Hello, Warriors.
Today we celebrate our great country with family and friends.
Take a break and spend time doing other things and get off of the devices. That’s exactly what the Warriors are doing today once we post this.
Be well, stay safe and have fun.
Suggested reading is our current Warriors Newsletter for some suggestions for you and your children.
A federal court in Kansas on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations from taking effect in four states, becoming the latest court to stop the new controversial rules from taking effect in August.
The Department of Education’s new rules expanded the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy, and included a ban on single-sex bathroom and locker rooms. It also required schools to use pronouns based on a student’s preferred gender identity. The new rules have now been stopped in 14 states as of Tuesday.
Federal judge John Broomes ruled on the side of attorneys general in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, claiming that Title IX was meant to protect biological women from discrimination in education.
“The legislative history [of Title IX] supports a finding that the term ‘sex’ referred to biological sex,” Broomes wrote in his ruling. “One of the principal purposes of the statute was to root out discrimination against women in education. The legislative history shows that Congress was concerned about the unequal treatment between men and women for admissions opportunities, scholarships, and sports.”
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), along with federal, state, and local agencies in seven federal judicial districts and geographical locations across the United States, led a six-week national operation that resulted in finding 200 critically missing children, which includes endangered runaways and those abducted by noncustodial persons.
Operation We Will Find You 2 (OWWFY2), the second-of-its-kind nationwide missing child operation, was conducted from May 20 to June 24 and focused on geographical areas with high clusters of critically missing children. Children who go missing may be in serious danger and can be vulnerable to child sex trafficking, abuse, exploitation, and other crimes against children.
With technical assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), OWWFY2 resulted in the recovery and removal of 123 children from dangerous situations. An additional 77 missing children were located and found to be in safe locations, according to law enforcement or child welfare agencies. Of the 200 children found, 173 were endangered runaways, 25 were considered otherwise missing, one was a family abduction, and one was a non-family abduction. The youngest child recovered was five months old. 14 of the children were found outside the city where they went missing. Additionally, of the missing children recovered, 57% were recovered within seven days of the USMS assisting with the case.
Internet addiction is the problematic, compulsive use of the Internet that results in significant impairments in an individual’s functioning in various aspects of life, including social, work, and academic arenas.
Internet addiction is becoming a worldwide problem. Individual screen time averages have risen to about three hours daily. Many people declare that their internet use is “compulsive.” In fact, more than 30 million of the United Kingdom’s 50 million internet users acknowledge that their compulsive, habitual use of the Internet is adversely affecting their personal lives by disrupting relationships and neglecting responsibilities.
Teens addicted to their internet-connected devices have significant alterations in their brain function, worsening addictive behaviors and prohibiting normal development. Internet addiction, powered by uncontrollable urges, disrupts their development, psychological well-being, and every aspect of their lives – mental, emotional, social, and physical.
A study by scientists at UCLA identified the extensive changes to young brains, especially those of children aged 10 to 19 years. A ten-year study, which concluded in 2023, collected the findings from 237 adolescents who had been officially diagnosed with Internet addiction.
North Carolina lawmakers have approved legislation that would make soliciting prostitution a felony while requiring hotel operators and vacation rental owners to complete mandatory training for recognizing the signs of human trafficking.
HB 971, which passed both the state House and Senate this week, would require employees of hotels and other lodging establishments and vacation rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo to undergo human trafficking awareness training developed by the North Carolina Department of Labor.
The Department of Labor would develop that training regimen in cooperation with the North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission, the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Lodging establishments would be required to ensure that front desk, food service and housekeeping staff complete the training, where they will learn to recognize the signs of human trafficking victims on their premises. The measure also calls for a standardized procedure for reporting suspected human trafficking to law enforcement and for hotels to display conspicuous signage with information on the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
North Carolina is among the states most affected by human trafficking, according to the state Department of Administration (DOA). With 390 trafficking victims served by service agencies that received state funding in 2020, it ranks ninth in the nation for incidence of the crime, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
“Because human trafficking is a crime which hides in the shadows, the true number of cases in North Carolina is likely much higher,” the DOA said on its website.
The state features major interstate highways, a large and transient military population, numerous rural agricultural areas with a high demand for cheap labor, and an increasing number of gangs, all of which make it a hotbed for human trafficking, according to the DOA. Women, especially young women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants and unhoused people are especially vulnerable.
Another section of the bill elevates solicitation of prostitution from a misdemeanor to a felony, though people engaging in prostitution are not in violation of the law. The legislation also would protect the identities of human trafficking victims who report their experiences, said Rep. Kevin Crutchfield, a Republican representing Rowan and Cabarrus counties.
Sen. Buck Newton, a Republican representing Greene, Wayne and Wilson counties, called the legislation a “legacy bill” that was needed “for people to know that North Carolina is not the state to traffic another human being.”
The bill lays out $450,000 for state courts to implement human trafficking awareness efforts and to partially fund the state’s Human Trafficking Commission. The Department of Labor also would get $50,000 to develop and administer the required training program.
Property managers of vacation rentals would be required to implement a procedure for reporting suspected human trafficking occurring at vacation rentals before listing a vacation rental.
Failing to follow the training requirements could saddle property owners or managers with a $500 fine for a first violation, $1,000 for a second violation and $2,000 for third and subsequent failures to comply.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken focused on human trafficking using digital tools in a yearly report the department released on Monday.
“Digital tools have amplified the reach, scale, and speed of trafficking,” Blinken wrote in the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report. “They use online platforms to sell illicit sexual content. They leverage encrypted messaging and digital currencies to evade detection.”
“Trafficking is the very definition of a problem that no one nation can solve alone,” Blinken said.
The International Labour Organization estimated in 2021 27.6 million people were in forced labor, an increase of 2.7 million from 2016. Of those 27.6 million, the ILO estimated 6.3 million were in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million in forced labor imposed by a state.
“Unfortunately, some governments are part of the problem,” said Ambassador at-Large Cindy Dyer.
Blinken said the use of online tools has made it possible for traffickers to expand their reach.
The headlines are gut-wrenching. Young boys, targeted online by perpetrators in disguise, are being manipulated to produce sexual imagery only to be immediately exploited for monetary gain under the pressure of severe social shaming. Some have not survived the experience.
Stories like James’, have gained national attention and Thorn has new evidence that this kind of exploitation is occurring at an alarming rate and continues to gain momentum. It’s called financial sextortion – a devastating form of exploitation leveraging sexual imagery for monetary gain – and it’s deeply concerning for all children growing up in the digital age.
Our groundbreaking study, “Trends in Financial Sextortion: An investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data,” conducted in collaboration with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), shows that financial sextortion is sharply on the rise, and is a tactic that is primarily used on unsuspecting teenage boys.
Deb Schmill has become a fixture on Capitol Hill. Last week alone, she visited the offices of 13 lawmakers, one of more than a dozen trips she has made from her home near Boston over the past two years.
In each meeting, Ms. Schmill talks about her daughter Becca, who died in 2020 at age 18. Ms. Schmill said Becca had died after taking fentanyl-laced drugs bought on Facebook. Before that, she said, her daughter was raped by a boy she had met online, then was cyberbullied on Snapchat.
“I have to do what I can to help pass legislation to protect other children and to prevent what happened to Becca from happening to them,” Ms. Schmill, 60, said. “It’s my coping mechanism.”
Ms. Schmill is among dozens of parents who are lobbying for the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, a bill that would require social media, gaming and messaging apps to limit features that could heighten depression or bullying or lead to sexual exploitation. The bill, which has the greatest momentum of any broad tech industry legislation in years, would also require the tech services to turn on the highest privacy and safety settings by default for users under 17 and let youths opt out of some features that can lead to compulsive use.
