Get Your Kids Moving!

It took wrist trackers, brain scanners and 5,515 twelve-year-olds to put hard numbers on what any summer camp counselor could have told you: Kids who move are healthier in mind as well as body.

[BRIEF]

A study published this month in jama Network Open had American adolescents wear Fitbits for three weeks, then measured their mental health a year later. The teens who walked more reported fewer emotional, attention and behavioral problems—even after researchers accounted for their earlier symptoms, family income and neighborhood.

• The benefit never leveled off. The more they walked, the fewer problems they had, all the way up to the most active group, at 12,000-plus steps a day.

Youths need to be moving. Federal surveys show that nearly 1 in 5 adolescents report moderate or severe anxiety symptoms in the previous two weeks; more than a quarter (7.4 million) received mental health treatment in 2024. One in 5 now has a diagnosed mental or behavioral condition, up 35 percent since 2016.

• In the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention national survey, conducted last year, a third of American high school students said they had felt so sad or hopeless for at least two weeks that they stopped doing their usual activities.

• Among girls, it was 43 percent. Fourteen percent had seriously considered suicide, 12 percent had made a plan, and 6 percent had attempted it.

The body shapes the mind. The researchers also scanned the teens’ brains. The more active kids had thicker tissue in two regions: one governing movement and bodily sensation, the other helping manage conflicting information. Thickness in the movement region statistically accounted for part of the mental health benefit.

The real world is shrinking for young people—and for most of us. This study shows that urbanization and digitalization are reducing adolescents’ physical activity.

• This survey found that only 1 in 4 high schoolers engages in physical activity for even an hour every day. The share attending gym class daily has fallen to 20 percent.

• The study estimates that 81 percent of adolescents worldwide fall short of the World Health Organization’s minimum activity recommendation.

• As open woods and fields have given way to subdivisions and strip malls, the virtual world has swelled into a noisy, all-consuming realm a child can inhabit without leaving the couch.

It’s understandable: For parents, it’s far easier to hand a child a screen than a chore list, a trail map or a canoe paddle. In some ways it even feels safer. But this study ties the difference to measurable structure in the developing brain.

• God built the connection between body and mind into the human frame: “The glory of young men is their strength …” (Proverbs 20:29).

The answer isn’t complicated or expensive. It’s a walk.

• Better yet, it’s a walk with Dad and Mom. God commanded parents to teach their children “when thou walkest by the way” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

“The proper functioning of your mind depends in large measure on right use of your body!” That advice for young people appeared in Herbert W. Armstrong’s Tomorrow’s World back in 1971. Science is catching up.

Trump’s Diesel Deal Makes Europeans’ Heads Explode

Europe’s leaders spent the weekend condemning an agreement Donald Trump reached with Vladimir Putin on Friday. In the agreement, President Trump will ease American restrictions on Russian diesel sales, and Russia will release 360,900 tons of diesel immediately, 601,500 tons in November and another million after that.

• Diesel could be the key to midterm elections: If shipping and trucking cost more, everything costs more. In American states with big agricultural industries and lots of diesel-consuming farm machinery and tractor-trailers, diesel prices could directly impact the vote.

The view from Europe: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the deal “absolutely terrible” and “not fair and not honest.” Sweden’s former foreign minister, Carl Bildt, branded it “deplorable.”

• European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would provide Russia with “more revenues to wage war.”

It’s completely hypocritical. The EU receives about 12.5 percent of its natural gas from Russia, worth around $8 billion per year. The initial 360,000 tons of diesel, by way of comparison, would be worth around $400 million wholesale.

• Europe would be buying much more from Russia if not for pressure from Donald Trump. By pushing Europe to move away from buying Russian gas, he has deprived Putin of far more revenue than he just opened up for him.

Ukraine continued to strike Russian oil refineries after the deal. After all, it is at war with Russia, and oil refineries are important military targets. President Trump, however, was outraged by the strikes and said, “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

• On Sunday, Trump announced he had brokered an “energy ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia. Hours later, Russia hit a power plant in Kharkiv. Either President Trump is lying about the ceasefire, or Putin ignored it.

• President Trump did not have similar criticisms for Putin as he had for Zelenskyy.

• Shutting down Ukrainian energy infrastructure had been an important Russian tactic even before the war began. It seems unlikely that Putin will give up this leverage.

Once again, Europe and the U.S. are divided, with both sides quick to condemn, accuse and see the worst in each other.

• Jeremiah 1:13 describes Europe in our time as a “seething pot,” a cauldron boiling over with resentment. This comes out in many ways: Its readiness to attack Trump over this deal is just one.

The situation also demonstrates the importance of energy. Eurointelliegence wrote this morning:

It was the Nazis’ shortage of oil that led to Hitler’s most catastrophic military decisions. Iran is powerful because it has a hold on the world’s most important transport bottleneck for global energy supply. China is on course to build the world’s largest system of renewable energy infrastructure to make itself independent on imports. The EU is greater risk of being smoked out than anyone else on the planet right now.

Watch for Europe to fix that. Germany will soon unveil its own deal with Russia. It is also preparing to expand into the Middle East.

In World War ii, the Nazis lost the war in part because they lost control of the Mediterranean and North Africa, which cut them off from the Middle East’s oil.

“[T]his time around, Germany has learned its lesson,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry. “It will not allow Europe’s soft underbelly to be controlled by its enemy. For this reason, Germany is moving again to conquer the Mediterranean.”

Germany’s seething resentment of Britain and America will soon prompt it to attack. But first, it needs better access to oil and gas.

Houthis Strike Saudi Airport

Yemen’s Houthi terror group claimed strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend. It represents a clear escalation of hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis (with Iran’s support in the background)—risking regional spillover and carrying prophetic implications.

• The worst strike, on Saturday, killed at least 12 people and injured at least 309. The next day, the Houthis hit the same target, killing at least one person and injuring 11 more.

• On Sunday, the Houthis claimed credit for “four qualitative operations in the past 24 hours using ballistic and cruise missiles and drones.” As part of the four, the Houthis claimed attacks on the airport at the eastern Saudi city of Dammam and facilities belonging to Saudi state oil company Aramco.

Context: The Iran-aligned Houthis have been fighting Yemen’s internationally recognized government for 12 years with considerable success, recently conquering more territory near the Red Sea. The Houthis have also been blockading Saudi shipping in the Red Sea area.

• Saudi Arabia has supported Yemen’s government with air strikes, financial aid and political backing.

• Iran and the Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of assisting the United States in attacking Iran. But while several Gulf Arab countries are alleged to have participated, Iran and its proxies have spent most of their energies going after Saudi Arabia.

• Even Israel hasn’t received the kind of bombardments Iran and the Houthis have directed against Saudi Arabia.

A prophecy in Psalm 83 reveals Saudi Arabia and other “moderate” Arab states will form a unique alliance that includes Europe. This alliance’s formation is partly because of a mutual fear of Iran. Direct bombings of the Saudi capital’s main airport will only hasten this alliance. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains Psalm 83 in detail in Chapter 4 of his free booklet The King of the South.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia training Chinese troops in drone warfare: Russia trained Chinese military personnel in the use of a new generation of jet-powered drones during joint military exercises this month, the Telegraph reported Friday. The exercises emphasized coordinating drone swarms to relay targeting data to ground forces to strike with attack drones and robotic vehicles. Alessandro Arduino of the Royal United Services Institute said, “China is gaining access to a kind of capital, a virtual capital that Russia is accumulating: wartime expertise. Russia is looking to trade this wartime expertise with its partners, and this includes drones, remote warfare, trench assaults, underground warfare and so on.” Russia and China’s military coordination is building an alliance that biblical prophecy says will have a profound global impact.

France and Germany can’t agree on joint tank program: French Chief of Defense Staff Fabien Mandon claimed on Thursday the French-German Main Ground Combat System, a project intended to produce a next-generation tank for European forces, had ended due to Germany’s withdrawal. The German Defense Ministry denied the claim on Friday, stating it remains “committed to equal partnership” in the project and is “focusing on future technologies for armored combat.” Bible prophecies describe the rising European superpower as “iron mixed with miry clay,” acknowledging such divisions among its nations—but they also warn that it will briefly overcome those divisions by force and “break in pieces” other nations, including the United States, Britain, Israel and the other nations descended from the ancient Israelites.

Pope announces lung surgery: Pope Leo xiv stated on Sunday that he will undergo surgery next week to excise a “very early stage” nodule on his lung. It’s unknown if the nodule is cancerous, but such growths are generally harmless. The Trumpet forecasts that, whether through health issues or other causes, Leo likely will not remain in office much longer. In July 2025, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote that he does “not expect him to remain pope for long,” based on biblical prophecies suggesting the end-time pope will be much more aggressive.

Shooter kills eight in Pennsylvania: A 45-year-old man in Erie, Pennsylvania, shot and killed seven relatives and one family friend at a home on Friday before killing himself. Victims included a 22-month-old girl, a 5-year-old boy and a woman eight months pregnant. Police found two women, ages 51 and 37, dead outside and more adults inside. The police chief said it was the worst scene he had ever seen. This was America’s 429th mass shooting this year, according to Mass Shooting Tracker, which counts any gun violence where four or more people are shot.

Food stamps fund drug addiction: “Across America, food stamp fraud is happening everywhere,” conservative influencer Nick Shirley claimed on X on October 7. “It has become a billion-dollar fraudulent industry as taxpayers fund the $100 billion program.” His video exposes how food stamps are sold for cash that homeless drug addicts use to buy more drugs.