U.S. stock futures were little changed late Monday, following another brutal week for tech stocks.
Democrat Wes Moore Stumbles During CBS Town Hall When Asked To Address Free Beacon Reporting About Exaggerations and Falsehoods in His Life Story
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D.) gave shifting and evasive answers—or doubled down on dubious claims—when asked about misrepresentations and falsehoods in his biography during a CBS “town hall” Sunday evening, where the rising Democratic star was the main attraction.
Moore, who’s seen as a likely presidential contender, was the subject of two document-based investigations by the Washington Free Beacon which cast serious doubt on his boasts about his scholarship at the University of Oxford and his claim that his great-grandfather was chased out of the country by the Ku Klux Klan.
During the televised town hall, CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell posed some simple questions to Moore, first about the Oxford graduate thesis he has claimed was the basis for his recognition as a “foremost expert” of radical Islam in the wake of 9/11:
“Oxford says it doesn’t have a copy of your thesis,” said O’Donnell, citing the Free Beacon. “Did you ever submit it to Oxford, and do you have any idea why it’s now missing?”
Moore, who has made multiple, provable falsehoods about his life story—including lying about military honors, his athletic achievements, and where he spent his childhood—didn’t answer O’Donnell’s question. Instead, the Maryland governor said he is a “person of honor and integrity” who has never exaggerated anything about his life, accusing the Free Beacon, which he derided as “a conservative blog,” of engaging in the “politics of personal destruction” for reporting on his missing graduate thesis and his claim that he was enrolled there as a doctoral student (neither Oxford nor Moore can verify this claim).
“I think Oxford has said that I have completed my degree,” Moore said. “There is no denying that. And that I received a Master’s degree at Oxford University in international relations. I am a person of honor and integrity—I take that very seriously. I was raised right by my family, and I was trained right by the Army.”
“So when I am watching this game of politics, frankly this is what I think people hate about politics so much, it’s the politics of personal destruction,” Moore added, using a phrase that was popularized by former president Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “Where, as a person who has nothing to be ashamed of or nothing to exaggerate about my life, that this is the thing that conservative right-wing blogs want to attack, particularly when it is something that Oxford University has verified already.”
Moore’s careful deflection when asked about his missing thesis indicates that his dubious academic claims could continue to haunt him should he launch his expected 2028 Democratic presidential bid.
Moore, who said Sunday he is not running for president (carefully using the present tense), has been playing defense ever since the Free Beacon reported in early December that Oxford confirmed he never submitted a copy of his thesis to its Bodleian Library, as is customary for any graduate student to do over the course of the legendary library’s 400-year-old history. The document’s disappearance calls into question how it ever could have established him as a “foremost expert” of radical Islam, a claim he made in the application he submitted to obtain a prestigious White House fellowship in 2006, which jumpstarted his political career. Moore said in a separate interview with the Baltimore Sun in December that he wouldn’t waste “a second” of his time finding his missing thesis.
O’Donnell also asked Moore to respond to a Free Beacon report from early February based on historical records that undercut a story Moore has told repeatedly on the campaign trail about his great-grandfather, who served as a pastor in South Carolina in the 1920s. While Moore claims his great-grandfather was run out of the country by the Ku Klux Klan, historical records obtained by the Free Beacon show he made an orderly and public transfer to Jamaica, the island of his birth, to succeed a prominent Jamaican pastor who had died unexpectedly. The copious documentation of the life and career of Moore’s great-grandfather contains no mention of troubles with the Klan.
While Moore’s communications gurus have said—in addition to accusing the Free Beacon of racism—that the story was passed down orally and pointed to the low literacy rates among African Americans at the time, suggesting the tale may be unreliable, Moore doubled down on his version of the story—without offering additional evidence or documentation.
“I’m the grandson of someone who was born in South Carolina, and when he was just a child, the Ku Klux Klan ran my family out,” Moore said. “And not out of South Carolina, they ran them out of the United States of America, and they went to Jamaica. And much of my family has always said they would never come back to this country.”
“So if some blog has a question about the Klan’s history, maybe they should ask the Ku Klux Klan,” he added.
Moore’s press secretary, Ammar Moussa, told Fox News on Tuesday that the story was “a family’s century-old oral history,” which had to be true because “intimidation and racial terror were pervasive in the Jim Crow South.”
Moore’s communications director, David Turner, went a step further in his response to the reporting, suggesting in a statement to WMAR-2 News on Wednesday that the reason there’s no documentation supporting Moore’s version of his great-grandfather’s story is that he was illiterate.
“As most people with a basic understanding of American history know, Black Americans often carried an oral tradition of their history due to low literacy rates at the time,” Turner said before scolding the outlet for engaging in the “siren song of hackish trolling.”
But the Free Beacon visited archives at the College of Charleston, where the Episcopal church kept copious and detailed written records, including about Moore’s great-grandfather.
Moore’s family was literate and educated—his great-grandfather and grandfather were both ordained ministers in the Episcopal Church—and there’s documentary proof. Located in the archives of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is a handwritten note from the Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, Moore’s great-grandfather, dated Jan. 14, 1922, in which he explained the differences between the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches.
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Nearly half of powerful .50-caliber ammo seized by Mexican government came from US Army plant, defense minister says
A United States Army ammunition plant was the source of almost half of all the .50-caliber rifle rounds seized by Mexican authorities over more than a decade, the country’s defense minister told reporters Tuesday, after an investigation by the ICIJ and media partners revealed how the powerful ammunition has been used by Mexican drug cartels in attacks on the government and civilians.
“According to the records we have,” Defense Minister Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said during a presidential news conference, “137,000 cartridges have been seized since 2012. Of those, 47% come from that company and have been sold in gun shops in the southern United States,” referring to the Lake City plant.
The sprawling, government-owned facility, which is located outside of Kansas City, Missouri, is the largest manufacturer of rifle rounds for the U.S. military and has been a major supplier of ammunition to American consumers for over two decades.
Agreements between the U.S. Army and the private contractors that run Lake City have allowed .50-caliber ammunition and components made at the plant to enter retail markets and fall into the hands of Mexican cartels, according to millions of pages of court documents, seizure records and government data obtained by ICIJ and its partners.
INVESTIGATION Mexican cartels overpower police with ammunition made for the US military Feb 07, 2026
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Mexican cartels overpower police with ammunition made for the US military
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2019, a convoy of pickup trucks carrying men armed with a heavy machine gun and powerful .50-caliber rifles entered the Mexican town of Villa Unión and opened fire.
The men had been sent on a mission of intimidation: They planned to set fire to the town hall. Their superior firepower pinned down state and local police officers as they waited for military reinforcements. Terrorized residents scrambled to take cover from the hail of bullets.
Luis Manzano, 27, a local Villa Unión reporter who drove into town during the shootout. Image: Marian Carrasquero / The New York Times
The smell of smoke filled the streets and spent casings covered the ground like “fallen leaves,” said Luis Manzano, a Mexican journalist who drove into town during the shooting. But his most vivid memory was the thunder of .50-caliber guns. The “ground trembled” as they fired, he said. “I had never experienced anything like that.”
The military drove off the assailants. In the end, four police officers, two civilians and 19 cartel members were killed. Afterward, as investigators collected evidence from the scene, they gathered at least 45 .50-caliber casings stamped with the initials “L.C.”
The letters stand for the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, a sprawling facility just outside Kansas City, Missouri, that is owned by the U.S. government and is the largest manufacturer of rifle rounds used by the American military.
It has also been a major supplier of ammunition for American consumers, including .50-caliber cartridges. These powerful rounds — as big as a medium-sized cigar and designed to be used by the military to destroy vehicles and light aircraft — are currently available for purchase by civilians across the United States.
Millions of pages of court documents, seizure records and government data obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The New York Times show how agreements between the Army and the private contractors that run Lake City have allowed .50-caliber ammunition and components made at the plant to enter retail markets and fall into the hands of Mexican cartels.
Mexico’s government has also purchased Lake City ammunition, the documents show, although they do not indicate the caliber.
The U.S. domestic market for the ammunition is small: .50-caliber rifles, which have limited civilian application, typically retail for thousands of dollars, and heavy machine guns like the one used in Villa Unión cost considerably more. The guns’ standard cartridges average between $3 and $4 apiece and are rarely purchased by American gun owners.
But in Mexico, where cartels have deep pockets and a seemingly endless appetite for .50-caliber firearms, demand is high.
Cartel gunmen armed with .50-caliber firearms have downed helicopters, assassinated government officials, shot at police and military forces, and massacred civilians.
A police officer holds a round of .50 caliber ammunition in Villa Unión. Image: Marian Carrasquero / The New York Times
Since 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has seized more than 40,370 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition in states bordering Mexico, according to data obtained through public records requests. Lake City’s product accounted for about a third of them, a larger share than any other manufacturer.
While .50-caliber ammunition from other companies — located primarily in Brazil and South Korea — has also made its way to Mexican cartels, the data makes clear that the U.S. Army plant has been a major source of the destructive ammunition being used to wage military-style battles with Mexican authorities.
This includes a particularly powerful version of Lake City’s ammunition — incendiary rounds capable of piercing armor, which were used in an attack on Mexican police in 2024 and are for sale online today
In February of last year, the Trump administration declared six Mexican cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations, yet these same organizations are acquiring ammunition made at the plant owned by the U.S. Army.
At least 16 online retailers have sold armor-piercing ammunition made at Lake City or made with components from the plant, according to a count by ICIJ and The Times.
Vasily Campbell, who owns one of those businesses, said he stopped selling the ammunition “about two years ago once we found out where it was going and how it was getting there.”
He said he became suspicious when buyers began asking to have 100-round ammo cans delivered to residential addresses. “That’s not a normal purchase,” he said. “There’s several orders I straight-up canceled.”
The U.S. Army did not respond in detail to questions about the use of Lake City ammunition by drug cartels. In an email, a spokesperson said that allowing commercial sales from the plant has saved taxpayers around $50 million annually, primarily by lowering the government’s cost for ammunition.
The impact that one .50-cal has in a firefight is outrageous … They really, really tip the scale — former ATF agent Chris Demlein
Successive presidential administrations have pledged to crack down on the flow of arms to Mexico. And in September, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new initiative with the Mexican government to stop gun trafficking to the country.
The number of .50-caliber rounds seized is small compared with that of other cartridges. But it’s the power of the .50-caliber ammunition, not its quantity, that has made it a game changer for the cartels, giving them the ability to overwhelm police and even the military, according to Chris Demlein, a former ATF agent, who spent years investigating gun smuggling to Mexico.
“The impact that one .50-cal has in a firefight is outrageous,” he said. The weapons allow cartels to engage with targets at distances of more than a mile: “They really, really tip the scale.”
ICIJ and the Times obtained investigative files from three incidents involving .50-caliber rifles, including the assault on Villa Unión. In each of them, Mexican authorities reported finding casings marked with the Lake City imprint.
In a fourth example in early 2024, gunmen used the more destructive variant, .50-caliber armor-piercing incendiary rounds, from Lake City to attack a police convoy, according to a press briefing given by then Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval. One of the bullets pierced an armored vehicle, killing one of the crew members and wounding three others. “The armor that we have cannot protect our personnel from this kind of penetration,” he said.
Brenda Aparicio Villegas’ husband, Edder Paul Negrete Trejo, was one of 13 police officers killed in October 2019 in an ambush in Michoacán. Image: Enrique Castro
Brenda Aparicio Villegas is all too familiar with the devastating power of .50-caliber weapons. Her husband, Edder Paul Negrete Trejo, was a police officer who died on October 14, 2019 when he and his fellow police officers were ambushed in the western state of Michoacán. Authorities blamed the attack on the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, news media reported at the time.
Her husband and his colleagues — who often had to purchase their own bullets — did not stand a chance against the cartel’s .50-caliber rifles, she said. Negrete, the father of three children, died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Twelve other officers were also killed in the attack, including one who burned to death. Investigators later found .50-caliber casings from Lake City at the scene.
Not enough has been done to stop the flow of guns and ammunition to Mexico, Ms. Villegas said. “Sadly, many of us pay the price.”
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y quantity, but taking it across the border requires a license.
“Our mantra became, follow the ammo and you’ll get to the guns,” Red said in a recent interview. “We were tracking shipments from all over the country.”
The team seized hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition likely bound for Mexico, according to Red and court records. The vast majority of the ammunition was 7.62-mm rounds, most commonly used in AK-47s, he said.
Seizures of .50-caliber ammunition were small and infrequent at the time, according to ATF and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) records.
Our mantra became, follow the ammo and you’ll get to the guns. — former investigator Jason Red
But as American authorities introduced new initiatives and increased resources aimed at reducing gun trafficking to Mexico, the numbers grew.
Between 2019 and 2024 the ATF seized more than 36,000 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition in border states. About a third of them were identified as coming from Lake City.
During the same period, CBP seized nearly 21,400 units of .50 caliber ammunition. This included 2,850 of the armor-piercing incendiary rounds.
acted with the company to demilitarize unneeded ammunition from Lake City, American Marksman wrote on its website, adding that it “gets many of its components from its Lake City recycling operations.” That included components for its armor-piercing incendiary rounds.
Olin Winchester’s policies on the sale of .50-caliber ammunition from Lake City are unclear. The company’s catalog does not offer the rounds for sale to civilians. But Lake City cartridges and components, including armor-piercing incendiary rounds and bullets, have continued to appear on the market.
Pallets of the armor-piercing incendiary ammunition, labeled with a code denoting they were manufactured by Olin Winchester at Lake City, were being sold by at least one online retailer in March 2023. And American Marksman continues to sell armor-piercing incendiary ammunition on its website. (It is unclear which Lake City contractor manufactured the components used to make those rounds.)
In January 2022, the Department of Justice announced the indictment of members of a gun trafficking ring, run by a former U.S. Marine, that sold guns and ammunition, including .50-caliber rifles, to the Jalisco Cartel, the same group that was accused of killing Villegas’s husband, the police officer. Four months later, the Marine pleaded guilty.
During the operation, U.S. federal agents seized approximately 10,210 .50-caliber armor-piercing incendiary rounds with Lake City markings. There is no indication that the ammunition came from American Marksman or SGAmmo.
Outside the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri. Image: Emily Rhyne for The New York Times
In an email, the Army said that Lake City’s contractors are “required to comply with all federal and state regulations governing the sale of commercial ammunition. While the operating contractor does not sell directly to the public, it sells to distributors, resellers, and retail stores, which are also required to adhere to federal, state, and local laws regulating ammunition sales.”
Olin Winchester did not respond to a detailed list of questions about its Lake City operations and its policies on the sale of .50-caliber ammunition and components made at the facility.
In an email, Northrop Grumman said that it “fully complied with government contract obligations in its sales of ammunition” during the two years it ran Lake City. SGAmmo did not respond to multiple emails about its purchases of .50-caliber ammunition. American Marksman also declined to comment.
letholes-mayor-NYT-768×432.jpg 768w, https://media.icij.org/uploads/2026/02/Villa-Union-bulletholes-mayor-NYT-1536×864.jpg 1536w, https://media.icij.org/uploads/2026/02/Villa-Union-bulletholes-mayor-NYT-1109×624.jpg 1109w, https://media.icij.org/uploads/2026/02/Villa-Union-bulletholes-mayor-NYT.jpg 1920w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 1138px) 100vw, 1138px” /> Villa Unión’s former mayor Sergio Cárdenas in his butcher shop, right. Buildings in the town still sport bullet holes from the 2019 attack.
Image: Marian Carrasquero / The New York Times
Authorities traced one of the .50-caliber guns used in the assaultto a store in Texas. The owner, investigators found, had sold nearly 500 guns that ended up in the hands of the C.D.N, including a .50-caliber machine gun and at least six .50-caliber rifles. A federal court sentenced him to 10 years in prison, following a guilty plea.
American authorities indicted 14 members of the gun-smuggling ring, seizing over 2,300 rounds of Lake City ammunition.
Upon learning that the .50-caliber rounds he had heard in Villa Unión came from an ammunition plant owned by the U.S. Army, Cárdenas did not seem surprised.
“The drug traffickers can get their hands on anything,” he said. “And they get the best weapons from the United States.”
Times reporter Emiliano Rodríguez Mega reported from Mexico City and Villa Unión, Mexico.
Contributors: Jesús Escudero, Miguel Fiandor Gutiérrez, Delphine Reuter (ICIJ); Paulina Villegas (NYT); Mathieu Tourliere (Proceso, Mexico).
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When Being Helpful Hurts: A Guide to Better Boundaries When You’re Feeling Drained
“You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.” ~Tony Gaskins
It was a Tuesday afternoon when I said the word that saved my sanity: “No.”
Just two letters. But the weight I’d been carrying for twenty-eight years finally lifted.
My phone was ringing. Again. It was my cousin, and I already knew what she wanted before I answered. Could I watch her kids this Saturday? I know it’s your only day off, but it would really help me out.
I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot, hand hovering over the phone. My stomach twisted into that familiar knot—the one I got every time someone asked me for something. The one that whispered, “If you say no, they won’t love you anymore.”
But something was different this time. Maybe it was because I’d just left therapy, where I’d spent the entire session crying about how exhausted I was. Maybe it was because I’d canceled that same therapy appointment three times in the past two months to help other people. Or maybe it was because I finally realized: I’d been so busy being “helpful” that I’d forgotten how to help myself.
I let the call go to voicemail.
The Breaking Point
For as long as I could remember, I was the person everyone called when they needed something. Need someone to cover your shift? Call me. Need a ride to the airport at 5 a.m.? I’m there. Need someone to listen to your problems for three hours? I’ll cancel my plans.
I told myself it made me a good person. A kind person. A valuable person.
But the truth I couldn’t admit was that I wasn’t being helpful. I was only being terrified. Terrified that if I stopped being useful, I’d stop being wanted. That “no” was a door I was closing on relationships I couldn’t afford to lose.
The resentment built slowly, like water filling a bucket one drop at a time. I smiled while agreeing to things I didn’t want to do, even at the expense of my health. I said “it’s fine” when it wasn’t fine. I prioritized everyone else’s emergencies while my own needs collected dust in the corner.
That Tuesday was different because I’d finally realized something: I had canceled my therapy appointment again and again to help someone move. As I sat in my car afterward, I opened my calendar and counted. Forty-seven times. I’d canceled or rescheduled my own needs forty-seven times in six months to accommodate other people’s wants.
Not emergencies. Wants.
I was drowning, and I’d tied the anchor around my own neck.
The Decision
That day, I made myself a promise: I would no longer cancel my own needs to meet someone else’s wants.
I wrote it in my journal. I said it out loud in my car. I texted it to my best friend so someone else would know I’d committed.
The boundary was simple: My needs—therapy, rest, health, and peace—were non-negotiable. I would help others when I had capacity, not at the expense of my own well-being. And I would stop apologizing for having limits.
It sounded empowering when I wrote it down. But enforcing it? That was terrifying.
The First Test
The next day, my cousin called back.
“Hey! I know you’re probably busy, but could you watch the kids on Saturday? Just for a few hours.”
My heart raced. My palms got sweaty. Every cell in my body screamed, “Just say yes. It’s easier. Don’t make waves.”
But I thought about those forty-seven canceled appointments. I thought about how exhausted I was. I thought about the promise I’d made to myself less than twenty-four hours ago.
“I can’t do that,” I said, my voice shaking. “Saturday is my rest day.”
Silence.
“Oh. Okay. I thought you weren’t doing anything.”
There it was again. The guilt trip I’d been dreading. You’re not doing anything important, so why can’t you help me?
Old me would have caved. Would have said, “You’re right, I can move things around.” But guess what? The new me took a breath.
“Rest is important to me. I hope you find someone who can help.”
More silence. Then: “Okay. Talk later.”
She hung up, and I sat there feeling like the worst person in the world. Selfish. Mean. Cold.
But also… lighter.
The Pushback
Not everyone responded as calmly as my cousin.
Over the next few weeks, I started enforcing my boundary consistently. Each time, I felt that same terror—I mean, that I was destroying relationships, that people would think I’d changed (I had), that I was being selfish (I wasn’t).
Some people were genuinely supportive. My best friend said, “It’s about time. You deserve to rest.” But others didn’t take it well.
A family member accused me of “not caring about family anymore.” A friend said I “used to be so helpful” (translation: you used to do whatever I wanted). Someone actually said, “You’ve changed,” as if it were an insult.
And you know what? They were right. I had changed. I’d stopped setting myself on fire to keep other people warm.
The hardest part wasn’t the pushback itself but the internal battle. Every time I said no, a voice in my head screamed that I was being a bad person. That boundaries were just a selfish excuse to stop caring about people.
But slowly, I started to see a pattern: the people who pushed back the hardest were the people who benefited most from my lack of boundaries.
The ones who truly loved me? They understood. They adjusted. They respected my limits because they valued me as a person, not just as a service provider.
What Changed
Six months after setting that first boundary, my life looked completely different.
My relationships actually got healthier. The people who stayed weren’t there because I was convenient. They were there because they valued me. We had real conversations, not just me listening to their problems while mine went unspoken. I stopped feeling like a 24/7 emotional support system and started feeling like a friend.
My mental health improved dramatically. I stopped feeling resentful because I was no longer overcommitting. I had energy because I wasn’t constantly depleted. I showed up better for the people I loved because I was helping from a place of abundance, not obligation.
I respected myself more. Every time I honored my boundary, even when it was uncomfortable, I was sending myself a message: Your needs matter. You are worth protecting. You deserve rest.
And here’s what surprised me most: some of the people who initially pushed back eventually started setting their own boundaries. My sister told me, “Watching you say no taught me that I could too.” She’d been just as exhausted as I was, just as trapped in people-pleasing, and seeing me break free gave her permission to do the same.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Setting boundaries taught me things I wish I’d known earlier:
Some people only liked me because I was convenient. When I stopped being available 24/7, they stopped calling. That hurt badly, but it was also clarifying. Those relationships were transactional, not genuine.
My “helpfulness” was sometimes enabling. By always being there to fix other people’s problems, I was preventing them from learning to solve their own. I wasn’t actually helping; rather, I was creating dependency.
Saying yes to everyone meant saying no to myself. Every time I said yes to something I didn’t want to do, I was implicitly saying my own needs weren’t important enough to protect.
Boundaries aren’t mean in the actual sense, but they’re essential. They’re not walls to keep people out; they’re guidelines for how I want to be treated. They’re an act of respect for both myself and others.
How to Start
If you’re where I was initially—exhausted, resentful, drowning in obligations you didn’t choose—here’s what helped me:
1. Identify your non-negotiables.
What are the things you need to protect your well-being? For me, it was therapy, rest days, and time for my own work. For you, it might be different. Write them down.
2. Start small.
Don’t overhaul your entire life at once. Pick one boundary and practice enforcing it. “I don’t answer work calls after 7 p.m.” “I need twenty-four hours’ notice for favors.” Start there.
3. Use a simple script.
When someone asks for something that violates your boundary, try: “I understand you need help, but that doesn’t work for me right now.” You don’t owe anyone a dissertation on why.
4. Expect discomfort.
The guilt will come. The fear will come. Keep the boundary anyway. Discomfort is not a sign you’re doing something wrong but a sign you’re doing something different.
5. Stay consistent.
Boundaries only work if you enforce them every time. If you make exceptions, people will learn to push until you cave.
One Year Later
Last month, that same cousin called. She needed help with something, and I wasn’t available.
“No worries,” she said. “I’ll figure it out. Talk soon!”
I didn’t feel guilty; there was no passive aggression. Just acceptance.
That Tuesday afternoon a year ago, when I sat in my car and finally said no, I thought I was risking everything. I thought people would leave, that I’d end up alone, that setting boundaries meant choosing isolation.
Instead, I learned something more important: boundaries don’t push the right people away. They filter out the wrong people and create space for the ones who matter.
The ones who love you will respect your limits. The ones who don’t were never loving you. They were only loving what you could do for them.
And that two-letter word “no” didn’t make me lonely the way I thought initially. Rather, it made me free.
About Ikeagwu Joy
Ikeagwu Joy is a public health professional and youth coach. She helps people understand health risks early and make informed lifestyle choices that prevent disease.
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