the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Well if there were any doubts that Aggies weren't edumacated, now it's proven!!

Texas A&M, Under New Curriculum Limits, Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato​

The university is reviewing courses under new rules restricting teaching about race and gender. Administrators told a philosophy professor to cut some lessons on Plato to comply.
 
The first time I saw one of these Doggie Strollers was about 13 years ago in Bah Hahbah. I was, and am still, totally disgusted in how we've taken the descendants of the noble wolf, Canis lupus, and morphed it to Canis domestics wimpius. Don't get me wrong, a stroller is fine for a convalescing or disabled puppy, but as a matter daily routine for a healthy, mobile dog, it's ridiculous...

Forget the Cynics. Here’s Why You Should Get Your Dog a Stroller.​

People might ridicule my choice of pet transportation, but it changed Darla’s life — and made me a better person.

I admit it: I’m a dog-stroller person. I’m also self-aware enough to know how silly it looks. I clock the side-eyes when I am pushing my Shih Tzu, Darla, down the street. I am very aware of the moms with baby strollers who look at me like “Are you kidding?” and the smirkers who assume that I must be some kind of cartoon villain who spoon-feeds her dog filet mignon from a crystal goblet. (I don’t, to be clear.) I am aware of the sentiment in the least charitable corners of the internet that putting a dog in a stroller is a sign of a mental disorder. I try to stay out of those corners.

It all started with my neighbor putting a Little Mermaid baby stroller in the recycling area in our building. It was a cheap, foldable thing. My husband, Mark, thought it would be funny to plop Darla in it for a cute photo op. As soon as she was deposited, her entire body melted into the seat, and she wore a contented expression that we had never seen in the year or so since we adopted her. “Uh-oh,” we said to each other.

We were still getting to know Darla. We had won her in a contest — sort of. Early in the pandemic, when we were all working from home, my mom called me one morning to insist that I turn on the TV: It was pet-adoption week on “Live With Kelly and Ryan,” and the hosts were hoisting up a confused-looking little black fluffball. My mom told us that Mark and I should adopt her. “Mom,” I said, “isn’t this a national TV show? I’m sure they get like a million applications.” But I filled one out anyway — pretty well, apparently. A few days later, Darla was ours.

Mark and I quickly discovered that the one weird thing about Darla (all dogs have at least one weird thing) is that she walks really slowly. Like, turtle slow. There’s nothing wrong with her; she’s just leisurely. Darla had belonged to backyard breeders and birthed at least two litters. When they were done with her, they gave her away. I wanted to let her putter around as she pleased, but this presented some problems. There’s a lovely park a few blocks away, but Darla walked so slowly that by the time we got there, it was usually time to turn around and go home. Wouldn’t it be great, Mark and I thought, if we could high-tail it to the park with plenty of time to romp around? Now, mermaid stroller in hand, the world opened up to us. As we rolled Darla out of the building for the first time, we saw our future.

At first we were happy just using “the Ariel,” as we called the stroller. Then one day I was in Target, and I saw someone pushing an actual stroller made for dogs. She was loading items into the stroller next to her contented pup. The multitasking, the efficiency, the ability to not leave a dog home alone and bored all day — I wanted all those things. Seventy-five dollars later, my transformation was complete. I posted a picture on Instagram of Darla’s big round eyes peeking out of her shiny new throne. “IT’S HAPPENING,” I wrote.

The stroller’s many practical benefits quickly became obvious. I could wheel her all over town while doing errands, and the stroller had enough room to fit her and a full bag of groceries. There was another storage compartment underneath — great for taking packages to the post office. In summertime, we packed the stroller with supplies and picnicked in the park, our iced coffees clinking like wind chimes along the way, snug in their cup holders. In winter, we didn’t have to worry about sidewalks covered with paw-stinging rock salt. The stroller gave me a way to understand what Darla wanted. Whenever she got tired of walking, she did little hops up against the stroller and I would heave her in.

For every onlooker who scoffs, there’s another who gets a real kick out of her. Children are endlessly fascinated. Construction workers are smitten. Old ladies fawn over her. Sometimes friends and neighbors will ask me in hushed tones, “Should I get one?” Yes, I say. Go easy on yourself. Life is hard enough.

The assumptions that the stroller cynics make — that you can bestow “too much” affection on pets, that it’s “overly” indulgent, that coddling your pets is somehow bad for them — don’t make sense to me. It’s just functional and compassionate. No one is seriously replacing children with pets. (And if they are, so what?) And unlike with children, spoiling your pets won’t make them grow up to be jerks.

The best thing about the stroller, though, is that it was an invitation to our neighbors to stop and talk with us. Mark delighted in regaling Darla’s admirers with the story of her adoption. He would pull out his phone on the street, in the park, in an elevator, to show his unsuspecting victims screenshots of Kelly Ripa holding Darla aloft like the Lion King, while I rolled my eyes, laughing at his shtick and chiming in with my parts.

On July 5, a few years after we adopted Darla, a terrible thing happened. Mark died of complications from lung cancer. It was unexpected, and I was in shock. In the months of my post-trauma haze, the only times I could muster the ability to leave the house was to walk Darla. I wheeled her to the park daily, and we sat by the East River. She likes watching the boats go by. I do two things every single day: I miss Mark, and I walk around the city with my dog in a stroller. People smile at us, and I smile back. I forgive the ones who snicker. You never know what someone’s going through.
 
I guess well-endowed ski jumpers have a distinct aerodynamic disadvantage...

Norway ski jumping coaches suspended 18 months over suit-altering scandal​

The International Ski and Snowboard Federation’s (FIS) ethics committee has suspended two Norwegian ski jumping coaches and the team’s suit technician for 18 months for manipulating suits during the sport’s world championships last year.

In a ruling Thursday following 11 months of investigation and litigation in a case that has become a cause for national shame in Norway and forced FIS to revamp its enforcement protocols, the committee decided to back the federation’s request for a punishment far harsher than previous penalties.

“The Panel has considered but rejected the option of imposing a low or even minimal sanction on the Respondents,” the ruling said. “In (the Panel’s) view now is indeed the appropriate time to put down a clear marker to what is not acceptable in (ski jumping).”

At the 2025 Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, last March, the host nation won six ski jumping medals, three gold and three bronze, its best-ever performance at the event. The night before the final day of the championships, Magnus Brevig, the head coach of the Norwegian team, and Adrian Livelten, its suit technician, were caught on video inserting illegal non-elastic stitching into the crotch area of the suits of two star jumpers, including the reigning Olympic champion, Marius Lindvik, after the suits had already passed inspection.

The stitches essentially served to make the crotch area of the suits larger, smoother and more aerodynamic, allowing the jumpers to fly farther than the competition. Thomas Lobben, the team’s assistant head coach at the time, was not on the video, but later confessed to being a part of the conspiracy, which also involved manipulating the suit of Johann André Forfang, who was part of the Norwegian mixed team that won gold at the world championships.

Lindvik, 27, and Forfang, 30, claimed ignorance. The coaches backed those claims, and the athletes received suspensions of just three months, which they were able to serve during the summer. They are expected to compete in the Olympics next month. Forfang won a team gold and individual silver at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The saga has been especially painful for Norway, a country with a reputation for rule-following and winter sports dominance, winning more Winter Olympic medals than any other nation. The revelations struck at the heart of the country’s national identity.

The ruling represented a significant win for FIS. The coaches argued for months that their behavior was in keeping with a sport where pushing up to the very edge of the rules, and sometimes stepping over the lines, is a part of the culture. Previous violations in the sport had been met with such light penalties, they argued, that they were not aware that heavy sanctions were even possible.

That, the ruling said, “comes perilously close to saying, in the Panel’s view unattractively, that the Respondents were prepared to take the risk to achieve the best result for the Norwegian team because, even if detected, the sanction would be minimal.”
 
Nobody is so perfect that they can be wrong 100% of the time.

nypost.com

Hochul pledged to save NYers a bundle of money on car insurance, but plan already facing pushback

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pledged crackdown on auto insurance fraud and “runaway litigation” to help lower sky high insurance rates is running into fierce opposition from the powerful t…
nypost.com nypost.com

If Mrs. Ed actually pursues this... Especially if she keeps at it if she gets re-elected, I will give her full credit for the accomplishment.

Somehow I suspect I won't have to worry about it.
 
I'm just plain shocked, how could this possibly be true??? Oh the humanity, eh make that the STUPIDITY!!

No Link Between Acetaminophen in Pregnancy and Autism, a New Study Finds​

The review looked at more than three dozen studies and found no evidence that acetaminophen increased the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

A scientific review of 43 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy concluded that there was no evidence that the painkiller increased the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

“We found no clinically important increase in the risk of autism, A.D.H.D. or intellectual disability,” Dr. Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at St. George’s Hospital, University of London, and the lead author of the report, said at a news briefing. The study was published on Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, remains “the first-line treatment that we would recommend if the pregnant women have pain or fever in pregnancy,” Dr. Khalil said.

Studies that have examined a possible link between acetaminophen in pregnancy and a risk of neurodevelopmental disorders have produced conflicting data, with some finding no connection and others finding small increases in risk.

The new review comes after President Trump told pregnant women during a news conference in September to “tough it out” and “fight like hell” not to take Tylenol, because he said the painkiller could cause autism in children. The message was delivered as part of a broader campaign by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to try to identify the causes behind rising autism rates among children in the United States, zeroing in on the unproven risks of acetaminophen and long-discredited theories that vaccines cause autism.

Medical groups worldwide, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, quickly disputed the president’s statements. They argued that doctors already advised their pregnant patients to use acetaminophen judiciously, and cautioned that untreated fevers during pregnancy could cause health problems for the mother and the baby.

Because acetaminophen passes into the brain and also crosses the placenta during pregnancy, scientists have been researching its possible effects on fetal brain development for more than a decade.

It has been difficult to draw firm conclusions, in part because of limitations on how scientists can study the question. No randomized, controlled clinical trials — the gold standard in medical research — have been conducted, because of ethical issues regarding research on pregnant women.

Another barrier is just how ubiquitous acetaminophen is. Other painkillers are known to cause serious harms during pregnancy, so acetaminophen has long been recommended as the first-line treatment. And because it is available over the counter, it is difficult for scientists to track how much women are using it and when.

A scientific review, published last August by researchers at Harvard and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and cited by Mr. Trump’s health advisers in September, concluded that there was evidence for a link between acetaminophen and autism.

But some of the studies included in that review did not account for underlying factors that might be driving the connection, Dr. Khalil said. For example, women typically take acetaminophen because of health issues during their pregnancies, including infections and fevers, and those health problems themselves can increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.

The new review excluded any studies that did not account for such possible confounding factors. And it gave more weight to studies that tried to account for the role of genetics, comparing siblings born to the same mother. Genetics is known to be a major contributor to autism risk.

“These were all attempts, really, to derive the evidence from the good-quality studies,” Dr. Khalil said. The sibling studies were the most rigorously designed, she said, because they take into account shared genetic factors and shared family environment.

One major sibling study published in 2024 examined electronic health records from nearly 2.5 million children in Sweden, finding a small association between women who used acetaminophen and the incidence of autism, A.D.H.D. and intellectual disability. But when the researchers did a subsequent analysis comparing siblings, in which one was exposed to acetaminophen in the womb and one was not, they found no link.

Experts praised the new review for helping to better examine the different types of studies that had been done to date. But some also cautioned that questions still remained unanswered. For example, the review did not take into account how frequently pregnant women used acetaminophen, or at what doses.

Eivind Ystrom, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said he supported the conclusion of the new review “given our current knowledge.” But, he added, “at the same time, we should do more and better studies.” Dr. Ystrom conducted a study in 2021 suggesting that pregnant women who take acetaminophen for more than 29 days may be at higher risk of having children with A.D.H.D.

The new scientific review comes amid continuing legal battles over the potential link between acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed in recent years against the makers of Tylenol and its generic versions by families who claimed that their children developed autism or A.D.H.D. after the mothers took the painkiller during pregnancy. The largest group of cases, filed in federal court, was dismissed in 2023 by a judge who cited the lack of credible scientific evidence. That decision is under appeal.

And in October, Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, sued Johnson & Johnson, which manufactured the drug for decades, and Kenvue, a spinoff company that has sold it since 2023, claiming that the companies hid the risks of the drug on brain development of children.
 
Chevy1 said:
Look at you being politically correct at your description of the doctor 😂😂😂😂
Click to expand...
Every time I “Hard R” it disappears
IMG_2321_Original.webp
 
Rut-roh!!!

In Visits to Dealerships, Pair Schemed to Steal High-End Vehicles, Police Say​

An organized theft ring in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York swapped or quickly cloned key fobs to steal millions of dollars’ worth of vehicles, officials said.

They were more interested in joy rides than test drives.

Investigators say that a pair posing as potential customers visited dealerships in Connecticut for more than a year beginning in 2024, where they sought high-end models, such as a GMC Sierra 2500HD Denali Ultimate pickup truck.

Once they zeroed in on the vehicle they wanted, an unidentified male suspect would ask a sales staff member if he could start the vehicle.

In some cases, the man swapped the key fob for an inoperable dummy one while a female suspect distracted a member of the sales staff by being “playful,” the authorities said without elaborating.

In other cases, she would — in about one minute — make a copy of the key fob.

In each case, the targeted vehicle’s key fob was swapped, or cloned, and the same vehicle was later stolen or an attempt was made to steal it, said Chief William Onofrio of the Old Saybrook Police Department, which led the investigation.

After learning of the cases in Connecticut, about a dozen police departments in New Jersey and New York reported nearly identical thefts, Chief Onofrio said.

He said evidence developed by Old Saybrook detectives directly helped in arrests in those states, after detectives elsewhere identified a consistent pattern.

Investigators identified at least 20 vehicles with a combined value of more than $2.4 million that were stolen or targeted by this group across the three states.

The police in Old Saybrook have not identified the male suspect. But the authorities in Connecticut charged Tiffine Kyte, 37, of Johnstown, Pa., with larceny and conspiracy charges related to the thefts.

She was arrested in Warren County, N.J., and brought to Connecticut on Jan. 15. She posted a $275,000 bond after she was arraigned the next day in State Superior Court, according to court records. In a case in Greenwich, she was released after posting a $100,000 bond.

A lawyer for Ms. Kyte was not immediately available for comment on Sunday. It was not clear if the stolen vehicles were recovered.

Chief Onofrio said her arrest was a result of her visits to dealerships in Connecticut towns, including Coventry, Fairfield, Glastonbury, Greenwich, Ridgefield and Old Saybrook.

On Feb. 5, 2025, police officers responded to Vachon Buick GMC, a dealership in Old Saybrook, after a report of two stolen vehicles. The investigation determined that the vehicles were stolen one day after Ms. Kyte had visited, the authorities said.

The sales manager reported that two GMC Sierra 2500HD Denali Ultimate pickup trucks with a combined value of $177,210 were stolen from the lot, the police said. But neither of the key fobs were stolen, they said.

Detectives learned of a method of cloning key fobs by plugging in a hand-held tool into a vehicle’s diagnostics port. An expert at the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a trade group for auto insurers and lenders, told detectives that the clone can be made in less than 60 seconds.

A pair fitting the same description visited Monaco Ford in Glastonbury on March 12, 2024, the authorities said.

They looked at a 2024 Ford F-450 pickup valued at $86,515. The male suspect was given a key fob to start the truck, detectives said. The pickup was stolen the next day, and this time the police believed that the man swapped out the working fob for a dummy one.

A detective from the Keyport Police Department in New Jersey told Sgt. Eric Williams of Old Saybrook, who was leading the investigation, about a similar crime there in May 2025. A key fob to a 2025 Ford pickup valued at $115,000 was discovered missing, and there was an attempt to steal it.

Investigators linked Ms. Kyte’s cellphone to towers in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut that corresponded with dates and times when the vehicles were stolen.

Key fobs send an electronic code to a vehicle, so it can be started at the push of a button, or by inserting the fob into an easily accessible slot on the dashboard. The word fob is believed to be related to the German word fuppe, meaning pocket.

The 1990s encryption technology was introduced, in part, to frustrate thieves from making quick getaways, shifting security from the mechanical level to the digital level.
 

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