Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media
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.
Portugal has a life expectancy nearly four years longer than the U.S. despite spending 20% of what the U.S. does on health care per person. According to the 2021 Global Security Index, which measures the ability to respond to pandemics, Portugal ranked third out of 195 countries in providing access to affordable health care. The United States ranked 183rd. Portugal has a national health care system, entitling every resident to free or very low-cost health care. It embraces innovative programs such as "social prescribing" that expand the boundaries of what is considered health care, while progressive laws on drug use and treatment have been credited with driving down overdose deaths, even as they rose in the U.S. In the 1990s, Portugal had one of the highest rates of heroin use and fatal overdoses anywhere. In 2001, the country not only decriminalized the use and possession of drugs, but also, in partnership with several non-governmental organizations such as Crescer, created a network of mostly free inpatient and outpatient treatment centers and mobile street teams that seek out drug users to provide medical care, clean needles, and support to enter addiction programs. Two decades later, drug overdose deaths have fallen sharply, from one per day to about 70 to 80 per year. New Jersey, with a smaller population than Portugal, sees 3,000 a year. HIV infection rates have dropped dramatically, too.
Note: Read our Substack to learn about social prescribing and other inspiring remedies to the chronic illness crisis ravaging the world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing our bodies.
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.
Covid-19 vaccine mandates did "more harm than good", a House of Representatives report has claimed. A 525-page report from the coronavirus pandemic select committee argued that Joe Biden's policy had cost thousands of people their jobs, harmed public confidence in health professionals and damaged military readiness. The report said that "the vaccine ... did not stop transmission and therefore making the jabs mandatory was ineffective at stopping the spread of Covid. The report also suggested that the "more likely" origin of the coronavirus pandemic was a lab leak. "Since the Select Subcommittee commenced its work ... more and more senior intelligence officials, politicians, science editors, and scientists increasingly have endorsed the hypothesis that Covid-19 emerged as the result of a laboratory or research related accident," it said. Mr Biden's administration introduced several vaccine mandates from 2021 for members of the armed forces, federal workers, healthcare workers, and businesses with more than 100 employees. Many state and local governments, along with private employers, followed suit. Some 8,000 members of the armed services were discharged as a result of the vaccine mandate. Only 43 rejoined when this was rescinded. The report argued that vaccine mandates appeared to "fly in the face of decades of scientific research", by not making an exception for those who had acquired immunity by having previously been infected.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID vaccines and government corruption.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has released its final report, summarizing two years of investigations into the origins and handling of COVID-19. The 520-page report, published Monday, concludes that the virus most likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The Republican-led committee cited biological characteristics of the virus and reports of illnesses among researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019 as key evidence for its findings. The report also scrutinized the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing it of prioritizing the Chinese Communist Party's interests over its global mission to protect public health. The subcommittee criticized U.S. health officials and the Biden administration for what it described as overselling the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing transmission and infection. However, the report praised the early travel restrictions implemented by the Trump administration as a significant step in mitigating the pandemic's spread. This conclusion contrasts with other research pointing to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan as the most likely origin of the virus. The WHO and many scientists have stated that the exact origins of the pandemic remain uncertain. The release of the report highlights the ongoing debate over the pandemic's beginnings and the global response, underscoring the complexities of managing an unprecedented public health crisis.
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID corruption and COVID vaccines.
A final congressional report on COVID-19 released Monday has determined the virus likely emerged from a lab accident in China and that the U.S. government perpetrated "misinformation" by incorrectly calling the lab leak theory a "conspiracy." The House Oversight and Accountability Committee's COVID-19 panel, controlled by Republicans, issued its 520-page report two years after its investigation began. The report affirmed ... that a "lab-related incident" involving gain-of-function research in Wuhan is the most likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report specifically calls out Anthony Fauci ... saying that he pushed back on the lab leak theory and "prompted" a research report called "The Proximal Origin" that was used to discredit it. "Although Dr. Fauci believed the lab-leak theory to be a conspiracy theory at the start of the pandemic, it now appears that his position is that he does have an open mind about the origin of the virus–so long as it does not implicate EcoHealth Alliance, and by extension himself and NIAID. Understandably, as he signed off on the EcoHealth Alliance grant," the report stated. The massive report also examined the effectiveness and consequences of masks and mask mandates and stated that they were ineffective at controlling the spread of COVID-19. Prolonged lockdowns caused immeasurable harm to not only the American economy but also to the mental and physical health of Americans, with a particularly negative effect on younger citizens.
Note: Read how the NIH bypassed the oversight process, allowing controversial gain-of-function experiments to proceed unchecked. Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID corruption and biotech dangers.
The Department of Justice secretly launched a grand jury investigation into a US nonprofit that steered American taxpayer funding to the Chinese lab suspected of leaking the COVID-19 virus and causing the global pandemic. Scientific experts and former federal officials have suggested that EcoHealth Alliance's grants to the China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) funded gain-of-function research that could have led to a lab leak – but records requests have repeatedly been blocked by the National Institutes of Health. The details of the apparent federal investigation of EcoHealth Alliance remain secret – and members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which released [a] 520-page report on the origins of and response to the pandemic, have declined to talk about it, citing concerns about interfering in any potential DOJ investigation. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other agencies awarded millions of dollars' worth of grants to the now-suspended public health nonprofit – including a $4 million NIH project titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence." More than $1.4 million dollars flowed from NIH and USAID to the WIV for that project, which the agency's principal deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak later acknowledged was gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses modified with SARS and MERS viruses to become 10,000 times more infectious.
Note: Read how the NIH bypassed the oversight process, allowing controversial gain-of-function experiments to proceed unchecked. Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID corruption and biotech dangers.
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.
Science is revealing that ... giving thanks might be more powerful than we ever imagined. Research shows that expressing gratitude doesn't just make us feel good momentarily – it actually reshapes our brains in ways that enhance our well-being. When you take a moment to count your blessings, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that create feelings of pleasure and contentment. But what's really fascinating is that this isn't just a temporary boost – these moments of thankfulness create a positive feedback loop, training your brain to look for more reasons to be grateful. Brain imaging studies have captured this process in action. When people express gratitude, they activate the prefrontal cortex, the brain's command center for decision-making and emotional regulation. This triggers a cascade of beneficial effects, including sharper attention and increased motivation. Think of it like building a muscle – the more you exercise gratitude, the stronger these neural pathways become, making it progressively easier to access positive emotions. Perhaps even more remarkable is gratitude's effect on stress. When you focus on appreciation, your brain actually dials down the production of cortisol, your body's primary stress hormone. Research conducted at Indiana University found that practicing gratitude can actually change the structure of your brain, particularly in areas linked to empathy and emotional processing. Even simply pausing throughout the day – my favorite practice – to notice and appreciate positive moments can help reshape your neural circuitry.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division and healing our bodies.
When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn't need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare (10,625 acre) urban experiment located east of Amsterdam, in a suburb of the city of Almere, where de Kat works as a municipal councillor. The area, which has about 5,000 residents and a growing waiting list, is completely self-sufficient. Residents can build houses however they like, and must collaborate with others to figure out things such as street names, waste management, roads, and even schools. But the local government has included one extremely unusual requirement: about half of each plot must be devoted to urban agriculture. Some, like de Kat, have turned their gardens into an Eden of sorts to provide for their own household unit. Other residents just plant a few apple trees or outsource by owning plots of land on site that are tended to by professional farmers. Others, such as Jalil Bekkour, have been able to capitalise on it. "I never had experience gardening my own food or anything like that," he said. But he taught himself how to garden, and three years ago he opened his own restaurant, Atelier Feddan, where 80% of the food is directly from Oosterwold. His newfound excitement for gardening and agriculture is palpable.
Note: Learn about the community-powered movement that's transforming yards into microfarms in Los Angeles. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
Even for those familiar with parts of the stories about women who were deceived into intimate relationships with undercover police officers, the evidence that has emerged in recent weeks has been shocking. The litany of destructive behaviour either carried out by, or caused by, officers deployed to spy on campaigners, who were mostly active in leftwing causes, is being laid bare as never before: self-harm, heroin use, unprotected sex leading to emergency contraception, coercive control and the sudden abandonment of female partners and children. On Tuesday, Belinda Harvey told the public inquiry how she was manipulated by Bob Lambert, who tricked at least three other women into relationships as well. Next week, Mr Lambert will face questions about who authorised the tactic of targeting and seducing young, female activists – and why he employed it so many times. Last month, another undercover officer testified that Mr Lambert had "bragged" about fathering a child. In their jointly authored book, Deep Deception, five women described how they found out that they had been systematically lied to by former partners – in some cases after decades of confusion and self-doubt. Mr Lambert stands out not only for the number of secret relationships he initiated and his alleged involvement in an arson plot, but also because his five-year deployment as a police spy in the 1980s was treated as a triumph. He was given a commendation and went on to run covert operations.
Note: Read more about the dozens of activists tricked into having romantic relationships with undercover police. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption.
Technology companies are having some early success selling artificial intelligence tools to police departments. Axon, widely recognized for its Taser devices and body cameras, was among the first companies to introduce AI specifically for the most common police task: report writing. Its tool, Draft One, generates police narratives directly from Axon's bodycam audio. Currently, the AI is being piloted by 75 officers across several police departments. "The hours saved comes out to about 45 hours per police officer per month," said Sergeant Robert Younger of the Fort Collins Police Department, an early adopter of the tool. Cassandra Burke Robertson, director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, has reservations about AI in police reporting, especially when it comes to accuracy. "Generative AI programs are essentially predictive text tools. They can generate plausible text quickly, but the most plausible explanation is often not the correct explanation, especially in criminal investigations," she said. In the courtroom, AI-generated police reports could introduce additional complications, especially when they rely solely on video footage rather than officer dictation. New Jersey-based lawyer Adam Rosenblum said "hallucinations" – instances when AI generates inaccurate or false information – that could distort context are another issue. Courts might need new standards ... before allowing the reports into evidence.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and police corruption.
When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed. Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region's prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots. Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel. They recently launched one of the world's first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas. The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island's indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria. The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 (Ł1,940). "Tourism has suffered a lot from the seaweed; hotels have been spending millions on tackling it. It's caused a crisis," Dr Henry, a renewable energy expert and UWI lecturer, [said]. The idea that it could have a valuable purpose was suggested by one of her students, Brittney McKenzie, who had observed the volume of trucks being deployed to transport sargassum from Barbados' beaches.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
With the misinformation category being weaponized across the political spectrum, we took a look at how invested government has become in studying and "combatting" it using your tax dollars. That research can provide the intellectual ammunition to censor people online. Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has spent $267 million on research grants with the term "misinformation" in the proposal. Of course, the Covid pandemic was the driving force behind so much of the misinformation debate. There is robust documentation by now proving that the Biden-Harris administration worked closely with social media companies to censor content deemed "misinformation," which often included cases where people simply questioned or disagreed with the Administration's COVID policies. In February the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government issued a scathing report against the National Science Foundation (NSF) for funding grants supporting tools and processes that censor online speech. The report said, "the purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others." $13 million was spent on the censorious technologies profiled in the report.
Note: Read the full article on Substack to uncover all the misinformation contracts with government agencies, universities, nonprofits, and defense contractors. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and government corruption.
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.
Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) was more than a leader – he was a force, a relentless advocate who confronted an entrenched culture of injustice with courage and strength. Malcolm X set the stage for me and many others who were called to continue the fight against injustice. His fight was cut short by a horrific assassination carried out in front of his wife and children, followed by a cover-up that his family believes involved some of the most highly regarded agencies in our country at the time. On Nov. 15, I joined some of our nation's foremost attorneys in filing a lawsuit on behalf of the Shabazz family, seeking to uncover the truth surrounding Malcolm's assassination on Feb. 21, 1965, in New York City. Through this lawsuit, we plan to prove in court the accusation that government agencies, including the FBI, the CIA and the New York Police Department, actively facilitated and then covered up Malcolm X's assassination through several coordinated actions. We believe the FBI and the NYPD engaged in a cover-up after the assassination, concealing key documents, manipulating witness testimony and wrongfully prosecuting innocent men to divert attention from their own roles in his death. Our case is being brought forward in the wake of a public apology from former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who, in November 2021, acknowledged that ... two of three men who'd been convicted of murdering Malcolm X, hadn't committed the crime.
Note: The above was written by civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Malcolm X was one of four prominent figures killed for speaking truth to power during this era. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on assassinations and intelligence agency corruption. Read our Substack to learn more about the undeniable evidence that connects these same abuses of power to Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.
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 â€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.
In a recent Gallup poll, 20% of U.S. adults said they felt lonely "a lot of the day yesterday." While there might be many steps we can take to encourage connection, on both individual andĂź societal levels, a big new study suggests there is one step anyone can take right now to blunt the pain of isolation: giving thanks. College of Charleston researchers James B. Hittner and Calvin D. Widholm collected 26 studies of gratitude and loneliness involving nearly 10,000 people around the world. Then [they] conducted a "meta-analysis" of all the studies together, which can provide stronger evidence for a finding than one study alone. Their results suggest that grateful people tend to be less lonely–no matter their age, their gender, or whether they live in the U.S. or elsewhere. If someone was above average in gratitude, they had a 62% chance of being below average in loneliness. Loneliness, research suggests, is ultimately about how we perceive our relationships and whether they measure up to what we want. And "if one is grateful, then what that should be facilitating are richer, stronger social relationships," says Hittner. One study found that grateful people were more "psychologically flexible," able to nimbly cope with adversity and act in service of their values and sense of meaning in life. Hittner believes that this openness to taking in new ideas, meeting new people, and having new experiences is one good antidote to loneliness.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division and healing our bodies.
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.