BRUCE DEITRICK PRICE — It's a common problem in the US. Children in the second and third grades, even the fourth and fifth grades, are struggling readers. They guess; they skip ahead; they search for clues from context; they look at pictures to read words. Did I mention they guess. Typically, these children are unsuccessful in most school subjects and very unhappy.... (more)

WES VERNON — John F. Kennedy has been quoted as saying that there are powerful hidden forces at work aimed at moving world events and that he intended to learn their identity before his presidency was completed. Of course, that ambition was short-circuited by an assassin's bullet on Nov. 22, 1963. Accused shooter Lee Harvey Oswald's (later reported) communist background was downplayed or ignored by an establishment media that had salivated to pin the blame on the "right-wing political climate" in Dallas, the scene of the shooting. The media and other key influences of public opinion attempted, in the following weeks, to recoup from the embarrassment of their early snap judgments by assigning responsibility on unidentified "hate."... (more)

ART MOORE — State Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found "reasonable grounds" for believing the FBI and the Justice Department violated federal criminal law in their handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, according to investigative reporter Paul Sperry.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh Thursday released his own list of people who should be indicted as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — A Washington watchdog lawyer suing to obtain access to special counsel Robert Mueller's communications with the media is asking a court to order that the documents be made available now -- not in "dribbles" over coming months or years.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — North Korea's abrupt threat this week to pull out of the upcoming summit with President Trump was highly calculated, according to intelligence officials who say Pyongyang wanted to harden its negotiating position against a quick "Libya-style" surrender of its nuclear programs sought by the Trump White House and buy time to hide its nuclear weapons.... (more)

DAVID A. PATTON — First Baptist Dallas senior pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress, whose early and heartfelt support for Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016 was a source of frustration to some establishment Republicans, fired back Wednesday at 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who on Sunday branded Jeffress a "religious bigot."... (more)

NEWSMAX — The average global temperature dropped by more than half a degree Celsius from February 2016 to February 2018, according to recent NASA data. According to RealClear Markets, the average temperature around the world fell 0.56 degrees Celsius during that time period, the biggest dip in temperatures since a decrease of 0.47 degrees Celsius from 1982-1984.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — An armed school-resource officer prevented what could have been a massacre at a central Illinois high school Wednesday by shooting and subsequently disarming a 19-year-old former student. The suspect reportedly arrived at Dixon High School around 8 a.m. and opened fire on school-resource officer Mark Dallas, Dixon city manager Danny Langloss said in a statement to WQAD-TV.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — The president of Santa Monica College is instructing students to file a report with campus police if they witness hate speech. "Recently an outside visitor brought hate speech onto one of Santa Monica College's campuses," states a letter that SMC President Kathryn E. Jeffery sent to students and employees on May 3. "This will not be tolerated."... (more)

NEWSMAX — A former member of the National Guard who helped stop a terror attack on a Paris-bound train in 2015 is now running for office. Alek Skarlatos announced his candidacy for a Douglas County Commissioner seat in Oregon this week, according to The News-Review.... (more)

NEWSMAX — The nation's surgeon general came to the rescue Wednesday of a sick passenger on a flight from Atlanta to Jackson, Miss. -- answering a call if there was a doctor in the house with a buoyant "why yes." Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted some details of the "medical emergency" Wednesday afternoon.... (more)

NEWSMAX — The United States has hit a 40-year-low in its fertility rate, with only about 1.76 births per woman for the 2017 provisional estimate, according to numbers released on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — The House passed legislation Wednesday to allow more veterans to see doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system. The bill, the VA MISSION Act, passed the House 347-70. It would allow more veterans to go outside the VA healthcare system and use private-sector doctors when VA medical centers can't provide appointments within a month, veterans have to drive more than 40 minutes to access care, or when care is determined inadequate by VA leaders.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — In its Tuesday cover story, the New York Daily News mercilessly ridiculed Ivanka Trump as "Daddy's little ghoul" and called the first daughter "seemingly oblivious" because she made an appearance at the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem this week.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — North Korea sent shock waves through the Trump administration's hope for a history-making summit with Kim Jong-un, angrily canceling a planned meeting with South Korean officials Wednesday to protest joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises and calling into doubt President Trump's announced meeting with Mr. Kim in Singapore in less than a month.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — My weekend column dealt with the claim by Glenn Simpson that the FBI had a confidential informant embedded in the Trump campaign. Simpson is the co-founder of Fusion GPS. In August 2017, he related to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the former British intelligence officer, Michael Steele, told him that the FBI had a spy in the Trump campaign. Steele, of course, is the former British spy who collaborated with Simpson in 2016 on a Clinton campaign anti-Trump research project, now known as the Steele dossier.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — A judge in California has pulled the plug on the state's assisted-suicide law, and while Attorney General Xavier Becerra is expected to continue to fight for the provisions that can be used to take peoples' lives, the decision offers a reprieve from that process for now.... (more)

ALAN KEYES — "Heritage Foundation Defends Facebook's 'Right' to Censor, Will Oppose Regulation." So read the headline of an article at Breitbart.com reporting the opinion of "the think tank's senior research fellow for technology," Klon Kitchen. "I think Facebook is a private company," said Kitchen, a former national security adviser to Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. "Facebook can ultimately make decisions about what kind of speech it wants to have on its platform."... (more)

NEWSMAX — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday praised President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, The Hill has reported.... (more)

ART MOORE — Amid violent Palestinian protests, the U.S. officially opened a new embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, drawing effusive praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.... (more)

THE HILL — Special counsel Robert Mueller has withstood relentless political attacks, many distorting his record of distinguished government service. But there's one episode even Mueller's former law enforcement comrades -- and independent ethicists -- acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.... (more)

BYRON YORK — The FBI began its Trump-Russia investigation in July 2016. Special counsel Robert Mueller picked up the probe in May 2017. This summer the investigation will enter its third year.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — It was July 31, 2016. Just days earlier, the Obama administration had quietly opened an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Russian cyber-espionage -- hacking attacks -- to disrupt the 2016 election. And not random, general disruption; the operating theory was that the Russians were targeting the Democratic party, for the purpose of helping Donald Trump win the presidency.... (more)

NEWSMAX — A Green Beret who supports embattled CIA nominee Gina Haspel had his pals subject him to waterboarding for nearly 45 minutes and livestreamed it in a bid to prove the notorious interrogation technique is not torture.... (more)