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.
Drinking lots of soda may increase the risk of violent behavior in teens, a new study suggests. Teens in the study who drank more than five cans of non-diet soda per day were significantly more likely to report behaving violently towards others, and more likely to report having carried a gun or knife in the past year, the researchers said. The results held even after the researchers took into account other factors that have been linked to violent behavior, including age, alcohol and tobacco use, and the frequency of family dinners. It's possible that the caffeine and sugar in the soda may directly affect teens' behavior, the researchers said. However, it's also possible that people who are violent have a penchant for soda. Additional research is needed to find the exact reason for the link. It's possible that an underlying condition, such as low blood sugar, may result in both high soda consumption and aggressive behavior, the researchers said. But even if soda consumption doesn't cause violent behavior, it may be a useful marker for aggressive, the researchers say.
Note: For an important article showing how violent behavior dramatically decreased at a school where junk food was replaced by healthy food, click here. For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
“We are the 99 percent!” The chant thunders through the streets, from Wall Street in New York City, where the Occupy movement began, to K Street in Washington, where high-paid lobbyists influence government, to streets in cities and small towns all across the nation. In hundreds of Occupations, ordinary people have been moved to fill parks and streets and squares with signs, tents, impromptu soup kitchens, intense conversations and lengthy meetings. What’s going on? All share a common heart, a revulsion against an economy and a politics that increasingly say, “You don’t count, except as something to exploit. Your voice is drowned out by money, your labor is expendable, your needs must be sacrificed to the gods of profit.” The Occupy movement demonstrates a very different model of organizing: emergent, decentralized, without a command and control structure. At its essence, the message of the Occupations is simply this: “Here in the face of power we will sit and create a new society, in which you do count. Your voice carries weight, your contributions have value, whoever you may be. We say that love and care are the true foundations for the society we want to live in. We’ll stand with the poor and sleep with the homeless if that’s what it takes to get justice. We’ll build a new world.”
Note: Find your nearest occupation at: http://www.occupytogether.org/ . For lots more from major media sources on the reasons why people worldwide are occupying the financial centers of their cities, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.
Pap smear tests are still the best way to prevent cervical cancer, but women should not seek them every year, a U.S. government-backed expert panel and major cancer groups said. Instead, every three years is a reasonable timetable, according to the Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the same group that recently recommended against routine prostate cancer tests for healthy men. Proposing changes to 2003 recommendations, the task force also said evidence is still insufficient to weigh harms and benefits of tests screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) -- in contrast with the views of cancer patient advocates. However, in a rare show of unity, the groups including the American Cancer Society sided with the panel on the new recommendations and proposed new screening guidelines themselves for the first time, bluntly recommending against the common practice of annual Pap tests. Echoing the panels' recommendations, the cancer groups also said women younger than 21 do not need to get tested. However, despite the task force's skepticism over the effectiveness of the HPV test in preventing cancer, the cancer society and other groups called the combination of regular Pap plus HPV testing the "preferred strategy" for women over 30, if done every three to five years.
Note: For an excellent Dr. Mercola article on the risks involved with both Pap tests and the HPV vaccine Gardasil, click here.
Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show. The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046. The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity, said Kevin Zeese, director of Prosperity Agenda, a Baltimore-based advocacy group trying to narrow the divide between rich and poor. “There’s a gap that’s isolating Washington from the reality of the rest of the country,” Zeese said. “They just get more and more out of touch.” In recent years Washington has attracted more lobbyists and firms with an interest in the health-care overhaul and financial regulations signed into law by President Barack Obama. “Wall Street has moved to K Street,” said Barbara Lang, president and chief executive officer of the DC Chamber of Commerce, referring to the Washington street that’s home to prominent lobbying firms.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on corporate and government corruption, click here and here.
The Occupy Wall Street protest against income disparity spread across Western Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada today. Rome's demonstration turned violent, contrasting with peaceful events elsewhere. The rallies started last month in New York's financial district, where people have been staying in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park. They widened to 1,500 cities today, including Sydney and Toronto, the organizers said, in a “global day of action against Wall Street greed.” Protesters say they represent “the 99 percent,” a nod to a study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. In Berlin, 6,000 took to the streets and 1,500 gathered in Cologne, ZDF television said. In Frankfurt, 5,000 marched by the European Central Bank headquarters. In New York, demonstrators marched past a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch urging clients to transfer accounts to “a financial institution that supports the 99 percent.” They distributed fliers with a list of community banks and credit unions. New York police arrested 24 at a Citigroup Inc. bank branch and 6,000 gathered in Times Square. About 1,000 people gathered in Toronto's financial district carrying signs saying “Nationalize the Banks.” Demonstrations turned violent in Italy, where the unemployment rate for 15-to-24-year-olds was 27.6 percent in August.
Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.
How and why potentially — and historically — life-saving vaccinations, especially those mandated for children, have become a 21st century medical and political tinderbox is deftly examined by producers and co-directors Kendall Nelson and Chris Pilaro in their provocative documentary "The Greater Good." The filmmakers put human faces on this polarizing issue by focusing largely on three American children devastated, it is believed, by post-vaccine side effects. They include Gabi Swank, an inspiring teen who suffered neurological damage after taking the much-hyped HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer; 12-year-old Jordan King who, as a toddler, regressed into autism after routine inoculations; and infant Victoria Christner, who died at 5 months, her parents maintain, of vaccine injuries. An articulate array of doctors, scientists and public health officials weigh in on both sides of the debate. Some cite that vaccines, often government mandated, are sound and necessary for "the greater good," while others demand further research, safety and education to help parents — and everyone else — to make more informed choices before rushing to immunize. Either way, the film proves an effective eye-opener.
Note: You can watch this powerful documentary at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on the risks to children from vaccines, click here.
FirstEnergy Corp. [stock price] fell after a report that engineers discovered cracks in the concrete shell of its Davis-Besse nuclear plant. Contractors on Oct. 10 discovered a hairline crack measuring about 30 feet (9.1 meters) long as they sliced a hole into the plant’s outer shell in order to install a new reactor vessel head, said Jennifer Young, a FirstEnergy spokeswoman. The cracked shell is the outermost of several layers of steel and concrete that protect the reactor, which has been shut down since Oct. 1 in preparation for the repair work. Davis-Besse was shuttered for more than three months in 2010 after workers discovered cooling water leaking through cracks in some reactor-head nozzles, steel casings that hold fuel and control rods. Leaks and reactor corrosion prompted FirstEnergy to close the plant for two years, from 2002 to 2004, while the company retrained or replaced workers who ignored signs of damage, and eventually replaced the reactor head. The leaks found last year at the 900-megawatt plant prompted the Union of Concerned Scientists in April 2010 to demand that the plant remain closed until its owners established better controls to maintain health and safety standards.
Note: If you want to see how safety around nuclear plants is ignored and threatened all the time by money interests at all levels, watch the amazingly revealing documentary on Chernobyl at this link. The most telling piece in this documentary involves the man tasked by Gorbechov to write the official report of all the problems they faced. When he gave the report to the IAEA in a secret meeting, he was ridiculed by the other international leaders there, who accused him of spreading baseless fears. On the second anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, he committed suicide.
A widening gap between rich and poor is reshaping the U.S. economy, leaving it more vulnerable to recurring financial crises and less likely to generate enduring expansions. Left unchecked, the decades-long trend toward increasing inequality may ... shake social stability, economists and financial-industry executives say. “Income inequality in this country is just getting worse and worse and worse,” James Chanos, president and founder of New York-based Kynikos Associates Ltd., told Bloomberg Radio this week. “And that is not a recipe for stable economic growth when the rich are getting richer and everybody else is being left behind.” Since 1980, about 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation’s richest households. That means the wealthiest 5,934 households last year enjoyed an additional $650 billion -- about $109 million apiece -- beyond what they would have had if the economic pie had been divided as it was in 1980, according to Census Bureau data. Disputes over what constitutes economic fairness are moving to center stage amid a near-stagnant U.S. economy saddled with 9.1 percent unemployment yet boasting record corporate profits.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on income inequality in the US and worldwide, click here.
An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of bestiality, police said. Police arrested Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey, 44, in DeKalb County, Georgia, on Sunday. Authorities also charged Lindsey's live-in boyfriend, Thomas Joseph Westerman, 42, with two counts of child molestation. The two are accused of "immoral and indecent" sexual acts involving a 6-year-old. The bestiality charge says Lindsey "did unlawfully perform or submit to any sexual act with an animal." The alleged incidents took place between January 1, 2010, and August 22, 2011. Lindsey is the deputy director for the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office at the CDC, according to her biography on the agency's website. Prior to her current role, Lindsey was the senior health scientist in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. That office oversees the allocation process for $1.5 billion in terrorism preparedness. In her 12 years at the CDC, Lindsey has received 12 awards for outstanding performance on projects and programs, according to her bio on Emory University's Biological and Biomedical Sciences website.
Note: Don't miss Dr. Mercola's highly revealing analysis showing that Dr. Lindsey played a primary role in the bogus swine flu propaganda campaign. Read the article at this link. For how the CDC came to be infiltrated with such people, read the powerful information available here.
Chocolate seems to be good for the cardiovascular system - no secret there. Studies have tied the sweet stuff to lower blood pressure, healthier blood vessels, and reduced risk of blood clots. And now Swedish researchers have linked chocolate to a reduced risk for stroke. The scientists found that the women who ate the most chocolate - 66.5 grams a week, or about 2.4 ounces - were 20 percent less likely to have a stroke than the women who never or seldom ate chocolate. The study was published in the October 2011 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. But before you unleash your inner chocoholic, be aware that not all forms of chocolate are thought to be beneficial. Dark chocolate is best because it contains more of the antioxidant-rich cocoa and less sugar and fewer calories than milk chocolate.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the group that told women in their 40s that they don't need mammograms, will recommend that men not get screened for prostate cancer, according to a source privy to the task force deliberations. A review of studies shows screening with the PSA blood test results in "small or no reduction" in prostate cancer deaths. The report adds that PSA testing is "associated with harms related to subsequent evaluation and treatments." The problem is that many of the cancers that get detected are so small and slow-growing, they'll never be harmful, and doctors have a difficult time discerning the quick, harmful cancers from the slow, harmless ones. If you test 100 men over age 50, 17 of them will have prostate cancer, and only three of those will have a fast-growing cancer and die of the disease, according to Dr. Kenneth Lin, senior author of the paper. If the 14 men with the slow-growing cancers are treated, they could be rendered impotent or incontinent from the treatment; or worse, the treatment could kill them. Some prostate cancer patients were disappointed with the task force's decision. A spokesman for the Prostate Cancer Foundation called the proposed recommendation "a tremendous mistake." "You're talking to someone whose life was saved by [the PSA test]," Dan Zenka said. But Lin says he believes testing does more harm than good. "Maybe you should get tested if you have this horrible family history where everyone gets prostate cancer before the age of 50. But for most men, testing is harmful," he said.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
U.S. officials last week acknowledged that unmanned predator aircraft killed two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, in Yemen. Yet, U.S. media outlets have chosen to refer to them as "American born" or "U.S.-born," as in "the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by U.S. armed drones." No concrete proof of their guilt has been furnished beyond what the government and multiple media outlets have reported. In the case of the al-Awlaki killing, U.S. officials said, "Al-Awlaki played a 'significant operational role' in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States," as they justified the killing of an American citizen. In the post-9/11 world, such reporting garners little attention from the public. But those who believe in the rule of law find such mundane pronouncements frightening. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a public trial by an impartial jury, regardless of his or her ethnic background or previous alleged activities. Government-sanctioned assassinations of U.S. citizens without due process should be discussed rather than blindly accepted as a victory in the war on terror. The obvious follow-up question is: What about other U.S. citizens? Might they also be targeted for assassination without due process? The targeted killings of al-Awlaki and Khan should shock Americans reared on the rule of law, justice, liberty and freedom.
Note: State assassination of a citizen without due process would seem to be the ultimate attack on civil liberties. For lots more on such threats from reliable sources, click here.
‘Occupy Wall Street,’ the growing, decentralized protest movement that’s clashing with police in New York City, spreading across the country, and grabbing headlines across the world ... is also, somewhat unusually, a protest movement without clear demands, an identifiable leadership, or an evident organizational structure. Decisions are made by the NYC General Assembly, which Nathan Schneider describes as “a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought,” and thus far, the General Assembly has decided against yoking the movement to a particular set of goals, or even a particular ideology. Which is all to say that it’s important to try and understand the movement on its own terms, rather than the terms most of us are used to. Here are five places to start: - The ... ‘Occupy Wall Street blog’, and in particular, the blog’s forums. Here, for instance, is the movement’s ‘Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.’ - Nathan Schneider’s ‘Occupy Wall Street FAQ’. I’d perhaps recommend this as the single best place to start. - ‘Understanding the theory behind Occupy Wall Street’s approach,’ by Mike Konczal. Also see his post, ‘15 definitions of freedom from Occupy Wall Street.’
Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.
The pretrial proceedings of Mexican drug kingpin Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla [provide] a glimpse into the transnational business of the Mexican drug cartels, which serve a growing demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. A member of the Sinaloa Cartel, Zambada-Niebla faces federal charges of trafficking tons of narcotics to Chicago and other cities using trains, ships, jets and even submarines between 2005 and 2008. Zambada-Niebla, 35, is considered a narco junior, as the sons of drug kingpins are known in Mexico. They have taken over the control of the cartels started by their fathers. The narco juniors are known for having attended private schools, being well-polished and having an appetite for luxury cars, designer clothing and beauty queens. Since Zambada-Niebla was extraded to Chicago in early 2010, his pretrial proceedings have sparked controversy on both sides of the border. He first complained about jail conditions. Then he dropped a diplomatic bomb, contending that he and another member of the Sinaloa cartel were informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration and had been promised immunity from prosecution. The federal authorities refuted the claim, but acknowledged that fugitive Sinaloa Cartel member and lawyer Humberto Loya Castro was indeed a DEA informant. In Mexico, the drug cartel wars have claimed more than 40,000 lives. The U.S. Justice Department thinks the Mexican cartels operate in more than 1,000 American cities.
Note: Not mentioned in this article or anywhere we've seen in the media is that US government prosecutors are invoking a 30-year-old law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act to assure that classified materials do not become public during the court proceedings. What could they be hiding? Click here for more. For powerful evidence from top reporters that elements within government are involved in drug trafficking, click here.
Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box. Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes. The protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite. “You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year-olds who are used to self-organizing,” said Yochai Benkler, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. “They believe life can be more participatory, more decentralized, less dependent on the traditional models of organization, either in the state or the big company. Those were the dominant ways of doing things in the industrial economy, and they aren’t anymore.”
Note: For key insights from major media sources into the reasons why so many are protesting worldwide, click here.
Ministers from the world's richest nations are reportedly on the way to agreeing [to] a deal for troubled eurozone countries. But one independent market trader - Alessio Rastani - told the BBC the plan "won't work" and that people should be trying to make money from a market crash. Trader Alessio Rastani: I'm fairly confident the Euro is going to crash, and it's going to fall pretty hard because markets are ruled right now by fear. Investors and the big money, the smart money ... don't buy this rescue plan. They know the stock market is finished. They don't really care. They're moving their money away to safer assets like treasury bonds, 30-year bonds, and the U.S. dollar. For most traders, we don’t really care that much how they're going to fix the economy. Our job is to make money from it. And personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night [and] I dream of another recession. When the market crashes … if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this. Be prepared, and act now. The biggest risk people can take right now is not acting. This economic crisis is like a cancer. In less than 12 months, my prediction is that the savings of millions people is going to vanish, and this is just the beginning. This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out. The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.
Note: Part of the text above is not listed in the text at the link above, but in the BBC video on that page. The video is a must watch for one expert's important view on an impending future economic collapse. For lots more excellent information showing the incredible power of Goldman Sachs and more on this important topic, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on financial corruption, click here.
A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed, adding to negativity that has been building over the past 10 years. Majorities of Democrats (65%) and Republicans (92%) are dissatisfied with the nation's governance. The findings are from Gallup's annual Governance survey, updated Sept. 8-11, 2011. The same poll shows record or near-record criticism of Congress, elected officials, government handling of domestic problems, the scope of government power, and government waste of tax dollars. Key Findings: * 82% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. * 69% say they have little or no confidence in the legislative branch of government, an all-time high and up from 63% in 2010. * 57% have little or no confidence in the federal government to solve domestic problems, exceeding the previous high of 53% recorded in 2010. * 53% have little or no confidence in the men and women who seek or hold elected office. Americans believe, on average, that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every tax dollar. 49% of Americans believe the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. In 2003, less than a third (30%) believed this.
Note: For many important reports from major media sources on government corruption, click here.
A new documentary about Mayan civilization will provide evidence of extraterrestrial contact with the ancient culture, according to a Mexican government official and the film's producer. "Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond," currently in production, will claim the Mayans had contact with extraterrestrials, producer Raul Julia-Levy [said]. "Mexico will release codices, artifacts and significant documents with evidence of Mayan and extraterrestrial contact, and all of their information will be corroborated by archaeologists," said Julia-Levy. Luis Augusto Garcia Rosado, the minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche, said new evidence has emerged "of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time." He also spoke, in a phone conversation, of "landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years old." Raul-Julia claims there is proof that the Mayans had intended to lead the planet for thousands of years, but were forced to escape after an invasion by "men of dark intentions," leaving behind evidence of an advanced race. "The Mexican government is not making this statement on their own -- everything we say, we're going to back it up," he said.
Note: For powerful testimony from top military and government officials that a major cover-up has been orchestrated around a possible ET presence on our planet, click here.
For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply "the Hacker." Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device — a stingray — were they able to zero in on a California home and make the arrest. Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal. A stingray's role in nabbing the alleged "Hacker" — Daniel David Rigmaiden — is shaping up as a possible test of the legal standards for using these devices in investigations. Stingrays are one of several new technologies used by law enforcement to track people's locations, often without a search warrant. These techniques are driving a constitutional debate about whether the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but which was written before the digital age, is keeping pace with the times. Mr. Rigmaiden maintains his innocence and says that using stingrays to locate devices in homes without a valid warrant "disregards the United States Constitution" and is illegal.
Note: For lots more on threats to civil liberties from reliable sources, click here.
The scale of the rush by speculators, pension funds and global agri-businesses to acquire large areas of developing countries is far greater than previously thought, and is already leading to conflict, hunger and human rights abuses, says Oxfam. The NGO has identified 227m ha (561m acre ha) of land – an area the size of north-west Europe – as having being reportedly sold, leased or licensed, largely in Africa and mostly to international investors in thousands of secretive deals since 2001. The new land rush, which was triggered by food riots, a series of harvest failures following major droughts and the western investors moving out of the US property market in 2008, is being justified by governments and speculators in the name of growing food for hungry people and biofuels for environmental benefit. "Many of the deals are in fact 'land grabs' where the rights and needs of the people previously living on the land are ignored, leaving them homeless and without land to grow enough food to eat and make a living," said Oxfam chief executive Dame Barbara Stocking. While some investors might claim to have experience in agricultural production, many may only be purchasing land speculatively, anticipating price increases in the coming years. In addition, developing countries are under pressure from the IMF, the World Bank and other regional banks to put farmland on the international market to increase economic development and improve the balance of payments.
Note: To read Oxfam's summary and report on land grabs worldwide, click here.
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.