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Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media

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

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

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.

The latest Pentagon release of UFO files contains several eyewitness accounts and video images that document the sighting of spherical objects or orbs, which is no surprise to whistleblower Jeremy Corbell and others who study "unidentified anomalous phenomena." Floating orbs, sometimes exuding a glowing quality, have been regularly spotted "since the beginning of the UFO phenomenon," [said] Corbell. And yet characteristics have emerged about these types of UAP over the years, Corbell notes. For instance, he said, orbs are thought to be made of plasma and harmful to humans. The plasma idea "aligns with the main theory of Ufology," says Miguel Sancho, author of "Evidence of the Extraordinary." Although spherical UAP appear to be round, there could be much more than meets the eye, Corbell said. "There is some understanding of the physics involved that it could be ‘cloaking' a much larger craft and all you're seeing is a pinpoint of light," he said. One of the files unveiled Friday is July 2025 cellphone video of two red-colored orbs passing over a wooded area in the Northeastern U.S., where similar accounts emanated in recent years. Witnesses told investigators that one of the spheres contained a "white plasma ‘sun' about the size of a basketball." In a separate document from 2024, FBI agents operating in the same region recounted seeing UAP they described as pulsations of light. Agents took photographs, but the images reportedly were blurry.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

Jeff Bezos' Washington Post is facing a scathing new class-action lawsuit accusing it of using surveillance pricing to gouge loyal readers – in a case that attorneys believe could rack up millions in damages. Since the mid-2010s, WaPo has "covertly harvested" subscriber data, using "deeply personal information" to determine how much they could squeeze out of each loyal reader, according to the suit, which was filed Thursday in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Readers largely expected their personal data would be used for "mutually beneficial purposes" like "relevant advertisements" – and did not consent to their personal information being used to hike prices on their subscriptions, the suit alleged. After billionaire Bezos bought WaPo in 2013 for $250 million, the paper started heavily investing in technology and digital subscriptions, the suit noted. "The more loyal a reader became, the more data The Post could gather to estimate how much more that person might tolerate paying at renewal," the complaint said. "Rather than rewarding loyalty, The Post's system converted subscribers' engagement into leverage against them." The suit also alleged WaPo might be collecting extra information from subscribers' use of "affiliates" – including Amazon, Bezos' e-commerce giant. Last year, the publication was forced to reveal it was engaging in surveillance pricing techniques because of a 2025 New York disclosure law.

Note: Read more about the rise of AI surveillance pricing. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mass media.

AI is projected to generate nearly unfathomable amounts of revenue. Any mention of AI tends to be accompanied by warnings that deeper jobs cuts across many more industries are coming for us all. Jensen Huang, CEO of chip giant Nvidia, said in 2025: "Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable. You're not going to lose your job to an AI, but you're going to lose your job to someone who uses AI." Increasingly, people young and old flock to a new gold rush in Silicon Valley to toil away on AI-fueled startups. If AI's worst-case scenario for tech jobs plays out ... that's still nowhere near the apocalyptic future of labor that many fear. "Is it, in fact, going to destroy all of the jobs?" Naidu asked. "I'm not convinced. Even take software. Software is only about 4 to 6% of GDP. So it's a lot, but it's not like the whole economy can be replaced by Claude Code." Convincing people that AI will replace human workers in droves is a clever marketing tactic. Not only does it stoke rabid investor speculation, but it distracts from a more realistic application of AI: to surveil and micromanage employees to squeeze yet more productivity out of them, all the while pressuring them to feel grateful that they have any kind of work. Gig workers, the people who pick you up in Ubers and deliver your food on platforms like DoorDash, have already been the guinea pigs for this kind of algorithmic management, and labor experts predict it will spread.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and media manipulation.

For decades, Congress has tried and failed to give Americans control over their own personal data: the right to see it, correct it, and delete it at will. This inaction has left Americans with no recourse against misuse of their own data, while the data broker industry quietly continues to collect and sell the personal information of millions, operating in a largely unchecked gray market. Now, two new bills, the SECURE Data Act and the GUARD Financial Data Act, offer the latest test of whether Washington can step up and finally pull data brokers out of the shadows and into the reach of the law. Efforts to prevent the SECURE Data Act – or any federal protections – from being enacted are currently on full display. Exacerbating the situation and further endangering consumers, there is an entire category of companies that have deliberately avoided being classified as data brokers in an effort to skirt even the patchwork of state-level regulations. Unlike traditional data brokers, massive data aggregators don't sell your name and address to the highest bidder. Instead, they operate quietly, harvesting your data from across the internet, then assembling it into risk scores, behavioral profiles, and assessments of your creditworthiness. These opaque calculations increasingly govern your real-world outcomes, including whether you're approved for a mortgage, the interest rates on your auto loan, and what services or products are marketed to you.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

Former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams [was] silenced by Meta's legal threats to bankrupt her if she spoke. Wynn-Williams has written a book, Careless People, about her time at Meta (then Facebook), where she was an early director of global public policy. But Meta does not like the book. It has done everything in its power to stop it, including seeking an emergency arbitration order that prevents Wynn-Williams from promoting the book, and threatening punitive damages. These serve both to punish Wynn-Williams for writing it, and to send a warning to any future critic. A certain kind of libertarian responds by saying that Meta is not "censoring" Wynn-Williams, because only governments can censor. A certain kind of lawyer may say she brought this on herself by signing a contract agreeing not to criticise Meta. Private censorship is real and, in the time we live in, often more impactful than the public kind. Not all contractual provisions are, or should be, enforceable. You cannot write an enforceable contract to sell a child, to bind someone never to marry or to give up other fundamental rights. Why should the right to speak critically be any different? A contract in which someone agrees never to criticise their employer should be void and unenforceable. That is why we need legislation that makes clear a simple principle: that the free-speech right to criticise your employer is important, fundamental and cannot be sold.

Note: Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams once told US senators that the company targeted teenage girls with beauty and weight-loss advertisements during moments of heightened vulnerability such as after deleting a selfie. According to her testimony, Meta could detect when users were feeling "worthless," "helpless," or like a "failure," and then make that information available to advertisers. For more along these lines, read about a new nonprofit called Psst, which is designed to make it safer for Big Tech whistleblowers to report wrongdoing without immediately exposing themselves to retaliation.

The former chief investigations counsel for the House Oversight Committee has been helping to prepare Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, to testify privately in the panel's Jeffrey Epstein investigation on Wednesday. Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the committee, formally requested in March that Mr. Gates appear before the committee for a transcribed interview. His request came after files released by the Justice Department showed that Mr. Gates met with Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender, multiple times and that his closest advisers were in frequent contact with the disgraced financier until 2019, the year of his death in prison. In preparing for the deposition, Mr. Gates has turned to Jake Greenberg, who until December was spearheading the oversight panel's Epstein inquiry in his role as the committee's top investigative official. Mr. Gates's close relationship with Mr. Epstein has roiled his foundation, which has authorized an outside review of its ties to Mr. Epstein. Representative Suhas Subramanyam, Democrat of Virginia, said in an interview that he wanted to know what Mr. Gates "knew of Epstein's crimes, and the nature and extent of their relationship." He added, "Epstein was known for befriending and even blackmailing rich and powerful men, and I want to know if Gates was one of them." Mr. Gates has sought out powerful inside players to help him weather the scrutiny. He hired John Moran, a former lawyer for the Justice Department, who helped him secure an agreement with the committee for him to appear off camera, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Note: Don't miss part one and part two of our investigations into the Epstein files so far. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and Jeffrey Epstein.

Because defense contracts often prevent the military from repairing its own equipment, critics say weapons companies are price-gouging the Pentagon at every turn. The military's lack of a "right to repair" doesn't just allow defense contractors to charge thousands of dollars, for fixes that could be done for free or very cheaply. Rather, the Pentagon's dependence on weapons makers for maintenance undermines military readiness. Namely, contractors' extensive repair delays and sweeping decisions about whether to service gear routinely leave warfighters without critical equipment and weapons systems – even while deployed. Many DoD contracts now leave repair and maintenance, which can make up as much as 70% of a military program's lifetime cost, to the vendors. "It's a cash-cow for them," Ben Freeman, director of the Quincy Institute's Democratizing Foreign Policy Program, tells RS. "They can charge literally thousands of dollars to replace things that service members could replace for pennies." Take the RQ-11 Raven drone, for example. After hard landings, it often has trouble starting back up again. But due to contractual restrictions, the military is barred from making repairs and must ship the drone to the contractor at a cost of $26,000, regardless of the issue. When an extensive repair backlog meant service members were temporarily allowed to fix the drone themselves, however, they found they could solve the problem – a broken connector – for free with hot glue.

Note: Read more on how congress has prevented the military from repairing its own equipment. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

Americans speaking out against artificial intelligence data centers on social media are falling under police surveillance, a confidential law enforcement bulletin ... reveals. A fusion center in Philadelphia combed through spicy internet comments from AI critics and concluded there is a growing risk of physical violence against data centers from "domestic violent extremists," ranging from white supremacists to anarchists. "Domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, posing a physical and cyber threat to infrastructure in the Philadelphia regional area," the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center wrote in a December alert. The fusion center, housed inside the Philadelphia Police Department, warned that "disruptive First Amendment activity" is an "indicator" of risk from "Domestic Violent Extremists," an expansive term favored by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Longtime Philadelphia civil rights lawyer Paul Hetznecker said he was troubled by the fusion center's association of AI skeptics with terrorists. "Those are legitimate, popular political concerns that are raised by local communities," Hetznecker said. "This particular report from [the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center] reflects a very dangerous attempt to characterize that protected First Amendment activity – activity which is fundamental to our democracy – as ... a breeding ground for something more sinister."

Note: Where does violent extremism really come from? A Human Rights Watch report found that the nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the US since 9/11 featured the direct involvement of government agents or informants. Meanwhile, the term terrorism has expanded to include any activist group across the spectrum not in favor of the political establishment. For more, read our Substack, "A History of Militarized Policing in the US and the Suppression of Dissent Across the Political Spectrum."

The Pentagon unveiled another batch of its so-called UFO files on Friday, part of a rolling release of once-classified material ordered released by President Donald Trump. Friday's release included more than 50 previously classified videos and other documents related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), the official term used by the federal government to describe UFO's. Among the newly released files are a video from an infrared sensor operated by the U.S. Coast Guard in April 2024 showing an object flying near a plane over the Southeastern U.S. Another video labeled "Syrian UAP instant acceleration" was taken from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2021 and uploaded to a classified network in 2024, according to the Pentagon. After multiple investigations, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has found no evidence that any of these incidents are of an extraterrestrial nature -- but military officials admit many remain "unresolved" and cannot be explained. So far, the Pentagon has released over 200 files related to UAPs ... following the directive from Trump. Another of the newly released records -- a video from 2020 taken in an undisclosed area under U.S. Central Command -- appears to show a sphere flying over a population center before it eventually flew higher, off into the sky. Two weeks ago, the Pentagon released the first batch of files from various federal agencies.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs. Then explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

Some of the largest data-collecting companies in the United States–including major AI vendors, data brokers, defense contractors, and dating apps–rely on deceptive methods to keep consumers from opting out of the sale and sharing of their personal information. Researchers at [the Electronic Privacy Information Center] audited the opt-out processes of 38 major data companies and documented at least eight distinct categories of manipulative design: Opt-out forms that don't actually let users opt out of the sale of their data. Links that are buried in fine print and missing from homepages. Consumers routed through multiple separate forms to complete a single request. And requirements that users create accounts or pay for subscriptions before opting out at all, among others. Major companies offering large language models, such as Google, Meta, and OpenAI, fail to clearly link their opt-out forms from their homepages or privacy policies, according to the report, and several require consumers to submit multiple separate forms to complete a single request. OpenAI's form, when a consumer finds it, does not offer a way to opt out of the sale or transfer of personal data. What it offers instead is an option to "remove personal information from ChatGPT responses," which EPIC says is a filter on the chatbot's output, not the removal of any underlying data. Researchers found that the people-search brokers they audited–Spokeo, Whitepages, and National Public Data–do not offer consumers a way to opt out of the sale or transfer of their data at all. Instead, the companies offer a process for removing individual listings by URL, one at a time, with no commitment to stop selling that same person's information in the future.

Note: The owner of a data broker company once bragged about having highly detailed personal information on nearly all internet users. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

A new tech company claims it has developed a hat that can literally read your mind – then translate it onto a computer. Much has been discussed about brain implants which require ... putting microchips directly onto your grey matter, but new company Sabi says that's not necessary for its beanies and caps. They have 70,000 to 100,000 sensors built in them which can "pinpoint exactly what and where neural activity is happening ... to decode what a person is thinking," then translate it to a computer command, according to CEO Rahul Chhabra. Tom Oxley, the CEO and founder of Synchron ... is working in the same field as Neuralink, trying to give severely disabled patients the ability to communicate through their brainwaves. The company are partnered with Apple and their chips are implanted through an injection into the jugular vein in the neck, then the chip moves up a blood vessel near the brain's motor cortex in order to read brainwaves. "Non-invasive wearables sit outside the skull, so the signals they pick up are much weaker and less precise. That makes it very difficult to achieve the kind of speed and accuracy needed for real-time control, especially for clinical applications like restoring function in paralysis," said Oxley. Until Sabi's tech arrives and revolutionizes our brainwaves, we'll be stuck behind the keyboard in the near future, at least in America. China has recently approved their first implanted brain computer interface for commercial use.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on microchip implants and mind control.

The indictment Tuesday of a top adviser to former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci on charges of conspiring against the United States casts a spotlight on years of efforts to subvert public records laws and conceal key COVID-era communications from the public. The adviser, David Morens ... is accused by federal prosecutors of using private email accounts to conduct government business, deleting records and coordinating with others to conceal communications related to COVID origins, high-risk coronavirus research and grant funding. According to the indictment, Morens and others agreed in writing to "intentionally hide" their communications from public records requests. Morens ... discussed strategies to "make emails disappear" to evade FOIA searches and avoided creating written records altogether – actions that Morens later admitted and apologized for during congressional testimony. Other records show Morens in ongoing contact with [Peter] Daszak and a small circle of allies after the pandemic's onset. Their communications include strategizing about how to restore EcoHealth Alliance's standing with federal funders, counter scrutiny from Congress and the media, and shape public narratives around the origins of COVID-19. While [Anthony] Fauci is not a direct participant in the communications cited in the indictment, the document refers to a "Senior NIAID Official 1" whose description corresponds with the former director.

Note: Watch our 15-minute video on the cover-up of COVID origins. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and the COVID cover-up.

On Thursday, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was involved in the raid to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was arrested on charges that he used classified information to make more than $400,000 by betting on the operation before it happened. In the hours before the U.S. attacked Iran, hundreds of anonymous bets over $1,000 were placed on the U.S. striking Iran by the next day, which the New York Times said suggested that some users might've "seen the strike coming." Prediction markets, such as industry leaders Polymarket and Kalshi, have exploded in popularity. They create or exacerbate an array of problems, but at the Media and Democracy Project, or MAD, we believe they have the potential to severely harm the way news is reported, perceived, and engaged with. Suppose that prediction markets achieve their claims of providing better forecasts than other methods. Casino journalism [would still be] bad for journalism and the public. Most of the "propositions" offered on these markets are based on news reports; reporters provide the raw material on which these bets are made. In effect, traders on prediction markets are betting on the content of news stories. An Israeli journalist recently received death threats over his refusal to rewrite his report on an Iranian missile strike, on which $23 million of prediction market "investments" were riding. As the markets become larger, and their use in news increases, the incentive for market manipulation will also grow.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and Big Tech.

Korean prisoners of war in the 1950s were subjected to early MK-ULTRA experiments while in American custody, according to recently declassified CIA documents which confirm these experiments for the first time. The only reporting that previously referenced Koreans being used as guinea pigs for these experiments was journalist John Marks's landmark 1979 book, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate." Using CIA documents, Marks traced the now-infamous MK-ULTRA project to its start, when it was known as Project Bluebird. In the book, Marks describes how, in October 1950, 25 unnamed North Korean POWs were chosen as the first test subjects to receive "advanced" interrogation techniques, with the overt goal of "controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation." The declassified documents, which the National Security Archive released between December 2024 and April 2025, are available through a special collection titled "CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments and MK-ULTRA." [A] memo includes detailed plans for interrogation teams trained to utilize the polygraph, various drugs, and hypnotism "for personality control purposes." In a later memo from February 2, 1951, there are inquiries into acquiring six "hypospray" devices: experimental instruments designed to covertly inject sedatives through the skin via "jet injection."

Note: Read a timeline of known incidents of human experimentation. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and mind control.

Your neighbors' Ring cameras film your walk to the car. Your car's sensors, cameras and microphones record your speed, how you drive, where you're going, who's with you, what you say, and biological metrics such as facial expression, weight and heart rate. Your car may also collect text messages and contacts from your connected smartphone. Meanwhile, your phone continuously senses and records your communications, info about your health, what apps you're using, and tracks your location. As you enter [a] store, its surveillance cameras identify your face and track your movements through the aisles. If you then use Apple or Google Pay to make your purchase, your phone tracks what you bought and how much you paid. All this data quickly becomes commercially available, bought and sold by data brokers. Aggregated and analyzed by artificial intelligence, the data reveals detailed, sensitive information about you that can be used to predict and manipulate your behavior, including what you buy, feel, think and do. Companies unilaterally collect data from most of your activities. This "surveillance capitalism" is often unrelated to the services device manufacturers, apps and stores are providing you. The U.S. government ... now purchases massive quantities of your information from commercial data brokers. Disclosure of documents allegedly hacked from Homeland Security reveal a massive surveillance web that has all Americans in its scope.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and the disappearance of privacy.

[Veteran journalist Katrina Manson's] new book, "Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare," is an ... account of the ongoing reconfiguration of the U.S. armed forces for a new technological era. "Project Maven" is structured as an intellectual and professional biography of Drew Cukor, a Marine Corps intelligence officer largely responsible for ... this military transformation. Cukor insists that Maven was never supposed to be a weapon. He frequently defends the project as nothing more than an integrated data platform ... for a world made better and safer by A.I. warfare. In 2018, Google employees staged a massive walkout to protest the company's work on a primitive iteration of the project. In the aftermath of the Google fiasco, Cukor turns to Palantir (in addition to Microsoft and Amazon) to make Maven a reality. NATO now has its own Maven contract with Palantir, and that prompted ten member nations to pursue one, too. The Maven Smart System has become a global surveillance apparatus–it can keep track of forty-nine thousand airfields all over the world–but its current work is hardly limited to intelligence provision and analysis. A "single click," [journalist Katrina] Manson reports, "could send coordinates through a tactical data link to a specific weapons platform so that it could fire at the target." The entire process, from target identification to target destruction, is four clicks. Officials told Manson that Maven was "accelerating operations and ‘enabling lethality' at combat headquarters around the world." Maven is only one part of the A.I. tool kit. Manson uncovers evidence of two clandestine killer-robot programs, one aerial and the other aquatic, which are being developed in haste. For the first time, the Pentagon's proposed budget contained a line item for comprehensively self-directing systems. A machine can shoot, Manson reports, up to "ten times faster than an assassin."

Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and military corruption.

The human brain remains deeply mysterious. Scientists have mapped its synapses and neurons in extraordinary detail, yet ... the felt experience of being you still defies efforts at a full explanation. However, researchers do have one fascinating window into that inner world: near-death experiences, or NDEs. As the name suggests, near-death experiences are altered states of consciousness reported by upwards of one-fifth of people who experience a life-threatening medical emergency. Some common traits of NDEs have emerged over nearly 50 years of research: intense emotions of peace and joy, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), encounters with dead relatives, altered perceptions of time, and elevated lucidity, among others. These accounts from people who've nearly died appear to contradict what scientists expect to occur in the brain as its regions begin to shut down one by one. In a new qualitative study published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, [researcher Nicole] Lindsay and her colleagues reveal details of how individuals' dreams changed drastically following an NDE. A participant named Basil said he could confidently recall one dream every week or two, but after his near-death experience, that recall became a nightly occurrence. Others reported that dreams become intensely vivid after an NDE and that the separation between dreaming and waking was much more ambiguous than it was before.

Note: For more inspiring and credible material on this topic, read our Substack investigations: How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World and Insights from Near-Death Experiences Remind Us of Who We Are and What Unites Us. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

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.