#youth-safety

#youth-safety

An anti-trafficking campaigner has welcomed the ban on pornography featuring strangulation, known as choking, saying it will help stop young people thinking it is a normal and safe practice. Samantha Browne, who suffered exploitation as a teenager in the adult industry, said the ban would help prevent children mimicking violent sex they have seen onscreen, and she hoped it would open the door to ending other forms of abusive pornography.

The Spokane School District of Washington State recently paid $60,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had failed to protect a transgender student attacked by another student on school grounds. The October 2021 attack involved Ian Ring. At the time, Ring was a 13-year-old seventh-grader at Dr. Jonas E. Salk Middle School. His bully allegedly taunted him with transphobic slurs in the past and then attacked him while he waited for the school bus.

OpenAI announced plans on Tuesday to relax restrictions on its ChatGPT chatbot, including allowing erotic content for verified adult users as part of what the company calls a treat adult users like adults principle. OpenAI's plan includes the release of an updated version of ChatGPT that will allow users to customize their AI assistant's personality, including options for more human-like responses, heavy emoji use, or friend-like behavior.

The Trump administration has ended federal funding for a program aimed at educating young people about the dangers of fentanyl and counterfeit prescription pills.

Over 200 people rescued, mostly teens, from subway surfing since the program began. This includes 52 people removed from moving trains in 2025.

A transgender girl housed in a male unit at Washington, D.C.'s Youth Services Center was hospitalized with a broken jaw after a fight last week that also injured another teen.

The murder occurred within the victim's residence and seems to have been carried out by someone she was acquainted with, indicating a personal relationship between them.

Police have launched an appeal for assistance in locating a 15-year-old girl named Brodee, who has been missing from Rainham for over two months.