News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
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After her longtime partner died of kidney cancer, federal agents knocked on Gail Deckman's door outside Chicago and told her she was in trouble: She had kept thousands of dollars in Social Security disability benefits that should have stopped when he died. The inspector general's office, which investigates disability fraud and tries to recoup money for the government, ultimately charged her $119,392 – nearly three times what she received in error. The inflated fees were set in motion during the Trump administration, when attorneys in charge of a little-known anti-fraud program run by the inspector general's office levied unprecedented fines against Deckman and more than 100 other beneficiaries without due process. The escalating penalties created a giant jump – at least on paper – in the amount of money the inspector general could show lawmakers it was bringing in. A Chicago woman was fined $132,000 after wrongly receiving as much as $10,618 in benefits. A Denver woman was sanctioned $168,000 after cashing as much as $14,960 in wrongly received checks. The remarkable penalties led to tumult inside the Office of Inspector General Gail Ennis, where a whistleblower was targeted for retaliation, according to a ruling this month. [Deborah] Shaw testified that she was shocked when she was directed in early 2019 to issue a penalty of $176,000 to a woman who had already written a check for $26,000 to repay the government the entire amount she had wrongly received in disability benefits.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The future is decidedly not female for California mosquitoes, or at least that's what researchers hope to achieve when they unleash up to 2.4 billion genetically altered males into the West Coast state starting this summer in an attempt to control the booming populations. The Environmental Protection Agency announced last month that biotech firm Oxitec had received approval to expand its existing pilot program in Florida into California's Central Valley, a campaign that would run through 2024 and release a maximum of 2.4 billion over that time span. By expanding the share of male offspring born each season, it would decrease the chances of female biting mosquitoes from spreading deadly diseases like Zika, dengue and yellow fever. Researchers at Oxitec paired a special protein to the male so that when it mates with a biting female, the only viable offspring that results are more non-biting males. The targeted group is the Aedes aegypti mosquito. California has not yet noted an uptick in the diseases the pests are capable of spreading.
Note: Why does California want to gamble with this risky intervention in nature when these diseases are not even a significant problem there? The release of these GMO mosquitoes in Florida provoked fierce local opposition. Oxitec received millions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation when initially testing these bugs in the wild. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMOs from reliable major media sources.
The laboratories and other buildings that once housed a chemical manufacturer here in New Jersey's most populous city have been demolished. More than 10,000 leaky drums and other containers once illegally stored here have long been removed. Its owner was convicted three decades ago. Yet the groundwater beneath the 4.4-acre expanse once occupied by White Chemical Corp. in Newark remains contaminated, given a lack of federal funding. But three decades after federal officials declared it one of America's most toxic spots, it's about to get a jolt. This plot in Newark is among more than four dozen toxic waste sites to get cleanup funding from the newly-enacted infrastructure law, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday, totaling $1 billion. "This work is just the beginning," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. President Biden signed legislation reviving a polluter's tax that will inject a new stream of cash into the nation's troubled Superfund program. The renewed excise fees, which disappeared more than 25 years ago, are expected to raise $14.5 billion in revenue over the next decade and could accelerate cleanups of many sites that are increasingly threatened by climate change. The Superfund list includes more than 1,300 abandoned mines, radioactive landfills, shuttered military labs, closed factories and other contaminated areas across nearly all 50 states.
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The underwater world at Laughing Bird Caye National Park off the coast of Belize looked nothing like the vibrant and colourful place that had thrived with life before Hurricane Iris swept across it in 2001. [Lisa] Carne immediately wanted to start replenishing the reefs by planting corals, but it took many years to convince any funders that her idea was viable. People argued, and still do, that without solving the problems that cause corals to die, putting them back on the reef made no sense. Carne began pitching her restoration ideas in 2002, but for several years had no luck. Then in 2006, the US listed Caribbean acroporid corals (the fastest growing type of branching coral in the Caribbean, and the main reef-building one) as endangered, and a local funder approved Carne's proposal to restore the reef. Carne began with transplanting 19 elkhorn coral fragments from the main barrier reef around 19 miles (31km) away in a trial. Because the initial 2006 transplants' survival was high (more than 80% still alive today) she continued to identify surviving corals and started reseeding the reefs with them in 2010. In 2009, Illiana Baums, professor of molecular ecology at Penn State University, advised on the appropriate distance to plant different individuals of each coral species apart to encourage spawning. So far over 85,000 corals have been planted in the Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Long-term monitoring shows 89% survived after 14 years – much higher than typical survivorship after restoration.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons. This is not merely a technical error. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points. Several states - including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont - are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice. These results damage the public’s ability to understand what is happening in any one state. On a national scale, they call the strength of America’s response to the coronavirus into question. The number of tests conducted nationwide each day has more than doubled in the past month. At the same time, the portion of tests coming back positive has plummeted.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Spit into a cup when you land in an airport, and your DNA is stored. Every phone in every city talks to every other nearby device. Cross-border travel is enabled only by governments sharing data about millions of private movements. These are all possible visions of a future that the coronavirus pandemic has rushed on us. But a lurch into an even more intense era of mass data-collection - the vast hoovering up of who went near whom and when, who is healthy to travel, and even scraps of personal DNA languishing in databases - appears to be on the verge of becoming the new reality. It took the attacks of September 11, 2001 to shove aside the previous decade's phobia of mass surveillance ... in exchange for keeping us safe from terror. Over the next 15 years, billions of people agreed to a tacit deal where Facebook or Google were permitted to learn a staggering amount about them. But the challenge presented by Covid-19 - and the urgent need to trace contacts and movements - is of another scale of intimacy. South Korea located over 10,000 cellphones near the latest outbreak and texted them. The UK government has toyed with a centralized database of movements and health records, secured by government cyber-spies, able potentially to see who has been sick and who they have been near. Russia and many others have issued QR codes. China is putting surveillance cameras right outside people's doors. Will we look back at 2020 as the moment privacy finally evaporated?
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
The Bahamian pleasure palace featured a faux Mayan temple, sculptures of smoke-breathing snakes and a disco with a stripper pole. The owner, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion executive, showed off his estate on TV shows ... and threw loud beachfront parties, reveling in the company of teenage girls and young women. Next door, Louis Bacon, an American hedge fund billionaire, presided over an airy retreat. Lawyers and investigators funded in part by Mr. Bacon claim that Mr. Nygard raped teenage girls in the Bahamas. This month, a federal lawsuit was filed by separate lawyers in New York on behalf of 10 women accusing Mr. Nygard of sexual assault. The lawsuit claims that Mr. Nygard used his company, Nygard International, and employees to procure young victims and ply them with alcohol and drugs. He also paid Bahamian police officers to quash reports, shared women with local politicians and groomed victims to recruit "fresh meat," the lawsuit says. Over months of interviews with The New York Times, dozens of women and former employees described how alleged victims were lured to Mr. Nygard's Bahamian home by the prospect of modeling jobs or a taste of luxury. "He preys on poor people's little girls," said Natasha Taylor, who worked there for five years. Mr. Nygard ... had employees sign confidentiality agreements and sued those he suspected of talking. Multiple women said he had handed them cash after sex, helping to buy silence.
Note: Read an excellent, well researched essay on this disturbing case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A 5-year-old student at an elementary school in Vista, California, collected enough money to pay off the negative lunch balances of 123 students at her school. Katelynn Hardee, a kindergartner at Breeze Hill Elementary School, overheard a parent say she was having difficulty paying for an after school program. So Katelynn decided to set up a stand on December 8, spending her Sunday selling hot cocoa, cider, and cookies. Katelynn and her mom donated the $80 collected, which went towards paying off the negative lunch balances of over 100 students at her elementary school. By doing this, the youngster hopes that other students "can have a snack and lunch. If they don't, their tummies grumble," Katelynn said. Katelynn's next goal is to raise enough money to pay off not only all the negative lunch balances at Breeze Hill, but the "thousands of negative accounts" at schools in the Vista Unified School District, Hardee said. To help in her new mission, which she calls #KikisKindnessProject, other students and staff at Breeze Hill will host a hot cocoa and baked goods stand on Saturday to raise more money to pay off negative school lunch accounts at the school. After all the accounts in the entire district have been paid off, Katelynn will then use the money raised to help support school programs which will be removed due to budget cuts. "It's all about kindness. With everything that's going on in the world, we just need a little bit more kindness out there," Hardee said.
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Early support from deep-pocketed financial executives could give Democrats seeking to break out of the pack an important fundraising boost. But any association with bankers also opens presidential hopefuls to sharp attacks from an ascendant left. And it’s left senior executives on Wall Street flailing over what to do. “I’m a socially liberal, fiscally conservative centrist who would love to vote for a rational Democrat and get Trump out of the White House,” said the CEO of one of the nation’s largest banks, who, like a dozen other executives interviewed for this story, declined to be identified. After mentioning Bloomberg, Wall Street executives who want Trump out list a consistent roster of appealing nominees that includes former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California. Bankers’ biggest fear: The nomination goes to an anti-Wall Street crusader like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or Sanders. “It can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders,” said the CEO of another giant bank. “It has to be someone centrist and someone who can win.” Clearly, they're not afraid that Senator Professor Warren or Bernie Sanders "can't win," but, rather, they're struck into incoherence that one of them can. Somewhere in the gated community holding their souls, they know that there still is a considerable reckoning out there for what they did throughout the Aughts, and that scares them to death. And now, there are popular vehicles through which that reckoning can be wrought. The universe may be shopping for new masters.
Note: Trump promised to drain the swamp of corrupt bankers, only to then appoint many of them to key positions in his administration. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on financial corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Banking Corruption Information Center.
A second alleged trafficking victim of Jeffrey Epstein says the billionaire pedophile "directed" her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz — a claim the prominent attorney adamantly denies. The revelation regarding Sarah Ransome ... alleges in her suit that even as Epstein used an army of powerful attorneys — including Dershowitz — to fight a sex trafficking investigation in Florida, he continued "transporting young females" in New York. Virginia Roberts was the first alleged Epstein victim to claim that he directed her to have sex with Dershowitz. Dershowitz insists he also has never met Roberts, who now lives in Australia. Roberts alleged that [Ghislaine Maxwell] recruited her for Epstein in 1998, when she was 15 years old and working a summer job at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Roberts sued Maxwell for defamation, claiming the media heiress smeared her by denying the disturbing sex scheme. They settled the case last year. Epstein, a hedge fund manager with a mansion on the Upper East Side and a private Caribbean island, was once friends with the likes of Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Woody Allen, among other celebs and business titans. "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side," Trump said of Epstein in 2002. The new scrutiny of the Epstein case prompted Dershowitz to tell Axios that the billionaire had once let him and his family stay at his Palm Beach home.
Note: Read a great interview with Julie Brown, the intrepid reporter who broke the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
We all now know the name of Arab journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but very few of us know the name of Arab journalist Tareq Ayoub. An elected president of the United States has been blamed for killing Ayoub. We rightly demand justice in the case of Khashoggi, so why not in the case of Ayoub? On the morning of April 8, 2003, less than three weeks after U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq, Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayoub was on the rooftop of his network’s Baghdad bureau ... reporting live. An American A-10 Warthog attack jet appeared. “The plane was flying so low that those of us downstairs thought it would land on the roof,” Maher Abdullah, the network’s Baghdad correspondent, later recalled. “We actually heard the rocket being launched. It was a direct hit.” Ayoub was killed. Fifteen minutes later, a second American warplane launched a second missile at the building. But the U.S. government, like the Saudi government in recent weeks, tried to duck responsibility. It was just a “grave mistake,” according to a State Department spokesperson. “This coalition does not target journalists,” a U.S. general told reporters. Al Jazeera’s managing director, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, had written a letter to the Pentagon less than two months earlier ... providing U.S. officials with the exact address and coordinates of the Baghdad bureau. The U.S. military had bombed Al Jazeera’s Kabul office in November 2001, and the network’s bosses wanted to prevent a repeat of such an incident.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the manipulation of public perception.
Former patients of a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor expressed anger that he avoided jail time Thursday for lying about using his own sperm to impregnate as many as dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous. Dr. Donald Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. No other charges were filed ... because Indiana law doesn't specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm. The charges stemmed from two confirmed cases of paternity. Matt White and his mother, Liz White, said Cline deserved far greater punishment. He said DNA tests showed that Cline was his biological father even though Cline told his mother decades ago that he used anonymous sperm donations. "There's dozens of us," said Matt White. Some of the now-adult children of Cline's former patients filed a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's Office in 2014, after they became suspicious while scouring online records to find biological relatives. Paternity tests performed the Marion County prosecutor's office determined Cline was likely the biological father of at least two of his patients' children. Cline, who retired in 2009, initially denied the allegations when he wrote to investigators, saying the women who filed the complaints were trying to slander him. On Thursday, he acknowledged that he had lied. Matt White said private DNA tests have identified 23 people as Cline's biological children with mothers who were his patients.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
The last weekend of June every year for 37 years has been given over to the running of the Western States 100 Mile Trail Run, the premier endurance running race in the world. It starts [in] Squaw Valley and ends ... in Auburn, California, 100 miles distant with a cumulative altitude gain of 15,000 feet and a 22,000 foot descent. The lead runners take about 16 hours to finish. In comparison running a marathon is trivial. Thirty seven years ago my wife Ruth Anne and I created prizes for the oldest male and female finishers as a celebration of the human potential. 3500 masochists apply, 350 gain a lottery start, 280 finish, the ultimate goal is to finish under 24 hours which is rewarded by a silver buckle, the second prize is finishing under 30 hours and a bronze buckle. Last year, 2015, was Ruth Anne’s last hurrah. Her Alzheimer’s disease was brutal, she scarcely knew what was going. She died three weeks later, but she was there to join in the ecstasy as Gunhild Swanson became the first woman over 70 years of age to win a buckle. This year the joint was jumping as 72-year-old Wally Hesseltine hoped to be the oldest ever finisher. He made the finish in thirty hours and one minute. I presented our awards to the oldest female and male as usual. But I gave an extra shout out to Bruce Labelle, 60 years of age who finished nobly just as he had 35 years before. Any youngster can do the 100 mile race and keep it up once or twice, but for a 60-year-old to keep it up for 35 years should be celebrated and emulated.
Note: Watch a 12-minute video of 72-year-old Wally Hesseltine's attempt to complete 100 miles in 30 hours. Wow!!!
Half buried in the sand, the vast structure looks like a downed UFO. At the summit, figures carved into the weathered concrete state only the year of construction: 1979. Officially, this vast structure is known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb. Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States’ cold war legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear tests. Sections of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome is already more contaminated than its contents. The US has never formally apologized to the Marshall Islands for turning it into an atomic testing ground. When the UN special rapporteur on human rights and toxic waste, Calin Georgescu, visited the Marshall Islands in 2012 he criticized the US, remarking that the islanders feel like ‘nomads’ in their own country. Nuclear testing, he said, “left a legacy of distrust in the hearts and minds of the Marshallese”. “Why Enewetak?” asked Ading, Enewetak’s exiled senator during an interview in the nation’s capital. “Every day, I have that same question. Why not go to some other atoll in the world? Or why not do it in Nevada, their backyard? I know why. Because they don’t want the burden of having nuclear waste in their backyard. They want the nuclear waste ... thousands miles away. That’s why they picked the Marshall Islands.”
Note: Reports of the effects of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were systematically suppressed while this nuclear testing occurred. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling. The memory transmission extended out another generation when these male mice bred. Neuroscientists at Emory University found that genetic markers, thought to be wiped clean before birth, were used to transmit a single traumatic experience across generations, leaving behind traces in the behavior and anatomy of future pups. The study, published ... in the journal Nature Neuroscience, adds to a growing pile of evidence suggesting that characteristics outside of the strict genetic code may also be acquired from our parents through epigenetic inheritance. Epigenetics studies how molecules act as DNA markers that influence how the genome is read. We pick up these epigenetic markers during our lives and in various locations on our body as we develop and interact with our environment. The researchers also artificially inseminated females using the sperm from the original fear-conditioned mice. The results were the same, suggesting epigenetic inheritance rather than environment.
Note: The emerging field of epigenetics implies that lifestyle and environment influence the expression of DNA. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
It's 4pm on a Friday, and the staff at Home Kitchen, north London's buzziest new restaurant, are prepping for another busy evening's service. Not only is the restaurant run not-for-profit, but nearly all of the staff members have experienced homelessness: a first of its kind in the fine-dining industry. The project is run by a five-strong team, which includes two-time Michelin-starred chef Adam Simmonds and Soup Kitchen London director Alex Brown. Home Kitchen partnered with homelessness charity Crisis and social enterprise Beam to fill eight kitchen and eight front of house roles, when they opened their restaurant in autumn 2024. Other partners include the Beyond Food Foundation, the Only A Pavement Away charity and fellow charity, The Passage. Funded by a Ł500,000 crowdfunding drive and social investment loans, Home Kitchen provides staff with a comprehensive package that's designed to help them avoid returning to homelessness. The 16 staffers are employed on full-time contracts, paid at London Living Wage, have their travel cards covered for zones one and two, and receive catering qualifications in addition to in-house training. The employee support offered by Crisis and Beam is ongoing, while the Home Kitchen team leaders take it upon themselves to check in with staff every day. "[There's] a lot of support, a lot mentally. If someone's upset, straight away they'll take them to a corner and be like: â€Talk to me, what's happening?' It's really, really, really nice," [French-Algerian chef] Mimi says. At the end of daily service, the team sit down and break bread (literally) with a communal meal. "It's a brilliant team. Everybody supports everybody," adds Jones, with a smile. "When service starts, we're all equal."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy.
Antidepressants are frequently prescribed to people with dementia for symptoms like anxiety, depression, aggressiveness and sleeplessness. But a specific class of antidepressant medications - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) - actually might speed up brain decline among some dementia patients, a new Swedish study suggests. Heavier doses of certain SSRIs are tied to a higher risk for severe dementia, researchers reported in a new study ... in the journal BMC Medicine. The SSRI drug escitalopram was associated with the fastest cognitive decline, followed by citalopram and sertraline. For the study, researchers tracked the brain health of more than 18,700 patients enlisted in the Swedish Registry for Cognitive/Dementia Disorders between May 2007 and Oct. 2018. The patients' average age was 78. During an average follow-up of more than four years, about 23% of patients received a new prescription for an antidepressant, researchers said. SSRIs were the most commonly prescribed antidepressant, amounting to 65% of all those prescriptions, the study says. "Higher dispensed doses of SSRIs were associated with higher risk for severe dementia, fractures, and all-cause mortality," the researchers concluded. "These findings highlight the significance of careful and regular monitoring to assess the risks and benefits of different antidepressants use in patients with dementia."
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.
The former head of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) drug division is joining Pfizer as its chief medical officer. Patrizia Cavazzoni was formerly director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from 2020 until January, when she resigned just ahead of President Trump's return to office. Cavazzoni previously worked at Pfizer prior to joining the FDA in 2018. The announcement spurred renewed criticisms about the common "revolving door" between the FDA and industry. Critics worry the close relationship leads to a quid pro quo and favoritism toward industry. Scott Gottlieb, FDA commissioner during Trump's first term, now serves on the board of Pfizer. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long accused the FDA of being corrupt and beholden to industry influence and has pledged to root out supposed conflicts of interest across the agency. Just ahead of the election, while Trump was considering him for HHS secretary, Kennedy posted on social media that FDA employees who are "part of this corrupt system" should "pack their bags." Watchdog group Public Citizen panned Cavazzoni's hiring. "Cavazonni's move demonstrates that the revolving door between the FDA and the industries it regulates is alive and well and continues to undermine the FDA's credibility as a public health agency," the organization's health research group director Robert Steinbrook said.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in Big Pharma.
Critics of overspending at the Pentagon were excited to see a Washington Post piece ... that initially gave the impression that the Trump administration was entertaining the idea of imposing substantial cuts in the Pentagon budget. The piece ... opens as follows: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the matter – a striking proposal certain to face internal resistance and strident bipartisan opposition in Congress." But upon clarification, it became clear that the plan is not to reduce the Pentagon's top line, but to shift any savings found in one part of the department to pay for other systems and activities more in line with the preferences of the administration. If the Trump team – or any administration – really wants to save substantial sums at the Pentagon, it should rethink America's overly ambitious military strategy, an interventionist approach that is backed up by hundreds of overseas military bases, up to 170,000 troops stationed abroad, and counter-terror operations in dozens of countries. Add to this near record U.S. arms sales for 2024, and the enormous focus America places on war and preparation for war becomes clear. Making America more secure at a lower cost must involve a genuine reevaluation of the nation's strategic goals.
Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and government waste.
Russia and the U.S. agreed Tuesday to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, the two countries' top diplomats said after talks that reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump. After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation. He stressed, however, that the talks – which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials – marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn't take part. Ties between Russia and the U.S. have fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years – a rift that has been widening ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and only worsened after Moscow's full-scale invasion. The U.S., along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia in an effort to damage its economy. Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv's military.
Note: Watch our new video on transforming the war machine. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war.
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.