There are two Catholic high schools in Fort Wayne. Bishop Dwenger, in the north end of town, is considered the academic powerhouse of the pair. Bishop Luers, on the south end? A football academy. In my time as a Hoosier, I remember the football academy being in the news when it was discovered that some of the players had something they called “The GTA Club,” with GTA standing for “grab that ass,” and we’re not talking about on the football field. In that more innocent time — it was before the Boston priest scandal — it was seen as a one-off, problematic but boys will be boys, etc.

My friend Nathan reports in an extended Xitter post that this is, it would seem, part of a pattern. In 2012, the athletic director was dismissed after he was found to be surreptitiously taking “inappropriate” photos and videos of students. In 2023, a teacher was arrested for having sex with students, and when it turned out he was having a competition with another teacher to see who could bang the most students, that guy was arrested, too. (One is in prison, the other is not.)

But it gets worse.

This week, a lawsuit was filed over, again, a scandal with sexual overtones. Overtones — what am I saying? It’s a sex scandal, but a particularly cruel one. The ledes of both stories don’t really explain fully what happened, so I’ll try:

Male students would go to porn sites and find clips where the female performer had similar hair, skin tone and body type as one of their classmates, then add her name to the clip and trade with or sell it to their friends and others, advertising it as being that student. This constitutes child pornography under state law.

The suit claims the school knew and — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — did nothing. The diocese did nothing. The principal, and dean of students/athletic director not only did nothing, they stonewalled the parents of the girls. Relevant quote:

According to the lawsuit, (the dean of students/AD) admitted to the parents that the school had been “dealing with” the pornographic videos for “some time.” He also admitted the videos had not been reported to the authorities, the suit said.

“During this confrontation at the school on September 25, (the principal) repeatedly proclaimed: ‘We don’t want to falsely accuse the boys!’” the lawsuit reads.

When I first read the story, I assumed the clips were so-called deepfakes, where AI is used to actually put a person’s face on another’s body. They don’t appear to be, but I’m sure that’s next, and I’m sure the next principal will stonewall those young women, too.

My trainer coaches at a local public high school, and says the parents of students at the Catholic football academy in these parts are fond of screaming obscenities at the officials.

I smell bullshit in this story, too:

The Trump administration has instructed federal health agencies to pause all external communications, such as health advisories, weekly scientific reports, updates to websites and social media posts, according to nearly a dozen current and former officials and other people familiar with the matter.

The instructions were delivered Tuesday to staff at agencies inside the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, one day after the new administration took office, according to the people with knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Some of them acknowledged that they expected some review during a presidential transition but said they were confused by the pause’s scope and indeterminate length.

…Two others suggested the move is aimed at helping the newly installed Trump health officials understand the vast flow of information coming out of the agencies. The pause, according to one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal agency conversations, “seemed more about letting them catch their breath and know what is going on with regard to” communications.

Catch their breath, my ass. The MMWR — Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, to you civilians, and one of the “paused” communications — is how doctors and researchers keep up with what’s killing and sickening Americans. Journalists rely on it, too. But I’m sure this is OK; it’s not like bird flu is going around or anything.

This, along with the deep freeze we’ve been stuck in all week, is not elevating my mood. At least Kate’s house hunt is a diversion. She got her pre-approval, and starts going through houses on Friday. So it begins.