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Justice Department Investigating Schools That Secretly Teach Children About Transgenderism
Public schools teaching children about sexuality and transgenderism without parental consent have been put on notice by the Department of Justice.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced Thursday it was investigating 36 Illinois school districts to find out if they have sexual orientation and gender ideology content in their pre-k and K-12 curricula, noting these districts receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding.
“This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.
“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children. This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”
After Florida House Again Shelves Medical Freedom Bill, Supporters Vow to Continue Fight
House Speaker Daniel Perez said a bill loosening child vaccination mandates would not be taken up during this week’s legislative special session. A bill loosening child vaccination mandates was stricken from this week’s legislative special session. Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced Tuesday morning that he did not see a reason for the House to take on the Medical Freedom Act.
“There is some concern here, on my behalf, about children being in school without measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox vaccines that have been working for decades,” he said. Medical Freedom (SB 1756) passed through the Senate during the scheduled legislative session earlier this year, but its companion bill died in the House.
Nevada Mandates Autism Awareness Training for Emergency Personnel
A new law in Nevada is changing how first responders handle emergencies. Senate Bill 380 ensures that police and firefighters have access to specialized training on how to interact with individuals with autism. For families, the training could be lifesaving.
Anna Marie Binder is a mother of two sons, 10 and 17, both on the autism spectrum. She says one of her biggest fears is having to call the police or having the police called on her children. “It’s dangerous because you don’t know the mindset of who’s going to show up to help,” Binder said.
Research from Indiana University shows nearly 1 in 5 people with autism will have a police interaction by age 21. At least 5 percent are arrested. “We see the stories, we hear them — from people we know or in the media — and that’s a call no one ever wants to make,” Binder said.
She says she has seen what the right training can do. When her 17-year-old was a preteen, she had to call for intervention.
Momentum Builds in Congress to Ban AI Chatbots for Kids
The effort to ban AI chatbots for minors is picking up steam in Congress. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance a bill from Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., that would require AI companies to implement an age-verification process and ban them from providing AI companions to minors, according to a summary of the legislation, dubbed the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act, or GUARD Act.
The legislation would also mandate that AI companions disclose their nonhuman status and lack of professional credentials for all users at regular intervals. It would also introduce criminal penalties for companies that design, develop or make available AI companions that solicit or induce sexually explicit conduct from minors or encourage suicide.
“No amount of profit justifies the DESTRUCTION of our children,” Hawley, who has taken a skeptical view of tech, posted on X. “Time to bring this bill to the Senate floor.”
Communication From the CDC Fuels Skepticism About Vaccines and Science, Research Suggests
The scientific consensus is that vaccinations are neither causally nor statistically linked to autism. The US health authority CDC changed its official communication on this matter and instead emphasized a connection could not be scientifically ruled out.
An international research team from Vienna, Erfurt, Hamburg, and Copenhagen, led by the University of Vienna, has now investigated the consequences of this. The results are clear: those who read the current statement were less willing to get vaccinated. Furthermore, this led to decreased trust in the health authority and encouraged the endorsement of science denialist thinking.
The societal consequences of such communication are therefore manifold; the researchers call for new guidelines to ensure careful and evidence-based communication by health authorities. The findings have been published in Science.
France Steps up Vaccination Push as Anti-Vax Fears Grow in Europe
Radio France Internationale reported:
As vaccination awareness events continue across Europe this week, France is focusing on meningococcal infections and human papillomavirus (HPV), while nearly 300 leading figures have backed a Pasteur Institute-supported call to fight vaccine disinformation.
Published on Monday to coincide with the start of EU Vaccination Week, the text warns that political tensions around vaccines could undermine public confidence.
Growing concern over vaccine hesitancy in France is linked partly to political debates coming from the United States, signatories say. “The open letter stems from our community’s concern regarding the vaccine hesitancy we are seeing in France, linked to political positions, particularly across the Atlantic,” Brigitte Autran, professor at the Sorbonne University and former head of France’s health risk monitoring committee Covars, told public broadcaster FranceInfo.
Most Parents Feel Significant Stress Over Their Children’s Emotional Well-Being
Parental stress continues to rise, but what’s weighing on moms and dads today is largely the mental health of their children. A new national survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, founded by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, finds nearly all parents (97%) of children under 18 felt stress related to parenting in the past month, with one in four parents (30%) saying they experienced stress “often.”
The national survey of more than 1,000 parents across the United States also reveals among those that felt parental stress in the past month, two of the top sources of that stress were children’s behavioral issues (35%) and children’s emotional or mental health (26%). Nearly half of stressed parents feel it also makes their children more anxious or worried (46%).
Parents today are aware of the importance of focusing on children’s mental health when it comes to raising them. The problem is that this generation of parents is the first to try and do this. So, we hear, ‘I don’t have a model. I don’t know how to talk about mental health. I don’t know how to build mental wellness in my home.’ Parents are constantly worried, ‘Am I doing it wrong?'” — Ariana Hoet, executive clinical director of The Kids Mental Health Foundation.
