The Department of Health and Human Services is working alongside more than 50 of the nation’s top medical schools to incorporate nutrition classes in their medical school curriculum. “Chronic disease is bankrupting our health system, and poor nutrition sits at the center of that crisis,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Today medical schools are committing to change how America trains its doctors—by putting nutrition back where it belongs: at the heart of patient care.”  While some estimates claim more than one million Americans die from food-related chronic illnesses each year, over 70% of medical schools did not require any nutrition course. The 53 schools spread across 31 states have committed to offering 40 hours of required nutrition education starting in the Fall 2026 semester. HHS is not requiring the schools to implement any specific course work and is letting the schools create the 40 hours of classes as they see fit. “We did not dictate the specifics, we just asked that they put forward their own unique approach,” said one senior HHS official.   Kennedy was joined by Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, leaders from the American Medical Association, and the Association of American Medical Colleges at an event to honor the schools who have joined in the effort.   “To make America great again, we must make it healthy – and today’s commitment by leading universities is a critical step down that road,” said McMahon.   RFK Jr.: “One of the things that we’re talking about now at HHS is to use the Commission Corps, or other groups within our agency, to go out and actually teach people to cook.” pic.twitter.com/ROBOf92whS— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 5, 2026 “We are sending a signal with this event to the medical community,” a senior HHS Official said. “We have an important discussion that’s happening with the MAHA movement, and we want to work together and get things done and enthusiastically agree when we agree,” said a senior HHS Official.  “This is a real accomplishment. These are real commitments,” the senior official continued.  What we eat shapes not only our physical health, but our mental and spiritual well-being. Returning to real, nutrient-dense food and supporting a healthy microbiome is how we Make America Healthy Again. pic.twitter.com/gUnU2oHfAo— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) March 4, 2026 HHS has also committed $5 million to medical schools, nursing programs, and residency programs that pledge to integrate nutrition into their curricula through the National Institute of Health.   The schools committed to the initiative include the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Tufts University School of Medicine, and George Washington University School of Medicine.   The post HHS Partners With Medical Schools to Require Nutrition Education, Combat Chronic Disease appeared first on The Daily Signal.

ICE protests grow as student achievement plunges… Just last week, hundreds of students at Lincoln Park Public High School in Chicago staged a mass anti-ICE “walk out,” leaving classes without permission to protest federal immigration enforcement policies. Of course, similar scenes have unfolded across the country in recent months, often either tacitly or overtly encouraged by public school teachers and teachers’ union officials. In Chicago, teachers’ union members recently filmed themselves entering a Target store where they harassed employees on the job, bizarrely demanding that they somehow shield workers from ICE enforcement. Such deliberate ideological activism—encouraged by leftist organizers and echoed by much of the media, effectively grooming students for lawlessness—might be slightly less offensive if actual student performance in the classrooms of Chicago weren’t so dreadful. Even at the protest high school, Lincoln Park, only about half the students are academically proficient, in one of the wealthiest city neighborhoods in America. That’s right—only 51% proficient in math, 53% in reading, and 42% in science. So, in a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar brownstones and tony boutiques, the best the politicized teachers’ union can achieve is half the kids doing, well, just OK. In fact, Chicago Public Schools actually boasts about Lincoln Park High, branding it as Chicago’s “top neighborhood school.” But admittedly, the school’s performance is better than the citywide marks of academic misery. Among high school juniors across the Windy City, just 19% are math proficient and only 22% read at grade level. This systemic level of failure does not come cheaply, either. In a city struggling with an unsustainable fiscal crisis, Chicago Public Schools costs taxpayers a whopping $10 billion annually, only half of which reaches student instruction. So the per-pupil cost tops $30,000. Perhaps if the teachers’ union focused on student achievement instead of constant activism, results could improve? Is the goal to create mature and capable young adults who can thrive in a new digital economy? Is it vital that America raise up a new generation of patriots who love our country and embrace the responsibilities of citizenship? Instead, it seems that school system chiefs in Chicago—and across America—prefer to indoctrinate students as politically fixated young agitators who can act out with impunity. As long as leftist narratives dominate, those vulnerable children are simply passed along, advancing grades without mastering the basic skills of a fully formed thinker. These are our children sitting in those classrooms, and these are our tax dollars funding them. Yet far too often those taxpayer dollars are used to promote progressive activism, political indoctrination, and even the grooming of students into ideological movements. Deliberately using our children and our tax dollars to push ideological activism instead of academic learning is simply wrong. Schools exist to educate, not to indoctrinate. Using taxpayer-funded schools to groom children for activism and defiance of the law is not education—it’s a betrayal of the public trust. Our schools should never be putting activism before academics—especially when it’s our children in those classrooms and our tax dollars paying the bills. Public education belongs to the American people. Our children should never be used as political instruments—especially not with our own tax dollars funding it. Additionally, don’t think these failures apply only to deeply blue cities like Chicago. In fact, nationwide numbers show systemic underperformance as well. The widely followed national testing standard NAEP—the National Assessment of Educational Progress—shows that a stunning 40% of fourth graders in America are not even at the level of “basic” reading skills. That failure rate is up 29% since pre-COVID levels. Similarly, 39% of eighth graders in America are not proficient in math, and that level of failure has risen an astounding 50% in the last decade. So instead of ICE protests and chaotic “walk out” culture, it is imperative that we reclaim education and create the conditions for children to thrive. Rather than politics and radicalism, schools must foster the hard skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. In addition, curricula should cultivate a love of Western civilization and the American way of life. That way of life includes the rule of law and the expectation that immigration to the United States flows through the legal processes designed by the people of the republic. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Failing Schools Place Politics Over Academics appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The U.S. military killed an Iranian official who allegedly orchestrated a 2024 plot to assassinate President Donald Trump, the Pentagon announced.   “Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters just days after the United States and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran.  Hegseth would not name the Iranian official killed in the attack. “We’ve known for a long time that Iran had intentions on trying to kill President Trump and/or other U.S. Officials,” Hegseth said, adding that the U.S. attack on Iran was not focused on eliminating those responsible for the alleged plot.  BREAKING: @SecWar Pete Hegseth says the leader of the Iranian unit behind the plot to assassinate President Trump has been killed. “Iran tried to kill President Trump. And President Trump got the last laugh.” pic.twitter.com/SUHMnsHJKD— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) March 4, 2026 “We were focused on missiles and launchers, and that’s the focus, but ultimately, if we had the opportunity to get at those who are trying to get out Americans specifically, we would, and so, we eventually had the opportunity to do that from the air,” Hegseth explained.   In 2024, the Justice Department announced it had charged an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate Trump, then president-elect.  Tehran has denied accusations that it had targeted Trump and other U.S. officials.  The joint military operation also killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday. Trump made reference to the alleged Iranian plot on Sunday, telling ABC News of Khamenei, “I got him before he got me.”  General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at Wednesday’s Pentagon briefing that the U.S. was expanding strikes to establish air superiority over Iran’s southern coast. “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory, and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces,” Caine said.  “U.S. Central Command is making steady progress,” according to Caine.   Iran’s ballistic missile shots have fallen by 86%, according to Caine, “and their one-way attack drone shots are down 73% from the opening days.”  Reuters contributed to this report. The post US Takes Out Iranian Behind Alleged Plot to Kill Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As the United States engages in kinetic operations against Iranian targets in the Middle East, there are legitimate worries about terrorist activity here at home. Coupled with the long-term impact of the open border policies of the Biden administration, American citizens have reason to be fearful.  According to a House Judiciary Committee report, from 2021 to 2024, Border Patrol encountered hundreds of “illegal aliens on the terror watchlist” and tens of thousands more from Asia and the Middle East. These numbers include over 500 Iranian nationals and tens of thousands of Chinese nationals.  In addition to these serious concerns, there are other safety and national security vulnerabilities that have gone woefully unaddressed, specifically as related to the education system. For years, K-12 schools have been naively jeopardizing the safety of their students, unnecessarily exposing them and their families to foreign adversaries.  For example, the recent explosion and popularity of student walkouts across the country have put scores of children at risk of physical harm. In too many cases, administrators have allowed students to leave school grounds to parade through communities unsupervised. Unfortunately, these events have already yielded several acts of violence perpetrated by students against law enforcement and fellow classmates.  More importantly, because students, teachers unions, and activist nonprofits regularly organize and broadcast these walkouts, the chances of pre-planned attacks by radical actors will likely increase. Parents have been right to question how readily some school administrators permit student street activism during the school day.  While these protests and walkouts leave children highly susceptible to physical danger, various schools allow staff to take trips to maligned nations with no regard to how international tensions put the children at risk.  For instance, roughly one hundred Tamalpais High School (California) students and staff were slated to take a nine-day trip to Havana, Cuba, in February. Previous district-approved pilgrimages to the communist nation included a visit to the Museum of the Revolution and a “Tobacco Farm Experience.”  Tacoma Public Schools’ (Washington) Lincoln High is planning a “cultural trip” to China in the summer of 2026. The high school has had a long-standing relationship with a “sister school” in China that features regular trips to the communist country. In fact, in 2024, Chinese leader Xi Jinping himself invited students to travel to the Asian country during his visit to Lincoln High.  Student trips are not the only cause for concern. The presence of foreign nationals in our school system also warrants closer scrutiny. For years, K-12 schools across the country have participated in the Confucius Classrooms program facilitated by the Chinese Ministry of Education through nonprofits. Part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the program often includes financing, books and materials, and sending Chinese nationals to teach in American schools.  More troubling still is that over 30 of the school districts participating in the Confucius program were located near military bases. This not only puts those installations at risk of surveillance or possibly worse, but it also leaves military families and personnel exposed to bad actors. These fears are not speculative. If China is willing to spy and harass its own people on American soil and on university campuses, what keeps it from doing the same to Americans?  In light of all of this, federal, state, and local leaders need to prioritize the safety and security of American K-12 students and schools. Protecting students begins with simple steps such as limiting unsupervised walkouts and ending trips to adversarial countries. Additionally, passage of the DETERRENT and TRACE acts by Congress could be a vital first step to increasing protections for educational institutions.  Complacency is no longer an option. Policymakers and school officials must closely examine the potential threats that foreign adversaries pose to American children and families through the school system. America’s future depends on it.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Foreign Adversaries and America’s Classrooms appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Taxpayers may finally get a fair deal. A recent court ruling has created another path for the U.S. Department of Education to eliminate a costly student-loan repayment plan known as Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE. Doing so would relieve taxpayers who have increasingly been asked to shoulder the cost of student debt through expansive debt-cancellation schemes.  Despite the policy’s moniker, SAVE did anything but save money for taxpayers.   SAVE, created under the Biden administration, dramatically expanded income-driven repayment in ways that shifted costs from borrowers to taxpayers. The plan halved borrowers’ monthly payment from 10% to 5% of discretionary income and raised the income threshold of borrowers who are exempt from repayment from 150% to 225% of the poverty line, shielding more earnings from repayment calculations.   In addition, despite making lower monthly payments, borrowers could also qualify for loan cancellation in as few as 10 years, rather than 20 or more (the rules of other federal loan repayment options), depending on how much they borrowed. On top of all that, the plan also waives unpaid interest.  The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School’s budget models estimated that SAVE would cost almost half a trillion dollars over 10 years. Just 22% of undergraduate borrowers enrolled in SAVE were expected to repay their loans.   Even analysts supportive of income-driven repayment plans acknowledged the problem. The left-leaning Urban Institute observed that SAVE would have transformed IDR (which are income-driven repayment plans for unpaid federal student loans), “from a safety net … into a substantial subsidy for most undergraduate students who take on debt.”  But last week, the court declined to approve a proposed settlement between the Trump administration and the state of Missouri that would have formally ended SAVE. This sounds like bad news, but there is a silver lining.  The court’s reasoning was procedural but consequential. The lawsuit had originally been filed by a coalition of Republican-led states challenging the Biden administration’s authority to implement SAVE. But after the change in administration, the federal government no longer defended the rule. Without adversity between opposing parties, the court concluded there was no longer a live case and therefore no constitutional basis to issue a final ruling.   In practical terms, that means the judiciary will not resolve the legality of SAVE. However, on Monday, the state of Missouri and several other Republican-led states filed a motion asking the court to pause the dismissal of the case while they seek an appeal. If the judge rejects the request to freeze the case, the matter could be returned to the Department of Education.   The department could then take steps to eliminate SAVE through negotiated rulemaking, also known as “neg-reg.” It is a regulatory process that the agency must follow when rewriting federal student loan regulations. Though this process takes anywhere from several months to over a year to complete, the court’s earlier decision effectively places responsibility for ending SAVE back in the department’s hands.  The even better news is that Congress has already taken steps to phase out the program. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last July, requires borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE to switch to other repayment programs by July 1, 2028.   If borrowers fail to elect into a new plan by 2028, the department will move them into the Repayment Assistance Plan, which includes elements of debt cancellation, but is stricter on repayment terms.   The department should consider all its options when it comes to ending SAVE—including undergoing negotiated rulemaking—to prevent potentially billions of dollars in additional taxpayer costs.   Accountability should be the Trump administration’s lasting impact on higher education policy. The agency should focus on the fundamental idea that borrowers are responsible for repaying the loans they willingly took out and end SAVE once and for all.   The post The Department of Education Can Still Give Taxpayers a Fair Deal appeared first on The Daily Signal.