In the first half, investment advisor, Catherine Austin Fitts, who served as Assistant Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner at HUD in the first Bush Administration, discussed the ongoing saga of how the US government is hiding money and keeping secret books. According to her research, some $21 trillion is unaccounted for, and she believes the majority of this was funneled into black ops and covert projects, including a secret space program. Not only do these compartmentalized projects lack accountability, but maintaining their secrecy adds an enormous additional expense, she suggested.

This funneling of money is like a wild, runaway horse and we saw after 9-11, "an absolute explosion of money and expense, and of course, all of this translates into big corporate profits that drives the stock market and the value of real estate up, so everybody's making money." But, she continued, there's no mechanism for the government to say no. The missing trillions add up to some $65,000 per American citizen-- for many, this could be crucial money that determines whether they have enough for retirement, to send their kids to college, or own a home, she remarked. Fitts also talked about the debasement of the US dollar, and how other countries are looking at alternatives to use as a world currency. For more, see her special reports: Missing Money / Deep State

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Barrie Schwortz was the official documenting photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, the team that conducted the first in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud in 1978. In the latter half, he talked about the history and meaning of the Shroud and why many believe it was the burial cloth of Jesus and was possibly wrapped around him during the resurrection. Kept in Turin, Italy, the 14-ft.-long linen cloth bears the front and back image of a crucified man with a crown of thorns. The Shroud's history goes back to the mid-1300s without a break in its chain of custody, he recounted. Before that, there are gaps, though a shroud is mentioned in the Gospels, and there was an image that resembles it in the catacombs in Rome, circa 285 AD.

In 1988, a small piece of the cloth was carbon dated to 1260 to 1390, but criticisms of the sample that was tested have emerged since then, Schwortz reported. His own examination determined that the cloth was neither a painting nor a photograph (though the image is seen in reverse like a photographic negative). Unlike a photo, he found there is spatial or 3D information encoded into the Shroud's imagery, which no one has ever been able to duplicate. Further, the forensic markings in the Shroud (including wound areas and bloodstains) accurately portray the torture Jesus underwent as described in the Gospels, he noted.

News segment guests: Charles R. Smith, Howard Bloom