cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24261280

Summary

Several states, including Alabama, Maryland, and New Hampshire, are introducing legislation to ban or restrict cellphones in schools.

The measures claim to reduce distractions and address concerns over teen mental health linked to heavy social media use.

Proponents argue such bans help students focus, but opponents, including parents, warn of safety and communication issues.

“If something were to happen in the school, my child should be able to have their cellphone to be able to call for help, to be able to call me,” said parent Jeara Underwood.

Experts emphasize teaching responsible tech use rather than imposing broad bans.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/32934810

Chronic outages are a way of life throughout the island, where privatization, under-investment, and climate change leave the grid at constant risk of collapse.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/20786729

“Emergency rooms are dangerous places for people with Long COVID,” says David Putrino, who studies and treats the condition as director of rehabilitation innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York.

“Imagine you go to an emergency department, you wait 13 or 14 hours, your condition actually deteriorates, and then you’re told, ‘Hey, good news, everything is normal and we’re sending you home,’” Putrino says. “Going home doesn’t sound like a survivable outcome. So at that point you might break down...and often that gets reinterpreted as ‘Let’s put this person on a psych hold.’”

Such experiences fit into a long, troubling tradition in medicine. Because there often aren’t conclusive tests for these types of complex chronic conditions, and because many patients do not outwardly appear unwell, they’re frequently told that they aren’t physically sick at all—that symptoms are all in their heads. “Mainstream medicine really isn’t geared toward treating conditions and diseases that it cannot see under a microscope,” says Larry Au, an assistant professor of sociology at the City College of New York who has studied one of the consequences of that disconnect: medical gaslighting of Long COVID patients.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24278901

The ambulance pulls up on a narrow street at the Balata Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus in the West Bank, seemingly no different from one of the many emergency vehicles that drive in the area every day. But then five armed Israeli soldiers emerge from the vehicle, going on to take part in a raid that results in the death of two civilians, including an 80-year-old woman, in an incident that Israel’s army admitted constituted “a serious offence … [and] violation of existing orders and procedures”.

The Guardian has reviewed video captured by a surveillance camera, spoken with witnesses and a survivor of the military operation, conducted by the IDF on 19 December 2024 using a hospital vehicle with Palestinian licence plates. It was described by rights groups as a “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the use of medical vehicles to carry out military attacks that result in injury or death of people.