Fox creams CNN: "November was a very good month for Fox News Channel -- the channel's highest-rated month since the Iraq war in 2003.  Fox News Channel [had] the top 11 shows in cable news, according to data released Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research. That's the first time it's ever happened in the News Corp.-owned network's eight-year history. .. "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel was the top show with an average 3 million viewers.  Fox News Channel's primetime average was 2.1 million viewers, an increase of 70% compared to the same month a year ago. CNN averaged 982,000 viewers, up 15% and MSNBC was up 53% to 442,000 viewers.  ..  Fox News Channel averaged 1.2 million viewers in total [daytime shows], compared to CNN's 572,000 viewers. "  8:19:56 AM    

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens: Faith-based education.  "Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday.. Several million children ages 9 to 18 have participated in the
more than 100 federal abstinence programs since the efforts began in 1999 ..

The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. ..  Among the misconceptions cited :

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
• One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion"

  8:11:30 AM