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The urban tree canopy in Denver is one of the sparsest in the country. In 2020, when Linda Appel Lipsius became executive director of the decades-old Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) network, which oversees more than 200 community vegetable gardens throughout six metro Denver counties, she wanted to continue increasing community access to fresh food–a longtime goal of the garden program. But she had another aim, too: increasing the city's tree coverage. Appel Lipsius decided to build a system of food forests throughout the Denver area. These dense, layered plantings incorporate fruit-bearing trees with other perennials to mimic natural forests. Now, DUG oversees 26 food forests, with 600 or so fruit and nut trees and 600 berry bushes. While urban trees are recognized for their multiple benefits, including cooling and carbon drawdown, "there are not a lot of players in Denver, or even in most cities around the country, who are focused on food trees," Appel Lipsius said. "We were able to step into this space to help build and bolster the canopy while adding food-producing perennials." Neighbors are welcome to enter and harvest a wide assortment of fruits, nuts, and berries. Beyond providing fresh food in neighborhoods that need it most, these agroforests reduce the urban heat island effect, create pollinator habitat, and combat pollution and climate change by absorbing and filtering harmful gases.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
Having a sense of purpose in life may help people live longer. Now, new research from the University of California in Davis shows that having a sense of purpose in life may have another benefit as people age: reducing the risk of dementia. The new study ... found that people who reported a higher sense of purpose in life were about 28% less likely to develop cognitive impairment–including mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The protective effect of having a purpose was seen across racial and ethnic groups. It also remained significant even after accounting for education, depression, and the APOE4 gene, which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. "Our findings show that having a sense of purpose helps the brain stay resilient with age," said Aliza Wingo, senior author. "Even for people with a genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease, sense of purpose was linked to a later onset and lower likelihood of developing dementia." The findings support the idea that psychological well-being plays a key role in healthy aging, said Thomas Wingo, a co-author of the study. Wingo hopes future studies will explore whether purpose-building interventions can help prevent dementia. "What's exciting about this study is that people may be able to â€think' themselves into better health. Purpose in life is something we can nurture," he said. "It's never too early – or too late – to start thinking about what gives your life meaning."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on amazing seniors and healing our bodies.
The cafeteria at Ballard High School during lunch is a loud place. Students are talking and laughing, playing card games and going out to the courtyard for an informal recess. This year the high school in Louisville instituted a cellphone ban from "bell to bell" – meaning, not just during instructional time, as is now required by state law in Kentucky, but also during lunch and time between classes. Kentucky joins a growing number of states, schools and districts that have been implementing new phone bans. In the first month of school this year, students took out 67 percent more books than the same month last year. "Even my library aides who do the bulk of the circulating were like, â€Gosh, there's a lot of kids checking out books,'" said Stephanie Conrad, the school's librarian. Conrad was prepared for the uptick in library use because of similar phenomena at other schools that instituted cellphone bans, but she said it has still been exciting to see how much kids are reading – and engaging more with their peers. "Like, a minute or two of downtime with kids, they used to have their phone. They were kind of in this little cellphone cocoon. Very quiet, not interacting," Conrad said. And now – "it's wonderful. They're interacting, and they're not isolated online." Neuss, the principal, acknowledges that ... most students would still prefer to have their phones during lunch, but from where he sits, they look like they're having more fun without them.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
TrineDay Books announces the release of Blue Butterfly: Inside the Diary of an Epstein Survivor, a gripping memoir of Survivor Juliette Bryant that exposes Jeffrey Epstein's previously unreported medical crimes. Juliette's firsthand testimony ... unravels Epstein's deep ties to the shadowy intelligence community that controlled him. It explores how the two-time college dropout amassed a fortune of half a billion dollars while spending his days abusing young girls. Twenty-three years ago, on September 26, 2002, Jeffrey Epstein touched down in Cape Town with a high-profile entourage. That night, 20-year-old Juliette Bryant, a psychology student and aspiring model, was recruited and promised a future with the lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret. Instead, she found herself ensnared in a global network of abuse. Juliette was trafficked across continents and American states, taken to all of Epstein's luxury residences, and introduced to co-conspirators who enabled his operations to flourish in plain sight. The sexual abuse and psychological manipulation Juliette endured were pervasive as she made her final trip to Epstein's remote Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. There, in June 2004, Juliette awoke paralyzed in a laboratory, while a female doctor operated on her–without her knowledge or consent. While other books have documented his trafficking network, Blue Butterfly explores his obsession with elite eugenics, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, cryogenics, and cloning.
Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's criminal enterprise.
Future wars just might revolve around insect-size spy robots. A recent digest of present-day microbots by US national security magazine The National Interest breaks down the many machines currently in development by the US military and its associates. They include sea-based microdrones, cockroach-style surveillance bots, and even cyborg insects. Arguably the most refined program to date is the RoboBee, currently being shopped by Harvard's Wyss Institute. Originally funded by a $9.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation in 2009, the RoboBee is a bug-sized autonomous flying vehicle capable of transitioning from water to air, perching on surfaces, and autonomous collision avoidance in swarms. The RoboBee features two "wafer-thin" wings that flap some 120 times a second to achieve vertical takeoff and mid-air hovering. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has reportedly taken a keen interest in RoboBee prototypes, sponsoring research into microfabrication technology, presumably for quick field deployments. Other developments, like the aforementioned cyborg insect, remain in early stages. Researchers have successfully demonstrated the capabilities of these remote-control systems using of a range of insect hosts, from the unicorn beetle to the humble cockroach. Underwater microrobotics are another area of interest for DARPA.
Note: Explore all news article summaries on emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive news database.
The United States is building up its military assets, sparking fears of another regime change attempt against Venezuela–and this one could be far more deadly than the others. Citing an influx of Venezuelan drugs into the U.S., the Trump administration is rapidly building up its military forces, encircling the South American nation. While this is officially a counter-narcotics operation, few in Washington bother to hide their true intentions. "Dear Foreign Terrorist Leader Maduro, Your days are seriously numbered," Former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn stated publicly. In a recent interview, President Maduro claimed that most of the profits from the trade stay in the U.S. "Eighty-five percent of the billions from international drug trafficking each year are in banks in the United States. That is where the cartel is," he said, adding: "There is $500 billion in the U.S. banking system, in reputable banks. It is from the United States that all drug trafficking is directed." In 2014, Juan Orlando Hernández came to power in Honduras following a U.S.-backed coup. Hernández quickly began using his position to enrich himself, allying with the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. Last year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison for distributing more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. The U.S. government supported his administration. In 2008, Bolivia ... expelled the DEA from the country, leading to a significant drop in the production of cocaine.
Note: Our original investigation explores the dark truth of the war on drugs. During the 2008 financial crisis when banks were starved of cash, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Antonio Maria Costa said he had evidence that proceeds from the drug trade were the only liquid capital keeping major banks afloat. According to Costa, the interbank loans the global financial system depended on were being funded by drug money. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and the war on drugs.
California has long led the way on school meals. In 2022, it became the first state in the country to make school meals free for all students, regardless of income. Many districts have implemented farm-to-school programs to bring local foods into the cafeteria. And last year, months before the "Make America healthy again" movement would make its way to the White House, it became the first state in the nation to ban six synthetic food dyes from school meals. This week, it passed legislation that will put it in the lead on school meals in yet another way – banning ultra-processed foods. On Friday, California lawmakers passed a bill that will define, and then ban, ultra-processed foods from school meals. Ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, are industrially formulated products that are often high in fats, starches, sugars and additives, and make up 73% of the US food supply today. The text of California's new law defines a UPF as any food or beverage that contains stabilizers, thickeners, propellants, colors, emulsifiers, flavoring agents, flavor enhancers, nonnutritive sweeteners or surface-active agents – and has high amounts of saturated fat, sodium or added sugar, or nonnutritive sweeteners. "We actually had food service directors come in and testify," [state assembly member Jesse Gabriel] said. "Not only had it not cost them more, but in many districts they had actually saved money by switching to healthier alternatives."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and reimagining the economy.
After House Democrats released a scrapbook gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, questions have emerged about whether the late child-sex trafficker's proclivities were an open secret. Indeed, the so-called birthday book, which was compiled by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, contains multiple letters that are laden with sexual innuendo – including one alleged missive from Donald Trump. A mysterious message, typed on a naked female torso, quotes Trump as stating: "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey." Part of this birthday note implored that "every day be another wonderful secret". "Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?" a quote on the drawing attributed to Trump also stated. Trump is listed under the "friends" section of the book's table of contents, as are former president Bill Clinton and attorney Alan Dershowitz. Jean-Luc Brunel, a former model agency head suspected of supplying young girls to Epstein, was also included in the friends section. Maxwell introduced Brunel to Epstein in the 1980s. Brunel, who was arrested in 2020 by French authorities on suspicion of rape, was found hanged in prison while awaiting trial. Epstein died in jail pending trial six years ago. Several familiar with the 1980s and 1990s scene inhabited by moneyed men, such as Epstein, said that mistreatment of women and girls was well-known. [Model] CarrĂ© Otis ... said she did not meet Epstein but "definitely knew his name" from a whisper network among her colleagues.
Note: When undeniable evidence of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring came to court in 2008, the entire system moved to shield him and his associates from the gravity of his crimes. Major news outlets suppressed key evidence. Prosecutors shut down an FBI investigation and gave him a sweetheart deal. Alexander Acosta, the US attorney who signed off on the deal, later said he was told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Even after his conviction as a sex offender, Epstein was meeting with top officials at the CIA and the White House. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.
The emails from [Jeffrey] Epstein's inbox span a 20-year timeframe, but the message traffic is most active between 2005 and 2008. (There are indications that many of the emails were deleted.) Epstein's abuse has been well documented, but the emails detail a methodical and callous approach he took to recruiting young women. His female contacts and assistants sent him steady streams of photographs and descriptions of women like this one: nice personality, student, a little curvy, Russian, 19. Epstein often replied with a brief yes or no. Sometimes he was more expansive: "fat and Asian sorry," he wrote in one email. One exchange referencing [Donald] Trump came on Sept. 14, 2006, two months after Epstein was charged in Florida with solicitation of prostitution. It includes a list of 51 politicians, business executives and Wall Street powerbrokers. The list includes people who've previously been linked to Epstein, including Jimmy Cayne, former chief executive of Bear Stearns; Jes Staley, who would later be named the CEO of Barclays; and Trump. "Plse review list and add or remove peeps," [Ghislaine] Maxwell wrote. "Remove trump," Epstein responded. In 2014, one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, accused Maxwell of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Shortly thereafter, Maxwell sent Epstein a request: "Can you send me the file on Virginia?"
Note: It was reported that Virigina Giuffre killed herself earlier this year, even though she had once declared, "In no way, shape or form am I suicidal ... I have made this known to my therapist and GP – If something happens to me – in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted]."
More children around the world are obese than underweight for the first time, according to a UN report that warns ultra-processed junk food is overwhelming childhood diets. There are 188 million teenagers and school-age children with obesity – one in 10 – Unicef said, affecting health and development and bringing a risk of life-threatening diseases. Catherine Russell, executive director of the UN agency for children, said: "When we talk about malnutrition, we are no longer just talking about underweight children. "Obesity is a growing concern. Ultra-processed food [UPF] is increasingly replacing fruits, vegetables and protein at a time when nutrition plays a critical role in children's growth, cognitive development and mental health." While 9.2% of five to 19-year-olds worldwide are underweight, 9.4% are considered obese, the report found. In 2000, nearly 13% were underweight and just 3% were obese. Obesity has overtaken being underweight as the more prevalent form of malnutrition in all regions of the world except sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and is a problem even in countries with high numbers of children suffering from wasting or stunting due to a lack of food. One in five of those aged between five and 19 are overweight, with a growing proportion of those 291 million individuals falling into the obese category: 42% in 2022, up from 30% in 2000. Childhood obesity has been linked to higher risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers in later life.
Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling the chronic health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
The picture many people have of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is overwhelmingly positive. And yet there is now overwhelming evidence that governments have funded and in some cases created NGOs to demand politically-motivated, unconstitutional, and dangerously ideological censorship. Other journalists, researchers, and I have documented how government intelligence and security agencies have done this in the US, Europe, and Brazil. Those agencies work with existing or new NGOs to circumvent free speech protections, including the First Amendment, and legitimize what is politically and ideologically motivated as apolitical and non-ideological. This can accurately be described as "censorship-by-proxy." Censorship by proxy operates similarly in every nation. NGOs claiming to be independent of governments, but funded by, created by, and working with government agencies, demand censorship based on their "independent reports," "fact checks," and "analyses." Often, the NGO "fact checks" are themselves misinformation, including misrepresentations of opinions as facts. Twitter and Facebook created special "portals" for government-funded NGOs to "flag" posts they wanted censored. The NGOs, staffed with ostensibly former military and intelligence employees, sought and won mass censorship with an aim at promoting the narratives they wanted and stomping out narratives they didn't want.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and censorship.
Erb and his cousin raised money from investors, bought homes in places like the Chatham-Arch neighborhood in Indianapolis ... and rented them out. He was not the first New York finance person to profit from single-family rentals across the United States. The private equity firm Blackstone (commonly confused with BlackRock) more or less invented this buy-to-rent strategy in 2012. It's now a public company valued at more than $18 billion. The response to this development – of Wall Street buying Main Street ... has been bipartisan, populist and patriotic condemnation. Both JD Vance and Kamala Harris called for bans on these corporate landlords. Homeownership has been a primary way that middle-class families build wealth. But now private equity was outbidding aspiring homeowners, making it more expensive to buy a home and pocketing the appreciation in home values. During the Great Recession ... the U.S. had a glut of single-family homes in foreclosure. Many were auctioned off en masse, including by the federal government, which organized auctions for investors like Blackstone and even provided a $1 billion loan guarantee to encourage Blackstone to buy. This allowed private equity firms (which raise money from wealthy families, pension funds and other organizations to seek out profits, often by buying private companies) and real estate investors to efficiently and cheaply buy, say, a dozen similar homes located in the same Phoenix suburb.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial inequality and financial system corruption.
Between April and June of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the approval of four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS based on a definition that is commonly used around the world and supported by experts. "What we're seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it's genuinely frightening," said Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who published a paper last year showing pesticides are increasingly fluorinated. Fluorination is the process that creates PFAS. "At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They're firmly in the business of selling PFAS." Because the EPA uses a different, narrower definition of PFAS, the agency does not categorize the new pesticides as falling into that category. Under the Trump administration, the [Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention] is being run by three industry insiders. Nancy Beck, formerly an executive at the American Chemistry Council, who previously pushed the EPA to weaken rules on PFAS in consumer products; Lynn Ann Dekleva, a former DuPont executive; and Kyle Kunkler, who has lobbied against pesticide regulations for the American Soybean Association. While the new pesticides are shorter-chain molecules compared to the other longer-chain molecules, they could still stick around in the environment for decades or even centuries.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.
You are a fisherman. Suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you. That is what happened to a group of unnamed North Korean fishermen who accidentally stumbled upon a detachment of U.S. Navy SEALs in 2019. The commandos had set out to install a surveillance device to wiretap government communications in North Korea. When they stumbled upon an unexpected group of divers on a boat, the SEALs killed everyone on board and retreated. The U.S. government concluded that the victims were "civilians diving for shellfish." Officials didn't even know how many, telling the [New York] Times that it was "two or three people," even though the SEALs had searched the boat and disposed of the bodies. The mission wasn't just an intelligence failure. It was a failure that killed real people. The U.S. government "often" hides the failures of special operations from policymakers. Seth Harp, author of The Fort Bragg Cartel, roughly estimates that Joint Special Operations Command killed 100,000 people during the Iraq War "surge" from 2007 to 2009. The secrecy around America's spying-and-assassination complex makes it impossible to know how many of those people were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.
In May, prosecutors in Seattle charged a sheriff's deputy with raping a 17-year-old girl. The deputy met the teenager while he was an adviser in his department's youth mentorship program known as Explorers. Law enforcement departments across the country have Explorer programs – overseen by Scouting America, formerly known as Boy Scouts of America – and they have a history of sexual abuse and misconduct. Ride-alongs, in which young people accompany officers on their patrol shifts, are a key perk of the Explorers program. They are also a gateway to abuse. The Marshall Project examined hundreds of abuse allegations in law enforcement Explorer programs and found that about a quarter of them involved officers on ride-alongs with teens – some as young as 14 years old. The Marshall Project reviewed ... the 217 cases currently in our database. The review found that at least a third of the cases involved alleged abuses in an officer's vehicle. More specifically, about a quarter of the cases involved officers grooming, harassing, or sexually assaulting young people during Explorer ride-alongs. A 2003 report by the University of Nebraska at Omaha found that more than 40% of the cases of officers abusing teenage girls that researchers identified nationwide involved police Explorer programs. "And it's just like other types of police crime, we don't see a whole lot of changes as a result of police reforms," [said criminologist Philip Stinson].
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence. Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. Subjects in this urban cohort were likely exposed to chlorpyrifos at home, since many were born before or shortly after the US Environmental Protection Agency banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001. The pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world. "Widespread exposures ... continue to place farm workers, pregnant women, and unborn children in harm's way," says senior author Virginia Rauh.
Note: Did you know that chlorpyrifos was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas? Read more about the history and politics of chlorpyrifos, and how U.S. regulators relied on falsified data to allow its use for years.
The government has released 33,295 pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related records that it received from the U.S. Department of Justice. "Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released 33,295 pages of Epstein-related records that were provided by the U.S. Department of Justice," the committee wrote in a statement. "On August 5, Chairman Comer issued a subpoena for records related to Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, and the Department of Justice has indicated it will continue producing those records while ensuring the redaction of victim identities and any child sexual abuse material. Epstein-related documents can be found here." "The victims themselves have stated this is a lot bigger than I think anyone anticipated," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said after the meeting. "There are some very rich and powerful people that need to go to jail ... it is very much so a possibility that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset working for our adversaries, but also, the question we have is, â€How much did our own government know about it?'" On Wednesday, a pair of bipartisan lawmakers will host a news conference at the Capitol to advance their efforts to force the Trump administration to release all of the government's Epstein files. To ramp up the pressure, the lawmakers – Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. – will be joined by several Epstein accusers.
Note: When undeniable evidence of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring came to court in 2008, the entire system moved to shield him and his associates from the gravity of his crimes. Major news outlets suppressed key evidence. Prosecutors shut down an FBI investigation and gave him a sweetheart deal. Alexander Acosta, the US attorney who signed off on the deal, later said he was told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Even after his conviction as a sex offender, Epstein was meeting with top officials at the CIA and the White House. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.
Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat. The study ... estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long. The smaller bits measure between 1 and 10 micrometers, or about one-seventh the thickness of a human hair, and present more of a health threat because they can more easily be distributed throughout the body. The findings "suggest that the health impacts of microplastic inhalation may be more substantial than we realize", the authors wrote. Microplastics are tiny bits of plastic either intentionally added to consumer goods, or which are products of larger plastics breaking down. The particles contain any number of 16,000 plastic chemicals, of which many, such as BPA, phthalates and Pfas, present serious health risks. The study measured air in multiple rooms throughout several apartments. The source of the microplastics in the apartments is thought to be degrading plastic in consumer products, from clothing to kitchen goods to carpets. The concentration of plastic in ... cars' air was about four times higher than in the apartments.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Speculation is growing that Ghislaine Maxwell could soon be freed. Despite campaigning on the promise to release the Epstein Files, there are increasing signs that the Trump administration is considering pardoning the world's most notorious convicted sex trafficker. For years, Maxwell aided her partner Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking and raping girls and young women. Epstein's associates included billionaires, scientists, celebrities, and politicians, including President Trump, whom he considered his "closest friend." While many of Ghislaine Maxwell's crimes have come to light, less well-known are her family's myriad connections to both the U.S. and Israeli national security states. Chief among these are those of her father, disgraced media baron and early tech entrepreneur, Robert Maxwell. Maxwell's biographers ... write that he was first recruited by Israeli intelligence in the 1960s and began buying up Israeli tech corporations. Israel used these companies and their software to carry out spying and other clandestine operations. Maxwell amassed a vast business empire of 350 companies, employing 16,000 people. He owned an array of newspapers, including The New York Daily News. Throughout the 1990s, Epstein's biographer Julie K. Brown noted, he openly boasted about working for both the CIA and Mossad. Epstein met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns three times in 2014. Burns would later be named director of the CIA.
Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Epstein's criminal enterprise and intelligence agency corruption.
An interview that I conducted in 2020 with Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Epstein's victims, has always haunted me. It's about a conversation Edwards had with Epstein's bodyguard of five years, Igor Zinoviev, who warned him to back off because of Epstein's shadowy connections to the U.S. government. "[Zinoviev said] â€You don't know who you're messing with and you need to be really careful. You are on Jeffrey's radar and somebody that Jeffrey pays a lot of attention to, which is not good, you don't want to be on Jeffrey's radar,'" Edwards told me for Broken: Jeffrey Epstein, the podcast series I hosted and reported. "And I said, â€Well, give me some examples. I mean, who am I messing with?'" Edwards recalled. "And that's when he looked across the table and whispered three letters, â€C-I-A.'" One of Zinoviev's first assignments during Epstein's brief 2008 detention – just 13 months of overnights at the Palm Beach County jail with so-called work release – was to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There, he says, he attended classes for a week as the only private citizen in the room. At the end, the director or assistant director – Zinoviev couldn't remember – handed him a book with a handwritten note inside. He was told not to read it and to deliver it directly to Epstein in jail. Edwards later wrote about this encounter in his own book, Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein's usefulness to high-ranking officials might also explain why a Freedom of Information Act request of his calendar by The Wall Street Journal revealed multiple meetings with former CIA director Bill Burns when he was Deputy Secretary of State.
Note: This piece was published on Tara Palmeri's Substack. Palmeri is an investigative journalist and former ABC News White House correspondent. US attorney Alexander Acosta was once told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.
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