators must have
access to the records of the WIV’s
work on bat and other corona-
viruses before the COVID-19
outbreak. As part of a thorough
inquiry, they must have a full ac-
counting of why the WIV altered
and then removed online records
of its work with RaTG13 and other
viruses,” the department said.
The WIV, while claiming to be
a civil institution, has worked on
secret projects with the Chinese
military, including classified ani-
mal experiments since at least
early 2017, the United States has
learned.
“The United States and other
donors who funded or collabo-
rated on civilian research at the
WIV have a right and obligation
to determine whether any of our
research funding was diverted to
secret Chinese military projects
at the WIV,” the department said.
The Chinese communist regime
took more than two months to
alert about the outbreak of the
CCP virus. The regime knew
about human-to-human trans-
mission in late 2019 but didn’t in-
form the world until Jan. 20, 2020.
A10 | WORLD
Guatemala Tries to
Block US-Bound
Caravan of 9,000
Honduran Migrants
GUATEMALA CITY—Guatemalan
soldiers blocked part of a caravan
of as many as 9,000 Honduran mi-
grants on Jan. 16, at a point not far
from where they entered the coun-
try seeking to reach the U.S. border.
The soldiers, many wearing
helmets and wielding shields
and sticks, formed ranks across
a highway in Chiquimula, near
the Honduras border, to block the
procession of migrants.
Guatemala’s immigration agen-
cy distributed a video showing a
couple of hundred men scuffling
with soldiers, pushing and run-
ning through their lines, even as
troops held hundreds more back.
Guatemalan President Alejan-
dro Giammattei issued a state-
ment calling on Honduran au-
thorities “to contain the mass exit
of its inhabitants.” On Jan. 15, the
migrants entered Guatemala by
pushing past about 2,000 police
and soldiers posted at the border;
most entered without showing the
negative coronavirus test that
Guatemala requires.
“The government of Guatemala
regrets this violation of national
sovereignty and calls on the gov-
ernments of Central America to
take measures to avoid putting
their inhabitants at risk amid
the health emergency due to the
pandemic,” Giammattei said in
the statement.
Guatemala has set up almost a
Mexico Publishes
Heavily Redacted Probe
of Exonerated General
MEXICO CITY—One day after
Mexico angered U.S. officials by
publishing an entire 751-page U.S.
case file against former Defense
Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos,
the Mexican prosecutors who ex-
onerated him released their own
version—but with so many pages
wholly blacked out it was almost
impossible to tell what they’d
found.
The report released Jan. 17 by the
Mexican Attorney General’s Office
included a 226-page stretch with
every page blacked out, followed
by a 275-page stretch of blacked-
out pages.
In the few sections with less
redacting, all names and images
were blacked out.
The officials appeared to be
struggling to control the damage
to the reputation of the justice
system after prosecutors took just
five days to completely absolve the
retired general of U.S. allegations,
backed by years of investigation,
that he aided drug traffickers in
return for bribes.
President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador on Jan. 16 dismissed the
UK May Ease CCP Virus Lockdown From March, Foreign Secretary Says
ALEXANDER ZHANG
The United Kingdom may begin
easing existing CCP virus lock-
down measures in March, should
the vaccine rollout goes to plan,
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab
said on Jan. 17.
Raab told the BBC’s “Andrew
Marr Show” that the government
plans to vaccinate 15 million—or
88 percent—of those most at risk
of dying from the CCP virus by
Feb. 15, followed by another 17
million in early spring, which will
protect 99 percent of those most
at risk.
“I think it’s true to say that when
we get to a situation in the early
The government
of Guatemala
regrets this viola-
tion of national
sovereignty.
Guatemalan President
Alejandro Giammattei
dozen control points on highways,
and may start busing more mi-
grants back to Honduras, as it has
done before, arguing they pose a
risk to themselves and others by
traveling during the coronavirus
pandemic.
Governments throughout the
region have made it clear they
won’t let the caravan through.
Mexico continued to drill thou-
sands of National Guard members
and immigration agents on its
southern border, in a show of force
meant to discourage the caravan
from crossing into Mexico.
On Jan. 15, two groups of more
than 3,000 Honduran migrants
each pushed their way into Gua-
temala without registering, a por-
tion of a larger migrant caravan
that had left the Honduran city
of San Pedro Sula before dawn. A
third group entered Guatemala
on July 16.
Video shared by the Guatemala
Immigration Institute showed
U.S. case as “fabricated” and his
government released the docu-
mentation U.S. prosecutors sent
when they released Cienfuegos as
a diplomatic concession to Mexico
and sent him to face investigation
at home.
The U.S. Department of Justice
said releasing the full report of ev-
idence violated a legal assistance
treaty and called into question
whether the U.S. can continue to
share information.
That further embittered security
relations strained by the Mexican
government’s decision to restrict
U.S. agents and remove their im-
munity even after Cienfuegos was
returned home rather than facing
trial in the United States.
The president said that while
many Mexicans see U.S. courts
as “the good judges, flawless ... in
this case, with all respect, those
that did this investigation did not
act with professionalism.”
In the newly released Mexican
report, what little was visible ap-
peared to have involved asking
the army to investigate whether
the accusations were credible,
spring, perhaps March, if we’ve
succeeded in hitting those targets
and we’ve made progress so far,
we can start to think about the
phased transition out of the na-
tional lockdown,” he said.
“I think it’s fair to say it won’t
be a ‘Big Bang’ if you like. It will
be done phased, possibly, back
through the tiered approach that
we had before.”
The UK adopted a three-tiered
system of COVID-19 restrictions
in October. The three tiers—me-
dium, high, and very high—were
categorized by the infection rates
of the areas.
But soon afterward, Prime Min-
ister Boris Johnson put the whole
Migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border walk alongside a highway in Chiquimula, Guatemala, on Jan. 16, 2021.
cheering people streaming in,
while border agents looked on
and tried to keep them from
blocking traffic.
The Honduran migrants walked
deeper into Guatemala, driven by
deepening poverty and the hope
of a warmer reception if they can
reach the United States border.
However, several previous at-
tempts at forming caravans have
been broken up by Mexico, Gua-
temala, and Honduras.
On Friday, the migrants had set
out at about 4 a.m. from San Pedro
Sula, young men and entire fam-
ilies carrying sleeping children.
Some quickly caught rides while
others walked along the highway
escorted by police.
Before the large breach on Jan.
15, Guatemalan authorities had
reported picking up only small
groups of Hondurans and re-
Then-Mexican Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda in Mexico
City on Sept. 14, 2016.
and relying on what Cienfuegos
officially declared in income.
For example, one of the few leg-
ible documents is a report by an
army communications officer
(name redacted) saying that no
Army BlackBerries had been of-
ficially assigned to Cienfuegos or
anyone else.
The 751-page file that U.S. au-
thorities shared with Mexico
consists largely of intercepted
BlackBerry messenger exchang-
es between since-slain traffickers
describing dealings with a person
they identify as Cienfuegos, often
referring to him by the nickname
of England under a month-long
national lockdown in early No-
vember, saying he had “no alter-
native” because the virus was
spreading even faster than the
worst-case scenario predicted
by the government’s scientific
advisers.
When the lockdown ended on
Dec. 2, many places in England
were put in higher tiers than be-
fore the lockdown.
Less than three weeks later, the
government created a new ‘“tier
four” for London and southeast
England, which was equivalent
to the November lockdown, af-
ter detecting a new variant of
the CCP virus which was said to
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
turning them to the border. But
Guatemala may start busing more
migrants back to Honduras.
The migrants leave with little cer-
tainty about how far they will make
it. Regional governments have re-
cently appeared more united than
ever in stopping their progress.
Francisco Garduño Yáñez, head
of Mexico’s National Immigration
Institute, said in a Jan. 15 state-
ment that his country has “to
guarantee our national territory”
and called for “an orderly, safe and
legal migration with respect for
human rights and with humani-
tarian policies.”
On Jan. 13, the 11-nation Re-
gional Conference on Migration
“expressed concern over the expo-
sure of irregular migrants to situ-
ations of high risk to their health
and their lives, primarily during
the health emergency.”
REBECCA BLACKWELL/AP PHOTO
“The Godfather.”
López Obrador has leaned heav-
ily on the military for a wide range
of projects well beyond security
and his government apparently
reacted to military outrage at
Cienfuegos’s arrest, complain-
ing they had not been briefed
adequately on the case by U.S.
officials beforehand.
Cienfuegos was arrested in Los
Angeles in October, but the U.S.
government dropped its charges
against him in November after
Mexican officials threatened to
restrict U.S. agents.
The released U.S. documents in-
spread faster than the old variant.
The current national lockdown
began on Jan. 6, when Johnson
said the local tiered system had
failed to hold back a surge of the
new mutant virus.
The UK has since tightened trav-
el restrictions further, banning
travelers from southern African
countries, South America, and
Portugal to prevent new variants
first detected in South Africa and
Brazil from entering the country.
Johnson said on Jan. 15 that he
will close all travel corridors with
other countries on Jan. 18 “to pro-
tect us against the risk of as yet
unidentified new strains.”
There were newspaper reports
SANDRA SEBASTIAN/AP PHOTO
On Jan. 14, Mexican officials
said they had discussed migra-
tion with U.S. President-elect Joe
Biden’s pick for national security
adviser, Jake Sullivan, and raised
“the possibility of implementing a
cooperation program for the de-
velopment of northern Central
America and southern Mexico, in
response to the economic crisis
caused by the pandemic and the
recent hurricanes in the region.”
When hundreds of Hondurans
tried to form a caravan last month,
authorities stopped them before
they even reached the Guatemala
border. Other attempted caravans
last year were broken up by Gua-
temalan authorities before they
reached Mexico.
By Sonny Figueroa &
Claudio Escalon
From The Associated Press
clude purported intercepted text
messages between the leader of
the H-2 cartel based in the Pa-
cific coast state of Nayarit and a
top aide, who allegedly served as
go-between with the general.
In one exchange, Daniel Silva
Garate told his boss, Juan Fran-
cisco Patrón Sánchez, that he’d
been picked up by men with short,
military-style haircuts and was
taken to Defense Department
headquarters in Mexico City for
a meeting with “The Godfather.”
Silva-Garate tells his boss the
“The Godfather” told him “Now
we are going to do big things with
you … that what you have done is
small-time.”
Patrón Sanchez says he wants
unmolested routes to ship drugs
from Colombia and Silva Garate
texts back, “He says that as long as
he is here, you will be free … that
they will never carry out strong
operations,” or raids.
Silva Garate tells his boss the
“The Godfather” told him that,
“You can sleep peacefully, no op-
eration will touch you.”
Other exchanges describe The
Godfather purportedly offering
to arrange a boat to help transport
drugs, introducing the traffickers
to other officials and acknowledg-
ing helping other traffickers in the
past.
From The Associated Press
on Jan. 17 that ministers were
considering adopting rules al-
ready in place in some Asian
countries, which require incom-
ing travelers to quarantine in ho-
tels under supervision.
Asked if the government would
adopt the measure, Raab said all
potential measures are under re-
view but “they’ve got to be work-
able.”
“I think there is a challenge in its
work abilities and deliverability,
but we need to look at that very
carefully based on the experience
of other countries,” he said.
Lily Zhou and Simon Veazey
contributed to this report.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 WORLD | A11

Free Flow of Water at Issue The Indus river gushes through mountains next
to the Srinagar Leh highway bordering China, in
Gagangir, India, on June 19, 2020. As many as

in India–China Skirmish, Expert Says 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a “violent face-
off” with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley
along the Himalayas on June 15, 2020.

YAWAR NAZIR/GETTY IMAGES

CONTINUED FROM A1

“We made it very, very clear that

stopping water is a cause for war.
We’ll kill, and we’ll be killed, to
prevent the stoppage of water,”
he said.
“The Chinese are going to use
this as a precedent to start block-
ing all the waters of all the rivers
that originate in Tibet.”
The Galwan valley has more
geopolitical value than any in-
trinsic agricultural or mineral
value, he said, and India con-
fronted Chinese aggression to
give a strong message that there’s
no way the regime will be allowed
to get away with its plans.
“The point is if they take one
inch, what is to prevent them from
taking a whole foot. If they built a
dam here, what’s to prevent them
from damming all the other riv-
ers. So the value of Galwan is geo-
political,” Iyer-Mitra said.
The Tibetan plateau is a major
water supplier to the world, and
all 10 of the major river systems of
Asia—including the Indus, Sutlej,
Brahmaputra, Irrawady, Salween,
and Mekong—originate in the Ti-
betan plateau. They together con-
stitute a lifeline for more than 2
billion people, according to the
New Delhi-based Manohar Par-
rikar Institute for Defense Studies
and Analyses. that, Iyer-Mitra said. ‘Fight for Water’ we could not go [like] sensitive
“If we accept the principle that “India’s infrastructure con- Iyer-Mitra said what happened military areas, which they would
the Galwan river can be blocked,
We made it very struction started literally within a in Galwan can’t be called a war, not allow us to go and that was at
then they will block the Brahma- very clear that month of this government taking but it was a “fight for water.” Two the height of Doklam,” he said.
putra, they will ultimately block stopping water is oath for the second time in 2019. days after the conflict, the flow of Another standoff between In-
the Irrawady,” Iyer-Mitra said. India is saying we can prolong the water resumed. dia and China occurred in June
“They will block all the Southeast a cause for war. negotiations just so that we can He said the Indian experts 2017 in the high-altitude Doklam
Asian rivers, and the Southeast We’ll kill and we’ll finish building our infrastruc- aren’t clear on what kind of struc- plateau, a tri-junction between
Asian rivers are much more de- be killed to pre- ture,” he said. ture the Chinese built to block the India, China, and Bhutan. China
pendent on the Himalayas than When the bloody Galwan in- river; he called it a “rudimentary was aggressively attempting to
we are.” vent the stoppage cident happened, India had just dam” and said the water was extend a road on the plateau, and
India’s response saved the of water.ç finished building a 65-yard-long stopped just to intimidate the India acted to stop it on Bhutan’s
whole of Southeast Asia as well bridge on the Galwan River, and Indian establishment. behalf.
as Bangladesh, he said. Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, research India’s impetus to improve its “The point is what we have seen Iyer-Mitra, who said small in-
fellow, Institute of Peace and
“It’s purely geopolitical—the infrastructure on the border was is, before the dam, the water flow cidents like the “fight for water”
Conflict Studies
strategic control of water,” he the primary reason behind the is the same as, after the dam. in Galwan can sometimes have
said. “If India allowed it in Gal- Chinese aggression. The bridge This means there is absolutely “disproportionate effects,” com-
wan, they could then start doing While China has built a lot of was meant to consolidate India’s no [ongoing] attempt at blocking pared it with the assassination
it everywhere.” infrastructure on its border with footprint in the region and threat- it. There is also no diversionary of  Archduke Franz Ferdinand
India in Ladakh, it’s objecting to ened Beijing’s agenda. channels or outlets to take water of Austria that provided the spark
India’s Infrastructure Building India’s buildup of infrastructure The bridge was also important away,” Iyer-Mitra said. for World War I
Indian Army Chief Gen. M.M. on its side, Iyer-Mitra said. for the movement of the Indian He said that he extensively trav- “In this case, you know, it was
Naravane, in his speech at the “The Chinese are saying we infantry in the sensitive region eled around Tibet and studied the stopping of a much bigger
73rd Army Day on Jan. 15, said will keep our entire existing in- and for protecting a 158-mile suspected river diversions or stop- Chinese block by small action,
that when China tried to change frastructure. You don’t build any road that linked India’s access page but didn’t find any evidence. which nobody will thank India
the “status quo on borders” last new infrastructure, and we’ll also to remote military posts in the “What we saw in Galwan, when for, nobody will. But it doesn’t
year in Galwan, India gave it a not build any new infrastructure,” Karakoram Pass. our troops were killed, was the matter,” he said.
“befitting reply.” he said. “They want to freeze the Three weeks after the Galwan first evidence of some kind of wa- “That is a huge service we have
“We are committed to finding advantage we have.” incident, India’s defense minis- ter stoppage that we had seen. In done not just to India, but to Ban-
the resolution of our disputes Two to three years ago, India ter, Rajnath Singh, held a meeting every other dam that I saw per- gladesh and all the Southeast
through discussions and political absolutely had no infrastructure with officials from the country’s sonally on the ground in Tibet, as Asian countries, because it’ll
efforts, but no one should com- there, and the current govern- Border Roads Organization to ac- well, as I’ve seen from the satel- make China think long and hard
mit the mistake of testing our ment, led by Prime Minister Na- cess infrastructure development lite. I’ve seen a lot more from sat- about blocking any more rivers
patience,” Naravane said. rendra Modi, is trying to correct in the border regions. ellite because there were places ever again,” he said.

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People walk by the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 2, 2020.
Will Biden Unwind
Trump’s China Policy?
JAMES GORRIE
With the Trump adminis-
tration ending with Joe
Biden’s inauguration on
Jan. 20, it’s quite likely
that much of President
Donald Trump’s com-
prehensive China policy
will go with him. That includes Trump’s
executive order that mandates delisting
Chinese companies from U.S. capital
markets.
In fact, it’s almost a fait acompli.
Wall Street’s Priorities
This can be said with confidence be-
cause even though U.S. investment and
retirement accounts are heavily invested
in fraudulent Chinese companies, Amer-
ican money managers have a strong
financial motivation to ignore Trump’s
order. Big Chinese money and the lure of
an open Chinese market to U.S. financial
services and global investment firms are
driving their behavior.
Both promise to deliver great finan-
cial windfalls to Wall Street investment
banks. In fact, even though the execu-
tive order specifically identifies how U.S.
capital markets are enabling China’s
military and industrial growth to pose
growing threats to America both at home
and abroad and undermine U.S. finan-
cial stability, Wall Street doesn’t care.
Biden has the opportunity to prove his
mettle up front by enforcing Trump’s ex-
ecutive order and reining in the big invest-
ment banks. It would also send a message
to both allies and China alike, Biden’s
political Achilles heel, that he has a clear
understanding of the present challenges
and is unencumbered by the past.
But if those things don’t happen, it would
free up the U.S. financial community’s
singular priority, which is making money,
even at the expense of national security.
With a Biden administration now im-
minent, insiders predict, however, that the
executive order will be short-lived. Others
say that it may never be put into full effect.
Undercutting the Trump Legacy
But there are more aspects to Trump’s
China policy than blocking China’s ac-
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 • A13
cess to U.S. stock markets and indexes,
as important as those things are. Will
Biden’s presidency undercut Trump’s
hard-line approach to trade with China?
Or will he choose a middle way? In either
case, Biden needs a strategy that encom-
passes protecting intellectual property
rights, keeping a closer eye on academic
exchange programs, closer relations with
Taiwan, and even such “minor” things as
internet apps.
Let’s look at recent news for China
apps, for example. Trump’s latest ex-
ecutive order adds bans on the popular
apps WeChat and TikTok. Many experts
have identified Chinese apps as vectors
for data and identity theft, as well as for
tracking anti-China activity. But in a
Biden administration, it’s not certain that
this executive order—like the previous
one—will be recognized or acted upon.
As far as Trump’s steep 25 percent
tariff on Chinese manufactured goods is
concerned, it’s thought that Biden won’t
reverse them and others—at least not
initially. The rationale is that the new
president will use them to cut a new
trade deal with China, perhaps with the
participation of European nations.
Will a Biden–Harris administra-
tion rise to the challenge that the
CCP poses to the United States?
We’ll soon find out.
If past is prologue, multilateral agree-
ments tend not to favor the United States.
That may or may not be the case; it
remains to be seen.
It also remains to be seen how Biden
plans to stop the Chinese from steal-
ing U.S. intellectual property, which is
estimated to be between $225 billion and
$600 billion per year. The Trump admin-
istration made IP protection a big part of
its China trade policy.
But will Biden, with his deep financial
ties to China and the Chinese Commu-
nist Party (CCP), be willing or able to con-
tinue protecting the United States from
the CCP’s longstanding policy of IP theft?
Let’s hope so.
LINTAO ZHANG/GETTY IMAGES
Then-Chinese Vice Chairman Xi Jinping
accompanies then-Vice President Joe Biden
to view an honor guard during a welcoming
ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing on Aug. 18, 2011.
Will Biden Curtail Academic,
Research Exchanges?
A significant part of China’s IP theft ap-
paratus is its deep and pervasive academic
relationship with U.S. universities and re-
searchers. Through various initiatives such
as the Confucius Institutes and the Thou-
sand Talents program, the Chinese regime
has been able to gather enormous amounts
of IP and technological innovation.
Too often, key scientists became Chi-
nese assets.
Under the Trump administration, uni-
versities began to kick Confucius Insti-
tutes, which are essentially CCP indoctri-
nation and IP gathering centers, off of their
campuses. The Thousand Talents program
is literally a means by which the best and
brightest scientists and researchers in
the United States are paid handsomely to
relocate to China to do their work.
Of course, the CCP has reaped enor-
mous technological rewards from both of
these programs.
China: ‘A Competitor, Not an Adversary’
As vice president of the eight-year Obama
administration under which these efforts
flourished, why should we expect a Presi-
dent Biden to behave any differently?
Biden is perceived as the best president
the CCP could wish for. Regardless of
how much or how little money the in-
coming president has made in his deal-
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
ings with China, the fact is that he views
China as a competitor, not an adversary.
Will he change his view? If so, such a
shift in perspective could make a world
of difference when it comes to forming a
new China policy.
Will Biden Abandon Taiwan?
This is particularly important regarding
U.S.–Taiwan relations. On Jan. 9, Secre-
tary of State Mike Pompeo announced
that restrictions limiting contacts
between Taiwan and U.S. officials will
be removed. This effectively means an
official recognition of Taiwan as a sover-
eign state, a key part of America’s “One
China” policy, which only recognized
the Beijing government as the govern-
ment of China and Taiwan.
Prior to this change in diplomatic
policy, the Trump administration sold
more defensive arms to Taiwan in one
year than Obama did in eight years. The
idea is to enable the island nation of 23.5
million people to deter an invasion from
mainland communist China.
What’s more, given that the CCP now
has Hong Kong under its boot heel, it’s
not unreasonable to presume that Beijing
plans a similar fate for Taiwan. Indeed,
the CCP leadership has declared that as a
main geopolitical objective.
Will the United States revert to the
One China policy? What will the Biden
administration say or do if China in-
vades Taiwan? Will we see a return to the
United States enabling the rise of China
as the dominant global power, or will
Biden challenge the CCP?
We don’t know. Perhaps a simpler ques-
tion will do: Will a Biden–Harris admin-
istration rise to the challenge that the
CCP poses to the United States?
We’ll soon find out.
James Gorrie is a writer and speaker
based in Southern California. He is the
author of “The China Crisis.”
A14 | OPINION
Trump’s Parting Shot to China Should
Be Full US Recognition of Taiwan
JOSH HAMMER
President Donald Trump’s
two greatest foreign
policy accomplishments
both involve depar-
tures from outmoded
paradigms that had, for
decades, enraptured bipar-
tisan neoliberal elites: unprecedented
Arab-Israeli rapprochement in the
Middle East and an assertive China con-
tainment strategy in the Asia-Pacific.
On the former front, Trump boldly
departed from the misbegotten “inside-
out” conflict resolution approach, which
elevated to the forefront the need for
Israeli capitulation to Palestinian-Arab
intransigence; on the latter front, Trump
became the first president since Richard
Nixon’s famous 1972 trip to China to
openly call into question our relation-
ship with that ascendant, hegemonic
Communist regime.
The key difference is that, as Trump
prepares to ride off into the sunset, prog-
ress on the latter is likely at greater risk
of a prompt post-inauguration reversal
from his Democratic successor. The
physical moving of the U.S. embassy in
Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, one
of the Trump administration’s myriad
displays of staunch friendship with the
Jewish state, is unlikely to be undone.
Nor would any sane politician seek to
nix the Abraham Accords, the series of
landmark peace deals between Israel
and Islamic nations that the administra-
tion helped negotiate.
But pugnacious China-skeptical
rhetoric, hardline opposition to Hua-
wei’s emergent 5G telecommunications
network, and harsh tariffs on Chinese
DILBERT
PEANUTS
RED AND ROVER
GRAND AVENUE
MUTT & JEFF
imports are the sort of moves that would
be all too easy for a longtime China dove
such as Joe Biden to quickly reverse.
In order to help box in his successor
and secure the continuity of our long-
overdue recalibration with our preemi-
nent 21st-century geopolitical threat,
there is one farewell action above all that
would stick in the craw of the Chinese
Communist Party, or the CCP, and re-
dound to America’s substantive benefit.
Trump ought to formally recognize
Taiwan (also known as the Republic of
China) as an independent state, distinct
from the Beijing-based regime—and he
must do so, with all the diplomatic ac-
coutrements that such a formal recogni-
tion entails, posthaste.
There are few territorial disputes about
which the CCP is more adamant than
its insistence that both mainland China
and Taiwan are part of a single, unified
Chinese state—with the Beijing-based
People’s Republic of China, or PRC, as
the sole legitimate representative of that
state. It has also been de facto, if not
quite official, U.S. policy since the Jimmy
Carter administration. As with most
other Carter-era foreign policy initiatives
that are remnants of a capitulatory Cold
War posture, this stance is misguided
and counterproductive: It is past time
for the United States to formally repudi-
ate the “one-China policy” and open an
embassy in Taipei.
The one-China policy was predicated
upon the belief that, through appease-
ment and economic liberalization, the
PRC could become less authoritarian
and ultimately better “integrated” into
the much-ballyhooed “liberal world
order.” Whatever merit such an idea
might have had as a theoretical mus-
COMICS
STEPHEN LAM/REUTERS
A demonstrator holds flags of Taiwan and the
United States in support of Taiwanese Presi-
dent Tsai Ing-wen during a stopover after her
visit to Latin America, in Burlingame, Calif., on
Jan. 14, 2017.
ing has now been decisively disproven
by history. The PRC under CCP Gen-
eral Secretary Xi Jinping is a rapacious
hegemony that commits genocide
against unwanted minorities, operates
a nonpareil system of Orwellian state
surveillance, steals intellectual proper-
ty, commits predatory trade practices,
and unleashes deadly pandemics upon
the world.
Worse, that same much-lauded post-
1972 economic liberalization has both
made Americans complicit in CCP
crimes against humanity—think of
Disney filming its recent “Mulan” film
partially in Xinjiang, where a genuine
genocide is currently unfolding against
Uyghur Muslims—and contributed to
the hollowing out of our industrial base,
the loss of mass blue-collar jobs, and the
concomitant proliferation of drug over-
doses across the American heartland.
GARFIELD
GINGER MEGGS
BIG NATE
DRABBLE
FRANK AND ERNEST
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
Trump had both the instinct and cour-
age to change course. He can help solid-
ify those gains by ending the one-China
policy, converting the de facto embassy
that is the American Institute in Taiwan
into an official embassy, and formalizing
all relevant diplomatic channels to the
Taiwanese government. Taiwan is every-
thing the PRC is not: It is a free-market-
oriented, pro-Western bastion that, with
proper Western fortification, would do
wonders to keep the People’s Liberation
Army at bay due to its strategic position.
It would meaningfully deter Jinping’s
menacing “wolf warrior diplomacy” and
help anchor a comprehensive China con-
tainment strategy spreading from South
Korea and Japan through the Philippines
and down all the way to Australia.
And much like Trump’s moving of the
U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv
to Jerusalem, a formal christening of
an American embassy in Taipei is an ac-
tion that would be politically difficult
to undo.
Earlier this week, John Fund of Na-
tional Review reported that many U.S.
officials have been urging Trump to
officially recognize Taiwan. It would be a
fitting capstone to the first presidency in
a half-century to recognize the PRC for
the arch-foe that it is.
Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney
by training, is an opinion editor, a podcast
contributor, and a syndicated columnist.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
SPECIAL SERIES
How the Specter of Communism
Is Ruling Our World
Sabotaging Education
The Epoch Times here serializes an adaptation from the Chinese of
“How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World,” a new book by
the editorial team of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.”
1. Communist Elements
in Primary and Secondary
Education
a. Dumbing Down Students
The United States is a constitution-
al republic. Presidents, lawmakers,
town mayors, and school-district
committee members are all elected
by the voting public. Whether
such a political framework can be
pursued in a manner that is truly
beneficial to all depends not only
on the moral level of the people, but
also on the level of their knowledge
and discernment. If voters are not
well-versed in history, political and
economic systems, and social is-
sues, they will have difficulty elect-
ing officials whose platforms are
based on the long-term and fun-
damental interests of the country
and society. This jeopardizes the
country’s future.
In 1983, a group of experts com-
missioned by the U.S. Department
of Education wrote the report A Na-
tion at Risk after eighteen months
of research. The report stated:
“For our country to function,
citizens must be able to reach some
common understandings on com-
plex issues, often on short notice
and on the basis of conflicting or
incomplete evidence. Education
helps form these common under-
standings, a point Thomas Jefferson
made long ago in his justly famous
dictum: ‘I know no safe depository
of the ultimate powers of the soci-
ety but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened
enough to exercise their control
with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them
but to inform their discretion.’”
Individuals with little knowledge
and poor critical thinking abilities
are unable to recognize lies and de-
ception. Thus communism targets
education in order to ensure the
next generation of students will be
foolish and ignorant—and vulner-
able to manipulation.
The reason for the decline of
grades is not that students today
are not as intelligent as before,
but because communism is
quietly carrying out a war against
the next generation, using the
education system as its weapon.
The report makes these addition-
al points:
“The educational foundations
of our society are presently being
eroded by a rising tide of medioc-
rity that threatens our very future
as a Nation and a people. ... If an
unfriendly foreign power had at-
tempted to impose on America the
mediocre educational performance
that exists today, we might well
have viewed it as an act of war. As
it stands, we have allowed this to
happen to ourselves. We have even
squandered the gains in student
achievement made in the wake of
the Sputnik challenge. Moreover,
we have dismantled essential sup-
port systems which helped make
those gains possible. We have, in
effect, been committing an act of
unthinking, unilateral educational
disarmament.” [2]
The report quoted analyst Paul
Copperman as saying, “For the first
time in the history of our coun-
try, the educational skills of one
generation will not surpass, will
not equal, will not even approach,
those of their parents.”
The report cites some shocking
findings: In addition to U.S. stu-
dents’ grades often ranking near
the bottom compared to those of
students in other nations, 23 mil-
lion American adults were func-
tionally illiterate—that is, they only
possessed the most basic reading,
writing, and comprehension skills.
The rate of functional illiteracy
was 13 percent among 17-year-olds
and reached as high as 40 percent
among certain less affluent groups.
In addition to U.S. students’
grades often ranking near the
bottom compared to those of
students in other nations, 23
million American adults were
functionally illiterate—that is,
they only possessed the most
basic reading, writing, and
comprehension skills.
From 1963 to 1980, scores on the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the
university entrance examination,
declined dramatically, with the
average verbal score dropping by
more than 50 points, and the aver-
age math score dropping by nearly
40 points. “Many 17-year-olds do
not possess the ‘higher order’ intel-
lectual skills we should expect of
them. Nearly 40 percent cannot
draw inferences from written mate-
rial; only one-fifth can write a per-
suasive essay; and only one-third
can solve a mathematics problem
requiring several steps.” [3]
In the 2008 book “The Dumb-
est Generation: How the Digital
Age Stupefies Young Americans
and Jeopardizes Our Future,”
Emory University professor Mark
Bauerlein compiled data on the
knowledge gaps of American
students in the subjects of history,
civics, math, science, technology,
fine arts, and more. He gave the
example of the history exam in
the 2001 National Assessment of
Educational Progress, on which 57
percent of students scored “below
basic” and only 1 percent achieved
an “advanced” score. Surprisingly,
on a multiple-choice question that
asked students to select which
country had been a U.S. ally during
World War II, 52 percent chose Ger-
many, Japan, or Italy instead of the
Soviet Union. Results in other areas
were equally disappointing. [4]
The decline in the quality of
education in the United States is
obvious. Since the 1990s, the term
“dumbing down” has appeared in
many books on education and has
become a concept American edu-
cators cannot avoid. John Taylor
Gatto, a senior teacher and educa-
Chapter Twelve
tional researcher in New York City,
wrote, “Pick up a fifth-grade math
or rhetoric textbook from 1850
and you’ll see that the texts were
pitched then on what would today
be considered college level.” [5]
To avoid making the American
education system look bad, in
1994 the College Board redefined
the scores of the SAT. When the
modern form of the SAT began to
be adopted in 1941, the average
score of the language exam was 500
points (out of a possible 800 points).
By the 1990s, the average score had
dropped to 424 points; the College
Board then redefined 424 as 500
points. [6]
The decline in the quality of
education is not just reflected in
the decline in students’ literacy.
Due to a lack of basic knowledge,
the critical thinking faculties of
American students have fallen
sharply. American scholar Thomas
Sowell observed: “It is not merely
that Johnny can’t read, or even that
Johnny can’t think. Johnny doesn’t
know what thinking is, because
thinking is so often confused with
feeling in many public schools.” [7]
The reason for the decline of
grades is not that students today
are not as intelligent as before, but
because communism is quietly
carrying out a war against the next
generation, using the education
system as its weapon. Charlotte
Thomson Iserbyt, a former senior
policy adviser to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, wrote in 1999:
“The reason Americans do not
understand this war is because it
has been fought in secret—in the
schools of our nation, targeting our
children who are captive in class-
rooms. The wagers of the war are
using very sophisticated and effec-
tive tools.” [8]
Notes
2. National Commission on Excel-
lence in Education, “A Nation
at Risk” (Washington DC: U.S.
Department of Education, 1983).
3. Ibid.
4. Mark Bauerlein, “The Dumbest
Generation: How the Digital Age
Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our Future” (New
York: Tarcher, 2008), chap. 1.
5. John Taylor Gatto, “Dumbing Us
Down: The Hidden Curriculum
of Compulsory Schooling” (Ga-
briola Island, BC, Canada: New
Society Publishers, 2005), 12.
6. Charles J. Sykes, “Dumbing
Down Our Kids: Why American
Children Feel Good About Them-
selves but Can’t Read, Write, or
Add” (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1995), 148–9.
7. Thomas Sowell, “Inside Ameri-
can Education: The Decline, the
Deception, the Dogmas” (New
York: The Free Press, 1993), 4.
8. Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, “The
Deliberate Dumbing Down of
America: A Chronological Paper
Trail” (Ravenna, OH: Conscience
Press, 1999), xvii.
See next edition for the next
installment.
To purchase the books, visit
EpochShop.com
OPINION | A15
Stephen Gregory, Publisher
Jasper Fakkert, Editor-in-Chief
Channaly Philipp, Life & Tradition,
Travel Editor
Chrisy Trudeau, Mind & Body Editor
Crystal Shi, Home, Food Editor
Sharon Kilarski, Arts & Culture Editor
ABOUT US
The Epoch Times is a media
organization dedicated to seek-
ing the truth through insightful
and independent journalism.
Standing outside of politi-
cal interests and the pursuit of
profit, our starting point and our
goal is to create a media for the
public benefit, to be truly respon-
sible to society.
We endeavor to educate read-
ers about today’s most impor-
tant topics, seeking to broaden
and uplift minds. We believe that
rational, balanced debate is key
for fostering a healthy democ-
racy and a compassionate
society.
As an independent media out-
let, we use our freedom to inves-
tigate issues overlooked—or
avoided—by other media outlets.
We seek to highlight solutions
and what’s good in society rather
than what divides us.
We report respectfully, compas-
sionately, and rigorously.
We stand against the destruc-
tion wrought by communism,
including the harm done to cul-
tures around the world.
We are inspired in this by our
own experience. The Epoch
Times was founded in 2000 to
bring honest and uncensored
news to people oppressed
by the lies and violence in
communist China.
We still believe journalism is a
noble vocation, but only when it
genuinely seeks to serve its com-
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ish. In all that we do, we will hold
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A16 | OPINION
Protesters
breach the
U.S. Capitol in
Washington on
Jan. 6, 2021.
Chinese State Media
Is Celebrating the
United States’ ‘Downfall’
YANG WEI
Chinese state-run media is celebrating
“the downfall of the United States” fol-
lowing news of the Jan. 6 breach of the
U.S. Capitol building.
Xinhua published a Jan. 12 commen-
tary titled “On the Collapse of America
as a ‘Beacon’: Well Deserved!” Being a
mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), it can be assumed that the
Xinhua article reflects the attitude of top
CCP leaders toward the United States.
The article’s author, Wu Liming, is
The Book You’ve Been
Waiting for...
“Extremely well “The Truth, as horrifying as it is,
researched and true.” shall set us free. This should be
on this country’s academia’s
list of required reading.”
HOW THE
SPECTER OF COMMUNISM
IS RULING OUR WORLD
The specter of communism did not
disappear with the disintegration of the
Communist Party in Eastern Europe
ORDER NOW!
EpochShop.com
AHMED GABER/REUTERS
deputy director of the international
The CCP leadership department at Xinhua. As with most
articles that run in state media, his com-
seems to think the mentary likely isn’t his personal opinion
United States is but a reflection of how the CCP’s senior
really losing it, and officials think.
The article starts out: “The ‘beacon’ that
that this is another is the United States, which claims to be
opportunity for the benchmark of Western democracy,
the CCP to pursue has fallen. ... In the live video broadcast,
I saw that the symbol of the beacon—
hegemony. Capitol Hill—has fallen. ... Let American
democracy fall from the altar.”
In recent days, Xinhua’s coverage of
U.S. news has been mainly fanning the
flames and gloating about the ensu-
ing political turmoil. The commentary
directly refers to the United States as
a “failed country,” saying “the United
States can no longer lead the world,”
and that the Capitol incident was “well
deserved!”
This obviously reflects the sentiments
of senior CCP officials. On Jan. 11,
during a Party study session on the
implementation of the Fifth Plenary
Session, paramount leader Xi Jinping
declared that they were entering the
“new stage of a historical leap,” of
“strengthening,” and “time and power
is on our side,” we “dare to struggle,”
and are “good at struggle.”
The CCP leadership seems to think
the United States is really losing it, and
that this is another opportunity for the
CCP to pursue hegemony. They can’t
even wait until Jan. 20, when a new U.S.
administration will be inaugurated,
and can’t hold back their opinion. Dur-
ing the past year, these CCP officials
have been really embarrassed, and now
they feel they finally have an opportu-
nity to vent.
It isn’t difficult to imagine what atti-
tude the CCP will adopt toward the new
U.S. administration and what bargain-
ing chips it will offer once it has the op-
portunity. In fact, the CCP has acted up
frequently. North Korea and Iran have
restarted their nuclear testing, and the
CCP will undoubtedly try to play the
role of an intermediary. When U.S. Sec-
retary of State Mike Pompeo recently
designated Cuba as a state sponsor of
terrorism, the CCP immediately ex-
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
pressed its opposition.
On Jan. 12, Xinhua posted another
article, titled “Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs: Opposing U.S. Suppression and
Sanctions Against Cuba in the Name
of Anti-terrorism.” The article cited the
ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian at
a press conference, who said the United
States “is the biggest destabilizing factor
threatening global peace and security.”
Zhao also posted his statement on
Twitter, most likely to show off his “wolf
warrior” diplomacy skills.
After the virus pandemic unleashed
by the CCP, Americans should be more
aware of and on guard against the
CCP’s deception. It’s also the time for
those who still buy into the appease-
ment strategy in dealing with the CCP
to think twice.
Early in 2020, the CCP tried to use the
pandemic to seek hegemony, but was
exposed and called out by the Trump
administration. The CCP then fell into
international isolation.
After the storming of the Capitol and
the ensuing crisis for the United States,
the CCP felt like it finally had an oppor-
tunity to attack U.S. democracy.
The CCP obviously believes that the
United States is in a hopeless situation.
Xinhua’s “well deserved!” comment was
followed by another commentary that
asked in its headline, “Why Is Trump in
Another Impeachment Crisis?”
This article stated that “impeachment
is also a manifestation of the intensify-
ing struggle between the parties. Demo-
crats want to leave a shameful record for
Trump, making it difficult for him to run
for office again in four years,” and “in
the time before the new president takes
office, there may be armed protests
throughout the United States.”
Xinhua seemed to eagerly look forward
to great chaos in the United States. On
Jan. 12, it published a third article on its
homepage, “U.S. Presidential Inaugura-
tion Security Raises Concerns, Washing-
ton Enters State of Emergency.”
The unprecedented level of excitement
expressed by Chinese state media actu-
ally stems from the excitement among
top CCP leaders. These attitudes are
equivalent to openly challenging the
United States.
On Jan. 10, a Xinhua article, titled
“Ruan Zongze: China and the U.S. Are
Now Facing a Window of Opportunity,”
had quite a different tone. It quoted parts
of a Jan. 8 speech by Ruan Zongze, dep-
uty director of the state-run Xi Jinping
Thought on Diplomacy research center.
The article proposed that “after Joe
Biden takes power, U.S. foreign rela-
tions will be amended, and so will Sino-
U.S. relations.” It also called for “mutual
respect, non-interference in internal
affairs, and collaboration toward the
same goal.” Ruan said he was looking
forward to “the old times” of U.S.–Chi-
na relations.
In just two days, Chinese senior offi-
cials’ attitudes seemed to have changed
drastically. They put aside the preten-
tious call for “mutual respect” and open-
ly provoked the United States. It seems
that the CCP leadership has returned to
the old path of serious misjudgment.
While most Americans don’t have a
chance to read Xinhua’s articles, the
CCP’s attitude will soon be reflected in
various international events. The United
States and Western countries will surely
be watching. The game of confrontation
between the United States and China
will be the main theme in 2021.
The outcome depends entirely on how
America responds.
At critical moments in history, every-
one must make a choice. From the per-
spective of the general trends of history,
how do people view all events that are
unfolding?
Yang Wei has been following China
affairs for many years. He has been
contributing political commentary on
China for the Chinese-language Epoch
Times since 2019.
GOH CHAI HIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Journalists
from China’s
official news
agency Xinhua
report from
the National
People’s Con-
gress at the
Great Hall of
the People in
Beijing, in this
file photo.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
(Left) IRS headquarters in Washington on Sept. 19, 2018. (Right) House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) during
a hearing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 3, 2020.
IRS Delays Start of Tax Filing
Season to Feb. 12
ZACHARY STIEBER
People won’t be able to start filing taxes
until Feb. 12, the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) said on Jan. 15.
The delay will give the agency time to do
additional programming and testing of
systems following tax law changes imple-
mented late last year.
The changes were made to give most
Americans another round of direct pay-
ments after Congress passed a $900 billion
COVID-19 relief package.
The IRS needs to do programming to
make sure its systems run smoothly, ac-
COVID-19 Pressures US Retail Sales; Manufacturing Shines
WASHINGTON—U.S. retail sales fell for
a third straight month in December as
renewed measures to slow the spread of
COVID-19 triggered job losses, further
evidence that the wounded economy lost
considerable speed at the end of 2020.
The downturn in sales reported by the
Commerce Department on Jan. 15 is, how-
ever, unlikely to push the economy back
into recession, with other data showing
production at factories accelerating last
month. There is also cautious optimism
that nearly $900 billion in additional pan-
demic relief provided by the government at
the end of December will offer a backstop.
The ebbing economic momentum, which
appears to have spilled over into the new
year, could persuade the U.S. Congress to
agree to President-elect Joe Biden’s am-
bitious $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus plan,
which includes bolstering the response to
the virus and direct relief to households
and small businesses.
“That should make Congress more will-
ing to deal on Biden’s wish list,” said Steven
Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard in
New York. “Critical to Biden’s story is that
the virus itself is creating the downturn,
not any fundamental problems with the
economy, and this is what needs to be done
to address it.”
Retail sales fell 0.7 percent last month.
Data for November was revised lower, to
show sales tumbling 1.4 percent instead
of 1.1 percent as previously reported. Sales
rose 2.9 percent on a year-on-year basis.
The monthly decline in sales was led by a
4.5 percent plunge at restaurants and bars,
after many authorities banned indoor din-
ing over the holiday season. Online sales
tumbled 5.8 percent. Receipts at electronics
and appliance stores dropped 4.9 percent.
Manufacturing is clearly
weathering this wave of
confirmed COVID-19 cases better
than occurred earlier this year.
Ryan Sweet, senior economist,
Moody’s Analytics
Consumers also cut spending at sport-
ing goods, hobby, musical instrument, and
book stores as well as beverage stores. That
offset a 1.9 percent rebound in sales at auto
dealerships and a 2.4 percent increase in
receipts at clothing stores. There were also
gains in sales at building material stores as
well as health and personal care outlets.
Excluding automobiles, gasoline, build-
ing materials and food services, retail sales
tumbled 1.9 percent last month, after a
downwardly revised 1.1 percent decline in
November. These so-called core retail sales
correspond most closely with the consum-
er spending component of gross domestic
product. They were previously estimated to
cording to the agency.
“If filing season were opened without
the correct programming in place, then
there could be a delay in issuing refunds
to taxpayers. These changes ensure that
eligible people will receive any remain-
ing stimulus money as a Recovery Rebate
Credit when they file their 2020 tax return,”
it said in a notice.
While taxpayers can usually start filing
returns in January, the start of tax season
occasionally has been delayed.
“Planning for the nation’s filing season
process is a massive undertaking, and
IRS teams have been working non-stop to
CHUNG I HO/THE EPOCH TIMES
A woman walks past an empty retail space in
Manhattan on Sept. 14, 2020.
have decreased by 0.5 percent in November.
“There were plenty of culprits ruining the
holiday spirit, including a frightening health
situation, rising layoffs, and a looming lapse
in jobless benefits,” said Lydia Boussour, a
senior U.S. economist at Oxford Econom-
ics in New York. “Biden’s ambitious fiscal
agenda could juice up household spending
during the delicate vaccine rollout phase.”
In a second report on Jan. 15, the Universi-
ty of Michigan said its consumer sentiment
index slipped to 79.2 from a final reading of
80.7 in December.
Job Losses
The steep declines in core retail sales
prompted economists to cut their consumer
spending and GDP growth estimates for the
fourth quarter. The government reported
last week that the economy shed jobs in
December for the first time in eight months.
Further job losses are likely in January as
new claims for unemployment benefits
surged in the first week of the month.
Rampant coronavirus infections and de-
lays by the government to approve more
money to help businesses and the unem-
ployed are behind the loss of economic mo-
mentum. Growth estimates for the fourth
quarter are around a 5 percent annualized
rate, largely reflecting an inventory build,
which is boosting manufacturing.
The economy grew at a 33.4 percent rate
in the third quarter after contracting at a
31.4 percent pace in the April-June quarter.
In a third report, the Federal Reserve said
manufacturing production rose 0.9 percent
last month after advancing 0.8 percent in
November. That was the eighth straight
monthly gain in factory production. Manu-
facturing is being supported by a shift in
demand toward goods from services.
Production at factories increased at a 11.2
percent rate in the fourth quarter.
“Manufacturing is clearly weathering this
wave of confirmed COVID-19 cases bet-
ter than occurred earlier this year,” said
Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s
Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
“Manufacturers are busy, as there is a need
to rebuild inventories and demand for con-
sumer goods remains strong, for now.”
A fourth report from the Commerce De-
partment showed business inventories
increased 0.5 percent in November.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY | A17
MARK MAKELA/GETTY IMAGES
processing returns.
Americans who want refunds as soon
as possible should file electronically with
direct deposit. After filing, they can check
the IRS tool “Where’s My Refund” to find
out when their refund is due.
To avoid delays in processing,
people should avoid filing paper
returns wherever possible.
IRS
The IRS expects that 90 percent of taxpay-
ers will receive refunds within 21 days of
filing if they file electronically.
“To avoid delays in processing, people
should avoid filing paper returns wherever
possible,” the IRS said.
Last year’s average refund was more than
$2,500.
House Ways and Means Chairman Rich-
ard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement that
he’s disappointed with the delay.
“While I am disappointed that this
year’s filing season will begin later than
usual, I recognize that the IRS has faced
prepare for this as well as delivering Eco- extraordinary challenges throughout the
nomic Impact Payments in record time,” COVID crisis. It’s a relief to know that de-
IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a spite contending with the distribution
statement. of two rounds of economic impact pay-
“Given the pandemic, this is one of the ments, facility closures, and other disrup-
nation’s most important filing seasons ever. tions, the agency will be able to begin ac-
This start date will ensure that people get cepting returns within the next month,”
their needed tax refunds quickly while also he said.
making sure they receive any remaining “It is also encouraging that the IRS ex-
stimulus payments they are eligible for as pects taxpayers who file electronically at
quickly as possible.” the beginning of the season and claim re-
People making $72,000 or less can still fundable tax credits to receive their refunds
enter information immediately, using IRS by the first week of March. I urge taxpayers
Free File. Providers will accept completed to complete their returns and file electroni-
returns and hold them until the IRS begins cally as early as possible.”
Though economic growth is slowing, in- that will bring back demand, are all fac-
flation is stirring, with a fifth report from the tors that will boost inflation over coming
Labor Department showing the producer months,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S.
price index for final demand increased 0.3 economist at High Frequency Economics
percent in December after nudging up 0.1 in White Plains, New York.
percent in November.
“Additional government spending, as By Lucia Mutikani
well as a fuller reopening of the economy From Reuters
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A18 | PUZZLES MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF
Across
1. Campaigner, for short
4. Ancient Balkan region
10. Absorbed
14. Area code 801 area
16. Admired oneself
17. Aquarium attraction
18. What a polite tennis
player is noted for?
20. Not duped by
21. Seventh heaven
22. A bunch
24. Make a move
25. Plane posting?
28. Hangout
30. Mid-Eastern pastry
dough
31. Religious splinter
groups
32. 1,000 trillionth
37. Improvement
38. Not many
13. Beachwear 4NUMBERS CONSTRUCTED BY C. CHANG
AT 4NUMS.COM DAILY BRIDGE CLUB
15. Car crime Use the four numbers in the corners, and Return the lead?
the operands (+, - X, and ÷) to build an BY FRANK STEWART, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY
16. Cousin of “ahem” equation to get the solution in the middle.
There may be more than one “unique” so- ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
19. Resinous deposit lution but, there may also be “equivalent”
solutions. For example: 6 + (7 X 3) +1 = 28 “The human body has seven trillion nerves,”
23. “Baloney!” and 1+ (7 X 3) + 6 = 28 Cy the Cynic grumbled to me, “and she
manages to get on every one of mine.”
25. Be sick Wendy, my club’s ardent feminist, and
26. “Idomeneo” heroine Cy, a shameless chauvinist, are constantly
at odds. As today’s West in a penny game,
27. Housetops Wendy led the ten of diamonds against 3NT.
Dummy played low, and Cy, East, took the
28. Based on two main king and returned a diamond.
South won, led a club to dummy and let
beats to the measure the ten of hearts ride for a finesse. When
29. “Bald” bird Wendy won, she led a spade. The Cynic took
his queen and ace, but South had the rest
30. Strip blubber and made game.
32. Wisecrack BALLISTIC
33. Hit head-on “Couldn’t her diamonds have been Q-10-
Hard 1 - 1 Solution 9-8?” Cy asked me. “If I return her suit and
34. Numbskull it’s wrong, she complains. If I’d shifted and
that had been wrong, she would have gone
35. Willie of country ballistic.”
Cy had nine points, dummy had 12, and
music South had shown 16. If Wendy had good
36. Bombazine, e.g. diamonds, she couldn’t have a side entry
as well. Cy’s best chance is to hope Wendy
39. Big-time parties has an entry outside diamonds. If Cy shifts
to a low spade at Trick Two, he defeats the
40. Addicts contract.
41. Accurately pitched DAILY QUESTION
You hold: k K J 10 j Q 10 8
42. Zipped i A 6 5 3 h Q 10 7. Both sides
44. Forest clearing vulnerable. The dealer, at your left, opens
Hard 2 - 1 Solution one diamond. Your partner overcalls one
39. Tracks 76. Ticked off 46. Full “bird” off. heart, and the next player passes. What
do you say?
43. Making brighter 77. A loop doesn’t 49. Augur ANSWER: Presumably, your partner
have any 51. Cooking direction didn’t enter the auction, vulnerable, just
45. Cuts into pieces, as to hear the sound of his own voice. He
a pizza 78. Khartoum’s land, 52. Kind of race should have a good hand or a good suit or
47. Hammer’s end French style both. You may well have a game. To start,
53. Blobby protozoans cue-bid two diamonds to suggest heart
48. ___ Fjord, Norway 79. “M.S. Found in a support and game interest.
Bottle” writer 54. Carlsbad attraction South dealer
50. Eastern European N-S vulnerable
55. Trued up
51. Overpowered Down
56. Break NORTH
53. Some mites 1. Purplish kK J 10
60. Scintillas jQ 10 8
57. University V.I.P. 2. Suffix with psych- iA 6 5 3
61. “I believe” in Latin Easy 1 - 1 Solution hQ 10 7
58. Timothy Leary stash 3. Johns
59. Doing evil 4. Rare trick-taker 62. Reddish-brown gem WEST EAST
k6 4 kA Q 9 5 2
62. ___ Laurence Olivier 5. That ship 63. Trouble jK 7 4 j6 3 2
64. Cruel landlord? i10 9 8 7 iK 2
6. Gun 65. Puffed up h9 6 5 2 h8 4 3
65. “Moulding” or 7. “Wheel of Fortune” 66. Crowning SOUTH
“moustache” purchase k8 7 3
67. Galba’s predecessor jA J 9 5
69. Nota ___ 8. Anatomical cul-de-sac iQ J 4
70. Professional talker 68. “Family” diagram
9. A diuretic alleviates it hA K J
74. Trojan ally, in the 10. Dig, pig-style 71. Rumania’s 100 Bani
South West North East
“Iliad” 11. Wears a mask to bed 72. “30” to an editor 1 NT Pass 3 NT All Pass
75. Near the tonsil 12. Clear 73. Extinct flightless bird Easy 2 - 1 Solution Opening lead —i10

WORDSEARCH CONSTRUCTED BY TOM HOUSTON

EPOCH TIMES STAFF SUPER KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

Help with Today’s Crossword Puzzle? Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers 1-9
so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete.

ACARI GLADE SECTS

ALINED HIT-AND-RUN SLICES UP
AMEBAE IDIOT SLOVENE
APNEIC IOTAS SOUDAN
CAVERN MALEFICENT THONGS
CECUM NELSON THRACE
CREDO PATENT TUNED
DUPLE PREENED TWILL
EAGLE RECESS UPGRADE
EDEMA REVELRIES USERS
EVICTOR ROOFS VARIANT
FLENSE ROOTLE

SOLUTIONS
CROSSWORD SUPER KAKURO 4NUMBERS

HARD 1

HARD 2

EASY 1

EASY 2
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 PUZZLES | A19
SUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN SUPERSUDOKU CONSTRUCTED
BY KANNAN SANKARAN

Fill in the boxes using numbers between 1 and 9 so that each column, each Fill in the boxes using numbers from 0 to 9 and letters from A to F so that each column, each row, and
row, and each 3x3 square contain all nine numbers only once. each 4x4 square contain all ten numbers and six letters only once.
Hard

FEEDBACK@EPOCHTIMES.COM
Easy
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WHAT YOU THINK!
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CRYPTIC QUOTE
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
11

EPOCH DOKU CONSTRUCTED

BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

WORK SPACE

KAKURO CONSTRUCTED
BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF JUMBLE BY DAVID L. HOYT
& JEFF KNUREK

Kakuro puzzles are like crosswords that use numbers instead of words. The goal THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
is to fill the blank squares associated with a clue (called a “run”) with the numbers By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
1-9 so that the numbers add up to the corresponding clues. Like Sudoku, digits Unscramble these Jumbles,
in a run cannot repeat. When the grid is filled, the puzzle is complete. one letter to each square,
Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble

to form four ordinary words.

Easy
VAWEE
EPOCH ESCAPE MAZE
GEHED

CCNILI

NTCREH
Now arrange the circled letters
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC to form the surprise answer, as
All Rights Reserved. suggested by the above cartoon.

Print the answer here:

WORK SPACE

SOLUTIONS
SUPERSUDOKU SUDOKU: EASY JUMBLE EASY KAKURO
HITCHED
for years and liked being —
The horses had been married
Answers:

TRENCH
CLINIC
HEDGE
WEAVE
SUDOKU: HARD EPOCH DOKU
Jumbles:

CRYPTIC QUOTE
are determined to be so.
and men are great only if they
achieved without great men,
Nothing great will ever be

Contact the Puzzle Master @: Feedback@EpochTimes.com

A20 | MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

TRUTH and TRADITION

In Our Own Words

The Woman Behind the Hotline

Dear Epoch VIP,
I started working for The Epoch Times back in 2011 as a
reporter for the Chinese-language edition of the paper.
In 2017, I switched over to the customer-facing side of
the business. Having been a psychology major back in
college, I wanted to go back to the people side of things.
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learning curve.
When a lot of people talk about customer service,
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phone, or maybe over email, but it’s actually more
complicated than that. So many dots have to be
We take your connected to make it work—from hiring, to training,
to quality control, to keeping up with changes in
feedback very the entire company. In short, things were a lot more
complicated than I first thought.
seriously. Usually We’ve grown in the last few years because of the
when you send support from readers like you. On the hotline, we’ve
been trying to hire more people to reduce wait times
feedback ... we read which then create more efficient workflows to better
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to areas for page, readepoch.com/help).
And your feedback has been super valuable in telling
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We take your feedback very seriously. Usually when
Teresa You you send feedback (or if other departments forward us
Manager, Customer Service your feedback), we read your messages one by one and
give serious thought to areas for improvement. Because
we don’t want to be just any other corporate company
doing customer service, we hope to really get connected
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You are so important to us. And because of that,
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believe that a newspaper like this still existed! And
his letter isn’t the only one I remember. We keep all
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For me, my job is not about money or fame or
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had been arbitrarily detained in China, sent me here
to the United States at the age of 17 because they
wanted me to enjoy this country’s freedom. I don’t
want the same things that have happened to the
Chinese to happen to people here—even though in
some ways, I think they already have.
I want to end by telling you that especially because
I am an immigrant from China, I really appreciate
the freedom I enjoy in this country. Because of that,
I want the best for this country and its people, and I
will do my part by supporting a media that I believe
has the interests of this
country and its people at
heart: The Epoch Times.
In Truth and Tradition,
Teresa You
The Epoch Times

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telephone - spreading opinions, learn within a deep dive into each

The American People NEED TO
WAKE UP!! The great Patriots who
founded the GREATEST NATION
ON THE PLANET are under
attack by the LEFTISTS who are
aligned with the CCP! WAKE UP
AMERICA!!!
JASON E HAGGARD
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TRUTH AND TRADITION

 SEVENTYFOUR/SHUTTERSTOCK YUL38885/SHUTTERSTOCK
COVID-19 TREATMENTS

Children’s Hospitals Grapple Landmark Publication on

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Social distancing directly interferes with the Research review cements case for vitamin C
social connection at the heart of many therapies. as a standard therapeutic protocol.

See B5 See B6

MIND & BODY

WELL-BEING |DIET | FITNESS MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 B1

HALFPOINT/SHUTTERSTOCK

Walking
Your Way to
Emotional
Balance

Studies
have shown
that walking can
relieve depression,
reduce anxiety, and
boost our creative and
cognitive
function.

CONAN MILNER with her husband, in groups, with her dog, and
Walking is the

I
n 2007, author Nita Sweeney suffered one
very best form devastating loss after another. That year,
seven of her close friends and family mem-
of exercise and bers died.
Sweeney already struggled with chronic
a neurological depression and bipolar disorder. But with so
many loved ones passing away in such a short
period of time, she fell to new depths, both men-
tonic, experts tally and physically.
“I was just emotionally paralyzed, and I
say started to gain a lot of weight,” she said. “I was
in such bad physical shape that even walking
around the block was kind of a stretch.”
Sweeney finally climbed out of her despair by
putting one foot in front of the other. From 2007
to 2017, she went from barely being able to get
out of bed, to walking every day and clocking
many miles per week. Today, she walks alone,
whenever or wherever she finds an opportunity.
She says the rhythm of walking heals her. There is something
“I don’t know the science, but I know that there
is something that happens when I feel the sway about slowing down
and rhythm of my body and my arms swing,”
she said.
to the pace of the
This feeling has carried Sweeney through walk that lets things
three full marathons, 26 half marathons, and
more than 60 shorter races. Her running is slow drop away in a way
(and mixed with lots of walking), but Sweeney that they don't with
isn’t driven by speed, medals, or even physical
fitness. For her, it’s a “mental health journey.”
In her book, “Depression Hates A Moving
other exercise.
Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Nita Sweeney, author
Me Back From the Brink,” Sweeney describes
how she was able to find emotional balance
one step at a time.
Continued on B3
B2 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

ALL PHOTOS BY SHUTTERSTOCK

Behind the
Subscription We
always have
the magic of a
fresh start available
to us—in any day,
Your subscription will not only provide you with any hour, any
accurate news and features, but also contribute moment.
to the revival of American journalism and help
safeguard our freedoms for future generations.

We aim to tell you what we see, not how to think; we

strive to deliver you a factual picture of reality that
lets you form your own opinions.
WISE HABITS
We believe that we live in truly epochal times, where

A New Year Is a
the faithful representation of our current events
won’t just be important for the people of today, but
also for the generations to come. The records we

Beautiful Fresh Start

keep now will directly inform the foundations of the
history they’ll learn and the values they’ll cherish—
and this knowledge is what drives us.

Learn more at
The New Year gives us a major reset, but we
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LEO BABAUTA Start again. And find gratitude that

A
TRUTH AND TRADITION t the beginning of every year,
it’s like a blank slate: The year
can be whatever you want it
to be.
This is freeing, exhilarat-
ing, magical.
Take advantage of it, my friends.
Of course, we always have the
you get to start again, over and over.
Practicing With the
Blank Slate of a New Year
We’re a bit into the new year, and you
might have already started to lose the
freshness of this year. Don’t. We’re at
the very beginning, and we can do
whatever we like with this year.

2021 NTD 8TH

magic of a fresh start available to us— What would make this an amazing
in any day, any hour, any moment. year for you?
Every morning is a beautiful fresh What is possible for you this year?
start! In fact, right this moment, you Who would you like to be?
International have the opportunity of a fresh start.
We should take advantage of these
opportunities to see the freshness of
Chinese Vocal the moment in front of us.
Fresh starts are always
I recently was talking with my Zen

Competition
teacher and admitted I hadn’t been
studying as much as I’d committed
to doing. She advised: “Start at one.”
Basically, in basic breath meditation,
where you might count your breaths,
your mind will get distracted and
wander. And then you can simply
start at one.
Start at One—this is one of my man-
tras this year.
Let’s look at how to practice with
this during each day, and a couple
ways you can take advantage of Start-
ing at One as we look at this beautiful
year in front of us.
Practicing a Fresh Start
in Each Day
Every morning, you get to ask
yourself:
r
What would I like to do with this
incredible day?
r
What would make today incredible
for me?
r
What am I feeling called to do to-
day? What’s most important?
You can wipe the slate
clean of whatever hap-
pened the day before
(no matter what it
was), and just start
anew.
And then you get
a couple hours into
it, and maybe you
find yourself off course.
You’ve gotten distracted, or
caught up in busywork.
possible. Every time you
fail at a goal, fall off a
new habit, or give in to
temptation, you can just
dust yourself off and try
again.
Take a notebook and pen, and spend
30 minutes thinking about this fresh
space, and writing out some notes.
Is this the year you finally write
your book, launch something, create
something? Grow your business to a
new level, launch a new mission, help
others in a big way? Tackle something
hard and scary and meaningful?
Are there new habits you want to
create?
This is your year, to use however you
like. What magic can you create?
Putting It Into Action
Once you have an idea of what
you’d like to do or create, it’s
time to make it actually
happen.
Write it down and commit
to it. Tell others and prom-
ise to report to them weekly.
Adjust your plan each week,
with the blank slate of the
new week. Do a review each
month, and get yourself back on
track with each fresh month.
One small step at a time, make it

VOCAL.NTDTV.COM Start again.

Take a breath, and imagine this
happen. One fresh start at a time.

next moment is a blank slate. Leo Babauta is the author of six books,
GOLD AWARD REGISTER What is most important right the writer of Zen Habits, a blog with over
+1–888–477–9228 now? What would you like to do 2 million subscribers, and the creator
NEW YORK Oct. 2021 VOCAL㗥GLOBALCOMPETITIONS.ORG with this incredible hour in front
of you?
of several online programs to help you
master your habits. Visit ZenHabits.net
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021 B3
WAVEBREAKMEDIA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Walking Your
Way to Emotional
Balance
Continued from B1

“I know there are physical benefits. When The psychological

I stop walking, I gain weight. When I walk
again, I lose it. It’s that simple,” she said. freedom that comes
“But for me, it’s more emotional than
physical. There is something about slow- with walking can
ing down to the pace of the walk, that lets create an inner
things drop away in a way that they don’t
with other exercise.” spaciousness and
There is evidence to validate Sweeney’s
experience. Studies have shown that walk-
healing that is
ing can relieve depression, reduce anxi- beyond compare.
ety, and boost our creative and cognitive
function. Dr. Carla Marie Manly, clinical
When you add in the proven physical psychologist
benefits that come from walking, it almost
sounds too good to be true. The 2015 re-
port from Harvard Medical School titled,
“Walking for Health: Why this Simple
Form of Activity Could Be Your Best Health
Insurance,” discusses solid science that
shows walking can lower your blood pres- Manly takes her own medicine. Her morn- you walk, you’ll get smarter. If I’m wrong,
sure, fight heart disease, reduce the risk for ings always begin with a walk in a nearby you’re just going to be in great shape,’”
Type 2 diabetes, and help you lose weight. park. If there’s a break in her client schedule, Charles said.
she’ll grab another five- to 10-minute walk Other aspects of walking also contrib-
around the block to clear her head and move ute to your health with every step. Proper
her body. heel-to-toe form stimulates the receptors
“For me, a day without a walk is like a day in the bottoms of your feet to relieve stress
without water.” throughout your body and pump oxygen-
Getting the arms and ated blood up to your brain. The swinging
legs and moving like The Best Exercise of your arms stimulates your lymphatic
We all know we should move more, but we system to pump waste out of your blood.
that is a neurological may dismiss walking because it seems far In short, regular walking makes you bet-
too basic to be a viable or effective fitness ter equipped to handle life.
tonic. It is as close to a option. It doesn’t seem to provide enough
gosh darn panacea as of a challenge to make a difference. Movement Motivation
Dr. Eugene Charles, a Manhattan-based One of the best things about walking is how
we have. chiropractor and director of the Applied Ki- easy and accessible it is. All you need is a
nesiology Center of New York, says his pa- dry path (or a treadmill) and a decent pair
Dr. Eugene Charles, chiropractor
tients are usually more interested in Zumba, of shoes.
and director, Applied Kinesiology Whether it’s crawling,
walking, or running, this
cross-fit, Pilates, hot yoga, or other exercises The hardest part, however, is getting
Center of New York
cross-lateral motion helps of the moment than they are with walking. started.
align both your body’s But Charles says walking should be ev- Sweeney says her depression and bipolar
structure and your brain, eryone’s primary exercise. He recommends disorder can still hold her down, but if she
Walking for Peace of Mind by bridging its right and 45 minutes a day for those who want to can find some momentum for a walk, she
It’s clear we don’t walk as much as we used left hemispheres. lose weight, 30 minutes for those trying to knows things will get better.
to. In the past, we had no choice. Unless you maintain their weight, and a walk any time “You just have to push back a little. It
owned a horse or canoe, walking was the you’re feeling down. Charles says walking doesn’t have to be that much,” she said.
only way to get around. With the rise of cars will make all of your other physical endeav- “If I can just get myself moving at all, then
and a growing distance between home and ors that much better—even if you’re already everything else conspires to help me move
work, walking for more than a short distance very active. wherever I’m heading.”
has become quaint, almost obsolete. It’s no “I believe all exercise is good, but walk- Of course, there are also benefits from
longer a reasonable option when you have ing is the best, because it really suits the strenuous exercise that leaves you huffing,
places to go and people to see. human frame,” Charles said. “Getting the puffing, and sore the next day. But it doesn’t
Modern transit allows arms and legs and moving like that is a have to be part of your walking routine.
us to cover far more neurological tonic. It is as close to a gosh Charles says to take it easy, especially if
ground in less darn panacea as we have.” you’re in pain, weak, or just starting out.
time. But while The swinging If the goal of exercising is a more func- “You can make it as sublime, peaceful,
walking may of your arms tional mind and body, Charles says walk- and rhythmic as you want. It’s really up to
not be practical stimulates your ing accomplishes this better than anything you,” he said. “Even if you walk at a snail’s
for daily travel, lymphatic system else. He describes walking as a way to tune pace, it’s still healthy for you.”
it could help us to pump waste out up your mind and body. Walking makes
better handle our of your blood. you stand up straighter, it increases cir-
hectic schedules. culation to the entire body and sets it to a
One reason walk- soothing rhythm. It also improves balance
ing has become a priority for Swee- and coordination. Proper heel-to-toe form
ney is that it helps her work off anxiety. Walking does all this by engaging what
“It’s a way for me to calm down,” is known as the “cross-crawl” mechanism,
stimulates the receptors in
she said. “I just need a little bit of where your right arm and left leg (and vice the bottoms of your feet to
the rhythm, not much, but I just versa) move back and forth in tandem.
feel better.” This symmetrical crossover pattern is relieve stress throughout
Clinical psychologist Dr. Carla Ma- what babies develop as they learn to your body and pump
rie Manly says that, psychologically crawl, and is found to be essential
speaking, “walking is simply amaz- to both their physical and cogni- oxygenated blood up to
ing.” She points to research proving tive development.
that walking as little as 12 minutes can Charles says whether it’s your brain.
elevate your mood for several hours. crawling, walking, or run-
“When we walk, we are actually able ning, this cross-lateral motion
to leave our troubles behind on physi- helps align both your body’s structure and Seasoned walkers often advise that you
cal and metaphorical levels,” Manly your brain, by bridging its right and left get more out of your walk if you leave your
said. “The psychological freedom that hemispheres. gadgets behind. Let your arms swing. Let
comes with walking can create an in- “My opinion is that walking stimulates your mind wander. Notice the details in
ner spaciousness and healing that is the cerebellum, which helps with memory, the world around you. Enjoy the moment.
beyond compare.” cognition, and can prevent Alzheimer’s Caleb Backe, a personal trainer and well-
Manly observed walking’s heal- and Parkison’s. I tell my patients, ‘If ness expert for Maple Holistics, says walk-
ing power when she worked ing works best when we take the chance to
with juveniles on probation. unplug. He prefers to walk in silence.
She would often do “walk “Walking in silence with yourself, ideally
and talk” therapy with One of the best in a natural setting, allows for true intro-
these kids, and saw them things about spection,” he said. “You’ll recognize a good
thrive with the sense of walking is walk when you get back home and feel like
freedom that walking how easy and a better version of yourself.”
delivers. accessible it is. Sweeney is part of a walking group to
“Their troubles help keep her motivated and to provide
WAVEBREAKMEDIA/SHUTTERSTOCK

and issues felt less a sense of community. But she says these
pressing when group walks are no replacement for her
they were outside quiet walks alone, which she considers
walking with “almost sacred.”
me,” she said. “It’s a special time with myself,” she said.
“Adults can “I like walking with my husband, but there’s
benefit in the something about just being out there alone
same way.” that is a respite from the craziness of life.”
B4 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

POSITIVE AGING

Our Resilience Factor

Unfortunately,
we humans have
adapted to focus
more on bad
The ability to adapt to hardship will decide life experiences
whether we can rise up to meet to life’s challenges than good ones.

SHURKIN_SON/SHUTTERSTOCK

MARILYN MURRAY WILLISON

A
ccording to conventional wisdom,
every person on the planet faces
challenges, even though it some-
times seems that a chosen few
skate through life unscathed.
The truth is, at some point or another,
events—a broken heart, family confl icts,
a health crisis, job loss, money problems,
political upheaval—will bring us to
our knees.
The good news is that it’s possible to sur-
vive (and even thrive) afterward as long as
we’re resilient. Resilience is the ability to
adapt in the face of adversity or change and
recover well from hardship and tragedy.
Our resilience can deepen if we face the
stresses of life.
My favorite go-to source for boosting
my personal resilience is a terrific book
published over a decade ago that is full of
timeless wisdom and useful tools. “The Re-
silience Factor: 7 Essential Skills for Over-
coming Life’s Inevitable Obstacles,” by Drs.
Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté, is based
on proven ways to counteract negative and
defeatist thought patterns.
We all remember how Eeyore from the Win-
nie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne wallowed
in dreary and pessimistic thoughts in sharp
contrast to his upbeat and optimistic friend
Tigger. How annoying that tendency was,
though his friends would cheer him up over
and over again without complaint.
Unfortunately, we humans have adapted
to focus more on bad life experiences than
good ones. Why? Because our brains want us
to “overlearn” from situations like betrayal,
bullying, deprivation, and disappointment
so that we can program ourselves to avoid
those events in the future or react quickly to
them when and if they reappear.
The human brain tries to help us solve
problems by 1) understanding their origin,
2) challenging the way we think about fu-
ture problems, and 3) helping us become
more resilient in the face of adversity. Ac-
cording to Reivich and Shatté, there are
easy steps to help us build our own resil-
ience bank account:
r
When faced with adversity, listen to your
thoughts; pay attention to what you say
to yourself in that situation, and then
analyze how those thoughts affect your
behavior and feelings.
r
Avoid negative thoughts and self-talk that
undermine your resilience.
r
Identify your deep or hidden beliefs, and
then measure how and when they help
or hurt you.
r
Avoid imaginary “what if” thoughts and
the misperception that every failure or
mistake is (or will be) catastrophic.
r
If you feel emotionally overwhelmed
or stressed, do your very best to remain
calm and focused.
r
Flip your counterproductive thoughts
into more resilient ones.
While this is definitely not a traditional
motivational book, it does have useful “re-
silience quotient” activities, charts, and
tests to help readers evaluate and improve
different areas of their life. The goal is to
help us understand our beliefs, improve
our reactions, and become better at over-
One of the easiest ways
to build resilience and
begin being nicer to our-
selves in troubling times
is to ask what we would
say to a friend who hap-
pened to be in the same
situation.
“The Resilience Factor:
7 Essential Skills for
Overcoming Life’s
Inevitable Obstacles,” by
Drs. Karen Reivich and
Andrew Shatté.
coming adversity. The ultimate message is
for us to minimize what has gone wrong in
the past so that we can build, expand, and
improve the good things that are already
in our lives.
One of the easiest ways to build resilience
and begin being nicer to ourselves in trou-
bling times is to ask what we would say to
a friend who happened to be in the same
situation. Chances are we would be kinder,
not as critical, and less judgmental to some-
one else than we would be to ourselves.
Marilyn Murray Willison has had a
varied career as a six-time nonfiction
author, columnist, motivational speaker,
and journalist in both the UK and the U.S.
She is the author of The Self-Empowered
Woman blog and the award-winning
memoir “One Woman, Four Decades,
Eight Wishes.” She can be reached at
MarilynWillison.com. To find out more
about Marilyn and read her past col-
umns, please visit the Creators Syndicate
website at Creators.com. Copyright 2020
Creators.com

When Empathy Hurts, Compassion Can Heal

A new study shows compassion training can help us cope with other peoples’ distress
ADAM HOFFMAN
Empathy can be painful.
Or so suggests a growing body of neu-
roscientific research. When we witness
suffering and distress in others, our natu-
ral tendency to empathize can bring us
vicarious pain.
Is there a better way of approaching
distress in other people? A recent study,
published in the journal Cerebral Cortex,
suggests that we can better cope with oth-
ers’ negative emotions by strengthening
our own compassion skills, which the re-
searchers define as “feeling concern for an-
other’s suffering and desiring to enhance
that individual’s welfare.”
“Empathy is really important for under-
standing others’ emotions very deeply, but
there is a downside of empathy when it
comes to the suffering of others,” says Olga
Klimecki, a researcher at the Max Planck
Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain
Sciences in Germany and the lead author
of the study. “When we share the suffering
of others too much, our negative emotions
increase. It carries the danger of an emo-
tional burnout.”
The research team sent study partici-
pants to a one-day loving-kindness medi-
tation class, which utilized techniques and
philosophies from Eastern contemplative
traditions. Participants, none of whom
had prior meditation experience, prac-
ticed extending feelings of warmth and
care toward themselves, a close person, a
neutral person, a person in difficulty, and
complete strangers, as a way of developing
their compassion skills.
Both before and after the training, par-
ticipants were shown videos of people in
distress (e.g., crying after their home was
flooded). Following exposure to each video,
the researchers measured the subjects’
emotional responses through a survey.
Their brain activity was also recorded us-
ing an fMRI machine, a device that tracks
real-time blood-flow in the brain, thereby
enabling the scientists to see what brain
areas were active in response to viewing
the videos.
They found that the compassion training
led participants to experience significantly
more positive emotion when viewing the
distressing videos. In other words, they
seemed better able to cope with distress
than they did before the training—and
they coped better than a control group that
did not receive the compassion training.
“Through compassion training, we can
increase our resilience and approach
stressful situations with more positive af-
fect,” says Klimecki.
The positive emotional approach was ac-
companied by a change in brain activation
Through the cultivation of compassion we can change the way we respond to certain situations.
pattern: Before the training, participants
showed activity in an “empathic” network
associated with pain perception and un-
pleasantness; after the training, activity
shifted to a “compassionate” network that
has been associated with love and affiliation.
Their new brain-activation patterns more
closely resembled those of an “expert” who
had meditated every day on compassion
for more than 35 years, whose brain was
scanned by the researchers to provide a
point of comparison. This result suggests
that the training brought about fundamental
changes in the ways their brains processed
distressing scenes, strengthening the parts
that try to alleviate suffering—an example
of neuroplasticity, when the brain physically
evolves in response to experience.
Negative emotions did not disappear af-
ter the loving-kindness training; it’s just
MINGHUI.ORG
that the participants were less likely to
feel distressed themselves. According to
Klimecki and her colleagues, this suggests
that the training allowed participants to
stay in touch with the negative emotion
from a calmer mindset. “Compassion is a
good antidote,” says Klimecki. “It allows
us to connect to others’ suffering, without
being too distressed.”
The main takeaway
is that we can shape
our own emotional
reactions, and can
alter the way we feel
and respond to certain
situations.
The main takeaway is that we can shape
our own emotional reactions, and can al-
ter the way we feel and respond to certain
situations. In other words, says Klimecki,
“Our emotions are not set in stone.”
So is taking a compassion course like
the one offered through this study the
only way to build compassion? No. Re-
search suggests you can cultivate a com-
passionate mindset through encourag-
ing cooperation, practicing mindfulness,
refraining from placing blame on others,
acting against inequality, and being recep-
tive to others’ feelings without adopting
those feelings as your own.
Adam Hoff man is a Greater Good edi-
torial assistant. This article was origi-
nally published on Greater Good online
magazine.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
Children’s Hospitals Grapple
With Wave of Mental Illness
Social distancing directly interferes with the social connection at the heart of many therapies
CARMEN HEREDIA RODRIGUEZ
Krissy Williams, 15, had attempted sui-
cide before, but never with pills.
The teen was diagnosed with schizo-
phrenia when she was 9. People with this
chronic mental health condition per-
ceive reality differently and often experi-
ence hallucinations and delusions. She
learned to manage these symptoms with
a variety of services offered at home and
at school.
But the pandemic upended those
lifelines. She lost much of the support
offered at school. She also lost regular
contact with her peers. Her mother lost
access to respite care—which allowed
her to take a break.
On a Thursday in October, the isolation
and sadness came to a head. As Krissy’s
mother, Patricia Williams, called a men-
tal crisis hotline for help, she said, Krissy
stood on the deck of their Maryland
home with a bottle of pain medication in
one hand and water in the other.
Before Patricia could react, Krissy
placed the pills in her mouth and
swallowed.
The higher demand for
child mental health ser-
vices caused by the pan-
demic has made finding
a bed at an inpatient unit
more difficult.
Efforts to contain the spread of the nov-
el coronavirus in the United States have
led to drastic changes in the way children
and teens learn, play, and socialize. Tens
of millions of students are attending
school through some form of distance
learning. Many extracurricular activi-
ties have been canceled. Playgrounds,
zoos, and other recreational spaces have
closed. Kids like Krissy have struggled to
cope, and the toll is becoming evident.
Government figures show the propor-
tion of children who arrived in emergen-
cy departments with mental health issues
increased 24 percent from mid-March
through mid-October, compared with
the same period in 2019. Among preteens
and adolescents, it rose by 31 percent.
Anecdotally, some hospitals said they’re
seeing more cases of severe depression
and suicidal thoughts among children,
particularly attempts to overdose.
The increased demand for intensive
mental health care that has accompa-
nied the pandemic has worsened issues
that have long plagued the system. In
some hospitals, the number of children
unable to immediately get a bed in the
psychiatric unit rose. Others reduced
the number of beds or closed psychiatric
units altogether to reduce the spread of
COVID-19.
“It’s only a matter of time before a
tsunami sort of reaches the shore of
our service system, and it’s going to be
overwhelmed with the mental health
needs of kids,” said Jason Williams, a
psychologist, and director of operations
of the Pediatric Mental Health Institute
at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
“I think we’re just starting to see the tip
of the iceberg, to be honest with you.”
Before COVID, more than 8 million kids
between ages 3 and 17 were diagnosed
with a mental or behavioral health condi-
tion, according to the most recent Na-
tional Survey of Children’s Health.
A separate survey from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention found 1
in 3 high school students in 2019 reported
feeling persistently sad and hopeless—a
40 percent increase from 2009.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to be
adding to these difficulties. A review of
80 studies found that forced isolation and
loneliness among children correlated
with an increased risk of depression.
“We’re all social beings, but they’re
[teenagers] at the point in their develop-
ment where their peers are their reality,”
said Terrie Andrews, a psychologist and
administrator of behavioral health at Wolf-
son Children’s Hospital in Florida. “Their
peers are their grounding mechanism.”
Children’s hospitals in New York, Colo-
rado, and Missouri all reported an uptick
in the number of patients who thought
about or attempted suicide. Clinicians
also mentioned spikes in children with
severe depression and those with autism
who are acting out.
The number of overdose attempts
among children has caught the attention
of clinicians at two facilities. Andrews
from Wolfson Children’s said the facil-
ity gives out lockboxes for weapons and
medication to the public—including par-
ents who come in after children attempt-
ed to take their life using medication.
Children’s National Hospital in Wash-
ington, D.C., also has experienced an
uptick, said Dr. Colby Tyson, associate
director of inpatient psychiatry. She’s
seen children’s mental health deteriorate
due to a likely increase in family con-
flict—often a consequence of the chaos
caused by the pandemic. Without school,
connections with peers, or employment,
families don’t have the opportunity to
spend time away from one another and
regroup, which can add stress to an
already tense situation.
“That break is gone,” she said.
The higher demand for child mental
health services caused by the pandemic
has made finding a bed at an inpatient
unit more difficult.
Now some hospitals report running at
full capacity and having more children
“boarding,” or sleeping in emergency
departments before being admitted to
the psychiatric unit. Among them is
the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at
Children’s Hospital Colorado. Williams
said the inpatient unit has been full since
March. Some children now wait nearly
two days for a bed, up from the eight to
10 hours common before the pandemic.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medi-
cal Center in Ohio is also running at full
capacity, according to clinicians, and
had several days in which the unit was
above capacity and placed kids in the
emergency department as they waited to
be admitted. In Florida, Andrews said,
up to 25 children have been held on sur-
gical floors at Wolfson Children’s while
waiting for a spot to open in the inpatient
psychiatric unit. Their wait could last as
long as five days, she said.
Multiple hospitals said the usual sum-
mer slump in child psychiatric admis-
sions was missing last year. “We never
saw that during the pandemic,” said
Andrews. “We stayed completely busy
the entire time.”
Some facilities have decided to reduce
the number of beds available to maintain
physical distancing, further constricting
Krissy Williams, pic-
tured with her brother,
lives with schizophre-
nia. The disruption to her
school and health ser-
vices caused by COVID-
19 worsened her men-
tal health. In October, she
tried to take her own life.
We’re all social
beings, but
they’re [teen-
agers] at the
point in their
development
where their
peers are their
reality.
Terrie Andrews, psychol-
ogist and administra-
tor of behavioral health,
Wolfson Children’s Hos-
pital in Florida
Carmen Heredia
Rodriguez is a reporter
for Kaiser Health
News, which first
published this article.
KHN’s coverage of
these topics is sup-
ported by The John A.
Hartford Foundation,
Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation,
and The SCAN Foun-
dation.
B5
PATRICIA WILLIAMS
supply. Children’s National in D.C. cut
five beds from its unit to maintain single
occupancy in every room, said Dr. Ad-
elaide Robb, division chief of psychiatry
and behavioral sciences.
The measures taken to curb the spread
of COVID-19 have also affected the way
hospitalized children receive mental
health services. In addition to provid-
ers wearing protective equipment, some
hospitals like Cincinnati Children’s
rearranged furniture and placed cues on
the floor as reminders to stay 6 feet apart.
UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital in
Pittsburgh and other facilities encourage
children to keep their masks on by of-
fering rewards like extra computer time.
Patients at Children’s National now eat
in their rooms, a change from when they
ate together.
Despite the need for distance, social
interaction still represents an important
part of mental health care for children,
clinicians said. Facilities have come up
with various ways to do so safely, in-
cluding creating smaller pods for group
therapy. Kids at Cincinnati Children’s can
play with toys, but only with ones that
can be wiped clean afterward. No cards
or board games, said Dr. Suzanne Sam-
pang, clinical medical director for child
and adolescent psychiatry at the hospital.
“I think what’s different about psychi-
atric treatment is that, really, interaction
is the treatment,” she said, “just as much
as a medication.”
The added infection-control precau-
tions pose challenges to forging thera-
peutic connections. Masks can compli-
cate the ability to read a person’s face.
Online meetings make it difficult to build
trust between a patient and a therapist.
“There’s something about the real rela-
tionship in person that the best technol-
ogy can’t give to you,” said Robb.
For now, Krissy is relying on virtual
platforms to receive some of her mental
health services. Despite being hospital-
ized and suffering brain damage due to
the overdose, she is now at home and in
good spirits. She still has fun, like try-
ing to beat her mother at Super Mario
Bros. on the Wii. But being away from
her friends, she said, has been a hard
adjustment.
“When you’re used to something,” she
said, “it’s not easy to change everything.”
If you have contemplated suicide or
someone you know has talked about it,
call the National Suicide Prevention Life-
line at 1-800-273-8255, or use the online
Lifeline Crisis Chat, both available 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
B6
Landmark Publication on
Vitamin C for COVID-19
Research review cements case for
vitamin C as a standard therapeutic protocol
JOSEPH MERCOLA
R
egardless of what the main-
stream media wants you to
think, many are starting to re-
alize that vitamin C (ascorbic
acid) and vitamin D both have
an enormous amount of research showing
they provide important immune function
enhancements, and that your immune func-
tion is your frontline defense against all ill-
ness, including COVID-19.
The following was reported in the paper
“Optimal Nutritional Status for a Well-Func-
tioning Immune System Is an Important
Factor to Protect Against Viral Infections,”
published April 23, 2020:
“The role nutrition plays in supporting
the immune system is well-established. A
wealth of mechanistic and clinical data show
that vitamins, including vitamins A, B6, B12,
C, D, E, and folate; trace elements, includ-
ing zinc, iron, selenium, magnesium, and
copper; and the omega-3 fatty acids eicosa-
pentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid
play important and complementary roles in
supporting the immune system.”
“Inadequate intake and status of these
nutrients are widespread, leading to a de-
crease in resistance to infections and as a
consequence an increase in disease burden.”
High-Dose Vitamin C
Acts as Antiviral Drug
As explained by Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-
chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News
Service, at extremely high doses, vitamin C
actually acts as an antiviral drug, effectively
inactivating viruses.
His Tokyo presentation, “Orthomolecular
Medicine and Coronavirus Disease: Histori-
cal Basis for Nutritional Treatment,” high-
lights the fact that when used as a treatment,
high doses of vitamin C—often 1,000 times
more than the U.S. Recommended Dietary
Allowance (RDA)—are needed.
It’s a cornerstone of medical science that
dose affects treatment outcome, but this
premise isn’t accepted when it comes to vi-
tamin therapy the way it is with drug therapy.
Most vitamin C research has used inadequate,
low doses, which don’t lead to clinical results.
“The medical literature has ignored over
80 years of laboratory and clinical studies
on high-dose ascorbate therapy,” Saul notes,
adding that while it’s widely accepted that
vitamin C is beneficial in fighting illness,
controversy exists over to what extent.
“Moderate quantities provide effective
prevention,” he says. “Large quantities are
therapeutic.”
Landmark Paper Puts Vitamin C
on COVID-19 Treatment Map
While health authorities and mainstream
media have ignored, if not outright opposed,
the use of vitamin C and other supplements
in the treatment of COVID-19, citing lack of
clinical evidence, we now have a landmark
review recommending the use of vitamin
C as an adjunctive therapy for respiratory
infections, sepsis, and COVID-19.
The review was published Dec. 7, 2020, in
the journal Nutrients. It was co-written by
Dr. Paul Marik who, in 2017, developed a
groundbreaking vitamin C-based treatment
for sepsis. Marik is now heading up the Front
Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which
has developed a highly successful treatment
for COVID-19.
The COVID-19 protocol was initially dubbed
MATH+ (an acronym based on the key com-
ponents of the treatment), but after several
tweaks and updates, the prophylaxis and
early outpatient treatment protocol is now
known as I-MASK+ while the hospital treat-
ment has been renamed I-MATH+, due to the
addition of the drug Ivermectin. Vitamin C re-
mains a central component of the treatment.
The two protocols are available for down-
load on the FLCCC Alliance website in mul-
tiple languages. The clinical and scientific
rationale for the I-MATH+ hospital proto-
col has also been peer-reviewed and was
published in the Journal of Intensive Care
Medicine in mid-December 2020.
As explained in the Nutrients review ab-
stract:
“There are limited proven therapies for
COVID-19. Vitamin C’s antioxidant, anti-in-
flammatory and immunomodulating effects
make it a potential therapeutic candidate,
both for the prevention and amelioration
of COVID-19 infection, and as an adjunc-
tive therapy in the critical care of COVID-19.
“This literature review focuses on vitamin
C deficiency in respiratory infections, includ-
ing COVID-19, and the mechanisms of ac-
tion in infectious disease, including support
of the stress response, its role in preventing
and treating colds and pneumonia, and its
role in treating sepsis and COVID-19.
“The evidence to date indicates that oral
vitamin C (2-8 g/day) may reduce the inci-
dence and duration of respiratory infections
and intravenous vitamin C (6-24 g/day) has
been shown to reduce mortality, intensive
care unit (ICU) and hospital stays, and time
on mechanical ventilation for severe respira-
tory infections ...
“Given the favorable safety profile and low
cost of vitamin C, and the frequency of vita-
min C deficiency in respiratory infections, it
may be worthwhile testing patients’ vitamin
C status and treating them accordingly with
intravenous administration within ICUs and
oral administration in hospitalized persons
with COVID-19.”
International Vitamin C
Campaign Launched
In a Dec. 16, 2020, action alert, Rob Verkerk,
MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
ADRIAN PRANATA/UNSPLASH
founder and scientific director of the Alli-
ance for Natural Health, announced the
launch of an international vitamin C cam-
paign in response to the landmark review,
which “puts all the arguments and science
in one, neat place.”
As noted by Verkerk, there are several rea-
sons to take supplemental vitamin C. First,
your body can’t make it. Second, most people
don’t get sufficient amounts from their diet,
and, third, your body’s requirement for vita-
There is ample min C can increase 10-fold whenever your
immune system is challenged by an infec-
evidence to tion, disease, or physical trauma.
In fact, the Nutrients review points out
show that
that it’s common for hospitalized patients
supplements to have overt vitamin C deficiency, defined
as a blood level at or below 11 umol/L. This is
like zinc, particularly true for older patients and those
vitamin C, hospitalized for respiratory infections.
According to the authors, “Vitamin C con-
and vitamin centrations are three to 10 times higher in
the adrenal glands than in any other organ.
D can help It is released from the adrenal cortex under
prevent and conditions of physiological stress (ACTH
stimulation), including viral exposure, rais-
treat COVID- ing plasma levels fivefold.”
19, but we’re In his action alert, Verkerk notes:
“Taking vitamin C as a preventative and
prevented then upping your intake if you’re infected
is a no brainer. So is using vitamin C intra-
from learning venously for those with acute respiratory
about these infections, or sepsis, in critical care.
“So much so, that we argue—given the now
benefits by available evidence—that doctors and other
health professionals who avoid recommen-
the federal dations on vitamin C in relation to COVID
government. disease prevention and treatment, should be
considered medically negligent …
Rob Verkerk, “There is ample evidence to show that sup-
founder and scientific plements like zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin
director, Alliance D can help prevent and treat COVID-19, but
for Natural Health we’re prevented from learning about these
benefits by the federal government.
“Because supplements are not, and can
never become, FDA-approved, they cannot
claim to have an impact on disease, even
when we know they can. This nonsense
has to stop.”
How Vitamin C Works
As mentioned, the Nutrients review details
vitamin C’s mechanisms of action and how it
helps in cases of infectious disease, including
the common cold, pneumonia, sepsis, and
COVID-19. For starters, vitamin C has the
following basic properties:
N Anti-inflammatory
N Immunomodulatory
N Antioxidant
N Antithrombotic
N Antiviral
ELNUR/SHUTTERSTOCK
Vitamin C deficiency, and
COVID-19 share many
of the same risk factors,
including male gender,
darker skin, older age,
and comorbidities such
as diabetes, high blood
pressure, and COPD.
 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021
Beneficial antiviral effects apply to both the
innate and adaptive immune systems. When
you have an infection, vitamin C improves
your immune function in part by promot-
ing the development and maturation of T-
lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that
is an essential part of your immune system.
Phagocytes, immune cells that kill patho-
genic microbes, are also able to take in
oxidized vitamin C and regenerate it to
ascorbic acid.
Vitamin C Actions Against COVID-19
With regard to COVID-19 specifically, vita-
min C helps downregulate inflammatory
cytokines, thereby reducing the risk of a
cytokine storm. It also reduces inflamma-
tion through the activation of NF-ljB and by
increasing superoxide dismutase, catalase,
and glutathione. Epigenetically, vitamin C
regulates genes involved in the upregulation
of antioxidant proteins and downregulation
of proinflammatory cytokines.
Vitamin C also upregulates expression of
Type-1 interferons, your primary antiviral
defense mechanism, which SARS-CoV-2
downregulates.
Vitamin C eliminates ACE2 upregulation
induced by IL-7. This is particularly notewor-
thy, as the ACE2 receptor is the entry point for
SARS-CoV-2 (the virus’ spike protein binds
to ACE2).
Vitamin C also appears to be a powerful
inhibitor of Mpro, a key protease (enzyme)
in SARS-CoV-2 that activates viral nonstruc-
tural proteins.
The graph below, from the Nutrients review,
illustrates the key ways in which vitamin C
ameliorates the pathology seen in COVID-19.
Clinical Evidence
The Nutrients review also includes clinical
evidence for the role of vitamin C in COV-
ID-19, noting that early oral supplementa-
tion might help prevent a mild case from
developing into something more serious.
In patients with critical symptoms, intrave-
nous administration of vitamin C has been
shown to speed up recovery, reducing both
ICU stays and mortality.
Interestingly, vitamin C deficiency, and
COVID-19 share many of the same risk fac-
tors, including male gender, darker skin,
older age, and comorbidities such as dia-
betes, high blood pressure, and COPD. All
of these subgroups are at increased risk for
severe COVID-19 and, according to the re-
view authors, all “have also been shown to
have lower serum vitamin C levels.”
Commenting on the clinical evidence sup-
porting the use of vitamin C in the treatment
of COVID-19, the authors write:
“There are currently 45 trials registered on
Clinicaltrials.gov investigating vitamin C with
or without other treatments for COVID-19. In
the first RCT to test the value of vitamin C
in critically ill COVID-19 patients, 54 venti-
lated patients in Wuhan, China, were treated
with a placebo (sterile water) or intravenous
vitamin C at a dose of 24 g/day for 7 days …
“The more severely ill patients with SOFA
[sequential organ failure assessment] scores
≥ 3 in the vitamin C group exhibited a reduc-
tion in 28-day mortality: 18 percent versus
50 percent in univariate survival analysis
(Figure 2). No study-related adverse events
were reported.”
Figure 2 below, from version 1 of the study,
“High-Dose Vitamin C Infusion for the Treat-
ment of Critically Ill COVID-19,” posted on
the preprint server Research Square August
10, 2020 (updated Sept. 23, at which point it
was renamed), shows the 28-day mortality
rates between critically ill COVID-19 patients
given high-dose IV vitamin C (HDIVC) com-
pared to those given a placebo.
The Nutrient review also summarizes
findings from other COVID-19 trials using
vitamin C, as well as a few case reports:
“In the UK, the Chelsea and Westminster
hospital ICU, where adult ICU patients were
administered 1 g of intravenous vitamin C
every 12 h together with anticoagulants, has
reported 29 percent mortality, compared
to the average 41 percent reported by the
Intensive Care National Audit and Research
Centre (ICNARC) for all UK ICUs …
“The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Ex-
pert Group (FLCCC), a group of emergency
medicine experts, have reported that, with
the combined use of 6 g/day intravenous
vitamin C (1.5 g every 6 h), plus steroids and
anticoagulants, mortality was 5 percent in
two ICUs in the US (United Memorial Hos-
pital in Houston, Texas, and Norfolk Gen-
eral Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia), the lowest
mortality rates in their respective counties.
“A case report of 17 COVID-19 patients who
were given 1 g of intravenous vitamin C every
8 h for 3 days reported a mortality rate of 12
percent with 18 percent rates of intubation
and mechanical ventilation and a signifi-
cant decrease in inflammatory markers,
including ferritin and D-dimer, and a trend
towards decreasing FiO2 requirements.
“Another case of unexpected recovery
following high-dose intravenous vitamin
C has also been reported. While these case
reports are subject to confounding and are
not prima facie evidence of effects, they do
illustrate the feasibility of using vitamin C for
COVID-19 with no adverse effects reported.”
How Much Vitamin C Do You Need?
As detailed in the introduction of the Nutri-
ents review, primates and humans are de-
pendent on an adequate supply of vitamin C
from fruits and vegetables. Gorillas need 4.5
grams a day, while smaller primates weigh-
ing around 7.5 kilos need about 600 mg per
day. This gives us a clue as to what the human
requirement might be, and it’s quite a bit
higher than the daily recommended intake.
According to the authors:
“The EU Average Requirement of 90 mg/
day for men and 80 mg/day for women is
to maintain a normal plasma level of 50
umol/L, which is the mean plasma level in
UK adults. This is sufficient to prevent scurvy
but may be inadequate when a person is un-
der viral exposure and physiological stress.
“An expert panel in cooperation with the
Swiss Society of Nutrition recommended
that everyone supplement with 200 mg ‘to fill
the nutrient gap for the general population
and especially for the adults age 65 and older.
This supplement is targeted to strengthen the
immune system.’ The Linus Pauling Institute
recommends 400 mg for older adults (&gt;50
years old).
“Pharmacokinetic studies in healthy volun-
teers support a 200-mg daily dose to produce
a plasma level of circa 70 to 90 umol/L. Com-
plete plasma saturation occurs between 1 g
daily and 3 g every four hours, being the high-
est tolerated oral dose, giving a predicted peak
plasma concentration of circa 220 umol/L.
“The same dose given intravenously raises
plasma vitamin C levels approximately ten-
fold. Higher intakes of vitamin C are likely to
be needed during viral infections with 2–3
g/day required to maintain normal plasma
levels between 60 and 80 umol/L. Whether
higher plasma levels have additional benefit
is yet to be determined, but would be con-
sistent with the results of the clinical trials
discussed in this review.”
While high-dose vitamin C regimens typi-
cally call for intravenous administration, if
treating a viral infection at home (be it CO-
VID-19 or something else), you could use oral
liposomal vitamin C, as this allows you to take
far higher doses without causing loose stools.
You can take up to 100 grams of liposomal
vitamin C without problems and get really
high blood levels, equivalent to or higher
than intravenous vitamin C. I view that as
an acute treatment, however. I discourage
people from taking mega doses of vitamin
C on a regular basis if they’re not actually
sick, because it is essentially a drug—or at
least it works like one.
Saul, who has worked with and recom-
mended vitamin C for most of his profes-
sional life suggests taking “enough vitamin
C to be symptom-free,” whatever dosage that
might be. When you’re well, you typically
don’t need more than the 200 mg to 400 mg
recommended in the quote above.
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mer-
cola.com. An osteopathic physician, best-
selling author, and recipient of multiple
awards in the field of natural health, his
primary vision is to change the modern
health paradigm by providing people
with a valuable resource to help them take
control of their health. This article was
originally published on Mercola.com
B7
Kidney Toxins Created
by Meat Consumption
CLINT BUSTRILLOS/UNSPLASH
MICHAEL GREGER
A diet rich in animal-sourced foods
like meat, eggs, and cheese can con-
tribute to heart disease, stroke, and
death through a biochemical pro-
cess that clogs arteries with plaque.
Atherosclerosis is the formal term
for plaque collecting on and hard-
ening the arterial walls. Animal
foods increase the production of an
atherosclerosis-inducing substance
called Trimethylamine N-oxide
(TMAO).
With the help of certain gut bacte-
ria, the choline and carnitine found
concentrated in animal products
can get converted into TMAO.
Cholesterol is a primary cause of
atherosclerosis, but TMAO appears
to accelerate the process. Research
led by Stanley Hazen, an endocri-
nologist and head of preventive car- used for decades to  treat  chron-
diology and cardiac rehabilitation at ic kidney failure. Indeed, those
the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, tells us who eat vegetarian diets  form 
TMAO appears to increase the abil- less than half of these uremic toxins.
ity of inflammatory cells within the Those aren’t the only uremic tox-
atherosclerotic plaque in the artery ins, though. TMAO, which, as we’ve
walls to bind to bad LDL cholesterol. discussed, comes from the break-
This can make the cells more prone down of choline and carnitine found
to gobble up cholesterol. mostly in meat and eggs, may be in-
The findings provide researchers creasing heart disease risk in kidney
important insight on how choles- patients as well.
terol causes heart disease. How TMAO seems to down-reg-
TMAO does more than worsen ath- ulate reverse cholesterol transport,
erosclerosis, contributing to strokes meaning it subverts our own body’s
and heart attacks. It also contrib- attempts to pull cholesterol out of
utes to heart and kidney failure, note our arteries, according to research
researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. done in France and Federal Flumi-
If you look at diabetics after a heart nense University in Brazil.
attack, a really high-risk group, near- And, indeed, the worse our kidney
ly all who started out with the most function gets, the higher our TMAO
TMAO in their bloodstream went levels rise, and those elevated levels
on to develop heart failure within correlate with the amount of plaque
2,000 days, or about five years. In clogging up their arteries in their
comparison, only about 20 percent heart. But once the kidney is work-
of those starting out with medium ing again with a transplant, your
TMAO levels in the blood went into TMAO levels can drop right back
heart failure and none at all in the down. So, TMAO was thought to be
low TMAO group. a kind of biomarker for declining
So, those with heart failure have kidney function—until a paper was
higher levels of TMAO than con- published from the Framingham
trols, and those with worse heart Heart Study, which found that “el-
failure have higher levels evated choline and TMAO
than those with lesser levels among individu-
stage heart disease. als with normal renal
If you follow people [kidney] function
with heart failure predicted increased
over time, as re- risk for incident de-
searchers in Nor- velopment of CKD
way did, within six [chronic kidney
years, half of those disease].” This sug-
who started out with gests that TMAO is
the highest TMAO both a biomarker and
levels were dead. This NAN H
itself a kidney toxin.
X I W E I/ U N S P L A S
finding has since been rep- Indeed, when you follow
licated in two other independent kidney patients over time and
populations of heart failure patients. assess their freedom from death,
The question is, why? It’s probably as the Cleveland Clinic did, you
unlikely to just be additional athero- discover those with higher TMAO,
sclerosis, since that takes years. For even controlling for kidney func-
most who die of heart failure, their tion, lived significantly shorter lives.
heart muscle just conks out or there’s This indicates this is a diet-induced
a fatal heart rhythm. Maybe TMAO mechanism for progressive kidney
has toxic effects beyond just the ac- scarring and dysfunction, “strongly
celerated buildup of cholesterol. implying the need to focus preven-
tive efforts on dietary modulation,”
wrote the researchers in an article
published in Circulation Research.
The worse our kidney What might that look like? For
people concerned about this issue,
function gets, the it would mean eating fewer foods
that are dietary sources of TMAO
higher our TMAO generation, such as some species of
levels rise, and deep-sea fish, eggs, and meat.
It also depends on what kind of gut
those elevated levels bacteria you have. You can feed a
correlate with the vegan a steak, and they still don’t
really make any TMAO because they
amount of plaque haven’t been fostering the carnitine-
eating bacteria. Researchers are
clogging up their hoping, though, that one day, they’ll
arteries in their heart. find a way to replicate “the effects of
the vegetarian diet ... by selective
prebiotic, probiotic, or pharmaco-
What about kidney failure? People logic therapies.”
with chronic kidney disease are at a
particularly “increased risk for the Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, is a
development of cardiovascular dis- physician, New York Times bestsell-
ease,” notes Wilson Tang (Cleveland ing author, and internationally
Clinic) in the Journal of the Ameri- recognized professional speaker on a
can Society of Nephrology. number of important public health
The cause is thought to be because issues. He has lectured at the Confer-
of a diverse array of uremic toxins. ence on World Affairs, the National
These are toxins that would nor- Institutes of Health, and the Interna-
mally be filtered out by the kidneys tional Bird Flu Summit, testified be-
into the urine but may build up in fore Congress, appeared on “The Dr.
the bloodstream as kidney function Oz Show” and “The Colbert Report,”
declines. When we think of uremic and was invited as an expert witness
toxins, we usually think of the toxic in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the
byproducts of protein putrefying in infamous “meat defamation” trial.
our gut, which is why specially for- This article was originally published
mulated plant-based diets have been on NutritionFacts.org
B8 MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2021

Sunscreen Chemical May Play a Part in Breast Cancer

Benzophenone-3 is a common incredient in sunscreens, but there are safer alternatives
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY levels of BP-3 exceeded the Federal Drug protection against epithelial tumors from

T
he common sunscreen ingredi-
ent benzophenone-3, also known
as oxybenzone or BP-3, can play a
role in the development of mam-
mary gland tumors, according to
new research in mice.
“Our set of results suggest caution in
using BP-3 and the need to dig deeper to
understand what it can do in mammary
glands and tumorigenesis,” says Richard
Schwartz, professor in the microbiology
and molecular genetics department at
Michigan State University, who has been
researching the interaction of diet and can-
cer cell growth and proliferation for more
than 12 years.
“This is the first published result that
makes a convincing case that BP-3 can
change cancer outcomes.”
The effects of BP-3
varied depending
on when the mice
were fed a certain
type of diet.
The study appears in Oncotarget.
Schwartz and coauthor Sandra Haslam,
professor emeritus in the physiology de-
partment, previously conducted successful
Administration’s guidance for chemicals
at a threshold of toxicological concern, and
the Centers for Disease Control found BP-3
in 98 percent of adult urine samples.
BP-3 is also a suspected endocrine
disrupting chemical (EDC). These
substances   interfere with hor-
monally regulated processes the
body uses for a wide range of
functions, including mammary
gland development.
Using a mouse model in which
the mammary glands lacked
a gene often mutated in human
breast cancer as a proxy for women
growing from puberty into adult-
hood, the researchers put the mice
under three distinct dietary regimes: a
lifelong low-fat diet, a high-fat diet during
puberty switching to a low-fat diet during
reproductive years, and vice versa.
The experiment split mice on these three
diets into two groups. One of these groups was
fed BP-3 daily at a dose equivalent to a heavy
application of sunscreen on a beach day.
Over the course of a year and a half of
treatment, the researchers collected tu-
mors from the mice and found robust evi-
dence for the adverse effects of diet and
BP-3 on breast cancer development.
“You never know what you’re going to
find in experiments like these,” Schwartz
says. “I was prepared to see no difference
at all from BP-3 in any of our diets, but we
found that even a relatively brief exposure
to a high-fat diet during puberty is enough
L E K /S H U T T E R S T O C K
the chemical BP-3 but had spindle cell tu-
NO K
mors with more aggressive properties. A
high-fat diet during puberty, on the other
hand, completely blocked any protec-
tive effect of BP-3 and caused epithe-
lial tumors to grow more aggres-
sively. The last treatment, a high-fat
diet during adulthood, promoted
aggressive epithelial tumors.
Interestingly, the researchers
also found that before tumors
appeared, BP-3 increased the
growth of normal breast cells on
all diets, a known correlate of more
aggressive cancers.
“BP-3 will likely not have the same
impact on groups of women with di-
etary differences, and that’s an important
question to ask when designing experi-
ments that study the effects of EDC’s and
A common ingredient in cancer,” Schwartz explains. “In balance,
sunscreen may cause these results suggest that there are enough
the disease many people bad effects from BP-3 overall that we be-
use sunscreen to avoid— lieve it calls for the precautionary principle.
cancer. “When there are alternatives, stay away
from BP-3,” recommends Schwartz, who
notes that zinc oxide and titanium dioxide
creams are good candidates.
The Breast Cancer and the Environment
Research Program housed in the National
Institute for Environmental Health Sci-
ences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer
Institute (NCI) funded the research.
The grant supporting Schwartz’s bench
research also encompassed areas of epide-
miology and outreach. Epidemiologists at
JESSICA2/SHUTTERSTOCK

experiments in mouse models that eluci-
dated a relationship between diets high
in saturated animal fats with higher inci-
dence and shorter latency of breast cancer.
“We were excited about the results of our
diet experiments, but the [the National
Institute for Environmental Health Sci-
ences (NIEHS)] was interested in funding
a chemical study, so we decided to combine
the two,” Schwartz says.
The researchers landed on BP-3, a ubiq-
uitous and easily absorbed chemical. A re-
cent report in the Journal of the American
Medical Association found that after just
one heavy application of sunscreen, blood
to allow BP-3 to cause a change in the out-
come for cancer.”
Nearly all mice developed two kinds of
aggressive breast cancer tumors. The first,
known as epithelial tumors, retain many of
the properties of normal mammary gland
cells. The second, known as spindle cell tu-
mors, lose most of the properties of normal
cells and develop into a deadly, often triple
negative form of breast cancer known as
claudin-low breast cancer.
The effects of BP-3 varied depending on
when the mice were fed a certain type of
diet. For example, mice given a lifelong
low-fat diet surprisingly acquired some
the University of Cincinnati are studying
a cohort of young women at varying ages
and levels of BP-3 to track any reproduction
abnormalities. A breast cancer advocacy
group, the Huntington Breast Cancer Ac-
tion Coalition, is generating messages for
women in New York with help from the
grant, and Schwartz collaborated with
health science communication research-
ers at Michigan State University.
When available, zinc
oxide and titanium This article was originally published
dioxide creams are better by Michigan State University. Republished
alternatives to sunscreens via Futurity.org under Creative Commons
with BP-3. License 4.0.

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