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SmileDirectClub is shutting down. Where does that leave its customers?

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Just months after filing for bankruptcy, SmileDirectClub announced it was shutting down its global operations and halting its teeth-aligner treatments.That leaves existing SmileDirectClub customers with a lot of questions and few available answers. The company is offering no more customer care support and few details about possible refunds are available yet. Multiple dental organizations and orthodontists also caution patients about safety concerns arising from “direct-to-consumer” dentistry. Here’s what you need to know.SmileDirectClub — which served over 2 million people since its 2014 founding — once promised to revolutionize the oral-care industry by selling clear dental aligners that were marketed as a faster and more affordable alternative to braces. It sold its aligners directly to consumers by mail and in major retailers. When SmileDirectClub’s stock began trading on the ...

Canadian cities report rise in homelessness and in tent fires as winter sets in

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

HALIFAX — Cities across Canada are reporting a rise in fires, sometimes deadly, in tents and other shelters used by unhoused people — a situation advocates say is a tragic consequence of the country’s homelessness crisis.As the number of homeless people continues to rise — and the frigid weather sets in — it’s inevitable there will be more accidental fires, Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said in an interview Wednesday.“If all you can get your hands on is a propane tank or a camp stove, you’ll use that to survive because the alternative is freezing to death,” said Richter, whose group estimates there are between 260,000 and 300,000 unhoused people across the country. “This is only the beginning of winter and I absolutely guarantee we will be reporting on fires, amputations and more deaths,” he said.On Dec. 11, three people were found dead in a shed that burnt down outside a Calgary home improvement store. A fire de...

NCAA survey of 23,000 student-athletes shows mental health concerns have lessened post-pandemic

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An NCAA survey of student-athletes suggests they are experiencing fewer mental health concerns than they did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some demographics have shown more improvement than others.More than 23,000 student-athletes participated in the NCAA Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study between September 2022 and June 2023. The data shows that mental health concerns have decreased in all three NCAA divisions.In men’s sports, 17% of respondents said they constantly feel overwhelmed, down from 25%, and 16% reported feelings of mental exhaustion, down from 22%. The most significant decreases came among males in Division I.The decreases were smaller among women. It found that 44% of women’s sports participants reported feeling overwhelmed (down from 47%), and 35% reported feeling mentally exhausted (down from 38%).As studies in 2020 and 2021 showed, students of color, those identifying on the queer spectrum and those identifying as transgender...

Movie Review: Jeffrey Wright is brilliant in the smart and funny satire ‘American Fiction’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

Jeffrey Wright’s Thelonious “Monk” Ellison is at the end of his rope at the beginning of “ American Fiction, ” a crowd-pleaser that’s both funny and smart in its satire of race, media, artists, identity politics and even Hollywood. It opens in theaters this week.A classic frustrated artist, Monk is a professor and an author who writes literary stories that he wants to see in the world. He’s not interested in race, or at least the kind of “Black misery porn” stories that seem to be omnipresent, whether it’s in the Black history month advertisement on television with images of addicts and slaves, or at a book convention.The latest hit that has him fuming is a book called “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto,” written by a comfortably upper middle class Black woman (Issa Rae) who gives interviews about how dismayed she was in her post-college job at a literary agency that she didn’t see stories about “her people.” But exploitative and demeaning as they are, those are also the ones that get the boo...

Apple now requires court orders in U.S. to access push notification data

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Apple is now requiring that U.S. law enforcement agencies obtain a court order for information on its customers’ push notifications, the alerts that iPhone apps send users that can reveal a lot about their online activity.Push notifications alert smartphone users to breaking news alerts, incoming messages, weather bulletins and other content. The policy shift was not formally announced but rather appeared in an updated version of Apple’s law enforcement guidelines posted online. Apple’s main competitor in mobile operating systems, Google, already had such a policy in place for its Android system.The Cupertino, California, company did not immediately respond to questions about it.The privacy-enhancing policy was added following last week’s disclosure by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden that his office had received a tip last year that government agencies in foreign countries were demanding smartphone push notification data from both Google and Apple.“Ap...

University of Calgary named world’s first United Nations University hub for water

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

CALGARY — The University of Calgary has become the world’s first United Nations University hub focused on water.The hub is a partnership between the Calgary university and the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, which is a think tank based in Hamilton, Ont.It means they will work together to develop the scientific understanding, solutions and skilled workforce needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change.Kaveh Madani, director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health, says the partnership will help to tackle upcoming water, environmental and health challenges.Officials with the University of Calgary say the hub’s reach would be global.It is to have four research areas: understanding changes in aquatic ecosystems, infectious diseases in a changing climate, environmental predictions for water sustainability and resilience in Indigenous communities.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2023.The Canadian...

1 Marine killed, 14 taken to hospitals after amphibious combat vehicle rolls over during training

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A U.S. Marine was killed and 14 others were taken to hospitals after an amphibious combat vehicle they were in rolled over during a training at a California base, north of San Diego, officials said Wednesday.The rollover happened around 6 p.m. Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton during a ground movement training. The U.S. Marine Corps said the others were taken to area hospitals for treatment and evaluation but did not specify the severity of their injuries. The Marine who died won’t be identified until family is notified per military policy, and was assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the military said.The incident is under investigation, officials said.The fatal rollover happened on land in an amphibious combat vehicle, a model that was introduced to replace Vietnam War-era amphibious assault vehicles after one sank off the Southern California coast in 2020, killing eight Marines and one sailor. It was one of the of Marine Corps’ deadlies...

Woman gets 70 years in prison for killing two bicyclists in Michigan charity ride

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

IONIA, Mich. (AP) — A woman was sentenced to at least 70 years in prison for causing the deaths of two bicyclists who were hit while taking part in a charity ride in western Michigan.The judge in Ionia County stacked two 35-year terms for Mandy Benn, a rare consecutive punishment. Most sentences in Michigan courts run concurrently.Police said Benn was under the influence of drugs when she crossed the center line and hit a group of bicyclists on a rural road in 2022. Edward Erickson, 48, of Ann Arbor, and Michael Salhaney, 57, of Bloomfield Hills, were killed while riding in a three-day endurance event for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.“This is not an accident. … There was a series of choices you made at some point to ingest this cocktail of narcotics and that led to everything we saw,” Judge Ronald Schafer said Tuesday.In October, Benn, 44, was convicted of second-degree murder and a raft of other charges.She apologized in court on Tuesday and read out the names of the dead...

As Pacific Northwest fentanyl crisis surges, officials grapple with how to curb it

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The fight against fentanyl is increasingly being waged in schools, jails and on city streets in the Pacific Northwest, where state officials in Oregon and Washington have named it a top issue as overdose deaths rise.Washington’s Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee plans to ask lawmakers for $50 million more to treat and prevent opioid use. In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has proposed declaring a fentanyl emergency in Portland, and lawmakers have created a committee on addiction to get a jump on the issue before the Legislature reconvenes in February.“We know how serious this problem is. Fentanyl is deadly,” Inslee said. “But there is a positive note — we can be successful if we put our minds to this. Treatment works. We can help people recover.”A surge in fentanyl deaths, including among children, has marked the latest iteration of the years-long opioid crisis. The most recent provisional figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention es...

Oprah Winfrey portrait – featuring the color purple – unveiled at National Portrait Gallery

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:32:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — It seemed only fitting that Oprah Winfrey chose to wear a flowing, full-length purple dress for her portrait unveiled Wednesday at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. She told the assembled crowd that she wore purple not because a musical remake of the movie that launched her career is coming out later this month: “I chose to wear the color purple because for me, that color has been seminal in my life.”As she pulled a curtain and saw the portrait by Chicago artist Shawn Michael Warren for the first time, Winfrey exclaimed: “Spectacular. Great job.” The painting shows Winfrey against the backdrop of a prayer garden at her home in California. She is holding a sprig from an olive tree.Warren said he had asked Winfrey to consider how she wanted to be depicted for the generations to come.“You could have chosen anyone, but you saw fit that an artist from the place you called home during your rise to prominence should be given this honor,” he said.Win...