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U.N. Has Flown More Than $2.9 Billion in Cash to Afghanistan Since the Taliban Seized Power, Diverting U.S. Funds
2024-03-20, ProPublica
Posted: 2024-04-01 14:38:26
https://www.propublica.org/article/united-nations-cash-afghanistan-following-...

The United Nations has delivered more than $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control, resulting in the flow of U.S. funds to the extremist group, according to a recent government report. The U.N. deposits the cash into a private Afghan bank and disburses funds to the agency’s aid organizations and nonprofit humanitarian groups. But the money does not stop there. Some winds up at the central bank of Afghanistan, which is under the control of the Taliban. The group took over the country after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in August 2021. The report, from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, provides the first detailed account of how U.S. cash falls under the control of the Taliban and adds to a growing body of evidence that contributions to the U.N. are not always reaching Afghans in need. After getting the money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.N. flies shrink-wrapped $100 bills to the Kabul International Airport. The money arrives on a regular basis, as much as $40 million at a time. “Aid diversion does happen, and when it does, humanitarian work has to halt and solutions need to be found,” said one U.N. official who was not authorized to make public comment. “There are cases where the Taliban seek to take control of distribution according to their priorities, or other cases where aid work is stopped altogether.” The only way to stop [the diversion of foreign aid] would be to halt the flow of money.

Note: Read more about how the Taliban are now arms dealers after the US military left billions of dollars worth of weapons in Afghanistan. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


I'm a Black musician who has befriended and encouraged over 200 Ku Klux Klan members to give up their robes.
2023-06-02, Business Insider
Posted: 2024-04-01 14:36:17
https://www.businessinsider.com/daryl-davis-ku-klux-klan-kkk-musician-racism-...

In 1983, I was out playing at the Silver Dollar Lounge. I had just finished playing the first song when someone put an arm around my shoulder. It was a white guy. He said it was his first time sitting with a Black guy, and I asked why. The man looked at me and said, "I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan." I thought he was joking. But he pulled out his wallet and handed me his KKK membership card. It only dawned on me a couple years later that I blew my chance to ask them the question that had been plaguing me since I was 10 years old: How can you hate me when you don't know me? Who better to ask that of than someone who went out of their way to join an organization that has, for over 100 years, practiced hating people who don't look like them? I spent the next several years traveling across the country, interviewing the man from that night, Klan leaders, and Klan members, and eventually writing a book about it. I did not convert anybody. Over 200 Klan members have converted themselves. The more we conversed, the more people would change. One time, someone said we should put Black people down. But I sat there calmly, and they'd be curious about why I didn't fight back. Now their ears are open. Now we can nourish those seeds, water them, and, in most cases, they bloom. Of course, some people go to their graves with hatred in their hearts. But what gives me hope, despite the current state of this country, is the fact that I've seen it work. I've seen people change.

Note: Daryl Davis has successfully persuaded more than 200 KKK members and other white supremacists to disavow their allegiances. Read more about the power of calling people in with love, rather than criticism and judgment. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Paraplegic Veteran Uses Skydiving to Reclaim Lost Sensation in His Legs and Soul
2024-03-12, Good News Network
Posted: 2024-04-01 14:34:28
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/paraplegic-veteran-uses-skydiving-to-reclaim-...

There was a lot that Army veteran Alex Dillman lost when he became a paraplegic after an IED blew up under his legs in Afghanistan, but now an unlikely activity has allowed him to take some of what he lost back. Hurtling through the air at 120 mph, Dillman doesn’t need his wheelchair to skydive; he doesn’t really need his legs either. In that unique state of concentration and freedom, he says he’s “expected to perform,” a do-or-die state of mind that he says he hasn’t felt since his old life on deployment. Dillman originally saw adventure therapy as a way to combat depression and PTSD he suffered from in the wake of his lost abilities, but he never imagined it would help him get some of those abilities back. Now he’s part of an adventure therapy non-profit called Skydive First Project, where he utilizes outdoor adventures to assist individuals suffering from PTSD and depression. Based in Tampa, activities encompass hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, horseback riding, scuba diving, and tandem skydiving. “[The] great thing about skydiving is that it gets me out of the chair,” said Dillman. “I don’t bring my chair with me, so I’m in a free state. I don’t need to be in the chair to perform the act of skydiving.” “I can feel my legs and my feet to a certain extent. I can get a better sense of my overall being, feel what my legs are doing, feel what my hips are doing. Having that feeling again ... even if it’s for 30 seconds or 60 seconds ... is enough for me!”

Note: Read more inspiring news articles on incredible people with disabilities.


German hospitals serve planetary health diet
2024-03-28, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-04-01 14:32:41
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/28/planetary-health-diet-mea...

Patrick Burrichter did not think about saving lives or protecting the planet when he trained as a chef. But 25 years later he has focused his culinary skills on doing exactly that. On the outskirts of Berlin, Burrichter and his team cook for a dozen hospitals that offer patients a “planetary health” diet – one that is rich in plants and light in animals. Compared with the typical diet in Germany, known for its bratwurst sausage and doner kebab, the 13,000 meals they rustle up each day are better for the health of people and the planet. In Burrichter’s kitchen, the steaming vats of coconut milk dal and semolina dumpling stew need to be more than just cheap and healthy – they must taste so good that people ditch dietary habits built up over decades. The biggest challenge, says Burrichter, is replacing the meat in a traditional dish. Moderate amounts of meat can form part of a healthy diet, providing protein and key nutrients, but the average German eats twice as much as doctors advise. Patients on the wards of Waldfriede praise the choice of meals on offer. Martina Hermann, 75, says she has been inspired to cook more vegetables when she gets home. Followers of the planetary health diet need not abandon animal products altogether. The guidelines, which were proposed by 37 experts from the EAT-Lancet Commission in 2019, translate to eating meat once a week and fish twice a week, along with more wholegrains, nuts and legumes.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Can a 50-year-old treaty still keep the world safe from the changing threat of bioweapons?
2023-04-28, Vox
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:41:08
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23700801/bioweapons-biological-weapons-con...

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits the production, use, development, stockpiling, or transfer of biological toxins or disease-causing organisms against humans, animals, or plants. More than 180 countries are party to the pact, which came into force in 1975 as the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapon. And in the years since, the taboo against state use of biological weapons has largely held. Yet a volatile geopolitical environment, combined with the rapid advance and increased access in the ability to edit and engineer pathogens, is straining and testing the nearly 50-year-old BWC as never before. From the BWC’s beginnings, critics have said it lacked vital elements, like a verification mechanism to make sure everyone is following it. Global tensions, scientific advances, and the ever-expanding repertoire of what is possible with both biology and chemistry are making those flaws and cracks ever more visible. Some high-profile mishaps linked to the US chemical and biological weapons programs ... along with public anger over the use of herbicides like Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, prompted Congress to pressure the Nixon administration to review the biological and chemical weapons programs. Contagions are hard to control and contain, and the same pathogens that can infect your target can also sicken you and your population. This is also why they tend to be used as a stealth agent of war. “The holy grail that we’ve struggled with with the Biological Weapons Convention is how do you verify that the countries that have signed up to the treaty are not making biological weapons?” said Kenneth Ward, US special representative to the Biological Weapons Convention.

Note: Watch our latest Mindful News Brief series on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable major media sources.


Dangerous lab leaks happen far more often than the public is aware
2023-05-30, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:38:55
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/30/lab-leaks-shrouded-secrecy

Safety breaches happen every year at labs experimenting with dangerous pathogens. Scientists and other lab workers are bitten by infected animals, stuck by contaminated needles and splashed with infectious fluids. Yet the public rarely learns about these incidents, which tend to be shrouded in secrecy. For example, when a safety breach occurred in 2019 at a University of Wisconsin-Madison lab experimenting with a dangerous and highly controversial lab-created H5N1 avian influenza virus, the university never told the public – or local and state public health officials. In another incident, a pipe burst on a lab waste-holding tank in 2018 at a US army research facility at Fort Detrick, near Washington DC. Workers initially dismissed that any safety breach had occurred. Then army officials belatedly issued public statements that left out key details and created the misleading impression that no dangerous pathogens could have left the base. Yet my reporting has uncovered government documents and even a photo showing the giant tank spewing an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of unsterilized lab wastewater near an open storm drain that feeds into a popular public waterway. Regulation of lab safety in the US and around the world is fragmented and often relies heavily on scientific institutions policing themselves. There is no comprehensive tracking of which labs hold collections of the most dangerous viruses, bacteria and toxins.

Note: Watch our latest Mindful News Brief series on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the scientific community from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon’s flawed UFO report demands congressional action
2024-03-15, The Hill
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:36:02
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4526160-pentagons-flawed-ufo-report-de...

On March 8, the Department of Defense published the most significant report on UFOs in at least two generations — a congressionally mandated historical review of U.S. government involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP. Unfortunately, the report from the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) contains an array of striking omissions and one particularly egregious misrepresentation. The result is a misleading report which, like so much government UFO-related propaganda over seven decades, tells the reader just to move on, nothing to see here. AARO has not provided a plausible explanation for naval aviators’ more recent encounters — including one harrowing near-collision — with spherical objects exhibiting extraordinary flight characteristics. Worst of all, AARO’s review misrepresents the most exhaustive, comprehensive historical analysis of UFO incidents, conducted on behalf of the Air Force by the Battelle Memorial Institute in the early 1950s. According to AARO, the resulting report found that “all cases that had enough data were resolved and explainable.” But this is not what Battelle’s analysis found at all, and AARO’s misrepresentation of its conclusions speaks volumes. According to the Battelle analysis ... of the UFO cases considered “Excellent” and with sufficient data to draw a conclusion, 33 percent were categorized as having “unknown” origin.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our new UFO Information Center.


The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer
2024-03-11, Wired
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:34:08
https://www.wired.com/story/questions-pentagon-ufo-report/

The United States Defense Department announced Friday that it found no evidence that the government is covering up contact with extraterrestrials. The report was issued by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the unit created and tasked in recent years with studying UAP sightings. The report in its own way raises as many new questions as it answers. AARO investigators, for instance, dug through the claims of witnesses and whistleblowers and successfully traced back the underlying research projects, Special Access Programs (SAPs), and classified compartments. As the report says, “AARO investigated numerous named, and described, but unnamed programs alleged to involve UAP exploitation conveyed to AARO through official interviews,” and ultimately, “conclude[d] many of these programs represent authentic, current and former sensitive, national security programs, but none of these programs have been involved with capturing, recovering, or reverse-engineering off-world technology or material.” What exactly are the secret compartmentalized programs that the whistleblowers and government witnesses misidentified as being related to UAP technology? What, exactly, are the Pentagon, intelligence community, or defense contractors working on that ... looks and sounds like reverse-engineering out-of-this-world technology or even studying so-called “non-human biologics”?

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our new UFO Information Center.


World Bank Chief Apologizes to Staff for Handling of Child Sex Abuse Scandal
2024-03-14, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:31:56
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/14/world-bank-child-sex-abuse-scandal-bridge...

Over the past year, Neha Wadekar and I unearthed a whistleblower’s shocking claim of a cover-up of a child sex abuse scandal, a who’s who of international do-good financiers, and a for-profit education chain operating mostly in Africa called Bridge International Academies. An investigator working for the World Bank was stymied and retaliated against. We got notes from a critical phone call between World Bank officials and company executives showing a plan to “neutralize Adler” — the lead internal investigator who had uncovered the allegations — and to slow down the process. “Time matters,” as one person on the call put it. “Need to delay until Series F.” (That’s a name for a financing round.) Following our reporting, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., sent multiple letters to the World Bank, warning the new president that how he responded to the scandal would be used by Congress as a proxy for his broader seriousness about reforming the bank. “We view the Bridge case as a litmus test for the conversation currently taking place around IFC’s responsibility to remedy social and environmental harm caused by its projects, especially those where IFC is not following its own policies,” the senators wrote. Bridge International Academies was backed by the World Bank’s IFC, as well as prominent Silicon Valley and venture capital leaders, including private funds linked to Bill Ackman, Mark Zuckerberg, and Pierre Omidyar.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


A is For Abuse: Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African Education. Children Paid the Price.
2023-03-23, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:30:03
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/bridge-schools-africa-kenya-education/

Bridge International Academies ... grew into a chain of schools providing a homogeneous curriculum developed by researchers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to hundreds of thousands of students in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India. Today, it is the largest for-profit primary education chain in the world. The company is financed today by some of the highest-profile do-good donors in the game — or rather, the for-profit arms of their networks. In March 2022, the World Bank’s financing arm — the International Finance Corporation — quietly divested from NewGlobe, the parent company of Bridge International. A series of abuse and neglect allegations in Kenya ... had caught the eye of a Nairobi-based human rights group, the East African Centre for Human Rights, or EACHRights, as well as the internal watchdog at the World Bank, known as the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, or CAO. “I find it deeply suspect that CAO uncovers explosive child sexual abuse allegations in the course of a compliance investigation and shortly thereafter, the World Bank president unexpectedly terminates the head of the CAO,” said one well-placed civil society representative whose clients have complaints before the CAO. “Meanwhile, three years after the child sexual abuse allegations came to light, the CAO has still not produced an investigation report.” It’s very sad, because the CAO has always been the kind of beacon of accountability of any kind of institution, public or private. No more.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


Biometrics Giant Accenture Quietly Took Over LA Residents’ Jail Reform Plan
2024-03-12, The Intercept
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:28:30
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/12/los-angeles-jail-accenture-measure-j/

In November 2020 ... a ballot initiative known as Measure J passed with 57 percent support, amending the LA County charter so that jailing people before trial would be treated as a last resort. In June, LA County signed over the handling of changes to pretrial detention under Measure J to the consulting firm Accenture, a behemoth in the world of biometric databases and predictive policing. Accenture has pushed counterterror and policing strategies around the globe: The company built the world’s biggest biometric identification system in India, which has used similar technologies to surveil protesters and conduct crowd control as part of efforts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to investigate the citizenship of Muslim residents. Accenture ballooned into a giant in federal consulting over the course of the “war on terror,” winning hundreds of millions of dollars in lucrative contracts from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security for projects from a “virtual border” to recruiting and hiring Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents. In 2006, Accenture won a $10 million contract for a DHS biometric ID program, the world’s second biggest, to collect and share biometric data on foreign nationals entering or leaving the U.S. Several LA-based advocates told The Intercept that the contract is yet another development that calls into question the county’s commitment to real criminal justice reform.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Musk's SpaceX is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency, sources say
2024-03-16, Reuters
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:26:34
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-building-spy-satelli...

SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said. The network is being built by SpaceX's Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites. The plans show the extent of SpaceX's involvement in U.S. intelligence and military projects and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low-Earth orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces. If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the U.S. government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe. Reuters reporting discloses for the first time that the SpaceX contract is for a powerful new spy system with hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits. The planned Starshield network is separate from Starlink, SpaceX's growing commercial broadband constellation that has about 5,500 satellites in space. The classified constellation of spy satellites represents one of the U.S. government’s most sought-after capabilities in space because it is designed to offer the most persistent, pervasive and rapid coverage of activities on Earth. "No one can hide," one of the sources said of the system’s potential capability, when describing the network's reach.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon UAP Report Says No Evidence U.S. Has Collected Exotic Technology, Kept Programs Hidden From Congress
2024-03-09, The Debrief
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:24:26
https://thedebrief.org/pentagon-uap-report-says-no-evidence-u-s-has-collected...

A historical report issued by the Pentagon’s office tasked with the investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), commonly referred to as UFOs, says it found no evidence that sightings of mysterious aerial objects represent extraterrestrial technology, or that secret programs related to the recovery of crashed exotic vehicles have been hidden from Congress. The report is the first installment in a two-volume series produced by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). “To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress,” the report said. Citing investigations that revealed most sightings to result from the “misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena,” the report acknowledged that “many UAP reports remain unsolved.” Following the release of AARO’s report ... few mainstream outlets discussed the numerous intriguing allusions to legitimate advanced capabilities the U.S. possesses that are peppered throughout the report—many of which, in likelihood, actually have contributed to UAP sightings over the years. These seemingly went unnoticed, as well as several factual errors that appear throughout the new report that, for some, potentially undermine the level of rigor AARO appears to have applied in its investigations.

Note: In our UFO Information Center, we reveal significant evidence of top-secret UFO government programs that not even most presidents and Congressional members have access to.


AARO Report Unearths Odd Claims Involving U.S. Recovery Of Material From 1952 UFO Incident
2024-03-12, The Debrief
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:22:23
https://thedebrief.org/fragmented-facts-aaro-report-unearths-odd-claims-invol...

During the summer of 1952, the United States was on high alert as UFO sightings over the nation’s capital were making frequent headlines. One of the objects—a small, glowing disc—was pursued and shot at by a military aircraft, blasting off a fragment that fell into a field near Washington D.C., which a naval officer later retrieved. Last week, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released a long-awaited historical report on its findings involving the United States government’s involvement with UAP and related programs since the end of World War II. In the report, AARO investigators maintained the U.S. federal government’s longstanding position that it has never found any convincing evidence of extraterrestrial technologies operating near Earth, nor of any secret programs involving the acquisition or reverse engineering of crashed exotic technologies that have remained hidden from Congress. Although the recent AARO historical report only provides a cursory summary of the alleged 1952 incident ... there is still more to this bizarre story of alleged UAP debris. Much of this involves the Canadian engineer and UFO researcher Wilbert Smith, who eventually received the alleged flying saucer fragment. “Smith assessed that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin and that they flew by magnetism,” the recent AARO historical report states. “Smith believed he was in personal contact with extraterrestrial beings through telepathy,” AARO’s investigators add.

Note: Wilbert Smith was the head of the Canadian government’s first study on UFOs. He concluded in a declassified 1950 memo that US authorities consider UFO phenomena to be “of tremendous significance,” and that UFOs are the “most highly classified subject in the US government.” In our UFO Information Center, we reveal significant evidence of top-secret UFO government programs that not even most presidents and Congressional members have access to.


Penguin Becomes ‘Guide Bird’ Companion For Zoo Pal Suffering with Cataracts: Waddle I do Without You?
2024-02-10, Good News Network
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:19:36
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/penguin-becomes-guide-bird-companion-for-his-...

A penguin has become a ‘guide-bird’ for a fellow African Penguin with poor eyesight, escorting her around their enclosure to get food and build confidence. The animal helper named ‘Penguin’ has bonded with ‘Squid’ the three-year-old that suffers from cataracts, a debilitating condition that clouds the lens of the eye. Squid is often disoriented during busy feeding times and relies on Penguin’s “unwavering calmness”. Penguin has become Squid’s beacon, guiding her around the enclosure and acting as her ‘eyes’. The hand-reared birds are now inseparable—to the delight of their human keepers at Birdworld who are sharing their remarkable relationship. “The intuitive behavior observed between Penguin and Squid has revealed a remarkable level of empathy and understanding, showcasing the profound connections that can form within the animal kingdom,” said Polly Branham a spokesperson for the aviary in Surrey, England. Having been nurtured within the colony, Squid honed her skills alongside her peers—learning the essence of being a penguin—but she used to be quite anxious about approaching the fish bucket at feeding time. “The excitement of the other penguins created a more unpredictable environment, and she would shy away from this for fear of getting caught in the crossfire of beaks,” explained Branham. “That is how Penguin has been such an enormous help to her. “His stability was something she could rely on.”

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Need to track animals around the world? Tap into the 'spider-verse,' scientists say
2024-02-01, NPR
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:17:59
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/01/1228141523/track-animals-edna-spiderweb

The rich tapestry of life on Earth is fraying, due in large part to human-caused habitat loss and climate change. As more species disappear, researchers are racing to track this global decline in biodiversity to understand its consequences and counteract it through conservation initiatives. Those efforts rely on accurate animal monitoring, which can be difficult, time-consuming and costly. Now, in new research published in the journal iScience, researchers present evidence for a new low-cost, noninvasive tool that can be used to monitor animals: spiderwebs. They're using environmental DNA, or eDNA, which is simply different creatures' DNA just lying around in the environment. Previous work showed that webs are good sources of insect DNA, including what spiders are gorging on. But [evolutionary biologist Morton] Allentoft and [student Josh] Newton wanted to see whether the webs were also trapping DNA from vertebrate animals. So Newton ... collected spiderwebs. Back in the lab, Newton amplified the small amounts of DNA from the webs. They were filled with genetic material from animals. "It was wonderful," says Allentoft. "We could see these kangaroos [and] wallabies." There were nine other mammals, 13 species of birds, the motorbike frog and the snake-eyed skink. In other words, the technique worked. It represents a new way of tracking animal biodiversity and alerting us when we should intervene to conserve native species.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


A Guantanamo Guard And His Detainee Reunite
2018-08-12, NPR
Posted: 2024-03-25 20:16:06
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/12/637932193/a-guantanamo-guard-and-a-detainee-re...

Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Steve Wood met in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2004. At the time, Slahi had been in captivity for two years, accused of acts of terrorism. Wood, then a member of the National Guard, was assigned to watch the Mauritania native. For nine months, they spent their days together. After more than a decade, the two saw each other once again this spring, when Wood traveled to Slahi's home in Mauritania to see his old friend. The two became fast friends. They bonded over the movie The Big Lebowski. Slahi related to the main character, "The Dude," a victim of mistaken identity. The U.S. government detained Slahi in Guantanamo for 14 years, but never charged him with an offense. In 2010, a federal judge ruled that Mohamedou should be released from Guantanamo. Wood reached out to Slahi's legal team, telling them that he'd like to help in any way he could. He wrote a letter supporting Slahi's release. While Slahi was still in prison, his 2015 memoir, Guantanamo Diary, became a bestseller. The next year, the Department of Defense finally allowed Slahi to return to his home. Wood ... flew there in May to see the man he once guarded. "We never believed in this war," Slahi said. "There is no war between Muslims and Americans. There is no war between Americans and the poor people in the world. There is only a war between people on the top who have their own agenda. People are people no matter what ... When we die it doesn't matter what passport we hold."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


In Brazil, prisons without guards offer inmates path to recovery
2023-05-16, AlJazeera
Posted: 2024-03-25 11:22:12
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/16/in-brazil-prisons-without-guards-off...

APAC, a Brazilian non-profit that advocates for better treatment of prisoners, has a unique model in the dozens of facilities it manages across the country. Inmates oversee security and discipline, make their own food and wear their own clothes. Referred to as "recovering persons", prisoners are called by their name rather than by a number. The more than 400 inmates in the Sao Joao del-Rei APAC facility have the keys to their own cells - and unlike in a typical prison, there are no armed guards monitoring their movements. This is a far cry from the norm in Brazil, where the total prison population exceeds 800,000. The country's human rights ministry has cited inhumane conditions, including rotten food and torture, inside prisons in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. In 2021, a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said that across Brazil, inmates were "often held in overcrowded and structurally deficient prisons, maltreated, and frequently subjected to torture". In APAC prisons, cells appear clean, food is fresh and education is part of the rehabilitation programme. In terms of recidivism, while the Brazilian state reports its national average at 39 percent after five years - a number much lower than the 80 percent cited by international observers - APAC says its facilities have a rate of around 14 percent. New inmates entering the Sao Joao del-Rei facility are greeted by a sign bearing the words: "Here the man enters, the crime stays outside."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Is it long COVID or long vax? Does the government want to know?
2024-03-06, The Hill
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:48:31
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4512451-is-it-long-covid-or-long-vax-d...

Long COVID as it’s commonly known is a serious and poorly understood problem. But there is also growing evidence that the COVID vaccine could cause a similar disease. We are critical care physicians with the FLCCC Alliance (the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance) who have treated COVID patients throughout the pandemic. One of us recently opened a private practice focused on patients with long COVID. In two years, the practice has evaluated and treated over 1,000 individuals. Approximately 70 percent of these patients said their reported symptoms occurred in the minutes, hours, days and weeks after COVID vaccination, as opposed to after COVID infection. This could be tied to a new condition that’s flown under the radar until recently. This syndrome, dubbed “long vax,” is just starting to make its way into the medical literature. Dr. Harlan Krumholz at the Yale School of Medicine published a survey of 241 patients who described post-COVID vaccination symptoms of exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog and neuropathy, a nervous system disorder that can cause pain, tingling sensations, numbness or weakness. Long COVID patients were excluded from the study. The concern is that our findings, Krumholz’s study, and any reports of adverse events from COVID-19 vaccination, will be subject to the same institutional censorship we saw throughout the pandemic.

Note: We've documented the growing public backlash against the COVID vaccine, including landmark lawsuits. Vaccine adverse event numbers are made publically available through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and currently show 1,630,913 COVID vaccine injury reports, 37,231 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths, and 214,906 COVID Vaccine Reported Hospitalizations.


Chemical in Water Bottles Linked to Child Obesity
2024-03-01, Newsweek
Posted: 2024-03-18 19:45:30
https://www.newsweek.com/chemical-water-bottles-child-obesity-1875069

A chemical found in water bottles has been linked to child obesity, according to a new study. The synthetic chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, was found in a variety of widely used products, such as plastic water bottles and eyewear. But it is also a chemical known to disrupt the body's hormones. The chemical, which can make its way into other avenues, such as food and the soil, accumulates in the body's tissues and organs when ingested. It is known to affect weight and can affect certain cells. A new study published in mSystems found that this chemical could be playing a role in causing different bacteria groups in children of normal weight than those who were overweight. "We found that the gut microbial community responds differently to BPA exposure depending on the BMI (body-mass index) of the individual," [said] microbiologist Margarita Aguilera of the University of Granada. "[Those connections] underscore the intricate interplay between gut microbiota and potential human pathophysiology resulting from cumulative BPA exposure." Researchers ... found overall that there were more unique bacteria groups in the children of a normal weight. This strongly suggests that the bacteria in those children may be able to fight off harmful chemicals like BPA. This study, and future studies into the effects of BPA, "could point to future interventions and policy changes that may reduce the risk of childhood obesity worldwide," Aguilera said.

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