News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
When a judge acquitted a white St. Louis police officer in September 2017 for fatally shooting a young black man, the city’s police braced for massive protests. But St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Dustin Boone wasn’t just prepared for the unrest - he was pumped. “It’s gonna get IGNORANT tonight!!” he texted on Sept. 15, 2017, the day of the verdict. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these s---heads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!” Two days later, prosecutors say, that’s exactly what Boone did to one black protester. Boone, 35, and two other officers, Randy Hays, 31, and Christopher Myers, 27, threw a man to the ground and viciously kicked him and beat him with a riot baton, even though he was complying with their instructions. But the three police officers had no idea that the man was a 22-year police veteran working undercover, whom they beat so badly that he couldn’t eat and lost 20 pounds. On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted the three officers in the assault. They also indicted the men and another officer, Bailey Colletta, 25, for the attack. Prosecutors released text messages showing the officers bragging about assaulting protesters, with Hays even noting that “going rogue does feel good.” To protest leaders, the federal charges are a welcome measure of justice — but also a sign of how far St. Louis still has to go.
Note: If the man beaten had not been a police officer, we would never have heard about this. How often does it happen to other protestors acting peacefully? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the erosion of civil liberties.
Spending hours on smartphones and tablet devices has frequently been linked to exacerbating mental wellbeing, but new research claims the damage might start in users as young as two. After just one hour of screen time, children and adolescents may have less curiosity, lower self-control and lower emotional stability, which can lead to an increased risk of anxiety and depression, claims a US study published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports. The researchers found that those aged 14 to 17 are more at risk for such adverse effects, but noticed the correlations in younger children and toddlers, whose brains are still developing, as well. The study found that nursery school children who used screens frequently were twice as likely to lose their temper. It also claimed that nine per cent of those aged 11 to 13 who spent an hour a day on screens were not curious in learning new things, a figure which rose to 22.6 per cent for those whose screen time was seven hours a day or more. Authors Professor Jean Twenge, of San Diego State University, and Professor Keith Campbell, of the University of Georgia, said: "Half of mental health problems develop by adolescence. "Thus, there is an acute need to identify factors linked to mental health issues that are amenable to intervention in this population, as most antecedents are difficult or impossible to influence. "Compared to these more intractable antecedents of mental health, how children and adolescents spend their leisure time is more amenable to change."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
Dogs have such exquisitely sensitive noses that they can detect bombs, drugs, citrus and other contraband in luggage or pockets. Is it possible that they can sniff out even malaria? And when might that be useful? A small pilot study has shown that dogs can accurately identify socks worn overnight by children infected with malaria parasites even when the children had cases so mild that they were not feverish. In itself, such canine prowess is not surprising. Since 2004, dogs have shown that they can detect bladder cancer in urine samples, lung cancer in breath samples and ovarian cancer in blood samples. Trained dogs now warn owners with diabetes when their blood sugar has dropped dangerously low and owners with epilepsy when they are on the verge of a seizure. Other dogs are being taught to detect Parkinsons disease years before symptoms appear. The new study ... does not mean that dogs will replace laboratories. But for sorting through crowds, malaria-sniffing dogs could potentially be very useful. Some countries and regions that have eliminated the disease share heavily trafficked borders with others that have not. For example, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the island of Zanzibar have no cases but get streams of visitors from Mozambique, India and mainland Tanzania. And when a region is close to eliminating malaria, dogs could sweep through villages, nosing out silent carriers people who are not ill but have parasites in their blood that mosquitoes could pass on to others.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
[Robert] Rook was allowed to keep his family practice open, so long as he’s chaperoned, despite facing multiple criminal charges for rape. Prosecutors subsequently downgraded the charges to more than 20 counts of sexual assault in the second- and third-degree, charges for which Rook says he is innocent. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists and politicians have been pushed out of their jobs or resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct, the world of medicine is more forgiving. Even when doctors are disciplined, their punishment often consists of a short suspension paired with therapy that treats sexually abusive behavior as a symptom of an illness or addiction. The investigation finds that decades of complaints that the physician disciplinary system is too lenient have led to little change in the practices of state medical boards. The #MeToo campaign and the push to increase accountability for sexual misconduct in workplaces don't appear to have sparked a movement toward changing how medical boards deal with physicians who act out sexually against patients or staffers.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
People are developing dementia a decade before they were 20 years ago, perhaps because of environmental factors such as pollution and the stepped-up use of insecticides, a wide-ranging international study has found. The study, which compared 21 Western countries between the years 1989 and 2010, found that the disease is now being regularly diagnosed in people in their late 40s and that death rates are soaring. The study was published in the Surgical Neurology International journal. The problem was particularly acute in the United States, where neurological deaths in men aged over 75 have nearly tripled and in women risen more than fivefold, the leader of the study, Colin Pritchard from Bournemouth University, [said]. Scientists quoted in the study said a combination of environmental factors such as pollution from aircraft and cars as well as widespread use of pesticides could be the culprit. Early-onset dementia used to cover people developing the disease in their late 60s. Now, it’s meant to mean people much younger than that, the research showed. The study found that deaths caused by neurological disease had risen significantly in adults aged 55 to74, virtually doubling in the over-75s. The sharp increase in death rates from dementia-related diseases cannot simply be blamed on an aging population or stepped-up diagnosis, Pritchard said. “The rate of increase in such a short time suggested a silent or even a hidden epidemic, in which environmental factors must play a major part.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
A secret British spy unit created to mount cyber attacks on Britain’s enemies has waged war on the hacktivists of Anonymous and LulzSec, according to documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News. The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous. A division of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart of the NSA, shut down communications among Anonymous hacktivists by launching a “denial of service” (DDOS) attack – the same technique hackers use to take down bank, retail and government websites – making the British government the first Western government known to have conducted such an attack. The documents ... show that the unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG, boasted of using the DDOS attack – which it dubbed Rolling Thunder - and other techniques to scare away 80 percent of the users of Anonymous internet chat rooms. Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a "false flag" operation. A British hacktivist known as T-Flow, who was prosecuted for hacking, [said] no evidence of how his identity was discovered ever appeared in court documents.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
Promotion of influenza vaccines is one of the most visible and aggressive public health policies today. Twenty years ago, in 1990, 32 million doses of influenza vaccine were available in the United States. Today around 135 million doses of influenza vaccine annually enter the US market, with vaccinations administered in drug stores, supermarkets–even some drive-throughs. This enormous growth has not been fueled by popular demand but instead by a public health campaign that delivers a straightforward ... message: influenza is a serious disease, we are all at risk of complications from influenza, the flu shot is virtually risk free, and vaccination saves lives. Yet across the country, mandatory influenza vaccination policies have cropped up, particularly in healthcare facilities, precisely because not everyone wants the vaccination, and compulsion appears the only way to achieve high vaccination rates. Closer examination of influenza vaccine policies shows that although proponents employ the rhetoric of science, the studies underlying the policy are often of low quality, and do not substantiate officials' claims. The vaccine might be less beneficial and less safe than has been claimed, and the threat of influenza appears overstated. Since 2000, the concept of who is "at risk" has rapidly expanded, incrementally encompassing greater swathes of the general population. Today, national guidelines call for everyone 6 months of age and older to get vaccinated. Now we are all "at risk."
Note: Full text available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on vaccines from reliable major media sources.
After examining climate data extending back nearly 100 years, a team of Government scientists has concluded that there has been no significant change in average temperatures or rainfall in the United States over that entire period. While the nation's weather in individual years or even for periods of years has been hotter or cooler and drier or wetter than in other periods, the new study shows that over the last century there has been no trend in one direction or another. The study, made by scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was published in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters. It is based on temperature and precipitation readings taken at weather stations around the country from 1895 to 1987. Dr. Kirby Hanson, the meteorologist who led the study, said ... that the findings concerning the United States do not necessarily "cast doubt" on previous findings of a worldwide trend toward warmer temperatures, nor do they have a bearing one way or another on the theory that a buildup of pollutants is acting like a greenhouse and causing global warming. Several computer models have projected that the greenhouse effect would cause average global temperatures to rise between 3 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century.
Note: Watch an intriguing video suggesting the climate data has been tampered with by government agencies to show more warming over the long run than is actually the case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing climate change news articles from reliable major media sources.
Since the Israel-Hamas war, relationships between some students have been nowhere near brotherly, let alone collegial. Some students just aren't accustomed to contrary or controversial ideas and believe that even hearing them is harmful. What hasn't made headline news is the spike in civil discourse initiatives at campuses. Here's one gauge. At the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, a coalition of College Presidents for Civic Preparedness went from a handful of participants prior to Oct. 7, 2023, to well over 100 afterward. The likes of Harvard, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have launched civil discourse initiatives since the deadly Hamas attack that sparked the Israeli invasion of Gaza. One success story is the Dialogue, Inclusion, and Democracy (DID) Lab at Providence College in Rhode Island, run by Dr. Bevely and Professor Nick Longo. "With Mutual Respect" events feature two people on opposing sides of an issue. Panelists don't so much debate as endeavor to foster mutual understanding. In December 2020, Vanderbilt [University's] women's basketball team elected to protest for racial justice by staying inside the locker room during the national anthem. Vanderbilt ... facilitated structured dialogue between the basketball players and military veterans on the Nashville, Tennessee, campus. Some athletes shared experiences of racism and discrimination. Young men and women, some of whom had combat experience, explained why they felt so strongly about serving their country. The culture of civil discourse needs to be rooted in a relationship of trust. "If as a student, I'm challenging something, or I say something controversial, I'm going to have to trust you that you're not excluding me," says [Chancellor] Dr. Diermeier.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and reimagining education.
Community currencies – alternative forms of money sometimes also referred to as local or regional currencies – are as diverse as the communities they serve, from grassroots time-banking and mutual credit schemes to blockchain-based Community Inclusion Currencies. Local currencies were common until the 19th century, when the newly emerging nation states transitioned to a centralized system of government-issued money as a way of consolidating their power and stabilizing the economy. Far from being a neutral system of exchange, a currency is a tool to achieve certain goals. Inequality and unsustainability are baked into our monetary system, which is based on debt and interest with practically all the money ... being created by private banks when issuing loans. Well-designed community currencies eliminate two main sources of financial inequality: money's perceived inherent value and the interest rates, which both incentivize people to hoard their money. Like the pipes that bring water to your house, money is the conduit that gives you access to goods and services. The value of money is created in the transaction. In 2015 it was estimated that almost 400 of them are active in Spain alone, and across Africa blockchain-backed systems, like the Sarafu in Kenya, help underserved communities do business without conventional money. Elsewhere, local currencies like the Brixton pound in the U.K. or BerkShares in Massachusetts are a way to keep money in the community, buffering it against the pressures of a globalized economy.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.
Lawmakers are facing a deadline to reauthorize the federal program providing insurance to homeowners when private insurers abandon their climate-battered locales. The 56-year-old program holds nearly five million policies and more than $22 billion in liabilities. It was envisioned as a stopgap measure for the working class – but the wealthy are now exploiting the program at the expense of low-income homeowners. That includes Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. A 2020 study ... found that the program "provides a substantial subsidy to upper-income groups." How? By charging lower-income households higher premiums than high-income households – even though the latter's properties are generating far higher loss ratios. The study found that "almost all of the excess (flood) losses are in the highest income segments" because "insufficient premium is collected from the higher income groups." In other words, "Buyers that can most afford the premium are not paying their proper rate." Facing the program's March 14 expiration, lawmakers have been trying again to greenlight it with few reforms. But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) recently gummed up the works with amendments barring the program from insuring second homes and placing a cap on eligible home values. "Is there some level of rich person's mansion that maybe the average ordinary taxpayer should not have to subsidize their insurance?" Paul asked.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial inequality.
Nick was 19 when a psychiatrist offered him the antidepressant Trintellix to treat his moderate anxiety and depression after just a few short visits. Going on the popular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) ... didn't seem like a big deal at the time. But, when Nick went off the medication after six years, he immediately noticed his genitals were losing sensation. Over the course of a couple weeks, he almost entirely lost feeling in the area – and it never returned, nor did the high sex drive he once had. He would ultimately learn he suffers from Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD). "I wasn't at risk of taking my own life or anything like that … I still had a hell of a lot of fun in life … I think I definitely should have [done] therapy first and foremost," he said. "Now there's just no enjoyment in anything. It's like watching a brick wall." For many, antidepressants are lifesaving treatments, but, in rare instances, they can potentially cause debilitating side effects that persist for years after stopping the drugs. SNOMED, the National Institute Of Health's official source of medical terminology for US healthcare systems, recognizes PSSD as a legitimate disorder as of last year, defining it as "persistent sexual side effects" including genital numbness and loss of libido that "can last for weeks, months, or even years after stopping" antidepressants. The rate of prescriptions for those ages 12 to 25 jumped by about two-thirds from 2016 to 2022. "The studies that were done for SSRIs to be approved by the FDA were not done on children, they were done on adults," [clinical psychologist Meg Jay] said. "But now it's much more common for tweens and teens to be prescribed medications than it used to be." In the past two years alone, [Psychopharmacologist and former professor of psychiatry David Healy] said he's known more than a dozen people, many of them young, who were so distressed by PSSD that they committed suicide.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.
An independent Ukrainian journalist named Ostap Stakhiv was livestreaming a call with Vasyl Pleskach, a man claiming he was being illegally detained by Ukraine's infamous military conscription unit, the TCC. The agency has been accused of kidnapping men from the street and forcing them to the front lines. In the middle of the interview, Stakhiv called the police to see if they would free Pleskach. Just then, with the police still on the line, a burly figure entered Vasyl's frame, walked over to Pleskach, and struck him hard in the face. "They're beating him right now," Stakhiv told the police. "People are watching it live. Go to my YouTube channel and see it for yourself." None of Ukraine's media outlets covered the beating, but about a month later, a Ukrainian media outlet, Babel, ran an article about Stakhiv. Its headline? "Ostap Stakhiv–a Failed Politician and Antivaxxer–Created a Vast Anti-Conscription Network." Other Ukrainian outlets ... chimed in with similar stories–some even containing identical phrasing. Nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine "survive thanks to grants" from the West. The primary funder of these outlets is an NGO called Internews. And where does Internews get its money? Primarily from USAID, to the tune of $473 million since 2008. There's no doubt that USAID's media program in Ukraine has done some good. But critics charge that the money comes with strings. It is one thing for a country to pass laws that restrict speech in times of war. It is quite another when "independent" media outlets ... engage in that same censorship, and orchestrate smear campaigns against journalists who report on abuses. One of the most blatant abuses, which has been going on since 2023, is the military recruiter practice of snatching men from the streets, breaking into apartments, and even torturing men who have refused to join the military. Dozens of videos documenting these abuses have been widely shared on social media.
Note: Read about the Chilean-American war commentator who died in prison under brutal circumstances after being smeared as a pro-Russian propagandist because he challenged the official narrative about the war in Ukraine. For more, watch world-renowned economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sach's powerful address at the EU Parliament about the deeper history of US and NATO involvement with Ukraine.
Veteran advocates are calling on recently confirmed Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to investigate why the millions of dollars that the agency spends each year to prevent suicides has yet to significantly curtail the number of veterans who take their own lives. The VA received an estimated $571 million for suicide prevention efforts in Fiscal Year 2024 ... and it requested even more money for this fiscal year. In a press release, Grunt Style Foundation, a veteran advocacy group, pressed Collins to look at how the VA's suicide prevention funds are being used. "We're looking at 156,000 of our brothers and sisters that have taken their lives over the last 20 years," [said] Tim Jensen, president of Grunt Style Foundation. "That is just frankly unacceptable." The foundation has partnered with Veterans of Foreign Wars on looking at different ways to prevent veteran suicide, such as promoting alternative treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health issues that veterans face. Some of the topics that Grunt Style Foundation officials hope to address in front of Congress are issues that they have long advocated for, such as the overmedication of veterans by the VA and the lack of data around alternative therapies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and veteran-centric community events like hiking for mental health treatment. Suicide was the second-leading cause of death for veterans younger than 45 in 2022. There was an average of 17.6 veteran suicide deaths per day in 2022.
Note: Task & Purpose is the leading online publication for the military and veterans community. Read about the tragic traumas and suicides connected to military drone operators. A recent Pentagon study concluded that US soldiers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than they are in combat.
In 2015, [Jo] Nemeth had quit her community development job, given the last of her money to her 18-year-old daughter Amy and closed her bank account. "I was 46, I had a good job and a partner I loved, but I was deeply unhappy," Nemeth says. "I'd been feeling this growing despair about the economic system we live in." Her "lightbulb moment" came when her parents ... gave her a book about people with alternative lifestyles. "When I read about this guy choosing to live without money, I thought, â€Oh my God, I have to do that!'" The first thing Nemeth did was write a list of her needs. "I discovered I really didn't need much to be comfortable. Then I just started ... figuring out how I could meet my needs without having any negative impacts." For the first three years, Nemeth lived on a friend's farm, where she built a small shack from discarded building materials before doing some housesitting and living off-grid for a year in a "little blue wagon" in another friend's back yard. Instead of paying rent, Nemeth cooks, cleans, manages the veggie garden and makes items such as soap, washing powder and fermented foods. And she couldn't be happier. She soon started tapping into the "gift economy" more deeply, giving without expecting anything in return, receiving without any sense of obligation. "That second part took a while to get used to," she says. "It's very different to bartering or trading, which involves thinking in a monetary, transactional way: I'll give you this if you give me that. I actually feel more secure than I did when I was earning money," she says, "because all through human history, true security has always come from living in community and I have time now to build that â€social currency'. To help people out, care for sick friends or their children, help in their gardens. That's one of the big benefits of living without money."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.
In his most recent article for The Atlantic, [Journalist Derek] Thompson writes that the trend toward isolation has been driven by technology. Televisions ... "privatized our leisure" by keeping us indoors. More recently, Thompson says, smartphones came along, to further silo us. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued a report about America's "epidemic of loneliness and isolation." We pull out our phones and we're on TikTok or Instagram, or we're on Twitter. And while externally it looks like nothing is happening internally, the dopamine is flowing and we are just thinking, my God, we're feeling outrage, we're feeling excitement, we're feeling humor, we're feeling all sorts of things. We put our phone away and our dopamine levels fall and we feel kind of exhausted by that, which was supposed to be our leisure time. We are donating our dopamine to our phones rather than reserving our dopamine for our friends. I think that we are socially isolating ourselves from our neighbors, especially when our neighbors disagree with us. We're not used to talking to people outside of our family that we disagree with. Donald Trump has now won more than 200 million votes in the last three elections. If you don't understand a movement that has received 200 million votes in the last nine years, perhaps it's you who've made yourself a stranger in your own land, by not talking to one of the tens of millions of profound Donald Trump supporters who live in America and more to the point, within your neighborhood, to understand where their values come from. You don't have to agree with their politics. But getting along with and understanding people with whom we disagree is what a strong village is all about.
Note: Our latest Substack dives into the loneliness crisis exacerbated by the digital world and polarizing media narratives, along with inspiring solutions and remedies that remind us of what's possible. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
A former CIA operative has revealed the agency pursues people with a certain mental disorder as it makes them the best agents. John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said ... 'A CIA psychiatrist told me one time that the CIA looks to hire people with sociopathic tendencies–not sociopaths because sociopaths have no consciences,' said Kiriakou, speaking to The Real News Network. A 'sociopath' is someone who lacks empathy, disregards the feelings of others and may manipulate or harm people without remorse, often for their own personal gain. 'Sociopaths are impossible to control,' said Kiriakou. 'They slip through the cracks because they have no conscience and they pass the polygraph very easily because they don't feel guilty. The CIA has admitted that spies have pathological personality features that help them with their espionage efforts, such as a sense of entitlement or a desire for power and control. While employed by the CIA, Kiriakou was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was involved in the capture of terrorist Abu Zubaydah. However, he refused to be trained in so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Kiriakou has claimed that he never authorized or engaged in these techniques. After leaving the CIA, he appeared on ABC News where he said the CIA waterboarded detainees and labeled the action as torture. The interview led to Kiriakou being arrested in 2012 and charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Note: Learn more about the rise of the CIA and the dark realities of modern American torture practices in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last week that it needed more time to study the health impacts of paraquat, a powerful herbicide that has drawn scrutiny for its possible links to Parkinson's disease, a move that would allow it to remain on the market. Several advocacy groups had sued the EPA over an interim registration decision it issued in 2021 ... on the grounds that it was not protective enough. In a statement, the EPA said additional data was necessary to resolve uncertainty around the risks of inhaling the herbicide. For as long as David Jilbert could remember, he wanted to be a farmer. For five years, Jilbert personally mixed, loaded and sprayed paraquat to control weeds in his vineyard. Then he began having difficulty tying his shoes and buttoning his shirts. He started to walk with a slow, shuffling gait around the winery. He was soon diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects motor functions and causes cognitive impairment, despite having no family history or genetic predisposition to the disease. He and his doctors blame paraquat. Jilbert is among the nearly 6,000 Americans who have filed lawsuits against Syngenta and Chevron, which distributed paraquat products in the United States until 1986. The suits allege that the companies failed to warn consumers about paraquat's substantial health risks. Paraquat ... is among the most widely used pesticides in the United States.
Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
Even before 9/11, as the US hunted for terrorists, the CIA launched "extraordinary rendition"–an ingenious scheme to interrogate "high-value" suspects outside the country and thus avoid US laws on torture. The first suspects were taken to Egypt as early as in the mid-1990s and the program continued until 2007. How many did the CIA render? A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report noted that exact numbers can't be known. But according to a ... Washington Post article, "thousands were arrested and held with US assistance in countries known for brutal treatment of prisoners." In 2004, former CIA agent Robert Baer [said] that "conceptually, the practice is a rendition to torture. If you wanted a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear, Egypt." Survivors [of Syria's Sednaya military prison] tell horrific tales: they were sodomized with swords, suspended in shackles from cages, beaten with iron rods, kept naked in freezing cells the size of coffins, forced to kill cellmates and starved. Some say their genitals were subject to electric shocks. Besides Syria, the CIA dispatched suspects to Egypt, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Poland, Thailand and Romania. The Senate report stated that "the CIA provided millions of dollars in cash payments to foreign government officials to host secret CIA detention sites."
Note: Most of the Senate Torture Report remains classified. Read the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture." Learn more about US torture programs in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.
An eco-friendly fitness trend that started in 2016 is now growing in popularity with its own world championship competition in Italy. Originating in Sweden, when Erik Ahlström began picking up litter while jogging in Stockholm, the term is a combination of the Swedish word plocka, which means "to pick up", and the English word "jogging". The activity of picking up litter while on your outdoor jog, has spread to other countries, and now an estimated 2 million people â€plog' regularly in over 100 countries. The workout adds bending, squatting, and stretching to the main action of running–with â€pliking' being the latest offshoot for hikers who want to clean up the trail. The third annual World Plogging Championship in 2023, resulted in approximately 6,600 pounds of litter (3,000 kg) removed from the environment around the city of Genoa. Later this year, a British team will be traveling to the competition with the goal of running the farthest and picking up the most rubbish. Claire Petrie recently kick-started her training with community events in her hometown of Bristol. "I love that you help the environment, the planet and meet new people," said the 48-year-old personal trainer who became passionate about combining health and the environment. "We want to grow plogging in as many cities as possible." During the past year, Claire's group, which plans to expand into other areas in Bristol but currently has an average of 9 people joining in, collected 220 pounds of trash (100 kg).
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing the Earth.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key 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.