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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.

A recent survey from the British Standards Institution found that 68% of teen respondents said they feel worse when they spend too much time on social media, and 47% would remove them from existence if they could. So it's not surprising that hundreds of thousands of people are now attending ‘IRL' events (in real life) where phones are either banned or limited. Several new services are now curating "offline experiences" for social gatherings and dating, and the number of these events that are landing on the calendars of Americans and Europeans is a testament to the deep desire for human-to-human contact. The Offline Club of Europe has over half-a-million Instagram followers (an ironic yardstick of success), and chapters across the continent gather at venues where one's smartphone is locked in a box at the start of the event. Once inside, reading, chatting, sharing a drink, playing a board game–in short, everything we used to do to socialize–are preferred over looking down at your phone. In addition to the Offline Club, companies like Kanso, Sofar Sounds, and the app 222, are making a business out of disconnecting humans from their social media feeds that overflow with targeted ads and AI-generated drivel. Each one has found itself a niche, but all are returning us to the social activities that our parents used to do before phones. There are likely more options for engaging with the world and humanity offline; these are just a few that are exploding in popularity.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.

Traditional dairy farms calves are separated from their mothers within 24 hours of their birth. It allows farmers to collect the milk that the calves would naturally drink and sell it to be made into dairy products. But one farmer in the south of Scotland is pioneering an unconventional method of commercial dairy farming - keeping cow and calf together for about six months. David Finlay, who farms 130 dairy cows near Gatehouse of Fleet, claims the system results in higher animal welfare standards and a more profitable business. Now he is calling for the Scottish government to fund a radical new cow-with-calf development programme. The Finlays implemented the cow-with-calf system with their herd, but the decision almost bankrupted the business when they did not have enough milk left to sell to market. After overhauling their business plan and adopting a new approach, the couple found a way of making the system financially viable. David claims that among the benefits are happier cows and staff, healthier animals and an increase in life-expectancy. "What we've found is we can carry 25% more cows on the farm, because the young stock are growing and maturing so much faster and the cows are yielding 25% more milk," he said. "So even with the calves drinking a third of their mother's milk, the system is actually more efficient, more productive and more profitable." Rainton Farm is now the largest commercial cow-with-calf dairy farm in Europe.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy and healing the Earth.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) is linked to harm in every major organ system of the human body and poses a seismic threat to global health. UPF is also rapidly displacing fresh food in the diets of children and adults on every continent, and is associated with an increased risk of a dozen health conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression. The findings, from a series of three papers published in the Lancet, come as millions of people increasingly consume UPF such as ready meals, cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks and fast food. In the UK and US, more than half the average diet now consists of UPF. For some, especially people who are younger, poorer or from disadvantaged areas, a diet comprising as much as 80% UPF is typical. Evidence reviewed by 43 of the world's leading experts suggests that diets high in UPF are linked to overeating, poor nutritional quality and higher exposure to harmful chemicals and additives. A systematic review of 104 long-term studies conducted for the series found 92 reported greater associated risks of one or more chronic diseases, and early death from all causes. One of the Lancet series authors, Prof Carlos Monteiro ... said the findings underlined why urgent action is needed to tackle UPF. "The first paper in this Lancet series indicates that ultra-processed foods harm every major organ system in the human body. The evidence strongly suggests that humans are not biologically adapted to consume them."

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

Insect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides, according to the first study to examine how wildlife is returning in Europe. Neonicotinoids are the world's most common class of insecticides, widely used in agriculture and for flea control in pets. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France's population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks. The results could be mirrored across the EU, where the neonicotinoid ban came into effect in late 2018, but research has not yet been done elsewhere. The lead researcher, Thomas Perrot from the Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversitĂ© in Paris, said: "Even a few percentage [points'] increase is meaningful – it shows the ban made a difference. Our results clearly point to neonicotinoid bans as an effective conservation measure for insectivorous birds." Like the EU, the UK banned neonicotinoids for outdoor general use in 2018, although they can be used in exceptional circumstances. They are still widely used in the US, which has lost almost 3 billion insectivorous birds since the 1970s. Sustainable farming, which reduced pesticides and restored semi-natural habitats, would help bird populations recover.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.

The first thing Lana Ponting remembers about the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital in Montreal, Canada, is the smell. That hospital ... would be her home for a month in April 1958, after a judge ordered the then-16-year-old to undergo treatment for "disobedient" behaviour. Ms Ponting became one of thousands of people experimented on as part of the CIA's top-secret research into mind control. Now, she is one of two named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit for Canadian victims of the experiments. She became an unwitting participant in covert CIA experiments known as MK-Ultra. The Cold War project tested the effects of psychedelic drugs like LSD, electroshock treatments and brainwashing techniques on human beings without their consent. Over 100 institutions – hospitals, prisons and schools – in the US and Canada were involved. At the Allan, McGill University researcher Dr Ewen Cameron drugged patients and made them listen to recordings, sometimes thousands of times. The technique was a form of "psychic driving," says doctoral student Jordan Torbay. "Essentially the minds of patients were manipulated using verbal cues," she says, adding he also looked at the effects of sleep drugs, forced sensory deprivation, and induced coma. Medical records show Ms Ponting was given LSD, as well as drugs like sodium amytal, a barbiturate, desoxyn, a stimulant, as well as nitrous oxide gas, a sedative known as laughing gas.

Note: Learn more about the MKUltra Program in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and mind control.

Epstein's relationship with the Israeli government has long been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theorizing. But the extent of the connections has long been difficult to prove. That is, until October 2024, when the Palestinian group Handala released a tranche of more than 100,000 hacked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who led the country from 1999 to 2001. Barak is known to have been one of Epstein's closest associates. He visited the financier's estates in Florida and New York more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017, years after Epstein had been convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent victims, who died earlier this year, alleged in her posthumous memoir that a figure, described only as "the Prime Minister," but widely believed to be Barak, violently raped her on Epstein's private Caribbean island when she was 18. Epstein helped to facilitate an agreement for Mongolia to purchase Israeli military equipment and surveillance technology from companies with which the men had financial ties. An Israeli spy, Yoni Koren, stayed at Epstein's New York apartment for weeks at a time on three separate occasions between 2013 and 2015. Koren served as an intermediary between the American and Israeli governments, helping Barak organize meetings with top intelligence officials, including former CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Epstein's criminal enterprise and intelligence agency corruption.

Marie began taking fluoxetine, the generic form of Prozac, when she was 15. The drug – an S.S.R.I., a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – was part of her treatment in an outpatient program for an eating disorder. It took its toll on her sexuality. Marie told me she has PSSD, post-S.S.R.I. sexual dysfunction, a loss of sexuality that persists after the drug is no longer being taken. Clinicians have published more than 500 case reports in academic literature about the experience of PSSD. A 2020 editorial in The British Medical Journal argued, "Post-S.S.R.I. sexual dysfunction is underrecognized and can be debilitating both psychologically and physically." The effects of S.S.R.I.s on young sexuality are all the more relevant because prescriptions for the drugs have soared. Around two million 12-to-17-year-olds in the United States are on S.S.R.I.s. One large 2024 study ... tallied, month by month, the percentage of that age group who filled an antidepressant prescription between 2016 and 2022. During that time, the rate climbed by 69 percent. There are no dedicated studies of sexual side effects among the young. All that is available is extrapolation from research among adults. Depending on the symptom, drug and duration of use, between 30 and 80 percent of adults taking S.S.R.I.s live to varying degrees with diminished desire, sensation and function, according to a 2019 study.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and mental health.

In 2001, the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) published a paper declaring that the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil) was "generally well tolerated and effective" for adolescent depression. That conclusion was false. The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), knew from its own data that the drug failed to outperform placebo and carried a serious risk of suicidal behaviour. Instead of telling the truth, GSK hired a public-relations firm to ghostwrite the paper, enlisted academic co-authors who never saw the raw data, and used the publication to promote Paxil to doctors treating children. It became known as Study 329 – one of the most infamous cases of scientific fraud in modern psychiatry. The paper remained in circulation – cited hundreds of times, shaping prescribing habits, and legitimising a lie that cost young lives. The paper listed 22 authors – two were GSK employees, and most had never reviewed the raw data or disclosed their financial ties to the company. Once the article appeared in print, GSK's sales force distributed it to thousands of doctors as "proof" that Paxil worked in teens. Within three years, the company made more than a billion dollars from what it called the "adolescent market." In 2003, the FDA concluded: "There is currently no evidence that Paxil is effective in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder." In 2012, GSK pleaded guilty and paid a $3 billion settlement to resolve criminal and civil charges.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and mental health.

Deflecting the sun to fight climate change could trigger droughts and hurricanes, the Royal Society has warned. In a new report, experts argued solar radiation modification (SRM) could reduce global temperatures but "worsen rather than ease" climate change and make the sky look less blue. In May, the Government's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) announced Ł56.8m for 21 "climate cooling" projects, which include injecting aerosols into the sky to reflect sunlight away from Earth. However, the report found there were "major uncertainties" and argued the plan may have devastating knock-on effects, particularly if deployed by rogue groups. Prof Jim Haywood, of atmospheric science at the University of Exeter, said: "What you do in one place can cause climate change in a different place. "Stratospheric aerosol injection deployment in the northern hemisphere could impact the position of the tropical monsoon and lead to droughts in sub-Saharan Africa. "Everyone there relies on subsistence farming, so it quickly devastates if there is a drought there. "In the southern hemisphere, it could lead to an increase in North Atlantic hurricane frequency and intensity, it could lead to winter droughts over the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula." A "termination effect" whereby sun dimming technology was suddenly stopped, could also lead to rapid warming of up to 2C in decades, and cause devastating effects for ecosystems.

Note: Modifying the atmosphere to dim the sun involves catastrophic risks. Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising for stabilizing the climate. In our latest Substack, "Geoengineering is a Weapon That's Been Rebranded as Climate Science. There's a Better Way To Heal the Earth," we present credible evidence and current information showing that weather modification technologies are not only real, but that they are being secretly propagated by multiple groups with differing agendas.

As scientists who have worked on the science of solar geoengineering for decades, we have grown increasingly concerned about the emerging efforts to start and fund private companies to build and deploy technologies that could alter the climate of the planet. The basic idea behind solar geoengineering, or what we now prefer to call sunlight reflection methods (SRM), is that humans might reduce climate change by making the Earth a bit more reflective, partially counteracting the warming caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Many people already distrust the idea of engineering the atmosphere–at whichever scale–to address climate change, fearing negative side effects, inequitable impacts on different parts of the world, or the prospect that a world expecting such solutions will feel less pressure to address the root causes of climate change. Notably, Stardust says on its website that it has developed novel particles that can be injected into the atmosphere to reflect away more sunlight, asserting that they're "chemically inert in the stratosphere, and safe for humans and ecosystems." But it's nonsense for the company to claim they can make particles that are inert in the stratosphere. Even diamonds, which are extraordinarily nonreactive, would alter stratospheric chemistry. Any particle may become coated by background sulfuric acid in the stratosphere. That could accelerate the loss of the protective ozone layer.

Note: Modifying the atmosphere to dim the sun involves catastrophic risks. Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising for stabilizing the climate. In our latest Substack, "Geoengineering is a Weapon That's Been Rebranded as Climate Science. There's a Better Way To Heal the Earth," we present credible evidence and current information showing that weather modification technologies are not only real, but that they are being secretly propagated by multiple groups with differing agendas.

The latest figures and the statistical yearbook "The World of Organic Agriculture" was presented on 11 February 2025 at BIOFACH, the world's leading trade fair for organic food in Nuremberg. The global organic farming area increased by 2.5 million hectares in 2023, reaching almost 99 million hectares. The sales of organic food reached nearly 136 billion euros in 2023. The 26th edition of the yearbook "The World of Organic Agriculture", jointly published by FiBL and IFOAM – Organics International, shows that the growth in area and number of farms in 2023 exceeded that of previous years, particularly due to increases in Latin America. Data were provided by 188 countries. By the end of 2023, 98.9 million hectares were managed organically, marking a 2.6 percent increase (+2.5 million hectares) from 2022. Latin America experienced the largest increase, adding 1 million hectares (10.8 percent growth), while Africa recorded the highest relative growth, expanding by 24 percent to reach 3.4 million hectares. Oceania remains the leading region for organic farming, with 53.2 million hectares, accounting for more than half of the global organic area. It is followed by Europe, which has 19.5 million hectares, and Latin America, with 10.3 million hectares. By country, Australia leads with 53 million hectares, followed by India (4.5 million hectares) and Argentina (4 million hectares). There are notable increases observed in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Burkina Faso.

Note: Don't miss this global organic agriculture graphic. Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing the Earth.

Susan Abookire, an internist and professor at Harvard Medical School, had a cure for all that ailed me. "Find a being. The being might be a tree or rock," she told me. "Greet it as you would a friend. You might want to introduce yourself. You may want to share something with that being." I was participating, somewhat skeptically, in a forest bathing session Abookire was leading at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum for seven young doctors. It's part of resident training ... which is looking for ways to reduce stress and burnout within the profession. She explained that just by standing among the trees, we were inhaling essential tree oils called phytoncides and aromatic plant compounds called terpenes. "There's several studies now showing that inhaling phytoncides boosts our immune system, and specifically our natural killer-cell numbers and activities go up," she said. Breathing in tree scents fights infection, prevents cancer and protects against dementia. Qing Li, a professor at Japan's Nippon Medical School ... told me, "the larger the trees, the higher the tree density, and the larger the forest area, the greater the effects of forest bathing." More phytoncides and more terpenes, more benefit. He also believes we profit from inhaling negative ions (found in abundance near waterfalls) as well as a microorganism found in the soil, Mycobacterium vaccae. He recommends spending two to four hours in the forest walking at a slow pace ... and paying attention to your senses.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing our bodies and healing the Earth.

Scientists have just built working computer components out of shiitake mushrooms. As described in a paper published in PLOS One, using mycelium–the threadlike roots of fungi–researchers created memristors, the circuitry elements that remember past electrical states. You'd imagine such a feat would yield a memristor that performs terribly, but the researchers say its performance wasn't too far off from that inside your laptop. These organic circuits can store information, process signals, and maybe even help future computers behave more like organic brains, all while being low-cost, biodegradable, and probably compostable when you're done with them. The team grew nine batches of shiitake mycelium in petri dishes. They let them sprawl and stretch into mildly disturbing, gross, tangled networks of roots. Then, they dried them out in the sunlight until they were ready to handle electricity. Once wired up to a circuit, the fungal fibers responded to voltage like living synapses. They were firing off signals at about 5,850 hertz with 90 percent accuracy. The researchers found they could boost power by wiring more mushrooms together, creating an even larger fungal network that improved circuit stability and speed. It's still very early on, but the implications here are wild and potentially game-changing. Imagine being able to grow the components for, say, a new iPhone or the aforementioned high-end gaming rig, from just some dirt and a lot of humidity.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good and healing the Earth.

The CIA experienced "as many failures as successes" in exploring the intelligence applications of LSD and other drugs, according to the October 1975 U.S. Senate testimony of the Agency's former top chemist, Sidney Gottlieb, the man most closely associated with the notorious MKULTRA behavior control research projects. The long-secret transcripts of Gottlieb's testimony to the staff of the United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee") were published today by the National Security Archive, 50 years after the historic intelligence oversight hearings, along with a selection of declassified CIA memos and other records concerning MKULTRA. The Church Committee transcripts are among the highlights of the Digital National Security Archive collection, CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments and MKULTRA. Gottlieb was a key bureaucratic player who signed off on hundreds of MKULTRA subprojects and who developed clandestine relationships with universities, prisons, hospitals, private laboratories, and private foundations that made it difficult to trace the programs back to the Agency. The Church Committee faced considerable obstacles in reconstructing the story, especially since Gottlieb and CIA director Richard Helms destroyed most of the original project records in 1973.

Note: According to Gottlieb's testimony, the CIA covertly dosed an unwitting individual with a massive amount of LSD to deliberately induce psychosis, causing him to experience violent paranoia and leading an unsuspecting psychiatrist to declare him mentally ill. This was done explicitly to discredit the man in the eyes of his colleagues–a tactic deemed as operationally useful for destroying a person's credibility without ever touching them. Learn more about the MKUltra Program in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.

Local cops have gotten tens of millions of dollars' worth of discounted military gear under a secretive federal program that is poised to grow under recent executive action. The 1122 program ... presents a danger to people facing off against militarized cops, according to Women for Weapons Trade Transparency. "All of these things combined serve as a threat to free speech, an intimidation tactic to protest," said Lillian Mauldin, the co-founder of the nonprofit group, which produced the report released this week. The federal government's 1033 program ... has long sent surplus gear like mine-resistant vehicles and bayonets to local police. Since 1994, however, the even more obscure 1122 program has allowed local cops to purchase everything from uniforms to riot shields at federal government rates. The program turns the feds into purchasing agents for local police. Local cops have used the program to pick up 16 Lenco BearCats, fearsome-looking armored police vehicles. Those vehicles represented 4.8 percent of the total spending identified in the ... report. Surveillance gear and software represented another 6.4 percent, and weapons or riot gear represented 5 percent. One agency bought a $428,000 Star Safire thermal imaging system, the kind used in military helicopters. The Texas Department of Public Safety's intelligence and counterterrorism unit purchased a $1.5 million surveillance software license. Another agency bought an $89,000 covert camera system.

Note: Read more about the Pentagon's 1033 program. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and the erosion of civil liberties.

In Finland, kindergartens are exposing children to more mud, wild plants and moss - and finding changes to their health that show how crucial biodiversity is to wellbeing. At Humpula daycare centre in Lahti, north of Helsinki, children are encouraged to get muddy. Across Finland, 43 daycare centres have been awarded a total of â‚Ź1m (Ł830,000) to rewild yards and to increase children's exposure to the microscopic biodiversity – such as bacteria and fungi – that lives in nature. We already know that access to the outdoors is important for children and their development. But this study goes one step further. It is part of a growing body of research linking two layers of biodiversity. There is the outer layer – the more familiar vision of biodiversity, made up of soil, water, plants, animals and microbial life, that lives in the forest, playground (or any other environment). And then there is the inner layer: the biodiversity that lives within and upon the human body, including the gut, skin and airways. Increasingly, scientists are learning that our health is intimately linked to our surroundings, and to the ecological health of the world around us. The plants, dead wood and soil in the daycare centre have all been specially selected for their rich micro-biodiversity. They have also dug up and imported a giant live carpet of forest floor, 20-40cm deep and 10 metres square. It has blueberries, lingonberries and moss growing on it, to encourage the children to forage, find bugs and learn about nature.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in on reimigining education.

There are two people on the Zoom screen in front of me. One, a Palestinian man in the ancient city of Jericho in the West Bank. The other, an Israeli woman in Tel Aviv. They're separated, literally and metaphorically, by a wall. And they're united in loss: specifically, the loss of a child. Something else unites them: a determination to build bridges of shared understanding at a time when the gulf between their peoples seems deeper than ever. They're both part of the Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF), membership of which has the grimmest of qualifications: that your child has been killed in the conflict. Their backgrounds could not be more different, and yet, partly because of their loss, they've arrived in the same place. The fighting has to end, and bereaved parents are better placed than most to achieve that. "Before you start to talk [in those meetings]," says [parent Bassam] Aramin, "you can see in their eyes the fear – even hatred – for this Arab, this ‘terrorist'. And after you finish your human story, suddenly there is no fear. Suddenly there is empathy. Some of them cry. Some of them want to shake your hand. This is, as Robi always calls it, our ‘emotional breakthrough'." ‘Robi' is Robi Damelin, now director of international relations for the PCFF. Born and raised in a comfortable home in South Africa, she followed in a family tradition – her uncle had helped defend Mandela in his first treason trial – by speaking out against apartheid.

Note: War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.

Compared to other developed nations, the United States is an extreme outlier in the severity of its criminal legal system. Police in the United States kill civilians at between five and forty times the rate of similarly rich countries, for instance, and the United States imprisons people at about seven times the rate of economically comparable countries. The brunt of this aggressive penal regime is borne of course by poor Americans, particularly poor black Americans. Recently, all of the states in the US have begun to impose fees and charges and costs on offenders and their families: people now have to pay for staying in prison as if they're guests in a hotel. Or if they're on probation instead of being sent to jail, they have to pay for the probation supervision, or they have to pay for a urine test. In one police department in Missouri, offenders who have been tasered have to pay $25 toward the cost of using the taser. In this country, particularly in the neoliberal era, the local state simply doesn't have the capacity or resources to invest in communities and provide housing, schools, jobs, income support, health care services, and so on. What it does have is police and jails, and states have prisons. The politics of the day ... mean that it's always going to be much more likely that the police and the punishment are the first resort, rather than long-term investments in communities, work, families, income support, and jobs.

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

While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth obsesses over the supposed "softening" and "weakening" of American troops, the Pentagon is concealing the scale of a real threat to the lives of his military's active-duty members: a suicide crisis killing hundreds of members of the U.S. Air Force. Data The Intercept obtained via the Freedom of Information Act shows that of the 2,278 active-duty Air Force deaths between 2010 and 2023, 926 – about 41 percent – were suicides, overdoses, or preventable deaths from high-risk behavior in a decade when combat deaths were minimal. This is the first published detailed breakdown of Air Force suicide data. In 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act mandated the Defense Department to report suicides by year, career field, and duty status, but neither the department nor the Air Force complied. Congress has done little to enforce thorough reporting. From 2010 to 2023, active-duty maintainers had a suicide rate of 27.4 per 100,000 personnel, nearly twice the 14.2 per 100,000 among U.S. civilians – a 1.93 times higher risk. FOIA records show the most common methods were self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head and hanging. Other methods included sodium nitrite ingestion, helium inhalation, and carbon monoxide poisoning. [The dataset] shows a troubling pattern of preventable deaths that leaders at the senior officer level or above minimized or ignored, often claiming that releasing detailed suicide information would pose a risk to national security. Current and former service members described a fear of bullying, hazing, and professional retaliation for seeking mental health treatment.

Note: Read about the tragic traumas and suicides connected to military drone operators. A recent Pentagon study concluded that US soldiers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than they are in combat. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on mental health and military corruption.

President Trump is rattling his saber against Colombian President Gustavo Petro to punish him for accusing the U.S. government of murdering Venezuelan fishermen. Trump warned that Petro that he "better close up" cocaine production "or the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely." Is anyone in the Trump White House aware of the long history of U.S. failure in that part of the world? Colombia remains the world's largest cocaine producer despite billions of dollars of U.S. government anti-drug aid to the Colombian government. The Clinton administration made Colombia its top target in its international war on drugs. Clinton drug warriors deluged the Colombian government with U.S. tax dollars to deluge Colombia with toxic spray. The New York Times reported that U.S.-financed planes repeatedly sprayed pesticides onto schoolchildren, making many of them ill. At the same time that the Clinton administration was sacrificing the health of Colombian children in its quixotic anti-drug crusade ... Laurie Hiett, the wife of Colonel James Hiett, the top U.S. military commander in Colombia, exploited U.S. embassy diplomatic pouches to ship 15 pounds of heroin and cocaine to New York. She pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in narcotic profits. After she was caught and convicted, she received far more lenient treatment than most drug offenders – only five years in prison. Her husband – ridiculed as the "Coke Colonel" in the New York Post – received only six months in prison for laundering drug proceeds and concealing his wife's crimes.

Note: Aerial spraying of pesticides is labeled as a public-health and anti-drug intervention designed to eradicate coca crops. The War on Drugs has been called a trillion dollar failure that targets everyday people while protecting the covert activities of the rich and powerful. See our in-depth investigation into the dark truths behind the War on Drugs.

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.