News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
A few years ago a little-known US Energy Department program helped produce a design technology for lightweight cars and trucks that in 2004 alone saved the nation 122 million barrels of oil, or about $9 billion. So, with energy prices spiking and President Bush pushing for more energy research, the ITP would seem a natural candidate for more funding. In fact, its budget is set to get chopped by a third from its 2005 level. It's one of more than a dozen energy-efficiency efforts that the Energy Department plans to trim or eliminate in a $115 million cost-saving move. If Congress accepts the Energy Department's proposed 2007 budget, it will cut $152 million - some 16 percent - from this year's budget for energy-efficiency programs. Adjusting for inflation, it would mean the US government would spend 30 percent less on energy efficiency next year than it did in 2002. One energy-efficiency program on the chopping block...helps improve the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty trucks, one of the nation's biggest oil consumers. That program is "zeroed out" in the 2007 budget request. The same fate awaits the $4.5 million Building Codes Implementation Grants program. It helps states adopt more energy-efficient requirements for new buildings, the nation's largest consumer of electricity and natural gas. The $8 million Clean Cities program has helped clean-fuel technologies, like buses that run on compressed natural gas, get to market. But it's slated for a $2.8 million cut.
Note: To better understand why this is happening: http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergysources
In a country that spends so much time extolling the glories of democracy, it's amazing how many elected officials go out of their way to discourage voting. States are adopting rules that make it hard, and financially perilous, for nonpartisan groups to register new voters. Florida recently reached a new low when it actually bullied the League of Women Voters into stopping its voter registration efforts in the state. The Legislature did this by adopting a law that seems intended to scare away anyone who wants to run a voter registration drive. Since registration drives are particularly important for bringing poor people, minority groups and less educated voters into the process, the law appears to be designed to keep such people from voting. In Washington, a new law prevents people from voting if the secretary of state fails to match the information on their registration form with government databases. There are many reasons that names, Social Security numbers and other data may not match, including typing mistakes. The state is supposed to contact people whose data does not match, but the process is too tilted against voters. Colorado recently imposed criminal penalties on volunteers who slip up in registration drives. Protecting the integrity of voting is important, but many of these rules seem motivated by a partisan desire to suppress the vote, and particular kinds of voters, rather than to make sure that those who are entitled to vote [can] do so.
A a report by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti analyzed Diebold voting machines for an organization called Black Box Voting. Hursti found unheralded vulnerabilities in the machines. Experts are calling them the most serious voting-machine flaws ever documented. It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems. If it so happens that someone not supposed to use the machine—or an election official who wants to put his or her thumb on the scale of democracy—takes advantage of this fast track to fraud, that's not Diebold's problem. "When you're using a paperless voting system, there is no security," says David Dill, a Stanford professor who founded the election-reform organization Verified Voting.
Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products. Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced...by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items. The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items. The FCC was urged to act by a lobbying campaign organised by Free Press, another non-profit group that focuses on media policy. More than 25,000 people [have] written to the FCC about the VNRs.
American researchers say that their study supports the findings of Andrew Wakefield, the discredited gastroenterologist who raised fears that the measles, mumps and rubella injection might be causing autism. His research, published in The Lancet in 1998, detected traces of the measles virus in the guts of 12 children with autism. The latest study, led by Arthur Krigsman, of New York University School of Medicine, involved 275 children. Serious intestinal inflammations were found in some of the autistic children and biopsies of gut tissue were performed on 82 of them. Of these, 70 are said to have shown evidence of the measles virus, which so far has been confirmed in 14 cases by more stringent DNA tests. Steve Walker, assistant professor at Wake Forest University Medical Centre, North Carolina, who analysed the gut samples, said the work mirrored Dr Wakefield's study. All the children involved were diagnosed with autism and had come to Dr Krigsman and Dr Walker seeking help for symptoms of serious digestive problems for which no explanation could be found. Mainstream science has repeatedly examined the theory of a link between MMR and autism and found no evidence to back it.
Note: Though "mainstream science" has allegedly found no links, many other scientific and media sources have found strong evidence of a link. See http://www.WantToKnow.info/060215vaccinesmercurydangers
The American Diabetes Association...privately enlisted an Eli Lilly & Co. executive to chart its growth strategy. The National Alliance on Mental Illness...lobbies for treatment programs that also benefit its drug-company donors. The National Gaucher Foundation...gets nearly all its revenue from one drugmaker, Genzyme Corp. Many patient groups and drug companies maintain close, multimillion-dollar relationships while disclosing limited or no details about the ties. An Inquirer examination of six groups, each a leading advocate for patients in a disease area, found that the groups rarely disclose such ties when commenting or lobbying about donors' drugs. Combined, the six received at least $29 million from drug companies last year. The amount ranged from 2 percent to 7 percent of revenue at the Arthritis Foundation, to 89 percent to 91 percent at the much smaller National Gaucher Foundation. The funding usually comes from the companies' marketing or sales divisions, not charity offices. Grants often rise with promotional spending as a drug hits the market and fall when sales ebb. Donations from Merck and Pfizer Inc. to the Arthritis Foundation more than doubled, to at least $1.65 million combined, in 2000 as they launched Vioxx and Celebrex. Merck explicitly wove the foundation into sales strategies. In 2000-2001, the American Diabetes Association did not disclose an unusual gift from Lilly: a lent executive, Emerson "Randy" Hall Jr., who moved into its Alexandria, Va., headquarters and coached it on growth strategies, all paid by Lilly.
Note: If you want to understand how the huge pharmaceutical industry influences what you know about their drugs, this article is a must read. You may first want to read a riveting two-page summary of an exposé by the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, who details major collusion and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry at http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup
Imagine the dilemma of having so much cash in your bank account that you didn't know what to do with it. This pipe dream for the average American is now reality for the country's biggest corporations. The industrial companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500 index...have a staggering $643 billion in cash and equivalents. "We're in a time that is out of whack with all historical numbers," said Howard Silverblatt, equity market analyst at Standard & Poor's. "People are demanding why corporations need so much cash, what are they going to do with it?" Companies began propping up their reserves through 16 straight quarters of double-digit profit growth. Leading the pack with the most cash is Exxon Mobil Corp., which has about $36.55 billion on its balance sheet. That amount is nearly equal to its 2005 profit of $36.13 billion, the highest ever for a U.S. company. Some results of the cash riches: An unprecedented $500 billion of stock buybacks. Last year, ExxonMobil spent $18.2 billion buying its shares. One of the biggest avenues in which companies have spent this excess money has been through mergers and acquisitions. Some 75.4 percent of all deals under $1 billion so far this year were done purely with cash.
Note: A Google search reveals that though this Associated Press article was widely picked up by medium-sized newspapers in the U.S., none of the top 10 papers picked it up. The Seattle newspaper above also removed the word "huge" from the title after it was published. $36 billion means that more than $100 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. went into ExxonMobil profits last year, and another $100 for each person went into their cash reserves. If ExxonMobil and other oil companies have so much extra cash, why are gas prices so high? It's also quite interesting that the advertisements of these mega-corporations continually invite us to go into debt buying their products, while their profits and cash reserves grow ever higher.
More than 40 percent of Americans believe that the 9/11 Commission Report that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a cover-up, according to a recent poll. And nearly half surveyed said the attacks should be reinvestigated. In May, a Zogby International poll of adults found that 42 percent of adults polled believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" that contradicts the official explanation of the attacks. The Zogby poll was sponsored by a leading activist group, 911 Truth.org, which is highly skeptical of the official report published in July 2004. "With half the country believing as we do, (the poll) is some form of vindication," said Jonathan Gold, a former member of 911 Truth's steering committee. Gold, who lives in Plymouth Meeting, complained that major media has ignored the truth movement. "The media is not covering that fact that 45 percent of voting Americans believe we should have another investigation," he said. "It deserves attention."
Note: Small newspapers like this are rarely included in these summaries, but as only the Washington Post and Yahoo! News covered this key poll, this article is included here. Though the Yahoo! article was balanced, the Post article claimed that the poll (done by one of the most respected polling agencies in the world) was complete bunk. The Times Herald actually ran this on their front page! For lots more, see http://www.wantToKnow.info/911information
The planned detonation of 700 tons of conventional explosives in the Nevada desert next month was postponed indefinitely Friday because of fears over the possible spread of radiation. The detonation site for the blast, known as "Divine Strake," is at the Nevada Test Site, which is 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The plan was to detonate 1.4 million pounds of fuel oil and fertilizer -- 280 times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The prospect has drawn critics, who say the explosion could kick radiation-laced soil into the air, and conspiracists, who say the blast is a front for testing new nuclear weapons.
Note: Many thanks to all of you who emailed expressing concern about Divine Strake and were part of the movement to have this test stopped. Together, we make a difference!
A working paper by John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, called "The Israel Lobby" was printed in the London Review of Books...and all hell broke loose. For having the sheer effrontery to point out the painfully obvious -- that there is an Israel lobby in the United States -- Mearsheimer and Walt have been accused of being anti-Semitic, nutty and guilty of "kooky academic work." Of course there is an Israeli lobby in America. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)...calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby." In the United States, we do not have...full-throttle debate about Israel. Jews who criticize Israel are charmingly labeled "self-hating Jews." As I have often pointed out, that must mean there are a lot of self-hating Israelis, because those folks raise hell over their own government's policies all the time. It's...the vehemence of the attacks on anyone perceived as criticizing Israel that makes them so odious. Israel is the No. 1 recipient of American foreign aid, and it seems an easy case can be made that the United States has subjugated its own interests to those of Israel. Whether you agree or not, it is a discussion well worth having and one that should not be shut down before it can start by unfair accusations of "anti-Semitism."
Note In this article, Molly Ivans acknowledges that she is a pro-Israel Jew who believes we need to talk about the powerful influence of the Jewish lobby on American government. For information on how Harvard distanced itself from the above paper: http://www.nysun.com/article/29638. For the mixed reaction to this academic paper in Israel: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/dailyUpdate.html
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here to swear in Dr. Gregg Rickman as our Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. Greg is going to serve as our first Anti-Semitism Special Envoy and this is a position that was created by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. I want to recognize the seminal role of Congress in creating this position. President Bush has said that defending freedom also means disrupting the evil of anti-Semitism. Today ethnic and religious differences are still viewed by some as a license to kill. And we are reminded of the sad history of humankind when prejudice and hatred turn violent against those who are simply different.
Note: Why not have a special envoy for monitoring and combating racism and prejudice?
Drug companies fund a growing number of the studies in leading psychiatric journals, and drugs fare much better in these company-funded studies than in trials done independently or by competitors, researchers reported Wednesday. About 57% of published studies were paid for by drug companies in 2002, compared with 25% in 1992, says psychiatrist Igor Galynker of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. His team looked at clinical research in four influential journals: American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. In the report, released at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Toronto, reviewers did not know who paid for the studies they evaluated, Galynker says. There were favorable outcomes for a medication in about: eight out of 10 studies paid for by the company that makes the drug; five out of 10 studies done with no industry support; three out of 10 studies done by competitors of the firm making the drug. As drug companies increasingly fund research that yields favorable outcomes for their drugs, there may be a built-in bias because journals are reluctant to publish studies with negative or inconclusive findings.
Note: To learn more about the astonishing profits and power of the major drug companies, read our concise summary of a major insider's research at http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup
It's a quiet mountain community, but some residents claim something's happening in the sky that's making them sick. Mystery clouds and unusual contrails ... Is it a weather experiment on a massive scale? In a Channel 4 News investigation, Paul Moyer looks into why some say the government is manipulating the weather. Watch: Video Report. References: U.S. Senate Committee testimony on Weather Modification, Owning the Weather in 2025 (U.S. Airforce), California Skywatch (Rosalind Peterson), Alpenhorn News Stories.
Note: In certain circles, the phenomenon of chemtrails is hotly debated. Very rarely does it make the news. The fact that NBC in LA is reporting on this is big. Don't miss the video news report available free online at: http://www.nbc4.tv/video/9265818/detail.html.
JOURNALISTS. Our attorney general is coming for us. On Sunday, Alberto Gonzales told ABC's "This Week" that he would consider prosecuting reporters who get their hands on classified information and break news about President Bush's terrorist surveillance program. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility. We have an obligation to enforce those laws." Asked...if The New York Times should be prosecuted for its initial story on government surveillance without warrants, Gonzales said, "We are engaged now in an investigation about what would be the appropriate course of action." This is the same administration that...has already set the presidential record in claiming the authority to circumvent the law in more than 750 cases. Gonzales...issued the infamous "torture memo" that advised President Bush to throw the Geneva Convention into the trash can for detainees in the war on terror. Gonzales...helped the administration block and drag its feet on the release of presidential papers from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Gonzales helped to withhold or delay highly classified documents from the president's own 9/11 Commission and from...the energy task force of Vice President Dick Cheney. The actions of Gonzales show how little the Bush administration promotes the rights of the press. With every pronouncement, freedom is disappearing, in incremental steps.
Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant accused of inflating its earnings while rewarding executives with rich bonuses, reached an agreement with the federal government today to pay a $400 million fine. Accusing former Fannie Mae executives of operating an "arrogant and unethical" corporate culture, federal regulators condemned the company in a report today that detailed a pattern of systematic financial manipulation at the company's highest levels. "Senior management manipulated accounting; reaped maximum, undeserved bonuses; and prevented the rest of the world from knowing." Fannie Mae's financial results during that time were "illusions deliberately and systematically created by senior management. Senior executives worked strenuously to hide Fannie Mae's operational deficiencies, significant risk exposures, and improper earnings management" the report said. As part of the settlement, Fannie Mae neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. Because of Fannie Mae's sheer size and reach into the American economy, however, there are limits to how much the company's clout could be curtailed, [said] Jonathan Koppell, a professor of politics and management at Yale. "Their business reaches into every Congressional district," he said. Fannie Mae's $400 million settlement is more than three and a half times the fine Freddie Mac, its smaller rival in the mortgage business, paid in 2003.
Note: Catherine Austin Fitts served as an assistant secretary of HUD in the first Bush Administration. As a woman of high integrity, she tried to blow the whistle on the major shady dealings at Fannie Mae and HUD, and suffered for it. She now manages a highly inspiring organization dedicated to powerful, positive economic and social change. I highly recommend exploring her Solari website at http://www.solari.com
Manuel Salinas, a 39-year-old inventor, claims he has built a machine that has extraordinary capabilities for finding buried objects. And now that university lab tests seem to confirm that his robot works, mining and oil corporations are flooding him with business plans. How this machine functions is still an "industrial secret," Salinas said. But ask him for proof that it works and he'll hand you a pile of press clippings on the device, called Geo-Radar or Arturito (a play on the name of Star Wars robot R2-D2). In September 2005 Salinas announced that he had found gold and buried treasure on the Juan Fern˙ndez Islands...off the coast of Chile. Recently, Salinas asked a Chilean university to study the machine and put the questions surrounding it to rest. In early May the results came in, and the Geo-Radar jumped back into local headlines. University investigators announced laboratory and field tests indicating that the Geo-Radar technology is capable of quickly finding copper deposits, petroleum, and gold bullion at depths of up to 600 feet (283 meters). "This reduces the time of exploration from three months to one day," said engineering professor Ricardo Neira Navarro at a press conference in Santiago, the national capital. "I built this machine to find buried antipersonnel mines," explained Salinas. When he finished building the machine in 2004 and ran field tests, Salinas says, the machine surprised him with its abilities to find water, petroleum, and buried metals.
A new Zogby poll reveals that less than half of the American public trusts the official 9/11 story or believes the attacks were adequately investigated. The poll is the first scientific survey of Americans' belief in a 9/11 cover up. Poll results indicate 42% believe there has indeed been a cover up. 45% think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success." According to Janice Matthews, executive director of 911truth.org, "These results are both heartening and frankly quite amazing, given the mainstream media's ongoing refusal to cover the most critical questions of that day. The collapse of WTC 7...was not even mentioned by the 9/11 Commission and has seldom been reported in the media. [The poll showed that] only 52% had known about it, but over 70% of this group believe it should have been investigated. 911truth.org is a coalition of researchers, journalists and victim family members working to expose and answer the hundreds of still unresolved questions concerning 9/11, especially the nearly 400 questions that the Family Steering Committee filed with the 9/11 Commission. Initially welcomed by the commissioners as their "road map"...the Commission ultimately ignored 80% of these issues. The victim families' most incisive questions remain unaddressed to this day.
Note: Zogby is a higly respected polling agency used by many major media organizations. Why did the media largely ignore the results of this astounding poll? A previous Zogby poll showed that half of New Yorkers believe US leaders had foreknowledge of the impending 9-11 attacks and 'consciously failed' to act. The highly revealing 9/11 documentary "Loose Change" has at times been ranked the #1 most popular of the many thousands of videos available on Google. In spite of the virtual media blackout, an ever increasing number of people are willing to ask the hard questions.
The League of Women Voters has been signing up voters ever since women won the right to vote in 1920. But now, for the first time in the League's storied history, a branch of the organization has shut down its operations to protest a new Florida law that the League claims will have a chilling effect on voter registration -- in a state that already has one of the nation's most notoriously dysfunctional election systems. The League's Florida branch acknowledged that it had recently ceased efforts to register voters because of what it calls the law's draconian fines against organizations (other than political parties) for submitting forms late. The League of Women Voters of Florida joined several other pubic interest and labor groups, including the Florida AFL-CIO, in challenging the constitutionality of the law, which went into effect Jan. 1. They are asking the U.S. District Court to immediately suspend the fines -- which the groups say could bankrupt their voter registration budgets. The challenged law imposes civil fines of $250 for each voter registration application submitted more than 10 days after it is collected, $500 for each application submitted after any voter registration deadline, and $5,000 for each application [not] submitted. Plaintiffs are strictly liable for these fines, even if their inability to meet the statutory deadlines results from events beyond their control, such as the destruction of applications in a hurricane."
Note: For more on serious risk of election fraud, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/electionsinformation and see this week's Newsweek article "Will Your Vote Count in 2006?"
The release of new video pictures of the Pentagon being attacked on 9/11 will not quell the endless claims in the world of conspiracy theorists that a missile or military aircraft hit the building instead. If you look closely, you do see what could be a plane, flying very low and then hitting the building, causing a huge fireball. It is consistent with the official account. However, the new frames do not absolutely without doubt show that this was American Airlines 77 in its final moments, so hope will spring eternal for the conspiracists that they have not been knocked out. To understand the conspiracy theory, it is worth considering a film called "Loose Change: 2nd edition". Available on the internet, it reveals the full alternative version of what happened to the Pentagon in all its glory. It states AA 77 did not crash into the building. And if there was no AA 77, it must have been a missile, a military aircraft or a drone that did it. The alleged pilot Hani Hanjour was not skilled enough to execute the manoeuvre and the plane would have stalled in the tight turn alleged. The film is quite professionally done on a technical level, with sinister music and fast cutting. It is proving popular on the internet in reinforcing beliefs that 9/11 might not have been all it seems.
Note: Thank you BBC for having the courage to recommend this amazing 9/11 documentary! To see an engaging, recent BBC News video clip on 9/11 conspiracies in which they also mention the powerful five-minute video "Pentagon Strike" and the longer video "In Plane Site" (which has its weaknesses), click here. And why won't the government release several other videotapes of the alleged plane hitting the Pentagon on 9/11?
The [9/11] commission's conclusions and recommendations should be totally rejected. Its story is full of lies, distortions and omissions of fact. Following are two of the more than 40 reasons why the official story about what happened on 9/11 is untrue. First, who were the hijackers? None of those named appear on any of the passenger lists released by the airlines. Six of the men named by the government are still alive. We know that because European media have interviewed them. In his book, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions," Dr. David Ray Griffin documents all that and concludes the whole report is one long lie. Second, in the months after 9/11 all of the surviving New York City Fire Department personnel who were on the scene were interviewed. Those oral histories were recorded and withheld from the public until Aug. 15, 2005. Only after losing in court three times did the city of New York finally release them. All 503 are now posted on The New York Times Web site. Why did the city fight so hard to keep them from the public? It turns out those oral histories reveal details about what was happening in the World Trade Center buildings that are completely inconsistent with the tale told by the commission. Dozens of firefighters and medics reported hearing, seeing and feeling explosives going off in the buildings that collapsed. Why were there explosives, very powerful explosives by all accounts, going off in the buildings? The report seems to be an obvious cover-up. The question that we all need to ask is: What is the commission covering up? Was 9/11, in fact, an inside job?
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.