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 mysterious mass death of a herd of cattle has prompted a federal investigation in Central Texas. Preliminary test results are blaming the deaths on the grass the cows were eating when they got sick. The cows dropped dead several weeks ago on an 80-acre ranch owned by Jerry Abel in Elgin, just east of Austin. Abel says he's been using the fields for cattle grazing and hay for 15 years. "A lot of leaf, it's good grass, tested high for protein - it should have been perfect," he [said]. The grass is a hybrid form of Bermuda known as Tifton 85 which has been growing here for 15 years, feeding Abel's 18 head of Corriente cattle. Preliminary tests revealed the Tifton 85 grass, which has been here for years, had suddenly started producing cyanide gas, poisoning the cattle. Other farmers have tested their Tifton 85 grass, and several in Bastrop County have found their fields are also toxic with cyanide.
Note: For a report from Denmark on illnesses in pigs caused by GMO-soybean feed, click here. For other revealing major media reports exposing the major risks and dangers of GM foods, click here.
Today a tidal wave of aging boomers want income, but traditional sources are lacking. But there’s [a] source of high yield that relatively few consider. Peer-to-peer lending, or making personal loans via the Internet using websites like LendingClub.com and Prosper.com. After six years of experience and some bumps, including a financial crisis and ensuing recession, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has finally earned its place on an income investor’s menu. The basic premise of these bank disintermediaries is that they harness the networking power of the Web to match people who have excess cash with people in need of it or those who simply want to refinance credit card debt. The key to its success has been how the sites have managed the inherent riskiness of unsecured personal loans. Believe it or not, it is now possible to earn yields of 6% or more, making relatively safe loans to complete strangers. San Francisco’s Lending Club is the largest P2P lender, followed by its crosstown rival Prosper. Lending Club and Prosper have loaned a total of more than $1 billion since inception, in 112,000 loans. Lending Club currently issues about $45 million in loans a month versus Prosper’s $13 million per month. Of course defaults happen. Lending Club’s top-rated three-year loans expect a default rate of around 1.4%, and the riskiest loans, offering rates as high as 25%, have a 9.8% default rate.
Note: A 1.4 default rate is much lower than that of the average bank. For those who want to borrow or loan money free of the banks with excellent rates, check out www.lendingclub.com and www.prosper.com.
India has put in place a $5.4 billion policy to provide free medicine to its people, a decision that could change the lives of hundreds of millions, but a ban on branded drugs stands to cut Big Pharma out of the windfall. From city hospitals to tiny rural clinics, India's public doctors will soon be able to prescribe free generic drugs to all comers, vastly expanding access to medicine in a country where public spending on health was just $4.50 per person last year. Under the plan, doctors will be limited to a generics-only drug list and face punishment for prescribing branded medicines, a major disadvantage for pharmaceutical giants in one of the world's fastest-growing drug markets. The initiative would overhaul a system where healthcare is often a luxury and private clinics account for four times as much spending as state hospitals, despite 40 percent of the people living below the poverty line, or $1.25 a day or less. Within five years, up to half of India's 1.2 billion people are likely to take advantage of the scheme, the government says. "The policy of the government is to promote greater and rational use of generic medicines that are of standard quality," said L.C. Goyal, additional secretary at India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and a key proponent of the policy. "They are much, much cheaper than the branded ones."
Some might call Neil Grimmer and his wife Tana Johnson picky eaters. For more than a decade, Grimmer, a triathlete, didn't eat meat or dairy while Johnson followed a macrobiotic diet, made up mostly of whole grains and vegetables. So when the couple became parents about nine years ago, they sought to feed their children healthy foods. Trouble was, they couldn't find snacks that were healthy, yet easy to pack and appealing to their kids. That's how the Nest Collective, now known as Plum Organics, was born. [The] startup makes baby food and toddler and kids' snacks such as pouches of pureed blueberry oats and quinoa for babies and squeezable oatmeal for older children. Plum Organics is also addressing increasing concerns about childhood obesity and parents looking for alternative, easy-to-pack snacks. In what turned out to be a momentous decision, the company moved away from the traditional plastic or glass jar and began offering baby food in the form of the squeezable pouch already popular with older children. The company took off from there. The benefit of the pouch is that it allows the food to be cooked more gently so that the flavors are richer, said Grimmer. The packaging also takes up less space in landfills and is easier to transport.
A scandal over the rigging of key interest rates could plunge the global banking industry into a legal morass for years, analysts said. The head of the Bank of England said there needed to be "real change" in the industry's culture. Referring to what he called the "deceitful manipulation" of rates, Mervyn King told a news conference [that] the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) should be reformed to reflect actual market transactions. U.S. and British authorities fined Barclays $453 million on Wednesday for manipulating LIBOR, which underpins some $360 trillion of loans and financial contracts around the world - and analysts forecast more banks would soon be named for collusion. Others predicted Barclays and other banks could face billions in costs from litigation, especially in the United States, in much the same way that oil major BP ran into drawn-out legal rows over its oil spill. Barclays was the first bank to settle in an investigation which is looking at other large financial institutions in Europe, Japan and North America.
Note: This article states that LIBOR underpins some $360 trillion of loans and financial contracts around the world. That's $50,000 for every man, woman, and child on this planet. And it is being hugely manipulated. For more vitally important information on this, learn about the huge amounts of derivatives being manipulated at this link and explore the excellent, reliable information in our Banking Corruption Information Center available here.
Five of the biggest banks in the United States are putting finishing touches on plans for going out of business as part of government-mandated contingency planning that could push them to untangle their complex operations. The plans, known as living wills, are due to regulators no later than July 1 under provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to end too-big-to-fail bailouts by the government. The living wills could be as long as 4,000 pages. Since the law allows regulators to go so far as to order a bank to divest subsidiaries if it cannot plan an orderly resolution in bankruptcy, the deadline is pushing even healthy institutions to start a multi-year process to untangle their complex global operations, according to industry consultants. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among those submitting the first liquidation scenarios to regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The liquidation plans are coming amid renewed questions about the safety of big banks following JPMorgan's stunning announcement last month that a trading debacle has cost it more than $2 billion.
Note: For other key major media articles showing blatant financial corruption, click here. For more vitally important information on banking manipulations, explore the excellent, reliable information in our Banking Corruption Information Center available here.
When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified in the U.S. House today, he presented himself as a champion of free-market capitalism in opposition to an overweening government. His position would be more convincing if his bank weren't such a beneficiary of corporate welfare. JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund. The money helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses. More important, it distorts markets, fueling crises such as the recent subprime-lending disaster and the sovereign-debt debacle that is now threatening to destroy the euro and sink the global economy. In recent decades, governments and central banks around the world have developed a consistent pattern of behavior when trouble strikes banks that are large or interconnected enough to threaten the broader economy: They step in to ensure that all the bank's creditors, not just depositors, are paid in full. With each new banking crisis, the value of the implicit subsidy grows. JPMorgan's share of the subsidy is $14 billion a year, or about 77% of its net income for the past four quarters. In other words, U.S. taxpayers helped foot the bill for the multibillion-dollar trading loss that is the focus of today's hearing. When Dimon pushes back against capital requirements or the Volcker rule, it's worth remembering that he's pushing for a form of corporate welfare that, left unchecked, could lead to a crisis too big for the government to contain.
Note: For more vitally important information on this, explore the excellent, reliable information in our Banking Corruption Information Center available here. For other key major media articles showing blatant financial corruption, click here.
The controversial row surrounding alleged links between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism is set to be reignited following a court ruling in Italy. Judges in Rimini, north-east Italy awarded the Bocca family 174,000 Euros (Ł140,000) after the Italian Health Ministry conceded the MMR vaccine caused autism in their nine-year-old son Valentino. Up to 100 similar cases are now being examined by Italian lawyers and experts suggest the case could lead to other families pursuing cases. The ruling in Italy is likely to re-open a debate which first made the headlines in Britain over a decade ago when the respected medical journal The Lancet published an article in 1998, making a connection between the triple vaccine and autism. Valentino Bocca was 15 months old when he received an MMR jab in 2004. His parents said the change in him, after the jab, from a healthy boy to one who was in serious discomfort, was immediate. The number of autism cases has risen sharply since the 1970s, with one in 64 British children affected.
Note: Other key media articles exposing the serious risks of vaccines are available here. For lots more important information on this vital topic, click here. For an abundance of powerful information on the little-known risks of vaccination, click here. For a German study showing the vaccinated children had two to five times as many diseases as those not vaccinated, click here.
A Pennsylvania jury [has] convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn of child endangerment for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. to be tried and convicted on charges related to the church scandal in which priests across the country sexually abused children for years. In the landmark case, prosecutors said Lynn reassigned pedophile priests in Philadelphia while covering up allegations of sexual abuse. By assigning pedophile priests to unsuspecting parishes, in an attempt to protect the church’s reputation and stave off lawsuits, Lynn exposed more children to potential abuse, prosecutors said. Prosecutors produced a list that Lynn compiled in 1994 naming 37 priests in the archdiocese who had been identified as pedophiles or were suspected of sexually abusing children. The trial was noteworthy because Lynn was not accused of sexual misconduct, but of covering it up. More than a dozen witnesses testified that they were sexually abused by priests who had been allowed to serve in their parishes even after being suspected or accused of abuse. Prosecutors said Lynn lied to parents about pedophile priests in an attempt to protect the archdiocese, and that he and other church officials were lax in responding to credible reports of abuse. In some instances, prosecutors said, Lynn suggested to accused priests that their young alleged victims had enticed them into sexual contact.
Note: For lots more from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after [9/11] and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions. While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the past. With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or forced exile. It is disturbing that, instead of strengthening these principles, our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or “associated forces,” a broad, vague power that can be abused without meaningful oversight from the courts or Congress. This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration.
Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on war crimes committed by US forces in the "global war on terror," click here.
Malaysia is brave to organise a war crimes tribunal and to recognise former United States president George W. Bush and his associates as war criminals. In a public forum entitled "9/11 and the Ecological Crisis", renowned theologian, scholar and author Professor David Ray Griffin praised Malaysia for having the courage to bring these prominent figures to justice and to expose their crimes to the international community. "Someone has to get started somewhere, and this is a good start, Malaysia is ideally placed in this aspect and hopefully the international community will take notice," he said. In his lecture, Griffin also explained his theory on the Sept 11 attacks, claiming that it was a "staged event" and could not have been the work of Muslim terrorists. He explained that the rigid steel columns of the (World Trade Center) twin towers made it impossible for them to crumble unless they had been rigged with explosives. Griffin added that the fires could not have come within 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the temperature needed to melt steel. He also alleged that the hijackers had minimal competence to fly single-engine aircraft, let alone be able to handle commercial jets. Griffin noted that more than any others, Muslims have paid the greatest price as a result of 9/11 that later launched the war on terrorism. "We have started something called Consensus 9/11 where we have gathered several experts to provide the world with a clear statement, based on expert independent opinion, of some of the best evidence opposing the official narrative about 9/11."
Note: The New Straits Times is Malaysia's oldest newspaper, founded in 1845. This article is a rare example of objective mainstream press coverage of alternative interpretations of the 9/11 events. WantToKnow team member Prof. David Ray Griffin's most recent book on 9/11 is 9/11 Ten Years Later.
Emmanuel Saez is ... director of Berkeley’s Center for Equitable Growth. In 2008, on the cusp of the Great Recession, Saez co-authored a landmark study that revealed a stark gap between the earnings of America’s wealthiest households and the remaining 99 percent. Saez’s recent work shows that, while the recession initially reduced the income gap, postrecession gains have mostly gone to the top 1 percent. The extraordinary increase in income concentration in the United States from 2002 to 2007 was driven in large part by deregulation of the financial and real estate industries. The resulting real estate bubble triggered the 2008 recession. Evidence shows that progressive taxation is the most powerful tool for curbing income concentration. For example, from the Great Depression into the 1970s, when the U.S. had very high tax rates on top earners, the income gap was very small, and economic growth was incredibly strong. During the 1990s, incomes for the top 1% nearly doubled, while paychecks for the bottom 99% went up only 20%. Between 2002 and 2007 2/3 of all income gains went to the top 1%. In 2010, the first year of economic recovery, the top 1% captured 93% of income gains.
Note: For Prof. Saez's excellent study, "The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States" click here.
Capitalism's recurring tendencies toward extreme and deepening inequalities of income, wealth, and political and cultural power require resignation and acceptance. [It] entails and reproduces a highly undemocratic organization of production inside enterprises. Believers insist that no alternatives to ... capitalist organizations of production exist or could work nearly so well. Of course, alternatives exist. The city of Arrasate-Mondragon, in the Basque region of Spain ... is the headquarters of the Mondragon Corporation (MC). MC is composed of many co-operative enterprises grouped into four areas: industry, finance, retail and knowledge. In each enterprise, the co-op members (averaging 80-85% of all workers per enterprise) collectively own and direct the enterprise. The largest corporation in the Basque region, MC is also one of Spain's top ten biggest corporations (in terms of sales or employment). And MC has expanded internationally, now operating over 77 businesses outside Spain. MC has proven itself able to grow and prosper as an alternative to – and competitor of – capitalist organizations of enterprise. MC worker-members collectively choose, hire and fire the directors, whereas in capitalist enterprises the reverse occurs. One of the co-operatively and democratically adopted rules governing the MC limits top-paid worker/members to earning 6.5 times the lowest-paid workers. In US corporations, CEOs can expect to be paid 400 times an average worker's salary – a rate that has increased 20-fold since 1965.
Two prominent seismologists said on Tuesday that Japan is ignoring the safety lessons of last year's Fukushima crisis and warned against restarting two reactors next month. Japan has approved the restart of the two reactors at the Kansai Electric Power Ohi nuclear plant, northwest of Tokyo, despite mass public opposition. They will be the first to come back on line after all reactors were shut following a massive earthquake and tsunami last March that caused the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl at Tokyo Electric Power's Daiichi Fukushima plant. Seismic modeling by Japan's nuclear regulator did not properly take into account active fault lines near the Ohi plant, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist at Kobe University, told reporters. "The stress tests and new safety guidelines for restarting nuclear power plants both allow for accidents at plants to occur," Ishibashi told reporters. "Instead of making standards more strict, they both represent a severe setback in safety standards." Experts advising Japan's nuclear industry had underestimated the seismic threat, Mitsuhisa Watanabe, a tectonic geomorphology professor at Tokyo University, said at the same news conference. "The expertise and neutrality of experts advising Japan's Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency are highly questionable," Watanabe said.
Note: For more from reliable sources on corruption on the nuclear power industry, click here.
President Barack Obama's campaign has recruited a legion of lawyers to be on standby for this year's election as legal disputes surrounding the voting process escalate. Thousands of attorneys and support staffers have agreed to aid in the effort, providing a mass of legal support that appears to be unrivaled by Republicans or precedent. Obama's campaign says it is particularly concerned about the implementation of new voter ID laws across the country, the possibility of anti-fraud activists challenging legitimate voters and the handling of voter registrations in the most competitive states. Republicans are building their own legal teams for the election. They say they're focused on preventing fraud -- making sure people don't vote unless they're eligible -- rather than turning away qualified voters. Since the disputed 2000 presidential election, both parties have increasingly concentrated on building legal teams -- including high-priced lawyers who are well-known in political circles -- for the Election Day run-up. The Bush-Gore election demonstrated to both sides the importance of every vote and the fact that the rules for voting and counting might actually determine the outcome. The Florida count in 2000 was decided by just 537 votes and ultimately landed in the Supreme Court.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on serious dysfunctions in the US elections process, click here.
How aware are plants? This is the central question behind a fascinating new book, What a Plant Knows, by Daniel Chamovitz, director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University. Chamovitz unveils the surprising world of plants that see, feel, smell—and remember. Just because we don’t see plants moving doesn’t mean that there’s not a very rich and dynamic world going on inside the plant. People have to realize that plants are complex organisms that live rich, sensual lives. Plants had to develop incredibly sensitive and complex sensory mechanisms that would let them survive in ever changing environments. [A plant] can mount a defense when under siege, and warn its neighbors of trouble on the way. A plant can even be said to have a memory. If a maple tree is attacked by bugs, it releases a pheromone into the air that is picked up by the neighboring trees. This induces the receiving trees to start making chemicals that will help it fight off the impending bug attack. So on the face of it, this is definitely communication.
Note: This article only touches the surface of a rich world of research suggesting that plant life is much more complex and miraculous than we might imagine. For more, explore the landmark book The Secret Life of Plants or the work of researcher Cleve Backster.
More than 80 million Americans believe that UFOs exist and many of them are not afraid of an alien drop-in, according to a new study. As part of its new "Chasing UFOs" series, the National Geographic Channel conducted a poll to assess Americans' views on the paranormal. The study found that 11 percent of those polled believed they had seen a UFO. In addition, most of those polled said they would regard a minor alien invasion as only a minor inconvenience. And most expect the visitors to be "E.T."-type friendly. And despite the recent uproar over the Miami face-chewing incident, 71 percent in this survey were more likely to believe in aliens than in zombies, or vampires, or superheroes. The study threw in a few fun questions. Among them: Which superhero would Americans be more likely call on to battle aliens (the evil kind, not E.T.)? That would be the Hulk (21 percent). Spider-Man got only 8 percent of the vote. President Obama had the questionable honor of being perceived as better able to handle an alien invasion than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney; this was a notion held more strongly among women than men and among younger folks than older. The "Aliens Among Us" survey was conducted with a random nationwide sample of 1,114 Americans from May 21 to 29.
Note: For lots more on UFOs check out our UFO Information Center.
Amid the 500,000 people who pass through the center of Manhattan on their way to work, I took part in an outdoor yoga practice held in honor of the Summer Solstice. Against the cacophony of police sirens and taxi horns, the occasional rumble from the subway, the perplexed stares of commuters and the urban aroma of bus exhaust, four thousand of us stretched, lunged, twisted and saluted the sun. It was surreal – in an odd and wonderful way. The event was the 10th annual “Solstice in Times Square.” The yoga class I attended was the first of four that were held throughout the day and evening. The early-morning class was led by Drisana Carey, a lanky instructor who also works as a model for Athleta. A midday class was lead by Rajashree Choudhury, the wife of Bikram Choudhury – the founder of the standardized yoga practice that consists of 26 poses done in an environment heated to 105-degrees. Carey had great presence and even greater poise when the audio on her microphone frequently cut out. She understood that New Yorkers who get on their yoga mats are still New Yorkers. Carey reminded us to try to transcend the rush-and-bustle of Times Square — to be, as she put it, “guided by our breath and our hearts and not by our egos.” The movements were designed to be accessible for yogis of all levels, but the workout was tough. The mental challenges, however, were far greater: How to get zen amid the chaos?
Note: Other media reported that 14,000 people attended this event. For more great photos, see this link. WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks had major back problems for years until 2003, when Bikram yoga completely healed his back within a matter of months.
Approaching death can be a long descent into pain and fear. [For some,] the misery is so profound that little helps. Alternative medicine is increasingly accepted as part of palliative care and some studies show music is one method to ease pain and stress at the end of life. One of these methods includes live harp music, played at the bedside by a certified music practitioner. Carol Joy Loeb, a former opera singer, is a certified music practitioner and registered nurse. When she arrives at a patient's bedside, she's prepared to alleviate misery. "I use the music to bring a calmness to them," Loeb says. "It helps with pain and agitation. And in the case of those who are actively dying, it helps them to go peacefully." She even uses the music to open communication between family members at the end of a person's life. Last year, she worked with a dying woman on Hospice care. "This was a woman in congestive heart failure, she was in acute distress," Loeb says. Just before she arrived, the patient had received a dose of morphine but didn't get the necessary relief. When Loeb started playing, the dying woman began to relax. "Within 10 minutes her respirations were almost not there," Loeb recalls. "Her daughter was in the kitchen with the Hospice chaplain. And she came in and took her mother's hand and she said, 'Mama, it's okay to go, go to God. Take the hand of God and go to God.' And within one minute, she was gone."
A draft government report says we will alter human evolution within 20 years by combining what we know of nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT and cognitive sciences. The 405-page report sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and Commerce Department, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, calls for a broad-based research program to improve human performance leading to telepathy, machine-to-human communication, amplified personal sensory devices and enhanced intellectual capacity. People may download their consciousnesses into computers or other bodies even on the other side of the solar system, or participate in a giant "hive mind", a network of intelligences connected through ultra-fast communications networks. "With knowledge no longer encapsulated in individuals, the distinction between individuals and the entirety of humanity would blur," the report says. "Think Vulcan mind-meld. We would perhaps become more of a hive mind - an enormous, single, intelligent entity." Armies may one day be fielded by machines that think for themselves while devices will respond to soldiers' commands before their thoughts are fully formed, it says. The report says the abilities are within our grasp but will require an intense public-relations effort to "prepare key organisations and societal activities for the changes made possible by converging technologies", and to counter concern over "ethical, legal and moral" issues.
Note: A pdf of the report Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance can be downloaded here.
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.