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The measles outbreak that began in Disneyland last December has infected more than 100 people in 14 states, most recently victimizing five infants at a Chicago area daycare. Last year, there were 644 cases of measles reported, by far the largest number in a decade and a half. The resurgence of a contagious and potentially deadly disease has reignited the nationwide debate over mandatory childhood vaccinations. Worldwide, there are still hundreds of thousands of measles-related deaths each year. A decade before children began receiving the measles vaccine (given as the MMR—measles, mumps, rubella—vaccine series since 1971) in the United States,...

The clip, meant to stress the importance of paying attention in church and meetings, has been criticized for insinuating that not fully focusing during such gatherings can result in dying, even connecting the concept to the story of Noah’s Ark. JW.org has not yet responded to the backlash. A Jehovah's Witness promotional cartoon has been slammed for appearing to threaten children who don't pay attention in church with death. Viewers have dubbed the controversial animated clip, posted to YouTube by JW.org, as "stupid," "dumb" and "mind control." It begins with two youngsters attending a service with their parents. A little...

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) has introduced a bill to keep the "federal food police" out of schools, taking aim at Obama administration nutrition standards applied to bake sales.Poe's bill, H.R. 881, would prevent federal nutrition standards developed by the Department of Agriculture under a 2010 law championed by first lady Michelle Obama from being applied to school fundraisers.“The federal food police need to stay out of our schools,” Poe said in a statement. “First, the regulators came into our lunchrooms, then vending machines and now school fundraisers."The nutrition standards, which limit the calories and fat in food sold in schools,...

Doctors are warning parents against reviving “measles parties” intended to expose children to the disease at a gathering with at least one infected person. The parties ostensibly help children build immunity against the disease and are used instead of vaccinating or leaving exposure up to chance. Such practices have been discouraged despite similar events such as “pox parties” which expose children to chickenpox for the purpose of building immunity. “CDPH strongly recommends against the intentional exposure of children to measles as it unnecessarily places the exposed children at potentially grave risk and could contribute to further spread of the outbreak,”...

Retired neurosurgeon and presidential hopeful Ben Carson attempted Sunday to diffuse the vaccination debate that has gripped the political scene, saying there’s no reason to turn vaccines for measles and other diseases into a partisan issue. Mr. Carson, a star in conservative circles, said scientists have debunked skeptics who warn of debilitating side effects from vaccines, and parents who forgo vaccinations are eroding the herd immunity that has lulled them into complacency. “We’ve had such an effective vaccination program that you’re not seeing the diseases,” Mr. Carson told “Fox News Sunday.” A measles outbreak traced to Disneyland in California has...

ABID HUSSAN took one step inside the foul-smelling prison cell and began to shake. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead and behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. The 45-year-old shopkeeper pointed to the electric cables hanging from the ceiling where President Saddam Hussein’s security police would torture him three times a day. People tried to elbow their way inside this impossibly small 6ft by 4ft torture chamber. They were anxious to sift through the documents carpeting the floor to see if it gave a clue as to what became of a loved one, or friend, who had been dragged inside here...

Pope Francis believes it is fine for parents to smack their children as punishment for bad behaviour. He made the remarks, which were condemned by campaigners for child protection, in front of thousands of people at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square during a homily about the responsibilities of fatherhood. The Pope recalled a conversation he had had with a father, who told him that on occasion he hits his children if they have been naughty. The Pope, smiling and miming the action of slapping a child on the bottom, said: “One time, I heard a father say,...

Democrats were gleeful when Republicans Chris Christie and Rand Paul got tangled this week in the debate over the Disneyland measles outbreak, until similar words from the pasts of President Obama and 2016 front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton came out. Mr. Christie walked back his recent comments calling for “balance” and a role for “parental choice” on childhood vaccines, saying in a Monday statement that “with a disease like measles, there’s no question kids should be vaccinated.” But the Democratic posturing as the party of science was short-lived. Several websites promptly dug up a comment from Mr. Obama during the 2008...

A critic of mandatory child vaccinations made no apologies for her views in an appearance on Newsmax TV Tuesday, and said that public anger over the Disneyland measles outbreak should be directed at pharmaceutical companies and the federal government, not people like her. "What's happening is people are freaking out about measles outbreaks," Louise Kuo Habakus said ina combative interview with "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner. "They're pointing the finger at unvaccinated children and non-vaccinated families, when really what needs to happen is people need to be pointing the finger at industry and at Congress." Habakus, co-founder of a group called...

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently announced it will review a November decision by the Sixth Circuit Court—which represents Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—that upheld marriage as between a man and a woman. Will the Supreme Court side with the two judges in the majority, or with the one dissenting judge? The majority ruling dismisses any possibility of a constitutional right to gay marriage, while the dissent focuses on an entirely different question of whether gay parents are as good as straight ones. The latter controversy is something that the majority decision explicitly refused to weigh in on, so...

Apparently anything Rand Paul says is “controversial” these days, and that was certainly the case during a recent interview he did on Closing Bell this week. The subject at hand was the exhausting topic of vaccinations, (which the media can’t get enough of) but during the discussion, the Kentucky Senator said something which deserves more attention, and not just regarding vaccinations. Why this is controversial I don’t know. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) doubled down on his position that most vaccines should be voluntary, suggesting Monday that mandated immunization is an example of government overreach.“The state doesn’t own your children,”...

Dear Justice Kennedy,June is nigh, and with it will come your ruling on the most contentious political issue of our time: marriage.I write because I am one of many children with gay parents who believe we should protect marriage. I believe you were right when, during the Proposition 8 deliberations, you said “the voice of those children [of same-sex parents] is important.” I’d like to explain why I think redefining marriage would actually serve to strip these children of their most fundamental rights.It’s very difficult to speak about this subject, because I love my mom. Most of us children...

(CNSNews.com) - In a joint radio appearance with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday, President Barack Obama said there is a “worldwide epidemic of obesity” and that he looks forward to working with the government of India and non-governmental organizations on the “issue of obesity” in India.In 2013-2014, according to a survey conducted by UNICEF and India's Ministry of Women and Child Development, 30.7 percent of Indian children under five were underweight.That was a significant improvement for India, where 43.5 percent of the children under five had been underweight at the time of the last survey in 2005-2006. "India no...

Today the Obama White House insisted the Taliban was not a terrorist group. This comes after the Taliban slaughtered 132 children at a school in Pakistan in December. Charles Krauthammer responded to this latest idiocy: It slits throats. It attacks buses. It drives car bombs into markets and it’s not a terrorist group. Look you can’t parody this administration… And also the idea that the war is winding down is preposterous. Tell that to anybody that lives in Afghanistan. This is a fantasy. Obama is pretending that the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq is...

Teacher pensions are a huge and growing crisis waiting to explode without major reforms, warns a new report released Tuesday by an educational think tank.“Do the math on teacher pensions and it just doesn’t add up,” argues the National Council on Teacher Quality in its report, Doing the Math on Teacher Pensions. Total unfunded teacher pension liabilities in 2014 were a whopping $499 billion dollars, the group found. That amount is surging rapidly; in 2012, the total was just $394 billion, meaning that pension debt is growing by over $50 billion a year.Some states are in a particularly huge hole....

One New York state lawmaker believes that allowing children younger than 12 to attend gun shows increases the possibility that the youngsters will be future perpetrators of firearm crimes. Concerned that the firearms industry is making firearms and shooting sports too appealing to children, Hell’s Kitchen-area New York state lawmaker Linda Rosenthal wants to ban children from entering gun shows. “As the gun industry prepares a public campaign to broaden the appeal of guns, it is important that we establish reasonable age limits for admission to gun shows by children,” the lawmaker said in a memo attached to her proposal....

Critics of marijuana legalization love to argue about its repercussions for “the children”—paging Nancy Grace—but the American Academy of Pediatrics seems to disagree. The group has now appealed to the Drug Enforcement Agency to reclassify marijuana and allow them to research its medical benefits for children, the Wall Street Journal reports. They have also asked the federal government to permit marijuana use by children with serious conditions. Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the federal government, classifying it with drugs like heroin. This scheduling prohibits research by ranking marijuana as having no acceptable medical use. “A...

This week, events around the country will highlight the importance of parental control of education as part of National School Choice Week. This year's events should attract more attention than prior years because of the growing rebellion against centralized education sparked by the federal Common Core curriculum. The movement against Common Core has the potential to change American education. However, anti-Common Core activists must not be misled by politicians promoting "reforms" of the federal education bureaucracy, or legislation ending Common Core while leaving all other federal education programs intact. The only way to protect American children from future Common Core-like...

A Kirksville, Mo. doctor righteously and very satisfyingly slapped down a substitute teacher after she sent a note home condemning the lunch his second-grade daughter had brought to school. The doctor and mad dad is Justin Puckett, reports ABC News. As Puckett — who is certified in obesity medicine — later observed to the principal at the school, the teacher and a cafeteria worker didn’t see the whole lunch. Sure, they saw a pickle, a bag of marshmallows, some Ritz crackers and four tiny chocolate bars. Importantly, what the sub and the lunch lady missed were four pieces of ham...

Democrats want one of two things from all children, either to abort them or place them into horrible debt. I don't hate children enough to vote Democrat. Two lines I use when "debating" liberals.