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US court bans three weedkillers and finds EPA broke law in approval process
2024-02-07, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/07/us-weedkiller-ban-dicamba...

A US court this week banned three weedkillers widely used in American agriculture, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke the law in allowing them to be on the market. The ruling is specific to three dicamba-based weedkillers manufactured by Bayer, BASF and Syngenta, which have been blamed for millions of acres of crop damage and harm to endangered species and natural areas across the midwest and south. Discovery documents turned up in the litigation showed the companies knew that their dicamba weedkillers would probably lead to off-target crop damage. This is the second time a federal court has banned these weedkillers since they were introduced for the 2017 growing season. In 2020, the ninth circuit court of appeals issued its own ban, but months later the Trump administration reapproved the weedkilling products. But a federal judge in Arizona ruled on Monday that the EPA made a crucial error in reapproving dicamba, finding the agency did not post it for public notice and comment as required by law. US district judge David Bury wrote ... that it was a “very serious” violation and that if EPA had done a full analysis, it probably would not have made the same decision. Bury wrote that the EPA did not allow many people who are deeply affected by the weedkiller – including specialty farmers, conservation groups and more – to comment. “The evidence has shown that dicamba cannot be used without causing massive and unprecedented harm to farms as well as endangering plants and pollinators,” said George Kimbrell [with] the Center for Food Safety, which litigated the case.

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


John Kiriakou: Dying by Callous Disregard
2024-02-07, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/07/john-kiriakou-dying-by-callous-disregard/

Look at the case of Lucas Bellamy. He had been arrested in Minnesota. Immediately before the arrest, he ate a bag of drugs in an effort to fool police into thinking that he didn’t have any. But he immediately began feeling sick. Jail officers took him to a local hospital, where he was treated. The doctors there told the jailers to return him to the hospital if he became ill again. He began vomiting as soon as he got back to his cell. By evening he was refusing food and crawling around his cell as a guard and nurse stood and watched him. By noon the next day, he was dead on the floor. The case of Brandon Clay Dodson is even worse. Dodson was arrested on a burglary charge and was being held in the local jail in Clayton, Alabama. He told a guard that several other prisoners had been beating him, and he asked to be moved into segregated housing for his own protection. He later told the guards in solitary that he wasn’t feeling well, but they ignored him. And a day after that, the 43-year-old was found dead in his bed. In a 104-page ruling, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled against the administrators of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, [highlighting] just a few of the untold number of medical horrors that prisoners suffer all the time there, including “a man denied medical attention four times during a stroke, leaving him blind and paralyzed; a man denied access to a specialist for four years while his throat cancer advanced; even a blind man denied a cane for 16 years.”

Note: John Kiriakou is a former CIA counter-terrorism officer and former senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 2015, investigations in Arizona, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, and New York uncovered escalating inmate deaths related to the use of for-profit medical services in prisons. A New York Times article about this was published but it quickly disappeared. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


Prison Lockdowns Are Becoming More Frequent and More Brutal Across the US
2024-02-06, Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/prison-lockdowns-are-becoming-more-frequent-and...

At least 33 U.S. state prison systems and the majority of federal medium-, high- and maximum-security prisons have placed general population (“gen pop”) adults under nondisciplinary lockdown at least once (but more often repeatedly or for a prolonged period) from 2016-2023. While most lockdowns are intermittent (lasting from a few days to several weeks), an increasing number of state and federal prisons keep prisoners locked down for most or even all of the year. In addition, many prisons make people suffer through constant lockdown “cycles,” where prisoners get a very brief return to normal “gen pop” status before they are once again subject to several days or weeks of lockdown. Prisoners have no routines or any real rights whatsoever under lockdown. There is no guarantee of exercise, showers are irregular at best, and access to phone, email or visitation are nonexistent. Education, religious activities, rehabilitative programs, psychiatric intervention to crises, access to commissary ... are typically denied or are nearly impossible to get. Meetings with attorneys come to a halt or are hard to obtain. People under lockdown are often not even given basic hygiene materials such as soap or toothpaste. Modern prison lockdowns can ... be traced back to 2016, in a decidedly repressive, politicized reaction to nationwide prison strikes. Entire prisons were and are still punished for the relatively minor actions of a few, including ... something as simple as a shouting match.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


ICE's Use Of Solitary Confinement “Only Increasing” Under Biden
2024-02-06, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/06/ice-solitary-confinement-detention-immigr...

U.S. immigration authorities locked thousands of people in solitary confinement in 2023. A new report by Harvard University-affiliated researchers ... found the dangerous confinements have not only persisted over the past decade, but also increased in frequency and duration under the Biden administration. The adverse effects of solitary confinement — generally defined as isolation without meaningful human interaction for 22 hours a day or more — are well documented. One of ICE’s directives acknowledges that isolating detainees — who aren’t considered prisoners and aren’t held for punitive reasons under federal law — is “a serious step that requires careful consideration of alternatives.” And yet the new report found the agency recorded more than 14,000 solitary confinement cases from 2018 to 2023. Researchers said the number is likely an undercount due to ICE’s poor recordkeeping. The average length of the recorded confinements was 27 days, researchers found, stretching well beyond the 15-day period that meets the threshold for “inhuman and degrading treatment” defined by the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. The data revealed dozens of examples of facilities holding people in solitary confinement for over a year. Researchers also gathered accounts of the grueling conditions inside isolation cells. Interviewees described cells that were freezing cold; constantly lit, causing sleep deprivation; or had toilets only guards could flush.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


‘A privacy nightmare’: the $400m surveillance package inside the US immigration bill
2024-02-06, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/06/us-immigration-bill-mexico-bo...

The $118bn bipartisan immigration bill that the US Senate introduced on Sunday is already facing steep opposition. The 370-page measure, which also would provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, has drawn the ire of both Democrats and Republicans over its proposed asylum and border laws. But privacy, immigration and digital liberties experts are also concerned over another aspect of the bill: more than $400m in funding for additional border surveillance and data-gathering tools. The lion’s share of that funding will go to two main tools: $170m for additional autonomous surveillance towers and $204m for “expenses related to the analysis of DNA samples”, which includes those collected from migrants detained by border patrol. The bill describes autonomous surveillance towers as ones that “utilize sensors, onboard computing, and artificial intelligence to identify items of interest that would otherwise be manually identified by personnel”. The rest of the funding for border surveillance ... includes $47.5m for mobile video surveillance systems and drones and $25m for “familial DNA testing”. The bill also includes $25m in funding for “subterranean detection capabilities” and $10m to acquire data from unmanned surface vehicles or autonomous boats. As of early January, CBP had deployed 396 surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Note: Read more about the secret history of facial recognition technology and undeniable evidence indicating these tools do much more harm than good. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Internal Prison Files Suggest Epstein ‘Suicide’ Coverup
2024-02-04, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/04/internal-prison-files-suggest-epstein-suici...

Internal US Bureau of Prison (BOP) documents obtained by The Grayzone under Freedom of Information laws raise extremely serious questions about whether Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged first suicide attempt on July 23, 2019 in fact happened, and suggest the Bureau distorted evidence to attribute his death to suicide before his autopsy had even been completed. Officially, Epstein was found to have died in his cell at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, with a medical examiner ruling at the time that he had taken his own life by hanging. The ruling was aggressively contested by Epstein’s associates and widely disbelieved. Epstein’s legal team publicly declared available evidence on his death was “far more consistent” with murder. On August 9 ... regular checks on [Epstein] ceased. Three CCTV cameras nearby apparently malfunctioned. Two on-duty guards fabricated records to hide how they allegedly flouted their legal duties to surf the internet. And the next day, the prison’s most infamous inmate was dead. In the immediate wake of Epstein’s death ... BOP suicide prevention coordinator Robert Nagle visited the Metropolitan Correctional Center to initiate a “psychological reconstruction” of Epstein’s last moments. His resultant report recorded that a video of the “significant incident” was confiscated by the FBI before his review began. He was also prohibited from conducting formal interviews with prison staff.

Note: Read about the new evidence suggesting Epstein ran a sex blackmail operation for intelligence agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.


A big idea for small farms: How to link agriculture, nutrition and public health
2024-02-03, NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/03/1228749130/nutrition-far...

Jimena Cordero is chopping up vegetables and fanning them out onto trays. Cordero is the farm manager at Ollin Farms, not far from Boulder, Colo. — she's put together bright pink and purple radishes, apple, fresh turnips. At the meeting with about a dozen local farmers, two state representatives, and the Colorado commissioner of agriculture, [Cordero's father Mark] Guttridge will explain how Boulder county has made creative investments in his farm that could be scaled up to the state or even national level. Before the meeting, Guttridge shows me one of those investments. A dozen sheep mill about in a field bordered by a simple white fence. Around the field is a special moveable type of fencing that Ollin Farms bought using grants from the Boulder County Sustainability Office. It allows them to move the sheep from one field to another, fertilizing as they go. The goal of these investments is "really building up our soil health," he explains. "That relates directly to the nutrient quality and nutrient density of the food — healthy soil grows healthy food." The county also makes an effort to get that healthy food out to different communities to be able to boost public health. That's where the Boulder County Public Health department comes in. It created a coupon program that low-income families — many of mixed immigration status — can use to get free fruits and vegetables from Ollin Farms' farm stand.

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


Down With the Corporate Price-Gougers Ripping Us Off!
2024-02-02, Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/corporate-greed-inflation-price-gouging

Our new report for the Groundwork Collaborative finds that corporate profits accounted for more than half — 53 percent — of inflation from April to September 2023. That’s an astronomical percentage. Corporate profits drove just 11 percent of price growth in the four decades prior to the pandemic. Businesses have been quick to blame rising costs on supply chain shocks from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But two years later, our economy has mostly returned to normal. In some cases, companies’ costs to make things and stock shelves have actually decreased. A recent survey from the Richmond Fed and Duke University revealed that 60 percent of companies plan to hike prices this year by more than they did before the pandemic, even though their costs have moderated. Corporations across industries, from housing to groceries and used cars, are juicing their profit margins even as the cost of doing business goes down. Since the summer of 2021, Groundwork began listening in on hundreds of corporate earnings calls where we heard CEO after CEO boasting about their ability to raise prices on consumers. Now we hear something slightly different: CEOs crowing about keeping their prices high while their costs go down. PepsiCo raised its prices on snacks and beverages by roughly 15 percent twice in the last year while bragging to shareholders that their profit margins will grow as input costs come down.

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


Source Who Revealed How Taxes Steal for the Rich Rewarded With Five Years in Prison
2024-02-02, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
https://fair.org/home/source-who-revealed-how-taxes-steal-for-the-rich-reward...

Because of Charles Littlejohn, we know that former President Donald Trump and a whole bunch of other rich people pay next to nothing in taxes. Littlejohn, a former consultant at the Internal Revenue Service, leaked these tax returns. For leaking this sensitive information, Littlejohn has been sentenced to five years in federal prison, the maximum jail term. Littlejohn’s lawyers (Bloomberg, 1/18/24) had argued that he had acted “out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change.” Littlejohn now joins people like Reality Winner (New York Times, 8/23/18) and Chelsea Manning (NPR, 1/17/17), security and military-sector leakers who put their freedom on the line to disclose government secrets they felt should be a matter of the public record. The fact of the matter is that investigative journalism can only happen because of leakers who take great risks. Adrian Schoolcraft, an NYPD officer who provided the Village Voice (5/4/10) with evidence of statistics manipulation, felt the wrath of government power when he was eventually forced into a psychiatric ward (Chief, 10/5/15). Edward Snowden, who provided the Guardian (6/11/13) with details about widespread NSA surveillance, is still in exile in Russia as a result of his decision to be a whistleblower. By revealing what the rich can legally get away with, [Littlejohn] was demonstrating that we live in an increasingly divided society.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.


Bodycam Maker Axon Is on a Mission to Surveil America with AI
2024-02-01, Vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bwp4/axon-acquires-fusus-ai-surveillance-re...

Axon, maker of Tasers and police body cameras, has acquired a surveillance company that allows police to tap into camera networks in schools, retail stores, and other locations in cities and towns across America and apply AI technology to the footage. Axon acquired Fusus for an undisclosed sum. Fusus operates what it calls “real time crime centers (RTCC)” which allow police and other public agencies to analyze a wide array of video sources at a single point and apply AI that detects objects and people. These centers are reminiscent of the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Centers—where intelligence from a diverse number of sources is collected and shared among agencies—and have already expanded to over 250 cities and counties. Last week, Axon announced a new line of cameras called Axon Body Workforce designed to be worn by workers in retail and in healthcare. Despite pushing the cameras as deterrents, data shows no evidence that they’ve been effective in reducing police violence or increasing transparency. The rise of Fusus is concerning to rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has raised alarm over the expansion of law enforcement’s ability to easily surveil Americans. Notably, the concept behind Fusus’ solution is similar to technology that has been deployed in South Africa for years, and which experts have said exacerbates inequality in the country.

Note: Axon has ties to paid experts who are used to exonerate police after deaths in custody. 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.


Need to track animals around the world? Tap into the 'spider-verse,' scientists say
2024-02-01, NPR
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.


Ad agency tied to Purdue Pharma settles opioid claims for $350 million
2024-02-01, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/02/01/opioids-oxycontin-purdue-pub...

An advertising agency that helped market the blockbuster painkiller OxyContin will pay $350 million to states ravaged by the nation’s opioid crisis. Attorneys general from multiple states alleged that Publicis Health developed “unfair and deceptive” marketing campaigns aimed at persuading doctors to prescribe the addictive drug for longer periods of time and at higher doses. The company’s client was Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut drugmaker accused in lawsuits of helping ignite the epidemic through aggressive marketing and sales of OxyContin. Publicis, a subsidiary of French ad giant Publicis Groupe, settled with 50 states and D.C. Under the agreements, Publicis Health will stop accepting work related to prescription opioids and must release thousands of internal documents chronicling its dealings with companies such as Purdue. It is the first settlement with an advertising agency connected to the opioid crisis, according to the New York attorney general’s office. “Publicis was responsible for creating advertisements and materials, such as pamphlets and brochures that promoted OxyContin as safe and unable to be abused, even though this claim was not true,” according to a news release from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Drug overdoses killed nearly 110,000 people in the United States in 2022, a record high, according to federal death statistics.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


TSA sparks privacy concerns amid plans to install facial recognition systems at 400 US airports
2024-02-01, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2024/02/01/lifestyle/tsa-sparks-privacy-concerns-amid-plan...

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) sparked privacy concerns after unveiling plans to roll out controversial facial recognition tech in over 400 US airports soon. “TSA is in the early stages of deploying its facial recognition capability to airport security checkpoints,” a spokesperson [said] regarding the ambitious program. They explained that the cutting-edge tech serves to both enhance and expedite the screening process for passengers. Dubbed CAT-2 machines, these automated identification systems accomplish this by incorporating facial recognition tech to snap real-time pictures of travelers. They then compare this biometric data against the flyer’s photo ID to verify that it’s the real person. These CAT-scans enable “traveler use of mobile driver’s licenses,” thereby improving the security experience, per the spokesperson. The TSA currently has 600 CAT-2 units deployed at about 50 airports nationwide and plans to expand them to 400 federalized airports in the future. Following the implementation of these synthetic security accelerators at US airports last winter, lawmakers expressed concerns that the machines present a major privacy issue. “The TSA program is a precursor to a full-blown national surveillance state,” said Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley. “Nothing could be more damaging to our national values of privacy and freedom. No government should be trusted with this power.”

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


Meta is the world’s ‘single largest marketplace for paedophiles’, says New Mexico attorney general
2024-01-31, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/31/meta-worlds-single...

The New Mexico attorney general, Raúl Torrez, who has launched legal action against Meta for child trafficking on its platforms, says he believes the social media company is the “largest marketplace for predators and paedophiles globally”. The lawsuit claims that Meta allows and fails to detect the trafficking of children and “enabled adults to find, message and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos”, concluding that “Meta’s conduct is not only unacceptable; it is unlawful”. Torrez says that he has been shocked by the findings of his team’s investigations into online child sexual exploitation on Meta’s platforms. Internal company documents obtained by the attorney general’s office as part of its investigation have also revealed that the company estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day. The idea of the lawsuit came to [Torrez] after reading media coverage of Meta’s role in child sexual exploitation, including a Guardian investigation that it was failing to report or detect the use of Facebook and Instagram for child trafficking. If it progresses, the New Mexico lawsuit is expected to take years to conclude. Torrez wants his lawsuit to provide a medium to usher in new regulations. “Fundamentally, we’re trying to get Meta to change how it does business and prioritise the safety of its users, particularly children.”

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 Holocaust survivor identifies with the pain of both sides in the Israel-Hamas war
2024-01-30, NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/01/30/1227849885/a-holocaust-s...

Last week, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling that the charge brought by South Africa that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza is "plausible." The court called on Israel to take all measures to prevent the killing of civilians in the Palestinian enclave. The war began after Hamas struck southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. The day of the attack has been described as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. When [Holocaust survivor Estelle] Laughlin was a schoolgirl in Warsaw, children regularly pelted her and the other Jewish kids with pebbles. "We were so frightened," she recalls. "The antisemitism was right in front of me — it was so visceral." For Laughlin, besides luck, it was her mother and sister who helped her make it out of the camps alive. "Love maintained us," she says. She says she survived with an enduring sense of compassion and love for humanity, including for the Germans. "Without those values, survival would be hardly meaningful," she says. Laughlin says she's holding the Jewish pain of this war alongside the Palestinian pain. "When the dignity of any human being is diminished, the dignity of all humanity is diminished," she says. "Not only in relationship to my community but to any community of innocent people being attacked." When Laughlin considers the Palestinians living in Gaza, she says, "I identify with their plight ... with their isolation that the rest of the world keeps on going on as though nothing happened, and their world is crumbling." "I feel their pain," she adds. She longs for a better way forward.

Note: Check out the 12 organizations working for Israel-Palestine peace. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
2024-01-29, Yahoo News/Associated Press
https://news.yahoo.com/prisoners-us-part-hidden-workforce-125458768.html

Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. The goods ... prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. It’s completely legal. Enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude are banned – except as punishment for a crime. With about 2 million people locked up, U.S. prison labor from all sectors has morphed into a multibillion-dollar empire. Almost all of the country’s state and federal adult prisons have some sort of work program, employing around 800,000 people. Altogether, labor tied specifically to goods and services produced through state prison industries brought in more than $2 billion in 2021. “Slavery has not been abolished,” said Curtis Davis, who spent more than 25 years at [Louisiana's Angola] penitentiary. “It is still operating in present tense,” he said. “Nothing has changed.”

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in prisons and in the food system from reliable major media sources.


The 3D-Printed Affordable Housing of the Future Will Be Recyclable
2024-01-26, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/future-affordable-housing-3d-printed-recycl...

When you imagine a 3D-printed home, you probably picture a boxy concrete structure. As 3D printing’s popularity has grown in the construction industry — thanks to its efficiency when it comes to time, energy and cost — carbon-intensive concrete has become the go-to building material. But a project in Maine has set its sights on something different: a neighborhood of 600-square-foot, 3D-printed, bio-based houses crafted from materials like wood fibers and bioresins. The aim: a complex of 100-percent recyclable buildings that will provide homes to those experiencing houselessness. In late 2022, an initiative between the University of Maine and local nonprofit Penquis unveiled its prototype — BioHome3D, the first 100-percent recyclable house. Now, the pioneering project is working toward completing its first livable housing complex. It will be fully bio-based, meaning all materials will be derived from living organisms such as plants and other renewable agricultural, marine and forestry materials. As the materials are all 100-percent recyclable, so become the buildings. The materials are also all renewable. And thanks to its natural composition, the home acts as a carbon sink, sequestering 46 tons of carbon dioxide per 600-square-foot unit. The materials for this project will mainly come from wood left over by local mills. “The wood fiber material that’s used in the mix is essentially waste wood here in Maine,” says Jason Bird, director of housing development for Penquis.

Note: Don't miss pictures of beautiful homes built by this process at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


The Pentagon Tried to Hide That It Bought Americans’ Data Without a Warrant
2024-01-26, Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/pentagon-data-purchases-wyden-letter/

United States officials fought to conceal details of arrangements between US spy agencies and private companies tracking the whereabouts of Americans. Obtaining location data from US phones normally requires a warrant, but police and intelligence agencies routinely pay companies instead for the data, effectively circumventing the courts. Ron Wyden, the US senator from Oregon, informed the nation’s intelligence chief, Avril Haines, on Thursday that the Pentagon only agreed to release details about the data purchases, which had always been unclassified, after Wyden hindered the Senate's efforts to appoint a new director of the National Security Agency. “The secrecy around data purchases was amplified,” Wyden wrote, “because intelligence agencies have sought to keep the American people in the dark." Pentagon offices known to have purchased location data from these companies include the Defense Intelligence Agency and the NSA, among others. Wyden's letter ... indicates that the NSA is also “buying Americans' domestic internet metadata.” Wyden's disclosure comes amid a fight in the US House of Representatives over efforts to outlaw the purchases. Members of the House Judiciary Committee attached legislation doing so ... to a bill reauthorizing a contentious surveillance program known as Section 702. Biden administration officials and members of the intelligence committee staged a campaign against the privacy-enhancing measures.

Note: Learn more about mission creep in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon Suggests There’re No U.S. Troops In Yemen — But Last Month The White House Said There Are
2024-01-26, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/26/us-troops-yemen-pentagon-white-house/

Amid a raft of U.S. strikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Pentagon has boots on the ground in the country — a fact the Defense Department has recently refused to acknowledge. “A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS,” the White House told Congress ... on December 7. This month, the U.S. began its military campaign against the Houthis for attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea. As the U.S. began to attack, defense officials suddenly became more reticent about the American military presence in Yemen. In a press briefing on January 17, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder was asked if he could give assurances that the U.S. had no troops on the ground in Yemen. “It’s possible that U.S. forces are spread so widely around the globe that not even the professional tasked with knowing that can keep track of it all,” said Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, who worked on Yemen as a Capitol Hill staffer. “But it’s also possible that, given the dramatic expansion in US presence in the region in recent months, he is trying to skirt the question to avoid greater scrutiny.” The U.S. has conducted eight rounds of strikes on Houthi targets in the past month alone. On December 18, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a U.S.-led coalition to defend ships against Houthi attacks.

Note: Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon Report Predicts New Age of COVID Bioweapons and Brain Chip Warfare
2024-01-25, Lee Fang on Substack
https://www.leefang.com/p/pentagon-report-predicts-new-age

Military strategists believe that a "coronavirus bioweapon" may lurk on the horizon. This possibility is one of several outlined in a new report sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The report “Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers: The Human Domain of War Research” delves into how CRISPR gene-editing technology, mRNA vaccines, brain networking, and other technological advancements could unleash new forms of military conflict. “We see a complex, high-threat landscape emerging where future wars are fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts” and “synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues” that cripple the American military-industrial base,” the report warns. At the same time, authoritarian states might ... brutally suppress "anti-vaccine populists" and enforce compliance. The report claims this could hinder the U.S. due to its more relaxed regulatory environment that values individual liberties, where such crackdowns and forced vaccinations are more difficult to deploy. The report takes aim at Congress, criticizing the recent repeal of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members. It urges lawmakers to resist "anti-vaccine populism" to ensure military readiness. Simultaneously, the report urges the Pentagon to consider using genetic screening to find qualified military recruits and develop clear plans for integrating bioweapon warfare capabilities.

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