Jerry Seinfeld mocked protesters highlighting Palestinian children’s deaths, dancing onstage and saying he would send a demonstrator’s ticket money to Israel.

For Boston Magazine, Kara Baskin explores a growing subculture of tweens and teens who don’t feel entirely human. Some identify as one animal, like a cat or a dog; others identify with multiple animals. One kid Baskin speaks to, Sol, says she “doesn’t summon the animals, but rather they come and go on their own schedule.” These young people call themselves therians (distinct from furries, who are fans of anthropomorphic animal characters). Baskin provides a fascinating glimpse into a world where adolescents can express themselves and explore their identities.

Bafflement is the baseline condition of raising kids right now. The adolescent quest for self-discovery is timeless—but today’s parents experimented in ways that were analog: new hairstyles, inscrutable music, beer snuck in the woods. Their own parents might not have liked it, but they could at least relate.

Now the landscape of adolescent discovery is literally foreign, thanks to social media, which has turbocharged once-obscure subcultures like the furry fandom—and, at its rarer edge, therianthropy—and redefined what “fringe” even means. Even if a kid is the only therian at school, she can find 400 more people just like her online. That’s one of the biggest challenges for parents in the algorithm age: The world your kid actually lives in is one you can’t enter. It touches the fear in every parent, therian kid or not: What happens when our kids inhabit a world we don’t understand, with idols we don’t recognize?

No doubt Ed Davey lovingly cares for his disabled son, says Joanna Gray. But he's not his "carer"; he's his father. It's a distinction Britain is fast losing sight of, to the detriment of us all.

The post No Ed Davey, You’re a Father, Not a “Carer” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip continued on Saturday, despite the “ceasefire” agreement.

💾

O antigo ministro considera que Passos Coelho trabalha para derrubar Luís Montenegro. Defende ainda mais realismo nas expectativas sobre o SNS e apoia o investimento do Estado na compra da REN.

The National Trust has sparked outrage over its "ultra-woke" plans to teach five- to 12-year-olds about the Black Power salute during a Black History Month baking workshop.

The post National Trust Plans to Teach Five-Year-Olds About Black Power Salute – During a Baking Workshop appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

A councillor has been punished for raising safeguarding concerns about an LGBTQ stall displaying a large purple dildo next to a children’s colouring area at a family library. With the help of the FSU, he's fighting back.

The post Councillor Sues Devon Council After Being Punished for Criticising Gay Sex Stall Next to Children’s Colouring Area in Family Library appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

O Governo volta a contestar o IVA zero nos bens essenciais, dizendo que a transmissão não chega na totalidade aos consumidores. Mas se a inflação galopar o Governo ajustará a sua ação.

© JOÃO PORFÍRIO/OBSERVADOR

The German Bundestag has made a historic decision, officially recognizing Germany’s special responsibility to Ukraine for the crimes of Nazism. On 9 October, it adopted two resolutions ahead of the 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre and linked that responsibility to Germany’s current help for Ukraine amid Russian aggression, Oleksii Makeiev, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin, says.

Babyn Yar in Kyiv became one of Europe’s largest sites of the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust, where more than 100,000 people were killed over two years of Nazi occupation. Germany now casts a debt from that war as a moral duty to help defend Kyiv against Russia today.

Both motions stress the importance of researching Nazi crimes in Ukraine and preserving the memory of their victims. One came from the governing CDU/CSU and SPD parties, the other from the opposition Greens, a rare alignment of coalition and opposition on a single theme.

“The situation is unique: two motions on this subject were approved at once, from the coalition and the opposition. By the usual parliamentary logic, that should not happen,” Makeiev says.

A debt turned into support for Kyiv

The coalition motion backs research and documentation of Nazi crimes in Ukraine and closer work among German, Ukrainian, and other European archives and memorial institutions. It also calls for countering antisemitism, racism, and historical revisionism, and for continued political, economic, financial, humanitarian, and military support for Ukraine.

Makeiev says he felt a sense of deja vu watching the debate from the visitors’ gallery.

“I was in that same gallery in the fall of 2022. I saw how German democratic parliamentary groups can demonstrate unity on what matters most. At that time, the Bundestag recognized the Holodomor of 1932–1933 as genocide,” he adds.

A clause on the deported children

A separate point of the resolution concerns Ukrainian children and teenagers who Russia has illegally taken from Ukraine. The document calls for efforts to return about 20,000 of them to their parents or relatives, folding the issue into Germany’s wider policy toward Ukraine.

The director of the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Preserve, Rosa Tapanova, considers the Bundestag’s decision an important step toward re-examining the shared history of Ukraine and Germany and overcoming distortions of historical memory propagated for decades by the Soviet authorities and now being exploited by Russia.

“The Bundestag’s decision marked an important step toward Germany’s recognition of its historical responsibility toward Ukraine," she says.

The Bundestag’s decision and the participation of German representatives in commemorative events underscore the importance of continued Ukrainian-German dialogue. For the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Preserve, this work encompasses historical research, the documentation of testimonies, educational and memorial projects, and international cooperation.

Alya: You say that Russia’s forcible transfer of Ukrainian children is the crime of genocide. In international law, genocide is defined by Article 6 of the Rome Statute. What would it take to change this legal framework to include the deportation and militarization of Ukrainian children? And is the Office of the Prosecutor in any position to do that work under current US sanctions and Karim Khan’s leave?

Kateryna: We don’t need to change any legal frameworks to prosecute what the Russians are doing with Ukrainian children. Militarization and political indoctrination, as well as Russification of young Ukrainians, is a part of Russia’s bigger strategy to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state and to subjugate everything in the Ukrainian nation to the Russian influence and control. I don’t see legal problems; we simply still lack the political will to call the crimes by their proper names.

The UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention posits that all states that signed the convention, 154 as of today, should act to stop it—not only those affected by genocide. If the international community recognized what the Russians are doing as a crime of genocide, it would mean that yet another time in history the international community was not able to prevent genocide, to recognize some early warnings, to react properly to what the Russians did, for example, in occupied Crimea or Donbas before 2022. It is not easy, and the international community and world political leaders should be mature enough to face all these challenges, recognize that they were involved in the commission of these crimes through silence and inaction, and finally stop it.

So that is why, according to the Rome Statute, the Office of the Prosecutor can start an investigation of the crime of genocide in the Ukrainian context. It is possible: the ICC’s Ukraine-situation investigation in March 2022, supported by 43 states, included not only war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also the crime of genocide. So we have all the legal tools and means, but politically it is very difficult.

Recently, there has been a global shift towards this—in the context of the war between Arabian states and Israel, not Ukraine. But for example, Israel’s attacks against Gaza’s education have already been termed "scholasticide," so as a part of the genocidal intent, as a part of the crime of genocide. So for us lawyers and human rights defenders, this is the task—to push the international community to do the same with Russia. It is not easy because Russia is one of the five "world policemen" expected to maintain this international legal order.

I believe that, perhaps in decades, but we will see how Russia’s actions will be recognized as the crime of genocide. The forcible transfer of children from one group to another group is the fifth universally recognized element of the crime of genocide.

Alya: Your organization was involved in documenting this. How does this pipeline actually work?

Kateryna: Yes, let's take Olga Druzhinina, who fostered four children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. Her story is very interesting: first, it seemed that she could be just an ordinary Russian brainwashed by TV shows about children from Donbas. But then we found that Olga is very close to [former Russian President] Medvedev, and through Medvedev to President Putin. Olga is the head of one non-governmental organization, "Semia Arktiki" [Family of the Arctic], and this organization aims to find foster parents for orphans— now including orphans from occupied territories of Ukraine. The co-head of this organization also fostered Ukrainian children.

It is a very well-built, pre-planned architecture of people involved in the commission of this crime—not some sporadic reaction to the full-scale invasion. They planned to do it. And I will not be surprised if, in the future, we find that these families also adopted children from Crimea or from Donbas even before 2022.

Her husband is a veteran of the Russian Armed Forces. He participated in many wars of the Russian regime, including the wars in Chechnya. It was clearly against the child's best interest to be sent to the family of this Russian serviceman and his wife. So their case was widely publicized. We recorded many different details. Later, we found photos of these children in the "Warrior Center" camp in Novosibirsk, and her foster daughter from occupied Ukraine wearing a St.George’s [Russian imperial] ribbon and in military uniform.

So the Ukrainian identity of these children was completely eradicated. It was prohibited to mention that they were Ukrainians, and the main goal of this family was to repress their unloyalty to the Russian state, to re-educate them, mold them into Russian patriots. Unfortunately, I don’t know the fate of these teenagers from Mariupol, but as far as I know, they were not returned to Ukraine. And now they are already young adults—meaning they will soon be conscripted into the Russian army. They have this military duty because they were forcibly given Russian citizenship. And young children also remain under the control of Olga and his husband.

Olga and her husband are members of the so-called "Putin Team." They were recognized many times as the best family of the Yamalo-Nenets region. The governor of Yamal-Nenets is also Putin's person. His candidacy was supported by Putin for re-election to this position. And this governor has many times mentioned that Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine were accepted by foster families from his region, even without the proper documents.

It is very difficult to influence their behavior without sanctions. In this sphere of foster care, the balance between placing children in Russian institutions and Russian families is hard to find. Russia presents only two options for the forcibly transferred Ukrainian children: Russian boarding institutions or Russian foster families. And of course, ordinary people think: a family is better than a boarding institution. The truth is that there is a third option: just return these children to Ukraine, to their homes.

And I would like to highlight that, according to the order of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, these children from institutions will not be returned to boarding institutions in Ukraine. They will inevitably be placed with a foster family, and they can participate in choosing this family or changing it. Ukraine is doing its best to guarantee that its actions comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but unfortunately, Russians are very hard to persuade to return these orphanage children.

Alya: On 11 May 2026, the EU Council sanctioned 16 individuals and seven entities for the systematic unlawful deportation, forced transfer, and forced assimilation of Ukrainian children, including through indoctrination and militarized education. Your organization pushed for these sanctions. Are they working?

Kateryna: In January–February 2026, we criticized the European Union’s sanctions policy. New persons were being added to lists, but we found that the level of coordination and harmonization of sanctions policies was only 5%. Only 13 individuals and three organizations were under sanctions in all jurisdictions analyzed by us: Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, and Japan. It was terrifying because sanctions exist, yet they are riddled by many loopholes and are actually inefficient.

That is why we started persuading them to do something with this system. And on 11 May, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union synchronized their sanctions packages: the people are included in all jurisdictions. For us, this is a big achievement.

Another achievement: a shift in their perception of where this vertical of guilty persons ends. Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova—okay; ministers, children's rights ombudspersons at the regional level, heads of the occupation authorities—okay. But what about the "ordinary" Russian people who fostered poor Ukrainian children and now contribute to their militarization? The 11 May sanctions saw the United Kingdom and Canada listing ordinary Russians, like the family from Yamalo-Nenets that fostered four Ukrainian children, including teenagers from Mariupol, and then sent them to re-education camps of the "Center Warrior" to be militarized as Russian soldiers.

If these results of our work seem small, we must remember that for the Russians, it is a very sensitive issue. They are mad because of the sanctions—and this was visible when the “Yolochka” boarding institution in occupied Crimea’s Simferopol, called a “concentration camp” by ordinary Russians, was sanctioned. Already in December 2014 [after Russia’s occupation of east Ukraine], the first Ukrainian orphans were sent to Russian foster families from this “Yolochka.” 12 years later, children from Kherson boarding institutions also went through “Yolochka.”

Alya: You've documented over 20,500 deported children. How many of that cohort are approaching Russian conscription age?

Kateryna: It is hard to tell because the way the Ukrainian side is collecting statistics is not good enough. So you should address this question to the competent bodies of Ukraine.

But according to our calculations, just to describe the situation in general: all Ukrainian teenagers under Russian control start receiving draft notices at the age of 16. According to the Russian legislation, it should be at the age of 17, but they're so afraid that these children will escape or will return to Ukrainian-controlled territories, that they start this process in violation of their own legislation.

Everything is organized around schools. They’re not about education under occupation, but have become additional buildings of the military commissariat. Specific teachers are responsible for this conscription process. Boys aged 16-17 are being brought to the military commissariat in organized groups. You cannot escape, you cannot refuse, because you will hear “knock-knock” on your door: the occupation authorities and your teacher will ask: “Where are you? You should go.”

Another problem: Russia and Belarus started exchanging data, meaning that if this child receives a draft notice at the age of 18, he will not be able to cross the border—which matters because the checkpoint of Mokrany-Domanove between Belarus and Ukraine is the main point of returning Ukrainian children from Russian control. Every year, the Russians amend their legislation to impose more obstacles to the repatriation process.

So the only way for a Ukrainian teenage boy to escape is to do this several days before a "povestka" [draft notice] comes to his house at 16 years.

According to our intelligence, since 2014, 48,000 Ukrainians from occupied territories were forcibly mobilized by Russians, including those from occupied Crimea. Some of them participated in the "special military operation.” Around 20% of all prisoners of war in Ukrainian camps for Russians are originally Ukrainians who were forced to sign a military contract. Many of them were forced, manipulated, or brainwashed, so it was not done of their own will.

But I would like to highlight that the average age of a Russian soldier is 35. This is not the war of young Ukrainians who reached the age of majority and were sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder. We see that the Russians’ main goal is to rebuild the army degraded by the Ukrainian side during the first month of the full-scale invasion, to have officers and other qualified personnel who will develop a strategy and conquer more and more territory. That is why they're investing in all these military patriotic movements and centers.

That is why I was really impressed when I saw that their All-Russian championship on drone racing will be for children aged seven. Should we next expect that children in kindergartens will assemble and disassemble a rifle? Their society is very militarized. This is the biggest problem. And now, Russian soldiers are those who are teaching Ukrainian children to fight tomorrow.

Alya: Thank you so much, Kateryna, for your time.

The Gaza Children Village plans to record classroom conversations and use AI to flag what it calls 'hateful' speech, prompting concerns over surveillance, free expression and Palestinians' right to shape their children's education.

Israeli restrictions have resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 patients, with 21,000 more await urgent treatment, including 5,600 children and 2,800 patients requiring cancer treatment

Homes, hospitals, schools and entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed during three years of war in Gaza. These photographs document the devastation and the lives of Palestinians affected by the conflict.

Two 14-year-old boys were killed when an explosive device detonated in the evening in the Konotop district of Sumy Oblast, according to the statement by Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration. The children encountered the dangerous device in a field, suffered severe injuries, and died at the scene, the statement said.

In 2022, Russian forces occupied parts of Sumy Oblast, but Ukraine liberated the region in April. Russia intensified its offensive again in 2025. Today, mines, unexploded ordnance and Russian drones shot down over the region pose a danger, as their warheads can detonate after falling. Overall, 146 children in Ukraine have suffered mine-related injuries, former Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported in April. For example, two months ago, an 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy in Sumy Oblast were injured when an explosive device detonated.

Hryhorov expressed his condolences to the parents and relatives of the victims and urged people to remain cautious:

“Please be as careful as possible and remind children: do not approach unknown or suspicious objects, touch them, or try to move them. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones,” Hryhorov said.

Demining efforts continue in Sumy Oblast

On 24 February 2022, Russian forces entered the territory of Sumy Oblast. The first battles in the region took place that same day. In particular, Russian forces attempted to break through to Sumy, but Ukrainian troops repelled the offensive. On 11 April 2022, Ukraine restored control over the entire Sumy region.

As early as 7 June 2022, deminers were working in the Konotop, Sumy, and Okhtyrka districts, according to the Government Portal. That day, they surveyed areas and neutralized explosive devices.

The work of deminers remains deadly dangerous. In September 2024, two pyrotechnicians from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were hit by a mine while demining Sumy Oblast: one died, while the other was hospitalized. In July 2025, deminer Oleh Petrenko was killed during humanitarian demining operations in Shostka District when a Russian FPV drone detonated, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported. Another pyrotechnician was injured, the statement said.

Nevertheless, the work continues despite the danger. In 2025, State Emergency Service deminers in the Sumy Oblast found and neutralized 5,283 explosive devices, the agency said in April. Sumy Oblast ranked sixth among all Ukrainian regions by this figure.

Twenty-two percent of Ukraine’s territory is potentially contaminated with explosive devices — more than 133,000 square kilometers, former Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported in April this year. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, State Emergency Service and National Police deminers have surveyed more than 248,000 hectares of territory and found more than 1 million 112 thousand explosive devices, the statement said.

Some had been missing for as long as a decade and were as young as 7 years-old when they disappeared

Israel employs military technology capable of identifying specific individuals, tracking their movements, and striking them with precision, despite the clear civilian status of those targeted and their non-participation in hostilities or posing of any imminent threat to Israeli forces or others.

The European Commission unveiled its EU Kids Act on Thursday (17 September), proposing sweeping restrictions on children’s access to social media and new obligations on technology companies to address growing concerns over young people’s mental health and online safety.

The proposal would prevent children under 13 from accessing social media, while 13- and 14-year-olds could use restricted “mini accounts” under parental supervision. From the age of 15, teenagers would be able to open their own social media accounts. The legislation also requires platforms to prove their services are safe for minors, reversing the burden of proof from regulators to technology companies....

In this story for MIT Technology Review, Sara Harrison explores the field of social robotics and the growing use of robot companions as therapy for autistic and other neurodivergent kids. These playful machines show promise: Research suggests that they can help children practice social skills and offer something overworked therapists and exhausted parents can’t—a patient companion, available 24/7. But Harrison also reports on their limitations and risks. Does this approach truly work? What about all the data gathered on the child? And what happens when a robot friend suddenly stops working and “dies”? A fascinating and unsettling look at tech that has moved into the most intimate corners of a family’s home.

While Moxie found herself in more and more people’s homes, Embodied still struggled to make money. In 2024, the company announced it would cease operations. Its robots—which depended on external servers that the company could no longer pay for—would descend into a deep slumber. 

Videos of bereft children who seemed to have become deeply attached to the blue bot began to circulate online. “I don’t want her to leave,” wailed one child in a TikTok video. Desperate parents posted on TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit looking for solutions. “My autistic child is devastated and I’m pissed,” wrote one parent. “Hope Embodied gives us a couple days to say goodbye,” wrote another. 

With no secondary school in the southern half of the Isle of Mull, children must leave home for the mainland at the age of eleven, living in a youth hostel during the school week. It’s a system that has existed for generations—but what does sending children away so young do to a community? Fernando Pinho gently follows the families who must navigate this rite of passage, and explores the political decisions that have kept this structure in place.

You know that Monday morning dread, she said, when you hate your job and you can’t face going back? The children get that on a Sunday.

Sunday is the day of washing, drying and ironing, because the clothes that came home on Friday have to be packed again for Monday. And then the bag sits at the bottom of the stairs. You come down, and you see it, she said, and it’s this little reminder of what’s coming.

Sometimes there’s an invitation, a barbecue at someone’s house, all of them welcome, just a couple of hours, you’ll be home in time. But her son doesn’t want to leave the house on a Sunday, and she won’t leave him. How do I say I can’t go, she told me.