PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY NAVY, TAKE NOTE: Japan’s F-35 Stealth Fighters Get New Standoff Anti-Ship Capability.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Fed up with peers trashing their fliers, College Republicans use hidden camera to catch thieves red-handed.

CHANGE? Minnesota Democratic Leaders Looking To Oust Rep. Omar. “Upset at her public anti-Semitic statements, there are Minnesota Democratic Party leaders are already working to recruit candidates to run against Rep. Ilhan Omar in next year’s primary election.”

Well, good luck to them.

ACADEMIA’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ex-diversity officer smacked with massive fine after giving husband big money fellowship. “The State of Connecticut Office of State Ethics fined Charmane Thurmand, a former graduate diversity officer at the University of Connecticut, $20,000 for awarding her husband a more than $50,000 fellowship for which he did not apply [and] did not have the requisite degree.”

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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: There’s a Larger Lie Beyond the College Admissions Bribery Case. “The admissions scandal is an opportunity to separate the lofty mythology of college from the sordid reality. Despite the grand aspirations that students avow on their admission essays, their overriding goal is not enlightenment, but status. . . . Though we casually talk about our ‘institutions of higher learning,’ little learning is going on.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Terror attack in New Zealand and much, much more. “Authorities are also reporting that there were explosive devices and cars involved, although the devices were not detonated. The shooters were not on any watch lists and the attack was described as ‘well-planned.’ One attacker has been identified as an Australian citizen. Developing… “

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE ILLUSION OF MERITOCRACY: “The construction of a fabricated profile with illegitimate test scores and extracurriculars is tragicomic; a prep-school applicant carefully curated by elite counselors, tutors, essay writers, and independent admissions advisers is routine.”

MORE NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF HIGHER EDUCATION: USC, UCLA Make List Of Fastest-Growing ‘Sugar Baby’ Schools In America.

CHANGE: Oklahoma GOP Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Rules Into Law.

BAD NEWS IN CHINA: China’s Slowdown Already Hit Its Factories. Now Its Offices Are Hurting, Too: White-collar workers face job cuts and shrinking paychecks even in go-go industries like technology, suggesting the economic pain is broader than official figures show.

BYRON YORK: With Mueller office emptying, dramatic predictions remain unfulfilled.

Last week John Brennan, the former CIA director turned Trump-bashing talking head, predicted a final flurry of indictments from Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller. The big day, Brennan said, would be Friday, March 8.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if for example this week on Friday, not knowing anything about it, but Friday is the day the grand jury indictments come down and also this Friday is better than next Friday because next Friday is the 15th of March, which is the Ides of March,” Brennan told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “And I don’t think Robert Mueller will want to have that dramatic flair of the Ides of March when he is going to be delivering what I think are going to be are his indictments, the final indictments as well the report.”

[March 8] came and went without new Mueller indictments, or at least new public indictments. And now comes news that Mueller’s top deputy, Andrew Weissmann — also known as the special counsel’s “legal pit bull” — will leave the office within the next few days.

Also, the FBI recently announced that Mueller’s top investigator, David Archey, has left Mueller to take a top job with the bureau in Richmond, Virginia.

The departure of not one but two of Mueller’s key staff — along with other aides who have moved on in recent weeks — fueled speculation that the special counsel is wrapping up his investigation. “[Weissmann’s] departure is the strongest sign yet that Mueller and his team have all but concluded their work,” said NPR, which first reported the news.

As always, it is dangerous to predict what Mueller will or will not do, but what are the chances that Mueller’s key people are leaving while he is preparing big, new prosecutions?

Well, stay tuned.

I BLAME SOCIAL MEDIA: The mental health crisis among America’s youth is real – and staggering.

Related: Do Social Media Hurt Mental Health of US Young?

Young Americans may be more vulnerable to depression, distress and suicidal thoughts or attempts than their parents’ generation, and social media might be fueling that troubling trend.

So claims a review of a decade’s worth of data on roughly 200,000 teens between the ages of 12 and 17, and 400,000 young adults over 18.

Investigators found that beginning in the mid-2000s, those under the age of 26 started reporting a huge rise in symptoms related to all three mental health problems. The spikes ranged from about 55 to 70 percent. No such jump was seen among adults over the age of 26.

Res ipsa loquitur. We should probably ban Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For the children.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Mom ensnared in college admissions scam hosted Gillibrand fundraiser last week.

A MASS SHOOTING AT A NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE, by a guy who calls himself an “eco-fascist.” “He calls himself an ‘Eco-fascist,’ one who combines environmentalism, racism and authoritarianism into one repulsive package. In his mind the world is dying from over-population, but over-population of the ‘wrong’ kind. He hates capitalism, free markets, and free trade but he loves the Communist Chinese government and fascism. . . . It’s Paul Ehrlich meets Adolph Hitler, Bernie Sanders in cahoots with Benito Mussolini.”

BAD IDEA: Newt Gingrich Says Venezuela’s dictator Maduro must go – Even if the military has to intervene.

THIS DIDN’T GET A LOT OF PRESS THAT I NOTICED: Small Business Job Creation Breaks 45-year Record.

I’M NOT SURE THE UNDER-40S WERE EVER WITH HIM, AND THE UNDER-30S HAVE GONE FULL SOCIALIST: Has the Democratic Party Left Joe Biden Behind?

WHY IS EUROPE IS PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939?

● “Volkswagen’s chief executive has apologized for using a phrase that echoed a Nazi-era slogan, ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ or ‘Work sets you free,’ that was emblazoned on the gates of Auschwitz and other concentration camps, saying the connection did not occur to him at the time.

● Polish Newspaper Explains ‘How To Recognize A Jew’ and ‘How To Defeat Them.’

● Jeremy Corbyn Aide Wrote Hitler Was ‘Uniquely Excoriated Because His Victims Were Almost All White Europeans.’

As David Harsanyi writes at the Federalist, To Understand The American Left’s Anti-Semitism, Look To Europe.

MIXED-UP, MUDDLED-UP, SHOOK-UP WORLD: Surprising DNA found in ancient people from southern Europe.

Beginning in the Bronze Age, the genetic makeup of the area changed dramatically. Starting in about 2,500 B.C., genes associated with people from the steppes near the Black and Caspian seas, in what is now Russia, can be detected in the Iberin gene pool. And from about 2,500 B.C. much of the population’s DNA was replaced with that of steppe people.

The “Steppe Hypothesis” holds that this group spread east into Asia and west into Europe at around the same time—and the current study shows that they made it to Iberia, too. Though 60 percent of the region’s total DNA remained the same, the Y chromosomes of the inhabitants were almost entirely replaced by 2,000 B.C. That suggests a massive influx of men from the steppes, since Y chromosomes are carried only by men.

“It looks like the influence was very male dominated,” says Miguel Vilar, a genetic anthropologist who serves as senior program officer for the National Geographic Society.

Who were these men—and did they come in peace? Vilar, who was not involved with the study, speculates that the steppe men may have come on horses bearing bronze weapons, hence ushering in the Bronze Age to the area. He compares the migration to the one the indigenous peoples of North and South America faced when the first Europeans landed in the 1490s.

“It shows that you could have a migration all the way across the whole continent (of Europe) and still have a heavy influence on this far extreme,” he says.

I wonder if this influx might help explain the mysterious origins of the Basque language.

THIS WEEK’S COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL: I’ve been writing for years that minority students, particularly those who are interested in STEM, are worse off when they are given the kind of preferential treatment in admissions that is typical at colleges and universities today. Attending a school at which one’s entering academic credentials put one well below the median is usually not a good idea.

But does the same logic apply to rich kids like the ones in the current scandal?

Yes, of course, it does.  This may come as a shock to identity politics types, but it’s true: When it comes to academic success, entering academic credentials matter; race doesn’t.

Here’s an angle worth mentioning: It is often said that when the beneficiary of a racial preference winds up at or near the bottom of the class that the reason for his disappointing performance is a lack of role models on the faculty. Yet when a student with a mega-rich daddy or mommy with identical entering credentials winds up at or near the bottom of the class, nobody tries to blame the problem on the lack of mega-rich kids on the faculty as role models.  And with good reason.  It’s not about role models.

ACADEMIA’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: College admissions bribery scandal: My students know this is how things work in America. “As Stanford and Yale and the University of Southern California scramble to distance themselves from these criminal corruptions, perhaps we might all consider all the legal corruptions of the entire college admissions process.”