newsarticles.media: Government Corruption News

How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed the Risk of Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Following COVID-19 Vaccination

This interim report highlights records the Subcommittee has reviewed regarding HHS's awareness of and response to cases of myocarditis–a type of heart inflammation–following COVID-19 vaccination. [Some] documents ... have remained hidden from the public and Congress for years. U.S. health officials knew about the risks of myocarditis; Those officials downplayed the health concern; and U.S. health agencies delayed informing the public about the risk of the adverse event. The records [show]: The Israeli Ministry of Health notifying officials at the CDC in late February 2021 of "large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine." Discussions among CDC officials in May 2021 on whether to issue a HAN [Health Alert Network message] on myocarditis, noting that health care professionals across the nation may not be aware of the risk because "providers aren't reporting these cases to VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System]." A CDC official providing up-to-date information on the status of the HAN to Pfizer Inc. ("Pfizer") and Moderna, Inc. ("Moderna") representatives, indicating CDC's preference to keep the vaccine companies more informed about vaccine adverse events, rather than the American people. Draft meeting notes from late May 2021 exchanged between U.S. public health officials which included the question: "Is VAERS signaling for myopericarditis now?"; and the answer: "For the age groups 16-17 years and 18-24 years, yes."

Note: Our Substack investigation, The Nuanced View on COVID Vaccine Injuries and Lawsuits, examines how whistleblowers, FDA advisers, and vaccine-injured people exposed irrefutable evidence of COVID vaccine harms, data integrity issues, and failures within the VAERS reporting system. The investigation also explores how Big Tech platforms, pharmaceutical companies, and health organizations engineered the information environment around COVID through censorship and media manipulation.

We Are Bombarding America's Forests With Roundup

Unbeknownst to most people, logging companies and the US Forest Service have been spraying massive amounts of herbicide in clear-cut and fire-ravaged forests of California–and throughout the nation. And not just any herbicide, but glyphosate, a potent and problematic weed killer best known by the brand name Roundup. My first hint of all this was a single word in a letter the Forest Service sent to me and my neighbors about a year and a half ago. Lassen, it said, was to be part of an ambitious new wildfire recovery project. This was welcome, as the fires had burned perilously close to our properties. Then I came to the word "herbicides." The Forest Service would, starting in spring 2026, spray glyphosate on some 10,000 acres of public land in Lassen to wipe out leafy plants and shrubs that might compete with replanted conifers. The amount applied annually in state forests–266,000 pounds of pure glyphosate in 2023, the latest year for which data was available–is nearly five times what it was two decades ago. Monsanto orchestrated, financed, and even ghostwrote studies that were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals ... papers that state and federal agencies have relied upon to justify copious spraying of Roundup. The only potential human risk acknowledged in the Forest Service's [risk] assessment has to do with people unknowingly ingesting glyphosate after foraging for mushrooms and plants in recently sprayed areas.

Note: Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Bayer/Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on environmental destruction and toxic chemicals.

In a MAHA win, House passes Farm Bill stripped of language that would have protected pesticide companies

Federal lawmakers on Thursday passed the House version of the Farm Bill, removing controversial language that would have provided some protections for pesticide companies facing lawsuits over alleged health harms. Members of the US House of Representatives voted 280-142 to pass an amendment to the bill striking sections that would have established "nationwide uniformity for pesticide labeling" effectively preventing states from leveraging labeling requirements aimed at protecting consumers. The provisions were aimed at blocking "failure to warn" claims against pesticide manufacturers like Bayer, which has been sued by more than 100,000 people around the US alleging the company failed to warn that glyphosate herbicides could cause cancer. The amendment ... also eliminates language that would have prevented states and local communities from establishing no-spray zones near schools, as well as a mandate that would have weakened protections from pesticide discharge for waterways. Even with the removal of pesticide preemption language ... the House Farm Bill includes the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act (EATS or Save our Bacon Act), a measure that would prevent state and local governments from "interfering" with interstate commerce by blocking their ability to pass ag policies. These include laws such as California's Prop 12, which promotes humane treatment of livestock.

Marine Animals in the Strait of Hormuz Don't Get a Ceasefire

Beneath the surface of the Strait of Hormuz and the surrounding Gulf lies a biological sanctuary. The region is home to around 7,000 dugongs and fewer than 100 Arabian humpback whales–a nonmigratory population that cannot leave these waters. Naval mines, residual military activity, and congested shipping lanes mean the strait remains a high-risk environment–not just for vessels but also for the ecosystems beneath them. Underwater explosions and military sonar don't just scare whales, they can physically blind them, leading to stranding and death. The Arabian humpback whale, unlike its cousins in the Atlantic, does not migrate. For them, the Gulf is not a corridor but home, a permanent habitat. Olivier Adam, a researcher at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, says that the Gulf's resident cetaceans–better known as marine mammals–have limited options: Either abandon their habitat or remain and endure prolonged exposure to noise. In the case of Arabian humpback whales, relocation is not realistic, as they are one of the only populations that do not migrate between feeding and breeding areas. "These baleen whales have no way to escape," he says. Whales rely on sound for nearly every essential function: feeding, navigation, reproduction, and social interaction. When that acoustic environment is disrupted, the effects are immediate. In shallow coastal zones, where biodiversity is concentrated, even small disruptions can cascade through the ecosystem.

Note: Read more about the decimation of populations of whales and dolphins over the last decade resulting from the year-round, full-spectrum military practices carried out in the oceans. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war and marine mammals.

Indictment of Fauci adviser shines new light on efforts to conceal COVID-Era communications

The indictment Tuesday of a top adviser to former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci on charges of conspiring against the United States casts a spotlight on years of efforts to subvert public records laws and conceal key COVID-era communications from the public. The adviser, David Morens ... is accused by federal prosecutors of using private email accounts to conduct government business, deleting records and coordinating with others to conceal communications related to COVID origins, high-risk coronavirus research and grant funding. According to the indictment, Morens and others agreed in writing to "intentionally hide" their communications from public records requests. Morens ... discussed strategies to "make emails disappear" to evade FOIA searches and avoided creating written records altogether – actions that Morens later admitted and apologized for during congressional testimony. Other records show Morens in ongoing contact with [Peter] Daszak and a small circle of allies after the pandemic's onset. Their communications include strategizing about how to restore EcoHealth Alliance's standing with federal funders, counter scrutiny from Congress and the media, and shape public narratives around the origins of COVID-19. While [Anthony] Fauci is not a direct participant in the communications cited in the indictment, the document refers to a "Senior NIAID Official 1" whose description corresponds with the former director.

Note: Watch our 15-minute video on the cover-up of COVID origins. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and the COVID cover-up.

The Degraded Currency of the Shadow Government

It was a secret that through a program called SOMALGET the National Security Agency was recording and archiving the content of every single cell phone conversation in Afghanistan. It was not much of a secret, however, to the men on whom they eavesdropped. They knew America was listening, just as they knew that the high-pitched drones above them transmitted video data back to the States. After 2001, government in secret was unfathomably well funded. Much of it remains literally hidden: in bunkers underground or in the vast underground netherworld of dystopian Crystal City. There are floors of D.C. buildings not listed in the lobby's directory. Government agencies few Americans had heard of spent amounts of money few could fathom. Each secret program established by the government was serviced by an army of contractors; each CEO well aware that a seemingly limitless amount of money was available and oversight nonexistent. The currency of [this hidden] America is the secret, but the currency is degraded. Documents are marked classified for no particular reason ... because no one takes a document not marked secret seriously. John Kiriakou, a CIA analyst based in Virginia, once wrote a paper about Iraqi nuclear weapons and sent it to the Department of Energy. As he pressed send, it became illegal for him to access the paper he had written; he did not have the clearance. "I could count on my two hands the times that I used my open telephone in those 15 years," he told me, "because everything is classified, including the classified email system. So I want to meet my wife for lunch, so I send her an email. 'You wanna meet for lunch?' And I classify in secret note form. Why? Because everything is classified. Everything." One petabyte of information is equivalent to 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text. At one intelligence agency, one petabyte of classified data accumulates every year and a half. Sifting through a petabyte of information in a year would require two million employees; around 100,000 people work in intelligence for the government. "There are billions and billions of documents, and there are like 16 people declassifying everything," says Kiriakou. "So the email about meeting my wife for lunch will never be declassified, never."

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.

Leaked: Britain Exports Secret Government Agency's Dark Arts Overseas

Prolific Western government contractor Torchlight, staffed by British military and intelligence veterans, has covertly trained "commercial and government clients" the world over in Government Communications Headquarters' (GCHQ) digital espionage and cyberwar strategies. Cloak-and-dagger techniques to "discredit, disrupt, delay, deny, degrade, and deter" target adversaries and populations, honed for kinetic and psychological warfare and regime change overseas, have become a commodity, open for unregulated use by undisclosed private sector and state actors. Central to these efforts was GCHQ journeyman Andrew Tremlett, [who served] as Torchlight's head of digital intelligence. Tremlett "spent a significant portion of his career" within GCHQ's notorious Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). Exposed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden in 2014, this shadowy unit plays a "major part" in GCHQ's activities. This includes cyberattacks and propaganda efforts, such as pushing "mass messaging" against target countries, organizations, groups and individuals via social media platforms. "False-flag" connivances, in which JTRIG conducts malign actions designed to appear as if an adversary was responsible, is also a core component of the unit's remit. [A] leaked JTRIG presentation makes repeated references to planting information on "compromised" target devices, including "potential â€damming' [sic] information."

Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief, "How to Transform Media Polarization, One Echo Chamber At A Time," to learn more about the shadowy political, government, and corporate forces shaping public perception and reality itself. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and media manipulation.

DHS Launches Massive "Less Lethal" Chemical Weapons Buying Spree

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is set to order a vast arsenal of chemical grenades, sprays, projectiles, and other weapons. CBP will spend up to $50 million on what it refers to as "Less Lethal Specialty Munitions," a euphemism for weapons intended to merely hurt or disable a target rather than killing them. The agency is looking for a vendor who can supply vast quantities of 123 different types of munitions across 10 different categories, [a] contracting document says. Federal agents' indiscriminate use of "less-lethal" chemical weapons against the nonviolent demonstrators became a hallmark of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Contract documents show the Department of Homeland Security will continue to stockpile a massive arsenal of tear gases and projectile weapons. Fired at close enough range, so-called less lethal rounds can easily kill or maim their target. Anti-ICE demonstrator Kaden Rummler lost sight in his left eye after he was shot in the face by a federal officer in January. After the Los Angeles Police Department fired one such round directly into the face of another protester last summer, he was injured so seriously that he required surgery and had his jaw wired shut for six weeks. "Distraction devices," which emit loud sounds, bright lights, or other effects to stun targets, were also on CBP's wish list, with plans to purchase 13,000 of them.

Note: According to the Associated Press, "more than 119,000 people have been injured by tear gas and other chemical irritants around the world since 2015 and some 2,000 suffered injuries from "less lethal" impact projectiles." For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and non-lethal weapons.

London PR firm rewrites Wikipedia for governments and billionaires

Chatbots and AI-generated search summaries – which are rapidly transforming the way people get their information – both use Wikipedia as a key source. Now, we can reveal Wikipedia has been subject to shady, paid-for edits ordered by partners at an elite London PR firm with links to Downing Street. And the clients who benefitted from this "wikilaundering" are some of the world's richest and most powerful people. The firm in question is Portland Communications. And it has been busted once already for this practice. After the firm was exposed, former employees told us, it simply started hiring middlemen instead. As one of them put it: "No one said, â€We should stop doing this.' The question was how we could keep doing it without getting caught." Portland's subcontractors have ... obscured mentions of a major terrorist-financing case involving Qatari businessmen; scrubbed evidence that a billion-dollar Gates-funded project failed in its mission; and promoted one side of Libya's post-Gaddafi government over the other. Often, however, their changes were more subtle: burying bad press under descriptions of a client's philanthropic work or swapping out critical news references with something more positive. "Small Wikipedia edits punch above their weight," explained Alberto Fittarelli ... at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. "Small, incremental changes are likely to stick for longer. These kinds of edits make narratives seem credible precisely because they are hardly noticeable. Once that enters the information stream, it becomes really hard to claw it back."

Note: Read how Wikipedia is systematically manipulated by the military-intelligence complex. The CIA, FBI, and the Pentagon has secretly edited entries in Wikipedia, including removing references to CIA illegal rendition and torture, downplaying US involvement in Iraqi civilian deaths, and rewriting the definition of "terrorism" to expand its political use. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on media manipulation.

â€The Alabama Solution': A Humanitarian Crisis in Grainy Detail

On Jan. 22, "The Alabama Solution" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Since 2019, roughly 1,380 incarcerated people have died or been killed while in custody of the state. The documentary – which features footage shot on cell phones by several incarcerated men – zooms out to explore why, despite federal inquiry and a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Justice Department, officers are still able to neglect, harm and kill incarcerated people with seeming impunity. Perhaps less familiar are the lengths Alabama officials go in the film to cover up the disorder and state lawmakers' callous disregard for incarcerated lives. Prisons are state institutions ... but it's the only institution that the public and the media have no access to. The men at the center of the film have spent a large share of their incarceration advocating for change from the inside out. They credit their activism to a self-directed course of study organized by prisoners who were active in freedom movements during the civil rights era. In the study groups, the men learned about their constitutional and legal rights. Eventually, they founded the Free Alabama Movement and began rallying family members to push for prison reforms from the outside. In 2016, the federal Justice Department ... began an official investigation. In 2020, the department filed a lawsuit alleging widespread constitutional violations, including rampant violence, homicide and sexual assault. The film explores the impetus for a 2022 work stoppage across all of Alabama's prisons [which] triggered a class-action lawsuit, alongside several labor unions, accusing the state and corporations of practicing modern-day slavery. The Associated Press traced nearly $200 million dollars in sales of agricultural products and livestock over a period of six years to prison labor across the country. The figure is likely an underestimate. Their investigation uncovered a sprawling shadow workforce of the incarcerated that produces goods and services sold by major corporations such as McDonald's and Walmart.

Note: Alabama's incarcerated workers produce $450 million in goods and services every year. The truth about US prisons is usually hidden from the public. If you want an honest look in to the broken system, this is the film to watch to deeply understand the humanitarian crisis and egregious human rights abuses perpetuated by mass incarceration. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.

In federal prisons, the grievance system is designed to reject nearly all complaints about medical care

When incarcerated people face abuse and mistreatment, they can typically file a formal complaint with jail or prison administrators. In federal prisons, the system for resolving these complaints is known as the "Administrative Remedy Program," but it's more commonly referred to as a "grievance system" in state prisons and local jails. Grievance systems are supposed to provide incarcerated people with a way to challenge issues they face behind bars – such as inadequate medical care, harassment by corrections officers, or unsanitary living conditions – and (hopefully) receive some kind of relief. In practice, however, incarcerated people who turn to grievance systems are forced to run a gauntlet of rules and regulations just to be heard, and very rarely succeed. This is especially true when it comes to medical complaints: our analysis of a decade of data from the Data Liberation Project finds that, between 2014 and 2024, a startling 98% of medical grievances were rejected for reasons ranging from the bureaucratic (such as using the wrong size sheet of paper) to the substantive (actually being denied on the merits of the complaint). Less than 1% of medical cases ended in a grant of relief. Conditions are so bad on the inside that since 2000, roughly half of all state prison systems have been court-ordered to improve mental and medical healthcare. In practice ... the grievance system is a black hole, a time-waster, and a deterrent to complaining at all.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.

More Freedom, Less Violence: Some States Look to European Prisons

Over the course of a week, officials from Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oklahoma toured four German prisons where inmates wore street clothes, maintained their right to vote, cooked their own meals, played in soccer leagues and learned skills like animal husbandry and carpentry. One, called the Open Prison, allowed residents to come and go for work, school and errands. [German] prisons must provide single-occupancy cells at least 10 square meters in size. Many have kitchens where residents may cook their own meals. In the United States, privacy, time outside of cells and family visits are considered risky, and "over-familiarity" between correction officers and inmates is prohibited. German prisons take the opposite approach, known as dynamic security. Correction officers are expected to develop relationships with inmates and know when problems may arise. Yvonne Gade, a correction officer in a ward that houses a small number of prisoners deemed particularly dangerous, shrugged off concerns about their access to a gym with free weights. "It would be a huge potential for violence if you locked them up all the time," she said. A growing number of American states are looking abroad for ideas that can be adapted to their state prison systems. California, Arizona and Oklahoma's prison systems have shifted their focus to rehabilitation rather than punishment. In 2022, Pennsylvania opened a unit known as Little Scandinavia, and last year Missouri began a similar transformation project in four prisons. Six other states have established European-style units for younger prisoners. The efforts are still small. Prison conditions are not a priority for voters. U.S. prisons are in crisis, struggling with severe staffing shortages, crumbling facilities and frequent violence. Inmates in U.S. prisons often endure extreme temperatures, vermin-infested food and years, or even decades, in solitary confinement. High-profile cases have brought attention to prolonged shackling, fatal beatings and sexual abuse.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.

The US prison system isn't working – here's what we can learn from other countries

America talks about recidivism as if it were a mystery. It isn't. It is a predictable outcome of how we run prisons. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has tracked what happens after release for decades. In a 10-year follow-up of people released from state prison, about two-thirds were arrested again within three years, and more than eight in ten within 10 years. A newer national analysis still showed roughly six in ten rearrested within three years. That is not just a series of bad individual choices – rather, it is a system producing a revolving door. Other countries have demonstrated a different way to operate secure prisons – one that changes outcomes without weakening accountability or surrendering public control. Over the past year, I have toured facilities and spoken directly with leaders connected to the only nonprofit prison systems operating at scale internationally. They share one defining feature: rehabilitation is treated as a core operational mission, not a secondary program. The question is not government prisons versus private prisons. It is whether correctional systems are designed to reward safety, stability and successful reentry, or whether they default to capacity management and crisis response. Nonprofit operators differ fundamentally from both traditional government bureaucracy and for-profit incarceration. There are no shareholders, no pressure to pay dividends, no incentives to keep beds full. Success is measured by what happens after release.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.

The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.

In the absence of strong privacy laws, surveillance-based advertising has become the norm online. Companies track our online and offline activity, then share it with ad tech companies and data brokers to help target ads. Law enforcement agencies take advantage of this advertising system to buy information about us that they would normally need a warrant for, like location data. They rely on the multi-billion-dollar data broker industry to buy location data harvested from people's smartphones. We've known for years that location data brokers are one part of federal law enforcement's massive surveillance arsenal. But a document recently obtained by 404 Media is the first time CBP has acknowledged the location data it buys is partially sourced from the system powering nearly every ad you see online: real-time bidding (RTB). As CBP puts it, "RTB-sourced location data is recorded when an advertisement is served." Apps for weather, navigation, dating, fitness, and "family safety" often request location permissions to enable key features. But once an app has access to your location, it could share it with data. Here are two basic steps you can take to better protect your location data: 1. Disable your mobile advertising ID, and 2. Review apps you've granted location permissions to. If you can't disable location access completely for an app, limit it to only when you have the app open or only approximate location instead of precise location.

Note: The owner of a data broker company once bragged about having highly detailed personal information on nearly all internet users. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

How the FBI can conduct mass surveillance – even without AI

A central part of the standoff between Anthropic and the Department of Defense has revolved around the artificial intelligence firm's refusal to allow its technology to be used for mass domestic surveillance. Yet even without the cooperation of AI firms, remarks this week from Kash Patel, FBI director, show how authorities are by any reasonable measure already operating a system that can surveil citizens at scale. On Wednesday, Patel confirmed to a Senate intelligence committee hearing that the FBI is actively buying commercially available data on Americans. Patel's answer, which was under oath, was in response to a question from senator Ron Wyden on whether the agency was purchasing location data on citizens, as it had previously admitted to doing in 2023. Patel's admission underscores how the government is able to conduct mass surveillance despite its assurances to abide by lawful use of AI and fourth amendment protections against unreasonable searches, which prohibit the warrantless collection of individuals' location histories. Through contracting a network of data brokers that amass information from apps, web browsers and other online sources, federal authorities have been able to access information that it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain. Buying such information, usually en masse, can circumvent this requirement, leading many privacy advocates to label the practice unconstitutional.

Echoes of Isolation

One morning in July 2013, tens of thousands of California prisoners made history when they refused to eat. They were participating in a state-wide hunger strike, protesting policies that kept people locked in solitary confinement indefinitely. Hundreds of people in Pelican Bay State Prison, the state's supermax facility near the Oregon state line, had been in isolation for over a decade. After 60 days of refusing food, and along with a concurrent lawsuit, the hunger strikers ultimately won major policy changes from the California corrections department. Among them was an agreement to move most people in long-term solitary back into the general population, giving many a renewed chance at parole. Now, back in the community and over a decade since the protest, these men are working to rebuild their lives, help others inside, and make sense of the trauma they endured. While in the SHU at Pelican Bay, men were alone in their cells for roughly 23 hours a day, with every meal provided through a slot in their door. Many said they never received a phone call, unless a family member died. Visits with loved ones were behind a thick plexiglass window. And any time spent outside their cells to exercise took place in an open-air cement room, with walls so high they couldn't see their surroundings. Such prolonged isolation led to paranoia, anxiety, despair, anger and, eventually, numbness among people in the SHU.

Note:For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption.

Pentagon to adopt Palantir AI as core US military system, memo says

Palantir (PLTR)'s Maven artificial intelligence system will become an official program of record, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg said in a letter to Pentagon leaders, a move that locks in long-term use of Palantir's weapons-targeting technology across the U.S. military. Maven is a command-and-control software platform that analyzes battlefield data and identifies targets. It is already the primary AI operating system for the U.S. military, which has carried out thousands of targeted strikes against Iran over the last three weeks. Designating Maven as a program of record will streamline its adoption across all arms of the military. The memo ordered oversight of Maven be moved from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon's Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Office within 30 days. Future contracting with Palantir will be handled by the Army, the letter said. Feinberg's order is a significant win for Palantir, which has landed a growing stream of contracts with the U.S. government, including a deal announced last summer with the U.S. Army worth up to $10 billion. Those awards have helped double the company's stock price in the past year, lifting its market value to nearly $360 billion. Maven can rapidly analyze huge amounts of data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors and intelligence reports, and use AI to automatically identify potential threats or targets.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and military corruption.

Pentagon headhunting Goldman, JPMorgan bankers for â€Economic Defense Unit'

The Pentagon is building a new team of investment bankers steeped in private equity to invest $200 billion over three years in defense deals, aiming to counter China's rise, according to a document reviewed by Semafor. The Defense department is specifically going after Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Bank of America as prime recruiting targets for the 30-person team, the headhunter brief outlines, explaining that "this is not a career move, but a two-to-three-year secondment program." The document, prepared by search firm Heidrick & Struggles, pitches a chance to "serve your country" and deploy "more capital than most investors deploy in their entire careers" (and, ostensibly, an opportunity to sell a bunch of stock tax-deferred). Wall Street ... employs thousands of "coverage bankers" who stay close to companies in specific industries. Forming its own "Sponsor Coverage" unit inside the Pentagon would allow the defense department to have a team of its own bankers that service private-equity firms and pitch deals critical to national security, provide advice, and arrange loans. As part of the agency's pitch to lure more heavy hitters from Wall Street, it's deriding the "peak neoliberalism" of the 1990s that invited China into the global economic order, prioritized outsourcing, and, in the Pentagon's view, left the US vulnerable ... according to the document. "The mission: helping deter our largest adversary from gaining military superiority."

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in the financial industry and in the intelligence community.

Federal Agents Are Intimidating Legal Observers at Their Homes: "They Know Where You Live"

Across the Twin Cities, immigration agents have identified legal observers by name and address, and, in some cases, led them back to their homes after they engaged in lawful monitoring of immigration activity. Legal observers say this pattern of behavior sends a clear and chilling message: The federal government knows who they are and where they live. These encounters are unfolding amid a rapid expansion of federal surveillance capabilities. Immigration authorities have significantly expanded their use of mobile biometric and surveillance tools in recent years. Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, for example, can use the smartphone app Mobile Fortify to photograph a person's face or capture fingerprints in the field and compare them against federal biometric databases. A 2022 report ... found ICE can access driver's license data covering roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults, including state photo databases that can be searched using face recognition technology. Civil liberties advocates say the growing web of identification tools has enabled federal agents to quickly identify anyone who monitors or protests their actions – chilling protected First Amendment activity and deterring the legal observation of law enforcement. While many encounters described by observers involve surveillance and intimidation, some have escalated into far more dangerous confrontations.

Note: Read our Substack, "A History of Militarized Policing in the US and the Suppression of Dissent Across the Political Spectrum." For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on immigration enforcement corruption and the disappearance of privacy.

Some top US lobbying firms are working both sides of the Pfas issue at the same time

Some top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas "forever chemicals" issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states' efforts to rein in the public health threat. The review of six states' lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which firms lobbied both sides. Most common Pfas are linked to cancer. The lobbying firm Holland & Knight works for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation's largest Pfas makers, and aggressively opposes most regulations. Simultaneously, Holland & Knight lobbies for the American Cancer Society. The review found 26 healthcare systems, 11 public school systems, 15 wildlife groups and 132 local governments that share lobbying firms with Pfas makers or trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council and Cookware Sustainability Alliance. The lobbyists work across 36 states. The report comes amid a broad effort at all levels of the government that aims to rein in Pfas pollution and exposures. The chemicals are widely used in consumer goods and industry, and are linked to a range of health problems like cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, kidney disease and hormone disruption. The public health effort has drawn an intense lobbying operation in opposition by the chemical industry, which has killed most Pfas legislation in recent years.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals.

GOP Farm Bill Set to Unleash Pesticide Use and Strip Animal Welfare Protections

The House Committee on Agriculture passed the "Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026" on March 5. The 800-page document is being praised by Big Agriculture and industry groups. But public health advocates warn that the bill is set to further erode well-being and health in the U.S., further deepening the hypocrisy of Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s repeated promise to "Make America Healthy Again." "Rather than address the economic crises facing America's family farmers, this Farm Bill is a thinly veiled gift bag for Big Ag and pesticide manufacturers. It's a massive slap in the face to people ... demanding a healthier food system," said [agriculture campaigner] Jason Davidson. Section 10205 blocks consumers and farmers harmed by pesticides from suing companies over inadequate safety labeling. Section 10206 would overturn all state and local laws that protect food safety. Section 10207 would repeal federal statutes created to protect people and animals from pesticides. Rep. Chellie Pingree ... introduced an amendment that would have stripped these sections from the bill, but the effort was rejected. "This Farm Bill is a gift to Big Chemical, plain and simple. It delivers exactly what giants like Bayer have spent years lobbying for: blanket immunity from lawsuits and the power to gut the state warning label laws that protect families, farmers, and children," said the congresswoman in a statement.

Note: Read our Substack investigation into what the pesticide crisis reveals about the dark side of science. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals.

NIH files reveal broader coronavirus engineering research before COVID-19

The pandemic's most contentious question: Did SARS-CoV-2 emerge through natural spillover from animals to humans, or through a laboratory incident tied to research intended to anticipate the next outbreak? A flashpoint in that debate has been DEFUSE – a 2018 grant proposal submitted to DARPA, the Defense Department's advanced research agency. DEFUSE outlined plans to test spike-protein swaps and cleavage-site insertions in bat coronaviruses. Newly obtained NIH records suggest that the experimental concepts later spotlighted in DEFUSE – tuning bat coronavirus infectivity through spike swaps, receptor-binding changes, and cleavage-site insertions– were already embedded in multiple U.S.-funded coronavirus research projects years before the pandemic. NIH ... reviewers saw potential risk. In an internal "biohazard comment," a grants manager warned that recombinant coronaviruses engineered to enhance spike cleavage or strengthen ACE2 binding "may have novel and unexpected virulence phenotypes" – or, new and unpredictable traits that could make the virus more dangerous. NIH reviewed – and frequently approved – experiments designed to alter receptor-binding domains, swap spike proteins between viruses, or modify cleavage sites that influence how coronaviruses infect cells. American and Chinese researchers shared sequences, experimental ideas and preliminary findings in real time.

Note: Read how the NIH bypassed the oversight process, allowing controversial gain-of-function experiments to proceed unchecked. Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID corruption.

Disappearance of ex-general with UFO secrets a â€grave crisis'

The Feb. 27 disappearance of a retired Air Force major general with a vast institutional knowledge about UFOs is a "grave national security crisis," says investigative journalist Ross Coulthart. William Neil McCasland, 68, was reported missing after leaving his Albuquerque, N.M., home on foot, according to local authorities, who have teamed up with the FBI to find the former military official. To Coulthart, the way McCasland vanished – reportedly along a running trail without his watch and phone – suggests something nefarious. McCasland ... is also considered a trove of information about whatever secrets the government may be hiding about UFOs, "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAPs) and nonhuman intelligent life. During his tenure in the Air Force, McCasland oversaw classified space weapons programs and was head of research at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, Coulthart notes. That facility has long been rumored to house fragments of extraterrestrial debris from Roswell, N.M. Coulthart said he finds it interesting McCasland's disappearance comes shortly after President Donald Trump promised disclosure about whatever files the government holds on UFOs and alien life. "The timing is screechingly relevant," Coulthart said. "The fact that Gen. Neil McCasland has disappeared off the face of the earth is a grave national security crisis. This is a man with some of the most sensitive secrets of the United States in his head."

Note: Hacked emails released by Wikileaks reveal Tom DeLonge, the founder of To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, telling former White House chief of staff John Podesta that General McCasland was involved in a project related to extraterrestrial material, having previously led the Wright Patterson Air Force Base lab where the Roswell incident materials were reportedly taken. McCasland allegedly worked with DeLonge and helped assemble his advisory team. In our new 23-minute video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity, civil rights advocate and leading attorney for the UFO disclosure movement Daniel Sheehan and WantToKnow.info Director Amber Yang explore how this topic will open the door to technologies and ideas that could transform how we address humanity's greatest challenges.

Files reveal Epstein was offered chance to buy US Pentagon, FBI buildings

Emails released in the United States Department of Justice files show that the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was offered the chance to buy into a sprawling building tied to the Department of Defense in 2016. The 84,710-square-metre (101,312-suqare-yard) complex, located roughly 1.6km (1 mile) from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, was described in an investor deck as a "mission-critical" site and "the only property in Arlington, Virginia other than the Pentagon itself with the ability to meet the space and infrastructure needs of the DOD". The proposed purchase price was about $116m. The structure of the deal would have made Epstein a co-owner and, effectively, a landlord to the US government. The Pentagon-linked proposal formed part of three documents – an email, an investor presentation and a deal summary – contained within the newly released files. David Stern, a businessman who referred to himself as Epstein's "soldier", forwarded the offer. Stern also served as a close aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was arrested on Thursday on "suspicion of misconduct in public office" following revelations in the Epstein files. Stern also sent Epstein a separate proposal in 2015 to invest in two FBI field offices in Richmond and Baltimore. That deal required an initial $25m, followed by a further $80m, with ownership routed through a Cayman Islands offshore entity. Real estate investor Jonathan D Fascitelli originated both property proposals.

Note: Don't miss Part 1 and Part 2 of our in-depth investigative series on this massive elite crime ring now coming to light in the documents being made public. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's criminal enterprise.

Wait–Laser Guns Are Real Now?

Laser guns are real now. Actual militaries are deploying actual lasers in actual combat. "This is a technology that has been under development for decades," [said] Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer. "And it's only really now just really starting to enter the public view." The Army has outfitted trucks with anti-drone lasers, and the Air Force has added ground-based lasers to its arsenal. Russia, China, and the United Kingdom are all developing–and in some cases already deploying–laser weapons, and last year, Israel became the first country to use a laser in combat to destroy a drone. The very real lasers now being deployed on battlefields around the world have some notable differences from most of their science-fictional forebears. They're silent, for one thing–no pew pew sound effects–and the beam they produce is invisible. Real lasers have a number of other advantages. $13 a shot is pretty good compared with the Navy's standard missile interceptors, which cost $2 million apiece. Another advantage of lasers is that they just keep going. Last year, Chinese scientists successfully beamed a precision non-weapon laser all the way to the moon. But infinite range is also a drawback. If a laser missed a drone, Boyd said, the beam could continue for hundreds of miles and hit, say, a commercial airliner. Even if a laser beam did hit its target, Boyd said, its light could still scatter and cause all manner of collateral damage.

Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on warfare technologies.

Pentagon Inks Massive $200 Million Deal to Buy Controversial Cluster Weapons From Israel

The Department of Defense has quietly signed a $210 million deal to buy advanced cluster shells from one of Israel's state-owned arms companies, marking unusually large new commitments to a class of weapons and an Israeli defense establishment both widely condemned for their indiscriminate killing of civilians. The deal, signed in September and not previously reported, is the department's largest contract to purchase weapons from an Israeli company in available records. The shells are designed to replace decades-old and often defective cluster shells that left live explosives scattered across Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, and other nations. The terror of cluster weapons persists long after the guns that fired them have quieted, as civilians return to fields, forests, and settlements laced with bomblets that can explode years later without warning. "The footprint of the injuries of these weapons is so horrifying," said Alma TaslidĹľan, advocacy manager for the aid organization Humanity & Inclusion. The Cluster Munition Monitor has documented more than 24,800 cluster munition injuries and deaths since the 1960s, three-quarters from unexploded remnants. In 2024, cluster munitions killed at least 314 civilians, the majority of them in Ukraine. Major military powers – like Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States – have never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans its 112 member states from using or producing those weapons.

Note: American cluster bombs kill countless civilians in countries like Yemen while the world's biggest banks profit from the weapons trade. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war and military corruption.

The Secret Phone Recordings of Henry Kissinger, a 'Habitual Liar'

Some consider Henry Kissinger a master statesman who advanced American interests. Others argue that his achievements were exaggerated, preferring to highlight his violations of international law and his complicity in war crimes. Tom Wells' The Kissinger Tapes: Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations ... is a collection of selections from more than 15,000 of Kissinger's secretly recorded telephone conversations from his time as President Richard Nixon's national security adviser (1969–1974) and secretary of state (1973–1974). For Kissinger, lies weren't a strategic tool limited to selective uses in international statecraft. They appear to have been part of his personal makeup. Wells notes that he was "a habitual and easy liar." During the clandestine bombings of Cambodia in 1969 and Laos in 1970, for example, Kissinger and Nixon implemented a false-reporting system to hide the strikes from both the State Department and the public. Kissinger claimed to Secretary of State William P. Rogers that he was unaware of the Pentagon Papers, the classified government study, leaked in 1971, that revealed the U.S. government had systematically deceived the public about the Vietnam War; in fact, he knew of the study from the outset. Kissinger repeatedly denied knowledge of wiretaps on officials and journalists, but the FBI later noted that he instituted much of the surveillance himself. For Kissinger, issues of human rights and self-determination were secondary at best.

Note: Read more revealing details from Kissenger's history. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in the intelligence community.

Declassified CIA files reveal chilling blueprint to manipulate Americans' minds through covert drugging with vaccines

A newly released CIA document reveals a chilling blueprint to manipulate minds through covert drugging experiments. The report, added to the CIA's reading room in 2025, details the government's once top-secret Project Artichoke that ran from 1951 to 1956, focusing on behavior control, interrogation techniques and psychological manipulation. The seven-page document, titled 'Special Research for Artichoke,' with an attachment labeled 'Suggested Fields for Special Research Relative Artichoke,' outlines proposals to develop chemicals capable of altering human behavior. It discusses drugs designed for both immediate effects, like truth serums and long-term influence, potentially administered through food, water, alcohol or cigarettes. Researchers also suggested that such substances could be disguised in medical treatments such as vaccinations or injections. The CIA was also looking into methods beyond chemicals, listing hypnosis, sensory deprivation, gases and other psychological methods for interrogation and behavioral control. Artichoke served as a precursor to the CIA's MKUltra program, which later broadened mind-altering experiments on a larger scale. The researchers involved in the secret program emphasized that long-term compounds should be capable of producing 'an agitating effect (producing anxiety, nervousness, tension, etc.) or a depressing effect (creating a feeling of despondency, hopelessness, lethargy, etc.).'

Note: Learn more about the CIA's MKUltra Program and the mind control techniques perfected by Nazi scientists through disturbing WWII experiments in concentration camps. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and mind control.

President George HW Bush â€knew' of 1964 alien contact with humans in New Mexico: documentary

The truth is out there – and late President George H.W. Bush apparently knew it – telling a federal official that an alien made contact with humans at a secretive New Mexico air base in 1964. Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who was a scientific advisor on the since-disbanded Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program ... claimed that Bush confirmed to him in a private conversation details of contact between the military and an alien creature at Holloman Air Force Base in Otero County. Bush told him that three spaceships were seen approaching the base and that an interstellar being emerged from one ship and had a face-to-face encounter with military and CIA officials, Davis said during an interview in "The Age of Disclosure," a documentary. "One of them landed on the tarmac and a non-human entity deboarded the craft that landed and interacted with uniformed Air Force and civilian CIA personnel," Davis claimed. "And when [Bush] asked for more details he was told that he did not have a need-to-know," he relayed. Davis claims in the film that alien bodies were recovered in Russia in 1988, pulled from the wreckage of a large tic-tac shaped UAP, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. Hal Puthoff, a former AATIP member, quantum physicist and longtime disclosure advocate, claimed there were several different types of ETs. "The bodies recovered are not all the same type," Puthoff said in the documentary, though he declined to detail them.

Note: In the Controlling the UFO Narrative: Government Cover-Ups and Secret Programs section of our UFO Information Center, we present a 2019 leaked memo with Dr. Eric Davis and former Director of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Admiral Thomas R. Wilson. They discuss the existence of deeply classified black budget programs dealing with non-human technology and the different departments and people involved. Our 26-minute video UFO Disclosure: Breakthrough Technology and Awakening Human Consciousness features interviews with leading experts along with well-sourced, verifiable information to help you make sense of this fascinating issue and its immense potential to transform our world.

The CIA Used This Psychic Meditation Program. It's Never Been More Popular

Sarah wasn't expecting to experience paralysis at 7 am on a weekday during a meditation at her home. But in August, while listening to "The Gateway Tapes"–a set of guided meditations intended to help people reach new planes of consciousness–she says her limbs froze. Sarah ... says the tapes–which she had been listening to on and off for months–took her on a roller-coaster journey of out-of-body experiences. "I was in and out of time and space," she says. Developed by radio broadcasting executive Robert Monroe, the Gateway Process claims to be "a voyage of self-discovery" that can help people go "farther, deeper and faster into different dimensions of consciousness." Monroe founded the Monroe Institute in 1971. The facility claims to help coax people out of their bodies via in-person and virtual retreats, and even Spotify playlists, by way of self-hypnosis style exercises powered by "binaural beats"–sounds attuned to different frequencies which play in each headphone ear. In the early 1980s ... the CIA and the Department of Defense sent US Army lieutenant Colonel Wayne McDonnell to the institute to ascertain its suitability as a defense contractor. McDonnell gave the organization and its unusual curriculum his approval in a 1983 report which has since been declassified. "There is a sound and rational basis," McDonnell writes, "in terms of physical science parameters for considering Gateway to be plausible in terms of its essential objectives."

Note: A society that can self-regulate, self-heal, and access deeper layers of perception is harder to manipulate and even harder to govern through fear. Read our latest Substack, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World to learn more about the Gateway Project. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the mysterious nature of reality.

newsarticles.media: Government Corruption News

How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed the Risk of Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Following COVID-19 Vaccination

We Are Bombarding America's Forests With Roundup

In a MAHA win, House passes Farm Bill stripped of language that would have protected pesticide companies

Marine Animals in the Strait of Hormuz Don't Get a Ceasefire

Indictment of Fauci adviser shines new light on efforts to conceal COVID-Era communications

The Degraded Currency of the Shadow Government

Leaked: Britain Exports Secret Government Agency's Dark Arts Overseas

DHS Launches Massive "Less Lethal" Chemical Weapons Buying Spree

London PR firm rewrites Wikipedia for governments and billionaires

â€The Alabama Solution': A Humanitarian Crisis in Grainy Detail

In federal prisons, the grievance system is designed to reject nearly all complaints about medical care

More Freedom, Less Violence: Some States Look to European Prisons

The US prison system isn't working – here's what we can learn from other countries

The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.

How the FBI can conduct mass surveillance – even without AI

Echoes of Isolation

Pentagon to adopt Palantir AI as core US military system, memo says

Pentagon headhunting Goldman, JPMorgan bankers for â€Economic Defense Unit'

Federal Agents Are Intimidating Legal Observers at Their Homes: "They Know Where You Live"

Some top US lobbying firms are working both sides of the Pfas issue at the same time

GOP Farm Bill Set to Unleash Pesticide Use and Strip Animal Welfare Protections

NIH files reveal broader coronavirus engineering research before COVID-19

Disappearance of ex-general with UFO secrets a â€grave crisis'

Files reveal Epstein was offered chance to buy US Pentagon, FBI buildings

Wait–Laser Guns Are Real Now?

Pentagon Inks Massive $200 Million Deal to Buy Controversial Cluster Weapons From Israel

The Secret Phone Recordings of Henry Kissinger, a 'Habitual Liar'

Declassified CIA files reveal chilling blueprint to manipulate Americans' minds through covert drugging with vaccines

President George HW Bush â€knew' of 1964 alien contact with humans in New Mexico: documentary

The CIA Used This Psychic Meditation Program. It's Never Been More Popular

â€The Alabama Solution': A Humanitarian Crisis in Grainy Detail

Pentagon headhunting Goldman, JPMorgan bankers for â€Economic Defense Unit'

Disappearance of ex-general with UFO secrets a â€grave crisis'

President George HW Bush â€knew' of 1964 alien contact with humans in New Mexico: documentary