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NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week

By The Associated Press undefined

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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Unexplained hepatitis cases not caused by COVID-19 vaccines

CLAIM: A recent outbreak of unexplained hepatitis cases among children is being caused by the adenovirus vector used in some COVID-19 vaccines, including the Johnson & Johnson shot.

THE FACTS: Medical experts say this isn't the case, mainly because the dead adenovirus used in the J&J vaccine is a different strain than the one linked to the recent hepatitis cases. British health authorities this month have documented more than 100 cases of unexplained hepatitis, inflammation of the liver, among young children, and some social media users are suggesting the cases could be linked to J&J's vaccine. While it isn't clear what's causing the illnesses, which have also been identified in the U.S., a leading suspect is adenovirus, a common group of viruses that can cause cold-like symptoms, fevers, sore throats and intestinal issues. Adenovirus was detected in 75% of the recent juvenile hepatitis cases tested, U.K. health officials have said. Viral vector vaccines, like the J&J vaccine, use dead, nonreplicable adenovirus to help trigger an immune response, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The AstraZeneca and Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines also use viral vectors. Social media users are highlighting this connection to push the baseless claim that the adenovirus vector is causing the mysterious cases. But experts say that's not possible. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Associated Press that current evidence indicates these hepatitis cases could be caused by adenovirus type 41, which is associated with intestinal infections. The adenovirus used as a vector in the J&J vaccine is type 26. Offit added that the adenovirus used as a vector in the vaccine cannot reproduce itself in the body and spread. "The combination of the fact that it's not the type of adenovirus that's expected to cause hepatitis, nor is it a virus that reproduces itself, makes the claim ludicrous," Offit said. Dr. Mark Slifka, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Oregon Health & Science University, pointed to an April paper by researchers with Scotland's public health department describing their initial investigation into the first Scottish cases of the sudden liver disease. The investigation noted that none of the children had been vaccinated against COVID-19, nor were the other patients in the U.K. "What appears to be happening on social media, is that people are jumping to conclusions that are not based on current evidence," Slifka wrote in an email. A spokesperson for Public Health Scotland also told the AP that "there is no evidence to support the claims" linking the juvenile hepatitis cases to COVID-19 vaccines. Further, no increased risk of hepatitis was identified in clinical trials of the vaccines, or after emergency use authorization allowed many people to be vaccinated, Slifka noted. Adenovirus is currently circulating in children at higher than average levels after dropping during the pandemic. One theory being explored is that children who weren't exposed to adenovirus over the last two years as COVID-19 restrictions were in place may now be getting hit harder upon exposure.

Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in Atlanta contributed this report.

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Denmark still offering COVID-19 vaccinations

CLAIM: Denmark has become the first country to suspend COVID-19 vaccinations.

THE FACTS: Denmark is ending broad vaccination efforts, meaning it will no longer send out vaccination invitations or reminders, but people can still get vaccinated against COVID-19 as needed. Social media users shared posts that misinterpreted a statement from the Danish Health Authority about the country's mass vaccination program that began in December 2020, falsely suggesting Denmark would no longer be vaccinating citizens. "Denmark becomes first country to suspend COVID vaccinations," an Instagram user wrote. Similar claims were also shared on Facebook and Twitter. Denmark's health authority states on its website that starting May 15, electronic vaccine invitations will no longer be issued, but people can still receive their vaccine. Vaccine invitations notify people when they are eligible to receive a shot and provide information on the vaccine and time slots to book an appointment. Vaccines will still be recommended, especially among groups who are at risk of developing severe disease and people who have started the vaccine course but haven't completed it. The second booster shot is currently offered to people with weakened immune systems or other types of diseases. "Denmark has not suspended covid vaccinations," Signe Breitenstein, spokesperson for the Danish Health Authority, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "The vaccine coverage is high in the Danish population and the epidemic situation is favorable. We can therefore close the broad vaccination programme for the time being, which for instance means that electronic invitations to be vaccinated no longer are sent." Around 81% of Denmark's population of 5.8 million has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, while nearly 62% have received a booster. Bolette Sborg, Denmark's chief physician, also noted Tuesday in an update about the vaccine program that Denmark is "in a good place" with COVID-19. "Spring has arrived, vaccine coverage in the Danish population is high, and the epidemic has reversed. Therefore, the National Board of Health is now ending the broad vaccination efforts against covid-19 for this season," the update stated. Denmark's vaccine program is set to resume in the fall in anticipation of potential new variants or an increase in cases heading into winter. "Prior to this, a thorough professional assessment must be made of who and when to be vaccinated and with which vaccines," Sborg said. We expect to present a plan for the overall framework for the 2022/23 season before the summer holidays."

Associated Press writer Arijeta Lajka in New York contributed this report.

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Officials: Ukraine didn't send text warnings in Transnistria

CLAIM: Ukrainian authorities warned the people of Transnistria in a text message that Ukraine was planning an attack on the region.

THE FACTS: Two Ukrainian government sources said in public statements on Tuesday that the country is not responsible for the message, which did not display any evidence it came from a verified source. Recent explosions in Transnistria, a small strip of land under the control of separatists near Moldova's border with Ukraine, have raised concerns that the war between Russia and Ukraine could extend there. Following reports of another round of explosions on Tuesday morning, social media users posted that some residents in the breakaway region had received text message warnings claiming to be on behalf of Ukrainian agencies stating that the country's military was planning an attack. Some social media users shared a photo of a screen displaying the purported text message, which stated in Russian, "The Security Service of Ukraine strongly recommends that the civilian population be evacuated to safer regions. We assure you that the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not wish harm to civilians, however, the people remaining in the cities will be perceived as sabotage groups and will be liquidated without warning." The message urged residents to evacuate before 7 p.m., at which time the text said Ukrainian forces were set to launch an attack on military facilities. The photo of the message was shared widely on Tuesday, but it was not immediately clear on what day or at what time it was sent. Still, no such strike was reported in Transnistria around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and two Ukrainian government sources said in statements that the text messages were not sent by Ukrainian authorities. "The state of Ukraine has nothing to do with this and similar provocations," the military's main intelligence directorate wrote in a statement in Ukrainian. Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun tweeted an image of the text on a screen, with a statement saying, "Ukraine hasn't sent such text messages and has no plans to attack Transnistria." The photo of the purported text message did not include a phone number, signature or any identifying details and showed no indication it came from a verified source or official agency. The Security Council of Transnistria has said explosions believed to have been caused by rocket-propelled grenades hit the Ministry of State Security in the capital of Tiraspol on Monday, and explosions at a radio facility in Maiac as well as damage to a military unit in the village of Parcani, were reported on Tuesday morning. No injuries have been reported and no one has claimed responsibility for the blasts. Transnistria has been under the control of separatist authorities since a 1992 war with Moldova. Russia bases about 1,500 troops in the breakaway region, nominally as peacekeepers, The Associated Press has reported. Ukrainian officials have expressed concern about Moscow using those forces to invade Ukraine.

Sophia Tulp

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Elon Musk didn't get Bill Gates suspended from Twitter

CLAIM: Shortly after Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter on Monday, Bill Gates was suspended from the platform.

THE FACTS: A screenshot purporting to show a suspension notice on Bill Gates' Twitter account on Monday is fake. In the hours after the Tesla CEO reached an agreement to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, the screenshot emerged on the platform with claims it showed Musk had already influenced the social media company to suspend billionaire philanthropist Gates, who he has publicly criticized in recent days. "Elon moves quick," said one Twitter user who posted the manipulated screenshot on Monday afternoon. "First thing," commented another user. The screenshot appeared to show Gates' Twitter profile, including his picture, follower count, bio, location and website, above a notice saying, "Account suspended." However, Gates' account has remained active throughout the week, and an archive of the web page documented on Monday at about 1:15 p.m. around the time news first broke that Twitter was poised to accept Musk's offer shows his account had not been taken down and no such notice had been posted. Gates also tweeted at 4:36 p.m. and 6:05 p.m. on Monday. There is other evidence that the image is fake. Twitter profiles that are suspended appear to users without profile pictures or bio sections. They no longer list details such as follower counts, locations or website links, either unlike what was shown in the altered screenshot. Those who visit a suspended profile only see the user's handle, and a gray background where the profile picture and header photo are usually displayed, along with an "account suspended" message. On Sunday, Musk called out Gates in a tweet, saying that he turned down a request from the Microsoft co-founder to discuss climate change philanthropy because he believed Gates was short-selling shares of Tesla stock. "I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla," Musk also wrote in a Twitter reply to a user who had posted screenshots of an alleged text message conversation between the two business magnates. Still, Musk has also said he wants his "worst critics" to remain on Twitter because "that is what free speech means."

Sophia Tulp

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Clip shows French TV error, not election fraud

CLAIM: The number of votes for French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen decreased from 14.4 million during a live count to 13.3 million when her defeat was declared.

THE FACTS: The discrepancy was caused by a computing error during an election night live count run by TV channel France 2, causing inaccurate figures to be displayed at one point during the show, according to a statement from the broadcaster. There is no record of France's Interior Ministry officially reporting the inaccurate figures. After Emmanuel Macron won a second term as president on Sunday, some social media users suggested without evidence that election fraud may have played a role in his victory. Some Twitter users pointed to a clip from a France 2 broadcast that showed a graphic displaying more than 14.4 million votes for Le Pen, seemingly beating Macron at that time, who was shown on screen to have about 14.2 million votes. The result shown during that point in the broadcast for Le Pen was higher than the final count later announced by the Interior Ministry. Official results show Macron received nearly 18.8 million votes, while almost 13.3 million votes were cast for Le Pen. "How is it possible that the number of votes counted for Marine le Pen went down from 14.4m during the live count to 13.3m at the declaration?" one Twitter user wrote Monday, sharing the clip. "It stinks of election fraud," commented another in French. The channel, however, said in a statement Monday that Le Pen never actually received 14.4 million votes. Instead, France 2 attributed that figure, aired about 9:10 p.m., to a technical error that caused the graphic to show "erroneous figures." A software glitch counted the votes of certain municipalities twice for both Macron and Le Pen, inflating their respective vote counts at the time, France 2 said. "That error, immediately noticed, has been subsequently corrected," the broadcaster added. Several versions of the Interior Ministry's election results page archived throughout Sunday do not show Le Pen's total votes surpassing 13.3 million.

Sophia Tulp and Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report with additional reporting from Sylvie Corbet in Paris.

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Not real news: A look at what didn't happen this week - MPR News

A new billboard in East New York shows a pedestrian thrown into the air after bouncing off the front of a car, as his coffee splashes everywhere. Speeding ruins lives, it says. Slow down.

The goal of the campaign is to scare speeding drivers in this Brooklyn neighborhood, where 35 people have been killed in traffic crashes since 2017.

It is part of New York Citys latest effort to battle rampant speeding, which has turned neighborhood streets into raceways and propelled traffic deaths to the highest level in eight years.

Its getting out of control every day cars are speeding, said William Candelario, 64, whose auto repair shop in the neighborhood was slammed into by a van last year.

On Monday, the citys transportation commissioner, Ydanis Rodrguez, will unveil a new safety campaign in three dozen neighborhoods like East New York, where traffic fatalities and injuries are among the highest in the city.

Targeted areas include Bushwick and Canarsie in Brooklyn, Jamaica in Queens, Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan and Hunts Point in the South Bronx. City officials said these neighborhoods were selected based on elevated crash data.

We have seen just too many people dying on our streets, with crashes disproportionately concentrated in certain New York City communities, Mr. Rodrguez said.

The campaign will feature 18 high-profile billboards along high-crash roads and highways, as well as posters on the back end of public buses and at gas station pumps. City workers will be dispatched to hand out postcards, brochures and fliers.

In New York City, traffic deaths have risen to 64 this year through April 26, from 61 for the same period last year largely because of a spike in deaths among drivers and passengers, which nearly doubled to 23 this year from 13 last year.

Pedestrian deaths though still the largest share of traffic deaths fell to 30 this year from 39 last year.

Two cyclists were also killed, the same as last year, as well as four riders of motorized devices, which was two more than the year before, amid a pandemic boom in cycling and electric bikes, scooters and skateboards.

Just over one-quarter of the 64 deaths this year were on highways including three deaths each on Henry Hudson Parkway and Grand Central Parkway while the rest were on local streets throughout the city.

The traffic deaths have reversed some of the hard-won gains of the citys eight-year-old transportation policy, called Vision Zero, which once aimed to eliminate all traffic deaths and had become a national model. Under the policy, the city won state approval to lower the speed limit to 25 m.p.h. from 30 m.p.h. on most streets, built a sprawling network of nearly 2,000 automated speed cameras, and redesigned many streets to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Mayor Eric Adams, who took office in January, has promised to expand on Vision Zero efforts. He recently pledged $904 million to the citys streets plan over the next five years, which will include redesigning dangerous intersections and adding more protected bike lanes and pedestrian areas. He has said police officials will also increase enforcement of traffic laws.

In addition, city officials are lobbying state lawmakers for local control of city streets, which would give them authority to set speed limits, expand red light cameras, and extend hours for speed cameras in school zones to nights and weekends when the cameras are off and speeding has soared. The city needs to be able to control its own destiny, so that we can quickly make changes that meet the current crisis, Mr. Rodrguez said.

The new billboard and media campaign, which will cost $4 million, aims to reinforce those other traffic safety efforts by trying to change driver behavior.

This is a crisis and we need to use every tool possible to make our streets safer, said Danny Harris, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group, which has pushed the city to address the traffic violence.

There has been an epidemic of speeding and reckless driving around the country during the pandemic in part as some drivers have become emboldened by emptier roads and lax police enforcement, according to transportation experts. New York City has also seen a rise in car ownership as many people have avoided public transit.

Even before the pandemic, a growing number of cities sought to lower speed limits and design safer roads over concerns that higher speeds and larger vehicles like S.U.V.s led to more severe injuries and fatalities.

The risk of death exponentially increases as speed increases, said Alex Engel, a spokesman for the National Association of City Transportation Officials. This is especially important as the vehicles on the streets have gotten larger.

The eight-week, citywide campaign will also include television ads showing a pedestrian or cyclist being thrown backward in slow motion. And it will target drivers on social media, based on their online searches, and run in certain print publications.

Erick Guerra, an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, said that while media campaigns are important, they do not have the same immediate effect on slowing down drivers as, say, expanding the use of automated speed cameras. I think it takes a long time to change a culture of driving in the same way it took a long way to change a culture of smoking, he said.

Some transportation advocates have called on cities to focus more on redesigning dangerous streets, saying that it is not enough to come into a neighborhood and tell drivers not to speed when its streets were essentially built to move traffic as fast as possible.

Its a vicious cycle, said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the Vision Zero Network, a non-profit campaign. Why is there speeding here? Its because of the environment we built.

In East New York, the billboard there will be seen by drivers going through a particularly dangerous intersection at Atlantic and Pennsylvania Avenues, where 167 people including 154 motor vehicle occupants were injured in crashes from 2015 to 2019, according to the latest data available.

Laura Remigio, 35, a makeup artist and stylist who said she was almost hit by a car while visiting a client in East New York, said that drivers go too fast and have cut her off in the crosswalk. Its supposed to be people first and the cars wait and they dont wait, she said. Im running because the cars dont stop.

But Ian Johnson, 67, a driver from New Jersey, said that some pedestrians also need to pay more attention. He said he often has to honk at people who dont look as they cross or are on their phones when they almost walk into my vehicle.

Mr. Candelario, whose auto repair shop is steps away from the billboard, said he hoped the billboard would finally get the attention of drivers.

Its an eye opener and it makes you think, he said. Youve got to be hard. Youve got to put a little fear in it.

The rest is here:
How to Stop Speeding Drivers in N.Y.C.? Scare Them - The New York Times

27 April 2022, 12:0013:00 Central European Summer Time (virtual event)

Cancer is a major health, social and public policy challenge and successfully tackling it requires an understanding of all its determinants. Although commercial determinants are a relatively new field of study, there are emerging themes which are very important for cancer policy along the cancer control continuum.

Commercial determinants are those private-sector activities that affect the health of populations. They can have a negative impact, as commercial interests can trump nobler health goals.

So, how do commercial determinants affect cancer control policies in Europe? What are the challenges and opportunities for governing them along the cancer control continuum? Join our webinar to learn more.

Cancer is responsible for a high burden of disease within the WHO European Region. In 2020 alone, 4.8 million people in the Region were diagnosed with cancer, of whom a staggering 2.2 million people lost their lives.

By 2030, these numbers are estimated to reach 5.4 million new diagnoses annually and 2.5 million deaths each year. Additionally, these numbers will most likely be an under estimate given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on delayed diagnosis and treatments. If efficient prevention and early detection strategies are in place, 3040% of cancers are preventable. This is not being achieved due to cancer policy-making remaining quite far from what evidence and costeffectiveness recommends, with treatment often being prioritized over prevention and early detection strategies, for example.

Cancer policy-making also differs significantly across the European Region, contributing to the widening of health inequalities within and between countries. Action on cancer prevention and control is a key priority to curb the burden of disease within the population of the European Region and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target to reduce by one third premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases by 2030.

This event is intended for policy-makers, advisors, national experts, medical and health-care professionals, members of professional societies, researchers, advocates and representatives of nongovernmental organizations.

The rest is here:
What are the commercial determinants of cancer control policy? Launch of Eurohealth special edition and webinar discussion - WHO/Europe

At 4pm on a Friday afternoon in June 2019, Macy Smith, then 17 years old, was driving alone in a white hatchback near Pilot Mountain in North Carolina. The road twisted through a thick forest and a torrential summer storm lashed down. Macy lost control on a corner and the car hydroplaned, hurtling through the trees and flipping over three times before settling in a ravine. She was flung into the back seat and the vehicle pinned her left arm to the ground.

Macy was frantic: she stretched for her phone, but couldnt reach it. She listened out for passing cars, but it was a remote spot and they didnt come often. The first went by without stopping, then the next, then a third. It became dark. Macy had lost feeling in the arm that was trapped, and her neck throbbed. By 10.30pm, 28 cars had come and gone. But then the 29th did stop: Macy heard the doors open, and the voices of her stepfather and brother calling her name. They followed the tyre skids down the embankment and her stepfather held her hand through the blown-out sunroof. Macy had kept it together until this point, but now she sobbed.

The family had found Macy using the Find My Friends app, which allows users with Apple iPhones to share their location with others. Her mother, Catrina Cramer Alexander, had checked it when Macy hadnt come home and was not answering calls. They then jumped in their car and followed the pulsing blue dot to the ravine.

Having that location, if we didnt have that, we would have never known where to look, Alexander told a local TV station. Im certain that that is what saved her life.

What happened to Macy is every parents worst nightmare, though mercifully there was a happy-ish ending: Macy had a fractured neck and underwent an operation to repair nerve damage in her arm. But its not hard to imagine a worse outcome. What if her phone had smashed? What if it couldnt get a signal in the forest? Its unreal that I survived that crash, she said afterwards.

Find My Friends was unveiled on 4 October 2011, the day before Steve Jobss death, and has been installed as standard on Apple products since 2015. But the app was not the first or even the market leader: thats Life360, which describes itself as a family safety service and has received funding from Google and Facebook since it was founded in 2008. Standard location-sharing apps, such as Find My Friends on iOS devices and Google Family Link for Android, give a GPS pinpoint for users, which they can either choose to reveal to others or not. Life360 does that too, but for a fee you can activate premium features, such as being notified if someone in your circle has been involved in a car accident, or if they have driven above the speed limit or even gone beyond a set geo-fenced area.

There is a significant market for these features. Life360 is used by 32 million people in more then 140 countries; its currently the seventh most downloaded social-networking app on the App Store and its San Francisco-based company has been valued at more than $1bn. A survey of 4,000 parents and guardians in the UK in 2019 found that 40% of them used real-time GPS location tracking on a daily basis for their children; 15% said that they checked their whereabouts constantly.

That word constantly will send many teenagers into a cold sweat. At best, location-tracking apps can feel like an extension of helicopter parenting; at worst, they might feel like stalking. While all the apps tend to emphasise that they provide security for the child and peace of mind for the parent, some clearly go into deeper, more invasive territory. One, Find My Kids, allows you to activate the microphone on your childs phone remotely, so you can eavesdrop on their interactions. OurPact gives you access to screenshots of your childs online activity, all encrypted for maximum safety. Bark monitors and scans messages sent from a device, looking for issues such as cyberbullying, sexual content, online predators, depression, suicidal ideation, threats of violence, and more. The app claims to cover almost 6 million children, and has detected 478,000 self-harm situations and 2.5m severe bullying situations.

Location tracking has become a battleground in many families, bringing up issues of trust, privacy and personal growth. And while the discussion mostly relates to teens, it can start much earlier. Find My Kids, which launched in Russia in 2016 and is now worldwide, notes on its website: Youd [sic] kid is too young for a smartphone? Use childrens GPS smartwatch! In the US, the GizmoWatch 2 offers real-time location tracking and is aimed at children as young as three. KIDSnav is pitched at five-year-olds and up and offers GPS tracking and a built-in microphone to listen in on whatever is happening around your child.

All parents have to ask themselves what is best for their child. And Macy Smith and her family are in no doubt that location-tracking apps can be invaluable: in fact, after the accident, the family upgraded from Find My Friends to Life360, because of the crash detection and roadside assistance it offers.

I know its hard for teenagers to give up your privacy, Macy told ABC News, but sneaking out and being places you dont want your parents to know about is not worth being trapped under a car for seven hours.

In a sense, location-tracking apps have crept up on us. Most parents would agree that planting a chip in your child that monitored their movements and vital signs as depicted in the Arkangel episode of the dystopian, tech-anxiety series Black Mirror in 2018 would be a little extreme. But smartphones have put similar technology in all of our pockets and, well, when its 12.30am and you want to go to bed and your kids not back from their friends house, its pretty difficult to resist.

If its on your phone, why would you not look? says Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who has written extensively on childrens rights in the digital age. Up till now, parents and children had evolved lots of ways of handling it: Phone when you reach your friends I wont worry as long as youre home by 11. But now with the apps and tracking, you know everything. So its: Why did they go to the shopping centre on the way to their friends? They said they were going to this friend, why are they on that side of town? Once youve got information, it is almost wrong not to look at it.

Not all teenagers find location tracking an invasion of their privacy. Many are happy to share their whereabouts constantly with their friends: Snap Map, a popular, opt-in function of Snapchat, pinpoints the users exact position and those in their circle (with alarming accuracy) whenever the app is turned on. Some dont even mind their parents keeping tabs on their movements. When I think about it, it makes me feel safe, because I know that Mum or Dad knows where I am, says Lola Pethybridge, a 17-year-old student from south London. Or even my brother who is two years younger if it came down to him having to figure out where I was. Its just that safety net where you can say, I need help. Or, Can you come and get me? And the relief of, Oh, someone I trust knows where I am.

Next year, Pethybridge hopes to go to university will she turn off the familys Find My Friends then? Just judging by my habits, she says, I dont think I will.

The subject of location tracking is a more contentious issue with other families. Alicia Hardy, a solicitor from Petersfield in Hampshire, encouraged her two children, Ben and Louise, to use Find My Friends after hearing about it from her sister who lives in the US. Ben, who was 17 at the time, lasted for about a month. At that point in my life, I wasnt necessarily that happy about Mum knowing where I was all the time, says Ben, who is now 23. He smiles, I was sneaking out to smoke, so I didnt want Mum to see that I was leaving school.

Louise, meanwhile, was 14 and went along with her mothers Find My Friends request; now 20, they both still use it. I introduced it not because I wanted to catch my kids out doing stuff wrong, because frankly, I did stuff wrong, but for me it was more an anxious-mother thing, explains Alicia. Children can be on their phones all day to their mates. But they dont answer their phone to their parents or text them back. And thats really, really irritating for parents, because they systematically would not answer for hours. I tend to catastrophise, whereas Marco doesnt even think about it. (Marco Hardy, her ex-partner and Ben and Louises father, agrees: Ive never even looked at an app or even contemplated it, he says.)

By many objective measures, young people face fewer dangers than they did a generation ago, but it probably doesnt feel like that to their parents. Livingstone has found in her research that daughters are especially likely to be tracked, with concerns about sexual assault and, in recent times, reports of drink-spiking. Many of the apps lean into these worst-case scenarios. One of the add-ons that Life360 offers is Disaster Response: Evacuation support in case of natural disasters, active shooter events, and more.

Louise Hardy agrees that, at times, location-tracking apps have made her feel safer, but still has some conflict about them. As a kid youre meant to do stuff that your parents dont know about, she says. Youre meant to make mistakes, youre meant to mess up. So them always having an eye on you takes away from childhood a little bit. But Mum is a worrier, so its just a case of keeping her a bit sane.

The Hardy family are clearly very open with each other, and thats important according to Philippa Perry, a psychotherapist and the Observer Magazines agony aunt. Children sometimes want some things to be private, she says. I never used online monitoring with my child because she was an adult before I knew about the software. I relied on that old-fashioned method of asking her where she was going. Once she answered me, Im not telling you. To which I replied, Darling, even Dad has to tell me where hes going so we know where to start the police search. Which, luckily, she found reasonable.

For Perry, location tracking, like most technology, is neither good nor evil: what matters is the boundaries you set and all parties being comfortable with the negotiation. Its not for an outsider like me to say whether or not to use it, she says. Like all things, if you want your children to be open with you and feel like they can tell you anything, dont react angrily or negatively or dismissively when they confide in you. If you have done this in the past and now you have a mute teenager, try to repair that rupture by telling them where you overreacted in the past without making excuses for yourself and say youll do better next time. And do better next time.

Many teens feel a line has been crossed, especially when their parents make location tracking a condition of paying their phone bill. On the online forum Reddit, on boards such as r/insaneparents and r/raisedbynarcissists, kids share horror stories and screenshots of unhinged interactions with their parents. On TikTok, videos instruct users on how to change their phone settings to fool Life360 into freezing their location (I broke Life360, you are welcome). On Twitter, a 20-year-old called Cedar Rose from Kansas City recently made an appeal for $3,000 so they could leave home and their homophobic anti-vax parents who track their movements constantly on Life360. This is my final resort, they wrote. I have no freedom in this house, absolutely none. And I cant take it any more. To date, Cedar has only raised $510, along with some snide comments that they should just get a job.

Whether the use of these apps keeps children safer and more sensible is disputed, but there is obviously the potential to impact relationships between parents and their offspring: certainly where trust has been eroded, location tracking is unlikely to repair the damage. A small study in the Netherlands found that teenagers who were monitored were more secretive and less likely to confide in their parents. If young people want their privacy, theyll find a way of getting it, predicts Livingstone.

Where there is more widespread agreement, though, is concern about what happens with the data that is collected. Life360, for example, made $16m in 2020 from selling location data (it is how the app keeps its basic model free, the company states). This information might end up with insurance companies, or realistically with anyone who feels there is a value in paying for it. Livingstone says, The idea that children are getting a detailed digital footprint not of their own making that tracks everywhere they go, and thats being used to sell advertising to them now or later, is reprehensible.

Its no spoiler that in the Black Mirror episode Arkangel, the (well-intentioned) use of location tracking ends in disaster: the abject breakdown of trust and understanding between a mother and daughter. In the real world, the experiment that we have only tenuously signed up for is ongoing and we will experience the results as they happen, with the fallout felt by our loved ones. Children have always had times in which they were unobserved and playing outside and generally at risk and coping, says Livingstone. We have a crisis in mental health, so it may all be linked that theyre not developing those everyday habits of resilience. But there are some huge unknowns: we have no idea really what it is to grow up when you are constantly observed. So in that sense, we just have to say, we dont know.

See the original post:
Honey, lets track the kids: the rise of parental surveillance - The Guardian

Tim Nwachukwu | Getty Images

Mother Nature struck after 68 laps in Sundays NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover Motor Speedway, pushing the conclusion to the 400-miler to Monday.

The field ran 10 laps under caution prior to bringing the 36 cars to pit road for the red flag on Lap 78. Kyle Larson is the race leader, with Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. and William Byron rounding out the top five.

Though not even one-quarter of the race is complete, there were still some key takeaways on Sunday.

Editors note: The race will resume Monday at noon ET on FS1 (MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

After starting second, it took Hamlin 19 laps to get the lead from Chris Buescher. But once the No. 11 car got out front, he set sail.

Hamlin went on to lead the next 55 laps, which is more than hed led in the first 10 races of the season combined (49). Thus far in 2022, the No. 11 Toyota has just one top-10 finish, coming via his win at Richmond.

RELATED: See the running order

Throughout Hamlins career, hes struggled at Dover, at one point being among his worst tracks on the schedule. In recent years, however, the Virginia native has eight top-10 finishes in the last 11 races at the Monster Mile, including his lone win at Dover in 2020.

When the race restarts on Monday, Hamlin will be listed eighth, having pitted for four tires under the caution for rain.

After winning his first career NASCAR Busch Light Pole Award on Saturday, Bueschers stock rose. That continued into the beginning of the race Sunday, as the No. 17 Ford paced the field for the opening 18 laps. In 233 Cup starts (including Sunday), its the second-most laps the Texan has ever led in a Cup race, trailing only Homestead-Miami from last year (57).

When Buescher lost the lead to Hamlin on Lap 19, he quickly dropped to fourth, behind Larson and Elliott, but stayed in the top five. Like the No. 11 car, the No. 17 team also brought the pole sitter to pit road under the caution for rain.

On Monday, Buescher will restart from 13th position, losing a few spots on pit road from the first pit stall. Bueschers best Dover finish is 14th in 2020, though he won an Xfinity Series race at the Monster Mile in 2015. Keep an eye on him.

Saturdays group practice sessions were eventful, to say the least. Many drivers, including Byron and Tyler Reddick, went for wild rides.

Some of the series big teams continued to struggle in the opening stint of Sundays race. With a competition caution at Lap 40, Stewart-Haas Racing drivers Chase Briscoe and Cole Custer had already lost a lap to the leader. As the yellow flag flew, Austin Dillon was next to go one lap down, with Joey Logano and Byron just ahead of the No. 3 car.

During the competition caution, Logano came over the radio and said his No. 22 Ford was out of control and felt like he was going to wreck. Fortunately for Briscoe, he was the free pass recipient.

Making a strategy call to get track position, Byron will restart fifth on Monday, with Dillon and Logano mired down in 26th and 27th, respectively. Briscoe made his way up to 24th.

Well see if these drivers, and others, can turn it around on Monday.

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Dover so far: What weve learned through 78 laps completed at the Monster Mile - NASCAR