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There are more than 20,000 migrant children in NYC who might not be vaccinated ahead of the new school year.

NEW YORK – Staten Island’s borough president is taking aim the New York Department of Education.

Vito Fossella says the city’s public schools will start the year with thousands newly arrived migrant children, who may be unvaccinated. All children must be immunized to attend school in New York Public Schools. But this school year, there’s a lot of new students. Over 100,000 migrants from Central and South America, Hati and oversees arrived in the city last spring, bringing with them more than 20,000 children.

“If you’re going to impose a standard on ordinary citizens, then that same standard should be imposed on individuals from 120 different countries and want to show up on day one for school,” said Fossella at a news conference Saturday, where a handful of Staten Island leaders and residents stood in front of P.S. 038, arguing that migrant children who can’t prove they’ve been inoculated against diseases like Diphtheria, Tetanus, Polio, Hepatitis B, Measles and Chickenpox, shouldn’t be allowed to start school next week.

Read more here. 

IT is one of the toughest decisions faced by parents – when to give in to their younger children’s constant demands for a smartphone.

Startling recent figures from communications regulator Ofcom show that 20 per cent of kids have a smartphone by the age of three, and that rises to 55 per cent between the ages of eight to 11. But the residents of one seaside town in Ireland have decided they do not want their little ones to spend their most formative years peering into a tiny LCD screen. The entire parent population of Greystones in County Wicklow got together to agree not to buy smartphones for their kidsuntil they were in secondary school. All eight primary schools in the town, 15 miles south of Dublin, had already stopped pupils from bringing the electronic devices into the learning environment. But the school parent associations then went further by initiating a voluntary ban among themselves.

It is a revolutionary approach which would likely be welcomed by parents in Britain as well.

Read more here. 

A “drag” performer arrested 22 years ago for possessing both child pornography and illicit drugs has been hired to be the school principal of an Oklahoma City elementary school, and the school district is defending its decision.

Dr. Shane Brent Murnan, 52, the new elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary, had his personal devices confiscated by police in 2001 on suspicion of possession of child pornography, V1SUT reported on Substack. Almost 20 years later, he was investigated for another crime, according to a 2020 court filing.

Police arrested the then-30-year-old in August 2001 after a Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) search recovered four deleted images of children engaged in sex acts, according to court records. Police also found 6 grams of marijuana in his home. Murnan, at the time, was a fifth-grade teacher at Stillwater’s Will Rogers Elementary School. After the arrest, school officials suspended Murnan and he resigned in May 2002.

Read more here.

A proposed law in California to lengthen prison terms for child sex trafficking that ignited public outrage and divided Democrats this summer was changed during a critical vote on Friday to address concerns over victims potentially being prosecuted.

An amended version of Senate Bill 14, which would add the sex trafficking of minors to the list of felonies classified as serious under California’s penal code and subject people to additional time in prison under the state’s “three strikes” law, passed the powerful Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday.

The amendments “exempt human trafficking victims from the serious felony provision,” said Pasadena Democrat Chris Holden, chair of the panel.

The changes were pushed by progressive Assembly Democrats in response to criminal justice reform advocates’ concerns that the bill could harm victims. Holden called the amendments “very narrow,” and said they were designed to ensure that trafficking victims are “not further victimized.”

Though the Republican state senator who wrote the bill had said earlier this week that she didn’t want it to undergo any changes, she said Friday that she was satisfied with the modifications.

Read more here. 

Suicide. American crisis. Why are so many children attempting or succeeding at killing themselves.

We need much more public awareness, education and take actions.

9 8 8. Did you know that there is now a three-digit code if you or a loved one are in crisis.

Let’s talk about it. Learn more. BE A WARRIOR.

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked an Arkansas law forcing social media companies to verify users’ ages and requiring that minors get parental consent to set up account.

Tech industry trade group NetChoice in June sued to strike down the state law as unconstitutional, arguing it violated users’ First Amendment rights and imposed “onerous obligations” on digital platforms.

In granting NetChoice’s request for a preliminary injunction against the law, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks expressed deep reservations about its constitutionality and efficacy.

Brooks wrote that the law “is not targeted to address the harms it has identified, and further research is necessary before the State may begin to construct a regulation that is narrowly tailored to address the harms that minors face due to prolonged use of certain social media.”

The law, which was supposed to take effect Friday, marks the latest in a bevy of attempts at the state level to restrict or ban minors’ access to social media over concerns that the platforms exacerbate mental health issues for younger users.

Read more here.

1. P*rnhub must be forced to start requiring reliable, third party, age and consent verification for every individual in every video. After being globally exposed as a crime scene they only started verifying uploaders who are often the abusers, but they don’t verify the individuals in the free and ad revenue generating videos that constitute ~80% of the site. They must be forced to reliably verify age and consent for every person in every video.

2. Then P*rnhub must remove all unverified free videos that have been uploaded to the site. They were forced to remove 10.6 million videos in Dec. 2020 but they did not fix the problem. They must once again purge all videos where the age and consent of every individual was not verified by a third party. In addition to removing the unverified free videos, all ModelHub paid videos uploaded prior to 2021 must be removed because that is when they finally adopted stricter verification policies for paid videos.

3. Even if they finally give in and comply with these demands (after intense public shaming, 8 landmark lawsuits and being cut off by the major credit card companies), we must still shut P*rnhub down because they have knowingly destroyed the lives of countless victims for over a decade. A slap on the wrist for P*rnhub is a slap in the face for victims around the world. We will not allow P*rnhub to go on business as usual, that is not what justice looks like—together we will shut it down.

4. After P*rnhub is shut down, its executives must be held criminally accountable to the full extent of the law for globally distributing and monetizing child rape, criminal sexual abuse and sex trafficking since 2007. This will achieve justice for victims as well as provide a strong deterrent to future abusers and copycats. 5. Finally we must implement global preventative government and corporate policies that require, upon risk of shut down and demonetization, reliable, third party age and consent verification for every individual in every video on every user generated p*rn site so this tragedy never happens again. #Traffickinghub

Please sign petition here. 

Thank you.

It was an honor to join host, Chris Salcedo on his namesake show, The Chris Salcedo Show on NEWSMAX along with fellow guest, Dr. Lois Lee
to discuss the record number of children flowing freely over our open borders. #Criminal Who’s doing anything? Not Washington. But we are. Take a listen. Border = $. #truthnotpropaganda #LynnsWarriors💙

Watch interview here.

The smell of new school supplies, fresh borders around the bulletin boards, rosters ready to go: It’s back-to-school time! We educators know that the first weeks of class are critical in terms of setting the tone, establishing expectations, and building community.

You likely have some tried-and-true approaches and activities to start the school year, but below we’ve put together a list of possibilities to try out at the start of this school year.

Online Activities

Ask students to create a Flip introducing themselves, stating their goals for the year, or sharing one thing you and their classmates need to know about them. Then make a Mixtape of their responses to share with the class.

As you’re developing classroom norms and expectations, use Mentimeter or Wooclap to generate a real-time word cloud to consolidate and display responses.

You can also have students create personal word clouds (ABCya is one option) that represent them.

Curate videos from GoNoodle to help facilitate classroom routines, mindfulness and movement breaks, and more. You can also use UNICEF Kid Power to build community around helping others, or Move This World as a more comprehensive program to build SEL skills into the weekly routine.

Try Along to open up lines of communication and build relationships right from the start of the year.

Create a Kahoot or GimKit quiz about the year to come, and then revisit it at various points throughout the year so students can reflect.
Use generative AI to create a poem, rap, or other form of song about your class, what to expect, yourself, etc. You could also have students generate something about themselves to share, and use it an opportunity to discuss AI in general.

Using Canva or Adobe Express, tap into the power of generative AI design and videos to create an introductory video or presentation for new students.
With a classroom TikTok account, you can create videos that students can duet with. Introduce yourselves, talk about goals for the year, or just open up fun conversations for community building. Note that a public account is required for Duets, which could have privacy implications.

Use Breakout EDU to set up a back-to-school escape room, or GooseChase EDU to create a scavenger hunt.

Start a routine using the Connection Cards in Sanford Harmony Game Room (part of the free Harmony SEL program) to build community.
Connect with classrooms around the world (easily!) using Empatico or Belouga. Establishing a regular cadence for meetings with students from somewhere else can build relationships and broaden student horizons.

Use Book Creator to make a book about your class and have kids create self-introductions or a book reflecting their goals for the year.
Take kids on a virtual field trip to kick off the year. You could establish a routine of checking on particular animals (the cameras in Africa on Explore.org are live all year!), find art that represents them on Google Arts & Culture, or visit Catie’s Classroom from Super Simple each week.

Want more ideas for activities? Sign up for our newsletter!

On this week’s episode of Up Close, we discuss sex trafficking on the streets of New York City. Why is it growing?

Cops say women are the victims.

We talk to NYPD Chief of Department Jeffery Maddrey about that, along with the decline of gun violence this summer.

Watch here.