U.S. to offer to keep nuclear arms curbs until 2026 if Russia does same
JONATHAN LANDAY AND ARSHAD MOHAMMED
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US says more nuclear arms not needed to deter Russia, China
FILE PHOTO: Victory Day Parade in Moscow
By Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday will offer to abide by the nuclear weapons limits set in the New START treaty until its 2026 expiration if Russia does the same, in order to bolster global security, two senior administration officials said.
U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan will make the offer in a speech to the Arms Control Association, the oldest U.S. arms control advocacy group, the officials said on Thursday on condition of anonymity.
Sullivan will say President Joe Biden's administration is open to resuming unconditional talks with Moscow on managing nuclear dangers, including replacing New START with a new pact, the sources said.
He also will repeat that the U.S. is ready to begin a risk reduction dialogue with China, which is expanding its nuclear arsenal, a call that Beijing so far has rejected amid deep strains with Washington.
"When political relations are at a low, when tensions are high, we find that arms control and nuclear risk reduction to be most important and we would argue that we find ourselves in that moment today," said one official.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 21 said Moscow was suspending participation in New START, the last remaining pact limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arms.
Putin demanded that Washington end its support for Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion, and bring France and Britain into arms control talks.
The U.S. government declared Putin's move "irresponsible and unlawful."
Signed in 2010 and due to expire in February 2026, New START capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads the sides can deploy at 1,550. It also limits the number of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers that can deliver the warheads at 700.
Sullivan, the officials said, will offer U.S. adherence to those limits through the treaty's expiration if Russia does as well.
He "will discuss the importance of maintaining what we have left of New START, including the need for reciprocity, including the continued adherence to the central numerical limits of the treaty," said the second official.
While Sullivan will restate an openness to replacing New START, that does not mean with the same curbs and weapons systems, the official continued.
A new pact would have to account for China's nuclear arms buildup, which the Pentagon says likely will more than triple Beijing's arsenal to 1,500 warheads by 2035.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
Fight erupts at anti-Pride Day protest outside L.A. school where trans teacher's flag was burned
SUMMER LIN, ANDREW J. CAMPA, HOWARD BLUME
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Fight erupts at anti-Pride Day protest outside L.A. school where trans teacher's flag was burned
A fight erupted outside a North Hollywood elementary school Friday morning as more than 100 parents rallied against a Pride Day assembly, bringing to a head weeks of turmoil that saw a transgender teacher’s LGBTQ+ Pride flag burned.
Parents who said they were protesting against teaching elementary school children about LGBTQ+ people held up signs outside Saticoy Elementary School with messages that included “No pride in grooming,” “Parental choice matters” and “Leave our kids alone.” Across the street, about 100 counterprotesters gathered in support of LGBTQ+ rights and education.
Throughout the morning, police tried to separate the two sides as tensions mounted. Shortly before noon, violence broke out.
Some LGBTQ+ advocates formed a human chain blocking the sidewalk as a group of marchers tried to pass them.
Several of the protesters chanted antigay slurs at the LGBTQ+ supporters, and one marcher threw water at a counterprotester and pulled off a wig. A few unidentified people threw punches, and police diverted the marchers around the line.
Officers jumped in to stop the fight, and within minutes, the remaining counterprotesters had left just as riot crews in the Los Angeles Police Department were deployed.
It was not clear whether anyone had been injured or arrested.
Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian said in a statement that freedom of expression is a constitutional right, but "threatening your neighbors and sowing hatred" are threats to public safety.
“Whatever disagreements may arise among members of our community, violence, hate speech and acts of vandalism directed against any group can have no place in our city," he said.
Late last month, a transgender teacher at the school found that a Pride flag displayed in a flower pot had been burned and the pot broken. Los Angeles police confirmed the vandalism was being investigated, and Saticoy Elementary told parents the incident occurred during a break-in over the weekend of May 20-21.
The group behind Friday's protest, called Saticoy Elementary Parents, claimed in an Instagram post Thursday that they weren't against LGBTQ+ people.
“We want to reiterate that our protest is in no way an attack on the LGBTQ community,” the group wrote. “We recognize the importance of promoting equality and acceptance for all individuals.”
The group, however, had set its sights on Friday's Gay Pride and Rainbow Day assembly and urged other parents to keep their children home that day.
“Keep your kids home and innocent,” a flier posted by the group said. “Videos will be shown to the students including one where it says, ‘some kids have 2 mommies, some have 2 daddies.' This has caused outrage among parents.”
Karine, 40, waved a small U.S. flag as she joined the protesting parents earlier Friday morning. The woman, who asked that her last name be withheld over fears that her Saticoy third-grader would be bullied, said she was tired “of the propaganda” and noted that her child had brought home rainbow-colored stickers and other items from school last week.
“I didn’t come from Armenia for this,” she said of education about LGBTQ+ people. “I came for freedom and for my children to learn about math and education, not about this. I might go back home.”
Renato Lira, director of the San Fernando Valley LGBTQ Center in Van Nuys, found himself at the center of the heated debate. He yelled at protesting parents “to get educated” and grabbed counterprotesters on his side away from potential fights.
“For the other side, they need education," Lira said of the parents group. "They needed to talk to actual gay people and parents.”
Tabitha Davis, 44, a parent educator in the Burbank Unified School District, arrived around 8 a.m. draped in a transgender pride flag, wearing rainbow-colored glasses and a sweater that said “You deserve to be happy.”
Davis is the mother of a trans child at an L.A. Unified school she did not want to identify. She felt compelled to have her voice heard and “support families who are being harassed,” Davis said.
“I have been fighting to feel safe,” she said. “Now, I feel like it’s my position and my place to fight for others to feel safe.”
At one point, Karine and others protesting against LGBTQ+ education crossed the street to the front of the school, where they clashed with counterprotesters and police, who attempted to divide the groups.
The LAPD had stationed officers at the school Friday morning to "support our LAUSD partners and facilitate a peaceful and lawful exercise of constitutional rights," the department said.
The Los Angeles Unified School District "remains committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive and supportive environment for all students," it said in a statement, adding that Los Angeles school police were providing additional patrols around campus for the safety of students and staff members.
District Supt. Alberto Carvalho said that the "vast majority of students" who stayed home did so out of safety concerns and not to protest school activities.
Carvalho briefly attended the assembly, which he said was "absolutely grade-level appropriate and conforms with standards as published by the state of California."
The assembly included a reading of a child-friendly book that "speaks about families in our community, of different religions, races, ethnicities" as well as a reference to households that may "have a mother and a mother," according to Carvalho.
"I usually understand the background noise, and people pick a political side of that background noise," he said. "But when kids become political pawns, that's where I draw the line."
Students were told over the speakerphone to exit the school on Elkwood Street and Coldwater Canyon Avenue just before the regular 2:30 p.m. dismissal. Some staff members escorted students to the gates and to awaiting cars.
Faculty and staff were also invited to an optional meeting to discuss the day’s earlier events.
Saticoy parent Hector Flores wore a yellow Pride shirt with the words “!bien proud!” in rainbow lettering as he and his husband picked up their 6-year-old daughter shortly after the bell.
“As part of the LGBT community, we felt it was a direct attack toward us since we are part of this school,” he said of the protests. “We needed to be heard today and present and show that we are standing with our community.”
The clash outside the school comes as LGBTQ+ rights have been curtailed by some Republican-controlled states that have passed laws prohibiting gender-affirming procedures or hormone replacement therapies for minors and banning drag performances in public spaces.
According to a recent poll, 7.2% of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ+ in 2022, more than double the rate when Gallup first started measuring sexual identification in 2012.
People for the American Way President Svante Myrick, whose organization tracks the activities of right-wing political organizations, said he believes that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and legislation have increased in the past year and a half in part because of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, ending the legal right to abortion that had been upheld for decades.
"Abortion served as a unifying point for evangelical Christians and the far-right wing of this country for four decades," Myrick said. "When they won, it was a little bit like the dog that got the car. How do we keep this coalition now?"
After same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide and LGBTQ+ people could openly start serving in the military, right-wing activists turned their attention to transitional care for transgender minors, barring public drag shows, gender-neutral bathroom laws and getting "progressive" books banned from schools, Myrick said.
The protest at the school, Myrick said, showcases the revitalization of "gay panic" — the belief that being gay is "contagious" and that "we can't let our kids hear there are gay people because it might turn them gay."
"[Right-wing activists] have been on the losing side of this issue for three decades and so they are trying to regain their foothold, not just to stop a book from being taught in the third grade," Myrick said. "They’re trying to gin up a counter-revolution that can roll back the clock on all of those rights and return us to a time when they believe America was great again."
Chocolate milk could be banned from schools, the USDA says. Here's what pediatric nutritionists think about the drink.
MAXINE YEUNG
Updated
Is chocolate milk bad for kids? Here’s what pediatric nutritionists have to say. (Illustration: Alex Cochran; Photo: Getty Images)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering a possible ban on flavored milk, including chocolate and strawberry, in elementary and middle schools. It’s one of two proposals aimed at reducing how much added sugars children are consuming at school. (The other proposal would allow both flavored and unflavored milk for all grades kindergarten through 12th.)
But is chocolate milk actually bad for kids? Here’s what pediatric nutritionists have to say about the flavored drink.
What are the concerns with chocolate milk?
The issue with chocolate milk primarily has to do with its sugar content. A 2021 analysis determined that flavored skim milk is the leading source of added sugars in school meals.
Like any sweetened beverage, consuming higher amounts of chocolate milk over time might contribute to obesity as well as other health concerns, such as an increased risk for diabetes, Beth Conlon, dietitian and founder of From the Start Nutrition, tells Yahoo Life. Consuming too many sugar sweetened drinks can also lead to tooth decay.
The American Heart Association recommends that children ages 2 to 18 limit their added sugar intake to less than 25 grams per day, and drink no more than 8 ounces of sugary beverages per week. While about 12 grams of sugar in a cup of chocolate milk comes from naturally occurring lactose, the other 10 to 13 grams are from added sugar.
Taking chocolate milk off the school menu can help reduce overall sugar intake in children, but likely at the cost of children having less milk, which contains protein and calcium, as one study of 11 Oregon elementary schools found.
However, another study that looked at a year-long ban on chocolate milk in middle and high schools showed a significant decrease in students’ added sugar consumption, yet only a slight decline in milk intake — less than 1 ounce per student. The success of this ban is largely attributed to clearly explaining the change to students before it took place.
What are the benefits of keeping chocolate milk in schools?
The USDA dietary guidelines state that children do not get enough calcium, vitamin D, potassium, magnesium or fiber. “Milk, flavored and unflavored, delivers four out of five of these nutrients,” Barbara Baron, a registered dietitian who specializes in pediatric nutrition, tells Yahoo Life.
Conlon explains that chocolate milk can be a great way to help kids meet their protein and calcium needs. An eight ounce serving of low fat chocolate milk has about 150 calories, 8 grams of protein, including all essential amino acids you can only get from food, and up to 30% of daily calcium needs for four to 18 year olds.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, less than 15% of adolescent girls meet the recommended daily allowance for calcium, which is “a key nutrient for children and teens for building strong bones and teeth,” Sarah Pflugradt, dietitian and founder of Fueling Active Kids, tells Yahoo Life.
Offering chocolate milk in school can encourage children to meet their recommended three servings of dairy a day. “This can be especially important for children who do not consume enough dairy products at home,” says Conlon. “For children who qualify for free lunch and breakfast, up to 50% of their nutrition may come from school.”
Pflugradt adds: “Let’s not forget about how many children go through periods of picky eating and may not be getting a wide range of foods that offer protein, calcium and vitamin D.” Chocolate milk can help fill these gaps in nutrition, and support healthy growth during these developmental years.
Are some brands of chocolate milk better?
While most brands of chocolate milk are nutritionally similar, some add nutrients specifically beneficial for growing kids. Horizon Organic, for example, adds DHA omega-3, which supports brain and eye health.
Since chocolate milk doesn’t need to be super sweet for it to be tasty, Pflugradt recommends choosing a chocolate milk with a low amount of added sugar. One example is Fairlife chocolate milk, which touts 50% more protein and 50% less sugar compared to regular chocolate milk by including the artificial sweetener sucralose.
If there’s no added sugar, it probably has an alternative sweetener, making it a personal decision on whether you choose that brand, Pflugradt says.
Should chocolate milk be banned?
Overall, these pediatric nutritionists support leaving chocolate milk on the menu for all school-age children. “The National School Lunch Program is important and continually changing to help improve the diets of American children, but I feel like the demonization of chocolate milk is misguided,” says Pflugradt.
And, as Baron points out, “Low-fat flavored milk is a powerful nutrient package that kids love.” Experts recommend instead limiting chocolate milk to one 8 oz. serving per day and being mindful of its overall added sugar content.
However, what may be most important, say experts, is being mindful of food messaging to children to help them make informed choices and fostering a healthy relationship with food as adults. Katie Shepherd, dietitian and owner of Food Explorers, tells Yahoo Life that labeling foods good, bad or unhealthy can lead to binging behaviors when a restricted food becomes available.
Bottom line, says Shepherd, “When assessing added sugar, look at the child’s diet as a whole, not just their beverages at school.”
Maxine Yeung is a dietitian and board certified health and wellness coach.
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