How do we know which are the best colleges? Traditional ratings rank schools based on the average GPA or test scores of entering students. But the ability to attract bright students does not mean those colleges provide a quality education once they enroll. That’s why The Heritage Foundation partnered with The College Pulse, a research and analytics company specializing in college students, to survey students across the country—seeking to find out what current students and graduates of postsecondary institutions think about life outside of school, including starting a family, practicing religious faith, acting with integrity, protecting free speech, and other measures of civic life. The survey used data from Heritage’s 2025 edition of “Choosing College with Confidence,” a guide to nearly 1,000 colleges. This year’s guide covers three times the number of schools as last year’s report, including some of the largest colleges in the U.S. Choosing College with Confidence rates each college on our list as rigorous institutions offering a well-rounded education (a “green” rating); somewhat rigorous institutions with individual colleges focused on civics or other academically challenging departments within a university (“yellow”); or institutions that suppress diverse viewpoints and lack a strong academic core (“red”). Sure enough, the current and former students at schools rated highly in the Heritage guide display stronger character as well as employment prospects. The College Pulse surveyed 7,349 individuals across our green, yellow, and red schools, including more than 2,900 college alumni and 4,300 current students. This survey method offered insight into the kinds of people graduating from these institutions. Read the survey results here: https://report.heritage.org/bg3929 Among Heritage’s green schools—schools where officials prioritize free speech on campus, dedicate their college to a virtuous mission statement, and are disentangling their schools from diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies—a higher percentage of students and graduates said they have lasting friendships, are interested in starting families, feel a sense of purpose for their lives, and more, than did respondents from yellow and red schools. Students attending the green colleges in our guide were more likely to say they were comfortable expressing disagreement with their professors (46%) than were students in yellow (40.5%) or red schools (36.1%). Students at our green schools were also more likely to report that their administration protects free speech on campus (50.8% for green schools compared to 36.6% in yellow and 34% in red). Our survey also asked unique questions to gain a sense of personal integrity. We found that students attending green schools were more likely to say they would return money accidentally deposited in their bank accounts—and were more likely to report having friends who say they would return the money—than were respondents in yellow and red schools. Students and alumni from our green schools also reported better levels of physical health, were happier, and, were more confident that they would land a job after college than were students in yellow and red schools. A few newer college guides focus on the employment and earnings of each college’s graduates. While that is important, a quality education is about more than getting a good job. Education is, in essence, the development of good character, which includes a commitment to family, community, country and the pursuit of truth. People change as they grow and mature through different life experi­ences. Still, this survey demonstrates that students who attend universities that make the pursuit of truth a priority end up with values that reflect the American dream. These  results help confirm the very purpose behind Choosing College with Confidence—evaluating schools based on how institutions shape their students’ character. Heritage’s guide rates colleges on the full spectrum of educational goals. Our guide offers a glimpse into the culture of each campus on our list and the intellectual life fostered by the faculty and universities policies. Even if not all respondents fully live out these beliefs, they’re still well on their way to creating civic communities and authentically engaging in civic activities via their high standards for con­duct. It’s that sort of behavior that forms the basis for healthy communities—and, in turn, healthy cities, states, and nations. The post Helping Parents and Students Choose a College with Confidence appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On just its second day of the 2025-26 term, the Supreme Court heard arguments in one of its most important cases. Chiles v. Salazar involves a challenge to a Colorado law that allows licensed counselors to address issues of sexuality and gender only from the state’s approved ideological perspective. The Supreme Court’s decision will have a significant impact on First Amendment freedoms and whether young people may seek help that they need. Kaley Chiles is a Christian licensed counselor in Colorado Springs who employs solely what is often called “talk therapy” with those who voluntarily seek her help and who define their own goals. Her clients include minors struggling with issues related to sexuality and gender who want to better align their attractions and behavior with their sex and their religious faith. A Colorado law prohibits licensed counselors from “any practice of treatment…that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” That law does not apply to “practices or treatments that provide acceptance, support, and understanding for the facilitation of an individual’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development.” Mental health professionals who violate this law may face disciplinary action—so in 2022, Chiles filed a lawsuit arguing that it violates the First Amendment’s protection for free speech. Specifically, because it allows counselors to address sexuality and gender in one way but not another, she argued the law amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. A federal district court and a U.S. appeals court denied Chiles’ request for a preliminary injunction while her case was being litigated. The argument before the Supreme Court raised several key issues. The first was whether Chiles had legal “standing” to challenge the Colorado statute. Colorado said no because the statute does not apply to her counseling work—meaning she need not fear disciplinary action. But that’s not how Colorado described its statute in the lower courts—and it’s inconsistent even with the text of the law itself. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett appeared to dismiss what they called Colorado’s “late breaking standing argument,” and Alliance Defending Freedom attorney James Campbell reminded the court that Colorado was even then investigating complaints claiming that Chiles had violated the statute. While for standing purposes, Colorado claimed Chiles did not violate the statute, it said the opposite for purposes of defending the statute itself. Talk therapy, argued Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson, constitutes “medical treatment,” giving the state wide authority to regulate it—as much as it has over medication or even surgery. Stevenson suggested that talk therapy is no different than shock therapy or other extreme, and long abandoned, practices. Another issue is the legal standard the Supreme Court should apply in this case. The conclusion may depend on whether the Court treats Chiles’ work as speech or conduct. Campbell cited numerous First Amendment precedents holding that restrictions on pure speech must meet a high legal standard called “strict scrutiny,” which requires that a government action be the “least restrictive means” of furthering a “compelling” purpose. Colorado’s law, Campbell argued, does not come close to meeting this high standard. The Trump administration, which entered the case supporting Chiles’ position, also filed a brief, and Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan participated in the oral argument. He too emphasized the difference between conduct and speech and, in responding to a question from Justice Clarence Thomas, repeated that the record contains no evidence of harm from the talk therapy that Chiles employs. Another important issue is how the Supreme Court should handle this case—even if it agrees with Chiles that strict scrutiny applies. Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed for simply sending the case back to the lower court to apply that standard. Both Campbell and Mooppan, however, argued that would be an empty gesture and a waste of time, since Colorado had already conceded it had no evidence of harm from the talk therapy that Chiles actually employs with her clients. Despite winning in the lower courts, Colorado’s argument is hard to sustain. Chiles seeks to provide what the statute forbids, and the distinction between conduct and speech is clear both in the Supreme Court’s First Amendment cases and in the context of this case. This means there’s a good chance that a majority of justices will hold both that Chiles has standing and that, since it restricts pure speech, the law must meet the strict scrutiny standard. The only remaining question would be whether the Supreme Court would apply strict scrutiny itself, or whether it would instruct a lower court to do so. At least based on the argument, that’s a closer call. In his closing comments, Campbell presented this jarring summary of Colorado’s law: A 12-year-old may, without his parents’ knowledge, seek a counselor’s assistance to acquire a female identity, but a 12-year-old may not, even with his parent’s consent, seek such assistance to align his identity and sex. As he put it, the First Amendment cannot allow that. The post Supreme Court Skeptical of Colorado’s “Conversion Therapy” Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Kïmmeldämmerung: The Twilight Of the Yawns

Where have all the red supergiant supernovae gone? Lost in dust most of them, it seems.

Unfortunately, we’ve yet to communicate with a clam, but their shells have a lot to say.

If it does work, it would be the first test for the condition.

Bad habits run deep in our hominid family.

Maybe the legendary apple hit his head a lot harder than we thought.

Comedy Central’s Tuesday version of The Daily Show ended on a somber note as host-of-the-week Josh Johnson welcomed the founder and executive director of Black Girl Environmentalist, Wawa Gatheru, to the program to lament that under the Trump Administration, left-wing environmental groups are no longer being bankrolled by the federal government. A solemn Johnson wondered, “There is all of this climate work that needs to be done and you would think that your greatest ally would be the government and the country. But unfortunately, we, you know, are here. And so, what do you do when you not only don't have support, but there is active hostility towards climate science or climate activists?”     Gatheru’s group bills itself as a, “national organization dedicated to addressing the pathway and retention issue in the climate movement for Black girls, women, and gender-expansive people. By empowering emerging climate leaders of color, we are committed to supporting Black girls, women, and gender-expansive people in realizing their full potential in climate leadership.” As for her response, she lamented, “It's tough. It's a lot of whiplash. So, we’re coming off of a Biden administration that was really committed for putting million—hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of grassroots organizations, through the Inflation Reduction Act and Justice40 and so we saw organizations that were awarded tons of funds, around $29 billion, and those funds have now been frozen or canceled without due process.” Those grants often appeared to be a self-enrichment scheme masquerading as an “environmental justice” crusade, but Gatheru continued, “I have some friends that found out their organizations lost funding from newspapers before they even got notified by their emails. So, we have a lot of organizations in the green economy space, organizations and workers who are at the front lines of deploying and scaling climate solutions, really scrambling for funds.” Gatheru concluded by declaring, “It's difficult, but at the same time, there has been good movement happening. There is a coalition called America's All In, which is a coalition of different businesses and academic centers and cities and municipalities and states who are still committed to the Paris Accords and still committed to climate targets that are going to hopefully get us to where we need to go. But we definitely need philanthropy to stand up, corporate America to stand up, to really help fill the gaps that the federal government is pulling back on.” If a Republican president gave grant money to conservative organizations under the guise of “community change,” the media, including The Daily Show, would have a meltdown that would do more to cause global temperatures to rise than canceling $29 billion worth of grants. Here is a transcript for the October 7 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 10/7/2025 11:27 PM ET JOSH JOHNSON: There is all of this climate work that needs to be done and you would think that your greatest ally would be the government and the country. WAWA GATHERU: We hope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. JOHNSON: But unfortunately, we, you know, are here. GATHERU: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah JOHNSON: And so, what do you do when you not only don't have support, but there is active hostility towards climate science or climate activists? GATHERU: It's tough. It's a lot of whiplash. So, we’re coming off of a Biden administration that was really committed for putting million—hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of grassroots organizations, through the Inflation Reduction Act and Justice40 and so we saw organizations that were awarded tons of funds, around $29 billion, and those funds have now been frozen or canceled without— JOHNSON: See, you clapped too soon. GATHERU: Without due process, so I have some friends that found out their organizations lost funding from newspapers before they even got notified by their emails. So, we have a lot of organizations in the green economy space, organizations and workers who are at the front lines of deploying and scaling climate solutions, really scrambling for funds. So, it's difficult, but at the same time, there has been good movement happening. There is a coalition called America's All In, which is a coalition of different businesses and academic centers and cities and municipalities and states who are still committed to the Paris Accords and still committed to climate targets that are going to hopefully get us to where we need to go. But we definitely need philanthropy to stand up, corporate America to stand up, to really help fill the gaps that the federal government is pulling back on. 

On the April 16 PBS News Hour, as federal funding for both PBS and NPR was coming under heavy fire, co-PBS News Hour, co-anchor Amna Nawaz boasted that on her program, “we regularly invite and host conservative and Republican voices.” But is that true? MRC analysts tracked and labeled every guest who appeared on the PBS News Hour during the two-month period between July 19, 2025, the day after Congress rescinded taxpayer funding for PBS and NPR, and September 18, 2025. In all, the News Hour hosted 98 liberal-leaning guests and 21 conservative-leaning guests, a disparity of 4.6 to 1. Those stark findings are similar to those of two previous PBS News Hour guest studies in May 2025 and March 2023. Key Findings: ■ Liberal-Democratic guests outnumbered conservative-Republican guests 98-21, a liberal-leaning/conservative-leaning ratio of 4.6 to 1. ■ Of seven total appearances by Republican officials, three were coded as anti-Trump. Of 13 total appearances by Democratic officials, none were pro-Trump. ■ When elected officials and political appointees were removed from the guest count, the ideological disparity of show guests widened to 85-15, a ratio of 5.7 to 1. ■ Liberal journalists made 16 appearances as guests, compared to zero conservative journalists. Guests were categorized as based on the subject and content of their PBS interviews, not their overall ideological stances. For instance, socialist Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich was not categorized for his PBS appearance discussing artificial intelligence. Historian Douglas Brinkley was not counted when he discussed the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and there were no political attacks. Some guests were coded as conservative over literally “penny-ante” issues, like a PBS guest who supported Trump’s idea to kill off the penny. Some ostensibly Republican and conservative guests opposed Trump on a variety of issues, including tariffs, or were put on to defend Israel, while often paired in a discussion with a fierce Israel opponent. Yet even with those generous parameters in place, the ideological gap between liberal- and conservative-leaning guests remained a chasm, with both PBS and NPR stuffed with hand-wringing liberals to discuss the latest Trump atrocity against democracy, or immigrants, or freedom of speech.   Liberal Guests Fearmongered Over Trump 2.0, While Anchors Hailed Lefties The News Hour retained its hostility toward the Trump administration protecting Jewish students from the Hamas-supporters taking over elite liberal campuses in protest of Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. Pro-DEI Wesleyan University president Michael Roth ridiculously claimed on July 24 that efforts to protect Jews from anti-semitism on campus were akin to kidnappings for ransom, calling the administration’s pressure “an assault on the independence of civil society in America.” The August 13 show featured Rachel Accurso, known on YouTube as the children’s edutainment personality Ms. Rachel, who has a side gig pushing Hamas-helping propaganda about conditions in Gaza on social media. News Hour co-anchor Geoff Bennett flattered her with a Mister Rogers comparison. Bennett cued up Democratic Party attorney (and MSNBC personality) Marc Elias’s partisan rant on August 15, making the knee-jerk anti-Trump case against the president’s executive order to fight crime in D.C.: “Donald Trump is an authoritarian and he admires authoritarians. So, I mean, he -- you have to take my word for it. Look at who he pals around with and look at who he cites with approval. And one of the things that authoritarians do, one of the things he has tried to do, is to exert police power….” PBS was clearly rankled by Trump’s insistence the Smithsonian museums emphasize America’s greatness and not perpetually dwell on shameful moments. Co-anchor Nawaz’s skewed discussion with left-wing historian Peniel Joseph about the Smithsonian August 20 culminated with the cliché of McCarthyism, with Joseph ranting: "This is reminiscent of the age of McCarthyism, the age of the Cold War years, where speech was suppressed. Folks who were cultural producers in Hollywood and academics lost their jobs, but average people lost their jobs too for speaking out for social justice.” Nawaz didn’t challenge Joseph’s warped comparison. Two nights later, Target boycott leader and pastor Jamal Bryant was the guest as co-anchor Geoff Bennett unleashed a strangely energetic fusillade against the retail behemoth for supposedly bowing to Donald Trump and discreetly rolling back its "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) initiatives. Bennett sounded like a boycotter press release: “The big box retailer Target is reeling. Sales have stalled, its stock price has plunged, and the company faces growing backlash months after rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI initiatives. A boycott led by our next guest slowed store traffic nationwide, and is among the factors that pushed longtime CEO Brian Cornell to step down after 11 years. Now Target is scrambling to reset its image and strategy.” The segment was particularly jarring, given the hostile fashion the News Hour treated a conservative boycott of Target over Pride Month in June 2023. Was the News Hour aware of its perception of being a liberal bubble? An August 26 segment on Trump’s moves to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook for allegedly making false statements to get a better mortgage, featured two anti-Trump voices, one who served under Barack Obama, the other at the center-left Brookings Institution. But as if to cover herself, Nawaz announced, “We did invite Bill Pulte to join us on the program, but the Trump administration declined.” (Pulte is director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and posted alleged incriminating evidence against Cook on X.)   Guest Journalists as Liberal Mouthpieces With its own roster of liberal reporters down one with the departure of White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez to a place more suited to her politics (MSNBC), outside journalists stepped up with liberal taking points. Jasmine Garsd of PBS’s fellow taxpayer-funded news outlet NPR appeared September 8 to talk about “Alligator Alcatraz.” After Garsd lamented how detainees at that illegal immigrant detention center in Florida were being held in “absolutely horrific conditions,” Nawaz asked about the Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on ICE agents conducting raids in Los Angeles. Jasmine Garsd: I mean, listen, what we're seeing is these quotas, right? It's been said that the government is aiming for 3,000 daily arrests, a million deportations in the first year….And so the question is, how are these people being selected? How are they being picked up? And there are so many accusations that it's racial profiling. On August 5, reporter William Brangham interviewed Will Sommer, senior reporter at the liberal-leaning site The Bulwark and author of Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America. After Bennett set up reporter William Brangham regarding “how the president's promotion of fringe theories has helped keep the [Jeffrey] Epstein case in the public eye,” The Bulwark reporter claimed: “On the campaign trail and in office, President Trump has a habit of courting unfounded conspiracies.That includes QAnon, the belief that some hidden figure in the government, Q, is explaining how Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against dark, nefarious forces, including a cabal of child sex traffickers.” Sommer overstated things when he claimed “Epstein's death and the pandemic really drove a lot more people into conspiracy theories. And a lot of that too was people like — were Donald Trump and his allies embracing conspiracy theories. Trump spoke very positively about QAnon believers during the 2020 campaign. So it's been a very symbiotic relationship between Trump and QAnon.”   Republican Party Poopers During a period where Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, somehow Democrats dominated the News Hour guest list 13-7. And of those seven total appearances by Republican elected officials or political appointees, three were anti-Trump, including popular News Hour guest, retired Rear Admiral James McPherson, who came on the September 2 show to predictably criticize Trump’s latest military move -- in this case, the administration temporarily assigning military lawyers to act as judges in immigration cases.   Conclusion: As always, the guest list for News Hour was dominated by disgruntled Democratic politicos, leftist professors, and legacy media liberals – an unwise stance for a previously tax-funded network that operated under a congressional mandate to maintain "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature, and a major reason it lost that taxpayer funding.   METHODOLOGY: The study covered a two-month period, July 19, 2025-September 18, 2025, encompassing every edition of the PBS News Hour (Monday through Friday). The half-hour PBS News Weekend was not included. Guests were defined as interview subjects if they appeared in studio or talked to a host or in-studio reporter remotely. Guests were defined as either liberal or conservative based on the subject matter and content of the interview, or classified as non-applicable if neither designation applied. Elected officials and political appointees of both parties were also included -- defined as current or recently retired officeholders at the federal, state, and local level, as well as those who served in the Biden White House or served previously or currently in the Trump White House, or were appointed to their position during the Biden or Trump administrations. Regular show pundits and public TV reporters from local member stations were excluded from the PBS tally