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As the LGBT agenda tries to slowly work its way into American society, Christian activists are warning that parents who home school their children need to be aware that LGBT material has already found its way into po[CENSORED]r online instructional videos. LifeSiteNews reports that some of Khan Academy's free instructional curriculum is interwoven with a politically correct view of homosexuality. As an example, the website posted the following English problem found in a Khan Academy session: The lesson is on "Irregular Plural Nouns: from 'f' to 'ves.'" The unsuspecting student is told to "Choose the correct plural noun to use in this sentence: 'Brittany and Sofia went to lunch with their _____ every Saturday.'" Khan Academy's "correct" answer reveals the gay agenda behind the English "problem": The only choices are "wifes" or "wives." "Activist Mommy" Elizabeth Johnston reminded readers of her po[CENSORED]r blog that even though Khan Academy was founded to offer free world-class education for all children, "it didn't take long for leftism to creep in. alone, the non-profit accepted $3.5 million from donors like Bill Gates and Google, which alone speaks volumes about their agenda." "This is proof once again that the gay agenda has never been about assuring equality for all," Schaper told the website. "It's about imposing a destructive agenda on our culture and our society, and is determined to undermine Judeo-Christian values and the United States as a whole. It is anti-family, anti-life, and anti-biology." "The long-term goal to indoctrinate children has been to normalize these destructive behaviors so that these children as adults will not only accept homosexuality and transgenderism as normal parts of life but fight to ensure their protection," he explained. But Schaper believes this approach will ultimately backfire. "In my view, this elementary academic approach to imposing LGBTQ views onto children will backfire," he noted. "The younger generation — Generation Z, born on or after 1998 — is resisting this rigid secularization. Turning the whole LGBTQ agenda into a set of dry homework assignments will only further de-legitimize the movement."

Employees at the Office of Personnel Management may face furloughs if Congress doesn’t take action by Oct. 1 to secure full year appropriations — or move forward with the Trump administration’s proposed merger with the General Services Administration. The administration took a list of “near term, impossible choices” to OPM’s appropriations and authorizing committees on Capitol Hill last week, a senior administration official told Federal News Network. Those choices, which the official said included administrative furloughs for OPM employees, demonstrated a variety of scenarios that the agency will face come Oct. 1 — when OPM will lose the National Background Investigations Bureau and its security clearance business to the Defense Department. The security clearance transfer will create a $70 million shortfall, a point the Trump administration has recently used as a talking point in justifying the OPM-GSA merger. The Washington Post first reported the possibility of furloughs and layoffs for 150 employees at the agency. But Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget and acting OPM director, said the agency will be forced to consider those “impossible choices” if Congress prohibits the OPM-GSA merger — and if lawmakers can’t pass permanent appropriations for OPM by the end of the fiscal year. OPM will confront those “impossible choices” even if Congress passes a continuing resolution at the fiscal year’s end. “It absolutely not the intention to furlough anyone,” Weichert said in an interview with Federal News Network. “It is our intention to get Congress to a place where they take responsibility for the problem they created and help us not only fund our near term gap but actually put the agency structurally on a sustainable path going forward.” Furloughs would give the agency more flexibility to temporarily stop paying some employees while leaving others to continue their work. The administration has searched OPM’s budget and found some breathing room within the agency’s facilities and contracting funds as a way to further overcome the shortfall. Still, the agency’s financial situation leaves OPM’s people and technology as part of the administration’s “impossible choices.” “If OPM is forced into a furlough situation, which has never been the goal and I don’t even now believe that will be the outcome, under the law there is a set of activities to look at all options,” Weichert said. “OPM doesn’t have any good options at this point in time. An absolute last resort in my mind is not doing the mission or hurting the people. That’s the last line in the sand. Unfortunately that’s the situation that we’re in, and I think Congress is starting to understand the crisis that we’re in.” In an email to OPM employees, which Federal News Network obtained, Weichert said she would keep the agency’s workforce informed about the next steps. “While headlines come and go, our commitment to OPM’s mission and its people is not changing, and we are working with Congress to find solutions that address our problems holistically and sustainability,” she wrote in the Wednesday morning message. “So if you encounter headlines or stories that concern you, I’d ask that you speak up, and share your concerns with your leaders, including me, to get full context and timely detail. Oftentimes what passes as an eye catching headline does not reflect the full and true nature of the progress that we are making. Ultimately we are working hard with Congressional appropriators to educate them on all relevant scenarios and potential problems, so that they can help provide funding and flexibilities to address those issues.” The news comes nearly a month after Weichert testified before the House Oversight and Reform Government Operations Subcommittee on the administration’s plan and legislative proposal. Neither Democrats nor Republicans on the subcommittee gave the OPM-GSA merger a ringing endorsement. Members on both sides of the aisle expressed a desire to see more information about the plan and the administration’s rationale to split OPM functions to GSA and give OMB new authorities to expand a federal personnel policy office. The Government Accountability Office and the OPM inspector general said they hadn’t seen enough information to justify the reorganization. Former OPM Director Linda Springer questioned why GSA wasn’t at the witness table to explain why it’s well equipped to handle OPM’s functions and responsibilities. “This announcement from OPM flies in the face of testimony the administration gave to our subcommittee,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said Wednesday in a statement. “Director Weichert made it clear that this merger proposal was not ready for prime time.” Other House Democrats and at least one federal employee organization on Wednesday were quick to criticize the possibility of furloughs and layoffs. “The Trump administration has failed to make the case or provide the authority under which this reorganization can be accomplished,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday in a statement. “Threatening to lay off hundreds of hardworking professionals because the administration’s plan has been rejected in a bipartisan fashion is foolish, petty and irresponsible.” “Considering that the President has threatened shutdowns and loss of work for federal employees in the past, this new proposal — while alarming, irrational and completely unnecessary — comes as no surprise. We call on Congress to meet this threat with a strong and resilient response,” Ken Thomas, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) Association, said in a statement. The House Appropriations Committee advanced 2020 legislation that would block the administration from moving forward with the OPM-GSA merger. Instead, the 2020 appropriations bill includes an additional $43 million in funding for OPM over the previous year — a clear attempt to bridge the administration’s reporting funding gap at the agency. But the senior administration official said the House proposal would still leave OPM in a financial bind. The legislation, the official said, would bar OPM from continuing its inter-agency agreements with GSA. GSA today is helping OPM hire additional IT professionals and is evaluating the agency’s assisted acquisitions, the administration official said. Those activities would end, the official said, if Congress prevents merger activities in 2020 legislation.

By David Kenney | June 13, 2019 at 6:54 PM CDT - Updated June 14 at 8:51 AM JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A new lifestyle development project is beginning to take shape in Flowood. The new Waterpointe development is starting with a $10 million dollar investment, creating infrastructure for the future downtown Flowood. “We’ll have a town center we’ll have restaurants shopping, quaint boutiques, doctors offices, gift shops,” said Project Manager Amanda Acy. Acy says this will be a place where people can live, work and be entertained all within walking distance. There will be housing of all types. Acy said, “It’s mixed use commercial is the heart of the development then as the project gets further from downtown the lots get larger so we’ll be able to offer people anything from condo style living all the way up to larger lots.” There will be new retail shops coming in with restaurants and other amenities, some of which will be located on an adjacent lake. Flowood Mayor Gary Rhoads says this has been in the plans since 2008. The real estate investment which could be as much as $500 million dollars, will provide a new urbanism and lifestyle option for new residents. Mayor Rhoads said, “Green spaces with entertainment people socialize all the way back in the olden days, everybody has a front porch sidewalk everybody’s riding by speaking hopefully we’ll be an unique community where the heart and soul is you know your neighbor.” The development could take up to 4 years to complete. Copyright 2019 WLBT. All rights reserved.

Russia has warned against "baseless accusations" and a "sober appraisal of evidence" after Iran and the United States traded charges over the reported attacks on commercial tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The mysterious incidents, which caused damage to two tankers last week, have ratcheted up already high tensions between Tehran and Washington, prompting fears of a regional conflagration and sending oil prices soaring. The Russian appeal on Sunday came as Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom sided with Washington's assessment that Iran was responsible for Thursday's incidents, which left one tanker ablaze and both adrift in the Gulf. Britain's stance, meanwhile, drew a diplomatic protest from Tehran, which vehemently denies the US claims. Hitting back at Washington, Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, suggested the US may have staged the tanker attacks because of "the failure of its harsh sanctions" on Tehran, according to the official IRNA news agency. The US has reimposed and tightened punishing sanctions on Iran in the year since it exited an international accord that offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. US President Donald Trump said the "maximum pressure" campaign was aimed at forcing Iran to negotiate a new deal that also encompasses its ballistic missiles programme and addressed its support for regional armed groups. US extends Iraq's waiver on Iran energy import (2:26) But Larijani, speaking in the Iranian parliament, said it was "comical" that the US was urging Iran to turn to diplomacy after launching a "full-scale economic war" against the country. 'We don't want war' Hours after Larijani's remarks, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was "unmistakable" that Iran was responsible for the suspected attacks. But Washington did not seek war with Tehran, he said. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Pompeo said there was other evidence beyond a video released by the US military, which it said purported to show Iranian soldiers removing an unexploded mine from one of the damaged tankers hours after the suspected attacks. "The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence. The world will come to see much of it," said Pompeo. "We don't want war. We've done what we can to deter this," he added, vowing to take "all actions necessary, diplomatic and otherwise", to guarantee safe navigation through vital shipping lanes in the Gulf. Both Saudi Arabia and the UK also backed the US assessment. Earlier on Sunday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) told the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat that Iran deliberately attacked the ship and urged the international community to take a "decisive stand". He also accused Iran "and its proxies" of the May 12 attacks on four tankers anchored in the Gulf of Oman off the United Arab Emirates' port of Fujairah, and warned that he "won't hesitate" to tackle any threats to the kingdom. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt also said the responsibility for the reported attacks in the Gulf of Oman "almost certainly" lies with Iran. "We have done our own intelligence assessment. We have got videos of what happened. We have seen evidence. We don't believe anyone else could have done this," he told the BBC. Calling for "de-escalation", Hunt said he was "absolutely clear" that Washington wanted the situation to end in negotiations. Hunt's remarks drew a sharp rebuke from Iran, with a senior official slamming the diplomat's "anti-Iranian" statement as "unacceptable". Mahmoud Barimani, the managing director of Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, summoned the UK's Ambassador, Rob Macaire, to lodge a formal protest, according to IRNA. Barimani told Macaire that Hunt had "hastily and blindly" repeated US allegations against Iran, and urged Britain to "elaborate on the issue and to correct the position". 'Hasty conclusions' As the accusations flew, Russia weighed in. "Such incidents can undermine the foundations of the world economy. That's why it's hardly possible to accept baseless accusations in this situation," said Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin. "We always urge a sober appraisal of the situation and to wait for more or less convincing evidence to appear," he said on Russian television. Moscow "severely" condemned the attacks, he said, warning against drawing "hasty conclusions". The United Nations, Germany, Qatar and others have called for an independent investigation to establish what happened. Meanwhile, the two damaged tankers have arrived safely at locations off the UAE coast. The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous had "arrived safely at the designated anchorage", Singapore-based BSM Ship Management that manages the vessel's said in a statement on Sunday. The ship's crew were "safe and well", it added. The other ship, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair, was under safe tow by tug boats towards an area off the coast of the eastern Emirati port of Fujairah, the vessel's owners said in a statement. "First inspections are under way and no hot spots have been identified following the fire," while all crew members were in Dubai, the statement added. The UAE's Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Saturday called on world powers "to secure international navigation and access to energy". Thursday's attacks took place southeast of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor connecting the energy-rich states of the Middle East to the global market.

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So many stressed working parents look at Scandinavia with rose-tinted glasses on. It all sounds so idyllic. The time off with the kids, the outdoorsy carefree attitude, the maternity pay… These are certainly some of the reasons why editor and co-founder of KinBox Magazine Paul Connolly decided to leave the UK. When you first move to a Scandinavian country, nothing hits you quite as hard as the differences in the region’s approach to children and parenting. We moved from the UK to northern Sweden six years ago, primarily as a life-change, but also with the hope of having kids – something that was never going to happen given our frantic 12-hour work days in London.”