Pornhub to Block Access in 13 States as Age-Verification Laws Expand Across U.S.

Kid on phone

Pornhub will soon be inaccessible in 13 states after lawmakers passed a slurry of restrictions for social media and other internet sites.

The bills require certain age verification measures for websites hosting adult content.

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CDC: First Severe Bird Flu Case in America Shows Mutation

Chickens

The CDC conducted a genetic analysis of an H5N1 bird flu sample from a person in Louisiana that shows the disease could be more transmittable to humans.

The person became infected with the “D1.1 genotype virus,” which closely resembles the virus “detected in wild birds and poultry in the United States and in recent human cases in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington State,” according to the CDC.

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Louisiana Law Mandating Ten Commandments in Classrooms as ‘Unconstitutional’

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily halted a Louisiana mandate requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom by Jan. 1, deeming the law “unconstitutional on its face.”

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Commentary: Classical v. Unclassical Curricula

Teacher and Student

Chad Aldeman, a Virginia-based researcher who focuses on education-related issues, recently detailed the educational experience of his daughter, who completed sixth grade in June. He writes that her teachers didn’t use textbooks, assign homework, or expect kids to study at home for tests, didn’t teach kids to sound out words, and didn’t drill times tables. He also mentions that there were no spelling tests, students didn’t practice handwriting of any kind, cursive or otherwise, and didn’t learn the 50 states and their capitals, let alone world geography.

Aldeman is very concerned by this shift, arguing that her educational experience has “reduced instructional time devoted to science and social studies and emphasized isolated skills such as critical thinking or reading comprehension over teaching students a coherent body of knowledge and facts.”

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Christian and Conservative Professors Divided over Louisiana’s New Ten Commandments Law

Jeff Landry

Political science professors at conservative and Christian colleges are split over the constitutionality of a new Louisiana law that requires all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

The law already faces a legal challenge from several families as well as left-leaning and atheist activist groups while Christian and conservative Louisiana lawmakers applaud the law.

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Commentary: Parental Freedom is Flourishing

Parents homeschooling their child

It’s no secret that the government’s monopoly on education is in trouble. Across the country, public schools are emptying while parental choice is flourishing. Florida, perhaps the national leader in this movement, has four different private school choice programs: one education savings account (ESA), one voucher program, and two tax-credit scholarships.

One of the results of Florida’s success is that many of the state’s public schools are shutting down. Florida’s Broward County, the sixth largest school district in the country, housing some 320 K-12 schools, could see 42 of them shut down, including 32 elementary schools, eight middle schools, and two high schools.

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Louisiana Abortion Pill Reclassification Bill Heads to Governor’s Desk

Jeff Landry

The Louisiana state Senate approved a bill on Thursday that would place two abortion pills on the state’s list of controlled dangerous substances, sending the legislation to the governor’s desk for his signature.

The state’s House of Representatives passed the bill on Tuesday, which could make possession of the drugs a crime punishable by jail time or a fine. Surgical and medical abortions are already illegal in the southern state except in extreme cases, meaning it is already difficult to obtain the drugs legally. But now the possession itself without a prescription could get an individual up to five years in prison.

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Congressional Republicans’ Bill Seeks to Crack Down on DEI in Med Schools

Congressman Greg Murphy

Bills that seeks to block med schools from receiving federal funds if they maintain diversity equity and inclusion mandates are winding their way through Congress.

“Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education,” or the EDUCATE Act, would limit the availability of funds for medical schools that “adopt certain policies and requirements relating to” DEI, it states.

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Redistricting Won’t Hurt GOP Chances at Keeping the House, Experts Say

US Capitol building

Changes in congressional district boundary lines across several states do not appear to have damaged Republicans’ chances of maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives after 2024’s elections, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and New York have experienced redistricting processes ahead of the 2024 election. While experts had previously forecast adverse changes from redistricting in these states that could have cost GOP incumbents their seats, the processes have resulted, on balance, in races where likely losses of some GOP seats could be offset by the gains in other states, experts told the DCNF.

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