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Murray: Make way for the new sex ed Puritans

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

Boston taxpayers, parents, and students are under siege by progressives — the new Puritans.On Wednesday, the state Legislature will debate a radical sex education mandate bill. On Beacon Hill, they call it the Healthy Youth Act.Gov. Maura Healey has pledged support for the bill, so it looks as if the skids are greased. If passed, the legislation would mandate any district that teaches sex education must adopt the content endorsed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. These DESE standards were cooked up by some of Charlie Baker’s appointees and voted through by Healey’s state education board.These awful guidelines were crafted in part by Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion and sex change hormones in Massachusetts.Across the country, taxpayers, students, moms, and dads attend school board meetings demanding an end to similar corrosive curricula. The theme of their activism is that they refuse to co-parent with the government. They seek an end ...

Lowry: Israel is not a colonial state

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

It doesn’t take long to read or listen to anti-Israel advocacy before the word “colonial” or “colonialism” is hurled at the Jewish state.After the spasm of Hamas murder, rape, and kidnapping over the weekend, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network exclaimed, “Our people are waging an anti-colonial, anti-occupation, and anti-Zionist liberation struggle!”According to an anti-Israel statement signed by dozens of student groups at Harvard, Israel is undertaking “colonial retaliation.”An academic cottage industry is devoted to deeming Israel a decades-long exercise in “settler colonialism,” and Hamas itself is partial to the term.The use of the word “colonial” in all its forms isn’t meant to accurately describe reality or clarify anything; rather it is a term of abuse wielded to delegitimize Israel and justify every means of resisting its very existence.The “colonial” smear can’t survive...

Editorial: Harvard’s shameful moment

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

The menu this week at Harvard’s Quincy House includes a salad bar with “Baby Arugula” and “Grilled Tofu” and entrees of “Cumin & Ginger Braised Beef” or “Saffron Chicken with Lemon & Olives.”You can order ahead to “create your own nutrition report,” for those pacing themselves. If you skip over to Annenberg Hall — the “Berg” to those in the know — you’ll land “Corn Niblets” and “Apple Cider Glazed Turnips,” so “Delish,” food services says.It’s easier to critique others when your belly is full.How else can you explain the grossly insensitive statement by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups that read, in part: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.” Thirty-one groups signed on, including the Ivy League’s affiliate of Amnesty International.The timing alone i...

Festive veggie fajitas filled with mushrooms

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

Meaty mushrooms sauteed with onion, bell peppers and pinto beans fill tortillas to make vegetarian fajitas, creating a festive Mexican dinner. I like to serve all the ingredients at the table and let diners fill their own tortillas.There are a few different ways to warm tortillas. It’s easy to place them in a microwave oven on a plate and covered with a slightly damp paper towel. They can also be warmed in a 200-degree-Fahrenheit oven or in a skillet for 30 seconds. The secret is, once they’re warmed, to keep them wrapped in a napkin or foil.You can use any type of tortilla.You can use any type of mushroom.You can use black or red kidney beans instead of pinto beans.You can use prepared taco sauce instead of fajita sauce.TAG GOES HEREMushroom FajitasINGREDIENTS2 teaspoons olive oil1 cup sliced red onion1 cup sliced red bell pepper1 cup sliced yellow bell pepper1 cup sliced mushrooms1 cup rinsed and drained pinto beansSalt and freshly ground black pepper4 8-inch whole wheat tortillas...

Dear Abby: Is fiance an uncle, or child’s real dad?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

Dear Abby: My fiance and I have been together nine years. During that time, we have had our ups and downs. Eight years ago, after a year of dating, we decided to move in together. The following year we got into a big argument because his ex-girlfriend was sticking her nose into our household. (She was also dating his brother.) He moved out that night, but we were able to repair our relationship and decided to live separately for a while.A month and a half after he moved, I found out she was pregnant. Her due date was nine months from when he moved out. He swears it’s not his child and that it’s his brother’s. I have tried to let it go because I can’t accuse him of lying just because of the timing of her pregnancy.We were engaged once before, and I called it off because of this. He proposed to me again two years ago, and our wedding date is set for next year. I don’t want to call it off again, although this is still bothering me. He knows I was hurt by a...

To run or not to run? New California senator faces tough decision on whether to enter 2024 campaign

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — To run or not to run?The crowded, wide-open race to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in California has hit a suspenseful turn as candidates wait for newly appointed Sen. Laphonza Butler to decide if she will enter the 2024 contest for her seat after being picked to complete the remainder of Feinstein’s term.Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom installed Butler to fill the vacant post earlier this month, shortly after Feinstein died at 90 following a series of illnesses. The term ends in January 2025.Butler, a Democratic insider and former labor leader, had never held public office before joining the Senate. She now is considering whether to mount a campaign for a full, six-year term and join a contest that has been underway since January. It already features three prominent Democratic House members — Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee — and Republican Steve Garvey, a former baseball MVP who entered the race Tuesday.So far, Butler has been coy about...

Having ousted Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans are hitting trouble trying to nominate a new speaker

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is scheduled to convene behind closed doors to launch internal party voting but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.The two leading contenders Wednesday for the gavel, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. They outlined their visions at a lengthy candidate forum ahead of the private balloting.McCarthy, meanwhile, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told his colleagues not to nominate him this time. Instead, at Tuesday’s late evening candidate forum, he read a poem from Mother Teresa and delivered a unity prayer.“I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said afterward, referring to the majority vote typically needed to seize the gavel. “It could be a long week....

ACT test scores for US students drop to new 30-year low

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

High school students’ scores on the ACT college admissions test have dropped to their lowest in more than three decades, showing a lack of student preparedness for college-level coursework, according to the nonprofit organization that administers the test. Scores have been falling for six consecutive years, but the trend accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students in the class of 2023 whose scores were reported Wednesday were in their first year of high school when the virus reached the U.S.“The hard truth is that we are not doing enough to ensure that graduates are truly ready for postsecondary success in college and career,” said Janet Godwin, chief executive officer for the nonprofit ACT. The average ACT composite score for U.S. students was 19.5 out of 36. Last year, the average score was 19.8.The average scores in reading, science and math all were below benchmarks the ACT says students must reach to have a high probability of success in first-year college courses....

Republicans are divided on far-right move to remove McCarthy as House speaker, an AP-NORC poll shows

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unprecedented ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has left no consensus among Republicans about whether his removal was the right move as the party struggles to coalesce around a new leader, according to a new poll. Only one-quarter of Republicans say they approve of the stunning decision by a small group of House Republicans to remove the California lawmaker from his post during a vote last week. Three in 10 Republicans believe it was a mistake for a small faction of the party, and all Democrats, to support a motion ejecting McCarthy from the speakership.“It’s just chaos,” Betsy Young, a Republican from Oregon, told The Associated Press. “And I don’t think it’s helpful.” About 4 in 10 Republicans (43%) say they neither approve nor disapprove. That is according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted after McCarthy became the first speaker in history to be voted out of the role.The political uphea...

Quake in Afghanistan leaves rubble, funerals and survivors struggling with loss

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:18:15 GMT

ZINDA JAN, Afghanistan (AP) — Nurullah crossed the border into Iran to earn money for his family, like so many men from his village in western Afghanistan.On Sunday, he stood on the side of the road crying. The 55-year-old was heading home to bury his wife, three children and a grandchild killed a day before, when an earthquake left at least 2,000 people dead in Afghanistan’s Herat province. On Wednesday, another quake of the same magnitude struck nearby. It is not yet clear what further damage it caused to the already devastated region.The hearses arrived, following Nurullah’s directions to find the remote village, and mourners took the dead to the cemetery. Nurullah’s sister Maahzaad, 53, kept repeating her daughter’s name.She had a son, who she’d already lost to war and misfortune. Now she had lost her only remaining child, a young woman married three months earlier.Nurullah — many Afghans use only one name — got out of the car and people came over to welc...