THE PARENT TRAP: Young Americans still want kids, but it takes longer to achieve goals.

THE WAR ON AFFORDABILITY: Colorado’s Scrambled Egg Policy. “The jump in price is primarily because of Colorado legislation HB20-1343 which was signed by this governor on July 1, 2020. HB20-1343 dictates the square footage that mid-level egg producers must provide for each chicken and that egg-laying hens must be ‘provided enrichments that allow them to exhibit natural behaviors, including a minimum, scratch areas, perches, nest boxes, and dust bathing areas.’ These new regulations have increased the cost of breakfast for Coloradans by 133% which is affecting the food affordability and food security of children and adults across the state.”

GOOD NEWS FOR MICE: Two research teams reverse signs of aging in mice: But doubts remain about whether cell reprogramming technique could one day help humans.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Two Denver-area Public Libraries Closed Due to Meth Contamination.

ILYA SHAPIRO: State Lawmakers Can Reform Higher Ed: The vast majority of college students attend state schools.

Many Americans despair of reforming the culture of higher education. But a substantial majority of college students attend public institutions, and these schools are subject to state law. If legislators are determined to restore free speech and academic freedom, there’s a lot they can do. In cooperation with the Goldwater Institute, we’ve developed model state legislation based on four reform proposals:

• Abolish “diversity, equity and inclusion” bureaucracies. These offices work actively against norms of academic freedom and truth-seeking, advance primarily political aims, and fuel administrative bloat that raises costs and exacerbates student debt. Administrators at public institutions should maintain official neutrality on controversial political questions extraneous to the business of educating students. Leave compliance with federal and state civil-rights laws to the university counsel’s office.

• Forbid mandatory diversity training for students, faculty and staff. Even when DEI officials claim their training is “voluntary,” it’s often required for faculty who wish to perform basic extracurricular roles, such as serving on hiring committees. Typical diversity training includes unscientific claims about “microaggressions” and “implicit bias” and rejects the basic American principle that everyone should be treated equally. It indoctrinates an ideology of identity-based grievance, guilt and division.

• Curtail the use of “diversity statements” as a means of political coercion. These serve as litmus tests in employment processes to exclude applicants who don’t adhere to critical race theory and other radical beliefs. Although the Supreme Court has long held that requiring loyalty oaths in public education is unconstitutional—as are other forms of compelled speech—universities increasingly require that applicants state their belief in the importance of DEI, cite prior personal efforts to promote DEI and pledge to integrate DEI into their teaching. Applicants for many positions have been eliminated on the basis of diversity statements alone and many universities condition their hiring decisions on the applicant’s ideological conformity.

• End racial and other identity-based preferences. The Supreme Court may do this in a few months anyway by holding that racial preferences violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, in the case of public institutions, the 14th Amendment. Regardless of how the justices rule, discriminating based on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin is antithetical to universities’ basic missions. Outlawing admissions and hiring based on these characteristics would curtail universities’ efforts to evade a mandate against them from the high court.

These straightforward reforms would go far in pushing back on some of the negative trends that have afflicted higher education—without intruding on curricula or other aspects of academic life. They would free faculty and students alike to explore intellectual ideas without fearing the thought police.

Endorsed.

SUSTAINABILITY: Feds borrowed $4 billion per day in 2022, totaling $10K per household.

I’d also like to remind you that debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be.

IT’S EITHER LAUGH OR CRY: Try Not to Laugh at DOJ’s Excuse for Not Sending FBI to Raid Biden’s Homes for Classified Docs.

GET IN SHAPE: Yes4All Adjustable Cast Iron Dumbbell Sets. #CommissionEarned

JOANNE JACOBS: Bring back the ‘F’ to help students succeed. “If college students don’t do the work, a timely “F” can be useful feedback, writes Louis Haas, a history professor at Middle Tennessee University.”

I received an F or two early in high school, and the feedback that came with them — from my parents — was instructive.

POLICIES SO GOOD THEY HAVE TO BE KEPT SECRET: College upholds firing of whistleblower who shared ‘antiracism’ training with media.

WHAT’S THE GERMAN FOR ASTROTURF? Protest Pixie Greta Thunberg Staged Her Own Arrest and We Have the Video. “Thunberg is laughing and smiling, right up until the photographer gets her in the good light and she puts on her trademark How Dare You™ scowl.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Universities dismiss obesity epidemic contributing to Army’s recruiting crisis: The recruiting crisis coincides with the rise of academic theories that deemphasize any discussion of weight, sometimes to curb the risk of upsetting people.

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: China’s Shrinking Population Is Deeper Problem Than Slow Growth for Its Economy.

A rapidly aging population, slowing growth in productivity, high debt levels and rising social inequality will weigh on the country’s economic ascent for decades to come, economists said.

On Tuesday, the same day that China posted 3% growth, the second-worst growth rate since 1976, it also said that for the first time since 1961, its population shrank.

China’s population dropped by 850,000 to 1.412 billion. The shift toward a shrinking population, which came faster than Beijing had projected, marks a watershed moment in China’s history with profound implications for its economy and its status as the world’s factory floor.

The demographic milestone comes when, despite its enormous size, China’s economy is still that of a middle-income, developing country, as measured by average worker incomes when compared with the U.S. and other rich-country peers. China’s leaders have long held the ambition of leapfrogging the U.S. to become the world’s biggest economy, a task made harder by this strengthening demographic headwind, economists say.

“The likelihood of China someday overtaking the U.S. as No. 1 economy has just gone down a notch,” said Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.

Previously: The Coming Demographic Collapse of China. “Today, the country has a population more than four times larger than America’s. By 2100, the U.S. will probably have more people than China.”

WE WERE TOLD HE WAS A MODERATE JURIST. HE’S ACTUALLY A POLITICAL HACK OF THE WORST SORT. Merrick Garland kept FBI out of Biden document search.

And yes, it was a decision. They considered it, but somehow decided that sending actual law enforcement agents to oversee the search would “compromise” the investigation. . . .

“We are protecting the integrity of the case by allowing the investigated to run it” is something you rarely hear from FBI agents, I think. This was about not pissing off the boss, period.

Look, I have no real idea what is going on behind the scenes here, but the spin being put out here is beyond laughable.

Somebody wants to embarrass Biden, so this leaks after being withheld for months or longer. Others want to protect Biden, so they soft pedal it all. I am getting whiplash, trying to make sense of it all, and I almost feel bad for the folks at MSNBC who were luxuriating in their Trump bashing. They just lost their shiny new toy over this. The documents scandal for Trump is done, however much they pretend it isn’t.

Right?

IN THREE DAYS, KAMALA CAN REPLACE HIM AND STILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR TWO FULL TERMS: Obama’s ethics chief rips Biden for ‘appalling negligence’ of classified documents. So the knives are out.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Shockingly, the Trans Cult Keeps Finding Ways to Get Weirder. “Here’s the thing though: the more that the Democrats try to convince us that this is all normal and well, the more outlandish the trans crowd becomes.”

CALIFORNIA VS. FLORIDA: A Tale of Two Americas. Unsurprisingly, this LA Times piece largely reads as if it were ghostwritten by the Newsom campaign.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Mortgage Buydowns: A New Trend for 2023?

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) describes a mortgage buydown as a type of financing that provides lower interest rates for at least a few years of the mortgage. They’re typically offered by the home seller or builder who contributes to an escrow account that subsidizes the loan during the first few years.

In a 2-1 buydown, homebuyers can save on interest rates for the first two years of the loan but will pay the full interest rate at the time of signing for the third year. A 3-2-1 buydown operates under the same principle: lower payments for the first three years and full interest for the fourth year of the mortgage.

“I’ve seen this a lot in the past, and it’s a way for the consumer to be able to purchase the home they want when increased interest rates would make their mortgage payments too high,” Ernest Jones Jr, NAMB board president, told The Epoch Times. “If the buyer is willing to offer the seller more for their home, the seller will sometimes make concessions in the form of a buydown. However, the home still has to appraise for the higher amount.”

2007-08 was a painful example of what happens when lenders and borrowers use gimmicks to get borrowers into homes they can’t really afford, but the gimmicks never seem to end.

SHOCKER: Murders up in urban areas, not gun-friendly counties.

Murders occur overwhelmingly in dense urban areas, many with tough anti-gun restrictions, and far less in suburban and rural areas where firearm ownership is more common, according to a national study of killings.

“This research shows that murders in the U.S. are highly concentrated in tiny areas in the U.S. and that they are becoming even more concentrated in recent years,” said the report from John R. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.

The new report, shared with Secrets, showed that big cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., are murder centers and that even in those cities, the areas where killings occur are growing more concentrated.

Lott’s report is all numbers and little editorial. It describes a nation that is seen on TV every night: shootings are common in cities.

Indeed.

THIS WAS CNN: CNN Is Closing Its Iconic CNN Center in Atlanta. “Originally, the appeal of CNN locating itself in Atlanta was that it remained at a safe enough distance from the coastal elites to maintain an unbiased view of events, at least in theory. But the network gradually moved its operations to the places it initially sought to distance itself from. Only some of the behind-the-scenes operations remain in Atlanta.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: The UAE Has Donated Millions to the Atlantic Council. They Just Got a Glowing Op-Ed From the Think Tank’s Chief. “Fred Kempe did not disclose millions in Emirati funding in gushing article.”

DECLINE IS A CHOICE:

OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: No Russian and no Russians: Ukraine invasion has supercharged Latvian nationalism: Soviet Union symbols used to be tolerated, now they’re reminders of Putin’s aggression.

ROBERT SPENCER: Joe Biden Just Torpedoed the Left’s Entire Jan. 6 ‘Insurrection’ Narrative.

BOB MCMANUS: Why won’t NY’s heavy hitters in DC — Schumer, Jeffries, Gillibrand — do anything to help Mayor Adams? “Once upon a time, a sparrow couldn’t fall in City Hall Park without Chuck Schumer calling a press conference. Today America’s border chaos holds a dagger to Gotham’s heart, but he stands as dumb as a fence post. Why is that? Indeed, what’s the point of having big shots in Washington if New York can’t count on them in a crisis?”

Hey, it’s not like they work for you, you’re just the chumps who keep them in power.