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1 month ago | 
mtstandard.com | Brian Rinker
SAN FRANCISCO — When the city’s medical examiner announced in February that four people who had recently died of overdoses had the animal sedative xylazine in their systems, public health workers across the state sprang into action. Drug dealers on the East Coast had in recent years begun mixing xylazine, which can have devastating effects on people, with the opioid fentanyl, causing a surge in emergency room visits in Philadelphia and other cities.
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Mar 21, 2024 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
In the three years since Sante Fe’s Boys and Girls Clubs converted retail space in a local mall into the Del Norte Teen Center, project directors have counted over 4,000 teenagers filing inside to hang out with friends, play Xbox or PlayStation, get free haircuts or snag a pair of socks and deodorant. “Often the teens just want to come in and just chill,” said Sarah Gettler, the clubs’ CEO.
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Feb 28, 2024 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
When Angel Toscano asked ChatGPT for 10 Halloween-themed activities related to science, technology, engineering, arts and math — STEAM, for short — that could be done with minimum supplies, the popular artificial intelligence bot instantaneously spat out several ideas: Spider web geometry. Pumpkin catapults. Ghost rockets.
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Feb 13, 2024 | 
pbs.org | Geoff Mulvihill |Michael Balsamo |Megan Thielking |Brian Rinker
The Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings about a potentially addictive dietary supplement that’s widely available in the U.S. "Neptune’s Fix" is often sold as a supplement and features an ingredient called tianeptine, popularly known as "gas-station heroin." Ali Rogin reports. Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
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Nov 27, 2023 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
At Be Loud Studios in New Orleans, every kid in the radio and podcasting afterschool program gets a broadcast disc jockey name. Elix Mayeux, 11, is called DJ Frying Pan; Elix loves to fry eggs. In the span of two and half years of learning radio and interviewing skills at the nonprofit organization Be Loud, Elix has evolved from a tentative newcomer on the mic to a polished interviewer, with a captivating voice that blends confidence and earnestness.
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Nov 15, 2023 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
Growing up in a predominantly Black and Latino community on the West Side of Chicago, Candice Jones witnessed many of the people she loved arrested and imprisoned. She had a cousin whom she viewed as a gentle, loving father who cared deeply for his special needs child, but to the police, Jones said, his criminal record and participation in the “illicit economy” made him “public enemy number one.” “Those things, even as a child, felt really incongruent,” Jones said.
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Nov 6, 2023 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
School districts spent billions of COVID-19 relief dollars running summer programming to help students catch up from the pandemic’s far-reaching effects, but those programs did little to get kids back on track academically, according to a recent national study. With many kids experiencing mental health and behavior issues post-pandemic, many programs focused on social emotional learning rather than academics.
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Oct 24, 2023 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
Last year, doctors discovered a benign tumor on Amber Lightfeather’s brain, just behind her left eye. The discovery threw her family into crisis mode. Her son, a seventh-grader at the time, found himself struggling with his schoolwork while grappling with the emotional toll of supporting his ailing mother. His school stepped up to help him — and his family.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
youthtoday.org | Brian Rinker
Rachel Solomon, an 18-year-old with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, has faced a frustrating challenge over the years: the wheels on the walkers she depends on for mobility frequently malfunction, which literally stops her in her tracks. There was that time Solomon was on stage during a dance recital when the wheels conked out, and that other time when she was on the basketball cheer team and the wheels froze mid-cheer. “When the wheels break, I can’t do what everybody else is doing,” Solomon said.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
urldefense.com | Brian Rinker
The federal government’s flood of billions of dollars in pandemic relief aid in 2021 — including expanded Child Tax Credit, stimulus checks, and unemployment insurance — helped lift millions of families out of poverty. That same year, child poverty declined in half to 5.2% — the lowest on record since 2011, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account additional expenses and government assistance programs not considered in the official poverty rate.
