Corporate Corruption Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Corporate Corruption Media Articles in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

For decades, a little-known company now owned by a Goldman Sachs fund has been making millions of dollars from the unlikely dregs of American life: sewage sludge. Synagro, sells farmers treated [sewage] sludge from factories and homes to use as fertilizer. But that fertilizer, also known as biosolids, can contain harmful "forever chemicals" known as PFAS linked to serious health problems including cancer and birth defects. Farmers are starting to find the chemicals contaminating their land, water, crops and livestock. Just this year, two common types of PFAS were declared hazardous substances by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Superfund law. Now, Synagro is part of a major effort to lobby Congress to limit the ability of farmers and others to sue to clean up fields polluted by the sludge fertilizer. In a letter to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in March, sludge-industry lobbyists argued that they shouldn't be held liable because the chemicals were already in the sludge before they received it and made it into fertilizer. [Synagro's] earnings hit $100 million to $120 million last year. An investment fund run by Goldman Sachs ... acquired Synagro in 2020 in a deal reported to be worth at least $600 million. As concerns over PFAS risks have grown, Synagro has stepped up its lobbying. Chemical giants 3M and DuPont, the original manufacturers of PFAS, for decades hid evidence of the chemicals' dangers. The chemicals are now so ubiquitous ... that nearly all Americans carry PFAS in their bloodstream. As many as 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS through tap water.

Note: Remember when Goldman Sachs once asked in a biotech research report: "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals and food system corruption.

When Megan Rothbauer suffered a heart attack at work in Wisconsin, she was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. The nearest hospital was "not in network", which left Ms Rothbauer with a $52,531.92 bill for her care. Had the ambulance driven a further three blocks to Meriter Hospital in Madison, the bill would have been a more modest $1,500. The incident laid bare the expensive complexity of the American healthcare system with patients finding that they are uncovered, despite paying hefty premiums, because of their policy's small print. In many cases the grounds for refusal hinge on whether the insurer accepts that the treatment is necessary and that decision is increasingly being made by artificial intelligence rather than a physician. It is leading to coverage being denied on an industrial scale. Much of the work is outsourced, with the biggest operator being EviCore, which ... uses AI to review – and in many cases turn down – doctors' requests for prior authorisation, guaranteeing to pay for treatment. The controversy over coverage denials was brought into sharp focus by the gunning down of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. The [words written on the] casings [of] the ammunition – "deny", "defend" and "depose" – are thought to refer to the tactics the insurance industry is accused of using to avoid paying out. UnitedHealthcare rejected one in three claims last year, about twice the industry average.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and corporate corruption.

Within Meta's Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations team, [Hannah] Byrne helped craft one of the most powerful and secretive censorship policies in internet history. She and her team helped draft the rulebook that applies to the world's most diabolical people and groups: the Ku Klux Klan, cartels, and terrorists. Meta bans these so-called Dangerous Organizations and Individuals, or DOI, from using its platforms, but further prohibits its billions of users from engaging in "glorification," "support," or "representation" of anyone on the list. As an armed white supremacist group with credible allegations of human rights violations hanging over it, Azov [Battalion] had landed on the Dangerous Organizations list. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta not only moved swiftly to allow users to cheer on the Azov Battalion, but also loosened its rules around incitement, hate speech, and gory imagery so Ukrainian civilians could share images of the suffering around them. Within weeks, Byrne found the moral universe around her inverted: The heavily armed hate group sanctioned by Congress since 2018 were now freedom fighters resisting occupation, not terroristic racists. It seems most galling for Byrne to compare how malleable Meta's Dangerous Organizations policy was for Ukraine, and how draconian it has felt for those protesting the war in Gaza. "I know the U.S. government is in constant contact with Facebook employees," she said. Meta's censorship systems are "basically an extension of the government," Byrne said. "You want military, Department of State, CIA people enforcing free speech? That is what is concerning."

Note: Read more about Facebook's secret blacklist, and how Facebook censored reporting of war crimes in Gaza but allowed praise for the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade on its platform. Going deeper, click here if you want to know the real history behind the Russia-Ukraine war. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.

A spritz of perfume may feel like such a minor chemical exposure compared to the pollutants elsewhere in our environment – microplastics, air pollution, PFAS. But scientists and clinicians are increasingly raising alarm over a group of chemicals used in many personal care products: phthalates. Phthalates – found in popular perfumes, nail polishes and hair care products – have been linked to numerous adverse health outcomes: insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease and impaired neurodevelopment. A study published in JAMA Network Open found that higher urinary concentrations of phthalates from personal care products was linked to a 25 percent increased risk of hyperactivity problems among adolescents. Another study of the same cohort found that increased phthalate exposure was also associated with poorer performance in math. The concerns about childhood exposure to phthalates are high enough that in the United States, certain types of the chemical are banned in children's toys and items such as pacifiers and baby bottles. For Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas at Austin ... the harms are clear enough that she advises everyone to try to reduce their exposure, especially parents starting a family and those with young children. "I recommend avoiding added fragrances altogether – in perfumes, scented lotions and shampoos, even scented detergents and antiperspirants," she said.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.

U.S. government researchers have found that a widely prescribed asthma drug originally sold by Merck & Co, may be linked to serious mental health problems for some patients, according to a scientific presentation reviewed by Reuters. The researchers found that the drug, sold under the brand name Singulair and generically as montelukast, attaches to multiple brain receptors critical to psychiatric functioning. By 2019, thousands of reports of neuropsychiatric episodes, including dozens of suicides, in patients prescribed the drug had piled up on internet forums and in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's tracking system. Such "adverse event" reports do not prove a causal link between a medicine and a side effect, but are used by the FDA to determine whether more study of a drug's risks are warranted. The reports and new scientific research led the FDA in 2020 to add a "black box" warning to the montelukast prescribing label, flagging serious mental health risks like suicidal thinking or actions. The behavior of montelukast appears similar to other drugs known to have neuropsychiatric effects, such as the antipsychotic risperidone. When the FDA added the black box, it cited research from Julia Marschallinger and Ludwig Aigner. The two scientists told Reuters ... the new data showed significant quantities of montelukast present in the brain. The receptors involved play a role in governing mood, impulse control, cognition and sleep, among other functions, they said.

Note: Reuters reported that the FDA received more than 80 reports of suicides in people taking the medicine. Learn more about how US courts protected Merck from lawsuits regarding Singulair. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on mental health and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.

Last week, I was on the path to publishing a piece in a major legacy media outlet–a name all of you would instantly recognize–about Trump's bold appointment of RFK Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For weeks, I had been in discussions with an editor about publishing this article, which argued that Trump appears to be genuinely signalling toward transformative health policy reform. After submitting the piece late Tuesday night to meet a Wednesday deadline, I received a surprising email from my editor the following morning: "Appears we don't approve." She linked to a new editorial board piece labeling RFK Jr. a "fringe conspiracy theorist" likely to harm public health. Her follow-up message read, "We have come out aggressively against Kennedy." Just like that, my piece was axed. My commitment to honest reporting and ideological independence opened many doors. Until it didn't. I discovered that hot-button topics I tackled like identity politics and police brutality were actually far less contentious than the third rail of Big Pharma and government health policies. Wokism is a far less pernicious, gargantuan force in American politics and media than Pfizer, Merck, and Moderna. By 2021, as the pandemic and vaccine mandates became politically charged, my pitches began to hit a wall. Outlets that once published polarizing takes now resisted anything questioning mainstream pandemic narratives.

Note: This article was written by independent journalist Rav Arora. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and media manipulation.

Emails show Planned Parenthood negotiating terms regarding the donation of aborted fetuses for medical research. The emails discuss fetal tissue like any other commodity such as sugar or rice, nonchalantly negotiating for fetuses up to 23 weeks old from elective abortions. A heavily-redacted so-called "Research Plan" submitted to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Institutional Review Board and approved in 2018 states scientists wanted 2,500 fetuses from up to almost the sixth month of gestation for experimentation. Although selling fetal tissue is illegal, donating it is not illegal. The contract between UCSD and Planned Parenthood appears to allow Planned Parenthood to retain "intellectual property rights relating to the" fetal tissue, although it also does not grant UCSD the independent right to "commercialize" the tissue. The emails were shared with The Post by [founder of Center for Medical Progress] David Daleiden. Daleiden ... accuses Planned Parenthood of racism. The English language consent forms contain 15 bullet points including language disclosing that the donated tissue may have "significant commercial value." However, that specific information is not included in the Spanish language consent forms which contain only 14 bullet points. "I don't understand why Planned Parenthood…. and UCSD felt that Spanish speaking mothers did not deserve to know that the body parts of their aborted children would be ‘commercialized" while English speaking mothers did deserve to have this fact disclosed to them," Daleiden [said]. The transfer of any aborted human fetal tissue for "valuable consideration" across state lines is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000.

Note: Watch all the leaked footage of Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue here. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.

New rules require drugmakers to be clearer and more direct when explaining their medications' risks and side effects. The [new] guidelines ... are designed to do away with industry practices that downplay or distract viewers from risk information. But while regulators were drafting them, a new trend emerged: Thousands of pharma influencers pushing drugs online with little oversight. A new bill in Congress would compel the FDA to more aggressively police such promotions on social media platforms. "Some people become very attached to social media influencers and ascribe to them credibility that, in some cases, they don't deserve," said Tony Cox ... at Indiana University. Still, TV remains the industry's primary advertising format, with over $4 billion spent in the past year. Even so, many companies are looking beyond TV and expanding into social media. They often partner with patient influencers who post about managing their conditions, new treatments or navigating the health system. Advertising executives say companies like the format because it's cheaper than TV and consumers generally feel influencers are more trustworthy than companies. "The power of social media and the deluge of misleading promotions has meant too many young people are receiving medical advice from influencers instead of their health care professional," Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Mike Braun of Indiana wrote the FDA in a February letter.

Note: Prescription drug advertising is only legal in the US and New Zealand. Read more about the influencers who are paid to promote pharmaceuticals on social media. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and media manipulation.

A federal jury held a defense contractor legally responsible for contributing to the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib for the first time. The jury awarded a total of $42 million to three Iraqi men – a journalist, a middle school principal, and fruit vendor – who were held at the notorious prison two decades ago. The plaintiffs' suit accused Virginia-based CACI, which was hired by the U.S. government to provide interrogation services at Abu Ghraib, of conspiring with American soldiers to torture detainees. CACI had argued that while abuses did occur at Abu Ghraib, it was ultimately the Army who was responsible for this conduct, even if CACI employees may have been involved. The defense contractor also argued there was no definitive evidence that their staff abused the three Iraqi men who filed the case – and that it could have been American soldiers who tortured them. The jury did not find that argument persuasive. The case was filed 16 years ago but got caught up in procedural hurdles, as CACI tried more than 20 times to dismiss the lawsuit. The plaintiffs – Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili, and Asa'ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba'e – had testified about facing sexual abuse and harassment, as well as being beaten and threatened with dogs at Abu Ghraib. "My body was like a machine, responding to all external orders," [said] Al-Ejaili, a former journalist with Al Jazeera. "The only part I owned was my brain."

Note: Read more about the horrors of Abu Ghraib. Learn more about US torture programs in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Beheadings, mass killings, child abuse, hate speech – all of it ends up in the inboxes of a global army of content moderators. You don't often see or hear from them – but these are the people whose job it is to review and then, when necessary, delete content that either gets reported by other users, or is automatically flagged by tech tools. Moderators are often employed by third-party companies, but they work on content posted directly on to the big social networks including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. "If you take your phone and then go to TikTok, you will see a lot of activities, dancing, you know, happy things," says Mojez, a former Nairobi-based moderator. "But in the background, I personally was moderating, in the hundreds, horrific and traumatising videos. "I took it upon myself. Let my mental health take the punch so that general users can continue going about their activities on the platform." In 2020, Meta then known as Facebook, agreed to pay a settlement of $52m (Ł40m) to moderators who had developed mental health issues. The legal action was initiated by a former moderator [who] described moderators as the "keepers of souls", because of the amount of footage they see containing the final moments of people's lives. The ex-moderators I spoke to all used the word "trauma" in describing the impact the work had on them. One ... said he found it difficult to interact with his wife and children because of the child abuse he had witnessed. What came across, very powerfully, was the immense pride the moderators had in the roles they had played in protecting the world from online harm.

Note: Read more about the disturbing world of content moderation. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks. Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC). The committee's role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products. She also owns shares in the tobacco giant ... and receives a PMI pension. But her appointment, unreported until now, raises questions about the potential for undue influence and possible access to inside information on policy and regulatory matters that may be valuable to the tobacco industry. PMI has a long history of lobbying and influence campaigns, including pushing against planned crackdowns on vaping. It has also invested heavily in promoting heated tobacco as an alternative to smoking and expects to ship around 140bn heated tobacco units in 2024, a 134% increase on its 59.7bn sales in 2019. Sophie Braznell, who monitors heated tobacco products as part of the University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group, said Dempsey's position on the committee risked undermining its work. "In permitting a former senior tobacco employee and consultant for the world's largest tobacco company to join this advisory committee, we jeopardise its objectivity and integrity."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and government corruption from reliable major media sources.

Pfizer Inc. failed to warn patients that its injectable contraceptive drug Depo-Provera can increase the risk of developing brain tumors, a new lawsuit alleged. "For several decades the manufacturers and sellers of Depo-Provera and its authorized generic and generic analogues" had a responsibility to investigate whether the medication could contribute to the growth of brain tumors, according to the complaint filed Monday in the US District Court for the Central District of California. Plaintiff Taylor Devorak alleged that researchers have found Depo-Provera and similar progesterone medications have been linked to a greater incidence of brain tumors called intracranial meningioma. She's seeking damages on her failure-to-warn, defective design, negligence, misrepresentation, and breach of warranty claims against the pharmaceutical giant. Devorak's complaint comes in the wake of a handful of substantially similar lawsuits filed in other federal courts in California and Indiana in recent weeks. The American label for Depo-Provera "still makes no mention of the increased risk to patients of developing intracranial meningiomas," even though the EU and UK now list meningioma under the medication's warning section, Devorak's complaint said. Devorak cited a 2024 study published in the British Medical Journal that said prolonged use of medroxyprogesterone acetate medications like Depo-Provera were found to significantly increase the risk of developing intracranial meningioma.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.

The food system is inextricably linked to an economic system that, for decades, has been fundamentally biased against the kinds of changes we need. Economic policies almost everywhere have systematically promoted ever-larger scale and monocultural production. Those policies include: Massive subsidies for globally traded commodities, direct and hidden subsidies for global transport infrastructures and fossil fuels, ‘free trade' policies that open up food markets in virtually every country to global agribusinesses, [and] health and safety regulations [that] destroy smaller producers and marketers and are not enforced for giant monopolies. Monocultures rely heavily on chemical inputs–fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides–which pollute the immediate environment, put wildlife at risk, and–through nutrient runoff–create "dead zones" in waters ... thousands of miles away. More than half of the world's food varieties have been lost over the past century; in countries like the U.S., the loss is more than 90 percent. Agribusiness has gone to great lengths to convince the public that large-scale industrial food production is the only way to feed the world. But the global food economy is massively inefficient. More than one-third of the global food supply is wasted or lost; for the U.S., the figure is closer to one-half. The solution to these problems ... requires a commitment to local food economies. [Several towns in the state of Maine] declared "food sovereignty" by passing ordinances that give their citizens the right "to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." In 2013, the government of Ontario, Canada, passed a Local Food Act to increase access to local food, improve local food literacy, and provide tax credits for farmers who donate a portion of their produce to nearby food banks.

Note: Read the full article for a comprehensive explanation of why local food and economies are far better for human health and environment. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption.

Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers "stuffed with trackers" are among examples of smart devices engaged in "excessive" surveillance, according to the consumer group Which? The organisation tested three air fryers ... each of which requested permission to record audio on the user's phone through a connected app. Which? found the app provided by the company Xiaomi connected to trackers for Facebook and a TikTok ad network. The Xiaomi fryer and another by Aigostar sent people's personal data to servers in China. Its tests also examined smartwatches that it said required "risky" phone permissions – in other words giving invasive access to the consumer's phone through location tracking, audio recording and accessing stored files. Which? found digital speakers that were preloaded with trackers for Facebook, Google and a digital marketing company called Urbanairship. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said the latest consumer tests "show that many products not only fail to meet our expectations for data protection but also consumer expectations". A growing number of devices in homes are connected to the internet, including camera-enabled doorbells and smart TVs. Last Black Friday, the ICO encouraged consumers to check if smart products they planned to buy had a physical switch to prevent the gathering of voice data.

Note: A 2015 New York Times article warned that smart devices were a "train wreck in privacy and security." For more along these lines, read about how automakers collect intimate information that includes biometric data, genetic information, health diagnosis data, and even information on people's "sexual activities" when drivers pair their smartphones to their vehicles.

Ask "is the British tax system fair", and Google cites a quote ... arguing that indeed it is. Ask "is the British tax system unfair", and Google's Featured Snippet explains how UK taxes benefit the rich and promote inequality. "What Google has done is they've pulled bits out of the text based on what people are searching for and fed them what they want to read," [Digital marketing director at Dragon Metrics Sarah] Presch says. "It's one big bias machine." The vast majority of internet traffic begins with a Google Search, and people rarely click on anything beyond the first five links. The system that orders the links on Google Search has colossal power over our experience of the world. You might choose to engage with information that keeps you trapped in your filter bubble, "but there's only a certain bouquet of messages that are put in front of you to choose from in the first place", says [professor] Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick. A recent US anti-trust case against Google uncovered internal company documents where employees discuss some of the techniques the search engine uses to answer your questions. "We do not understand documents – we fake it," an engineer wrote in a slideshow used during a 2016 presentation. "A billion times a day, people ask us to find documents relevant to a query… We hardly look at documents. We look at people. If a document gets a positive reaction, we figure it is good. If the reaction is negative, it is probably bad. Grossly simplified, this is the source of Google's magic. That is how we serve the next person, keep the induction rolling, and sustain the illusion that we understand." In other words, Google watches to see what people click on when they enter a given search term. When people seem satisfied by a certain type of information, it's more likely that Google will promote that kind of search result for similar queries in the future.

Note: For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.

There is only one group of people that matter the most: those who Dr. Peter Phillips, professor emeritus at Sonoma State University, calls the "titans of capital." In his new book by the same name, Phillips studies the economic trends following the COVID-19 pandemic and how the wealth concentration in the world took a dramatic turn towards the already ultra-wealthy. The main problem is simple to understand: the ultra-wealthy "doubled their wealth concentration." That means, according to Phillips, that "the upper one half of 1% of the people got richer and basically, the rest of the world got poorer." Phillips names the top 10 capital investment companies, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Morgan Stanley and others as the main culprits. Over $50 trillion are controlled by 117 people across these 10 companies, according to Phillips. This immense concentration of wealth inevitably renders any semblance of democracy almost useless, as the main decision makers are those who hold the biggest bag. And then there's policy groups. The largest now is the World Economic Forum, which is the top 2,000 to 3,000 corporations in the world send their CEOs there, to Davos every year. And there's a global leaders attend, and they're talking about a better capitalism, a state, what they call stakeholders capitalism, in other words, capitalism with a conscience. It's not working. They're not doing anything different, other than allowing the continued concentration of capital globally.

Note: Read more about how the ultra-wealthy profited immensely from the COVID economy. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and financial inequality from reliable major media sources.

The Air Force overpaid for soap dispensers used in the bathrooms of C-17 military aircraft by 7,943% – or more than 80 times the price of similar commercially available dispensers – according to a Defense Department inspector general report released Tuesday. The dispensers were one of about a dozen spare parts for which Boeing overcharged the Air Force, according to the report, resulting in nearly $1 million in additional and unnecessary costs. The costs of the soap dispenser from Boeing, the similar soap dispenser and the number of dispensers purchased by the Air Force were redacted in the report, but in total, the Air Force overpaid $149,072 for the soap dispensers. An anonymous tip about the dispensers launched the inspector general's audit into the spare parts. "The Air Force needs to establish and implement more effective internal controls to help prevent overpaying for spare parts for the remainder of this contract, which continues through 2031," Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch said in a statement. Boeing has a contract with the Air Force that lets Boeing purchase needed spare parts for the C17, and the Air Force reimburses Boeing for the spare parts purchased, according to the report. "Significant overpayments for spare parts may reduce the number of spare parts that Boeing can purchase on the contract, potentially reducing C-17 readiness worldwide," Storch said.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. She and colleagues recruited 95 children from across the country and gave them puberty blockers, which stave off the permanent physical changes – like breasts or a deepening voice – that could exacerbate their gender distress, known as dysphoria. The researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health. An older Dutch study had found that puberty blockers improved well-being, results that inspired clinics around the world to regularly prescribe the medications as part of what is now called gender-affirming care. But the American trial did not find a similar trend. Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, she said. In the nine years since the study was funded ... and as medical care for this small group of adolescents became a searing issue in American politics, Dr. Olson-Kennedy's team has not published the data. Asked why, she said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court. "I do not want our work to be weaponized," she said.

Note: We believe that everyone has a right to exist and express themselves the way they want. Yet we value the health of all beings and the importance of informed choice when it comes to any potentially life-changing medical procedure. For more along these lines, explore summaries of revealing news articles on transgender medicine from reliable major media sources.

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) joined Popular Democracy in compiling a 71-page report titled Billionaire Blowback on Housing. The two groups found that a small number of wealthy individuals and their investment arms, who control "huge pools of wealth," have spent some of their vast resources on "predatory investment and wealth-parking in luxury housing." Billionaires and their investment firms, such as Blackstone–now the world's largest corporate landlord–are "taking advantage of the tight low-income rental market, lack of publicly funded affordable housing, displacement after the foreclosure crisis, and inaccessible homeownership to get into the business of single-family and multifamily home rentals, and buying up mobile home parks," the report reads. Blackstone now owns 300,000 residential units across the U.S. and nearly doubled its portfolio in 2021. The housing crisis ... is characterized by record-breaking homelessness in 2023 with more than 653,000 people unhoused; half of tenants paying more than 30% of their income on rent ... and a significantly widened gap between the income needed to buy a house and the actual cost of a home. The number of vacant units in some communities exceed the number of unhoused people. For example, in 2017 there were more than 93,500 vacant units in Los Angeles and an estimated 36,000 unhoused residents, with vacancies treated as "a structural feature of the market thanks to the presence of a small class of wealthy investors who engage in speculative financial behavior."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on banking system corruption and financial inequality from reliable major media sources.

On a chilly, early morning in January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended upon a poultry farm in central Texas. Activists with Meat the Victims, a decentralized, global movement to abolish animal exploitation, later uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. The police identified [Sarah Weldon] and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing. The local police weren't the only ones paying attention. An FBI agent in Texas had been secretly monitoring the demonstration. His focus? Weapons of mass destruction. The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison – including for the "attempted use" of WMD – while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program. "This ... is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive," said Justin Marceau, a law professor. "Framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression."

Note: Animal rights activists are relentlessly prosecuted while the evidence of animal cruelty they uncover is ruthlessly suppressed. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in law enforcement and in the food system from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.