If you're a parent struggling to get your kids' off their devices and outdoors to play, here's another reason to keep trying: Spending at least two hours outside each day is one of the most important things your kids can do to protect their eyesight.

"We think that outdoor time is the best form of prevention for nearsightedness," says Dr. Noha Ekdawi, a pediatric ophthalmologist in Wheaton, Ill.

And that's important, because the number of kids with nearsightedness – or myopia – has been growing rapidly in the U.S., and in many other parts of the world.

[...]

Wu convinced his son's elementary school to increase outdoor time. He also recruited a control school. A year later, his son's school had half as many new myopia cases as the other school. "We saw the results – they were very successful," Wu says.

He did more research, at more schools, and eventually convinced Taiwan's Ministry of Education to encourage all primary schools to send students out doors for at least 2 hours a day, every day. The program launched in September 2010. And after decades of trending upward, the rate of myopia among Taiwan's elementary school students began falling – from an all-time high of 50% in 2011 down to 45.1% by 2015. It's a major achievement, says Ian Morgan.

Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, Calif. Soon, black smoke blanketed the sky.

News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth, says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. "We don't know the full story, but we know that you shouldn't breathe in the air or be outside for that matter," Khamphanthong says now. "It would be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out there and figure it out themselves."

The city's primary local news source, The Richmond Standard, didn't cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into San Francisco Bay.

Chevron is the city's largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, The Richmond Standard consistently toes the company line.

And there's a reason for that: Chevron owns The Richmond Standard.

Six different ground cinnamon products sold at retailers including Save A Lot, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar contain elevated levels of lead and should be recalled and thrown away immediately, the US Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.

The brands are La Fiesta, Marcum, MK, Swad, Supreme Tradition, and El Chilar, and the products are sold in plastic spice bottles or in bags at various retailers. The FDA has contacted the manufacturers to urge them to issue voluntary recalls, though it has not been able to reach one of the firms, MTCI, which distributes the MK-branded cinnamon.

For example:

• When you open a fresh jar of peanut butter do you only work through one side until it is completely empty then start on the other side?

• Or when you get those shallow tubs of hummus does it have to make it back home undisturbed? Then one of the baggers at the grocery store shoves it sideways into the bag completely ruining the symmetry.

Many are opting out. Participation in youth tackle football has been declining for years. But especially in communities of color, tackle football’s lure remains strong and the balance tips toward opportunity, a four-month investigation by The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland has found.

[...]

Last year, the Boston University CTE Center released a study that said the developing brains of children are at risk for damage from repeated impacts to the head and brain that have been associated with impulsive behaviors and cognitive problems.

The study notes that children who start playing tackle football at an early age or participate in the sport for more than 11 years run an increased risk of such impairment.

“We call it black snow because it falls from the sky just like snowflakes. But it’s just the burnt trash blowing from the cane. I know people who’ve had to move out of the Glades because their respiratory issues got so bad during the burn season.”

To hear the $13bn sugar industry tell it, there is no problem here. The Clewiston-based US Sugar Corporation, which farms more than 230,000 acres across four counties and employs about 2,500 people, touts its own studies regularly claiming “the Glades communities have air that is good, safe and clean”, and insisting those who say otherwise are “dishonest anti-farming activists”.

Yet the evidence against is more than just anecdotal. A 2021 collaboration between ProPublica and the Palm Beach Post determined, among numerous other findings, that hospital admissions for respiratory distress in Belle Glade, a town in the heart of sugar country, increased up to 35% in the harvesting season.

Researchers at Florida International University found in 2015 that levels of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in the air at Belle Glade were 15 times higher during harvesting season than the summer growing season.

Florida’s HB 1, typically considered the legislative priority of the year, is sailing through its committee hearings with unusual bipartisan support.

This year, the state’s lawmakers have decided to go after child and teenage social media use. The bill, which can still be amended, bans teens under 16 years old from creating new social media profiles, allows parents to request the deletion of an existing profile, and fines platforms for each time they don’t comply.

In a summary analysis, House legislative staff laid out nearly two pages of constitutional concerns, from First Amendment considerations to infringement on federal laws.

A South Florida Marriott Hotel canceled a Muslim group’s conference at the last minute after a protest group claimed the coalition was promoting Hamas, terrorism and antisemitism.

The South Florida Muslim Federation, a coalition of about 30 mosques and Islamic groups, said Friday that it was told by the Marriott Coral Springs Hotel and Convention Center that its conference was being canceled because of security concerns after it received 100 calls demanding it bars the group. This weekend’s second annual conference was expected to draw more than a thousand people.

Kakli said that even before Marriott raised security concerns, his group hired Coral Springs police officers and private guards for protection. He said he told Marriott that the federation would hire more, but was rebuffed.

Kakli denied that he or his group supports terrorism or antisemitism. He said those accusations are often made against Muslims who criticize Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its treatment of Gaza to strip them and their arguments of legitimacy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10620731

“The First Amendment is an inconvenient thing. It protects expression that some find wrongheaded, or offensive, or even ridiculous,” Newsom wrote in a concurring opinion.

“But for the same reason that the government can’t muzzle so-called ‘conservative’ speech under the guise of preventing on campus ‘harassment,’ the state can’t exercise its coercive power to censor so-called ‘woke’ speech with which it disagrees. What’s good for mine is (whether I like it or not) good for thine.”

[...]

The Eleventh Circuit opinion goes into depth about the rights of elected officials like Warren to engage in political speech, even if it runs counter to what the governor thinks.

DeSantis argued he was entitled to punish Warren because the prosecutor had acted as a government employee. The Eleventh Circuit, however, concluded it “seems suspect” to apply a U.S. Supreme Court precedent allowing such punishment for rank-and-file state workers to an elected official.

A different U.S. Supreme Court ruling noted that elected office holders enjoy the right “to enter the field of political controversy,” Pryor continued. Also, that “[t]he role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves.”

“Warren’s speech occurred outside the workplace, and he never distributed the advocacy statements inside the workplace or included them in internal materials or training sessions. He employed no workplace resources and never marshaled the statements through his process for creating policies. Neither statement referenced any Florida law that would go unenforced,” the court said.

“The First Amendment is an inconvenient thing. It protects expression that some find wrongheaded, or offensive, or even ridiculous,” Newsom wrote in a concurring opinion.

“But for the same reason that the government can’t muzzle so-called ‘conservative’ speech under the guise of preventing on campus ‘harassment,’ the state can’t exercise its coercive power to censor so-called ‘woke’ speech with which it disagrees. What’s good for mine is (whether I like it or not) good for thine.”

[...]

The Eleventh Circuit opinion goes into depth about the rights of elected officials like Warren to engage in political speech, even if it runs counter to what the governor thinks.

DeSantis argued he was entitled to punish Warren because the prosecutor had acted as a government employee. The Eleventh Circuit, however, concluded it “seems suspect” to apply a U.S. Supreme Court precedent allowing such punishment for rank-and-file state workers to an elected official.

A different U.S. Supreme Court ruling noted that elected office holders enjoy the right “to enter the field of political controversy,” Pryor continued. Also, that “[t]he role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves.”

“Warren’s speech occurred outside the workplace, and he never distributed the advocacy statements inside the workplace or included them in internal materials or training sessions. He employed no workplace resources and never marshaled the statements through his process for creating policies. Neither statement referenced any Florida law that would go unenforced,” the court said.