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America’s eighth-largest school district handed taxpayer cash to Planned Parenthood to train teachers that biological sex is a “myth,” according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Philadelphia School District (PSD), which oversees almost 200,000 students, paid Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania (PPSP) nearly $40,000 in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV grant funds to provide up to 70 trainings which decry biological sex as a “myth,” support medical child sex-changes and normalize men in women’s sports, according to documents obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. Planned Parenthood delivered Comprehensive Sexual Education to more than 1.3 million participants during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to its latest annual report, dubbing itself as America’s “largest” sex education provider.

“Too many people remain unaware that Planned Parenthood has become a primary player in the youth gender industry and uses schools as the vehicle into the minds of children,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Defending Education, told the DCNF. “This is already unacceptable on its face but the fact that they’re using federal dollars to promote these ideologies and lie about the long-term consequences of medicalization is reprehensible.”

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PPSP contracted with the PSD to provide 14 unique sexual education trainings for teachers and students in grades 4-12, on topics such as creating a “safe space” for LGBT youth at school, “debunking myths” about child sex-changes and teaching “self-advocacy” to LGBT youth, documents show. The DCNF obtained slideshows from the presentations, revealing Philadelphia teachers are being trained to reinforce the gender-confusion of students and push youth towards obtaining medical sex-changes.

The funds for PPSP were derived from a $2.6 million dollar multi-year CDC grant for a school-based HIV prevention program, awarded to PSD in 2018.

A PPSP teacher training titled “Debunking Myths about Gender-Affirming Care,” “debunks” what it claims to be “myths” about child sex-changes, such as “most people regret having gender-affirming surgery or medical interventions,” “kids are too young to know they’re trans or non binary” and “gender-affirming care is dangerous,” documents show.

The presentation incorrectly calls puberty blockers, which cause infertility, bone density loss and may impair brain development, “fully reversible,” and states child sex-change medical interventions are “life saving and life enabling.” A review published by the Trump administration in May 2025 found the child sex-change medical industry is built on junk science that lacks ethical justification.

Planned Parenthood is “wrong” to cast child-sex changes as safe and reversible, Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director at the watchdog organization Do No Harm, told the DCNF.

“Planned Parenthood is wrong in its portrayal of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ in minors. Multiple systematic reviews show that the quality of evidence for these interventions is incredibly weak,” Miceli told the DCNF. “The harms, on the other hand, are very real and serious. The risks range from infertility to surgical complications and regret. These interventions negatively impact bone health and cause cardiovascular disease, too. The experimental and harmful effects on youth are no myth and can’t be ignored.”

PPSP provides sex-change hormone therapy through in-person and remote telehealth appointments to patients over 18, directing minors seeking sex-change hormone therapy to contact the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Gender and Sexuality Development Program, according to its website. A training on medical child sex-changes lists the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who Do No Harm calls the “worst-offending” children’s hospitals in the country for “promoting sex change treatments for minors,” as a “local resource” for educators.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Planned Parenthood claims biological sex is a “myth” and explains the importance of providing students with “gender-neutral” locker rooms and bathrooms in a teacher training titled “How to Make Your Classroom a Safe Space for LGBTQIA+ Students.” Teachers are further instructed to fill their classrooms with LGBT imagery, interrupt “transphobic” behavior and advocate for school-wide “queer positive” sexual education.

PPSP addresses the hot button topic of male “transgender” athletes competing in girls sports in the same training, stating there is “no research” to support males having an advantage over females in sports. It states that research supports that a “lack of athletic opportunities in schools,” which transgender activists say occurs when males are denied access to girls sports, is an “actual” threat to students.

In a PPSP training titled “Teaching Digital Decision-Making, Media Literacy and Safety,” teachers were warned they might be exposed to “transphobia,” “misogyny” and “bullying,” when reviewing a series of tweets, including those authored by J.K. Rowling, that questioned the legitimacy of Imane Khelif, an allegedly male boxer, participating in female sports, documents show.

Khelif controversially won the 2024 Summer Olympics female gold medal in the boxing competition. In March 2023, Khelif was excluded from participating in the International Boxing Association (IBA) women’s events after a series of blood tests showed Khelif failed to meet its definition of a woman, according to the IBA website. The IBA wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee in June 2023 and expressed concerns over the safety of female boxers if forced to compete with Khelif.

A PPSP student media literacy training asked youth to identify “red flags,” defined as content on social media that is exclusionary, prejudiced or providing false information. Students were asked to find the “red flag” when provided with a photo of a pregnant “man” and a statement that only biological women can get pregnant, documents show.

A PPSP training titled “Self Advocacy For LGBTQ+ Youth” encouraged students to embrace “coming out” and to be supportive of medically transitioning “transgender” friends.

In its 2023-2024 Annual Report, PPSP praised its partnership with PSD, saying it has trained 627 teachers and staff to “cultivate shame-free schools.”

LifeNews Note: Megan Brock writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.

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Above: Tintagel Castle, possible birthplace of King Arthur. King Arthur, since watching The Sword in the Stone as a very young child with my father back in 1963 (though to be fair, all I really remembered until seeing it again a decade later was the haunting opening song) has held a stronghold upon my imagination. Both the faux-mediaeval image of movies and the Prince Valiant comic…

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Martina Bednarova has been given a suspended jail term in the Czech Republic for calling Moscow’s military action “justified”

A Czech court has handed a former teacher a seven-month suspended sentence for expressing pro-Russian views during a school lesson, local media reported on Thursday.

Martina Bednarova was also banned from teaching for three years and ordered to complete a media literacy course, according to the Ceska Justice news portal. The court reportedly said Bednarova misused her role by presenting “misleading information” to students.

The incident occurred in April 2022, shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, during a Czech language lesson at an elementary school in Prague. According to media reports, Bednarova described Russia’s military action of Ukraine as a “justified way of resolving the situation” and cast doubt on Czech television’s coverage.

She also said “Nazi Ukrainian groups” had been killing Russians since 2014, apparently referring to Ukrainian nationalist battalions such as Azov, which Moscow has accused of committing atrocities against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, and which the Kiev authorities dispute. Students recorded the class and alerted school officials, leading to Bednarova’s dismissal.

Judge Eliska Matyasova claimed Bednarova was not simply expressing personal views but delivering false information in a classroom where students could not question it. Bednarova said her remarks were part of a media literacy lesson and called the case politically driven. The verdict is not final, as she has the right to appeal.

The District Court initially acquitted Bednarova twice, with an appeals chamber backing the second ruling on free speech grounds. In January, however, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions and ordered a new review to assess whether her actions met the criteria for a criminal offense.

Prague has taken a strongly anti-Russian stance in recent years, especially in response to the Ukraine conflict, becoming one of Kiev’s staunchest supporters.

In its 2023 human rights report, the Russian Foreign Ministry labeled the Czech government’s actions as “Russophobic” and expressed concern over freedom of speech in the country.

It also raised concerns over the functioning of media in the Czech Republic and noted what it called a steady drift toward anti-Russian sentiment.

Russian will also be phased out as a second language by 2034 under new Czech education reforms, with students limited to German, French or Spanish. As of late 2023, over 40,000 Russian nationals lived in the country, making them the fourth-largest foreign community.

The Czech Republic, once part of communist Czechoslovakia and a Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc member, became independent in 1993 after the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse. Since then, the country has removed or altered hundreds of Soviet-era monuments, with another wave of removals following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

A victory for pregnancy centers in Pennsylvania has produced hope for pregnancy care workers in the Keystone State.

The commonwealth’s former attorney general Michelle Henry had created a page titled, “Report Reproductive Health Deceptive Activity,” in 2023 on the AG website for clients of pregnancy centers to report complaints.

Local pregnancy help advocates recently discovered that the website has been removed.

The Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative (PPWC) sent two of its members to the new attorney general’s office April 15 with a mission. David Sunday, openly pro-life, was elected in November as the new AG.

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PPWC, as defined in its 2024 opening press conference by the organization’s President Sarah Bowen is an, “initiative unifying pregnancy medical clinics and resource centers that provide compassionate and essential care for women and families in Pennsylvania.”

In 2023, Democrat Henry publicly and falsely stated the website was necessary because most pregnancy centers were not licensed and therefore not providing adequate medical care.

PPWC members Jill Hartman, executive director of A Woman’s Concern in Lancaster, and Jon Merwarth, executive director of Bright Hope Support Centers in Allentown, sat down with the attorney general’s council. Sunday was unable to attend the meeting.

“I believe they really wanted to hear what we had to say,” Hartman said.

Hartman and Merwarth came before the council with statistics refuting the data presented by the previous attorney general office.

Hartman said Henry’s move to depreciate Pennsylvania centers stemmed from the 2022 report by “progressive” collaborative The Alliance titled, “Designed to Deceive: A Study of Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Nine States.” Among those nine states placed under scrutiny was Pennsylvania, along with Alaska, California, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

“That report is what drove much of the false info,” Hartman said.

In the report, researchers incorrectly declared Pennsylvania clinics committed false advertising by using the terms “choice” and “options” in their websites.

The PPWC members addressed these claims with the AG office during the April 15 visit.

Hartman presented the PPWC study, “Optimizing Maternal Health in Pennsylvania” in the visit, highlighting the positive impact of pregnancy help centers.

She shared this document which she drafted in response to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s efforts to start a state-funded pilot pregnancy center.

“There are 87 centers in 161 locations throughout the commonwealth,” Hartman noted in the document. “These centers represent 78 percent of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania with focus on areas with the greatest need.”

“We represent 85 percent of the counties in Pennsylvania,” she said in an interview with Pregnancy Help News.

The site on the attorney general’s page “was set up to convince people to be against us,” Hartman said, adding she is not aware of any complaints registered or investigated from the site’s inception.

She added that PPWC and pregnancy centers in Pennsylvania want what is best for clients as they look for support, saying, “We are wanting data to drive decisions rather than false narratives.”

Hartman said the collaborative is aware there will be folks in the Commonwealth who will choose not to see pregnancy centers as a resource.

“It’s fine if you do not agree with us,” she said. “What’s not fine is that you lie about us.”

Nearly four weeks after the visit with the new AG, a PPWC member went online to review the attorney general website and discovered instead the words, “Oops! That page cannot be found.”

“We are just so pleased,” Hartman said. “We were just coming off from the Day of Advocacy press conference at the capital that week and then we noticed this removal.”

Inquiries by Pregnancy Help News to obtain comment from the Pennsylvania Attorney General Office did not receive a response.

LifeNews Note: Tabitha Goodling has been writing for media outlets for more than 20 years in her home state of Pennsylvania. She has served as a client services director at her local pregnancy center since 2018. She and her husband are raising four teenage daughters, which include a set of triplets. This column originally appeared at Pregnancy Help News.

The post Pennsylvania Removes Web Site That Trashed Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj

US President Donald Trump has banned international students from attending Harvard University, citing national security concerns.

The move has sparked widespread condemnation from academics and foreign governments, who warn it could damage America’s global influence and reputation for academic openness. At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.

But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.

China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.

So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? The answer may lie in the unspoken rules of soft power: Ivy League campuses are battlegrounds for influence. The US deep state has long recruited foreign students to promote its interests abroad – subsidized by American taxpayers no less. China is apparently playing the same game, leveraging elite US universities to co-opt future leaders on its side of the geostrategic fence.

For the time being, a judge has granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order against Trump’s proposed ban. Come what may, there is one commonsense solution that all parties to this saga would like to avoid: Forcing Ivy League institutions to open their admissions process to public scrutiny. The same institutions that champion open borders, open societies, and open everything will, however, not tolerate any suggestion of greater openness to its admissions process. That would open up a Pandora’s Box of global corruption that is systemically ruining nations today.

Speaking of corruption – how is this for irony? A star Harvard professor who built her career researching decision-making and dishonesty was just fired and stripped of tenure for fabricating her own data!

Concentration of wealth and alumni networks

The Ivy League has a vested interest in perpetuating rising wealth and educational inequalities. It is the only way they can remain atop the global rankings list at the expense of less-endowed peers.

Elite universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT dominate lists of institutions with the most ultra-wealthy alumni (net worth over $30mn). For example, Harvard alone has 18,000 ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) alumni, representing 4% of the global UHNW population.

These alumni networks provide major donations, corporate partnerships, and exclusive opportunities, reinforcing institutional wealth. If the alma mater’s admissions process was rigged in their favor, they have no choice but to cough it up, at least for the sake of their offspring who will perpetuate this exclusivist cycle.

The total endowment of Princeton University – $34.1 billion in 2024 – translated to $3.71 million per student, enabling generous financial aid and state-of-the-art facilities. Less prestigious institutions just cannot compete on this scale.

Rankings, graft, and ominous trends

Global university rankings (QS, THE, etc.) heavily favor institutions with large endowments, high spending per student, and wealthy student bodies. For example, 70% of the top 50 US News & World Report Best Colleges overlap with universities boasting the largest endowments and the highest percentage of students from the top 1% of wealthy families.

According to the Social Mobility Index (SMI), climbing rankings requires tens of millions in annual spending, driving tuition hikes and exacerbating inequality. Lower-ranked schools which prioritize affordability and access are often overshadowed in traditional rankings, which reward wealth over social impact. Besides, social mobility these days is predetermined at birth, as the global wealth divide becomes unbridgeable.

Worse, the global ranking system itself thrives on graft, with institutions gaming audits, inflating data, and even bribing reviewers. Take the case of a Southeast Asian diploma mill where some of its initial batch of female students had been arrested for prostitution. Despite its flagrant lack of academic integrity, it grew rapidly to secure an unusually high QS global ranking – ahead of venerable institutions like the University of Pavia, where Leonardo da Vinci studied, and which boasts three Nobel Laureates among its ranks.

Does this grotesque inversion of merit make any sense?

Government policies increasingly favor elite institutions. Recent White House tax cuts and deregulation may further widen gaps by benefiting corporate-aligned universities while reducing public funding for others. This move was generally welcomed by the Ivy League until Trump took on Harvard.

With such ominous trends on the horizon, brace yourselves for an implosion of the global education sector by 2030 – a reckoning mirroring the 2008 financial crisis, but with far graver consequences. And touching on the 2008 crisis, didn’t someone remark that “behind every financial disaster, there’s a Harvard economist?”

Nobody seems to be learning from previous contretemps. In fact, I dare say that ‘learning’ is merely a coincidental output of the Ivy League brand

The credentialism trap

When Lehman Brothers and its lesser peers collapsed in 2008, many Singapore-based corporations eagerly scooped up their laid-off executives. The logic? Fail upward.

If these whizz kids were truly talented, why did they miss the glaring warning signs during the lead up to the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression? The answer lies in the cult of credentialism and an entrenched patronage system. Ivy League MBAs and Rolodexes of central banker contacts are all that matters. The consequences are simply disastrous: A runaway global talent shortage will hit $8.452 trillion in unrealized annual revenues by 2030, more than the projected GDP of India for the same year.

Ivy League MBAs often justify their relevance by overcomplicating simple objectives into tedious bureaucratic grinds – all in the name of efficiency, smart systems, and ever-evolving ‘best practices’. The result? Doctors now spend more time on paperwork than treating patients, while teachers are buried under layers of administrative work.

Ultimately, Ivy League technocrats often function as a vast bureaucratic parasite, siphoning public and private wealth into elite hands. What kind of universal socioeconomic model are these institutions bequeathing to the world? I can only think of one historical analogue as a future cue: Colonial India, aka the British Raj. This may be a stretch, but bear with me.

Lessons from the Raj

As Norman Davies pointed out, the Austro-Hungarians had more bureaucrats managing Prague than the British needed to run all of colonial India – a subcontinent that included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, it took only 1,500-odd white Indian Civil Service (ICS) officials to govern colonial India until WWI.

That is quite staggering to comprehend, unless one grasps how the British and Indian societies are organized along rigid class (and caste) lines. When two corrupt feudal systems mate, their offspring becomes a blueprint for dystopia.

India never recovered from this neo-feudal arrangement. If the reader thinks I am exaggerating, let’s compare the conditions in the British Raj and China from 1850 to 1976 (when the Cultural Revolution officially ended). During this period, China endured numerous societal setbacks – including rebellions, famines, epidemics, lawlessness, and a world war – which collectively resulted in the deaths of nearly 150 million Chinese. The Taiping Rebellion alone – the most destructive civil war in history – resulted in 20 to 30 million dead, representing 5-10% of China’s population at the time.

A broad comparison with India during the same period reveals a death toll of 50-70 million, mainly from epidemics and famines. Furthermore, unlike colonial India, many parts of China also lacked central governance.

Indian nationalists are quick to blame a variety of bogeymen for their society’s lingering failings. Nevertheless, they should ask themselves why US Big Tech-owned news platforms, led by upper-caste Hindu CEOs, no less, showed a decidedly pro-Islamabad bias during the recent Indo-Pakistani military standoff. Maybe, these CEOs are supine apparatchiks, much like their predecessors during the British Raj? Have they been good stewards of the public domain (i.e. internet)? Have they promoted meritocracy in foreign lands? (You can read some stark examples here, here and here).

These Indian Big Tech bros, however, showed a lot of vigor and initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing their employees to take the vaccine or face the pink slip. They led the charge behind the Global Task Force on Pandemic Response, which included an “unprecedented corporate sector initiative to help India successfully fight COVID-19.” Just check out the credentials of the ‘experts’ involved here. Shouldn’t this task be left to accomplished Indian virologists and medical experts?

A tiny few, in the service of a hegemon, can control the fate of billions. India’s income inequality is now worse than it was under British rule.

A way out?

As global university inequalities widen further, it is perhaps time to rethink novel approaches to level the education field as many brick and mortar institutions may simply fold during the volatile 2025-30 period.

I am optimistic that the use of AI in education will be a great equalizer, but I also fear that Big Tech will force governments into using its proprietary EdTech solutions that are already showing signs of runaway AI hallucinations – simply because the bold new world is all about control and power, not empowerment. Much like the British Raj, I would say.

Businesses will no longer be forced to accommodate abortion in the workplace, thanks to a Trump-appointed judge. This is a huge step in protecting preborn babies and religious freedom across the country!

U.S. District Judge David Joseph ruled last Wednesday that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission overstepped its authority when it tried to include abortion as a condition covered under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act — a law passed in 2022 to support pregnant women in the workplace.

Judge Joseph stated that if Congress wanted to include abortion in the law, they would have made it clear, especially on such a divisive and important issue. “Congress would have spoken clearly” if it had intended for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to cover abortion, he wrote.

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had issued a sweeping rule interpreting the law to include “termination of pregnancy, including via miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion.” But Christian and conservative groups immediately challenged the regulation, warning it would violate conscience protections and force employers to participate in the abortion agenda.

Thanks to this ruling, American businesses will not be forced to give employees time off to end the lives of their preborn babies — a chilling policy that the Biden administration tried to slip through under the guise of “pregnancy accommodations.”

This decision is the latest reminder of how crucial it is to have leaders and judges who respect Life. Under President Donald Trump, federal support for abortion was rolled back, the Hyde Amendment was enforced, and the Mexico City Policy was reinstated, cutting off taxpayer funding for elective abortions both at home and abroad.

Last week’s court ruling is a resounding Pro-Life victory, showing that the fight to protect the most vulnerable is far from over.

LifeNews Note: Ashlynn Lemos is the communications intern for Texas Right to Life.

The post Judge Blocks Biden’s Abortion Mandate on Businesses appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A caller posing as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has reportedly asked for money from US elites

US authorities are investigating an individual who has allegedly been impersonating White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The impersonator has been attempting to deceive prominent Republican senators, governors and business leaders over the past several weeks, by pretending to be Wiles, sources familiar with the investigation have told the newspaper. The individual has reportedly used text messages and phone calls using a voice likely generated by AI.

Some of the targets interacted with the imposter, but others found the messages immediately suspicious as they contained grammatical errors and used an overly formal tone that did not align with Wiles’ style.

Some recipients were asked questions Wiles would be expected to know, and in at least one case, the caller solicited a money transfer.

Sources told the WSJ that Wiles suspects her personal phone may have been hacked and her contact list compromised, but investigators have yet to confirm that theory.

The FBI does not believe a foreign government is behind the scheme, according to the report.

While Wiles’ contacts have been notified, fraudulent messages were sent as recently as this week, including while she was accompanying Trump on a trip to the Middle East, sources told the outlet.

In May, then-national security adviser Mike Waltz became embroiled in a separate communications mishap after mistakenly adding a senior editor with The Atlantic to a private Signal group chat.

Trump later stated that Waltz had “learned a lesson,” though media reports claimed that internal pressure mounted for his removal. His resignation was announced earlier this month.

“Emergency contraception” refers to chemicals, drugs, or devices (usually the hormonal drugs ulipristal or levonorgestrel) that are ingested or inserted after intercourse and prior to the recognition of pregnancy with the goal of preventing a recognizable pregnancy. The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) opposes the use of so-called ”emergency contraceptives” (EC) in adolescent patients for the reasons discussed below.1

All human life begins at fertilization and deserves protection.2  EC acts primarily through interfering with the tubal transport and uterine implantation of the embryo resulting in the embryo’s immediate, or, through ectopic pregnancy, delayed death.

Increased use of EC in society has not been shown to reduce overall the rates of

pregnancy or abortion.  In addition, there are several unintended harmful consequences. Studies show that the rate of sexually transmitted infections increase when EC is more easily available.  This is consistent with an increase in risky sexual practices.  This potentially leads to increased risks of death, cancer, and infertility.

The use of EC may undermine needed parental involvement. The pre-frontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for judgment and overriding purely emotional decisions is not mature until the mid-twenties. Adolescents need the guidance of their parents. If parents do not know that their children are sexually active, engaging in other high-risk activities, or facing life-affecting decisions, they cannot give their children the guidance they desperately need.

Also, cases of sexual assault and sex trafficking may be obscured and unrecognized. Perpetrators may obtain these pills without restriction and force them on their sexual victims. Victims allowed to obtain EC without prescription may also be too embarrassed to seek proper testing and  medical treatment for sexually transmitted infections. In both cases, the appropriate legal constraints and needed psychological care after the assault are not provided. This leaves the victim without proper care and allows the perpetrator to continue assaulting other victims.

In addition to opposing the use of EC in adolescents, the College also strongly opposes any laws or regulations requiring physicians to prescribe EC when it violates their conscience.

Approved by the ACPeds Board of Directors (May 2025)
Approved by ACPeds Members (June 2025)

Corresponding ACPeds Referenced Paper:

Emergency Contraception – Not the Best for Adolescents (May 2025)

Other Pertinent ACPeds Referenced Papers: 

When Human Life Begins (March 2017)

Encouraging Parent-Adolescent Communication Is Best for Children (September 2020)

Adolescent Brain: Under Construction (May 2022)

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) affirms every child’s need of loving discipline which is validated by research demonstrating improved socialization and character development when children are raised by loving, authoritative parents who set standards of behavior while also providing a nurturing, responsive environment.

Parental roles include teaching and assisting their children in acquiring healthy character traits such as self-control, teachability, respectfulness, integrity, honesty, and competency. These traits do not come naturally, but must be taught through the process of discipline, which includes instruction, affirmation, and correction.

Appropriate instruction must be provided first at a young age, as early as infancy, with parents clearly communicating their expectations. Affirmation reinforces the proper behaviors as the child receives verbal praise, physical affection or material rewards. Correction is necessary when a child refuses to follow instruction and, for infants and toddlers, it involves distraction or redirection. Later, as the child matures, correction may involve physical restraint, time out, logical and natural consequences, or removal of privileges. Disciplinary spanking by parents, when properly used, can be an effective component when milder measures have failed in a comprehensive disciplinary plan with young children. Older youth respond best to reasoning and imposed penalties, such as increased chores or privilege removal.

Many factors must be considered when evaluating discipline research and child outcomes, including child’s age, developmental level, temperament, birth order, as well as parental factors such as nurturance, communication, stability of marriage, parental consistency, and parent- child relationship.

In general, children whose parents establish rules, have high expectations and provide a nurturing, responsive environment will have better overall outcomes as adults.

Approved by the ACPeds Board of Directors (May 2025)
Approved by ACPeds Members (June 2025)

 Corresponding ACPeds Referenced Paper:

Discipline of the Child: An Overview (Dec. 2021)

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) follows the Hippocratic Oath and affirms that any abortion, including chemical abortion, takes the life of a human being and is therefore unethical.  Physicians should not intentionally take any human life. Additionally, ACPeds affirms that chemical abortion endangers women’s health and safety.1

Chemical abortion refers to the use of synthetic chemicals mifepristone (Mifeprex) and misoprostol (Cytotec) to induce an abortion.  Chemical abortions, with or without medical supervision, entail increased risks of complications, including hemorrhage and incomplete abortions that may require surgical intervention. Additionally, women are being encouraged to order chemicals to carry out their own abortion, without in-person supervision by health care professionals. There are increased risks for those women who use telemedicine or the internet to obtain chemical abortions, especially when used without physician supervision (self-managed).  The risks may include an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, Rh isoimmunization, and undiagnosed infection. Intimate partner violence and human trafficking are also less likely to be suspected in the absence of an in-person medical evaluation.

Pregnant women with regrets after starting chemical abortions need to be informed about the potential for abortion pill reversal, which reportedly has been successful in saving thousands of babies.2

ACPeds opposes chemical abortions. However, as long as chemical abortions are legal, ACPeds strongly encourages health care professionals, policy makers, and women of all ages and their families to understand the serious risks associated with chemical abortions, especially when self-managed.  Laws and regulations can offer partial mitigating protection to women and their children by requiring in-person visits first before dispensing pills. These visits should include ultrasonic screening for ectopic pregnancy, accurate dating for gestational age, and screening for sexually transmitted infections as well as for coercion, intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and sexual abuse. For informed consent women need accurately written information on potential risks and side-effects, on resources available for parenting and adoption in their state, on signs and symptoms of a potentially serious complication, on how to access emergency evaluation and care, and on how to access progesterone to counteract or reverse the effects of the abortion pill. Laws and regulations should require a follow-up visit with the dispensing physician to rule out serious complications and should require that the dispensing physician arrange any needed follow-up that the physician cannot personally provide. Full and accurate reporting of all complications should be required for monitoring. In addition, the Comstock Act forbidding sending abortifacients through the US mail should be vigorously enforced.

Approved by the ACPeds Board of Directors (May 2025)
Approved by ACPeds Members (June 2025)

Corresponding ACPeds Referenced Paper:

Chemical Abortions: With and Without Medical Supervision (Jan. 2023)

Additional Report:

Abortion Pill Reversal Has Saved 6,000 Lives Despite Big Abortion’s Attempts to Discredit Science Behind it (Nov. 2024)

Other Pertinent ACPeds Referenced Papers:

Emergency Contraception – Not the Best for Adolescents (May 2025)

Cohabitation: Effects of Cohabitation on the Men and Women Involved – Part 1 of 2 (March 2015)

Cohabitation: Effects of Parental Cohabitation and other Non-marital Sexual Activity on Children – Part 2 of 2 (July 2015)

Induced Abortion: Risks That May Impact Adolescents, Young Adults, and Their Children (Aug. 2016

Adolescent Confidentiality (Sept. 2020)

 This is a screenshot, the video with the candlesticks and crucifix on the altar is too abusive to watch.

Once Bedouins were fearsome warriors. Now they run in fear from Israeli immigrant-invaders.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-the-west-bank-settler-harassment-swiftly-uproots-a-bedouin-hamlet/ 

From the Roman Office. ℣. Grant, Lord, a blessing. Benediction. May God the Father Omnipotent, be to us merciful and clement. ℟. Amen. Reading 4 From the Sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great. 2nd for the Lord’s Ascension. Dearly beloved brethren, that mysterious thing, our salvation, which the Maker of the universe thought worth purchasing with His Own Precious Blood, was aimed at by Him…

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Ray Dalio, the former head of Bridgewater Associates, is back in the media, trying to stay relevant by claiming the "deficit has become critical."

" “It’s like ... I’m a doctor, and I’m looking at the patient, and I’ve said, you’re having this accumulation, and I can tell you that this is very, very serious, and I can’t tell you the exact time. I would say that if we’re really looking over the next three years, to give or take a year or two, that we’re in that type of a critical, critical situation.”

And this from Bloomberg:

“If you don’t do it (commit to reducing the deficit), you’re going to be in trouble. I can’t tell you exactly when it’ll come, it’s like a heart attack. You’re getting closer. My guess would be three years, give or take a year, something like that.”

Of course, the scare tactics would not be complete without a terrifying chart to back it up, like this from Deutsche Bank:

"Here we remind readers, that the Big, Beautiful Bill currently in Congress has been scored to add about $5 trillion to the debt, resulting in what we said would be Debt Doomsday for the US; this is simply a trade-off of short-term prosperity (a few extra trillion in the next 4 years) for long-term economic collapse (that 220% in long term debt.GDP)."

That is undoubtedly a horrifying chart. The "scoring" is from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO analyzes spending bills and tries to determine the impact of future spending versus revenue. Here is the calculation of the latest "deficit" scare.

The problem is that neither Dalio nor the CBO is correct in its forecasts. We will examine both to explain why.

Dalio's History Of Faulty Predictions

It doesn't take much to understand that Ray Dalio, a hedge fund titan, is like every other human being and is prone to error. I will not dismiss Dalio entirely, as his track record of managing money at Bridgewater is nothing to be scoffed at. However, his track record is far less enviable regarding debt crisis predictions. Here is a brief timeline.

• March 2015 - Hedge Funder Dalio Thinks the Fed Can Repeat 1937 All Over Again
• January 2016 - The 75-Year Debt Supercycle Is Coming To An End
• September 2018 - Ray Dalio Says The Economy Looks Like 1937 And A Downturn Is Coming In About Two Years
• January 2019 - Ray Dalio Sees Significant Risk Of A US Recession
• October 2022 - Dalio Warns Of Perfect Storm For The Economy (That was also the stock market low.)
• September 2023 - Dalio Says The US Is Going To Have A Debt Crisis

But you can even go further back than these when he wrote about some of his biggest mistakes about a decade ago:

"The biggest of these mistakes occurred in 1981-’82, when I became convinced that the U.S. economy was about to fall into a depression. My research had led me to believe that, with the Federal Reserve’s tight money policy and lots of debt outstanding, there would be a global wave of debt defaults, and if the Fed tried to handle it by printing money, inflation would accelerate. I was so certain that a depression was coming that I proclaimed it in newspaper columns, on TV, even in testimony to Congress."

Even though Dalio understands his mistakes from 1981 to 1982, he has been repeating them over the last decade.

For investors who listened to Dalio's predictions of a coming "depression" a decade ago, they missed participating in one of the most significant bull markets in U.S. history.

Again, please don't make a mistake in what I say. Ray Dalio is a knowledgeable person. However, intelligence does not necessarily prove accuracy in predicting the future. He was wrong in the 80s and has been incorrect over the last decade.

Does that mean he will "never" be correct? No. But investors have lost more money worrying about Dalio's predictions than they would likely have even if he had been accurate.

But what about those CBO projections?

The CBO's Projections Are Full Of Faults

Every year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releases a series of projections estimating federal deficits and debt levels over a 10-year horizon. These forecasts, often treated as gospel by lawmakers and media outlets alike, are used to shape public policy debates, inform budget decisions, and frame the long-term fiscal narrative of the United States. Yet, with striking regularity, these projections fail to materialize.

The reason is that, just as with Dalio, the CBO projections are often biased or one-sided estimations, data is excluded, and various other issues impair future accuracy, both good and bad. Furthermore, the agency's forecasting methodology has structural flaws, ranging from rigid assumptions to exclusions of dynamic economic feedback to blind spots in fiscal behavior and policy change. The result is a set of projections that often mislead more than they inform. The following is a brief explanation of these flaws.

• The Static Nature of CBO Models - The CBO's analytical framework is based on a static scoring model. This approach assumes that future policy, such as tax rates, spending levels, entitlement programs, etc., will remain unchanged over the 10-year forecast horizon unless new legislation is ALREADY enacted. In practice, this is rarely the case. For example, if a tax cut is scheduled to expire, the CBO assumes it will expire, even if the likelihood of an extension is high. The same goes for discretionary spending caps, Medicare payment reductions, and defense outlays. As a result, CBO projections often include future "deficit cliffs" or sudden fiscal contractions that lawmakers later avoid, all rendering the projections obsolete before they’re even useful.
• Ignoring Dynamic Economic Feedback - Perhaps the most significant shortcoming of the CBO’s model is its limited use of dynamic scoring—the idea that fiscal policy can influence broader economic outcomes, affecting tax revenues and spending. Instead, they rely heavily on baseline economic forecasts that assume a smooth trajectory of growth and inflation, often borrowed from consensus private forecasts. However, those assumptions are backward-looking, calibrated to historical averages rather than adaptive to current or projected conditions.
• Unrealistic Assumptions About Growth and Interest Rates - One of the most baffling elements of CBO’s debt projections is their unwillingness to incorporate realistic future economic growth rates. Over a 10-year horizon, even minor adjustments to GDP growth assumptions can dramatically alter debt-to-GDP ratios. However, the CBO defaults to a long-run real GDP growth rate of about 1.8% to 2.0%—a figure derived from trend productivity and labor force growth, rather than cyclical or structural changes in the economy.

This baked-in pessimism ignores potential upside scenarios such as demographic shifts, productivity surges due to technology, or policy-induced economic acceleration. Conversely, it fails to adequately model downside risks like recessions, geopolitical shocks, or credit events. The result is a misleading "middle path" that rarely reflects actual outcomes.

Similarly, the CBO assumes a gradually rising interest rate environment, where borrowing costs increase alongside debt issuance. However, history shows that interest rates can remain low, even as debt increases. As shown, rates decline with larger deficits as unproductive spending slows economic growth. The recent rate surge resulted from inflation from sending checks to households while shuttering the economy. As the remnants of that infusion fade, economic growth and rates will decline. However, Dalio and the CBO forget the cause of the rate surge and assume the rise was organic when it was not. As growth slows further, Central Bank interventions will challenge the CBO’s recurring narrative that rising debt will inevitably lead to a fiscal crisis via soaring interest payments.

The Future Is Highly Uncertain

To be clear, the CBO is vital in bringing fiscal transparency to government operations. But its forecasts should be treated as scenarios, not certainties. Some economists have argued for including range-based projections—a band of possible debt and deficit paths under varying assumptions for growth, interest rates, and fiscal policy. Others have called for more aggressive use of dynamic scoring to account for behavioral and economic feedback.

One thing is for sure. The future is highly uncertain. As such, any forecast that looks 10 years into the future will be wrong, for better or worse. For example, the U.S. is most likely on the cusp of the next industrial revolution. Such will transform the economy, work, and labor in ways we can not imagine currently. The impact of Artificial Intelligence on employment, productivity, and wage growth could be transformational. However, we must also consider the impact of AI on highly capital-intensive infrastructure needs. As we explored in "Electricity May Cure Debt Concerns."

“Generative artificial intelligence has the potential to automate many work tasks and eventually boost global economic growth. AI will start having a measurable impact on US GDP in 2027 and begin affecting growth in other economies worldwide in the following years. The foundation of the forecast is the finding that AI could ultimately automate around 25% of labor tasks in advanced economies and 10-20% of work in emerging economies.”

They currently estimate a growth boost to GDP from AI of 0.4 percentage points in the US. Such would undoubtedly reduce the impact of rising debt levels.

The CBO’s debt and deficit projections have value, but they are deeply limited by the assumptions they rest on. Their forecasts ignore how politics evolves, how economies adapt, and how unpredictable the future truly is. They exclude meaningful liabilities, fail to account for economic feedback loops, and assume a rigidity in fiscal policy that doesn't exist in the real world.

Conclusion

For investors, policymakers, and citizens alike, the key is not to discard the CBO’s work, but to understand its limitations. Notably, consider the following for those like Dalio, pontificating on the rising debt levels as a percentage of GDP.

Japan is a relatively small country compared to the U.S.

• It is not the world's reserve currency issuer.
• Does not have the economic growth capacity or resources of the U.S.
• Lacks the military strength to defend its sovereignty.
• Has a pressing demographic issue.

Do both countries have financial concerns? Absolutely. Yet, despite all of Japan's shortcomings, they have not fallen into bankruptcy or faced economic devastation. In other words, as an investor, betting on the demise of the U.S. at 120% of debt to GDP, in the face of the rise of Artificial Intelligence and its potential impact, will likely be a losing bet.

It is also crucial for investors to understand the data they view and use to build investment assumptions. As with Dalio, assuming a "debt crisis" is looming, has severely impaired individuals' wealth-building process. Will the CBO and Dalio eventually be correct? Will a debt crisis finally happen? Maybe. Anything is possible. You must answer whether that will occur during your investment time frame. More crucially, what will you do after it happens?

The choice is yours to make. However, a wrong decision can severely impact your wealth-building process and the pursuit of your financial goals.

For more in-depth analysis and actionable investment strategies, visit RealInvestmentAdvice.com. Stay ahead of the markets with expert insights tailored to help you achieve your financial goals.

The post Ray Dalio Is Predicting A Financial Crisis…Again. appeared first on RIA.

Promoting lies about Russia is becoming more difficult due to Kiev’s clear choice in favor of war, Russia’s UN envoy has said

Ukraine is trying to trick US President Donald Trump, who wants to achieve peace in the ongoing conflict, into returning Washington to an anti-Russian stance, Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, has said.

During his speech at a UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine on Thursday, Ambassador Nebenzia reminded of the intensification of Ukrainian drone incursions into Russia over the past week. A total of 1,465 drones had been shot down by air defenses, but nonetheless led to civilian casualties and deaths, including among children, he said.

Kiev and its NATO backers “are trying to make us believe that Russia is deliberately shelling residential areas of Ukrainian cities” during its retaliatory strikes, the envoy stressed.

Moscow’s attacks “target exclusively objects related to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, and we are successfully destroying them or rendering them inoperable,” Nebenzia said, reiterating the stance consistency voiced by the Russian Defense Ministry throughout the conflict.

“The plans concocted by [Vladimir] Zelensky and his posse are way too plain and clear. Their task is to trick and mislead American President Donald Trump, who is taking decisive steps toward peace; they are ready to go to any lengths only to return the US – which has already wasted hundreds of billions of dollars helping Ukraine – to an anti-Russian and Russophobic course,” he insisted.

However, the envoy stressed that “promoting Ukrainian and Western lies about Russia is becoming increasingly difficult, since the actual steps of the Kiev regime, its deliberate choice in favor of war and the further suffering of its citizens speak volumes.”

Moscow is eager to continue “serious direct negotiations” with Kiev in order to find a solution to the Ukraine conflict that would address its root causes, he said.

He reminded that Russia has invited the Ukrainian delegation to Istanbul on Monday to discuss the memorandums on approaches to negotiating peace prepared by the sides.

READ MORE: Kremlin responds to Ukraine’s criticism of peace proposal

“The ball is in Ukraine’s court: either talks followed by peace or imminent defeat on the battlefield with different conditions for ending the conflict,” the envoy insisted.

Keith Kellogg insists Ukraine’s bid to join the bloc is off the table

Russia’s long-standing security concerns regarding NATO expansion are reasonable, US presidential envoy Keith Kellogg said Thursday in an interview with ABC News

He was responding to a question about reports that Moscow wants NATO leaders to issue a written commitment halting further enlargement – particularly the inclusion of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia into the US-led military bloc.

“It’s a fair concern and we’ve said that repeatedly … that to us Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table,” he said.

“We’re saying: okay, comprehensively we can stop the expansion of NATO coming close to your border,” Kellogg added, noting that such a move would ultimately require a presidential-level decision.

Towards the end of the Cold War, senior US officials gave assurances to the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward, in exchange for support for German reunification. Since the 1990s, Moscow has cited the alliance’s expansion to Russia’s borders as evidence of Western duplicity.

NATO’s insistence on admitting Ukraine to the bloc is a key factor which led to the current conflict with Russia. In 2021, Moscow offered a diplomatic proposal to ease tensions, but the US and other bloc members insisted its open-door policy was non-negotiable, describing Ukraine’s path to membership as “irreversible.”

Moscow hopes to hold a new round of negotiations with Kiev on Monday in Istanbul, where both parties would exchange draft memorandums on the next steps in the peace process, including a conditional cease-fire. Ukrainian officials have expressed frustration at not receiving the Russian draft in advance and said they might boycott the meeting.

“I always caution [Kiev’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov]: don’t say things like that,” Kellogg said. “Part of life is showing up, and you need to show you’re serious.”

READ MORE: Berlin offers Kiev another €5 billion

Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary peace agreement in Istanbul in 2022, but Kiev later withdrew from talks, aiming for a military breakthrough with support from Western nations. Moscow sees the renewed talks launched earlier this month as a chance to revisit the proposal, which involves Ukraine adopting a stance of neutrality and limiting its military.

The interviewer pressed Kellogg on whether those terms were “pretty extreme,” suggesting they were proof that Russia does not seek peace. Kellogg responded that ending the conflict was in Moscow’s interest.