Report: Students Faking Disabilities to Cheat on College Admissions Tests

Molly Bruns
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Report: Students Faking Disabilities to Cheat on College Admissions Tests

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Teenagers taking college-admissions tests are attempting to score ADHD and other diagnoses to lengthen their test taking time.

SAT and ACT administrators allow students up to 50% more time if they provide documentation from a mental health professional, according to the New York Post.

Several Ivy League schools recently reinstated the mandatory standardized testing after abandoning them as a precautionary measure against COVID.

“I get requests for ADHD testing accommodations all the time,” said Dr. Camilo Ortiz, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Long Island University. “Some parents are none too happy when I don’t agree the child has ADHD.”

Students, parents, teachers and education professionals agreed that many families exploited the system in order to boost the students’ scores.

“Most students don’t have the luxury of going back and checking their work, but if you have 50% more time, that’s a complete game-changer,” said Christopher Rim, CEO of Command Education, a college counseling firm. “If I were to guess, a score could possibly go up on the SAT by 200 points.”

High school math teacher Paul Rossi estimated that a third of his students got additional testing time, which he called “a racket” and “bogus.”

“Educational psychologists rake in a pretty penny for diagnoses,” he said.

The Learning Disabilities Association of America released a statement coming out against the practice, arguing that the people gaming the system harmed students actually suffering from disabilities.

The ACT and The College Board–the group in charge of administering the SAT–made no commitment to direct action, making statements simply reiterating their commitment to continue allowing students with proper certification extra time as necessary.

“Documentation of the need for accommodations must meet guidelines that are considered appropriate by qualified professionals and must provide evidence that the student’s impairment substantially limits one or more major life activities that are relevant when taking the ACT test,” the ACT said.

Disabled students may receive testing accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Calif. Judge Rules to Disbar Ex-Trump Lawyer for Aiding Him in Election Fight

Jacob Bruns
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Calif. Judge Rules to Disbar Ex-Trump Lawyer for Aiding Him in Election Fight

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A California judge ruled that former lawyer for former President Donald Trump, John Eastman, must be disbarred due to his attempts to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to delay the certification of the 2020 election, Politico reported Wednesday.

Judge Yvette Roland determined after months of hearings, listening to what Politico called Eastman’s “fringe legal theories,” that Eastman violated “ethics rules” and must therefore be banished from practicing law in the state of California.

Ultimately, she found him guilty of 10 out of 11 counts brought forward by the California Bar Association last year, among these misleading courts, lacking candor, and trying to help the former President.

The judge, in a 128-page decision, cited “the serious and extensive nature” of Eastman’s “unethical actions” as the reason for her ruling.

Because of his allegedly unethical ways, Roland added, he is a threat to justice in America, and therefore worthy of “most severe available professional sanction is warranted to protect the public and preserve the public confidence in the legal system,” meaning disbarment.

Eastman, in her account, also “conspired with President Trump” to obstruct a electoral count on January 6, 2021.

In response, Eastman’s lawyer, Randall Miller, disputed the claims, arguing that the subsequent condemnations of Trump–which have amounted to very little, legally speaking–have shaded the way people have judged his own client.

“Any reasonable person can see the inherent unfairness of prohibiting a presumed-innocent defendant from being able to earn the funds needed to pay for the enormous expenses required to defend himself, in the profession in which he has long been licensed,” Miller said.

He also pointed out that the witch hunt has been a waste of time and public dollars.

“That is not justice and serves no legitimate purpose to protect the public,” Miller added.

Ultimately, though, Roland argued that Eastman failed to properly uphold the 2020 election, and is therefore worthy of condemnation.

“He turned a blind eye to any information that would not support his position of election fraud.”

Eastman, who still faces criminal charges along with Trump in Georgia, has not backed down from his allegations that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential elections.

CIA Officers told to Not Use The Term ‘Blacklist’ Because It’s Racist

Ken Silva
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CIA Officers told to Not Use The Term ‘Blacklist’ Because It’s Racist

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) An internal intelligence document obtained by Fox News instructs CIA officers and other spooks to refrain from using certain terms—including “blacklist,” “cakewalk” and “grandfathered”—because of their racial connotations.

According to Fox, officers were told not to use “blacklist” because it implies “black is bad and white is good,” the document said. “Cakewalk” and “grandfathered” reportedly come from slavery.

Officers and analysts have also been told not to use the term “sanity check” because it suggests people with mental illness are inferior, according to the document, which is a diversity, equity and inclusion newsletter circulated among U.S. intelligence agencies.

Fox News further reported that the newsletter, entitled Dive, includes a column from a secret agent who reveals he is a cross-dresser.

“I am an intelligence officer, and I am a man who likes to wear women’s clothes sometimes. I think my experiences as someone who crossdresses have sharpened the skills I use as an intelligence officer, particularly critical thinking and perspective-taking,” the cross-dressing agent wrote.

“It is challenging for some people to understand crossdressing, and non-binary or genderfluid people because gender is a part of overall identity,” he added. “Many of us think of our identities as fixed, and some find this approach to gender threatening to their own identity.”

According to Fox, the newsletter is published by the Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Office, which is housed in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—a Cabinet-level position that oversees the intelligence community.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the ODNI said the newsletter is part of its effort to “build a diverse and inclusive workforce.”

“The Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Office manages the IC’s efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, and as part of their work, they distribute The Dive, a quarterly magazine, to each IC element’s DEIA office and/or Equal Employment Opportunity office,” an ODNI spokesperson reportedly said.

But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the newsletter shows that the Biden administration is prioritizing DEI over national security.

“Intelligence officers should spend their time finding terrorists, not worrying about whether they will offend them,” Cotton told Fox.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Inflation Goes Bananas: Trader Joe’s Ups Price of Tropical Fruit for 1st Time in Decades

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Inflation Goes Bananas: Trader Joe’s Ups Price of Tropical Fruit for 1st Time in Decades

(Headline USA) It may not be too “a-peel-ing,” but the price of some bananas is rising by a few cents.

Trader Joe’s recently upped the price for a single banana to 23 cents, a 4-cent—or 21%— increase from the grocer’s previous going rate for the fruit that had remained unchanged for over 20 years.

“We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for Bananas at 19¢ each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary,” a spokesperson for the chain based in Monrovia, California, said.

In contrast to other foods more heavily impacted by inflation, bananas have stayed relatively affordable over time—with average global prices never exceeding more than about 80 cents per pound.

Still, banana prices have seen some jumps in recent years. And it’s not just impacting Trader Joe’s shoppers.

In the U.S., the cost of a pound of bananas averaged at about 63 cents last month. That’s only 3 cents more than it was a decade ago, government data showed, but about 6 cents higher than prices reported at the start of 2020, in the months before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.

Around the world, banana prices saw their most notable pandemic-era spikes in 2022— with the global average price per metric ton increasing by more than $520 over the course of that year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, citing International Monetary Fund numbers. Those prices drifted back down some in 2023, but still remain elevated.

“Bananas are a very popular fruit among consumers, so retailers try to keep prices low,” Neil Saunders, managing director at research firm GlobalData, notes. “However, prices cannot defy gravity forever and [we are] now starting to see retailers like Trader Joe’s make adjustments.”

One of the main reasons behind these increases is the rising cost of farming bananas, Saunders added, noting that fertilizer, pesticide and transportation prices have all gone up due to general inflation.

At the same time, demand for bananas has been growing, he said. That creates an imbalance with supply as exporters face pressures of higher costs, greater prevalence of disease impacting plants and unfavorable weather conditions.

The World Banana Forum, part of the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization, has pointed to growing effects of global warming, including higher instances of drought and natural disasters, that make banana production “increasingly difficult, uncertain and costly.”

However, there is no evidence that there is a greater prevalence of natural disasters now than there has been at any time historically, and the temperature increase is so negligible over time as to be largely imperceptible.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

TikTok Under Investigation by FTC over Data Practices, Could Face Lawsuit

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TikTok Under Investigation by FTC over Data Practices, Could Face Lawsuit

(Headline USA) The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok over its data and security practices, a probe that could lead to a settlement or a lawsuit against the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The investigation is the latest battle in Washington for the social-media company, which is already fighting against a federal bill that could ban the platform in the U.S. if it doesn’t break ties with its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance.

In its investigation, the FTC has been looking into whether TikTok violated a portion of federal law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices by denying that individuals in China had access to U.S. user data, said the person, who is not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The agency also is scrutinizing the company over potential violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parents’ consent before collecting personal information of children under 13.

FTC spokesperson Nicole Drayton and TikTok declined to comment on the investigation, which was first reported by Politico.

The agency is nearing the conclusion of its investigation and could settle with TikTok in the coming weeks. But there’s not a deadline for an agreement, the person said.

If the FTC moves forward with a lawsuit instead, it would have to refer the case to the Justice Department, which would have 45 days to decide whether it wants to file a case on the FTC’s behalf, make changes or send it back to the agency to pursue on its own.

The news comes nearly two years after Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the top Republican on the committee, urged FTC chair Lina Khan to investigate TikTok, citing a report from Buzzfeed News that said ByteDance employees in China have repeatedly accessed data on U.S. TikTok users.

In late 2022, ByteDance said it fired four employees who accessed data on journalists from Buzzfeed News and the Financial Times while attempting to track down leaks of confidential materials about the company.

Legislation that could determine TikTok’s fate in the U.S. was approved in the House this month. But the bill has already run into roadblocks in the Senate, where there is little unanimity on how to best approach concerns over the social platform.

Lawmakers and intelligence officials have said they worry the platform could be used by the Chinese government to access U.S. user data or influence Americans through its popular algorithm.

To date, the U.S. government hasn’t provided public evidence that this has happened, although anecdotally there is ample evidence to validate the concerns.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Settlement Reached in Lawsuit between Disney and Ron DeSantis Allies

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Settlement Reached in Lawsuit between Disney and Ron DeSantis Allies

(Headline USA) Allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney reached a settlement agreement Wednesday in a state court fight over how Walt Disney World is developed in the future following the takeover of the theme park resort’s government by the Florida governor.

In a meeting, the DeSantis-appointed members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’s takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s anti-grooming law.

The 2022 law bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches until he suspended his presidential campaign this year.

The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things, and was controlled by Disney supporters for most of its five decades.

The agreement came a day after the appointment of a new board member, replacing a DeSantis-appointed board chairman who was a Disney critic.

Under the deal, covenants and a development agreement Disney supporters on the board made with the company just before the state takeover would be dropped and the new board agreed to operate under an earlier plan.

Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort, said in a statement Wednesday that the company was pleased a settlement had been reached.

“This agreement opens a new chapter of constructive engagement with the new leadership of the district and serves the interests of all parties by enabling significant continued investment and the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and economic opportunity in the state,” Vahle said.

DeSantis said “we have been vindicated on all those actions” at a news conference in Orlando on Wednesday.

“I’m glad that they were able to do that settlement,” he added. “Those 11th hour covenants and restrictions were never going to be valid. We knew that.”

After DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors, Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation.

A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January, but Disney appealed.

Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company.

The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided.

Disney filed counterclaims that included asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.

Under the terms of Wednesday’s settlement agreement, Disney lets stand a determination by the board of DeSantis appointees that the comprehensive plan approved by the Disney supporters before the takeover was null and void.

Disney also agrees that a development agreement and restrictive covenants passed before the takeover were also not valid, according to the settlement terms.

Instead, a comprehensive plan from 2020 will be used with the new board able to make changes to it, and the agreement suggests Disney and the new board will negotiate a new development agreement in the near future.

Disney also agreed to put on hold the appeal of the federal lawsuit pending the negotiations on the development agreement and will drop a public records lawsuit against the district it was pursuing in state court.

“It looks to me like both sides called ‘uncle,’” said Richard Foglesong, a Rollins College professor emeritus who wrote a definitive account of Disney World’s governance in his book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.

“Disney has an interest in ending this and so does the oversight board,” he added. “So, they both win.”

Since the takeover last year, the district has faced an exodus of experienced staffers, with many in exit surveys complaining that the governing body has been politicized since the changeover.

Just this month, the district’s administrator, Glen Gilzean, left to become a county elections supervisor at half the $400,000 salary he was earning at the district, and the district’s DeSantis-appointed board chairman, Martin Garcia, departed the following week.

In their place, DeSantis on Tuesday appointed Orlando businessman Craig Mateer to the board and board members on Wednesday approved former DeSantis advisor Stephanie Kopelousos to be the district’s new administrator.

Mateer, a donor to DeSantis campaigns, previously had been appointed by the governor to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority and the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system. Kopelousos was director of legislative affairs for DeSantis. She also had served as secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation under then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and was a former county manager in northeast Florida.

Garcia was a vocal critic of Disney and his replacement by Mateer, who is well-known in Orlando tourism and business circles, may have made Disney comfortable enough with the board to reach an agreement, Foglesong said.

Board member Charbel Barakat said the board was looking forward to taking a more cooperative approach with the entertainment giant.

“We are eager to work with Disney,” Barakat said after the settlement deal was approved.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Truth Social’s Stock Surge Moves Trump into Forbes’s Top 500 List for 1st Time Ever

Jacob Bruns
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Truth Social’s Stock Surge Moves Trump into Forbes’s Top 500 List for 1st Time Ever

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Despite efforts by the Left to sap former President Donald Trump of his money through politicized legal maneuvers, the former president’s net wealth  skyrocketed this week after his social-media platform, Truth Social, went public, CNBC reported.

The financial move landed Trump for the first time ever on Forbes’s “Real Time Billionaires List” near his former donor, PayPal founder Peter Thiel.

As of Wednesday, Trump was ranked on the real-time list at No. 387 in the world, with a net worth of $7.1 billion. That reflected an upward shift of $648 million or 10.06%, it said.

Trump previously peaked in 2016, the year he was elected president, with a net worth of $4.5 billion, according to his Forbes profile. In 2020, the year he had his re-election stolen, his net worth also hit a recent low point, dropping down to $2.1 billion.

On Monday, its first day as a public company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. soared to an increase of about 35% from its opening price after merging on Friday with Nasdaq placeholder Digital World Acquisition Corp.

The merger allowed Trump to finally take his own group public, leading to a massive explosion of interest from stock-market speculators and Trump supporters seeking a unique way to show their solidarity.

Trump owns approximately 80 million shares, or 58% of the company, which includes the Truth Social social media platform.

On Tuesday morning, the stock, under the moniker DJT, opened at $70 per share, $20 per share more than its initial Monday opening–enough to improve the former president’s net worth to its all-time highest level.

At the end of the day Monday, Trump’s net worth had already shot up by roughly $4 billion, bringing his total net worth up enough to get him onto the live Forbes top 500 list.

As of Wednesday, it  had added an extra $5.6 billion to Trump’s wealth, Forbes reported.

Still, the president may be prohibited from selling his shares for six months, and it is unclear if the stock will remain high given its somewhat volatile history.

Left-wing media critics, for instance, suggested that the buy-up resembled a so-called meme stock, where buzz triggered a huge run on a novelty asset.

Ultimately, however, Trump’s cash flow problem is a moot point in comparison to his extraordinarily high net wealth, largely stored in DJT stock shares, the price of which, at the time of this writing, was holding around $70 per share.

Panicked Dems Want Sotomayor, 69, to Retire Before Trump, 77, Wins Presidency

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Panicked Dems Want Sotomayor, 69, to Retire Before Trump, 77, Wins Presidency

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Leftists recently started pushing the idea that one of the Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor, should resign, so that, in case of her death, Donald Trump would not be able to appoint another conservative justice.

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, was one of the people who expressed this idea after remembering how Amy Coney Barrett took the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death, which resulted in the 6-3 conservative majority that then took less than two years to fully overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Sotomayor has been an outstanding justice. But the Ruth Bader Ginsburg precedent ought to be extremely sobering… The cost of her failing to be replaced by a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate would be catastrophic,” he said.

Lucas Powe Jr., a Supreme Court historian at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed with Campos.

“I would love to see Sotomayor retire. I would love to trade her for a 50-year-old justice,” he said.

However, leftists who are brainwashing the American youth with Marxist ideas were not the only ones who started saying that Sotomayor should resign. Leftist journalists at the Atlantic and Vox started pushing the same message as well.

People at the Huffington Post also wrote an article regarding the topic, in which the leftist publication noted that Sotomayor had problems with her health, obviously implying that she should leave her position.

However, there is no logical reason for Sotomayor to leave her position, considering that a 69-year-old justice is still considered young because the average retirement age for recent Supreme Court justices is in the 80s.

The fact that leftists want to replace Sotomayor becomes even more evident after looking at other Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas, 75, and Samuel Alito, who is about to turn 74. Despite them being older than Sotomayor, they don’t face the same political pressure to retire under Joe Biden.

Calif. Training Judges to Question Fitness of Non-Gender-Affirming Parents

Molly Bruns
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Calif. Training Judges to Question Fitness of Non-Gender-Affirming Parents

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Judges in California that specialize in child abuse and neglect cases must take mandatory classes on LGBT issues that teach them to consider parent’s objections to a child’s preferred pronouns as child abuse, according to the Daily Caller.

The Judicial Council of California offers “LGBTQ+ Considerations” training semi-annually, covering everything from how to “conduct hearings in a trauma-informed manner,” an “ever-evolving list” of definitions and warnings that LGBT children are at a high risk for mental illness.

The course also includes three hypothetical situations where the judge must decide to either to liberate the endangered gay teen from abusive parents, or condemn them to a fate of misgendering.

In one of the hypotheticals, the JCC asked judges to consider what they would do in a hearing where daughter “Michelle,’ who identifies as male under the new name “Marco,” must return home after being in foster care for several years.

The mother, a reformed alcoholic who is working and testing negative for substance abuse, refuses to address her child in this new fashion for religious reasons.

“According to her religion and culture, she cannot call her child ‘Marco,’ or use male pronouns, and believes her child has been negatively influenced by other youth in the foster home,” says a PowerPoint slide outlining the scenario.

“Mother’s attorney indicates she will argue for return of the child to the mother, and object to the use of child’s pronoun and name choice,” it continues. “The child is present at the hearing. How do you conduct the hearing? What orders do you make?”

Another scenario addresses a young boy who identifies as a girl wanting to live in a female foster home.

The course is reportedly part of a larger program, particularly geared toward judges working on juvenile dependency cases or returning to juvenile cases after a foray into a different area of law.

The Superior Court of Santa Cruz County previously hosted activist training in order to teach judges how to properly use pronouns and other gender identification while presiding over a case.

“Parental rights, free speech, and religious freedom are bedrock constitutional rights that every judge should protect when considering the specific facts of a sensitive dependency case or any other case that comes before them,” said Kate Anderson, senior counsel and director of the Center for Parental Rights at the Alliance Defending Freedom.

“It is deeply concerning that groups that actively advocate against these important rights elsewhere are providing training to judges behind closed doors,” she added.

Leftist Org w/ Ties to Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan Visited White House Multiple Times

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Leftist Org w/ Ties to Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan Visited White House Multiple Times

(Headline USA) A left-wing activist with ties to black nationalist Louis Farrakhan helps run an organization that has visited the White House seven times since President Joe Biden took office, according to Fox News.

Terence Muhammad works as the lead events and field coordinator for the Washington, D.C.-based Hip Hop Caucus, which has been involved in multiple key policy discussions with the Biden administration.

White House visitor logs showed the group’s top leaders, including CEO Lennox Yearwood, met with Biden officials six times in 2023.

Yearwood bragged about allying himself with Muhammad, whom he described as one of Farrakhan’s “top soldiers.”

In 2013, he wrote of Muhammad, “Bless Minister [Louis Farrakhan] allowing one of his top soldiers 2 be w/ me for #MOW50. Much LOVE to the [Nation of Islam].”

And in 2015, Muhammad posted a picture of Yearwood “with Malik Farrakhan and the brothers of the F.O.I.” The acronym “F.O.I.” appears to be a reference to the Fruits of Islam, the paramilitary wing of the Nation of Islam. 

Muhammad has worked with and raised money for Farrakhan for years, according to his social media posts.

“Just for the record AGAIN. I love @LouisFarrakhan. He is my heart,” Muhammad said in a March 2018 tweet that included a picture of him with Farrakhan.

He even characterized himself as a “soldier” of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in 2019, writing, “I’m an EXTREMELY Proud, Active, and Known citizen/soldier of the Nation of Islam.” He went on to describe Farrakhan as a “servant of God.”

Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam have a long history of anti-Semitism and anti-white racism.

In a statement, the White House tried to distance itself from Yearwood and Muhammad by denouncing Farrakhan.

“For decades, President Biden has unequivocally condemned Louis Farrakhan and the repugnant Antisemitic hate he represents—including by co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates claimed.

“He fully denounces any praise of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, or their values, as he does in this case,” Bates continued. “And as recent comments from Louis Farrakhan demonstrate, the feeling is mutual.”

Biden has recently tried to ingratiate himself with the Muslim population in states like Michigan and Minnesota, where protest votes over his handling of the conflict in Gaza might cost him the election.

The support of the Nation of Islam would carry considerable clout among those populations, but would likely come at a cost to Biden, who would have to repudiate many of his past remarks in support of Jewish zionism.

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