News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
The actual number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. reached nearly 53 million at the end of September and could be approaching 100 million now, according to a model developed by government researchers. The model, created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculated that the true number of infections is about eight times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test. Preliminary estimates using the model found that by the end of September, 52.9 million people had been infected, while the number of laboratory-confirmed infections was just 6.9 million, the team reported in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. "This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk," the authors wrote. Since then, the CDC's tally of confirmed infections has increased to 12.5 million. So if the model's ratio still holds, the estimated total would now be greater than 95 million, leaving about 71% of the population uninfected. The model attempts to account for the fact that most cases of COVID-19 are mild or asymptomatic and go unreported. Scientists used studies looking for people who have antibodies to the coronavirus in their blood – an indication that they were infected at some time – to estimate how many infections went undetected. Some of these antibody studies have suggested that only about one in 10 coronavirus infections is reported.
Note: If this is true, it means the number of deaths compared to number of cases is much lower than has been estimated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The world’s wealthiest individuals have become even richer during the coronavirus pandemic as the prices of financial assets have been supported by widespread policy intervention while employment and wages, well, not so much. The Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank in Washington, chronicles just how bifurcated the road the recovery from an economy slump is likely to be. At the upper end of the spectrum, the combined wealth of all U.S. billionaires increased by $821 billion or 28% between March 18, 2020 and September 10, 2020, from approximately $2.947 trillion to $3.768 trillion. That means they own the equivalent of nearly 20% of U.S. gross domestic product. The richest five billionaires, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk, saw a 59% increase in their total wealth, from $358 billion to $569 billion. One University of Chicago study found that, between the start of February and the end of June, the lowest-income group had the highest job loss rate while the highest-income workers had the [lowest] rate of lob losses. Black and Hispanic workers were also much more likely to become unemployed during the pandemic than Whites despite their predominant role in work deemed ... essential. As the pandemic forced many industries into remote work, millions of Black and Hispanic workers have been left out. “Only 19.7% of Black and 16.2% of Latinx people work in jobs where they are able to telework, compared to 29.9% of White and 37.0% of Asian workers,” the report said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
When the Federal Reserve needed Wall Street's help with its pandemic rescue mission, it went straight to Larry Fink. The BlackRock cofounder, chairman, and chief executive officer has become one of the industry's most important government whisperers. The company's new assignment is a much bigger version of one it took on after the 2008 financial crisis, when the Federal Reserve enlisted it to dispose of toxic mortgage securities. This time it will help the Fed prop up the entire corporate bond market by purchasing, on the central bank's behalf, what could become a $750 billion portfolio of debt. One part of the Fed's plan is to buy bond exchange-traded funds. BlackRock itself runs ETFs under the iShares brand, and could end up buying funds it manages. "BlackRock is acting as a fiduciary to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York," says a spokesman for the company. "As such, BlackRock will execute this mandate at the sole discretion of the bank." The arrangement is bringing new attention to the company's scale and ubiquity. "It's impossible to think of BlackRock without thinking of them as a fourth branch of government," says William Birdthistle, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. BlackRock's growth raises questions over how big and useful a company can become before its size poses a risk. And then there are the potential conflicts. One arm of BlackRock knows what the Fed is buying, while other parts of the business participating in credit markets could benefit from that knowledge.
Note: Watch an excellent documentary showing how BlackRock, Vanguard, and several other institutions are the largest shareholders in almost every major corporation you can think of. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the financial industry from reliable major media sources.
YouTube has removed two videos of California doctors ... Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi of Bakersfield, California [which] downplayed the risk of the coronavirus and asserted that stay-at-home measures were unnecessary. Facebook, however, has not removed the doctors' videos. The different reactions of YouTube and Facebook highlight the challenges of moderating high-stakes misinformation as it goes viral, especially when it is considered to be expert opinion. The video removed by YouTube showed a one-hour news conference livestreamed by local media, including NBC and ABC affiliates in Bakersfield. By Wednesday, the video had been seen at least 15 million times. Erickson and Massihi, owners of several urgent care centers in the area, presented data from 5,213 COVID-19 tests. The data, they claimed, showed that the coronavirus was widespread in the community already but had caused few deaths. Their data, they said, supported the need to rethink state stay-at-home measures. Furthermore, Erickson ... claimed that COVID-19 death numbers were inaccurate, citing other unnamed doctors in Wisconsin and California who he said had told him that they were urged to list the disease as a cause of death even if it was unrelated. "The only justification for taking it down was that the two physicians on screen had reached different conclusions from the people currently in charge," said Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Massihi posted a video to his personal Facebook page Tuesday thanking supporters while insisting that their comments were meant only to share their own data, not to drive national or even state policy.
Note: Watch an excellent follow-up interview with Dr. Erickson exposing further deception. Even if these doctors are wrong about some of their conclusions, don't they have a right to express their opinions? Will anyone who disputes the claims of government officials be banned from expressing their opinions on social media? Sadly, this BBC article shows that is already true for the coronavirus on YouTube. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Warring gangs in South Africa are working together in an unprecedented truce to deliver much-needed food to people under lockdown. The country has seen a 75% decrease in violent crime since it imposed strict restrictions over the coronavirus pandemic, and normally dangerous streets in Cape Town now see sworn enemies meeting up to collect essential goods to distribute throughout hungry communities. "What we're seeing happen here is literally a miracle," Pastor Andie Steele-Smith said. Steel-Smith works with gang members in his community, many of whom are convicted killers. "They are the best distributors in the country," he said. "They are used to distributing other white powders, but still they are distributing things and then, they know everybody." Preston Jacobs, a member of the "Americans" gang, told CBS News' Debora Patta it "feels nice" to take on a new role and communicate with those in need. "Now I see there are nice people also, and people want to love what we're doing now," Jacobs said. Sansi Hassan of the "Clever Kids" gang expressed hope that this current ceasefire in gang violence could be permanent in the post-lockdown future. "If it can stay like this, then there will be no gang fight," he said. "And every gang will agree with us." Pastor Steel-Smith remains optimistic for his community. "I am proud of you guys," he said to two gang members working to distribute essential goods. "If I died today and went to heaven, I would die a happy man."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The latest threat to global health is the ongoing outbreak of the respiratory disease that was recently given the name Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19). The Covid-19 outbreak has posed critical challenges for the public health, research, and medical communities. In their Journal article, Li and colleagues provide a detailed clinical and epidemiologic description of the first 425 cases reported in the epicenter of the outbreak: the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, China. A degree of clarity is emerging from this report. The median age of the patients was 59 years, with higher morbidity and mortality among the elderly and among those with coexisting conditions (similar to the situation with influenza). Of note, there were no cases in children younger than 15 years of age. Li et al. report a mean interval of 9.1 to 12.5 days between the onset of illness and hospitalization. On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.
Note: The main author of this article, Anthony S. Fauci, is the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Consider the research of 12 other experts questioning the coronavirus panic. Explore also this excellent article which covers key, vitally important aspects of this pandemic that few have considered. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
If you don't want to know how easy it is for a canny individual - or a malicious state actor - to hack into the electronic voting technology used in the U.S., don't watch Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections. In this unnervingly persuasive HBO documentary, directors Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Sarah Teale marshal cyber-security experts, statisticians and lawmakers to expose cracks in the system that could easily allow hackers to affect voting results. The filmmakers' sources also include actual hackers, among them an individual who breached Alaska's voting system in 2016 just to see if he could. One of the central figures of Kill Chain is election-security expert Harri Hursti, who explains, with clarity, just how vulnerable American voting systems are. Although voting machines are supposed to be kept in secure facilities, Hursti found a widely used model for sale - on eBay. The vendor had hundreds of them. Hursti bought a few, using them to explain how easily their workings could be examined and breached. He also brought a selection of voting machines to Def Con, a three-day conference for hackers, and invited attendees to go at them; one expert quickly figured out how to shut down a machine remotely from a laptop. The U.S. voting system is, as several interviewees in Kill Chain put it, a bipartisan concern; still, as the documentary notes, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has blocked votes on the Secure Elections Act and four similar bipartisan bills.
Note: Hackers can easily breach electronic voting machines. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption from reliable major media sources.
As China encourages people to return to work despite the coronavirus outbreak, it has begun a bold mass experiment in using data to regulate citizens’ lives — by requiring them to use software on their smartphones that dictates whether they should be quarantined or allowed into subways, malls and other public spaces. The system does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk. It also appears to share information with the police, setting a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides. The Alipay Health Code, as China’s official news media has called the system, was first introduced in the eastern city of Hangzhou ... with the help of Ant Financial, a sister company of the e-commerce giant Alibaba. People in China sign up through Ant’s popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code — green, yellow or red — that indicates their health status. The system is already in use in 200 cities and is being rolled out nationwide, Ant says. As soon as a user grants the software access to personal data, a piece of the program labeled “reportInfoAndLocationToPolice” sends the person’s location, city name and an identifying code number to a server. The software does not make clear to users its connection to the police. In the United States, it would be akin to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using apps from Amazon and Facebook to track the coronavirus, then quietly sharing user information with the local sheriff’s office.
Note: Learn in this revealing article how China is blacklisting certain citizens using this system and "banning them from any number of activities, including accessing financial markets or travelling by air or train, as the use of the government’s social credit system accelerates." Learn more about the serious risk of the Coronavirus increasing the surveillance state in this excellent article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Each year, state lawmakers across the U.S. introduce thousands of bills dreamed up and written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks. Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them. A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation. USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law. In a separate analysis, the Center for Public Integrity identified tens of thousands of bills with identical phrases, then traced the origins of that language. Model bills passed into law have ... limited access to abortion and restricted the rights of protesters. In all, these copycat bills amount to the nation’s largest, unreported special-interest campaign, driving agendas in every statehouse and touching nearly every area of public policy. USA TODAY found more than 4,000 bills benefiting industry were introduced nationwide during the eight years it reviewed. More than 80 of those bills limit the public's ability to sue corporations, including limiting class-action lawsuits, a plaintiff's ability to offer expert testimony, and cap punitive damages for corporate wrongdoing.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths. Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state's execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months. The state revived the death penalty last September after a 13-year pause caused by the decision of pharmaceutical makers to stop selling lethal injection drugs to the state. Officials acquired pentobarbital, a sedative, only after legislators passed a law shielding the identities of suppliers. That secrecy surrounding the execution process means the role of observers has never been more vital. Executions aren't filmed, making journalists' accounts the only impartial record of state-sponsored killings, their words often cited by lawyers and courts. "I don't think executions should be publicly broadcast, but I think they need to be videotaped," [said Collins]. "We don't get to see everything. With lethal injections, there could be problems if the needle isn't put in the vein correctly or the drugs are bad, but we don't get any look into either of those things. With firing squads ... the target could get placed poorly. But when the curtain opens, the target has already been placed, so we don't get to witness that either. The secrecy prevents the entire story from being told."
Note: Wrongful convictions and official misconduct have led to at least 93 innocent defendants being sentenced to death. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption.
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.
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.
A large chunk of the world's plant diversity lies safely tucked away underground for future generations. By the numbers, the Millennium Seed Bank holds over 2 billion seeds from over 40,000 species, collected by scientists and volunteers from 279 organizations spanning over 100 countries. It's likely the largest seed vault on Earth, with the other contender being located on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Located at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew facility in Wakehurst, seeds from all over the world are carefully cleaned, dried, and stored in walk-in freezers at -20°C, or about -4°F. For 25 years, the work has been carried out by experts who have developed the skills not only to store the seeds, but also to wake them up again, often using bespoke protocols for seed germination. "Within species there is incredible genetic diversity, which protects against disease, climate change and other threats," Dale Sanders, biologist and former director of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, told AP. "Maintaining that diversity is essential if we want to preserve the diversity of life itself." For all the archiving and record keeping and preservation, the MSB is hardly just a storehouse. To the contrary, it's always growing something: funds for ecosystem restoration or botanical research, young scientists looking to begin a career in plant conservation, or plans to restore existing ecosystems by leveraging the vault's vast reserves.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
When Mount Saint Helens in southwestern Washington erupted on the morning of May 18, 1980, the stratovolcano spewed a plume of debris high into the earth's atmosphere and spread ash to at least eleven nearby states. But despite the appearance of a mountain-side extinction event, life was already regenerating. Just 10 days after the eruption, the geomorphologist Fredrick Swanson surveyed one of the lahars with colleagues and noticed something intriguing. In the rubble, fine, filament-like threads had attached themselves to some of the smaller pebbles and stones cast out of the volcano's center. What Swanson was witnessing was the phenomenon of "phoenicoid fungi," aptly named in a nod to the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. Fungal organisms such as these are often the first responders to blast zones and wildfire burn areas where the decomposing landscape serves as a smorgasbord for their biological needs. The fungi used for environmental clean-up come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Oyster mushrooms ... can break down petroleum and hydrocarbons, putting them top of the list when it comes to cleaning up deadly oil spills. A 2023 study conducted in Massachusetts, commissioned by MassDOT, found that there could be benefits to integrating mycelium into the state's pre-existing stormwater management infrastructure to serve as a filtration system to improve water quality.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in on technology for good and healing the Earth.
Jeffrey Epstein was a very wealthy man, but exactly how wealthy and where that money came from remains shrouded in mystery. Newly unearthed emails last week shone light on Epstein's role as freelance client development officer, acting as a channel between political figures and business titans, greasing up the former with lifestyles they could not afford and the latter with avenues of political influence. Figures in Epstein's network of billionaires, politicians, celebrities, royalty and intellectuals were assembled into schemes of influence. The spheres of influence Epstein created, emails showed, relied simultaneously on access and gifts Between his collection of lavish homes in New York, Palm Beach and Paris, two private Caribbean islands, two jets and helicopter, Epstein held nearly $380m in cash and investments, according to his estate. That wealth arrived suddenly. Until the end of the 90s, Epstein was living in a two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side close to the river. It was only when Maxwell arrived from London that his lifestyle was dramatically elevated. Epstein moved to a townhouse on 68th Street and later to a 28,000-sq-ft mansion on 71st Street, later transferred to him by Wexner in 2011. Steven Hoffenberg, a former business partner of Epstein convicted of running a Ponzi scheme, claimed that Maxwell's father, the disgraced press baron Robert Maxwell, introduced his daughter to Epstein in the late 1980s. A 2022 Miami Herald exposé showed complex Maxwell family transactions passing through companies in Jersey, the British Virgin Islands and Panama that it called "a decades-long modus operandi of financial deception".
Note: There is significant evidence suggesting that Robert Maxwell was a superspy for Mossad, Israel's intelligence and covert operations unit. US attorney Alexander Acosta was once told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.
By law, the Central Intelligence Agency isn't allowed to operate domestically in the United States. But ... going back to its earliest years, the agency has, in fact, interfered in homeland affairs to combat dissident movements (historically, from the Left), to defend its institutional prerogatives – and, increasingly, to recruit assets among the financial elite. Two former CIA officers and one former intelligence official told me that the [CIA's National Resources Division] is conspicuously absent from the Epstein debate. This, even as the NR must have conducted interviews with the man going back decades. The NR should also have maintained records of those conversations, according to all three officials. Under Attorney General Guideline 12333, intelligence officers, including those serving in the NR, are required to report criminal wrongdoing to the Department of Justice during the course of their investigations. But over scotch and soda on the 50th floor, why would an officer ask, and an executive tell, anything other than what both parties want to hear? "It is inconceivable given Jeffrey Epstein's travel record and associations that he was not approached by the NR at some point before his death," one former CIA officer said. "It would have left the New York NR division in the lurch not to have contacted him." And if that's the case, there should be a paper trail. "Every walk-in, every contact, every handling, every meeting, every termination – you are supposed to document it."
Note: This article exposes the CIA's hidden entanglement with Wall Street, revealing that officers in its National Resources Division not only mingled with top bankers and hedge-fund managers but even authorized them to collect private paychecks while on the CIA payroll, blurring the line between national security and corporate profit and creating a secret web of influence that Epstein was almost certainly a part of. US attorney Alexander Acosta was once told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.
Describing toxicity as "the most underrated threat facing humanity", a new report has warned that the "contamination of humans is endemic" and that the risks to planetary and human health are "widely underestimated", with the impact of pesticide use on cancer rates potentially rivalling that of smoking. More than 3,600 synthetic chemicals from food contact materials, such as packaging and pesticides, are present within human bodies globally, the report revealed, 80 of which are feared to be especially dangerous. Chemicals known as Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) were found in almost everyone tested, with 14 per cent of European teenagers having blood levels high enough to pose serious health risks. Among the shocking findings is the link between pesticide use and leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and bladder, colon and liver cancer – including suggestions that prenatal pesticide exposure increases the odds of childhood leukaemia and lymphoma by more than 50 per cent. Evidence was also gathered showing that synthetic chemicals humans are exposed to have contributed to a global decline in sperm counts. The report outlines "strong" causal and correlational links between toxicity and a variety of severe human health conditions, including cancer, obesity, Alzheimer's, pregnancy complications, ADHD, fertility issues, heart conditions, and respiratory ailments.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
They've been preparing every Tuesday for the past four months, learning to belt out favorites like "Singin' in the Rain" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Those attending their first Giving Voice concert may not know what to expect–it is a dementia-friendly choir, meaning many of the participants have some form of dementia and are joined onstage by caregivers and loved ones. Giving Voice, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people in all stages of memory loss, was founded in 2014 with an initial chorus of 35 members. There are now more than 70 "memory choirs" throughout the world that use Giving Voice's model as the foundation for their programs–and a slew of similar dementia-friendly choirs and bands, including Music Mends Minds, AlzheimHER's Chorus, and The Unforgettables Chorus. The premise of these memory choirs is simple but powerful: Making music is not just a feel-good community activity; it's also a powerful weapon to help preserve memories and enhance brain function. Over 55 million people worldwide are believed to be living with dementia. The success of memory choirs [raises] scientific questions about whether music therapy can rewire the brain in addition to improving mood and fostering community. Borna Bonakdarpour, a behavioral neurologist ... is on a quest to show that social singing can help address some of the underlying causes of the disease, such as decreased mental stimulation, isolation, and inactivity.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art.
Matthew Brown, who claims the Pentagon has a secret program to collect footage of UFOs, is the first of several whistleblowers who will soon come forward to release new information about unexplained technology, podcaster and journalist Jeremy Corbell says. Brown, a former national security professional, appeared this week on Corbell and George Knapp's "Weaponized" podcast to say the Defense Department has covertly amassed an archive of UFO videos and pictures from military sources under a program called "Immaculate Constellation." Secure government servers purportedly contain UFO images and lengthy clips the public has not seen. Brown says the objects he saw in the videos aren't necessarily extraterrestrial or nonhuman, but he described them as "exotic and unexplainable" and beyond conventional technology. "We are talking thousands of videos and photos ... that the American public hasn't seen of these advanced craft we call UAP that are of unknown origin," Corbell said. Corbell said he hopes Brown will be allowed to testify before Congress about what he discovered. In the meantime, the podcaster said, he and Knapp have already interviewed several other whistleblowers who have new information about the craft. "We have already recorded with other firsthand whistleblowers that we have yet to release. So, I can promise you, people are coming forward, an army of people are coming forward," he said.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.
Andre Daigle, 27, went missing on June 9, 1987, after a night of drinks and pool with friends, following which, the New Orleans resident was never seen alive again. Four days later, Andre's sister Elise, who lived out in California, went to psychic Rosemarie Kerr of Cypress with her brother's photo, whose body and killers were found 13 days later thanks to the clairvoyant. In researching the validity of psychics in police work, Euro Weekly News came across a highly surprising and unexpected 5-page US DoJ report published in 1993 entitled "Psychics and Police Work." "The usefulness of psychics in police investigations is controversial, but psychics have long been and will undoubtedly continue to be involved in unsolved criminal investigations," it reads. The Department of Justice document compares the work of psychics and detectives, saying "both base their work on intuition to some extent, and then they specifically mention one psychic who they say helped police in thousands of cases." In an August 2000 CIA document entitled "Use of Psychics in Law Enforcement," the US intelligence agency acknowledged that psychics have been helpful to police in many cases and outlined some guidelines on when and how to deal with them. "Psychics have provided information that was helpful to law enforcement, contributing to the successful resolution of cases," the CIA confirms. "Using psychics can be legitimate when traditional methods fail."
Note: Explore our resources on remote viewing programs. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on the mysterious nature of reality.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key 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.