After All Things

Protect from big tech

A Mystic company will keep a close eye on cycling this Olympics. A bill protecting kids on social media heads to a vote in the U.S. Senate. Riverhead will place armed guards in its public schools this fall. A new bill would permanently extend the World Trade Center Health Program. And the latest from WSHU’s Off The Path.

Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 25 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

As the Olympic games begin in Paris this week, a Connecticut company will be keeping a close watch on the cycling. Mystics, Princeton Carbon Works, makes high-tech wheels for professional cyclists. CEO Harrison Macris says this Olympics will be their most visible to date. This is going to be our first big appearance. This Olympic cycle, we actually are making track wheels for a number of federations. We will also be in the time trial, the road race, and a sister company of ours. P1 Race Technologies is actually doing mountain bike wheels for the cross-country mountain bike event as well. Macris says his company has been working with a British cycling team in the Tour de France and will be supporting them, along with teams from Holland, Spain, Germany, and the USA. [music] You're listening to After All Things, WSHU's Daily News and Culture Update from the Long Island Sound region. A bill to protect kids on social media heads to a vote in the U.S. Senate. Riverhead will place armed guards in their public schools this fall. A new bill would permanently extend the World Trade Center Health Program and we've got the latest from WSHU's Off the Path. Those stories and more are ahead. I'm Sabrina Garon. [music] A bill meant to protect children from social media algorithms is headed for a vote in the U.S. Senate. It's being championed by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. WSHU's Molly Ingram has more. Blumenthal says social media companies aren't doing enough to protect kids and that the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act would help. It enables the strongest settings of safety by default. It requires companies to disable product features that are destructive. It gives young people and parents tools to opt out to choose not to be a part of algorithm recommendations that fuel destructive mental health arms. The bill has support from Microsoft and the company that owns Snapchat. The ACLU does not support the bill. They say its definition of harm is too narrow and may lead to censorship, which Blumenthal denies. The legislation is expected to pass the Senate next week. It also has bipartisan support in the House. Molly Ingram, WSHU News. The Riverhead Long Island School District plans to post armed police officers in its public schools this fall. WSHU's Shelley Hussman-Katish reports. One school resource officer will be posted at the high school and one at the middle school five days a week under an agreement between the Board of Education and the town. School officials released a letter this week saying the officers will enhance security and surveillance and give parents and students educational opportunities. Officials say they'll also take "law enforcement action" when required. The school board says the officers won't act as disciplinarians. The town has agreed to pay 75% of the cost of the program in the first year. Officials say the cost will be split 50/50 between the town and the district after that. Shelley Hussman-Katish, WSHU News. A bipartisan group of New York lawmakers have introduced a bill to fix and permanently extend the World Trade Center health program. WSHU's Desiree Diorio has more. The program provides healthcare for first responders and the survivors of the September 11th attacks. The bill will infuse it with cash and update the funding formula to avoid future shortfalls. Long Island Congressman Andrew Garberino says the urgency of the health program is bigger than political party. If we don't fix this, we're going to have to start making cuts for services for 9/11 responders and survivors and start to turn away new people who get sick in as soon as 20/28. I don't want to be standing here in another four years because Congress couldn't get this done. We need to get this done. People who lived and worked near the rubble of the World Trade Center have developed a range of serious health problems from inhaling toxic dust, including cancers. Desiree Diorio, WSHU News. Back in the 1800s, a brave lighthouse keeper from Rhode Island drew attention from a sitting president and the early suffragette movement. That story is coming up, but first a message from our supporter. Local support comes from Hartford HealthCare, the only health system in the northeast, with all its hospitals receiving A grades for safety from the LeapFrock Group, the nation's leading independent safety watchdog group, HartfordHealthCare.org. Two Bethany Connecticut officials have been placed on administrative leave after residents were made aware that a Parks and Rec employee remained on their staff while under investigation for child sex abuse. Anthony Mastrangelo was removed from his position at Bethany Public Schools in 2022 after the first accusation against him, but he kept his job with Parks and Rec for another six months working with elementary school-aged kids. Town first select woman Paula Cofrancesco took questions at a heated town hall meeting this week. The crowd called for her to resign and for the Parks Director Janice Howard to be fired, Howard and assistant director Anthony Cofrancesco are now on leave. They're the cousin and nephew, respectively, of the first select woman. Southampton Town has extended its moratorium on battery energy storage systems, saying it has concerns about safety. The lithium ion batteries are key to storing energy for wind and solar sources. Environmentalists say the batteries are needed and view this as a stalling technique. Police in Monroe, Connecticut, are investigating the shooting of a two-year-old boy in his home on Wednesday. He is recovering from surgery and expected to survive. Police are investigating whether he was accidentally shot by a family member. The Connecticut Insurance Company has been sold to a California company for $350 million. WSHU's Janice Roman has more. Molina healthcare will pay $350 million for Connecticut, which is a subsidiary of Emblem Health. Connecticut was founded in 1981 by a group of physicians. Emblem Health bought it in 2005. Connecticut is expected to bring in $1.4 billion in health insurance premiums this year. Molina Healthcare is one of the largest U.S. corporations on the Fortune 500 list. The California-based company has 5.7 million members in 21 states. The acquisition will see Connecticut's 140,000 members join that number. Janice Roman, WSHU News. A brave lighthouse keeper in Newport, Rhode Island became nationally famous in the late 1800s for rescuing sailors. Her name was Ida Lewis and she drew the attention of a sitting president and the early suffragette movement. WSHU's Davis Donovan chronicles her unlikely celebrity for the series off the path. Lewis lived on Lime Rock about 900 feet offshore in Newport Harbor. Her father, the first lighthouse keeper, moved the family there in 1857. And the 1869 rescue that made her famous was far from her first. Here's Marion Gagnon, director of a documentary about Lewis. She had done many, many rescues that no one blinked an eye because nobody reported them. The boys that she saved when she was 16 certainly never told their parents. But the men she saved that day in 1869 were soldiers at nearby Fort Adams. And that made the rescue a news story. And it just really took off like you wouldn't believe. Kind of like it would today except that you know things were a lot slower. She appeared on the cover of Harper's Weekly, the city of Newport through her parade and declared July 4th of that year Ida Lewis Day. She even got a nickname. The bravest woman in America and she just became like this household name across the country. At least two songs were published about her in 1869. The Ida Lewis Waltz and this one, the Ida Lewis Maserka. She got lots of marriage proposals and even one father came to the island and said I want you to meet my son and marry him. And she said thank you but no to all of it. She just wanted to stay in line rock and do her job. Celebrities and Newport Gilded Age elites sailed out to the island just to pay her a visit. Her father spent one summer counting visitors to the island. He counted 9,000 in all, sometimes as many as 600 in a day. I used often to have so many collars that I couldn't get my house work done. I shook hands with more people in a summer than the president in Washington. Speaking of whom, he showed up on the island too, specifically President Ulysses S. Grant. She also got a visit from two women who wanted her to join their cause. Suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She absolutely was not interested. She was a little annoyed with them. She's quoted somewhere saying something like I'd rather do another rescue than spend an afternoon with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Still, Ida faced plenty of sexism in her day too. Mostly men who said what is she doing, bro, with a boat? How unfeminine is this? Other people would say that's just ludicrous. This is her life. This is what she wanted to do. She wanted to live at the lighthouse and she wanted to help people. If there were some people out there who needed help, I would get into my boat and go to them. Even if I knew I couldn't get back. Wouldn't you? Ida once amused about how the rescues gave her life purpose. We only have one life to live. And when our time comes, we've got to go. So it doesn't matter how. I never thought of danger when people needed help. Such times you're busy thinking of other things. She made her last rescue at the age of 63 and died six years later in 1911. No one knows exactly how many people she rescued. She didn't keep records. Those were documented were 18 rescues of men. Tony Knowles of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, which now sits on the island. The 18 rescues are now honoured by having 18 stars on the Yacht Club flag here. The lighthouse closed in 1928. A prominent boater immediately bought it and turned it into the Yacht Club. They eventually built a wooden bridge to connect the island to the mainland. So when I came to visit, I could just park on the shore and walk over to the island without having to set foot in a boat. This is Off the Path from WSHU Public Radio. I'm Davis Donovan. Thank you for listening to After All Things, supported by Hartford HealthCare for more stories from the Long Island Sound Region. Listen on the radio, stream at WSHU.org, or download the WSHU app. That's also where you can check out more great podcasts from WSHU, like Off the Path, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, feel free to reach out with any thoughts or story ideas our email is news@wshu.org. I'm Sabrina Garone. Enjoy the rest of your day. I'll talk to you tomorrow. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]