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.
Since the start of the pandemic, childcare costs have gone through the roof. Across the U.S., parents are seeing an average annual cost increase of 41% for center-based childcare providers, and spending an average of $14,117 annually, up from $9,977 pre-pandemic, according to data from a recent LendingTree report. Households with children younger than 5 were hit hardest by these increases, the report found. Since the pandemic began, center-based care providers for 3- and 4-year-olds have seen their annual costs increase by 57%. Costs for center-based care providers for kids under 2 grew by 37%. Care providers for 3- and 4-year-olds in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana saw the biggest jump in expenses, with an annual average increase of at least 144%. As for the direct impact on households, Indiana families with kids under 5 put the biggest chunk of their income–20%–toward childcare, with the average family spending $11,212 a year. Vermont families are close behind, with 19% of their paycheck–an average of $13,538 annually–going toward childcare. Families in New Jersey, Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, and North Dakota pay the lowest portion, at 11%. But they may also be seeing a jump in their costs in the near future; in each of those states, the average care center saw its expenses increase by over 50% during the pandemic. The bulk of the increased costs stems from staffing, which the Center for American Progress says makes up 70% of a childcare provider's total budget.
Note: Note that this major increase in childcare cost was caused not directly by the pandemic, but more by the isolation of the lockdown measures instituted. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Police shot and killed at least 1,055 people nationwide last year, the highest total since The Washington Post began tracking fatal shootings by officers in 2015 – underscoring the difficulty of reducing such incidents despite sustained public attention to the issue. The new count is up from 1,021 shootings the previous year and 999 in 2019. The total comes amid a nationwide spike in violent crime. Despite setting a record, experts said the 2021 total was within expected bounds. Police have fatally shot roughly 1,000 people in each of the past seven years, ranging from 958 in 2016 to last year's high. The number of fatal police shootings ... suggests officers' behavior has not shifted significantly since The Post began collecting data. Advocacy for policing overhauls has intensified since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. More than 400 bills were introduced in state legislatures last year to address officers' use of force. Police departments increasingly partnered with mental health experts to respond to people in crisis. Cities established civilian review boards for use-of-force incidents. None of it decreased the number of people shot and killed by officers last year. Last year, all but 15 percent of people shot and killed by officers were armed. Ninety-four percent were men. Roughly 14 percent had known mental health struggles, down from about one-fifth in the two previous years and about one-fourth in 2016 and 2015.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.
The cost of vaccinating the world against COVID-19 could be at least five times cheaper if pharmaceutical companies weren't profiteering from their monopolies on COVID-19 vaccines, campaigners from the People's Vaccine Alliance said today. New analysis by the Alliance shows that the firms Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are charging governments as much as $41 billion above the estimated cost of production. Colombia, for example, has potentially overpaid by as much as $375 million for its doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, in comparison to the estimated cost price. Despite a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths across the developing world, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have sold over 90 percent of their vaccines so far to rich countries, charging up to 24 times the potential cost of production. Last week Pfizer/BioNTech announced it would licence a South African company to fill and package 100 million doses for use in Africa, but this is a drop in the ocean of need. Neither company have agreed to fully transfer vaccine technology and know-how with any capable producers in developing countries, a move that could increase global supply, drive down prices and save millions of lives. Analysis of production techniques for the leading mRNA type vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna â₏•which were only developed thanks to public funding to the tune of $8.3 billionâ₏• suggest these vaccines could be made for as little as $1.20 a dose.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.
Last year, racing to develop a vaccine in record time, Pfizer made a big decision: Unlike several rival manufacturers, which vowed to forgo profits on their shots during the Covid-19 pandemic, Pfizer planned to profit on its vaccine. On Tuesday, the company announced just how much money the shot is generating. The vaccine brought in $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, nearly a quarter of its total revenue, Pfizer reported. The vaccine was, far and away, Pfizer's biggest source of revenue. The company did not disclose the profits it derived from the vaccine, but it reiterated its previous prediction that its profit margins on the vaccine would be in the high 20 percent range. That would translate into roughly $900 million in pretax vaccine profits in the first quarter. The company's vaccine is disproportionately reaching the world's rich – an outcome, so far at least, at odds with its chief executive's pledge to ensure that poorer countries "have the same access as the rest of the world" to a vaccine that is highly effective at preventing Covid-19. As of mid-April, wealthy countries had secured more than 87 percent of the more than 700 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines dispensed worldwide, while poor countries had received only 0.2 percent. Pfizer has kept the profitability of its vaccine sales opaque. The United States, for example, is paying $19.50 for each Pfizer dose. Israel agreed to pay Pfizer about $30 per dose.
Note: If Pfizer is truly concerned about global health, why are they reaping such huge profits when other companies were willing to forgo profits. And why are they not helping the economically disadvantaged countries? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.
Covid-19 vaccines have created at least nine new billionaires after shares in companies producing the shots soared. Topping the list of new billionaires are Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel and Ugur Sahin, the CEO of BioNTech, which has produced a vaccine with Pfizer (PFE). Both CEOs are now worth around $4 billion, according to an analysis by the People's Vaccine Alliance, a campaign group that includes Oxfam, UNAIDS, Global Justice Now and Amnesty International. Senior executives from China's CanSino Biologics and early investors in Moderna have also become billionaires on paper as shares skyrocketed, partly in expectation of profits earned from Covid vaccines, which also bode well for the companies' future prospects. Moderna's share price has gained more than 700% since February 2020, while BioNTech has surged 600%. CanSino Biologics' stock is up about 440% over the same period. The company's single-dose Covid-19 vaccine was approved for use in China in February. Activists said the wealth generation highlighted the stark inequality that has resulted from the pandemic. The nine new billionaires are worth a combined $19.3 billion. According to the World Health Organization, 87% of vaccine doses have gone to high- or upper middle-income countries, while low income countries have received just 0.2%. In a paper published Friday, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said that vaccinating 60% of the global population by mid-2022 would cost just $50 billion.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
This year, Pfizer expects to bring in $36 billion from worldwide sales of its COVID-19 vaccine. That would shatter the previous record in annual sales for a single pharmaceutical product - about $20 billion for the anti-inflammatory drug Humira - and make the Pfizer vaccine the bestselling pharmaceutical product ever. Moderna will deliver fewer doses but is still expecting up to $18 billion in sales for the year for its COVID-19 vaccine. Humira, has been ... churning out tens of billions of dollars a year for multiple years on end. And it's not entirely clear that the mRNA vaccines will do that. Just because Pfizer and Moderna are selling billions of doses now doesn't mean that will last forever. The vaccines could work so well they eliminate the need for further boosters, though it's also possible COVID shots could become routine, like flu shots. The uncertainty puts a premium on maximizing sales now. Any vaccine manufacturer is going to realize that there's a risk that they're going to have a very short lifecycle. Moderna got a lot of government funding, offsetting costs and minimizing risks. But the COVID-19 vaccine is its only product on the market. Pfizer, on the other hand, didn't accept early government investment and took on a lot of those upfront costs itself. But it has dozens of other products in its portfolio that it makes and will continue to make once the pandemic ends.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.
Did you ever feel your own shoulders relax when you saw a friend receive a shoulder massage? For those of you who said "yes," congratulations, your brain is using its power to create a "placebo effect." For those who said "no," you're not alone, but thankfully, the brain is trainable. Since the 1800s, the word placebo has been used to refer to a fake treatment, meaning one that does not contain any active, physical substance. Today, placebos play a crucial role in medical studies in which some participants are given the treatment containing the active ingredients of the medicine, and others are given a placebo. These types of studies help tell researchers which medicines are effective, and how effective they are. Surprisingly, however, in some areas of medicine, placebos themselves provide patients with clinical improvement. Research suggests that the placebo effect is caused by positive expectations, the provider-patient relationship and the rituals around receiving medical care. Depression, pain, fatigue, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson's disease and even osteoarthritis of the knee are just a few of the conditions that respond positively to placebos. In addition to the ever-increasing body of evidence surrounding their effectiveness, placebos offer multiple benefits. They have no side effects. They are cheap. They are not addictive. They provide hope when there might not be a specific chemically active treatment available. They mobilize a person's own ability to heal through multiple pathways.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
President Biden became the first sitting president to give extensive comments supporting the right to repair and acknowledging the anticompetitive practices of electronics manufacturers that have spent the last decade creating repair monopolies and making it difficult for consumers to fix the things they own. At a cabinet meeting Monday, Biden gave an update on the executive order he issued last year that directed the Federal Trade Commission to create right to repair rules that would enforce against anticompetitive practices. "Too many areas, if you own a product, from a smartphone to a tractor, you don't have the freedom to choose how or where to repair that item you purchased," Biden added. "It's broke. Well, what do I do about it if it's broke, you had to go to the dealer and you had to pay the dealer's cost, the dealer's price. If you tried to fix it yourself, some manufacturers actually would void the warranty." Biden was referring here to practices by John Deere and Apple, as well as by video game console manufacturers, who as Motherboard reported violate the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act with "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers. Biden ... also took credit for recent moves from Amazon and Microsoft that will, in theory, make it easier for people to gain access to repair parts and manuals for their devices. "It's going to make it easy for millions of Americans to repair their electronics instead of paying an arm and a leg to repair or just throwing a device out."
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Mark Cuban has opened up a new online pharmacy to help make generic drugs more affordable. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) officially launched last week, claiming to offer the "lowest prices on 100 lifesaving prescriptions, according to a press release. The company is able to offer lower prices because it's a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler, meaning MCCPDC can "bypass middlemen and outrageous markups," per the press release. "The pharmacy's prices reflect actual manufacturer prices plus a flat 15% margin and pharmacist fee," the press release states. The company also "refuses to pay spread prices" to pharmacy benefits managers, which manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers. One of the medications available is Imatinib, a leukemia treatment that has a retail price of $9,657 a month and costs around $120 a month with a common voucher, per the press release. However, the MCCPDC offers a steep discount, making the drug available for $47 per month. Two other notable prescriptions available at a significantly reduced price are Mesalamine, used for ulcerative colitis treatment, as well as gout treatment drug Colchicine. "Not everyone sets the goal of being the lowest cost producer and provider," the billionaire [said]. "My goal is to make a profit while maximizing impact." "We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients," CEO Alex Oshmyansky said.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Previous infection with the coronavirus appeared to provide stronger protection against the Delta variant than did vaccination in a large sample of patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Scientists analyzed testing, surveillance and immunization data from the [New York and California] to gauge the level of protection offered by vaccines and previous infection. During the week beginning May 30, 2021, vaccinated people who had not experienced Covid had the lowest risk of coronavirus infection and hospitalization, followed by unvaccinated people who had been previously diagnosed with Covid. By the week beginning Oct. 3, however, vaccinated people with a prior diagnosis fared best against the Delta variant. Unvaccinated people with a history of Covid also had lower rates of infection and hospitalization than those protected by vaccines alone. Waning of vaccine-derived immunity may explain why vaccinated people were less protected from infection with the Delta variant than those who had a prior diagnosis. A recent study of employees at the Cleveland Clinic suggested that ... vaccination does not add much benefit to a prior bout for the first many months.
Note: The full article is strongly biased towards vaccination, yet the data shows that prior exposure to COVID often provides better protection than the vaccines, whose protection clearly wanes over time. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Like many paediatricians, Dani Dumitriu braced herself for the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus when it first surged in her wards. She was relieved when most newborn babies at her hospital who had been exposed to COVID-19 seemed to do just fine. But hints of a more subtle and insidious trend followed close behind. Dumitriu and her team ... had more than two years of data on infant development – since late 2017, they had been analysing the communication and motor skills of babies up to six months old. Dumitriu thought it would be interesting to compare the results from babies born before and during the pandemic. The infants born during the pandemic scored lower, on average, on tests of gross motor, fine motor and communication skills compared with those born before it. It didn't matter whether their birth parent had been infected with the virus or not; there seemed to be something about the environment of the pandemic itself. Lockdowns ... have isolated many young families, robbing them of playtime and social interactions. Stressed out and stretched thin, many carers also haven't been able to provide the one-to-one time that babies and toddlers need. Worryingly, [biophysicist Sean] Deoni has found that the longer the pandemic has continued, the more deficits children have accumulated. "The magnitude is massive – it's just astonishing," Deoni says of the findings, which are now under revision in JAMA Pediatrics.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
Inspired by a parasitic worm that digs its sharp teeth into its host's intestines, Johns Hopkins researchers have designed tiny, star-shaped microdevices that can latch onto intestinal mucosa and release drugs into the body. David Gracias, a professor in the Whiting School of Engineering, and gastroenterologist Florin M. Selaru, director of the Johns Hopkins Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, led a team of researchers and biomedical engineers that designed and tested shape-changing microdevices that mimic the way the parasitic hookworm affixes itself to an organism's intestines. The "theragrippers" are made of metal and a thin, shape-changing film, then coated in heat-sensitive paraffin wax. The devices, each roughly the size of a dust speck, can potentially carry any drug and release it gradually into the body. Thousands of theragrippers can be deployed in the GI tract. When the paraffin wax coating on the grippers reaches the temperature inside the body, the devices close autonomously and clamp onto the colonic wall. The closing action causes the tiny, six-pointed devices to dig into the mucosa and remain attached to the colon, where they are retained and release their medicine payloads gradually into the body. Theragrippers, says Gracias, don't rely on electricity, wireless signals or external controls. "Instead, they operate like small, compressed springs with a temperature-triggered coating on the devices that releases the stored energy autonomously."
Note: These tiny devices are literally the size of a speck of dust. They can easily be hidden in a cotton swab and administered without a person's knowledge. Might they even be put in a vaccine and go undetected? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
Portions of a military information campaign meant to influence the Canadian public during the COVID-19 pandemic continued to operate months after the chief of the defence staff at the time ordered it shut down in the spring of 2020. The Canadian military recently conducted four reviews of controversial initiatives. A copy of one of those reviews was obtained by CBC News under access to information legislation. That review shows that even after the then-chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, verbally called off the overall influence campaign in April 2020, some influence activities aimed at Canadians carried on for another six months – until Vance issued a written edict in November 2020. The military deployed propaganda techniques in Canada without approval during the pandemic and gathered information about Canadians' online activities without permission from authorities. DND denies it has used psychological warfare techniques, honed during the Afghan war, on Canadians. But the line between psychological warfare and information operation campaigns has become increasingly blurry over the last few years. The review document obtained by CBC News says the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) ... "liberally interpreted" department policy. The unit decided it had the authority to conduct information operations on Canadians without government approval because it was asked by the government to help with the response to the pandemic.
Note: Learn more in this article titled, "Military leaders saw pandemic as unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians, Forces report says." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
Two weeks ago, state Sen. Richard Pan introduced a new bill which would require all children K-12 to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend school in person after Jan. 1, 2023. Unvaccinated children would be forced into remote learning. Pan said, "We need to make sure schools are safe so that all parents are comfortable sending their children to school." Every parent wants safe schools. But our children deserve medical care driven by facts, not politics. As physician epidemiologists, we have analyzed the data and found that this mandate is not supported by the scientific evidence – which is why no European countries or other U.S. states have implemented their own. California already has a mandate for children over 12, which will be triggered once the vaccines receive full approval. Pan's bill would go much further, requiring every child in K-12 to be vaccinated while the shots are still under emergency use authorization. Excluding unvaccinated children from in-person learning would come at an enormous cost, at a time when they should be catching up on critical academic and social experiences. In December, when the Los Angeles Unified School District tried to implement a K-12 COVID-19 vaccine mandate, they found that 30,000 students ages 12 and older hadn't met the mandate requirements. If we extrapolate those numbers to the entire state, and take into account lower vaccination rates among children ages 5-11, over a million California children could be forced into remote learning.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Here in California, our children continue to navigate the most restrictive policies in the country, in many cases not even allowing them to remove their masks while outdoors at school. There are now calls ... to exchange their cloth masks for thicker, larger and tighter N95/KN95 masks. The World Health Organization does not recommend the routine masking of young children at all, let alone the proposition that tight-fitting respirators should be donned by children for multiple hours a day. Yet we have come to view this as appropriate and necessary in California, despite our high levels of protection from serious COVID-19 illness given widespread vaccine uptake. Our government leaders made an implicit promise that the vaccination of adults and children would be the conduit by which our society would return to pre-pandemic freedoms. Despite a highly successful vaccination campaign in the Bay Area, most COVID-19 restrictions have remained in place for two years and counting. And despite widespread access to vaccines, we continue to prioritize the prevention of COVID-19 transmission, even in the absence of severe illness, above most other health considerations. Last week, we began an online petition asking California officials to immediately shift our public dialogue toward defining a path for removing all remaining COVID-19 restrictions in public schools. Despite the pushback we have received, normalizing our school environment is not a radical concept.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
In the early days of the COVID pandemic, Cuba decided it was going to make its own vaccine. It didn't want to rely on the whims of foreign governments or international pharmaceutical companies to immunize its people. Cuba didn't even sign up for the COVAX program, backed by the World Health Organization, that was promising to purchase vaccines in bulk and distribute them equitably around the globe. Cuba's vaccine development effort wasn't just risky from health perspective. Politically if the rest of the world got vaccine far earlier than Cuba, it would be a huge blow to the government. Cuba now has five vaccines in various stages. Three of the vaccines, Soberana 1, Soberana 2 and Soberna Plus, were developed at the Finlay Institute in Havana. The other two, Abdala and Mambisa, came out of Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. Soberana 2, Soberana Plus and Abdala are authorized by the Cuban authorities for use and export while the other two (one of which is a nasal spray) are still in clinical trials. None of them have yet been authorized by the World Health Organization or any other major international regulator. But they've allowed Cuba to boast one of the highest COVID vaccination rates in the world. More than 85% of the island nation is fully immunized against the virus – a far higher vaccination rate than the U.S.. At a time when many other low- and middle-income nations continue to struggle to get enough doses, Cuba is exporting vaccine to Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua and Vietnam.
Note: These vaccines do not rely on the mRNA technology about whose long-term side effects we know little to nothing. In deaths per million from COVID, Cuba is ranked #71 out of 155 countries as of early February 2022. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Almost 500 U.S. service members have been discharged so far for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. But that number is likely to climb as the various military branches continue the process of dealing with those who are refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, or have requested exemptions. The Navy said on Tuesday that it has discharged 23 active-duty sailors for refusing the coronavirus vaccine. The Air Force, as of January 21, has discharged 111 active-duty airmen. As of January 20, the Marine Corps had discharged 334 Marines. The Army is the only service that has not yet initiated separations for active-duty personnel for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. But in a news release earlier this month, the Army said it had relieved six active-duty leaders, including two battalion commanders, from their positions for refusing the vaccine. The Army also said it had issued almost 3,000 general officer written reprimands to soldiers for vaccine refusal. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in December, prohibits service members from being dishonorably discharged for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Last summer, the Department of Defense announced that it would make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for all service members–active-duty, National Guard and Reserves. Around 98 percent of active-duty service members are fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Defense.
Note: This 3-minute video features a hearing where data was given by Dept. of Defense whistleblowers reporting on the health of US soldiers. The data clearly shows that neurological problems among troops increased by 10 times (1,000%) over previous years. Other disease also had major increases. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
COVID-19 is a global pandemic. Treatment with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), zinc, and azithromycin (AZM), also known as the Zelenko protocol, and treatment with intravenous (IV) vitamin C (IVC) have shown encouraging results in a large number of trials worldwide. In addition, vitamin D levels are an important indicator of the severity of symptoms in patients with COVID-19. Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 ... were screened for eligibility and randomly allocated to receive either HCQ, AZM, and zinc (group 1) or HCQ, AZM, zinc plus IV vitamin C treatment (group 2) for 14 days. The patients also received nontherapeutic levels of vitamin D3. A total of 237 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 ... were enrolled in the study. Almost all patients were vitamin D deficient (97%). All but one patient (99.6%; n = 236/237) treated with HCQ, AZM, and zinc with or without high-dose IV vitamin C (IVC) fully recovered. Additional IVC therapy contributed significantly to a quicker recovery (15 days versus 45 days until discharge; p = 0.0069). Low vitamin D levels were significantly correlated with a higher probability of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and longer hospital stay. Our study suggests that the treatment protocol of HCQ, AZM, and zinc with or without vitamin C is safe and effective in the treatment of COVID-19, with high dose IV vitamin C leading to a significantly quicker recovery.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Good news doesn't get any more in-your-face than this. One thousand fin whales, one of the world's biggest animals, were seen last week swimming in the same seas in which they were driven to near-extinction last century due to whaling. It's like humans never happened. This vast assembly was spread over a five-mile-wide area between the South Orkney islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. A single whale is stupendous; imagine 1,000 of them, their misty forest of spouts, as tall as pine trees, the plosive sound of their blows, their hot breath condensing in the icy air. Their sharp dorsal fins and steel-grey bodies slide through the waves like a whale ballet, choreographed at the extreme south of our planet. The sight has left whale scientists slack-jawed and frankly green-eyed in envy of Conor Ryan, who observed it from the polar cruiser, National Geographic Endurance. Ryan, an experienced zoologist and photographer, says this may be "one of the largest aggregations of fin whales ever documented". His estimate of 1,000 animals is a conservative one, he says. Fin whales are surprisingly slender, serpentine creatures when you see them underwater, and so long that they seem to take for ever to swim past. Like blue, humpback and minke whales, they're baleen whales, distinguished by food-filtering keratinous plates in lieu of teeth. Unlike toothed whales, such as sperm whales and killer whales, they are not usually seen as social animals.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles on marine mammals.
Three British women, one of whom has incurable cancer, have shattered the world record for rowing across the Atlantic. Kat Cordiner, who has secondary ovarian cancer, and teammates Abby Johnston and Charlotte Irving, arrived in Antigua on Sunday evening. The women completed the 3,000-mile crossing from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to English Harbour in 42 days ... knocking an astonishing seven days off the female trio record in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Rowing the world's second largest ocean is acknowledged as the ultimate endurance race. More people have summitted Mount Everest than have successfully rowed the Atlantic and fewer than 20% of ocean rowers are women. It is thought Ms Cordiner is the first person to tackle this challenge as a cancer patient. The women are raising money for Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. Race organisers said they had shown the impossible was possible. Ms Cordiner, 42, Ms Irving, 31, and Ms Johnston, 32, were on a 25ft boat – called Dolly Parton – rowing two hours on and two hours off. During their epic trip they experienced scorching heat, enormous night-time waves, sleep deprivation, blisters and callouses on their hands, and sharks trailing their small boat. Ms Cordiner said: "The doctors have told me I don't have decades, I have years, so I really want to make the most of them. I don't want to muck around doing stuff that doesn't matter – I want to do things that are challenging and fun."
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.