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Pandemic School Closures Linked to More Mental Health Problems Among Kids
U.S. News & World Report reported:
School closures are linked to significant mental health problems — depression, anxiety, ADHD — among children during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study reports. Kids whose schools reopened sooner during the pandemic had lower rates of mental health problems than those whose schools remained closed, researchers reported Dec. 8 in the journal Epidemiology.
Girls in particular benefitted from going back to school, the study found. “Our results provide solid evidence to parents, educators, and policymakers that in-person school plays a crucial role in kids’ well-being,” senior researcher Dr. Rita Hamad, a professor of social epidemiology and public policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a news release.
“The findings offer lessons for future public health emergencies and provide insight into why mental health worsened for children during the pandemic,” she said. Previous studies have shown that mental health among kids suffered during the pandemic. Although pundits have chalked this up in part to school closures, little detailed research has been performed to see whether or not that’s true, researchers said.
AI Surveillance Startup Caught Using Sweatshop Workers to Monitor US Residents
What does it take to become the most successful AI surveillance company in 2025? If you’re anything like Flock, the startup selling automatic license plate readers and facial recognition tech to cops, you don’t really need much AI at all — just an army of sweatshop workers in the global south.
Bombshell new reporting from 404 Media found that Flock, which has its cameras in thousands of U.S. communities, has been outsourcing its AI to gig workers located in the Philippines. After accessing a cache of exposed data, 404 found documents related to annotating Flock footage, a process sometimes called “AI training.” Workers were tasked with jobs include categorizing vehicles by color, make, and model, transcribing license plates, and labeling various audio clips from car wrecks.
In U.S. towns and cities, Flock cameras maintained by local businesses and municipal agencies form centralized surveillance networks for local police. They constantly scan for car license plates, as well as pedestrians, who are categorized based on their clothing, and possibly by factors like gender and race.
Bell Canada ‘Unreasonable’ With Vaccine Mandates for Remote Workers: Arbitrator
Canadian HR Reporter reported:
In a decision affecting more than 400 Bell Canada employees, an arbitrator has ruled that while the telecom giant’s mandatory vaccination policy was “generally reasonable” during the pandemic, placing exclusively remote workers on unpaid leave crossed the line.
The Nov. 24, 2025 award, involving Unifor locals and multiple Bell entities, establishes June 30, 2022 as the date when continuing vaccine mandates became unreasonable as scientific evidence shifted. The case consolidates over 300 grievances filed by employees who were either placed on unpaid administrative leave for refusing vaccination or claim they were coerced into compliance. No employee was terminated.
Arbitrator Francine Lamy found that Bell acted unreasonably when it placed employees working exclusively from home on unpaid leave starting Feb. 1, 2022, despite having no requirement to return to the office. Three employees won their grievances on this basis alone.
Public Urged to Wear Face Masks Amid Flu Season ‘Like the Covid Period’
It’s more than five years since the COVID-19 lockdowns, but it seems the powers that be haven’t forgotten how much they enjoyed telling us all what to do in the name of public health. As we enter flu season, boffins at the U.K. Health Security Agency are again urging the public to don face masks “when unwell.”
Are lockdowns next? Face masks should be worn in public by anyone feeling ill during a surge in flu cases, health officials have said. Experts at the U.K. Health Security Agency have urged people to “consider wearing a mask” if they have symptoms. Some NHS hospitals have also told patients with flu-like symptoms to stay away altogether to help limit the spread.
A “tidal wave” of flu has already left 10 times as many patients in hospital compared with this time two years ago. The public health body said “face coverings continue to be a useful tool in limiting the spread of respiratory viruses in some situations”.
Existential Safety Is AI Industry’s Core Weakness, Study Warns
Eight major artificial intelligence (AI) developers are failing to plan for how they would manage extreme risks posed by future AI models that match or surpass human capabilities, according to a study by the Future of Life Institute (FLI) published Dec. 3.
FLI’s Winter 2025 AI Safety Index assessed U.S. companies Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, and xAI, and Chinese companies Z.ai, DeepSeek, and Alibaba Cloud across six themes, which included current harms, safety frameworks, and existential safety. The independent panel of experts who conducted the review found that even with the highest-scoring developers, “existential safety remains the industry’s core structural weakness.”
Artificial narrow intelligence, or weak AI, is the current level of AI that exists today, according to IBM. Tech giants are working toward developing artificial general intelligence, or strong AI, which IBM defines as AI that can “use previous learnings and skills to accomplish new tasks in a different context without the need for human beings to train the underlying models.”
Artificial superintelligence or Super AI, if realized, “would think, reason, learn, make judgements and possess cognitive abilities that surpass those of human beings,” according to IBM.
Orlando International Airport Tests Biometric Facial Recognition Technology. Here’s the Goal
Orlando International Airport is testing new biometric technology to improve passenger experience and enhance safety as more than 56 million people pass through annually.
The airport is partnering with U.S. Border Patrol and Customs for a 90-day pilot program to evaluate three different facial recognition systems. The goal is to see how the technology could fit into daily airport operations.
The biometric technology changes the traditional flying experience by making it hands-free. Passengers would no longer need to show boarding passes or passports, just their faces. “With one look at the camera, even with a multiple family walking through, you never have to stop, you can board an aircraft much quicker, all utilizing biometric technology,” president and CEO of Aware Ajay Amlani said.
While companies emphasize that only passengers’ faces are recorded and no other personal or sensitive information is collected, travelers can opt out of using the biometric system if they choose.
