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Sept. 25, 2025, 6:12 PM EDTBy Kate Snow and Abigail BrooksNick Benz-Bushling never imagined that managing his son’s mental health care would turn into a real-life horror story.After years of struggles, 16-year-old Johnathan attempted suicide in February. Benz-Bushling 41, and his wife Misty Benz-Bushling, 39, of Stephensville, Michigan, rushed Johnathan to the emergency room, and then later took him to Forest View Hospital, an inpatient behavioral health facility in Grand Rapids that had room in its pediatric psychiatry unit. When a doctor there said Johnathan needed residential treatment, the Benz-Bushlings immediately found him a bed at Newport Academy in Washington.

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Nick Benz-Bushling never imagined that managing his son’s mental health care would turn into a real-life horror story



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Sept. 25, 2025, 5:12 PM EDTBy Evan BushWhen the Mendocino earthquake ruptured off the California coast in 2024, it shook houses off their foundations, sent a 3-inch tsunami racing toward shore and touched off a fascinating science experiment — in the server room of a local police station, of all places. More than two years before the quake, scientists installed a device called a “distributed acoustic sensing interrogator” at the Arcata Police Station near the coast. The device fires a laser through the fiber optic cables that provide the station with internet service and senses how some of that laser light quivers or bends as it returns to its source.Now, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers announced that they were able to use the data from the fiber optic cable to “image” the Mendocino earthquake — determining the magnitude, location and length of the rupture.The study shows how scientists can essentially turn fiber optic cables into seismometers that return detailed data about earthquakes at the speed of light. Outside scientists said this fast-developing technology could drastically improve earthquake early-warning systems, giving people more time to seek safety, and could be key to predicting catastrophic earthquakes in the future, if that’s possible.“This is the first study that’s imaging an earthquake rupture process from an earthquake that’s this large,” said James Atterholt, a research geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey, and the first author of the new study. “This shows that there’s potential to improve earthquake early warning alerts with telecom fibers.”The study suggests that researchers could piggyback their equipment to already vast networks of telecommunications cables — which are used by Google, Amazon and AT&T, for example — to gather data where seismometers are sparse. Seafloor seismic monitoring is particularly expensive, and this could offer a more affordable option. Emily Brodsky, a professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the research, said “earthquake early warning could be dramatically improved tomorrow” if scientists are able to broker widespread access to existing telecommunication networks.“There’s not a technical hurdle there. That’s what the Atterholt study demonstrates,” Brodsky said in an interview. And in the more distant future, the use of this technology with fiber optic cables could help researchers determine whether some of the most catastrophic earthquakes could be predicted in advance. Scientists have noticed intriguing patterns on underwater subduction zones in recent years before some of the biggest earthquakes, like the 2014 magnitude-8.1 earthquake in Chile and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which touched off the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Both of these massive earthquakes were preceded by what are called “slow-slip” events, which release their energy slowly over weeks or months, but don’t cause perceptible shaking to humans. Scientists aren’t sure what to make of the pattern because there are only a few examples of it, and earthquakes of magnitude-8.0 and above are rare and sparsely documented with in-depth monitoring. If scientists were able to monitor seismic activity on telecommunications networks, they’d have a better chance of documenting these events closely and determining whether there’s clear evidence of a pattern that could predict future catastrophe. “What we want to know is whether faults slip slowly before they slip quickly” and produce a big quake, Brodsky said. “We keep seeing these hints from far away. And what we really need is instruments up close and personal on the fault.” Brodsky said it’s not clear whether these large subduction zone earthquakes are predictable, but the subject is the source of lots of scientific debate, which this new fiber optic technology could help settle. Researchers have been pursuing seismic monitoring through fiber optic cables for about a decade. Brodsky said this research demonstrates that the federal government, the scientific community and telecommunications providers ought to negotiate over access. “There are legitimate concerns. They’re worried about anybody sticking an instrument on an extremely valuable asset for them. They’re worried about damage to the cables or someone listening,” Brodsky said of the telecommunications companies. “However it’s pretty clear it’s also in the public safety interest to have that data, so that is a problem that needs to be solved at the regulatory level.” Atterholt said the fiber optic sensing technology would not supplant traditional seismometers, but would supplement what data already exists and would be less expensive than installing seismometers on the seafloor. Using the cables for seismic monitoring typically does not affect their core purpose of data transmission. Jiaxuan Li, an assistant professor of geophysics and seismology at the University of Houston, who was not involved in this research, said there are still technical hurdles to overcome to use distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology offshore. Right now, the technology can be used for distances up to about 90 miles. Li said similar technology is being used in Iceland to record how magma is moving in volcanoes. “We used DAS to perform early warnings for volcanic eruptions,” Li said. “It is operational now. The Iceland Meteorological Office is using this technology to issue an early warning.” The technology also helped reveal that the Mendocino quake was a rare “supershear” earthquake, when the fault’s fracture is happening faster than its seismic waves are traveling. It’s akin to a “fighter jet exceeding the speed of sound” and producing a sonic boom, Atterholt said. The new research unexpectedly revealed the pattern in Mendocino and could offer new clues to this phenomenon. “We haven’t really nailed down why some earthquakes go supershear and why some don’t,” Atterholt said. “It can alter how hazardous the earthquake is, though we don’t fully understand that relationship either.” Evan BushEvan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News.
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Sept. 23, 2025, 5:16 PM EDTBy Curtis Bunn and Tyler KingkadeIn 2016, Charlie Kirk wasn’t yet a household name. The young activist had co-founded Turning Point USA four years earlier to help spread conservative ideas on college campuses. But shortly after President Donald Trump’s first election, the group launched an ambitious new project — the Professor Watchlist — aimed at highlighting what it saw as left-leaning bias in higher education. The list, easily available online, now has more than 300 professor names, listed under categories like “Terror Supporter,” “LGBTQ,” “Antifa” and “Socialism.” Once dismissed by critics as a fringe culture war stunt, education experts say the list helped kick off a movement that continues today to monitor and expose perceived ideological opponents. Since Kirk’s assassination earlier this month, that movement has accelerated, with conservative activists systematically outing people in what critics have decried as a right-wing version of “cancel culture.” The backlash has led to the removal or resignation of dozens of teachers and professors who allegedly disparaged Kirk or celebrated his death online.“If you make statements that right-wing politicians don’t like, then you can lose your job. Period. That is chilling,” said Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, who runs a project called Faculty First Responders that helps professors who have been targeted by Turning Point or other groups. “The Professor Watchlist planted that seed.”NBC News interviewed six professors on the watchlist, added between 2016 and 2023. Some are on it for work they published and others for outspoken social media posts. Once added, they received negative messages and comments; two said it escalated to death threats.This atmosphere, which intensified as social media culture evolved, changed how students and professors interact, said Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law. The watchlist was part of a shift that made “what had been a semi-private space — the classroom — into a place where statements or discussions could get national attention,” Lake said. Knowing a stray comment could go viral stifles free speech, he added.“When you step in the classroom, you might as well be in the studio,” he said. “People are going to record what you’re saying, they may publish it, they may take it out of context, they may share it with your enemies — anything can happen now and it frequently does.”Charlie Kirk near the campus of Georgia State University in Atlanta in 2024.Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP via Getty Images fileThose forces were at work earlier this month, for instance, when conservatives circulated a video of a Texas A&M student confronting a senior lecturer in the English department for teaching about gender identity, citing Trump’s executive order recognizing only two genders. The lecturer, who was not on the Professor Watchlist, was fired and two administrators were removed from their posts. Last week, university president Mark Welsh also resigned amid the controversy.Some conservatives argue the watchlist was a necessary antidote to left-wing bias on campus and helped counter-balance the criticism of right-wing professors. It was “part of changing the way the right engaged with higher ed,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “The problem is not with the list,” he said. “The problem is that the list was ever necessary.”Turning Point USA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Charlie Kirk himself defended the project as “an awareness tool” in a 2018 interview with “The Opposition,” a Comedy Central TV show.“It’s not ‘Professor Blacklist’ and it’s not ‘Professor Hitlist,’” Kirk said at the time. “We’re not calling for the termination of these professors — let the schools make their own decisions.”Some professors targeted by the watchlist said it sparked a campaign of harassment against them.Shawn Schwaller, an assistant history professor at California State University, Chico, was added to the list in 2021. His profile includes a long list of allegations, including that he had disparaged conservatives. In one article Schwaller wrote, he offered a defense of protesters at a right-wing Christian event who used flash bombs and bear spray, arguing that they were responding to the “intensely violent rhetoric of a white Christian supremacist.”Schwaller said he was surprised by the response he received online once his name went public. “I hope the professor gets some lead,” one post read. Another said, “He better get a third eye behind his head because its gonna get serious for him.”Preston Mitchum, a former Georgetown Law adjunct professor, found himself on the list after writing on X, formerly Twitter, in 2017, “All white people are racists. All men are sexist. Yes, ALL cis people are transphobic. We have to unpack that. That’s the work!” Mitchum had also appeared on a Fox News panel alongside Charlie Kirk to discuss issues around race after President Trump met with Kanye West in 2018. He said he had been receiving backlash from his tweets but the vitriol increased after the segment aired.He received unwanted calls and emails, Mitchum said, including death threats. “I’m a Black, queer man. I don’t scare often,” he said. He said he finds it hypocritical that Kirk is hailed as a champion of free speech yet created a tool he believes has been used to silence people. “The entire goal is censorship, like fundamentally, the goal is to get you to stop talking,” he said.Preston Mitchum said he received death threats after appearing on the Professor Watchlist and on a panel with Charlie Kirk.Kollin BensonFor some professors, being put on the list was a badge of honor. Charles Roseman, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was added after co-authoring an article on sex and gender in Scientific American in 2023. “I’m quite glad to draw their ire,” he said. “I’m glad that they disapprove of me. That’s quite the compliment.”Kirk, in a 2016 interview with Time magazine, said the list was not meant to intimidate or “make these professors feel any less secure.” “The inspiration was just to shine a light on what we feel has been an unfair balance toward left-leaning ideas and biases in our universities,” he said.In the years since its inception, the watchlist seems to have inspired other groups. Right-wing influencers like Libs of TikTok now regularly spotlight individual faculty they believe want to indoctrinate students, while conservative parent groups like Moms for Liberty have advocated for state laws limiting what can be discussed in classrooms or shared in libraries. These activists are close allies of the MAGA movement.Republican governors, such as Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, have also made fights over “wokeness” in colleges a core component of their legislative agendas. Death of Charlie Kirk raises questions about future of free speech in America02:00John Wesley Lowery, an expert in higher education law who advises universities on compliance with federal regulations, said it’s simpler to share details about professors today than when the watchlist was first launched. “It is so much easier to crowdsource information now,” he said. And that’s not the only change, he said, noting that past activism targeted individuals. “What we’ve seen over the last week instead is far more concerted efforts to immediately place pressure on institutions to take action.”Lake, of Stetson University, said the watchlist was a catalyst in changing the way professors work. Among professors writ large, he said, there is an “air of fatalism — do the job long enough, and you could step on a land mine and that could be it.” It’s not only professors who limit what they say in class now, he said. The same is true among students. Lake brought up Kirk’s assassination a couple times in class recently, and there was “no reaction,” he said. “They don’t want to get caught up in a whirlwind.”Curtis BunnCurtis Bunn is a reporter for NBC BLK.Tyler KingkadeTyler Kingkade is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.Melissa Chan and Jo Yurcaba contributed.
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