Put Down That Chicken Nugget — Microplastics in Junk Food May Be Making You Depressed

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. . .A collection of four papers — published Tuesday in the journal Brain Medicine — reports a disturbing link between microplastics, ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and mental health.

UPFs — which are considered unhealthy because they are high in added sugars, saturated fat and sodium — include soft drinks, chips, chocolate, ice cream, processed meats, many ready-to-eat meals and mass-produced cereals.

Previous research has shown that people who eat UPFs have a substantially higher risk of depression, anxiety and poor sleep — but the role that microplastics might play in that connection has not been fully explored.

UPFs are more susceptible to microplastics than other foods due to their packaging and additives and the equipment used to process them.

As an example, the researchers pointed to chicken nuggets — which reportedly contain 30 times more microplastics per gram than chicken breasts.

“We’re seeing converging evidence that should concern us all,” Dr. Nicholas Fabiano, a psychiatry resident at the University of Ottawa in Canada, said in a statement. (Read more from “Put Down That Chicken Nugget — Microplastics in Junk Food May Be Making You Depressed” HERE)

Report Reveals HHS is Dropping COVID Vaccination Advice for Pregnant Women and Children

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The Department of Health and Human Services is reportedly preparing to scrap its recommendation that pregnant women and kids get the COVID-19 vaccines. Individuals said to be familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the announcement is imminent and will coincide with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention kicking off a new vaccine approval framework.

While the relevant agencies apparently did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment, U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary provided a fairly strong indication this week that the change was coming.

Makary told Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk that he would “love to see the evidence to show that giving young, healthy children another COVID-19 shot — you know, a sixth COVID booster — would help them, but that evidence does not exist, and so we’re not going to rubber-stamp things at the FDA.”

“I don’t think you’re going to see a push at the CDC to be pushing COVID shots in young, healthy children,” continued Makary, adding that he expected an announcement on that front in the coming weeks.

Sources told the Journal that it would only be a matter of days. (Read more from “Report Reveals HHS is Dropping COVID Vaccination Advice for Pregnant Women and Children” HERE)

Affidavit Details Mother’s Purchase of Weapons for Son, 13, Planning Nazi-Inspired School Attack

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A Texas mother provided her 13-year-old son with ammunition and tactical gear despite the fact that he was exhibiting violent tendencies, according to court documents.

Officers with the San Antonio Police Department on Monday arrested 33-year-old Ashley Pardo. She was charged with aiding in the commission of terrorism after she allegedly provided ammunition and tactical gear to her son.

Pardo was released Tuesday on a bond of $75,000, according to jail records.

In January, officials at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio became concerned over the boy’s “violent expressions and drawings,” according to an affidavit obtained by CBS News.

The boy allegedly drew a map of the school that he attended and labeled it “suicide route.” He also wrote the name of the school beside a rifle, the affidavit stated. (Read more from “Affidavit Details Mother’s Purchase of Weapons for Son, 13, Planning Nazi-Inspired School Attack” HERE)

The Fertility Crisis Isn’t Just Having Fewer Kids, It’s Women Not Having Any

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As a mother of eight, I approach every Mother’s Day with mixed feelings. I look forward to the burned French toast, illegible handmade cards, and sweet (if clumsy) gestures from my children. But I also feel sadness. As a 40-something mom of a large, happy family, I am an endangered species. The United States is on track to surpass Switzerland as the global leader in childless women in their 40s.

I have a great life. I’m never bored. I’m constantly challenged to give more of myself, and I receive more love than I ever imagined when I was still single. Married mothers report the happiest, least lonely, most meaningful lives in our age group. In fact, 80 percent of mothers say they are “happy with our lives,” compared with just 68 percent of childless women.

I don’t say this to brag (most days I still wonder how I got this lucky). I say it because I want to build a society where women are happier and more fulfilled — and all the signs suggest that to get there, we need more married mothers.

The Real Fertility Gap

Even the corporate media has started to admit that women aren’t having the children they want. A pro-natalist movement has gone viral (and lives rent-free in the NPR editors’ heads) thanks to voices like Elon Musk and cringey-but-earnest influencers like the “techno puritan” Collins family.

The Trump coalition, big-tent as ever, has opened a path for both secular birthrate alarmists and religious (mostly Catholic) voices to find common ground. In late April, The New York Times profiled policy ideas from the natalist camp: a $5,000 “baby bonus,” menstrual health education, and a “National Medal of Motherhood” (thanks again, Collins family) for women with six or more kids. (Read more from “The Fertility Crisis Isn’t Just Having Fewer Kids, It’s Women Not Having Any” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

There’s No ‘Sanctuary’ For Family Of Woman Allegedly Killed By Illegal Alien

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As Joe Abraham fights for justice for his daughter Katie and victims like her, the suburban Chicago father isn’t holding out much hope in “sanctuary” Illinois.

Katie Abraham was killed in a car crash near the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana the weekend of Jan. 18. She was 20 years old.

Her killer, according to police, was a previously-deported illegal alien who was allegedly drunk when he slammed his SUV into the driver’s side of the vehicle Katie’s friend was driving as it was stopped at a red light. Julio Cucul-Bol, a 29-year-old Guatemalan national, was driving 78 miles per hour when his vehicle collided with the Honda Civic, Champaign State’s Attorney Julia Rietz said at the suspect’s arraignment, according to WCIA. Rietz said Cucul-Bol applied the brakes about a half a second before the collision; he made “little to no attempt to steer out of the way” of the car filled with four college-aged students, including 21-year-old Chloe Polzin, who died at the hospital from her injuries.

Cucul-Bol immediately fled the scene. When U.S. Marshals ultimately apprehended him days later, he was about an hour south of Dallas, Texas, en route to the U.S. southern border, according to federal law enforcement officials. Upon his arrest, the illegal immigrant gave police a phony name, Juan Jahaziel Saenz-Suarez. His falsified paperwork claimed that he was a 27-year-old Mexican national residing in Urbana.

‘I Don’t Have Faith’

Back in Champaign County, Cucul-Bol is now facing multiple charges, including two counts of reckless homicide, a Class 3 Felony, two counts of leaving the scene of a personal injury crash resulting in death, a Class I Felony, and aggravated driving under the influence resulting in death, a Class 2 Felony. (Read more from “There’s No ‘Sanctuary’ For Family Of Woman Allegedly Killed By Illegal Alien” HERE)

Is Your Job Killing You? All the Ways Overworking Can Destroy Your Health — and What You Can Do About It

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Burning the midnight oil may fatten your paycheck, but your health could be paying the price.

In 2024, Gallup found that the average full-time worker in the US clocked 42.9 hours a week. But millions are logging far more, and the toll is greater than just burnout.

At one Midwestern investment bank, junior employees were allegedly forced to endure grueling 20-hour days — a grind so extreme it sent at least two to the hospital, including one with a failed pancreas.

They’re not alone. In recent years, several cases have emerged in which employees died after being pushed to work 100 hours a week or more, a troubling trend that’s prompted some companies to rethink their breakneck expectations.

Just last year, a 35-year-old Bank of America investment banker named Leo Lukenas III died of a blood clot while job-hunting, bogged down by the stress of his 100+ hour weeks.

The Post consulted seven health experts to find out what spending 60, 70 or even 80+ hours a week behind your desk can do to your body if you’re not careful. Spoiler alert: It’s not pretty. (Read more from “Is Your Job Killing You? All the Ways Overworking Can Destroy Your Health — and What You Can Do About It” HERE)

The Statue Of The Random Black Woman In Times Square Is Leftist Cultural Warfare

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The cultural parasites of the left have struck again. This time, they have erected a bronze statue of a 12-foot-tall anonymous overweight black woman in New York City’s Times Square, where it will stand for the next month.

Matt Walsh asked on X whether it was a particular person “or just a statue of a random black woman for no apparent reason?”

It is indeed a random black woman, and the randomness is for a very specific reason. Having torn down beautiful statues of American heroes and icons, the left is now erecting intentionally ugly statues designed to attack the very idea of greatness and undermine the notion that exceptional people should be memorialized and honored in public. And they’re doing it for the ultimate purpose of seizing and wielding cultural and political power.

But don’t just take my word for it. The statue, we’re told, “disrupts preconceived ideas of what defines a triumphant figure and challenges who should be rendered immortal through monumentalization.”

These people do not come to build but to destroy, and what they erect in the place of what they have destroyed isn’t just boring and narcissistic, it’s also cultural propaganda that insists on a neo-Marxist paradigm pitting the supposedly marginalized and oppressed against the oppressors. And we all know who the oppressors are. (Read more from “The Statue Of The Random Black Woman In Times Square Is Leftist Cultural Warfare” HERE)

Buddhist Monk-Turned-Pastor Describes Visiting Hell After Suicide Attempt: ‘Worse Than Death’

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A Buddhist monk-turned-Evangelical pastor has opened up about briefly experiencing Hell during a near death experience, describing it as a barren wasteland full of giant demons, “agony” and “fear.”

In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, Steve Kang revealed he had a face-to-face experience with the supernatural after a suicide attempt left him hovering between life and death, an ordeal he described as an eight-hour descent into a dark, torturous realm he believes was Hell.

“It’s not a place you want to go,” Kang said. “I almost feel like I don’t even want Kim Jong-il or Hitler to go there. I don’t want my worst enemies to go there.”

In September 1998, while battling substance abuse and plagued by what he believed was demonic possession, Kang attempted to take his life by slitting his neck and stomach. As surgeons worked frantically to repair the damage at a hospital in California, Kang said his spirit was plunged into what he could only describe as Hell.

“There was no light,” he said. “There [were] no plants. I don’t remember seeing even an ounce of grass. It was just like rocky floor. There’s cliffs everywhere, and they look like purplish red, just not a pleasant color. You look up, and it’s just dark. Just imagine a very dark night without the moon.”

The 20-minute experience, which doctors later told him lasted roughly eight hours in real time, left an indelible mark on Kang, who described a barren and agonizing landscape filled with lost souls and monstrous demons. (Read more from “Buddhist Monk-Turned-Pastor Describes Visiting Hell After Suicide Attempt: ‘Worse Than Death’” HERE)

Buttigieg Says Black Babies Come At ‘Discount’ — Gets Smacked Down By Adoption Expert

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A leading adoption advocate rebuked former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for suggesting racial disparities in adoption fees, calling the claim “ignorant” and misleading.

In an op-ed published in The Hill, National Council for Adoption President Ryan Hanlon addressed Buttigieg’s suggestion that adopting white children involves a “list” and a “deposit on a fetus” while implying black children are adopted at a discount. Hanlon said such language grossly misrepresents how private domestic adoption works and perpetuates harmful myths about adoption and race.

“Anybody who says race is not a thing in this country should experience an adoption process, where there are literally different lists if you say that you want a white kid only versus if you say that doesn’t matter,” Buttigieg said on Flagrant, a podcast hosted by comedian Andrew Schulz. “Literally a different list. The list for ‘white kid only’ is longer. And not only that, there was actually a discount — or, you didn’t have to pay a deposit on the fees. This is, like, how it works. I couldn’t believe it.”

“As someone who has worked with hundreds of adoption agencies and professionals across the country for decades, I can confidently say that [Buttigieg’s comments] misrepresent how private adoption works,” Hanlon wrote. “More importantly, when media narratives confuse or conflate key facts, the real harm falls on children and families.” (Read more from “Buttigieg Says Black Babies Come At ‘Discount’ — Gets Smacked Down By Adoption Expert” HERE)

This Vaccine Lowers Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke by 26% — so Why Was It Discontinued in the US?

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. . .A type of herpes virus — the varicella-zoster virus — causes chickenpox in childhood and shingles later in life.

Shingles travels along nerves, triggering a distinctive blistering rash and what some have described as the worst pain they have ever experienced.

A shingles infection can cause blood vessel damage, inflammation and clot formation, raising the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Older adults, people with weakened immune systems and those who’ve had chickenpox are at higher risk of shingles. Experts say vaccination is the most effective way to reduce this risk.

Now, a new study out of South Korea reports that a certain type of vaccine can offer benefits beyond lowering the risk of shingles — but it’s no longer available in the US.

The live zoster vaccine, which contains a weakened version of the shingles virus, can lower the risk of heart failure, a stroke, a heart attack or death from heart disease by 26% for up to eight years, according to research published Monday in the European Heart Journal. (Read more from “This Vaccine Lowers Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke by 26% — so Why Was It Discontinued in the US?” HERE)