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Excerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of highly revealing media articles from the major media. Links are provided to the full articles on their media websites. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These media articles are listed in reverse date order. You can also explore the articles listed by order of importance or by date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can build a brighter future.

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.

Jacquie Sullivan, the longest serving member of the City Council in Bakersfield history, is now in retirement, battling a foe tougher than any she faced in seven elections: Parkinson's disease. Kern County [is] the largest consumer of the deadly herbicide Paraquat in California. Over a five year period, 2017 to 2021, Kern County farmers sprayed 1.2 million pounds of the stuff on local ag land, along with tons of other herbicides. No wonder Kern County is also No. 1 in the state for Parkinson's disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disorder. Loss of smell and shoulder pain are among the early symptoms. Tremors, slowing of movement, difficulty sleeping and stiffness can come later. Then in more advanced stages, loss of cognitive ability. An estimated 117,000 Californians are living with the disease – the highest per capita level in the country. Those who work directly with certain chemicals, including herbicides, face even higher risks, up to 400% higher. But you don't have to be in direct contact with the spray to suffer harmful exposure. Drinking well water in certain agricultural areas increases risk by 70 to 90%. In 2024, the State Assembly approved a "moratorium" on paraquat use that would have taken effect this past January, giving state regulators an opportunity to reevaluate paraquat and potentially reapprove the chemical with or without new restrictions. But state Senate amendments killed all the restrictions.

Note: The 1982 neurotoxic contaminant MPTP case was a turning point in showing how a single toxin could instantly trigger Parkinson's by destroying a specific part of the brain. Scientists later discovered that paraquat – a widely used US pesticide banned in over 70 countries – attacks the brain in much the same way. As rates of Parkinson's have tragically surged especially among the farming community, neurologists now say the disease is largely environmentally caused, driven by long-term exposure to chemicals like paraquat. A 2024 Politico article put it bluntly: "Parkinson's is a man-made disease."

Some of the largest data-collecting companies in the United States–including major AI vendors, data brokers, defense contractors, and dating apps–rely on deceptive methods to keep consumers from opting out of the sale and sharing of their personal information. Researchers at [the Electronic Privacy Information Center] audited the opt-out processes of 38 major data companies and documented at least eight distinct categories of manipulative design: Opt-out forms that don't actually let users opt out of the sale of their data. Links that are buried in fine print and missing from homepages. Consumers routed through multiple separate forms to complete a single request. And requirements that users create accounts or pay for subscriptions before opting out at all, among others. Major companies offering large language models, such as Google, Meta, and OpenAI, fail to clearly link their opt-out forms from their homepages or privacy policies, according to the report, and several require consumers to submit multiple separate forms to complete a single request. OpenAI's form, when a consumer finds it, does not offer a way to opt out of the sale or transfer of personal data. What it offers instead is an option to "remove personal information from ChatGPT responses," which EPIC says is a filter on the chatbot's output, not the removal of any underlying data. Researchers found that the people-search brokers they audited–Spokeo, Whitepages, and National Public Data–do not offer consumers a way to opt out of the sale or transfer of their data at all. Instead, the companies offer a process for removing individual listings by URL, one at a time, with no commitment to stop selling that same person's information in the future.

Note: The owner of a data broker company once bragged about having highly detailed personal information on nearly all internet users. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

The US has recovered four distinct species of extraterrestrial life from crashed UFOs. Dr. Hal Puthoff, former Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program advisor and CIA-funded researcher, made the claim alongside "Age of Disclosure" director Dan Farrah. "People who have been involved in recoveries have said there are at least four types. Four separate types," the 89-year-old said. "Now I have not had direct access to that but I believe the people who I talked to – four separate types of life." The Stanford-trained quantum physicist did not detail the supposed alien species – but his longtime collaborator and former AAWSAP colleague Dr. Eric Davis claimed last year that Grays, Nordics, Insectoids, and Reptilians are the names of the biological lifeforms pulled from the wreckage of downed or crashed UFOs. Each alien species has two arms and legs and a humanoid appearance, Davis claimed, citing intelligence reports. Nordics are a race of highly-human-like creatures who, despite being from a far-flung planet, closely resemble people of northern Europe. Reptilians are scaley skinned lizard-like creatures with human limbs, long tails, who walk upright. Grays are small, massive-eyed, hairless creatures. Insectoids are bug-like humanoids. Former Air Force Intelligence officer and UAP Task Force member David Grusch testified under oath in Congress in 2023 that the US was in possession of "non-human biologics" recovered from dozens of crashed UFOs.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

I signed up for "Groove Therapy" with a local dance teacher, Leah Lynn. The youngest in our group is 16, the oldest over 70. Every Saturday, we play out a verb each of us brings to class – release, gather, resist, invite – translating abstract intentions into motion. It sounds faintly ridiculous. It is also, disarmingly, effective. Within minutes, something shifts. Stress loosens. Then for the next hour, we learn hip hop shuffles and swing our hips to Kool & the Gang or BeyoncĂ©. I always return home exhausted and exhilarated. The dance classes provoked such a profound shift in my mood as well as my body that I decided to find out if there was more to it. Modern research is now catching up to the fact that dance is medicine, a deeply effective intervention for physical, cognitive and emotional health. Behind the feel-good performance lies hard science. Dance improves cardiovascular fitness, strength and coordination. Dancing activates a wide network: auditory pathways, visual and motor cortex, the amygdala and, above all, the somatosensory cortex and networks that keep track of where your body is in space. A German study that followed older adults in a dance program for more than a year reported increases in gray matter volume and synaptic density in regions important for memory and executive function. [Another study showed] that people who danced more than once a week had a 76 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those who danced less often.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and the power of art.

Whistleblower David Grusch, whose testimony regarding alleged secret UFO-retrieval programs kicked off a series of congressional hearings, has stated private contractors are being used to make it more difficult for lawmakers to obtain information on certain programs. "If you really want to hide something from Congress, you don't put it in a government file cabinet. You hand it to a private contractor. That's why my investigation is following the trail into RAND, MITRE, Aerospace Corp, MIT Lincoln Labs, and the Northrop Grummans of the world," [Rep. Eric] Burlison said on X. The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, along with others, including MITRE, RAND, IDA, the Aerospace Corporation, JPL and Sandia, was designed in the 1940s and 1950s to retain wartime scientific capability outside the civil service. That structure has led to a network of private nonprofits with classified access that ordinary contractors do not have and that also operate one legal step removed from the executive branch. Grusch alleged in his testimony before Congress that private contractors are carrying out UFO crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs to shield them from congressional oversight. That has been echoed by lawmakers, including Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of the leading voices around UFO disclosure, who has accused the Department of Defense of siloing information to avoid questions from Congress.

Note: Reported UFO/UAP craft may represent far more than unexplained aerial phenomena. They could point toward breakthrough technologies capable of transforming life on Earth. A New Technological Paradigm? What UFO Disclosure Could Mean for Clean Energy, Human Consciousness, and Our Shared Future, we draw on the most reputable, verifiable, and credible sources to help you make sense of this emerging issue. For more, don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang.

Casimir Inc, a company founded and led by former DARPA-funded NASA warp drive pioneer and founder of the EagleWorks Lab, Harold G. "Sonny" White, has [announced] the pending 2028 commercialization of MicroSparc, a chip that the company claims uses customized microscale geometries to capture unlimited ‘free' energy from the quantum world. "Think: no batteries, no cords, and no charging–just continuous power from harvested quantum vacuum fields," a company spokesperson explained. In an email to The Debrief, Dr. White ... explained that MicroSparc's use of customized Casimir cavities, which his team had researched with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), does not violate the laws of physics. Instead, the noted advanced propulsion physics researcher said their MicroSparc design leverages 20th-century discoveries in quantum physics, such as quantum tunneling and Casimir cavities, to capture usable energy that could fuel small, low-power electronics in the near future. Its technology can potentially be scaled to power cars, homes, or even entire cities without the need for harmful fossil fuels or other greener, yet costly, fuel alternatives. Decades of research in quantum physics and mechanics have revealed that at the quantum level, the classically ‘empty' vacuum is filled with "fluctuating electromagnetic fields and virtual particles that constantly appear and disappear." White noted that the Casimir Effect, on which its company is based and for which it is named, provides clear proof of this quantum vacuum behavior. When asked if MicroSparc would constitute a "zero-point" energy device like those featured in science fiction ... Dr. White appeared to agree in general terms.

Note: The technology is based on the idea that empty space itself contains energy. Using advanced nanoscale engineering, background energy can be captured and converted into a continuous electrical current. Similarly, reported UFO/UAP craft could point toward breakthrough technologies capable of transforming life on Earth. Our Substack, A New Technological Paradigm? What UFO Disclosure Could Mean for Clean Energy, Human Consciousness, and Our Shared Future, we draw on the most reputable, verifiable, and credible sources to help you make sense of this emerging issue. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on new energy and the nature of reality.

A new tech company claims it has developed a hat that can literally read your mind – then translate it onto a computer. Much has been discussed about brain implants which require ... putting microchips directly onto your grey matter, but new company Sabi says that's not necessary for its beanies and caps. They have 70,000 to 100,000 sensors built in them which can "pinpoint exactly what and where neural activity is happening ... to decode what a person is thinking," then translate it to a computer command, according to CEO Rahul Chhabra. Tom Oxley, the CEO and founder of Synchron ... is working in the same field as Neuralink, trying to give severely disabled patients the ability to communicate through their brainwaves. The company are partnered with Apple and their chips are implanted through an injection into the jugular vein in the neck, then the chip moves up a blood vessel near the brain's motor cortex in order to read brainwaves. "Non-invasive wearables sit outside the skull, so the signals they pick up are much weaker and less precise. That makes it very difficult to achieve the kind of speed and accuracy needed for real-time control, especially for clinical applications like restoring function in paralysis," said Oxley. Until Sabi's tech arrives and revolutionizes our brainwaves, we'll be stuck behind the keyboard in the near future, at least in America. China has recently approved their first implanted brain computer interface for commercial use.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on microchip implants and mind control.

Kenya's highest court recently struck down as unconstitutional a law that forbade seed sharing, a long practiced traditional means of diversifying crop production and resilience. The law, whether inadvertently or by design, made Kenya another country within the network of those whose seed industry is virtually controlled by a small group of international conglomerates like Bayer–or Monsanto before it was bought out. Advocates on behalf of small-scale farmers and indigenous communities in Kenya said the 2016 Seeds and Plant Varieties Act infringed on their rights to practice indigenous activities, while advocates for seed-saving and seed-sharing say that the practice produces drought-resistant, pest-resistant crops better suited to local areas that don't require as many imported agrochemicals to grow. In November, Kenyan High Court Justice Rhoda Rutto ruled that by limiting "access to traditional and indigenous seeds, contrary to the Constitution," the law violated "the petitioners' and small-scale farmers' cultural rights" and eroded "the cultural distinctiveness of Kenya's indigenous peoples." "This judgment rightly recognizes that seed sharing is not a crime, but a fundamental element of peasants' identity, resilience and contribution to national food systems," said the Working Group on Peasants. Like many traditional farming cultures, Kenyan farmers share and exchange seeds after the growing season, and over time this has led to millions of genetically distinct crops.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy and healing the Earth.

Allegations of rape and sexual misconduct against federal corrections officers by inmates have spiked in recent years, the Government Accountability Office found in its review of enforcement of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). From 2014 through 2022, federal inmates logged nearly 4,000 complaints of sexual abuse against prison staff. Just 9% of those were substantiated by BOP, though 77% saw investigations end inconclusively. A similar trend emerged from sexual abuse allegedly committed by incarcerated individuals, with 81% of those cases reaching inconclusive findings. GAO separately found federal prison guards faced around 3,000 allegations of sexual abuse from 2020 through 2024, a significant uptick in incident rate from prior years. From 2014 through 2022, BOP averaged 433 allegations against its staff per year. In 2023 and 2024, that spiked to 857 per year. Employees told the auditors that they have insufficient staffing for responding to allegations of sexual abuse, including a shortage of investigators. Longstanding personnel shortages at the agency have led to less general supervision that in turn allows misconduct to fester, officials told GAO. Abusers also employ tactics to avoid repercussions. Most of the corrections officers with whom GAO spoke said abusers know where they can go to evade cameras and some said the video quality is poor or not retained for a sufficient amount of time.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and sexual abuse scandals.

The Pentagon has announced that they employ specialized energy weapons for defense. The Department of War's Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael announced this development in an X post. The post ... included a pic of said weaponry firing a laser beam and a soldier holding his head in pain. Dubbed directed energy weapons or DEWs, these advanced instruments of war use focused rays to disable electronic weapons such as drones and incapacitate – or even kill – enemy soldiers. According to the X post, these beams are comprised of "concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic particles." With this announcement, the Department of War seemingly confirmed years of so-called rumors that claimed that the government was developing this science fiction-esque weapon. Perhaps one of the most notable figures sounding the alarm was deceased scientist Amy Eskridge, 34, who was involved in extensive research into anti-gravity technology, UFOs, and extraterrestrial life. The researcher, who allegedly died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2022, had claimed she was hit by a DEW attack in her own home in Huntsville, Alabama not too long before her death. Her theory was seconded by retired British intelligence officer Franc Milburn, whom she had enlisted to investigate harassment she received after she threatened to disclose information about the subjects of her research.

Note: Read more about the mysterious ailments said to be caused by directed energy weapons. Is there a connection to other missing or dead scientists? For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on non-lethal weapons and UFO disclosure.

Circles South West uses a network of volunteers to monitor, support and hold sex offenders to account after they have been released from prison. "For every man that is in a circle of support and accountability, they are being supported, monitored and held to account; and, if they don't receive that, it's possible they could go on to re-offend," said Circles South West co-ordinator Jamie Stephenson. A circle involves four volunteers who meet with a convicted sex offender once a week at the same time and location for a period of 12 to 18 months. The charity works with a range of people from those who commit sexual harm online or other non-contact sexual offences, to those who have committed acts of sexual murder. The process is voluntary and the core member, as the offender is called by the charity, is referred by the police or the probation service. Stephenson said: "Protecting victims is our strapline, and the way Circles does that is by targeting the risk factors, which are things like social isolation, loneliness, substance misuse, lack of constructive use of time, sexual preoccupation and using pornography. "There is empirical evidence that circles makes a difference by reducing the risk that someone could potentially re-offend and, if someone re-offends, then a new victim is created and we are all about no more victims." Since Circles South West formed in 2010, its network of volunteers has worked with about 400 convicted sex offenders in circles of support.

Note: Studies show that men with a Circle are 70 to 80% less likely to reoffend than a control group. Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice and ending human trafficking.

Ingrid Honkala, a former NASA scientist, claims she is intimately familiar with death after allegedly flatlining a staggering three times. Each time, she had the same revelation. "It felt like entering a deeper layer of reality that exists beyond our physical senses," Honkala, 55, told Jam Press of her trifecta of near-death experiences. "In that state, consciousness felt vast, intelligent, and interconnected." When she was just two years old ... Honkala fell into an icy tank of water at home, unbeknownst to the maid who was listening to the radio in another room. Thankfully, the tot's mother ... was able to resuscitate her. During that brief stint on the other side, however, Honkala said "Something extraordinary happened." Her fear gave way to a "deep calm." "The panic disappeared and was replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and stillness," recalled Honkala. "It felt as if my awareness separated from my body." "The experience showed me that what we call the afterlife did not feel like a distant place at all," she said. "To me, the experience suggested that consciousness may not be produced solely by the brain – it may be something more fundamental." Honkala would undergo two more near-death experiences: one following a motorcycle accident at 25 and the other at 52, when her blood pressure dropped during surgery. She was able to attain the same serene state each time. She claimed it was this spiritual awakening that inspired her to pursue science.

Note: For more inspiring and credible material on this topic, read our Substack investigations: How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World and Insights from Near-Death Experiences Remind Us of Who We Are and What Unites Us. Explore more positive stories like this on inspiring near-death experiences and the mysterious nature of reality.

Unbeknownst to most people, logging companies and the US Forest Service have been spraying massive amounts of herbicide in clear-cut and fire-ravaged forests of California–and throughout the nation. And not just any herbicide, but glyphosate, a potent and problematic weed killer best known by the brand name Roundup. My first hint of all this was a single word in a letter the Forest Service sent to me and my neighbors about a year and a half ago. Lassen, it said, was to be part of an ambitious new wildfire recovery project. This was welcome, as the fires had burned perilously close to our properties. Then I came to the word "herbicides." The Forest Service would, starting in spring 2026, spray glyphosate on some 10,000 acres of public land in Lassen to wipe out leafy plants and shrubs that might compete with replanted conifers. The amount applied annually in state forests–266,000 pounds of pure glyphosate in 2023, the latest year for which data was available–is nearly five times what it was two decades ago. Monsanto orchestrated, financed, and even ghostwrote studies that were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals ... papers that state and federal agencies have relied upon to justify copious spraying of Roundup. The only potential human risk acknow­ledged in the Forest Service's [risk] assessment has to do with people unknowingly ingesting glyphosate after foraging for mushrooms and plants in recently sprayed areas.

Note: Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Bayer/Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on environmental destruction and toxic chemicals.

A small Wisconsin city has just notched a big win in its fight against a proposed data center, thanks to grassroots community organizing and support from a growing statewide coalition. And to help guide other communities facing similar challenges, organizers in Menomonie have helped develop a toolkit for taking on hyperscale data centers. As of last October, there were about 3,000 new data centers being built or planned nationwide. Soon, a wave of data center projects was washing over Wisconsin towns. Data centers bring few permanent jobs and can drain municipal water resources, drive up electric bills, rob cities of tax revenues, and cause damaging noise, light and air pollution. Residents in Port Washington have complained about the disruption caused by around-the-clock construction at the new data center. Families near the construction in Beaver Dam have reported that their wells have run dry. Menomonie residents took to social media and the streets to raise the alarm about the data center proposal and organize community members. They met to share information, staged demonstrations and began attending city council meetings in growing numbers. By September 2025, there were over 10,000 Menomonie residents and allies in a Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group – more than half the town's population. Pressure from local campaigners was so great that Mayor Randy Knaack announced at a September 22 city council meeting that he had notified Balloonist that the city would not be moving forward with a development agreement. More good news came in January when the Menomonie City Council voted unanimously to place additional regulations on data center projects. One of the statewide coalition's greatest achievements is the Big Tech Unchecked Toolkit. Published in December 2025 by Healthy Climate Wisconsin and other coalition partners, the toolkit includes information on what data centers are, their impacts on communities and success stories from struggles across Wisconsin, including Menomonie's.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and reimagining the economy.

Members of Gen Z and Millennials are attending phone-free experiences 567% more often across the globe, signaling a major shift in how people want to gather. Eventbrite data shows that the generations having grown up with limited to no social media and smartphone use, and which then lead the charge to its ubiquitous adoption, is now leading the world back–away from constant connectivity. These events now span the full calendar year, signaling a shift from temporary reset to sustained behavior. The momentum is most pronounced in the US and UK, though each market reflects a distinct pattern of growth. The United Kingdom has emerged as the global leader for phone-free socializing, with events growing by 1,200% and attendance increasing by 1,441%. Of course the previous amount will have been very small, and ... the overall number of phone-free events will still be low in comparison to others. There is a strong focus in the UK on countering loneliness and social isolation. In the United States, the offline or analog movement is defined by expansive participation. While event volume grew by 388%, attendance jumped by 913%. The growth is already accelerating. In just the first three months of 2026, phone-free experiences have reached over a third of last year's global event volume, signaling that this is no longer a fringe behavior, but a mainstream way of gathering.

Note: Learn more about the young adults joining "offline" social clubs across Europe. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and technology for good.

[Nick] Pope worked at the UK Ministry of Defence for more than two decades, from 1985 to 2006. For three of those years – 1991 to 1994 – he worked on what was known colloquially in the department as "the UFO desk". One encounter jumped out at him. It had been reported in Rendlesham Forest by two American airmen on Christmas night in 1980. Rendlesham Forest is in Suffolk, England, outside RAF Bentwaters, an airbase operated by the US during the cold war. On that airbase in 1980 were several nuclear missiles. Unlike other UFO sightings, the eyewitness reports from Rendlesham were backed up by hard evidence. It's multiple witnesses, including military. It's sightings over three consecutive nights. It's physical evidence in terms of radar, radioactivity, ground trace indentations, scorch marks. It's a case where we have declassified and released documents, which you can see at ... the Ministry of Defence website. [Staff sergeant Jim] Penniston says he felt a weird sensation, like static electricity ... then a blinding bright light burst into the night. Expecting an explosion, they flung themselves to the ground, but none came. Penniston rose to his feet and saw the bright light beginning to fade, revealing a triangular craft resting in a small clearing on the forest floor, multicoloured neon lights darting over its black opaque surface until they too dimmed and the only light remaining was emanating from underneath the craft.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, explore our summary of the Rendlesham Forest incident in our UFO Information Center.

Federal lawmakers on Thursday passed the House version of the Farm Bill, removing controversial language that would have provided some protections for pesticide companies facing lawsuits over alleged health harms. Members of the US House of Representatives voted 280-142 to pass an amendment to the bill striking sections that would have established "nationwide uniformity for pesticide labeling" effectively preventing states from leveraging labeling requirements aimed at protecting consumers. The provisions were aimed at blocking "failure to warn" claims against pesticide manufacturers like Bayer, which has been sued by more than 100,000 people around the US alleging the company failed to warn that glyphosate herbicides could cause cancer. The amendment ... also eliminates language that would have prevented states and local communities from establishing no-spray zones near schools, as well as a mandate that would have weakened protections from pesticide discharge for waterways. Even with the removal of pesticide preemption language ... the House Farm Bill includes the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act (EATS or Save our Bacon Act), a measure that would prevent state and local governments from "interfering" with interstate commerce by blocking their ability to pass ag policies. These include laws such as California's Prop 12, which promotes humane treatment of livestock.

Note: Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Bayer/Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and toxic chemicals.

A small group of experts [were] enlisted by A.I. companies to vet their products for catastrophic risks. Some have shared with The Times more than a dozen chatbot conversations revealing that even publicly available models can do more than disseminate dangerous information. The virtual assistants have described in lucid, bullet-pointed detail how to buy raw genetic material, turn it into deadly weapons and deploy them in public spaces, the transcripts show. The U.S. government has long planned for powerful adversaries unleashing deadly bacteria, viruses or toxins in the American population. Since 1970, there have been a few dozen, fairly small biological attacks around the world, such as the anthrax-laced letters that killed five Americans in 2001. Despite perennial warnings, a major catastrophe has not happened and remains unlikely, most experts say. But even if the probability is low, an effective biological weapon could have an enormous impact. Dozens of experts told The Times that A.I. is one of several recent technological advances that have meaningfully increased that risk by expanding the pool of people who could cause harm. Still, A.I. users would need some real-world expertise to follow a bot's instructions. Some research, including a study backed by A.I. companies, has found that while chatbots can help novices learn certain lab skills, the technology isn't particularly helpful for carrying out the range of complex tasks needed to make a virus from scratch.

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

Retired rear admiral Timothy Gallaudet ... is a man with serious credentials. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he is the former head of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, has worked on anti-submarine warfare, ran the Naval Observatory, and eventually became the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He's also one of the most outspoken proponents of the idea that not only are UFOs real, but the government is hiding the truth about them. "We're being visited by some kind of higher-order intelligence that we don't understand," Gallaudet told me. "And it's happening often, frequently, in our airspace and in our water and in space." Gallaudet recalls participating in a naval exercise off the East Coast in 2015 and finding that pilots flying off the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, were not only seeing UFOs but getting so close that officers like him became worried about a midair collision. These sightings produced the famous GoFast video of a UFO, which the Pentagon later said was an object that appeared out of the ordinary due to an effect called motion parallax. Gallaudet, who says his correspondence about the object was mysteriously wiped from his computer, is far from convinced by that explanation. He's particularly curious as to why so many UFOs appear to be flying over water and in some videos, appear to be disappearing beneath the waves. "If they want to remain unseen," he told me, "that's the place they would be." He's testified before Congress about what he's seen. He says what the government has disclosed so far is "a fraction of the tip of the iceberg of what we're really seeing day to day."

Note: In this interview, Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet asserts that Atlantis was a real ancient civilization, citing Plato's accounts alongside archaeological and geological evidence suggesting it was destroyed in a catastrophic event around 12,900 years ago; he adds that he is part of a team studying it but "can't say much," implying the work may be tied to sensitive or restricted research. He further claims they may have identified its location on the seafloor and are seeking visual proof of human-made structures. For more, don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang.

Have you ever paid more for a product because a brand told you it was good for you and the planet? Many activewear shoppers do exactly this, trusting that the "healthy" image on the label matches what is actually in the fabric. The Texas Attorney General's office has launched a formal investigation into the activewear brand Lululemon. The question: does its activewear contain PFAS, a group of toxic "forever chemicals"? This sits uncomfortably with a brand built on wellness. Lululemon has denied the claims. It says it phased out PFAS in 2023. The case highlights a wider problem: a gap between what fashion brands promise and what is actually in their products. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are synthetic chemicals used to make fabrics resistant to water, stains and sweat. They earned the name "forever chemicals" because they do not break down easily in the environment or our bodies. Instead, they accumulate over time. The issue first came to wide attention in 2011, when Greenpeace's "Dirty Laundry" investigation named several global giants for links to dumping perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), now broadly classified as PFAS, into Chinese waterways. While most major brands promised to phase out PFAS by 2020, follow-up testing shows they still appear in leggings and sports bras across the sector. Exposure has been linked to serious health risks, including kidney and testicular cancers, hormonal disruption, and immune system damage.

Note: France has banned the use of forever chemicals in cosmetics and apparel. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.

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.