News (1,680 posts)

MH turned around her high school experience with support from a Treehouse educational specialist.

The family alleges that their son’s interaction with ChatGPT and his eventual death “was a predictable result of deliberate design choices”. They accuse OpenAI of designing the AI programme “to foster psychological dependency in users,” and of bypassing safety testing protocols to release GPT-4o, the version of ChatGPT used by their son. The lawsuit lists OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman as a defendant, as well as unnamed employees, managers and engineers who worked on ChatGPT.

Councillor Andy McFarlane, chair of Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Social Work Services Committee, said: “This is a powerful example of how the professional expertise of our local Justice Social Work team is shaping practice beyond Scotland. We’re incredibly proud that Dumfries and Galloway staff are influencing international reform on such an important issue.”

Sponsored by the Cross-Party Group on Social Work, the event took a deeper look at how social work can support democracy, empower people to take control of their lives, and help people overcome barriers to community participation. The panel also discussed when social work can be complicit in acts of injustice.

COSATU’s Western Cape chairperson, Motlatsi Tsubane, said they were deeply concerned with the recent rise of general violence in the country.

Dr. Kimberly Mann, who is a Dean at Chicago State University, is worried that some candidates will decide not to pursue getting a master’s in social work because of new limits on federal student loans.

At left, Jenna Powers ’23 Ph.D.; Tanya Rhodes Smith ’88 (SSW), ’00 MSW; Shannon Lane ’09 Ph.D.; Nancy A. Humphreys; Carolyn Peabody from SUNY Stony Brook, and political consultant Kate Coyne-McCoy gather at the 2017 Campaign School for Social Workers in West Hartford, Connecticut.

The demand marks the latest effort from the administration to do away with “gender ideology,” which the administration says includes “the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex.” GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, noted in a fact sheet that “gender ideology” is “an inaccurate term deployed by opponents to undermine and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary people.”

The 186th Executive Order, Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking , replaces the long-established practice of federally funded research grants being decided by a peer review panel by placing the final decision on grants in the hands of “senior appointees” named by the president (or cabinet secretaries, who are themselves named by the president). These political apparatchiks “shall not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others in reviewing funding… but shall instead use their independent judgement” to ensure that the research grants “advance the national interest”.

Singer said one of the reasons corporate media likely isn’t properly reporting on price hikes is that reporters are being fed press releases or statements from industry spokespeople and not properly interrogating the information. As the number of reporters has declined over the past few decades, the number of public relations specialists has exploded. In 2023, there were more than 308,000 PR specialists nationwide, compared to just 49,800 reporters, according to government data.

Bradley Chambers, a social work manager from Douglas, was chosen for the role after impressing judges with his passion for poetry, knowledge of different forms and his desire to bring a storytelling approach to the year ahead.

Long COVID affects about 6% of people with COVID, with more than 200 symptoms recorded. For some, it lasts a few months. For “long haulers” it stretches into years. The size of the problem is hard to measure, because symptoms vary from person to person. This has led to debate about what long COVID really is, what causes it, and even whether it’s real. But mounting evidence shows long COVID is very real and serious. Studies confirm it reduces quality of life to levels seen in illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson’s disease.

AI is rapidly transforming how information is created and shared during crises. In emergencies, this can amplify fear, misdirect resources and erode trust at the very moment clarity is most needed. Building safeguards through education, policy, fact-checking and accountability is essential to ensure AI becomes a tool for resilience rather than a driver of chaos.

Jeanne Theoharis speaks with Lerone A. Martin about the white Christian legacy of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.

As a scholar of rhetoric and the mother of an autistic child, in the language of MAHA I hear a disregard for the humanity of people with disabilities and a shift from supporting them to blaming them for their needs. Such language goes all the way up to the MAHA movement’s highest-level leader, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Throughout the 1970s, an arson wave swept the Bronx and other disinvested areas nationwide. Some 20 percent of homes in the borough were burned or abandoned. Families were displaced en masse. While the inferno is often conflated with the previous decade’s racial uprisings and blamed on the buildings’ black and brown tenants, in reality, it was frequently the work of the buildings’ owners. They were incentivized by a novel state-sponsored insurance program, whose lax oversight allowed them to liquidate their properties for inflated payouts, as historian Bench Ansfield recounts in an outstanding new book, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City.

Above: Detail from a statue of the MP Barbara Castle holding the 1970https://ifp.nyu.edu/wp-admin/post-new.php Equal Pay Act, which she introduced.

Reports of possible abuse, neglect or mistreatment of children in Co Donegal faced delays being assessed by social workers because of “intractable” staffing problems and “burnout” in Tusla, the child and family agency, an internal review found.

The woman, who worked in a home helping integrate vulnerable young people into society, was killed overnight from Saturday to Sunday at her workplace…. Lawyers representing the family identified the victim as 34-year-old Tamima Nibras Juhar, born in Ethiopia.

Starbucks union members and their supporters, including baristas who have just walked off the job, effectively closing a local branch, picket in front of the store on February 28, 2025, in New York City. Starbucks’s CEO made 6,666 times the median Starbucks worker in 2024. He’s not alone.

What exactly are Schumer, Jeffries, et al. afraid of? If they won’t get behind Mamdani, progressives should make them pay a future price.

Experiences like this might not be uncommon. A growing number of reports in the media have emerged of individuals spiraling into AI-fueled episodes of “psychotic thinking.” Researchers at King’s College London and their colleagues recently examined 17 of these reported cases to understand what it is about large language model (LLM) designs that drives this behavior.

Carol Branget, executive director at the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre (left), and Sylvie Guenther, executive director of Hiatus House, launch Hub Without Walls, a new response to gender-based violence

Over five years, we sought out and got to know people on the cusp of becoming conspiracy theorists. And the results of our new study show that a sense of community activism is attracting people to these ideas…. When conspiracy theories claim to explain painful personal circumstances or wider fears over COVID-19, or climate change, people can experience “awakenings”. These are moments of insight during which people come to believe that the causes of their problems lie with secretive groups which control society.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted Thursday to disband the system’s long-standing faculty senates in compliance with Senate Bill 37, the sweeping Texas higher education law that gives university boards and presidents control over faculty governing bodies.

The highest court in the land is supposed to at least have the appearance of impartiality. Beginning in 1989, before we all knew that Clarence Thomas was zipping around on private jets to fancy vacations, the rule was that justices could not accept gifts, and they could only earn 15% additional income from teaching. The one exception: there are no limits to income from publishing books. …. Sonya Sotomayor has now earned nearly $4 million from various book deals. In 2023 Ketanji Brown Jackson reported that she received a $2 million advance for her memoir, Lovely One, while Amy Coney Barrett earned a $2 million advance from Sentinel (an imprint of Penguin Random House) for her debut memoir coming this fall. Neil Gorsuch has earned $500,000 for his 2024 book from HarperCollins, and Brett Kavanaugh, the mention of whose name causes countless women to involuntarily shudder, has his own deal to publish with an imprint of Hachette.

PragerU hasn’t worked very hard to hide its ambition to shape the minds of America’s youth. Dennis Prager himself admitted that his organization is in the business of indoctrination. While speaking at a Moms for Liberty conference in 2023, Prager said, “It’s true that we [PragerU] bring doctrines to children. But what is the bad thing about our indoctrination?” So far, PragerU has partnered with ten states to allow the optional use of its educational content in classrooms, and has developed an “ideology test” that educators who come to teach in Oklahoma from progressive states must pass.

Founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager in 2009, Prager University (notably not an actual university) is known for its inflammatory and misleading viral videos that it has long created for teens and adults. But in 2021, the nonprofit launched a kids vertical, designing political and historical content aimed at children. The operation has since gained educational footholds in ten states, where teachers now show students PragerU videos, despite its not being an accredited academic institution.

APA Labs has launched a Digital Badge Program to help consumers and clinicians identify trustworthy digital mental health tools through science-based evaluations of safety, privacy, clinical value, and usability.

According to Eurostat data, more than 50 percent of retirees in Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Latvia who continue working do so for strictly economic reasons

“We now have strong evidence from a national sample that quitting cigarette smoking predicts improved recovery from other substance use disorders,” explained Nora Volkow, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which partly funds the study, known as the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study. “It underscores the importance of addressing different addictions together, rather than in isolation.”

What do you say to yourself about science reports from the US government these days?

Flinders University researchers found that forgiving yourself isn’t just about letting go. People stuck in guilt and shame often feel trapped in the past, and true healing comes from addressing deeper moral injuries and restoring a sense of control.

Certain rich lawmakers are losing their minds over a proposed congressional stock-trading ban that a bipartisan group of senators advanced last month. They argue that forbidding them from using their inside knowledge to play the market will make public office “unattractive” and drive those who serve into poverty.

With over 75% of professionals using AI in their daily work, writing and editing messages with tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude has become a commonplace practice. While generative AI tools are seen to make writing easier, are they effective for communicating between managers and employees?

The tradwife idolises the 1950s housewife, even taking on her fashion tastes: in videos they appear with coiffed hair and an Alice band, wearing frilly frocks with a cinched waist and just enough plunging neckline, and speak in a whispery ASMR voice to give feminine and sexy vibes. Even though many tradwives are filming themselves from suburban houses in Toronto or Cheltenham, they often present “cottagecore”, an aesthetic inspired by an idealised notion of rural life—think homemade cookies, wildflowers and children catching butterflies.

Dr. Peter Voo of the Psychology and Social Works Faculty in Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) said the Education Ministry must now put more emphasis on issues such as bullying, truant and disrespect towards teachers.

These are all examples of how millions of workers across the country are increasingly finding themselves bound by Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs), a new form of “stay-or-pay” contract that indebts employees to their bosses. Often inserted into contracts without workers’ knowledge, these restrictive labor covenants turn employer-sponsored job training and education programs into conditional loans that must be paid back — sometimes at a premium — if employees leave before a set date.

“London’s professors and peers will remember her as vibrant, hard-working and supportive student who poured her heart into her social work cohort,” Dixon said in a statement.

Mount Sinai employees say that Raizen’s firing is a particularly brazen example of the anti-Palestinian climate at the hospital. A day after the October 7th attacks — and amid Israel’s immediate bombardment of Gaza, which killed scores of Palestinians — Mount Sinai leadership sent a message to its employees declaring that they “stand with Israel.”

“The people of Illinois deserve quality healthcare from real, qualified professionals and not computer programs that pull information from all corners of the internet to generate responses that harm patients,” said Mario Treto Jr., secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR).

Last week saw the publication of a radical new vision of what social security for disabled people in Scotland could look like. An independent review of the country’s flagship disability payment, Adult Disability Payment (ADP), was published by an expert team led by Edel Harris OBE. Citizens Advice Scotland is proud to have played a key role in its development.

South Tyneside Council’s Cabinet are set to review two key reports, which outline both the achievements and the ongoing challenges in delivering adult social care across the borough.

Everyone knows in a basic way what violence is for. Even my mother, a housewife who grew up on a farm. Even me, a small seventy-year-old woman who makes her living with written words. Violence is for getting your way; for asserting your existence as an individual or a group; for venting torrential feeling; for sadistic pleasure. Sometimes, I think, it’s to assuage existential terror. Because if you’re doing the violence, at the moment anyway, it’s not being done to you.

The old sign for the Adobe Manor Motel on Central Avenue in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Karina Chavez bought the old motel to convert it into affordable housing units. Adobe Manor now has 16 renovated units, and it’s home to a collection of families and individual renters.

Shannon’s research focuses on a key question: Why do vulnerable populations turn to libraries for help—and what does that mean for the future of the profession?

Despite the hype, AI agents come loaded with caveats. Both Anthropic and OpenAI, for example, prescribe active human supervision to minimise errors and risks. OpenAI also says its ChatGPT agent is “high risk” due to potential for assisting in the creation of biological and chemical weapons. However, the company has not published the data behind this claim so it is difficult to judge.

Not that big of a concern. Moreover, won’t AI solve that as well.

Written communication, by contrast, allows for greater control, offering options like drafting, deleting and rewriting, postponing, and smoothing things over. It is easier to communicate effectively when you can first remain silent. The desire for control over time, words and emotions is not just a teenage whim. It reflects a broader way of navigating social relationships through screens, one in which every individual grants themselves the right to choose when, how, and how intensely to connect.