www.youtube.com – 12 On Your Side – 2025-03-18 06:42:02
SUMMARY: Tuesday’s forecast predicts sunny, pleasant weather following recent rain. Temperatures will rise into the low 80s in areas like Kansas and Dallas, while St. Louis reaches a comfortable 68 degrees. A low-pressure system is expected Thursday, bringing some afternoon showers, but not severe weather. Today’s clear skies will help warm temperatures to the mid-70s tomorrow, though caution is advised to prevent wildfires due to low humidity and a light breeze. After Thursday’s scattered showers, temperatures will drop to the upper 50s Friday, with pleasant weekend weather expected before the next rain arrives on Monday.
Virginia’s General Assembly would be doing our future a great service if it could rein in social media addiction for young people, the inspiration behind legislation it has approved and sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his consideration.
Were it as easy as enacting a state law limiting social media exposure for Virginians under age 16 to a maximum of one hour, we would solve many problems that unlimited access to platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube cause for vulnerable preteens and teens.
Unfortunately, it’s not so easy. That’s because parenting is essential.
A study by the American Psychological Association notes that at about age 10, when fundamental shifts in kids’ brains make them crave social rewards such as peer approval, we hand them smartphones and access to the internet. There, they have limitless opportunities for outreach and validation on those social media platforms. But experts warn that it can cause anxiety, depression and unrealistic body image concerns among many mental health problems. Increasingly, children are bullied to the point of self-harm or even suicide via social media, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surely we all remember parental involvement. It was a guiding theme of Republican Glenn Youngkin’s insurgency campaign for governor just four years ago. The amiable, untested former hedge fund executive deftly cornered the nomination of a Virginia GOP battered during Donald Trump’s first presidency and eager to move on. He channeled the zeitgeist of Virginia voters weary of a leftward Democratic overreach in Virginia and of first-year President Joe Biden.
In a feat of political jiu jitsu in his first-ever campaign, Youngkin made Democrats own pandemic-era frustration over shuttered schools and remote learning; over accommodations made to transgender and transitioning students; over mandates that pupils wear masks when classrooms reopened.
As anger toward school boards boiled over, book bans and confrontations over curriculum became a rallying cry on the right, and it was a message that resonated with moderate parents. Youngkin advocated for more parental say in their children’s public schooling, and it played well enough in suburban areas such as Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to deny Democrats the large margins they needed to offset a historic rural GOP turnout.
That year, seven school districts banned 11 titles, all of them dealing with gender, sexual orientation or race, according to data compiled by PEN America, a nationwide nonprofit that advocates for free expression for writers. Virginia Beach Public Schools led the way, axing six titles including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” a novel set in the 1940s about a Black girl who grew up believing blue eyes would make her accepted and beautiful. In 2021, however, the book-ban movement was just getting started. The following year, 182 titles were challenged statewide, according to the American Library Association, and it more than doubled in 2023 to 387, the nation’s fifth-highest total.
We’d love to imagine that the 2021 ushered in a renaissance of close parental engagement with their children’s education and other pursuits, and not just a politically driven wave that swept conservatives into school board seats. Perhaps in some cases it did, but there’s no hard evidence of a subsequent groundswell of close parental involvement or oversight. At least not of the sort necessary to make Virginia’s social media bill highly effective. Ironically, if that sort of intimate attention by parents and guardians to their kids widely existed, there would be no need for laws such as this.
There’s a rich history of shielding kids from vices — and of kids indulging them anyway. Buying or possessing alcohol has long been illegal for anyone under age 21. (Full disclosure: the legal drinking age when this writer was young was 18, and I made the most of it.)
A 30-day CDC study of drug use among high schoolers found that during that span, more than one in five (22%) consumed alcohol, the most commonly used drug among youth. According to the CDC, 4,000 people under 21 die annually from excessive alcohol use. Also, underage drinking cost the United States $24 billion in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $35.3 billion now.
The same study found that 17% of high schoolers used electronic vape products, the same ratio as those who used marijuana. Just 4% smoked cigarettes.
Addiction to social media, ever-present in the digital ether, bears less stigma than those more tangible vices. A more apt comparison would be to online pornography, something 19 states (including Virginia) ban for users under 18. Research consistently confirms the detrimental effects of sexually explicit internet material on young minds, including poor academic performance, increased emotional and behavioral problems, and harmful or even predatory notions about sexuality, primarily among boys.
Virginia’s age-verification law went into effect in July 2023. According to reporting by the Mercury later that year, many online smut purveyors ignored the law while some, including Pornhub, protested it by blacking out their content to all users across the commonwealth. Kids, however, have grown up surrounded by technology, and finding workarounds is child’s play to them. If they don’t borrow mom or dad’s driver’s license to fool verification systems, they can always use virtual private networks to conceal their true internet address and trick age-restricted sites into believing the user is someplace without age-verification laws.
An article published in 2018 by Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking titled “Internet Filtering and Adolescent Exposure to Online Sexual Material” found that even wide use of filtering technology by parents or caregivers yielded inconsistent and insignificant results keeping online sexual content from underage users.
Things are further clouded by a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which the porn industry challenges age-verification laws on grounds that they constitute a government infringement on First Amendment free speech rights and Fourth Amendment privacy rights by forcing users to provide identifying information. A ruling is expected before the court’s term ends in June. Unknown is whether the decision could apply to social media age-verification efforts.
Trying to outsmart kids in the online realm is an enterprise that requires a Herculean measure of vigilance by today’s parents. That’s horribly unfair to today’s parents (or grandparents, or uncles and aunts, or foster caregivers, or whomever provides a home). They work harder and smarter in tougher times, with fewer safety nets than yesteryear’s parents.
Imperfect as it is, Governor Youngkin should sign this bill — a rare bipartisan concurrence — into law. Should it survive inevitable legal challenges by the social media leviathans like Meta (parent of Facebook and Instagram), China-owned TikTok, and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), it at least provides another tool that vigilant parents can add to their workbench if they commit to the hard, yearslong mission of protecting their children by deeply involving themselves in their lives.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Sarah Roderick-Fitch | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-17 15:20:00
(The Center Square) – The Federal Aviation Administration will be permanently restricting nonessential helicopter operations around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in response to January’s mid-air collision over the Potomac River involving an Army helicopter and a passenger jet that killed 67 people.
The announcement follows an “urgent recommendation” from the National Transportation Safety Board earlier in the week.
The restrictions include prohibiting “nonessential helicopter operations” around Reagan National, and eliminating helicopter and “fixed-wing mixed traffic.” It will permanently close Route 4, located along the Potomac River between Hains Point and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and will be “evaluating alternative helicopter routes” as recommended by the Safety Board.
The FAA stated, “If a helicopter must fly through the airspace on an urgent mission, such as lifesaving medical, priority law enforcement, or presidential transport, the FAA will keep them specific distances away from airplanes.”
The restrictions also prohibit the “simultaneous use” of Runways 15/33 and 4/22 while helicopters are “conducting urgent missions.” Lastly, the FAA states that it will “limit the use of visual separation to certain Coast Guard, Marine, and Park Police helicopter operations outside the restricted airspace.”
Runways 15 and 33 use the same stretch of runway, with 15 used for flights arriving and departing from the north and 33 used for flights arriving and departing from the south.
It was Runway 33 that was designated to be used for the American Airlines flight en route from Wichita on the evening of Jan. 29 when it collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, killing 67 people.
The Safety Board reported the chopper was flying above the 200-foot permitted flight ceiling for helicopters flying near Reagan National at the time of the collision.
The ceiling is designed to keep military and law enforcement helicopters clear of commercial aircraft landing and taking off in the already tightly restricted airspace around the nation’s capital.
In addition, the report said before the collision, the chopper had turned off its Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, a vital tracking system.
The FAA describes the system as “advanced surveillance technology that combines an aircraft’s positioning source, aircraft avionics, and ground infrastructure to create an accurate surveillance interface between aircraft” and air traffic control.
The FAA added that it will continue to examine other airports with “high volumes” of mixed-use traffic and “will have corrective action plans for any risks that are identified.”
With the sudden resignation of Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction Lisa Coons on Friday amid the changes to education on the federal level, some school leaders are questioning the future of public education in the commonwealth.
“The last thing we need is a (state) Department of Education in flux while we’ve got all of this going on on the federal level,” said Krista Barton-Arnold, executive director for the Virginia Association of Elementary School Principals, who was surprised and disappointed by Coons’ exit. “Educators around the nation are feeling anxious about the future of public education and now with Dr. Coons, we have even more reason to be anxious.”
Barton-Arnold said the association worked “closely” and “collaboratively” with Coons, who championed efforts to support new principals and to keep principals informed of department changes through “lunch and learn” events explaining curriculum changes and measures to hold schools accountable for student success.
Though questions linger in the wake of Coons’ departure, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the education department are moving forward with a plan that includes Chief Deputy Secretary of Education Emily Anne Gullickson serving as the acting state superintendent.
Coons was Youngkin’s second appointment to the role in the past four years, replacing former superintendent Jillian Balow, to help Virginia address low student proficiency ratings in math and reading and continue Youngkin’s directive of “restoring excellence” in Virginia’s public schools.
Gullickson will continue Coons’ work serving as the secretary of the Board of Education.
“Governor Youngkin deeply values Dr. Coons’ dedication to Virginia’s students, parents, and educators,” Youngkin spokesman Rob Damschen said. “As the administration moves forward with its education agenda, we are confident that Acting Superintendent Gullickson, with her experience in the Youngkin administration and her background as a teacher and advocate for students, will lead a seamless transition.”
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, which was first to report the resignation, noted that Coons’ resignation comes after the department missed several deadlines for reports to the state legislature and failed to publish teaching materials for the new history and social science standards, which set Virginia’s expectations for K-12 student learning in those areas.
The board, along with Coons, also worked to enhance special education regulations and practices, after a number of complaints were filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, prompting a federal investigation.
During her tenure, the board also overhauled the standards of learning, reduced regulatory barriers, approved new laboratory schools, enhanced the public charter school review process and lowered the vacancy rate of teachers. The Mercury reached out to the education department to learn more about the impetus of Coons’ exit.
Coons said serving as superintendent has been an “incredible privilege” in an announcement to the agency sent through Chief of Staff Jeremy Raley on Friday.
“It has been my great honor to serve the students, families, and educators of Virginia in my time leading the Department of Education under Governor Youngkin,” said Coons in the message. “After careful consideration, I have decided to pursue new professional opportunities, and I wish Governor Youngkin and his administration the best.”
Board of Education President Grace Creasey, also a Youngkin appointee, accepted Coons’ resignation and thanked her for her service.
“A great deal has been accomplished under Dr. Coons’ leadership,” Creasey wrote, but did not specify any examples.
Creasey wrote that Gullickson brings “experience, deep knowledge, commitment, and passion” to the superintendent’s role and promised the board would work with her to facilitate “a swift and seamless transition.”
Keith Perrigan, president of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, thanked Coons for her work.
“She has been visible in every region in the commonwealth highlighting excellence in our public schools and her passion for literacy is only matched by her love for students. We wish her well as she pursues new professional opportunities.”
The governor appoints the superintendent of public instruction after consultation with the board and other leaders, which is subject to confirmation by the legislature and lasts for the governor’s term, according to state law. Vacancies are filled through the same process.
The only specific requirement in state law is that the superintendent must be an “experienced educator.”
If the governor appoints a new superintendent, he must make the decision before the end of his term, which ends at the end of the year.
The General Assembly is expected to meet in April for the reconvened session to finalize the state budget and in January for the regular session.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
