News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously. The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it. The Bush administration has been seeking to expand its ability to gather intelligence without prior court approval. The [Justice] department ... reported a sharp rise in the use of national security letters by the FBI -- from 9,254 in 2005 to 12,583 in 2006, the latest data available. The letters seek customer information from banks, Internet providers and phone companies. They have caused a stir because consumers do not have a right to know that their information is being disclosed and the letters are issued without court oversight. Civil liberties groups say the new data reveal a disturbing consequence of the government's post-Sept. 11 expanded surveillance capabilities. "The number of Americans being investigated dwarfs any legitimate number of actual terrorism prosecutions, and that is extremely troubling," said Lisa Graves, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, a Washington-based civil liberties group.
Note: For many reports from major media sources that question the reality of the "terror" threat, click here.
More than 360 workers who dealt with the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster have died, state health officials said Wednesday. Officials have determined the cause of death of 154 of the responders and volunteers who toiled at Ground Zero, the blocks nearby and at the Fresh Kills landfill, where debris from the site was taken. Of those, 80 died of cancer. "It's the tip of the iceberg," said David Worby, who is representing 10,000 workers - 600 with cancer - who say they got sick after working on rescue and recovery efforts. "These statistics bear out how toxic that site was," Worby said. Most of the deadly tumors were in the lungs and digestive system, according to the tally from the state's World Trade Center Responder Fatality Investigation Program. Other deaths were traced to blood cancers and heart and circulatory diseases. Five ex-workers committed suicide, said Kitty Gelberg, who is tracking the deaths for the program. Gelberg said ... there is an overall undercount of workers who have died. Last year, the head of Mount Sinai Medical Center's monitoring and treatment program, Dr. Robin Herbert, predicted a "third wave" of 9/11-related deaths from cancer. Cathy Murray, whose husband, Fire Lt. John Murray, died of colon cancer April 30, "absolutely" connects his disease to his work at Ground Zero. He was diagnosed in June and was 52 when he died, she said. "He was perfectly healthy," said Cathy Murray, 53, of Staten Island. "He never smoked a day in his life, and neither did I. It happened so quick and so aggressive. He was responding at first, but then he wasn't," she added. "And now he's gone."
Note: For a powerful summary of reports from major media sources questioning the official story of what happened on 9/11, click here.
The FBI has withdrawn a secret administrative order seeking the name, address and online activity of a patron of the Internet Archive after the San Francisco-based digital library filed suit to block the action. It is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off from such a data demand, known as a "national security letter," or NSL, which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred from disclosing the order's existence. NSLs are served on phone companies, Internet service providers and other electronic communications service providers, but because of the gag order provision, the public has little way to know about them. FBI officials now issue about 50,000 such orders a year. The order against the Internet Archive was served Nov. 26, and the nonprofit challenged it based on a provision of the reauthorized USA Patriot Act, which protects libraries from such requests. The privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the archive in the suit, which was joined by the American Civil Liberties Union. The archive also alleged that the gag order that accompanied the data demand violated the Constitution. As part of their settlement, the FBI agreed to drop the gag order and the archive agreed to withdraw the complaint. The case was unsealed Monday. Yesterday, redacted versions of key documents were filed, allowing the parties to discuss the case. "We see this as an unqualified success," said Brewster Kahle, the archive's co-founder and digital librarian. "The goal here was to help other recipients of NSLs to understand that you can push back."
Note: The Internet Archive has now posted excellent information on how to deal with cases like this at http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3795. Three cheers for the Internet Archive!
There is a moment of foreshadowing at the end of “Battle at Kruger,” the eight-minute African safari video that has drawn more than 30 million views on YouTube. David Budzinski, a tourist from Texas, has just recorded a stunning scene straight out of a wildlife documentary. A small pride of lions and a crocodile have pinned down a cape buffalo calf, prompting an angry herd of buffalo to fight off the predators and save the babe. A fellow traveler remarks, “You could sell that video!” After returning home, Mr. Budzinski tried, but National Geographic and Animal Planet were not interested. Only after the battle — alternately terrifying and heart-warming — became one of the most popular videos in YouTube’s history did the buyers come calling. Last summer the National Geographic Channel purchased the television rights to the video, and on Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, it will devote an hour to a documentary deconstructing the drama. Adhering to the short-form spirit of YouTube, the complete tale concludes in slightly more than eight minutes. Mr. Budzinski tried unsuccessfully to sell it to television networks. “They all told us the same thing — they don’t accept any footage from amateurs,”he said. For almost three years the film essentially sat on the shelf. But a year ago, when Mr. Schlosberg used YouTube to share the video with a friend — it was easier than making a DVD copy and mailing it, he said — “Battle at Kruger” started spreading virally on the Internet. Before long, National Geographic [called].
Note: To watch this amazing 8-minute clip of a highly unusual battle between lions and water buffalo, click here.
What would you do if you couldn't forget anything in your life? For the woman formerly known to the world as simply "A.J.," her memory is so powerful that it dominates her life. In her first television interview, 42-year-old Jill Price told [ABC News' Diane] Sawyer, "I am in the moment, but I also have ... this split screen in my head. I always explain it to people like I'm walking around with a video camera on my shoulder. And every day is a videotape. So if you throw a date out at me, it's as if I pulled a videotape out, put [it] in a VCR and just watched the day. As it happened. From my point of view. I walk around with my life right next to me," she said. Price, who lives in California and works as an assistant at a religious school, has been remembering her life like this almost every day since she was 14. Eight years ago, she reached out to memory specialists at the University of California-Irvine for help. Dr. James McGaugh led a team who studied her for six years, and says he was stunned. "She wrote down the dates of the last 20 Easters, and she was off, I think, by two days on one of them," he said. "And she's Jewish!" McGaugh and his team tested Price with questions from a master list in an historical almanac. Dr. Larry Cahill works with Dr. McGaugh and questioned Price about a Christmas special on "Murphy Brown." "The Christmas episode was my personal jaw-dropping moment," he said. "I corrected her. I said, 'Well, actually my list here says it was a Brady Bunch Christmas special.' And like that, she corrects me. 'No, that was the week before.' Just like that. And later, we found out she was right and my book was wrong."
Note: For powerful insights into the nature of reality from reliable sources, click here.
At age 21, [Nisha] Mehta has five people -- all older than she is -- working under her. And her boss says the sky's the limit. This is a seismic change in a country where women have, until recently, been restricted to traditional family roles. And it's a change that has transpired within one generation in one household. Mehta's mother never went to college, doesn't work and cannot make major decisions without the consent of her husband. Mehta says she has no desire to live the way her mother does -- and her mother has actively encouraged her not to follow in her footsteps. Mehta is conducting an interesting -- and seemingly effortless -- balancing act between two very different worlds. On the one hand, she lives at home, as most unmarried Indians do, in a tiny, two-room apartment. She shares a pull-out couch with her little brother. On the other, she is financially independent and also insistent that she will not submit to an arranged marriage, as the vast majority of young Indians do. Mehta says she wants a "love match." But, she says that she'll get her parents' consent before marrying and that she won't marry anyone from outside her community. The changes going on in India right now -- the breaking down of old barriers of gender, religion and caste -- are incredibly exciting. But it's important to realize that these changes -- as of right now, at least -- are only affecting a minority. India's exploding middle class is estimated to be 300 million people -- roughly the size of the U.S. population! -- But there are still 600 million people living on less than $2 a day.
Note: For video clips of this fascinating series of interviews with 21-year-olds from around the world, click here.
For most of the moneyed class, an inquiry into their wealth elicits silence and cringes. Not so with 28-year-old Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. For the Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, wealth is the focus of his life's work. In Johnson's first documentary, Born Rich, he exposed how 10 children from families like the Trumps and the Newhouses spent their time – and their fortunes. Now he turns the camera on his own family in The One Percent. Johnson's documentary ... offers a rarefied view of the scandalously secretive world of "the one percent," a small segment of the U.S. population that owns roughly 40% of the country's wealth. Through a series of interviews with high-profile figures like Bill Gates Sr., U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and economist Milton Friedman, Johnson explores the disparity of wealth in America. Forbes.com: You got your own father, as well as other phenomenally wealthy people, to talk to you. How did you get these folks to open up about such an intensely private topic? Johnson: It wasn't easy. A lot of patience – there was a lot of waiting around. Forbes: I imagine you'll have critics who will call this "rich boy's guilt." What do you say to them? Johnson: That both liberal and conservative economists agree that there is a growing wealth gap, and that it's a problem. It's important to get wealthy people to think about this and think about solving this problem. They are the most influential people in our society and therefore, they should be working on treating this and coming up with a solution.
Note: The films of Jamie Johnson give very rare views into the lives of the upper crust that are incredibly revealing. For another article at CNN on his excellent documentary Born Rich, click here. To see revealing video clips, click here.
When Rick Hoyt was 15, he communicated something to his father that changed both their lives. "Dad," the mute quadriplegic wrote in his computer after his father pushed him in a wheelchair in a five-kilometer race, "I felt like I wasn't handicapped." Rick, now 37, has had cerebral palsy since birth. But he has always been treated simply as one of the family, included by his now-divorced parents in almost everything brothers Rob and Russell did. "They told us to put Rick away, in an institution, (because) he's going to be nothing but a vegetable for the rest of his life," his father remembers. "We said, 'No, we're not going to do that. We're going to bring Rick home and bring him up like any other child,'" says Dick Hoyt, 59, a retired lieutenant colonel with the Air National Guard. "And this is what we have done." For more than 20 years, Dick has either towed, pushed or carried Rick in a string of athletic challenges including every Boston Marathon since 1981 and, most recently, last month's Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii. But mental determination and physical stamina tell only part of the Hoyt story. A message of independence and acceptance typed by Rick on his computer complete the picture: "When I am running, my disability seems to disappear. It is the only place where truly I feel as an equal. Due to all the positive feedback, I do not feel handicapped at all. Rather, I feel that I am the intelligent person that I am with no limits. I have a message for the world which is this: To take time to get to know people with disabilities for the individuals they are."
Note: For much more information about the amazing Hoyt family, click here. And for an incredibly eye-opening eight-minute video on the world from the eyes of an amazing autistic woman, click here.
A woman convicted two weeks ago of running a Washington call-girl ring that catered to the capital’s power elite was found dead ... and the authorities said she had apparently hanged herself. The body of the woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, was found in a shed at her mother’s home ... about 20 miles northwest of Tampa. The police said Ms. Palfrey had left a notebook containing at least two suicide notes and other messages to her family, but they did not give additional details. Ms. Palfrey, who had quickly become known as the D.C. Madam when the case against her began unfolding, apparently hanged herself from the shed’s ceiling with nylon rope, the police said. Her mother, Blanche Palfrey, discovered the body. Blanche Palfrey had no sign that her daughter was suicidal. A federal jury in Washington found Ms. Palfrey guilty on April 15 of running a prostitution service that catered to powerful figures including Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana. She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering. Ms. Palfrey had vowed that she would never go to prison. When she disclosed telephone records last year that revealed the identity of some of her clients, she told ABC: “I’m sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone four to eight years, because I’m shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever. Not for a second. I’ll bring every last one of them in if necessary.” Despite that threat, Ms. Palfrey’s trial concluded without the testimony of either Mr. Vitter or another particularly prominent client, Randall L. Tobias. One of the escort service’s employees was Brandy Britton, a former professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. Ms. Britton committed suicide in January before she could go to trial.
Note: Isn't it interesting that this woman who brought about the resignations of top government officials is found dead in an apparent suicide? See the revealing AP article on this available here. Ms. Palfrey also stated publicly that she would never commit suicide, though at one point she mentioned that she might be "suicided." To verify this, click here.
Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry. The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution. The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (Ł275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn. Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m. Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world's largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement, called the escalating earnings and profits "immoral."
Note: For a cornucopia of reports on corporate corruption from reliable, verifiable sources, click here.
Sixteen months ago, Brigham Young University and Steven Jones parted ways, but he said this week he isn't bitter about the academic divorce. He certainly hasn't curtailed his volatile research on the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, Jones is the lead author of a paper on the collapses published April 18 in a civil engineering journal. Most importantly, he is preparing several more papers that, if they pass peer review and are published, will give him the peace of mind that his case reached the public. Jones was energized in November when he ... received a response from the national lab charged by Congress to determine why and how the towers collapsed. The letter contained the following phrase: "We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse." "That," Jones said, "really was progress. It made me believe we could talk with them." It is striking. After producing a 10,000-page report, the National Institute of Standards and Technology can't explain the collapse. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has said that its best hypothesis for the fall of the third tower, WTC 7 — diesel fuel stored in the building caused fires that collapsed the building — has a "low probability" of being correct. [Jones'] new peer-reviewed paper in the Open Civil Engineering Journal ... lays out 14 points of agreement Jones and his colleagues have with the official government reports. "We're getting to a higher level of discussion with this paper," Jones said. The open paper can be found for free on the Web at www.bentham.org.
Note: For many revealing reports on the path-breaking work of renowned physicist Steven Jones to shed light on what really happened on 9/11, click here.
The battle over dioxin contamination in [the Saginaw, Mich.] region had been raging for years when a top [EPA] official turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up. On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions with Dow, the [Bush] administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office. Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. Gade, appointed ... regional EPA administrator in September 2006, invoked emergency powers last summer to order the company to remove three hotspots of dioxin near its Midland headquarters. She demanded more dredging in November, when it was revealed that dioxin levels along a park in Saginaw were 1.6 million parts per trillion, the highest amount ever found in the U.S. Dow then sought to cut a deal on a more comprehensive cleanup. But Gade ended the negotiations in January, saying Dow was refusing to take action necessary to protect public health and wildlife. Dow responded by appealing to officials in Washington, according to heavily redacted letters the Tribune obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. On Thursday, Gade said of her resignation: "There's no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."
Note: For many powerful reports on government corruption from the major media, click here.
White House officials for more than a year have blocked a rule aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales by challenging the findings of government scientists, according to documents obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The documents, which were mailed to the environmental group by an unidentified National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, illuminate a struggle that has raged between the White House and NOAA for more than a year. In February 2007, NOAA issued a final rule aimed at slowing ships traversing some East Coast waters to 10 knots or less during parts of the year to protect the right whales, but the White House has blocked the rule from taking effect. North Atlantic right whales, whose surviving population numbers fewer than 400, are one of the most endangered species on Earth, and scientists have warned that the loss of just one more pregnant female could doom the species. Some shipping companies have opposed the NOAA proposal, saying slowing their vessels will cost the industry money. The documents, which House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) released yesterday, show that the White House Council of Economic Advisers and Vice President Cheney's office repeatedly questioned whether the rule was needed. Waxman, who sent a letter to the White House asking for an explanation, said the exchange "appears to be the latest instance of the White House ignoring scientists and other experts." Since NOAA initially proposed the regulation, at least three right whales have died from ship strikes and two have been wounded by propellers.
Note: For more reports on major threats to marine mammals, click here.
The Food and Drug Administration has ordered Merck & Co. to correct numerous manufacturing deficiencies at its main vaccine plant. The agency ... released a warning letter sent to Merck's chief executive, Richard T. Clark, that states FDA inspectors determined manufacturing rules are not being followed at the plant in West Point, Pa., just outside Philadelphia. The plant, which recalled two vaccines in December over sterility problems, makes a number of children's vaccines and four for adults. The nine-page letter states FDA found "significant objectionable conditions" in the manufacture of vaccines and drug ingredients during repeated inspections from Nov. 26 to Jan. 17. According to the heavily redacted warning letter, Merck officials didn't thoroughly investigate when vaccine batches inexplicably failed to meet specifications, even if batches had been distributed, and some combination measles-mumps-rubella shots that failed "visual inspection for critical defects" were distributed anyway. Production of two vaccines made at West Point — PedvaxHIB, to prevent Haemophilus influenza type B, and Comvax, a combination vaccine for Haemophilus B and hepatitis B — stopped last year and 1.2 million doses of them were recalled after a sterility problem was discovered in October. The plant also makes ProQuad, which protects children against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox; hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningitis vaccines for children and adults; and Gardasil, to protect young women against cervical cancer.
Note: For further revelations from reliable sources on the dangers of vaccines, click here.
President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News. "Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people," Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." As first reported by ABC News, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA. The president had earlier confirmed the existence of the interrogation program run by the CIA in a speech in 2006. But before [ABC's original] report, the extraordinary level of involvement by the most senior advisers in repeatedly approving specific interrogation plans -- down to the number of times the CIA could use a certain tactic on a specific al Qaeda prisoner -- had never been disclosed. Critics at home and abroad have harshly criticized the interrogation program, which pushed the limits of international law and, they say, condoned torture. In the interview with ABC News, Bush defended the waterboarding technique used against KSM. "We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it," Bush said. "And no, I didn't have any problem at all trying to find out what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knew." The president said, "I think it's very important for the American people to understand who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was. He was the person who ordered the suicide attack -- I mean, the 9/11 attacks."
Note: For a transcript of the interview with President Bush on the Washington Post website, click here. For a powerful two-page summary of many unanswered questions about who really ordered the 9/11 attacks, click here.
[In] speaking [with New York Federal Reserve Bank president Timothy] Geithner while I was doing the research for my recently published book Superclass, he sketched in fascinating detail how the world's power elite rallies when the markets quake. Recalling an earlier crisis in global securities markets that he helped to manage, Geithner said the Fed brought together the leaders of the world's 14 major financial firms, from five countries, representing 95 percent of all the activity in global markets. The Swiss were there, the Germans were there, the British were there. Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein "jokingly called them 'the 14 families,' like in 'The Godfather'," says Geithner. "And we said to them, 'You guys have got to fix this problem. Tell us how you are going to fix it and we will work out some basic regime.' You ... need a critical mass of the right players. It is a much more concentrated world." Geithner's description of the financial elite in crisis mode came many months before the recent meltdown of Bear Stearns, yet foreshadowed [it] in an uncanny way. The people ... described by Geithner, plus a few thousand more like them, not only in business and finance, but also politics, the arts, the nonprofit world and other realms, are part of a new global elite that has emerged over the past several decades. I call it the "superclass." They have vastly more power than any other group on the planet. Each of the members is set apart by his ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide. Each actively exercises this power, and often amplifies it through the development of relationships with other superclass members.
Note: For many revealing stories from reliable sources on secret societies of the world's most powerful people, click here.
Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died ... at his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102. Dr. Hofmann first synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938 but did not discover its psychopharmacological effects until five years later, when he accidentally ingested the substance that became known to the 1960s counterculture as acid. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. He earned his Ph.D. ... in 1929, when he was just 23. It was during his work on the ergot fungus, which grows in rye kernels, that he stumbled on LSD, accidentally ingesting a trace of the compound one ... afternoon in April 1943. Dr. Hofmann’s work produced other important drugs, including methergine, used to treat postpartum hemorrhaging, the leading cause of death from childbirth. But it was LSD that shaped both his career and his spiritual quest. “Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom,” Dr. Hofmann told the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof during an interview in 1984. “I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.” Dr. Hofmann became an impassioned advocate for the environment and argued that LSD, besides being a valuable tool for psychiatry, could be used to awaken a deeper awareness of mankind’s place in nature and help curb society’s ultimately self-destructive degradation of the natural world.
Dr. Frank Artress looked down at his fingers. His nail beds were turning blue. He was running out of oxygen near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. A cardiac anesthesiologist, Artress knew the signs of high altitude pulmonary edema. He knew there was a 75 percent chance that he would perish on Africa's highest peak. Artress led his wife to a rock, and they sat together above the clouds. Then it hit him. He wasn't afraid to die; he was ashamed. He had lived only for himself - practicing medicine in a Modesto hospital, traveling with his wife, purchasing luxury vacation homes and collecting art. He felt as if he had nothing to show for his 50 years. He felt as if his life had been a waste. In that moment, Artress and his wife realized they were living for the wrong reasons. In that moment, everything changed. Some people dream of giving up the trappings of success and starting life anew, with a purpose, with a social conscience. For Artress and his wife, the idea suddenly seemed real. That day on Mount Kilimanjaro would lead the Modesto doctor and his wife to leave their comfortable life in California to become bush doctors, dedicated to easing the heartbreak of Africa. They knew their decision was the right one when they returned to their creekside ranch home in Modesto. The things they normally missed when they were away - the matching silver sports cars, the signed Mirós and Picassos, the full-throttle espresso machine and the swimming pool - no longer had any charm. That week, Artress quit his job at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto and Gustafson gave notice as an educational psychologist for the public schools. Then they sold everything ... and made plans to return to the foot of Kilimanjaro to administer medical care as a way of repaying the community that saved Artress' life.
Note: This inspiring story should be read in its entirety.
Can singing change history? “The Singing Revolution,” a documentary by James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty about Estonia’s struggle to end Soviet occupation, shows that it already has. The first part of “Revolution” provides a thumbnail sketch of 20th-century Estonian history, and it’s not pretty. This small nation was a satellite state of the former Soviet Union for much of that time, except for a brief period when the Germans controlled it. Under the Soviets, especially, Estonian culture was brutishly suppressed, but it welled up every five years in July, when Estonians gathered in Tallinn for the Estonian song festival, which often drew upward of 25,000 people. The images of these festivals are moving already; the force of the singers and the precision of their conductors are stunning to behold. But the emotion swells further when Estonians defy their occupiers by singing nationalist songs. This bold act reclaimed Estonian identity and set the stage for a series of increasingly daring rebellions under the Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who advocated glasnost and got more than he bargained for. Imagine the scene in “Casablanca” in which the French patrons sing “La Marseillaise” in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of “The Singing Revolution.”
A new analysis concludes that the Food and Drug Administration approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes even after studies showed that the controversial products posed a clear risk of causing heart attacks and death. The review of combined data from more than 3,711 patients who participated in 16 studies testing five different types of artificial blood, released yesterday, found that the products nearly tripled the risk of heart attacks and boosted the chances of dying by 30 percent. Based on the findings, the researchers questioned why the FDA allowed additional testing of the products to go forward and why the agency is considering letting yet another study proceed. "It's hard to understand," said Charles Natanson, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health who led the analysis. "They already had data that these products could cause heart attacks and evidence that they could kill." An artificial blood substitute that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration could save untold lives by providing an alternative to trauma patients in emergencies, especially in rural areas and in combat settings. But attempts to develop such products have been marred by repeated failures and fraught with controversy, in part because some products have been studied under rules allowing researchers to administer them without obtaining consent from individual patients. After the Washington-based consumer group Public Citizen sued the FDA to gain access to data submitted to the agency, Natanson and colleagues at NIH and Public Citizen pooled data from studies conducted between 1998 and 2007.
Note: For a treasure trove of reports from reliable, verifiable sources on government corruption, click here.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.