The Parents Television and Media Council put out an urgent alert to write advertisers of this horrific animation. Please learn more about this animation and the harms caused. Then sign the letter to Sonic Drive-In and ask them to stop advertising on this program. We’ve been successful in stopping Burger King, T-Mobile and Olive Garden. We need your help. Learn more about “Little Demon” and hit the send button. We need all of you. We cannot do this alone.

Learn more and sign letter here.

America is in the grips of two kinds of child-pornography problems. The first involves the production of child pornography itself—the abuse of children photographed, filmed, and monetized. The second involves the remarkably early age at which children are now exposed to pornography, when they start to see the images that shape their minds and hearts.

Both have profound costs. The terrible toll of child sexual abuse requires little explanation. Many girls and boys who have survived abuse carry the consequences for a lifetime, and because of the almost endless ability of porn consumers to find, download, and upload the same images, survivors can be traumatized again and again.

Read more here.

Suzie* was a typical 22-year-old recent college grad from the Midwest who was admitted into my mental health clinic in Austin with a variety of increasingly common psychiatric disorders: depression, self-harm (cutting her arms) and a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) diagnosis. BPD is a serious personality disorder that has 50 times the suicide rate of the general population and is typified by black and white thinking, self-harm behavior, emotional volatility, impulsive behavior, shifting self-image and feelings of “emptiness.”

While Susie did initially present with some of the classic BPD symptoms (feeling empty and suicidal), something didn’t add up. Unlike most BPD clients, she didn’t have any of the early red flags; she had good grades and many friends in high school with stable relationships and a stable home environment — and no history of mental illness in her family.

Read more here.

Marian the Librarian, the prim, bespectacled love interest of con artist Harold Hill in the classic musical, “The Music Man,” wouldn’t recognize her profession today.

Libraries, for decades the ultimate safe spaces, have become ground zero in the ongoing culture wars, with battles over banned books, drag queen story hours and free access to porn raging all over the country — from Louisiana to Idaho to Washington State as well as cities like New York and LA.

“The average person has no idea of this but librarians have been targeting children in recent years and trying to turn them into political activists,” said Dan Kleinman, a self-described “library watchdog” from Chatham, NJ, who has run a website called “Safe Libraries” for more than 10 years. He said he has documented the alarming radicalization of the nation’s libraries, including what he says is readily available porn in library computers.

Read more here.

Donors to a GoFundMe appeal have raised enough money to pay the $150,000 restitution an Iowa court ruled a teenage human trafficking victim must pay to the family of her accused rapist, whom she stabbed to death.

Pieper Lewis, 17, was originally charged with first-degree murder in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks of Des Moines. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter and willful injury, both punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

On Tuesday a Polk county district judge, David M Porter, deferred those prison sentences. If Lewis violates any portion of her probation, she could be sent to prison to serve that 20-year term.

Read more here.

The number of people living in modern slavery reached an estimated 50 million in 2021, marking a significant increase since 2016, according to a new report published Monday by the UN’s labor agency.

The big picture: Overlapping crises — from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change to armed conflicts — have caused “unprecedented disruption to employment and education” and increased extreme poverty, unsafe migration and gender-based violence, leading to a heightened risk of modern slavery, according to the report.

Be smart: The International Labour Organization report defines modern slavery as being “comprised of two principal components — forced labour and forced marriage.”

By the numbers: More than 9 million more people are living in modern slavery in 2021 than in 2016, per the report.

• The most recent figures consist of 27.6 million people — including 3.3 million children — enduring forced labor and 22 million people in forced marriage.

Read more here.

2022. Suicide is the now the third leading cause of death among people aged 15-24. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among children aged 10–14.

A rise in suicides by younger children is leaving parents and caretakers baffled and confused. Suicidal thoughts and attempts are much more common than previously thought and families are seeking answers.
We Can and Must All Help Prevent Suicide

First, families must understand the issues concerning suicide and mental health is an important way to take part in preventing suicide, helping others in crisis, knowing about available resources and changing the conversation around suicide. We must openly and honestly talk about it. It is an “American Crisis” among our youth that we can no longer ignore in our homes.

Read more here.