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Revealing News For a Better World

News Articles
Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of little-known, yet highly revealing news articles from the media. Links are provided to the full news articles for verification. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These articles are listed by order of importance. You can also explore these articles listed by order of the date of the news article or by the date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves, we can build a brighter future.

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.


How US Big Tech Monopolies Colonized the World: Welcome to Neo-Feudalism
2024-08-20, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/20/how-us-big-tech-monopolies-colonized-the-wo...

In almost every country on Earth, the digital infrastructure upon which the modern economy was built is owned and controlled by a small handful of monopolies, based largely in Silicon Valley. This system is looking more and more like neo-feudalism. Just as the feudal lords of medieval Europe owned all of the land ... the US Big Tech monopolies of the 21st century act as corporate feudal lords, controlling all of the digital land upon which the digital economy is based. A monopolist in the 20th century would have loved to control a country's supply of, say, refrigerators. But the Big Tech monopolists of the 21st century go a step further and control all of the digital infrastructure needed to buy those fridges – from the internet itself to the software, cloud hosting, apps, payment systems, and even the delivery service. These corporate neo-feudal lords don't just dominate a single market or a few related ones; they control the marketplace. They can create and destroy entire markets. Their monopolistic control extends well beyond just one country, to almost the entire world. If a competitor does manage to create a product, US Big Tech monopolies can make it disappear. Imagine you are an entrepreneur. You develop a product, make a website, and offer to sell it online. But then you search for it on Google, and it does not show up. Instead, Google promotes another, similar product in the search results. This is not a hypothetical; this already happens.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.


We Built a Surveillance State. What Now?
2024-08-20, Project on Government Oversight
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/we-built-a-surveillance-state-what-now

Surveillance technologies have evolved at a rapid clip over the last two decades – as has the government's willingness to use them in ways that are genuinely incompatible with a free society. The intelligence failures that allowed for the attacks on September 11 poured the concrete of the surveillance state foundation. The gradual but dramatic construction of this surveillance state is something that Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for. Our country cannot build and expand a surveillance superstructure and expect that it will not be turned against the people it is meant to protect. The data that's being collected reflect intimate details about our closely held beliefs, our biology and health, daily activities, physical location, movement patterns, and more. Facial recognition, DNA collection, and location tracking represent three of the most pressing areas of concern and are ripe for exploitation. Data brokers can use tens of thousands of data points to develop a detailed dossier on you that they can sell to the government (and others). Essentially, the data broker loophole allows a law enforcement agency or other government agency such as the NSA or Department of Defense to give a third party data broker money to hand over the data from your phone – rather than get a warrant. When pressed by the intelligence community and administration, policymakers on both sides of the aisle failed to draw upon the lessons of history.

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.


Paxton's win against Meta is a win for privacy. It's only a first step.
2024-08-12, Houston Chronicle
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/paxton-facebook-m...

If you appeared in a photo on Facebook any time between 2011 and 2021, it is likely your biometric information was fed into DeepFace – the company's controversial deep-learning facial recognition system that tracked the face scan data of at least a billion users. That's where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton comes in. His office secured a $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over its alleged violation of a Texas law that bars the capture of biometric data without consent. Meta is on the hook to pay $275 million within the next 30 days and the rest over the next four years. Why did Paxton wait until 2022 – a year after Meta announced it would suspend its facial recognition technology and delete its database – to go up against the tech giant? If our AG truly prioritized privacy, he'd focus on the lesser-known companies that law enforcement agencies here in Texas are paying to scour and store our biometric data. In 2017, [Clearview AI] launched a facial recognition app that ... could identify strangers from a photo by searching a database of faces scraped without consent from social media. In 2020, news broke that at least 600 law enforcement agencies were tapping into a database of 3 billion facial images. Clearview was hit with lawsuit after lawsuit. That same year, the company was hacked and its entire client list – which included the Department of Justice, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Interpol, retailers and hundreds of police departments – was leaked.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and Big Tech from reliable major media sources.


Why is the U.S. spending $2 trillion on more weapons that could end the world?
2024-08-11, Salon
https://www.salon.com/2024/08/11/why-is-the-us-spending-2-trillion-on-more-we...

The Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in their power to keep that money flowing. This January, a review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act – a congressional provision designed to rein in cost overruns of Pentagon weapons programs – found that the missile, the crown jewel of the nuclear overhaul plan involving 450 missile-holding silos spread across five states, is already 81% over its original budget. It is now estimated that it will cost a total of nearly $141 billion to develop and purchase, a figure only likely to rise in the future. That Pentagon review had the option of canceling the Sentinel program because of such a staggering cost increase. Instead, it doubled down on the program, asserting that it would be an essential element of any future nuclear deterrent and must continue. Considering the rising tide of nuclear escalation globally, is it really the right time for this country to invest a fortune of taxpayer dollars in a new generation of devastating "use them or lose them" weapons? The American public has long said no, according to a 2020 poll by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


We're Entering an AI Price-Fixing Dystopia
2024-08-10, The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/ai-price-algorithms-realpag...

If you rent your home, there's a good chance your landlord uses RealPage to set your monthly payment. The company describes itself as merely helping landlords set the most profitable price. But a series of lawsuits says it's something else: an AI-enabled price-fixing conspiracy. The late Justice Antonin Scalia once called price-fixing the "supreme evil" of antitrust law. Agreeing to fix prices is punishable with up to 10 years in prison and a $100 million fine. Property owners feed RealPage's "property management software" their data, including unit prices and vacancy rates, and the algorithm–which also knows what competitors are charging–spits out a rent recommendation. If enough landlords use it, the result could look the same as a traditional price-fixing cartel: lockstep price increases instead of price competition, no secret handshake or clandestine meeting needed. Algorithmic price-fixing appears to be spreading to more and more industries. And existing laws may not be equipped to stop it. In more than 40 housing markets across the United States, 30 to 60 percent of multifamily-building units are priced using RealPage. The plaintiffs suing RealPage, including the Arizona and Washington, D.C., attorneys general, argue that this has enabled a critical mass of landlords to raise rents in concert, making an existing housing-affordability crisis even worse. The lawsuits also argue that RealPage pressures landlords to comply with its pricing suggestions.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


There's no way for humanity to win an AI arms race
2024-08-04, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/04/sam-altman-ai-arms-race/

In 2017, hundreds of artificial intelligence experts signed the Asilomar AI Principles for how to govern artificial intelligence. I was one of them. So was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The signatories committed to avoiding an arms race on the grounds that "teams developing AI systems should actively cooperate to avoid corner-cutting on safety standards." The stated goal of OpenAI is to create artificial general intelligence, a system that is as good as expert humans at most tasks. It could have significant benefits. It could also threaten millions of lives and livelihoods if not developed in a provably safe way. It could be used to commit bioterrorism, run massive cyberattacks or escalate nuclear conflict. Given these dangers, a global arms race to unleash artificial general intelligence AGI serves no one's interests. The true power of AI lies ... in its potential to bridge divides. AI might help us identify fundamental patterns in global conflicts and human behavior, leading to more profound solutions. AI's ability to process vast amounts of data could help identify patterns in global conflicts by suggesting novel approaches to resolution that human negotiators might overlook. Advanced natural language processing could break down communication barriers, allowing for more nuanced dialogue between nations and cultures. Predictive AI models could identify early signs of potential conflicts, allowing for preemptive diplomatic interventions.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI from reliable major media sources.


China ‘Angel' Stops 469 Suicidal People Jumping off Bridge Over 21 years
2024-08-02, Good News Network
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/china-angel-stops-469-suicidal-people-jumping...

Mr. Chen Si, known as the Angel of Nanjing, has volunteered to patrol the Yangtze Bridge every day, and over a 21-year career, he has saved 469 people from committing suicide. One of the most famous bridges in the country, it is also the world's most popular location to commit suicide. Almost daily there are people lingering alone or wandering aimlessly along its sidewalk, and Chen engages them in conversation to test whether or not they are prospective jumpers. It started for Chen back in 2000, when he saw a desperate-looking girl wandering on the bridge. He was worried something might happen to her so he brought lunch for them to share and started to chat with her. He eventually paid for a bus ticket for her to go home, but realized that this was something that must happen all the time. For the past 21 years, he's crossed the bridge 10 times a day on his electric scooter wearing his red jacket with the words "cherish all life" written across the back, he's charismatic, he's determined, he can be almost rude, in a certain Chinese way, in his efforts saving people's life, and he's become an expert. "People with an extreme internal struggle don't have relaxed body movements, their bodies look heavy," Chen [said]. He's caught suicidal people who've been cheated on by their spouses, those who can't afford school, and many other reasons. He has spare rooms in his house to keep those he pulls off the bridge in a safe environment.

Note: Watch the trailer for a 2015 documentary about Chen. Explore more positive human interest stories focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Heart Attack Doctor: Science Shows Death Is Not the End
2024-07-25, Evolution News
https://evolutionnews.org/2024/07/heart-attack-doctor-science-shows-death-is-...

Sam Parnia's medical specialty at the New York University Langone Health System is resuscitation. He also directs large clinical studies of heart attacks (cardiac arrest). That has brought him into contact with a lot of people who are on the brink. It has also strengthened his conviction that near-death experiences show that death is not the end of human consciousness. Hence his new book, Lucid Dying (Hachette 2024). From early on, he was puzzled by the relationship between the mind and the brain. He came to see that the message "from science" was not what he had been led to expect. "Although life and death remain a mystery, science is showing that contrary to what some philosophers, doctors, and scientists have argued for centuries, neither biological nor mental processes end in an absolute sense with death," [he said]. "There is much more to be discovered, but science does ... suggest that our consciousness and selfhood are not annihilated when we cross over into death and into the great unknown. In death, we may also come to discover that each of our actions, thoughts, and intentions in life, from the most minute, to the most extreme, do matter." Many believe that science proves – and must prove – that life beyond death is impossible. But it is difficult for science to refute, for example, veridical near-death experiences, where experiencers recount events that they could not have observed under natural circumstances.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about near-death experiences.


Wealth of global top 1% grew by $42 trillion over past decade: Oxfam
2024-07-25, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/economy/wealth-tax-super-rich-oxfam-report?cid...

The top 1% has seen its wealth soar by $42 trillion over the past decade, according to a new analysis by Oxfam International, which is being released ahead of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors' meeting in Brazil. That's nearly 34 times more than the bottom 50% of global population. The average net worth of the elite jumped by nearly $400,000 per person, after adjusting for inflation, compared to $335 for the bottom half of residents. "Inequality has reached obscene levels, and until now governments have failed to protect people and planet from its catastrophic effects," said Max Lawson, Oxfam International's head of inequality policy. "The richest one percent of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs." As part of its G20 presidency, the Brazilian government recently commissioned a study on raising taxes on the wealthy. The report, prepared by French economist and inequality expert Gabriel Zucman, found that a 2% minimum tax on global billionaires' wealth would yield between $200 billion and $250 billion from about 3,000 taxpayers annually. According to the EU Tax Observatory ... the super-rich in big countries pay a far smaller share of their income in taxes than ordinary people. Plus, their wealth is taxed at effective rates of just 0%-0.5%. Finance officials from the world's biggest countries began talks earlier this year on introducing a global minimum tax on billionaires.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on financial inequality from reliable major media sources.


The global food system is owned by an ever smaller number of companies – it's damaging our health, our communities and the planet
2024-07-17, The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/the-global-food-system-is-owned-by-an-ever-smalle...

Across the world, over 800 million people spend their days hungry. More than 2 billion have limited access to food. Yet today's global food system produces enough to feed every person on the planet. To account for these trends, we need to look at market concentration, and how a small number of very big companies have come to dominate the production and supply of the food we all eat. The global food system has become much more concentrated in recent years, partly through an increase in mergers and acquisitions, where large firms buy up rival companies until they completely dominate key areas. High levels of market concentration mean less transparency, weaker competition, and more power in the hands of fewer firms. And our research reveals that a rise in the number of mergers and acquisitions is taking place at all stages of the global food system – from seeds and fertilisers to machinery and manufacturing. This is all part of food being increasingly seen as a source not only of human sustenance, but as a profitable investment – or what is known as the "financialisation of food". Just four firms control 44% of the global farm machinery market, two companies control 40% of the global seed market, and four businesses control 62% of the global agrochemicals market. This trend is matched in food retail, with four firms – Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, and Morrisons – estimated to control over 64% of the UK grocery market.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the food system and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.


‘Forever chemicals' used in lithium ion batteries threaten environment, research finds
2024-07-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/14/forever-chemicals-...

Toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" used in lithium ion batteries essential to the clean energy transition present a dangerous source of chemical pollution that new research finds threatens the environment and human health. The multipronged, peer-reviewed study zeroed in on a little-researched and unregulated subclass of PFAS called bis-FASI that are used in lithium ion batteries. Researchers found alarming levels of the chemicals in the environment near manufacturing plants, noted their presence in remote areas around the world, found they appear to be toxic to living organisms, and discovered that waste from batteries disposed of in landfills was a major pollution source. PFAS are a class of about 16,000 human-made compounds most often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems. The paper notes that few end-of-life standards for PFAS battery waste exist, and the vast majority ends up in municipal dumps where it can leach into waterways, accumulate locally or be transported long distances. It looked at the presence of the chemicals in historical leachate samples and found none in those from prior to the mid-1990s, when the chemical class was commercialized.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.


Stop mourning the Murthy case, start fighting the censorship-industrial complex
2024-07-11, The Hill
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4763829-big-tech-censorship-murthy-gove...

After government officials like former White House advisers Rob Flaherty and Andy Slavitt repeatedly harangued platforms such as Facebook to censor Americans who contested the government's narrative on COVID-19 vaccines, Missouri and Louisiana sued. They claimed that the practice violates the First Amendment. Following years of litigation, the Supreme Court threw cold water on their efforts, ruling in Murthy v. Missouri that states and the individual plaintiffs lacked standing to sue the government for its actions. The government often disguised its censorship requests by coordinating with ostensibly "private" civil society groups to pressure tech companies to remove or shadow ban targeted content. According to the U.S. House Weaponization Committee's November 2023 interim report, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency requested that the now-defunct Stanford Internet Observatory create a public-private partnership to counter election "misinformation" in 2020. This consortium of government and private entities took the form of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP). EIP's "private" civil society partners then forwarded the flagged content to Big Tech platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter. These "private" groups ... receive millions of taxpayer dollars from the National Science Foundation, the State Department and the U.S Department of Justice. Legislation like the COLLUDE Act would ... clarify that Section 230 does not apply when platforms censor legal speech "as a result of a communication" from a "governmental entity" or from an non-profit "acting at the request or behest of a governmental entity."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and government corruption from reliable sources.


FBI abuses security clearance to ‘purge' conservatives, views them as ‘unworthy' of employment: whistleblower
2024-07-02, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2024/07/02/us-news/fbi-harbors-security-concerns-about-con...

The FBI is abusing its security clearance process to "purge" political conservatives from the bureau, according to recent whistleblower disclosures. The federal law enforcement agency's Security Division has been suspending or revoking clearances for employees whose political affiliation or COVID-19 vaccination status are suspect, a supervisory special agent who formerly worked in the division alleges. he unnamed agent, who is described as "a registered Democrat" and is represented by the nonprofit Empower Oversight, further claims that high-ranking officials in the division believed "if an FBI employee fit a certain profile as a political conservative, they were viewed as security concerns and unworthy to work at the FBI." In the case of Marcus Allen, a former FBI staff operations specialist (SOS) suspended without pay for more than two years, the officials ignored "possibly exculpatory information" and overruled investigators who "concluded [that] the suspension of his security clearance was not warranted." That decision came after Allen informed his supervisors ... that he did not intend to take the COVID-19 vaccine. "The FBI has used the clearance process as a means to force employees out of the FBI by inflicting severe financial distress: suspending their clearance, suspending them from duty without pay, [and] requiring them to obtain permission to take any other job while stuck in this unpaid limbo," [Empower President Tristan Leavitt] told House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Pattern of Brain Damage Is Pervasive in Navy SEALs Who Died by Suicide
2024-06-30, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/30/us/navy-seals-brain-damage-suicide.html

David Metcalf's last act in life was an attempt to send a message – that years as a Navy SEAL had left his brain so damaged that he could barely recognize himself. He shot himself in the heart, preserving his brain to be analyzed by a state-of-the-art Defense Department laboratory in Maryland. The lab found an unusual pattern of damage seen only in people exposed repeatedly to blast waves. The vast majority of blast exposure for Navy SEALs comes from firing their own weapons, not from enemy action. The damage pattern suggested that years of training intended to make SEALs exceptional was leaving some barely able to function. At least a dozen Navy SEALs have died by suicide in the last 10 years. A grass-roots effort by grieving families delivered eight of their brains to the lab. Researchers discovered blast damage in every single one. The damage may be just as widespread in SEALs who are still alive. A Harvard study ... scanned the brains of 30 career Special Operators and found an association between blast exposure and altered brain structure and compromised brain function. The more blast exposure the men had experienced, the more problems they reported with health and quality of life. Doctors treating the injured troops give them diagnoses of psychiatric disorders that miss the underlying physical damage. Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Supreme Court opioid case makes it harder to shield wealth in bankruptcy
2024-06-29, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/29/bankruptcy-supreme-court-p...

A Supreme Court ruling against the opioid company Purdue Pharma ... substantially raised the bar for executives and owners trying to shield their wealth. Johnson & Johnson, Boy Scouts of America and Rite Aid are among the entities trying to handle a vast number of lawsuits in bankruptcy court, seeking to resolve all claims in a single settlement. These proceedings have echoes of the Purdue Pharma case decided by the Supreme Court on Thursday, in which the Sackler family, which owns the bankrupt opioid-maker, offered plaintiffs about $6 billion of the $11 billion they extracted from the company. In exchange, family members would have received immunity from future lawsuits, without filing for bankruptcy themselves. A 5-4 Supreme Court held that settlement was inadequate. Its ruling threw the massive bankruptcy case against Purdue Pharma into doubt after years of court battles over the company's role in the nation's opioid epidemic. The decision also adds a fresh wrinkle to a controversial legal strategy, called the Texas two-step, in which companies use a Texas law to split into separate companies and shift a large volume of legal claims onto the newly created entity. In the second step, the entity carrying the lawsuits files for bankruptcy and seeks to release its parent organization from all liability in exchange for a payout. Johnson & Johnson transferred some of its assets and all of the legal claims against it over asbestos-tainted talcum powder into a new legal entity that filed for Chapter 11. Boy Scouts of America ... agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle claims of sexual abuse in bankruptcy court, a deal that shields from future litigation insurance companies as well as schools, churches and community organizations involved with the nonprofit.

Note: For more like this, read about how powerful corporations use the bankruptcy system to dodge lawsuits over sexual abuse and deadly products. Along US opioid industry lines, read how the industry operated like a drug cartel. Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the deadly War on Drugs protects the activities of the rich and powerful: military-intelligence interests within the US government, big banks, Big Pharma, and drug cartels.


To Keep Clean Drinking Water Flowing to Paris, Farmers Are Going Organic
2024-06-25, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/paris-organic-farming-clean-water-supply/

About 100 miles southeast of Paris ... a charming stone aqueduct cuts across the green fields. "That's the Aqueduct of the Vanne," says [farmer] Zoltan Kahn. The Vanne, which supplies a fifth of Paris's tap water, is fed by the water sources in these parts. The region is rich in biodiversity and has been a key drinking water catchment area for centuries. Since 2020, Eau de Paris, the city's public water service, has been supporting farmers near its watersheds ... to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers on their crops. In other words, to go organic. When Kahn was approached by Eau de Paris with support to go fully organic, he jumped at the opportunity. In exchange for switching to organic, he would receive a so-called "Payment for Environmental Services" for each hectare of his farmland. As part of the â‚Ź48 million ($51.8 million) project, Eau de Paris and the Seine-Normandy Water Agency, a public institution fighting water pollution in the region, are supporting 115 farmers based in watersheds that supply the city to either reduce their use of chemicals or go fully organic (as 58 percent of the farmers have). Already â‚Ź32 million of that funding has been granted, according to Anne-Sophie Leclere, deputy director general of Eau de Paris. "It's better for us to have cleaner, purer watersheds," says Leclere. "This will save Paris from having to pay much more to process the water once it arrives in the city."

Note: Explore more positive stories about healing the Earth.


The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs
2024-06-21, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/business/prescription-drug-costs-pbm.html

Americans are paying too much for prescription drugs. Pharmacy benefit managers ... are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government. The three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, act as middlemen overseeing prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans. They are owned by huge health care conglomerates – CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group – and are hired by employers and governments. The job of the P.B.M.s is to reduce drug costs. Instead, they frequently do the opposite. They steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on what would otherwise be inexpensive medicines and extract billions of dollars in hidden fees. Most Americans get their health insurance through a government program like Medicare or through an employer, which pay for two different types of insurance for each person. One type covers visits to doctors and hospitals, and it is handled by an insurance company. The other pays for prescriptions. That is overseen by a P.B.M. The P.B.M. negotiates with drug companies, pays pharmacies and helps decide which drugs patients can get at what price. In theory, everyone saves money. But those savings appear to be largely a mirage, a product of a system where prices have been artificially inflated so that major P.B.M.s and drug companies can boost their profits while taking credit for reducing prices.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


FedEx's Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network
2024-06-19, Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2024/06/19/fedex-police-help-cops...

Twenty years ago, FedEx established its own police force. Now it's working with local police to build out an AI car surveillance network. The shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has with at least four multi-billion dollar private companies. Some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx – a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus. Such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock's car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers. Jay Stanley ... at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was "profoundly disconcerting" that FedEx was exchanging data with law enforcement as part of Flock's "mass surveillance" system. "It raises questions about why a private company ... would have privileged access to data that normally is only available to law enforcement," he said. Forbes previously found that [Flock] had itself likely broken the law across various states by installing cameras without the right permits.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Global rush for farmland could trigger world war, documentary argues
2024-06-14, The Hill
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4720483-farmland-water-internat...

A global network of powerful entities, fueled in part by Wall Street, is buying up land and water around the world. This global land rush has led to wrecked wells and lost farms from Arizona to Zambia – and it risks sowing the seeds for future global conflict, according to "The Grab," a new documentary out today from Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film follows a seven-year investigation by producer and journalist Nathan Halverson of The Center for Investigative Reporting. In part, "The Grab" argues that power is being exercised over individual landowners by a convoluted and opaque network of sovereign wealth funds, national governments and Wall Street. One critical focus of this push is Africa. Halverson interviewed Brig Siachitema, an activist in the Zambian town of Serenje, where he says foreign investors have been buying up the ancestral land of villagers and kicking them off it. Late in the movie, he presents La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin with evidence that the Arizona State Retirement System – her own pension fund – is invested in the project that is draining the aquifer beneath the county. Rather than fighting to protect U.S. land and food from other multinational corporations, "the governments are working for the corporations." There are enough calories worldwide to feed a growing global population, even with climate change, and even in 2050. The race to lock down resources, and governments' panic over the unrest caused by spiking food prices, risks scaling up to a war between great powers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the financial system and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.


How the virtual world is inspiring gamers to become botanists
2024-06-10, Positive.News
https://www.positive.news/society/virtual-world-inspiring-gamers-become-botan...

What if computer games could facilitate a tangible, meaningful connection with nature? Now they can thanks to a new botany project that empowers gamers to cultivate plants featured in their favourite video game. The idea was that of Hannah Young and Aleks Atanasovski, two gamers who wanted to fuse their love of nature with their passion for gaming. The result is Seed Saga, a botanical pilot that allows players of Guild Wars – a popular roleplaying game renowned for its spectacular flora – to apply for seed packs so they can grow plants that feature in the game. The pair pitched the idea to the developer behind Guild Wars, Arena Net, which was "really up for it". So much so, that the firm provided renders from the game for the seed packets and gave the project a push on its social channels. Due to the limited availability of seeds ... gamers must submit an application explaining why they want them. The responses, says Young, have been heartening. Said one applicant: "[Guild Wars] saved my life during a period of deep depression. It would be an honour to grow [crimson sunflowers] in my yard to pay homage to the game and support the surrounding insects that could benefit from these flowers." The first seed packs went out in April. The idea now is to partner with other players in the industry and scale the concept to cultivate a new generation of botanists. Doing so could boost mental health: research shows that interacting with plants counteracts stress brought on by computers.

Note: Explore more positive stories about using technology for good.


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