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Southeastern Legal Foundation Welcomes Amicus Support for Massapequa School Board Free Speech Lawsuit
ROSWELL, Georgia, Sept. 26 -- The Southeastern Legal Foundation issued the following news release:
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Southeastern Legal Foundation welcomes amicus support for Massapequa School Board free speech lawsuit
[September 25, 2026] Today, four organizations and one New York school board member filed an amicus brief (https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/library/docLib/2026-09-25-The-Buckeye-Institute-Amicus-Brief-in-Wachter-v-James.pdf) supporting SLF's lawsuit on behalf of two school board members against New York Attorney General Leticia James over her threat to remove members of the Massapequa school
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ROSWELL, Georgia, Sept. 26 -- The Southeastern Legal Foundation issued the following news release:
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Southeastern Legal Foundation welcomes amicus support for Massapequa School Board free speech lawsuit
[September 25, 2026] Today, four organizations and one New York school board member filed an amicus brief (https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/library/docLib/2026-09-25-The-Buckeye-Institute-Amicus-Brief-in-Wachter-v-James.pdf) supporting SLF's lawsuit on behalf of two school board members against New York Attorney General Leticia James over her threat to remove members of the Massapequa schoolboard if they publicly spoke - or allowed public discussions at school board meetings - about transgender students using the locker rooms of their opposite biological sex. The brief was filed by Buckeye Institute, Defense of Freedom Institute, Manhattan Institute, Center for American Liberty, and Kate DelliCarpini, President of the Cold Spring Harbor Central School District's Board of Education.
SLF filed the lawsuit (https://slfliberty.org/slf-sues-new-york-ag-letitia-james-in-federal-court-for-threatening-school-board-members-with-removal-if-they-allow-debate-about-trans-athletes-in-k-12-schools/) last year on behalf of Kerry Wachter, the Massapequa school board president. Ms. Wachter joined SLF in the fight against AG James over her guidance letter which threatened the free speech of school board members. James threatened the removal of members if they used the wrong pronouns of a trans person or allowed students or parents to publicly speak on their discomfort with using the bathroom or locker rooms with trans students.
SLF President Kim Hermann said, "We cannot thank the Buckeye Institute and all other organizations who signed onto this amicus brief enough. This is a huge showing of support for this case which aims to restore the freedom of students, parents, and school board members to speak out publicly about any of their concerns regarding transgender issues. School board meetings should be a safe space and instead Leticia James has attempted to shape them to fit her own woke ideas."
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Original text here: https://slfliberty.org/southeastern-legal-foundation-welcomes-amicus-support-for-massapequa-school-board-free-speech-lawsuit/
Reason Foundation: Don't Blame Harm Reduction for the Overdose Crisis
LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 26 -- The Reason Foundation issued the following news:
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Don't blame harm reduction for the overdose crisis
A closer look at Seattle, Burlington, and Vancouver challenges the claim that harm reduction caused their overdose crises.
Layal Bou Harfouch
Drug Policy Analyst
September 25, 2026
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In a recent essay in The Atlantic, staff writer Michael Powell argued that some American and Canadian cities have allowed harm reduction to grow from a limited public-health strategy into an ideology, one that tolerates public drug use and disorder while failing to stem
... Show Full Article
LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 26 -- The Reason Foundation issued the following news:
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Don't blame harm reduction for the overdose crisis
A closer look at Seattle, Burlington, and Vancouver challenges the claim that harm reduction caused their overdose crises.
Layal Bou Harfouch
Drug Policy Analyst
September 25, 2026
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In a recent essay in The Atlantic, staff writer Michael Powell argued that some American and Canadian cities have allowed harm reduction to grow from a limited public-health strategy into an ideology, one that tolerates public drug use and disorder while failing to stemoverdose deaths. Powell points to Seattle, Burlington, Vt., and Vancouver, among other places, and argues that their experiences show the negative consequences of placing too much emphasis on the autonomy of people who use drugs and too little on treatment, enforcement, and the interests of surrounding communities.
The problems Powell observes deserve attention. Open-air drug markets, discarded syringes, theft, public drug use, and neighborhoods overwhelmed by visible addiction should not be dismissed as the unavoidable price of compassionate drug policy. But establishing that these problems exist in cities that practice harm reduction is different from establishing that harm-reduction policies caused them. Powell frequently groups together very different policies, from syringe services and supervised consumption to safer supply, decriminalization, and decisions about policing, and then evaluates them against broad citywide outcomes. A more useful question is whether the evidence supports the specific causal claims he makes about each policy and place.
Harm reduction is not one uniform policy. Naloxone distribution, sterile syringe programs, drug-checking for contaminants, supervised consumption sites, and prescribed alternatives to the illicit drug supply all work in different ways and address different risks. Each should be assessed on its own terms, including when the evidence points to tradeoffs or unintended effects.
The conditions Powell describes should concern anyone interested in sensible drug policy. In Burlington, a city of roughly 45,000 people, 585 drug overdoses were recorded in 2024, 28 of them fatal. Powell argues that cities have placed too much emphasis on accommodating drug use and should instead restore enforcement against public drug use and dealing while putting greater pressure and resources toward treatment, including mandated treatment in some cases.
One of Powell's central arguments is that overdose deaths rose sharply in cities that embraced strong harm-reduction policies. That claim deserves closer examination in the places he highlights.
In Burlington, the recent trend already complicates the picture. Powell notes that Vermont recorded 170 overdose deaths in 2025, a 37 percent decline from the state's 2022 peak. Burlington's experience with harm reduction is also more limited than Powell's framing might suggest. The city approved an overdose prevention center only in 2024, meaning the facility Powell criticizes had not yet opened when many of the overdose and public-disorder problems described in his article occurred. Harm-reduction services existed before then, but the timing makes it difficult to attribute the city's earlier deterioration to the supervised-consumption policy that features prominently in his critique.
Seattle offers a different test because harm-reduction services were already well-established there. Powell points to 7,089 overdose deaths in King County between 2016 and 2025 as evidence of the severity of the crisis. But that total obscures a significant reversal within the period he cites. King County's overdose mortality rate more than tripled between 2018 and 2023, as fentanyl became pervasive in the local drug supply, then fell 32 percent between 2023 and 2025. Harm-reduction efforts continued during that decline, including widespread naloxone distribution and other overdose-prevention services. That does not establish that those policies caused the decline. But the rise and subsequent fall in deaths while harm reduction remained in place make the mortality trend considerably harder to attribute to the policies themselves.
Vancouver provides the longest test of Powell's argument. North America's first sanctioned supervised injection site opened there in 2003, and Powell acknowledges research finding fewer overdose deaths and infectious diseases associated with the program. Yet, he contrasts those findings with the dramatic rise in overdose deaths across the rest of British Columbia (a Canadian province geographically larger than the state of Texas) over the following two decades. Those are different levels of analysis. Evidence that a supervised consumption site reduces deaths among people who use it can coexist with rising population-level mortality driven by a rapidly changing illicit drug market. The relevant question is whether the intervention reduced the harms it was designed to address, not whether it single-handedly reversed a regional overdose crisis.
If harm-reduction policies themselves are driving higher overdose mortality, we should expect the same pattern elsewhere. But we don't see that. New York City provides one useful counterexample. The city opened the nation's first publicly recognized overdose prevention centers in November 2021 as overdose deaths were climbing. Deaths continued to rise the following year, increasing 12 percent from 2021 to 2022, before declining slightly in 2023 for the first time since 2018. That decline accelerated considerably in 2024, when overdose deaths fell 28 percent, from 3,056 to 2,192, the city's first substantial decrease after nearly a decade of increases. The centers operated throughout this period as the city continued investing in syringe exchange services, overdose prevention, treatment, and other harm-reduction programs. The timeline does not establish that harm reduction caused the decline. But it does show that overdose deaths can fall substantially while harm-reduction policies remain in place, further weakening the argument that the presence of those policies explains citywide overdose trends.
The spread of illicit fentanyl makes that distinction even more important. Fentanyl reached different parts of the country at different times, rapidly changing the risk of overdose as it entered local drug supplies. A 2024 JAMA Network Open study of Oregon illustrates how easily that shift can be mistaken for the effect of a policy. Researchers initially observed an increase in overdose deaths following the implementation of Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs. After accounting for the timing of fentanyl's spread into Oregon, however, they found no association between decriminalization and overdose mortality.
Another problem with evaluating harm reduction this broadly is that the term encompasses policies that work in very different ways. Among harm-reduction interventions, providing sterile syringes to reduce transmission of HIV and hepatitis C serves a different purpose than operating a supervised consumption site to prevent fatal overdoses or prescribing pharmaceutical opioids through safer-supply programs. Each should be evaluated based on its own objective evidence base.
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Chart: Harm-reduction interventions serve different purposes
Policies grouped under the term "harm reduction" use different approaches and target different risks associated with drug use.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Harm Reduction Coalition; Health Canada
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For syringe service programs, the evidence is particularly strong. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these programs are associated with an estimated 50 percent reduction in HIV and hepatitis C incidence. Nearly three decades of research also show that comprehensive syringe service programs do not increase illegal drug use or crime. In addition to providing sterile injection equipment, many offer infectious-disease testing, vaccination, and connections to medical care and substance use treatment.
Evidence that overdose prevention centers reduce deaths across an entire city is less settled. These facilities provide a supervised setting where trained staff can intervene when an overdose occurs, while also reducing risks associated with unsafe injection and connecting participants to other services. Powell acknowledges that studies have found people who consume drugs at supervised sites are far less likely to die from an overdose than those using elsewhere. A recent systematic review examining studies published in Canada between 2016 and 2024 found mixed results. Large provincial analyses generally found no statistically significant association between supervised consumption sites and overall overdose mortality, while some studies examining smaller geographic areas found reductions near the facilities themselves.
In Toronto, for example, neighborhoods within 500 meters of a supervised consumption site experienced 67 percent fewer overdose deaths per 100,000 residents after the sites opened. An Alberta analysis also found that greater use of supervised consumption sites was correlated with fewer fentanyl-related overdose deaths between 2017 and 2020. Both studies were observational, however, meaning they can identify associations but cannot establish that the sites alone caused the reductions.
The evidence therefore supports a narrower conclusion than either side of the debate often makes. Overdose prevention centers can prevent fatal overdoses among people who use them, and some evidence suggests benefits in the areas immediately surrounding them. The evidence that they reduce mortality across an entire city or province is less clear. That distinction matters when Powell cites rising citywide overdose deaths as evidence against the facilities themselves.
Powell raises legitimate concerns about diversion within safer-supply programs, meaning prescribed medications being sold, traded, or otherwise passed on to someone other than the person for whom they were prescribed. In British Columbia, he points to reports that prescribed hydromorphone was diverted and exchanged for fentanyl, prompting the province to tighten its program by requiring some recipients to consume prescribed drugs under pharmacist supervision. Diversion should factor into how these programs are evaluated, but it cannot be considered in isolation from the risks of the illicit supply they are meant to replace.
A more useful question when considering safer supply programs is how those risks compare with the alternative people already face. Safer supply is intended for people at high risk of overdose who would otherwise rely, at least in part, on an illicit drug market increasingly dominated by fentanyl and other adulterants that can lead to accidental overdose. Early research has associated participation in these programs with lower individual overdose risk, reduced use of fentanyl and other street-acquired drugs, and fewer hospital and emergency room visits, although Health Canada acknowledges that the evidence base is still developing.
That tradeoff is central to a harm-reduction approach. No drug policy eliminates every risk, and expecting one to do so sets an unrealistic standard for evaluating policy. The question is whether an intervention reduces overall harm compared with existing conditions, while identifying and addressing unintended consequences as they emerge.
Public drug use and disorder need to be addressed; safer-supply programs can create risks of diversion, and cities should not treat harm reduction as a reason to abandon enforcement against conduct that harms others. But those observations do not support his broader indictment of harm reduction. The evidence he cites from Seattle, Burlington, and Vancouver does not establish that syringe services, supervised consumption, naloxone distribution, or other harm-reduction interventions caused those cities' overdose crises. In several cases, the evidence points in the opposite direction: Individual interventions have reduced the specific harms they were designed to address even as the broader overdose crisis worsened around them.
The lesson from these cities is not that harm reduction has failed. It is that no single approach can carry the weight of the overdose crisis. Policymakers should preserve interventions that demonstrably reduce death and disease, address diversion or other unintended consequences where the evidence identifies them, enforce laws against conduct that harms others, and expand access to evidence-based treatment. Abandoning effective harm-reduction tools because they did not solve every dimension of the drug crisis would repeat the mistake Powell warns against: allowing ideology to substitute for evidence.
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Layal Bou Harfouch is a drug policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
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Original text here: https://reason.org/commentary/dont-blame-harm-reduction-policies-for-americas-overdose-crisis/
International Myeloma Foundation: Myeloma May Be Curable for Some
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California, Sept. 26 -- The International Myeloma Foundation issued the following news:
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Myeloma May Be Curable for Some. Experts Are Working to Arrive at a Definition for Cure.
September 24, 2026 -- At the 23rd International Myeloma Society Annual Meeting & Exposition, international experts are working toward criteria that could identify when a patient's remission is durable enough to be called a cure.
Myeloma has always been incurable, as the vast majority of patients relapse after initial therapy and have shorter life expectancy. However, due to outstanding advances
... Show Full Article
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California, Sept. 26 -- The International Myeloma Foundation issued the following news:
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Myeloma May Be Curable for Some. Experts Are Working to Arrive at a Definition for Cure.
September 24, 2026 -- At the 23rd International Myeloma Society Annual Meeting & Exposition, international experts are working toward criteria that could identify when a patient's remission is durable enough to be called a cure.
Myeloma has always been incurable, as the vast majority of patients relapse after initial therapy and have shorter life expectancy. However, due to outstanding advancesin the field, this is changing. The 23rd Annual Meeting of the IMS in Glasgow, Scotland, is being held now. At this meeting, leading experts, including members of the IMF's International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG), proposed a working definition of cure. A shared standard could help researchers determine which patients have sustainable remission without treatment and how to measure progress toward making cure possible for more people.
The shift reflects years of progress in immunotherapy, combination treatments, earlier intervention, and increasingly sensitive disease monitoring. In recent years, myeloma practitioners are seeing their patients reach "deep, lasting remissions, including some who remain disease-free and off therapy for many years. Major advances in immunotherapy, combination treatments, early intervention, and sensitive techniques for disease monitoring have shifted the field from asking whether myeloma can be controlled to defining what cure actually means," as explained in this IMS media brief.
The evidence is promising, but it does not yet establish how many patients are cured or how long they must remain disease-free. The IMS media brief adds, "Myeloma remains incurable for most patients. Relapse is still common. High-risk and ultra-high-risk disease continue to resist even the most intensive therapies."
Long-term results from the CARTITUDE-1 trial have sharpened that question. The study evaluated ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, in people with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
In a September 2025 ASCO Post, IMF Chair of the Board Dr. S. Vincent Rajkumar of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, shared: "in one center where serial measurable residual disease (MRD) studies were done, all 12 patients who were progression-free for at least 5 years also achieved MRD negativity at 10-6 level and had no evidence of active disease on positron-emission tomography/computed tomography assessments. This opens the possibility that some patients in this cohort may be potentially cured, which is quite remarkable given that the trial participants had been heavily pretreated. However, we need more follow-up to determine whether there is a sustained plateau in the time to disease progression and/or the progression-free survival curve to establish curability and to determine the proportion of patients who can be cured."
A Proposed Definition of Cure
At the IMS meeting, myeloma researchers and experts are considering the following proposed criteria for defining cure in multiple myeloma:
* A myeloma patient could be newly diagnosed or have relapsed myeloma
* A myeloma patient should be in sustained Complete Remission (CR) by standard criteria.
* The patient has achieved minimal residual disease (MRD) is at 10-6sensitivity, as assessed by either next-generation sequencing (NGS) or next-generation flow (NGF)
* The MRD-negativity is sustained for 5 years without any therapy. This is irrespective of previous sustained MRD-negativity on therapy.
- There should be at least 4 MRD assessments in 5 years, with the last one being at 5 years; additionally, all negative and no positive tests in between, if performed.
* Negative by functional imaging (PET/CT or Diffusion-Weighted MRI, Whole-Body MRI)
- At least at the beginning of a five-year period, and at the end of the five-year period with no intervening positivity, if performed.
These proposed criteria require sustained MRD-negativity at a sensitivity of 10-6 for five years without therapy, repeated MRD tests, and negative functional imaging at the beginning and end of that period. The rigor reflects the central challenge: a deep response during treatment is not the same as a lasting remission after treatment ends.
The hope of this 2026 IMS meeting is to build consensus guidelines that help experts use these tools in the future to determine which patients can safely be called cured.
A clear standard would help doctors and researchers:
* identify lasting remission without treatment and
* develop a way to measure the work needed to help more patients achieve such a remission.
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Original text here: https://www.myeloma.org/news-events/multiple-myeloma-news/IMS-2026-working-toward-defintion-cure-myeloma
Royal Society of Edinburgh: Identifying Opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific Partnerships
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 25 (TNSrpt) -- The Royal Society of Edinburgh issued the following news:
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Published on 24 September 2026
Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships
Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research.
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The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research.
The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity.
... Show Full Article
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 25 (TNSrpt) -- The Royal Society of Edinburgh issued the following news:
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Published on 24 September 2026
Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships
Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research.
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The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research.
The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity.To ensure Scotland maintains the global standing of its higher education sector and the stability and sustainability of both regional and national economies, there is an increasing urgency for international collaboration that facilitates knowledge exchange, unlocks funding opportunities, and generates innovative research and development.
Focus on Asia Pacific
The Scottish Government introduced the first International Education Strategy (IES) in February 2024, in which the Asia-Pacific region emerges as a key region for potential partnerships in areas spanning academic research, commercialisation, and global export.
A new scoping report, published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), presents an overview of the current landscape of collaborative relationships between Scottish universities and the Asia Pacific region, focusing on Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. It was commissioned by the RSE's Asia-Pacific Working Group in 2025. It draws on survey data and case study interviews to investigate the benefits of, drivers for, and barriers to sustainable partnerships and identify priority areas for strategic support.
Key findings from existing Scotland-Asia Pacific Partnerships:
* Transnational education and student mobility opportunities play instrumental but overlooked roles in building research connections and training internationally and interculturally competent students.
- International programmes expose students to cross-cultural perspectives and equip them with essential linguistic skills at an early stage. Streamlining and diversifying these opportunities would enrich student experience and cultivate institutional and personal connections.
* Researcher-driven collaborations are often initiated through existing institutional or professional networks and formally kicked off with small-scale funding for international mobility.
- Given the physical distance and time difference, interpersonal networks play a critical role in initiating contact. Small grants are essential for maintaining the impetus and solidifying collaborative relationships.
* Scotland and the focus regions have shared research and innovation (R&I) interests in strategic areas that receive public and private-sector funding.
- Numerous dedicated funding streams specifically support collaborative projects involving the focus regions. Japan exemplifies the proactive role that funding agencies can perform in promoting research visibility.
* Collaboration gives researchers unique access to complementary expertise, facilities, data, and infrastructure of the broader research ecosystem.
- Distinctive regional expertise, resources, institutions, and cultural heritage enable researchers to conduct innovative research across disciplines and realise wide-ranging impact in transnational contexts.
* The sustainability of partnership depends on shared interest, mutual trust, and robust institutional support over an extended period.
- Given the current geopolitical tension and financial pressures, partnerships require resourcefulness, adaptability, and resilience on both individual and institutional levels to survive and thrive. The involvement of students and early career researchers is a key factor in sustaining long-term partnerships.
Highlighted barriers to initiating and sustaining collaboration:
* Funding gaps: University budget cuts and the structure of external funding sources constrain international mobility and hinder sustainable collaboration.
* Administrative hurdles: Complex and fragmented administrative processes detract from research activities. Academics without permanent positions often lack visibility and are particularly vulnerable to the obstacles typically erected by bureaucratic red tape.
* Mobility barriers: Geopolitical tensions and economic fluctuations increase the logistical and financial challenges of travelling between the focus regions.
* Cultural and institutional differences: Language can limit communication, but an open-minded attitude to differences in academic practices, social etiquettes, and cultural norms contributes to forming equitable relationships.
* Policy shifts: Changing government priorities can disrupt long-term plans for research collaboration. Inter-governmental cooperation is crucial for coordinating funding calls and bi/multilateral projects.
Overview of recommendations:
* Adopt flexible and sustainable funding models: Allocate resources to projects that demonstrate the potential to deliver mutual benefits and advance sustainable development. Devise metrics that recognise intangible outputs and multi-/ inter-disciplinary achievement. Monitor progress and provide follow-up support to ensure cost-efficient investment and maximise impact.
* Ring-fence resources for mobility opportunities: Prioritise international mobility and commit to providing modest but regular travel grants that facilitate in-person interactions. Reduce administrative workload and expand opportunities for international experience across all career stages.
* Increase mutual understanding and foster equitable relationships: Address the gap between soft power capacity and international appeal. Promote Scotland's research and the society's unique offerings to Asia-Pacific partners and vice versa to heighten mutual awareness of the benefits of collaboration between the two regions.
Actionable recommendation for the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE):
* Forge and strengthen linkages and networks: Use the RSE's convening power and work with key stakeholders to establish structured networking and knowledge exchange programmes and platforms that connect researchers from Scotland and the Asia-Pacific region. Target priority areas and leverage complementary strengths to expand engagement with corporate partners.
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REPORT: https://rse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Asia-Pacific-Scoping-Report_September-2026-1.pdf
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Original text here: https://rse.org.uk/identifying-opportunities-for-scotland-and-asia-pacific-partnerships/
More Than $180,000 in Grants Will Strengthen Connection Between People and Animals in Escondido
SAN DIEGO, California, Sept. 25 -- The San Diego Foundation posted the following news release:
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More Than $180,000 in Grants Will Strengthen Connection Between People and Animals in Escondido
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September 25, 2026 - Escondido, CA - Escondido residents will have greater access to veterinary care, therapeutic animal programs and educational experiences thanks to $183,000 in grants from Escondido Community Foundation (ECF), an affiliate of San Diego Foundation (SDF).
The grants come as ECF celebrates 20 years of local philanthropy in Escondido. This year's funding supports seven nonprofit
... Show Full Article
SAN DIEGO, California, Sept. 25 -- The San Diego Foundation posted the following news release:
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More Than $180,000 in Grants Will Strengthen Connection Between People and Animals in Escondido
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September 25, 2026 - Escondido, CA - Escondido residents will have greater access to veterinary care, therapeutic animal programs and educational experiences thanks to $183,000 in grants from Escondido Community Foundation (ECF), an affiliate of San Diego Foundation (SDF).
The grants come as ECF celebrates 20 years of local philanthropy in Escondido. This year's funding supports seven nonprofitorganizations working to strengthen the connection between people and animals through veterinary care, pet adoption and support, therapeutic programs, spay and neuter services and wildlife education.
ECF recognized this year's grantees during its 2026 Grants Celebration on Sept. 24 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido.
Media assets: Photos of the grantees at the celebration are available for use here. Please credit San Diego Foundation.
This year's grants support:
* Frosted Faces Foundation, $35,000: For Senior Animal Programs to Support People & Pets, helping Escondido residents adopt and foster senior pets while providing ongoing veterinary care to help pets and their families stay together.
* Foundation for Animal Care and Education (FACE), $35,000: For Save-A-Life, providing financial assistance to Escondido families facing urgent, life-threatening veterinary emergencies so their pets can receive needed care.
* San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, $35,000: For Escondido Students at the Safari Park, providing free transportation, admission and educational programming for Escondido elementary school classrooms, with a focus on Title I schools serving under-resourced communities.
* Spay Neuter Action Project (SNAP), $33,000: For Low-Cost Spay/Neuter for Escondido Pets, providing affordable spay and neuter, vaccination and microchipping services to help local pet owners keep their animals healthy and safe.
* Ride Above Disability Therapeutic Riding Center, $25,000: For Improving Access to Escondido Residents, expanding access to therapeutic riding and equine-assisted activities that support physical, emotional and mental well-being.
* Project Street Vet, $10,000: For Escondido Outreach, providing free veterinary care for pets belonging to people experiencing homelessness and housing instability.
* Helen Woodward Animal Center, $10,000: For Pet Encounter Therapy, bringing therapy animals to skilled nursing facilities, memory care communities, recovery centers and social service organizations to provide comfort, connection and engagement.
"Animals bring comfort, companionship and joy into our lives, and for many people, that bond can be incredibly meaningful," said Rosemary Burson, Escondido Community Foundation board chair. "These grants will ensure more Escondido residents can care for the animals they love, experience the healing power of those connections and give young people opportunities to learn about and appreciate the wildlife around them. As we celebrate 20 years of giving in Escondido, we're grateful to our members whose generosity continues to make this work possible."
For two decades, ECF has brought people together through philanthropy to respond to emerging needs and benefit those who live, work and play in Escondido.
To become an ECF member, visit EscondidoCommunityFoundation.org.
About San Diego Foundation
San Diego Foundation believes in just, equitable and resilient communities where every San Diegan can prosper, thrive and feel like they belong. We partner with donors, nonprofits and regional leaders to advance solutions that respond to community needs and strengthen San Diego. Since 1975, SDF has granted more than $2 billion to nonprofits to improve quality of life in San Diego County and beyond. Learn more at SDFoundation.org.
Media Contact
Nancy Ives Schroeder, Intesa Communications
nancy@intesacom.com
(619) 540-3751
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Original text here: https://www.sdfoundation.org/news-events/sdf-news/more-than-180000-in-grants-will-strengthen-connection-between-people-and-animals-in-escondido/
Freedom From Religion Foundation: Federal Court in Okla. Regrettably Ushers in Nation's First Religious Public School
MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 25 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release:
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September 24, 2026
Federal court in Okla. regrettably ushers in nation's first religious public school
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A federal district court today issued a ruling disappointingly paving the way for the opening of the nation's first religious public charter school in Oklahoma.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation's request for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of an Oklahoma state law that prohibits
... Show Full Article
MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 25 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release:
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September 24, 2026
Federal court in Okla. regrettably ushers in nation's first religious public school
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A federal district court today issued a ruling disappointingly paving the way for the opening of the nation's first religious public charter school in Oklahoma.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation's request for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of an Oklahoma state law that prohibitsreligious public charter schools. The lawsuit, The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation Inc. v. Shellem, was filed by Ben Gamla in March after the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board rejected its application to operate as a religious public charter school that would integrate Jewish teachings into "every dimension of ... life," including classroom instruction and other activities. Charter schools, like all public schools, must be secular and open to all students. The district court's ruling is a blow to religious freedom, church-state separation and public education.
A predominantly Jewish group of seven Oklahoma taxpayers, who were granted intervenor status to participate in the lawsuit, opposes Ben Gamla's effort to force Oklahoma to authorize and fund an unconstitutional religious public charter school. The intervenors are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Education Law Center.
In response to the ruling, attorneys representing the intervenors issued the following statement:
"The court's conclusion that a public charter school can be religious without violating our rights opens the door to a dangerous sea change for our democracy. Forcing taxpayers to fund religious public schools violates the separation of church and state. Ben Gamla will not only indoctrinate students into a particular religion - it will discriminate against families that don't share the school's beliefs. We will continue to fight for all Oklahomans who deserve public schools that are secular and open to all students - as required by state and federal law."
Attorneys representing the intervenors include Nancy A. Noet and Samuel T. Grover of Freedom From Religion Foundation; Alex J. Luchenitser at Americans United; Brent Rowland and Morgan Bandy of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice; Daniel Mach and Heather L. Weaver of the ACLU; Jessica Levin, Wendy Lecker, Patrick Cremin, and Katrina Reichert of Education Law Center.
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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a religious freedom advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, AU educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. Learn more at www.au.org.
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The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice is a 501(c)3 public interest law firm that fights for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman.
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Education Law Center (ELC) pursues justice and equity for public school students by enforcing their right to a high-quality education in safe, equitable, non-discriminatory, integrated, and well-funded learning environments. ELC seeks to support and improve public schools as the center of communities and the foundation of a multicultural and multiracial democratic society. Visit edlawcenter.org.
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For more than 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
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Original text here: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/federal-court-in-okla-regrettably-ushers-in-nations-first-religious-public-school/
[Category: Religion]
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation: AI-Based "Oncologist's Assistant" to Help Match Patients With Targeted Therapies
NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (TNSjou) -- The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation issued the following news release:
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AI-based "oncologist's assistant" to help match patients with targeted therapies
September 24, 2026
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Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led by former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Eliezer M. Van Allen, MD, PhD, have built an experimental artificial-intelligence tool designed to help oncologists keep up with the rapidly evolving field of precision cancer therapy. With over 100 precision therapies (and counting) approved for the treatment of cancer, each of
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NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (TNSjou) -- The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation issued the following news release:
* * *
AI-based "oncologist's assistant" to help match patients with targeted therapies
September 24, 2026
-
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led by former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Eliezer M. Van Allen, MD, PhD, have built an experimental artificial-intelligence tool designed to help oncologists keep up with the rapidly evolving field of precision cancer therapy. With over 100 precision therapies (and counting) approved for the treatment of cancer, each ofwhich targets a specific cancer-driving mutation, clinicians can find it difficult to stay abreast of new FDA approvals, even when one might provide a life-saving treatment option.
This new tool, dubbed an "oncologist's assistant," is designed to help clinicians identify targeted therapies that may benefit a given patient based on their cancer's genetic profile. To create it, the team trained a large language model (the one behind ChatGPT) on a highly curated database of information about targeted medicines, known as the Molecular Oncology Almanac. In early testing with about 100 realistic scenarios from physicians, it provided accurate responses 93% of the time. Further tuning ensued--including, crucially, the instruction to report when no approved options were found, an answer people-pleasing AI tools are often loath to give.
The goal, Dr. Van Allen clarified, is "to be helpful to an oncologist without taking away the autonomy, decision-making, and relationship between the patient and provider." The tool is currently intended for research purposes only, as more refinement is needed before any model is used for clinical care.
This research was published in Cancer Cell (https://www.cell.com/cancer-cell/fulltext/S1535-6108(25)00551-3).
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Original text here: https://www.damonrunyon.org/discovery/ai-based-oncologists-assistant-help-match-patients-targeted-therapies
