Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media
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.
Viral social media claims from last night regarding USAID and Politico ... suggested that ongoing spending cuts at USAID, the foreign aid agency, were shutting down domestic media outlets supposedly dependent on government money. There is no evidence that the freeze in USAID funding had any impact on Politico payroll. That said, USAID does separately fund various questionable news operations. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a major investigative news outlet responsible for the Panama Papers and other blockbuster news series, relies heavily on State Department and USAID funding. Officials have used their leverage over OCCRP to influence editorial and personnel decisions at the outlet. USAID money flows to contractors operating news outlets worldwide, such as Pact, Inc. and the East West Management Institute. Yesterday, I wrote about USAID contractor Internews, which operates and funds several Ukrainian news outlets, many of which have called for censoring pro-peace American journalists and activists over false allegations that they are Russian agents. Most insidiously, these Ukrainian outlets act as independent fact-checkers, providing outsourced content moderation services to Meta and TikTok. In other words, these outlets operate as convenient third parties for the U.S. government to censor dissident voices in ways it could not do directly.
Note: USAID may have funded the creation of COVID-19 and has funneled billions into Ukraine. Could it be that this organization is a front for an intelligence agency? For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship.
For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous – and, in many cases, malicious – pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight. Here are only a few examples of the WASTE and ABUSE: $1.5 million to "advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities"; $70,000 for production of a "DEI musical" in Ireland; $47,000 for a "transgender opera" in Colombia; $32,000 for a "transgender comic book" in Peru; $2 million for sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala; $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt; Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations – even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation; Millions to EcoHealth Alliance – which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab, Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria; Funding to print "personalized" contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries; Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund "irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan," benefiting the Taliban. The list literally goes on and on – and it has all been happening for decades.
Note: USAID may have funded the creation of COVID-19 and has funneled billions into Ukraine. Could it be that this organization is a front for an intelligence agency? For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.
President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are undermining democracy and national security by taking over the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), say Democrats and the media. But there was nothing illegal, unethical, or inappropriate about DOGE's takeover of USAID, and nobody has presented any evidence that it threatens national security. The American people elected Trump who appointed Musk to oversee DOGE, as Trump has a right to do. "With regards to the USAID stuff," said Musk, "I went over it with (the president) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down." Trump sought to merge USAID with the State Department in 2017. Researchers have caught USAID abusing its powers, including by funding everything from censorship to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which may have done research that resulted in the Covid pandemic. Between 2004 and 2022, USAID was the largest US government funder of EcoHealth Alliance, which sub-awarded grant funding to WIV. USAID gave EcoHealth Alliance $54 million during that period, which was more even than the $42 million the group received from the Pentagon. As for progressive Democrats, they should be embracing Trump's actions against USAID. Left-wing anti-imperialist groups have for 50 years criticized USAID as an extension of US government interventionism abroad.
Note: USAID may have funded the creation of COVID-19 and has funneled billions into Ukraine. Could it be that this organization is a front for an intelligence agency?
High-level executives with the NFL's New Orleans Saints football team and the NBA's Pelicans basketball team had a deeper role than previously known in connection with a list of priests and deacons faced with credible allegations of child molestation. According to highly sensitive emails ... one top executive even described a conversation with the New Orleans district attorney at the time that allowed them to remove clergy names from the list. The initial allegations about the emails led to local and national media investigations, including by Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press, that highlighted a fierce closeness between the sports franchises and the Catholic church in New Orleans. [Senior vice president of communications for the Saints and Pelicans Greg] Bensel sought to convince media outlets to limit their scrutiny of a list that turned out to be so incomplete it eventually precipitated a joint federal and state law enforcement investigation into whether the archdiocese spent decades operating a child sex-trafficking ring whose crimes were illegally covered up. After first seeing the so-called Saints emails in 2019 through a subpoena, abuse survivors' attorneys alleged that the two franchises' top officials had a significant hand in trying to minimize what was then a public-relations nightmare for the city's archdiocese – but has since triggered a full-blown child sex-trafficking investigation aimed at the church by law enforcement. A [2019] newspaper article about a local deacon and alleged serial child molester thrust [New Orleans archbishop Gregory] Aymond into the center of the global Catholic church's clergy-abuse scandal. The article questioned how the deacon, George Brignac, had been allowed to keep reading scripture at masses ... after he'd been arrested multiple times on child molestation charges.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals.
Within sight of northern Germany's windswept beaches, specialized clearance teams have been trawling the seafloor for the kind of catch that fishermen in these parts usually avoid–discarded naval mines, torpedoes, stacks of artillery shells, and heavy aerial bombs, all of which have been rusting away for nearly 80 years. For much of September and October 2024, underwater vehicles, fitted with cameras, powerful lights, and sensors, have been hunting for World War II–era explosives purposefully sunk in this region of the Baltic Sea. Tons upon tons of German munitions were hastily dumped at sea under orders from the Allied powers at the end of World War II, who sought to dispose of the Nazis' arsenal. The clearance work last year was part of a first-of-its-kind project to explore ways to clear up this toxic legacy of war. "Conventional munitions are carcinogenic, and the chemical munitions are mutagenic, and also they disrupt enzymes and whatnot–so they are definitely affecting organisms," says Jacek BeĹ‚dowski, a leading expert on underwater munitions dumps. The next stage of the pilot project, also now underway, is building a floating munitions-disposal facility that could incinerate the aging explosives near the dump sites. That would eliminate the need to bring the ordnance above water ... and ship it overland. Longer term, the dream is to have unmanned underwater vehicles map, scan, and magnetically image the seabed to get a sense of what lies where.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine and technology for good.
The topic of Syria seems to have the full attention of the Senate Intelligence committee when it comes to reviewing the deposed Assad Regime, but lacks an understanding of the role that the CIA has played in putting al-Queda, or whatever you want to call it, in the driver's seat in Damascus. Yes, you read that right, U.S. tax dollars, errantly or not, poured into the hands of jihadists, al-Queda consorts, motley adventurers and soldiers of fortune, with the end of ousting Assad. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Senator Rand Paul brought this to the attention of Congress through the introduction of the â€Stop Arming Terrorists Act.' Unfortunately, the bill went nowhere and the U.S. kept arming terrorists. Al-Queda, their heirs and assigns, somehow made the surrealistic journey from crashing planes into buildings at the World Trade Center ... to being ushered into power with the help of the bungled regime-change-conniving of a U.S. intelligence agency. As a member of Congress for 16 years, I kept track of the runs, hits and errors in the Middle East, to warn about the consequences of U.S. policy in the region, so here is a scorecard on Syria: The new self-declared leader of Syria was born Ahmad Joulani. As a member of al Queda in Iraq, working under al-Zarqawi, his name was Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a name he kept, while al-Queda in Iraq (a branch of the original al-Queda, founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988) shape-shifted into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and then into ISIS, the Islamic State. As al-Queda in Iraq expanded in 2011, Jolani, received Al-Queda's Syrian franchise, and renamed it Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front).
Note: This was written by Dennis Kucinich, former Democratic congressman and nationally recognized leader in peace and social justice. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on 9/11 and intelligence agency corruption.
In 2015, [Jo] Nemeth had quit her community development job, given the last of her money to her 18-year-old daughter Amy and closed her bank account. "I was 46, I had a good job and a partner I loved, but I was deeply unhappy," Nemeth says. "I'd been feeling this growing despair about the economic system we live in." Her "lightbulb moment" came when her parents ... gave her a book about people with alternative lifestyles. "When I read about this guy choosing to live without money, I thought, â€Oh my God, I have to do that!'" The first thing Nemeth did was write a list of her needs. "I discovered I really didn't need much to be comfortable. Then I just started ... figuring out how I could meet my needs without having any negative impacts." For the first three years, Nemeth lived on a friend's farm, where she built a small shack from discarded building materials before doing some housesitting and living off-grid for a year in a "little blue wagon" in another friend's back yard. Instead of paying rent, Nemeth cooks, cleans, manages the veggie garden and makes items such as soap, washing powder and fermented foods. And she couldn't be happier. She soon started tapping into the "gift economy" more deeply, giving without expecting anything in return, receiving without any sense of obligation. "That second part took a while to get used to," she says. "It's very different to bartering or trading, which involves thinking in a monetary, transactional way: I'll give you this if you give me that. I actually feel more secure than I did when I was earning money," she says, "because all through human history, true security has always come from living in community and I have time now to build that â€social currency'. To help people out, care for sick friends or their children, help in their gardens. That's one of the big benefits of living without money."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.
The Duke of York was in contact with the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he had previously admitted, emails published in court documents appear to show. "Keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon!!!!" said an email sent to Epstein from a "member of the British Royal Family", believed to be Prince Andrew. The court documents, from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), show the email as being sent in February 2011. In his BBC Newsnight interview, Prince Andrew had said he had not seen or spoken to Epstein after going to his house in New York in December 2010. Prince Andrew is believed to have first met Epstein in 1999, through Epstein's friend Ghislaine Maxwell. The following year, in June 2000, Epstein and Maxwell were among guests at a party at Windsor Castle. Later that year, Prince Andrew held a birthday party for Maxwell at Sandringham, with Epstein in attendance. The relationship appeared to continue, with Epstein attending another Windsor Castle party in July 2006. Between those times, in 2008, Epstein was convicted in the US for procuring a minor for prostitution and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. After Epstein left prison, Prince Andrew met him in New York in 2010. Andrew said this meeting was to end their relationship. In July 2019, Epstein was arrested on charges of the sex trafficking of minors. He died in prison. In November that year, Prince Andrew ... stepped down from royal duties.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.
Is President Trump pushing gender-confused kids to commit suicide? This shocking claim hit mainstream and social media within minutes of the president's Jan. 28 executive order banning federal funding for child sex-change treatments. The way the argument goes, if kids can't get puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries, their mental health will deteriorate to the point of no return. But as I've seen while working with more than 1,000 such kids, there are deeper reasons why they're so unhappy – and giving them powerful experimental drugs and irreversible surgeries is more likely to worsen their condition. From 2018 to 2022, I worked as a case manager for the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital. As kids kept coming back for follow-up check-ins and treatment – almost every kid who begins puberty blockers goes on to receive cross-sex hormones – I realized something was very wrong. When my colleagues and I asked about their mental health, they usually reported that it was the same or better. But as soon as we dug deeper, it became clear that the real answer was no – that their mental anguish was worsening. We ignored or explained away co-morbidities like autism, depression and bipolar disorder while using every new development or difficulty in a kid's life to justify continuing down the sex-change road. In my experience, kids typically find the "treatment brings happiness" mantra of their doctors, nurses and case managers hard to see through. Some literally couldn't look themselves in the mirror, even if they physically looked the part of a boy-turned-girl or vice-versa. While activists insist that kids simply "know who they are," reality is more complicated.
Note: This article was written by Jamie Reed, a queer woman married to a trans man. Many transgender medical care experiences can indeed be life-changing and even life-saving, yet not all experiences align with the mainstream narratives. Reed isn't the only whistleblower who's worked in the field of youth transgender medicine. Even advocates who publicly promote gender medicine for kids question its ethics behind closed doors. Watch our nuanced 25-minute Mindful News Brief on the controversy surrounding youth gender medicine. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on transgender medicine.
In his most recent article for The Atlantic, [Journalist Derek] Thompson writes that the trend toward isolation has been driven by technology. Televisions ... "privatized our leisure" by keeping us indoors. More recently, Thompson says, smartphones came along, to further silo us. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a report about America's "epidemic of loneliness and isolation." We pull out our phones and we're on TikTok or Instagram, or we're on Twitter. And while externally it looks like nothing is happening internally, the dopamine is flowing and we are just thinking, my God, we're feeling outrage, we're feeling excitement, we're feeling humor, we're feeling all sorts of things. We put our phone away and our dopamine levels fall and we feel kind of exhausted by that, which was supposed to be our leisure time. We are donating our dopamine to our phones rather than reserving our dopamine for our friends. I think that we are socially isolating ourselves from our neighbors, especially when our neighbors disagree with us. We're not used to talking to people outside of our family that we disagree with. Donald Trump has now won more than 200 million votes in the last three elections. If you don't understand a movement that has received 200 million votes in the last nine years, perhaps it's you who've made yourself a stranger in your own land, by not talking to one of the tens of millions of profound Donald Trump supporters who live in America and more to the point, within your neighborhood, to understand where their values come from. You don't have to agree with their politics. But getting along with and understanding people with whom we disagree is what a strong village is all about.
Note: Our latest Substack dives into the loneliness crisis exacerbated by the digital world and polarizing media narratives, along with inspiring solutions and remedies that remind us of what's possible. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
A former policy adviser to Barack Obama's administration flew to Britain planning to rape a nine-year-old child. Rahamim "Rami" Shy, 47, an investment banker who helped co-ordinate the US government's counter-terror response, travelled from New York to Bedfordshire to meet an English schoolgirl. He spent more than a month planning the trip and had packed his suitcases with cuddly toys and condoms, Luton Crown Court heard. On an online forum and messaging apps, Shy described the "unspeakable acts" he was planning in graphic detail to someone he believed to be the girl's grandmother. But the grandmother, using the name Debbie, was in fact an online decoy created by an undercover officer from Bedfordshire Police. In his messages, Shy described the girl as a "tad late" in starting sexual activity at the age of nine, and said that it was an "honour" to be considered "her first", the court heard. He flew to Gatwick on Feb 23 last year then drove to Bedford to meet the undercover officer, and was promptly arrested. During the trial, the court heard Shy, after arriving in Britain, tried to delete the "depraved messages" he had sent. Other messages retrieved from his phone revealed he had discussed his sexual interest in children with others. A cache of indecent images of children were discovered on his phone by police. Shy was previously employed at banking group Citi, and had worked in a senior role at the US treasury department.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals.
In some cities, as many as one in four office spaces are vacant. Some start-ups are giving them a second life – as indoor farms growing crops as varied as kale, cucumber and herbs. In countries including Canada and Australia, landlords are struggling to fill vacant office spaces as companies embrace remote and hybrid work. In the US, the office vacancy rate is more than 20%. "Vertical farms may prove to be a cost-effective way to fill in vacant office buildings," says Warren Seay, Jr ... who authored an article on urban farm reconversions. There are other reasons for the interest in urban farms, too. Though supply chains have largely recovered post-Covid-19, other global shocks, including climate change, geopolitical turmoil and farmers' strikes, mean that they continue to be vulnerable – driving more cities to look for local food production options. Workers are currently aiming to transform a floor of 32-story historic Niels Esperson building in Houston, Texas, into an indoor farm. In September 2024, US indoor farm startup 80 Acres, which opened its first indoor farm inside a vacant building in Hamilton, Ohio, developed a 200,000-sq-ft (18,600-sq-m) facility inside a former commercial building in Florence, Kentucky. Overall, vertical farms have the potential to outperform regular farms on several environmental sustainability metrics like water usage, says [director of the Arell Food Institute] Evan Fraser.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and technology for good.
Between 2000 and 2020, the number of young people incarcerated in the United States declined by an astonishing 77 percent. The number of young people behind bars increased steadily in the 1970s and 1980s and then rose more sharply in the 1990s. In the last two years for which we have data, 2021 and 2022, the number of incarcerated juveniles rose 10 percent. But even factoring in that increase, the country locked up 75 percent fewer juveniles in 2022 than it did in 2000. With fewer juveniles behind bars, many states have shuttered youth facilities. Today America has 58 percent fewer of them than it did in 2000. Beginning in 2008, New York State closed 26 juvenile jails; over the next 12 years, juvenile crime in the state declined 86 percent. [Susan Burke, director of Utah's juvenile justice system from 2011 to 2018] sees it similarly: "When judges worried that crime would go up if we closed the assessment centers, I could show them data that it was already dropping. Then I could go back and show them data a year later that it was still declining. At that point, what could they say?" Exposé after exposé piled up to prove to the public what many insiders already knew: The biggest recidivists in the system were the institutions. In early 2004, a series of expert reports documented rampant violence and cruelty. Custom-built individual cages where youth deemed violent received their school lessons. Video footage from a facility in Stockton showed counselors kneeling on the backs and necks of prisoners, beating and kicking the motionless young people. Six months later, The San Jose Mercury News published a multipart exposé revealing that youth were regularly tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and forced into solitary confinement.
Note: Read the research that proves juvenile incarceration does not reduce criminal behavior. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring stories on repairing our criminal justice system.
The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there. But the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts saying they now favor the lab theory. There is no new intelligence behind the agency's shift, officials said. John Ratcliffe, the new director of the C.I.A., has long favored the lab leak hypothesis. He has said it is a critical piece of intelligence that needs to be understood and that it has consequences for U.S.-Chinese relations. The announcement of the shift came shortly after Mr. Ratcliffe told Breitbart News he no longer wanted the agency "on the sidelines" of the debate over the origins of the Covid pandemic. Mr. Ratcliffe has long said he believes that the virus most likely emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Even in the absence of hard intelligence, the lab leak hypothesis has been gaining ground inside spy agencies. But some analysts question the wisdom of shifting a position in absence of new information. Five agencies, including the National Intelligence Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed that natural exposure most likely caused the epidemic. But they said that they had only low-confidence in their assessment. Until now, two agencies, the F.B.I. and Department of Energy, thought a lab leak was more likely. But their theories are different.
Note: For years, the lab leak hypothesis was labeled as "racist," " thoroughly debunked," and "something out of a comic book." If intelligence agencies are just now admitting the lab leak is â€more likely,' does that mean they were ignoring or covering up evidence–or just waiting for the political winds to shift? Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19.
Instagram has released a long-promised "reset" button to U.S. users that clears the algorithms it uses to recommend you photos and videos. TikTok offers a reset button, too. And with a little bit more effort, you can also force YouTube to start fresh with how it recommends what videos to play next. It means you now have the power to say goodbye to endless recycled dance moves, polarizing Trump posts, extreme fitness challenges, dramatic pet voice-overs, fruit-cutting tutorials, face-altering filters or whatever other else has taken over your feed like a zombie. I know some people love what their apps show them. But the reality is, none of us are really in charge of our social media experience anymore. Instead of just friends, family and the people you choose to follow, nowadays your feed or For You Page is filled with recommended content you never asked for, selected by artificial-intelligence algorithms. Their goal is to keep you hooked, often by showing you things you find outrageous or titillating – not joyful or calming. And we know from Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen and others that outrage algorithms can take a particular toll on young people. That's one reason they're offering a reset now: because they're under pressure to give teens and families more control. So how does the algorithm go awry? It tries to get to know you by tracking every little thing you do. They're even analyzing your "dwell time," when you unconsciously scroll more slowly.
Note: Read about the developer who got permanently banned from Meta for developing a tool called "Unfollow Everything" that lets users, well, unfollow everything and restart their feeds fresh. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and media manipulation.
Alzheimer's ... afflicts nearly seven million Americans, about one in every nine people over the age of 65, making it a leading cause of death among older adults. Up to 420,000 adults in the prime of life – including people as young as 30 – suffer from early-onset Alzheimer's. The annual number of new cases of dementia is expected to double by 2050. Yet despite decades of research, no treatment has been created that arrests Alzheimer's cognitive deterioration, let alone reverses it. Over the past 25 years, Alzheimer's research has suffered a litany of ostensible fraud and other misconduct by world-famous researchers and obscure scientists alike. These deceptions have warped the trajectory of Alzheimer's research and drug development, prompting critical concerns about how bad actors, groupthink and perverse research incentives have undermined the pursuit of treatments and cures. This may have jeopardized the well-being of patients. I asked a team of brain and scientific imaging experts to help me analyze suspicious studies by 46 leading Alzheimer's researchers. Collectively, the experts identified nearly 600 dubious papers from the group that have distorted the field – papers having been cited some 80,000 times. Many of the most respected Alzheimer's scholars – whose work steers the scientific discourse – repeatedly referred to those tainted studies to support their own ideas. This has compromised the field's established base of knowledge.
Note: Top leaders in the field of medicine and science have spoken out about the rampant corruption and conflicts of interest in those industries. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.
President Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified governmental documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The executive order ... also aims to declassify the remaining federal records relating to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The order is among a flurry of executive actions Trump has quickly taken the first week of his second term. Speaking to reporters, Trump said, "everything will be revealed." Trump had promised during his reelection campaign to make public the last batches of still-classified documents surrounding President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Trump has nominated Kennedy's nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be the health secretary in his new administration. Kennedy's father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 as he sought the Democratic presidential nomination. The younger Kennedy has said he isn't convinced that a lone gunman was solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President Kennedy, in 1963. The order directs the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to develop a plan within 15 days to release the remaining John F. Kennedy records, and within 45 days for the other two cases. It was not clear when the records would actually be released. Most researchers agree that roughly 3,000 records have not yet been released, either in whole or in part, and many of those originated with the CIA.
Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the dark truths behind the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on political assassinations.
A former CIA operative has revealed the agency pursues people with a certain mental disorder as it makes them the best agents. John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said ... 'A CIA psychiatrist told me one time that the CIA looks to hire people with sociopathic tendencies–not sociopaths because sociopaths have no consciences,' said Kiriakou, speaking to The Real News Network. A 'sociopath' is someone who lacks empathy, disregards the feelings of others and may manipulate or harm people without remorse, often for their own personal gain. 'Sociopaths are impossible to control,' said Kiriakou. 'They slip through the cracks because they have no conscience and they pass the polygraph very easily because they don't feel guilty. The CIA has admitted that spies have pathological personality features that help them with their espionage efforts, such as a sense of entitlement or a desire for power and control. While employed by the CIA, Kiriakou was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was involved in the capture of terrorist Abu Zubaydah. However, he refused to be trained in so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Kiriakou has claimed that he never authorized or engaged in these techniques. After leaving the CIA, he appeared on ABC News where he said the CIA waterboarded detainees and labeled the action as torture. The interview led to Kiriakou being arrested in 2012 and charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Note: Learn more about the rise of the CIA and the dark realities of modern American torture practices in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last week that it needed more time to study the health impacts of paraquat, a powerful herbicide that has drawn scrutiny for its possible links to Parkinson's disease, a move that would allow it to remain on the market. Several advocacy groups had sued the EPA over an interim registration decision it issued in 2021 ... on the grounds that it was not protective enough. In a statement, the EPA said additional data was necessary to resolve uncertainty around the risks of inhaling the herbicide. For as long as David Jilbert could remember, he wanted to be a farmer. For five years, Jilbert personally mixed, loaded and sprayed paraquat to control weeds in his vineyard. Then he began having difficulty tying his shoes and buttoning his shirts. He started to walk with a slow, shuffling gait around the winery. He was soon diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects motor functions and causes cognitive impairment, despite having no family history or genetic predisposition to the disease. He and his doctors blame paraquat. Jilbert is among the nearly 6,000 Americans who have filed lawsuits against Syngenta and Chevron, which distributed paraquat products in the United States until 1986. The suits allege that the companies failed to warn consumers about paraquat's substantial health risks. Paraquat ... is among the most widely used pesticides in the United States.
Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
In the nineteen-fifties, the Leo Burnett advertising agency helped invent Tony the Tiger, a cartoon mascot who was created to promote Frosted Flakes to children. In 1973, a trailblazing nutritionist named Jean Mayer warned the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs that ... junk foods could be described as empty calories. He questioned why it was legal to apply the term "cereals" to products that were more than fifty-per-cent sugar. Children's-food advertisements, he claimed, were "nothing short of nutritional disasters." Mayer's warnings, however, did not lead to a string of state bans on junk food. Advertising continued to target children, and consumers of all ages were free to buy and consume any amount of Frosted Flakes. This health issue was ultimately seen as one that families should manage on their own. In recent years, experts have been warning that social media harms children. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist who became a whistle-blower, told a Senate subcommittee that her ex-employer's "profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate–especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls." "It is time to require a surgeon general's warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents," Vivek Murthy, whose second term as the U.S. Surgeon General ended on Monday, wrote in an opinion piece last year.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
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.