Read it.

Or maybe not.

• Minoxidil, the active medical ingredient in products like Rogaine, is a well-known treatment for hair loss, but has poor water solubility and skin permeability.
• A new study combines minoxidil with a microneedle that uses stevioside, a naturally occurring sweetener from the Stevia plant.
• Tested on mouse models, scientists found that seviosides increased the absorption of minoxidil, which helped boost the medicine’s overall effectiveness.

Sounds like a lot of effort to me. My native indolence would prefer to be bald.

Gallup.

Imagine that.

Read it.

Princeton University announced this week that it will be reinstating the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in the 2027–28 admissions cycle. It is only the latest reversal for an ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.

Read it.

Your daily hot cocoa might do more than warm you up – it could also prevent heart disease and the inflammation that drives it, according to a recent study.

Read it.

Gray hair often shows up before anything else about you feels older. Your hair keeps growing just fine, but the color fades thanks to the cells in the hair follicles.

That switch doesn’t happen because your whole body suddenly “gets old.” It starts inside each follicle, where pigment stem cells are supposed to leave their safe zone, catch a cue, and become the color-making melanocytes that dye each new strand.

When those cells, known as melanocyte stem cells (McSCs) stop moving on schedule, the color step gets skipped – even though the hair still grows.

Read it.

Citizenship by investment programs give wealthy individuals the chance to secure a second passport by making significant financial contributions. The requirements vary by country, but these programs typically seek investments in businesses, development funds, or direct donations.

In return, obtaining a second passport offers benefits like visa-free travel, tax advantages, or a backup plan in the event of political or economic turmoil.

In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu breaks down the required contributions across 13 countries offering citizenship by investment, showing how much applicants need to spend to qualify.

Go Where You’re Treated Best.

The Telegraph (UK).

It was the sort of dramatic moment on which Donald Trump thrives.

The US president was presiding over a meeting about Antifa violence in Left-wing cities, cameras trained on his every move, when Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, passed him a note.

“I was just given a note by the secretary of state,” announced the president, hushing his audience, “saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly”.

Read it.

It’s the largest block of confirmations yet, with 107 Trump nominees set to fill their roles despite being blocked for several months by Senate Democrats. The confirmations mark a sudden but welcome change in the long term standoff that whittled down the remaining pending nominees on the Senate’s calendar to double digits.

Democrats have made clear from day one of Donald Trump’s second term that they intend to impede or sabotage every single policy initiative and every single cabinet nomination no matter how reasonable.

“Before Senate Democrats shut down the federal government, they shut down the Senate floor – freezing the confirmation process. For months, their blockade created a growing backlog of qualified, bipartisan nominees. Tonight, Senate Republicans confirmed 107 of those qualified nominees and ended the Democrats’ confirmation blockade,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement.

Read it.

Publix, one of Florida’s largest grocery chains, now allows customers to openly carry guns in its stores after a recent state court ruling.

Florida’s open-carry restrictions were lifted on Sept. 25 after the 1st District Court of Appeal struck down the state’s long-standing ban, ruling it unconstitutional.

The decision allows adults to openly carry guns in public while giving private businesses the option to prohibit open carry on their property.

Read it.

A newly developed biomaterial might be able to treat crippling arthritis by prompting the growth of new cartilage, a new animal study suggests.

The bioactive material looks like rubbery goo, but it’s actually a complex biological stew designed to mimic natural cartilage in the body, researchers said.

The biomaterial successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of sheep within six months.

Read it.

Gee, I wonder how that happened?

Read it.

Good luck with that.

Back ASAP.

Read it.

Geothermal power is a very underutilized source of power in the United States, but it offers incredible potential. Texas-based Fervo Energy is an expert in the field building the largest geothermal power development in the United States in southwest Utah. The project calls for 125 wells to tap into the Earth’s underground heat reserves.

In a victory for the development, one of the nation’s largest utility companies, Southern California Edison, has agreed to purchase electricity from the development. The 15-year agreement will power the equivalent of 350,000 and begin when the development’s first part is operational in 2026.

Read it.

The Trump White House is poised to dramatically reduce the number of refugees that will be accepted into the United States over the next fiscal year — with the ceiling falling a whopping 94% from the limit set by the Biden administration, according to a New York Times report.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Times says a maximum of just 7,500 refugees would be admitted over the coming year, a tiny fraction of the 125,000 limit set by the Biden administration last year. Most of those slots would be reserved for white Afrikaners fleeing South Africa and its murderous violence against white people and the looming threat of uncompensated land confiscation. Afrikaners now represent less than 5 percent of South Africa’s population.

The pending reduction and prioritization of white refugees elicited condemnation from promoters of mass immigration. “Such a low refugee ceiling would break America’s promise to people who played by the rules,” Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) president Mark Hetfield, told the Times. “Trump isn’t just putting the Afrikaners to the front of the line, he is kicking years-long-waiting refugees out of the line.” HIAS has itself been hammered by Trump policies, slashing its staff by more than half after the new administration slashed funding for refugee programs.

The Telegraph (UK).

The IDF, which has made plain its opposition to the complete takeover of Gaza for some time, ordered an immediate halt to offensive operations in Gaza City after Mr Trump’s order.

Hostage negotiators, including Mr Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have also been dispatched to talks that could start as soon as Sunday, most likely in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Although incredibly fragile, it would appear that there is enough momentum for a deal to be struck in the next week to 10 days, with both sides gaining clear benefits from seeing it through.

And Trump just keeps on winning.

Check it out.

$912 energy independence without red tape.
Backup (and savings) with self-install solar & batteries. Works with condos, rooftops, balconies or yards.

Read it.

Yesterday, two members of the New York State (NYS) Senate introduced Senate Bill 8518 (S8518), which imposes excise taxes on digital asset mining using the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, making it even more difficult than it already is for bitcoin miners to operate in the state.

Politicians’ motto; If it moves, tax it. If it doesn’t move, kick it until in moves, then tax it.

Read it.

Republicans and Democrats offer competing claims about whether people who entered the country unlawfully are benefiting from Medicaid.

“The law prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting payments from Medicare, Medicaid, or the ACA. There’s no money, not a penny of federal dollars that are going there,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Sept. 30.

Yet Republicans say millions of people who entered the country illegally do receive federal health benefits.

“By some estimates, 20 million illegal aliens came [here] from every country, all around the world,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Oct. 2, referring to the years of the Biden administration.

“[Democrats] gave them all this parole status so that they could get enrolled onto taxpayer benefits.”

New Atlas.

Nautical disruptor Sharrow Marine has been hard at work fast-expanding its lineup of innovative twisted-loop propellers, releasing tweaked models for new applications while also ramping up overall production. A year ago, that work saw it launch the MX-A propeller for smaller outboards, effectively cutting pricing by more than half compared to previous launches. Now it’s doing it again with the AX, smashing downward through the four-figure floor for the first time with a propeller designed for even smaller outboards and kicker motors. Buyers seeking to put the company’s striking, efficiency-boosting loop-blades to work can now do so for well under $1K.

Officially introduced on Tuesday, the all-new Sharrow AX propeller follows the MX-A in using a lightweight aluminum construction that delivers corrosion-resistant performance without the expense of stainless steel. Unlike with the MX-A. The AX slides below the targeted 40-hp+ market of the MX-A and is designed specifically for small outboards ranging between 6 and 30 hp.

“With the launch of the Sharrow AX, we’re proud to introduce our technology to the small-engine market,” said founder and CEO Greg Sharrow. “Whether used as a primary prop on a small outboard or as an auxiliary kicker for trolling, the AX offers smoother handling, quieter operation and unmatched fuel efficiency.”

Toroidal propellers represent the first significant advance in propeller design since the discovery of the cavitation problem in 1885. Go to YouTube and search for ‘toroidal propeller’ and be prepared to be amazed.

The Times (UK).

It was the moment of truth. On Friday Rachel Reeves was handed a double-sided sheet of A3 containing the Treasury’s assessment of the first official forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Like her predecessors the chancellor’s instinct will have been to turn the page and look for the figure on the very bottom right-hand corner — the number that will ultimately determine the fate of her budget and potentially the entire government.

That figure is known as the “fiscal headroom” — effectively the amount of money the government has left after its tax and spending plans are taken into account. And Reeves is heading for negative territory. Economists believe that to make the numbers add up she will have to find as much as £30 billion, precipitating the need for huge tax rises in the budget.

This is what happens in a country that still has some contact with fiscal responsibility. In the U.S., of course, we just print more money and pretend it doesn’t matter.

The Times (UK).

There’s no time of year sadder than the political perineum. The Labour Party conference, like Christmas, has been and gone. The Conservative Party conference, like the always underwhelming New Year’s Eve, is yet to arrive. What are we meant to do with ourselves? There’s no Quality Street lying about, no darts on the telly either.

Well, while we wait, here’s a fun little game. What we do know is that this next week, like the next four years, will be defined by how the two main parties go about trying to free themselves from the terrible jaws of Nigel Farage. Reform UK began party conference season miles ahead in the polls. They will almost certainly end it still miles ahead in the polls. Can they be beaten? There is plenty of evidence to suggest they can. But how might each party go about doing it?

Some polling and research done recently by Best for Britain suggests that Reform voters are not the monolithic, immigrant hotel protesting, flag to lamppost-tying homogenous mass they are sometimes considered to be. They divide into five distinct tribes. Some, for example, are so busy worrying about the NHS that they don’t even have time to paint their local roundabout with a cross of St George. The backbench Labour MP and occasional era-defining note-leaver Liam Byrne has also assigned each tribe their own bespoke cocktail of grievance, made from varying quantities of different grievances such as anger, pessimism and a sense of unfairness.

So how might Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch go about luring these angry tribes people back where they belong? And how might they be getting it wrong?

Watch it.

Nick Norwitz (PhD, MD) does a deep dive on a new study on the oldest verifiable human woman.

He also relates this to what individuals can do to take advantage of what this study discovered.

Read it.

Value wars between Amazon and Walmart to attract cash-strapped consumers are heating up late in the year. Amazon announced on Wednesday morning the launch of a new private-label line called “Amazon Grocery,” which spans more than 1,000 products and is largely priced under $5. The timing couldn’t be better, as our attention has shifted to a storm brewing in the low-income consumer world.

Amazon Grocery will be a direct competitor to Walmart, Aldi, and other value grocery chains, offering affordable private-label goods amid ongoing value wars (read report). The new line will feature dairy, fresh produce, meat, snacks, and pantry staples priced under $5, an easy hook for low-income consumers. Another selling point: more than 1,000 items can be delivered straight to consumers’ doors, saving them the time and hassle of driving to the supermarket and pushing a cart down the aisles.

“The extensive selection includes everything from milk and olive oil to fresh produce, meat and seafood, with most products priced under $5, offering exceptional value to customers,” Amazon wrote in a press release.

“With Amazon Grocery, we’re simplifying how customers discover and shop our extensive private label food selection while maintaining the quality and value our customers expect and deserve,” Jason Buechel, Vice President of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and Chief Executive Officer at Whole Foods Market, wrote in a press release.

I am a big fan of Amazon Fresh. I look forward to this new product line.

Newsbusters.

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger denounced the online encyclopedia for its rampant bias, and among other things, an effective media blacklist, which MRC exposed earlier this year.

In an interview posted on Sept. 29, independent journalist Tucker Carlson interviewed Sanger on how Wikipedia has become “the most comprehensive propaganda op in human history.” During the interview, Carlson took issue with an ill-defined attack on him on his Wikipedia page, to which Sanger explained exactly why prominent figures who have spoken out against the left’s narratives remain undefended from vicious smears on their Wikipedia pages.

Jonathan Turley.

Just The News is reporting that “Person 3” in the Comey indictment is not former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe but rather Columbia Professor Daniel Richman. According to the outlet, Richman is the former FBI employee in the indictment who allegedly leaked information about “Person 1,” who is believed to be Hillary Clinton. The report continues the long uncertainty over Richman’s role in these controversies. Richman has described himself as a friend, an FBI special employee, and the lawyer representing Comey at different times. He has also been a columnist and commentator, including for the site Lawfare run by Comey’s friend Ben Wittes. What Richman was doing at any given time remains strikingly uncertain. Professor Richman is not himself charged with any crime.

…

At various points in the investigation, Richman alludes to being Comey’s lawyer, as well as a former aide and a friend. Comey used Richman as a conduit to the press and admitted that he was the means by which Comey leaked the contents of a memo that Comey improperly removed from the FBI after being fired.

Read it.

In this age of modern warfare, the U.K. might already be at war with Russia, according to the former head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led MI5 from 2002 to 2007, told the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast that Russia’s escalating hybrid warfare tactics indicate a sustained campaign of hostility against Britain and its allies, The Times U.K. reported Monday.

“Fiona Hill may be right in saying we’re already at war with Russia,” Manningham-Buller said, referencing the prominent foreign policy expert and Vladimir Putin biographer who was key in testifying against President Donald Trump in the first impeachment.

BBC.

Scientists have discovered “dark oxygen” being produced in the deep ocean, apparently by lumps of metal on the seafloor.

About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesising – something that requires sunlight.

Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” which split seawater – H2O – into hydrogen and oxygen.

Several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process – and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make.

Read it.

Watering and fertilizing crops to provide enough food for a changing world is a major challenge in agriculture. Now, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a “smart soil” that can keep plants better hydrated and provide a controlled release of nutrients. In tests it drastically improved crop growth while using far less water.

It’s been estimated that around 70% of the world’s freshwater usage goes towards agriculture. That of course means that in areas where water is more scarce it can be hard to grow crops and feed populations, so scientists are investigating ways to boost efficiency.

Building on earlier work, the new study marks a good step in that direction. The soil gets its “smart” moniker thanks to the addition of a specially formulated hydrogel, which works to absorb more water vapor from the air overnight, then releasing it to the plants’ roots during the day. Incorporating calcium chloride into the hydrogel also provides a slow release of this vital nutrient.

Read it.

Scientists are leveraging quantum physics to develop new energy production methods, aiming to address the computing industry’s growing energy demands.

Researchers at MIT have devised a novel approach to observe the quantum Hall effect by mimicking it with superchilled sodium atoms, enabling deeper study of frictionless electron flow.

This breakthrough in understanding “edge-state” physics could lead to highly efficient electronic circuits and quantum computers, offering a solution for energy loss in data and energy transfer.

Read it.

Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, in 2018 privately admitted the likelihood of an association between the drug in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders, according to a report by the Daily Caller.

“The weight of the evidence is starting to feel heavy to me,” Rachel Weinstein, U.S. director of epidemiology for Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, said in company documents obtained by the Daily Caller from the law firm Keller Postman LLC, which brought a class action lawsuit against Kenvue in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“We are talking with Rachel Ochs-Ross, the neurologist in CNS [Central Nervous System] today. Originally it was to talk about biologic plausibility for benefiting acetaminophen, but now we’ve added the studies in prenatal exposure and neurodev outcome.”

Read it.

The number of right-wing terror attacks in the U.S. plunged dramatically in the first half of 2025, while the amount of political violence from the left creeped up, a new study found.

The report on terrorism and political violence by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan research group, found that, through July 4, “2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right.”

The study noted there had been one right-wing terrorist incident this year — the June murder of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband.

The report, written by the Washington think tank’s Daniel Byman and Riley McCabe, called that number “a remarkable drop off.”

Their analysis reviewed terror attacks and plots, which they defined as “the deliberate use or threat of premeditated violence by nonstate actors with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact.”

Nick Norwitz.

“Ask yourself if you want to let scientists harvest your eyeballs for their next study.”

We now know why blue light at the wrong time of day is a bad thing.

Read it.

Bill Gates has thrown his weight – and his money – behind a Californian startup that believes it can make a rich, fatty spread akin to butter, using just carbon dioxide and hydrogen. And ‘butter’ is just the start, with milk, ice-cream, cheese, meat and tropical oils also in development.

The San Jose company, Savor, uses a thermochemical process to create its animal-like fat, which is free of the environmental footprint of both the dairy industry and plant-based alternatives.

They started with the fact that all fats are made of varying chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms,” Gates wrote in a blog post. “Then they set out to make those same carbon and hydrogen chains – without involving animals or plants. They ultimately developed a process that involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating them up, and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids and then the formulation of fat.”

Many of us know the stats – according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock are responsible for 14.5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and animal-fat alternatives that use palm oil contribute to widespread deforestation and biodiversity loss – but also know how delicious dairy products are. So will Gates’ enthusiastic support be enough to get people excited about butter made from CO2?

(a) Can it scale?

(b) How much will it cost?

Read it.

There have been only a handful of ages of new materials in the history of humankind—ceramics, steel and plastics come to mind—and we are now on the cusp of the next one: composites.

When we talk of composites, we’re speaking about such things as the carbon-fiber ones in wind turbines, race cars and the Boeing 787. Such materials have the advantage of being far lighter than the metal parts they typically replace, while being just as strong, and requiring fewer resources to make.

Materials scientists have had limited success making composites affordable and accessible for decades, or possibly millennia—technically, they were invented by the Mesopotamians. The labor-intensive nature of their manufacturing has made them expensive, which has limited their application to a handful of areas where their advantages outweigh their costs, such as the aerospace industry.

Now, thanks to new manufacturing techniques that can churn out composite parts quickly and cheaply, all of that is changing, and the results could be both profound and exciting.

The Harvard Crimson, a Voice of the Younger Crust.

Harvard School of Public Health Dean Andrea A. Baccarelli received at least $150,000 to testify against Tylenol’s manufacturer in 2023 — two years before he published research used by the Trump administration to link the drug to autism, a connection experts say is tenuous at best.

Baccarelli served as an expert witness on behalf of parents and guardians of children suing Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of Tylenol at the time. U.S. District Court Judge Denise L. Cote dismissed the case last year due to a lack of scientific evidence, throwing out Baccarelli’s testimony in the process.

“He cherry-picked and misrepresented study results and refused to acknowledge the role of genetics in the etiology” of autism spectrum disorder or ADHD, Cote wrote in her decision, which the plaintiffs have since appealed.

Baccarelli, who was a professor at Columbia University’s public health school at the time, declined to comment on his involvement in the case.

Read it.

How is this guy still alive?

Read it.

The NYT’s coverage of the Gates Foundation’s severing ties with the Arabella network (read report) may signal to other leftist billionaire donors and dark-money groups that some of the largest backers of the permanent protest-industrial complex against President Trump are quietly reassessing their ties as a White House enforcement period nears. After all, no billionaire or their prized nonprofits want to be slapped with RICO charges or providing “material support” to domestic terrorists by funding rogue NGOs subverting the nation.

When an anchor donor like the Gates Foundation withdraws so abruptly, others often follow suit. Another reason may be that the Arabella network funneled at least $114.8 million (as per a Peter Schweizer & Seamus Bruner report) to “No Kings” protest organizers and affiliates that smeared Trump and his supporters as “fascists” while normalizing hate rhetoric and even assassination culture within the Democratic Party.

The Foundry.

The Department of War is discontinuing a committee criticized for pushing feminism in the military, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Signal.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed the memo saying he has determined that the reinstatement of the Defense Advisory Committee for Women in the Services should not proceed.

The committee cost the department $1,128,000 in fiscal years 2023-2024. This includes $485,000
in expenses and $643,000 in Defense Department labor.

The committee was originally created following the passage of the 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act to advise on strategies to improve the recruitment of women into the U.S. military during the Korean War. But critics say DACOWITS today is largely advancing a feminist agenda with a detrimental effect on combat readiness.

Newsbusters.

On the second day of the second quarter, President Donald Trump announced “reciprocal tariffs” on goods from countries charging exorbitant tariffs on U.S. exports. By the quarter’s end, the U.S. trade deficit shrank by 42.9%, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Tuesday.

Read it.

The Supreme Court Monday announced it would take up a case that gets to the heart of why the deep state exists—it will revisit a precedent that defended the bureaucracy against the executive power vested in the president.

In Donald Trump v. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court order forcing the president to re-hire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission after he had fired her in March.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it wasn’t just allowing Trump to fire Slaughter until the case is resolved in court, but also that it would fully consider the case.

The court’s majority directed both parties to argue two central questions: “Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), should be overruled”; and “Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.”

Read it.

Cutting onions and tomatoes is about to get a high-tech upgrade. Seattle Ultrasonics today unveiled the C-200 that they’re calling the world’s first ultrasonic chef’s knife for home cooks. The $399 knife harnesses ultrasonic technology used in industrial settings, vibrating more than 40,000 times per second to “reduce friction and the force needed to make cuts by 50%.”

Daily Record (UK).

During Harrelson’s trial, Joe Chagra testified the hitman had claimed to have shot Kennedy and even drew maps to illustrate where he had been hiding during the assassination.

However, the witness stated that he did not believe Harrelson’s claim, and the AP reported that the FBI “apparently discounted any involvement by Harrelson in the Kennedy assassination.”

In Jim Marrs’ 1989 book, ‘Crossfire’, it was speculated by some theorists that Charles Harrelson was the youngest and tallest of the “three tramps” who were arrested shortly after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. A renowned forensic artist, Lois Gibson, reportedly matched photographs of Charles Harrelson to this figure.

I’m perfectly willing to believe him.

In a 1982 interview, Charles Harrelson told Dallas TV station KDFW-TV: “Do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy, alone, without any aid from a rogue agency of the U.S. government or at least a portion of that agency? I believe you are very naïve if you do.”

Lot of that going around….

Read it.

Hungary will replicate a policy announced Thursday by President Donald Trump and designate antifa a terrorist organization, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.

Antifa, short for “anti-fascist,” is an umbrella term for loosely affiliated far-left-activists and groups that resist fascism, fascists, and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations. It resembles more an ideology than an organization, though some have embraced militant tactics.

Orbán, a right-wing populist and strong Trump ally, said in comments to state radio on Friday that he was “pleased” by Trump’s announcement that he plans to designate antifa as a “major terrorist organization” in the United States.

UPDATE: Europe Cracks Down: Netherlands, Hungary Target Antifa as Terror Group

The Foundry.

Test scores for America’s grade schools continue to show a dismal decline in basic reading and math skills, but four red states that were once seen as laggards are now bucking the nationwide trend.

According to the 2024 assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 12th graders tested in reading and math have shown a continuing decline since 1992. This report follows a 2020 study by the Department of Education that found that 54% of U.S. adults—130 million people—read at or below a sixth-grade level.

This year, 19-year-old Aleysha Ortiz sued the Hartford Board of Education, charging that, although she graduated with honors from Hartford Public High School in 2024, she cannot read or write. And Ivy League schools like Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton are reportedly no longer assigning whole books to students because reading an entire book is too difficult.

Going against this grim trend, however, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, and Tennessee have achieved consistent improvement in their kids’ scores. Education experts say much of this is about getting back to basics in how these subjects are taught, while maintaining tough standards for students and teachers.

Read it.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense has revised the hull classification symbols for Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) vessels effective October 2024. The change adds two new symbols, “CG” and “CVM,” which will be applied to upcoming ship types.

JMSDF vessels are classified into warships that enjoy the status of warships under international law (Self Defense Ship: ??? in Japanese) and other vessels categorized as support ships. The warship category is further divided into escort vessels and auxiliary vessels. Escort vessels are sub-categorized by function into surface/subsurface combatants (destroyers, submarines), mine warfare vessels (minesweepers, minesweeper craft, minesweeper tenders), patrol vessels (missile boats, offshore patrol vessels), and transport vessels (transport ships, landing craft, hovercraft).

The revision this time concerns the classification symbols for escort destroyers, which belong to the surface combatant group. Destroyers are combatant ships in the JMSDF inventory equipped with guns, missiles and other weapons, and possess the capability to engage enemy surface ships, submarines and aircraft. Until now, hull classification symbols have included general-purpose destroyer (DD), guided-missile destroyer (DDG), helicopter destroyer (DDH), as well as smaller coastal escort destroyer (DE) and multi-role frigates (FFM). Last year’s directive added two new symbols: “CG” and “CVM.” Naval News interviewed the JMSDF Office of Public Affairs to clarify what these new codes signify.

This drops the pretense that the new larger ships the Japanese Maritime Defense Force are merely small defensive ships.

The War Zone.

Taiwan has officially rolled out a new anti-ballistic missile system called Chiang Kung, or Strong Bow, which it says is now in production. The system features a two-stage interceptor and includes the first active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar domestically produced on the island. Taiwanese armed forces would face huge barrages of ballistic missiles as part of any future invasion from the mainland.

Watch it.

Today’s guest is David Ludwig, MD, PhD, an endocrinologist, pediatrician, and international thought leader in obesity medicine and metabolic health. He’s also a treasured mentor of mine from my time at Harvard Medical School. In this episode, we discuss his new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine on ultra-processed foods and why “simple” is the enemy of metabolic health. We explore the science of nutrition, weight loss, and food quality, challenging conventional wisdom about diet and metabolism. If you’re courageous enough to listen all the way through, this conversation will expand your perspective, change the way you think about food, and inspire a healthier relationship with eating.

You are what you eat. So this is important.

ALSO: Ultra-Processed Food, Retold by HC Andersen

Read it.

Nexstar’s owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show. Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

Read it.

In 2023, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, 613,349 Americans died of cancer. That number is projected to increase to over 618,000 this year. As a result, medical research has been focused on the development of cancer treatment protocols for decades for all types of cancer.

The National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Trials Support Unit (CTSU) and the National Institute of Health’s ClinicalTrials.gov website list hundreds of active protocols, with 457 NCI-supported protocols noted in clinical trial databases for various cancer types and stages.

For example, there are approximately a dozen known treatment protocols for Stage 4 prostate cancer that focus on managing the disease since it is considered to be incurable. For context, the American Cancer Society’s estimates for prostate cancer in the US for 2025 are about 313,780 new cases and about 35,770 projected deaths.

Medical researchers are continually developing potentially breakthrough cancer protocols. This is the true story of one man’s experience with a new protocol that exploits repurposed drugs.