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Tag: Addiction and treatment

  • Social media can be addictive even for adults, but there are ways to cut back

    Social media addiction has been compared to casinos, opioids and cigarettes.

    While there’s some debate among experts about the line between overuse and addiction, and whether social media can cause the latter, there is no doubt that many people feel like they can’t escape the pull of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms.

    The companies that designed your favorite apps have an incentive to keep you glued to them so they can serve up ads that make them billions of dollars in revenue. Resisting the pull of the endless scroll, the dopamine hits from short-form videos and the ego boost and validation that come from likes and positive interactions, can seem like an unfair fight. For some people, “rage-bait,” gloomy news and arguing with internet strangers also have an irresistible draw.

    Much of the concern around social media addiction has focused on children. But adults are also susceptible to using social media so much that it starts affecting their day-to-day lives.

    Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, defines addiction as “the continued compulsive use of a substance or behavior despite harm to self or others.”

    During her testimony at a landmark social media harms trial in Los Angeles, Lembke said that what makes social media platforms so addictive is the “24/7, really limitless, frictionless access” people have to them.

    Some researchers question whether addiction is the appropriate term to describe heavy use of social media, arguing that a person must be experiencing identifiable symptoms. These include strong, sometimes uncontrollable urges and withdrawal to qualify as addiction.

    Social media addiction is not recognized as an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the standard reference psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners use to assess and treat patients. That’s partly because there is no widespread consensus on what constitutes social media addiction and whether underlying mental health issues contribute to problematic use.

    But just because there is no official agreement on the issue doesn’t mean excessive social media use can’t be harmful, some experts say.

    “For me, the biggest signpost is how does the person feel about the ‘amount,’ and how viewing it makes them feel,” said Dr. Laurel Williams, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. “If what they discover is they view it so much that they are missing out on other things they may enjoy or things that they need to attend to, this is problematic use. Additionally, if you leave feeling overwhelmed, drained, sad, anxious, angry regularly, this use is not good for you.”

    In other words, is your use of social media affecting other parts of your life? Are you putting off chores, work, hobbies or time with friends and family? Have you tried to cut back your time but realized you were unable to? Do you feel bad about your social media use?

    Ofir Turel, a professor of information systems management at the University of Melbourne who has studied social media use for years, said there was “no agreement” over the term social media addiction, and he doesn’t “expect agreement soon.”

    “It’s obvious that we have an issue,” Turel said. “You don’t have to call it an addiction, but there is an issue and we need, as a society, to start thinking about it.”

    Before setting limits on scrolling, it’s helpful to understand how social media feeds and advertising work to draw in users, Williams said.

    “Think of social media as a company trying to get you to stay with them and buy something — have the mindset that this is information that I don’t need to act on and may not be true,” she added. “Get alternate sources of information. Always understand the more you see something, anyone can start to believe it is true.”

    Ian A. Anderson, a postdoctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology, suggests making small, meaningful changes to stop you from opening your social media app of choice. Moving the app’s place on your phone or turning off notifications are “light touch interventions,” but more involved options, like not bringing your phone into the bedroom or other places where you tend to use it, could also help, Anderson said.

    Tech tools can also help to cut back on tech overuse. Both iPhones and Android devices have onboard controls to help regulate screen time.

    Apple’s Screen Time controls are found in the iPhone’s settings menu. Users can set overall Downtime, which shuts off all phone activity during a set period of their choice.

    The controls also let users put a blanket restriction on certain categories of apps, such as social, games or entertainment or zero in on a specific app, by limiting the time that can be spent on it.

    The downside is that the limits aren’t hard to get around. It’s more of a nudge than a red line that you can’t cross. If you try to open an app with a limit, you’ll get a screen menu offering one more minute, a reminder after 15 minutes, or to completely ignore it.

    If a light touch isn’t working, more drastic steps might be necessary. Some users swear by turning their phones to gray-scale to make it less appealing to dopamine-seeking brains. On iPhones, adjust the color filter in your settings. For Android, turn on Bedtime Mode or tweak the color correction setting. Downgrading to a simpler phone, such as an old-school flip phone, could also help curb social media compulsions.

    Some startups, figuring that people might prefer a tangible barrier, offer hardware solutions that introduce physical friction between you and an app. Unpluq, for instance, is a yellow tag that you have to hold up to your phone in order to access blocked apps. Brick and Blok are two different products that work along the same lines — they’re squarish pieces of plastic that you have to tap or scan with your phone to unlock an app.

    If that’s not enough of an obstacle, you could stash away your phone entirely. There are various phone lockboxes and cases available, some of them designed so parents can lock up their teenagers’ phones when they’re supposed to be sleeping, but there’s no rule that says only teenagers can use them.

    Yondr, which makes portable phone locking pouches used at concerts or in schools, also sells a home phone box.

    If all else fails, it may be a good idea to look for deeper reasons for feeling addicted to social media. Maybe it’s a symptom of underlying problems like anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression or low self-esteem. If you think that’s the case, it could be worth exploring therapy that is becoming more widely available.

    “For people struggling to stay away — see if you can get a friend group to collaborate with you on it. Make it a group effort. Just don’t post about it! The more spaces become phone free, the more we may see a lessened desire to be ‘on,’” Williams said.

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  • Social media companies face legal reckoning over mental health harms to children

    For years, social media companies have disputed allegations that they harm children’s mental health through deliberate design choices that addict kids to their platforms and fail to protect them from sexual predators and dangerous content. Now, these tech giants are getting a chance to make their case in courtrooms around the country, including before a jury for the first time.

    Some of the biggest players from Meta to TikTok are facing federal and state trials that seek to hold them responsible for harming children’s mental health. The lawsuits have come from school districts, local, state and the federal government as well as thousands of families.

    Two trials are now underway in Los Angeles and in New Mexico, with more to come. The courtroom showdowns are the culmination of years of scrutiny of the platforms over child safety, and whether deliberate design choices make them addictive and serve up content that leads to depression, eating disorders or suicide.

    Experts see the reckoning as reminiscent of cases against tobacco and opioid markets, and the plaintiffs hope that social media platforms will see similar outcomes as cigarette makers and drug companies, pharmacies and distributors.

    The outcomes could challenge the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms. They could also be costly in the form of legal fees and settlements. And they could force the companies to change how they operate, potentially losing users and advertising dollars.

    Here’s a look at the major social media harms cases in the United States.

    Jurors in a landmark social media case that seeks to hold tech companies responsible for harms to children got their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube.

    At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. KGM and the cases of two other plaintiffs have been selected to be bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.

    “This is a monumental inflection point in social media,” said Matthew Bergman of the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center, which represents more than 1,000 plaintiffs in lawsuits against social media companies. “When we started doing this four years ago no one said we’d ever get to trial. And here we are trying our case in front of a fair and impartial jury.”

    On Wednesday Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified, mostly sticking to past talking points, including a lengthy back-and-forth about age verification where he said ““I don’t see why this is so complicated,” reiterating that the company’s policy restricts users under the age of 13 and that it works to detect users who have lied about their ages to bypass restrictions..

    At one point, the plaintiff’s attorney, Mark Lanier, asked Zuckerberg if people tend to use something more if it’s addictive.

    “I’m not sure what to say to that,” Zuckerberg said. “I don’t think that applies here.”

    A team led by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who sued Meta in 2023, built their case by posing as children on social media, then documenting sexual solicitations they received as well as Meta’s response.

    Torrez wants Meta to implement more effective age verification and do more to remove bad actors from its platform.

    He also is seeking changes to algorithms that can serve up harmful material, and has criticized the end-to-end encryption that can prevent the monitoring of communications with children for safety. Meta has noted that encrypted messaging is encouraged in general as a privacy and security measure by some state and federal authorities.

    The trial kicked off in early February. In his opening statement, prosecuting attorney Donald Migliori said Meta has misrepresented the safety of its platforms, choosing to engineer its algorithms to keep young people online while knowing that children are at risk of sexual exploitation.

    “Meta clearly knew that youth safety was not its corporate priority … that youth safety was less important than growth and engagement,” Migliori told the jury.

    Meta attorney Kevin Huff pushed back on those assertions in his opening statement, highlighting an array of efforts by the company to weed out harmful content from its platforms while warning users that some dangerous content still gets past its safety net.

    A trial scheduled for this summer pits school districts against social media companies before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. Called a multidistrict litigation, it names six public school districts from around the country as the bellwethers.

    Jayne Conroy, a lawyer on plaintiffs’ trial team, was also an attorney for plaintiffs seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid epidemic. She said the cornerstone of both cases is the same: addiction.

    “With the social media case, we’re focused primarily on children and their developing brains and how addiction is such a threat to their wellbeing and … the harms that are caused to children — how much they’re watching and what kind of targeting is being done,” she said.

    The medical science, she added, “is not really all that different, surprisingly, from an opioid or a heroin addiction. We are all talking about the dopamine reaction.”

    Both the social media and the opioid cases claim negligence on the part of the defendants.

    “What we were able to prove in the opioid cases is the manufacturers, the distributors, the pharmacies, they knew about the risks, they downplayed them, they oversupplied, and people died,” Conroy said. “Here, it is very much the same thing. These companies knew about the risks, they have disregarded the risks, they doubled down to get profits from advertisers over the safety of kids. And kids were harmed and kids died.”

    Social media companies have disputed that their products are addictive. During questioning Wednesday by the plaintiff’s lawyer during the Los Angeles trial, Zuckerberg said he still agrees with a previous statement he made that the existing body of scientific work has not proven that social media causes mental health harms.

    Some researchers do indeed question whether addiction is the appropriate term to describe heavy use of social media. Social media addiction is not recognized as an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the authority within the psychiatric community.

    But the companies face increasing pushback on the issue of social media’s effects on children’s mental health, not only among academics but also parents, schools and lawmakers.

    “While Meta has doubled down in this area to address mounting concerns by rolling out safety features, several recent reports suggest that the company continues to aggressively prioritize teens as a user base and doesn’t always adhere to its own rules,” said Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley.

    With appeals and any settlement discussions, the cases against social media companies could take years to resolve. And unlike in Europe and Australia, tech regulation in the U.S. is moving at a glacial pace.

    “Parents, education, and other stakeholders are increasingly hoping lawmakers will do more,” Smiley said. “While there is momentum at the state and federal level, Big Tech lobbying, enforcement challenges, and lawmaker disagreements over how to best regular social media have slowed meaningful progress.”

    —

    AP Technology Writer Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this story.

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  • Arguments to begin in landmark social media addiction trial set in Los Angeles

    LOS ANGELES — The world’s biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Opening arguments for the first, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, begin this week.

    Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube will face claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums.

    “This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project.

    At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

    It’s the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms.

    KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

    “Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

    Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in health care costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.

    “Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”

    The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

    “Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”

    A Meta spokesperson said in a recent statement that the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it’s “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”

    José Castañeda, a Google Spokesperson, said that the allegations against YouTube are “simply not true.” In a statement, he said, “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work.”

    The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

    In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.

    TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.

    In New Mexico, meanwhile, opening arguments begin Monday for trial on allegations that Meta and its social media platforms have failed to protect young users from sexual exploitation, following an undercover online investigation. Attorney General Raúl Torrez in late 2023 sued Meta and Zuckerberg, who was later dropped from the suit.

    Prosecutors have said that New Mexico is not seeking to hold Meta accountable for its content but rather its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be harmful, saying they uncovered internal documents in which Meta employees estimate that about 100,000 children every day are subjected to sexual harassment on the company’s platforms.

    Meta denies the civil charges while accusing Torrez of cherry-picking select documents and making “sensationalist” arguments. The company says it has consulted with parents and law enforcement to introduce built-in protections to social media accounts, along with settings and tools for parents.

    —

    Ortutay reported from Oakland, California. Associated Press Writer Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, contributed to this story.

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  • Meta, TikTok and YouTube face landmark trial over youth addiction claims

    Three of the world’s biggest tech companies face a landmark trial in Los Angeles starting this week over claims that their platforms — Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube — deliberately addict and harm children.

    Jury selection starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms. The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through at least Thursday. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

    At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

    KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

    “Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

    Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.

    “Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”

    The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

    “Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”

    Meta, YouTube and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

    The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

    In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.

    TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.

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  • Drunk driver gets 24 years to life in prison for killing 4 people at July 4 barbecue in NYC park

    NEW YORK — Halena Herrera can’t cross a street without thinking about the pickup truck that barreled toward her, killing her best friend and three other people, at a New York City park two Fourth of Julys ago.

    Daniel Hyden was drunk at the wheel as the Ford F-150 jumped a curb, bulldozed a chain-link fence and plowed into a group of friends and relatives who were holding a holiday barbecue at Corlears Hook Park in Manhattan. The truck stopped just feet from Herrera, its momentum halted by bodies trapped underneath.

    Judge April A. Newbauer sentenced Hyden on Friday to 24 years to life in prison in the deaths of Ana Morel, 43; Lucille Pinkney, 59; her son, Herman Pinkney, 38; and Herrera’s best friend, Emily Ruiz, 30.

    Seven people were hurt, including Herrera, who was hit in the face by debris.

    “Learning that the only reason I lived was because four other people were dying under the car is still very hard to deal with,” Herrera told reporters after Hyden’s sentencing in state court in Manhattan.

    “I’m glad that at least now there’s some sense of justice,” she said. “It doesn’t help much. It doesn’t bring anything back, but it’s good to have it over with, so I’m happy for that.”

    Diamond Pinkney, Lucille’s son and Herman’s brother, said seeing Hyden sentenced was a “big relief.” The driver, a substance abuse counselor who wrote a 2020 book about coping with addiction, “knew what he did, he knew the possibility he could’ve caused and he did it,” Pinkney said.

    Hyden, 46, from Monmouth, New Jersey, described it as an “accident” in his courtroom apology. He was convicted in November at a non-jury trial of murder, aggravated vehicular homicide and other charges.

    “I’m processing how deeply disturbed and deeply hurt I was and still am. And I’m still processing the amount of people I hurt with my actions,” he said, standing in a room packed with victims, relatives of the people he killed and about two-dozen officers.

    Hyden said he had broken his sobriety after his own sister was killed by a drunk driver in New Jersey in 2021. At the time of his crash in July 2024, he was preparing to speak at that driver’s sentencing, he said.

    “What kind of human being would put other human beings through the same thing he was going through?” Hyden asked.

    Herrera scoffed at Hyden’s newfound shame, telling reporters afterward: “He has shown no remorse from the very beginning, so for him to sit there and say that he’s sorry is just — I don’t believe any of it.”

    The crash happened less than an hour after Hyden was refused entry to a nearby party boat and clashed with security. Police officers who responded to the boat incident testified that they didn’t witness anything warranting arrest, so they walked Hyden to a park bench and left.

    He then got behind the wheel of the pickup truck, prosecutors said, accelerating through a stop sign at 39 mph (63 kph), speeding through a construction zone and zooming over sidewalk at up to 54 mph (87 kph) before reaching the park.

    Hyden was pressing the gas pedal down fully and didn’t hit the brakes until half a second before he hit the crowd, prosecutors said. He then tried to put the vehicle in reverse, but witnesses pulled the keys from the ignition to stop him.

    Hyden’s lawyer suggested he had a foot injury that complicated his driving.

    “While this prison sentence will not reverse the fatalities, injuries, and trauma, I hope this sentencing brings a measure of comfort for those who were impacted by this mass casualty event,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “If you are intoxicated, do not get behind the wheel — it risks the lives of others, and you will be prosecuted.”

    Herrera and Pinkney both said they want Hyden to remain in prison for the rest of his life so he does not have a chance to hurt anyone else.

    Herrera, who is studying to be a therapist, said she has had bouts of depression and struggles with post-traumatic stress — the horror of that night infecting her daily activities. But, she said, she has to stay strong for her 7-year-old son.

    “Every day, I’m worried that something else can happen,” Herrera said. “You know of it — you know that death happens, you know that accidents happen and things happen. But to live it is a different thing.”

    “So, now it’s like: Am I going to get hit by a car crossing the street? Is something going to happen to me?”

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  • FACT FOCUS: There’s no proof each strike on alleged drug boats saves 25,000 lives, as Trump claims

    President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that military strikes on suspected drug boats his administration has been carrying out for more than two months in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S.

    He most recently cited these numbers on Monday while answering questions from reporters after announcing a new initiative that will allow foreigners traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup next year to get interviews for visas more quickly.

    But experts say that this is a grossly simplistic interpretation of the situation.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    TRUMP: “Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives.”

    THE FACTS: The numbers to support Trump’s claim don’t add up, and sometimes don’t exist. For example, people in the U.S. who die from drug overdoses each year are far fewer than the amount Trump suggests have been saved by the boat strikes his administration has carried out since September.

    “The statement that each of the administration’s strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats saves 25,000 lives is absurd,” said Carl Latkin, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University who studies substance use. “The evidence is similar to that of the moon being made of blue cheese. If you look carefully, you will see a resemblance. However, a close analysis of this claim suggests that it lacks all credibility.”

    According to the latest preliminary data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, there were about 97,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12-month period that ended June 30. That’s down 14% from the estimated 113,000 for the previous 12-month period.

    Final CDC data reports 53,336 overdose deaths in 2024 and 75,118 in 2023.

    The U.S. military has attacked 21 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since strikes began on Sept. 2, most recently on Nov. 15. Using Trump’s numbers, that would mean the strikes have prevented 525,000 fatal drug overdoses in the U.S — far more than the number of overdose deaths that have occurred in recent two-month periods. This essentially implies that the administration is saving more lives than would have ever been lost.

    Lori Ann Post, the director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University, explained that “there’s no empirically sound way to say a single strike ‘saves 25,000 lives,’” even if the statement is interpreted more broadly to mean preventing substance use disorders and resulting ripple effects. Among the issues she pointed to are a lack of verifiable cargo data or published models linking such boat strikes to changes in drug use, as well as markets that will adapt to isolated supply losses.

    “The math and the data are not there,” said Post, who studies drug overdose deaths and economic drivers of the opioid crisis.

    Latkin added that claiming one lethal dose of a drug automatically translates to one death is a “very simple way of looking at it,” as different people have different tolerances.

    Trump has justified the attacks by saying the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and claiming the boats are operated by foreign terror organizations that are flooding America’s cities with drugs. Neither Trump nor his administration have publicly confirmed the amount of drugs allegedly destroyed in the strikes.

    White House spokesperson Anna Kelly reiterated Trump’s numbers when asked for evidence to support his claims about how many lives are being saved. She wrote in an email: “President Trump is right — any boat bringing deadly poison to our shores has the potential to kill 25,000 Americans or more. The President is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding in to our country and to bring those responsible for justice.”

    Latkin noted that this estimate also ignores the reality that even if the Trump administration manages to shut off one source of illegal drugs with its boat strikes, there will still be others. He offered a comparison to the fast food industry, explaining that getting rid of a couple of restaurants would not greatly improve Americans’ health since there are so many other sources where consumers could get the same or similar products.

    “It’s incredibly naive to think that reducing the supply in one place will eradicate the problem because it’s such a massive business,” he said.

    Opioids accounted for 73.4% of drug overdose deaths in 2024, according to the CDC. That includes 65.1% from illegally made fentanyls. But while the boat strikes have targeted vessels largely in the Caribbean Sea, fentanyl is typically trafficked to the U.S. overland from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

    Overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s because of opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and — more recently — illicit fentanyl. New numbers from the CDC show that a decline that began in 2023 has continued. Experts aren’t certain about the reasons for the decline, but they cite a combination of possible factors. Among them are the end of the COVID-19 pandemic; years of efforts to increase the availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and addiction treatments; and changes to the drugs themselves.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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  • Ex-wife of Angels employee to face cross examination in trial over pitcher’s overdose death

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — The ex-wife of a Los Angeles Angels employee at the center of the overdose death of one of the team’s star pitchers will face more cross examination Tuesday after testifying she saw players and clubhouse attendants passing pills and alcohol while partying on the team plane.

    Camela Kay told jurors in a Southern California courtroom on Monday she had traveled on the Angels team plane with her then-husband Eric Kay, who was convicted of providing drugs that led to the 2019 death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs. She said she had seen players partying, playing card games, gambling and drinking.

    “They’re treated like kings,” Camela Kay said of her observations on the plane. “I had seen them passing out pills or drinking alcohol excessively.”

    The testimony came in a trial for a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family contending the Angels should be held responsible for letting Eric Kay, then the team’s communications director, stay on the job and access players while he was addicted to and dealing drugs. The Angels have said team officials did not know Skaggs was taking drugs and that any drug activity involving him and Eric Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room.

    Camela Kay testified she told an Angels employee that her then-husband may have been intending to sell drugs to Skaggs on at least one occasion. That was based on information Eric Kay told his sister during a hospital stay for a drug overdose, she said. Camela Kay said the sister then told her, and she told an Angels employee.

    Defense attorneys for the Angels began their cross examination of Camela Kay on Monday and questioned her direct knowledge of Eric Kay’s interactions with Skaggs.

    Camela Kay said she was concerned that her then-husband had a drug problem after observing his erratic behavior, and family members mounted an intervention with him in 2017. The next day, she said, two team officials came over to speak with him and one of them pulled a series of plastic baggies containing white pills from the bedroom, which fueled her concerns that Eric Kay was not only struggling with substance abuse but selling drugs to make money.

    “Him being in the clubhouse with the players, my guess would be he is supplying to them,” she said.

    Camela Kay also described how her then-husband was driven home by an Angels employee after he was dancing in his office, shirtless, at the stadium in 2019. After he got home, she found a bottle with blue pills inside and called police to press him to go to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed an overdose involving six different drugs, she said.

    He was hospitalized for three days and then went to rehab, which was communicated in text messages between Camela Kay and team officials shown to jurors.

    She said her sister-in-law told her after visiting Eric Kay in the hospital that he told her the pills were for Skaggs. She said she found text messages on his phone about him getting his “candy” at the stadium and relayed the information about both to Angels officials.

    She said she was concerned about Eric Kay heading on the road with the Angels after completing a six-week stint in rehab, adding he was still acting erratic and she suspected he was abusing a drug meant to treat opioid addiction.

    After Skaggs’ death, Camela Kay filed for divorce, according to Orange County court records.

    The trial comes more than six years after Skaggs, then 27, was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. A coroner’s report said Skaggs choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.

    Eric Kay was convicted in 2022 of providing Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and sentenced to 22 years in prison. His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from him at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.

    Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

    Skaggs’ family is seeking $118 million in lost earnings, compensation for pain and suffering and punitive damages against the team.

    After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.

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  • Seychelles president seeks a second term as people vote in African tourist haven

    VICTORIA, Seychelles — The people of Seychelles voted Saturday in an election to choose a new leader and parliament, with President Wavel Ramkalawan seeking a second term in Africa’s smallest country.

    Ramkalawan’s chief political rival, Patrick Herminie of the United Seychelles Party, is a veteran lawmaker and parliamentary speaker from 2007 to 2016.

    Polls opened at 7 a.m. in a sign of what was expected to be a strong voter turnout in the tourist haven, where the president is elected for a five-year term.

    Long lines formed at many polling stations across the country Saturday. Electoral authorities said all stations opened on time and voting was proceeding smoothly.

    Most polling stations closed after 7 p.m. local time, with counting underway. Results are expected on Sunday.

    Ramkalawan, an Anglican priest who later became involved in politics, became the first opposition leader since 1976 to defeat the governing party when he made his sixth bid for the presidency in 2020.

    The governing Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party campaigned on economic recovery, social development and environmental sustainability.

    If no contender receives more than 50% of the vote, the two top candidates go into a runoff. Just over 77,000 people are registered to vote in Seychelles.

    The 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean has become synonymous with luxury and environmental travel, which has bumped Seychelles to the top of the list of Africa’s richest countries by gross domestic product per capita, according to the World Bank.

    The economy also has fueled a growing middle class and opposition to the governing party.

    A week before the election, activists filed a constitutional case against the government, challenging a recent decision to issue a long-term lease for part of Assomption Island, the country’s largest, to a Qatari company for a luxury hotel development.

    The lease, which includes reconstruction of an airstrip to facilitate access for international flights, has ignited widespread criticism that the agreement favors foreign interests over Seychelles’ extended welfare and sovereignty over its land.

    With its territory spread across about 390,000 square kilometers (150,579 square miles), Seychelles is especially vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, according to the World Bank and the U.N. Sustainable Development Group.

    Another concern for voters is a growing drug crisis. A 2017 U.N. report described the country as a major drug transit route. The 2023 Global Organized Crime Index said that the island nation has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin addiction.

    An estimated 6,000 people out of Seychelles’ population of 120,000 use the drug, while independent analysts say addiction rates approach 10%. Most of the country’s population lives on the island of Mahé, home to the capital, Victoria.

    Critics say Ramkalawan has largely failed to rein in the drug crisis. His rival, Herminie, also was criticized for failing to stem the addiction rates, while serving as chairman of the national Agency for the Prevention of Drug Abuse and Rehabilitation from 2017 until 2020.

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    For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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  • June Cleaver the loggerhead turtle is released into the ocean off Florida after rehab

    Marine biologists on Florida’s Space Coast have released June Cleaver, a 230-pound loggerhead turtle, back into the ocean

    MELBOURNE, Fla. — She may not wear a pearl necklace like her namesake from the TV show, “Leave it Beaver,” but June Cleaver, the 230-pound loggerhead turtle, nevertheless was happy as a clam to be going home.

    Marine biologists on Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday released June Cleaver back into the ocean before 300 beachgoers following a two-month rehabilitation at the Brevard Zoo’s Sea Turtle Healing Center in Melbourne, Florida.

    The turtle was first observed having difficulty laying eggs in Melbourne Beach in June. The Sea Turtle Preservation Society transported her to the Healing Center, and caretakers discovered that she had been hit by a boat. They gave her several CT scans to make sure that the injury to her top shell wasn’t critical, according to the center.

    The scans showed that her wound wasn’t fatal but she needed rehabilitation. While at the center, she laid 113 eggs in a pool. Biologists buried the eggs in the beach where they are incubating, according to the center.

    The center said June Cleaver had “diva” tastes in food, preferring squid over the crabs which typically are favored by loggerheads.

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  • Honolulu morgue aims to start giving families answers faster with new deputy

    Honolulu morgue aims to start giving families answers faster with new deputy

    The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office hopes the arrival of its first new deputy in five years will help it winnow down the time it takes to finalize reports, which has mounted due to increasing caseloads and staff shortages.

    Sasha Breland, who assumed her new role on Oct. 1, said one of her main goals is to help families with loved ones who died find closure, as well as to learn from the deaths.

    “We are servicing people and families in one of the most trying times of their life,” she said. “And so if we can be there to not only tell the story of their loved one and help them close that chapter, but then influence their lives after that, we can make a difference.”

    Chief Medical Examiner Masahiko Kobayashi said Breland’s appointment will help the office cut in half its turnaround time for final reports and ease each employee’s caseload by more than 100.

    Breland, a New Jersey native, also will attend the mayor’s Cabinet meetings and help the department obtain accreditation from the National Association of Medical Examiners. She most recently served as deputy chief medical examiner and medical director for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Washington, D.C.

    Image

    The department also employs two forensic pathologists and is looking to hire one more.

    Forensic pathologists and medical examiners both perform autopsies and investigate deaths, but the chief and deputy medical examiner are appointed by the mayor and have additional leadership and administrative duties.

    Kobayashi said he expects each forensic pathologist’s caseload to drop from about 414 to 471 cases per year to around 300 to 325 cases, about a third of which will involve autopsies. Some cases only require a review of medical records or the external examination of a body.

    The National Association of Medical Examiners recommends forensic pathologists perform no more than 250 autopsies per year.

    The lighter individual caseload will also help the department finalize reports faster.

    Autopsies are always performed within a day of receiving a body at the morgue, Kobayashi said, but final reports can take six months or more to be completed depending on the complexity of the case and how much testing is required. But Kobayashi said by next year, 90% of cases will be completed within three months.

    Improving Efficiency

    The Iwilei Road facility just underwent a $5.9 million renovation, which included increasing its storage capacity from 60 bodies to 140.

    Kobayashi said the facility is not at capacity, but it’s important to have extra space in case of a mass casualty incident. The department also has three refrigerated trailers that can hold 150 bodies.

    The medical examiner’s office has not only been dealing with a lack of staff, but its cases more than doubled between 2008 and 2023.

    Kobayashi attributed the increase in part to the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused many people to forgo regular checkups from their primary care physicians. This meant that many who died did not have doctors to sign their death certificates, causing their deaths to be deemed “unattended” and get referred to the medical examiner’s office.

    Another reason for the increase is spiking drug overdoses. Last year was the deadliest year on record for overdoses in Hawaii.

    The deputy medical examiner position in Honolulu had been vacant since 2019 in part due to a nationwide shortage of forensic pathologists.

    Recruiting Challenges

    In 2020, there were only about 500 practicing board-certified forensic pathologists in the country, even though more than 1,000 were needed to meet demand, according to an article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.

    The Honolulu Salary Commission recently approved 10.5% raises for the chief and deputy medical examiner to help with recruitment. The chief earns $400,008 and the deputy earns $390,120.

    The salary range for the open forensic pathologist position is $295,000 to $338,472, according to the city. The Salary Commission does not control the pay for that job because it is not an appointed position.

    Even though the jobs are among the highest paid in city government, it’s still difficult to recruit because many private sector medical jobs pay much more, Kobayashi said, adding that a recent applicant to the forensic pathologist position rejected an offer last month saying the salary was too low.

    Forensic pathology also isn’t presented to medical students as a potential career as often as other types of medicine are, such as pediatrics, family medicine and surgery, Breland said.

    For her, though, forensic pathology was a calling.

    Influencing Policy And Improving Lives

    Breland said when she first entered medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which has since merged with Rutgers University, she wanted to become a neurosurgeon. But she found learning about the brain’s physiology to be mundane. She transitioned into trauma surgery but later realized a surgeon’s demanding schedule of early mornings and late nights wasn’t for her.

    She ended up doing a residency program at the Northern Regional Medical Examiner’s Office in Newark, New Jersey.

    On her first day, she said she observed an autopsy on a person who had been hit by a train.

    “As soon as they opened the (body) bag, I ran over and I was like, ‘What’s this? Why is the head here?’ and all the other medical students kind of backed off,” she said. “And so that day the attending (physician) was like, ‘You need to be a forensic pathologist.’”

    Breland, originally from Irvington, New Jersey, graduated medical school in 2009. She lives in Ewa Beach with her husband and their 7-year-old daughter.

    Kobayashi said Breland’s knowledge and experience, which includes directing a death investigations division with 70 employees in Washington D.C., will help his office achieve its goals.

    Breland said throughout her career one of her passions has been to use death investigations to influence policy and improve people’s lives.

    For example, while working in Washington D.C. at the beginning of the opioid epidemic, her office was able to alert correctional facilities to an increase in inmates dying from opioid overdoses. The facilities in turn examined their policies to address how inmates were getting drugs and where addiction programs could be implemented within the correctional system.

    “The dead tell the story of the living,” she said. “If you know why and how people are dying, you can make changes so that people live longer.”

    ___

    This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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  • Nibi the ‘diva’ beaver to stay at rescue center, Massachusetts governor decides

    Nibi the ‘diva’ beaver to stay at rescue center, Massachusetts governor decides

    BOSTON — The question of whether a 2-year-old beaver named Nibi can stay with the rescuers she has known since she was a baby or must be released into the wild was resolved Thursday when the Massachusetts governor stepped in to protect Nibi.

    The state issued a permit to Newhouse Wildlife Rescue for Nibi to remain at the rehabilitation facility and serve as an educational animal.

    “Nibi has captured the hearts of many of our residents, mine included,” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said Thursday. “We’re excited to share that we have issued a permit for Nibi to remain in Newhouse’s care, continuing to educate the public about this important species.”

    Nibi’s fate had made it all the way to the state courts before Healey stepped in.

    A judge on Tuesday had said that Nibi would be allowed to stay in her home at the rescue center in Chelmsford, located northwest of Boston. A hearing had been set for Friday in a case filed by the rescuers against MassWildlife, the state’s division of fisheries and wildlife, to stop the release.

    Nibi’s rescuers at Newhouse Wildlife Rescue said on their Facebook page that they were “beyond grateful” for Healey’s decision.

    Nibi has been a hit on the rescue group’s social media since she was a baby, and posts about her impending release garnered thousands of comments.

    An online petition to save Nibi from being released into the wild has received over 25,000 signatures, lawmakers have weighed in, and earlier this week Healey pledged to make sure Nibi is protected.

    “We all care about what is best for the beaver known as Nibi and all wild animals throughout our state,” Mark Tisa, director of MassWildlife, said in a statement Thursday. “We share the public’s passion for wildlife and invite everyone to learn more about beavers and their important place in our environment.”

    Jane Newhouse, the rescue group’s founder and president, has said that after Nibi was found on the side of the road, they tried to reunite her with nearby beavers who could have been her parents but were unsuccessful. After that, attempts to get her to bond with other beavers also didn’t work.

    “It’s very difficult to consider releasing her when she only seems to like people and seems to have no interest in being wild or bonding with any of her own species,” she said.

    Nibi has a large enclosure with a pool at the rescue operation, and will also wander in its yard and rehabilitation space, Newhouse said. “She pretty much has full run of the place. Everybody on my team is in love with her,” she said.

    Newhouse said she had asked MassWildlife if she could get a permit for Nibi to become an educational beaver, allowing her to take the beaver to schools, libraries and town halls. Newhouse said she feared a release would mean certain death for her beloved “diva” beaver, who doesn’t know how to live in the wild.

    “It doesn’t give her much time… to figure out how to build a lodge for the first time, how to build dams for the first time, how to store all of her food before winter sets in,” she said.

    Newhouse said that beavers usually leave their parents between the ages of 2 and 3, so it’s possible that over the next year Nibi will show more interest in wanting to be in the wild. But unless that happens, she wants to keep her safe.

    Beavers are common and abundant throughout Massachusetts. A keystone species, beavers play an important role in fostering biodiversity of ecosystems, according to state officials.

    By damming rivers and streams, and forming shallow ponds, beavers are vital for creating healthy wetlands that support a tremendous diversity of plants, bugs, and wildlife, and store floodwaters during storms.

    They are also North America’s largest native rodents, weighing between 35 and 80 pounds (16 and 36 kilograms) and reaching 2–3 feet (0.6-0.9 meters) in length as adults.

    Adult beavers have very few predators and can live for 20 years or more.

    In almost all cases, it’s best to leave wildlife alone, officials said, so they don’t come to rely on humans for food and shelter.

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  • Saoirse Ronan felt happy and settled. That’s why she could play an alcoholic in ‘The Outrun’

    Saoirse Ronan felt happy and settled. That’s why she could play an alcoholic in ‘The Outrun’

    The thing about birthing a lamb on camera is you only get one take.

    Saoirse Ronan had been getting up at dawn to observe local farmers in Orkney in action, soaking in as much as she could. But soon it was her turn. Not only would she have a life in her hands: She had to look like she’d been doing it her whole life. She was terrified.

    It wouldn’t be the last time Ronan, 30, would have to step out of her comfort zone to make the “ The Outrun ” (in theaters Friday), a harrowing and transcendent portrait of addiction and recovery which she produced alongside her husband, actor Jack Lowden. She’d yell and scream and say the meanest things she could think of to her fellow actors. She’d go from euphoric to inconsolable on a dime in a chaotic, drunken haze. And she’d plough the despairing depths of a very sick person about to relapse.

    But after 20 years of acting, these were challenge she was ready for. There’s a reason her performance, defining and distinctive on a resume full of memorable characters, from Briony Tallis to Lady Bird, has garnered comparisons to Gena Rowlands in “A Woman Under the Influence.”

    It was Lowden who put Amy Liptrot’s bestselling memoir in her hands during the pandemic, thinking it might be an interesting role for her.

    “We tend to be drawn towards the same kind of material,” Ronan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “I trust his taste and opinion. I kind of hold it higher than anyone else’s.”

    They were both at a point where they felt like they had more to give to the movies than just performing. They wanted more responsibility, more agency to help shape the material that they loved so much. And so, Ronan and Lowden set off on a journey to make “The Outrun” together. Producing, she said, made her fall in love with filmmaking even more.

    “It only made the experience as an actor even richer,” Ronan said. “I had history with every single decision that had been made. I was a part of it and there was a piece of me in those decisions.”

    One of the first decisions that Liptrot, Ronan and German filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt made was to come up with a new name for Amy to create some healthy distance from their real life subject. They decided on Rona, after an uninhabited island visible from the Liptrot’s real farm.

    The production would involve an extensive pre-shoot on the Orkney Islands, on a remote corner of Scotland, to get the full scope of its natural splendor across a year, including lambs being born and birds nesting. The film skips around between her childhood, her downfall in London and her return to Orkney, with sublime asides about the history of the place, the folklore and what’s going on in Rona’s head. She finishes the odyssey in isolation on the even smaller island of Papay.

    “We wanted to create a poetic film where the images and atmosphere stay with you for a long time after watching,” wrote director Fingscheidt. “A film that takes you on a journey, not just to Orkney or London, but a spiritual journey into the inner world of a young woman, raised under extreme circumstances, searching for her place in life without alcohol.”

    In the chaotic London portions, in which Rona’s relationship with her boyfriend Daynin (Paapa Essiedu) crumbles under the weight of her addiction, Ronan found herself apologizing often to her screen mates. To capture the full extent of Rona’s cruelty, Fingscheidt asked Ronan to get mean and personal.

    “I’ve never explored that before with a character to get that cruel and just genuinely mean,” Ronan said. “But you really have to kind of go, OK, I’m doing this for the sake of authenticity and honoring Amy’s life. In a way, it felt more respectful to the people who were affected by Amy’s illness. Because the cruelty and the meanness and the ugliness that comes out…I’ve experienced myself. It’s incredibly painful. If we were going to do this story and their experience justice, we needed to show all of that.”

    Behind the scenes Lowden, who is Scottish and is particularly passionate about telling Scottish stories, was a helpful presence who understood the culture and the people. They worked with many locals in the small community of Orkney and Papay — which has no hotels. Ronan loved when he was able to be on set. They married in private earlier this year.

    “He’s one of those enigmas where, yes, he’s a brilliant, brilliant actor and is so incredible on screen, but most of the time would much prefer to watch someone else shine,” she said. “He loves being behind the scenes, making sure everyone has what they need and making sure that the set is operating well. He’s more naturally a producer.”

    After the shoot, Ronan was ready to let Rona go. She had a six-week break and took herself on a train holiday around Europe to shake her off. Then she was due on another set: Steve McQueen’s highly anticipated World War II film “Blitz,” an AppleTV+ film opening in theaters Nov. 1. She plays a mother searching for her 9-year-old son who was supposed to be safely in the English countryside but has set on a dangerous journey to get back to her.

    “I’m buzzing that these two films are coming out at once because they couldn’t be more different,” Ronan said. “It’s very exciting for me to stand by the two of them. They feel very personal for different reasons.”

    They’re also already getting her awards buzz. Ronan has been nominated for four acting Oscars, going back to “Atonement,” but has yet to win. This year it’s possible she could get both a lead and supporting nomination for the two projects. But she’s more focused on getting them out to the world. And in “The Outrun,” which she’s seen from development to release, she is proud of a performance that she’s not sure she would have been capable of a few years ago.

    “I don’t think it’s necessarily something that I would have had the strength of character to take on years before,” Ronan said. “But because I felt so happy and settled in my own life, and professionally speaking, I felt ready to play someone that was as messy and disconnected as she was. I was more than ready to give in to not knowing what this character was going to be, what it was going to turn into.”

    Plus, she now knows how to birth a lamb.

    “You just got to get in there and do it,” she laughed.

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  • California governor to sign a law to protect children from social media addiction

    California governor to sign a law to protect children from social media addiction

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a bill Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign, his office said Friday.

    California will follow New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.

    The California bill will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world after similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.

    “Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom said in a statement. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”

    The bill bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children’s accounts to private by default.

    Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their age. Some argue it would threaten online privacy by making platforms collect more information on users.

    The bill defines an “addictive feed” as a website or app “in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user’s device,” with some exceptions.

    The subject garnered renewed attention in June when U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their impacts on young people. Attorneys general in 42 states endorsed the plan in a letter sent to Congress last week.

    State Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley who authored the California bill, said after lawmakers approved the bill last month that “social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids.”

    “With the passage of SB 976, the California Legislature has sent a clear message: When social media companies won’t act, it’s our responsibility to protect our kids,” she said in a statement.

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    Associated Press writer Trân Nguyễn contributed to this report.

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    Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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  • Poll shows young men in the US are more at risk for gambling addiction than the general population

    Poll shows young men in the US are more at risk for gambling addiction than the general population

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Ten percent of young men in the U.S. show behavior that indicates a gambling problem, compared to 3% of the general population, a new study says.

    The Fairleigh Dickinson University survey comes as the National Council on Problem Gambling examined every U.S. state’s gambling laws, finding that customer protection against developing or worsening gambling problems varies widely and could be improved everywhere.

    “Gambling is generally marketed as entertainment, and for most gamblers, it’s just that,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson, and the executive director of the survey, which was released Thursday. “But there’s always some chance of gambling turning into problem behaviors, and online gambling is proving to be much more dangerous than other kinds.”

    He said the risks “are closely related to online betting on sports and online slot machines.”

    Arnie Wexler, a well-known advocate for people with gambling problems and the former head of New Jersey’s Council on Compulsive Gambling, said young people and their parents constantly contact him for help. He was not involved in the survey.

    “All the gambling going on, it’s addicting so many people, and so many young people,” said Wexler. “It’s gotten crazy what’s going on today. We are a nation of addicted gamblers.”

    The survey asked respondents to answer the Problem Gambling Severity Index, a nine-question battery asking about several indications of problem gambling behaviors like borrowing money to gamble, or saying that their gambling has caused financial or emotional problems.

    Twenty-four percent of men reported at least one problem behavior, but that rose to 45% for men 30 and under.

    Individuals are generally considered to have a problem if they have a score of 8 or above on the index. Only about 3% of men scores that indicate a gambling problem, but that figure is 10% among men ages 18 to 30 and 7% among women in the same age group.

    The nationwide survey of 801 registered voters, conducted between Aug. 17 and 20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

    The gambling industry has adopted responsible gambling standards, which include allowing people to set limits on their deposits, withdrawals and overall gambling activity; prominently placing phone numbers and web addresses for gambling help lines on their products, and adopting some voluntary limits on advertising.

    The National Council on Problem Gambling examined gambling laws in every state, looking at how well they align with the most effective player protections in the group’s internet responsible gambling standards.

    The council’s report, released Thursday, found that Connecticut, New Jersey, and Virginia are most aligned with the standards, meeting 49 of 82.

    Ten states and Washington, D.C., met 40 or more of the standards: Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia.

    Nine states met between 25 and 39 of the standards: Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont.

    And 11 states met between 10 and 24 of the standards: Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

    “This report reflects the patchwork nature of existing regulations and the significant gaps in consumer protections,” said Keith Whyte, the group’s executive director. “We urge legislators and regulators to take immediate steps to close these gaps and work to mitigate gambling-related harm.”

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    Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • ‘Shoot me up with a big one’: A timeline of the last days of Matthew Perry

    ‘Shoot me up with a big one’: A timeline of the last days of Matthew Perry

    LOS ANGELES — The arrest of five people in the overdose death of Matthew Perry has revealed key details about the final days of the “Friends” star, most of them spent in the throes of an addiction to the surgical anesthetic ketamine.

    Perry would die at age 54 on Oct. 28 after telling his assistant to shoot him up “with a big one.” Drawn from unsealed federal court documents and a medical examiner’s investigation, here’s a chronological look at the end of Perry’s life.

    September 30 — Perry and his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, met at their home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles with Dr. Salvador Plasencia. Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use — from his regular doctor, but wasn’t able to get as much as he wanted. Plasencia texted a doctor friend in San Diego, Mark Chavez, who agreed to obtain ketamine for him.

    “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texted Chavez. The two met up the same day in Costa Mesa, halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego and exchanged at least four vials of ketamine.

    Plasencia returned to Perry’s house, where Iwamasa paid him $4,500 in cash for the vials. Plasencia gave Perry two injections of ketamine, and instructed Iwamasa on how to give the injections to the actor. Plasencia texted Chavez that the experience “felt like a bad movie.”

    October 2 — Iwamasa texted Plasencia saying he wanted to buy not just injection sessions, but to be left with more vials of ketamine, referring to it in agreed-upon code as “dr pepper.” Plasencia appeared, gave Perry the injections, and left behind the vials of the anesthetic.

    October 4 — Iwamasa injected Perry himself for the first time. He texted the doctor that he had found “the sweet spot” to put the needle into his boss, but that trying different spots on Perry had led to them running out, and they needed more. Plasencia texted Chavez asking if he could keep supplying the drug so they could become Perry’s “go-to.”

    October 6 — Iwamasa told Plasencia they were running low, and needed more. Plasencia went to Perry’s house and sold him one or more vials.

    October 8 — In a late night meetup at a Santa Monica shopping plaza, Plasencia sold Iwamasa four vials of ketamine for $6,000 in cash.

    October 10 — Iwamasa drove Perry to a public parking lot in Long Beach, where they met up with the doctor. He sold them more ketamine, and gave an injection to Perry while the actor sat in a car. On the same day, Iwamasa sought even more of the drug from an additional source of ketamine, reaching out to Erik Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry.

    October 11 — Fleming messaged Iwamasa that he can get ketamine from a woman he knows. “It’s unmarked but it’s amazing – he take one and try it and I have more if he likes,” Fleming wrote. The woman, Jasveen Sangha, was known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen.” Fleming texted Iwamasa that she only deals “with high end and celebs. If it were not great stuff she’d lose her business.”

    October 12 — Plasencia went to Perry’s house, where he was paid $21,000 in cash, some of it owed to him for previous ketamine buys. While there he injected Perry. The actor immediately froze up and his blood pressure spiked. The assistant said the doctor told him, “let’s not do that again.”

    October 13 — Perry got a sample of Sangha’s ketamine and tried it. He and Iwamasa would ask for 25 vials of it, for which he would pay $5,500. Fleming dropped it off at Perry’s house a day later.

    On or around Oct. 20 — Perry received his last legal ketamine treatment from his regular physician, according to what a woman close to him whose name was redacted in official documents told medical examiner’s investigators. The woman said his previous doctor had given him treatments every other day, but his new doctor said Perry was doing well, his depression was managed, and he no longer needed so many treatments. The woman would tell investigators that she had believed Perry had been sober for 19 months and there had been no relapse.

    Around October 24 — Perry talked to the unidentified woman for the last time. She told investigators he had been in good spirits.

    October 25 — Iwamasa asked Fleming for another 25 vials of ketamine. After picking up $6,000 from Perry, Fleming picked up the ketamine from Sangha, who told him her own source is known as “Master Chef.” Meanwhile, Iwamasa gave Perry at least six shots of ketamine.

    October 26 — Iwamasa again gave Perry at least six shots of ketamine.

    October 27 — The assistant again gave the actor at least six shots of ketamine. With the supply coming from Fleming and Sangha, Perry and Iwamasa had been out of touch with Plasencia for about two weeks. Plasencia would text Iwamasa saying he had more to offer: “I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up.”

    About 8:30 a.m. — Acting at Perry’s direction, using syringes from Plasencia and ketamine from Sangha, Iwamasa gave Perry an injection.

    About 11 a.m. — Perry played pickleball, according to what Iwamasa told medical examiner’s investigators later in the day, though many elements of that initial story changed in his later talks to prosecutors.

    About 12:45 p.m. — Iwamasa gave Perry his second shot of the day, and the actor began watching a movie.

    Shortly before 1:30 p.m. — Iwamasa gave Perry his third and final injection of the day while Perry sat at his backyard jacuzzi. “Shoot me up with a big one,” Iwamasa remembered Perry telling him. The assistant then left to run errands.

    About 4 p.m. — Iwamasa returned home to find Perry face down in the jacuzzi. He jumped in, pulled Perry to the steps and called 911. Paramedics arrived minutes later and declared Perry dead. Coroner’s investigators would say ketamine was the primary cause of his death, with drowning a secondary cause.

    ___

    Iwamasa has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute Ketamine. Fleming has pleaded guilty to distributing ketamine resulting in death. Both are cooperating with prosecutors.

    Chavez has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute the drug. Plasencia and Sangha, the two main targets of the investigation, have pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts.

    Plasencia’s lawyer Stefan Sacks said Thursday that everything his client did was in Perry’s best medical interest. Sangha’s attorney declined comment.

    Attorneys for the other three men did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment from The Associated Press.

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  • TikTok agrees to withdraw rewards feature after EU raised concerns about potential online addiction

    TikTok agrees to withdraw rewards feature after EU raised concerns about potential online addiction

    FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — TikTok has agreed to withdraw a rewards feature that raised concerns about its potential to encourage excessive screen time, particularly among children, the European Union’s executive commission said Monday.

    It was the first resolution of an investigation under the 27-country EU’s sweeping Digital Services Act, which went into effect in February and aims to ensure a “safe and accountable online environment” by regulating large digital platforms.

    TikTok made the commitment without conceding the feature violated the Digital Services Act, officials said.

    The commission has however ruled that the withdrawal is legally binding, which “sends a clear message to the entire social media industry,” said Margrethe Vestager, European commission for digital affairs.

    “Design features on platforms with addictive effects put the well-being of their users at risk,” she said in a statement. “That’s why we have made TikTok’s commitments under the DSA legally binding.”

    The case involves TikTok Lite, a low-bandwidth version of the app released in Spain and France. It allowed users to earn points for things like following creators, liking content, or inviting friends to join TikTok. The points could be exchanged for Amazon vouchers and gift cards on PayPal. TikTok said rewards were restricted to users 18 years and older, who had to verify their age. Users could watch up to one hour a day of videos to earn rewards, which were capped at the equivalent of one euro ($1.09) a day.

    The commission opened an investigation in April due to concerns that TikTok has not done a diligent assessment required under the act of the feature’s potential “addictive effect,” especially for children, “given suspected absence of effective age verification mechanisms on TikTok.”

    The resolution of the TikTok Lite investigation does not affect an earlier probe launched against TikTok focusing on concerns about protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers, and mitigating risks of “behavioral addiction” and harmful content.

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  • Vermont Legislature overrides governor, passing overdose prevention, renewable energy, tax measures

    Vermont Legislature overrides governor, passing overdose prevention, renewable energy, tax measures

    The Democratic-controlled Vermont Legislature on Monday overturned a number of the Republican governor’s vetoes, passing measures to prevent drug overdoses, restrict a pesticide that’s toxic to bees and to require state utilities to source all renewable energy by 2035.

    But the Legislature failed to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a data privacy bill that was considered to be among the strongest in the country. It would have allowed consumers to file civil lawsuits against companies that break certain privacy rules. Scott vetoed the legislation last week, saying it would make Vermont “a national outlier and more hostile than any other state to many businesses and non-profits.”

    The Vermont House voted to override his veto but the Senate sustained his decision.

    The vote came after the Legislature reconvened Monday to try to override Scott’s vetoes of seven bills. Each chamber needed two-thirds of those present to vote to override to be successful in passing the bills.

    Senate President Pro Tem Philip Baruth, a Democrat, thanked colleagues at the end of the day, calling it “an incredibly productive day, a long day and an exhausting day in many ways but with brilliant results.”

    Gov. Scott, on the other hand, called it a sad day for Vermonters “who simply cannot afford further tax burdens and cost increases. Many will talk about these votes as a major loss for me, but it’s really a major loss for Vermont taxpayers, workers and families.”

    Scott said last month that the Legislature is out of balance and at times “focuses so much on their goals they don’t consider the unintended consequences.” While he said his vetoes aren’t popular in Montpelier, “I’ll take that heat when I believe I’m making the right choice for the everyday Vermonter,” Scott said.

    The drug overdose prevention law enacted by the Legislature allows for a safe injection site in Vermont’s largest city of Burlington where people can use narcotics under the supervision of trained staff and be revived if they take too much.

    The center will provide referrals to addiction treatment as well as medical and social services. It also will offer education about overdose prevention and distribute overdose reversal medications.

    “The data is clear. Overdose prevention centers save lives, connect people to treatment, reduce pressures on emergency rooms and Emergency Medical Services, and reduce public drug consumption and discarded supplies in our communities,” Baruth said in a statement.

    The new law allocates $1.1 million in fiscal year 2025 to the Vermont Department of Health to award grants to the city of Burlington to establish such a center. The money will come from the Opioid Abatement Special Fund made up of Vermont’s share of a national settlement with drug manufacturers and distribution companies. Before then, the Health Department is required to contract with a researcher or consultant to study the impact of the overdose prevention center pilot program.

    Two years ago, the first sanctioned overdose prevention centers in New York City opened, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. Rhode Island is expected to open one in Providence this summer.

    By Monday afternoon, the state House and Senate had overturned the governor’s veto of a bill that requires state utilities to source all renewable energy by 2035, making Vermont the second state with such an ambitious timeline. Scott had said the renewable energy bill would be too costly for ratepayers. Under the legislation, the biggest utilities will need to meet the goal by 2030.

    “The renewable energy standard will put Vermont on track to achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2035, dramatically reducing planet-warming carbon pollution and saving Vermonters money over time,” Baruth said in a separate statement. He called the governor’s veto an attempt to continue rejecting “critical progress on climate action” at a time when Vermonters still are facing “the impacts of recent climate disasters.”

    The Legislature also enacted a property tax bill to pay for education that will increase property taxes by an average of nearly 14% and create a committee to recommend changes to make Vermont’s education system more affordable. Scott has said Vermonters cannot afford double-digit tax increases.

    In addition, the Legislature overrode Scott’s veto of a measure that restricts a type of pesticide that’s toxic to bees. The Legislature passed the bill after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed off on what she described as the nation’s first law last year to severely limit the use of neonics in her state. In vetoing the bill, Scott said it was “more anti-farmer than it is pro-pollinator.”

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  • Death of nonbinary teen Nex Benedict after school fight is ruled a suicide, medical examiner says

    Death of nonbinary teen Nex Benedict after school fight is ruled a suicide, medical examiner says

    OKLAHOMA CITY — The death of a nonbinary student the day after a fight inside an Oklahoma high school restroom has been ruled a suicide, the state medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.

    A summary autopsy report was released more than a month after the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, a student at Owasso High School. Family members said Benedict had been bullied at school and the teenager’s death in February drew concern from LGBTQ+ rights groups, as well as attention from Oklahoma’s governor and the White House.

    “From the beginning of this investigation, Owasso Police observed many indications that this death was the result of suicide,” Owasso Police Department Lt. Nick Boatman said in a statement. “However, investigators did not wish to confirm that information without the final results being presented by the Oklahoma Medical Examiners Office.”

    The report shows Benedict had toxic levels of two drugs in their system and died of an overdose. A complete autopsy will be released in 10 days in accordance with state law, the medical examiner’s office said.

    Boatman would not confirm whether or not police found a note from Benedict at the scene.

    A lawyer for Benedict’s family, Jacob Biby, told The Associated Press that he was working on a statement from the family Wednesday but declined to comment further.

    Benedict was conscious and alert after the fight on Feb. 7 when telling police about the attack by three girls that occurred after the teen squirted them with water, according to police video released last month.

    In video footage from the hospital the day of the altercation, Benedict explains to an officer that the girls had been picking on them and their friends because of the way they dressed. Benedict claims that in the bathroom the students said “something like: why do they laugh like that,” referring to Benedict and their friends.

    “And so I went up there and I poured water on them, and then all three of them came at me,” Benedict tells the officer from a hospital bed.

    Paramedics responding to the family’s house performed CPR and rushed Nex Benedict to the hospital, where they later died.

    “Bullying and harassment have a significant impact on students and, tragically, many of these youths believe that suicide is the only option for peace,” said Brandon Dilawari, a case manager at Rainbow Youth Project USA, an Indiana-based group that aims to improve the safety and wellness of LGBTQ+ young people. “This is not an isolated incident by any means.”

    The group reported a dramatic spike in calls from Oklahoma to its national crisis hotline after news of the teen’s death became public.

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  • Providence approves first state-sanctioned safe injection site in Rhode Island

    Providence approves first state-sanctioned safe injection site in Rhode Island


    A Rhode Island city has approved the first state-sanctioned safe injection site, a place where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs and be revived if they overdose.

    The Providence City Council voted Thursday to establish the site that will be run by a nonprofit and funded with money from opioid settlement money. It is expected to open later this year and be run by the harm reduction organization Project Weber/RENEW and VICTA. Among the services provided will be food and showers, access to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, case management and housing support as well as HIV testing.

    “I am grateful to Weber/RENEW for the vision, advocacy, and hard work they have put into making Rhode Island’s first harm reduction center a reality,” Council President Rachel Miller said in a statement.

    Miller, who said she toured the facility a few weeks ago, added that she was confident the center “will save lives and prioritize the well-being of city residents” as it connects people to “healthcare, counseling, and outpatient services.”

    Supporters contend that safe injection sites, also called overdose prevention centers or harm reduction centers, can save lives and connect people with addiction treatment, mental health services and medical care. Opponents worry the sites encourage drug use. The number of drug overdose deaths nationally was estimated at 112,127 for the 12 months ending in Aug. 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is up slightly from 109,680 for the year 2022.

    “The unanimous vote by the Providence City Council is a historic moment for public health in the United States,” said Brandon Marshall, a professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health who is leading a research project on overdose prevention sites. “The council clearly recognizes that our current efforts to stopping overdose deaths aren’t sufficient and that new harm reduction approaches are urgently needed.”

    The Providence site is the first sanctioned by the state and joins two other safe injection sites currently open in New York. Democratic Gov. Daniel McKee signed the measure into law in 2021, which allows the opening of the centers with local approval.

    States including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico have considered allowing them. Last month, the Vermont House passed a bill that would allow for the creation of overdose prevention centers in the state that would include safe injection sites.



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  • Annual count of homeless residents begins in Los Angeles, where tens of thousands live on streets

    Annual count of homeless residents begins in Los Angeles, where tens of thousands live on streets

    LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County’s annual count of homeless residents began Tuesday night — a crucial part of the region’s efforts to confront the crisis of tens of thousands of people living on the streets.

    Up to 6,000 volunteers with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority fanned out for the effort’s main component, the unsheltered street tally.

    The so-called “point-in-time” count will take place over three days and aims to estimate how many people are unhoused and what services they may require, such as mental health or drug addiction treatment.

    LA County’s undertaking is the largest among similar tallies in major cities nationwide. The tally, which also makes use of demographic surveys and shelter counts, is mandated by the federal government for cities to receive certain kinds of funding.

    The count this year comes amid increasing public outrage over the perceived failure — despite costly efforts — to reduce the surging population of people living in cars, tents and makeshift street shelters.

    The 2023 effort reported more than 75,500 people were homeless on any given night in LA County, a 9% rise from a year earlier. About 46,200 were within the city of Los Angeles, where public frustration has grown as tents have proliferated on sidewalks and in parks and other locations.

    Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in the county and 80% in the city.

    Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, joined city and county officials to kick off the count Tuesday night in the North Hollywood neighborhood of LA’s San Fernando Valley.

    The count “is an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis,” Bass said in a statement. “Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency.”

    On her first day in office in Dec. 2022, Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness. One year into her term, the mayor, a Democrat, announced that over 21,000 unhoused people were moved into leased hotels or other temporary shelter during 2023, a 28% increase from the prior year. Dozens of drug-plagued street encampments were cleared, and housing projects are in the pipeline, she said last month.

    City Hall, the City Council and the LA County Board of Supervisors have said they intend to work together to tackle the crisis. Progress hasn’t always been apparent despite billions spent on programs to curb homelessness.

    Homelessness remains hugely visible throughout California with people living in tents and cars and sleeping outdoors on sidewalks and under highway overpasses.

    The results of the LA County homeless count are expected to be released in late spring or early summer.

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