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.
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.
In an exchange this week on "All-In Podcast," Alex Karp was on the defensive. The Palantir CEO used the appearance to downplay and deny the notion that his company would engage in rights-violating in surveillance work. "We are the single worst technology to use to abuse civil liberties, which is by the way the reason why we could never get the NSA or the FBI to actually buy our product," Karp said. What he didn't mention was the fact that a tranche of classified documents revealed by [whistleblower and former NSA contractor] Edward Snowden and The Intercept in 2017 showed how Palantir software helped the National Security Agency and its allies spy on the entire planet. Palantir software was used in conjunction with a signals intelligence tool codenamed XKEYSCORE, one of the most explosive revelations from the NSA whistleblower's 2013 disclosures. XKEYSCORE provided the NSA and its foreign partners with a means of easily searching through immense troves of data and metadata covertly siphoned across the entire global internet, from emails and Facebook messages to webcam footage and web browsing. A 2008 NSA presentation describes how XKEYSCORE could be used to detect "Someone whose language is out of place for the region they are in," "Someone who is using encryption," or "Someone searching the web for suspicious stuff." In May, the New York Times reported Palantir would play a central role in a White House plan to boost data sharing between federal agencies, "raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power."
Note: Read about Palantir's revolving door with the US government. As former NSA intelligence official and whistleblower William Binney articulated, "The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control." For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.
The penthouse of the sleek, postmodern Metropolitan Tower in Midtown Manhattan offers panoramic views of New York. But for more than five years, a former Wall Street trader used it as a sex "dungeon," luring women in and leaving them maimed and bruised, federal prosecutors say. Howard Rubin, 70, a former Salomon Brothers bond trader ... was arrested Friday on sex trafficking charges. Prosecutors said he brought women to the penthouse blocks from Central Park, where a bedroom was painted red, soundproofed and fitted with devices to use on the women. Along with a personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, Mr. Rubin recruited and paid at least a half-dozen women to participate in bondage and sadomasochism, but the acts went far beyond what the women had signed up for. Prosecutors said Mr. Rubin took advantage of the women, many of whom were especially vulnerable because of their histories of addiction and abuse. Though women were told they could use a "safe word" to stop any sexual encounter, prosecutors said they were often unable to utter it because they were gagged or Mr. Rubin simply ignored their pleas. The room would often remain locked during the encounters ... while the women were shocked, beaten and violated. Mr. Rubin also provided the women with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol before their sex acts. In one encounter, Mr. Rubin gave a female victim a sedative that made her unconscious so he could enact a rape fantasy.
Note: This article is also available here. Howie Rubin (mentioned in this article) was accused in a 2017 lawsuit of beating a woman's breasts so badly that her right implant flipped. Elite predators like Rubin and Harvey Weinstein often make their victims sign non-disclosure agreements to keep them quiet using the law. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals.
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book "Careless People," told U.S. senators ... that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. In response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Wynn-Williams admitted that Meta (which was then known as Facebook) had targeted 13- to 17-year-olds with ads when they were feeling down or depressed. "It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure, and [Meta] would take that information and share it with advertisers," Wynn-Williams told the senators on the subcommittee for crime and terrorism. "Advertisers understand that when people don't feel good about themselves, it's often a good time to pitch a product – people are more likely to buy something." She said the company was letting advertisers know when the teens were depressed so they could be served an ad at the best time. As an example, she suggested that if a teen girl deleted a selfie, advertisers might see that as a good time to sell her a beauty product as she may not be feeling great about her appearance. They also targeted teens with ads for weight loss when young girls had concerns around body confidence. If Meta was willing to target teens based on their emotional states, it stands to reason they'd do the same to adults. One document displayed during the hearing showed an example of just that.
Note: Facebook hid its own internal research for years showing that Instagram worsened body image issues, revealing that 13% of British teenage girls reported more frequent suicidal thoughts after using the app. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
Over the typical lifetime, happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve, peaking at 30, plummeting at age 50, before spiking again after 70. It's a pattern replicated using data going back as far as the 1970s in almost 150 countries. But around 2011, researchers noticed an astonishing reversal in this trend. "This empirical regularity has been replaced by a monotonic decrease in illbeing by age," they reported in an NBER working paper. In plain English, younger people today are unhappier, both compared to previous generations and to their older peers. In the US, for example, reported rates of anxiety among young people have exploded. So too have emergency room visits for self-harm. Similar trends can be seen in places like other English-speaking countries and the Nordics. "Why did it happen all over the world?" [New York University's Jonathan] Haidt asked before sharing the theory he also puts forward in his best-selling book: "We have over-protected children in the real world and under-protected them online." Today, rather than playing with their friends, kids stay at home on their devices. Instead of hearing chatter and laughter in the corridor of schools, we hear the gentle tapping of screens. In the UK, as part of the Smartphone Free Childhood grassroots movement, 85,000 parents have signed a pact committing to delay giving their child a smartphone. To date, parents in 25 countries, from Argentina to Uzbekistan, have joined the movement.
Note: A 2017 study found that prison inmates spend more time outside than kids. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence. Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. Subjects in this urban cohort were likely exposed to chlorpyrifos at home, since many were born before or shortly after the US Environmental Protection Agency banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001. The pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world. "Widespread exposures ... continue to place farm workers, pregnant women, and unborn children in harm's way," says senior author Virginia Rauh.
Note: Did you know that chlorpyrifos was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas? Read more about the history and politics of chlorpyrifos, and how U.S. regulators relied on falsified data to allow its use for years.
There has been a surge of concern and interest in the threat of "surveillance pricing," in which companies leverage the enormous amount of detailed data they increasingly hold on their customers to set individualized prices for each of them – likely in ways that benefit the companies and hurt their customers. The central battle in such efforts will be around identity: do the companies whose prices you are checking or negotiating know who you are? Can you stop them from knowing who you are? Unfortunately, one day not too far in the future, you may lose the ability to do so. Many states around the country are creating digital versions of their state driver's licenses. Digital versions of IDs allow people to be tracked in ways that are not possible or practical with physical IDs – especially since they are being designed to work ... online. It will be much easier for companies to request – and eventually demand – that people share their IDs in order to engage in all manner of transactions. It will make it easier for companies to collect data about us, merge it with other data, and analyze it, all with high confidence that it pertains to the same person – and then recognize us ... and execute their price-maximizing strategy against us. Not only would digital IDs prevent people from escaping surveillance pricing, but surveillance pricing would simultaneously incentivize companies to force the presentation of digital IDs by people who want to shop.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy.
A man convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting was ordered freed from prison by a judge who criticized the FBI for relying on an "unsavory" confidential informant for an agency-invented conspiracy to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon ... granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison six months after she ordered the release of his three co-defendants, known as the Newburgh Four, for similar reasons. The four men from the small river city 60 miles north of New York City were convicted of terrorism charges in 2010. They were arrested after allegedly planting "bombs" that were packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI. Critics have accused federal agents of entrapping a group of men who were down on their luck after doing prison time. In a scathing ruling, McMahon wrote that the FBI invented the conspiracy and identified the targets. Cromitie and his co-defendants, she wrote, "would not have, and could not have, devised on their own a crime involving missiles that would have warranted the 25-year sentence the court was forced to impose." "The notion that Cromitie was selected as a â€leader' by the co-defendants is inconceivable, given his well-documented buffoonery and ineptitude," she wrote. Cromitie was bought into the phony plot by the federal informant Shaheed Hussain, whose work has been criticized for years by civil liberties groups.
Note: Government agents have been directly involved in most high-profile terror plots in the US. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in policing and in intelligence agencies.
The cafeteria at Ballard High School during lunch is a loud place. Students are talking and laughing, playing card games and going out to the courtyard for an informal recess. This year the high school in Louisville instituted a cellphone ban from "bell to bell" – meaning, not just during instructional time, as is now required by state law in Kentucky, but also during lunch and time between classes. Kentucky joins a growing number of states, schools and districts that have been implementing new phone bans. In the first month of school this year, students took out 67 percent more books than the same month last year. "Even my library aides who do the bulk of the circulating were like, â€Gosh, there's a lot of kids checking out books,'" said Stephanie Conrad, the school's librarian. Conrad was prepared for the uptick in library use because of similar phenomena at other schools that instituted cellphone bans, but she said it has still been exciting to see how much kids are reading – and engaging more with their peers. "Like, a minute or two of downtime with kids, they used to have their phone. They were kind of in this little cellphone cocoon. Very quiet, not interacting," Conrad said. And now – "it's wonderful. They're interacting, and they're not isolated online." Neuss, the principal, acknowledges that ... most students would still prefer to have their phones during lunch, but from where he sits, they look like they're having more fun without them.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
Having a sense of purpose in life may help people live longer. Now, new research from the University of California in Davis shows that having a sense of purpose in life may have another benefit as people age: reducing the risk of dementia. The new study ... found that people who reported a higher sense of purpose in life were about 28% less likely to develop cognitive impairment–including mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The protective effect of having a purpose was seen across racial and ethnic groups. It also remained significant even after accounting for education, depression, and the APOE4 gene, which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. "Our findings show that having a sense of purpose helps the brain stay resilient with age," said Aliza Wingo, senior author. "Even for people with a genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease, sense of purpose was linked to a later onset and lower likelihood of developing dementia." The findings support the idea that psychological well-being plays a key role in healthy aging, said Thomas Wingo, a co-author of the study. Wingo hopes future studies will explore whether purpose-building interventions can help prevent dementia. "What's exciting about this study is that people may be able to â€think' themselves into better health. Purpose in life is something we can nurture," he said. "It's never too early – or too late – to start thinking about what gives your life meaning."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on amazing seniors and healing our bodies.
The aviary has a narrow duck pond in the back and a plywood square painted with the portrait of a coyote hanging on the front door. Inside, 71-year-old Willie H. uses plastic tweezers to feed moistened dog food pellets to juvenile robins through the bars of their cage. Like every day, he does this with his pet cockatiel, Bird, on his shoulder. The makeshift aviary he's spent the past 20 years working in is within the confines of the Marion Correctional Institution, where he's serving a potential life sentence. The Ohio Wildlife Center has been sending injured and orphaned wildlife to Marion for rehabilitation since the 1990s. According to Brittany Jordan, the center's wildlife rehabilitation operational director, these behind-bars rehab centers are now in five prisons across the state, and more institutions are joining the program as a way to help both the inmates and the animals. Willie ... was one of the first inmates to participate in the program, which has rehabilitated and released thousands of animals that required extra care after being treated at the Ohio Wildlife Center's hospital in Columbus. The inmates volunteer as caretakers and learn how to handle, feed and administer medication to a wide range of species–from barn swallows to opossums. While the Prison Program benefits wildlife ... it also rewards inmates with new skills, routine and purpose. They tend to stay out of trouble, away from substance abuse, and have an increased interest to learn more about the animals they care for.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.
Kenya's Gazette Supplement 181 of 2024 ... carrying the name of Kenya's minister of foreign affairs, announced that the Kenyan government had granted full diplomatic immunity to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. An organization must affirmatively ask Kenya's highest leadership for such privileges, which they can only grant through a vote of the full cabinet and with the support of the country's president. The immunity announcement ... did not say who at the foundation was being immunized or why. The Gates Foundation has assets in excess of $75 billion and has given out $91 billion in grants this century, making it the richest and most generous American charity in history. Since 2003, Gates has given 502 grants to organizations in Kenya, totaling over $1.9 billion. Gates has donated $870 million to AGRA, a Nairobi-based group attempting to introduce genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilizers, and large-scale agriculture throughout Africa. In Kenya it is possible to see the results of his now-accelerating project, which comprises three distinct efforts: the introduction of a new vaccine against malaria, a far-reaching agricultural reform program, and a divisive campaign to vaccinate cattle. Gates has no democratic accountability to anyone in the U.S., Kenya, or any other country. The Gates Foundation ... exists outside of nations and constitutions and laws, and its money is so widely distributed and so embedded in so many different private and public entities that it practically disappears into the larger architecture of the global system. One thing that unites NPR, the Guardian, and the Chinese government is that they are, in some form or another, Gates-funded institutions.
Note: Gates has given over $250 million to major outlets including BBC, Guardian, NPR, and Al Jazeera. Bill Gates' hundreds of millions to WHO now give him outsized influence to prioritize corporate interests under the guise of public health philanthropy, which have led to mass suicides in India and worsening environmental degradation and poverty in Africa.
More children around the world are obese than underweight for the first time, according to a UN report that warns ultra-processed junk food is overwhelming childhood diets. There are 188 million teenagers and school-age children with obesity – one in 10 – Unicef said, affecting health and development and bringing a risk of life-threatening diseases. Catherine Russell, executive director of the UN agency for children, said: "When we talk about malnutrition, we are no longer just talking about underweight children. "Obesity is a growing concern. Ultra-processed food [UPF] is increasingly replacing fruits, vegetables and protein at a time when nutrition plays a critical role in children's growth, cognitive development and mental health." While 9.2% of five to 19-year-olds worldwide are underweight, 9.4% are considered obese, the report found. In 2000, nearly 13% were underweight and just 3% were obese. Obesity has overtaken being underweight as the more prevalent form of malnutrition in all regions of the world except sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and is a problem even in countries with high numbers of children suffering from wasting or stunting due to a lack of food. One in five of those aged between five and 19 are overweight, with a growing proportion of those 291 million individuals falling into the obese category: 42% in 2022, up from 30% in 2000. Childhood obesity has been linked to higher risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers in later life.
Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling the chronic health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
Pesticides banned years ago in the European Union are drifting through the skies and turning up in clouds above France, raising concerns about how long these toxins persist and how far they can travel, with potentially harmful global health impacts, according to a pathbreaking new study. The research ... is the first to detect dozens of agricultural chemicals–including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other substances–suspended in cloud water droplets. That means pesticides not only linger in the environment but also move through the atmosphere and fall back to Earth in rain or snow, sometimes at levels exceeding European safe drinking water limits. The study found that clouds can carry current-use pesticides, long-banned compounds, and "emerging contaminants"–industrial chemicals that either build up in the environment or form when older pesticides break down. Some even transform into new compounds in the atmosphere itself, beyond what regulators have known to consider. Researchers estimate that French skies alone may contain anywhere from a few tons to more than 100 tons of pesticides at any given time–most carried in from distant sources. Out of 446 possible chemicals screened–including pesticides, biocides (compounds that kill harmful organisms), additives, and transformation products (breakdown products of pesticides)–researchers found 32 different compounds in cloud water.
Note: Across the US, a powerful legislative push is underway to protect pesticide manufacturers from being held accountable for the harms caused by their products. Check out our latest Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate."
Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally – and bafflingly – resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. Even children from other traditional farming families, who still have lower rates of allergic disease than nonfarm children, are more allergic than the Amish. "Certain kinds of farming practices, particularly the very traditional ones, have this extraordinary protective effect in the sense that, in these communities, asthma and allergies are virtually unknown," said Donata Vercelli, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine. "The studies that have been done in these farming populations are critical because they tell us that protection is an attainable goal." During the first year or two of life, a baby's immune system is rapidly developing and highly malleable by environmental stimuli, such as bacteria. Some experts believe that exposing young children to certain types of beneficial bacteria can engage and shape the growing immune system in a way that reduces the risk of allergic diseases later in life. Farm dust contains a hodgepodge of bacteria shed from livestock and animal feed that isn't harmful enough to cause illness, but does effectively train the immune system to become less responsive to allergens later in life.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
Professor Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King's College London, has studied for more than 35 years how genes function and how they are disrupted. His decades of rigorous independent research into the risks of GM foods and glyphosate-based herbicides have raised serious concerns about the safety of these technologies. In a report he prepared for the Mexican government, as the country attempted to restrict GMO corn imports for health reasons, Professor Antoniou cited "a large body of evidence from well-controlled laboratory animal toxicity studies that show evidence of harm to multiple physiological systems" from toxic agents found in GM corn. The health risks of GM corn and its associated pesticides arise from three main sources: Bt insecticidal proteins engineered into the plants, DNA damage caused by the genetic modification process itself, and pesticides used on the crops. The GM transformation process – the process by which a GMO is generated in the laboratory – is highly mutagenic. You create unintended damage to the DNA of the crop. And by changing the pattern of gene function in the organism, you will change its biochemistry and its composition, including the unexpected production of new toxins and allergens. Regardless of the GMO crop we're talking about, they're all grown with one or more different kinds of pesticides ... such as glyphosate. They invariably come with pesticide residues
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on GMOs and toxic chemicals.
When it comes to pesticides, the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, Commission has a serious problem: The Commission's newly released strategy for addressing childhood chronic disease is better for the pesticide industry than for people. The US currently uses over a billion pounds of pesticides annually on our crops, about one-third of which is chemicals that have been banned in other countries. Many have been linked to serious health problems from cancer to infertility to birth defects. Those pesticides contaminate our air, our water, and our bodies. One cancer-linked pesticide, glyphosate, is now found in 80% of adults and 87% of children. [The Commission] barely mentions organic farming, despite the fact that organic is the clearest pathway to transforming our food system into one that is healthy and nontoxic. The US Department of Agriculture organic seal prohibits more than 900 synthetic pesticides allowed in conventional agriculture. Just one week on an organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in our bodies up to 95%. Synthetic food dyes–a key issue for the MAHA movement–are all prohibited by the organic seal, along with hundreds of other food additives and drugs. The Commission's strategy ignores organic. Instead, it leans into promoting industry-friendly "precision agriculture"–the use of AI, machine learning, and digital tools on farms to optimize inputs–which primarily benefits corporate giants like Bayer.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Pesticides once appeared to be a clear target for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s desire to "make America healthy again." Before becoming the health secretary, he described Monsanto, the maker of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, as "enemy of every admirable American value," and vowed to "ban the worst agricultural chemicals already banned in other countries." Since he came to power, many of Kennedy's fans have waited eagerly for him to do just that. Kennedy has yet to satisfy them: In the latest MAHA action plan on children's health, released last week, pesticides appear only briefly on a laundry list of vague ideas. The plan says that the government should fund research on how farmers could use less of them, and that the government "will work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence" in the EPA's existing pesticide-review process, which it called "robust." Several studies have found neurological impacts associated with pesticides. UC Davis's MIND Institute put out a study in 2014 that found autism risk was much higher among children whose mothers had lived near agricultural-pesticide areas while pregnant. A 2017 paper found that zip codes that conducted aerial spraying for mosquitoes–a pesticide–had comparatively higher rates of autism than zip codes that didn't. Others have linked pesticides to a range of behavioral and cognitive impairment in children.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Top regulatory officials met with agricultural and chemical industry representatives dozens of times in the first few months after President Donald Trump took office. [The meetings] were followed by a series of regulatory rollbacks and a downplaying of pesticide concerns by the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) Commission. From February to mid-May, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leaders accepted meetings with representatives from at least 50 industry associations and companies, including agricultural and chemical giants such as Bayer, Corteva, BASF, Dow and the agrichemical lobbying group CropLife America, as well as the American Soybean Association, the National Cotton Council and others. Critics of the agrichemical industry said corporate influence in regulatory matters was underscored earlier this month when the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) Commission released its long-anticipated report on how to address chronic disease and clean up the food supply. The final version was significantly more friendly to the agricultural industry than a May MAHA report that cited the health risks posed by the widely used farm chemicals glyphosate and atrazine. The September report took aim at synthetic dyes and junk food, among other things, but deleted references to glyphosate and atrazine and made no mention of pesticide exposure routes or risks.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Two lawsuits aim to stop US federal regulators and industry from "illegally" hiding basic information about toxic chemicals used in consumer products. Companies often claim that toxic chemicals' health and safety data, and even their names, are "confidential business information" (CBI) because making the data public could damage their bottom line. The US Environmental Protection Agency frequently allows industry to use the tactic, which makes it virtually impossible for public health researchers to quickly learn about dangerous chemicals. It also bars most EPA staff and state regulators from accessing the information and criminal charges could be brought against those who do. That leaves regulators attempting to protect the public without essential information for some chemicals and in effect creates a "shadow regulatory government" in the EPA, said Tim Whitehouse, a former EPA attorney who is now director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), a plaintiff in one of the suits. The ... suit alleges the EPA has narrowed Congress's definitions of what should be made public. The EPA is also withholding chemical safety test results that show health risks to the public or environment. Separately, Peer is suing the EPA for hiding health and safety data for chemicals made by Inhance Technologies, which produces plastic containers found to leach dangerous levels of PFOA, a highly toxic compound, into the containers' contents.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
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.