China tells Evergrande billionaire to pay off his company’s debt with his own money. However, it’ll be difficult to pay off $300 billion in debt with $7.8 billion in worth.
Chinese authorities reportedly told the billionaire behind insolvent China corporation, Evergrande, to pay off his company’s debt with his own money.
Chinese authorities have told billionaire Hui Ka Yan to use his personal wealth to alleviate China Evergrande Group’s deepening debt crisis, according to people familiar with the matter.
Beijing’s directive to the Evergrande founder came after his company missed an initial Sept 23 deadline for a coupon payment on a dollar bond, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter. Local governments across China are monitoring Evergrande’s bank accounts to ensure company cash is used to complete unfinished housing projects and not diverted to pay creditors, the people said.
The demand that Hui tap his own fortune to pay Evergrande’s debt adds to signs that Beijing is reluctant to orchestrate a government rescue, even as the property giant’s crisis spreads to other developers and sours sentiment in the real estate market. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been cracking down on the billionaire class as part of his “common prosperity” campaign to reduce the country’s yawning wealth gap.
It is unclear whether Hui’s fortune is big and liquid enough to make a sizeable dent in Evergrande’s liabilities, which swelled to more than US$300 billion as of June. The developer’s dollar bonds are trading at deep discounts to par value as investors brace for what could be one of China’s largest-ever debt restructurings.
Hui’s net worth has dwindled to about US$7.8 billion from US$42 billion at its peak in 2017, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates. But the figure comes with considerable uncertainty.
Zerohedge noted this as well.
*CHINA URGES EVERGRANDE FOUNDER TO PAY DEBT WITH PERSONAL WEALTH
We’ve been reporting on Evergrande for months. The largest debt-ridden company in the world finally showed signs it could no longer pay off its debt a few months ago.
We noted that this is a real indication of the weakness in the Chinese economy.
Is China not helping Evergrande because they know they can’t address the entirety of their financial woes, so why help Evergrande?
By forcing them to visit smaller, more poorly ventilated venues.
A leaked government report has found that vaccine passports could actually exacerbate the spread of COVID because they would encourage people to visit smaller, more poorly ventilated venues.
According to the report, compiled by the the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], introducing the scheme could actually have the opposite intended effect.
“If certification displaces some fans from structured and well ventilated sports stadia, this could lead to them attending unstructured and poorly ventilated pubs instead, where they will have access to more alcohol than if there were in the stadia,” states the report. “Evidence from the Euros showed spikes in cases associated with pubs even when England were playing abroad.”
“The policy would also slash turnover for the organisers of events required to use vaccine passports, and necessitate the hiring of thousands of new stewards which may be hard to deliver,” reports the Telegraph.
After Scotland tried to introduce vaccine passports, the process was called an “unmitigated disaster,” with staff at nightclubs receiving abuse and the technology repeatedly failing.
Many venues decided to close early and lost 40% of their footfall, illustrating once again how the scheme will put innumerable nightclubs that operate on a profit margin of 15% out of business for good.
Another example of how vaccine passports are largely useless is the fact that providing a negative test is no longer being offered as an option, despite the fact that the vaccinated can still transmit the virus.
As we highlight in the video below, people visiting nightclubs in Ireland had to be vaccinated to get in, but were then told that masks were not required while dancing.
Apparently, COVID has developed some form of artificial intelligence so that it knows when to leave people alone when they are rubbing up to dozens of other sweaty people in close proximity.
A Virginia judge on Monday found a teenage boy guilty of sexually assaulting a schoolmate.
The crime took place at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn on May 28.
The boy, 15, was convicted on one count of forcible sodomy and one count of forcible fellatio, both felonies, local media reported.
“I found the facts sufficient to support the charges,” Pamela Brooks, the chief judge of the county’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, said during the hearing, according to WTOP.
The victim said she and the boy had consensual sexual encounters before the assault but that she did not consent to what he did in May.
A defense attorney for the boy tried arguing that his client reasonably believed he had permission because of the previous encounters.
Neither the girl nor the boy are being named because they are juveniles.
Sentencing was put off until another case is adjudicated involving the male. He was charged with sexually assaulting another student at Broad Run High School, authorities have said. That assault took place on Oct. 6.
Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to Stone Bridge at approximately 1:30 p.m. on May 28, according to dispatch notes obtained by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Officers were briefed by an assistant principal that a student alleged they were “possibly raped or touched unwanted by another student” a couple of hours prior. The family of the victim was notified.
An FBI agent with the bureau’s Washington Field Office later that day called the sheriff’s office and inquired about the incident, according to the notes. The agent was advised that a sexual assault investigation was taking place. He said the incident would not require the FBI’s help.
The investigation led to the arrest of the male on July 8 and the case was turned over to the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, which helped prosecute the boy.
The Broad Run incident involved a male student sexually assaulting a female student, according to dispatch notes obtained by The Epoch Times.
The sheriff’s office said no 911 calls were made and declined to provide body camera footage, citing state law. It also declined to immediately provide records on all reported sexual assaults at Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) dating back to Jan. 1, 2018.
LCPS failed to follow state law in reporting several sexual assaults from its schools to state authorities, Superintendent Scott Ziegler said earlier this month. He also recanted his claim that no sexual assaults had taken place in school bathrooms.
Ziegler made the claim during a school board meeting on a pro-transgender policy that lets students who claim to be a different gender than their biological sex use different bathrooms. The school board later approved the policy proposal.
LCPS did not respond to a request for comment on the guilty verdict.
Bill Stanley of the Stanley Law Group, who is representing the family of the victim, said in a statement that “We are relieved that justice was served today for the Smith’s daughter.”
“No one should have to endure what this family has endured, and now their focus is completely upon their daughter’s health and safety as she progresses forward with her life,” he said, adding that the family “stands stronger than ever in moving forward to ensure that those responsible in the Loudoun County School system are held accountable, so that this may never happen again to anyone else’s child.”
Scott Smith, a county resident, identified himself in early October as the father of the victim.
The family has filed a lawsuit against LCPS for allegedly violating Title IX in its handling of the case.
LCPS has told The Epoch Times that it couldn’t investigate what happened until law enforcement concluded its investigation, and that it was cooperating with the sheriff’s office and other authorities. It also said it was barred from disciplining any students without following the grievance process outlined in Title IX.
‘There’s no choice, your child’s life is on the line’
As an FDA advisory panel prepares to decide whether or not to recommend the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for young children, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch is advising parents to remove their children from any public school that forces students to get the shots.
Risch said Sunday night in an interview that children with serious chronic conditions “should be considered for vaccination.”
“Other than that, if it were my child, I would homeschool them,” he told Fox News host Mark Levin.
Risch is a professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine. A former member of the board of editors for the American Journal of Epidemiology, he is an author of more than 350 original peer-reviewed research publications.
“Honestly, I would organize with other parents to take them out of the school and create homeschooling environments,” Risch said.
“There’s no choice. Your child’s life is on the line.”
He acknowledged that vaccination “is not a high risk that’s going to kill every child.”
“However, it’s enough of a risk, that on the average the benefit is higher for homeschooling than it is for vaccination and being in school.”
CDC statistics show children generally do not spread COVID-19 and have little risk of any adverse effects. The seasonal flu is more deadly among children than COVID-19, and the swine flu one decade ago was six times more deadly. The survival rate for children under age 20 who get COVID, according to the CDC, is 99.998%. And CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted in August the vaccines had become ineffective in stopping the spread of the virus.
An FDA advisory panel is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss Pfizer’s emergency use authorization request to administer its vaccine to children ages 5 to 11. A briefing document posted by the FDA in preparation for the meeting acknowledged that clinical trials have not addressed the potential risk of myocarditis in that age group. The risk will be studied after authorization, according to the document, in five “post-authorization safety studies,” including a five-year, “follow-up study” to evaluate the long term risk of heart inflammation.
The risk of myocarditis was cited last month by an FDA advisory panel that voted 16-2 against Pfizer booster shots for people 16 to 65. Last week, the FDA delayed its decision on administration to young people of the Moderna vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna employ the messenger RNA technology, which “teach” cells to make a protein that triggers an immune response rather than inserting a live virus, as do traditional vaccines. The FDA is planning to review the data regarding myocarditis further before making a decision, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sweden, Finland and Norway have halted the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for younger people, and Iceland has stopped administering the shot to everyone, as WND reported. Earlier this month, France’s health authority advised against using the Moderna vaccine because of the myocarditis risk.
‘When the people rebel’ In the interview Sunday night, Risch noted that the public is paying attention to the thousands of public and private employees who are quitting rather than be forced to take the vaccine.
Companies and local governments are having a hard time replacing those employees, he said, “so those policies are being rethought.”
“When the people rebel because of their own interest, then it has to be reckoned,” he said.
“This has to be one of the worst year-and-a-half, two-year periods of information provided the American people by the so-called scientific and medical community that I can remember,” he said.
Risch replied that the health community is “a top-down structure, and most doctors do not get their information by going back to the original studies and making up their own minds.”
“They get fed the information from pharma reps or from what they’re told by society, and the conflicts are legion,” he said.
“So it’s no surprise that most doctors don’t pay attention and think what they’re told (to think).”
See Risch’s remarks:
Yale Epidemiology Professor Dr. Harvey Risch says he would pull a healthy child out of public school and homeschool before he gave them this vaccine. pic.twitter.com/cfqeA61BvD
Risch has battled the government and scientific establishment on its disregard for the power of natural immunity as well as its discrediting and even demonization of cheap, safe and effective treatments for COVID-19, including in testimony before the U.S. Senate.
He wrote in a column for Newsweek in July 2020 that he is “accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines.”
“As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily,” he said.
His reference was to hydroxychloroquine, which he addressed in an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology that analyzed five studies, “demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.”
‘People become immune by surviving infection’
In May, the FDA issued guidance stating a vaccine is still needed to confirm immunity from the COVID-19 virus. The agency said “antibody tests should not be used at this time to determine immunity or protection against COVID-19 at any time, and especially after a person has received a COVID-19 vaccination.”
At the time, Risch pointed to the empirical study data contradicting that claim. That included a massive study in Israel finding that people who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the previous three or more months had many times more protection against new infection, hospitalization and death as vaccinated people.
“People become immune by surviving infection,” argued Risch.
In an email to WND at the time, he explained that serum antibodies and T-cell antibodies – the white blood cells that attack infections – demonstrate past history of infection.
Risch said the FDA is correct that antibodies from infection are not the same as post-vaccination antibodies. But this is irrelevant, he contended.
“These natural antibodies are proof of past infection,” said Risch. “Past infection is extremely strong evidence of immunity.”
(Christian Today) The Christian Institute has launched a campaign in response to concerns that a ban on conversion therapy will “catch the ordinary work of churches.”
The government has promised to ban conversion therapy, and plans to bring forward legislation after a public consultation.
Launching its Let Us Pray campaign today, The Christian Institute said that a broadly worded ban could hand LGBT campaigners “a veto on the ordinary work of churches”.
The Christian Institute warns that Christian parenting as well as church teaching, pastoral care and prayer may all end up being criminalized.
At the heart of the campaign is the message that “praying shouldn’t be a crime.”
“Banning Christians from praying for their gay friends is oppressive and wrong,” it said.
Christian Institute director Colin Hart said, “LGBT activists are pushing for a ban on any preaching, prayer and pastoral care that contradicts their theology.
“Private prayer, evangelism, parenting, pastoral advice, preaching and teaching, church membership, baptism, confirmation and communion would all be put at risk by an overly broad ban.
“These things, the ordinary work of churches, must not be criminalised.
“We want to protect gospel freedom. Politicians must not allow activists to exploit concerns about genuine abuse to further their own agendas against Christians.”
Tens of thousands of New York City workers are marching in protest of the city’s Covid vaccine mandate.
New York City police, firefighters, first responders, and other essential city workers gathered in Brooklyn Monday to march in defiance of Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate.
Thousands marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall holding signs that said “Coercion Is Not Consent,” “No Forced Vax,” and “I Thought We Were Essential.”
Last week, de Blasio issued an order mandating that all New York City employees, including firefighters, police officers, first responders, and sanitation workers get the Covid injection or face termination.
MASSIVE turnout at NYC's anti-vaccine mandate protest across the Brooklyn Bridge. HOLD THE LINE 🚨 pic.twitter.com/hru4WIO6jx
Here’s the scene at FDNY HQ in downtown Brooklyn, as city workers get ready to rally and march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall, in protest of the city’s vaccine mandate. @wcbs880pic.twitter.com/c3qTKJ1XRG
"F Your Garbage and DeBlasio" chant municipal workers as thousands crossed Brooklyn Bridge to protest vaccination mandates in NYC pic.twitter.com/ifa598LIHC
"Hold The Line" Chant what appears to be thousand of municipal workers including FDNY, EMS, NYPD and SDNY #HappeningNow in Brooklyn Bridge pic.twitter.com/JwrRMCqKGq
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra condemned the anti-mandate workers as “selfish”
Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighter Association, said earlier this month that over half of NYC firefighters took the injection, but feared the mandate will lead to operational problems rather than more vaccinations.
“I think two weeks from now, when the day comes, we may have some serious operational difficulties when firehouses have to get closed,” Ansbro said.
“They’ll show up to the firehouses and the fire department is going to have to tell them to go home and leave the city unprotected because they tell them to leave the firehouse.”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent millions in taxpayer dollars conducting psychological torture experiments on primates — news which has resurfaced following the revelation that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIH division partially funded experiments allowing hungry insects to eat dogs alive.
The non-profit watchdog group White Coat Waste Project released a video last year showing one of the experiments, in which researchers essentially gave monkeys brain damage and practiced psychological torture with fake snakes and spiders.
This picture taken on May 23, 2020 shows a laboratory baby monkey reacting in its cage in the breeding centre for cynomolgus macaques (longtail macaques) at the National Primate Research Center of Thailand at Chulalongkorn University in Saraburi. Thai scientists from the centre have begun testing a COVID-19 novel coronavirus vaccine candidate on monkeys, the phase before human trials. (MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images)
“In December 2019, White Coat Waste Project (WCW) sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after it refused to release videos and other materials related to wasteful and bizarre psychological experiments on primates that have cost taxpayers nearly $100 million just since 2007,” the video’s chyron reads, adding that some of the experiments have been “continuously funded for over 40 years.”
Never-before-seen videos released to WCW depict distraught monkeys chained by the neck in tiny cages being tormented with rubber spiders and mechanical snakes, objects the primates instinctively fear, just to observe their reactions. NIH “white coats” sucked out parts of these monkeys’ brains or destroyed them with toxic acid to intentionally worsen the primates’ fear. In the video, a callous NIH “white coat” can be heard joking, “Where the hell is the dancing monkey?,” after one of the tests on the terrified monkeys ends.
WATCH:
According to the group, such experiments, which took place at the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, “have cost taxpayers over $16 million since 2007, and $1.7 million in 2019 alone.”
The cruel experiments are resurfacing after the White Coat Waste Project drew attention to Fauci’s NIH division partially funding an experiment which involved locking beagles’ heads in cages while allowing sandflies to eat them alive. The beagle puppies used in the experiment also had their vocal cords removed to prevent barking:
According to the Hill, the beagles were infected with “disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them.” The experiment transpired in a Tunisia, North Africa laboratory where as many as 44 beagle puppies endured what Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) referred to as a “cruel” and “reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.”
Fauci’s NIH division reportedly sent part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to conduct this experiment.
Reports that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) partially funded an experiment of insects eating beagle puppies alive has sparked bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill. https://t.co/rev29QLpfs
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is now calling on Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, to be fired.
“The deadly experiments on dogs are proof that Fauci’s boss is stuck in the failed science of yesteryear,” Kathy Guillermo, PETA senior vice president, said:
He is spending billions of dollars on studies that include infecting and cutting up dogs, frightening monkeys, and addicting mice to cocaine that don’t lead to cures or vaccines while humans die from Alzheimer’s, HIV, cancer, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and other deadly ailments
Several lawmakers are now demanding answers, signingRep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) letter.
(Christian Today) X-Outloud is a growing network across Europe of people who are no longer LGBT and a collection of their testimonies can be found in the ministry’s new book.
The timing of the book is significant as the UK and other parts of the world seek to ban so-called conversion therapy, jeopardising along with it legitimate help for people struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.
While the narrative has been dominated by stories of harm, X-Outloud’s Matthew Grech, who used to be gay, and former trans Libby Littlewood say there are also many positive experiences of people overcoming same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria after receiving help.
They were involved in the creation of the new X-Outloud book and speak to Christian Today about why it’s so important that ex-LGBT voices are heard too.
CT: There aren’t many books giving the testimonies of ex-LGBT. Is that why you decided to put this together?
Matthew: We were inspired by a book in the US called “Changed”, released by the Changed Movement. We felt very strongly that we need to be speaking about this and promoting and celebrating our testimonies in an extravagant way. And we think it’s helpful to do that through a collection of stories in a book like this that brings together people from various European countries and a few other nations as well.
Libby: It’s amazing that we have such a breadth of people, and the book is very relevant given the conversion therapy debate going on in the media, the political changes we are seeing, and even the backlash we are facing for posting on social media about our testimonies and Christian faith. That’s normal, it’s something we get a lot of, so it’s really nice to have the book as a resource at a time like this. It features 44 amazing people and what’s important about that is that it’s very easy for people, politically, to de-personalise this whole issue and say we are attacking LGBT people. But this ignores the fact that there are people from a whole range of backgrounds who are ex-LGBT and this is our lives we’re talking about. It’s important that institutional leaders understand that.
CT: Matthew do you feel that the climate is hostile in Malta where you are?
Matthew: We have a different context because there is already a conversion therapy ban in place in Malta. In spite of this ban, I still get invited onto TV programmes to speak about the subject but what normally happens is that opponents tell the stations that they should not give me any airtime. Because, ultimately, what they really want to do is to cancel us. They don’t want us to have the right to speak about our point of view. And that’s very damaging because now most people are brainwashed to want to cancel those they disagree with. So opponents don’t actually stand for freedom of speech. Somehow these laws have created a culture where freedom of speech is at stake and that is what is so troubling about all this. For example, I have disabled comments on my TikTok platform because of the negativity.
CT: Supporters of conversion therapy bans speak a lot about harm. What do you make of that?
Matthew: These days the thinking is: as long as you’re not harming anyone we will accept you. So what the LGBT lobby is trying to do is to convince people that our message is damaging and harming because it could supposedly force LGBT people into the closet. But I would argue that the LGBT message is harmful and I think our role is to give reasons for that and explain why encouraging young people to take puberty blockers is damaging, and why not giving young people different options or points of view is so harmful. Because if we remove the freedom to choose, then they are going to think that their only choice is to accept something they potentially don’t actually want to.
CT: What do you think of the suggestion that if we don’t affirm people with LGBT feelings or identities they are at increased risk of commiting suicide?
Matthew: There are two different extremes. Somebody could be feeling suicidal because they have same-sex feelings, their parents are rejecting them, and they actually want to live as LGBT, and so they look for an affirming counsellor. But there is also the other same-sex attracted person who doesn’t actually want these feelings, who thinks his values are more important than how he feels and wants to get rid of them because he actually wants to have a wife. We believe that this person deserves the right to look for help to achieve his own goals. They are not the therapist’s goals but his own goals.
Imposing one view on people and expecting that everybody thinks the LGBT way is simply wrong and it’s not the reality of what we are seeing in our ex-LGBT community. It also doesn’t respect the Christian faith, which has its own views about homosexuality and transgenderism.
That is what is so concerning about all this. If you look at the Maltese law, for example, it dictates how we should think about this. It actually enforces a point of view and denies the reality that, for some, what they are experiencing may actually be a disorder. What does a disorder mean? It means that something happened in your life that affected your thinking about your identity and who you are. There’s nothing evil about saying that. It’s simply a recognition that life events do affect us on a psychological level and what happens to the psyche can affect the sexual development of a person.
So we need to be open to challenging ideas because if we don’t create a culture where ideas can be challenged then that is very dangerous and we all know where that can lead.
CT: Libby, you were transgender for a while and then detransitioned so how do you feel about a conversion therapy ban coming into place and preventing someone who was in the same place as you from getting the help they want?
Libby: I think that, effectively, this has already happened. I was 12 when I discovered transgenderism and told my parents I was struggling with it. I actually didn’t want to be transgender, I wanted a way out of the transgender lifestyle, but I was conflicted because I was being told by online sources that there is no way out, that’s how you’re born, that’s who you are.
I was connected with a counsellor who seemed to see it as her goal to empower me to accept myself as transgender and so I was never given another worldview – this is what they call the ‘wait and see’ model. She would ask me things like ‘have you decided on a name yet?’ ‘Have you tried chest binders?’.
The idea was to experiment and try out the different ‘components’ of transition so that I would then discover if I was really transgender or not. If I really was transgender then I would take hormones and keep going on that train. And if not, then it would be like we could step back and we wouldn’t need to do anything. But what I actually needed was to explore why I had gender issues. That wasn’t facilitated at all.
If you think about someone who has kidney disease, for example, they have the choice of a kidney transplant or dialysis. There may be reasons why they don’t want the transplant and opt to stay on dialysis for the rest of their life but they make that decision based on knowing their options and the possible implications. The doctors recognize there are two pathways and help the patient to understand what these mean for them.
For me, the issue was approached as: you either have this or you don’t and we’ll decide if you have it or not based on what choice you make. The odd thing is that I wouldn’t get any support or help if I decided not to make a physical or social transition and that I wasn’t transgender. There was no one to say, ok, do you want to see what it’s like to define yourself as a woman in a way that is not based on how you feel?
Nobody counselled me to help me realise that I am female and I don’t see what’s harmful about sitting in a room with someone like Mike Davidson [CEO of Core Issues Trust] and hearing them say you can be whatever you want and it doesn’t affect what gender you are.
CT: Matthew, how do you think groups like Core Issues Trust will be able to operate if a conversion therapy ban comes into place in the UK? Will you still be able to give that kind of counselling support?
Matthew: From what I gather, the UK government doesn’t want a strict conversion therapy law and so churches or non-affirming counsellors may still be able to operate but what I think will happen is that the LGBT lobby will try to shift the narrative to make us look like we’re lawbreakers. This is what we’re seeing in Malta.
The thing is that the LGBT lobby is very loud and they have a lot of platforms. And so, as they try to shift the narrative and make us look like lawbreakers, what happens then is that there are fewer and fewer journalists who want to talk about this issue because they feel afraid and intimidated and don’t want persecution. And that’s what’s worrying. It’s not just a question of whether Core Issues Trust will be able to operate but it’s the culture that will be created through the ban itself that will make less room for tolerance and freedom of speech. That’s why people in the UK need to be active in the consultation and in presenting their views to lawmakers.
CT: Feminists have been very vocal about protecting single-sex spaces and challenging puberty blockers, and some of them have had a horrible time with abuse and threats to their safety. Have you experienced anything like that?
Matthew: Malta gay rights campaigners claimed that some LGBT people were receiving testimony videos with the aim of trying to change their minds and they accused me of sending these videos. They were clearly twisting things as I never did that and they were encouraging people to report me to the police. So I challenged them on their Facebook page and in a TV debate asking for proof because it was unfair to me. More recently, when the story about me counselling a UK-based undercover reporter was published in the Sunday Mirror, they threatened to take action if it was found that I had broken the Maltese law.
So, they are very good at trying to intimidate us. They can’t scare me because the Lord is my rock and even if I go through the fire, there is another in the fire with me. But they are freaking out the people out there who are looking at this whole thing and thinking, oh, we’d better not talk about conversion therapy, we’d better be affirming, we’d better not speak ‘hatred’. That is sickening and needs to stop, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this kind of intimidation does stop because it’s not sustainable.
CT: Libby, do you feel this kind of self-censoring is happening in the UK? That people are too afraid to say what they really think and so are just keeping quiet?
Libby: I know so many people who are scared to speak out. There are people in my college who are really anxious about discussing their views – and I go to a Bible college, not even a secular university. People go to this Bible college to train in biblical theology and to be pastors. After I do a livestream talking about my views people contact me saying ‘I don’t know how you could do that, I’d be too scared’. Outside of X-Outloud, Core Issues Trust or Christian Concern, most people just don’t talk about this because they’re scared they might lose their friends or family.
Matthew: Some people I know removed me from their social media because they don’t want to be publicly associated with me. The external pressure is real; there is a cost.
CT: There are some Christian ministries and advocates who identify as gay and same-sex attracted Christians and who advocate celibacy. But X-Outloud speaks about being ex-gay. What’s your take on identifying as gay or same-sex attracted Christians?
Matthew: We believe we can support our view biblically, for example in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, where Paul says that the sexually immoral and homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God. And he writes “and such were some of you”.
“But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
The New Testament teaching is that homosexuality for the believer is something of the past. We were that but our position now is that of having been washed, justified and sanctified. So the ‘ex’ is in complete alignment with New Testament teaching and it’s important to speak the truth because we are a new creation in Christ and our feelings need to line up with the reality of this ‘ex’ narrative, that we ‘were’.
Libby: To me it comes as a semantic differentiation. For gay Christians there is the understanding that homosexual practices are wrong; it is the action that is a sin. When I am speaking publicly on this, I like to differentiate that the action is a sin while the feeling we feel is our sinful nature and our brokenness. It’s not something to feel ashamed of but it’s also not something God wants us to act on.
But when I say it’s a semantic argument then the connotation can be: oh well, then it’s not important. But on the contrary our words are powerful. In Genesis 1, when God creates the world, He speaks everything out into existence. We’re made in the image of God and we have the power of speech. In fact, there’s so much in the Bible about words. We’re told we shouldn’t use our words to hurt others. Even in the Gospel of John, Jesus is introduced as the word of God and the word that was with God for eternity.
So our words have power. Even thinking about this issue of pronouns, people are asking: what pronouns should we use for people? But when you use the wrong pronoun you are affirming that this person is the wrong gender. When you use ‘she’ for a man then you are affirming that this person is actually a woman. But that is a verbal curse; it’s like witchcraft in the modern age, because you are telling somebody they’re something they’re not.
So the moment you speak over yourself ‘I am gay and Christian and don’t have to act on it’, you’ve just reinforced your gay feelings, you’ve given yourself an identity and label and effectively spoken a curse over yourself. Whereas if you say ‘I am a Christian’, ‘I am ex-LGBT’, ‘I am not that anymore’, that in itself is therapeutic when you’re trying to leave that lifestyle behind.
The moment I can actually stand in front of the mirror and say I am not transgender anymore, I am female, I am not just a transgender person who’s decided not to live in that lifestyle anymore but I am actually female, that’s powerful. If you take that away, you’re weakening yourself and your own argument and your own therapy.
Matthew: What is so special about Romans 1 is that it speaks about the feelings and describes same-sex attraction as “vile passions” and something “unnatural” that leads to shameful behaviour for which we receive the penalty that was due. This is very strong language. And so, yes, we differentiate between the behaviour and the attraction but we also believe people should receive help to overcome this attraction because Romans 1 is very clear about how God looks at these passions, which are essentially of the carnal nature.
And that’s why can’t just say, oh, God loves you. And we also cannot say that this passion is good, because Romans 1 is clear about this. So we feel grieved when Christian ministries empower this gay Christian narrative because it doesn’t speak of the new identity in Christ and potentially even affirms feelings that God calls vile and unnatural. And this does not honour the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I believe there is a way to speak of these attractions for what they are, while also displaying and conveying the immense mercy God has for people struggling with these issues. It’s possible to be in a place where you don’t accept these feelings as good and healthy, while at the same time are imparting the love of Jesus to people who are struggling. Because Jesus is the merciful high priest who became like one of us and that is the place to be in terms of communicating this.
CT: You are asking people who buy the book to donate a copy to MPs. What do you hope MPs take away from your book?
Libby: The most important is that we are human, we exist. We have our lives and our autonomy. A lot of infantilising goes on when it comes to ex-LGBT people who are seeking help. But they need to know we’re not being manipulated. We are living the lives that we have and we are unique. Our book contains 44 different testimonies and each person had a different journey to come to the conclusion that this is not what Christ wants for us and that Christ wants something else for us than LGBT identities. Each of us has different explanations as to how we came to this point. We are not ‘one size fits all’ and not everybody who is ex-LGBT has come from a conservative background. Our book shows that diversity, that we exist, and we are not manipulated children. We should have our autonomy and the right to make our own decisions.
Matthew: MPs need to have compassion for the people struggling with this; the woman who was sexually abused when she was younger and is now married with children but who experiences conflict or mixed attractions and wants to resolve these. She deserves the right to find help to save her marriage and honour her relationship with her husband. Or the Christian who tries so much to be in a good place with God so they can have a clear conscience. Nobody should tell them their faith is wrong or impose their views on someone who has chosen to follow Jesus.
Who is going to have compassion on these people when they can’t look for help because the government says no? That’s horrible. We claim to be so big about equality but I don’t see any equality in a ban on conversion therapy. We pride ourselves in equality but it’s really only equality for some. And equality that is only there for some is no equality at all.
We want the MPs to connect with the realities of our stories and that’s what this book achieves. It draws them into reality and what that looks like for us; that as we move away from these feelings and behaviours this is where our joy and mental health thrives. They need to give us the benefit of the doubt that we’re not fraudsters deceiving ourselves as they like to claim.
Libby: The other thing to say is that there can be this dichotomy of liberal LGBT people and secular liberal Christians on the one hand, and groups like X-Outloud and conservative Christians on the other, and what’s often forgotten is the extreme right – which we’re often accused of being even though we’re not. We actually stand up against that kind of extremism that tells gay people they’re going to hell and advocates violence against them. We are actually saying to them: we accept you exactly as you are. But at the same time, there is a way out. If we didn’t have our book out there and our testimonies and livestreams, who’s going to tell the Church that there are people in your congregations struggling with this that you need to show compassion and love to?
Matthew: There are many in the Church who are having a very lonely struggle with these feelings or behaviours. Sometimes homosexuality might be addressed from the pulpit – if it’s addressed at all – but it’s not enough for these Christians to simply know what is right and wrong. It’s like, thank you for telling me it’s wrong, that’s great, but what do I do with these feelings?
There are some things that are a journey and where are they going to receive the knowledge and insight from to receive their breakthrough? They need a lot of support and my journey was similar because for many years I tried to figure this out myself and I decided that I would be alone all my life without a wife or family of my own. But really, I was justifying my decision because I didn’t see any hope in any other way from this, until I discovered all of these ex-LGBT ministries through Core Issues Trust.
When I dived into this world I could understand myself so much better and I opened myself to more transformation and change. I am now much more secure in my identity and can now see the potential of having a wife and children that I never dreamt of before because if there’s no hope, then there’s no dreaming. Ultimately our hope is in Jesus and He is faithful to lead us into a spacious place of abundance.
Li-Meng Yan, M.D., Ph.D., escaped from China to the United States to expose China’s cover-up of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic
According to Yan, SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Chinese military lab. The Third Military Medical University and the Research Institute for Medicine of Nanjing Command discovered a bat coronavirus called ZC45. She’s convinced that ZC45 was used as a template and/or backbone to create SARS-CoV-2
While the Chinese military may be responsible for the physical creation of the virus, there’s ample evidence showing the U.S. funded at least some of the research that resulted in this pandemic
The COVID shots and the vaccine passports t into the CCP agenda by making the whole world accept and adopt the CCP’s social control system
Yan urges Americans to realize the destructiveness of communism, and to resist it in any way possible. This includes refusing vaccine mandates and vaccine passports Today, we continue our discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic and its origin with a fascinating guest who has been a leader exposing the corruption and fraud with respect to the origin of the virus. Li-Meng Yan is both an M.D. and Ph.D., with specic training in coronaviruses. She escaped from China’s inuence while in Hong Kong to the United States to warn us of what she believes is a massive cover-up.
Yan went to medical school, followed by a Ph.D. program in ophthalmology. The school where she got her Ph.D. was originally a military medical university, which helps explain some of her personal network. She has contacts in both civilian and military research laboratories and hospitals in mainland China.
After nishing her studies, she decided to pursue research. For two years, she worked in an ophthalmology lab in the University of Hong Kong, where she researched stem cells, drugs and articial tissue development. She was then invited to join the lab of professor Malik Peiris.
Yan’s husband had worked with him and Peiris was impressed with Yan’s skillset. She jumped at the chance to learn more about emerging infectious diseases. She worked with Peiris for ve years, until she escaped to the U.S. in April 2020.
“I worked on the inuenza virus, universal inuenza vaccine development, and then focused on the SARS-CoV-2 after the outbreak,” she says.
SARS-CoV-2 Was Made in a Chinese Military Lab
At the end of December 2019, Yan’s supervisor, Dr. Leo Poon, who is also an emerging infectious disease expert with the World Health Organization, assigned her to conduct a condential investigation into a mysterious new pneumonia-like infection.
Colleagues and friends at universities and hospitals around China gave her information, which she forwarded to Peiris and Poon. They did not follow up on it, however, which she says “shows that they want [to] help China to cover it up.”
In January 2020, Poon asked her to look into whether the raccoon dog, a civet cat-like animal, which was a host for the original SARS virus, might also be an intermediary host for SARS-CoV-2. Yan’s research, however, was indicating that the virus did not come from nature. Poon warned her to keep silent or “you will be disappeared.”
According to Yan, SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Chinese military lab. The Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, and the Research Institute for Medicine of
Nanjing Command in Nanjing, had discovered a bat coronavirus called ZC45. The discovery of ZC45 was published in early 2018.
“If you compare this virus genome and the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome, you will realize [this is the] smoking gun,” Yan says. She’s convinced that ZC45 was used as a template and/or backbone to create SARS-CoV-2.
In mid-May 2020, shortly after she’d left Hong Kong, the journal Nature published a paper Yan had co-written, detailing the pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in golden hamsters. This experiment showed SARS-CoV-2 primarily spreads via aerosol.
In mid-September 2020, Yan published an open access paper on Zenodo, in which she and her two co-authors laid out the evidence and their theory for SARS-CoV-2 being manmade.
Almost immediately, four “reviewers” of her work denounced it as being an “opinion” piece that was “awed” and not scientically in line with currently accepted knowledge of the origin of the virus. One reviewer said, “The manuscript attempts to refute our current understanding of the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Briey, the consensus is that SARS- CoV-2 is a zoonosis and originated in bats with perhaps an intermediate host before spilling over into humans.”
A year later, in 2021, numerous indicators show that dismissing the lab leak hypothesis was premature and there is no “consensus” of a zoonosis origin.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Intercept also point directly to a lab origin, so much so that the WHO’s director general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, called for a new investigation into it, writing in the October 13, 2021, edition of the journal Science, “A lab accident cannot be ruled out until there is sucient evidence to do so and those results are openly shared.”
The Escape From China
Initially, Yan had released information via an American YouTube blogger that was very popular in China. By the end of April 2020, a colleague warned Yan she was at risk of being “disappeared.” That’s when she decided to ee to the U.S. Luckily, she already had a valid visa. Her husband was deeply opposed to her leaving, as you might imagine. She explains:
“I didn’t know it would happen like [it did]. From January to April [2020], I didn’t tell him what I had done. I tried to protect him, because at that time, in Hong Kong, there were a lot of people ghting against government for democracy and freedom. They can get disappeared easily.
But if their family don’t know what they have done, it’s kind of safe for the family. That’s why I tried to protect him. But when I heard that I need leave, I tried to bring him with me. He’s not Chinese. He’s from Sri Lanka. When I told him, he was outraged, which was really not like him. He warned me, saying ‘We can go nowhere. They are everywhere. We can do nothing.'”
Her husband even threatened to have her killed if she left. The next two weeks were a dangerous time for Yan. Her husband kept her under surveillance, and she developed a sudden heart problem. The day before she left, she went for a checkup. She had a resting heart rate of 130, which is a sign of sinus tachycardia.
Yan suspects foul play, saying the Chinese government prefers to “disappear” people by making it look like a natural death. “Like this virus,” she says. According to Yan, infections and heart attacks are common strategies used to get rid of dissenters. Yan also suspects her husband may have been helping them.
Fortunately, since entering the U.S., the attacks have been relegated to discrediting her and ruining her reputation. “For example, they created thousands of fake accounts on social media, using at least seven languages, to spread [lies about me] and attacks to discredit me,” she says.
According to Yan, this has been veried by FireEye, a cybersecurity company that also does work for American intelligence agencies. Her family, who are in mainland China,
friends and even alumni are also under strict surveillance by the Chinese government, she says.
Vindication
While the whole world denied the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade for over a year, in recent months, the truth has nally entered the mainstream. A number of reporters have wrestled with excuses, trying to justify or explain away their long-held denials.
“Last year in July, when I was rst on Fox News, I told them the WHO and the CCP are corrupted and are in the cover-up together,” Yan says. “At that time, it was a bombshell. Now, most people realize [the virus] is not from nature. That is a very good turning, and I keep helping other people to realize the evidence.
I explain to them the CCP’s style and the evidence. Now, I see that even some mainstream media are starting to talk about the possibility of [it being a] bioweapon. I think it is very encouraging. Because people need to realize that China is using this virus together with their misinformation campaign and propaganda to attack all over the world.”
Who’s Running the Show?
While the Chinese military may be responsible for the physical creation of the virus, there’s ample evidence showing the U.S. funded at least some of the research that resulted in this pandemic.
The ow of money from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the EcoHealth Alliance run by Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is well-documented. Ralph Baric, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina has also conducted research that appears to have been applied to SARS-CoV-2.
The sequence of events is confusing, however, and it’s unclear just who is the real string-puller in all of this. When asked what her take is, and who she believes might be
running the show, Yan replies that even without American funding, China certainly would still have managed to create this virus.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) … they are a giant octopus and they have tentacles. The brain is the CCP. Those scientists, especially the military scientists and coronavirus experts [such as] my previous supervisor, Dr. Malik Pieris, they are the ones that had the real evil ideas.
They enjoy it, and they want to command this knowledge … Even China cannot use their tentacles … if they cannot use inltration to get your money, they will still manage to get your technology and do it in China. That’s the key point. The money from American taxpayers, it looks a lot. Yes, it’s millions [of dollars]. However, compared to the money donated by the Chinese government, it’s just a very small piece …
They developed this virus and other things in their unrestricted bioweapons program. They want to destroy Americans’ economic and social order, destroy your civilization. [While the virus has attacked worldwide], they always list America as a primary enemy and the biggest problem.
So, when they show you this kind of propaganda, through TikTok and other social media [where Chinese citizens] tell you, ‘Oh, in China we control the outcome and it’s good, and we love our government.’ American people will feel, ‘Yeah, maybe we should give up our democracy and turn to try communism.’ That’s all they want to do.”
Chinese Data Collection
Since the start of the pandemic, it’s been near-impossible to determine how many Chinese have actually been affected. According to Yan, the CCP will only release data that benets itself.
“Chinese people all know not to trust any data that comes from our government,” she says. “They don’t do statistics. They just sit there. Whatever
data they want, they write it down. That’s how they [produce] data.”
According to Yan, the CCP has been using the converse strategy used in the U.S. and elsewhere. Rather than inate case numbers, they’ve been suppressing them. One way they’ve been doing this is by delaying diagnosis, so deaths are not listed as COVID-19 deaths.
“It’s totally opposite,” she says. “For example, in America, once a person has been diagnosed with COVID, even if they later died of some other problem, they still will be [counted] as a COVID case.
But in China, they can use a ventilator to make the patient survive until the test comes out negative. They have thousands of ways to handle it. Importantly, they also gave early treatment, including hydroxychloroquine and other drugs.”
According to Yan, military scientists in China have also led a patent to use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. “That made them earn the top anti-COVID award by Chairman Xi last year,” she says. Hydroxychloroquine is also sold over the counter in China, so it’s easy to get a hold of. She believes part of the reason why the death toll in the U.S. has been so high is because hydroxychloroquine was suppressed and censored.
Is There a Connection Between the COVID Shots and the CCP?
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly been capitalized upon by greedy drug companies, and the suppression of early treatment drugs appears to have been an intentional strategy to make the COVID shot — which is turning out to be extraordinarily hazardous to your health — the only alternative. How does the COVID “vaccine” tie into the theory that SARS-CoV-2 is a CCP bioweapon? Yan says:
“Denitely there is a clear connection between the vaccine and the CCP’s strategies … Some people … try to explain that the vaccine will kill people, and therefore it is another bioweapon. But this is not an accurate reason. First China released the virus they developed in the military labs. This virus doesn’t have a
high death rate … That’s why I called it an unrestricted bioweapon. It looks like it’s natural occurring.
Once you realize something is wrong, they use misinformation and denial to confuse you. So, when China released it — and China controls the scientic community to spread misinformation, and censored [information] to let people believe it’s come from nature — what will people do?
They will think about drugs, the drugs they already have. The other way is a vaccine, because people are educated to accept a vaccine can end a pandemic.
In this case, useful drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are so cheap. How could they use this to earn huge prots? The CCP also had a lot of stock shares from Pzer, Moderna and other big pharmaceutical companies. Check the money they put in … And then big pharmaceutical companies, they all say, ‘OK, now we can use this chance to make money.'”
Clearly, many who support and push the COVID shot know full well that they’re bound to cause health problems. Yan herself was asked to work on a COVID vaccine but she declined after looking into the available science. No coronavirus vaccine has ever been released, despite scientists working on it for two decades.
The reason? The vaccines cause too many injuries. They’re lethal. Yan did not believe these problems could be overcome for SARS-CoV-2. Peiris himself discovered antibody- dependent enhancement during efforts to develop a vaccine against the original SARS virus. Still, when money is being thrown at scientists, they’re usually not going to turn it down.
“ Once you support mandate for two doses, then you have to support for the booster, and then support 60 boosters, 199 boosters. It will be endless. And you’ll be tied into th”is [social] credit system you built. ~ Li- Meng Yan
Vaccine Passports Will Usher in a Social Credit System
Of course, the COVID shots and the vaccine passports also t into the CCP agenda by making the whole world accept and adopt the CCP’s social control system. The vaccine passports are clearly designed to usher in a social credit system like they have in China. And with that, you get 24/7 digital surveillance and an unbelievable amount of control over every single person.
As explained by Yan, in China, the digital surveillance system is so advanced, if your phone GPS shows you were near an infected person, you are automatically ordered into isolation.
What’s more, if parents or grandparents fail to get the COVID shot, the family’s children are barred from school, even if they got the shot. Every aspect of life is linked together through this system, so a poor social credit score will also have nancial ramications, and will dictate if, where and how you’re allowed to travel.
Yan points out that Americans, being unaware of the Chinese surveillance system, don’t understand that by agreeing with vaccine mandates and passports, they are saying yes to a total surveillance system that will dictate their entire lives. They’re also saying yes to being guinea pigs for an endless stream of questionable vaccines.
“Once you support mandate for two doses, then you have to support for the booster, and then support 60 boosters, 199 boosters. It [will be] endless,” she says. “And you’ll be tied into this [social] credit system you built.”
China Wants World Dominance by 2035
According to Yan, China’s goal is to achieve world dominance by 2035. With that aim in mind, they’ve spent decades developing unrestricted bioweapons. With COVID-19, they’re well on their way.
“They want to use all this to overcome the world, and America is their primary enemy,” Yan says. “So we have to stand up for the future, for our next
generations. We cannot keep silent. This will be the last chance we have to ght against such communist evil plans, and to save all of us. And, most importantly, we have to all work together to stop the next pandemic or attack that comes out of China …
[Just look at] what’s happening in Hong Kong now. In two years, from 2019 until now, China destroyed the systems of law, democracy and freedom in Hong Kong. They also enacted national security laws. Basically, they own your privacy. They own your freedom, and you are forced to listen to them.
There is no reason they can’t do whatever [they want] to you. Basically, you are a slave living in a modern society. No doubt, once China overcomes America, it will be the same here, and maybe worse because they will have other technology at that time.”
When asked what actions Yan believes we need to take to resist and derail this plan, she says:
“I want Americans to know that, rst, adults should realize the evilness of Communism, Maoism, Marxism, no matter what name it changes to … And once you realize that, speak out about it, because they are using propaganda to brainwash people, to brainwash the kids.
Also, you must let your policymakers, legislators, know this. I’m a foreigner, but you are an American citizen. You can vote, so you must let them understand the importance and push them to do something. Don’t believe the Chinese government and don’t give any mercy to the CCP.
Also, you have to update your own system. Study the weakness in your whole system, [the weakness that allows them] to divide America. Once you do all these things, hold them accountable and don’t let them do more. That’s the end of the pandemic.”
You can follow Yan on Twitter for frequent updates and breaking information. Her only authentic Twitter account is @Dr.LiMengYan1.
More than a week after President Joe Biden announced his ineffective plan for the clogged Los Angeles ports to increase their work hours, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has finally issued an executive order “to address state, national and global supply chain challenges” at the ports.
According to an official Governor’s Office press release, Newsom’s Executive Order N-19-21 “directs state agencies to continue coordinating with the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force to address state, national and global supply chain challenges. The executive order also directs the Department of Finance to work with state agencies to develop longer-term solutions that support port operations and goods movement for consideration in the January 10 Governor’s Budget, which may include port and transportation infrastructure improvements, electrification of the goods movement system from port to delivery, and workforce development.”
The executive order also “directs state agencies to identify state-owned properties and other locations that could be available to address short-term storage needs once goods are unloaded from ships; to identify priority freight routes to be considered for a temporary exemption to current gross vehicle limits to allow for trucks to carry additional goods; and to create workforce training and education programs.”
Sounding similar to logistics expert Ryan Petersen’s five-step plan to fix the bottleneck at the Los Angeles ports I wrote about here a few days ago, one can’t help but wonder if Newsom was actually listening. Who knows for sure?
Someone who does appear to have heard is Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica who said Friday in a press release that it had “recently come to the City’s attention the Municipal Code contains zoning provisions that limit the number and/or height of shipping container storage, that if relaxed for a short time could provide some assistance during this national crisis.”
“Given this current national emergency and the Governor’s Executive Order to take necessary steps to alleviate the impacts on the system,” the press release said. “The City Manager will temporarily waive enforcement of current shipping container stacking and height limits for a period of 90 days from October 22, 2021. During this period, affected operations will be allowed to stack up to four (4) shipping containers without being cited for a Code violation.”
While this waiver only applies to properties currently zoned to allow shipping container stacking, it should help alleviate some of the container back-ups at the ports. These steps are certainly good news for our ports, our nation’s supply chain, and the American consumer, however, there’s much more that needs to be done. These steps are vital to getting our ports working again. It’s so detrimental to the world economy if the ports don’t work because every company that buys or sells physical goods internationally will fail if we allow the supply chain of our globalized economy to collapse.
Judge Finds Teenager Guilty in Loudoun County Bathroom Assault
A Virginia judge on Monday found a teenage boy guilty of sexually assaulting a schoolmate.
The crime took place at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn on May 28.
The boy, 15, was convicted on one count of forcible sodomy and one count of forcible fellatio, both felonies, local media reported.
“I found the facts sufficient to support the charges,” Pamela Brooks, the chief judge of the county’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, said during the hearing, according to WTOP.
The victim said she and the boy had consensual sexual encounters before the assault but that she did not consent to what he did in May.
A defense attorney for the boy tried arguing that his client reasonably believed he had permission because of the previous encounters.
Neither the girl nor the boy are being named because they are juveniles.
Sentencing was put off until another case is adjudicated involving the male. He was charged with sexually assaulting another student at Broad Run High School, authorities have said. That assault took place on Oct. 6.
Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to Stone Bridge at approximately 1:30 p.m. on May 28, according to dispatch notes obtained by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Officers were briefed by an assistant principal that a student alleged they were “possibly raped or touched unwanted by another student” a couple of hours prior. The family of the victim was notified.
An FBI agent with the bureau’s Washington Field Office later that day called the sheriff’s office and inquired about the incident, according to the notes. The agent was advised that a sexual assault investigation was taking place. He said the incident would not require the FBI’s help.
The investigation led to the arrest of the male on July 8 and the case was turned over to the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, which helped prosecute the boy.
The Broad Run incident involved a male student sexually assaulting a female student, according to dispatch notes obtained by The Epoch Times.
The sheriff’s office said no 911 calls were made and declined to provide body camera footage, citing state law. It also declined to immediately provide records on all reported sexual assaults at Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) dating back to Jan. 1, 2018.
LCPS failed to follow state law in reporting several sexual assaults from its schools to state authorities, Superintendent Scott Ziegler said earlier this month. He also recanted his claim that no sexual assaults had taken place in school bathrooms.
Ziegler made the claim during a school board meeting on a pro-transgender policy that lets students who claim to be a different gender than their biological sex use different bathrooms. The school board later approved the policy proposal.
LCPS did not respond to a request for comment on the guilty verdict.
Bill Stanley of the Stanley Law Group, who is representing the family of the victim, said in a statement that “We are relieved that justice was served today for the Smith’s daughter.”
“No one should have to endure what this family has endured, and now their focus is completely upon their daughter’s health and safety as she progresses forward with her life,” he said, adding that the family “stands stronger than ever in moving forward to ensure that those responsible in the Loudoun County School system are held accountable, so that this may never happen again to anyone else’s child.”
Scott Smith, a county resident, identified himself in early October as the father of the victim.
The family has filed a lawsuit against LCPS for allegedly violating Title IX in its handling of the case.
LCPS has told The Epoch Times that it couldn’t investigate what happened until law enforcement concluded its investigation, and that it was cooperating with the sheriff’s office and other authorities. It also said it was barred from disciplining any students without following the grievance process outlined in Title IX.