Orange County schools will have students eat outdoors — even when it’s 33 degrees

T. Keung Hui

Orange County students will eat their school lunches out in the cold to try to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

The Orange County school system has told families that it’s the district’s expectation that meals will be eaten outdoors unless it’s pouring rain and there’s no shelter, it’s snowing or it’s below freezing temperatures. The district said that 33 degrees would be an acceptable temperature for students to eat their school breakfasts and lunches outdoors.

“We do understand that eating outdoors in the winter time may be uncomfortable and is not ideal, but in the best interest of safety and health, and in light of the world experiencing this pandemic, having students eat meals within a short (15-minute) time window outdoors is ideal — if and only if students are properly clothed for the weather,” Superintendent Monique Felder wrote in a Jan. 29 message to parents.

Felder encouraged parents to check the weather to make sure their children are ready to eat outdoors. She said schools would have extra coats, scarves and gloves on hand for students who may need them.

Felder told parents that if they don’t like the meal plan they can keep their children in remote learning. Orange County Schools reopened classrooms for its K-1 students on Jan. 25 but is not scheduled to bring back grades 2-12 until April 6.

Parents object to outdoor eating

The news has produced an uproar from parents who are upset that their children could eat outside in such blustery conditions.

“This is absurd!!!” Ashley Summey wrote on the district’s Facebook post “I now have to go buy gloves, scarves, hats, etc. just so my children can eat their lunch. Why don’t the people on the board eat outside? Practice what you preach!”

Maggie Baker complained that this would make her daughter’s already difficult first year of school even harder.

“If this is how my child will be treated she will continue staying home,” Baker wrote on Facebook. “I’d rather pay someone to take care of her then send her to a school who makes her eat lunch in the cold! This is sad. Seriously.”

Brandi Honeycutt-Noack also said she wouldn’t send her daughter back for in-person learning if it means she’ll eat outside when it’s only 33 degrees.

“I understand the pandemic but not happening Orange County has lost their mind. If we can go into a restaurant and sit down and eat then our kids can eat inside,” Honeycutt-Noack added. “They say it’s not safe to eat inside but yet they can teach the kids inside??”

COVID risks during school meals

Breakfast and lunch pose health concerns for spreading COVID-19 because they’re among the few times in the school day when students and school employees are allowed to remove their face masks.

The Wake County school system traced a COVID-19 cluster at an elementary school to meal time. The district is implementing new guidelines, such as requiring 6 feet of social distancing at all schools during meals, when students return for in-person classes the week of Feb. 15.

The Orange County school system is citing guidance from the ABC Science Collaborative, which recommends having students eat outdoors when possible.

The ABC Science Collaborative was formed by Duke University to advise school districts on how to deal with the pandemic. Both North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and state lawmakers have cited the ABC Science Collaborative’s research to urge the state’s school districts to offer in-person instruction this school year.

“Mask breaks around eating are an especially high-risk time for transmission,” the district wrote online. “As a result and with the new variants of the virus that have emerged, it remains their strong recommendation to eat outside to the extent possible to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus. “

In a Feb. 1 update, the Orange County school system said it “understands the frustrations stemming from the new plan for meals.” But district leaders stood by the plan, adding that the Orange County Health Department also supports its decision to eat outside weather permitting.

“Please bear in mind that per the health and science experts, eating outdoors, weather permitting, is the safest option for meals in school settings at this time,” the district said online last week. “Districts across the state and country are using this model; several in the Midwest even use 15 degrees or 20 to 32 degrees as cutoff points to go indoors to eat.”

Before Wake County suspended in-person instruction, some schools had their students eat outdoors when the weather has been good enough, according to Lisa Luten, a district spokeswoman. She said schools will not be expected to have students outdoors when in-person instruction resumes.

Latest Stories

  • Trump impeachment news – live: Top GOP lawyer trashes ex-president’s defence hours before trial begins

    Follow for all the latest from the White House, the impending impeachment trial and more in US politics

  • Trump administration’s handling of the Covid ‘even more dire than we thought’, says Biden

    Joe Biden rounded on his predecessor’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic, saying “it was even more dire than we thought”. In his first major interview since becoming president, Mr Biden told CBS news anchor, Norah O’Donnell, the country faced a challenge to reach herd immunity before the end of the summer. The US president said the rate of vaccination had to be accelerated to meet the target of 75 per cent of Americans getting the jab set by infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. Mr Biden said his administration had been led to believe there was far more vaccine available than turned out. “So that’s why we’ve ramped up every way we can,” he added. The new administration is using the Defence Production Act to get companies to boost production of vaccine and protective equipment.

  • Democrats to unveil $3,000 direct cash payments to families with children

    Democrats will introduce a proposal attached to the next stimulus package that would provide $3,000-per-child direct payments in certain households.Why it matters: The new legislation, led by Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), comes shortly after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced a similar proposal, lending bipartisan support to expanding cash benefits for families with children.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here.The Biden Administration has reviewed and supports the proposal, according to the Washington Post who first reported the plan. The legislative proposal, reviewed by Axios, will be revealed Monday along with other Ways and Means provisions. The IRS would begin depositing payments into bank accounts July 1.The payments would come in monthly installments.Qualifying household incomes would be based on the previous year with lower payouts for individuals making $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for those filing jointly.Eligible households with children 17 to 6 could receive payments of $3,000 for each child and $3,600 for children under 6.What they're saying: “The pandemic is driving families deeper and deeper into poverty, and it’s devastating, Rep. Ritchie Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. "We are making the Child Tax Credit more generous, more accessible, and by paying it out monthly, this money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table," he said.Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.

  • Himalayan glacier breaks in India, around 125 missing in floods

    Around 125 people were missing in northern India after a Himalayan glacier broke and swept away a small hydroelectric dam on Sunday, with floods forcing the evacuation of villages downstream. A wall of dust, rock and water hit as an avalanche roared down the Rishiganga valley deep in the mountains of Uttarakhand, a witness said. "It came very fast, there was no time to alert anyone," Sanjay Singh Rana, who lives on the upper reaches of the river in Raini village, told Reuters by phone.

  • Australian leader dismisses reports of China-built city

    The Australian prime minister on Monday dismissed as “speculative” reports that a Chinese company plans to build a new industrial island city near Australia’s porous sea border with Papua New Guinea. Hong Kong-registered WYW Holding Ltd. plans to build a $30 billion city that includes a seaport and industrial area on Daru Island in the Torres Strait, Australian media have reported. The reports cite company letters to the Papua New Guinea government from April last year.

  • Don Jr complains about Super Bowl ads, calling them ‘woketopia’ after first commercial

    Twitter users advised that he should turn off his TV if he was 'triggered'

  • Yellen: Americans earning $60,000 should get stimulus checks

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that American workers who earn $60,000 per year should receive stimulus checks as part of the White House's proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

  • Donald Trump's campaign to overturn election cost taxpayers $500m

    Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the presidential election has left US taxpayers with a bill topping half a billion dollars. According to the Washington Post, at least $488 million has been spent by the federal government and another $28 million by states in dealing with the January 6 insurrection and stepping up security in the aftermath. The avalanche of unsuccessful court cases brought by the “Stop the Steal” campaign has also run up a legal bill exceeding $2.2 million. An estimated 25,000 troops were deployed in Washington DC after the uprising, which claimed five lives. With plans in place to maintain the security measures until mid-March, the bill is likely to increase further. Local measures were taken elsewhere in the country amid fears that Trump supporters were planning more protests. The "ring of steel" will be in place this week as the Senate embarks on Mr Trump’s second impeachment trial on Tuesday. The former president is accused of inciting insurrection. Bruce Castor, who will lead Mr Trump’s defence team, said Democrats were not blamed for rioting during the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, despite speaking in support of them. “But here, when you have the president of the United States give a speech and says that you should peacefully make your thinking known to the people in Congress, he's all of a sudden a villain," he said. Mr Trump is accused of whipping his supporters into a frenzy with claims of election fraud before they stormed the Capitol. But one of the former president’s most loyal supporters, South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, said it was for history to judge Mr Trump’s role in the riots – not the Senate. "I think I'm ready to move on, I'm ready to end the impeachment trial because I think it's blatantly unconstitutional," he said on Face the Nation. "As to Donald Trump, he is the most popular figure in the Republican Party. He had a consequential presidency. January 6 was a very bad day for America, and he'll get his share of blame in history." Meanwhile Liz Cheney, the senior Republican congresswoman who was censured by her party for backing impeachment, defended her stance. “We are the party of Lincoln, we are not the party of QAnon or anti-Semitism or Holocaust-deniers or white supremacy or conspiracy theories. That's not who we are,” she said on Fox News Sunday.

  • CIA analyst involved with briefing Biden shouldn't be trusted after defending torture program, former Senate investigator says

    Morgan Muir, the longtime CIA analyst whom The New York Times reported was tasked with delivering President Biden's daily intelligence briefings, played a leading role in the CIA's defense of its torture program and cited information the agency later publicly admitted was inaccurate during a standoff with the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2013, BuzzFeed News reports. The extent of Muir's involvement in the showdown was not previously known, per BuzzFeed. Daniel Jones, a former Senate investigator and the lead author of the committee's 6,700-page report on the torture program, said he "would not trust" Muir to "convey accurate information," and former Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), an outspoken member of the committee at the time, said Biden "should have serious concerns about entrusting his presidential daily briefing to anyone who may have helped cover up this dark chapter in our nation's history." Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a committee member then and now, didn't specifically address Muir, but told BuzzFeed "the American people deserve transparency about the backgrounds of high-level intelligence officials." Amanda Schoch, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Muir is a "widely respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career." But she added that Muir is not Biden's briefer "as that term is generally understood," and he won't be in the Oval Office. Instead, he'll reportedly be in charge of what's known as "mission integration," meaning he'll coordinate "intelligence collection and analysis across multiple briefings." Read more at BuzzFeed News. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rolloutThe growing white supremacist threatHouse Democrats will push to include $250-300 monthly child payments in stimulus bill

  • Trump’s Tax Cuts Made the Tax Code More Progressive

    Leading Democratic politicians such as Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and President Joe Biden have frequently complained that the Trump tax cuts were nothing more than a giveaway to the 1 percent, further rigging the tax code for those at the top. But the biggest unreported fact about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is that it actually made the tax code more progressive. Indeed, recent data published from the Internal Revenue Service find that the share of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent of filers increased under the first year of the TCJA, while the share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of filers decreased. These findings come straight from an IRS report that breaks down the tax share of income earners for tax-year 2018 — the first year of taxes filed under the new provisions. Among its changes, the TCJA lowered tax rates, nearly doubled the standard deduction, and expanded the child tax credit. The IRS data show that the top 1 percent of filers, those with adjusted gross income of $540,009 or higher, paid 40.1 percent of all income taxes. This amount is nearly twice as much as their income share. Despite the rate reductions under the TCJA, the tax share of the top 1 percent increased compared to 2017. In fact, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation has compiled historical IRS data tracking the distribution of the federal income tax burden back to 1980, and 2018 was the highest share recorded over that period. The top 10 percent of filers, those with adjusted gross income of $151,935 or higher, paid over 71 percent of all income taxes. This was also the highest share recorded in the data available since 1980. The lower half of earners, with adjusted gross incomes of less than $43,614, owed 2.9 percent of all taxes. This was a decrease from the 3.1 percent recorded in 2017. The lowest share was recorded in 2010, during the recession, at 2.4 percent. Similarly, between 2017 and 2018 the number of filers with no income-tax liability increased by 2.6 percent to 34.7 percent. The number of nontaxable returns is often related to the economy: As employment decreases and income falls, the number of filers facing no income taxes tends to increase, and vice versa. While 2018 saw a strong economy that would ordinarily increase the number of individuals with income-tax burdens, the TCJA removed additional people from income-tax rolls by increasing the standard deduction and expanding refundable credits. We now have a tax code that increasingly shields low-income earners from any income-tax liability and requires that individuals pay an increasing share of taxes as they move up the income ladder. To illustrate just how much the progressivity of the tax code has increased over the past 40 years, consider that in 1980 the top 1 percent of earners bore 19 percent of income taxes, the top 10 percent of earners bore nearly half of income taxes, and the bottom 50 percent paid 7 percent. That’s twice as much as today. Nevertheless, various politicians and pundits continue to assail the tax-reform law as a regressive giveaway to those who “aren’t paying their fair share.” But again, under the TCJA, the wealthy are paying a larger share of income taxes than at any point over the past four decades, even though the top marginal rate dropped from 70 percent in 1980 to 37 percent in 2018. The distribution of income taxes will doubtless be at the center of debates over tax policy in the new year. While campaigning, Joe Biden released a tax plan that would increase the top rate back to 39.6 percent and hike corporate tax rates, capital gains, and payroll taxes. Other Democrats such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) advocate a top income tax rate of 70 percent or more. This new IRS data make clear that the TCJA ushered in a significant overall reduction in tax burdens that in fact made the code more progressive, not less. Congress would be wise to remember that when discussing future tax-reform efforts.

  • Buckingham Palace denies Queen blocked law which would have forced her to disclose her shareholdings

    Buckingham Palace has insisted the Queen has never tried to block legislation, after newly unearthed memos suggested her personal lawyer lobbied the government to change a draft law that would have disclosed details of her private share dealings. Documents from the National Archives revealed a series of meetings between her lawyer, Matthew Farrer, and senior civil servants in 1973 after Edward Heath's government proposed legislation that would have made company shareholdings more transparent. A report in The Guardian claims the Queen was made aware of the draft law through the enactment of Queen's Consent, when the monarch is informed of legislation that could affect the private interests of the Crown. Documents suggest that in Nov 1973, after becoming aware of a bill that would potentially expose the "embarrassing" extent of her share holdings, the Queen dispatched Mr Farrer to press the government to make changes. The government inserted a clause into the draft legislation granting the power to exempt companies used by "heads of state" from transparency measures. But further correspondence suggested unhappiness at that compromise because it would still make it obvious what investments the Queen held.

  • Japan's economic recovery from pandemic likely stalled in fourth quarter

    Japan's economic growth likely moderated in October-December after rebounding from its worst postwar recession earlier in 2020, a Reuters poll showed, a sign households and companies have yet to recover from the coronavirus pandemic's huge hit. A state of emergency rolled out in January has inflicted further pain on consumption, stoking fears of another economic slump that could push Japan back into deflation. Analysts polled by Reuters expect the economy to have marked a quarter-on-quarter expansion of 2.3% in October-December, as improving exports made up for some of the weakness in consumption.

  • Dominion spokesman: 'Mike Lindell is begging to be sued, and at some point, we may well oblige him'

    "In just a few weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns, and liberal outrage could not: curbing the flow of misinformation in right-wing media," Michael Grynbaum writes at The New York Times. Dominion Voting Systems has sued Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3 billion in damages, and has threatened to sue Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Rival voting technology firm Smartmatic sued Fox News for $2.7 billion. CNN's Brian Stelter asked Dominion spokesman Michael Steel about the lawsuits on Sunday, including if any new ones are imminent. "I'm not here to make news on that front, but let me say this: Mike Lindell is begging to be sued, and at some point, we may well oblige him," Steel said. Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, paid for three hours of airtime Friday on One America News Network to broadcast a show he produced about his voting conspiracy theories. OANN kicked it off with an extraordinary disclaimer. Lindell tweeted Saturday night that he might sue Dominion, a threat Steel laughed off on CNN. Steel, a former spokesman for House Speakers Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio), also said Dominion suing Fox News is "definitely a possibility." A media law professor, Lynn Oberlander, told Stelter that the disclaimers Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, and other outlets have been showing about vote fraud claims might actually protect them from the defamation lawsuits. They are "not the typical playbook for right-wing media, which prides itself on pugilism and delights in ignoring the liberals who have long complained about its content," Grynbaum writes. But like it or not, "litigation represents a new front in the war against misinformation, a scourge that has reshaped American politics, deprived citizens of common facts, and paved the way for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol." Defamation lawsuits "shouldn't be the way to govern speech in our country," attorney Roberta Kaplan told the Times. "It's not an efficient or productive way to promote truth-telling or quality journalistic standards through litigating in court. But I think it's gotten to the point where the problem is so bad right now there's virtually no other way to do it." Fox News said in a statement it's "proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend" itself against Smartmatic's "meritless lawsuit." More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rolloutThe growing white supremacist threatHouse Democrats will push to include $250-300 monthly child payments in stimulus bill

  • Texas pastors under fire for referring to Kamala Harris as racist trope

    ‘What if something happens to [Biden], and Jezebel has to take over?’ wondered one from the pulpit. ‘Jezebel Harris? Two white pastors in Texas are under fire for reportedly calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “jezebel” from their pulpits.

  • Maxine Waters Defends Comment Encouraging Harassment of Trump Officials

    Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) is defending her 2018 comments in which she encouraged her supporters to “absolutely harass” Trump administration officials over their “zero tolerance” immigration policy. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi asked Waters on Sunday if she had ever “glorified or encouraged” violence against Republicans, as her two-year-old comments have recently resurfaced amid discussions of the increasingly dangerous partisan rhetoric in the U.S. “As a matter of fact, if you look at the words that I used, the strongest thing I said was tell them they’re not welcome,” Waters said. “[I said] Talk to them. Tell them they’re not welcome. I didn’t say go and fight. I didn’t say anybody was going to have any violence. And so they can’t make that stick.” However, in 2018, after then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former press secretary Sarah Sanders were confronted with their families in public over family separation at the border, Waters encouraged more of the same. “They’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store,” she said. She added: “The people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them.” The California Democrat also used Sunday’s interview to take final shots at Republicans and former President Donald Trump ahead of his Senate impeachment trial that is set to begin this week. “The Republicans should be afraid, not only about the destruction of our democracy but if they continue to support him and allowed themselves to be guided by him, they’re going to have to live with a president that dictates to them every vote they can take, every vote they cannot take,” she said. “He’s going to be in their primaries. They will be owned by this dishonorable human being.” Trump’s lead impeachment attorney Bruce Castor is reportedly planning to mention Waters’ 2018 comments in his arguments during the trial this week. Fox News’ Laura Ingraham asked Castor if he plans to use “dueling video” as Democrats will argue that Trump incited the January 6 Capitol riot. “I think you can count on that,” he told Ingraham. “If my eyes look a little red to the viewers, it’s because I’ve been looking at a lot of video.” Meanwhile, Waters came under fire last week for saying she believes Trump should be charged with “premeditated murder” for the riot, which left five people dead. “He absolutely should be charged with premeditated murder because of the lives that were lost for this invasion with his insurrection,” she said in an appearance on MSNBC last week. “For the President of the United States to sit and watch the invasion and the insurrection and not say a word because he knew he had absolutely initiated it – and as some of them said, ‘he invited us to come. We’re here at the invitation of the President of the United States.”

  • Islamic State sleeper cells blamed for string of beheadings in Syrian camp

    Twenty people were killed in a Syrian displacement camp in January – including 10 who were beheaded – with guards suspecting Islamic State sleeper cells of the executions, according to a research group based in northeast Syria. The 20 Iraqis and Syrians killed in Al-Hol camp in January included a guard from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that maintains the detention facility, according to The Rojava Information Centre, which estimated 35 people were killed in the camp in all of 2020. Camp authorities, who struggle to impose security even around the camp perimeter, believe most of the deaths were the work of Islamic State assassins active inside Al-Hol. “The details of the assailants are unknown, most of the executions take place at night in the victims' tent or shelter,” said Charles Flynn, a researcher with the RIC. “Not all killings can be [attributed] to ISIS, as some deaths in the past have been related to feuds or disagreements in the camps,” he added. Among the most grisly of the recent killings at Al-Hol, an Iraqi elder was reportedly publicly beheaded in the camp on January 16. “The victim's head was completely removed,” said Mr Flynn, who reviewed photos of the incident. Meanwhile local media reports suggest the slain guard was part of a security detail that was fired upon during a raid by unknown shooters inside the camp on January 8. A second guard was reportedly wounded in the attack. The RIC said local media reports and SDF statements formed the basis of its tally, which was partly corroborated by the United Nations, which warned of the deteriorating situation at Al-Hol on January 16 after receiving reports of 12 murders there since the start of the year. “The disturbing events indicate an increasingly untenable security environment at Al Hol,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Imran Riza, and the regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Muhannad Hadi, said in a joint statement at the time. Al-Hol is the largest displacement camp in Syria, holding almost 62,000 residents in squalid conditions near the Iraqi border. Women and children make up more than 80 percent of the population in the camp, where aid agencies say hunger and disease are rife amid a lack of clean water and healthcare. Most of the inhabitants arrived in the camp in early 2020 after fleeing the final fighting between the Western-backed SDF and IS fighters around the terrorist group’s last sliver of territory at the town of Baghouz on the Euphrates River. As well as Iraqi and Syrians there are reportedly 8,705 third country nationals in Al-Hol, mostly from former Soviet central Asian states. In the past year, many Westerners – including high profile IS supporters such as the Halane twins from Manchester – have been moved from Al-Hol to the much smaller Roj camp, where security is stronger and living conditions are reportedly better. Killings in Al-Hol have increased over the past year since IS supporters were able to smuggle firearms into the camp, according to Elizabeth Tsurkov, a non-resident fellow with the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy. “The SDF's grip on the camp is clearly limited – smuggling of people and banned goods such as weapons, and smuggling of phones into the foreigners' annex, continue apace,” she said. The Kurdish-led SDF acknowledges that it has struggled to limit trafficking and has warned repeatedly of the deteriorating conditions, calling on foreign governments to repatriate their citizens. “Efforts are being made to control the camp,” it said in a January statement calling for greater support from the international community. Since the RIC released its January report, the killings in Al-Hol have continued. On Monday, the SDF reported that a 27-year-old Iraqi man and a 20-year-old Syrian man were the latest victims. “Assassinations continue in the camp,” the SDF said on Twitter.

  • Does ignoring robocalls make them stop? Here's what we learned from getting 1.5 million calls on 66,000 phone lines

    New research aims to give phone companies tools to help curb robocalls. Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty ImagesThe Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea More than 80% of robocalls come from fake numbers – and answering these calls or not has no effect on how many more you’ll get. Those are two key findings of an 11-month study into unsolicited phone calls that we conducted from February 2019 to January 2020. To better understand how these unwanted callers operate, we monitored every phone call received to over 66,000 phone lines in our telephone security lab, the Robocall Observatory at North Carolina State University. We received 1.48 million unsolicited phone calls over the course of the study. Some of these calls we answered, while others we let ring. Contrary to popular wisdom, we found that answering calls makes no difference in the number of robocalls received by a phone number. The weekly volume of robocalls remained constant throughout the study. As part of our study, we also developed the first method to identify robocalling campaigns responsible for a large number of these annoying, illegal and fraudulent robocalls. The main types of robocalling campaigns were about student loans, health insurance, Google business listings, general financial fraud, and a long-running Social Security scam. Using these techniques, we learned that more than 80% of calls from an average robocalling campaign use fake or short-lived phone numbers to place their unwanted calls. Using these phone numbers, perpetrators deceive their victims and make it much more difficult to identify and prosecute unlawful robocallers. We also saw that some fraudulent robocalling operations impersonated government agencies for many months without detection. They used messages in English and Mandarin and threatened the victims with dire consequences. These messages target vulnerable populations, including immigrants and seniors. Why it matters Providers can identify the true source of a call using a time-consuming, manual process called traceback. Today, there are too many robocalls for traceback to be a practical solution for every call. Our robocalling campaign identification technique is not just a powerful research tool. It can also be used by service providers to identify large-scale robocalling operations. Using our methods, providers need to investigate only a small number of calls for each robocalling campaign. By targeting the source of abusive robocalls, service providers can block or shut down these operations and protect their subscribers from scams and unlawful telemarketing. What still isn’t known Providers are deploying a new technology called STIR/SHAKEN, which may prevent robocallers from spoofing their phone numbers. When deployed, it will simplify traceback for calls, but it won’t work for providers who use older technology. Robocallers also quickly adapt to new situations, so they may find a way around STIR/SHAKEN. No one knows how robocallers interact with their victims and how often they change their strategies. For example, a rising number of robocalls and scammers are now using COVID-19 as a premise to defraud people. What’s next Over the coming years, we will continue our research on robocalls. We will study whether STIR/SHAKEN reduces robocalls. We’re also developing techniques to better identify, understand, and help providers and law enforcement target robocalling operations.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Sathvik Prasad, North Carolina State University and Bradley Reaves, North Carolina State University. Read more:Robocalls are unstoppable – 3 questions answered about why your phone won’t quit ringingRise and fall of the landline: 143 years of telephones becoming more accessible – and smartWhy are there so many suckers? A neuropsychologist explains Sathvik Prasad is a member of the USENIX association.Bradley Reaves receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. This research was supported by in-kind donations from Bandwidth and NomoRobo. Reaves is a member of the Communications Fraud Control Association, ACM, IEEE, and the USENIX association.

  • 200 missing and feared dead after glacier collapse in India

    “This looks very much like a climate change event as the glaciers are melting,” a leading scientist said.

  • House impeachment managers, Capitol riot defense lawyers, federal prosecutors agree Trump is culpable

    The House impeachment managers in former President Donald Trump's imminent Senate trial, federal prosecutors charging more than 185 people who participated in the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, and lawyers defending those suspects appear to agree that Trump bears singular responsibility for instigating the assault. If 17 Republican senators agree and vote to convict Trump of "incitement of insurrection," the former president will stand convicted and likely be barred from holding federal office again. The trial starts this week. Trump's lawyers have indicated that they plan to argue he merely "exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect" — an argument 144 leading First Amendment and constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum called "legally frivolous" — did not tell his supporters to violently attack the Capitol in a fiery speech right before the assault, and cannot be impeached since he is no longer in office. That last argument is popular among Senate Republicans, but top conservative constitutional lawyer Charles Cooper urged them in a new Wall Street Journal op-ed to disregard that flawed, illogical view and "judge the former president's misconduct on the merits." As far as the merits go, federal "court documents show that more than two dozen people charged in the attack specifically cited Trump and his calls to gather that day in describing on social media or in conversations with others why they decided to take action by coming to Washington," The Washington Post reports. "Some defense attorneys have echoed those arguments, saying that those who participated in the attack were doing so at the behest of Trump." "But for the president, they would not have walked down Pennsylvania Avenue," Al Watkins, defending "QAnon shaman" Jacob Chansley, told the Post. "They believed the president was going with them. They thought they were helping the president save our country." A.J. Kramer, chief of the Federal Public Defender's Office for Washington, said he expects numerous attorneys for Capitol rioters to argue that Trump "told them to march up Pennsylvania Avenue, and he'd be leading them, and he's the commander in chief of the military and the nation's top law enforcement officer." You can read more about what Trump and the Capitol insurrectionists said before and during the assault, and preview likely legal arguments, at The Washington Post. More stories from theweek.com5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rolloutThe growing white supremacist threatHouse Democrats will push to include $250-300 monthly child payments in stimulus bill

  • Middle-aged people who put on weight may live longer than those who stay 'normal' weight

    Middle-aged people who put on weight live longer than those who remain in healthy shape throughout their lives, according to a new study. Scientists say that while people who remain obese from childhood into adulthood were most at risk of dying, modest weight gains throughout a lifespan can increase the "probability of survival”. Experts said individuals who put on weight in later life often lived longer than those who remained trim. The findings were made following a study based on two generations of Americans followed over nearly seven decades. Obesity campaigners cautioned the results should not be seen as a green light to "let yourself go" when reaching middle-age but added there was evidence gaining weight can be useful in protecting against fatal diseases. Prof Hui Zheng, a sociologist at The Ohio State University, said: "The main message is for those who start at a normal weight in early adulthood, gaining a modest amount of weight throughout life and entering the overweight category in later adulthood can actually increase the probability of survival.” Prof Zheng and colleagues analysed 8,329 participants in the Framingham Heart Study - 4,576 parents and 3,753 of their children. Residents of the Massachusetts town have been tracked since 1948. The parents were followed until 2010 and the children from 1971 until 2014.