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Uvalde families speak out on return to school · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, September 7th. I'm Shumita Basu, this is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  Students in Uvalde are now back to school. Not the same school building where the mass shooting happened in May that killed 19 children and two teachers. That building is slated to be torn down.
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  The district said it didn't want students and staff to have to go back there. "San Antonio Express-News" education reporter Claire Bryan is covering the start of school in this town. And there have been mixed emotions.
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  Claire Bryan: I had some conversations with parents right after they dropped off their kid. They're pretty anxious and a little bit scared to be leaving their kid at school all day without them after this summer.
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  Bryan says the schools they're going back to are being heavily reinforced.
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  Bryan: Eight-foot-tall fences that are going up, there's more security cameras. The school's working towards creating safe vestibule entrances, which if you've ever been to most elementary schools in America, nowadays you have to buzz in and you're let into a vestibule and then you have to present your ID. And only until you're properly checked in do you actually get unlocked.
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  Bryan told us that some parents are angry that even with all the talk about security upgrades, some of them weren't finished in time for the new school year.
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  Bryan: Throughout the summer, parents have been speaking up at board meetings asking for security changes as well as a lot of personnel changes. So, desires for the police chief to be fired, but also for the superintendent to be fired, for schoolboard members to step down, for a lot of leadership to change. And so, there's been a lot of tension between the parents and the school district. I'm curious to see how the school year plays out and if some of that trust is rebuilt as the district, first of all, finishes the safety measures and then continues to hopefully be transparent and communicative with the families and the community.
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  Kimberley Rubio is a parent who's sending her kids back to school. Her daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting. Like a lot of parents, she used to take a picture of all of her kids on the first day of school. But this year, she said, they're not doing photos.
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  Bryan: If she's so used to taking a photo of all of her kids together as a group and then seeing that Lexi wouldn't be present in that photo, it's just a really sad visual to face. And I think for her, it was hard to imagine taking that picture and sort of cementing that into a photo because, you know, it's still, it's still so fresh.
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  We've talked a lot on the show about the shortage of mental health resources in America, and how it got worse during the pandemic, just as rates of anxiety and depression spiked. Sometimes when you need to talk to someone, and you can't access a professional, you get help where you can. And that can mean social media. The large amount of mental health content online is a sign that lots of people aren't getting the care that they need in person. "Washington Post" tech writer Tatum Hunter recently covered the potential benefits and the risks.
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  Tatum Hunter: Creators and audiences both say that this content really does help people. But one of the biggest problems and critiques is that this is not happening in a healthcare setting or even kind of a neutral setting. It's happening on an algorithm-fueled, monetized advertising app.
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  Hunter interviewed someone behind a TikTok account that offers mental health advice and support. She's 17 years old, she has no official training, and she has 5.9 million followers on TikTok. Most are teen girls.
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  Hunter: When I asked her, "That's an immense responsibility for a 17-year-old. Do you ever feel stressed?" She said that she never wants to give people the wrong advice because she knows that it means so much to people. I think that we're placing a huge burden on young women to fill a mental healthcare gap. And in many ways, we owe them better.
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  Critics point out that there's very little accountability for platforms or creators if something goes wrong. Social media apps aren't designed to promote mental health, they're designed to keep people scrolling. So, once people are in these apps, it's easy to get steered toward problematic content.
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  Hunter: Even if a particular creator is really fastidious, has really good intentions and takes care to kind of do no harm, that algorithm is going to send their audiences on a journey because they've expressed this interest in the topic of mental health. And there's no way to ensure that every creator takes great care to give accurate, helpful information.
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  With two national college titles, five Olympic gold medals, and four WNBA championships, Sue Bird's legendary basketball career came to an end last night. Her team, the Seattle Storm, lost in the playoffs to the Las Vegas Aces. Bird is often compared to Tom Brady and Serena Williams, the kind of generational talent who dominated a sport. In an interview with her after the game with "ESPN," the hometown crowd started to chant her name.
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  Sue Bird: This year, I'm so, so, so proud to be a member of the Seattle Storm. It has been my honor to play for this franchise, to play for these fans.
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  Crowd: Thank you, Sue! Thank you, Sue!
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  "Sports Illustrated" senior writer Greg Bishop wrote about Sue Bird's career. And some say that she's one of the greatest shotmakers that basketball has ever seen.
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  Greg Bishop: One of her former coaches, Dan Hughes, says when he thinks of the phrase point guard, the first person that comes to mind, man or woman, is Sue Bird.
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  There's a reason why the fans in her hometown have special love for her.
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  Bishop: This is a player who didn't leave Seattle. It's a player who had a ton of success. It's a player who ultimately was able to keep the Storm and the WNBA in town.
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  And that's meant a lot to a sports town that's had a lot of heartbreak, that's seen other superstars leave.
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  Bishop: And so, when I think of Sue Bird, I think of consistency, I think of winning, I think of all the things that you associate with an athlete that's really tied to a specific place at a specific time.
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  And beyond what she did for the team, Sue Bird helped elevate the WNBA and create a bigger audience for women's basketball.
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  Bishop: You're looking at a league that's really flourishing. And to me, the impact from Sue Bird there, really can't be overstated.
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  I want to end the show today back in Uvalde, Texas. We've just been thinking a lot about how hard the first week back to school has been there. So, here's a story where it's worth seeing the images. It's about a massive art project in Uvalde to honor all 21 victims with murals around town. "Texas Public Radio" recently spoke to Abel Ortiz, a local college art teacher who organized this project and gathered artists. He said it was important to make sure that families not only consented but that they also collaborated. That they shared details about their loved ones, their lives, the things that they liked and personal photos.
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  Abel Ortiz: We never want to forget their faces. That's why they had to be murals of portraits, and not just regular murals.
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  Artists donated their time, people donated supplies. The painters included tiny details, some that only family members would recognize. One artist added an amethyst to the mural of Maranda Mathis.
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  And when her mom saw it, she says that she got chills. It was her daughter's birthstone, and purple was her favorite color. You can see these murals on the Apple News app, along with all the stories we talked about today. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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