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The US must acknowledge the right to food in order to transform its broken food system in the post-pandemic era and make it more resilient in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, according to a United Nations hunger expert. "Whether we're talking about right to food, food justice or food sovereignty, there has been growing momentum over the last 10 years to understand that food is not just something we just leave to be determined by what is available or by corporations or the status quo," said Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food. Last month, Fakhri presented a report on the right to food – which would entail that adequate food be available and accessible to all people – as a means of food system recovery and transformation to the UN general assembly. The right to food, which can also be characterized as a right to culturally appropriate nutrition that a person needs to live a healthy and active life, is recognized in the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is enshrined in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In 2021, the US and Israel were the only countries to vote against a United Nations committee's draft that asserted food as a human right. The draft also expressed alarm that the number of people lacking access to adequate food rose by 320 million to 2.4 billion in 2020 – nearly one-third of the world's population. In 2022, 44.2 million people in the US lived in food-insecure households.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the food system from reliable major media sources.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has been branded "defective" in a multi-million pound landmark legal action that will suggest claims over its efficacy were "vastly overstated". The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in the High Court in a test case by Jamie Scott, a father-of-two who suffered a significant permanent brain injury that has left him unable to work as a result of a blood clot after receiving the jab in April 2021. A second claim is being brought by the widower and two young children of 35-year-old Alpa Tailor, who died after having the jab made by AstraZeneca. The test cases could pave the way for as many as 80 damages claims worth an estimated Ł80 million over a new condition known as Vaccine-induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis (VITT) that was identified by specialists in the wake of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine rollout. In the months following the rollout, the potential serious side effect of the AstraZeneca jab was identified by scientists. Following this, it was recommended it no longer be given to the under-40s in the UK because the risk of receiving the jab outweighed the harm posed by Covid. Official figures ... show at least 81 deaths in the UK are suspected to have been linked to the adverse reaction that caused clotting in people who also had low blood platelets. Victims and their lawyers question the Government's monitoring of the rollout and point out that ... Germany suspended the vaccine's use for the under 60s at the end of March 2021.
Note: In the US, when current and former FDA advisers and academics asked the FDA to improve COVID vaccine labeling given the risk of severe vaccine injuries, the agency denied almost every single request. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Seventeen major food manufacturers earned an average grade of F for their lack of progress in reducing pesticides in the products they sell, according to a new analysis by As You Sow, a nonprofit specializing in shareholder advocacy. "It's disheartening to see so many bad grades across the board for these major food production companies," said Jane Houlihan, research director for Healthy Babies, Bright Futures. "Studies find the highest amounts of pesticides in some of the most popular foods children eat – berries and apples, for example," said Houlihan. "Pesticides are also found in breast milk and umbilical cord blood, meaning that exposures start before birth and continue through infancy and beyond." Long-term exposure to pesticides has been linked to cancer, asthma, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, depression, and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, according to the report. Kale, collard and mustard greens contained the largest number of pesticides – 103 types – while nearly 90% of blueberry and green bean samples had concerning findings, according to the analysis. Green bean samples contained extremely high levels of acephate, an insecticide banned for use in the vegetable in 2011. Blueberry samples contained acephate, phosmet and malathion – organophosphates which interfere with the normal function of the nervous system. What can consumers do? Choosing organic foods is a surefire way to reduce pesticide exposure.
Note: Read the complete study, titled, "Pesticides in the Pantry: Transparency & Risk in Food Supply Chains." A groundbreaking study found that eating a completely organic diet (even just for a week) can dramatically reduce the presence of pesticide levels in our bodies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
Three people have been arrested in connection with operating high-end brothels in Virginia and the Boston area that served an exclusive clientele of elected officials, military officers, government contractors with security clearances and myriad other professionals, according to federal investigators. Since at least July 2020, prosecutors allege that Han Lee, 41, James Lee, 68, and Junmyung Lee, 30, ran brothels that advertised primarily Asian women under the guise that they were nude models selling their services to professional photographers. The brothels' clients, which prosecutors allege could number in the hundreds, also included tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, professors, lawyers, scientists and accountants. The allegations mirror a sex service that for 13 years catered to Washington's political elite, including a sitting senator. Known as the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted of running that operation in 2008. Records of her ring included the names of 815 clients, and in 2016, Palfrey's former lawyer said her phone records "could be relevant" to the presidential election. A judge later blocked the release of those records. To make an appointment with a brothel, a prospective client had to go through a verification process that included filling out a form with their name, emails, phone numbers, employers and a reference, court filings alleged. They also had to submit a photo of themselves and credit card information.
Note: The D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey mentioned above reportedly hung herself in 2008. More recently, Jeffrey Epstein reportedly hung himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial for running a child sex ring involving powerful people. In both cases, the identities of elite sex buyers were shielded from public scrutiny by authorities. Learn about other major sexual abuse scandal cover-ups that took place in the highest levels of government.
Three people have been arrested and charged in connection with running "high-end brothels" in the Boston area and Northern Virginia. Prosecutors said the Massachusetts brothels were in Cambridge and Watertown, and the Virginia locations were in Fairfax and Tysons, primarily with Asian women in both states. The defendants are Han Lee, 41, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, Massachusetts; and James Lee, 68, of Torrance, California. All three were charged with conspiracy to coerce and entice to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity. "These customers spanned a wide array of different professional disciplines," the case agent said in court documents. "Some of these professional disciplines included, but are not limited to, politicians, pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, lawyers, business executives, technology company executives, scientists, accountants, retail employees, and students." Investigators also said that James Lee made deposits in his personal and business bank accounts since January 2020 that totaled $4.5 million. More than $550,000 of Covid relief funds, the agent wrote, were among those deposits. Investigators acquired records from the Small Business Administration that ... show James Lee applied for these loans for various businesses, including one listed as E.P.A. Green Services, and potentially under different identities.
Note: This case echoes the case of D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who ran a prostitution ring catering to elite clients. Jeane reportedly hung herself before all of the details of her operation could come out. Learn about other major sexual abuse scandal cover-ups that took place in the highest levels of government.
Dutch sewage waste is being seen as a reliable heat source for millions of homes that the government wants to be unhooked from the country's gas system by 2050. Lieven de Key, a housing corporation in Amsterdam, is planning what is believed to be the first sewer warmth project that will tap into a main district sewage pipe to warm 1,600 existing social and student homes. "We have a photo of the street covered with snow, and the manhole covers all without snow," says Jeroen Rademaker, the project leader. "Even when there's snow in the winter, the sewer is warm. Warm sewage water flows 24 hours a day and we should capture it. This can happen wherever there is a big sewage pipe." "The warmth comes from showers, the toilet, wastewater from washing, from the dishwasher, from the washing machine," says Postuma. "Together it all gives, throughout the year, a temperature between 15 and 18 degrees. And we are going to make a bypass around the main sewer, put a heat exchanger around it and bring it to the houses in insulated pipes. We place it in an electric heat pump, and the water is heated up to 60 or 70C – medium temperature." The heat exchanger transfers that source heat from the drain to a working fluid that can be transported to the buildings without needing to circulate the actual sewage waste. Then the blocks' heat pumps, fired by solar energy, can amplify that heat in the opposite way to the workings of a refrigerator.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Chief Master Sgt. Ron Lerch of the U.S. Space Force sat down in his office in Los Angeles one morning in September to deliver a briefing known as a threat assessment. The current "threats" in space are less sci-fi than you might expect, but there are a surprising number of them: At least 44,500 space objects now circle Earth, including 9,000 active satellites and 19,000 significant pieces of debris. What's most concerning isn't the swarm of satellites but the types. "We know that there are kinetic kill vehicles," Lerch said – for example, a Russian "nesting doll" satellite, in which a big satellite releases a tiny one and the tiny one releases a mechanism that can strike and damage another satellite. China, whose presence in space now far outpaces Russia's, is launching unmanned "space planes" into orbit, testing potentially unbreakable quantum communication links and adding A.I. capabilities to satellites. An intelligence report, Lerch said, predicted the advent, within the next decade, of satellites with radio-frequency jammers, chemical sprayers and lasers that blind and disable the competition. All this would be in addition to the cyberwarfare tools, electromagnetic instruments and "ASAT" antisatellite missiles that already exist. Space Force leaders readily describe their guardians as working toward a state of combat readiness, even as they hope an era of actual conflict never arrives. As space becomes commercialized, it increasingly becomes a geopolitical arena for competition too.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
The power's out. But on a street in India, there's a cash machine still happily dispensing banknotes. Thanks, in part, to burnt cotton. For this cash machine has a backup battery inside it – a battery that contains carbon from carefully combusted cotton. "The exact process is secret," says Inketsu Okina, chief intelligence officer at PJP Eye, the Japanese firm that made the battery. "The temperature is secret and atmosphere is secret. Pressure is secret," he continues. Okina does say that a high temperature is required, above 3,000C (5,432F). And that 1kg (2.2lbs) of cotton yields 200g (7oz) of carbon – with just 2g (0.07oz) needed for each battery cell. PJP Eye also touts the possibility of improving battery performance as well as making batteries greener. "Our carbon has a bigger surface area than graphite," says Okina, describing how the chemistry of the anode in their Cambrian single carbon battery allows for a battery that charges very quickly, up to 10 times faster than existing lithium ion batteries, he claims. The battery's cathode is made from a "base metal" oxide. Although Okina won't disclose exactly which one, these metals include copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The company claims to be working on a dual carbon electrode battery, where both electrodes are made from plant-based carbon. Other researchers are looking at using materials as diverse as corn waste and melon seed shells to generate new types of electrodes for use in batteries.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
In the 1970s, congressional investigators revealed that the FBI, NSA, and CIA had spent decades illegally surveilling and harassing the civil rights and anti-war movements. These abuses shocked the American public and led Congress to implement a series of intelligence reforms, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which set strict limitations on when and how intelligence agencies could perform domestic spying. In the decades since the 9/11 attacks, changing laws and aggressive executive branch lawyering have significantly relaxed the rules that govern surveillance of Americans. We are once again seeing abuses of these powers, including instances of intelligence agents seeking access to the communications of politicians, protesters, and journalists. Today, a bipartisan group of lawmakers ... introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023 (GSRA) to reverse this erosion of privacy rights. The GSRA begins by tackling Section 702, a controversial surveillance law that expires at the end of this year. Section 702 allows the government to collect the communications of non-Americans located abroad without a warrant. But Americans' private phone calls, emails, and text messages are inevitably captured, too – and intelligence officials frequently perform warrantless searches for them. Intelligence officials conducted more than 200,000 of these "backdoor searches" for Americans' communications last year alone.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Duberney López Martinéz was only 13 when he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2003. Today, Duberney, 33, lives with his wife and young son after spending more than a decade fighting in the FARC 32nd Front and two years in jail. As part of his reintegration into society ... Duberney got involved in the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon. He and another 23 ex-FARC members are promoting the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon. The Communitarian Multiactive Cooperative of the Common (Comuccom) ... aims to plant and care for 1 million native trees in order to counteract deforestation from illegal gold mining, cattle ranching, coca-growing and illegal logging. Despite the peace agreement, the conflict is still present in daily lives and memories, according to Kristina Lyons, professor of anthropology ... who has been working in the region. "In Putumayo, armed conflict and antidrug policies heavily impacted bonds among people, communities and their relations with the region's ecosystems," Lyons [said]. "The ecological restoration of the Amazon has deep significance for healing relations between humans ruptured by the conflict and among people and their territories. It can be understood as a form of reparation for war crimes and other kinds of violence in the wake of the peace agreements." "To me, restoring the Amazon is the same process needed for healing the heart of a person," [said Aroca Sanchez with Comuccom].
Note: Read how tourists in Colombia can now take jungle hikes with ex-FARC guerilla guides. Explore more positive stories like this about healing the war machine.
One month since Hamas's surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence. A retired Marine general who worked in the region, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized by his former employer to speak publicly, attributed the secrecy to the political sensitivity of the conflict. In particular, the retired officer said, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which are likely to result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the administration wants to publicize. The goal of removing Hamas completely from power is widely expected to take a significant commitment to a long-term ground presence and heavy urban fighting. According to the New Yorker, Israeli officials told their American counterparts that the war could last 10 years. Hamas's attack on Israel ... resulted in a cascade of arms assistance from the U.S. Though the Biden administration at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems, as details trickled out in the press, it has gradually acknowledged some. These include "precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment," [said] Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder. What "other critical equipment" entails remains a mystery.
Note: From 2018-2022, the US was responsible for 40 percent of global weapons exports. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
Meta's top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ignored warnings for years about harms to teens on its platforms such as Instagram, a company whistleblower told a Senate subcommittee. Meta instead fosters a culture of "see no evil, hear no evil" that overlooks evidence of harm internally while publicly presenting carefully crafted metrics to downplay the issue, said Arturo Bejar, an ex-Facebook engineering director and consultant. Bejar is the latest former insider to level public allegations that the tech giant knowingly turns a blind eye to problems that its policies and technology cannot cheaply or easily address. [Bejar] first became motivated to study the issue because of unwanted sexual advances his own 14-year-old daughter received from strangers on Instagram. "It is unacceptable that a 13-year-old girl gets propositioned on social media," Bejar testified, citing a statistic from his research finding that more than 25% of 13-to-15-year-olds have reported receiving unwanted sexual advances on Instagram. Lawmakers on Tuesday ripped into the social media giant. "They hid from this committee and all of Congress evidence of the harms that they knew was credible," said ... Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Missouri Republican Josh Hawley blasted Big Tech companies for spending "gobs" of money ... to thwart bills that would restrict the industry's power. He also accused Meta of "cooking the books" on data related to mental health harms.
Note: Read how Instagram connects a vast pedophile network. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Executives at the largest insurance companies in the United States are alarmed that teenagers, young and white-collar Americans in the prime of life are inexplicably dying at a record pace, causing a "monumental outflow" of death claims. According to an Oct. 26 report in InsuranceNewsNet, U.S. insurance companies expected higher-than-normal payouts from excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Insurers saw death benefits rise 15.4% in 2020, the biggest one-year increase since the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, followed by a record $100.28 billion – nearly double the historic norm – in total death benefits paid out by the industry in 2021. CDC numbers ... show the death rate for Americans ages 15-45 rose 20-24% above normal in 2020, and soared in 2021, to a nearly 30% death increase for 15-year-olds and a more than 45% increase for 45-year-olds. CDC data reported in August showed that Americans in the period January-May 2023 were still dying at abnormally high rates with the pandemic long over. Dr. Pierre Kory ... who treats long COVID and vaccine-injured patients in his practice, called on insurance companies to work with media and governments and investigate the powerful evidence that countless deaths and disabilities are temporally linked to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Kory cited the more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine-linked injuries, disabilities and more than 30,000 deaths reported ... to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Note: Mentioned in this article is critical care physician Dr. Pierre Kory, who recently published an in-depth explanation on the link between COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and excess death among American youth. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
For two decades, the CIA ran mind-control experiments in Montreal that later influenced modern "enhanced interrogation" techniques such as those used at Abu Ghraib. The experiments have not only crossed ethical boundaries but also raised profound questions of accountability and justice. This is particularly true in light of the ongoing class-action lawsuits initiated by those who suffered through the Montreal experiments. Established in 1940, the Allan Memorial Institute (known as "the Allan") used to be a psychiatric institute and research facility. The majority of the Montreal experiments were orchestrated and implemented by a man named Donald Ewen Cameron ... the first director of the Allan. Cameron received funds brokered by then CIA director Allen Dulles to subject his unwitting "patients" to high-voltage electroshock treatments, insulin-induced comas, sensory deprivation, and large doses of hallucinogenic drugs like LSD. To justify these treatments, Cameron touted his psychiatric techniques as innovative and experimental. The CIA obtained their desired test results from Cameron, whose patients unknowingly paid for the operation with the loss of their memories and cognitive abilities. Even though countless individuals who left the Allan were reduced to childlike states and unable to recognize their own family members, the US government has yet to be held accountable.
Note: Read more about the disturbing experiments of Ewen Cameron. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and mind control from reliable major media sources.
During a Senate briefing last week, a federal counterterrorism official cited the October 7 Hamas attack while urging Congress to reauthorize a sprawling and controversial surveillance program repeatedly used to spy on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. "As evidenced by the events of the past month, the terrorist threat landscape is highly dynamic and our country must preserve [counterterrorism] fundamentals to ensure constant vigilance," said Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid. She pointed to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the U.S. government to gather vast amounts of intelligence – including about U.S. citizens ... without first seeking a warrant. Section 702 "provides key indications and warning on terrorist plans and ... gives us strategic insight into foreign terrorists and their networks overseas," Abizaid said. "I respectfully urge Congress to reauthorize this vital authority." The controversial program is set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers sympathetic to the intelligence community are scrambling to protect it. Sean Vitka ... at the civil liberties group Demand Progress [said] that now is the time to enact lasting and dramatic oversight of the 702 authority. "The government has completely failed to demonstrate that any of the privacy protections reformers have called for would impair national security ... so now we're seeing people grasping at straws trying to turn everything into an excuse for reauthorization," Vitka said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
New Yorkers may have noticed an unwelcome guest hovering round their parties. In the lead-up to Labour Day weekend the New York Police Department (NYPD) said that it would use drones to look into complaints about festivities, including back-yard gatherings. Snooping police drones are an increasingly common sight in America. According to a recent survey by researchers at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, about a quarter of police forces now use them. Among the NYPD's suppliers is Skydio, a Silicon Valley firm that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to make drones easy to fly. The NYPD is also buying from BRINC, another startup, which makes flying machines equipped with night-vision cameras that can smash through windows. Facial-recognition software is now used more widely across America, too, with around a tenth of police forces having access to the technology. A report released in September by America's Government Accountability Office found that six federal law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service, were together executing an average of 69 facial-recognition searches every day. Among the top vendors listed was Clearview AI. Surveillance capabilities may soon be further fortified by generative AI, of the type that powers ChatGPT, thanks to its ability to work with "unstructured" data such as images and video footage. The technology will let users "search the Earth for objects", much as Google lets users search the internet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
The morning of the Hamas attack, [Maoz] Inon's parents were at home in their community of Netiv HaAsara, a mere quarter-mile from Gaza. A Hamas fighter launched a rocket-propelled grenade that directly hit his parents' wooden house. Amid this sea of grief that he's cratered into, Inon says he feels no urge for revenge. "I was crying, and I'm still crying, for all the innocent victims from both sides that will die," he says. "And I'm crying for this 100 years of bloodshed, of cycle of death." Inon says that this cycle can seem endless, but he has hope. "It seems like there is no solution," he says, "but there is." Inon says he had something of a vision after this war began. "I saw an image of everyone crying," he recalls. He says we shouldn't have more weapons, build higher walls and create better security systems. "That's the old world, OK? You want to start a new world? We need to cry ... And then," he says, "we'll see the path for peace." In one of [political psychologist Oded Adomi] Leshem's research studies, he shows that Jewish Israelis and Palestinians consistently underestimate the other group's hope for peace. "This underestimation actually reduces one's own hope." Unlike conflict, which Leshem says is bloody but familiar to Israelis and Palestinians, hope is different. It's unfamiliar and unpredictable. "If we kind of accept this unpredictability," he says, "take the chance [on] this uncertain thing – which is called peace between the [Jordan] River and the [Mediterranean] Sea – then this is closely related to hope."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
Tim Phillips, a veteran conflict-resolution expert, helped negotiate some of the most fraught conflicts in modern history – ceasefires of religious clashes in Northern Ireland and the establishment of what became South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid. Defusing an escalating situation ... first requires releasing a brain hijacked by defensive emotion. Phillips says it means saying to your opponent, for example: "I understand how important this is to you; I understand this is core to your identity and your community, and I respect your sacred values." It means reflecting your opponent's humanity back to them. A similar approach, he says, can help reduce toxic polarization. It's effective because in the heat of argument, people tend to demonize one another; counteracting that can neutralize assumptions of negative intent. Phillips says he's seen people emotionally disarm the opposition in a disagreement simply by recognizing their humanity. It can bring together fierce adversaries, and change history. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman in the U.S., was battling for the Democratic presidential nomination with political rival ... George Wallace, a fierce segregationist. After he was shot in an attempted assassination, Chisholm visited him in the hospital and prayed at his bedside. "Wallace's daughter later said that that gesture of compassion completely changed her father," Phillips says. Wallace reportedly wept openly, and shifted his stance on racial segregation.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
[Loretta] Ross has worked at the forefront of the movement for reproductive justice. But recently she has become better known for championing "call-in culture," a philosophy that approaches someone's wrongdoing with accountability and, most importantly, love. In the summer of 2020 ... I felt myself crumbling. I called out snide comments by alumni of my college about Black Lives Matter protests, demanded people boycott the college newspaper ... and used Twitter to call out the behavior of fellow students. Each tactic left no room for discussion. Calling in, by contrast, asks us to always be the bigger person, even in the most hateful and painful situations. I ask Ross: Whose well-being are we prioritizing here? And why isn't it our own? Ross tells me about another Black woman who asked the same question. "I'm confused," Ross recalls the woman saying. "I don't want to fall into the stereotype of the angry Black woman. But I feel like if I embrace the calling-in strategies you're talking about, then I'm ... giving a pass to all this injustice. What should I do?" Ross responds with a question of her own: "Well, who are you inside? Go deep inside and find out who you are. What's the emotion that you feel is true to you?" "Inside, I feel like I'm filled with love," the woman replies. "Then, why aren't you leading with your authentic self?" Ross asks her. Accountability and love are not mutually exclusive, Ross explains.
Note: Smith College Professor and civil rights activist Loretta Ross worked with Ku Klux Klan members and practiced restorative justice with incarcerated men convicted or raping and murdering women. Watch Loretta Ross's powerful Ted Talk on simple tools to help shift our culture from fighting each other to working together in the face of polarizing social issues. Explore more positive stories about healing social division and polarization.
As the Monitor's chief culture writer, Stephen Humphries stays open to a sprawling landscape of story ideas. Lately that has meant exploring empathy gaps – situations where, in some cases, groups hail the misfortune and losses of those whom they view as their ideological foes. No-tolerance side-taking has emerged over everything from the Mideast conflict to stances on policing or vaccines. That got Stephen talking to a solution-seeker on the matter of fraying human connections: Alexandra Hudson, author of "The Soul of Civility." "I am hopeful," she says, "because I've spoken to thousands of people who are working to be part of the solutions in their every day." Through the power of connection, she says, "we can reclaim the soul of civility and heal our broken world." As these traditional touchstones of meaning in life, family, faith, friendship, community, have been on the [decline] in recent decades, more and more people have found their ultimate meaning in public life, in political issues. Now it's easy for people to feel like their very identity is being assaulted because of that disagreement, because their identity has been misplaced in a public and political issue. Democracy depends on reasonable, deliberative discourse and conversation and debate. And if people are constantly being thrown into fight or flight mode, we're not doing our public issues well, we're not doing democracy well. We're not doing life together very well. We live in this era of a strange perfectionism. We take one aspect of who a person is and extrapolate that: "OK, that's all I need to know about who you are and what you stand for." But that's so reductive and it's degrading to the dignity of the human person. Unbundling people is seeing the part in light of the whole, seeing someone's mistakes even in light of the dignity and an irreducible worth they have as human beings.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.
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.