HHS Awards $556K to Train Med School Students on LGBT Mental Health Care

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $556,000 to Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine for an LGBT mental health internship program.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals experience unique health disparities. As a group, LGBT adults experience more mood and anxiety disorders, an elevated risk for suicide, and substance use as compared with heterosexual adults. LGBT people are more frequently the targets of stigma, discrimination, and violence because of their sexual- and gender-minority status,” the grant abstract said.

“LGBT adults have higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, and substance use than heterosexual adults, which leads to long-lasting effects on both the individual and the community. Health professionals with greater exposure to LGBT patients and formal education in LGBT Psychology are better able to provide competent care,” it said.

The program is considered to be the first of its kind to focus on pre-doctoral LGBT psychology training, according to the grant abstract.

“Health professionals with greater exposure to LGBT patients and formal education in LGBT Psychology are better able to provide competent care that improves long-term mental health outcomes, reducing the risk of suicide and substance abuse,” HHS spokesperson Martin Kramer told CNSNews.com.

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$5.7M NSF Grant For Card Games, Videos To Teach Public About Global Warming

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

A multi-million dollar project funded by the National Science Foundation is developing card games, videos and other educational programs “to engage adult learners and inform public understanding and response to climate change.”

The $5.7 million Polar Learning and Responding (PoLAR) project is just the latest in a series of federally-funded climate change efforts since Congress established the Climate Change Educational Partnership (CCEP) in 2009.

CCEP has already spent $46 million on taxpayer-funded research projects around the country designed to find the most effective ways to convince Americans that the federal government should confront what researchers claim is the threat of global warming.

Stephanie Pfirman, principal investigator and professor of environmental science at Barnard College, told CNSNews.com that one of the games under development by PoLAR is “EcoChains” – a card game in which “players learn the components of an Arctic marine food chain, the reliance of some species on sea ice, and potential impacts of future changes.”

Other games include “Future Coast” – described as “a community-based activity where participants consider the implications of sea level rise coupled with a storm surge, as happened with [Hurricane] Sandy.”

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New Boss at ICE Ineligible for Job, Says Critic

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—who oversees the nation’s second-largest federal investigative agency—may not be eligible for the permanent position under laws set up to keep politics out of the agency, according to one former high-level employee.

When John Sandweg, a former Arizona criminal defense attorney and associate of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was named acting director of ICE, several critics questioned his credentials. Some told FoxNews.com his appointment seemed to be political, and others said the agency needed a leader who had come up through the ranks.

“Given that there are literally dozens of people within ICE who have more experience in management/law enforcement and meet these qualifications, there is no excuse for placing Mr. Sandweg as acting director of ICE,” said Anthony Ho, who was assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Francisco division before retiring in December.

Ho noted that the 2002 law which established the agency, then known as Bureau of Border Security, explicitly requires that the director “shall have a minimum of 5 years professional experience in law enforcement, and a minimum of 5 years of management experience.” The law was designed specifically to prevent the agency from becoming politicized, Ho said.

It was not clear if the same requirements apply to an acting director, but one source told FoxNews.com it was likely the intent that they would, otherwise an acting director could be installed indefinitely simply to get around them.

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Father Charged in BB Gun Shooting Death of 18-Month-Old Boy

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Photo Credit: MYFOXATLANTA.COM

Photo Credit: MYFOXATLANTA.COM

An 18-month-old Georgia boy is dead after being shot in the chest with a BB gun and his father has been charged with felony murder, police say.

The toddler’s father, Jesse Sellers, 23, reportedly told police he was playing with the gun when it accidentally went off, MyFoxAtlanta.com reported. Sellers has been charged with second-degree cruelty to children and felony murder.

Police say six people, including three children, were in the home at the time of the shooting.

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NSA to Release Spying Statistics

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration plans to release statistics that could shed light on the scope of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

In a blog post late Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he would soon release data on the total number of secret court orders to communications providers and the number of people targeted in those orders.

The government plans to continue releasing the statistics in annual reports, Clapper said.

He explained that he decided to release the reports to comply with President Obama’s directive to declassify as much information as possible about the surveillance programs while protecting national security.

The data will include totals for national security letters and orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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Test Reveals Facebook, Twitter and Google Snoop on Emails’: Study of Net Giants Spurs New Privacy Concerns

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been caught snooping on messages sent across their networks, new research claims, prompting campaigners to express concerns over privacy.

The findings emerged from an experiment conducted following revelations by US security contractor Edward Snowden about government snooping on internet accounts.

Cyber-security company High-Tech Bridge set out to test the confidentiality of 50 of the biggest internet companies by using their systems to send a unique web address in private messages.

Experts at its Geneva HQ then waited to see which companies clicked on the website.

During the ten-day operation, six of the 50 companies tested were found to have opened the link.

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Obama: Sex Ed for Kindergartners ‘Is the Right Thing to Do’

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

The Chicago Public Schools this year are mandating that the district’s kindergarten classes include sex education, fulfilling a proposal President Barack Obama supported in 2003 when he served in the Illinois state senate and later defended when he ran for president in the 2008 election cycle.

At a Planned Parenthood convention at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2007, a teenage girl who said she worked as a sex-education “peer educator” in the D.C. public schools asked then-U.S. Sen. Obama what he would do to encourage the teaching of “medically accurate, age-appropriate, and responsible sex education.”

Obama first noted that he had worked with Planned Parenthood to push a sex education bill when he served in the Illinois state legislature.

Then he said: “I remember Alan Keyes—I ran against Alan Keyes—but I remember him using this in his campaign against me, saying, ‘Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergartners.

“And you know,” said Obama, “I didn’t know what to tell him. But it is the right thing to do, to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in the schools.”

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Feds Forced Churches to Get Baptism Permits

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

For as far back as anyone can remember, Missouri Baptists have gathered on river banks for Sunday afternoon baptisms.

The preacher leads the new believers into the water, draped in white robes as a choir sings, “Shall We Gather at the River.”

It’s the way it’s been done for generations – baptizing in creeks, lakes, and rivers “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

But now the long-cherished tradition of “taking the plunge” has been drawn into a controversy with the federal government.

The National Park Service began enforcing a policy recently that required churches to obtain special use permits in order to baptize in public waters. As part of the same permit process, the NPS also mandated that churches give the Park Service 48 hours advance notice of pending baptisms.

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Court: White House Visitor Logs for Obama and Most of His Staff are Confidential

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that White House visitor logs for the president and most of his staff are not public information subject to disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.

The 3-0 decision would keep the visitor records confidential for up to 12 years after President Barack Obama leaves office.

The appeals court ruling dealt a defeat to a private group that asked the Secret Service for all White House visitor logs from Obama’s first seven months in office.

“Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the president and his close advisers to be subject to disclosure” under the Freedom of Information Act, wrote Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Judicial Watch, a conservative-oriented watchdog group that sued in an effort to get the records, said it is considering an appeal.

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Pentagon Can’t Afford Syria Operation; Must Seek Additional Funds

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. military, struggling after defense cuts of tens of billions of dollars, will be unable to pay for attacks on Syria from current operating funds and must seek additional money from Congress, according to congressional aides.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, said on Friday he has not made a final decision on a military strike against Syria. He sought to play down both the scope and duration of the anticipated punitive missile and bombing campaign.

“As you’ve seen, today we’ve released our unclassified assessment detailing with high confidence that the Syrian regime carried out a chemical weapons attack that killed well over a thousand people, including hundreds of children,” Obama said.

The president said the use of the deadly weapons had violated international “norms” and that action was needed to prevent the further use of the arms.

A future military operation would not involve troops on the ground as part of a long-term campaign, Obama said. “But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria but others around the world understands that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm,” he said.

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