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.
According to a startling Pentagon video obtained by The Intercept, the future of global cities will be an amalgam of … urban hellscapes – brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers. At least that's the scenario outlined in "Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity," a five-minute video that has been used at the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations University. All that stands between the coming chaos and the good people of Lagos and Dhaka (or maybe even New York City) is the U.S. Army, according to the video, which The Intercept obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. "Megacities are complex systems where people and structures are compressed together in ways that defy both our understanding of city planning and military doctrine," says a disembodied voice. "These are the future breeding grounds, incubators, and launching pads for adversaries and hybrid threats." A separate Army study published this year bemoans the fact that the "U.S. Army is incapable of operating within the megacity." These fears are reflected in the hyperbolic "Megacities" video. "Even our counterinsurgency doctrine, honed in the cities of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, is inadequate to address the sheer scale of population in the future urban reality," the film notes.
Note: The Pentagon video is available at the link above. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
As Hurricane Matthew churned toward Haiti at full force last week, France Francois knew she was powerless to stop the impending natural disaster. But with time running out, the 30-year-old Haitian American thought she might be able to help the island nation avoid the man-made disaster that she expected to follow. Before the storm struck, Francois, a former development worker in Haiti, turned to Facebook and composed a list explaining how people could help the hurricane-ravaged country. Her first instruction: "Don't give to the American Red Cross." Instead, she wrote, people should send money to "Haitian-led" organizations and "not your missionaries and useless college kids." Her post has been shared thousands of times — in part, she believes, because it tapped into a growing consensus among Haitians and Haitian Americans that the American Red Cross can no longer be trusted to effectively manage humanitarian efforts in the Caribbean nation. Those feelings have been bolstered by a widely circulated investigation by NPR and ProPublica, which found that the Red Cross grossly mismanaged its response to Haiti's 2010 earthquake. Speaking to reporters Friday, President Obama told Americans to help Haitians by going "to the American Red Cross," reiterating a standard relief message that exasperates many in the global Haitian community. But it appears that trust in the organization may be eroding.
Note: For lots more on corruption in the Red Cross, see this series of NPR articles. NPR shows that the Red Cross spent 1/4 of all donations to help Haiti on "internal expenses." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Justice Department is moving forward with plans to collect data on how often law enforcement officers use force and how often civilians die during encounters with police or while in police custody. Demands for more complete data surfaced in particular in the last two years amid a series of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of police officers, with the federal government unable to say reliably how often fatal encounters occurred across the country. The FBI plans to begin a pilot program early next year that would gather more complete use-of-force data, including information on cases that don’t result in death. The earliest participants would be the largest law enforcement agencies, as well as major federal agencies such as the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The program would then be expanded to include additional agencies across the country, which would be expected to regularly disclose whether a use-of-force instance resulted in death, injury or a firearm discharge at or in the direction of a person. Though there’s no legal requirement for law enforcement agencies to provide information on police force that doesn’t result in death - the 2014 Death in Custody Reporting Act covered only interactions in which individuals died - the Justice Department said it’s requesting local agencies to disclose details on even nondeadly encounters. Reporting of nondeadly encounters would remain voluntary.
Note: This article was strangely removed from the Washington Post website, but it remains available from the Associated Press. The Guardian has counted nearly 900 killings by US police so far in 2016. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
A new study questions the value of mammograms for breast cancer screening. It concludes that a woman is more likely to be diagnosed with a small tumor that is not destined to grow than she is to have a true problem spotted early. The work could further shift the balance of whether screening’s harms outweigh its benefits. Screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers that would kill, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they ever cause symptoms. Treatment has improved so much over the years that detecting cancer early has become less important. Mammograms do catch some deadly cancers and save lives. But they also find many early cancers that are not destined to grow or spread and become a health threat. There is no good way to tell which ones will, so many women get treatments they don’t really need. It’s a twin problem: overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Women were considerably more likely to have tumors that were overdiagnosed than to have earlier detection of a tumor that was destined to become large,” the authors write. Dr. Joann Elmore of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, writes in a commentary in the journal that it’s time to pay more attention to the “collateral damage” of screening - overdiagnosis. “The mantras, ‘All cancers are life-threatening’ and ‘When in doubt, cut it out,’ require revision,” she wrote.
Note: A previous study by The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, federal advisory panel, found that annual mammograms greatly increase false-positive cancer diagnoses, leading to unnecessary treatment. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.
As the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and neighboring Arab states intensified, I was in an underground missile launch center in Montana with a crewmate when we received an emergency message to prepare for nuclear war with the Soviet Union. We trusted the president to defuse the crisis and avert a nuclear war. Dwight D. Eisenhower recoiled at the concept of nuclear overkill, where far more people are killed than necessary to defeat an enemy. Richard M. Nixon (president during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war) ... worried about the way war plans “lightly tossed about millions of deaths.” Ronald Reagan, for all his thunder about the Soviet Union being “an evil empire” and joking that “we begin bombing in five minutes,” was privately averse to nuclear weapons. Donald J. Trump is of a radically different ilk and temperament from past presidents. In 1973, as it turned out, President Nixon was not in charge when the order came down to prepare for nuclear conflict. Under stress from the Watergate scandal, he had retired for the evening, drunk. His unelected advisers, led by the national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, ran the show that night. Our trust in the president was misplaced. He was not even awake when my crewmate and I saddled up for nuclear war. The president had lost personal control of the situation. But upon reflection, it would have been far scarier if a cocksure Mr. Trump, consulting no one but himself, had been there calling the shots.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and war.
On any given day in the United States, at least 137,000 people sit behind bars on simple drug-possession charges, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. Nearly two-thirds of them are in local jails. The report says that most of these jailed inmates have not been convicted of any crime: They're sitting in a cell, awaiting a day in court, an appearance that may be months or even years off, because they can't afford to post bail. "It's been 45 years since the war on drugs was declared, and it hasn't been a success," lead author Tess Borden of Human Rights Watch said in an interview. "Rates of drug use are not down. Drug dependency has not stopped. Every 25 seconds, we're arresting someone for drug use." Federal figures on drug arrests and drug use over the past three decades tell the story. Drug-possession arrests skyrocketed, from fewer than 200 arrests for every 100,000 people in 1979 to more than 500 in the mid-2000s. The drug-possession rate has since fallen slightly ... hovering near 400 arrests per 100,000 people. Police make more arrests for marijuana possession alone than for all violent crimes combined. The report finds that the laws are enforced unequally, too. Over their lifetimes, black and white Americans use illicit drugs at similar rates. But black adults were more than 2˝ times as likely to be arrested for drug possession. The report calls for decriminalizing the personal use and possession of drugs, treating it as a public-health matter.
Note: This latest report adds to the evidence that the war on drugs is a trillion dollar failure. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the prison system.
Federal investigators believe Russian hackers were behind cyberattacks on a contractor for Florida's election system that may have exposed the personal data of Florida voters. The [cyberattack] comes on the heels of hacks in Illinois, in which personal data of tens of thousands of voters may have been stolen, and one in Arizona, in which investigators now believe the data of voters was likely exposed. Several states have reported attempted scans of their computer systems, which often is a precursor to a breach. The vendor hack in Florida prompted the FBI last week to coordinate an emergency call with county election supervisors who operate the election system in the perennial battleground state. FBI investigators believe the the hacks and attempted intrusions of state election sites were carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence. The cyberattacks on election registration sites are focused on parts of the US election system that wouldn't affect the votes cast or the vote counts, according to US officials. Instead, the intruders are targeting registration systems. In a statement last Friday, the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department formally [blamed] Russia for hacking political organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, and orchestrating the release of private emails in an attempt to meddle in the US elections.
Note: Common sense alone would tell us that there are hackers capable of manipulating elections results, especially since many of the voting machines are privately owned. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
A secret FBI study found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to “radicalization,” concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts. The study ... surveyed intelligence analysts and FBI special agents across the United States who were responsible for nearly 200 cases ... involving “homegrown violent extremists.” The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals “frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations,” [and] notes that between 2009 and 2012, 10 out of 16 attempted or successful terrorist attacks in the United States targeted military facilities or personnel. The report ... is dated December 20, 2012. The survey seems designed to look only at Muslim violent extremism. Perpetrators of more recent attacks have latched onto U.S. foreign policy to justify violence. In many of these cases, pundits and politicians focus on the role of religion, something Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer and author of “Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century,” describes as a “red herring,” citing a history of shifting ideologies used to justify terrorist acts. “Politicians try very hard not to talk about foreign policy or military action being a major contributor to homegrown terrorism,” Sageman says.
Note: Read a well-researched essay describing how the war on terror is based on fraud. If terrorism is such a grave threat in the US, why does the FBI have to manufacture "terrorist" plots and then exaggerate its anti-terrorism success?
An alleged accomplice in the Sept. 11 terror attacks is to undergo surgery this week for decade-old damage from his “sodomy” in CIA custody, his attorney says. Defense attorney Walter Ruiz, a Navy Reserve officer, disclosed the upcoming surgery for his client, Mustafa al Hawsawi, 48, on the eve of pretrial hearings Tuesday in the case that accuses the Saudi Arabian Hawsawi and four other men of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Ruiz said a case prosecutor informed him of the procedure over the weekend. Defense lawyers have been litigating over conditions at the remote prison and, in the case of their client, have specifically sought medical intervention to treat a rectal prolapse that has caused Hawsawi to bleed for more than a decade. The disclosure comes days after The New York Times published a detailed account of former CIA and Guantánamo captives grappling with the aftereffects of torture. Hawsawi was denied a request to have a member of his legal team on standby near the surgery. He has sat gingerly on a pillow at the war court since his first appearance in 2008. But the reason was not publicly known until release of a portion of the so-called Senate Torture Report on the CIA program ... which described agents using quasi-medical techniques called “rectal rehydration” and “rectal re-feeding.” Former CIA captives like Hawsawi are segregated in a clandestine lockup called Camp 7 that has been described ... as having its own medical facility, the capabilities of which are not known.
Note: For more along these lines, see the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture". For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the intelligence community.
Bee colonies have been dying off in high numbers, with suspicion falling on agricultural pesticides like herbicides and fungicides, as main factors behind the declines. Now, a new study out of the University of Maryland is the first to look at how a “cocktail” of all of various pesticides could be impacting bee colonies over time. “Our results fly in the face of one of the basic tenets of toxicology: that the dose makes the poison,” study senior author Dennis van Engelsdorp, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, said. “We found that the number of different compounds was highly predictive of colony death, which suggests that the addition of more compounds somehow overwhelms the bees’ ability to detoxify themselves.” The study looked at 91 honey bee colonies that were owned by three migratory commercial beekeepers over one farming season. The research team examined 93 pesticide compounds that were found in the colonies throughout the season. These compounds were found building up in the bees’ wax in processed pollen, [as well as] in the bodies of nurse bees. The researchers ... measured three key things: the total number of pesticides, the total number of pesticides that were above a minimum level of toxicity, and each colony’s “hazard quotient,” which factors in the hazard posed by the total toxicity of all pesticides present in the colony. What did the researchers find? Unfortunately, all three measures corresponded with a higher probability of colony death or the loss of the queen bee.
Note: This study was published in Nature Scientific Reports, and found that some compounds regarded as "bee-safe" could be a major contributors to honey bee colony losses. Prior to this, neonicotinoid pesticides were found to be connected to colony collapse disorder. Bayer, a major manufacturer of this pesticide, attempted to cover up the connection between its products and the massive die off of bees.
James Patterson, that human fiction factory, has churned out another book, only this time it’s a real-life whodunit. Or perhaps, [this book] is more of a “why-did-he-get-off-so-lightly?” Jeffrey Epstein ... is, indeed, filthy rich. One supposition on how he got so, based on unnamed sources in "Filthy Rich," is that he crafted tax-avoidance schemes for filthy rich clients. Epstein hung out with a diverse cast of characters, among them Prince Andrew, Stephen Hawking and bra-billionaire Les Wexner. He also spent time with impecunious teenage girls who were engaged to “massage” him. Mary (not her real name) ... was 14 when she was invited into Epstein’s lair. The testimony of Epstein’s “masseuses” to police meanders from soft porn to more graphic fare and goes on page after page. Most of the women who told their stories to the police never got to testify in the half-hearted (at best) prosecution of Epstein, including “Alison, who claimed that she had been raped.” Backed by a “dream team” of lawyers - among them Alan Dershowitz (who defended O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bülow) and Ken Starr (whose investigation of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment) - Epstein pleaded guilty to state felony offenses for solicitation of prostitution and the procurement of minors for prostitution. By doing so Epstein avoided the possibility of facing much more serious charges. Epstein received an 18-month sentence, but served barely a year.
Note: Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A Facebook post written by a white police officer who had recently pulled over a black man for texting while driving has gone viral. Garden City Lieutenant Tim McMillan writes he pulled over the man and, when he approached his vehicle, the man was visibly shaken and seemed terrified. The man asked McMillan what he wanted him to do. McMillan told the man he just didn’t want him to get hurt. The man asked if McMillan wanted him to exit the vehicle, and McMillan told him no and he didn’t want him to text and drive. He continued, saying he wanted his mother to “always have her baby boy.” McMillan also writes in the post he doesn’t care who is at fault for young black men being afraid of police officers but he wishes somebody would fix it. The post has over 1,500 likes and has been shared over 1,000 times. Many people have sounded off around the world, including Girlie Waaka in New Zealand, who commented “I live in New Zealand and your heart warming story has given me a little more faith in humanity. We only hear all of the bad things that are going on in the world, I wish there were more people like you out there Lt. Tim McMillan, you are truly a hero ... God Bless you & your family.”
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
In 2005, the world was introduced to reclusive billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, friend to princes and an American president. He was also a pedophile, accused of recruiting dozens of underage girls into a sex-slave network, buying their silence and moving along, although he has been convicted of only one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Visitors to his private Caribbean island, known as “Orgy Island,” have included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Stephen Hawking. Flight logs show that from 2001 to 2003, Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed “The Lolita Express” by the press, 26 times. After Epstein’s arrest in July 2006, federal tax records show Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation that year. Epstein was also a regular visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and the two were friends. In 2003, New York magazine reported that Trump also attended a dinner party at Epstein’s honoring Bill Clinton. In a 2006 court filing, Palm Beach police noted that a search of Epstein’s home uncovered two hidden cameras. The Mirror reported that in 2015, a 6-year-old civil lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe No. 3” ... alleged that Epstein wired his mansion with hidden cameras, secretly recording orgies involving his prominent friends and underage girls. The ultimate purpose: blackmail, according to court papers. “Jane Doe No. 3” also alleged that she had been forced to have sex with “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”
Note: Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A research report commissioned by Health Canada finds consumers have "strong feelings" about being able to identify genetically modified products when they're shopping, and 78 per cent are calling for clear labelling on packages. "There was a prevailing belief among participants that there should be greater transparency to consumers and, once raised, many questioned why government in particular should be resistant to providing consumers with more information that would help them make more informed decisions," read the findings from The Strategic Counsel. Given the choice, 62 per cent would buy a non-GM food over a GM product out of fears of health hazards or impacts on the environment. According to Health Canada's website, all GM foods are "rigorously assessed" for safety. But labelling is now voluntary. Negative views revealed in the research highlight a "difficult challenge" for Health Canada ahead. Anti-GM advocates have successfully filled the "information void," the report reads. In May, Health Canada provoked controversy when it approved the first genetically modified food animal for sale after "rigorous" scientific reviews. A high number of participants opposed GM food in any form, the report said. Only 26 per cent of respondents indicated they would be comfortable eating foods that have been genetically modified, and just 22 per cent support the development and sale of GM foods in Canada.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMO controversies and food system corruption.
Hillary Clinton took nearly every precaution to ensure voters would never know what she told investment bankers, lobbyists and corporate executives in dozens of closed-door paid speeches before running for president. Turns out, the Democratic presidential nominee had good reason to do so. She is ... happy to cut backroom deals with corporate interests and curry favor with Wall Street for campaign dollars. The WikiLeaks organization on Friday posted ... emails obtained in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s personal email account. Among the documents posted online was an internal review of the speeches conducted by campaign aides to survey the political damage her remarks could cause if they ever became public. In what aides calculated were the most damaging passages, she reflects on the necessity of “unsavory” political dealing. To investment bankers from Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, Clinton admits that she’s “kind of far removed” from the middle-class upbringing that she frequently touts on the campaign trail. And in speeches to some of the country’s biggest banks, she highlighted her long ties to Wall Street ... saying that she views the financial industry as a partner in government regulation. In an effort to keep those speeches private, strongly worded contracts prohibited unauthorized recordings, reporters were banned and, in some cases, blog posts about her remarks pulled off websites.
Note: BBC has an article listing 11 intriguing revelations from the recent Wikileaks release. The emails also showed discussion of the Clinton campaign's interest in "elevating" Trump and other 'extreme' Republican candidates to make the party's eventual nominee 'unpalatable'. In 2013 alone, Clinton received $2.3 million for delivering these speeches. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the financial industry.
More than a decade of research has been investigating how different types of purchases affect our well-being, and it can help us turn spending into a happiness practice in its own right. The key, it seems, is to spend money in ways that bring you closer to other people. In 2003, researchers found that buying experiences - like seeing a Broadway play or going for coffee with a friend - improves our well-being more than buying possessions. Not all experiences are created equal, though. In a 2013 study, when researchers separated out experiential purchases into social ones and solitary ones - going out to dinner with friends or alone, for example - participants reported that the solitary experiences brought just as little happiness as the material things. If you want to bond with other people, you could buy experiences to have with them - or you could spend money on them directly. In a 2008 study, researchers gave each participant up to $20 to spend on themselves or on others that same day, then called after 5 p.m. to see how they were feeling. In the end, contrary to expectations, participants reported being happier after treating others rather than treating themselves. In the end, though, the best way to cultivate happiness through spending may be not to focus on spending so much in the first place. It’s certainly misguided to stake all our hopes of happiness on our purchases.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The scale of sexual harassment and gender violence by UK university staff has been likened to the scandals involving the Catholic church and Jimmy Savile in accounts shared by more than 100 women with the Guardian. Their stories – including those of verbal bullying, serial harassment, assault, sexual assault and rape – expose an alarming pattern of abuse and harassment in British universities which remains largely hidden. Many women said they had not pursued complaints for fear of jeopardising their academic careers. Those who did complain said they felt isolated and unprotected, while the more powerful men they accused appeared to be untouchable. The women’s accounts follow an exclusive Guardian report on the use of non-disclosure agreements in university sexual harassment cases. Jennifer Saul, professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield and an expert on sexual harassment in higher education, said she was not surprised by the ... stories: “There’s a systemic problem. Too often, victims are afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation. “When they do come forward, often they are brushed off or not believed. When they are believed, their allegations are still often dismissed as unprovable. Even when things are taken more seriously, harassers are generally allowed to leave quietly, which enables them to move some place else and do the same thing.” Many of the women who made complaints ... felt they were the ones on trial.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The poster child of the American torture program sits in a Guantanamo Bay prison cell, where many U.S. officials hope he will simply be forgotten. Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, known to the world as Abu Zubaydah ... was the “guinea pig” of the CIA torture program. He was the first prisoner sent to a secret CIA “black site,” the first to have his interrogation “enhanced ” and the only prisoner subjected to all of the CIA’s approved techniques, as well as many that were not authorized. He is the man for whom the George W. Bush administration wrote the infamous torture memo in the summer of 2002. Senior officials thought he had been personally involved in every major al-Qaeda operation, including 9/11. Today, the United States acknowledges that assessment was, to put it graciously, overblown. His extended torture provided no actionable intelligence about al-Qaeda’s plans. He has never been charged with a violation of U.S. law, military or civilian, and apparently never will be formally charged. Instead, he languishes at Guantanamo. After years in secret prisons around the world, he remains incommunicado, with no prospect of trial. Who is Zubaydah, really? Public understanding about Zubaydah remains remarkably controlled and superficial. In connection with Zubaydah’s stalled case seeking federal court review of his detention, the government has recently agreed to clear for public release a few of the letters he has written to us. These brief letters [are] published here for the first time.
Note: The use of humans as guinea pigs in government, military, and medical experiments has a long history. For more along these lines, see the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture". For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the intelligence community.
On May 31, the city of Chicago agreed to settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought by two police officers who allege they suffered retaliation for reporting and investigating criminal activity by fellow officers. The settlement, for $2 million, was announced moments before the trial was to begin. As the trial date approached, city lawyers had made a motion to exclude the words “code of silence” from the proceedings. Not only was the motion denied, but the judge ruled that Mayor Rahm Emanuel could be called to testify about what he meant when he used the term in a speech. The prevailing narrative in the press was that the city settled in order to avoid the possibility that Mayor Emanuel would be compelled to testify. But the mayor’s testimony, had it come to pass, would have been unlikely to provide much illumination. By contrast, that of the plaintiffs, Shannon Spalding and Danny Echeverria, promised to ... show extraordinarily serious retaliatory misconduct by officers at nearly all levels of the CPD hierarchy. Spalding ... and her partner, Danny Echeverria, spent over five years working undercover on a joint FBI-CPD internal affairs investigation that uncovered a massive criminal enterprise within the department. A gang tactical team led by a sergeant named Ronald Watts operated a protection racket in public housing developments on Chicago’s South Side. In exchange for “a tax,” Watts and his team shielded drug dealers from interference by law enforcement and targeted their competition. They were major players in the drug trade.
Note: Read the second article in this series titled "Corrupt Chicago Police Were Taxing Drug Dealers and Targeting Their Rivals." Read also how this criminal gang of police routinely framed people for crimes. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Using the playbook of Mylan, Turing and, well, their own company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals has hiked the price of yet another life-saving treatment to astronomical values. This time, it’s calcium EDTA, a lead poisoning treatment that cost US hospitals and poison control centers about $500 for a packet of six ampules (6 grams) before 2012, when Valeant acquired the drug. Poison control experts now say that US centers pay about $5000 per gram for the drug, compared to $15 per gram for Canadians. In a 6-year period ... Valeant increased the US price of the drug by as much as 7200%. Two physicians - Michael Kosnett from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Timur Durrani at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) - expressed their concerns about these price hikes in a letter to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. According to Kosnett and Durrani, the average price per milliliter for the drug went from $18.57 in 2008 to $1346.37 in 2014. U.S. hospitals have no other source for calcium EDTA. Most of those who develop acute lead poisoning are children. The effects of lead poisoning are lasting and profound. Calcium EDTA is on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines, which lists medications that are most critical for a healthcare system to have on hand.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing Big Pharma corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
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.