National

(SACRAMENTO) — School districts, county offices of education and charter schools in California will now be required to limit or ban the usage of smartphones in schools under a new state law after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill on Monday.

The new law requires schools to develop and put in place a plan to restrict or even ban cellphone usage in schools by July 1, 2026, and update it every five years.

“There is growing evidence that unrestricted use of smartphones by pupils at elementary and secondary schools during the school day interferes with the educational mission of the schools, lowers pupil performance, particularly among low-achieving pupils, promotes cyberbullying, and contributes to an increase in teenage anxiety, depression, and suicide,” the bill said.

“Research demonstrates that the use of cell phones by pupils during school operating hours can create significant distractions resulting in negative effects on their academic performance and mental health. Additionally, the presence of cell phones and related technologies in classrooms may not only detract from pupils’ academic performance, but also contribute to higher rates of academic dishonesty and cyberbullying,” the bill said.

Newsom had been calling for limits on student cellphone usage in schools for months.

“We know that excessive smartphone use increases anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues – but we have the power to intervene. This new law will help students focus on academics, social development, and the world in front of them, not their screens, when they’re in school,” Newsom said in a statement.

In an August letter to schools, he urged California lawmakers to restrict phone use. The Los Angeles Unified School District — the second largest district in the U.S. — and Santa Barbara Unified have already implemented restrictions on the use of cellphones in schools.

Students will still be allowed to use phones in cases of emergency or in response to threats of danger, with permission from a teacher or school administrator, if a doctor determines a student needs a smartphone for their health or wellbeing or if it is required as part of an individualized education program.

Newsom signed a bill in 2019 granting districts the authority to regulate the use of the devices during school hours.

Newsom previously argued that reducing the use of phones in class leads to improved concentration, better academic outcomes, and enhanced social interactions.

Public health leaders have recently said social media platforms are contributing to a mental health crisis among young people. Last June, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy called for a warning label to be added to social media platforms as they can be associated with significant mental health harm for adolescents.

Virginia also announced it will restrict cellphone use in public K-12 schools. Restrictions in that state are set to go into effect starting in 2025.

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(NEW YORK) — Caroline Ellison, a key witness in the conviction of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Ellison, 29, a former crypto executive, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges in connection with the federal fraud and conspiracy case involving the crypto trading platform. She cooperated with prosecutors and was a key witness during the trial last year of Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend.

Ellison — who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s companion hedge fund — testified over three days during the trial, telling the court she committed fraud with her former on-again, off-again boyfriend and at his direction.

Bankman-Fried was ultimately found guilty on all counts for defrauding FTX customers out of $8 billion and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

During Ellison’s sentencing hearing in New York Tuesday afternoon, Judge Lewis Kaplan called her cooperation with the government “very, very substantial” and noted a “fundamental distinction” between Ellison and Bankman-Fried.

“She cooperated and he denied the whole thing,” Kaplan said. “I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison.”

Still, the judge said even extraordinary cooperation could not be a “get out of jail free card.”

The judge called out another distinction between Ellison and Bankman-Fried.

“You are genuinely remorseful,” Kaplan said. “He’s sorry the gamble he took didn’t work out and he’s really sorry he got caught.”

Before the judge handed down the sentence, Ellison stood at a podium and apologized.

“I want to apologize most of all to the victims,” Ellison said, sniffling through tears. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about all the people I hurt.”

Ellison said she was “deeply ashamed” by her conduct that enabled what the defense conceded was an “enormous and extraordinary fraud.”

It exposed Ellison to 110 years in prison, but her attorney sought a sentence without prison time.

“She has recovered her moral compass,” defense attorney Anjan Sahni said in court. “Caroline Ellison is a good person who, at 29 years old, can still make a positive impact on the world.”

Prosecutors agreed.

“Caroline Ellison deserves leniency,” Assistant United States Attorney Danielle Sassoon said. “A lenient sentence is also what is just.”

Sassoon noted Ellison consistently told the truth and never shied from her own culpability.

“This was a powerful contrast with Bankman-Fried’s testimony,” Sassoon said.

Ahead of her sentencing, Ellison’s attorneys urged Kaplan to be lenient, arguing Ellison “unflinchingly acknowledged her own wrongdoing, without minimization, blame shifting or self-pity.”

“She time and again proved herself an enormously credible and important cooperating witness” against Bankman-Fried, they added.

Federal prosecutors agreed Ellison provided “extraordinary cooperation that was crucial to the Government’s successful prosecution” of Bankman-Fried.

“Although she did not blow the whistle on any misconduct before FTX’s collapse, she came clean prior to FTX’s declaring bankruptcy to her employees on November 9, 2022,” Sassoon wrote in a letter to the judge. “Ellison approached her cooperation with remarkable candor, remorse, and seriousness.”

Prosecutors declined to make a specific sentencing recommendation in their filing. Defense attorneys suggested a sentence in line with a recommendation from probation officials of time served plus three years supervised release.

“Caroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety. It would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline’s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and — most importantly — her extensive cooperation with the government,” Sahni wrote in a letter to the judge.

Sahni outlined Ellison’s “complex” relationship with Bankman-Fried that began when the two met at Jane Street Capital in 2015 when she was an intern and he was a junior trader. He said their “on-again-off-again, sometimes-secret relationship” had “warped” her moral compass and led her to take actions “that she knew to be wrong, helping him steal billions.”

During Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing in March, Judge Kaplan also ordered that he forfeit $11 billion that the government can use to compensate victims.

The former crypto billionaire has filed an appeal to overturn his conviction.

Two former FTX executives who also pleaded guilty in the case — former director of engineering Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang — are set to be sentenced in October and November, respectively.

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(WASHINGTON) — Hate crimes motivated by gender-identity and sexual orientation rose from 2022 to 2023, according to FBI data, sparking concern among LGBTQ advocates about the potential impact of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and legislation.

“Today’s abysmal FBI report highlights that it is still dangerous to be LGBTQ+ in this country,” said Brian K. Bond, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG National. “Our LGBTQ+ loved ones need both our compassion and our action to make our communities safe and our laws inclusive, so every LGBTQ+ person can be safe, celebrated, affirmed and loved everywhere in the U.S.”

Though violent crime is down about 3% overall from 2022 to 2023, hate crimes are up across the U.S., according to the FBI’s statistics.

Sexual orientation and gender identity were the third and fourth most prevalent bias motivation in 2023, behind race/ethnicity and religion.

The FBI counted 2,936 incidents related to sexual-orientation and gender-identity bias in 2023 – up roughly 8.6% from about 2,700 in 2022.

Sexual orientation, excluding heterosexuality, was the motivation for 2,389 incidents in 2023 – up from about 2,188 in 2022, and about 1,300 in 2021, according to FBI data report.

The FBI report also shows gender identity-based incidents have been on the rise for several years, from 307 offenses in 2021, to 515 in 2022 to 547 in 2023.

“Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer person in this country should be free to live their lives without fear that we’ll be the target of a violent incident purely because of who we are and who we love,” said Kelley Robinson, the president of Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organizations.

Sexual orientation and gender identity-based incidents have made up a larger portion of recorded hate crimes as well, respectively making up 18.1% and 4.1% of hate crimes in 2023 compared to 15.7% and 3.6% in 2022.

Research has shown that people in the LGBTQ community have higher rates of hate crime victimization than non-LGBTQ people.

In June 2023, Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States, which is still in effect, citing an increasingly hostile environment and the record-breaking wave of legislation impacting the LGBTQ community.

The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 530 anti-LGBTQ bills and policies in the U.S. in the 2024 legislative session, including transgender care restrictions, school content restrictions, bans on changes to gender markers, and more. The vast majority of them — 343 bills — have been defeated.

“As hate targeting LGBTQ people continues to rise, we remain committed to pushing back on the dangerous narratives and extremist groups that are responsible for these attacks,” said GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement to ABC News. “We must continue to uplift the voices of LGBTQ people and all others impacted by this violence.”

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(GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C.) — The son of Ryan Routh, the man arrested in connection with the second apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, has been taken into custody on federal charges of possessing child pornography.

Investigators say they discovered “hundreds” of files with child pornography during a search of Oran Routh’s residence in Guilford County, North Carolina, on Saturday conducted “in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation.”

The two charges he faces include receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography.

The “unrelated investigation” referred to Routh’s father — who remains in custody after a judge ordered him detained pending trial Monday — a spokesperson with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Carolina confirmed to ABC News.

Investigators said the pornography was found on a Samsung Galaxy Note device located inside Oran Routh’s primary bedroom in the residence, as well as another Galaxy Note device in Routh’s possession.

“A review of the SD card located in Device-1 revealed that it contained hundreds of child pornography files,” prosecutors wrote in the criminal complaint. “These files include videos from a known child pornography series created outside the state of North Carolina.”

The complaint included graphic descriptions of the videos and a chat from July in which Oran Routh allegedly responded to someone advertising the content for sale.

Oran Routh will make an initial appearance in North Carolina federal court later Tuesday.

He does not yet have an attorney listed for him.

His father, Ryan Routh, 58, has been charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number for the incident that took place at Trump International Golf Club on Sept. 15. Prosecutors said Monday they intend to ask a grand jury to consider a charge that Ryan Routh attempted to assassinate Trump.

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(NEW YORK) — A new storm — which will strengthen into Hurricane Helene — is taking aim at Florida, where it’s forecast to make landfall along the Big Bend area as a hurricane on Thursday.

Here’s how the news is developing:

Latest forecast

Helene will strengthen to a hurricane Tuesday night, and rain is expected to begin in Florida Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning.

On Thursday evening, Helene will make landfall along Florida’s Big Bend area, located between Tallahassee and Gainesville.

Storm surge could reach up to 15 feet in the Big Bend area.

Heavy rain and strong winds are also major threats.

A hurricane watch is in effect for Florida’s Gulf Coast and a tropical storm watch was issued from Orlando to the Florida Keys.

By Thursday night into Friday, the storm will quickly push into Georgia with very heavy rain, gusty winds and possible flash flooding.

This weekend, the storm will stall over the Mid-South, bringing heavy rain and possible flooding to the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys.

A flood watch has been issued in Florida from Fort Myers to Tampa to Tallahassee, as well as in southern Georgia and Alabama.

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(NEW YORK) — Caroline Ellison, a key witness in the FTX case, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Ellison, 29, a former crypto executive, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges in connection with the federal fraud and conspiracy case involving the crypto trading platform. She cooperated with prosecutors and was a key witness during the trial last year of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend.

Ellison — who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s companion hedge fund — testified over three days during the trial, telling the court that she committed fraud with her former on-again-off-again boyfriend and at his direction.

Bankman-Fried was ultimately found guilty on all counts for defrauding FTX customers out of $8 billion.

Ahead of her sentencing in New York Tuesday afternoon, Ellison’s attorneys urged Judge Lewis Kaplan to be lenient, arguing Ellison “unflinchingly acknowledged her own wrongdoing, without minimization, blame shifting or self-pity.”

“She time and again proved herself an enormously credible and important cooperating witness” against Bankman-Fried, they added.

Federal prosecutors agreed Ellison provided “extraordinary cooperation that was crucial to the Government’s successful prosecution” of Bankman-Fried.

“Although she did not blow the whistle on any misconduct before FTX’s collapse, she came clean prior to FTX’s declaring bankruptcy to her employees on November 9, 2022,” prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote in a letter to the judge. “Ellison approached her cooperation with remarkable candor, remorse, and seriousness.”

Ellison faces 110 years in prison, according to court filings.

Prosecutors declined to make a specific sentencing recommendation. Defense attorneys suggested a sentence in line with a recommendation from probation officials of time served plus three years supervised release.

“Caroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety. It would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline’s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and—most importantly—her extensive cooperation with the government,” defense attorney Anjan Sahni wrote in a letter to the judge.

Sahni outlined Ellison’s “complex” relationship with Bankman-Fried that began when the two met at Jane Street Capital in 2015 when she was an intern and he was a junior trader. He said their “on-again-off-again, sometimes-secret relationship” had “warped” her moral compass and led her to take actions “that she knew to be wrong, helping him steal billions.”

Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison. Judge Kaplan also ordered that he forfeit $11 billion that the government can use to compensate victims.

The former crypto billionaire has filed an appeal to overturn his conviction.

Two former FTX executives who also pleaded guilty in the case — former director of engineering Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang — are set to be sentenced in October and November, respectively.

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(WASHINGTON) — Four Russian military aircraft passed through the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Monday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said.

All four aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter either American or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said in a press release. There was no intercept, it added.

“This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” NORAD said.

Monday’s detection is the fifth such incident in September so far, according to NORAD’s public statements noting detections. NORAD did not specify what type of Russian aircraft were involved. The command identified Russian IL-38 maritime patrol aircraft inside the Alaska ADIZ earlier this month.

The ADIZ begin at the limit of national airspace — in this case that of the U.S. and Canada. Such zones require “the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” NORAD said.

The command “employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to track aircraft and inform appropriate actions,” it said in its press release.

“NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America,” it added.

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(NEW YORK) — More than 10,000 books were removed from school library shelves over the 2023-2024 school year, free expression advocacy group PEN America said in a new report released Monday at the start of national Banned Books Week. The tally marks a nearly triple-fold increase from the 3,362 bans in the previous school year.

The count includes books both temporarily and indefinitely removed from shelves.

About 8,000 of these book removals were recorded in just two states: Florida and Iowa. Both states have laws in place restricting content related to sex, gender and LGBTQ content.

The book bans have overwhelmingly featured stories that are by or about people of color and the LGBTQ community, according to PEN America.

The study also found that the book-banning efforts have increasingly restricted stories by and about women and girls, and include depictions of or topics concerning rape or sexual abuse.

The restrictions have impacted titles by well-known authors including James Baldwin, Agatha Christie, Alice Walker, Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and more.

PEN America predicts higher book removal totals are to come as more laws concerning content restriction are set to impact classrooms in the ongoing 2024-2025 year.

This includes laws like Utah’s H.B. 29, signed in March, which requires all schools to remove a book if school officials from at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools have determined that a book constitutes “objective sensitive material.”

Critics of these laws say they are akin to censorship, while supporters argue that these laws protect students from what they believe to be inappropriate content.

PEN America found that both legislation and political “parents rights” groups were two key factors in the spike in book removals.

“Our numbers are certainly an undercount, as stories of book bans often go unreported,” PEN America stated in the report. “These numbers also do not account for the many reports of soft censorship, including increased hesitancy in book selection, ideologically-driven restrictions of school book purchases, the removal of classroom collections, and the cancellations of author visits and book fairs.”

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(NEW YORK) — Schools in the U.S. remain deeply divided along racial, ethnic and economic lines, even as studies show that the K-12 public school population is becoming more diverse.

More than a third of students attend schools where 75% or more of those in attendance are of a single race or ethnicity, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s most recent investigation into K-12 education.

Saba Bireda and Ary Amerikaner co-founded Brown’s Promise, an initiative to combat racial segregation and honor the legacy of nine Arkansas students who suffered because of it.

In 1954, the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision ruled that public school segregation was unconstitutional. Three years later, the NAACP attempted to enroll nine black students at Little Rock Central High School. The ensuing chaos gripped the nation, with the media dubbing the students “Little Rock Nine.”

Then-Gov. Orval Faubus prevented the students from entering the racially segregated school, using his state’s National Guard for help. President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened after weeks of failed attempts to get the students through a full day of classes safely.

Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, students started getting bused into schools from different neighborhoods to promote integration. However, much of that has stopped in the decades since.

“Unfortunately, we have come away from our commitment to the spirit of Brown,” Bireda said. “Schools have been resegregating rapidly since the 1980s.”

At the start of that decade, expensive busing orders began to expire. With a history of housing discrimination leading many neighborhoods to be segregated by race, for millions of students, attending the public school closest to their home means it wouldn’t be racially diverse.

Despite the billions of dollars invested in desegregating public schools over the past few decades, school segregation has returned to the same level as it was in the 1960s.

New York high school student Ava Pittman begins her daily commute by taking the public bus, just like millions of other students. However, her journey through the city’s Queens borough starts long before first period — shortly after dawn breaks.

Every morning, Pittman makes the 14-mile, hour-and-a-half journey from the Far Rockaway neighborhood to Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Elmhurst. She travels that far because she doesn’t think the schools near her are up to par.

“Schools in certain places like Far Rockaway, the resources are minimal,” Pittman said. “It’s just the quality of education. It’s different.”

Pittman’s opportunities are unique to her location, but the commute takes up most of her day. To her, it’s worth it because of everything she gets to do in that school.

“I co-founded an affinity group called BAM, which is ‘Black at Mel’s.’ ” Pittman said. “I’m also part of a group called ‘The Education Student Advisory Council.’ My speech and debate team is the most diverse in our league, [which is] the Brooklyn Queens Forensic League.”

According to data collected by the Department of Education between 2022 and 2023, among 100,000 public schools across the country, about 83% of all Black public school students and 82% of all Latino students attended a majority non-white school. At the same time, 75% of all white public school students were enrolled in a majority-white school.

At a recent conference in Baltimore, Bireda and Amerikaner met with education leaders to discuss solutions.

“We talk a lot about the importance of full integration to the health of our democracy,” Bireda said. “Students who continually are growing up in segregated environments or not interacting with people from different backgrounds.”

Even at a young age, Pittman advocates for diversity and integration in public schools. She is a youth advocacy director at Integrate NYC, a youth-led organization dedicated to created equity in New York City schools.

According to the Civil Rights Project, New York is one of the most diverse states in the nation. Despite this, it is one of the most segregated.

In a lawsuit against the state, Integrate NYC alleges that the city’s sorting and admission process forces students of color into the most overcrowded and under-resourced schools.

“We agree with plaintiffs that achieving those educational goals is made harder by the complex system of biases and inequities deeply rooted in this country’s history, culture, and institutions — a system that we also want to change,” the New York City Department of Education said in a statement sent to ABC News. “But this lawsuit is not the answer. We are prepared to defend against these claims in court.”

Unless something is done to improve school integration, Pittman and thousands of other students across the country will have to keep fighting for their education and the opportunities that come with it.

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of environmental nonprofit groups are suing ExxonMobil for the company’s alleged role in the global plastics pollution crisis.

The state claims the oil and gas giant engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deception” to lie to consumers about the sustainability of plastic recycling, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in San Francisco County Superior Court.

The suit alleges the company perpetuated the myth that plastics, particularly single-use plastics, are sustainable and recyclable, knowing this was false and that 95% of plastics end up in landfills.

ExxonMobil is the leading producer of synthetic polymers, which are essentially the building blocks of single-use plastics such as bottles, wrappers and bags, according to the lawsuit.

“Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage — in ways known and unknown — to our environment and potentially our health,” Bonta said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims ExxonMobil deliberately shifted the responsibility for plastic waste to consumers by promoting the idea that plastic recycling was their individual duty, while the company knew recycling was not a viable solution.

In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for ExxonMobil released a statement to ABC News saying, “For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills.”

The filing follows a two-year investigation initiated in 2022, during which the attorney general says his office issued multiple subpoenas and obtained extensive materials to build the case.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said.

“We are focused on solutions and meritless allegations like these distract from the important collaborative work that is underway to enhance waste management and improve circularity,” a spokesperson for the company told Reuters in a written response after the AG opened the investigation in 2022.

Bonta claimed in the lawsuit that ExxonMobil promoted “advanced recycling,” which is portrayed as an innovative recycling solution but that the program is neither new nor effective.

ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” process cannot handle large amounts of post-consumer plastic waste such as potato chip bags without risking the safety and performance of its equipment, according to the suit.

The lawsuit claims the recycling program only accounts for “less than one percent of ExxonMobil’s total virgin plastic production capacity, which continues to grow.”

In the statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for ExxonMobil claimed, “To date, we’ve processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills.”

As of September 2024, Exxon Mobil’s market cap was ranked at over $512 billion, making it the 18th most valuable company in the world.

“ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health. Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception,” Bonta said.

The California DOJ is seeking billions in civil damages, for environmental destruction, harm to public health, and to end the company’s “deceptive practices.”

More than 26 million pounds of trash has been collected from California beaches and waterways since 1985, according to the lawsuit, and approximately 81 percent of it was plastic.

The lawsuit alleges most of the plastic items collected on the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day can be traced to ExxonMobil’s polymer resins.

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