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.
With breakfast finished and backpacks prepped for the day, children across Spain's Barcelona province strap on their helmets and, at around 8 a.m., head to school not by bus or car, but in a critical mass of bikes dubbed "bicibĂşs." As with traditional bus lines, each bicibĂşs route has stops where other cycling students can join along the way. Parents, teachers and other volunteer adults ride, too, to ensure the kids' safety. BicibĂşs is just a couple years old, but already more than 1,200 kids pedal 90-plus routes to more than 70 schools across 25 cities in Catalonia. (Barcelona is one of four provinces in the region, in addition to being a major city.) Biking in groups increases awareness of riders on the road, especially where dedicated infrastructure is lacking. And families around the world, from Portland, Oregon to Edinburgh, Scotland, have embraced this commuting alternative. "The idea for bicibĂşs came from the mix of my two passions: the bike and education," says Helena Vilardell, the elementary school teacher who started bicibĂşs in February 2020. She subsequently launched the nonprofit Canvis en Cadena ("change in chain") to widely promote bicycles as a healthier, more sustainable commute for all. Fewer gas-powered vehicles on the road decreases pollutants that contribute to unhealthy air. "I have been working as a teacher for many years. The children in my class who arrive by bike are more active during the first hours, more attentive and participatory," [Vilardell] says.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Earlier this year, Kik Messenger user "heyyyydude1" was selling a stash of videos he'd amassed of child sexual abuse. One customer, who said he was a 35-year-old father of two, offered to buy 200 videos for $45. "How do I pay?" he asked. "Cash App," heyyyydude1 responded, sending over his payment details and a code for a Cash App referral fee. With each transaction, and many more disturbing videos sent, the seller was unknowingly providing a pile of evidence to an undercover agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's child exploitation unit. Current and former police, as well as nonprofits working directly with cops to fight child exploitation, say that such crimes are often happening via Cash App, which brings in billions in gross profit every year for Block, Inc., the Jack Dorsey-run payments giant formerly known as Square. They say that whether it's to pay for sex with a minor, to send children funds in return for nude images or to traffic a young adult victim, Cash App is often the payment tool of choice. Though it recently launched a Cash App for Teens feature, the company is conspicuously absent from collaborative efforts to fight abuse, failing to provide any tips to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), America's national clearing house for sexual abuse material found on tech platforms. Hundreds of pages of court filings describe cases where law enforcement said Cash App was used to either pay for sexualized images or sex with minors and adults.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
When floods devastated Bangkok more than a decade ago, Thai landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom became determined to help her sinking hometown fight this deadly climate threat. The floods "changed my life," said Voraakhom. "I started using the tools of landscape architecture (to tackle) climate change." The 2011 floods killed hundreds and displaced millions. "For us, climate change is primarily a water crisis," she said. "Our people can feel its impacts in their daily lives, each year through worsening floods, rising sea levels, and severe drought." In many sinking cities, including Bangkok, the current urban infrastructure is not fit for purpose and is "reducing our ability to adapt," said Voraakhom, noting that many of Bangkok's waterways and canals have been destroyed or have fallen into disrepair. "For us, as a city of water, the only way is to go back to our amphibious culture and reclaim the relationship with water." The architect said she integrates nature and water into her designs to create landscapes that help alleviate flooding and add greenery to densely populated cities. Voraakhom also created Asia's largest rooftop farm, Siam Green Sky, transforming 22,400 square meters (241,000 square feet) into a lush haven. The farm, which recycles food waste from restaurants in the building below and uses it as plant fertilizer, also slows down, soaks up and stores large amounts of rainwater. It is then used to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit, as well as rice.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Douglas Rushkoff's new book, "Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires," opens with a surreal scene: For a fee equal to one-third of his annual salary as a professor, Rushkoff flies to a luxurious resort to advise five ultrawealthy men on how to survive the collapse of civilization. More terrifying than the men's Hollywood-derived nightmares is their naive and profoundly antisocial response: They'd rather optimize their bunkers than work to avert the apocalypse. While few have the means to indulge dystopian fantasies so lavishly, the men are an extreme instance of a broader trend. Bunker sales in America are soaring, and the market now caters to a range of income levels, from $40,000 starter bunkers to a nearly $10 million Luxury Series "Aristocrat" that offers a pool and a bowling lane. Many people now seem fixated on stockpiling enough money to protect themselves from the rest of the world, rather than considering the sort of world they are creating by making money in these ways. Rushkoff ... calls this dynamic the "Insulation Equation." Anyone who asks some version of the question – can I earn enough money doing X to insulate myself from the effects of doing X – is considering the Insulation Equation. The Insulation Equation is a provocative and illuminating concept, and Rushkoff devotes much of the book to tracing the manifestations and origins of a mind-set that seduces people into believing they can insulate themselves from harms they help create.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.
Authorities swiftly called the death a homicide. The victim was 44-year-old Michael Williams. Days later, law enforcement agencies announced they had arrested and charged a 31-year-old army veteran, Steven Vogel, with murder. Williams had been strangled, according to the medical examiner's office. Authorities arrested and charged three others with helping Vogel move the body. The case attracted national attention. Michael Williams was Black, and his body was burned and dumped in an almost-exclusively white part of Iowa. The four people arrested were white. These events occurred 15 weeks after Minneapolis police publicly murdered George Floyd. And yet, law enforcement immediately declared that no evidence suggested the murder had been motivated by racism. Williams's family and other members of central Iowa's Black community weren't convinced. The simple fact a white man hanged a Black man with a rope and then set him on fire in an easily visible spot – with three other white people helping cover up the murder – was telling. Data analyzed by the Guardian reveals this to be common: victims' loved ones clearly see racist motives, while law agencies often don't. From the outset, authorities rejected a racial motive. "They never pursued it," says Paula Terrell, Williams's aunt. "They just kept saying â€it's a love triangle.'" In fact, Williams's murder was one of several incidents in central Iowa that targeted Black people in short sequence.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.
On Monday morning, 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to the White House that attempted to gingerly open a conversation about a potential diplomatic end to Russia's war on Ukraine. The door was slammed shut by the evening, met with enough fury to elicit a "clarification" in the form of a statement from caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal. "Let me be clear," Jayapal said in a statement issued just before 7 p.m., "We are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support." On Tuesday afternoon, Jayapal followed the clarification by fully withdrawing the letter, saying it was "released by staff without vetting." That the letter was met with fierce opposition is a measure of the space available for debate among congressional Democrats when it comes to support for the war and how it might be stopped before it turns nuclear: roughly zero. "I have voted for every defense package to Ukraine and stand firmly for Ukraine's sovereignty," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a letter signer, told The Intercept. "It should not be controversial to say we need to explore every diplomatic avenue to seek a just peace." "The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks," the letter read.
Note: The powerful war machine can compromise even those with good intentions. Read an excellent article calling for urgent diplomacy on both sides of the political aisle to promote peaceful and democratic outcomes. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
Australia's Covid-19 response failed the nation's most vulnerable people and in many cases amounted to overreach, according to a new report. The report, Fault lines: an independent review into Australia's response to Covid-19, led by former public servant Peter Shergold and released on Thursday, found some lockdowns and border closures were not necessary and schools should have remained open. "For many of us, the story of Covid-19 will be one of inconvenience," the private- sector funded report says. "It will be a story of cutting our own hair, struggling to exercise, missed holidays ... and endless Zoom meetings. "For others, Covid-19 will be a story of trauma, isolation and terrifying uncertainty. "It will be a story of being locked in overcrowded housing, job loss and missing out on government supports. "It will be a story of more domestic violence, increased alcohol abuse, deteriorating mental and physical health. "It will be a story of loss and the brutal realisation of not being able to say final goodbyes to loved ones." The report says politically driven health orders and excessive lockdowns failed to protect the old, ignored the young and abandoned disadvantaged communities. While school closures were probably the right decision when the virus was little understood, "it was wrong to close entire school systems, particularly once new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments", the report says.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Five years nearly to the day since the New York Times and the New Yorker published their explosive exposĂ©s on Harvey Weinstein and his myriad misdeeds – all of them leveraging his vaunted position in Hollywood to extract sex and force humiliation on hopeful actresses – Weinstein and several other men accused as part of the broader #MeToo movement are seeing the inside of a courtroom. Weinstein, who was already sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault in New York, now faces trial for similar crimes in California. Paul Haggis, who won an Oscar for directing the film Crash ... goes to trial next month in a civil suit filed by a film publicist who says he raped her. And Kevin Spacey is also facing a civil suit filed by actor Anthony Rapp, who says Spacey got on top of him and made a sexual advance when he was just 14 and Spacey was 26. All three men have a few things in common. They are (or were) among Hollywood's most powerful men. They are a tiny minority among men accused of assault as part of the #MeToo movement to actually see the inside of a courtroom. And they all demonstrate both the benefits and the limitations of the legal system adjudicating sexual assault claims. Is this justice? No, not for everyone; not even for most. It also probably doesn't give many feminists much pleasure to hear that men like Weinstein are now suffering the same cruelties and dehumanizing humiliations our criminal justice system has long leveled on more invisible men.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Chemical companies are dodging a federal law designed to track how many PFAS "forever chemicals" their plants are discharging into the environment by exploiting a loophole created in the Trump administration's final months, a new analysis of federal records has found. The Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act put in place requirements that companies discharging over 100lb annually of the dangerous chemicals report the releases to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But during the implementation process, Trump's EPA created an unusual loophole that at least five chemical companies have exploited. PFAS ... accumulate in humans and the environment. A growing body of evidence links them to serious health problems like cancer, birth defects, liver disease and autoimmune disorders. The Trump EPA gave PFAS an unusual exemption under the law that allows companies not to report discharges if the amounts are ... less than 1% of a total mixture. Companies discharging thousands of pounds of PFAS could have gotten their releases under the 1% threshold via several routes. Companies may have added water to PFAS to dilute it to the point that it is below 1%. However, the total amount of PFAS released is still high, and may present a threat once in the environment. Companies may also be using complex mixtures with multiple PFAS. If the companies keep any one PFAS compound below the 1% threshold, then they won't have to report it.
Note: Read more about the risks and dangers of these 'forever chemicals.' For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
In a cheerfully animated promotional video, a woman narrates Cubic Transportation Systems' vision for the future. Travelers will pay fares using a ticket-free mobile account. Real-time data will be aggregated, linked, and shared. "The more information that is gathered, the more powerful the system becomes," the narrator tells us. "The piece of the puzzle missing ... is you." Over the past decade, Cubic has taken the first steps toward actualizing its vision by snapping up contracts for the development of mobile-based, contactless fare collection systems in eight of America's 10 largest public transit networks. Transit authorities have embraced tap-to-pay technology for its convenience and speed, but privacy advocates are worried that the new fare collection systems pose serious surveillance and security risks. In addition to its transit operation, Cubic is a vast military contractor doing hundreds of millions of dollars in business with the U.S. military and sales to foreign militaries. The company supplies surveillance technologies, training simulators, satellite communications equipment, computing and networking platforms, and other military hardware and software. As Cubic's quiet grip on fare collection takes hold in more cities, the company's ability to process rider data grows with it, creating a sprawling corporate apparatus that has the extraordinary potential to gather up reams of information on the very people it is supposed to serve.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Psychedelic therapy is the use of psychedelic substances, often alongside traditional talk therapy (psychotherapy), as a treatment for mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, suicidality and PTSD. Michael Mithoefer, M.D. ... at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), likens psychedelic therapy to applying a cast to a broken bone. "[Psychedelic]-assisted therapy engages the mind's innate power to heal itself–the participants' â€inner healing intelligence,'" claims Dr. Mithoefer, going on to explain that "the source of the healing process is the person themselves–the psychedelic and therapists are catalysts." In the U.S., psychedelics continue to undergo medical trials, with some being granted a "breakthrough therapy" designation by the FDA, indicating that preliminary clinical evidence has shown the drug can demonstrate substantial improvement over currently available therapy. COMPASS Pathways, a mental health treatment company, received the designation for its psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression in 2018. In 2019, Usona Institute ... received the designation to continue its testing of psilocybin as a treatment for major depressive disorder. Psilocybin-assisted therapy is also being tested as a treatment for various addictions ... as well as certain conditions such as anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), cluster headaches, migraines and chronic pain.
Note: Read more about the healing potentials of psychedelic medicine. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Ants can be more effective than pesticides at helping farmers produce food, according to new research. They are better at killing pests, reducing plant damage and increasing crop yields, according to the first systematic review of ants' contributions to crop production. Ants are generalist predators and hunt pests that damage fruits, seeds and leaves, leading to a drop in crop yields. A greater diversity of ants generally provides more protection against a wider range of pests, the study found. The analysis looked at 17 crops, including citrus, mango, apple and soya bean in countries including the US, Australia, the UK and Brazil. "In general, with proper management, ants can be useful pest controls and increase crop yield over time. Some ant species have similar or higher efficacy than pesticides, at lower costs," researchers wrote in the paper published in Proceedings of Royal Society B. There are more ants than any other insect, making up half of the planet's insect biomass. There are at least 14,000 known species of ant, with many more likely to remain unknown. Citrus growers in China have used ants in farming for centuries, and the insects have also been used to help control forest pests in Canada, cocoa pests in Ghana and crop pests in Nigeria. Dr Patrick Milligan, from the University of Nevada Pringle Lab ... said the findings were "both heartening and not at all surprising". He added: "They offer a neat and tidy description of ant-derived benefits that are ubiquitous across ecological and agricultural systems.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
It's actually a very large universe of people with access to Top Secret data. The Director of National Intelligence publishes what is described as an annual report, "Security Clearance Determinations," although the most recent one I could find was from 2017. In it, more than 2.8 million people are described as having security clearance as of October 2017 – more than 1.6 million have access to either Confidential or Secret information and nearly 1.2 million are described as having access to Top Secret information. There are additional people who have security clearance but don't currently have access to information. This includes civilian employees, contractors and members of the military. Each agency that deals in classification has its own system. Top Secret ... is the highest level of classification. Information is classified as Top Secret if it "reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security," according to a 2009 executive order. A subset of Top Secret documents known as SCI, or sensitive compartmented information, is reserved for certain information derived from intelligence sources. Access to an SCI document can be even further restricted to a smaller group of people with specific security clearances. Information is classified as Secret if the information is deemed to be able to cause "serious damage" to national security if revealed. Confidential is the least sensitive level of classification.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
On June 28, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse underage girls. In Maxwell's defense, lawyer Bobbi C. Sternheim said that Ms. Maxwell's life had been clouded by two men: "her narcissistic, brutish father" Robert Maxwell, wealthy British media tycoon and former member of parliament, and "the controlling, demanding, manipulative" Jeffrey Epstein. What [Maxwell] could not say was that she was the one to take the fall for a sexual blackmail operation sponsored by Western intelligence agencies. That operation appears to have originated with her father Robert back in the 1980s. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence official, claimed to have seen Jeffrey Epstein in Robert's office in the early 1980s. Robert was a long-time operative for Israeli intelligence. Ben-Menashe [said] that Epstein "was the simple idiot who was going around providing girls to all kinds of politicians in the United States. He was taking photos of politicians fucking fourteen year old girls. They would just blackmail people like this." Maxwell ... claims she has copies of everything that Epstein had and a secret stash of pedophile sex tapes that could implicate the world's most powerful and will try to use them to save herself. The flight logs from [Epstein's] Lolita Express reveal a "who's who" of early 1990s high society, including ... lawyer Alan Dershowitz, conservative billionaire David Koch; and politicians such as Tony Blair.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
An Israeli orchestra has performed in Egypt for the first time in 40 years, surprising locals by playing Egyptian classics from the 50s and 60s. The event took place as part of Israel's 74th Independence Day celebrations at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, according to a Tuesday report by public broadcaster Kan. Ariel Cohen, the conductor and co-founder of the Firqat Alnoor orchestra, described the excitement of being able to perform in the Arab country, which signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979, but has seen relations remain frosty. "I couldn't believe it," Cohen said during an interview with the Kan public broadcaster. "I couldn't hold in my tears," he added, noting the warm welcome the group received wherever they went. "Egyptian music has always been a big part of my artistic life. Personally, performing there for me was a dream come true," Cohen said. "The Egyptian audience that attended the event were astonished to see an [Israeli] orchestra performing Egyptian music, and not pop or fusion, but the DNA of Egyptian music… and to play it as it was played in Egypt in the 50s or the 60s – they really appreciated it and complimented us. It was a great pleasure to perform in front of such an audience," he said. And while Cohen said he wasn't sure if music alone could create a warm relationship between Egyptians and Israelis, he said that "music, when it's done properly, can bring people together, and that's what we saw when we performed there."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
American hospitals have been living with serious drug shortages for more than a decade. Most days, nearly 300 essential drugs can be in short supply. It's not a matter of supply and demand. The drugs are needed and the ingredients are easy to make. Pharmaceutical companies have stopped producing many life-saving generic drugs because they make too little profit. Yet, year after year, the government stays on the sidelines as companies take drug production offline - and doctors worry the shortages are compromising patient care. Neonatologist Dr. Mitch Goldstein treats the most vulnerable patients. Many ... premature and sick babies have undeveloped digestive systems, so Dr. Goldstein keeps them alive with intravenous nutrients, many of which are in short supply. Antony Gobin heads the pharmacy at Loma Linda Hospital. He told us shortages of basic drugs are a constant worry. "We were dealing with shortages long before COVID," [he said]. "They're all very old, fundamental drugs that every hospital in the country needs and uses." Drug shortages can kill. In 2011, when norepinephrine, an old, low profit drug used to treat septic shock, was in short supply, hundreds of people around the country died. Middlemen, the group purchasing organizations and drug distributors take their cut. The drug manufacturers end up with just a small fraction of what the patient pays. Many have simply stopped making the least profitable drugs.
Note: For more, see this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption and health from reliable major media sources.
Researchers have discovered how to use cyanobacteria–commonly called blue-green algae–to continuously power a microprocessor for a span of more than six months. The system, which uses inexpensive and largely recyclable materials, contains a type of non-toxic photosynthetic algae called Synechocystis, per a statement. The research was published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. "We were impressed by how consistently the system worked over a long period of time–we thought it might stop after a few weeks but it just kept going," says Paolo Bombelli, a researcher from the University of Cambridge's Department of Biochemistry and lead author of the paper. The scientists created an enclosure out of aluminum and clear plastic and put the bacteria inside it. The device, which is about the size of a AA battery, was placed on a windowsill in Bombelli's home during Covid-19 lockdown in 2021 and remained there from February to August. The bacteria powered an Arm Cortex M0+ processor–a microprocessor widely used in the network of appliances connected to the internet, also called the Internet of Things (IoT). The cyanobacteria produced energy even without light, perhaps because they process some of their food in the dark, which generates an electrical current. Several billion IoT devices already exist, and that number is expected to rise to one trillion by 2035. Powering all those devices would require 109,000 tons of lithium, which is three times more than what the world produced in 2017.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Cities in California spent large portions of their federal Covid relief money on police departments, a review of public records has revealed, with several cities prioritizing police funding by a wide margin. As part of the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), the Biden administration's signature stimulus package, the US government sent funds to cities to help them fight coronavirus and support local recovery efforts. The money, officials said, could be used to fund a range of services. But most large California cities spent millions of Arpa dollars on law enforcement. Some also gave police money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, adopted in 2020 under Donald Trump. San Francisco received $312m in Arpa funds for fiscal year 2020 and allocated 49% ($153m) to police, 13% ($41m) to the sheriff's department, and the remainder to the fire department. San Francisco also gave roughly 22% ($38.5m) of its Cares funds to law enforcement. Los Angeles spent roughly 50% of its first round of Arpa relief funds on the LAPD. In Fresno, the city allocated more than double of its Cares money to police than it did to Covid testing, contact tracing, small business grants, childcare vouchers and transitional housing combined. Cities using relief funds for police have typically funneled the money to salaries, although The Appeal recently reported that some jurisdictions were using stimulus dollars to buy new surveillance technology and build new prisons.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and police corruption from reliable major media sources.
Catholic groups and abuse survivors on Tuesday called on the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, which has yet to reckon with the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, to create an independent commission to investigate how the crisis has been handled. In a number of countries – including Australia, France, Ireland and the United States – the church has allowed some scrutiny of its actions. But so far, the church in Italy has resisted calls for an independent inquiry, even after Pope Francis in 2019 held a landmark meeting on clerical sexual abuse and called "for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors." "Italy is an anomaly," said Francesco Zanardi, a clerical abuse survivor and president of Rete l'Abuso, the country's most outspoken victims' rights group, which has independently tracked more than 350 cases of pedophile priests in the Italian justice system. The consortium wanted the church in Italy to "assume responsibility for the abuses, the cover-ups and the abandonment of the victims" who were not heard or given compensation. It also called on the Italian Parliament to improve existing legislation and draft new laws to make it easier for cases of abuse by priests to be reported and tried. Several abuse survivors ... said that at least in the past, church officials had not listened to their complaints. Antonio Messina ... said he was abused for four years when he was a minor. He said that when he tried to bring his abuser to justice, in 2014, the prelates he turned to for help either didn't believe him or tried to bribe him to keep quiet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The drama surrounding Peng Shuai is following a familiar script, in which someone who has run afoul of China's Communist government disappears from view. What happens next depends on the case, but it is not uncommon for the person in question to disavow the statements or actions that first upset officials. Other times, the person simply keeps a lower profile. Sometimes, their arrest is eventually announced. Peng's saga began in November, when she wrote in a social media post that a former member of the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee had forced her to have sex three years ago despite repeated refusals. The post was quickly taken down and the former top-ranked doubles player dropped out of public view late last year. After she reappeared weeks later, she denied to a Singapore newspaper that she ever made any accusation of sexual assault. In an interview published Monday by a French sports paper, the tennis player called the whole situation an "enormous misunderstanding." Other people ... have disappeared over the years – a phenomenon that has expanded since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Liu [Xiaobo], a dissident writer who joined calls for increased freedoms in China in 2008, was detained a day before the appeal for reforms was released. After his arrest, his whereabouts were unknown for a time. He was eventually accused of subversion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and died of cancer before he was ever released.
Note: What most likely happens is that these people are subjected to well established mind control procedures, such that afterward they dare not challenge those in power. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and mind control from reliable major media sources.
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.