Youth Homicide Rate Spikes to Highest Level in Two Decades

The homicide rate among individuals ages 10 through 24 in 2021 reached its highest level in 20 years, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 2021, there were 10.7 homicides for every 100,000 people ages 10 through 24, up from 8.3 in 2016 and 7.3 in 2011, according to the CDC. Suicide and homicide are the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, for people ages 10 through 24, behind accidental deaths that involve motor vehicle crashes and falls, according to the CDC report.

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Wisconsin Measure Would Allow Teens as Young as 14 to Serve Alcohol

Teenagers as young as 14 could soon be allowed to serve alcohol to seated customers in bars and restaurants if a measure being advanced by a pair of state GOP lawmakers passes.

Current law allows only workers 18 and older to perform such duties, and “causes workforce issues due to an establishment’s underage employees only being able to do part of their job,” Sen. Rob Stafsholt, of New Richmond, and Rep. Chanz Green, of Grandview, said, as they are now pushing the bill and seeking more cosponsors.

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Report: Children Under 14 Dying from Fentanyl Poisoning at Faster Rate than Any Other Age Group

Children under age 14 are dying from fentanyl poisoning at a faster rate than any other age group in the U.S., according to a new analysis from Families Against Fentanyl.

In the past two years, synthetic opioid (fentanyl) deaths among children surged.

Fentanyl-related deaths among infants (children under age one) quadrupled from 2019 to 2021; more than tripled among children between the ages of 1 and 4 and nearly quadrupled among children between the ages of 5 and 14.

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Miami Doctor Uses TikTok, Hip-Hop Music to Promote Sex Change Surgeries to Teens

Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher, a Miami-based plastic surgeon, advertises the “gender-affirming” surgeries she performs on adolescents on the youth-dominated social media app TikTok, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.

Gallagher’s TikTok profile contains hundreds of videos about transgender-related surgeries she performs, some of which include photos or videos of her young patients showing off mastectomy scars. Her videos are part of the pro-medicalization, transgender-affirming trend encouraging young people on social media to pursue biomedical interventions.

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Study: Teen Cannabis Use Increases, Mental Health Declines in States with Fewer Legal Restrictions

States that have legalized marijuana have seen increasingly strong THC products and a rise in mental health issues among teenagers, a newly released nationwide study reports.

The Drug Free America Foundation authored the study, given first to The Center Square, which reports on “an association between adolescent cannabis use, the use of high potency cannabis products, and increased risk of psychosis.”

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Mayor Frey Pleads with Minneapolis Schools to Stay Open so Kids Can’t Carjack

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is calling on local schools to remain open so that juveniles have far fewer opportunities to engage in carjackings and other crimes.

Frey made his plea at a Wednesday press conference with Deputy Chief Amelia Huffman on the city’s high violent crime rate.

“We’ve gotta keep the schools open. This is very clear to me,” he said. “Yes, we need to make sure we’re abiding by the necessary safety precautions. Yes, we need to make sure anyone from parents to teachers to students are protected in full from the dangers associated with a global pandemic, and we need to make sure the students are in the schools and that they’re able to learn.”

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NYT Report Suggests One-Third of TikTok Users Might Be Under 14

Roughly a third of TikTok’s 49 million daily users in the United States are 14 years old or younger, The New York Times reported Friday, citing internal documents.

The Chinese app’s workers noticed videos from children who appear much younger that remained on the video-streaming platform for weeks, a former employee told the Times. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), passed in 1998, requires internet companies to obtain parental permission before gathering data from adolescents under 13.

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Commentary: Three Groups of People Disproportionately Harmed by Minimum Wage Laws

by Bill Wirtz   Minimum wage laws are intended to help those who are making very little money, yet they achieve quite the opposite. Can you really say you stand for the disadvantaged if you support minimum wage laws? Moral Superiority Minimum wage laws have been around for a while, so contesting their existence becomes progressively more difficult. For most people, even those who purport to stand on the more “free-market” side of issues, the guarantee of minimum payment to all workers is a no-brainer. For labor unions and politicians, increasing the minimum wage is an easy sell: Once instituted, the hourly minimum rate can be gradually elevated at no expense to the government, eliminating the necessity to answer pesky questions about “who is going to pay for that?” There is also the added bonus of establishing easy rebuttals to any opposition: anyone arguing against minimum wages (or increases thereto), must have vested financial interests in that area or simply lack empathy for low-wage workers. However, the reality is that the very people who need a boost in the labor market are denied it as a direct result of these laws. The minimum wage asks employers to pay workers above…

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