Egg prices continue to hit records as Easter and Passover approach, but some relief may be coming

• March 12, 2025

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Egg prices again reached a record high in February, as the bird flu continues to run rampant and Easter and Passover approach.

The latest monthly Consumer Price Index showed a dozen Grade A eggs cost an average of $5.90 in U.S. cities in February, up 10.4% from a year ago. That eclipsed January’s record-high price of $4.95.

Avian flu has forced farmers to slaughter more than 166 million birds, mostly were egg-laying chickens. Just since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg layers have been killed.

If prices remain high, it will be third year in a row consumers have faced sticker shock ahead of Easter on April 20 and Passover, which starts on the evening of April 12, both occasions in which eggs play prominent roles.

The price had consistently been below $2 a dozen for decades before the disease struck. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects egg prices to rise 41% this year over last year’s average of $3.17 per dozen.

But there may be light at the end of the tunnel. The USDA reported last week that egg shortages are easing and wholesale prices are dropping, which might provide relief on the retail side before this year’s late Easter, which is three weeks later than last year. It said there had been no major bird flu outbreak for two weeks.

“Shoppers have begun to see shell egg offerings in the dairycase becoming more reliable although retail price levels have yet to adjust and remain off-putting to many,” the USDA wrote in the March 7 report.

David Anderson, a professor and extension economist for livestock and food marketing at Texas A&M University, said wholesale figures dropping is a good sign that prices could go down as shoppers react to the high prices by buying fewer eggs.

“What that should tell us is things are easing a little bit in terms of prices,” he said. “So going forward, the next CPI report may very well indicate falling egg prices.”

However, he doesn’t expect lasting changes until bird stock can be replenished and production can be replaced.

“Record high prices is a market signal to producers to produce more, but it takes time to be able to produce more, and we just haven’t had enough time for that to happen yet,” he said. “But I do think it’s going to happen. But it’s going to take some more months to get there.”

Advocacy groups and others have also called for a probe into whether egg producers have used the avian flu to price gouge. But egg producers say the avian flu is solely behind the elevated prices.

Meanwhile, restaurants have added surcharges and made other changes to offset the cost of eggs.

The Trump administration has unveiled a plan to combat bird flu, $500 million investment to help farmers bolster biosecurity measures, $400 million in additional aid for farmers whose flocks have been impacted by avian flu, $100 million to research and potentially develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. chicken flocks. But it will likely take a while for that plan to make an impact.

​ Orange County Register 

Inside the government study trying to understand the health effects of ultraprocessed foods

• March 12, 2025

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Sam Srisatta, a 20-year-old Florida college student, spent a month living inside a government hospital here last fall, playing video games and allowing scientists to document every morsel of food that went into his mouth.

From big bowls of salad to platters of meatballs and spaghetti sauce, Srisatta noshed his way through a nutrition study aimed at understanding the health effects of ultraprocessed foods, the controversial fare that now accounts for more than 70% of the U.S. food supply. He allowed The Associated Press to tag along for a day.

“Today my lunch was chicken nuggets, some chips, some ketchup,” said Srisatta, one of three dozen participants paid $5,000 each to devote 28 days of their lives to science. “It was pretty fulfilling.”

Examining exactly what made those nuggets so satisfying is the goal of the widely anticipated research led by National Institutes of Health nutrition researcher Kevin Hall.

“What we hope to do is figure out what those mechanisms are so that we can better understand that process,” Hall said.

Hall’s study relies on 24/7 measurements of patients, rather than self-reported data, to investigate whether ultraprocessed foods cause people to eat more calories and gain weight, potentially leading to obesity and other well-documented health problems. And, if they do, how?

At a time when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made nutrition and chronic disease a key priority, the answers can’t come soon enough.

Kennedy has repeatedly targeted processed foods as the primary culprit behind a range of diseases that afflict Americans, particularly children. He vowed in a Senate confirmation hearing to focus on removing such foods from school lunches for kids because they’re “making them sick.”

Ultraprocessed foods have exploded in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent decades, just as rates of obesity and other diet-related diseases also rise.

The foods, which are often high in fat, sodium and sugar, are typically cheap, mass-produced and contain added colors and chemicals not found in a home kitchen. Think sugary cereals and potato chips, frozen pizzas, sodas and ice cream.

Studies have linked ultraprocessed foods to negative health effects, but whether it’s the actual processing of the foods — rather than the nutrients they contain or something else — remains uncertain.

A small 2019 analysis by Hall and his colleagues found that ultraprocessed foods led participants to eat about 500 calories a day more than when they ate a matched diet of unprocessed foods.

The new study aims to replicate and expand that research — and to test new theories about the effects of ultraprocessed foods. One is that some of the foods contain irresistible combinations of ingredients — fat, sugar, sodium and carbohydrates — that trigger people to eat more. The other is that the foods contain more calories per bite, making it possible to consume more without realizing it.

Teasing out those answers requires the willingness of volunteers like Srisatta and the know-how of health and diet experts who identify, gather and analyze the data behind the estimated multimillion-dollar study.

During his month at NIH, Srisatta sported monitors on his wrist, ankle and waist to track his every movement, and regularly gave up to 14 vials of blood. Once a week, he spent 24 hours inside a metabolic chamber, a tiny room outfitted with sensors to measure how his body was using food, water and air. He was allowed to go outside, but only with supervision to prevent any wayward snacks.

“It doesn’t really feel that bad,” Srisatta said.

He could eat as much or as little as he liked. The meals wheeled to his room three times a day were crafted to meet the precise requirements of the study, said Sara Turner, the NIH dietitian who designed the food plan. In the basement of the NIH building, a team carefully measured, weighed, sliced and cooked foods before sending them to Srisatta and other participants.

“The challenge is getting all the nutrients to work, but it still needs to be appetizing and look good,” Turner said.

Results from the trial are expected later this year, but preliminary results are intriguing. At a scientific conference in November, Hall reported that the first 18 trial participants ate about 1,000 calories a day more of an ultraprocessed diet that was particularly hyperpalatable and energy dense than those who ate minimally processed foods, leading to weight gain.

When those qualities were modified, consumption went down, even if the foods were considered ultraprocessed, Hall said. Data is still being collected from remaining participants and must be completed, analyzed and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Still, the early results suggest that “you can almost normalize” energy intake, “despite the fact that they’re still eating a diet that is more than 80% of calories from ultraprocessed food,” Hall told the audience.

Not everyone agrees with Hall’s methods, or the implications of his research.

Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, criticized Hall’s 2019 study as “fundamentally flawed by its short duration” — about a month. Scientists have long known that it’s possible to get people to eat more or less for brief periods of time, but those effects quickly wane, he said.

“If they were persistent, we would have the answer to obesity,” said Ludwig, who has argued for years that consumption of highly processed carbohydrates is the “prime dietary culprit” and focusing on the processing of the foods is “distracting.”

He called for larger, better-designed studies lasting a minimum of two months, with “washout” periods separating the effects of one diet from the next. Otherwise, “we waste our energy, we mislead the science,” Ludwig said.

Concerns about the short length of the studies may be valid, said Marion Nestle, a nutritionist and food policy expert.

“To resolve that, Hall needs funding to conduct longer studies with more people,” she said in an email.

The NIH spends about $2 billion a year, about 5% of its total budget, on nutrition research, according to Senate documents.

At the same time, the agency cut the capacity of the metabolic unit where investigators conduct such studies, reducing the number of beds that must be shared among researchers. The two participants enrolled now at the center and the two planned for next month are the most Hall can study at any one time, adding months to the research process.

Srisatta, the Florida volunteer who hopes to become an emergency room physician, said participating in the trial left him eager to know more about how processed foods affect human health.

“I mean, I think everyone knows it’s better to not eat processed foods, right?” he said. “But having the evidence to back that up in ways that the public can easily digest,” is important, he said.

HHS officials didn’t respond to questions about Kennedy’s intentions regarding nutrition research at NIH. The agency, like many others in the federal government, is being buffeted by the wave of cost cuts being directed by President Donald Trump and his billionaire aide Elon Musk.

Jerold Mande, a former federal food policy advisor in three administrations, said he supports Kennedy’s goals of addressing diet-related diseases. He has pushed a proposal for a 50-bed facility where government nutrition scientists could house and feed enough study volunteers like Srisatta to rigorously determine how specific diets affect human health.

“If you’re going to make America healthy again and you’re going to address chronic disease, we need better science to do it,” Mande said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

​ Orange County Register 

Justice Department is expected to slash public corruption unit, AP sources say

• March 12, 2025

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prosecutors in the Justice Department section that handles public corruption cases have been told the unit will be significantly reduced in size, and its cases will be transferred to U.S. attorney’s offices around the country, two people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The discussions about shrinking the public integrity section come weeks after the unit’s leadership resigned when a top Justice Department official ordered the dropping of corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

At the end of the Biden administration, there were about 30 prosecutors in the section, which was created in 1976 following the Watergate scandal to oversee criminal prosecutions of federal public corruption cases across the country.

Prosecutors have been told they will be asked to take new assignments in the department and as few as five lawyers may remain in the unit, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the move. U.S. attorney’s offices around the country are expected to take on the cases that the section was prosecuting, the people said.

A Justice Department spokesperson said Tuesday that leadership is “taking a broad look” at the agency’s resources but no final decisions have been made about the future of the public integrity section.

The move appears to be part of a broader Trump administration effort to weaken or altogether dismantle guardrails designed to protect good government and fair play in business and politics.

The Justice Department has already paused enforcement of a decades-old law that prohibits American companies from bribing foreign governments to win business and moved to wipe away high-profile public integrity cases like those against Adams and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, both Democrats.

In addition to prosecuting misconduct by public officials, the section oversees the department’s handling of election crimes like voter fraud and campaign finance offenses. Under the Biden administration, it was also home to the election threats task force, which was launched to combat a growing number of threats of violence against election workers.

The section has been without leadership since five supervisors resigned last month amid the turmoil over the Adams case. Its acting chief, three deputy chiefs and a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section resigned last month after the order to drop the case from then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.

Bove then convened a call with the prosecutors in the section and gave them an hour to pick two people to sign onto the motion to dismiss, saying those who did so could be promoted. After prosecutors got off the call with Bove, the consensus among the group was that they would all resign. But a veteran prosecutor stepped up to sign the motion out of concern for the jobs of the younger people in the unit.

It has for decades been one of the department’s most prestigious sections, with a roster of prominent alumni including former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Jack Smith, who led the unit years before being appointed special counsel to investigate President Donald Trump.

The section took a reputational hit with the botched prosecution of late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a case that was dismissed in 2009 by a federal judge who found that prosecutors had withheld from defense lawyers evidence that was favorable to their case.

Smith was appointed in 2010 to rebuild the section and led the unit during the course of a series of high-profile but not always successful corruption prosecutions, including against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

​ Orange County Register 

RFK Jr. is targeting ultraprocessed foods. What are they, and are they bad for you?

• March 12, 2025

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press

In the Trump administration’s quest to “Make America Healthy Again,” there may be no bigger target than ultraprocessed foods.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s new health secretary, has cited “highly chemically processed foods” as a chief culprit behind an epidemic of chronic disease in the U.S., including ailments such as obesity, diabetes and autoimmune disorders.

Such foods are “poisoning” people, particularly children, Kennedy said during Senate confirmation hearings. He has vowed to work to remove such foods from federal programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“I will do everything in my power to put the health of Americans back on track,” he told lawmakers.

Key to that goal, however, could be making sure that consumers understand basic facts about ultraprocessed foods and the role they play in daily meals.

From sugary cereals at breakfast to frozen pizzas at dinner, plus in-between snacks of potato chips, sodas and ice cream, ultraprocessed foods make up about 60% of the U.S. diet. For kids and teens, it’s even higher — about two-thirds of what they eat.

That’s concerning because ultraprocessed foods have been linked to a host of negative health effects, from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, depression, dementia and more. One recent study suggested that eating these foods may raise the risk of early death.

Nutrition science is tricky, though, and most research so far has found connections, not proof, regarding the health consequences of these foods.

Food manufacturers argue that processing boosts food safety and supplies and offers a cheap, convenient way to provide a diverse and nutritious diet.

Even if the science were clear, it’s hard to know what practical advice to give when ultraprocessed foods account for what one study estimates is more than 70% of the U.S. food supply.

The Associated Press asked several nutrition experts and here’s what they said:

What are ultraprocessed foods?

Most foods are processed, whether it’s by freezing, grinding, fermentation, pasteurization or other means. In 2009, Brazilian epidemiologist Carlos Monteiro and colleagues first proposed a system that classifies foods according to the amount of processing they undergo, not by nutrient content.

At the top of the four-tier scale are foods created through industrial processes and with ingredients such as additives, colors and preservatives that you couldn’t duplicate in a home kitchen, said Kevin Hall, a researcher who focuses on metabolism and diet at the National Institutes of Health.

“These are most, but not all, of the packaged foods you see,” Hall said.

Such foods are often made to be both cheap and irresistibly delicious, said Dr. Neena Prasad, director of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Food Policy Program.

“They have just the right combination of sugar, salt and fat and you just can’t stop eating them,” Prasad said

However, the level of processing alone doesn’t determine whether a food is unhealthy or not, Hall noted. Whole-grain bread, yogurt, tofu and infant formula are all highly processed, for instance, but they’re also nutritious.

Are ultraprocessed foods harmful?

Here’s the tricky part. Many studies suggest that diets high in such foods are linked to negative health outcomes. But these kinds of studies can’t say whether the foods themselves are the cause of the negative effects — or whether there’s something else about the people who eat these foods that might be responsible.

Ultraprocessed foods, as a group, tend to have higher amounts of sodium, saturated fat and sugar, and tend to be lower in fiber and protein. It’s not clear whether it’s just these nutrients that are driving the effects.

Hall and his colleagues were the first to conduct a small but influential experiment that directly compared the results of eating similar diets made of ultraprocessed versus unprocessed foods.

Published in 2019, the research included 20 adults who went to live at an NIH center for a month. They received diets of ultraprocessed and unprocessed foods matched for calories, sugar, fat, fiber and macronutrients for two weeks each and were told to eat as much as they liked.

When participants ate the diet of ultraprocessed foods, they consumed about 500 calories per day more than when they ate unprocessed foods, researchers found — and they gained an average of about 2 pounds (1 kilogram) during the study period. When they ate only unprocessed foods for the same amount of time, they lost about 2 pounds (1 kilogram).

Hall is conducting a more detailed study now, but the process is slow and costly and results aren’t expected until late next year. He and others argue that such definitive research is needed to determine exactly how ultraprocessed foods affect consumption.

“It’s better to understand the mechanisms by which they drive the deleterious health consequences, if they’re driving them,” he said.

Should ultraprocessed foods be regulated?

Some advocates, like Prasad, argue that the large body of research linking ultraprocessed foods to poor health should be more than enough to spur government and industry to change policies. She calls for actions such as increased taxes on sugary drinks, stricter sodium restrictions for manufacturers and cracking down on marketing of such foods to children.

“Do we want to risk our kids getting sicker while we wait for this perfect evidence to emerge?” Prasad said.

Last year, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf broached the subject, telling a conference of food policy experts that ultraprocessed foods are “one of the most complex things I’ve ever dealt with.”

But, he concluded, “We’ve got to have the scientific basis and then we’ve got to follow through.”

How should consumers manage ultraprocessed foods at home?

In countries like the U.S., it’s hard to avoid highly processed foods — and it’s not clear which ones should be targeted, said Aviva Musicus, science director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which advocates for food policies.

“The range of ultraprocessed foods is just so wide,” she said.

Instead, it’s better to be mindful of the ingredients in foods. Check the labels and make choices that align with the current dietary guidelines, she suggested.

“We have really good evidence that added sugar is not great for us. We have evidence that high-sodium foods are not great for us,” she said. “We have great evidence that fruits and vegetables which are minimally processed are really good for us.”

It’s important not to vilify certain foods, she added. Many consumers don’t have the time or money to cook most meals from scratch.

“Foods should be joyous and delicious and shouldn’t involve moral judgment,” Musicus said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

​ Orange County Register 

Schools use AI to monitor kids, hoping to prevent violence. Our investigation found security risks

• March 12, 2025

By CLAIRE BRYAN of The Seattle Times and SHARON LURYE of The Associated Press

One student asked a search engine, “Why does my boyfriend hit me?” Another threatened suicide in an email to an unrequited love. A gay teen opened up in an online diary about struggles with homophobic parents, writing they just wanted to be themselves.

In each case and thousands of others, surveillance software powered by artificial intelligence immediately alerted Vancouver Public Schools staff in Washington state.

Vancouver and many other districts around the country have turned to technology to monitor school-issued devices 24/7 for any signs of danger as they grapple with a student mental health crisis and the threat of shootings.

The goal is to keep children safe, but these tools raise serious questions about privacy and security — as proven when Seattle Times and Associated Press reporters inadvertently received access to almost 3,500 sensitive, unredacted student documents through a records request about the district’s surveillance technology.

The Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms, is investigating the unintended consequences of AI-powered surveillance at schools. Members of the Collaborative are AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.

The released documents show students use these laptops for more than just schoolwork; they are coping with angst in their personal lives.

Students wrote about depression, heartbreak, suicide, addiction, bullying and eating disorders. There are poems, college essays and excerpts from role-play sessions with AI chatbots.

Vancouver school staff and anyone else with links to the files could read everything. Firewalls or passwords didn’t protect the documents, and student names were not redacted, which cybersecurity experts warned was a massive security risk.

The monitoring tools often helped counselors reach out to students who might have otherwise struggled in silence. But the Vancouver case is a stark reminder of surveillance technology’s unintended consequences in American schools.

In some cases, the technology has outed LGBTQ+ children and eroded trust between students and school staff, while failing to keep schools completely safe.

Gaggle Safety Management, the company that developed the software that tracks Vancouver schools students’ online activity, believes not monitoring children is like letting them loose on “a digital playground without fences or recess monitors,” CEO and founder Jeff Patterson said.

Roughly 1,500 school districts nationwide use Gaggle’s software to track the online activity of approximately 6 million students. It’s one of many companies, like GoGuardian and Securly, that promise to keep kids safe through AI-assisted web surveillance.

The technology has been in high demand since the pandemic, when nearly every child received a school-issued tablet or laptop. According to a U.S. Senate investigation, over 7,000 schools or districts used GoGuardian’s surveillance products in 2021.

Vancouver schools apologized for releasing the documents. Still, the district emphasizes Gaggle is necessary to protect students’ well-being.

“I don’t think we could ever put a price on protecting students,” said Andy Meyer, principal of Vancouver’s Skyview High School. “Anytime we learn of something like that and we can intervene, we feel that is very positive.”

Dacia Foster, a parent in the district, commended the efforts to keep students safe but worries about privacy violations.

“That’s not good at all,” Foster said after learning the district inadvertently released the records. “But what are my options? What do I do? Pull my kid out of school?”

Foster says she’d be upset if her daughter’s private information was compromised.

“At the same time,” she said, “I would like to avoid a school shooting or suicide.”

How student surveillance works

Gaggle uses a machine-learning algorithm to scan what students search or write online via a school-issued laptop or tablet 24 hours a day, or whenever they log into their school account on a personal device. The latest contract Vancouver signed, in summer 2024, shows a price of $328,036 for three school years — approximately the cost of employing one extra counselor.

The algorithm detects potential indicators of problems like bullying, self-harm, suicide or school violence and then sends a screenshot to human reviewers. If Gaggle employees confirm the issue might be serious, the company alerts the school. In cases of imminent danger, Gaggle calls school officials directly. In rare instances where no one answers, Gaggle may contact law enforcement for a welfare check.

A Vancouver school counselor who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation said they receive three or four student Gaggle alerts per month. In about half the cases, the district contacts parents immediately.

“A lot of times, families don’t know. We open that door for that help,” the counselor said. Gaggle is “good for catching suicide and self-harm, but students find a workaround once they know they are getting flagged.”

Seattle Times and AP reporters saw what kind of writing set off Gaggle’s alerts after requesting information about the type of content flagged. Gaggle saved screenshots of activity that set off each alert, and school officials accidentally provided links to them, not realizing they weren’t protected by a password.

After learning about the records inadvertently released to reporters, Gaggle updated its system. Now, after 72 hours, only those logged into a Gaggle account can view the screenshots. Gaggle said this feature was already in the works but had not yet been rolled out to every customer.

The company says the links must be accessible without a login during those 72 hours so emergency contacts — who often receive these alerts late at night on their phones — can respond quickly.

In Vancouver, the monitoring technology flagged more than 1,000 documents for suicide and nearly 800 for threats of violence. While many alerts were serious, many others turned out to be false alarms, like a student essay about the importance of consent or a goofy chat between friends.

Foster’s daughter Bryn, a Vancouver School of Arts and Academics sophomore, was one such false alarm. She was called into the principal’s office after writing a short story featuring a scene with mildly violent imagery.

“I’m glad they’re being safe about it, but I also think it can be a bit much,” Bryn said.

School officials maintain alerts are warranted even in less severe cases or false alarms, ensuring potential issues are addressed promptly.

“It allows me the opportunity to meet with a student I maybe haven’t met before and build that relationship,” said Chele Pierce, a Skyview High School counselor.

Between October 2023 and October 2024, nearly 2,200 students, about 10% of the district’s enrollment, were the subject of a Gaggle alert. At the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, where Bryn is a student, about 1 in 4 students had communications that triggered a Gaggle alert.

While schools continue to use surveillance technology, its long-term effects on student safety are unclear. There’s no independent research showing it measurably lowers student suicide rates or reduces violence.

A 2023 RAND study found only “scant evidence” of either benefits or risks from AI surveillance, concluding: “No research to date has comprehensively examined how these programs affect youth suicide prevention.”

“If you don’t have the right number of mental health counselors, issuing more alerts is not actually going to improve suicide prevention,” said report co-author Benjamin Boudreaux, an AI ethics researcher.

LGBTQ+ students are most vulnerable

In the screenshots released by Vancouver schools, at least six students were potentially outed to school officials after writing about being gay, transgender or struggling with gender dysphoria.

LGBTQ+ students are more likely than their peers to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts, and turn to the internet for support.

“We know that gay youth, especially those in more isolated environments, absolutely use the internet as a life preserver,” said Katy Pearce, a University of Washington professor who researches technology in authoritarian states.

In one screenshot, a Vancouver high schooler wrote in a Google survey form they’d been subject to trans slurs and racist bullying. Who created this survey is unclear, but the person behind it had falsely promised confidentiality: “I am not a mandated reporter, please tell me the whole truth.”

When North Carolina’s Durham Public Schools piloted Gaggle in 2021, surveys showed most staff members found it helpful.

But community members raised concerns. An LGBTQ+ advocate reported to the Board of Education that a Gaggle alert about self-harm had led to a student being outed to their family, who were not supportive.

Glenn Thompson, a Durham School of the Arts graduate, spoke up at a board meeting during his senior year. One of his teachers promised a student confidentiality for an assignment related to mental health. A classmate was then “blindsided” when Gaggle alerted school officials about something private they’d disclosed. Thompson said no one in the class, including the teacher, knew the school was piloting Gaggle.

“You can’t just (surveil) people and not tell them. That’s a horrible breach of security and trust,” said Thompson, now a college student, in an interview.

After hearing about these experiences, the Durham Board of Education voted to stop using Gaggle in 2023. The district ultimately decided it was not worth the risk of outing students or eroding relationships with adults.

Parents don’t really know

The debate over privacy and security is complicated, and parents are often unaware it’s even an issue. Pearce, the University of Washington professor, doesn’t remember reading about Securly, the surveillance software Seattle Public Schools uses, when she signed the district’s responsible use form before her son received a school laptop.

Even when families learn about school surveillance, they may be unable to opt out. Owasso Public Schools in Oklahoma has used Gaggle since 2016 to monitor students outside of class.

For years, Tim Reiland, the parent of two teenagers, had no idea the district was using Gaggle. He found out only after asking if his daughter could bring her personal laptop to school instead of being forced to use a district one because of privacy concerns.

The district refused Reiland’s request.

When Reiland’s daughter, Zoe, found out about Gaggle, she says she felt so “freaked out” that she stopped Googling anything personal on her Chromebook, even questions about her menstrual period. She didn’t want to get called into the office for “searching up lady parts.”

“I was too scared to be curious,” she said.

School officials say they don’t track metrics measuring the technology’s efficacy but believe it has saved lives.

Yet technology alone doesn’t create a safe space for all students. In 2024, a nonbinary teenager at Owasso High School named Nex Benedict died by suicide after relentless bullying from classmates. A subsequent U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights investigation found the district responded with “deliberate indifference” to some families’ reports of sexual harassment, mainly in the form of homophobic bullying.

During the 2023-24 school year, the Owasso schools received close to 1,000 Gaggle alerts, including 168 alerts for harassment and 281 for suicide.

When asked why bullying remained a problem despite surveillance, Russell Thornton, the district’s executive director of technology responded: “This is one tool used by administrators. Obviously, one tool is not going to solve the world’s problems and bullying.”

Long-term effects unknown

Despite the risks, surveillance technology can help teachers intervene before a tragedy.

A middle school student in the Seattle-area Highline School District who was potentially being trafficked used Gaggle to communicate with campus staff, said former Superintendent Susan Enfield.

“They knew that the staff member was reading what they were writing,” Enfield said. “It was, in essence, that student’s way of asking for help.”

Still, developmental psychology research shows it is vital for teens to have private spaces online to explore their thoughts and seek support.

“The idea that kids are constantly under surveillance by adults — I think that would make it hard to develop a private life, a space to make mistakes, a space to go through hard feelings without adults jumping in,” said Boudreaux, the AI ethics researcher.

Gaggle’s Patterson says school-issued devices are not the appropriate place for unlimited self-exploration. If that exploration takes a dark turn, such as making a threat, “the school’s going to be held liable,” he said. “If you’re looking for that open free expression, it really can’t happen on the school system’s computers.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Travel: See amazing bling while brushing up on your Spanish in Bogota, Colombia

• March 12, 2025

¡El museo es fantastico! In Colombia’s bling-bathed hallways, I gaped at sacred gold funerary masks once stacked atop ashen faces of ancient dead chieftains; if only my español would come alive.

My 10 more proficient Spanish immersion classmates moved alongside me in Bogota’s world-famous four-story Gold Museum (Museo del Oro), which houses more glittery pre-Hispanic gold artifacts — the elaborate 2,000-year-old nose ornaments are to die for — than anywhere else on Earth.

Eons ago, capturing an enemy’s skull meant bonus points for tribal warriors tricked out in gold splendor; a king in the mythical gilded city of El Dorado routinely slathered himself in gold dust; and indigenous priests sported lavish gold headdresses after being religiously trained while locked in caves and deprived of chilis and salt.

I lapped up that info from our engaging docent, who thankfully gave an English tour during our private, after-hours class visit that screamed to be another Netflix heist movie. As for my limited new language skills, if our museum guide wanted me to order her un cafe — even with almond milk and sugar —  I’m her gal.

This was my second intriguing “school day” in Colombia’s capital with Fluenz, a luxury on-site Spanish immersion program (not to be confused with Fluenz nasal spray flu vaccine for kids). I figured since Fluenz boasts about teaching Spanish to members of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command, I could roll my r’s as cleverly as those stealthy SEALs.

Aimed at English speakers, Fluenz launched in 2007 as an online digital platform to learn, of all uphill battles Mandarin Chinese, and then branched out to Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese. Spanish is the most requested course and the only one offering a six-day individualized study abroad, largely in Mexico but also in other Latin American countries and Spain.

I knew un poquito Spanish, so to prepare, at home in Los Angeles, I crammed the first 11 Fluenz app lessons (of 150) before arriving in Bogota flaunting my longtime talent to ask for una cerveza and the john. However, after being picked up at Bogota’s airport, I did enjoy a nice Spanglish conversation with my SUV chauffeur, who revealed he’d been a national policeman in Medellin. “Narcos?” I inquired. “Sí,” he replied.

Even though they ran Spanish circles around kindergarten me, I quickly bonded with my fellow students: six women including a retired judge from Canada, a recently retired neonatologist from Kansas, a Phoenix immigration lawyer who helps asylum-seeking minors, and a Bay Area anesthesiologist/Stanford professor, along with four men including a Northern California cardio nurse and a Houston guy who works on oil fields in Iraq.

Most impressively rattled off Spanish but wanted to improve. Work, travel and sheer love of another language all played a role. A few pupils had previously attended a Fluenz immersion in Mexico City, the company’s in-person flagship locale.

School was cool. It took place in our stylish boutique accommodations, the 13-room Casa Legado hotel consisting of two mid-century family homes joined by a small courtyard and including an “open kitchen” you could freely raid for drinks, chips, cookies and other snacks. First off, owner and interior designer Helena Davila introduced the “real host,” her fluffy 4-year-old Biewer terrier, Eugenio.

Davila had named the serene guest rooms after her siblings, nieces and nephews — The Tito, fashioned after youngest brother Tito who likes to fix things, had a saw, hammer, wrenches and other tools on a wall and a bicycle holding up the bathroom vanity. I slept in The Maria, dedicated to Davila’s grown niece Maria who sponsors a charity to boost confidence in child cancer patients by giving them bald dolls. From a photograph on my nightstand, Maria sipped a cup of coffee and kindly gazed at me.

Classes occurred twice daily for five straight days — two hours 1-on-1 with a coach and two hours 2-on-1 with another comparable student, always in different spots of the homes — on a terrace, in a garden, under the whimsical white teapot pendants above our communal lunch table, in “grandpa’s bar”  stocked with premium booze.

But we weren’t always cracking the books. One evening, our group dined at hot-list Leo restaurant, which even sources “big-butt ants” in Colombian mountain forests for an exotic tasting menu delivered on sculpted rocks. Another morning, we strolled through Bogota’s massive Paloquemao mercado and sampled guanábana and lulo fruits.

Also, during a a class break, three of us grabbed an Uber to experience two iconic Colombian sights — the eye-popping, colonial-era, street art-lined La Candelaria neighborhood and revered 10,341-foot-high Mount Monserrate, which we reached by a steep funicular.

On the summit, there’s an old white-washed pilgrimage church, a hallowed Black Madonna, a panoramic city view, and for-sale T-shirts featuring narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar. By the way, I didn’t know how to ask a souvenir vendor if a decanter was made from a cow, so I just held it up to her and bellowed,  “Moo-oooo-ooo?” She burst out laughing.

“It’s good to struggle, it’s good to be lost a little bit. It’s part of the process of learning a language,” Fluenz co-founder Sonia Gil assured on day one during a gathering in our fireplace-warmed living room. Venezuelan-born Gil, who splits her time between Miami and Mexico City,  studied plant science at New York’s Cornell University and was a popular travel vlogger when she first attempted to master Mandarin in Shanghai.

I must gush about the eight exuberant uplifting instructors — all from Mexico City, Colombia and Venezuela and clad in maroon V-neck sweaters and radiant smiles. OK, so I finally got it: for an Italian meal I could order una copa de vino tinto (a glass of red wine) but not with pasta de dientes (toothpaste).

Each tutor was like a cultural exchange pal — Mexican architect Karen designed sets on location in Colombia for Netflix’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude;” Marianna lives in Venezuela, once did biology research on alligators and crocodiles in Florida, and is creating a pajama line that will showcase Venezuelan endangered animals; Michu owns a bar with her DJ husband in Caracas, Venezuela, and delights in dancing with their customers.

Colombia, of course, is notoriously known for the late murderous, horrific cocaine kingpin Escobar, although parts of the country are safer today. “Colombians do not appreciate tourists and others glorifying Pablo Escobar,” said art historian Christian Padilla, when he came to lecture us about Fernando Botero, Colombia’s most illustrious artist. One of Botero’s acclaimed paintings depicts the 1993 police killing of Escobar in a hail of bullets atop a Medellin rooftop.

On day four, I joined Michu and my beginner study-buddy (a retired Wisconsin finance expert) to er, uhh… chat with local shopkeepers in the native tongue. Inside a New Age crystal emporium dotted with Buddhas, Michu had me ask in Spanish how much an elephant figurine cost. I blanked out when the saleswoman began an unexpected long answer, although with Michu’s assist, I managed to spit out in Spanish, credit cards or only cash?

Next, we visited a bookstore where I told an employee in Spanish that I lived in Los Angeles, and he cheerily replied something about L.A. having great flores (flowers). Then he mimed smoking weed.

Finally, at a pastry shop, a baker excitedly informed us, “¡Es el dia internacional del croissant!’’ Yep, it was International Croissant Day. At our table, in Spanish I ordered un capuchino y un croissant de pistacho. The amused waitress applauded my linguistics: “10 out of 10!”

Fluenz means “fluent” in Spanish, and although I progressed some — and had loads of fun  — I’ve got gobs more studying to do. Personally, I keep thinking of what co-founder Gil said about speaking Spanish: “You’d be unlocking the ability to communicate with 500 million people.”

Assuming mi cabeza cooperates, that’s my plan.

If you go

Fluenz’s on-site Spanish immersion courses start at $4,100 specials and include six nights accommodations, most meals, excursions, airport transfers, and access to the 150-lesson app; fluenz.com

​ Orange County Register 

Philippine ex-president Duterte taken to the Netherlands to face charges linked to ‘war on drugs’

• March 12, 2025

By MIKE CORDER

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Philippine ex-President Rodrigo Duterte landed Wednesday in the Netherlands a day after he was arrested in Manila on an International Criminal Court warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity over deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he oversaw while in office.

Rights groups and families of victims hailed Duterte’s arrest. Within days, he will face an initial appearance where the court will confirm his identity, check that he understands the charges against him and set a date for a hearing to assess if prosecutors have sufficient evidence to send him to a full trial.

If his case goes to trial and he is convicted, the 79-year-old Duterte could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The small jet taxied into a hangar where two buses were waiting. An ambulance also drove close to the hangar, and medics wheeled a gurney inside. There was no immediate sign of Duterte. A police helicopter hovered close to the airport as the plane remained in the hangar, largely obscured from view by the buses and two fuel tanker trucks.

ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah confirmed that Duterte was on the plane, which made a stopover in Dubai during its flight from Manila.

Duterte’s arrest was announced Tuesday by current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who said the former leader was arrested when he returned from a trip to Hong Kong and that he was sent aboard a plane to the ICC.

Grieving families are hopeful

“This is a monumental and long-overdue step for justice for thousands of victims and their families,” said Jerrie Abella of Amnesty International.

“It is therefore a hopeful sign for them, as well, in the Philippines and beyond, as it shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, will face justice wherever they are in the world,” Abella added.

Emily Soriano, the mother of a victim of the crackdowns, said she wanted more officials to face justice.

“Duterte is lucky he has due process, but our children who were killed did not have due process,” she said.

While Duterte’s plane was in the air, grieving relatives gathered in the Philippines to mourn his alleged victims, carrying the urns of their loved ones. “We are happy and we feel relieved,” said 55-year-old Melinda Abion Lafuente, mother of 22-year-old Angelo Lafuente, who she says was tortured and killed in 2016.

Duterte’s supporters, however, criticized his arrest as illegal and sought to have him returned home. Small groups of Duterte supporters and people who backed his arrest demonstrated on Wednesday outside the court before his arrival.

ICC investigation

The ICC opened an inquiry in 2021 into mass killings linked to the so-called war on drugs overseen by Duterte when he served as mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao and later as president.

Estimates of the death toll during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the national police have reported and up to 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.

ICC judges who looked at prosecution evidence supporting their request for his arrest found “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Duterte is individually responsible for the crime against humanity of murder” as an “indirect co-perpetrator for having allegedly overseen the killings when he was mayor of Davao and later president of the Philippines,” according to his warrant.

What happens next?

Duterte could challenge the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of the case. While the Philippines is no longer a member of the ICC, the alleged crimes happened before Manila withdrew from the court.

That process will likely take months and if the case progresses to trial it could take years. Duterte will be able to apply for provisional release from the court’s detention center while he waits, though it’s up to judges to decide whether to grant such a request.

Duterte’s legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, told reporters in Manila that the Philippine Supreme Court “can compel the government to bring back the person arrested and detained without probable cause and compel the government bring him before the court and to explain to them why they (government) did what they did.”

Marcos said Tuesday that Duterte’s arrest was “proper and correct” and not an act of political persecution.

Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, criticized the Marcos administration for surrendering her father to a foreign court, which she said currently has no jurisdiction in the Philippines.

She left the Philippines on Wednesday to arrange a meeting in The Hague with her detained father and talk to his lawyers, her office told reporters in Manila.

Philippines no longer an ICC member state

Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the ICC, in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability.

The Duterte administration moved to suspend the global court’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities were already looking into the same allegations, arguing that the ICC — a court of last resort — therefore didn’t have jurisdiction.

Appeals judges at the ICC rejected those arguments and ruled in 2023 that the investigation could resume.

The ICC judges who issued the warrant also said that the alleged crimes fall within the court’s jurisdiction. They said Duterte’s arrest was necessary because of what they called the “risk of interference with the investigations and the security of witnesses and victims.”

Aleksandar Furtula in The Hague, Joeal Calupitan and Basilio Sepe in Manila, Philippines, and Jerry Harmer in Bangkok, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

In his own words: Trump takes credit for stock market rises but casts aside blame for sell-off

• March 12, 2025

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump in recent days has dismissed fears of a recession and brushed aside the stock market sell-off, going so far as to say, “You can’t really watch the stock market.” That’s a new message from a leader who has frequently pointed to the market’s ups and downs as a reflection of himself and his activities, even when he was not in power.

Over the last year, while President Joe Biden was in office, Trump took credit for stock market rallies as a vote of confidence in his electoral prospects. When the market dipped, he blamed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. And he predicted that if Democrats won the 2024 presidential election, the stock market would have crashed.

A look at some of Trump’s observations on the stock market over the last year:

Jan. 29, 2024, on Truth Social

“THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP — EVERYTHING ELSE IS TERRIBLE (WATCH THE MIDDLE EAST!), AND RECORD SETTING INFLATION HAS ALREADY TAKEN ITS TOLL. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”

March 12, 2024, on Truth Social

“High Interest Rates and Inflation are choking our great middle class, and ALL, our Economy is bad, and our Stock Market is rising only because Polls are strongly indicating that we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024.”

April 25, 2024, on his way into court for his criminal trial in New York

“The stock market is, in a sense, crashing. The numbers are very bad. This is Bidenomics. It’s catching up with him. It’s lucky that it’s catching up before he leaves office as opposed to after he leaves office.”

May 15, 2024, on Truth Social

“Thank you to Scott Bessent, one of the Great Prognosticators on Wall Street! There are many people that are saying that the only reason the Stock Market is high is because I am leading in all of the Polls, and if I don’t win, we will have a CRASH of similar proportions to 1929. I agree, but let’s hope we don’t have to worry about that!”

May 18, 2024, at an NRA event in Dallas, Texas:

“We are a nation whose stock market’s continued success is contingent on MAGA winning the next election.”

July 16, 2024, on Truth Social

“Dow Jones UP 742 based on the fact that the Market expects a TRUMP WIN in November! Nice compliment — Thank you!”

Aug. 4, 2024, on Truth Social

“STOCK MARKETS CRASHING. I TOLD YOU SO!!! KAMALA DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE. BIDEN IS SOUND ASLEEP. ALL CAUSED BY INEPT U.S. LEADERSHIP!”

Aug. 14, 2024, at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina

“If Harris wins this election, the result will be a Kamala economic crash, a 1929-style depression. 1929. When I win the election, we will immediately begin a brand new Trump economic boom. It’ll be a boom. We’re going to turn this country around so fast. Many people say that they only reason the stock market is up is because people think I am going to win.”

Oct. 29, 2024, during a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania

“You want to see a market crash? If we lost this election, I think the market would go down the tubes.”

Nov. 4, 2024, at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Trump started praising Bessent and said: “You know what his theory is? The stock market is the only sign of life, and it’s only going up because everyone thinks Trump is going to win the election. And others, too. Others, too. I’m seeing it a lot. I think they’re following your lead. But I appreciate that confidence.”

Nov. 14, 2024, at a Mar-a-Lago gala in Florida:

“We had three or four of the highest — I guess, almost every single day, we set new records in the stock market. We set new records economically.”

Trump, in comments directed at House Speaker Mike Johnson, then said: “Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important, maybe you should pass a bill, you have to start my term from Nov. 5, OK, or Nov. 6, if you want. Nov. 5 because the market has gone through the roof. Enthusiasm has doubled.”

Dec. 12, 2024, in an interview with CNBC at the New York Stock Exchange:

Trump was asked by host Jim Cramer whether it’s still the case that stock market indexes were a good barometer of his performance.

“Well, I think I’ve always said, you know, to me, stock market is very — all of it, you know, all of it together, it’s very important. It’s an honor to be here in New York Stock Exchange. I sort of joked that I actually bought the building across the street because the stock exchange was here. It’s a big deal.”

Dec. 16, 2024, during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago

Trump was asked whether he is concerned that his tariffs might hurt the stock market.

“Make our country rich. Tariffs will make our country rich,” Trump responded.

Jan. 7, 2025, during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago

“Since my election, the stock market has set records. The S&P 500 index has broken above 6,000 points for the first time ever, never even close.”

Jan. 19, 2025. at a rally in Washington, D.C.

“Everyone is calling it the — I don’t want to say this. It’s too braggadocious, but we’ll say it anyway, the Trump effect. It’s you. You’re the effect. Since the election, the stock market has surged, and small business optimism has soared, a record 41 points to a 39-year high.”

Feb. 19, 2025, at an investment conference in Miami Beach

“I think the stock market is going to be great. In other words, we will rapidly grow our economy by dramatically shrinking the federal government.”

Feb. 21, 2025, speaking to the nation’s governors at the White House

“When we turned over the reins, the stock market was higher than just previous to COVID coming in, which was an amazing achievement.”

March 4, 2025, in a joint address to Congress

Having sparked a North American trade war and with the S&P 500 losing all of its post-election gains, Trump said in his speech to Congress: “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it’s happening and it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”

March 9, 2025, in a taped interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures”

After a week of wild swings on Wall Street over uncertainty about his tariffs, Trump was asked whether he was expecting a recession in 2025. He said: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.” He added, “It takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us.”

Elsewhere in the interview, when Trump was asked about the market going down: “You can’t really watch the stock market. … You can’t go by that. You have to do what’s right.”

March 9, 2025, to reporters on Air Force One

When asked about his hesitation during the “Sunday Morning Futures” interview before answering the recession question, Trump said: “I tell you what, of course you hesitate. Who knows? All I know is this: We’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, and we’re going to become so rich you’re not going to know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you, you just watch.”

March 11, 2025, to reporters at the White House

Trump was asked about the market after a selloff Monday and more trembling on the markets Tuesday. “Markets are going to go up and they’re going to go down. We have to rebuild our country,” he said.

In response to a question about whether his tariffs caused the turmoil in the markets, Trump said: “Biden gave us a horrible economy. He gave us horrible inflation. And I think the market was going to go very, very bad. If anything, I have a lot of very smart people, friends of mine, and great businessmen. They’re not investing because of what I’ve done.”

On whether he thinks there will be a recession: “I don’t see it at all. I think this country’s going to boom. But as I said, I can do it the easy way or the hard way. The hard way to do it is exactly what I’m doing, but the results are going to be 20 times greater. Remember, Trump is always right.”

​ Orange County Register