Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media
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On Tuesday, July 1, 2025, African Stream published its final video, a defiant farewell message. With that, the once-thriving pan-African media outlet confirmed it was shutting down for good. Not because it broke the law. Not because it spread disinformation or incited violence. But because it told the wrong story, one that challenged U.S. power in Africa and resonated too deeply with Black audiences around the world. In September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the call and announced an all-out war against the organization, claiming, without evidence, that it was a Russian front group. Within hours, big social media platforms jumped into action. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok all deleted African Stream's accounts, while Twitter demonetized the organization. The company's founder and CEO, Ahmed Kaballo ... told us that, with just one statement, Washington was able to destroy their entire operation, stating: "We are shutting down because the business has become untenable. After we got attacked by Antony Blinken, we really tried to continue, but without a platform on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and being demonetized on X, it just meant the ability to generate income became damn near impossible." Washington both funds thousands of journalists around the planet to produce pro-U.S. propaganda, and, through its close connections to Silicon Valley, has the power to destroy those that do not toe the line.
Note: Learn more about the CIA's longstanding propaganda network in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship.
Wildlife activists who exposed horrific conditions at Scottish salmon farms were subjected to "Big Brother" surveillance by spies for hire working for an elite British army veteran. One of the activists believes he was with his young daughter ... when he was followed and photographed by the former paratrooper Damian Ozenbrook's operatives. The surveillance of [Corin] Smith and another wildlife activist, Don Staniford, began after they paddled out to some of the floating cages where millions of salmon are farmed every year ... and filmed what was happening inside. The footage, posted online and broadcast by the BBC in 2018, showed fish crawling with sea lice. Covert surveillance by state agencies is subject to legislation that includes independent oversight. But once highly trained operatives leave the police, military or intelligence services, the private firms that deploy them are barely regulated. Guy Vassall-Adams KC, a barrister who has worked for the targets of surveillance, including anti-asbestos activists infiltrated by private spies, believes these private firms "engage in highly intrusive investigations which often involve serious infringements of privacy." He added. "It's a wild west." One firm, run by a former special forces pilot, was found to have infiltrated Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups for corporate clients in the 2000s. Another, reportedly founded by an ex-MI6 officer, was hired in 2019 by BP to spy on climate campaigners.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and the disappearance of privacy.
Farmers Alberto GĂłmez, JosĂ© Castillo and Javier Castillo arrive with their selected seeds, stored in shigras – hand-woven shoulder bags – as has been done for generations. In San Lorenzo, they call themselves "seed guardians" for their role in protecting this living heritage and passing it down the generations. [They] are among the farmers supporting draft legislation, under review by the lower house of the Colombian parliament, that would ban genetically modified (GM) seeds, which they claim threaten their traditions, livelihoods and food sovereignty. The initiative has the backing of Indigenous, peasant and environmental organisations, but faces opposition from agribusiness and sectors that support GM. In San Lorenzo, the rejection of GM seeds evolved into organised political opposition after people detected the use of such seeds in nearby crops in 2012. They then feared that GM seeds might cross-pollinate with their native varieties, altering their traits and threatening their ability to preserve them. The alarm prompted them to act. They travelled from village to village, hosted workshops, collected 1,300 signatures and drafted a citizen-led proposal. The initiative was backed by the Seed Guardians of Life Network, a national platform comprising farming and environmental groups, as well as local collectives and the municipal government. It was formally submitted to the town council. In 2018, San Lorenzo declared itself a GMO-free territory.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing the Earth.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a nonprofit privacy rights group have called on several states to investigate why "hundreds" of data brokers haven't registered with state consumer protection agencies in accordance with local laws. An analysis done in collaboration with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) found that many data brokers have failed to register in all of the four states with laws that require it, preventing consumers in some states from learning what kinds of information these brokers collect and how to opt out. Data brokers are companies that collect and sell troves of personal information about people, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, financial information, and more. Consumers have little control over this information, posing serious privacy concerns, and attempts to address these concerns at a federal level have mostly failed. Four states – California, Texas, Oregon, and Vermont – do attempt to regulate these companies by requiring them to register with consumer protection agencies and share details about what kind of data they collect. In letters to the states' attorneys general, the EFF and PRC say they "uncovered a troubling pattern" after scraping data broker registries. They found that many data brokers didn't consistently register their businesses across all four states. The number of data brokers that appeared on one registry but not another includes 524 in Texas, 475 in Oregon, 309 in Vermont, and 291 in California.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.
Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics. Mike German, a former FBI agent, said officers' widespread use of masks was unprecedented in US law enforcement and a sign of a rapidly eroding democracy. "Masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls," he said. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has insisted masks are necessary to protect officers' privacy, arguing, without providing evidence, that there has been an uptick in violence against agents. "It is absolutely shocking and frightening to see masked agents, who are also poorly identified in the way they are dressed, using force in public without clearly identifying themselves," [said German]. "Our country is known for having democratic control over law enforcement. When it's hard to tell who a masked individual is working for, it's hard to accept that that is a legitimate use of authority. The recent shootings of two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, by a suspect who allegedly impersonated an officer, highlights the danger of police not looking like police. Federal agents wearing masks and casual clothing significantly increases this risk of any citizen dressing up in a way that fools the public into believing they are law enforcement so they can engage in illegal activity."
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and the erosion of civil liberties.
If you've been on social media lately, chances are you've heard about endocrine disruptors. People say they can interfere with your hormones, leading to serious health conditions. There are over 1,000 types of these chemicals, according to some estimates, and we are exposed to them daily: They can be found everywhere from your nonstick pan and canned foods to your shampoo and hair dye. The endocrine system consists of glands that secrete hormones, like estrogen, testosterone and cortisol, that then interact with targets (receptors) in the body to regulate our growth, development, reproduction, metabolism, energy balance and body weight. Chemicals that interfere with this complex communication system are called endocrine disruptors. These chemicals work in a variety of ways, including overstimulating receptors, blocking receptors so that normal hormones can't interact with them and altering hormone production or availability. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. It belongs to the larger class of chemicals called bisphenols. The primary exposure for most people is through their diet: BPAs can leach into food or drinks from the protective, internal epoxy resin coatings of canned foods and from consumer products such as polycarbonate tableware, food storage containers and water bottles. Laboratory experiments ... have found that BPAs may cause cancer cell growth.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
No toilets, expensive food of dubious quality, crowded housing. This was the reality for many in 1840s Britain. Something had to change. And the Rochdale Pioneers knew it. The group of 28 artisans and cotton weavers ... wanted to start a co-operative society in order to provide their community with affordable and unadulterated food. Their small grocery shop started by selling only flour, sugar, oatmeal and butter and opened just before Christmas 1844. Any profit was shared among member-owners. With this, the co-operative movement took root. Today, these businesses employ some 280 million people around the world – 10% of the employed population. Approximately 3m co-ops with an astonishing 1.2bn members, more than an eighth of the world's population, exist internationally. Shared Interest is a UK-based social lender that supports farmers and handcraft producers in 47 countries around the world. From sphagnum moss farmers in Peru to coffee farmers in Rwanda, the organisation provides finance for smallholder communities that collectively provide around a third of the world's food but are often stuck in cycles of poverty. Uganda-based coffee producer Bukonzo Organic Farmers Cooperative Union (BOCU), which Shared Interest has supported since 2014 ... negotiates prices, undertakes marketing and manages export on behalf of 13 smaller primary co-ops. Having this tiered system is crucial for small-scale farmers who don't speak English.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.
Unhealthy food and beverage companies powerfully undermine the eating habits of young people by deploying ubiquitous ads that encourage poor dietary choices and increase the risk of serious disease and premature death, according to a sweeping new study published in Obesity Reviews. The first-of-its-kind summary highlights a clear cumulative pattern: The more high-fat, high-sugar, and salty food ads young people see, the more of those products they consume–and the higher the risk that they may develop obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other diet-related diseases. Companies also disproportionately target adolescents, lower-income communities, and Black and Latino youth with the marketing of health-harming food and beverages. The review summarizes 25 years of scientific evidence and findings from 108 empirical studies and 19 systematic reviews of unhealthy food marketing to adolescents (13-17) and young adults (18-25). One study showed that children who watched just five minutes of food ads ate about 130 more calories that day. Only 19% of studies examined health impacts, but most of those found links between unhealthy food marketing and higher BMI, weight gain, or increased obesity risk–especially from ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks. One U.S. study ... found that children who could recall more food ads chose more food items and consumed more calories after exposure.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
Trust in academic research is crucial. This trust, however, could be affected by the presence of conflicts of interest (CoIs), situations where a specific interest of the researcher could compromise the researcher's impartiality. Academic research in fields such as economics, medicine, and many others is becoming more costly and often depends on funding or access to databases controlled by private parties. To what extent do these relationships undermine trust in research? In our new NBER working paper, we address this ... by examining how different types of CoIs shape perceptions of the trustworthiness of economic research. Trust in the results declined across all groups (on average by 30%) following the disclosure of a CoI, despite the research being peer-reviewed and published in a prestigious academic journal. This decline was moderated by expertise, with average Americans experiencing greater declines in trust than "elite" economists (who publish in the top journals). Nonetheless, even elite economists experienced a drop in trust. Financial incentives (such as funding) were not the sole or the most significant factor influencing trust. Instead, privileged access to data had the most pronounced effect. When research utilized private data aligned with the interests of the data provider, trust in the results decreased by over 20%. Trust dropped by approximately 50% if the data provider retained review rights over the research outcomes.
Note: "Trust the science" sounds noble–until you realize that even top editors of world-renowned journals have warned that much of published medical research is unreliable, distorted by fraud, corporate influence, and conflicts of interest. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.
The forensic scientist Claire Glynn estimated that more than 40 million people have sent in their DNA and personal data for direct-to-consumer genetic testing, mostly to map their ancestry and find relatives. Since 2020, at least two genetic genealogy firms have been hacked and at least one had its genomic data leaked. Yet when discussing future risks of genetic technology, the security policy community has largely focused on spectacular scenarios of genetically tailored bioweapons or artificial intelligence (AI) engineered superbugs. A more imminent weaponization concern is more straightforward: the risk that nefarious actors use the genetic techniques ... to frame, defame, or even assassinate targets. A Russian parliamentary report from 2023 claimed that "by using foreign biological facilities, the United States can collect and study pathogens that can infect a specific genotype of humans." Designer bioweapons, if ever successfully developed, produced, and tested, would indeed pose a major threat. Unscrupulous actors with access to DNA synthesis infrastructure could ... frame someone for a crime such as murder, for example, by using DNA that synthetically reproduces the DNA regions used in forensic crime analysis. The research and policy communities must dedicate resources not simply to dystopian, low-probability threats like AI designed bioweapons, but also to gray zone genomics and smaller-scale, but higher probability, scenarios for misuse.
Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in biotech.
They've been preparing every Tuesday for the past four months, learning to belt out favorites like "Singin' in the Rain" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Those attending their first Giving Voice concert may not know what to expect–it is a dementia-friendly choir, meaning many of the participants have some form of dementia and are joined onstage by caregivers and loved ones. Giving Voice, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people in all stages of memory loss, was founded in 2014 with an initial chorus of 35 members. There are now more than 70 "memory choirs" throughout the world that use Giving Voice's model as the foundation for their programs–and a slew of similar dementia-friendly choirs and bands, including Music Mends Minds, AlzheimHER's Chorus, and The Unforgettables Chorus. The premise of these memory choirs is simple but powerful: Making music is not just a feel-good community activity; it's also a powerful weapon to help preserve memories and enhance brain function. Over 55 million people worldwide are believed to be living with dementia. The success of memory choirs [raises] scientific questions about whether music therapy can rewire the brain in addition to improving mood and fostering community. Borna Bonakdarpour, a behavioral neurologist ... is on a quest to show that social singing can help address some of the underlying causes of the disease, such as decreased mental stimulation, isolation, and inactivity.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art.
Four top tech execs from OpenAI, Meta, and Palantir have just joined the US Army. The Army Reserve has commissioned these senior tech leaders to serve as midlevel officers, skipping tradition to pursue transformation. The newcomers won't attend any current version of the military's most basic and ingrained rite of passage– boot camp. Instead, they'll be ushered in through express training that Army leaders are still hashing out, Col. Dave Butler ... said. The execs – Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, the chief product officer at OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab who was formerly the chief research officer for OpenAI – are joining the Army as lieutenant colonels. The name of their unit, "Detachment 201," is named for the "201" status code generated when a new resource is created for Hypertext Transfer Protocols in internet coding, Butler explained. "In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems," read the Army press release. "By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal." Lethality, a vague Pentagon buzzword, has been at the heart of the massive modernization and transformation effort the Army is undergoing.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and military corruption.
Loneliness has become a global public health concern. Countries including Britain and Japan have appointed "ministers of loneliness" to help tackle the problem. In the United States, then-Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a public health advisory on loneliness, stating that the risk for premature death from loneliness is akin to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. What if, instead of trying to "fix" the individual, strategies focused on shaping the environment in a way that facilitates social connection? Recently, researchers have been trying to leverage nature as a way to bring people together and reduce negative feelings about social isolation. They say living in what is known as a "lonelygenic environment" – one dominated by cars and concrete instead of grass and trees – can cause or aggravate loneliness. Even if you live in a lonelygenic environment, experts say, spending just an hour or two in nature per week ... may help people feel less isolated. One proposed approach for tackling loneliness as a public health issue is through social prescribing, where physicians connect their patients with non-medical services in the community similar to how they prescribe medication. Nature comes in many forms. An ongoing study by [Matthew] Browning and his colleagues investigates the amount of time a representative sample of Americans spends outdoors in nature. "What we find is that nature is, for most people ... watching their kids play soccer outside or grilling in the backyard."
Note: What if the negative news overload on America's chronic illness crisis isn't the full story? Check out our Substacks to learn more about the inspiring remedies to the chronic illness and loneliness crisis! Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and mental health.
In her new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, journalist and WIRED alum Megan Greenwell chronicles the devastating impacts of one of the most powerful yet poorly understood forces in modern American capitalism. Flush with cash, largely unregulated, and relentlessly focused on profit, private equity firms have quietly reshaped the US economy, taking over large chunks of industries ranging from health care to retail–often leaving financial ruin in their wake. Twelve million people in the US now work for companies owned by private equity, Greenwell writes, or about 8 percent of the total employed population. It is very hard for private equity firms to lose money on deals. They're getting a 2 percent management fee, even if they're running the company into the ground. They're also able to pull off all these tricks, like selling off the company's real estate and then charging the company rent on the same land it used to own. When private equity firms take out loans to buy companies, the debt from those loans is assigned not to the private equity firm but to the portfolio company. It is just not about improving the company at all. It is about, how do we extract money? There was a huge expansion of private equity in the 2010s for the same reason that venture capital exploded: There was a lot of cheap money out there, and cheap money is great for investors.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial industry corruption.
In 2022, three U.S. inspectors showed up unannounced at a massive pharmaceutical plant. For two weeks, they scrutinized humming production lines and laboratories spread across the dense industrial campus, peering over the shoulders of workers. Much of the factory was supposed to be as sterile as an operating room. But the inspectors discovered what appeared to be metal shavings on drugmaking equipment, and records that showed vials of medication that were "blackish" from contamination had been sent to the United States. Quality testing in some cases had been put off for more than six months, according to their report, and raw materials tainted with unknown "extraneous matter" were used anyway, mixed into batches of drugs. Sun Pharma's transgressions were so egregious that the Food and Drug Administration [banned] the factory from exporting drugs to the United States. But ... a secretive group inside the FDA gave the global manufacturer a special pass to continue shipping more than a dozen drugs to the United States even though they were made at the same substandard factory that the agency had officially sanctioned. Pills and injectable medications that otherwise would have been banned went to unsuspecting patients. The same small cadre at the FDA granted similar exemptions to more than 20 other factories that had violated critical standards in drugmaking, nearly all in India.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.
The Trump administration is discussing policies that would make it harder and more expensive for pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to patients, in a move that could disrupt more than $10 billion in annual ad spending. Although the US is the only place, besides New Zealand, where pharma companies can directly advertise, banning pharma ads outright could make the administration vulnerable to lawsuits, so it's instead focusing on cutting down on the practice by adding legal and financial hurdles. The two policies the administration has focused in on would be to require greater disclosures of side effects of a drug within each ad – likely making broadcast ads much longer and prohibitively expensive – or removing the industry's ability to deduct direct-to-consumer advertising as a business expense for tax purposes. The new policies could threaten a key source of revenue to advertising and media companies, as well as the US pharmaceutical industry. Companies spent $10.8 billion in 2024 on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in total. Before the loosening of advertising regulations by the Food and Drug Administration in 1997, US pharma companies had to list all possible side effects for a medication if they wanted to mention which condition the drug being advertised was intended to treat. Reading out a list of side effects took so long it drove up the cost for air time and meant there wasn't as much broadcast advertising as there is today.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.
If economic inequality increases within a country, the risk of civil war breaking out grows. This is the finding from a study by the Chair of Economic History at the University of TĂĽbingen. The study has been published in the Review of Income and Wealth. The calculations revealed a statistically significant connection between unequal distribution of income and the outbreak of civil wars. The results can be verified using historical events: for example, land was extremely unequally distributed in Russia before the October revolution of 1917–and this critically contributed to the outbreak of revolution and civil war, a marker that was also identified by the new benchmark with a correspondingly high probability. The new benchmark also makes it possible to predict the risk of civil war today: "In the U.S. the inequality in income distribution has risen sharply in the past 30 years. Accordingly, the risk of a civil war in the U.S. has risen drastically from 10% to 21%," says Baten. In Great Britain, China, India and Russia too, inequality has risen greatly in the same period. "We've checked what influence other variables had on the outbreak of civil wars," says Laura Radatz, co-author of the study. "For instance, the size of a country and its population naturally increase the probability that a civil war will break out somewhere in this country." The amount of economic growth in a country does not measurably influence the risk of a civil war, according to the study.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial inequality.
Could baby poop and fungi work together to tackle landfill waste? That's the idea behind a new product launched by an Austin, Texas-based startup that sells disposable diapers paired with fungi intended to break down the plastic. Each of Hiro Technologies' MycoDigestible Diapers comes with a packet of fungi to be added to the dirty diaper before it is thrown in the trash. After a week or two, the fungi are activated by moisture from feces, urine and the environment to begin the process of biodegradation. An estimated 4 million tons of diapers were disposed of in the United States in 2018, with no significant recycling or composting. Diapers take hundreds of years to naturally break down. That means the very first disposable diaper ever used is still in a landfill somewhere. To tackle this, Hiro Technologies turned to fungi. These organisms - which include mushrooms, molds, yeasts and mildew - derive nutrients from decomposing organic matter. In 2011, Yale University researchers discovered a type of fungus in Ecuador that can feed on polyurethane, a common polymer in plastic products. They figured the fungus, Pestalotiopsis microspora, would be capable of surviving on plastic in environments lacking oxygen, like landfills. Hiro Technologies co-founder Tero Isokauppila, a Finnish entrepreneur who also founded medicinal mushroom company Four Sigmatic, said there are more than 100 species of fungi now known to break down plastics.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on microplastic solutions and healing the Earth.
One of the most enduring ideas about crime – and violence more broadly – is that a lot of it is committed by people we call "psychopaths." To summarize the various popular and scientific definitions: People with psychopathy lack feelings of empathy and remorse, and can be charming, manipulative and impulsive as they seek to dominate and harm. But there is shockingly little science behind the diagnosis of psychopathy, according to a new book by Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen. In "Psychopathy Unmasked: The Rise and Fall of a Dangerous Diagnosis," Larsen argues that the widespread use of this personality disorder in legal settings has had massive and largely negative consequences in courts and prisons across the world. Hundreds of thousands of people suspected or convicted of crimes have been assessed with some version of the "Psychopathy Checklist" since its publication in 1991. Larsen ... found that incarcerated people with high scores were not significantly more likely to commit more crimes after release. Larsen suggests the diagnosis itself may be little more than a way to make some sentences harsher while scaring and titillating the wider public. Judges, parole boards and others in the justice system came to see people with the psychopathy diagnosis as chronic offenders, and could justify keeping them in prison for longer. They could withhold therapy because the emerging theory was that it's a waste of time.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on judicial system corruption and mental health.
What began as a fairly small protest against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at an apparel manufacturer in the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles on June 6, led to an immediate response by federal agents in riot gear. [On June 7], President Donald Trump ... called in the National Guard. The deployment of troops in Los Angeles is the brutal culmination of a yearslong campaign to systematically erode and circumscribe public assembly rights, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans at all levels of government. Political scientists call this "democratic backsliding": the gradual erosion of basic rights, civil liberties, and other political institutions that allow the public to hold the government to account. This war on dissent is the most visible sign of democratic backsliding in the U.S. By using the National Guard to silence dissent in Los Angeles, the Trump administration is eroding a core pillar of democracy: the right to assemble in public to express opinions contrary to government action and to advocate for change. U.S. police forces developed [an] approach to public order policing called "negotiated management" in the 1980 and 1990s. Under negotiated management, police tried to respect the right of public assembly. However, in response to the anti-globalization protests at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle ... police shifted to a new set of tactics called "strategic incapacitation" that would provide them with more control.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and the erosion of civil liberties.
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.