The first time I flew on a plane, I was 14 years old. It was my first time going to Europe and my first time anywhere outside the United States other than Canada. But Canada doesn’t really count, does it? Not really, especially back then, when you didn’t even need a passport to drive over the border.

That first time overseas I was alone — kind of. I was playing in an orchestra on a music tour. There were itineraries and things were planned, and there were adults making sure I was present. I was with 85 other high school students, eight counselors, and a director.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then.

But I wasn’t with my family or my parents. At that age, at least for me, that counted as "alone."

Roughing it

This was back before we all had smartphones in all our pockets. I couldn’t text my mom and dad every hour, and I couldn’t check my email whenever I wanted. I didn’t even have an email. I could call them, however. And I did, every few days.

Of course, you couldn't just pick up a pay phone and make an international call. You needed a calling card.

Remember those?

The back was covered with instructions. How to call out of a country, what code to enter calling into a country, and a ton of numbers you had to enter before you even made the call. It was an insanely convoluted system, almost as if it were a test you had to pass. If you accidentally pressed a wrong number, you would have to start all over again.

But this system did work. And it allowed me to check in with Mom and Dad every three or four days, as they requested.

Warm welcome

Every stop of the tour, we would get divided up and stay with different host families — a few kids per household. They would give us a little tour in their broken English (the only language any of us spoke), offer their phone if we wanted to call home, and — if they were really cool — let us have a little wine with dinner.

On our last night, we would play a concert outside in the middle of the town. All the host families would come, sit there in folding chairs, and listen. There was food, sparkling water (then still rare in America), maybe some wine.

The next morning, we would get on the bus and drive to another tiny little town three hours away and do it all again. After four weeks of this it was time to get on a plane and head back home.

I did this every summer in high school. It was a blast, and I learned a lot — both about other people and myself. They were formative experiences for a kid from the Midwest like me, and they set me on a path I'm still on today.

Far and away

Still, I have to wonder if I would ever let my kids do something like that. The thought of sending my son off to Europe at such a young age with people I don’t know gives me serious preemptive anxiety. On the other hand, my parents were good parents and they let me do it. And I survived.

Fortunately, my son won't be 14 for years, so I have a little time to learn to let go. And if he does go, we'll have the full spectrum of modern technology keeping us connected, not just some dinky plastic card.

At the same time, I wonder if the end of the calling card didn't take some of the magic with it. Knowing everything that’s happening with all your friends back home while posting pictures every hour for all of them to see doesn’t quite plunge you into the unknown.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then — far from Mom and Dad, my school, everyone I knew, and everything familiar. Maybe one of the blessings of having grown up when I grew up was the possibility of that kind of distance. Traveling meant just a little more when you could feel far away.

Imperial War Museum/Getty Images

Cozy connection

I’m in Europe again, though I have a smartphone and email now. I text my wife all the time, and she sends me pictures of the kids. I FaceTime with them, tell them I can’t wait to see them next week, and send them videos of what it looks like here. I manage business on my phone, write columns like this one one my computer, and continue my work as usual despite being across the ocean in the Europe that used to feel so far away.

I like this new reality quite a bit, but I think I liked the old one too. Distance doesn’t feel so great any more. The world is smaller and everything nearer. Maybe the whimsy of those childhood summers in Europe was simply the whimsy of youth and I’m only feeling all this because now I’m old and without that same wonder. But I’m not sure.

We are in the age of ever-present digital connection, and that’s not changing any time soon. Those final years before the mass adoption of the cell phone were the last gasps of a big, magical world. We didn’t really understand it at the time, but the cell phone, the smartphone, and email marked the end of distance and some kind of world of whimsy.

There’s no good in lamenting the things we can’t change, and there are quite a few advantages to this newer, much smaller world. But whenever I want to remember the old excitement of that wider, wilder world, I recall the feel of a calling card in my hand and smile.

Was Chandra Levy's murder a UFO cover-up? 25 years later, her parents want answers.

A quarter of a century after their daughter's death, the parents of a 24-year-old who went missing say she may have had knowledge about UFOs that she was not supposed to have.

The case dates back to 2001, when Chandra Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., mysteriously disappeared.

'Could she have known something that she wasn't supposed to know?'

National scandal

The disappearance drew intense national media attention at the time, much of it focused on Levy’s relationship with then-Rep. Gary Condit, a Democrat who represented California’s 18th Congressional District — including Levy’s hometown of Modesto.

Levy's body was discovered three weeks after she went missing, in a park just a few miles from her apartment. Authorities only found her skeletal remains. While the coroner determined that there was enough evidence to declare a homicide, the location of the murder was unclear.

A few days after her death, Levy's father, Robert, told police that his daughter was in a romantic relationship with Condit, which Condit denied. Condit was later cleared by investigators.

Years later, authorities charged Ingmar Guandique — an illegal immigrant who had attacked other women in Rock Creek Park around the same time — with Levy's murder. His 2010 conviction was later vacated, leaving elements of the case unresolved.

Landmark conference

Now Levy's parents, Susan and Robert Levy, maintain that their daughter's connection to Condit is what may have resulted in her death.

In an interview with NewsNation, the couple pointed to a UFO conference held by Steven Greer in D.C. eight days after Chandra went missing. The conference was seen as a landmark event, as it featured 20 witnesses from military, government, and intelligence backgrounds.

"At that time, Chandra mentioned something that she knew about the UFOs and Congressman Condit was on the committee to learn about UFOs," Mr. Levy told host Jesse Weber.

- YouTube

A broader pattern

Condit served on the House Intelligence Committee for about two years between 1999 and 2001.

Levy’s mother said her daughter told her that Condit “believes in UFOs like I do and that he deals with this stuff.”

“Could she have known something that she wasn’t supposed to know?” she asked. “And could she have been wiped out because she knew too much?”

The parents acknowledged that they have no direct evidence, describing their theory as speculation informed by their own research. Still, they pointed to what they see as a broader pattern — suggesting, without proof, that their daughter’s death could be connected to other recent cases involving government scientists who have died or gone missing.

Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department/Getty Images

“It all sort of fits together,” said Mr. Levy.

They also claimed they had been warned not to pursue that line of thinking, alleging that elements within the CIA have targeted individuals “too involved” in the subject.

The couple urged Donald Trump and lawmakers including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) to exercise caution when discussing UFO disclosure publicly. Burchett has previously alluded to government secrets regarding UFOs while declaring that he is “not suicidal."

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Our local Catholic school sent everyone home for 2 days. You'll never guess why.

The big news here in Portland, Oregon, is that a high school baseball player used a “racial hate speech” slur during a pregame, player-only huddle.

The slur itself has been kept from the public lest we all die of shock. I’m sure none of us has ever heard such a word.

Naturally, the media was called in, so the student leaders got to practice their TV interview skills.

One interesting thing about the incident: It happened at a prominent Catholic school in town, Central Catholic.

Unforced error

The reaction of the Central Catholic administration was the other interesting thing. Check this out:

The baseball team immediately canceled and forfeited the game they were playing.
Then, they forfeited the next day’s game as well.
The entire baseball team was then marched onto a stage at a special school assembly and made to publicly apologize to their classmates.
Then, they sent everyone home for the next two days, for COVID-style “remote learning.” (That’s right, not the baseball player who said the slur, but the WHOLE SCHOOL was sent home.)
They did this so that faculty and staff could prepare “to respond to their students' needs” when they were allowed back into the building.

Which meant that another couple of days would be spent processing the trauma and psychological suffering they’d been put through.

This all occurred even though the only students who actually heard the “racial hate speech” slur were the players on the baseball team.

Heaven help us

Central Catholic is a typical Catholic high school. Its students are good at sports. It has solid extracurriculars. It is considered a notch above the local public high schools in educational standards.

Historically, all Catholic schools were known for a certain traditionalism regarding student behavior and teaching philosophy.

If you wanted your child to have an education tainted by the latest social trends and political ideologies, you sent them to public school.

If you wanted a more classical education, with a more disciplined and rigorous approach, you sent them to a Catholic school.

But that’s no longer the case, apparently. Even a public high school wouldn’t shut down its entire campus for two days over one baseball player saying one bad word.

In the beginning was ... the Word

I’m going to take a wild guess and predict that the “racial hate speech” slur was probably based on a common derogatory derivative of the antiquated term "negro" — as further appropriated and transformed by hip-hop culture. Because of hip-hop's massive popularity, this "soft A" variant has become a more-or-less neutral form of address among young people of all races.

Our entertainment industry has bombarded young people with this word for decades, making it sound funny and cool. And then our academic communities act like it’s the gravest sin to repeat it.

Obviously, it is not a word that should be used at school. It's vulgar and still retains some of its capacity to degrade and insult. But a two-day shutdown of the entire student body? With a school-wide assembly? And the local media alerted? And almost an entire week lost processing the trauma?

How about the administration has a stern talk with the baseball player? In private?

Truant believers

But that would be too easy. Never mind that the kid’s high school career will be ruined by this obvious overreaction. What was important was allowing the administration to advertise its moral superiority.

The student body was also inspired to take advantage of this educational opportunity. A week after the initial controversy, students walked out of class in protest. “Not enough has been done!” they claimed, as they assembled outside to loiter in the street and watch TikTok videos on their phones.

Naturally, the media was called in, so the student leaders got to practice their TV interview skills.

This is what is being taught at Catholic school these days. Complain. Protest. Disrupt. And above all, don’t go to class and learn anything.

CBS/Getty Images

Mater DEI

One thing this controversy demonstrates is that a Catholic school is no longer a protection from woke ideology. It is, in fact, almost a guarantee of it.

So what are parents to do if they want their kids at a genuinely Christian school? Like a school where there aren’t Pride flags and sex manuals in every classroom. Where kids are not diagnosed with ADHD or toxic masculinity. Where America is not constantly slandered and vilified by radical leftist textbooks.

There are still some authentically Christian schools in Portland. I’m assuming they are authentic because they are small, they are self-contained, and they keep to themselves.

You would barely know these schools exist if you didn’t go looking for them. They dare not draw attention to themselves, lest our “social justice” local government — or our politicized media — invent some reason to attack them.

Bad education

So what was Central Catholic really up to during the racial slur controversy?

It was virtue signaling. Pretending it is more righteous than you are or I am, by wasting everybody’s time with performative outrage.

And this happened in Oregon, which famously ranks near the bottom of every national educational metric. In Portland, most parents’ choice of schools is: bad, worse, or terrible.

That is, until you realize there are a few actual Christian schools around. Just don’t tell anyone where they are!

Why is America's largest teachers' union encouraging students to skip school?

Why is the National Education Association encouraging students to skip school?

Yesterday was May 1 — May Day — and across the country, activists staged coordinated demonstrations under the banner of “no work, no school, no shopping.”

These are sweeping political claims, touching on immigration policy, cultural debates, and national partisan conflicts.

The National Education Association — with roughly 3 million members, making it the largest labor union in the United States — was among the organizations supporting the effort. On its website, the NEA offers organizational resources for participants, including a “solidarity toolkit.”

May Day? Mayday!

The union frames May Day as part of a long tradition of labor activism, tracing its roots to the late 19th-century movement for the eight-hour workday.

Broadly speaking, that’s true.

But May Day also carries a more complicated legacy. Over the course of the 20th century, it became closely associated with socialist and communist movements worldwide, and in the United States it has often re-emerged as a vehicle for broader political protest.

That broader agenda is evident in some of the demands the NEA highlights.

Among them:

“Stop the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration.”
“Stop the attacks on our communities, including policies targeting immigrants, people of color, Native people, people with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+.”

These are not narrowly labor-oriented concerns. They are sweeping political claims, touching on immigration policy, cultural debates, and national partisan conflicts.

Mission creep

Which raises a more basic question: What does this have to do with the NEA’s stated purpose?

The organization describes its mission as “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.”

Encouraging participation in a day of protest framed explicitly around “no school” sits uneasily alongside that mission. And May Day is just the tip of the iceberg

According to a new report from watchdog group Defending Education, teachers’ unions have spent more than $1 billion on political activity since 2015 — including roughly $669 million at the federal level and $336 million at the state and local levels.

Some of that spending aligns with what most people would expect. In California, for example, unions spent more than $20 million backing Proposition 15, a 2020 ballot initiative that would have raised taxes on commercial properties to increase funding for public schools and community colleges. The measure ultimately failed.

But much of it extends far beyond that.

Defending Education | Robert Gauthier/Getty Images

PAC mentality

Defending Education's report highlights tens of millions directed toward major Democrat-aligned groups, including:

$32 million to Senate Majority PAC.
$25 million to House Majority PAC.
$60 million to the State Engagement Fund, a progressive funding hub that supports state-level campaigns and advocacy.
$44 million to For Our Future, a Democrat-aligned organizing group focused on voter turnout and elections.

At the state level, unions have also poured money into targeted political fights — opposing school choice initiatives, backing candidates, and influencing local school board races.

In California, union spending has extended into high-profile contests as well. The California Teachers Association’s PACs spent $1.8 million opposing the 2021 recall of Gavin Newsom and committed millions more to a 2025 ballot measure related to election policy.

The same report also points to funding for organizing groups like the Midwest Academy, which describes itself as "committed to providing organizers with the practical skills needed to address the challenges of forging change in a system rooted in white supremacy."

It has received $1.7 million from the NEA since 2015 and has helped produce activist training materials tied to sustained protest efforts.

Out of school

Teachers’ unions have always played a role in politics. When that role is tied directly to classrooms — teacher pay, school funding, working conditions — the connection is clear.

But as their spending and activities expand into broader political organizing, electoral campaigns, and now protest mobilization, that connection becomes harder to define.

Unlike most political organizations, teachers’ unions are funded by member dues — payments that many educators make as a practical requirement of their profession. That makes their political activity qualitatively different from a typical advocacy group or PAC.

The question isn’t whether unions should — or can — be entirely "apolitical." It is whether their current scope reflects the priorities of the educators who fund them — and the students they have pledged to serve.

Could you pass Pete Hegseth's new Army Combat Field Test? Drop and give us ... 30!

The U.S. Army's about to get a massive fit check — and not the kind where you show off the latest fashions in camouflage.

Effective this month, soldiers will be expected to pass a new, more rigorous Combat Field Test, one Secretary of the Army Hon. Dan Driscoll says will make sure those in the most physically demanding roles to "have the specific fitness required to dominate on the modern battlefield."

'We're asking more of our combat arms Soldiers.'

The new requirements directly affect those designated under combat military occupational specialties, such as infantrymen or combat engineers.

Boot and rally

The annual test must be completed in 30 minutes while wearing the Army Combat Uniform, combat boots, and a brown T-shirt. It consists of the following:

A 1-mile run;
30 dead-stop push-ups, which entail coming into direct contact with the ground, briefly lifting the hands, and then pushing up again;
A 100-meter sprint;
16 lifts of a 40-pound sandbag onto a 65-inch platform — to simulate throwing a sandbag into a vehicle;
A 50-meter carry of two 5-gallon (40 lbs. each) Army water cans (jerricans); and
A 50-meter drill consisting of a "25-meter high crawl" and a "25-meter 3-5 second rush" — movements meant to simulate both crawling prone with a rifle as well as sprinting and dropping to the ground to avoid gunfire.

The test concludes with another 1-mile run.

If a soldier can complete this test, they are fit for a combat role in the U.S. Army. However, that is not the only fitness test they'll have to go through.

- YouTube

Planks for the memories

Those enlisted in combat arms will also have to complete the current annual Army Fitness Test, which is a requirement of all active duty and reserve soldiers.

That test consists of the following:

Three deadlifts with the maximum weight possible;
As many hand-release push-ups as possible in two minutes — this involves the soldier extending both arms out to their sides when hitting the ground;
A "sprint-drag-carry" circuit, in which soldiers drag a sled (or weights) and then carry two 40-pound kettlebells;
Holding a plank position until failure; and
A 2-mile run.

"This isn't just about passing a test; it's a direct measure of our commitment to readiness and ensuring our warfighters can dominate in any environment," Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer said. "We're asking more of our combat arms soldiers, and this test validates their ability to meet that high standard."

For Pete's sake

Since assuming the office last year, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has made raising military fitness standards a priority.

"It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force," Hegseth said in a speech last October.

U.S. Army

The Army notes that if it is determined that a soldier cannot meet the physical standards, they may request a voluntary reclassification to a non-combat role, in order for the Army to retain personnel.

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Meet the 'femosphere': Angry young women who love to hate men

"Family Guy" does a spoof of "Return of the Jedi" that always makes me laugh. The characters travel the universe to meet with Rebel Alliance leader Mon Mothma, who they are surprised to discover is female.

"Hey, check it out," says Han Solo. "Another chick! The only other chick in the galaxy!"

Princess Leia looks her over, folds her arms, and says, "I don’t like her."

Feminism promised freedom; instead, it has left many woman imprisoned by their own high expectations and simmering resentment.

It’s a throwaway gag, but it nails a fundamental truth that rarely makes it into polite conversation: Feel-good female solidarity is often just a cover for fierce intra-sexual competition.

Frenemies forever

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a pub with a friend when a group of young women came in to celebrate one of them landing her dream job.

As soon as the newly employed girl went to the bathroom, the "friends" morphed into mean girls, and the gossiping began.

Understanding Gen Z colloquialisms is hard at the best of times, let alone in a noisy pub, but they were loud enough that we came to understand much about the young woman's lack of fashion sense as well as her proclivity to sleep her way into job opportunities.

The woman returned from the toilets in tears; had she somehow sensed she was being discussed? No, it turned out another "friend" had posted something nasty about her in a private group chat. Comforting words quickly ensued.

Anyone who witnessed such dynamics in the wild would not be surprised by recent findings from the British think tank Demos that half of all "misogynistic" X posts are authored by the fairer sex.

Mad about you

But this isn’t just about women being catty in bars or nasty on social media. There’s a deeper, more corrosive issue at play: a generation of women who have been indoctrinated to be angry toward everyone — especially men.

This cultural shift was recently brought to light by the left-wing New Statesman in its April cover story, “Meet the Angry Young Women.” The investigation, for which the magazine commissioned the polling firm Merlin Strategy, explores an emergent counterpart to the much-discussed manosphere: the "femosphere," in which hostility toward men is not just accepted, but encouraged.

According to the Gallup World Poll, women have been getting steadily angrier for a decade, with the gap between the sexes widening every year. But this isn’t just about righteous fury against a glass ceiling — it’s about a generation of women who have been sold a feminist dream, only to find themselves in a nightmare of their own making.

Chromosomal cartel

This transformation is clearly reflected in the latest data from King’s College London and Ipsos. The research highlights a staggering generational divide: Gen Z women are now significantly more likely to identify as feminists than any previous generation. In America, this divide is particularly acute, with 53% of Gen Z women identifying as feminists, compared to just 32% of their male counterparts. This 21-point gap — the largest of any generation in America — indicates a fundamental breakdown in the ability to find peace with the opposite sex.

We are witnessing the birth of two distinct tribes that no longer speak the same language. While young men are retreating into digital enclaves, young women have secured the high ground in the institutional capture of culture. A major study of the American publishing industry found that women hold 74% of editorial roles, 78% of literary agent positions, and 71% of publishing jobs overall, with women occupying six in 10 jobs at the executive level.

This chromosomal cartel has fostered a monoculture, leaving young male writers increasingly sidelined in an industry that often demonizes masculinity. The result? A literary and cultural landscape dominated by an embittered female perspective.

The Merlin Strategy data shows that only 35% of women under 25 have a positive opinion of men. For the youngest cohort — those under 25 — this figure drops to just 11%. Let that sink in: Nine out of 10 young women view half the population with suspicion or outright disdain.

RELATED: Did feminism create wokeness?

SOPA Images/Getty Images

Dating disaster

Feminism’s reach is now so pervasive that relationships are routinely sacrificed on the altar of political purity. According to the Merlin data, 74% of Gen Z women say they would find it difficult to date someone who did not share their views on social justice. By turning politics into a prerequisite for romance, women are effectively shrinking their dating pool to a puddle. They self-select for loneliness, then wonder why the good men have vanished into the ether.

Meanwhile, young men are reacting to this hostility by checking out entirely. The KCL data supports this: 57% of Gen Z men believe efforts to promote women’s equality have gone so far that they now discriminate against men. This isn’t incel rhetoric, it’s a rational response to a culture that treats their very existence as a problem — something to be either avoided or mocked and ridiculed into obsolescence. Additionally, the data shows a shift back to traditionalism, with 31% of these young men now agreeing that a "wife should always obey her husband."

While the media wrings its hands over this supposed "right-wing" turn, it misses the reality: This is a counterreaction. If progressive women offer only self-righteous lectures and open hostility toward men, is it any wonder men are seeking the stability of traditional social contracts?

Man down

Or even opting out of the market entirely. “Men, Where Have You Gone?” asked a middle-aged woman lamenting her paltry dating life in the New York Times last year. For many men, the essay suggested another rhetorical question in response: Why attempt to woo someone who sees you as a born oppressor?

The irony is painful. Feminism promised freedom; instead, it has left many woman imprisoned by their own high expectations and simmering resentment. Told that their anger is a source of power, they are coming to realize it can also be a force of destruction.

If it’s a truism that men need women as a civilizing influence, we spend far less time acknowledging the cruelty that can run unchecked in all-female spaces. Men and women need each other. They are natural allies — and the further apart they drift, the more disordered things become.

To lose weight, ditch the 'unisex' approach

Discussing America's obesity epidemic feels as fresh as a gas-station sushi roll. We've had the headlines, the task forces, the Michelle Obama gardens, the lurid rise and fall of Jared-from-Subway. Every few years, medicine rediscovers the problem like a dog finding the same buried bone and acting stunned.

But researchers in Europe recently dug up something new. They studied hundreds of patients and found that obesity doesn't affect men and women the same way. It may be the same condition, but it runs on a different operating system and has a different damage report.

In short, men carry the problem where a tape measure finds it. Women carry it where only a lab result does.

Gut feeling

Men tend to pack fat deep in the abdomen. I’m talking about visceral fat, the kind that wraps around your organs like a tenant who stopped paying rent and refuses to leave. That fat is clinically nasty. It hammers the liver and wrecks metabolic function; it lays the groundwork for cardiovascular disease and has been convincingly linked to several cancers.

Women, by contrast, carry less of that abdominal load but show higher cholesterol and elevated inflammatory markers. Essentially, immune signals run hotter than they should and the biochemical alarm system never fully shuts off. The damage is systemic rather than structural. It’s less visible, but no less serious.

In short, men carry the problem where a tape measure finds it. Women carry it where only a lab result does.

If that sounds abstract, just picture your last family reunion. Or, if you want a more vivid case study, picture mine.

Family size

Obesity runs deep on both sides of my family. I mean that genetically, medically, and architecturally. Planning any gathering requires a kind of pre-event logistics that most people reserve for moving furniture or evacuating a small country. I have relatives who have single-handedly retired the booth as a viable seating option.

Virtually every family has the same cast, even if the staging varies. There's the uncle who describes himself as "big-boned" with the confidence of someone who has never once questioned that assessment. He has a belt buckle working well beyond its original job description and a firm belief that his blood pressure is "probably fine." There's the aunt who demolished two bowls of pasta, declared herself "stuffed," and is now on her third glass of wine, eyeing that slice of cake with the focused intensity of someone who has already decided.

His and hers

Conversations about self-respect and restraint matter. So does the fact that American health culture has failed both sexes spectacularly. We have had decades of treating obesity as a single, uniform problem with a single, uniform fix: Eat less. Move more. Have you considered a run? A juice cleanse? Intermittent fasting? Have you tried being less stressed? Have you tried drinking more water? Have you tried just trying harder?

The endless questions and secondhand advice land with the precision of a motivational poster and the clinical usefulness of a fortune cookie, while ignoring what estrogen and testosterone are actually doing to fat distribution and inflammation.

The European researchers make the obvious point that treatment should probably reflect this — targeted clinical approaches rather than the one-size-fits-all pamphlet model that has served us so poorly for so long. Men may need earlier metabolic intervention. Women may need more attention paid to the signals that get waved off as stress, hormones, or simply the price of admission for being female.

Blaze Media

Heavy going

Today, roughly 43% of American adults are obese. By the end of the decade, that number is expected to climb to nearly half, including close to one in four who will have severe obesity.

The children are worth mentioning. Around one-third of American kids between 6 and 17 are living with obesity or excess weight. Fat children tend to become even fatter adults, and the research on that pipeline is neither new nor ambiguous. These statistics arrive with enormous economic weight. Hundreds of billions in health care costs, lost productivity, and a medical system already struggling to keep pace with demand. This is a genuine crisis, and it deserves a serious response.

The study's real contribution isn't discovering that obesity exists, but insisting that obesity has never been one thing. It has always been at least two — running parallel, wearing the same label, causing different problems on different timelines in different bodies.

That distinction matters in the clinic. It matters in the conversation. And it matters every time someone who once lost eight pounds on a juice cleanse corners people at a cookout with personalized nutrition guidance that nobody requested and biology can’t honor. Good intentions and bad information have always made a combustible combination. In this case, they have been making policy for decades.

Republicans speak out against 'kill switch' mandate for all new cars: 'The technology is unworkable'

Republicans are raising alarms about new vehicle safety requirements that could introduce intrusive monitoring technology — including systems capable of disabling a car against a driver’s will.

The mandate stems from a provision in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, made law under President Biden, which requires automakers to install advanced impaired-driving prevention technology in new vehicles by 2027.

'The car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner.'

Critics argue that the implications go far beyond safety.

Judge, jury, and executioner

“The car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been one of the most vocal opponents of the measure.

Section 24220 of the law — titled “Advanced Impaired Driving Technology” — directs regulators to require systems designed to prevent drunk-driving fatalities. As Blaze News has previously reported, the technology under consideration includes both passive and active monitoring tools, many powered by artificial intelligence.

These may include infrared cameras that track a driver’s eye movements and pupil dilation, as well as “cockpit-embedded sensors” capable of analyzing a driver’s breath to estimate blood alcohol levels. Other proposed methods include touch-based sensors that use tissue spectroscopy to detect alcohol through the skin of a finger or palm.

“I voted against this,” said Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), criticizing the measure. “Unfortunately, too many Republicans sided with Democrats and it passed.”

I voted against this. Unfortunately, too many Republicans sided with Democrats and it passed. https://t.co/phZLQJAZ0d
— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) April 27, 2026

Designated driver

Massie has warned that the technology could extend beyond detecting impairment to evaluating driving behavior more broadly.

“The car itself will monitor your driving. And if the car thinks that you're not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself,” he said in remarks to Congress.

“How do you appeal your sentence once your car ... has judged you to be incapable of driving? ... Do you press a button on the dashboard? Do you start talking to an AI?”

He also questioned how authorities would respond to false positives, asking whether law enforcement would be dispatched to assist drivers whose vehicles are mistakenly disabled.

“The technology is unworkable,” Massie said.

- YouTube

Kill bill

He later introduced legislation to block federal funding for the provision, including any requirements that could enable so-called “kill switch” capabilities in vehicles.

The bill failed in the House, with 57 Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. Four Democrats — Luis Correa (Calif.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Valerie Hoyle (Ore.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) — voted in favor.

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Sick and tired of the lies? Here are 14 food brands you can trust.

Over the past months or even years, you have tried to be more conscious of what you’re eating. You want to improve your physical health and maybe even your mental clarity. Your first step might have been cutting certain fast-food favorites from your diet, and you probably have no plans to break that streak, but you realize that you still have been far too indiscriminate in what you have put into your body from the grocery store, too.

Why do you still always feel sluggish and inflamed? What else can you do besides cutting out some of the most obviously unhealthy foods at restaurants and grocery stores?

You can start to answer that question when you begin to intentionally read the labels of the food you have been buying. But in the beginning, this raises more questions than it answers.

Starting the journey toward healthier eating and living may look simple, but there are a lot of problems you will need to address. This journey doesn’t begin by simply entering the “health aisle” at the grocery store — and your “healthy grocery store” is no exception.

Cooper Williamson

By the way, shouldn’t all of the aisles at the grocery store be the “healthy aisle”?

Maybe that’s a job for MAHA advocates in the long run, but for now, one has to be able to discern for oneself what the truly healthy — and trustworthy — brands are.

With some help from many health-focused resources, we have identified several brands that you can consider generally safer to consume, compared to many others sitting on the same shelves. But first, it is necessary to briefly explain the problems these brands are trying to solve.

The problems

Eating clean is far more complicated than you would think. Our food system tends to rely on cost-cutting ingredients and methods that can be linked to health problems. These ingredients include inflammatory seed oils, which tend to be less expensive and have a much higher smoke point than more natural options like butter or beef tallow. Certain preservatives and texturizing agents can also contribute to negative health effects.

That’s why so much of our food is considered “junk food” — there’s a bunch of unpronounceable junk in it!

Pick up almost any brand of bread, for example, and you will find a much longer list of ingredients than flour, water, yeast, and salt. Cooper Williamson

Companies have realized there is a growing market for healthy food — but that doesn’t mean all health brands are created equal. That just means the marketing on the front of the package will look like it.

In many cases, brands will plaster the front of their packaging with “health-coded” messages boasting about what is not used in the food, including, for example, being gluten-free, non-GMO, having no artificial flavors, or made with real ____.

A brand of chips, for example, could market itself as a healthy brand by claiming that the chips are “non-GMO, no preservatives, and no seed oils.” Sounds pretty healthy, right? But the actual ingredients, when you read the small-print ingredients label, are barely improved alternatives, like “organic palm olein oil.”

Cooper Williamson

You will also want to watch out for ingredient labels that simply list “vegetable oil,” because that could mean many different things—or a mysterious combination of several things. Not very transparent!

You will have to dig deeper still, even if you’re at a “healthy” grocery store.

And finally, there’s the issue of cost. Healthy food is more expensive. There is less demand for it — if you are reading this article and are ready to make some healthy changes, you’re part of the solution to this piece of the puzzle. And higher-quality ingredients obviously cost more.

Your health companions

If you have made it this far, you’re convinced that it is time to make a change. However, take a look at any food package in your pantry, and you’ll quickly be overwhelmed by the number of foreign, gigantic words in the ingredients section.

What are the differences between all the cooking oils? What are monoglycerides, granulated sugar, or monosodium glutamate? Does anyone even know what it takes to make “natural” and “artificial” flavors?

And who has time to read any of that and then research all of them for every item you buy at the grocery store?

Cooper Williamson

Luckily, there are several apps that have done the heavy lifting for you, cataloging and quickly showing you all of the ingredients and other facts about the groceries you’re considering. Combining a number of these scanner apps will give you a better sense of whether you can trust the brand.

Briefly, here are the three apps that we kept coming back to, both for their ease of use and the usefulness of the information they provided:

Bobby Approved is a very popular option for scanning groceries. The simple interface enables a snap decision in the form of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The app also highlights the problematic ingredients and gives an explanation for why an item is not “Bobby Approved.” The app is particularly focused on the sourcing of products and seed oils. It has a 4.9-star rating from 138,000 users on the App Store and a 4.7-star rating from 16.8K users on Google Play as of this writing.
Yuka is another very popular option for scanning foods as well as cosmetics. The app experience is similar to Bobby Approved, but it grades products on a more detailed scale, scoring them on a scale of 100. Yuka is helpful for diving deeper into the additives and the relative risk they pose to the human body. Yuka also has a feature that proposes healthier alternatives than the items you scan. It currently has a 4.8-star rating on the App Store from 89,000 users and a 4.7-star rating on Google Play from 178,000 users.
Buy’r is very new on the scene but has proven to be very useful for highlighting ingredients as well as the source of the foods. Buy’r highlights brand ownership, since many brands pretend to be small businesses, when in reality they are owned by much larger corporations. While there is nothing inherently wrong with large corporations, this app brings transparency to the shopping experience and helps you to understand which labels are being sneaky with their packaging. Buy’r has a 4.9-star rating on the App Store from 576 users and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play from 944 users.

All three of these apps were used to compile the list below. Unlike some of the other competitors, these apps have free versions that are very usable. You can pay for expanded features, but it is not absolutely necessary for any of the apps listed above.

Using these apps was crucial for understanding the safety of the various products at the several grocery stores (at various price points) that were scoured in the preparation of this article.

Brands you can trust (more than most)

Here’s the best advice we can give you: Buy local. Even better: Get to know your producers.

The major benefit of buying local, besides the better chance of getting fresh, whole foods, is that the brands are less likely to need to use an obscene amount of preservatives, texturizing agents, emulsifiers, and artificial coloring.

The following list, however, recognizes that buying locally is not always possible due to cost, where you live, or any other reason. Some bigger brands at your grocery store have actually risen to the occasion and provide healthier options than your average big-name brands.

Cooper Williamson

Many of the following brands have many different products, especially store brands. It’s natural that different products use different ingredients, but the following brands are generally considered safe by the scanner apps and other health-focused resources. But it’s always best to check for yourself to make sure the standards remain high across different foods.

Given that constraint, each brand that can be considered trustworthy has been identified with one product in a particular category among household staples. We have given a brief description of the brand as well as some of the other foods that you can expect to find under the same label.

Half and half

Simply Nature is one of Aldi’s in-house brands that emphasizes organic and non-GMO products. Alongside the half and half, Simply Nature has been a provider of pantry staples and fresh foods since 2014. On its “food philosophy” page, Aldi says “we keep a close eye on the ingredients and materials that go into all our products to ensure they meet the highest standards for our commitment to quality, health, and safety." Aldi expresses its commitment to producing food that aligns with the highest standards of the USDA Organic seal and has opted to avoid using monosodium glutamate, certified synthetic colors, and bisphenol-A (a potentially harmful material found in food packaging).

Cooper Williamson

You can buy Simply Nature half and half at Aldi for around $4.25.

Milk

365 by Whole Foods Market is similarly an in-house brand offering a vast array of pantry staples. Whole Foods boasts that it offers over 3,500 products under this brand label, which adheres to high standards and has a long list of over 550 banned ingredients. The brand says “we strive to respond by following emerging research and our customers’ expectations,” adding that it banned MSG in 1992, hydrogenated oils in 2003, and high-fructose corn syrup in 2011.

You can buy 365 milk at Whole Foods for $4.79 per gallon.

Yogurt

Maple Hill, founded in 2009, has been committed to producing the highest-quality dairy products on the market. The company's mission is “to bring healthy, organic, 100% grass-fed dairy products to families all over the United States,” even claiming to be the “original” company to try to meet these standards. Maple Hill explicitly says that its cows are only on the 100% grass diet, which the company says improved its cows’ health when it made the transition from grain supplements years ago. Alongside its Greek yogurt line, you can find Maple Hill milk, salted and unsalted butter, cream-on-top yogurt, and a few varieties of kefir.

Cooper Williamson

You can buy a 32-ounce container of Maple Hill yogurt for $5.99 as a Whole Foods member or at the regular price of $7.49.

Butter

Kerrygold has become a well-known name for all things butter. Kerrygold’s products don’t stop at varieties of butter, though. The company also offers a selection of different cheeses, including cheddar, skellig, and blarney cheese. Owned by Ornua, the company says its products, including those sold in the U.S., are certified to Ireland’s “Grass Fed Dairy Standard,” meaning the cows are given a 95% or higher grass diet.

You can buy four sticks of Kerrygold butter at Whole Foods, for example, for $10.99.

Cheese

Organic Valley prides itself on not using GMOs, antibiotics, added growth hormones, pesticides prohibited under the USDA's National Organic Program, or artificial flavors or preservatives. Founded in 1988, Organic Valley offers a wide range of dairy products including milk, butter, cheese, cream, half and half, sour cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese, and eggs. You can find its products at Whole Foods, Walmart, Amazon and Amazon Fresh, Sprouts, and Kroger.

You can buy Organic Valley cheese slices at Whole Foods for $6.49.

Bacon

North Country Smokehouse boasts that “we don’t simply meet the standards, we exceed them.” The company is one of the last vertically integrated farm networks, meaning it controls the process “from feed to fork.” Proud to be USDA Organic, the company's meat can be found in many specialty grocery stores as well as Whole Foods and Target.

The key, according to Bobby Approved and other health apps, is to avoid bacon that has sugar or preservatives, specifically nitrites and nitrates.

A pack of North Country Smokehouse bacon costs $6.52 at Whole Foods. The Whole Foods Market option, also approved, costs a little more at $6.99.

Beef

Exclusively available at Whole Foods, Organic Rancher is dedicated to treating the animals, the people, and the land well. The company promises you will enjoy the flavor of “organic, 100% grass fed and 100% grass finished, free range beef,” which is free from GMOs, antibiotics, added hormones, synthetic chemicals, and artificial ingredients. You can find several cuts of meat, ground beef, and the “popular” new meatballs.

Cooper Williamson

You can buy Organic Rancher ground beef at Whole Foods for $10.49 per pound.

Chips

Siete Foods, and especially its chips, have become a popular, clean alternative for a chip with simple ingredients in a market full of seed oils and junky preservatives. Although it was acquired by PepsiCo at the beginning of last year, the PepsiCo CEO said the company is “dedicated to preserving its special attributes while making the brand more widely available and accessible on a broader scale.” Siete offers a variety of snacks, dips, sauces, and seasonings with simple ingredients across the board.

Cooper Williamson

You can get a bag of Siete chips for $3.69 at Whole Foods, though they are available elsewhere as well.

Chips

Founded by brothers John and Mark Maggio in Boulder, Colorado, in 1994, the vision behind Boulder Canyon was to create a chip that was better for you. All these years later, the clean ingredients don’t lie: The company uses avocado oil rather than other seed or vegetable oils to cook the chips. Now owned by Utz Brands, Boulder Canyon remains one of the cleanest, simplest bags of chips on the market.

Though available at other grocery stores too, you can buy a bag of Boulder Canyon Chips for $4.49 at Whole Foods.

Snack bars

Epic Provisions, a meat-based snack-bar company, uses very clean ingredients in a wide selection of products, including the “perennial bestseller” bison bacon cranberry bar. Take your pick from a variety of beef, chicken, venison, and bison bars among other products like bone broth, pork rinds, animal fats, and snack strips, all from a company committed to leaving the land better than it found it through partnerships with regenerative farming initiatives.

Crackers

Crunchmaster prides itself on producing a variety of snack crackers with pronounceable, simple ingredients. The company says it believes a cracker “should come with bold flavor, better ingredients, and nothing to hide.” On its website, the company is very forthcoming about its ingredients, which are, almost without exception, whole foods like seeds, flour, and salt.

You can get a 20-ounce box of Crunchmaster crackers at Sam’s Club.

Oatmeal

Started in 2009 and run by Elizabeth Stein, Purely Elizabeth has enjoyed massive success and growth over the last 17 years, However, the ingredients have remained simple and clean across the company's lines of granola, cereal, and oatmeal.

Cooper Williamson

A box of Purely Elizabeth oatmeal costs $4.68 at Whole Foods.

Cooking oils

Chosen Foods is a well-regarded option for healthy avocado oil. The type of oil you use for cooking is crucial for your health, yet the vast majority of food on the shelves is cooked in foul options like cottonseed oil, grapeseed oil, corn oil, canola (rapeseed) oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, or sesame oil, to name just a few. Avocado oil is a cleaner alternative to these oils, while it also retains a higher smoke point than butter. Alongside multiple avocado oil options, Chosen Foods offers a selection of dressings as well. The company says it is on a mission to make the world a better place, “replacing bad fats with the good fats of 100% Pure Avocado Oil.” Chosen Foods products are available in most grocery stores.

Cooper Williamson

Chosen Foods avocado oil, widely available, costs $13.59 per 16.9 fl oz at Target (cheaper than Whole Foods: $15.99 for the same bottle.)

Chocolate

Now for some dessert. First, you should assume from the outset that any candy’s ingredients are questionable at best and harmful at worst. However, there are still some relatively healthy options for those with a sweet tooth. Acquired by Oreo maker Mondelez in January 2021, Hu Chocolate promises to have “no weird ingredients. Ever.” Boasting the USDA Organic certification, Hu says it never uses ingredients like refined sugar, cane sugar, sugar alcohols, erythritol, soy and gluten, palm oil, lecithins, and emulsifiers. Hu was created after its founders couldn’t find any chocolate bars that met their standards. Now its wide variety of milk and dark chocolate bars and bites are available at 34,000 stores nationwide including Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, Kroger, Sprouts, and Amazon.

Cooper Williamson

You can get a range of Hu Chocolate products at Whole Foods from $7.49/4 oz -$7.99/2.75 oz.

Some tricks to keep in mind

As mentioned earlier, the positive desire for healthier, cleaner food has caused companies to adopt a flood of labels to appeal to the health-conscious consumer.

Unfortunately, not all of these labels mean much at all, yet one could easily mistake the illegitimate labels for the legitimate labels due to their ubiquity and similar appearance.

Consumers could not be blamed for thinking that they are making good choices because of these labels, but they can also be more aware of what the labels mean — and which ones actually signify that they meet regulatory standards.

Thankfully, buried in the depths of the USDA website, these distinctions have been officially made. Here are a couple of sets of labels of which you should know the meaning and for which you should watch out.

'Organic'

Everyone has seen products that prominently feature the word “organic” on the packaging, which most people associate with being a healthier choice. While this may be partially true, the reality is a bit more complicated.

It’s first helpful to know what the term generally means. The USDA defines “organic” as “a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods.” The approved methods, the USDA definition continues, “integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.” Most importantly — and some may be alarmed to discover that these methods are not necessarily off the table in non-organic foods — “synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used.”

“Organic,” it turns out, is only one of four different labels that a product can have, and the labels actually denote different "tiers" of organic products.

Health-conscious consumers would do well to seek out products that have the USDA Organic seal. This covers the top two tiers of the labeling system, “100 Percent Organic” and “Organic,” the latter of which is any product that contains a minimum of 95 percent organic ingredients.

The bottom two rungs of the “organic” ladder are a bit less transparent. First of all, neither of them are allowed to feature the USDA Organic label, which, for what it’s worth, likely does signal a higher standard of production. The third tier can include “made with organic _____” and list the organic ingredients. The final product at this level must contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients.

The bottom tier can only list specific organic products in the ingredient label on the back of the packaging, meaning it cannot and will not be marketed as an organic product.

As stated before, the health-conscious consumer will become much more accustomed to reading and understanding these labels, which many companies only use as marketing tricks. Don’t take my word for it, though — check out what the USDA has to say about “voluntary labels” on livestock products like meat and eggs.

Voluntary labels

Just as you have almost certainly seen all four tiers of the organic label, you have also probably seen all of the following additional labels for meat and eggs, for example: Free-range, cage-free, natural, grass-fed, pasture-raised, and humane.

This is where they really get you.

As it turns out, most of these labels have some caveats that a consumer at the grocery store is probably not aware of.

Free-range is probably the most meaningful and straightforward term from the above list since it indicates that the flock was provided shelter, food, and water and was allowed continuous access to the outdoors.

Cage-free has similar criteria to free-range, but the animals are not required to be given access to the outdoors; they can roam the enclosed area indoors. Free-range and cage-free can bear the same “USDA grade shield,” according to a USDA infographic showing the differences between 12 distinct egg labels, so it is important to know the difference between them.

Natural generally means that the food was minimally processed and contains no artificial ingredients. “However,” the USDA says, “the natural label does not include any standards regarding farm practices and only applies to processing of meat and egg products.” The USDA explicitly goes on to state that the “natural” label is not regulated at all if the product does not contain meat or eggs. Therefore, watch out for labels boasting about being “natural” — it may not mean anything!

Grass-fed: Here’s where it gets a little convoluted. Grass-fed, which is regulated by the USDA, “does not limit the use of antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides.” This section of the USDA’s page makes an interesting distinction between organic and grass-fed, which can also appear on the label together in some circumstances. The USDA says, “Grass-fed animals receive a majority of their nutrients from grass throughout their life, while organic animals’ pasture diet may be supplemented with grain.”

Finally, there are two labels that you should probably at least treat with suspicion if you see them on your groceries: pasture-raised and humane. Neither of these are regulated by the USDA and are considered to have too many variables to develop a policy. They are therefore the closest thing to a marketing ploy and can safely be treated as such in most cases.

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Illinois wants to track every mile its drivers drive — is your state next?

The next big fight over your car isn’t about gas prices, emissions, or electric vehicles. It’s about something bigger: who controls the road — and how much control they have over you while you’re on it.

What’s happening in Illinois should get drivers’ attentions. Lawmakers are advancing the Road Usage Charge Act, introduced by state Rep. Ram Villivalam (D), as a pilot program to study a mileage-based tax. On paper, it sounds routine. In reality, it’s the first step toward replacing the gas tax with a system that charges you for every mile you drive.

History shows that once a system like this exists, it rarely stays limited to its original purpose.

For decades, drivers have paid for roads through fuel taxes. You fill up, you pay your share. It’s simple, predictable, and largely invisible. But as more drivers move into electric vehicles and high-efficiency cars, gas tax revenue is declining. States like Illinois, which rely heavily on that revenue, are looking for alternatives.

Instead of cutting spending or rethinking how funds are used, they’re moving toward a system that expands oversight.

Double trouble

Illinois drivers are already paying for the road — heavily. Under Gov. JB Pritzker (D), the state doubled its gas tax in 2019, making it one of the highest in the country. Add tolls, registration fees, and local taxes, and drivers are already funding the system at a premium. Now comes the next step: charging not for fuel, but for movement itself.

A mileage-based tax — often called a vehicle miles traveled tax — sounds straightforward. Drive more, pay more. But the details matter. Some proposals rely on annual odometer reporting. Others involve installing tracking devices or using connected vehicle data.

This is where it stops being just a tax policy.

Once a system is in place to measure how far you drive, it can also measure when you drive, where you go, and how often you travel. Even groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have raised concerns about the risks that come with collecting that kind of data. And history shows that once a system like this exists, it rarely stays limited to its original purpose.

VIEW Press/Getty Images

Miles to go

Supporters argue this is about fairness. If electric vehicle owners aren’t paying gas taxes, they should still contribute to road funding. On its face, that argument makes sense. But this proposal doesn’t just target EVs. It applies to everyone — including drivers already paying high fuel taxes every time they fill up.

The result could be double taxation.

There’s also the cost of running the system itself. A mileage-based tax isn’t free to administer. It requires new technology, enforcement mechanisms, and ongoing oversight. Those costs don’t disappear — they get passed on to drivers, adding another layer of expense before you even get to the per-mile charge.

Before any of that happens, there’s a more basic question: Where is the current money going? States already collect billions through gas taxes, tolls, and vehicle fees. Before asking drivers to pay more — or pay differently — there should be clear accountability for how those funds are being used.

That question rarely gets answered.

What tends to grow instead is the system itself — more programs, more layers, more cost.

I spy

Illinois has already seen pushback on similar proposals. A 2019 effort was shelved after public backlash. Drivers understood what was at stake: not just higher costs, but more oversight and less control.

At its core, this is about how driving is changing. Driving in America has always meant a certain level of independence — the ability to go where you want, when you want, without someone tracking the details. A mileage-based system, especially one tied to data collection, begins to change that, turning driving into something that’s measured, recorded, and managed.

That’s a fundamental shift.

A better way

To be clear, declining gas tax revenue is a real issue. As vehicles become more efficient and electric adoption grows, states will need to adapt. But there are simpler ways to do it. If EVs aren’t contributing equally, adjust registration fees. Create transparent, targeted solutions. Keep the system straightforward and limited.

What’s being proposed goes further. It builds a framework that could apply to every driver, not just the segment creating the revenue gap. And once that framework exists, it won’t stay narrow — these systems tend to expand over time.

Illinois may be calling this a pilot program. But other states are watching closely.

Drivers should be asking a basic question: Is paying for the road one thing — and being tracked to use it something else entirely?

Because once the system is in place, it won’t be easy to roll back.

Roughing it

Warm welcome

Far and away

Cozy connection

National scandal

Landmark conference

A broader pattern

Unforced error

Heaven help us

In the beginning was ... the Word

Truant believers

Mater DEI

Bad education

May Day? Mayday!

Mission creep

PAC mentality

Out of school

Boot and rally

Planks for the memories

For Pete's sake

Frenemies forever

Mad about you

Chromosomal cartel

Dating disaster

Man down

Gut feeling

Family size

His and hers

Heavy going

Judge, jury, and executioner

Designated driver

Kill bill

The problems

Your health companions

Brands you can trust (more than most)

Some tricks to keep in mind

'Organic'

Voluntary labels

Double trouble

Miles to go

I spy

A better way

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