Podcasts about pacific

Good afternoon, I'm _ with today's episode of EZ News. Tai-Ex opening The Tai-Ex opened up 82 points this morning from yesterday's close, at 46,104 on turnover of 10.5-billion N-T. MOFA warns on Uganda travel The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Ugandan immigration officers have withheld the passports of three Taiwan travelers and demanded that they produce Chinese passports, citing the country's "One China principle." According to the minister, three encountered the officers on arriving at Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday. They were eventually allowed to enter Uganda. However, the foreign ministry says immigration officers refused to return their Taiwan passports unless they produced passports issued by China in which entry stamps could be placed. Taiwan's representative office in Somaliland, which is responsible for affairs involving Uganda, and the Taiwanese business association in the country immediately provided assistance to the travelers. The foreign ministry is advising Taiwan nationals to carefully assess (評估) the necessity and potential risks of traveling to Uganda and to postpone planned visits for the time being. NKorea Threatens SelfDefense Amid US SKorean Drills North Korea has threatened to exercise its right to self-defense in a statement that slammed the upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills as a war rehearsal. In a statement carried by state media Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry called the U.S.-South Korean training “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” that is triggering a different level of instability in the region. North Korea also said the drills would be of a “more serious provocative (挑釁的) nature and dangerousness than last year" and involve all the military assets and war-fighting modes of the U.S. and South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea have described the training's scope this year as similar to past years. They say the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are meant to strengthen their alliance's capability and reiterate that the drills are defensive in nature. US CARRIER ROTATION AIMS TO SUSTAIN IRAN BLOCKADE 'INDEFINITELY' AS NAVY READINESS STRETCHED THIN US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims the American military can maintain its naval blockade on Iran indefinitely by rotating aircraft carriers in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. The carrier currently enforcing the blockade has been at sea for a record two hundred consecutive days, prompting growing concern among lawmakers in Washington about crew welfare. A replacement vessel is now on its way from the Pacific to relieve it — a move Washington hopes will undermine (破壞) any Iranian assumption that the deployment is unsustainable. James Gooderson, our reporter in Washington, says the carrier rotation is exposing the strain the war in Iran is placing on the US Navy's global posture, with the departure of a vessel from the Pacific leaving China with greater freedom to project power in the region. Vietnam Seizes Ivory Illegally Shipped from Africa Vietnamese authorities have seized a large shipment of ivory illegally shipped from Africa. The haul includes 221 pieces of elephant ivory weighing over 1,193 kilograms. It was displayed to the media on Wednesday in Gia Lai province. Vietnam is a major hub for the illicit wildlife trade, with much of the contraband transshipped (轉船 / 換船) to China. Inspections last week found the ivory hidden in sawn timber in a shipment from the Republic of the Congo. The illegal cargo also contained animal bones often used in traditional medicine. A criminal investigation has been launched. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember a man between two worlds (and one of Dan's favorite theologians) Geerhardus Vos. GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

Nicole Sakach is an author, UFO researcher, and experiencer whose work explores the mysteries surrounding UFOs, extraterrestrial contact, consciousness, and the growing push for disclosure. Drawing from both personal experiences and years of investigation, Nicole brings a unique perspective to the UFO conversation—one that combines the human side of extraordinary encounters with a desire to better understand what may be happening behind the scenes. Her research examines the difficult questions surrounding government transparency, secrecy, and what the public is actually being told about the UFO phenomenon.As an experiencer herself, Nicole understands that the UFO mystery goes far beyond strange objects appearing in the sky. Her journey has led her to explore the deeper implications of contact and how these experiences can profoundly affect the people who have them. Through her writing, research, and public discussions, Nicole encourages people to remain curious while questioning the information being presented as disclosure. Is humanity finally being prepared for the truth about UFOs and extraterrestrial life—or are we witnessing another carefully controlled narrative?Spaced Out Radio is your nightly source for alternative information, starting at 9pm Pacific, 12am Eastern.  We broadcast LIVE every night. #UFO #UAP #AlienDisclosure #UFOSightings #UFOCoverUp #Aliens #SpacedOutRadio #Paranormal #UFOCommunity #disclosure -------------------------------------------------------You can now join the Space Traveler's Club;Join us at  https://www.patreon.com/sor_space_travelers_club  --------------------------------------------------------Grab Our Latest Spaced Out Radio Gear At:http://spacedoutradio.com/shop  It's a great way to support our show!--------------------------------------------------------OUR LINKS:TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/spacedoutradio   FACEBOOK:https://www.facebook.com/spacedoutradioshow  SPACED OUT RADIO - INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/spacedoutradioshow  DAVE SCOTT - INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/davescottsor   TWITCH: https://www.twitch.com/spacedoutradioshow  WEBSITE: http://www.spacedoutradio.comGUEST IDEAS OR QUESTIONS FOR SOR?Contact Klaus at bookings@spacedoutradio.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spaced-out-radio--1657874/support.

This week the MotoXpod features a list of racers who survived the 2026 Loretta Lynn's Amateur National Championship. You can also email Motoxpodshow@Gmail.com if you want to get in on the Grill Your Ass Off 'Bring the Heat', T-Bolt USA Top 5, FXR Picks, and the X Brand Emails. Watch live on the MotoXpod YouTube channel starting at 4:30 Pacific/7:30 Eastern.

Dr. Saki is serving as the associate dean for the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. He is involved in leadership roles, research on antimicrobial resistance, and advocating for more Pacific people to pursue post-grad and PhD studies. He emphasizes the importance of networking and supporting Pacific students in their research endeavors.TakeawaysLeadership in Biomedical SciencesResearch on Antimicrobial ResistanceChapters00:00 Leadership in Biomedical Sciences and Pacific Student Support03:08 Research on Antimicrobial Resistance and Pacific Community Impact13:47 Mentoring Pacific Students and Scholarships for Post-Grad Studies17:43 Collaborative Research and Advocacy for Pacific Communities

#paranormal #supernatural A man hears his mother's disembodied voice, even though she is alive, and more true paranormal stories from the web. Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal, supernatural, and / or unexplained, that you would like others to know about? If so, let me know. You can reach me at; salsidoparanormal@gmail.com Or, you can visit our website, click on the "Share Experience" link (at the top of the page) and fill out the form there. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ Please follow Jen, the co-host of Salsido Paranormal. https://linktr.ee/jenniferhawkins_arcana Follow Ricky, the host of Anything Is Possible. https://linktr.ee/aipanythingispossible Follow Mike, the host of Troubled Minds Radio. https://www.troubledminds.org/ You can now listen to 2 episodes of the show every night at 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern on the Troubled Minds Radio Network KUAP-DB! https://www.troubledminds.org/ Also, if you or anyone you know should ever feel like there is no hope, or help, please consider the information in the link below. Special thanks to Michael Strange for putting this page together. https://www.troubledminds.net/help You can find all episodes, social media, and ways to support the show via the links below. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ https://allmylinks.com/salsidoparanor1 https://substack.com/@salsidoparanormal? https://www.bonfire.com/store/salsido-paranormal/ Do you want to listen to the live recording streams for the show, and chat with others while you're at it? Join the Discord server. https://discord.gg/v4GEb6k3EV  

West Coast or East Coast, which one actually wins? Jason makes his case for the West: Vancouver, the mountains, and those Pacific sunsets that drop right into the ocean. Barry rides recency bias straight to the East after a lobster-fueled trip to Halifax.Along the way: the laid-back coastal state of mind, the Rocky Mountaineer, the hotel that may have inspired The Shining, Jason's surprising love affair with edamame, and a lobster roll debate that gets far more heated than two grown men should allow.East or West, where do you land?Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two GenX guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Recorded August 7, 2026 Freshly relocated, the AV SuperFriends dig into how classroom support actually works. Ring-down phones, intercoms, Teams channels, help buttons, student technicians, remote tools, and after-hours coverage all get put on the table. The panel also gets into the difference between a real AV failure and a perceived one, why good support is as much about communication as troubleshooting, and how student employees can become an incredibly effective first line of support when they're trained and trusted. Then we turn to physical security and ask a simple question: why does seemingly everyone on campus have a key to the AV rack? Plus, Corsair takes a stake in Bitfocus, Companion may or may not be headed toward subscription hell, and Cameron fills in for Marc.   News article: https://www.avinteractive.com/news/business/elgato-parent-corsair-takes-a-minority-stake-in-bitfocus-03-08-2026/   Connect with Cameron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-sofsky-a3866465/ Alternate show titles: What's Marc's mouth taste like? Just the tip jar Whenever we see this happen to a successful project, they ruin it  Reach over and touch it / If it breaks, it's on y'all I had my agent do a little bit of research on this I hope it just keeps getting bigger There's a number to dial our students We don't support tickets It's a ring down! Night shift student group This may not happen with you all… but it may Hopefully the student on the phone is verbal enough That's just an extended mouse and keyboard This is not going to go where you think it's going to go A little bit of knowledge is a lot of ignorance  That's not supposed to work like that    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss   Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support

Host Noah Meagher and Co-Host Jackson Muniz give analysis of the Late Pick 5 at Del Mar on Saturday 8/15! Make sure to put your opinions in the live chat, it's gonna be a great show!Good luck!X Handles:Noah Meagher - @NoahMeagJackson Muniz - @Jaxmuniz_HHH Racing Podcast - @hhhracingpodHorse Racing Promotions: Subscribe to the excellent, informative, AFFORDABLE and profitable "Power Picks" Tip Sheet! Please go to: www.patreon.com/hhhracingpodcast Fantastic ABC P4 and P5 grids, along with Spot Plays and Price Plays provided that currently has an ROI around $2.05 (national average is $1.60). Picks arrive via email every Sat. morning for that day's races. Purchase your Power Picks NOW and make 2026 your best handicapping year ever!www.patreon.com/hhhracingpodcastIntro Song:Moves by Zach DiamondSpotify:https://open.spotify.com/track/52TqMU...Soundcloud: / moves#horseracing #delmar #gambling #pick5 #openingday #betting #handicapping #bestbet

Episode 312, Amanda Perez came out to the ranch and she and Snow Tha Product recorded after two days of hanging out and working on music. They talked about Henny vs tequila, touring and dating with a partner, Amanda's torn ACL and the knee replacement she keeps putting off, Snow's vocal cord surgery she keeps putting off too, shaving their heads and hair holding energy, spirit guides and angel numbers, flies as bad energy, the haunted hotel in San Antonio and the dream Amanda had after, the ghost in her garage, fans who say weird stuff and fans who grab, promoters and ticketing companies eating off artists, tour riders and Madonna's brand new toilet seat at every venue, airport meltdowns and almost missing a flight to Mexico City, Bernedoodles and hairless cats, zodiac signs and an astrology book that called every relationship she'd been in, how hard it is to write sad songs when you're finally happy, fans asking for money, and Amanda losing both her parents and raising her six year old different than she came up. Watch on YouTube and catch the livestreamed podcast every Tuesday at 6pm Pacific to join the chat. Find all episodes at everynightnights.com.Join the BCC everynightnights chat→ http://www.everynightnights.chat   / @snowthaproduct    / snowthaproduct    / snowthaproduct  

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember the beginning of the end of the Knights Templar. GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

Today on Valentine In The Morning: The show has starts off with Topic Tingles and we got some good topics for you today. Then, we talk to students! From 3rd graders to seniors in high school, we ask students how they're feeling before their first day of school with a special guest appearance from LAUSD Superintendent Andrés E. Chait. Plus, when was the best day ever? Jill says her's was watching the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere... Listen live every weekday from 5-10am Pacific: https://www.iheart.com/live/1043-myfm-173/Website: 1043myfm.com/valentineInstagram: @ValentineInTheMorningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/valentineinthemorningTikTok: @ValentineInTheMorningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

94 Major Wildfires Are Burning Across the West—Is This the New Normal? The Western United States is facing a dangerous wildfire crisis. Crews are fighting to protect Big Sur, three fires are burning near Reno with single-digit containment, and 94 large wildfires remain uncontained across the West as of August 11, 2026. From the Northwest and Northern Rockies to California, Nevada and the Southwest, extreme heat, dry conditions and expanding fire activity threaten communities, public health and the environment. Wildfire smoke can travel hundreds of miles, while the economic and human costs continue to mount. What can America do to prevent these disasters? Can better land management, climate action and community preparation make a meaningful difference—or must we adapt to wildfires as the West's new normal? Then, after 24 years on the air, a Bay Area radio host has been laid off. His scathing Facebook post captures the troubling state of today's broadcasting industry. Who killed local radio—and why are experienced local voices disappearing? Support The Karel Cast at patreon.com/reallykarel. Please watch, like and subscribe at youtube.com/reallykarel. The Karel Cast streams Monday through Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Pacific and is available on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, TikTok and Instagram. Karel is a history-making broadcaster and entertainer based in Las Vegas with his service dog, Ember. #WesternWildfires, #Wildfires, #CaliforniaWildfires, #BigSurFire, #RenoFires, #NevadaWildfires, #WildfireSeason, #WildfireSmoke, #ClimateChange, #ExtremeHeat, #BreakingNews, #USNews, #CaliforniaNews, #NevadaNews, #PacificNorthwest, #NorthernCalifornia, #SouthernCalifornia, #AirQuality, #ClimateCrisis, #NaturalDisasters, #EmergencyPreparedness, #Firefighters, #NewNormal, #LocalRadio, #BayAreaRadio, #RadioIndustry, #MediaNews, #TheKarelCast, #ReallyKarel, #KarelCast https://youtube.com/live/WhcAzTPgXf0

The Trump administration is opening federally-protected marine areas in the Pacific Ocean to commercial fishing. In rarely granted access, NPR visited Palmyra, a remote, low-lying atoll with one of the most pristine coral reefs in the world.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show's perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

#paranormal #supernatural In this show, I continue to read and then talk about the paranormal concepts in this book. Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal, supernatural, and / or unexplained, that you would like others to know about? If so, let me know. You can reach me at; salsidoparanormal@gmail.com Or, you can visit our website, click on the "Share Experience" link (at the top of the page) and fill out the form there. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ Please follow Jen, the co-host of Salsido Paranormal. https://linktr.ee/jenniferhawkins_arcana Follow Ricky, the host of Anything Is Possible. https://linktr.ee/aipanythingispossible Follow Mike, the host of Troubled Minds Radio. https://www.troubledminds.org/ You can now listen to 2 episodes of the show every night at 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern on the Troubled Minds Radio Network KUAP-DB! https://www.troubledminds.org/ Also, if you or anyone you know should ever feel like there is no hope, or help, please consider the information in the link below. Special thanks to Michael Strange for putting this page together. https://www.troubledminds.net/help You can find all episodes, social media, and ways to support the show via the links below. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ https://allmylinks.com/salsidoparanor1 https://substack.com/@salsidoparanormal? https://www.bonfire.com/store/salsido-paranormal/ Do you want to listen to the live recording streams for the show, and chat with others while you're at it? Join the Discord server. https://discord.gg/v4GEb6k3EV  

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on new U.S. government rules that are universally hostile to international students, the reduction of prosecutions for white collar crime by the U.S. Justice Department while increasing pressures on Shawn Fain, head of the powerful United Auto Workers union, an that there are now over 200 people in the Caribbean and Pacific that have been killed by the U.S. military without lawyers, trials, or judges in show of disregard for law. The second half of today's show features an interview with Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Professor of Political Science and specialist on U.S. politics. We hope you enjoy this discussion and look forward to joining you next week for another all-new episode of Economic Update. Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a production of Democracy at Work, Inc., and any reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited without written permission. We make it a point to keep the show ad-free and rely solely on viewer support to continue doing so. Every donation counts and helps us reach a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world that they won't find anywhere else. We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and the others we produce possible each week. We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info Professor Wolff's latest book, "Understanding Capitalism," is available now for purchase: https://linktr.ee/understandingcapitalism © 2026 Democracy at Work, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember Nicholas of Cusa and the 15th century that almost was. GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

Send us a text & leave your email address if you want a reply!Why doesn't penetration make every woman orgasm, and what does the outer vulva have to do with the vaginal orgasm you're chasing? In this episode, Leah Piper and Dr. Willow Brown break down the anatomy of arousal that most couples skip straight past, including the clitoral shaft and legs, the vestibular bulbs, and why what they call premature penetration sabotages deep, contractive vaginal orgasms. They walk through concrete touch techniques for vulva stimulation and G-spot stimulation, the palming method for combining external and internal pleasure during penetrative sex, and how word bath dirty talk can heal sexual shame stored in the body. Whether you've faked orgasms during penetrative sex for years or you're just curious about the difference between a clitoral orgasm and a vaginal orgasm, this conversation gives you the anatomy, the technique, and the permission to slow down.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTSThere's a name for the thing almost every couple does wrong before penetration even starts, and it's the biggest reason vaginal orgasms feel out of reach.The clitoris is way bigger than the part you can see. Wait until you hear how far back the shaft and legs actually go, and what that has to do with why humping things felt so good as a kid.There's a simple hand technique you can use during penetration, with a partner or a toy, that Leah says increases your odds of orgasm by about 80 percent.Most people who dislike fingering were never fingered well. Leah explains exactly what goes wrong and what actually works instead.Willow shares the one shift in touch, tied to pressure and speed, that can make clitoral stimulation feel five to eight times better almost instantly.Word baths sound simple, but they can unlock a kind of somatic shame release that neither partner expected. Leah gives you the actual words to use.LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEBSITE: https://www.sexreimagined.com/blog/why-cant-i-orgasm-from-penetrationSlow Tantric Sex Online Masterclass - Join us August 19th at 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern for a live masterclass on zoom. Register for $33 HERE (free limited replay window available) Sexual Reflexology Online Masterclass - Join us September 2nd at 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern for a live masterclass on zoom. Register for $33 HERE (free limited replay window available) Erotic Polarity Online Masterclass Register for $55 HERE Support the showPlease help support the production costs of the show! Donate now: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2032242/supporters/newFREEBIE- Introduction to Tantric Kissing Video and WorkbookSxR WebsiteDr. Willow's WebsiteLeah's Website 

Today on Valentine In The Morning: Who is an artist you think would be the best lover? From Tim McGraw to Adam Levine... our 6am hour gets a little crazy. Then, what is the most about of money you've spent on a piece of clothing? Plus, Comouche's Court takes us into a deep dive between certain standards for a boss and their employees. Listen live every weekday from 5-10am Pacific: https://www.iheart.com/live/1043-myfm-173/Website: 1043myfm.com/valentineInstagram: @ValentineInTheMorningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/valentineinthemorningTikTok: @ValentineInTheMorningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever felt like you're getting things done, reaching your goals, and other people look at you thinking, "Wow, she's doing amazingly," and yet you still feel behind? Listen as our host, Diane Rolston, unpacks something she sees constantly in high-achieving women: being successful on paper but not feeling successful. She gets honest about why accomplishing a lot doesn't always feel like enough and what's really going on underneath.Listen to learn these key takeaways:The podcast award moment: being ranked number 17 out of 50 and what Diane's brain immediately jumped to instead of celebratingWhy high-achieving women reach one goal and almost immediately move the finish lineThe year Diane said, "I didn't accomplish much" and what the coaches around her said that stopped her coldThe client who kept collecting certifications and training before feeling ready to run workshops and what she actually needed that no certification could give herThe sprinter who was asked to run the 1,500 and why comparing your pace to someone else's race makes no senseWhat happened when a client and his two friends sold a company for 75 million dollars and why he felt badThe client who said her next step was a promotion at work and the real answer she gave when Diane asked what would actually make her happyWhy the problem isn't goals or achievement. It's the question we never stop long enough to askThe connection to Diane's one-woman show Chasing: what happens when success doesn't feel the way we thought it wouldWhat the gap between success and satisfaction is really telling you and why outrunning it doesn't workMaybe you aren't behind after all. Maybe you've just stopped noticing how far you've come. She's Goaled Coaching Mastermind doors are open now, closing September 4th at 11:59 pm Pacific. Apply here: https://shes-goaled-coaching-mastermind.dynamicwomen.biz/Learn more about Motivation Mountain: https://dynamic-women.captivate.fm/episode/steal-my-strategy-for-not-losing-momentum-with-diane-rolston-dw294Want to be invited to join Diane's NEW high-level, like-minded group of women? Email her at diane@dianerolston.com.Do you prefer reading blogs or watching videos?Read Diane's blogs here: https://www.dianerolston.com/blogWatch Diane's videos here: https://www.youtube.com/@CoachDianeRolstonThis show's host, Diane Rolston, is called THE Expert on Being Dynamic and living a Dynamic Life. She specializes in coaching high-achieving women who want to be successful AND satisfied. She is a Certified Professional Coach, International Speaker, 11-time Author, and host of the five-time award-winning Dynamic Women Podcast, ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts.Diane has been recognized with multiple awards for her professional accomplishments and for the powerful impact she has on the women she inspires and empowers. Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator Jack Canfield describes her as “an amazing woman” doing “incredible work helping women develop holistic lives of balance.”Through her program, VA Made Easy, she helps entrepreneurs go from task overwhelm to business ease by hiring and training Virtual Assistants for them while also providing proven systems, processes, and strategies for success.Outside of her work, Diane is a mother of two, a soccer player, and a stand-up comedy rookie, always embracing new challenges and personal growth.You're invited to reach out to Diane and visit her website: www.dianerolston.com Check out what Diane is up to and other opportunities here: linktr.ee/dianerolstonConnect with me on your favourite social platform:https://www.facebook.com/LifeCoachDianehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dianercoaching/https://twitter.com/DianeRCoachinghttps://www.instagram.com/coachdianerolston/https://www.youtube.com/user/DianeRolstonCoachingPersonal Email: diane@dianerolston.comDiane believes we are not defined by our titles or our roles. Instead, we are more powerful and happy when we can be who we are. This brought out her book Dynamic You™, based on a successful program, where she reveals the secret code to confident, wealthy, and successful women and leads women to unleash the Dynamic Woman™ in them!Grab your copy of Diane's autographed Dynamic You™ Book at a special Discount:https://www.dianerolston.com/store/p3/Autographed_Dynamic_You%E2%84%A2_Book.htmlThanks for listening!It means so much to us that you listened to our podcast!With this podcast, we are building an international community of Dynamic Women®. We aim to inspire more women to unleash their dynamic selves and enhance their lives across all areas, particularly in business. If you know someone who would benefit from this message or would be an awesome addition to our community, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a note in the comment section below!Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast app on your mobile device.Leave us a reviewWe appreciate every bit of feedback to make this a value-adding part of your day. Ratings and reviews from our listeners not only help us give you more of what you want, but also help others find us in their podcast app. If you have a minute, an honest review on Apple Podcasts and other apps goes a long way! If you do, send a screenshot along with your mailing address to our team team@dianerolston.com and you'll receive something in the mail!

  Episode: 140 Taking Charge After Stroke: Self-Determination and Recovery with Vivian Fu   In this episode you will discover: ● The Conversation Is the Intervention — A structured, facilitated conversation that centers a person's identity, hopes, and vision for their best day produces measurable improvements in quality of life and independence a year after stroke. Connection isn't soft — it's evidence-based. ● Reframe the Expert in the Room — Take Charge asks clinicians to resist offering advice, validation, or direction — and to trust that the person with stroke already holds the wisdom they need. The hardest part of the facilitator role is staying out of the way. ● Self-Determination Is Not a Luxury — When people with stroke are supported to set their own direction, outcomes improve, costs decrease, and the effects last for years. Building systems that protect that autonomy isn't idealistic — it's what the data demands.   Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong from Central Michigan University and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group, a community dedicated to supporting better aphasia care.   Today I'm speaking with Dr. Vivian Fu, a stroke neurologist living and working in Kelowna, British Columbia, the unceded territories of the Syilx / Okanagan people. Vivian trained in Aotearoa New Zealand, where she completed her PhD running the Taking Charge After Stroke trial. Take Charge showed that people with stroke who were supported to follow their own self-determination had much better quality of life and independence a year after their stroke. The second Take Charge RCT showed that two sessions about six weeks apart produce better outcomes than one session. Vivian strives to embed the Take Charge philosophy in her daily practice, and is focused on improving access to high quality stroke care for rural, regional, and underrepresented populations.   I have been looking forward to this conversation. What drew me to Take Charge was how it reframes the question entirely — from what does the clinician do for this person to what does this person want for their own life. That shift is deceptively simple, and as you'll hear, the evidence behind it is anything but.   Let's get into it.   Katie Strong:  Welcome, Vivian. Vivian Fu: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I'd like to start off with my Pepeha. This is an introduction in Te Reo Māori, which is the indigenous language of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, and I'll just translate each line. Nō Hong Kong ōku tīpuna. My ancestors come from Hong Kong. I tipu ake au ki Aotearoa. I grew up in Aotearoa, New Zealand. E noho ana au ki Ki-Low-Na. I live in Kelowna, British Columbia. Ko tēnei taku mihi ki ngā tāngata whenua o te rohe nei. I like to pay my deepest respects to the first peoples of this land. I live on the unceded territories of the Syilx and Okanagan peoples. Ko tēnei taku mihi ki ngā maunga, ki ngā awa, ki ngā roto, ki ngā Papatuānuku, o te rohe nei. I'd like to pay my deepest respects to the mountains, rivers, and the lakes, and to Mother Earth. All these important landmarks that have been here for millennia. Nō reira, tēna koutou, tēna koutou, tēna koutou katoa. Therefore, hello, hello, hello, Ko Vivian Fu tōku ingoa. Lovely to be here. Katie Strong:  Well, I'm so glad you're here. And I wanted to start off today asking about the Take Charge program that you've been working with, and talk to me about how that began. What was the origin of that? Vivian Fu:  Sure, so really this work began in probably the late 90s early 2000s when clinicians in Aotearoa New Zealand realized that there were different outcomes for people who were Māori compared with non-Māori, and I guess an important point to illustrate is that in Aotearoa society we view things in a very bicultural lens, and by that I mean Tangata Whenua, who are the people of the land, so indigenous people of the Māori and Tangata Tiriti, so everyone else are people of the treaty. It doesn't really matter where you come from, but you are a person of the treaty if you live in Aotearoa, and so it's a bicultural lens, and so we always look at things in that way, and that's how our kind of entire society is grounded upon that. And so when we look at health outcomes, what we could see back then, and unfortunately what we, in a way, still see now is that Māori were experiencing a stroke at about 20 years younger than non-Māori, and they were more likely to die from their stroke, and also more likely to be severely disabled. And so there was a difference in life expectancy, a difference in overall rehabilitation access, difference in overall outcomes, and so it started off with Professor Matire Harwood's work. She is Tangata Whenua, and in her PhD, she was looking at why there were these differences in outcomes and wanting to address them. And so that started off with the Māori and Pacific Stroke Study, which was essentially conducted in just Māori and Pacific people in Aotearoa, New Zealand, out of many different centers around the country. It was a four arm study.. It was a randomized control trial, and it looked at a conversation, which was labeled as the "Take Charge" session, but it was, it was really a connection and a conversation versus a professionally made DVD from the New Zealand Stroke Foundation about people's experiences and stories after stroke. And then the fourth arm of the trial was getting both of those interventions, and there was a control group. So there were three active groups in one control group. And what the researchers basically found was that anybody who had received this session of discussion and connection did much better a year after stroke in terms of quality of life, independence, and caregiver strain. And so that was the first sort of indication that there was something in that conversation that was really important. Unfortunately, it didn't really take off in terms of being able to be implemented, and so then Dr. Harry McNaughton, who was Dr. Harwood's supervisor wrote multiple grants and tried to get this session into much more of a bigger trial with some some type of implementation, and that's where I came along and we essentially did two things. We operationalized the intervention into something that had a bit of a framework, so with a bit of a booklet and a bit of a structure to follow. Really looking into what was it about that conversation that was so powerful and made such a difference to people, and tried to put those things into practice. Then, secondly, to conduct a second trial in New Zealand out of seven centers for people with stroke who were non-Māori and non-Pacific, because the struggle that we came across was that it was only shown to be effective in a small group of people, but not in everybody, and so we had to do things backwards. And so that was really where it all began, from these principles of self-determination, so Tino Rangatiratanga, which is a really important principle in Te Ao Māori, and in the world of Māori, but also knowing that Māori and a lot of indigenous peoples, we think of health as this concept called Te Whare Tapa Whā, for example, which is the house with four walls. So a person is never just their body and their physical health, there are other walls that keep the house upright. So mental health, spiritual health, and family health, whānau is so important, and feeling as though you have strong foundations in where you belong is also really important. So it's that really holistic look at health of an individual and how we can address all of those things in an intervention is really where it all came from. Katie Strong:  Thank you for sharing. I appreciate the backstory, and also just the idea of what you're thinking about from a holistic health standpoint. I know our listeners are probably curious, some of them might not have heard about Take Charge before, so this is the first time of them hearing about this, and so I was hoping, Vivian, you could give us an overview of what the intervention is, and then maybe walk us through what a session actually looks like in practice. Vivian Fu: Yeah, absolutely. So I'll talk you through the session in the way that it was done in the larger Take Charge trial. So this was done in 400 non-Māori, non-Pacific people with stroke, and our trial there had three arms. So there was a control group, there was a group that received just one session, and then there was a group that received two sessions six weeks apart roughly. The sessions were provided by a trained facilitator, and they were timed roughly somewhere between three to 18 weeks after stroke. So quite a large window, really, depending on when the person with stroke was ready to receive it. So the short version of what it looks like is it's based off the booklet and it's done face to face. It's a conversation and the facilitator is trained at the beginning to really try and establish a relationship…to build a relationship. There's a concept in Te Ao Māori called Whakawhanaungatanga, which is really sort of seeking another person's identity, recognizing who they are as a person, and trying to build connections. And so I guess in English, we think of that as building rapport, building trust. And so it in our trial was done face to face. We have also looked at ways of doing this via telehealth as well, which is, you can imagine, is a little bit different. But that step is really important, and we knew that it was important also in the initial Māori and Pacific trial, because the facilitators who were trained were actually ethnicity matched. So that's something where I think it came quite naturally in that trial, but in the second trial we really wanted to ensure that a relationship was built, and then there are three pages, initial pages in the booklet that look at different things. So the first page is looking at how the person has been affected by the stroke, and then asking them to think about actually who they really are as a person. It's a very simple concept, and a very sort of simple question, but for many people that's the first time they've really been asked that and have had to think about that. So anything that comes to mind that they can relate to, you know, who they are. An individual, and what it is that they love, so for example, for me, I would say, "I'm a mum, and I'm, I'm a stroke neurologist, I am a painter, I'm a poet, I'm someone who loves going for walks in hikes," and, you know, so those kinds of things, and it, and it kind of really builds on on that person's identity and who they are in the world. And so that's that sort of page one. It's really about establishing identity and sense of self. And then the second page is talking then about my hopes and fears. And that might be a tricky one, really, for a lot of people to start talking about and thinking about. They may not want to express that, they may not have been asked that. Sometimes it brings out a lot of emotion, and that's why that initial beginning part of establishing trust and in a kind of a psychological safety space is really important. And then the third page is imagining or envisioning what my best day looks like. And you can be as wild and fantastical about that as you like. When we train our facilitators, we asked them to do these exercises as well themselves, so they can get a really good sense of what that's like, and I had a lovely training session with community health workers from Tanaha First Nation in Cranbrook, BC, and one of one of the attendees in the group said she'd love to have breakfast with a Sasquatch, and so that was absolutely, you know, it was so culturally relevant, so important. Katie Strong:  That makes my Pacific Northwest roots just smile there! Vivian Fu: Exactly! Just so unique to that individual and to where they are in the world. And it's not something you can, you can pluck out of a textbook or pluck out of anything, right. It's where they are. I love that activity. It's quite magical what comes out. And then after those three pages are done, then there are some pages that are specifically related to goal setting, which may or may not be relevant to the person in front of you, things like a physical page, emotional, social, financial, health management type pages. And that really is a way to think about or encourage the person to think about, or we know what are the things that do matter to you, and and what are the things you would like to achieve in the long run, and what are some ways you might be able to break that down into achievable steps that you would personally want to do. But the session in practice can look like anything out of that. It can look from a person at session one being completely clammed up about not wanting to dig deep or not not being ready to engage in that. Or just kind of being, you know, keeping it all to themselves, and thinking about it, and ruminating about it, and then session two, looking very different after they've had that six weeks to think about it themselves. It can look like blank pages, or it could look like a person coming up with all sorts of brilliant ideas. Hopefully, you know, we always encourage if they can write the person with stroke as the one who is writing in the notebook. They keep it. They stick it on their fridge. They do whatever they like with it. They write in it in their own time, but it's completely fine to have blank pages. It's completely fine to have nothing come out of that conversation, nothing verbal, but it's just a space to an invitation to dig deep, and if there's something to say to feel heard. And I guess there was another question. I think that's quite important with regards to what the facilitator is doing, what are they not doing, and the facilitator is trained specifically to listen and ask questions and reflect the ideas that are being expressed by the person with stroke, but what they're not doing is they're not offering any advice or suggestions or pathways forward or how abouts or what abouts. They are not, and this is probably the hardest part. They're not passing any judgment, and that includes good judgment. So, by saying something like, "oh, that sounds like a really good idea", which seems like a really normal response from most people, it kind of implies that there are other ideas that are less good. Or the person with stroke might feel as though they are needing to have that kind of external validation, that external approval, and, and what we don't want is to for them to feel like they're doing this or saying this or thinking these things for the facilitator. We want them to think about it for themselves. And so all we encourage people to respond, is "oh, so you'd like to ride your bike, that's really interesting. How, how do you think you'll, you'll go about doing that?" You know, it's, it's much more neutral, but reflective way of speaking and listening, I guess. Katie Strong:  I am curious, how long is the training, or you know, what kinds of.. what we didn't talk about this, but I know people are going to want to know. So, what does it take to be trained? Vivian Fu: This is quite funny. This is a thing that sort of been on my mind ever since we've started implementation around the world, and I have this ultimate goal of operate like actually making the training have some type of qualification and fidelity, and some structure. There is structure, but it's essentially myself or Harry doing a Zoom with people, and it takes maybe say four hours. But ideally, what we'd love to do is to have sort of recorded videos, and then we'd have live sessions, and then we'd have assessments, and then you get a certificate at the end. I have neither the budget or the… Katie Strong: There's always the next step, for sure. Vivian Fu: I'd love to be for people to be able to say, "Oh, I'm Take Charge trained" and for them to be able to like "Look, I've got this qualification, I'm Take Charge trained, I know how to do this," and especially for if we were thinking about doing it in more clinical trial settings, I think that's really important, but also, you know, for people, you know, to have on their CV, if they're moving between jobs and things, I think it's so useful. But yeah, basically people get in touch with myself or Harry and say, "Hi, we'd like to be trained, can you fit us in?" And we just do it for free. Katie Strong:  Lovely, I love it. And the other question I had as you were talking was how long is a typical session or or is there is there length? Vivian Fu: So in the trial what our facilitators did was they because it was face to face and they had to drive between people's houses, they booked in the session, usually at 10:30 in the morning, and then another session, I think, if I remember correctly, either maybe it was 1:30 in the afternoon. And so you can probably surmise that for people with stroke, usually the 10:30 slot is the most popular. And you know, some people would would prefer to wake up earlier and be ready earlier, so they might ask for something like 9 o'clock and then they might usually go for about an hour and a half to two hours if it's a good going session, and they're really digging deep, and there's a lot to say. And often you know that first half an hour is, "Here's a cup of tea and a biscuit. Let's get to know each other. Tell me all about what happened with your stroke." That kind of stuff, so that listening and connecting stuff actually takes takes a while to establish, and I think people just allowed for that time. Then they'd do a second session in the afternoon again. There are lots of things, you know, cognitive problems, fatigue is a big one. So, if people felt like they couldn't keep going, the facilitator would say , "That's totally fine, we'll book in for, you know, do the rest of this another time, is that okay?" It was fine to really just, you can truncate it and break it up as much as the person really wants. Katie Strong:  Thank you. I appreciate the extra information. You had a recent publication in 2025 with some colleagues that looked at this work from a qualitative lens.  You came up with some themes about doing things my way, coming to my own wisdom, and they're just so deeply related to identity, and what struck me was the contrast participants drew between Take Charge care and standard care, where they described being put in a box receiving scripted advice that had really nothing to do with who they were as a person. And when someone gets to tell the story of who they are to a genuinely good listener, something shifts. I was just curious, if you could think about what you think is happening there, or what you found in your study. Vivian Fu: Well, I think for the most part, as a, you know, as a clinician, if we think about from the moment the person has a stroke, they disempowered from that very moment.  Something happens where they just aren't themselves, and they are brought into a merge. A bunch of things happen to them that they can't really even speak up about. You know, they're popped in a scanner. They might get thrombolised, you know, all these things are happening. And the person doesn't really know what's going on. There are a lot of important qualitative studies that have been done, looking at that element of feeling disempowered, and what somebody in New Zealand study described as feeling gut-wrenchingly emotional. You know, experiences that that aren't heard and aren't ever expressed to to anyone in the healthcare side and aren't dealt with, and so, if you think about that, just that trauma of having a stroke and then going through all of that stuff, and you know, ending up in a bed somewhere on a ward with strangers on the other side of a curtain, and it's really pretty traumatic. And so I think what was powerful with Take Charge was it's an it's an opportunity for someone to finally tell their story and feel heard and for all that stuff to just come out. And a lot of the time you know people might say, "Oh, well, you could talk to your family, you can talk to your kids, or, you know, whatever. Once you get home" but actually, a lot of people don't feel like talking to those who are closest to them about how much it affected them, and there is still an element of stigma. There's still an element of, "Oh, you know, you look great physically, you to someone we know having had a big health scare, and then kind of coming back into that. But there's there's a real dissonance between what is going on inside a person and and how other people are reacting to them coming back into "normal spaces". And so I think the ability to tell your story from the very get go. You know, all of the messiness of it. All the things that went wrong, and then to have somebody listen to that really gives meaning to it and makes it real, but it also helps that person really reestablish their sense of power to regain some power from that that they had lost. And there's a lot of power in story, and I think the kind of, you know, lovely thing about it is that sort of all indigenous cultures sort of be like, you know, First Nations, Māori, Gaelic, a lot of cultures really put a lot of value in the power of storytelling. And that is how historically things were really passed down, and so I think it's through that ability to be able to feel heard and to tell your story that then the person who is speaking can actually hear themselves say things out loud for the first time. And then understand the power and the value and the worth in their words and their experience, and that is that process of coming to my own wisdom, is "Oh, actually, you know, I do know about my body. I am, I am the expert, not these people in their white coats, or you know, with their expertise, I am the expert. I know what I need. I can plan my rehabilitation. I can go back to the things that I want to do, and this is how I'm going to do it." And it's that, that kind of reestablishment of confidence and strength and hope that is so powerful. I think. Katie Strong: I agree. I agree, Vivian. As you know, our listeners are primarily speech language pathologists working with people with aphasia. We also have people with aphasia that are listening, and researchers as well. But you know, the capacity for language being disrupted by aphasia. I was just curious, with Take Charge, as you've studied it, is you know, really a talking therapy with writing, and, and those sorts of things, and so I was just curious, you know, what would it take to extend this kind of intervention to people with aphasia, and what principles would you want to most preserve in the adaptation. Vivian Fu: Yeah, thank you. That's such an important question. We certainly, in the Take Charge trial, included people with aphasia in the trial, and the way that we sort of just included them was if they could understand or the consent form and could mark an "x" on the form, we'd be happy to to have them included, and so we had people with mild to moderate and moderate to severe aphasia in the trial. And we hadn't made any specific changes or tweaks to the intervention, the facilitator just did what they could with what we had. But I think what has come out of reviews of the implementation of Take Charge now in New Zealand is that it is really important for us to look at how we can adapt the intervention for people with aphasia. I think for the facilitators in the trial, what they did was they allowed a lot more time, so the usual two and a half hours became three and a half hours, and that was fine if the person could continue. But also I think from the report we need to look at alternative ways of how we can complete some of these activities, whether it's providing images where people can point, whether it's a lot more inclusion of their family, their whānau important people to them who can help with, you know, subtle guidance, and, and, and having sort of lived with the person now, can read their non-verbal expressions a lot better than a stranger, a facilitator can and can help with the guidance of participating. And really, while Take Charge has been translated, I think, now into seven or eight different languages, we really need to adapt Take Charge to other communication needs and other languages, but what I.. so my role.. sorry, I didn't.. I'd actually say this, but my role in the in the large trial was as the blinded outcomes assessor, so I went around at one year after stroke. I traveled around to the 400 or so different other people, participants' homes around the country, and I sat in their living rooms, and I listened to their stories again. And then I did all of their outcome instruments and got all of their outcomes done, but I did not know which group they were allocated to. And then I locked all the data, and then I'd say, "Hey, so which group did you get Take Charge or not?" And it was really, it was good. I think out of the 400 there were only two people who, when I turned up, actually had the booklet on the table, and so you know, I just ignored it, and then, but yeah, it was, it was really good in terms of sort of blinding and masking, and then sort of having a guess as I was going through and checking where things were at. It was such a privilege for me to, as a stroke doctor, I think you know people don't usually get to do this as a physician, but to, to meet so many different people with so many different stories, and a number of people who still had moderate to severe aphasia, and and were telling me about the impacts of that on their life. But we were still able to communicate a year after stroke, and so I think it is so important that we don't exclude people with cognitive and communication difficulties. We have to adapt the things that we have to make it work for them. What I'd love is to be able to have some kind of focus group with people with aphasia, and, and show them Take Charge, and realize, oh, what can we do? How would this work better for you? Katie Strong:  I love that, and well. Well, and we haven't talked about the materials yet, but I do have to say they're so accessible, or they're very accessible from a visual standpoint as well. Vivian Fu: Thank you. Yes, we are actually modifying them and making the font bigger and having better graphics. We started off with stick figures that Harry drew, and then I think we're actually making them a lot nicer in terms of the graphics, but what we do have at the moment is actually available online for free, and you can just download them as a package. It's if you Google it, it's the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, or www.mrinz.ac.nz  and then under programs, and we spell that as p r o g r a m m e s, and then under programs slash forward slash stroke, I think is where it lives, and at the bottom of the page you should be able to download, a training package and the booklet itself. Katie Strong: Yes, lovely, and we'll have the links on our show notes as well, so you can check those out, listeners, if you're interested. So, thank you. You have two randomized controlled trials that you've talked a little bit about, and a cost effectiveness analysis and qualitative work, all pointing in the same direction that the cost data suggests that Take Charge actually might save money, and that is remarkable, and lots of evidence showing that, but still, it's a challenge in implementing into standard practice, and I was curious if you could talk with us about what you think stands between what the evidence shows and what actually gets implemented. Vivian Fu: Sure, gosh, I love this question. It's it applies for so many interventions, I think, specifically for Take Charge, it's a number of things. So definitely the stuff that affects other interventions being implemented, but for Take Charge itself, it started off with a huge amount of disbelief bias, so people, you know, even after I presented the main results of the second trial at the European Stroke Conference in gosh, when was that? 2019 pre-COVID in Milan. So this is a huge international stroke conference, and this was a plenary session. People stood up and took photos of the results and went, you know, there was this collective gasp throughout the audience of 6000 odd people, but there's just this disbelief that something as simple as a conversation can make a difference to people's objective quality quantitative outcomes, like the, you know, Bartel or the FIM, what they, you know, what their physical outcomes are like at a year. And what their quality of life is like. I think for people who are stroke researchers, a lot of the focus is on that initial 24 to 48 hours after stroke. And you know, that that's kind of where that's kind of where all the funding goes, isn't it? So it's the pre-hospital stuff, and then the interventional things you can stick catheters into and thrombolysis, and you know that's, and that's all great. You know, I, as a stroke physician, I love that part of stroke as well, but to think that you could possibly do something at three to 18 weeks after stroke that could change a person's outcome by a year, and actually we've got a long-term follow-up study now that says that those those same magnitude of changes are still present at five years between the groups is, you know, kind of gobsmacking. And people just go, surely you've fudged this, or surely this can't be true. And so there's this huge disbelief bias that stopped us from being able to publish initially, and it was only after I presented the results in Milan that that we got accepted into a journal. And we'd been trying for about a year beforehand, and, and so there's, there's that disbelief. But also in the way that it has to be provided, you know, it's probably considered quite labor intensive. You know, one on one home visits, and that's why people of other researchers who do believe in Take Charge are now looking at providing take charge in different ways. Like I did a telehealth trial in Canada, in southern Alberta, when I was there as a fellow in Calgary, and there's potential other work that's being. Done in Australia with Take Charge, looking at providing it by computer avatars, by even maybe even AI, and maybe in a larger sort of telehealth format. And so you know other ways of doing it, but I think ultimately it's kind of cultural inertia, because you know, "We've never done this, this is not part of who we are. Why would we need to start something new?" There's probably kind of an established way of thinking about clinician and, and patient, rather than person with stroke, in still in how we practice, and this idea that the therapist and doctor are experts. And so I think it really challenges that dogma and challenges clinician's role, and therefore there's a resistance to accept that this is something that is useful and helpful, and actually doesn't, you know, you don't need to take it personally. You're still doing great work. Take Charge is just a tool that helps supplement everything else that's going on, and so there's a lack of time, and I think we also get quite, as practicing clinicians, we get quite tunnel visioned into this, you know, hamster wheel of go to work, treat all these people, go home. We just keep doing it. Hoping that things will get better for them, but, you know, we, it's only when we start looking at alternative interventions and alternative things that work and start trialing them and being open to that, that I think things will really start to change. We've certainly had interest from random little parts around the world. I think it's been translated into Latvian. I've got people from Sweden who are interested. A little hospital in Germany, and then parts of it's been trialed in pilot studies in the UK. And Harry and I last year trained a whole bunch of occupational therapists in Hong Kong, so you know it is, it is kind of picking up, slowly but surely. Katie Strong: Well to me, you know, most stroke survivors, or people with stroke, as you're referring to them, have chronic challenges, and so all of the early intervention, while important, doesn't necessarily help somebody navigate that longer term change. And so I love that this is just such an empowering way of putting that power back into the person's life, which it seems like it is showing up n in the results that you're sharing. Vivian Fu: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if we think about it, if we just think about thrombectomy and thrombolysis, somewhere between five to 15% of all people with stroke are eligible, and then receive the treatment. That leaves what?, 85 to 95% of people who don't get to receive that. And even after they receive the treatment, there are consequences of stroke that are beyond the physical that don't you know don't have any other thing to address them apart from our routine care, so I completely agree with you. Katie Strong: Well, thinking about what clinicians might be able to do tomorrow or you know, in the near future, for our speech-language pathologists or other practitioners who are listening today and are feeling the pull of this work, and you know, really encouraged by it, but are you know working in an embedded productivity driven impairment focused system, what's one thing that they could do differently in the very next clinical encounter that they have? Vivian Fu:  We have a paper, I think it's written. Oh gosh, where did it.. where did it get published? I think it was published in Practical Neurology. It's titled something, something intrinsic motivation. I should know better. Katie Strong: I'm going find out, and I don't think I read that one, so I'm gonna find it, and I'll put the link in the show notes for everybody. Vivian Fu: Sorry,Harry about the promo, but yeah, I'll send it to you, but essentially it's written to give some guidance on how you can embed Take Charge into your daily clinical practice. And it's written for neurologists, but honestly it applies to everybody.  One of the key things is when you have that next encounter, obviously you know therapists do this a lot better than doctors do, but they ask a lot about, you know, what's outside of the person's life and what's important to them, but maybe move away just, you know, from the very practical questions like "How many steps do you have going in and out of your house?, and How do you hang up your washing?", or whatever, but it's, you know, really much less functional, but more, "Who are you? Tell me a bit more about yourself. What do you love doing? What gets you out of bed?" You know, if I might, the one that I like to use a lot on my ward rounds is, "If you weren't in this hospital bed right now, where would you rather be? What would you rather be doing?", and I do that on my rounds, and it's incredible, because you know, I'll hear all sorts of things, "I'll, you know, be on my boat fishing out on the lake", or I think this lady was like 84 or something. "I'll be with my girlfriends, we'll be having coffee at Tim Hortons", you know, and it's just, I don't know, it's something so unique to that person that I could never, you know, they're in their hospital pajamas with a whole bunch of stuff stuck to them, and I can't envisage them doing that, and yet I'm like, I want you to imagine yourself there. Where would you rather be? Okay, so everybody, that's our goal. It's not to get her home or to get her walking again. Our goal is to get her back in Tim Hortons with her eight friends, having coffee, like that is what this person loves to do. And I think that you know that inquiry, that it shows you care, it shows you see them as an individual, and I think it completely shifts your rehab focus, and then you can ask more questions about that, and they, you know, then you have this whole conversation about about what their life is like. And I think that part of being seen, even if it's only within 60 seconds, makes such a difference to that person. So that's one thing. The second thing I'd be, you know, doing is I'm trying to involve family as much as possible, as much as the person wants, and basically, just seeing them as an individual makes a huge difference already to the way you practice, that would be what I'd focus on. Katie Strong: Agreed, agreed. Well, Vivian, is there something you wish people asked you about this work that they rarely do, something about Take Charge or stroke recovery more broadly that you think the field hasn't quite caught up to yet. Vivian Fu:  Oh gosh, this is a tricky one. I think one thing we ought to recognize is that everybody is doing the best that they can with what they have. And you know, we're not as clinicians on the ground on the front line, we're not involved with funding decisions, and what projects get funded and which ones don't. And there will be the ambitious amongst your listeners, who I really hope will be like, "Oh my gosh, I can apply for this little grant, and I'm going to pilot this, and I think we should give this a go with our people." and I think that is absolutely a great idea to have. And, and I would, myself and Harry will do everything that we possibly can to help support such projects from where we are. I think the important thing to think about is that every little bit that you do makes a difference, and to not feel as though, because you know your funding runs out, or you don't get it, or the world is such a bleak place that you know it's not worth continuing to try. Because people with stroke who see you do this work, they will be grateful for it. And also the patient partners I've met that I've spoken with, and all of the people whom I've interviewed with the qualitative work, they're also happy to be part of something like this. And so even if it's a pilot project. Even if it's, you know, something that may not last, you'd be so surprised at how much momentum you can build with a movement of people who see the value in this and then take it further and further, And that's what I've been really impressed by, and kind of stunned by in all these different locations around the world who have contacted me. I've just been like, "Wow, can't believe [this]." There's this wonderful group in Hunter Medical Research Institute down in Australia, who basically took Take Charge back to their own unique Aboriginal community, the Gamilaroi peoples of that particular area of Australia. They have, like Canada and like the States, they have 1000s of tribes and lots of different groups that all speak completely different languages, but they took it to their local group, and they broke down, take charge into little bits, and then rebuilt it into an intervention that just works for them, and it's called "Yarning Up after Stroke", because what they do is they have a yarn. They yarn, and that's the way they tell their stories. It's yarning, and so you know, I just think it's incredible. Like, they got funding for it, they did it, and now it's an ongoing project that just keeps on in the community being provided to their people, and it's fantastic. So, I think it'll evolve. I love to see how it evolves, and I certainly don't think of, you know, this isn't the kind of intervention that we go around patenting and making a ton of money out of. It's the kind of intervention that everybody makes their own, and hopefully with a lot of input by people with stroke, Katie Strong: I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for being our guest today, and sharing about Take Charge, and your generosity in sharing about the intervention, and if people are interested in reaching out to contact you, so thank you so much, Vivian. Vivian Fu:  Thank you so much for having me. I hope I haven't spoken too long. Katie Strong: Oh no, it's perfect. Vivian Fu: I'm always happy to be contacted, and yeah, very happy to support anyone who'd like to explore this further. Katie Strong: Thanks so much. On behalf of Aphasia Access, thank you for listening. For references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes, available on our website at www.aphasiaaccess.org. There you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials, and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. For Aphasia Access Conversations, here at Central Michigan University in the Strong Story Lab, I'm Katie Strong. Dr. Fu's Email  dr.vivianfu@gmail.com  Resources and Readings Fu, V. (2019). Taking Charge After Stroke: A novel, community-based intervention to improve the lives of people with stroke. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Taking-Charge-After-Stroke:-A-novel,-intervention-Fu/3bc1dbb271f425c72e146510088856e3aad8683e  Fu, V., Fernando, K. M., Bright, F., Riley, J., McPherson, K., & McNaughton, H. (2025). Coming to my own wisdom: A qualitative study exploring the role of the Take Charge intervention in stroke recovery. Clinical Rehabilitation, 39(3), 377–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692155241310770 Fu, V., Weatherall, M., McPherson, K., Taylor, W., McRae, A., Thomson, T., Gommans, J., Green, G., Harwood, M., Ranta, A., Hanger, C., Riley, J., & McNaughton, H. (2020). Taking Charge after stroke: A randomized controlled trial of a person-centered, self-directed rehabilitation intervention. International Journal of Stroke, 15(9), 954–964. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747493020915144 Fu, V., Thompson, S., Kayes, N., & Bright, F. (2025). Supporting long-term meaningful outcomes in stroke rehabilitation. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 25, 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-025-01403-z Harwood, M., Weatherall, M., Talemaitoga, A., Barber, P. A., Gommans, J., Taylor, W., McPherson, K., & McNaughton, H. (2011). Taking charge after stroke: Promoting self-directed rehabilitation to improve quality of life - a randomized controlled trial. Clinical Rehabilitation, 26(6), 493-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215511426017  Te Ao, B., Harwood, M., Fu, V., Weatherall, M., McPherson, K., Taylor, W. J., McRae, A., Thomson, T., Gommans, J., Green, G., Ranta, A., Hanger, C., Riley, J., & McNaughton, H. (2022). Economic analysis of the 'Take Charge' intervention for people following stroke: Results from a randomised trial. Clinical Rehabilitation, 36(2), 240–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692155211040727 McNaughton, H., & Fu, V. (2023). Intrinsic motivation. Practical Neurology, 23(6), 489-492.  https://pn.bmj.com/content/23/6/489  McNaughton, H., Gommans, J., McPherson, K., Harwood, M., & Fu, V. (2023). A cohesive, person-centric evidence-based model for successful rehabilitation after stroke and other disabling conditions. Clinical Rehabilitation, 37(7), 975-985. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692155221145433   Medical Research Institute of New Zealand. (n.d.). Take Charge rehabilitation resources. https://www.mrinz.ac.nz/take-charge-rehabilitation-resources World Stroke Organization. (n.d.). Taking Charge after stroke: A person-centred approach to life after stroke [Webinar]. https://www.world-stroke.org/what-we-do/education-and-research/education/webinars/taking-charge-after-stroke-a-person-centred-approach-to-life-after-stroke  

#paranormal #supernatural In this show, I continue to read and then talk about the paranormal concepts in this book. Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal, supernatural, and / or unexplained, that you would like others to know about? If so, let me know. You can reach me at; salsidoparanormal@gmail.com Or, you can visit our website, click on the "Share Experience" link (at the top of the page) and fill out the form there. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ Please follow Jen, the co-host of Salsido Paranormal. https://linktr.ee/jenniferhawkins_arcana Follow Ricky, the host of Anything Is Possible. https://linktr.ee/aipanythingispossible Follow Mike, the host of Troubled Minds Radio. https://www.troubledminds.org/ You can now listen to 2 episodes of the show every night at 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern on the Troubled Minds Radio Network KUAP-DB! https://www.troubledminds.org/ Also, if you or anyone you know should ever feel like there is no hope, or help, please consider the information in the link below. Special thanks to Michael Strange for putting this page together. https://www.troubledminds.net/help You can find all episodes, social media, and ways to support the show via the links below. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ https://allmylinks.com/salsidoparanor1 https://substack.com/@salsidoparanormal? https://www.bonfire.com/store/salsido-paranormal/ Do you want to listen to the live recording streams for the show, and chat with others while you're at it? Join the Discord server. https://discord.gg/v4GEb6k3EV  

What if Canada's biggest security weakness isn't the border... but our ports?  Former RCMP intelligence official Scott McGregor says Canada's Pacific ports have become a major target for organized crime because only a small percentage of cargo is inspected. He argues criminal networks know exactly how to exploit the system and it's happening in plain sight.  Why haven't governments fixed it? How do traffickers move illegal cargo through Canada's supply chains? And why does McGregor believe these security gaps are the result of failed public policy rather than a lack of resources?  From organized crime and the fentanyl crisis to trade, national security, and Canada's economic future, McGregor explains why this issue affects every Canadian and the policy changes he says are needed before the problem gets even worse. 

The world's oceans hit their hottest ever recorded temperatures for July, partly fuelled by developing El Niño conditions in the Pacific, according to the EU's climate monitoring service Copernicus. The average sea surface temperature outside the world's polar regions was 20.96C last month, beating the previous high of 20.89C, set in 2023. Also in the programme: Ukraine strikes a Russian oil refinery - with at least 13 killed. And Harry Potter fans force the rerouting of a multi-million dollar cable project to preserve the mock grave of the much-loved character.(Picture credit: Getty Images)

Imagine Battlefield, but dying matters. That's the WARDOGS closed alpha in one sentence — and after a weekend in it, we're calling it the most polished alpha we've ever played. WARDOGS is Bulkhead and Team17's 100-player tactical shooter: three factions, one randomized control zone, first side to 100 points wins. You start with $10,000, you buy your loadout from in-game vendors, and when you die you lose the gear AND the money you spent on it. The money carries between matches. You can loot the guy you just killed and walk away with a level 30 kit you couldn't buy for another six hours. In this episode: what the alpha actually plays like, why the economy isn't the gimmick people think it is, how three-way faction warfare changes your strategy, the 256 square kilometre map, destructible towers, the reviving system Battlefield should steal, TTK and gunplay, why an Arma 3 King of the Hill mod is the reason none of this feels half-baked — and the two things that genuinely pissed us off. Plus the final verdict, the scores, and the one thing that could still ruin this game. Raz thinks it's a flawless alpha. Jake wants free look. Neither of us can stop playing it. 0:00 - Intro 1:14 - Patreon, free trials and the hangout 3:58 - What WARDOGS actually is 4:21 - Two things we had wrong before playing 6:07 - Unlock fees and gear progression 7:51 - The NDA that stopped us streaming 8:23 - Control zone, hot zone and how you score 11:01 - You can't group with your friends 12:59 - "It's so fun I don't recommend you play it" 14:33 - Jake's first impressions 18:07 - The best-performing alpha we've ever played 20:20 - How three factions changes your strategy 23:38 - Battlefield, but dying matters 25:43 - Looting kills and juicer kits 30:39 - Does the control zone actually move? 33:44 - Destructible towers and the M1 Abrams 35:59 - FOBs, spawn trucks and sandbags 40:00 - Infantry desperately needs free look 42:57 - The tutorial is actually good 43:58 - Does 100 players feel full? 47:26 - The log truck last stand 50:19 - Snipers and no scope glint 52:12 - Onboarding and the backpack system 55:15 - The loadout presets they need to add 57:06 - The kill cam that shows too much 58:18 - The milsim/arcade sweet spot 1:02:27 - Why it works: 10 years of Arma King of the Hill 1:04:45 - Visibility matters more than audio 1:08:50 - TTK, armor and ammo types 1:11:04 - Weapons: AK vs T21 1:14:15 - Gunfights that are actually gunfights 1:16:44 - Movement and traversal 1:20:56 - Reviving, defibs and why Battlefield gets it wrong 1:25:01 - Spawn trucks and the ride back to the fight 1:26:26 - Vehicles handle weird 1:28:58 - The first Unreal Engine 5 game that actually runs 1:29:32 - The money mechanic explained 1:35:02 - Is there gear fear? 1:37:56 - Why the economy isn't a gimmick 1:42:34 - What a max-level meta kit will cost 1:44:52 - Wipes, seasons and gold bars 1:47:31 - Selling ammo to your own team 1:49:42 - 256 square kilometers 1:56:30 - Time of day and future maps 1:57:59 - Who is this game actually for? 2:02:12 - Why Tarkov is too complicated 2:06:58 - Will we still be playing in six months? 2:10:00 - The one thing that could ruin it: anti-cheat 2:12:11 - Final verdict and scores 2:15:21 - Outro _Note: timestamps may be slightly misaligned on podcast apps (but not on YouTube) due to dynamic ads._ The podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts, and ad-free & early access versions - as well as bonus episodes - are available to all of our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/thedropshot) supporters. We stream the podcast live on our YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/thedropshotpodcast) every Saturday morning at ~9 o'clock Pacific Time. We typically start the stream 30 minutes early to answer viewer questions, banter, and chat. Links for everything are below. Thanks for checking us out!

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we head to the mailbag to answer a question about the church in Ireland. GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked.    #214 War hits the Pacific Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength.   Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide.   The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence.   Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence.   On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud.  Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long.   For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been.   The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo.   The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment.   The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China.   Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many,  perhaps most  policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in.   Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing.   By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly.   As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon.   The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions.   Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations,  Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949.   The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal.   Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs."   Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis.   In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction.   The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further.   Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive.   The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission,  the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941.   The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion  had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor.   Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged.   While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies,  though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen.   In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs,  American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it.   The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers,  the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations.   The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point.   Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.

Hi Friends!  What if the clutter in different areas of your home could tell you something about what's happening internally? In this episode, I'm joined by Bonnie Lippincott, biomedical engineer, author, entrepreneur, Reiki practitioner, mom of two, and host of the This Magic Life podcast. Bonnie brings together two worlds we don't often hear discussed in the same conversation: science and energy. We talk about her journey from engineering to writing and entrepreneurship, what she learned from becoming a mother, and how creativity and self-expression helped shape the work she does today. Then we get into chakras, Reiki, and clutter. Bonnie walks us through the seven chakras and explores how each energy center can relate to different areas of our homes and lives. We talk about what recurring clutter might reveal, why letting go can be more than a physical act, and how clearing our spaces can become an opportunity for greater awareness, clarity, and growth. We also talk about something Bonnie calls magic - not necessarily something extraordinary or supernatural, but our ability to notice what is already happening around us. When we become more present and change the way we perceive our everyday lives, ordinary moments can begin to feel very different. About Bonnie Lippincott Bonnie Lippincott is a biomedical engineer, author, mom of two, entrepreneur, Reiki practitioner, and host of the This Magic Life podcast. Her work explores the intersection of science, energy, intuition, personal growth, relationships, parenting, and everyday life. Follow Bonnie, explore her books, and learn more about This Magic Life through the links in the show notes. I can also make this more SEO-focused and give you 5 stronger episode-title options. Check out Bonnie's books here:  Books By Bonnie Follow Bonnie on Instagram here: Bonnie's Instagram   Mindful Decluttering Course: https://declutteryourchaos.thrivecart.com/declutter-without-overwhelm/ Email me with COACHING in the subject to make an appointment for FREE coaching for the podcast. amber@declutteryourchaos.com Join Me Live EVERY DAY until August 12th If you're on Instagram, come join my 30 Days of Mindful Decluttering series! I'm going live every morning, 9am Pacific,  sharing practical mindset shifts, tips and support  to help you create more space in your home and your life. Find me at @amber.cammidge on Instagram.   About Amber Amber Cammidge is the founder of Declutter Your Chaos,  host of the Declutter Your Chaos podcast, with more than 1.5 million downloads, hundreds of raving reviews, and the creator of the Mindful Method for decluttering. She helps women stop fighting their clutter by understanding the psychology behind it. Blending behavioral science, neuroscience, practical decluttering strategies, and mindfulness - informed by her training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) - Amber teaches that your home isn't just where you live - it's where you practice becoming the person you want to be. Her work is about far more than organizing a house. It's about creating space for clarity, confidence, and a life that allows you to become the best version of you.       

Today on Valentine In The Morning: Happy Monday! We play the VITM: Listener Feud for a special holiday prize. Then, we want to know if you're ever said 'no' to being a bridesmaid. Was any drama caused from it? Plus, what was the first concert you went to? Brian's debating on taking his daughter to her first concert. Listen live every weekday from 5-10am Pacific: https://www.iheart.com/live/1043-myfm-173/Website: 1043myfm.com/valentineInstagram: @ValentineInTheMorningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/valentineinthemorningTikTok: @ValentineInTheMorningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Send us Fan MailA crown can be a photo, or it can be a job. When AliA became Miss International Hawaii, she didn't just step into a big four pageant title, she stepped into a global responsibility rooted in service, culture, and daily discipline. We talk about what the Miss International system actually is, how Hawaii holds both state and national pathways, and what it feels like to win when pageantry was never “your thing” to begin with.  From there, we get into the work: the United Nations partnership behind Miss International, the Sustainable Development Goals, and why education is the first step before advocacy. Alia shares how she focuses on SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 17 (partnerships), and how her initiative, grows out of disaster relief experiences tied to typhoon recovery in the Pacific and support reaching as far as Venezuela. We also talk about boots-on-the-ground relief in Hawaii after major storms, the reality of limited visibility for island communities, and why leadership means showing up even when it is messy and exhausting.  Then we go personal: the meaning of aloha beyond a catchphrase, how social media can either reward negativity or spread real encouragement, and how taekwondo shaped her identity through respect, self-control, and self-defense. One moment hits especially hard as we explore fear, resilience, and a line worth repeating: self-defense starts with knowing you're worth defending. If you care about Hawaii culture, women's leadership, disaster relief, mental health, martial arts mindset, or building a life with purpose, this conversation will stay with you.  Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a little hope, and leave a review if the message of aloha and action resonates with you.

At the ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Auckland, Kate Leslie and Andy Cumpstey discuss ANZCA's Emerging Leaders Conference (ELC), a retreat-style program held immediately before the ASM for clinicians within five years of achieving FANZCA, with allowances for career disruptions. Their guests, Dr Saana Taylor FANZCA and Dr Vik Singh FANZCA, co-conveners of this year's ELC, describe shaping this year's New Zealand-hosted ELC with an Aotearoa focus, naming it Te Herenga Matua ("the pursuit of consciousness") and emphasizing collaboration, communication, wellbeing, compassion, and equity. The program included Māori and Pacific health sessions, leadership self-reflection, and an interactive session challenging fixed leadership "styles," alongside strong mentorship and networking with senior college leaders. Highlights included the openness of delegates, relationship-building, and a keynote on leadership "outside the box." Next year's ELC will be in the Adelaide Hills, with applications opening in September. More here: https://www.anzca.edu.au/fellowship/information-for-new-fellows/emerging-leaders-conference -- The 2026 International Practicum on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing will be held at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, UK, from September 16th to 18th this year. It is organised by iPOETTS , the international perioperative testing and training society. Come and join us at this premier educational event designed for clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals interested in sport, exercise, and perioperative medicine. This is an International Perioperative Testing and Training Society accredited event so when you attend you can get your iPOETTS accreditation, showing that you are a practitioner who has reached a high, standardized level of competence in performing and interpreting Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) for patients preparing for major surgery. Go now to http://www.ebpom.org

Is Civility Dead in America? The Truth About Online Hate & Who's Really Behind It Is America really becoming more hateful—or is social media giving us a dangerously distorted picture of who we actually are? Oprah Winfrey has limited online comments after dealing with relentless negativity. Perez Hilton has faced vicious attacks online even while sharing images of himself injured and hospitalized. Scroll through social media or watch the news long enough and it can feel like basic human decency has disappeared. But is civility actually dead in America—or are a relatively small number of people making the country appear far more hateful than it really is? On today's The Karel Cast, Karel looks beyond the outrage and examines what research tells us about who is actually creating all that toxicity. Studies of misinformation and social media behavior have found astonishing concentrations of activity among small groups of users. Research has found that a tiny fraction of accounts can be responsible for an enormous percentage of misinformation being shared online. Other studies have found that a relatively small percentage of active users generate a disproportionate share of toxic comments. Political conversation may be even more distorted. Research suggests that a small minority of users creates the overwhelming majority of political posts—potentially turning social media into a funhouse mirror of American society, where the loudest, angriest voices appear much more representative than they actually are. So maybe America isn't as hateful as your feed makes it look. Maybe most people aren't screaming at strangers, obsessing over politics or attacking celebrities online. Maybe we're allowing a comparatively small group of extremely active people—and algorithms designed to amplify engagement—to shape our perception of millions of ordinary Americans. Then, Karel turns to food. British comedian Mo Gilligan investigates the enormous industrial poultry and fast-food system in Netflix's new documentary Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy. From ultra-processed food and human health to factory farming, animal welfare, pollution, workers and the enormous hidden costs behind cheap fried chicken, the documentary asks an uncomfortable question: What are we really paying for inexpensive industrial food? For Karel, who is vegan, it's another powerful reminder of why walking away from the industrial animal-food system can benefit animals, people and the planet. Today on The Karel Cast: • Is civility actually disappearing in America? • Why does social media seem so much angrier than everyday life? • How many people are really responsible for online misinformation and toxicity? • Are algorithms giving us a false picture of American society? • Why do celebrities like Oprah step away from online comments? • What does the hatred directed at Perez Hilton tell us about internet culture? • What does Big Chicken reveal about America's industrial food system? • And could knowing who's really creating all this noise help the rest of us stop being manipulated by it? The internet may be furious. America may not be. Tell me in the comments: Do you think Americans have actually become less civil—or has social media simply made the worst among us impossible to ignore? Support The Karel Cast on Patreon: patreon.com/reallykarel Watch, like, comment and subscribe: youtube.com/reallykarel The Karel Cast streams LIVE Monday through Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Pacific and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Spreaker and other major podcast platforms. You can also follow Karel on TikTok and Instagram. Karel is a history-making broadcaster, entertainer, recording artist and writer based in Las Vegas, joined by his little service girl, Ember.

Hi Friends!  What if the clutter in different areas of your home could tell you something about what's happening internally? In this episode, I'm joined by Bonnie Lippincott, biomedical engineer, author, entrepreneur, Reiki practitioner, mom of two, and host of the This Magic Life podcast. Bonnie brings together two worlds we don't often hear discussed in the same conversation: science and energy. We talk about her journey from engineering to writing and entrepreneurship, what she learned from becoming a mother, and how creativity and self-expression helped shape the work she does today. Then we get into chakras, Reiki, and clutter. Bonnie walks us through the seven chakras and explores how each energy center can relate to different areas of our homes and lives. We talk about what recurring clutter might reveal, why letting go can be more than a physical act, and how clearing our spaces can become an opportunity for greater awareness, clarity, and growth. We also talk about something Bonnie calls magic - not necessarily something extraordinary or supernatural, but our ability to notice what is already happening around us. When we become more present and change the way we perceive our everyday lives, ordinary moments can begin to feel very different. About Bonnie Lippincott Bonnie Lippincott is a biomedical engineer, author, mom of two, entrepreneur, Reiki practitioner, and host of the This Magic Life podcast. Her work explores the intersection of science, energy, intuition, personal growth, relationships, parenting, and everyday life. Follow Bonnie, explore her books, and learn more about This Magic Life through the links in the show notes. I can also make this more SEO-focused and give you 5 stronger episode-title options. Check out Bonnie's books here:  Books By Bonnie Follow Bonnie on Instagram here: Bonnie's Instagram   Mindful Decluttering Course: https://declutteryourchaos.thrivecart.com/declutter-without-overwhelm/ Email me with COACHING in the subject to make an appointment for FREE coaching for the podcast. amber@declutteryourchaos.com Join Me Live EVERY DAY until August 12th If you're on Instagram, come join my 30 Days of Mindful Decluttering series! I'm going live every morning, 9am Pacific,  sharing practical mindset shifts, tips and support  to help you create more space in your home and your life. Find me at @amber.cammidge on Instagram.   About Amber Amber Cammidge is the founder of Declutter Your Chaos,  host of the Declutter Your Chaos podcast, with more than 1.5 million downloads, hundreds of raving reviews, and the creator of the Mindful Method for decluttering. She helps women stop fighting their clutter by understanding the psychology behind it. Blending behavioral science, neuroscience, practical decluttering strategies, and mindfulness - informed by her training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) - Amber teaches that your home isn't just where you live - it's where you practice becoming the person you want to be. Her work is about far more than organizing a house. It's about creating space for clarity, confidence, and a life that allows you to become the best version of you.       

#paranormal #supernatural In this show, I continue to read and then talk about the paranormal concepts in this book. Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal, supernatural, and / or unexplained, that you would like others to know about? If so, let me know. You can reach me at; salsidoparanormal@gmail.com Or, you can visit our website, click on the "Share Experience" link (at the top of the page) and fill out the form there. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ Please follow Jen, the co-host of Salsido Paranormal. https://linktr.ee/jenniferhawkins_arcana Follow Ricky, the host of Anything Is Possible. https://linktr.ee/aipanythingispossible Follow Mike, the host of Troubled Minds Radio. https://www.troubledminds.org/ You can now listen to 2 episodes of the show every night at 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern on the Troubled Minds Radio Network KUAP-DB! https://www.troubledminds.org/ Also, if you or anyone you know should ever feel like there is no hope, or help, please consider the information in the link below. Special thanks to Michael Strange for putting this page together. https://www.troubledminds.net/help You can find all episodes, social media, and ways to support the show via the links below. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ https://allmylinks.com/salsidoparanor1 https://substack.com/@salsidoparanormal? https://www.bonfire.com/store/salsido-paranormal/ Do you want to listen to the live recording streams for the show, and chat with others while you're at it? Join the Discord server. https://discord.gg/v4GEb6k3EV  

The Pentagon's fifth batch of declassified UAP files arrived in early August, forty-one newly released records reaching as far back as 1950. Among them is gun-camera footage of four-foot "cold orbs" hovering over the Gulf of Oman, and video of a black sphere that blinks out over the Pacific before drifting back into frame.SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/UFOTranche05Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Jeremy Zakis, Part One: Zakis discusses the looming threat of a Super El Niño, characterized by sea surface temperatures in the Eastern Pacific rising 2.5°C above normal, resulting in extreme atmospheric turmoil and more severe weather patterns than a standard El Niño. Meteorologists in Australia are warning that this event may be the strongest in 500 to 1,000 years, potentially causing upwards of $600 billion in damage worldwide. Australians are being urged to prepare much earlier than usual—by September—for a catastrophic bushfire season, clearing "leaf litter" and shrubbery that acts as kindling and cutting back eucalyptus trees that overhang homes. Zakis describes a "vicious cycle": heavy rains currently hitting parts of Australia encourage rapid undergrowth, and when the intense heat and drought arrive, this growth dries out and becomes fuel, while eucalyptus trees become "balls of fire" due to the oil in their trunks. The heating of the Pacific has made weather highly unpredictable—South Australia has already experienced localized flooding in Adelaide, and heavy rain bands are expected to impact Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales. In North America, the event is expected to bring drought to the Southwest but unusual precipitation and heavy snow to New England. (1)

   H.W. Brands, Part Two: In 1941, the debate intensifies over the Lend-Lease Act, which Lindbergh argues supports British imperialism rather than democracy. Lindbergh testifies before Congress, asserting that air power makes the Western Hemisphere more defensible, contradicting Roosevelt's claims that technology has made America more vulnerable. Roosevelt declares an "unlimited national emergency," casting anti-interventionists as disloyal "copperheads" and "fifth columnists." The America First movement is effectively ruined following Lindbergh's Des Moines speech, in which he identifies "Jewish Americans" as a group pushing the U.S. toward war, leading to widespread accusations of anti-Semitism. The national debate ends abruptly with the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war. Although Roosevelt bars his chief critic from official military service, Lindbergh eventually flies combat missions surreptitiously as a civilian consultant in the Pacific. (2)v       

--{ "Modern Mythological Enemies versus The Man in the Mirror"}-- Thank you, Graeme, for this beautiful video. Thank you, Dan, for the video used over the closing song. The full title: "Modern Mythological Enemies versus The Man in the Mirror - Psychological Projection in the Scientific Era" - Perceptions and Logic - How we arrive at (what we think are) our conclusions. Education - Indoctrination - Learned Behaviour - Experiences - Propaganda - Arrival at erroneous conclusions - Living in a world of dis-information. Rise of civilizations (money - commerce - armies - empires). Elite and middle-class eradication of lower-class - Fall of Rome - Massive Taxation - Degeneration - Corruption - Greed - Movement of rural peoples into cities. - Religions - Esoteric meanings. Secrets of Deception from Past - Ancient Histories. Early Judaism - Talmud (begun in Babylon) - Human creation of a god in their own image - Old Testament deity (Exoteric level: angry father with rules and laws). Hellenized Christianity - Hellenic world (Ancient Greek) - Alexander the Great - Female gods. New Testament deity. Seeing Exoteric and Esoteric - Individual Journey. Mass Man and Women - Gregariousness and groups - Dislike of differences. Earning knowledge by self-examination - Third Eye is MIND. Serpent as allegory for Wisdom - Egyptian use of Uraeus (Ouraios, Cobra) - Guarding the Mind - Strike of the cobra. Snake shedding its skin - Symbol of Immortality - Born-again - Wisdom of the Ages - Mastery and Control of Minds of Others - Psychopathy in Noble Families - Inbreeding for traits - Paranoia of Elite Psychopaths - Culling-off Public - Ancient Population Control. Psychopathic traits: egocentricity, rationalization of all they do, lack of guilt. Nature worship and pantheism. Science and exploration - Science-FICTION - Nephilim and Space-Being - Possibility-Thinking - Tunnel of Imagination. Introduction of money and goods (by U.S.) into Pacific islands - Cargo Cults - Desperation brings bizarre rationalizations. Christian religion - Message to Individuals. Democracy of today - Authorized Historians - Archive access - Spins - AUTHOR - AUTHORized. Nature of Evil - Diabolos - Cunning - Fooling en masse - Politicians - Born Actors. How do They get away with this? - Inability of public to comprehend how psychopaths can do what they do - Knight - Cain and Nimrod; founding of cities; first artificer - City: first artificial bee-hive, a habitat. Grand Finale of U.N. (un - one) - Habitat areas - Containment. WHAT IS EVIL? - EVE gets the blame - Logic of Psychopath (predictability of) - Desire to Dominate Public - Psychopathic Lust for Power (need of a victim) - Sadism - Eventual Turning on Each Other - Vying for "King of the World" - Purpose for each Individual - Truth within - New Age Movement - Looking for thrill of experience instead of truth - Pride of Soldiers to KILL - Majority will do what they are told - Knowing by Experience - Supernatural - Advanced Sciences - Madame Blavatsky: function of Theosophy is to cross spirit with science - Telepathic abilities. Alan: "Power of a thought can truly penetrate everything" - Guarding and Guiding Thought. Now is vital time to pass knowledge onto others. Devaluation of Life - Abortion - Selling Body Organs - Science's debauchery of sacredness - Humanist religion - Right of might and power - Man's worship of Man - Dehumanization of Enemy - Examination of Evil - Examination of Self - Thinking for One's Self. (Book: "Tragedy and Hope" by Carroll Quigley)--Rural farming - City-state creation - Age of Imperialism - Period of decline and deviancy. (Song: "Lift Me Up" by Bruce Springsteen).

#paranormal #supernatural In this show, I continue to read and then talk about the paranormal concepts in this book. Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal, supernatural, and / or unexplained, that you would like others to know about? If so, let me know. You can reach me at; salsidoparanormal@gmail.com Or, you can visit our website, click on the "Share Experience" link (at the top of the page) and fill out the form there. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ Please follow Jen, the co-host of Salsido Paranormal. https://linktr.ee/jenniferhawkins_arcana Follow Ricky, the host of Anything Is Possible. https://linktr.ee/aipanythingispossible Follow Mike, the host of Troubled Minds Radio. https://www.troubledminds.org/ You can now listen to 2 episodes of the show every night at 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern on the Troubled Minds Radio Network KUAP-DB! https://www.troubledminds.org/ Also, if you or anyone you know should ever feel like there is no hope, or help, please consider the information in the link below. Special thanks to Michael Strange for putting this page together. https://www.troubledminds.net/help You can find all episodes, social media, and ways to support the show via the links below. https://www.salsidoparanormal.com/ https://allmylinks.com/salsidoparanor1 https://substack.com/@salsidoparanormal? https://www.bonfire.com/store/salsido-paranormal/ Do you want to listen to the live recording streams for the show, and chat with others while you're at it? Join the Discord server. https://discord.gg/v4GEb6k3EV  

Hour 3 - Tricia Cook from the Pacific Wine and Food Classic Festival joins Neil to discuss her upcoming annual food festival.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeff Bliss begins with the Super El Niño building in the Pacific, reaching record-high temperatures that promise severe drought and wildfires for California, a state currently unprepared for these atmospheric changes. In Seattle, Mayor Wilson recently fired the police chief following a shooting catastrophe, revealing the chief lived in Chicago and was absent during major incidents. The segment explores Seattle's history of "police-free" zones and the Democratic Socialists of America's platform, which now advocates for dismantling the US government into a unicameral legislature. The report shifts to Idaho, where a tragic shooting at an In-N-Out restaurant resulted in casualties and raised community concerns. In Los Angeles, a massive cleanup of a rotting meat locker in East LA has created toxic air conditions, while residents fight against the facility's rebuild. Bliss describes the "homeless industrial complex" in Santa Monica, highlighting multi-story cardboard shelters that reach up to five stories high. Finally, the file covers Governor Gavin Newsom's presidential aspirations and public frustration over his incomplete tax returns, which showed a $2 million annual income. (1)

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: The war with Iran has reportedly burned through some of America's most important long-range missiles, raising questions about whether the Pentagon has enough left for another major conflict. Bill Roggio from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins us to break down the state of America's missile stockpiles and what it could mean for U.S. military readiness. The Pentagon is reportedly rethinking America's nuclear strategy as China rapidly expands its arsenal and challenges U.S. power across the Pacific. Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation joins us to discuss how Beijing's nuclear buildup is changing the strategic balance. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Quince: Refresh your wardrobe with timeless, high-quality pieces from Quince—go to https://Quince.com/PDBfor free shipping and 365-day returns! Lean: Get 20% off plus free rush shipping when you go to https://TAKELEAN.comand use code PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Security Hour with Major Fred Galvin – Budde shares his experiences flying the legendary UH-1N Huey, deploying throughout the Pacific and Central Command regions, and serving in combat in Iraq. He also recounts his demanding role as a Forward Air Controller with a Marine Maritime Special Purpose Force, coordinating aviation support where precision, judgment, and split...

Weekend Edition for August 8-9, 2026 GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

R. Keith Andrews is an author, researcher, and lifelong experiencer who has devoted years to exploring the connection between humanity and extraterrestrial intelligence. Through his own personal contact experiences and extensive research into UFOs, consciousness, and non-human intelligence, Keith examines the possibility that ET contact is far more common—and far more transformative—than most people realize. His work encourages people to look beyond the traditional UFO narrative and consider the profound spiritual, psychological, and evolutionary implications of humanity's relationship with the cosmos.Drawing from firsthand experiences, interviews with fellow experiencers, and years of study, Keith explores subjects including ET communication, consciousness, multidimensional reality, alien encounters, and the growing movement toward UFO disclosure. He believes the phenomenon is not simply about unidentified craft in our skies, but about expanding human awareness and understanding our place in a much larger universe. Through his books, lectures, and media appearances, R. Keith Andrews continues to inspire audiences to question conventional thinking and explore the deeper mysteries surrounding the ET connection.Spaced Out Radio is your nightly source for alternative information, starting at 9pm Pacific, 12am Eastern.  We broadcast LIVE every night. #UFO #UAP #AlienDisclosure #UFOSightings #UFOCoverUp #Aliens #SpacedOutRadio #Paranormal #UFOCommunity #disclosure -------------------------------------------------------You can now join the Space Traveler's Club;Join us at  https://www.patreon.com/sor_space_travelers_club  --------------------------------------------------------Grab Our Latest Spaced Out Radio Gear At:http://spacedoutradio.com/shop  It's a great way to support our show!--------------------------------------------------------OUR LINKS:TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/spacedoutradio   FACEBOOK:https://www.facebook.com/spacedoutradioshow  SPACED OUT RADIO - INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/spacedoutradioshow  DAVE SCOTT - INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/davescottsor   TWITCH: https://www.twitch.com/spacedoutradioshow  WEBSITE: http://www.spacedoutradio.comGUEST IDEAS OR QUESTIONS FOR SOR?Contact Klaus at bookings@spacedoutradio.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spaced-out-radio--1657874/support.

Before he became famous, the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) killed his own half-brother to advance his position in the family. As he solidified his power, he began to build an empire more expansive than Alexander the Great’s, stretching from Asia’s Pacific coast to Eastern Europe. Ruthless in his tactics, the khan and his “Golden Horde” left a trail of death and destruction everywhere they advanced. His devastating military forays are unparalleled in recorded history. Today we face a vicious foe even more intimidating than a marauding army—an enemy who wants to conquer and devastate our souls. The apostle Peter cautioned, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). This enemy is cunning and dangerous like a great warrior and is much more than we can handle on our own. But we have great reason for hope. The apostle John wrote, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). This “one who is in you” is the Holy Spirit Himself. We need not fear the enemy of our souls. As we rely on the Holy Spirit, we gain confidence that our lives are guarded from the one who’s trying to conquer our souls. Our God is greater. We can trust Him to be with us in everything.

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember an early church saint with a curious afterlife. GTI Zoom Info Meeting on August 11th at 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89787313197 Show Notes: Support the work at 1517 1517 on YouTube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education Germany / Switzerland - Study Tour What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com)

What if everything we thought we knew about the ancient world was incomplete?In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl set out to answer a question that challenged the foundations of archaeology. Sailing more than 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean on a simple balsa wood raft called Kon-Tiki, he attempted to prove that ancient civilizations may have been capable of extraordinary transoceanic voyages long before modern navigation—or even Christopher Columbus.But did his daring expedition actually rewrite history... or simply prove that the impossible was possible?In this captivating episode of Truth Be Told, host Tony Sweet takes you on a journey across one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. We'll uncover the fascinating story behind the Kon-Tiki expedition, explore the legends of Viracocha, examine the mystery of the sweet potato that somehow crossed the Pacific centuries before European exploration, and dive into the latest archaeological and genetic discoveries that continue to fuel debate among historians.Together, we'll separate fact from speculation as we explore questions surrounding ancient navigation, lost civilizations, Polynesian explorers, Atlantis, Mu, and whether forgotten chapters of human history may still be waiting beneath the waves.Was Thor Heyerdahl chasing an impossible dream... or uncovering clues to one of humanity's greatest forgotten mysteries?Join us as we follow the evidence, challenge assumptions, and ask the questions that continue to captivate explorers, archaeologists, and mystery seekers around the world. Because sometimes... The greatest mysteries aren't found in the stars... they're hidden in our own past.

Go to https://kachava.com and use code HSP for 15% off your first order.On the morning of July 2nd, 1937, Amelia Earhart lifted off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, and flew into the most famous disappearance of the 20th century. The official story says she crashed into the Pacific and sank. And yet, evidence now shows the distress calls kept coming for days, the castaway campsite was discovered on a remote atoll, and a strange shape was spotted on Apple Maps in 2020. Now, with an expedition setting out to finally identify the object buried off Nikumaroro, the mystery of what really happened to Amelia may be about to break wide open.Subscribe on⁠ Patreon⁠ to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt.You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts.Follow on⁠ Tik Tok⁠ and⁠ Instagram⁠ for a daily dose of horror.

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In this episode of The Wright Report, Bryan breaks down Communist Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's primary win for Michigan's Senate seat and why the party establishment, from Chuck Schumer on down, is embracing him as their new face. Bryan reports on a remarkable shift in the immigration fight, with companies raising wages and recruiting American high schoolers to fill jobs left by deported Haitians, plus new fines and bond requirements aimed at illegal and legal immigrants alike. He also breaks down troubling new data showing Flock license-plate cameras misread plates more than 70 percent of the time in one California city. Plus, Bryan covers Iran's blunt admission that it's building a nuclear bomb, a fragile new deal governing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, expanding Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, Iranian cyberattacks hitting US water utilities in a dozen states, and encouraging news from the Pacific where ivermectin is knocking out a scabies outbreak. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32   Keywords: Wright Report, Bryan Dean Wright, Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan Senate, Communist Democrats, DSA, Haitian deportations, immigration, Flock cameras, Iran nuclear bomb, IRGC, Strait of Hormuz, Houthis, Red Sea, cyberattacks, water utilities, ivermectin, Solomon Islands