Phone bans sweep US schools despite skepticism

Phone bans sweep US schools despite skepticism
Students attend history class taught by Jacob Marsh at Mark Twain Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 6, 2025, without smartphones due to the ban. (AFP)
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Updated 09 March 2025
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Phone bans sweep US schools despite skepticism

Phone bans sweep US schools despite skepticism

ALEXANDRIA, United States: At a red-brick school in Virginia, Hayden Jones is one of 1,000 students banned from using their phones as part of a trial hoping to boost learning.
But the 12-year-old’s verdict on the restrictions — a shrug of his shoulders — reflects the skepticism shared by some students and parents.
The phone ban at Twain Middle School is among a wave of measures implemented around the United States, and is part of a global movement replicated in Brazil, France and beyond.
Supporters believe restrictions will guard pupils from the apparent harms of smartphone use while at school, but opponents say the measures fail to prepare teenagers for the digital world they will inevitably enter.
Since September, Jones must now place his Android phone in a magnetic pouch each morning, which is locked until the end of the school day as part of a pilot scheme this academic year.
Jones, speaking to AFP in a corridor lined with classrooms, said he hopes the ban will be gone by the time he starts eighth grade in September.
“I like being able to go to my locker and call my parents. That’s a big concern for me,” he said, adding that some pupils have found ways to still use their devices — including by bringing a “dummy phone” to put in the pouch.
School principal Matthew Mough admitted that enforcing the ban — and winning over students — has proved challenging, though he said most follow the rules.
“The majority of kids who have phones don’t love it,” he said. “However, if you dig deeper with them in the conversation, they will acknowledge that it’s helped them remain focused.”
Mough said the phone ban has reduced classroom distractions, cyberbullying and instances of students meeting up to skip lessons.




Eighth-grader Ja’ Nae Dorsey (R) unlocks her cell phone pouch after school followed by her twin sister La’ Mae Dorsey (L) and 7th-grader Hayden Jones (C) at Mark Twain Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 6, 2025. (AFP)

Cell phone bans come alongside research suggesting that social media use increases the likelihood of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression in young people.
Advocacy groups regularly cite these studies as justification for school phone bans, which have seen rare political consensus in a nation deeply divided on virtually every other political issue.
Around 76 percent of US public schools — from liberal California to conservative Florida — had some sort of ban on non-academic phone use, according to the latest Department of Education figures, with several state-wide measures also in place or under consideration.
They are largely backed by teachers, with the National Education Association saying 90 percent of its members support policies banning phones during lessons.
“The biggest problem is that kids aren’t in a place developmentally where they’re able to handle the type of technology that we’re talking about,” said Sabine Polak, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, which backs full-scale phone bans.
Critics of the restrictions argue that educating children about the potential risks of social media and smartphone use is better than prohibition.
“The answer is not to just ban and put our heads in the sand,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, which represents over 1,000 parent organizations in the United States.
She compared efforts to ban phones to “abstinence education,” noting that failing to properly teach children about complicated issues such as sex has failed in the past.
“It’s not effective, and frankly, it’s dumb,” Rodrigues told AFP. “What we need to do is equip our kids with the information, with the skills and the strategies they’re going to need to navigate a digital future.”
At the school in Virginia, Jones said the phone ban has not changed how he interacts with his device, still using it for games, social media and watching YouTube videos.
His one complaint about his phone? “Nothing really, honestly, I mean besides the fact that it weighs a ton in my pocket.”
 


New militarized border zone spurs national security charges against hundreds of immigrants

New militarized border zone spurs national security charges against hundreds of immigrants
Updated 19 sec ago
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New militarized border zone spurs national security charges against hundreds of immigrants

New militarized border zone spurs national security charges against hundreds of immigrants

SANTA FE, N.M.: Several hundred immigrants have been charged with unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone along the southern US border in New Mexico and western Texas since the Department of Justice introduced the new approach in late April.
President Donald Trump’s administration has transferred oversight of a strip of land along the US-Mexico border to the military while authorizing US troops to temporarily detain immigrants in the country illegally — though there’s no record of troops exercising that authority as US Customs and Border Protection conducts arrests. The designated national defense areas are overseen by US Army commands out of Fort Bliss in the El Paso area in Texas and Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
The novel national security charges against immigrants who enter through those militarized zones carry a potential sentence of 18 months in prison on top of a possible six month sentence for illegal entry. The full implications are unclear for migrants who pursue legal status through separate proceedings in federal immigration court.
The Trump administration is seeking to accelerate mass removals of immigrants in the country illegally and third-country deportations, including Venezuelans sent to an El Salvador prison amid accusations of gang affiliation. The administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border, while arrests have plunged to the lowest levels since the mid-1960s.
The federal public defender’s office in Las Cruces indicates that roughly 400 cases had been filed in criminal court there as of Tuesday as it seeks dismissal of the misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor charges for violating security regulations and entering restricted military property. Court records show that federal prosecutors in Texas — where a National Defense Area extends about 60 miles  from El Paso to Fort Hancock — last week began filing the military security charges as well.
Las Cruces-based federal Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth is asking for input from federal prosecutors and public defense attorneys on the standard of proof for the trespassing charges “given the unprecedented nature of prosecuting such offenses in this factual context.”
Public defenders say there needs to be proof that immigrants knew of the military restrictions and acted “in defiance of that regulation for some nefarious or bad purpose.”
New Mexico-based US Attorney Ryan Ellison, appointed in April, says hundreds of “restricted area” signs have been posted in Spanish and English to warn that entry is prohibited by the Department of Defense, along New Mexico’s nearly 180-mile  stretch of border.
In a court filings, Ellison has said there’s no danger of ensnaring innocent people when it comes to immigrants who avoid ports of entry to cross the border in willful violation of federal law — and now military regulations.
ACLU attorney Rebecca Sheff said basic freedoms are at risk as the government flexes its power at the border and restricts civilian access.
“The extension of military bases ... it’s a serious restriction, it’s a serious impact on families that live in the border area,” she said.
The Department of Justice has warned Wormuth against issuing an advisory opinion on legal standards for trespassing in the military area.
“The New Mexico National Defense Area is a crucial installation necessary to strengthen the authority of servicemembers to help secure our borders and safeguard the country,” Ellison said in a court briefing.
Democratic US Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico expressed concern Wednesday in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that anyone may be stopped and detained by US Army soldiers for entering a 170-square-mile  area along the border previously overseen by the Department of Interior and frequently used for recreation and livestock ranching.
Hegseth has emphasizing a hard-line approach to enforcement.
“Let me be clear: if you cross into the National Defense Area, you will be charged to the FULLEST extent of the law,” he said in a post on the social platform X.


Families of victims in South Korea plane crash file complaint against 15 officials

Families of victims in South Korea plane crash file complaint against 15 officials
Updated 7 min 34 sec ago
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Families of victims in South Korea plane crash file complaint against 15 officials

Families of victims in South Korea plane crash file complaint against 15 officials
  • Police suggested a complex incident like the Jeju Air crash would require a lengthy investigation but declined to say when they expect to wrap up their probe

SEOUL, South Korea: Families of victims of December’s devastating plane crash in South Korea have filed a complaint against 15 people including the transport minister and the airline chief who they believe are responsible for the disaster that killed all but two of the 181 people on board.
Police and government officials have already been investigating the Jeju Air crash, so the complaint is largely seen as a symbolic step calling for a swifter and more thorough probe. Many bereaved families complain of what they see as a lack of meaningful progress in efforts to determine what caused the disaster and who is responsible.
On Tuesday, 72 bereaved relatives submitted the complaint to the Jeonnam Provincial Police agency in southern South Korea, according to their lawyers and police.
The 15 people cited in the complaint include the transport minister, Jeju Air’s president and airline officials handling maintenance and safety issues, along with officials at Muan International Airport who are responsible for preventing bird strikes, air traffic control and facility management, according to a statement from a lawyers’ group supporting the relatives.
The statement said the crash was “not a simple accident but a grave public disaster caused by negligent management of risks that must be prevented.”
“Four months after the disaster, we can’t help feeling deep anger and despair over the fact that there has been little progress” in the investigation, Kim Da-hye, a bereaved family member, said in the statement.
Lawyer Lee So-Ah said Wednesday the complaint would formally require police to brief bereaved families of their investigation, though police have so far only voluntarily done so.
The Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air skidded off the runaway at the Muan airport on Dec. 29 after its landing gear failed to deploy, slamming into a concrete structure and bursting into flames.
Authorities have since said they found traces of bird strike in the plane’s engines and that the plane’s two black boxes stopped recording about 4 minutes before the crash. Many analysts said the concrete structure, which housed a set of antennas called a localizer that guides aircraft during landings, should have been built with lighter materials that could break more easily upon impact.
But no exact cause of the crash has been announced and no one has been legally persecuted yet over the crash, the country’s deadliest aviation disaster since 1997.
Jeonnam Provincial Police agency officials said they’ve been investigating the accident. They suggested a complex incident like the Jeju Air crash would require a lengthy investigation but declined to say when they expect to wrap up their probe.


Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions?

Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions?
Updated 23 min 10 sec ago
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Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions?

Ukraine peace talks: What are Kyiv and Moscow’s positions?

ISTANBUL: Delegations from Kyiv and Moscow are set to hold their first direct talks on the possibility of ending the war in Ukraine for more than three years.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has announced he will travel to Turkiye, while Russia’s Vladimir Putin indicated he will not attend the talks.
Despite the flurry of diplomacy and US President Donald Trump’s call for a swift end to the fighting, Moscow and Kyiv’s demands appear to be far apart.
Russia has repeatedly demanded to keep the territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies and for Kyiv to cede even more land.
Moscow in 2022 annexed four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — despite not having full control over them.
Russia also annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has held it ever since.
President Vladimir Putin last year demanded Ukraine pull its forces out of parts of those regions that its army still controls as a prerequisite to any peace settlement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said recognition of Moscow’s ownership of these territories was “imperative” for any negotiations.
Kyiv has said it will never recognize its occupied territories, including Crimea, as Russian.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv may be forced to try to secure their return through diplomatic means — effectively conceding that Russia could maintain control over some land in any peace deal.
Russia has also demanded that Ukraine be barred from joining the NATO military alliance and has repeatedly said it wants Zelensky removed from office.
Russia had intended to topple Zelensky when it launched its invasion in 2022, with Putin calling in a televised address for Ukraine’s generals to oust him in a coup d’etat and then open talks with Moscow.
Putin in March floated the idea of Ukraine being put under a UN-backed “temporary administration,” refreshing his call to essentially remove Zelensky.
Russian officials have throughout the war called for the “de-militarization” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine — casting Kyiv as a neo-Nazi “regime.”
Kyiv, the West and independent experts have rejected those narratives.
Russia has also sought at times to limit the size of Ukraine’s army, wants Ukraine to be declared a neutral state and for Western countries to stop supplying it weapons.
Zelensky has for months been calling for “security guarantees” for Ukraine to stop Russia invading again.
His top demand would be for Ukraine to be admitted to NATO, or for Ukraine to fall under the military alliance’s Article Five collective defense term.
Trump has however, dismissed the possibility of Ukraine joining the bloc and Russia says NATO membership would be “unacceptable.”
Instead, Kyiv is pushing for some other form of Western military commitment that would deter Moscow.
Britain and France are leading discussions about a possible European troop deployment to enforce any ceasefire, among a group of countries dubbed the “coalition of the willing.”
But Zelensky and Kyiv still want Washington to back-up any “security guarantee.”
Moscow has said it would not accept troops from NATO countries being deployed to Ukraine in any capacity.
Zelensky wants an immediate, full and unconditional ceasefire to cover combat on air, sea and land.
He accepted a US proposal for that in March but Putin rejected it.
Putin has instead ordered two short “truces” — over Easter and to cover Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations.
Air attacks dipped during the periods but Ukraine accused Moscow of violating both on hundreds of occasions.
In his late-night address from the Kremlin calling for the direct Russia-Ukraine talks, Putin said he did not “exclude” that some kind of ceasefire could be agreed between the sides.


Australia removes repeatedly vandalized James Cook statue

Australia removes repeatedly vandalized James Cook statue
Updated 31 min 39 sec ago
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Australia removes repeatedly vandalized James Cook statue

Australia removes repeatedly vandalized James Cook statue
  • ‘Don’t think if we put it back up, it wouldn’t be just damaged again,’ says mayor

MELBOURNE: The Australian city of Melbourne will not replace a damaged monument to British explorer James Cook, the mayor said, for fear it will inevitably be vandalized again.
The granite-and-bronze memorial in the southeastern Australian city has been a favorite target of vandals, who tore the monument down last year and scrawled “cook the colony” on its surface.
It was similarly defaced in 2020 with spray-painted slogans of “shame” and “destroy white supremacy.”
Stephen Jolly, mayor of Yarra City in Melbourne’s inner suburbs, said the Cook monument would not be replaced because it would just be “damaged again.”
“I’m not in favor of demolishing statues of people in the past, even problematic ones, but don’t think if we put it back up, it wouldn’t be just damaged again,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
“It would be ongoing. How can we justify that?“
Vandals poured red paint over a different statue of Cook in the lead-up to Australia Day earlier this year.
Statues of colonial figures such as Cook are frequently targeted by vandals to draw attention to the plight of Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
Cook sailed into Botany Bay in 1770 and claimed eastern Australia for Britain under the doctrine of “terra nullius” — land belonging to no one — brushing over tens of thousands of years of Indigenous history.
 


Argentina orders immigration crackdown with new decree to ‘make Argentina great again’

Argentina orders immigration crackdown with new decree to ‘make Argentina great again’
Updated 37 min 17 sec ago
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Argentina orders immigration crackdown with new decree to ‘make Argentina great again’

Argentina orders immigration crackdown with new decree to ‘make Argentina great again’

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei issued a decree on Wednesday curbing immigration to the South American nation, a move coinciding with the immigration restrictions put in place by the Trump administration.
In a country that has long prided itself on its openness to immigrants, Milei’s abrupt measures and declaration that newcomers were bringing “chaos and abuse” to Argentina drew criticism from his political opponents and prompted comparisons to US President Donald Trump.
Milei’s government welcomed those parallels to its close American ally, with presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni saying it was “time to honor our history and make Argentina great again.”
Wednesday’s executive order tightens restrictions on citizenship, requiring immigrants to spend two uninterrupted years in Argentina or make a significant financial investment in the country to secure an Argentine passport.
Immigrants seeking permanent residency must show proof of income or “sufficient means” and have clean criminal records in their home countries.
The decree makes it much easier for the government to deport migrants who enter the country illegally, falsify their immigration documents or commit minor crimes in Argentina. Previously, authorities could only expel or deny entry to a foreigner with a conviction of more than three years.
It also asks the judiciary to fast-track otherwise lengthy immigration court proceedings.
“For some time now, we’ve had regulations that invite chaos and abuse by many opportunists who are far from coming to this country in an honest way,” Adorni told reporters. The presidential spokesperson is also the main candidate for Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party running in the key Buenos Aires legislative elections Sunday.
In a big shift, the new decree also charges foreigners to access Argentina’s public health care and education while mandating that all travelers to the country hold health insurance. Adorni claimed that public hospitals had spent some $100 million on treating foreigners last year, without offering evidence.
“This measure aims to guarantee the sustainability of the public health system, so that it ceases to be a profit center financed by our citizens,” he said.
Foreign residents from all over the world have been guaranteed free access to Argentina’s extensive education and health systems since a 2003 law under then-President Néstor Kirchner, a left-leaning populist. Public universities and hospitals are now struggling to cope with sharp government spending cuts under Milei’s austerity program.
Right-wing politicians for years have railed against what Adorni described on Wednesday as “health tours,” in which people hop over the border, get treatment and go back home. Already, several northern provinces and the city of Buenos Aires have started charging non-resident foreigners fees to access health care.
Adorni said the decree allows universities to introduce fees for foreign studies if they so choose.
Critics worried that the new rules would challenge Argentina’s tradition of openness written over waves of migration through the decades. Although bursts of xenophobia have prompted crackdowns at various moments of turmoil, Argentina has welcomed surges of foreigners from all over Latin America, the Arab world, Asia and, more recently, Russia, offering a path to citizenship and ensuring their right to basic services.