Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media
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For most of his adult life, Aaron Presley, age 34, felt like a husk of a person, a piece of "garbage." Then, all at once, the soul-crushing, depressive fog started to lift, and the most meaningful experience of his life began. The turning point for Presley came as he lay on a psychiatrist's couch at Johns Hopkins University. He had consumed a large dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in what's more commonly known as magic mushrooms, and entered a state that could best be described as lucid dreaming. Visions of family and childhood triggered overwhelming and long-lost feelings of love, he says. Presley was one of 24 volunteers taking part in a small study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a combination of psychotherapy and this powerful mind-altering drug to treat depression–an approach that, should it win approval, could be the biggest advance in mental health since Prozac in the 1990s. Depression ... affects 320 million people around the world. Roughly one-third of those who seek treatment won't respond to verbal or conventional drug therapies. Magic-mushroom therapy is offering some hope for these hopeless cases. In the Hopkins study, published last year in JAMA Psychiatry, the therapy was four times more effective than traditional antidepressants. Two-thirds of participants showed a more-than 50-percent reduction in depression symptoms after one week; a month later, more than half were considered in remission, meaning they no longer qualified as being depressed.
Note: Read more about the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Wuhan and US scientists were planning to release enhanced airborne coronavirus particles into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans, leaked grant proposals dating from 2018 show. Just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles and aerosols containing "novel chimeric spike proteins" of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China. They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work. Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration, show they were hoping to introduce "human-specific cleavage sites" to bat coronaviruses which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells. When Covid-19 was first genetically sequenced, scientists were puzzled about how the virus had evolved such a human-specific adaptation at the cleavage site on the spike protein, which is the reason it is so infectious. The documents were released by Drastic, the web-based investigations team set up by scientists from across the world to look into the origins of Covid-19. In a statement, Drastic said: "Given that we find in this proposal a discussion of the planned introduction of human-specific cleavage sites, a review by the wider scientific community of the plausibility of artificial insertion is warranted."
Note: Read more about the risky research on coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Kindness might once have been considered something of a soft topic, but it has begun to be taken seriously within academic research. When developmental psychologist Robin Banerjee ... surveyed past research, he found just 35 papers on kindness in psychology journals in the whole of the 1980s. In the past decade, there were more than 1,000. But there is still plenty to discover. One morning, people walking down a street in the Canadian city of Vancouver were asked to take part in an experiment. They were given an envelope containing either a $5 or $20 note. Half the people were instructed to spend the money on themselves. The other half were instructed to use the money to buy a present for someone else or to donate the money to charity. Whether they had $5 or $20 made no difference. The people who had spent it on someone else felt significantly happier than those who treated themselves. This is just one of many studies which has found that acting kindly can improve your wellbeing. In a meta-analysis, Oliver Scott Curry ... found that behaving kindly can have a small to medium effect on our wellbeing. On the BBC radio programme The Kindness Test ... neuroscientist Dan Campbell-Meiklejohn told me that this can seem counterintuitive. "Kindness can cost us, yet we experience a sense of reward in parts of our brain when we are kind to others, just as we do when eat yummy food or have a pleasant surprise. These parts of the brain become active and motivate us to do them again and again."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
A bomb hit the house. [Rua Moataz] Khadr and her two daughters were able to free themselves from the rubble that had fallen on them, but her 4-year-old son, Ibrahim Ahmed Yahya, was crushed to death. He was among the 9,000 to 11,000 civilians killed during the yearlong battle for Mosul. Khadr, like most bombing victims in Iraq, has no idea which nation was responsible for the airstrike that killed her son. Was it an American aircraft, British, Dutch? "Even if I found out, what would I do?" she told The Intercept. In its final days in Afghanistan, the U.S. conducted a drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul – seven of them children. Their deaths bring up a thorny question surrounding the frequent U.S. killing of civilians in the 9/11 wars: What would justice look like for the families of civilians who have been wrongfully killed? The media attention generated by the Kabul strike has prompted a rare admission of guilt from the Pentagon and may ultimately lead to monetary compensation for the survivors. But byzantine laws in the U.S. make it all but impossible for foreigners to file for compensation if a relative was killed in combat. The only hope for most survivors is a "sympathy" payment from the U.S. military that does not acknowledge responsibility for causing the deaths. But unsurprisingly, those payments are rare: None were issued in 2020. Meanwhile, U.S. allies involved in bombing campaigns usually hide behind the shield of joint operations to avoid taking responsibility for civilian deaths.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
After the FBI seized Joseph Ruiz's life savings during a raid on a safe deposit box business in Beverly Hills, the unemployed chef went to court to retrieve his $57,000. A judge ordered the government to tell Ruiz why it was trying to confiscate the money. It came from drug trafficking, an FBI agent responded in court papers. Ruiz's income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer, the agent wrote. The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs on Ruiz's cash. The FBI was wrong. When Ruiz produced records showing the source of his money was legitimate, the government dropped its false accusation and returned his money. Ruiz is one of roughly 800 people whose money and valuables the FBI seized from safe deposit boxes they rented at the U.S. Private Vaults store in a strip mall. Federal agents had suspected for years that criminals were stashing loot there, and they assert that's exactly what they found. The government is trying to confiscate $86 million in cash and a stockpile of jewelry, rare coins and precious metals taken from about half of the boxes. But six months after the raid, the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles have produced no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the vast majority of box holders whose belongings the government is trying to keep. About 300 of the box holders are contesting the attempted confiscation.
Note: In the recent past, police have been caught using asset forfeiture to pad departmental budgets. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
This week, House Democrats released their proposed tax increases to fund Joe Biden's $3.5tn social policy plan. The biggest surprise: they didn't go after the huge accumulations of wealth at the top – representing the largest share of the economy in more than a century. You might have thought Democrats would be eager to tax America's 660 billionaires whose fortunes have increased by $1.8tn since the start of the pandemic, an amount that could fund half of Biden's plan and still leave the billionaires as rich as they were before the pandemic began. Elon Musk's $138bn in pandemic gains, for example, could cover the cost of tuition for 5.5 million community college students and feed 29 million low-income public-school kids, while still leaving Musk $4bn richer than he was before Covid. But senior House Democrats decided to raise revenue the traditional way, taxing annual income rather than giant wealth. They aim to raise the highest income tax rate and apply a 3% surtax to incomes over $5m. The dirty little secret is the ultra-rich don't live off their paychecks. You might also have assumed Democrats would target America's biggest corporations, awash in cash but paying a pittance in taxes. Thirty-nine of the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax at all from 2018 to 2020 while reporting a combined $122bn in profits to their shareholders. But remarkably, House Democrats have decided to set corporate tax rates below the level they were at when Barack Obama was in the White House.
Note: Learn more about this in this New York magazine article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
On July 5, 2021, a Correspondence was published in The Lancet called "Science, not speculation, is essential to determine how SARS-CoV-2 reached humans". The letter recapitulates the arguments of an earlier letter (published in February, 2020) by the same authors which claimed overwhelming support for the hypothesis that the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic originated in wildlife. The authors associated any alternative view with conspiracy theories. There is so far no scientifically validated evidence that directly supports a natural origin. The fact that the causative agent of COVID-19 descends from a natural virus is widely accepted, but this does not explain how it came to infect humans. Neither the host pathway from bats to humans, nor the geographical route from Yunnan to Wuhan have been identified. More than 80,000 samples collected from Chinese wildlife sites and animal farms all proved negative. A research-related origin is plausible. Two questions need to be addressed: virus evolution and introduction into the human population. Since July, 2020, several peer-reviewed scientific papers have discussed the likelihood of a research-related origin of the virus. Some unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence suggest that they may have resulted from genetic engineering, an approach widely used in some virology labs. Laboratory research also includes more targeted approaches such as gain-of-function experiments relying on chimeric viruses to test their potential to cross species barriers.
Note: Why early in the pandemic did many scientists brand anyone who had evidence the virus was artificially created as a conspiracy theorist? Read about the risky research on coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Indiana's largest hospital system says more than 100 workers are no longer employed with the health network after they did not comply with its mandate for all employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Indiana University Health said Thursday that 125 employees had departed from the hospital system after a two-week unpaid suspension period that ended Sept. 14. Officials did not say whether those workers quit or were fired, saying in a statement that they "chose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and have left the organization." IU Health did not provide details on what kinds of positions were affected, or whether any of the employees worked in bedside care. The 125 former employees were a small percentage of IU Health's work force of about 36,000. IU Health announced in June that it would require all its doctors, nurses and other employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 1. The health system operates 15 hospitals and dozens of outpatient clinics around the state. Two weeks ago, IU Health said suspended employees would be allowed to return to work if they attested to partial or full vaccination. At the time, it said that fewer than 300 workers had been suspended. Around the U.S., more than 150 hospital systems have issued vaccination mandates to employees. Hospitals have borne the brunt of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
Note: These 125 health workers and many thousands of others were heroes one year ago for risking their lives in service of those suffering from COVID. Now they are being fired for refusing having a foreign substance injected into their bodies. And notice the almost Orwellian language in the title of this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Australia's two most populous states are trialling facial recognition software that lets police check people are home during COVID-19 quarantine, expanding trials that have sparked controversy to the vast majority of the country's population. Little-known tech firm Genvis Pty Ltd said on a website for its software that New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, home to Sydney, Melbourne and more than half of Australia's 25 million population, were trialling its facial recognition products. The Perth, Western Australia-based startup developed the software in 2020 with WA state police to help enforce pandemic movement restrictions. South Australia state began trialling a similar, non-Genvis technology last month, sparking warnings from privacy advocates around the world about potential surveillance overreach. The involvement of New South Wales and Victoria, which have not disclosed that they are trialling facial recognition technology, may amplify those concerns. Under the system being trialled, people respond to random check-in requests by taking a 'selfie' at their designated home quarantine address. If the software, which also collects location data, does not verify the image against a "facial signature", police may follow up with a visit to the location to confirm the person's whereabouts. While the recognition technology has been used in countries like China, no other democracy has been reported as considering its use in connection with coronavirus containment procedures.
Note: On Sept. 21st, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest policies like this in Melbourne alone, as shown in this revealing video. The police are responding almost like they are at war, as show in this video. Yet the major media outside of Australia are largely ignoring all of this, while the Australian press is highly biased against the protesters. Are we moving towards a police state? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
It was six years ago when CEO Dan Price raised the salary of everyone at his Seattle-based credit card processing company Gravity Payments to at least $70,000 a year. Price slashed his own salary by $1 million to be able to give his employees a pay raise. He was hailed a hero by some and met with predictions of bankruptcy from his critics. But that has not happened; instead, the company is thriving. He said his company has tripled and he is still paying his employees $70,000 a year. "I make $70,000 a year," Price [said]. According to the Economic Policy Institute, average CEO compensation is 320 times more than the salaries of their typical workers. Price said despite the success his company has had with the policy, he wishes other companies would follow suit. "I would say that's the failure of this. You know, I feel like I've been shouting from the rooftops like, 'This works, this works, everybody should do it!' and zero big companies are following suit because the system values having the highest return with the lowest risk and the lowest amount of work," Price said. Price thinks Gravity's returns are up in large part because bigger paychecks have lead to fiercely loyal employees. "Our turnover rate was cut in half, so when you have employees staying twice as long, their knowledge of how to help our customers skyrocketed over time and that's really what paid for the raise more so than my pay cut," said Price.
Note: Explore more positive stories about reimagining the economy.
It was six years ago when CEO Dan Price raised the salary of everyone at his Seattle-based credit card processing company Gravity Payments to at least $70,000 a year. Price slashed his own salary by $1 million to be able to give his employees a pay raise. He was hailed a hero by some and met with predictions of bankruptcy from his critics. But that has not happened; instead, the company is thriving. "So you've almost doubled the number of employees?" CBS News' Carter Evans asked. "Yeah," Price replied. He said his company has tripled and he is still paying his employees $70,000 a year. "How much do you make?" asked Evans. "I make $70,000 a year," Price replied. To pay his own bills, Price downsized his life, sold a second home he owned, and tapped into his savings. According to the Economic Policy Institute, average CEO compensation is 320 times more than the salaries of their typical workers. "This shows that isn't the only way for a company to be successful and profitable," Hafenbrack said. "Do you pay what you can get away with? Or do you pay what you think is ideal, or reasonable, or fair?" Price said despite the success his company has had with the policy, he wishes other companies would follow suit. Bigger paychecks have lead to fiercely loyal employees. "Our turnover rate was cut in half, so when you have employees staying twice as long, their knowledge of how to help our customers skyrocketed over time and that's really what paid for the raise more so than my pay cut," said Price.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Facebook knew that teen girls on Instagram reported in large numbers that the app was hurting their body image and mental health. It knew that its content moderation systems suffered from an indefensible double standard in which celebrities were treated far differently than the average user. It knew that a 2018 change to its news feed software, intended to promote "meaningful interactions," ended up promoting outrageous and divisive political content. Facebook knew all of those things because they were findings from its own internal research teams. But it didn't tell anyone. In some cases, its executives even made public statements at odds with the findings. The world's largest social network employs teams of people to study its own ugly underbelly, only to ignore, downplay and suppress the results of their research when it proves awkward or troubling. A pattern has emerged in which findings that implicate core Facebook features or systems, or which would require costly or politically dicey interventions, are reportedly brushed aside by top executives, and come out only when leaked to the media by frustrated employees or former employees. For instance, the New York Times reported in 2018 that Facebook's security team had uncovered evidence of Russian interference ahead of the 2016 U.S. election, but that Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan had opted to keep it secret for fear of the political fallout.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Arizona's attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday that seeks to invalidate President Biden's latest COVID-19 vaccine requirements for federal workers and large companies, becoming the first state to mount a legal challenge to the administration's newest rules. In a 14-page complaint filed with a federal district court in Arizona, Attorney General Mark Brnovich argued Mr. Biden's new vaccine requirements unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens because undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal law enforcement are not subject to a federal vaccination requirement. The attorney general said [the policies] are an "egregious" violation of the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. "Unauthorized aliens will not be subject to any vaccination requirements ... while roughly a hundred million U.S. citizens will be subject to unprecedented vaccination requirements," the state told the court. Brnovich ... is asking the court to declare the new vaccination policies unconstitutional and block the Biden administration from imposing COVD-19 vaccine mandates on U.S. citizens or legal residents that differ from those applied to undocumented migrants. Mr. Biden announced last week his new vaccination requirements. In addition to signing executive orders requiring all executive branch federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated, the president also said the Department of Labor would be developing an emergency rule to require all employers with at least 100 employees to mandate their workforce be fully vaccinated.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
An Upstate New York hospital announced that it will stop delivering babies this month after several staffers in the maternity department resigned over the hospital system's coronavirus vaccine mandate. At least six unvaccinated maternity staffers at Lewis County General Hospital have resigned in recent days, and seven others remain undecided on whether to get vaccinated, Gerald Cayer, chief executive officer of the Lewis County Health System, said. The staff shortage will result in the hospital being "unable to safely staff" the maternity department beginning Sept. 25, he said. Cayer said 165 hospital staffers, about 27 percent of the workforce, remain unvaccinated. Seventy-three percent of those unvaccinated staffers provide clinical services at the hospital. As hospitals have implemented vaccination mandates, some staffers have chosen to resign or be fired instead of getting the shots. More than 150 health-care workers who did not comply with the vaccine mandate at Houston Methodist – one of the first health systems to require the coronavirus shots – resigned or were fired in June. A lawsuit brought by one of those employees – which alleged that the policy was forcing staffers to be "guinea pigs" for vaccines that had not gone through the full Food and Drug Administration approval process – was dismissed by a federal judge. Other instances of pushback have popped up in recent months. In Winchester, Va., some unvaccinated nurses are choosing to be fired in protest of their hospital system's mandate.
Note: One year ago these health workers were heroes for risking their lives on the front line with COVID patients. Now they are being ridiculed for not wanting to be vaccinated. Listen to their own moving words in this important video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Louis Armstrong, his wife and a diplomat from the US embassy were out for dinner in a restaurant in what was still Léopoldville, capital of the newly independent Congo. The [musician] was in the middle of a tour of Africa ... organised and sponsored by the State Department. What Armstrong did not know was that his host that night in November 1960 was not the political attaché as described, but the head of the CIA in Congo. "Armstrong was basically a Trojan horse for the CIA," said Susan Williams ... author of White Malice, a new book which exposes the astonishing extent of the CIA's activities across central and west Africa. Armstrong's host, CIA station chief Larry Devlin, and other US intelligence officers posted to Congo used the cover of the musicians's visit to get access to the strategically important and very wealthy province of Katanga, which had recently seceded. There was much of interest to the CIA in Katanga, ranging from senior officials with whom they could not otherwise meet to crucial mining infrastructure, with 1,500 tons of uranium and vast potential to procure more. The CIA in the Congo, led by Devlin, was trying to kill the Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, 35-year-old Patrice Lumumba, fearful that he would lead the country into the Soviet camp. A mile or so from where Armstrong and Devlin had dined, the charismatic Lumumba was being held prisoner ... by soldiers loyal to Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the young military chief with a close working relationship with the CIA, who had effectively seized power some weeks earlier. Within two months of Armstrong's tour, Lumumba was murdered in Katanga. Devlin later claimed that the CIA was responsible, telling a US Congressional investigation "that the coup of Mobutu … was arranged and supported, and indeed, managed, by the CIA".
Note: Read how the CIA used modern art and other cultural figures as weapons during the Cold War in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
The FBI released a newly declassified document about the 9/11 attacks Saturday, revealing details about the logistical support given to two of the Saudi hijackers in the lead-up to the terrorist operation, as the world marked the 20th anniversary of one of America's darkest days. The 16-page document is the first investigative record to be shared since President Joe Biden ordered a declassification review of files about 9/11 last week. The document, which is heavily redacted, provides a summary of an FBI interview in 2015 with a man who had regular contact with Saudi nationals in the U.S. The man aided Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the first hijackers to arrive in the U.S., once they arrived in the country. Jim Kreindler, an attorney for victims' relatives, said in a statement that he believed "the findings and conclusions in this FBI investigation validate the arguments we have made in the litigation regarding the Saudi government's responsibility for the 9/11 attacks." He said that included Saudi officials' exchanging phone calls among themselves and with Al Qaeda operatives and then having "accidental meetings" with the hijackers while providing them with assistance to get settled and find flight schools. "This document, together with the public evidence gathered to date, provides a blueprint for how Al Qaeda operated inside the US with the active, knowing support of the Saudi government," he said.
Note: Why has the information been kept secret for decades? And why is much of the document still heavily redacted? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on 9/11 from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our 9/11 Information Center.
None of the issues still lingering 20 years after the 9/11 attacks have been as persistent – or as emotionally wrenching for the families of the victims – as the question of whether Saudi Arabia provided funding and other assistance for the worst terrorist attack in American history. Of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners ... 15 were citizens of Saudi Arabia – and of course, Osama bin Laden was a member of one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families. Immediately after the attacks, the Bush administration downplayed the Saudi connection and suppressed evidence that might link powerful Saudis to the funding of Islamic extremism and terrorism. Much of what the FBI discovered about possible Saudi links to the attacks remains secret even today. Glimpses of material that have become public provide mounting evidence that senior Saudi officials, including one diplomat in the Saudi Embassy in Washington, may in fact have indirectly provided assistance for two of the Al Qaeda hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were the first of the hijackers to arrive in the United States in 2000 and lived for about a year and a half in San Diego beforehand. Other possible connections also led back to Prince Bandar, according to a 28-page section of a joint congressional inquiry in 2002, which was kept secret until its partial release in 2016. The 28 pages ... laid out a panoply of other connections between the hijackers and people inside or connected to the Saudi government.
Note: Read more about the 28 pages documenting Saudi support for 9/11. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on 9/11 from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our 9/11 Information Center.
The story of two enemies cuts through the darkness. It begins on a battlefield in the Iran-Iraq war, and ends 20 years later in a waiting room in Vancouver. The Iran-Iraq war began in 1980, and ended eight years later. It was the longest conventional war of the 20th century, claiming at least a million casualties. Najah Aboud was nearly one of them. Najah was severely wounded. He crawled off to a bunker, where he saw corpses from both sides and prepared himself to die. Zahed Haftlang ... was assigned as a medic. After the Iranians recaptured Khorramshahr in May 1982, Zahed was ordered to go into the bunkers and treat wounded countrymen. It was then that he ... spotted Najah near the back. Both men were suspicious of each other. Zahed thought Najah's body might be booby-trapped. Najah thought Zahed might kill him. Then Zahed reached into Najah's breast pocket and pulled out a photograph. It showed Najah, with a beautiful woman, and infant son. It was at that very moment that Zahed decided to save Najah's life, even though it meant risking his own. Najah was taken to a prisoner of war camp, where he'd remain in unspeakable conditions for the next 17 years. While reading magazines in [a Vancouver] waiting room, Zahed noticed the door open as another man entered the room. The two men erupted into shouts, hugs, kisses and tears. Their spectacular reunion happened two decades years after the battle of Khorramshahr and on the other side of the world. "Najah is like my family … he really is my angel, because he gave me life. After he got a new chance at life, he gave me a new chance at life. He is the dearest and most precious thing in the entire world to me."
Note: Don't miss the powerful 16-min documentary about Zahed and Najah. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal. The influential journal published a letter on March 7 last year from 27 scientists in which they stated that they "strongly condemned conspiracy theories" surrounding Covid-19. It effectively shut down scientific debate into whether coronavirus was manipulated or leaked from a lab in Wuhan. Researchers who tried to investigate a link but were stonewalled and branded conspiracy theorists called it an "extreme cover-up". Despite declaring no conflicts of interest at the time, it has since emerged that the letter was orchestrated by British zoologist Peter Daszak, president of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance, which funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the leak was suspected. However, The Telegraph can disclose that 26 of the 27 scientists listed in the letter had connections to the Chinese lab, through researchers and funders closely linked to Wuhan. While Mr Daszak eventually declared his involvement in the EcoHealth Alliance, he failed to mention that five other signatories also worked for the organisation. A further three of the signatories were from Britain's Wellcome Trust, which has funded work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the past. Out of 27 signatories, only Prof Ronald Corley, of Boston University, appears to have no links to funders or researchers.
Note: Watch an excellent interview in which a former EcoHealth Alliance VP turned whistleblower reveals blatant law-breaking and lies committed by Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
President Joe Biden's new vaccine mandates for federal employees don't apply to members of Congress or those who work for Congress or the federal court system. Biden issued two executive orders on Thursday requiring vaccination against COVID for federal workers and contractors who work for the federal government. He also asked the Department of Labor to issue an emergency order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested on a weekly basis. However, Biden's order on federal workers applies to employees of the executive branch. The House of Representatives and the Senate belong to the separate legislative branch, and the courts to the judicial branch. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said ... that the House couldn't require members to be vaccinated. "I can't go to the Capitol Physician and say, 'Give me the names of people who aren't vaccinated' ... We can't do that," she said. Pelosi's office reiterated that position ... on Friday, saying the speaker's April 29 remarks were "referring to the institution in which she serves." "She's saying she cannot force Members to be vaccinated, which is true," the statement said. In August, a group of 19 Democrats in the House wrote a letter to the Capitol's attending physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, asking him to consider a vaccine requirement or a minimum of two COVID tests per week for members and staff who can't show proof of vaccination. No requirement has yet been put in place.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.