Trump escalates attacks against the Smithsonian Institution
"The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future," Trump said on social media.
"I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made."
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The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Families and MAGA-world outraged after school district suspends boys for bullying transgender student
Parents, MAGA-world and the Virginia Attorney General are fuming after two students were suspended after they said they were 'uncomfortable' with a transgender student in the boys' locker room. The boys were suspended for ten days from Stone Bridge High School after a student, who was born female but identifies as a boy, filmed the boys expressing discomfort when he entered the boys' locker room, 7News first reported. The incident occurred in March, but the video was made public in May. The school district — Loudoun County Public Schools — launched a Title IX investigation, finding the boys responsible for sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination, a lawyer representing them told the outlet. 'There's a girl in here?' one boy asks in the video, prompting another to chime in: 'Why is there a girl? I'm so uncomfortable there is a girl.' A boy then insists the student leave. Parents and state officials alike are outraged over the suspension and spoke to the press about their concerns. Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears attended the news conference and told the crowd: 'It is time for the insanity to stop. It is time for everyone to recognize what is settled truth: girls are girls and boys are boys.' Parents of the suspended students have seethed at the investigation and subsequent suspensions. "I would say the first reaction was some anger, because we're just really concerned with all this stuff," Seth Wolfe, one of the parents, told 7News this week. He added he was "saddened by the decision-making process and how that went." Renae Smith, another parent, similarly said she was "absolutely floored that they came back and branded my son responsible for sexual harassment and sex based discrimination with no solid evidence whatsoever." The parent told the outlet: "We're talking about scarring him for life by a biased process that's supposed to protect fairness, but it's shocking. It's wrong, and it should terrify every single parent." Both parents voiced their concerns about the school district's contentious Policy 8040: Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students, which the school board approved in 2021. The policy addresses locker rooms, stating: "Students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity." A spokesperson for the school district told The Independent in a statement that it does not publicly discuss private student matters, but noted: "At no time would LCPS suspend a student simply because they expressed some kind of discomfort. A reading of our Title IX resources should make it clear that there is a high bar to launch a Title IX investigation and an even higher bar to determine a student is in violation of Title IX." State and federal officials have joined Republican commentators in denouncing the school district's move. "This is very wrong — and it WILL NOT STAND !" Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote on her personal X account Monday. Attorney and conservative commentator Marina Medvin similarly bashed: "Virginia: Loudoun County Public School punished two boys for voicing their discomfort with having a girl use the boys' locker room and video record them on her phone, suspending them at the start of the new school year." Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox5 in June that he referred the school district to federal authorities. "What we have found is Loudoun County Public Schools have both bad policy and bad judgment," he said. Miyares said the school improperly targeted the boys not for misconduct, but for wanting the student to leave the locker room because they felt uncomfortable. "This would have never been even debatable 15 years ago. If I had told you we'd be even having this discussion, you would have thought it was from another planet,' he continued. 'Right now these three boys, just for voicing common sense, are now the victim of the full-weight, possible expulsion, just because they voiced their concerns." The majority of the two-minute video shows a black screen, as the phone is seemingly in the transgender student's pocket. The student then points the camera at the boys, who are fully clothed, for the last 20 seconds after they express their discomfort. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office was considering charges against the student who filmed the boys. Since the boys in the video 'were not in a state of undress or in any other situation that would've been an explicit violation of law, there was no potential charge,' a sheriff's office spokesperson told The Independent. Virginia state Delegate Terry Kilgore, a Republican, also bashed the school district's decision. "Calling a biological girl a girl isn't harassment. Neither is speaking up when a girl walks into the boys' locker room,' he said in a statement Wednesday. "Yet the far-left leadership of Loudoun County Public Schools tried to brand these three young men as harassers — and suspend them for 10 days - for doing exactly that. That's not just wrong, It's an injustice committed in the name of radical ideology.'
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Latest PS5 news is not great for gamers
Sony has announced a $50 price increase for all PlayStation 5 models sold in the United States, effective from 21 August. The company cited mounting financial pressure from newly imposed tariffs under the Trump administration as the reason for the "difficult decision". Under the revised pricing, the standard PS5 will now retail for 549.99, the Digital Edition for $499.99 and the PS5 Pro for $749.99. Trump's tariffs, which came into effect on 1 August, impose up to 25 per cent duties on Japanese electronics, costing Sony an estimated $685 million annually. Sony has diversified its supply chain by moving US-bound console manufacturing outside China, aligning with competitors like Microsoft and Nintendo who have also raised prices due to tariffs.
Telegraph
24 minutes ago
- Telegraph
It is not just the state that is failing white kids, it is Labour
In an education system which has improved considerably over the previous 14 years of Conservative Government, Bridget Phillipson – Labour's Education Secretary – has been searching high and low for a figure she can use to make party political hay. Thanks to the reforms to the teaching of reading introduced by Michael Gove and I from 2010, England is now fourth in the world in the reading ability of our nine-and 10-year-olds according to the authoritative PIRLS study. And in maths England has risen from 27 th in 2009 to 11 th in the latest PISA survey of over 80 countries. These figures are challenging for a Labour politician who is keener on making partisan jibes than doing the hard work of raising academic standards in our schools. Labour have lighted upon one figure – the proportion of 'white working-class children' achieving a strong pass (Grade 5) in English and Maths GCSEs which they cite as 19 per cent compared to the overall figure of 46 per cent. I put that phrase in inverted commas, because the figure they quote is actually for white children eligible for free school meals, which is by no means the same as working-class, and Bridget Phillipson knows that, or should do. Nevertheless, I agree that the figure is too low. But let's look at those statistics when Labour were last in office and before our reforms to the education system were in place. The problem is the grading system of GCSEs was changed in 2017 from letters to numbers. The most accurate comparison is between a Grade 4 (known as a Good pass) and a Grade C in the old system. Back in 2010, 30.9 per cent of pupils eligible for Free School Meals achieved a C grade or better in their English and Maths GCSE. In 2024, some 43.6 per cent of pupils eligible for Free School Meals achieved a Grade 4 or higher in their English and Maths GCSEs. I wish I had the figure to compare a Grade 5 with the old grading system in 2010 but because the Grade 5 lies between an old B and a C that direct comparison isn't possible. But these show how much genuine progress was made amongst all children from disadvantaged backgrounds between 2010 and 2014. And Bridget Phillipson knows that or should do. These figures reflect the reality that there was significant improvement in standards in our state schools between 2010 and 2024, due to a real focus on phonics in the teaching of reading, better teaching of maths by the adoption of methods common in the highest performing countries in the world, particularly east Asia. It has been achieved through a stronger knowledge-rich curriculum and more support for schools to improve behaviour. The last Conservative Government gave schools more autonomy, to free them from the 'progressivist' ideology that was driving down standards when Labour were last in power. The UK fell from 7 th in reading in 2000 to 25 th by 2009 and from 8 th to 28 th in Maths, over those years of Labour government, a decline that we reversed through hard work and reform in the years after 2010. The autonomy we gave to schools through the Academies programme (combined with strong accountability), and which helped drive up standards, is now being undermined by the current Government through measures in their Schools Bill currently going through Parliament. The stronger curriculum we carefully introduced between 2013 and 2017, and which schools have adopted and are teaching well, is threatened by the Government's curriculum and assessment review that is still to produce its final report. Everything Bridget Phillipson has sought to do since becoming Education Secretary in 2024 has been to undo the reforms that successfully drove higher academic standards in our schools. Am I content that only 19 per cent of white children eligible for free school meals achieved a strong pass in English and Maths GCSE last year? Of course not. But our reforms were helping these children. Everything Labour is now doing will simply make the education system worse. Mercia School in Sheffield, a free school, the type of which Labour have refused to create more, achieves astonishing results in a disadvantaged part of that South Yorkshire city. At Mercia School 80.6 per cent of their pupils (of all ethnicities) eligible for free school meals achieve a grade 5 or better in their English and Maths GCSE. If the current government were serious about standards they would be learning from Mercia and similar schools and spreading that success across the school system as a whole. Instead, their Schools Bill removes many of the freedoms and much of the autonomy which have underpinned the success of schools like Mercia. The suggestion that the Conservative Party failed to deliver for schoolchildren – of any group – is absurd.
