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.
Arthur Evans, CEO of the American Psychological Association (APA), says viewing the world as unsafe can be a symptom of trauma. "I think for a lot of people, the idea of having a mental health challenge is there's something inside of me that's wrong," he said. "And I think the idea of trauma helps people to understand that, no, this is something that is happening to me and how I'm responding is a natural response." For Lanny Langstrom, the early months of the pandemic were filled with stress. "I was desperately trying to stay away from, like, this thing that I thought was going to kill me at any second," he said. He recalls worrying that if he died from COVID, his 6-year-old daughter might not remember him. He was so stressed that he eventually called a mental health hotline, and they suggested he seek therapy – something he'd never done before. To his surprise, his therapist told him his symptoms were consistent with trauma. These feelings of anxiety and stress are becoming increasingly common in the pandemic, Evans said. "We absolutely are experiencing a mental health tsunami," he said. "And we expect that it will grow even more ... so we haven't even crested this tsunami yet." A survey by the APA found a significant increase in the demand for mental health treatment in 2021. Trauma usually presents months, sometimes years after an event, says Tamar Rodney ... at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She said that even as the pandemic eased, there was still a risk for trauma-related effects.
Note: This article fails to mention that much of this mental health problem was caused by the effects of the lockdowns. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
The nation's biggest oil and gas companies have significantly increased stock buybacks and dividends since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, raising questions about whether the firms are using wartime profits to enrich investors instead of curbing Americans' pain at the pump. The report released today by Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and BailoutWatch turns up the heat on the fossil fuel industry ahead of two high-profile congressional hearings this week, when Democrats plan to scrutinize the industry's windfall profits amid rising crude prices sparked by the war in Ukraine. The three groups looked at Securities and Exchange Commission filings and public statements from the 20 largest U.S.-headquartered oil and gas companies. In January and February, seven companies' boards authorized their corporate treasuries to buy back and retire $24.35 billion in stock – a 15 percent increase over all of the buybacks authorized in 2021. Six of those decisions came in February, after fears of Russian aggression against Ukraine lifted stock prices. In total, the 20 companies announced $45.6 billion in stock buybacks since the start of 2021. More than half of the companies boosted their dividends in January and February. Of the 11 companies raising their dividends, nine were increases of more than 15 percent and four were increases of more than 40 percent.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a new era of inflation inequality, economists warn, in which poor households bear the brunt of rising prices. That's because a bigger portion of their budget goes toward categories that have spiked in cost. Food is up 6.4% over the past year, for example, while gasoline jumped a whopping 58%. And now many people are facing those higher prices as federal stimulus programs fade away. "They're essentially looking to stretch a dollar most days," said Chris Wimer ... at Columbia University. "It's going to lead to difficult choices between putting gas in the car or paying for your kids' child care or putting food on the table." A recent analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that low- and middle-income households spent about 7% more in 2021 for the same products they bought in 2020 or in 2019. That translates into about $3,500 for the average household. Meanwhile, pandemic-related production disruptions have driven up the costs of commodities that poor households rely on. The findings dovetail with an analysis [by] economist Alberto Cavallo. He showed that low-income consumers experienced price increases that were roughly double those of wealthier ones. In 2019, a joint paper from researchers at Columbia and the London School of Economics estimated that about 3 million more people would qualify as living in poverty if their incomes were adjusted for the inflation rates they experience.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.
Be aware: That COVID-19 test kit in your home could contain a toxic substance that may be harmful to your children and you. The substance is sodium azide, and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center's Drug and Poison Information Center has seen a surge in calls about exposures to the chemical since more people started self-testing for COVID-19 at home. Fifty million U.S. households have received some version of the test kits, although it's not clear how many contain sodium azide. The government has sent 200 million of the kits, with about 85% of initial orders filled. The chemical is colorless, tasteless and odorless, and it is mainly used in car airbags and as a pest control agent. Ingesting it can cause low blood pressure, which can result in dizziness, headaches or palpitations. Exposure to it can also cause skin, eye or nostril irritation. Large amounts of exposure to sodium azide can cause severe health threats, leading to convulsions, loss of consciousness, lung injury, respiratory failure leading to death, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention notes. "Sodium azide is a very potent poison, and ingestion of relatively low doses can cause significant toxicity," Poison Control said. "The extraction vials do look like small squeeze bottles. Some people may accidentally confuse them with medications." Several poison centers throughout the United States have reported sodium azide exposures from the COVID-19 test kits.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
In a January article published at Forbes, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that Dr. Anthony Fauci was the highest paid federal employee, earning $417,608 (2019). Dr. Fauci is still the top-paid federal employee earning $434,312 in 2020. Fauci is the Director of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and current Chief Medical Advisor to the President. Fauci out-earned the U.S. president ($400,000); four-star generals in the military ($282,000); and roughly 4.3 million other federal employees. Now, new documents released via our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the NIH tell us a lot more. Dr. Fauci received a big pay hike for his biodefense research activities. In other words, Fauci was paid to prevent future pandemics. Dr. Fauci was approved for a "permanent pay adjustment" in excess of his regular salary in December 2004. From 2004 through 2007, Fauci received a 68-percent pay increase from $200,000- to $335,000-a year. This award was permanent and carried forward through 2020. Fauci's permanent pay raise was to "appropriately compensate him for the level of responsibility ... especially as it relates to his work on biodefense research activities." Over the years, NIH funding has gone towards ... grants for research on bat coronaviruses. Critics said that Fauci was funding research ... that was actually creating pandemic pathogens that, if leaked or if fell into the wrong hands, might create the very human pandemic they were trying to prevent.
Note: Forbes later watered down the title of this article to "Dr. Anthony Fauci Received Big Pay Increase To Prevent Pandemics." After Forbes was pressured by the NIH, the column of the author of this article, Adam Andrzejewski, was terminated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Amazon will block and flag employee posts on a planned internal messaging app that contain keywords pertaining to labor unions, according to internal company documents reviewed by The Intercept. An automatic word monitor would also block a variety of terms that could represent potential critiques of Amazon's working conditions, like "slave labor," "prison," and "plantation," as well as "restrooms" – presumably related to reports of Amazon employees relieving themselves in bottles to meet punishing quotas. In November 2021, Amazon convened a high-level meeting in which top executives discussed plans to create an internal social media program that would let employees recognize co-workers' performance with posts called "Shout-Outs." But company officials also warned of what they called "the dark side of social media" and decided to actively monitor posts in order to ensure a "positive community." At the meeting, [head of worldwide consumer business, Dave] Clark suggested that the program should resemble an online dating app like Bumble, which allows individuals to engage one on one. Following the meeting, an "auto bad word monitor" was devised, constituting a blacklist that would flag and automatically block employees from sending a message that contains any profane or inappropriate keywords. Even some phrases like "This is concerning" will be banned. Managers will have the authority to flag or suppress any Shout-Outs that they find inappropriate.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
In March, as coronavirus deaths in the UK began to mount, two hospitals in northeast England began taking vitamin D readings from patients and prescribing them with extremely high doses of the nutrient. Studies had suggested that having sufficient levels of vitamin D, which is created in the skin's lower layers through the absorption of sunlight, plays a central role in immune and metabolic function and reduces the risk of certain community-acquired respiratory illnesses. But the conclusions were disputed, and no official guidance existed. A French experimental study at a nursing home with 66 people suggested that taking regular vitamin D supplements was "associated with less severe Covid-19 and a better survival rate". A study of 200 people in South Korea suggested that vitamin D deficiency could "decrease the immune defences against Covid-19". Preliminary research by Queen Elizabeth Hospital foundation trust and the University of East Anglia found a correlation between European countries with low vitamin D levels and coronavirus infection rates. A Spanish study ... came close to incontrovertibly proving low vitamin D levels have a pivotal role in causing increased death rates. 50 patients with Covid-19 were given a high dose of vitamin D, while another 26 patients did not receive the nutrient. Half of patients who weren't given vitamin D had to be placed in intensive care, and two later died. Only one patient who received vitamin D required ICU admission, and they were later released.
Note: Because Vitamin D is cheap and does not benefit big Pharma, which is the biggest sponsor of the media, this effective treatment which could have saved many thousands of lives has gotten very little press. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
In this troubled time of war and pandemic, the World Happiness Report 2022 shows a bright light in dark times. According to the team of international researchers, including McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh, the pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence. "COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we've seen in more than a century," says Professor John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia. "Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic." Helliwell adds "We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25% above their pre-pandemic prevalence. This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves." For the fifth year in a row Finland takes the top spot as the happiest in the world. This year its score was significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten. Denmark continues to occupy second place, with Iceland up from 4th place last year to 3rd this year.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans, too, ecologist Suzanne Simard says. Trees are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain, she explains. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a ponderosa pine growing nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect. "This was a breakthrough," Simard says. The trees were sharing "information that actually is important to the health of the whole forest." In addition to warning each other of danger, Simard says that trees have been known to share nutrients at critical times to keep each other healthy. She says the trees in a forest are often linked to each other via an older tree she calls a "mother" or "hub" tree. The study of trees took on a new resonance for Simard when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. During the course of her treatment, she learned that one of the chemotherapy medicines she relied on was actually derived from a substance some trees make for their own mutual defense. "One of the main chemotherapy medicines that was administered to me was paclitaxel [also called Taxol]," [she said]. "Paclitaxel is a defense agent – actually a defense chemical – that is produced by the Pacific yew tree, or all yews around the world, actually. It was essential to my recovery."
Note: Watch a great TED Talk by this intrepid scientist showing how forests are much more interconnected than we might imagine. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Researchers have developed a solar paint that can absorb water vapour and split it to generate hydrogen - the cleanest source of energy. The paint contains a newly developed compound that acts like silica gel, which is used in sachets to absorb moisture and keep food, medicines and electronics fresh and dry. But unlike silica gel, the new material, synthetic molybdenum-sulphide, also acts as a semi-conductor and catalyses the splitting of water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen. Lead researcher Dr Torben Daeneke, from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, said: "We found that mixing the compound with titanium oxide particles leads to a sunlight-absorbing paint that produces hydrogen fuel from solar energy and moist air. "Titanium oxide is the white pigment that is already commonly used in wall paint, meaning that the simple addition of the new material can convert a brick wall into energy harvesting and fuel production real estate. "Our new development has a big range of advantages," he said. "There's no need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapour in the air ... can produce fuel." His colleague ... Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, said hydrogen was the cleanest source of energy and could be used in fuel cells as well as conventional combustion engines as an alternative to fossil fuels. "This system can also be used in very dry but hot climates near oceans. The sea water is evaporated by the hot sunlight and the vapour can then be absorbed to produce fuel.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate published "The Disinformation Dozen" – a report on the 12 influencers it claimed were responsible for 65 percent of anti-vaccine falsehoods disseminated on Facebook and other social media platforms. But the story of charlatans peddling fake cures and political conspiracy theories isn't the only part of the Covid misinformation saga. Distrust in public-health messaging is also sown when public-health messengers show themselves to be less than completely trustworthy. The latest set-to in this drama was a July 20 screaming match between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul. The Kentucky Republican suggested that Fauci had lied to Congress in claiming that the National Institutes of Health had never funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci took vehement exception, saying the research that the N.I.H. had funded ... didn't qualify as gain-of-function, a research technique in which a pathogen is made more transmissible. The larger truth – obscured until recently by fervent efforts (including by Fauci) to dismiss the lab-leak theory for the origins of the pandemic – is that the U.S. government's scientific establishment did support gain-of-function research that deserved far more public debate than it got. Beneficiaries of that funding engaged in deceptive tactics and outright mendacity to shield their research from public scrutiny while denouncing their critics as conspiracymongers.
Note: Read what happened when the publisher of "The Real Anthony Fauci" tried to place a full page ad in the New York Times for this #1 best seller. And why have all major media refused to review this book which is rated 4.8 stars on Amazon and has over 2,000 footnotes to back up the claims made? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation and the coronavirus from reliable sources.
Russia invaded Ukraine. For years now the Central Intelligence Agency has been preparing for such a moment, not only with prescient intelligence gathering and analysis but also by preparing Ukrainians to mount an insurgency against a Russian occupation. The agency has been training Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers at a secret facility in the U.S. since 2015. Because the CIA training program is now publicly known, Russia can persuasively claim that Ukrainian insurgents are CIA proxies – a useful statement as propaganda to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and as a justification for any harsh measures it takes against Ukrainian civilians. The CIA needs to be honest with the Ukrainians – and itself – about the real intent. In the first U.S.-backed insurgency, according to top secret documents later declassified, American officials intended to use the Ukrainians as a proxy force to bleed the Soviet Union. This time, is the primary goal of the paramilitary program to help Ukrainians liberate their country or to weaken Russia over the course of a long insurgency that will undoubtedly cost as many Ukrainian lives as Russian lives, if not more? Even if a Ukrainian insurgency bleeds Russia over years, the conflict could cause instability to spread across Central and Eastern Europe. This is a pattern in the history of U.S. paramilitary operations – from the Cold War to Afghanistan and Iraq today.
Note: For an alternative view of Ukraine's Zelensky, don't miss this excellent presentation by intrepid reporter Ben Swann (skip to 1:45 to avoid advertisement). For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and war from reliable major media sources.
The Washington Post on Wednesday became the second major news outlet to reverse course and admit that emails from the infamous Hunter Biden laptop are authentic – nine months after it obtained them and a year and a half after the New York Post first reported on them. The paper said two security experts used cryptographic signatures from Google and other technology companies to validate nearly 22,000 emails from 2009 to 2019. Some verified emails involved a deal President Biden's son pursued with the CEFC China Energy conglomerate for which he was paid nearly $5 million. Other verified emails related to his work for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, for which Hunter Biden was paid as much as $83,333 or a month, or $1 million a year. In October 2020, the New York Post exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden's emails after being given a copy of the hard drive from a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that the owner of a repair shop in the Biden family's hometown of Wilmington, Del., said was dropped off in April 2019. Following the expose, the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" feature said the paper "has not been able to verify or authenticate these emails" and said there were "fears that the emails could be part of a broader disinformation campaign" by Russia. The paper said it [made] two copies of the hard drive so they could be analyzed by Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins University security researcher, and Jake Williams, a forensics expert and former National Security Agency operative.
Note: For a detailed timeline on Biden's laptop, see this Washington Post article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation from reliable sources.
Freedom of Information Act requests are rarely speedy, but when a group of scientists asked the federal government to share the data it relied upon in licensing Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, the response went beyond typical bureaucratic foot-dragging. As in 55 years beyond. That's how long the Food & Drug Administration in court papers this week proposes it should be given to review and release the trove of vaccine-related documents responsive to the request. If a federal judge in Texas agrees, plaintiffs Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency can expect to see the full record in 2076. The 1967 FOIA law requires federal agencies to respond to information requests within 20 business days. Justice Department lawyers representing the FDA note in court papers that the plaintiffs are seeking a huge amount of vaccine-related material – about 329,000 pages. The plaintiffs, a group of more than 30 professors and scientists ... filed suit in September in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking expedited access to the records. But the FDA can't simply turn the documents over. The records must be reviewed to redact "confidential business and trade secret information of Pfizer or BioNTech and personal privacy information of patients who participated in clinical trials," wrote DOJ lawyers. To meet the plaintiffs' proposed FOIA deadline, the FDA would have to process a daunting 80,000 pages a month. But the plaintiffs note that the FDA has 18,000 employees and a budget of $6 billion.
Note: If big Pharma cares more about stopping the virus than money, why are they hiding "proprietary" information. Why not a worldwide effort to work together to avoid millions of deaths? Apparently profits are more important than saving lives. And why did no significant media pick up this highly revealing news? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Last night, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall received Dr. Anthony Fauci's unredacted FY2020 financial disclosures. The financial disclosures contain a wealth of previously unknown information. For example, the Fauci household's net worth exceeds $10.4 million. During the pandemic year of 2020, their household income, perks and benefits, and unrealized gains totaled $1,776,479 – including federal income and benefits of $868,812; outside royalties and travel perks totaling $113,298; and investment accounts increasing by $794,369. Fauci earned $434,312 in cash compensation (FY2020) outearning all 4.3 million federal employees including the president and four-star generals in the U.S. military. Between 2010 and 2020, Dr. Fauci earned cash compensation of $3.7 million from his federal employer. NIH does still not disclose Fauci's current salary (FY2022) or last year's salary (FY2021), despite comment requests for the information. Therefore, Fauci earned an estimated total of roughly $900,000 during the period. Federal employees have a lucrative amount of paid time off, subsidized healthcare, pension benefits and a myriad of other perquisites. For example, after just three-years, a rank-and-file federal employee receives 44 days of paid time off. Dr. Fauci has held a federal job for 55 years. When Fauci retires he'll reap a retirement pension estimated at $350,000 per year, the highest in federal history. With cost-of-living increases, Fauci would receive over $1 million during his first three years of retirement.
Note: After Forbes was pressured by the NIH, the column of the author of this article, Adam Andrzejewski, was terminated not long after it was published. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
It's not public what Dr. Fauci's salary was last year or this year. (The latest published salary is from FY2020.) It's not public what stocks and bonds Dr. Fauci bought and sold in 2020 or 2021, as he influenced Covid policies. It's not public what Fauci received – or didn't receive – in royalties. (There are up to 1,000 current and former NIH scientists receiving royalties.) Each payment could be a potential conflict of interest. Yes, all this information resides with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but isn't "public knowledge," despite Dr. Fauci's claims otherwise in his sworn U.S. Senate testimony yesterday. These facts are known because an organization I lead, OpenTheBooks.com, is suing NIH for production of those records. In fact, NIH admits it holds approximately 1,200 pages relating to Fauci's financial information and conflict of interest disclosures. Transparency advocates say that NIH should post these documents online immediately. At Forbes, last January, I published an OpenTheBooks' investigation that Fauci was the most highly compensated federal employee and out-earned the President and four-star generals in the U.S. military. NIH is holding 1,200 pages of Fauci disclosure information, the agency will only produce 300 pages per month and not even begin to produce documents until February 1st. What else will the public discover about Dr. Fauci with an additional 1,200 pages of disclosure? For example, did Fauci's early knowledge of the Covid-19 outbreak influence any of his financial trading?
Note: After Forbes was pressured by the NIH, the column of the author of this article, Adam Andrzejewski, was terminated not long after it was published. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
On Christmas Eve, Dr. Anthony Fauci turned 81. However, he is not retiring just yet. If he did, Fauci would reap the largest federal retirement package in U.S. history. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com estimate Dr. Fauci's annual retirement would exceed $350,000. Thereafter, his pension and benefits would continue to increase through annual cost-of-living adjustments. Fauci has 55 years of service as a federal employee. For the second year in a row, Fauci was the most highly compensated federal employee and out earned the president, four star generals, and roughly 4.3 million of his colleagues. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci earned $434,312 in 2020, the latest year available, up from $417,608 in 2019. Fauci is currently the Chief Medical Advisor to the President. However, his big salary boost came in 2004 under the George W. Bush Administration ... when Fauci received a "permanent pay adjustment" for his biodefense work. In January 2000, Fauci was also appointed to the Ready Reserve Corps, a corps of "officers on full-time extended active duty." Federal employees with Fauci's length of service can retire to earn "80 percent of [their] high-3 average salary, plus credit for [their] sick leave," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Dr. Fauci earned a total of $1.252 million from 2018-2020 in salary as a federal employee.
Note: After Forbes was pressured by the NIH, the column of the author of this article, Adam Andrzejewski, was terminated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Pfizer Inc wants to intervene in a Texas federal lawsuit seeking information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used in licensing the company's COVID-19 vaccine, a litigation move that plaintiffs who are suing for the data say is premature. Pfizer's lawyers at DLA Piper told U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Jan. 21 it wanted a role in the proceedings to help the FDA avoid "inappropriately" disclosing trade secret and confidential commercial information. On Tuesday night, the group of doctors and scientists who sued last year over public access to the FDA's Pfizer licensing records said in a court filing that the company's bid to jump into the lawsuit was untimely because the plaintiffs have not challenged any redactions to requested records. Earlier this month, the judge ordered a fast-track release of hundreds of thousands of documents, calling the case "of paramount public importance." U.S. government agencies control the release of information under federal public-records laws, but companies can challenge and even sue to block the disclosure of certain details. The FDA earlier drew criticism over its plan to release 500 pages a month in response to the lawsuit from Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a production schedule that would take more than 50 years to complete. In its filing, Pfizer said the company supports public disclosure of FDA records "to promote transparency and the public's confidence in the vaccine."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption and coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
What is it, exactly, that makes us kind? Why are some of us kinder than others – and what stops us from being kinder? The Kindness Test, a major new study involving more than 60,000 people from 144 different countries, has been looking into these and other questions. It is believed to be the largest public study of kindness ever carried out in the world. The results, which are currently the subject of a three-part Radio 4 documentary The Anatomy of Kindness, suggest that people who receive, give or even just notice more acts of kindness tend to experience higher levels of wellbeing and life satisfaction. Other encouraging findings are that as many as two-thirds of people think the pandemic has made people kinder and nearly 60% of participants in the study claimed to have received an act of kindness in the previous 24 hours. Luke Cameron, dubbed the "nicest man in Britain", once spent a year doing a good deed every day. It taught him that sometimes offering some help, reassurance or a kind word can make a huge difference. "It's made me more aware of things that happen in front of me. If someone falls over in the street, there's always going to be people who go and help and others who stand back. It's made me one of those people who go and help. Consciously, I now just do it." He became that person, he says, after a "mindset shift" where he realised: "Actually, if it was me, I'd want somebody to help me. That makes you think differently about how you are with people."
Note: Listen to "The Anatomy of Kindness" on BBC4. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Dr. Seema Doshi was shocked and terrified when she found a lump in her breast that was eventually confirmed to be cancerous. "That rocked my world," said Dr. Doshi, a dermatologist in private practice. "I thought, â€That's it. I will have to do chemotherapy.'" She was wrong. Dr. Doshi was the beneficiary of a quiet revolution in breast cancer treatment, a slow chipping away at the number of people for whom chemotherapy is recommended. Chemotherapy for decades was considered "the rule, the dogma," for treating breast cancer and other cancers, said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, a breast cancer specialist. But data from a variety of sources offers some confirmation of what many oncologists say anecdotally – the method is on the wane for many cancer patients. Genetic tests can now reveal whether chemotherapy would be beneficial. For many there are better options with an ever-expanding array of drugs, including estrogen blockers and drugs that destroy cancers by attacking specific proteins on the surface of tumors. And there is a growing willingness among oncologists to scale back unhelpful treatments. The result spares thousands each year from the dreaded chemotherapy treatment, with its accompanying hair loss, nausea, fatigue, and potential to cause permanent damage to the heart and to nerves in the hands and feet. The diminution of chemotherapy treatment is happening for some other cancers, too, including lung cancer.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
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.