Government Corruption News Stories

Excerpts of Key Government Corruption News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on government 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: 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.

In yet another example of Donald Trump announcing new policy via social media, the president has now pledged to crack down on "illegal protests" at universities, warning that "agitators" will be headed to jail or targeted for deportation. On the campaign trail, Trump already pledged to crush pro-Palestinian protests if they ramp up again, including deporting foreign national students who participate. Peaceful protest isn't illegal. But what many do not realize is that counterterrorism law gives enormously wide-ranging discretionary authority to the president, to law enforcement, and to immigration officials that could be used to squelch free speech and dissent. For example: providing material support for terrorism is a federal crime. The breathtaking scope of this provision becomes more clear once we see how the terms are defined. "Material support" includes the provision of "service," "expert advice or assistance," "communications equipment," or "personnel" (including yourself). And the Supreme Court has confirmed that the support does not actually have to go toward any particular violent act that might be considered terrorism, only to a group that is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. government, even if that support is otherwise lawful. Hamas is designated as an FTO and those opposing U.S. and Israeli policy are often accused of supporting Hamas. Could peaceful pro-Palestine protesters be charged with materially supporting terrorism?

Note: We have documented decades of free speech repression beginning with COINTELPRO. We support freedom for all peoples including Palestinians, and many of these campus protests have indeed been peaceful. However, we can in no way overlook the disturbing cases of campus protesters glorifying the violent attacks on October 7th and using Hamas symbols in banners and protest signs. Protesters have been caught on film screaming "We are Hamas." At NYU, a sign literally said "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." A University of Michigan pamphlet contained the phrase "Death to America." NBC News reported that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a sham charity that allegedly funneled money to a pro-Hamas terrorist organization while also helping organize pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses. Before October 7th, the human rights abuses and sexual violence Hamas committed against Palestinians were extensively documented. Where is the nuanced dialogue beyond media polarization on this tragic issue?

Alexander Balan was on a California beach when the idea for a new kind of drone came to him. This eureka moment led Balan to found Xdown, the company that's building the P.S. Killer (PSK)–an autonomous kamikaze drone that works like a hand grenade and can be thrown like a football. The PSK is a "throw-and-forget" drone, Balan says, referencing the "fire-and-forget" missile that, once locked on to a target, can seek it on its own. Instead of depending on remote controls, the PSK will be operated by AI. Soldiers should be able to grab it, switch it on, and throw it–just like a football. The PSK can carry one or two 40 mm grenades commonly used in grenade launchers today. The grenades could be high-explosive dual purpose, designed to penetrate armor while also creating an explosive fragmentation effect against personnel. These grenades can also "airburst"–programmed to explode in the air above a target for maximum effect. Infantry, special operations, and counterterrorism units can easily store PSK drones in a field backpack and tote them around, taking one out to throw at any given time. They can also be packed by the dozen in cargo airplanes, which can fly over an area and drop swarms of them. Balan says that one Defense Department official told him "This is the most American munition I have ever seen." The nonlethal version of the PSK [replaces] its warhead with a supply container so that it's able to "deliver food, medical kits, or ammunition to frontline troops" (though given the 1.7-pound payload capacity, such packages would obviously be small).

Note: The US military is using Xbox controllers to operate weapons systems. The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on warfare technologies and watch our latest video on the militarization of Big Tech.

Corporate media is heralding the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the emergence of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as the new leader of Syria, despite his deep ties to both al-Qaeda and ISIS. CNN portrayed him as a "blazer-wearing revolutionary." In 2013, [CNN] labeled him one of "the world's 10 most dangerous terrorists," known for abducting, torturing and slaughtering racial and religious minorities. Western governments consider Jolani's new organization, HayĘĽat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as one and the same as Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra. Jolani – whose real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shar'a ... was captured by the U.S. military and spent over five years in prison, including a stint at the notorious Abu Ghraib torture center. While in Iraq, Jolani fought with ISIS and was even a deputy to its founder. Immediately upon release in 2011, ISIS sent him to Syria with a rumored $1 billion to found the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda. While both journalists and politicians in the U.S. are scrambling to change their opinions on Jolani and HTS, the reality is that, for much of its existence, Washington has enjoyed a very close relationship with al-Qaeda. The organization was born in Afghanistan in the 1980s, thanks in no small part to the CIA. Between 1979 and 1992, the CIA spent billions of dollars funding, arming, and training Afghan Mujahideen militiamen (like Osama bin Laden) in an attempt to bleed the Soviet occupation dry. The Bush administration would use [the 9/11] attacks as a pretext to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, claiming that America could never be safe if al-Qaeda were not thoroughly destroyed. And yet, by the 2010s, even as the U.S. was ostensibly at war with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was secretly working with [al-Qaeda] in Syria on a plan to overthrow Assad. The CIA spent around $1 billion per year training and arming a wide network of rebel groups to this end. As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked 2012 email, "AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria."

Note: As recently as 2016, Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting with Syrian militias armed by the CIA. Read more about how radicalized Iraqis were swept into US military detention at Camp Bucca–a notorious facility often called a "terrorist university"–where they forged alliances that directly led to the rise of ISIS.

The reporting team of the In the Dark podcast has assembled the largest known collection of investigations of possible war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11–nearly eight hundred incidents in all. Much of the time, the reporting concluded, the military delivers neither transparency nor justice. The database makes it possible, for the first time, to see hundreds of allegations of war crimes–the kinds that stain a nation–in one place, along with the findings of investigations and the results of prosecutions. We limited our search to ... allegations of violence perpetrated by U.S. service members or deaths in U.S. custody that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. Of the seven hundred and eighty-one cases we found, at least sixty-five per cent had been dismissed by investigators who didn't believe that a crime had even taken place. In a hundred and fifty-one cases, however, investigators did find probable cause to believe that a crime had occurred, that the rules of engagement had been violated, or that a use of force hadn't been justified. These include the case of soldiers raping a fourteen-year-old girl and subsequently murdering her and her family; the alleged killing of a man by a Green Beret who cut off his victim's ear and kept it; and cruelty toward detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and at the Bagram Air Base detention facility. Yet, even in these cases, meaningful accountability was rare.

Note: Learn more about human rights abuses during wartime in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world.

On February 1, 2025, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), in coordination with the federal government of Somalia, conducted the first airstrikes in the country under the new Trump administration. The strikes targeted ... a hub for ISIS-Somalia (IS-S). IS-S is now an integral financial and recruitment hub for the global Islamic State network, generating millions of dollars in revenue and growing its ranks with fighters from as far north as Morocco to as far south as Tanzania. The United States has been carrying out operations in Somalia since at least 2002 without a formal war declaration. Shortly after the September 11, 2001, plane attacks, George W. Bush ... sent Special Forces and CIA operatives to Somalia to capture suspected al-Qaeda members. The Obama years saw an unprecedented rise in drone warfare. The full scale of the air war remains unknown. The death toll of these operations are also unknown; U.S. claims denying civilian casualties are routinely disputed by people on the ground and the Somali government. A 2023 letter authored by 24 Somali and international rights organizations and addressed to the Secretary of Defense says: "Civilian victims, survivors, and their families have yet to receive answers, acknowledgement, and amends despite their sustained efforts to reach authorities over several years." From Somalia to Afghanistan, Iraq to Libya, the American promise of safety arrives on the wings of drones, its humanitarianism indistinguishable from war.

Note: Read a leaked CIA report that admits drone strikes and targeted killings can backfire by increasing support for extremist groups, especially when civilians are killed or insurgent leaders gain notoriety. For more, read about the failure of US military policy in Somalia.

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency began its cost-cutting efforts by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. DOGE has since targeted agencies focused on children's education, protecting the natural world, and food safety. But after more than a month running roughshod through government, DOGE has made strikingly few cuts at the Pentagon, whose bloated budget tips the scales at around $850 billion – accounting for about 13 percent of federal spending. One Pentagon official said that DOGE has so far taken on "weak" agencies, but that Musk's cost-cutters will be "steamrolled" if they lock horns with the Defense Department. Major savings at the Pentagon can be found through the reduction or elimination of dysfunctional, expensive, or dangerous weapon systems like the F-35 combat aircraft; vulnerable Navy ships with limited utility like a new generation of aircraft carriers; and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, according to William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The F-35 combat aircraft is a bloated boondoggle, and it's already on Musk's radar. More than two decades in, the F-35 is still suffering from key flaws in its software and hardware – a total of 873 unresolved defects, according to one Pentagon analysis. If it's allowed to run its course, the F-35 will be the most expensive weapons program in history, at a total cost of $1.7 trillion.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.

Every two years since 1990, at the start of each new Congress, [Government Accountability Office] scientists, actuaries and investigators have produced a "high risk list" of where the federal government mismanages its resources and taxpayer money. Over that 35-year span, more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars has been saved by implementing the GAO's recommendations. The 2025 list cites at least $150 billion in payment errors and fraud in each of the past seven years – chiefly in overpayments by Medicare, Medicaid, the unemployment insurance system and the Earned Income Tax Credit. And that $150 billion figure is no doubt vastly understated, given that agencies failed to report improper payments for at least nine "risk-susceptible" programs. The government's failure to collect all the taxes that it is owed was estimated to have cost more than $600 billion in the 2022 tax year alone, which underscores how absurd it is for Musk to cut the Internal Revenue Service workforce in half. The Defense Department ... is responsible for about half of discretionary spending. "There are many major acquisitions across the government, including DOD weapons systems, GAO boss Gene Dodaro [said]. "They're on the high list." Pentagon contracts and the ones the Energy Department signs regarding nuclear weapons, he added, "are consistently overrun, over budget and delays occur. And they don't deliver on the promises."

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.

Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers–Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego–to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon's costliest new projects. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country's largest and most powerful defense contractors ... posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC. The very notion of a "military-industrial complex" linking giant defense contractors to powerful figures in Congress and the military was introduced on January 17, 1961, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address. In 2024, just five companies–Lockheed Martin (with $64.7 billion in defense revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with $40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($35.2 billion), General Dynamics ($33.7 billion), and Boeing ($32.7 billion)–claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts. Now ... a new force–Silicon Valley startup culture–has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically.

Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on warfare technologies and watch our latest video on the militarization of Big Tech.

On February 10, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order ... to pause the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA was the first law in modern history to ban a country's own citizens and companies from bribing foreign officials. Citing the law as one of the "excessive barriers to American commerce abroad," President Trump has instructed the attorney general to–at her discretion–"cease the initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions." This move ... risks a revival of the pre-1970s period, when bribery was a routine practice among major U.S. arms contractors. In late 1975 and early 1976, Idaho Sen. Frank Church's Subcommittee on the Conduct of Multinational Corporations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee exposed widespread foreign bribery on the part of U.S. oil and aerospace firms, with the starring role played by Lockheed Martin, which bribed officials in Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia in pursuit of contracts for its civilian and military aircraft. A 2022 Quincy Institute study found that U.S.-supplied weapons were present in two-thirds of the world's active conflicts, and that at least 31 clients of the U.S. arms industry were undemocratic regimes. If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to "stop the war profiteering," it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well.

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

By appointing FBI Director Kash Patel as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), President Donald Trump took a step towards reining in a federal agency justifiably viewed by many as a threat to self-defense rights. He also signaled that he may consolidate government bodies that overlap in their responsibilities. It's impossible to credibly argue that the ATF doesn't need a shakeup. After all, this is a federal agency that ran guns to criminal gangs in Mexico as part of a bizarre and failed "investigation," manipulated mentally disabled people into participating in sting operations–and then arrested them, lost thousands of guns and gun parts, killed people over paperwork violations, and unilaterally reinterpreted laws to create new felonies out of thin air (which means more cause for sketchy investigations and stings). The federal police agency obsessively focused on firearms has long seemed determined to guarantee itself work by finding ever more things to police. But what about putting the same person in charge of both the ATF and the FBI? Merging agencies–if that's where this is headed–might improve internal communications by clarifying chains of command and eliminating interagency competition. But–and this is a big concern–done wrong, you'd end up with a supercharged federal enforcement agency with all the hostility to civil liberties its old components embodied when separate, but now with lots more clout.

Note: Read how CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson was hacked by government operatives over her reporting on Fast and Furious. A.T.F. agents once ran a secret multimillion-dollar slush fund for illicit operations and personal perks, bypassing oversight and violating their own rules. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.

Brooke Rollins, our new secretary of Agriculture, is promising to reform the department. If she's serious about eliminating waste, she'll take a hard look at the wasteful mandates and billions of U.S. tax dollars that go directly to agricultural corporations every year. Despite spending $20 billion a year of our tax dollars on farm subsidies, Americans never see most U.S. agriculture products. We only eat about 37 percent of major crops produced. Subsidies over-incentivize production of foods that are making us sick. Heavily subsidized corn often ends up as high-fructose corn syrup in heavily processed foods like sugary cereals and beverages. Through direct subsidies and import restrictions, we also prop up sugar cane and sugar beet production. The overconsumption of these unhealthy foods contributes to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related illnesses that cost our health system more than $1 trillion a year. If Rollins really cares about making America healthy again, she should stop forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for foods that are making us ill. Consumers can still buy whatever they want without lining the pockets of corporations benefiting from over-producing unnecessary, unhealthy foods. Between 2017-2022, the U.S. agricultural industry lost more than 100,000 small and medium farms to consolidation. Currently, only 6 percent of farms produce 90 percent of all meat, dairy and poultry products.

Note: Read how our centralized, corporate-controlled food system wastes enormous amounts of food, destroys biodiversity, and relies on harmful chemicals – all while crushing local farmers and communities. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in the food system.

The former head of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) drug division is joining Pfizer as its chief medical officer. Patrizia Cavazzoni was formerly director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from 2020 until January, when she resigned just ahead of President Trump's return to office. Cavazzoni previously worked at Pfizer prior to joining the FDA in 2018. The announcement spurred renewed criticisms about the common "revolving door" between the FDA and industry. Critics worry the close relationship leads to a quid pro quo and favoritism toward industry. Scott Gottlieb, FDA commissioner during Trump's first term, now serves on the board of Pfizer. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long accused the FDA of being corrupt and beholden to industry influence and has pledged to root out supposed conflicts of interest across the agency. Just ahead of the election, while Trump was considering him for HHS secretary, Kennedy posted on social media that FDA employees who are "part of this corrupt system" should "pack their bags." Watchdog group Public Citizen panned Cavazzoni's hiring. "Cavazonni's move demonstrates that the revolving door between the FDA and the industries it regulates is alive and well and continues to undermine the FDA's credibility as a public health agency," the organization's health research group director Robert Steinbrook said.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in Big Pharma.

The toughest restaurant reservation in the country is at a suburban D.C. dining room. Inside, diners pay in cash for high-quality meals whipped up by a chef identified only by his first name. He can tell outsiders only that he works as the executive chef of a secure government building. Cellphones are forbidden. That's because the only people who can book a table here at one of the most secure compounds in the world are employees of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. As the first food critic ever admitted to the 50-seat Agency Dining Room, I find myself in covert company. The director of the agency approves the menus, which change quarterly. Before he made headlines with it in the White House, then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush let it be known that he didn't want to be served broccoli. William J. Casey had a sweet tooth; one of his favorite desserts was apple tarte Tatin. The agency's most recent director, William J. Burns, ate on the healthful side, "a salad with a protein," sometimes Caesar with salmon and often on a tray delivered to his office, says the executive chef. John Ratcliffe, the new director appointed by Trump, always begins his day with a fresh cup of coffee from the Agency Dining Room and is looking forward to trying the smash burger, according to the CIA. Servers aren't tipped at the CIA because they are paid differently from servers on the outside, Neises says. Waiters at the agency are doing "mission-critical work."

Note: Learn about the rise of the CIA in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.

There is an undeniable link between fiscal integrity and the preservation of our freedoms as Americans. When government becomes corrupt, it erodes not only our personal liberties and financial security, but also fosters a culture of lawlessness in both the public and private sectors. The corruption has been institutionalized in the federal budget. It has been normalized as standard operating procedure. The waste of taxpayers' money is ubiquitous – trillions for wars, trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse. Trillions have been lost in an accounting jumble. This has been our government's system of checks and balances: The Administration writes the checks, and Congress doesn't know what the balance is. Most members do not know what is in the $7.3 Trillion spending bill, and those who do aren't talking. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported more than $100 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments in 2023. A Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated the cost of waste, fraud, and abuse to be upwards of $60 BILLION, deriving from a lack of oversight, no internal controls in keeping track of who received the money, who spent it, and what it was spent for–and if indeed its purpose was accomplished. This hypocrisy–condemning endless wars while funding and escalating wars–allowed the military-industrial complex to thrive.

Note:This was written by Dennis Kucinich, former Democratic congressman and nationally recognized leader in peace and social justice. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and government waste.

An independent Ukrainian journalist named Ostap Stakhiv was livestreaming a call with Vasyl Pleskach, a man claiming he was being illegally detained by Ukraine's infamous military conscription unit, the TCC. The agency has been accused of kidnapping men from the street and forcing them to the front lines. In the middle of the interview, Stakhiv called the police to see if they would free Pleskach. Just then, with the police still on the line, a burly figure entered Vasyl's frame, walked over to Pleskach, and struck him hard in the face. "They're beating him right now," Stakhiv told the police. "People are watching it live. Go to my YouTube channel and see it for yourself." None of Ukraine's media outlets covered the beating, but about a month later, a Ukrainian media outlet, Babel, ran an article about Stakhiv. Its headline? "Ostap Stakhiv–a Failed Politician and Antivaxxer–Created a Vast Anti-Conscription Network." Other Ukrainian outlets ... chimed in with similar stories–some even containing identical phrasing. Nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine "survive thanks to grants" from the West. The primary funder of these outlets is an NGO called Internews. And where does Internews get its money? Primarily from USAID, to the tune of $473 million since 2008. There's no doubt that USAID's media program in Ukraine has done some good. But critics charge that the money comes with strings. It is one thing for a country to pass laws that restrict speech in times of war. It is quite another when "independent" media outlets ... engage in that same censorship, and orchestrate smear campaigns against journalists who report on abuses. One of the most blatant abuses, which has been going on since 2023, is the military recruiter practice of snatching men from the streets, breaking into apartments, and even torturing men who have refused to join the military. Dozens of videos documenting these abuses have been widely shared on social media.

Note: Read about the Chilean-American war commentator who died in prison under brutal circumstances after being smeared as a pro-Russian propagandist because he challenged the official narrative about the war in Ukraine. For more, watch world-renowned economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sach's powerful address at the EU Parliament about the deeper history of US and NATO involvement with Ukraine.

The Trump administration's decision to pause USAID funding has plunged hundreds of so-called "independent media" outlets into crisis, thereby exposing a worldwide network of thousands of journalists, all working to promote U.S. interests in their home countries. USAID spends over a quarter of a billion dollars yearly training and funding a vast, sprawling network of more than 6,200 reporters at nearly 1,000 news outlets. Oksana Romanyuk, the Director of Ukraine's Institute for Mass Information, revealed that almost 90% of the country's media are bankrolled by USAID, including many that have no other source of funding. [Independent media is] defined as any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not owned or funded by the state. Some USAID-backed journalists candidly admit that their funding dictates ... what stories they do and do not cover. Leila Bicakcic, CEO of Center for Investigative Reporting (a USAID-supported Bosnian organization), admitted, on camera, that "If you are funded by the U.S. government, there are certain topics that you would simply not go after, because the U.S. government has its interests that are above all others." While the press may be lamenting the demise of USAID-backed media, many heads of state are not. "Take your money with you," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro, "it's poison." Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, shared a rare moment of agreement with Petro. "Most governments don't want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up," he wrote, explaining that: "At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda."

Note: The New York Times reported in 2014 that USAID was used as a front for CIA regime change operations all over the world, and played a central role in overseeing the trillion-dollar failure of the war and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. USAID has a long history of child sex abuse cover-ups, fraud allegations, indictments, and inadvertently funding terrorists.

A United States judge dismissed a lawsuit pursued by four American attorneys and journalists, who alleged that the CIA and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo spied on them while they were visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Ecuador's London embassy. The lawsuit claimed that the plaintiffs, like all visitors, were required to "surrender" their electronic devices to employees of Undercover Global, a Spanish security company managed by David Morales that was hired by Ecuador to handle embassy security. They were unaware that UC Global had allegedly "copied the information stored on the devices" and shared the information with the CIA. Pompeo allegedly approved the copying of visitors' passports, "including pages with stamps and visas." He ensured that all "computers, laptops, mobile phones, recording devices, and other electronics brought into the embassy," were "seized, dismantled, imaged, photographed, and digitized." In September 2021, Yahoo News published an investigation "based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials–eight of whom described details of the CIA's proposals to abduct Assange." Pompeo allegedly "championed" proposals to abduct Assange after WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 materials in 2017. Pompeo favored a rendition operation that would involve breaking into the Ecuador embassy to drag Assange out and bring him to the U.S. "via a third country."

Note: Read about the CIA plots to kidnap or assassinate Assange. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Monday that some $4.7 trillion in payments from the Treasury Department were missing a critical tracking code, which made tracing the transactions "almost impossible." The transactions were reportedly missing the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS), an identification code which links a Treasury payment to a budget line item, according to DOGE, which described the use of such code as a "standard financial process." "In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible," read an X post from DOGE. The Elon Musk-led project to curb waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government said that in light of the discovery, use of the TAS code is now mandatory. "As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going," DOGE said. "This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. DOGE recently proposed "deleting paper checks" at Treasury, arguing that it would save taxpayers "at least $750 million per year." The initiative noted that the Treasury Department must keep "a physical lockbox" to collect the more than 100 million checks it processes each year, which costs about $2.40 per check to maintain. In fiscal year 2023, some $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks.

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

The years I spent trying to make government more efficient at the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) and USDS required a lot of patience. Now I'm fresh out. I hope DOGE will obliterate the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) from space. This law, which was written in 1980–before computers were common in homes–requires that every government form, and every change to every government form, must go through the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This office has no expertise in user research or form design. Agencies self-report how many "burden hours" it takes to fill out their forms, and OIRA has no way to check this either. Some of the most talented people I've ever worked with have spent years of their own getting OIRA to agree to, and write down, such novel concepts as "legal things are legal." I'm not kidding–OIRA issued guidance last year that agencies are allowed to get feedback from the public, something which has always been legal. I wanted to have one form "wizard" that would allow a veteran to enter their information once, and automatically apply for all the benefits for which they were eligible. OIRA told me that to do this, I would first have to submit every possible permutation of this wizard for approval–a request I would have found delicious to comply with, were there enough trucks on the planet to deliver that amount of paper. We worked within the system. The system blocked us from helping people. I shouldn't have had to waste two and a half years of my life on this, while millions of veterans went without health care and other benefits they had earned.

Note: This article was written by Marina Nitze, former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, former Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House, and first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and government waste.

Russia and the U.S. agreed Tuesday to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, the two countries' top diplomats said after talks that reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump. After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation. He stressed, however, that the talks – which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials – marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn't take part. Ties between Russia and the U.S. have fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years – a rift that has been widening ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and only worsened after Moscow's full-scale invasion. The U.S., along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia in an effort to damage its economy. Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv's military.

Note: Watch our new video on transforming the war machine. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war.

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.