Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of highly revealing media articles from the major media. Links are provided to the full articles on their media websites. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These media articles are listed in reverse date order. You can also explore the articles listed by order of importance or by date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can build a brighter future.

Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

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.

[Nick] Pope worked at the UK Ministry of Defence for more than two decades, from 1985 to 2006. For three of those years – 1991 to 1994 – he worked on what was known colloquially in the department as "the UFO desk". One encounter jumped out at him. It had been reported in Rendlesham Forest by two American airmen on Christmas night in 1980. Rendlesham Forest is in Suffolk, England, outside RAF Bentwaters, an airbase operated by the US during the cold war. On that airbase in 1980 were several nuclear missiles. Unlike other UFO sightings, the eyewitness reports from Rendlesham were backed up by hard evidence. It's multiple witnesses, including military. It's sightings over three consecutive nights. It's physical evidence in terms of radar, radioactivity, ground trace indentations, scorch marks. It's a case where we have declassified and released documents, which you can see at ... the Ministry of Defence website. [Staff sergeant Jim] Penniston says he felt a weird sensation, like static electricity ... then a blinding bright light burst into the night. Expecting an explosion, they flung themselves to the ground, but none came. Penniston rose to his feet and saw the bright light beginning to fade, revealing a triangular craft resting in a small clearing on the forest floor, multicoloured neon lights darting over its black opaque surface until they too dimmed and the only light remaining was emanating from underneath the craft.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, explore our summary of the Rendlesham Forest incident in our UFO Information Center.

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.

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 factory farming and toxic chemicals.

Retired rear admiral Timothy Gallaudet ... is a man with serious credentials. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he is the former head of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, has worked on anti-submarine warfare, ran the Naval Observatory, and eventually became the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He's also one of the most outspoken proponents of the idea that not only are UFOs real, but the government is hiding the truth about them. "We're being visited by some kind of higher-order intelligence that we don't understand," Gallaudet told me. "And it's happening often, frequently, in our airspace and in our water and in space." Gallaudet recalls participating in a naval exercise off the East Coast in 2015 and finding that pilots flying off the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, were not only seeing UFOs but getting so close that officers like him became worried about a midair collision. These sightings produced the famous GoFast video of a UFO, which the Pentagon later said was an object that appeared out of the ordinary due to an effect called motion parallax. Gallaudet, who says his correspondence about the object was mysteriously wiped from his computer, is far from convinced by that explanation. He's particularly curious as to why so many UFOs appear to be flying over water and in some videos, appear to be disappearing beneath the waves. "If they want to remain unseen," he told me, "that's the place they would be." He's testified before Congress about what he's seen. He says what the government has disclosed so far is "a fraction of the tip of the iceberg of what we're really seeing day to day."

Note: In this interview, Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet asserts that Atlantis was a real ancient civilization, citing Plato's accounts alongside archaeological and geological evidence suggesting it was destroyed in a catastrophic event around 12,900 years ago; he adds that he is part of a team studying it but "can't say much," implying the work may be tied to sensitive or restricted research. He further claims they may have identified its location on the seafloor and are seeking visual proof of human-made structures. For more, don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang.

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.

On Thursday, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was involved in the raid to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was arrested on charges that he used classified information to make more than $400,000 by betting on the operation before it happened. In the hours before the U.S. attacked Iran, hundreds of anonymous bets over $1,000 were placed on the U.S. striking Iran by the next day, which the New York Times said suggested that some users might've "seen the strike coming." Prediction markets, such as industry leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, have exploded in popularity. They create or exacerbate an array of problems, but at the Media and Democracy Project, or MAD, we believe they have the potential to severely harm the way news is reported, perceived, and engaged with. Suppose that prediction markets achieve their claims of providing better forecasts than other methods. Casino journalism [would still be] bad for journalism and the public. Most of the "propositions" offered on these markets are based on news reports; reporters provide the raw material on which these bets are made. In effect, traders on prediction markets are betting on the content of news stories. An Israeli journalist recently received death threats over his refusal to rewrite his report on an Iranian missile strike, on which $23 million of prediction market "investments" were riding. As the markets become larger, and their use in news increases, the incentive for market manipulation will also grow.

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

A major new study published in Nature Health has found a strong connection between environmental exposure to agricultural pesticides and an increased risk of cancer. Pesticides are commonly found in food, water, and the surrounding environment, often as complex mixtures rather than single substances. This has made their health effects difficult to measure. Most previous research has focused on individual chemicals in controlled settings, which does not reflect how people are exposed in real life. By combining environmental monitoring, national cancer registry data, and biological research, scientists from the IRD, Institut Pasteur, University of Toulouse, and the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases (INEN) in Peru provide new insight into how pesticide exposure may contribute to the development of certain cancers. Peru ... includes regions with intensive agriculture, diverse climates and ecosystems, and significant social and geographic inequalities. "We first modeled the dispersion of pesticides in the environment over a six-year period, from 2014 to 2019, which allowed us to create a high-resolution map and identify areas with the highest risk of exposure," explains Jorge Honles, PhD in epidemiology at the University of Toulouse. The team then compared these exposure maps with health data from more than 150,000 cancer patients recorded between 2007 and 2020. Regions with higher environmental pesticide exposure also had higher rates of certain cancers. In these areas, the likelihood of developing cancer was about 150% greater on average. The research also highlights how pesticide exposure may affect the body long before cancer is diagnosed. Molecular studies conducted at the Institut Pasteur, led by Pascal Pineau, show that pesticides can interfere with processes that maintain normal cell function and identity. These disruptions occur early and may accumulate over time without obvious symptoms. Vulnerable populations, including Indigenous and rural communities, may face the greatest risks.

Note: This landmark study demonstrates a significant link between pesticide exposure on a national scale and biological changes that increase the risk of cancer. Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of 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 food system corruption and toxic chemicals.

The Modern Ag Alliance, launched by Bayer in 2024, enables the company to lobby and campaign through an entity that looks like a coalition of farm organizations, not a single giant chemical corporation. MAA represents itself as a "diverse coalition, founded by Bayer, that today represents more than 110 agricultural organizations." But public records suggest it functions as a front group for Bayer's interests. Tax records reveal that a Bayer vice president sits on the board of directors, and nearly all of its budget has gone to a public relations firm that also works for Bayer. Bayer itself describes the MAA as a key part of its lobbying. The company has portrayed the MAA – whose tagline is "Pesticides power America's ag" – as its strategy for "fighting back" against glyphosate concerns and lawsuits. MAA is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, a structure that allows it to raise unlimited funds for advocacy or lobbying while keeping donors secret. Disclosed members of the Modern Ag Alliance include large agribusiness trade groups, and national and state commodity crop growers' groups. Many of these groups have financial relationships with Bayer and other pesticide firms, via sponsorships, partnerships or direct funding, though these ties are often opaque. The MAA lobbies for legislation that ... would make it harder for Americans to use state-law failure-to-warn claims to sue pesticide manufacturers for cancer and other injuries.

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 corporate corruption and toxic chemicals.

The single biggest predictor of how happy you are at any given moment isn't your income, your relationship status, your health, your career, or the city you live in. It's whether your mind is focused on what you're doing right now or wandering somewhere else. That's the whole finding. Present equals happy. Absent equals unhappy. Everything else is details. In 2010, Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert published a paper in the journal Science with a title that sounds like a Buddhist proverb: "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind." They developed an iPhone app that pinged 2,250 people at random intervals throughout the day, asking three questions: What are you doing? What are you thinking about? How happy are you? People's minds wandered from what they were doing 46.9 percent of the time. And when their minds wandered, they were consistently less happy than when they were focused on whatever was in front of them. This held true regardless of the activity. What you're thinking about matters more than twice as much as what you're doing. You could have the perfect life – the career, the partner, the health, the house – and spend most of it mentally somewhere else, and the somewhere else would make you miserable. We don't struggle with presence during peak experiences. Nobody's mind wanders during their wedding or the birth of their child or the moment they land the job they wanted. Those moments are vivid enough to command attention. They handle presence for you. The problem is that peak experiences make up maybe two percent of your life. The other ninety-eight percent ... is ordinary, and your capacity to be present during ordinary moments determines the quality of your entire existence. That's where happiness actually lives. In the ninety-eight percent. In the ability to be present in an ordinary moment without wishing it were something else.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.

Peter Thiel has gone from reclusive billionaire to high-profile political overlord. Hundreds of emails show that that journey was encouraged and facilitated by ... Jeffrey Epstein. Among the millions of Epstein-related documents released by the Department of Justice so far are hundreds of email exchanges between Epstein and Thiel that show the deep, symbiotic friendship between the two men. In return for Epstein's favors and tax advice, Thiel provided investment insights and served as something of a reputational shield. When Thiel expressed a growing interest in geopolitics, Epstein encouraged his curiosity, setting up meetings with officials and political power players at home and abroad. After Thiel became part of the 2016 Trump campaign, Epstein urged him to grow his influence within Trumpworld and advised him on how to do it. As with his friendship with former Trump mastermind Steve Bannon, Epstein's emails with Thiel show the late billionaire's knack for ingratiating himself with the powerful and influential, particularly those who might have sway in the White House of his former "closest friend," Trump. Thiel and Epstein exchanged constant emails, regularly met and talked on the phone, collaborated on business ventures, and discussed everything from politics and science to investment possibilities – as in one now-notorious email exchange about Brexit, in which Epstein seemed to revel in the "return to tribalism" and "collapse" that it heralded.

Note: Watch a 7-min video of WTK Director Amber Yang and Joe Martino from Collective Evolution discussing the links between Epstein, Thiel, Palantir, the Rothschild banking family, and intelligence agency operations. Don't miss part one and part two of our investigations into the Epstein files so far. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein.

An Air Force veteran who agreed to testify before Congress about secret government UFO programs died just months before the hearings of an accidental drug overdose. Matthew James Sullivan, 39, died at his home in Falls Church, Va., on May 12, 2024 from a lethal mix of alcohol, alprazolam, cyclobenzaprine and imipramine, according to the Northern District Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The mysterious death is of "grave concern" to Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), who referred the matter for investigation to the FBI due to "implications for national security," according to a letter obtained by The Post. "Mr. Sullivan's death was a local Virginia medical examiner case, and the manner and circumstances of his of death raise substantial questions, as he was preparing to provide testimony to Congress," the April 16 letter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel read. "The sudden and suspicious circumstances surrounding his death raise significant concerns about potential foul play and the safety of other individuals involved in this matter." The FBI indicated in a statement that Sullivan's death could be under investigation along with the dozen other missing or dead US scientists. Sullivan earned a Bronze Star for valor in Operation Enduring Freedom and later worked for the Air Force Intelligence Agency, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and the National Security Agency.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

A new study suggests a common weed killer may be linked to the mysterious global rise of young colorectal cancer. The first-of-its kind study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Medicine, suggests that picloram – a herbicide used globally to kill woody plants and shrubs while keeping grasses intact – could explain the rising incidence of colon and rectal cancer cases in people under 50. [Senior study author Jose] Seoane's team found that certain "fingerprints" appeared in the DNA of young colorectal cancer tumors they studied, and those fingerprints were linked back to exposures, including: Smoking; Poor diets, lacking fresh vegetables, beans, nuts and other "Mediterranean" staples; Obesity; Educational attainment (which is also linked to poorer diets); and finally, the weed killer picloram. His team checked to see if this same pattern persisted across populations, comparing the incidence of young colorectal cancer in seven US states, including California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, to the level of county-wide pesticide use. The strongest pesticide signal of all tied to higher rates of young colon cancer was for picloram. (In second place was glyphosate.) Picloram, which was developed in the 1960s, was one of many herbicides used in the "agents" the US Military used to clear forest during the Vietnam War. It works by disrupting the way plant hormones normally function, and can persist in the soil for years.

Note: Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of 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 health and toxic chemicals.

Your neighbors' Ring cameras film your walk to the car. Your car's sensors, cameras and microphones record your speed, how you drive, where you're going, who's with you, what you say, and biological metrics such as facial expression, weight and heart rate. Your car may also collect text messages and contacts from your connected smartphone. Meanwhile, your phone continuously senses and records your communications, info about your health, what apps you're using, and tracks your location. As you enter [a] store, its surveillance cameras identify your face and track your movements through the aisles. If you then use Apple or Google Pay to make your purchase, your phone tracks what you bought and how much you paid. All this data quickly becomes commercially available, bought and sold by data brokers. Aggregated and analyzed by artificial intelligence, the data reveals detailed, sensitive information about you that can be used to predict and manipulate your behavior, including what you buy, feel, think and do. Companies unilaterally collect data from most of your activities. This "surveillance capitalism" is often unrelated to the services device manufacturers, apps and stores are providing you. The U.S. government ... now purchases massive quantities of your information from commercial data brokers. Disclosure of documents allegedly hacked from Homeland Security reveal a massive surveillance web that has all Americans in its scope.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and the disappearance of privacy.

[Veteran journalist Katrina Manson's] new book, "Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare," is an ... account of the ongoing reconfiguration of the U.S. armed forces for a new technological era. "Project Maven" is structured as an intellectual and professional biography of Drew Cukor, a Marine Corps intelligence officer largely responsible for ... this military transformation. Cukor insists that Maven was never supposed to be a weapon. He frequently defends the project as nothing more than an integrated data platform ... for a world made better and safer by A.I. warfare. In 2018, Google employees staged a massive walkout to protest the company's work on a primitive iteration of the project. In the aftermath of the Google fiasco, Cukor turns to Palantir (in addition to Microsoft and Amazon) to make Maven a reality. NATO now has its own Maven contract with Palantir, and that prompted ten member nations to pursue one, too. The Maven Smart System has become a global surveillance apparatus–it can keep track of forty-nine thousand airfields all over the world–but its current work is hardly limited to intelligence provision and analysis. A "single click," [journalist Katrina] Manson reports, "could send coordinates through a tactical data link to a specific weapons platform so that it could fire at the target." The entire process, from target identification to target destruction, is four clicks. Officials told Manson that Maven was "accelerating operations and ‘enabling lethality' at combat headquarters around the world." Maven is only one part of the A.I. tool kit. Manson uncovers evidence of two clandestine killer-robot programs, one aerial and the other aquatic, which are being developed in haste. For the first time, the Pentagon's proposed budget contained a line item for comprehensively self-directing systems. A machine can shoot, Manson reports, up to "ten times faster than an assassin."

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

The human brain remains deeply mysterious. Scientists have mapped its synapses and neurons in extraordinary detail, yet ... the felt experience of being you still defies efforts at a full explanation. However, researchers do have one fascinating window into that inner world: near-death experiences, or NDEs. As the name suggests, near-death experiences are altered states of consciousness reported by upwards of one-fifth of people who experience a life-threatening medical emergency. Some common traits of NDEs have emerged over nearly 50 years of research: intense emotions of peace and joy, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), encounters with dead relatives, altered perceptions of time, and elevated lucidity, among others. These accounts from people who've nearly died appear to contradict what scientists expect to occur in the brain as its regions begin to shut down one by one. In a new qualitative study published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, [researcher Nicole] Lindsay and her colleagues reveal details of how individuals' dreams changed drastically following an NDE. A participant named Basil said he could confidently recall one dream every week or two, but after his near-death experience, that recall became a nightly occurrence. Others reported that dreams become intensely vivid after an NDE and that the separation between dreaming and waking was much more ambiguous than it was before.

Note: For more inspiring and credible material on this topic, read our Substack investigations: How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World and Insights from Near-Death Experiences Remind Us of Who We Are and What Unites Us. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

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.

The disappearance of a rocket scientist has taken a chilling new turn after it emerged she holds a one-of-a-kind patent tied to advanced US launch systems. Monica Jacinto Reza, 60, was last seen hiking in the rugged San Gabriel Wilderness area in the Angeles National Forest on June 22 last year. Reports ... indicated that a man walking about 30ft ahead of Reza on the trail to the Waterman Mountain summit turned around moments later and discovered she had vanished without a trace. Records show she is the only surviving co-creator of a 2010 patent filed with Dallis Ann Hardwick, who died of cancer in 2014, for a specialized metal designed to resist burning while remaining incredibly strong under extreme heat. She was also credited as a co-inventor of Mondaloy, a nickel-based superalloy later used in key components of advanced propulsion systems developed through US Air Force and NASA-backed research programs. Reza spent decades working at Rocketdyne, later part of Aerojet Rocketdyne, a major aerospace contractor involved in government propulsion programs, while retired US Major General William Neil McCasland, who oversaw related Air Force research portfolios, also went missing in June 2025. Reza and McCasland are among nine recent cases involving scientists with ties to aerospace, defense or nuclear research whose deaths or disappearances have drawn public attention.

Note: Hacked emails released by Wikileaks show Tom DeLonge assuring former White House chief of staff John Podesta in 2016 that the missing astronautical engineer 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 had been working with DeLonge and helped assemble his advisory team.

When he walked out of prison after 28 years, the first thing Allen Burnett did was drive to the ocean. "I just stood there for a minute," he recalls. "I wanted to feel the air." Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, he believed he would die behind bars. At California State Prison ... Burnett eventually earned a college degree with magna cum laude honors thanks to a pioneering in-prison education program through Cal State, and he found mentorship with other prisoners. Governor Gavin Newsom commuted his sentence. Today Burnett is the co-founder and executive director of Prism Way, a Los Angeles nonprofit that trains formerly incarcerated people to become peer support specialists. The work draws directly on the peer-counseling culture Burnett experienced during his own incarceration. The mission is clear: turn lived experience into healing. The California Model, inspired in part by Norway's prison system, emphasizes trauma-informed staffing, education and rehabilitation that mirrors life outside. Peer support is a key component. In 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began training incarcerated people to become peer support specialists. These mentors help fellow inmates cope with trauma and addiction, bridging gaps that formal treatment sometimes cannot. Early results of peer counseling have been promising. In the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, it coincided with a sharp drop in self-harm.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive repairing criminal justice.

Children regularly survive near-death experiences, or NDEs, just like anyone else. But a new study published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice notes that very few researchers actually speak with this critical age group, despite the special insights it offers for experts exploring human consciousness. In their review, the authors noticed that children reported some similar "core features," including tunnels, bright lights, and out-of-body sensations. They interviewed seven children who survived cardiac arrest in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) using arts- and play-based approaches, rather than the more direct questions used in most adult-based NDE interviews. Strikingly, however, the children's self-reported NDE experiences did not include every hallmark found in adult descriptions of NDEs. For example, there are no life reviews or messages from loved ones present in children's descriptions. Culture and religion also played little to no role in their responses, leading the authors to assert that a child's NDE may be more "raw" ... than adult NDEs, and should be considered extremely valuable data for future research. Unlocking the secrets of NDEs could help us understand consciousness, but scientists need more data. Thankfully, as resuscitation techniques become ever more advanced, it's likely that more and more people will experience these events instead of simply dying before they can share what happened to them.

Note: Our Substack investigation, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World, features fascinating examples and credible, scientific investigations into past-life memories in children. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

One of the most intriguing secrets of Operation Epic Fury is how, using an "exquisite" piece of classified technology, the CIA succeeded in finding the injured airman in Iran by detecting his heartbeat, the tiniest evidence of human life concealed in a narrow crevice up a 7,000ft mountain ridge. The technology that led to the airman's rescue by Seal Team Six commandos has been outed as a CIA "tool" called Ghost Murmur. It was reportedly developed as a highly classified "blue skies" invention by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, the famous laboratory where young, brilliant scientists and engineers devote their time to finding solutions to impossible concepts. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, hinted at the new technology in a press conference this week. "We deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possess to a daunting challenge, comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert," Ratcliffe said. On the face of it, a futuristic magnetic sensing device ... pinpointed the missing colonel's heartbeat across a 40-mile stretch of land. Ghost Murmur, as described, would appear to push the boundaries of physics beyond even the most exceptional human brain or computer. Intelligence sources would not confirm or deny the existence of Ghost Murmur. But reportedly the "CIA tool" relies on what is called quantum magnetometry, which can find signals of human hearts, aided by artificial intelligence to separate out all the other noises getting in the way.

Note: While it's unclear whether the Ghost Murmur tool was actually responsible for rescuing the injured soldier, this technology is not out of the realm of possibility. Since the 1960s, the CIA had already developed poison weapons capable of causing heart attacks remotely. Learn more about real-life exotic weapon technologies used by militaries around the world. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and intelligence agency corruption.

Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.