Group | Jotup

FTC Takes Action Against Publishers Clearing House for Misleading Consumers About Sweepstakes Entries

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Many consumers affected by these practices are older and lower-income.

Key Points:

Many consumers affected by these practices are older and lower-income.
“Today’s action requiring PCH to overhaul its user interface, compensate consumers for lost time, and stop surprise fees should send a clear message that manipulative design techniques are a no-go under our laws,” said Samuel Levine.
Instead, the complaint charges, consumers enter an arduous journey through pages of advertisements and sales pitches before they can actually enter the sweepstakes.
Beyond the company’s deceptive cycle of emails and webpages, though, the FTC’s complaint charges that PCH employed other unlawful practices, including:

PCH agreed to settle the FTC’s charges that it violated the FTC Act and CAN-SPAM Act, and a proposed court order would require the company to turn over $18.5 million to the FTC to be used to refund consumers and make a number of key changes to its email and internet operations:

The FTC filed the complaint and final order/injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Stipulated final injunctions/orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.
The staff attorneys on this matter were Miry Kim, Elsie Kappler and Josh Doan of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

African women lawyers: numbers are up but report sheds light on obstacles to leadership in the profession

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Several countries across the continent have almost equal numbers of women and men at the bar.

Key Points:

Several countries across the continent have almost equal numbers of women and men at the bar.
In the legal academy, some countries have recorded success with women as deans of law faculties and heads of departments.
Findings from the Women in Law and Leadership study show that progress is uneven across the judiciary, bar and academia.
Advancing women in leadership should be a priority for all advocates for human rights, the rule of law, and justice.

Barriers to leadership

Therefore, the barriers this report identifies shed light on the old, new and emerging obstacles to women’s retention and promotion.
As a woman on the bench, I encountered my own barriers in rising to where I am today.
But those barriers play out differently for different women and change over time.
Therefore, the barriers this report identifies shed light on the old, new and emerging obstacles to women’s retention and promotion.

Moving forward

Some analysts make a “business case” for more women in leadership.
What is needed is a shift in systems, institutional practices, norms and perceptions to accommodate more women in leadership positions.
Systems change is possible if financial investments are directed at supporting women and women‑led organisations across Africa and the African diaspora.

Body mass index: why practitioners are relying on it less when looking at a patient’s health

Retrieved on:

Monday, June 26, 2023

Such issues are perhaps expected considering the origins of the BMI and its intended purpose.

Key Points:

Such issues are perhaps expected considering the origins of the BMI and its intended purpose.
Body mass index was created in 1832 by Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet.
The Quetelet index, as it was originally called, was designed as a tool to study health in populations – not individuals.
BMI is calculated by taking a person’s weight in kilograms and dividing it by their height in metres squared.
This means that people who are muscular, such as athletes, may have high BMI values despite having low body fat.
James King is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Obesity David Stensel is co-Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Obesity.

Asian folktales offer moral lessons that help reduce racial prejudice in children

Retrieved on:

Monday, June 26, 2023

As the story goes, both are constantly bombarded by their fears despite their efforts to avoid them.

Key Points:

As the story goes, both are constantly bombarded by their fears despite their efforts to avoid them.
The moral of the tale is revealing and contains a powerful anti-racism message: What you hate becomes your fate.
As an educational linguist and a psychologist who specialize in children’s literacy development, we know that reading such folktales about people from different ethnic groups reduces prejudice in young children.
By age 4, children learn stereotypes against certain groups of people, and by age 7, children of color internalize stereotypes.

A significant step in combating anti-Asian hate

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II demonstrate the long history of abuse that continues today.
According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, hate crimes against Asians in the U.S. increased by 339% during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2018, we held a workshop to introduce this book to 25 Lowell public school elementary school teachers.

Moral lessons

Many Asian countries, such as Korea and Vietnam, use folktales as part of an ethics education that is part of their core curricula.
First, folktales often contain explicit moral lessons on honesty, wisdom, good deeds and perseverance.
The story ends with community members explaining the moral lesson: If you are a good person, you will have good outcomes.
Minjeong Kim has received funding from Creative Economy Grant of University of Massachusetts to conduct research cited in this article.

Children’s movement affects health and development but research is lacking in Africa: here’s why

Retrieved on:

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Children’s health and development depend on how much time they spend doing physical activity, being sedentary and sleeping.

Key Points:

Children’s health and development depend on how much time they spend doing physical activity, being sedentary and sleeping.
It helps us to understand what influences these behaviours, and their contribution to health and development.
Most evidence on movement behaviours comes from high-income countries.
We bring a collective expertise across disciplines such as public health, physiotherapy and child development.

Challenges

These devices are generally more expensive because they are “research-grade”, and upwards of US$250 each (before software and delivery).
This is a major challenge for those of us working in African countries, as at least 50 devices would be needed to conduct large scale studies like SUNRISE.
There is no local manufacturer or distributor of accelerometer devices.
For example, caregivers have asked whether the devices attract lightning, or whether they have some physical effect on the body.
Institutional challenges Within African research institutions, another challenge is how to build capacity.

Possible solutions

A possible solution is to collaborate with local partners and stakeholders to identify the most appropriate devices for each context and population.
Establishing some type of research equipment hub in Africa would go some way to help.
Researchers in Africa could also examine other new data collection methods that are customised to the local context.

Conclusion

But the contribution of movement behaviours to population health and development is significant, particularly as there is growing evidence of the global economic costs of physical inactivity.
We need local research on these behaviours, starting in the early years, when patterns of behaviour are established.
Without addressing barriers to robust research, researchers in this region will continue to lag behind in this field.

US talks sanctions against Uganda after a harsh anti-gay law – but criminalizing same-sex activities has become a political tactic globally

Retrieved on:

Thursday, June 22, 2023

The Biden administration has called for immediate repeal – and threatened to cut aid and investment to Uganda.

Key Points:

The Biden administration has called for immediate repeal – and threatened to cut aid and investment to Uganda.
As a scholar of politics and religion in the region, I have been working with Ugandan community activists and NGO leaders since 2017.
I argue that it is an example of what sociologists call a moral panic, and part of a worrying global trend.

Globalizing anti-LGBTQ+ politics

In Russia in 2022, Vladimir Putin ratified a law against LGBTQ+ propaganda, using language that is strikingly like Uganda’s new bill.
In 2014, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan likewise signed a law against the public display and promotion of same-sex relationships.
In each case these leaders stoked anxieties about LGBTQ+ groups and then took forceful action against the perceived moral danger.

Moral panic as distraction tactic

In sociology a moral panic is described as a surge in social anxieties about certain deviant groups.
Moral panics start as social norms that are inflamed into something larger: a sense of diffuse and imminent threat from categories of people like delinquents, foreigners or minority groups, seen as agents of broader moral decay.
There is a difference between cultural norms against divergent forms of sexuality and gender expression, and a moral panic over LGBTQ+ groups.

History in Africa

Sexuality in Africa is a complex terrain and ripe for the eruption of moral panics.
In the colonial period, European powers often interpreted examples of same-sex relations in Africa as evidence of those cultures’ so-called primitivism.
Colonial laws enforced the heterosexual, monogamous and conjugal family model by criminalizing homosexuality and other common practices like polygamy.

The Uganda case

President Museveni has led Uganda for nearly 40 years, and many citizens are frustrated at his tightfisted hold on power.
Community activists and NGO leaders, LGBTQ+ and otherwise, are directly in the line of fire.
They spread the idea that LGBTQ+ groups are trying to force the vulnerable into homosexual relationships, stoking protective anxieties among parents.

American Indians forced to attend boarding schools as children are more likely to be in poor health as adults

Retrieved on:

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Many American Indians attended compulsory boarding schools in the 1900s or have relatives who did.

Key Points:

Many American Indians attended compulsory boarding schools in the 1900s or have relatives who did.
Three generations of Running Bears – my grandparents, parents and those from my own generation – attended these residential schools over a period stretching from approximately 1907 to the mid-1970s.
I wondered whether attending compulsory boarding school – an experience that sets American Indians apart from other minority groups – contributed to these health disparities.

Truth in the data

When I embarked on this research in 2014, I began by analyzing a portion of the data collected from the American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project.
That project focused on the prevalence of mental health disorders and service utilization among Northern Plains and Southwest tribes and collected some data on boarding school attendance and experiences.
I found that those who attended boarding school had on average statistically significantly lower scores than those who did not attend.

Forced assimilation takes a physical toll

Although those practices are well documented, quantitative research into whether they had an effect on the long-term physical health of American Indian people who were subjected to them was hard to come by.
I found that those who endured these experiences during boarding school had worse physical health status than those who did not.
However, the poorest physical health status occurred among people who had been older than 7 when they entered boarding school and had also experienced punishment for speaking their tribal language.

Chronic health issues

Recognizing the seriousness of all of this, and its potential effect on my immediate family, I examined whether 15 chronic health conditions were statistically associated with having attended boarding school.
I found that former boarding school attendees were 44% more likely to have chronic physical health conditions, with seven out of the 15 chronic conditions statistically related to boarding school attendance.
This, too, was not surprising, since historical accounts and health reports have documented the overcrowded conditions.

Generational effects

I found that someone whose father attended boarding school had, on average, 36% more chronic physical health conditions than someone whose father did not attend.
Although this study did not specifically look at epigenetics – shifts in gene expression that are heritable – it points to the possibility of epigenetic effects that can produce biological changes that span generations.

What explains Donald Trump's enduring appeal with Republican voters?

Retrieved on:

Thursday, June 15, 2023

This defense, echoed by Fox News, has also been adopted by leading members of the Republican party, including Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Key Points:

This defense, echoed by Fox News, has also been adopted by leading members of the Republican party, including Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
If the most prominent Republicans are either defending the former president or keeping a low profile, it’s because Donald Trump remains very popular with right-wing voters.
This gap continues to widen, even in the state of Florida, where Ron Desantis was overwhelmingly re-elected governor in 2022.
In line with previous scandals, the new indictment is unlikely to dent Republican voters’ support for the former president.

Divided Republicans

The problem is that, apart from this homogeneous radicalized pro-Trump base unified around the former president, the Republicans are divided.
20% of Republican voters) have not found an alternative candidate and therefore say they are ready to rally behind Trump.
One other important factor not often considered is that only a tiny minority of voters cast a ballot in the primaries – less than 15% turnout among Republicans in 2016, which is still the highest rate in over 30 years.

A more radical but less charismatic rival

But in so doing, DeSantis is actually seeking to appeal to a segment of the electorate quite similar to that of Trump.
Described by the Financial Times as a “Donald Trump with brains and without the drama,” he is also known for his lack of charisma.

Racial resentment as a unifying factor

For the majority of Republicans, the mere idea of an indictment feels politically motivated.
This enduring suspicion illustrates not only that perception counts for more than reality, but also that there is a form of paranoia symptomatic of an identity crisis rooted in economic anxiety and racial resentment.
For part of this white American electorate, this comes down to what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “a deep history”.

Trump’s “emotional strategy”

Donald Trump’s success stems from his charisma and his ability to tap into the fear, resentment and humiliation of that deep story.
A recent study shows, for example, a growing number of Latinos and people of colour in the white supremacist movement.

Martyr and superhero

Donald Trump has built a narrative around himself in which he is a victim-in-chief, even a martyr, with whom his electorate can identify on the one hand and, and a hypemasculinized superhero in whom his base can project itself on the other.
On the eve of the 2016 elections, he claimed to be the “voice of the forgotten”.
In such a context, we can legitimately wonder what would happen if Trump were to lose the Republican primaries.

Work requirements don't work for domestic violence survivors – but Michigan data shows they rarely get waivers they should receive for cash assistance

Retrieved on:

Friday, June 2, 2023

Federal law allows states to grant domestic violence waivers to TANF recipients when time limits, work requirements and other policies increase their risk of abuse or would unfairly penalize victims of abuse.

Key Points:

Federal law allows states to grant domestic violence waivers to TANF recipients when time limits, work requirements and other policies increase their risk of abuse or would unfairly penalize victims of abuse.
We examined annual reports from Michigan to the federal government on the number of domestic violence waivers it issued from 2008 to 2021.
They said they got no training on what domestic violence does to survivors’ ability to work, or guidance on when to grant the waivers.
The caseworkers also said that domestic violence survivors who didn’t meet TANF work requirements often lost their benefits.