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"The president of the American Psychiatric Association answers questions about a new recommendation to screen all adults under 65 for anxiety.
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How much anxiety is too much?
On Tuesday, a panel of influential medical experts recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for symptoms of anxiety.
Thenew guidelineswere issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force aftera draftversion was released last September. Earlier in 2022, the experts had made similar recommendationsfor children ages 8 to 18.
There are millions of Americans who struggle with anxiety: About 1 in 5 adults in the United States has an anxiety disorder, according to theNational Alliance on Mental Illness. Having some anxiety isn’t necessarily a problem:Experts sayan internal alarm system benefits us in different ways, helping to improve our performance or recognition of danger and encouraging us to be more conscientious. In addition, it’s common to feel more anxious when we’re faced with stressful life events like starting a new job, experiencing the death of a loved one or moving to a new city.
At times, however, anxiety can become more pervasive and overwhelming.
How do you distinguish theprotective anxietyfrom the more problematic anxiety? And, given that the panel did not recommend screenings for older adults, what do you do if you’re 65 or older and have been feeling anxious?
I asked Dr. Petros Levounis, the president of the American Psychiatric Association, to answer these questions and more.
Questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
How do you know if your anxiety is in need of evaluation?
Anxietycan cause people to try to avoid situations that trigger or worsen their symptoms. Some signs to be on the lookout for include a sense of dread or worry that just won’t go away or having trouble sleeping or eating.
Other symptoms may include restlessness, a sense of fear or doom, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling and trouble concentrating.
If you feel like the worry is too much, and it starts affecting your work, your relationships or other parts of your life — or you feel depressed by these feelings — it might be time to speak with someone. That could be a primary care provider or a mental health professional. The anxiety may not go away on its own and may get worse if you don’t ask for help.
What are “normal” levels of anxiety? How much is too much?
We all feel anxious from time to time. If you have a big test coming up, family worries or concerns about paying your bills, you can start feeling nervous. Your heart may beat faster, you’ll notice you are sweating more, you feel on edge. Sometimes that feeling disappears as quickly as it arrives.
But if you start to notice that worry and fear are there constantly, that is a signal that you need some help. The good news is treatment is available, and it works.
What is treatment like?
The first step is to see your doctor to make sure there is no physical problem causing your symptoms. If an anxiety disorder is diagnosed, a mental health professional can work with you on finding the best treatment. Most people living with anxiety respond well to two types of treatment: psychotherapy, or “talk therapy,” and medications. These treatments can be given alone, but a combination of both has been found to be the most effective.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T., a type of talk therapy, can help a person learn a different way of thinking, reacting and behaving to help feel less anxious. Medications will not cure anxiety disorders, but can provide significant relief from symptoms. The most commonly used medications are anti-anxiety medications (generally prescribed only for a short period of time) and antidepressants.
The new recommendation does not include patients 65 and older. If a doctor doesn’t offer to screen older adults, what should they do?
Ask! You may know that anxiety often comes with an overwhelming feeling of nervousness, fear and worry for long periods of time. But anxiety can also have physical symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain or gastrointestinal issues. Older adults may think this is just a sign of aging. But it’s important to share all of your symptoms — including your emotional concerns — with your doctor.
Does a positive screening mean that you will need treatment?
Clinicians should follow up positive screens with a few questions, such as the duration of symptoms, degree of distress and impairment, and current or previous treatment history.
Screening for any mental disorder without appropriate follow-up is potentially harmful. Steps like screening and brief interventions for those with depression and anxiety can go a long way toward increasing early detection of mental health disorders as well as the prevention of lost life to suicide.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go toSpeakingOfSuicide.com/resourcesfor a list of additional resources. Goherefor resources outside the United States.
Christina Caronis a reporter for the Well section, covering mental health and the intersection of culture and health care. Previously, she was a parenting reporter, general assignment reporter and copy editor at The Times.More about Christina Caron"
West African Nations Threaten Military Action Unless Niger Coup Is Undone
"A demand for a restoration of democracy echoed calls by the United States and France, major security allies of Niger.
Protesting the French military’s presence outside the French Embassy in Niamey, Nigeria, on Sunday.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
West African leaders on Sunday threatened military action against Niger, wheresoldiers seized powerin a coup on Wednesday, unless the country’s democratically elected president was restored to office within a week.
The demand was issued by the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, the 15-member regional bloc, after a crisis summit meeting in Nigeria. It echoed earlier calls by the United States and France, major security allies of Niger, threatening to cut aid and military ties unless the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, was restored.
After coup supporters massed on Sunday outside the French Embassy in the capital, Niamey, calling for the withdrawal of French troops, President Emmanuel Macron issued a stiffly worded warning. Any attack on France’s citizens or interests in Niger would be met with an “immediate and uncompromising” reaction, Mr. Macron said in a statement.
ECOWAS, in a statement, vowed to take “all measures necessary” to restore democratic rule in Niger and said that “may include the use of force.” It imposed financial sanctions on the putschists, led by the new self-declared leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.
The newly installed junta, however, insisted it was going nowhere. In a statement before the summit, it warned forcefully against any foreign military intervention.
Understand the Military Coup in Niger
A takeover.Military officers in the West African nation of Niger announced on July 26 that they hadousted the country’s president, throwing into uncertainty the future of one of the West’s few reliable partners in a region marred by coups and insecurity. Here is what to know:
How did the coup unfold?Members of the country’s presidential guard encircled the president’s palace in Niamey, Niger’s capital, and detained Mohamed Bazoum, the country’s president. A group of army officials representing different branches of the military laterdeclared on national television that they had “put an end to the regime” of Bazoum and a general was announcedas the head of the transitional leadership.
How have people in Niger reacted?Hundredsbriefly demonstrated in the streets of Niamey to demand Bazoum’s release before being violently dispersed by security forces. The Nigerien governmentcalled on the public to reject the takeover, but the military officers who appeared on television said that it was necessary to avoid strife between branches of the country’s security forces.
What could the events mean for Niger?A successful coup could further destabilize a poor country and nascent democracy. Bazoum became president in 2021, taking the reins in Niger’s first peaceful, democratic transition since it gained independence from France in 1960 and ending a period during which it experienced four military coups. The events could also affect dynamics in a regionplagued by violent militants, poverty and coups.
“We want to once more remind ECOWAS or any other adventurer of our firm determination to defend our homeland,” a junta spokesman said on Saturday night in a televised statement.
The summits and dueling statements fueled the growing sense of crisis in Niger, a vast and impoverished country where the coup caught many by surprise, including Western countries now seeking to engineer a reverse.
That is a tall order: Experts say coups are very hard to overturn once a few days have passed. But the demands are a measure of the alarmed response to the turmoil in a country seen by the West as a crucial ally in a region where Islamist militants are expanding their grip.
France has about 1,500 troops in Niger, which it ruled as a colony until 1960, and there are about 1,100 American troops, many stationed at drone bases used to carry out airstrikes against militants in Niger and neighboring countries.
On Saturday, France and the European Union suspended some aid to Niger, and the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said that American security ties, worth about $500 million since 2012, were also in jeopardy.
As ever in the region these days, Russia loomed in the background.
Coup supporters waved Russian flags in Niamey on Sunday and hung one on the wall of the French Embassy — an echo of similar scenes inBurkina FasoandMali, where Russian flags also emerged among people celebrating coups in 2021 and 2022.
Experts say there is no evidence that Russia is behind the coup in Niger, where personal factors are considered a more probable trigger. Tensions had been building steadily between Mr. Bazoum and the head of the presidential guard, General Tchiani.
(Mr. Bazoum’s whereabouts remained uncertain on Sunday, although he was widely presumed to still be in detention at the presidential palace.)
Still, experts say it’s another sign of how Russia has positioned itself as the emblem of anti-Western, and especially anti-French, sentiment in broad patches of Africa. And that helps to create other openings for the Kremlin.
The coup in Niger means thatan uninterrupted line of countries stretching across Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, is undermilitary control. Many are former French colonies where a visceral anger at perceived French paternalism and post-colonial meddling has boosted support for the putschists.
“Niger has suffered too much under France’s orders,” said Karimou Sidi, a pro-coup demonstrator in Niamey on Sunday. “Enough is enough.”
The coups are straining traditional regional blocs, like ECOWAS, which in recent years has suspended three of its states — Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali — over military coups, with Niger possibly following soon.
In recent decades, ECOWAS has deployed peacekeepers to numerous crisis-hit countries, including Liberia and Guinea-Bissau. Despite its tough talk on Sunday, it may need to find a middle path to navigate its way out of the Niger crisis, said Idayat Hassan, a Nigerian analyst.
“Any strong sanctions will impact citizens the most in a country and region with increasingly strong anti-West sentiments, while also pushing the putschists more into the hands of Russia and or Prigozhin and Wagner forces,” Ms. Hassan, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research institute, said, referring to Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who leads the mercenary group.
Declan Walshis the chief Africa correspondent for The Times. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at The Guardian and is the author of “The Nine Lives of Pakistan.”More about Declan Walsh"
New York City Had a Migrant Crisis. It Hired a Covid Expert to Help.
"DocGo, a medical services company, received a $432 million no-bid contract to move hundreds of asylum seekers outside the city. Many say they have been threatened, mistreated and lied to.
Although much of DocGo’s expertise is in providing mobile medical services, it was hired by New York City to help with its influx of migrants.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Lured by the promise of jobs, legal assistance and a more welcoming environment, hundreds of asylum seekers have boarded buses headed north to Albany, in search of a life better than they had found in New York City.
But once they settled in the state capital, many said they realized they had been misled and all but abandoned.
Instead of state identification cards, they were given dubious work eligibility and residency letters on what appeared to be a fake letterhead. At the bargain-rate motels where the migrants were relocated, many said they were treated like prisoners in halfway houses, living under written threats that they would be barred from seeking asylum if they were caught drinking or smoking.
They complained that crucial mail about their asylum cases had been lost, and worried that they now faced an hourslong trip to the courts where those cases will be heard.
Nearly three months after Mayor Eric Adams ushered in a new policy calling for the city to relocate migrants outside the five boroughs, the program has been plagued by problems, drawing attention to the no-bid contractor leading the effort.
More than 1,500 migrants have been sent to places as far as Buffalo, with more on the way. But many of the migrants have been greeted by protests at their new homes, as well as mistreatment and the false hope of jobs.
Behind the broken promises is a medical services company, DocGo, that once contracted with the city to provide Covid testing and vaccination services, but pivoted to migrant care as the pandemic waned and a new crisis emerged.
The city awarded DocGo a $432 million contract, which took effect in early May, without subjecting it to competitive bidding. The contract called for DocGo to house migrants and provide them with services including case management, medical care, food, transportation, lodging and round-the-clock security.
But its efforts to resettle migrants in Albany have been rocky, at best. Local authorities have expressed frustration at the lack of coordination between DocGo and agencies that could provide services to the migrants; local security guards hired by DocGo have repeatedly threatened the migrants; and finding steady work has been nearly impossible.
Alejandro, 25, a Venezuelan migrant who arrived in Albany about two months ago, spoke of the promises he was offered: “They said, ‘Would you like to live in a hotel? Would you like to live more comfortably? Would you like to get some help?’” (The Times agreed to use only the first names of the migrants because they fear revealing their identities could put them in danger or jeopardize their asylum cases.)
“Supposedly they were going to help us get work, but in reality I see this is false. It’s a lie,” Alejandro said. “It’s all illusions. It’s all falsehoods.”
From medical care to migrants
The first busloads of migrants began showing up in Manhattan last spring. By the following May, more than 60,000 had followed suit, a number that has since risen to over 90,000.
Mr. Adams, who has repeatedly railed at Washington for failing to provide more financial help, said on May 5 that the situation was untenable. Heannouncedthat the city had no choice but to bus asylum seekers outside the five boroughs, where the city would pay to temporarily shelter them. That same day, DocGo’s contract went into effect, according to the scant records available online.
Headquartered in New York City, the company launched in 2015 under the name Ambulnz, before changing it to DocGo in 2021 when it became a publicly traded corporation. Its specialty is on-the-go medical services — including testing, blood work and wound care performed at people’s homes — that it says can dramatically reduce health care costs by keeping people out of the hospital.
DocGo’s fortunes soared during the pandemic, with Covid testing accounting for roughly a third of itsrevenue in 2021. The company, whose president, Lee Bienstock, 40, gained fame after being“fired”in 2006 by Donald J. Trump from “The Apprentice,” now holds a value of about $1 billion, but company officials cautioned in recent financial filings that the Covid testing revenue had mostly dried up.
City Hall officials declined to immediately provide the DocGo contract or answer basic questions about it. Nor has it been sent to the office of the city comptroller, Brad Lander, the final step for contract approval, his aides said.
It is clear, however, that the contract is a windfall for DocGo: If the company collects the maximum value of $432 million, it would equal 10 percent of the city’s projected two-year cost for migrant care, and would nearly match the company’s total 2022 revenue of $440 million.
Six weeks after New York City’s contract with DocGo became effective, Mr. Adams seemed suitably impressed. At DocGo’s investor conference at Nasdaq offices in Times Square, the exchange where its stock is publicly traded, the mayor compared DocGo’s innovation in health care to the jump from landline phones to smartphones.
“If you don’t have docs on the go, then you have a retro thinking of health care,” Mr. Adams told investors on June 20. The mayor gave a nod to the company’s pandemic work and said it was now crucial to “have that solid partnership” in dealing with “our migrant asylum seekers.”
In Albany, that notion of partnership has been somewhat lacking. DocGo has not given local authorities or volunteers the migrants’ names or key details about their backgrounds and immigration status — information needed to help them navigate various assistance programs and secure asylum.
DocGo has cited medical privacy laws in refusing to provide personal information, but Albany officials and migrant advocates say that the company has thus far rejected practical solutions like waivers or consent forms.
Kate Smart, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, said sharing names could endanger vulnerable people who have been met upstate with “protest and resistance, including cases of people banging on the doors of buses and barricading hotel entrances.”
On May 26, the day before the first bus carrying migrants arrived in the capital region, two top New York City officials — Betsy MacLean, the city’s chief engagement officer, and George Sarkissian, chief of staff at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development — told local government officials and immigration advocates that they hoped to form a partnership, according to a recording of a Zoom meeting obtained by The Times.
“I don’t know how this is a partnership,” replied Evelyn Kinnah, director of Albany County’s Immigration Assistance Center, “when you have 300 people on the way here to Albany, and we’re screaming and telling you that we don’t have the resources to help these people.”
“All you want to do,” she added, “is put these people on a bus and ship them somewhere else.”
‘You will find plenty of work’
Trouble ensued even before the first bus left for Albany County. DocGo placed some migrants at the SureStay Hotel in Colonie, a predominantly white suburb just outside the capital, despite warnings from local government officials and migrant advocates that they would not be welcome.
The Republican town supervisor, Peter Crummey,filed a lawsuitagainst New York City the same day.
At the SureStay, a sign posted on the wall translated into four languages falsely warned migrants that they would lose their “opportunity to seek asylum status!” if caught drinking, smoking or engaging in threatening behavior.
DocGo acknowledged in written responses to The Times that it had no authority over migrants’ asylum cases, and said it took down the sign “immediately after learning about it.”
The SureStay’s general manager, Tyler Kinney, also recalled another unusual incident where he recently had to intervene when he saw a security guard target shooting with an air rifle in the parking lot.
DocGo said its security contractor, Wawanda Investigations, conducted an investigation and fired the employee. DocGo said it was “currently evaluating additional local security partners for this assignment.” The company said it had provided services to more than 24,000 asylum seekers to date and that “the safety and well-being of those in our care is our top priority.”
Wawanda declined to comment.
I recently visited the Ramada Plaza in Albany to interview some of the migrants from New York City. The interviews were conducted under constant threats and warnings from DocGo’s hired security team, which ordered the migrants not to speak to the media, or else face expulsion from the program.
Of the 16 migrants in Albany who shared their stories with The Times, two said they came voluntarily and only with the promise that they would have more space, comfort and privacy than they had in New York City. One said he wasn’t given a choice. The rest said authorities in the city lied to them.
Abdou, 27, said he is on the run from political oppression in Senegal. Sofia, 29, and her partner, Fernanda, left Venezuela because of the economic ruin and anti-gay discrimination they said they faced. Mohammad, 26, fled Afghanistan last year after it fell to the Taliban and said he’d be killed if he returned.
On the evening of July 7, a security guard kept close watch over the interviews, and became more and more agitated, shouting threats that I captured on video.
After several migrants disobeyed the order to refrain from speaking to reporters, one of the guards told his apparent supervisor what he planned to do to one of them, Franklin, a 26-year-old migrant from Barinas, Venezuela, who has been at the Ramada since May 31.
transcript
Outside the Ramada in Albany, a security guard was recorded threatening to beat up a migrant for talking “too much.”
[unintelligible] “I’m putting him to sleep.” [Spanish] “Let’s talk, then. Turn around.” “I’m going to beat the [expletive] out of him, bro. [Expletive], you talk too much. He talks too much, bro. - “Like, I’m serious.” - “Come on, what’s the problem?” “No problem, we’re just talking.” “— talk too much, like, he like that. Like, for real.” “What’s the issue?” “We’re just talking. We’re talking, that’s all. We’re just talking. No issues. There’s no issue. No issue at all. We just want to talk.” “I don’t give a [expletive]. Yo, I swear — when I catch you, I swear to God, boy.” “Hey, what’s your name? What’s your name?”
Outside the Ramada in Albany, a security guard was recorded threatening to beat up a migrant for talking “too much.”Jay Root/The New York Times
“I’m puttin’ him to sleep,” he said, making his way toward the migrants. “I’m going to beat the [expletive] out of him.”
The guard grew more agitated and said of Franklin, “He talk too much, bro, I’m serious” — prompting his supervisor to grab his arm and start leading him back toward the hotel entrance. Pointing directly at the Venezuelan, the guard yelled out as he was being led away, “I swear, when I catch you. I swear to God, man.”
None of the migrants could understand the guard, but Franklin said he got the gist from his body language, and enough of the meaning from a translating app, to know it was a threat. City officials have since said there is no rule prohibiting interviews, and they and DocGo officials said they are investigating the incident.
Most of the migrants who spoke to The Times complained that they had been enticed to go to Albany by the promise of finding work. Fernanda, from Santa Bárbara del Zulia, Venezuela, was one of several migrants who said she was led to believe that she could get work papers or an ID if she displayed a document, provided by a caseworker at the Ramada Plaza, that asserted that the migrants have New York residency.
The document was improperly self-notarized: A caseworker who attested to Fernanda’s residency at the Ramada affixed her notary seal and signature on it.
By then, Fernanda and others had taken it to the Department of Motor Vehicles, a short walk from the hotel, but a Spanish-speaking worker there told them it was not enough to secure an ID. (After The Times inquired, DocGo said that as of mid-July that form wasn’t being used anymore.)
Outside the Ramada, Fernanda angrily waved the residency document in the air.
“It’s fake,” she said. “It’s useless.”
In early June, DocGo was warned during a Zoom call that migrants were being incorrectly told they were eligible for work.
Yet at another hotel, a Holiday Inn in Albany, migrants were still being given letters, including one dated July 5 and signed by a DocGo representative, asserting that the asylum seekers were “eligible for employment” as independent contractors, records obtained by The Times show.
The letters featured what appeared to be fake letterhead: a grainy New York City logo at the top. A mayoral spokeswoman said the city did not provide the logo to DocGo; DocGo officials declined to explain where they got it.
On July 13, DocGo said the form letter was no longer being used.
A version of this article appears in print onJuly 30, 2023, SectionA, Page1of the New York editionwith the headline:New York Plan Was Deceptive, Migrants Claim."
‘A Dangerous Combination’: Teenagers’ Accidents Expose E-Bike Risks
"The e-bike industry is booming, but many vehicles are not legal for teenagers, and accidents are on the rise.
A memorial for Brodee Champlain Kingman on the corner of El Camino Real and Santa Fe Drive in Encinitas, Calif. Brodee was killed last month in an e-bike traffic accident.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
On a Thursday evening in late June, Clarissa Champlain learned that her 15-year-old son Brodee had been in a terrible crash, the latest teen victim of an e-bike accident.
He had been riding from home to shot-putting practice. The e-bike, a model made by Rad Power, had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit. While turning left, he was clipped by a Nissan van and thrown violently.
Ms. Champlain rushed to the hospital and was taken to Brodee’s room. She could see the marks left by the chin strap of his bike helmet. “I went to grab his head and kiss him,” she recalled. “But there was no back of his head. It wasn’t the skull, it was just mush.”
Three days later, another teenage boy was taken to the same hospital after the e-bike he was riding collided with a car, leaving him sprawled beneath a BMW, hurt but alive. In the days following, the town of Encinitas, where both incidents occurred, declared a state of emergency for e-bike safety.
The e-bike industry is booming, but the summer of 2023 has brought sharp questions about how safe e-bikes are, especially for teenagers. Many e-bikes can exceed the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit that is legal for teenagers in most states; some can go 70 miles an hour. But even when ridden at legal speeds, there are risks, especially for young, inexperienced riders merging into traffic with cars.
“The speed they are going is too fast for sidewalks, but it’s too slow to be in traffic,” said Jeremy Collis, a sergeant at the North Coastal Station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Brodee’s accident.
To some policymakers and law enforcement officials, the technology has far outpaced existing laws, regulations and safety guidelines. Police and industry officials charge that some companies appear to knowingly sell products that can easily evade speed limits and endanger young riders.
“It’s not like a bicycle,” Sergeant Collis said. “But the laws are treating it like any bicycle.”
Two federal agencies, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said they were evaluating “how best to oversee the safety of e-bikes,” according to a statement provided by the highway safety agency.
Brodee’s parents, Clarissa Champlain and Troy Kingman, with their daughter, Violet Champlain Kingman.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
Medals that Brodee earned for math, chess and an egg-drop contest; his bedroom; messages written to Brodee at a recent candlelight vigil on display in Ms. Champlain's home.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
Communities have begun to alert their residents to the dangers of e-bikes. In June, the police department in Bend, Ore., ran a public service campaign acquainting the public with the e-bike laws that were frequently being broken there. Days later, a 15-year-old boy was killed when the e-bike he was riding was struck by a van.
Sheila Miller, who is the spokeswoman for the Bend police and helped develop the public service campaign, emphasized that not everything that calls itself an e-bike qualifies as one, or is safe or legal for minors. Under Oregon law, which is more restrictive than those in most states, a person must be at least 16 to ride an e-bike of any kind.
“Parents, please don’t buy these bikes for kids when they are not legally allowed to ride them,” Ms. Miller said. “And if you own an e-bike, make sure that everyone who is using them knows the rules of the road.”
Booming Industry, Modest Regulation
The typical e-bike has functioning pedals as well as a motor that is recharged with an electrical cord; the pedals and the motor can be used individually or simultaneously. Unlike a combustion engine, an electric motor can accelerate instantly, which makes e-bikes appealing to ride.
E-bikes are also seen as vital in shifting the transportation system away from emission-spewing cars and the congestion they create, said Rachel Hultin, the policy and governmental affairs director for Bicycle Colorado, a nonprofit advocacy group for bicycle safety and policy. E-bikes and electric scooters are part of the so-called micromobility movement, propelling commuters and other people short distances across crowded spaces.
The number of e-bikes being sold is unclear because, like regular bikes, they do not need to be registered with the government. (Cars, motorcycles and mopeds must be registered through a state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.) Many are sold directly to consumers over the internet, rather than through physical retailers that often track sales. John MacArthur, an e-bike industry expert with the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University, estimated that roughly one million e-bikes would be sold in the United States this year.
Ashely Kingsley and her daughter, Scout, at Charlie’s Electric Bike store in Encinitas, where they were renting e-bikes for the day.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
LeGrand Crewse, a co-founder and the chief executive of Super73.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times
The minimal regulation around e-bikes is a selling point for the industry. Super73, a company in Irvine, Calif., that makes popular models, advertises on its website:“RIDE WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS. No license, registration, or insurance required.”
“It’s one of the very unique categories of vehicle that there really isn’t any kind of onerous regulation,” a company co-founder, LeGrand Crewse, said in an interview, noting that helmet requirements were also modest, depending on the state and the rider’s age.
Law enforcement officials have begun to express concerns about the minimal training required of teenage e-bike owners, and about their behavior. Car driversages 16 to 19 are three times as likely to be killed in a crash as drivers 20 or older,and bicyclists ages 10 to 24 have the highest rate of emergency room visits for crashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some states have begun to raise the training requirements for young drivers, including adding graduated license programs that require extended hours of supervised driving, limit night driving or restrict the number or age of passengers.
The California Legislature is consideringa billthat would prohibit e-bike use by people under 12 and “state the intent of the Legislature to create an e-bike license program with an online written test and a state-issued photo identification for those persons without a valid driver’s license.”
“I know the e-bike situation is evolving,” said Sergeant Collis of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office. “But personally, with all these bikes, you should have at least a permit or a license to ride them at the speed they’re going.”
As a transportation solution, e-bikes seem promising. “I’m really bullish about middle and high schoolers being able to use e-bikes,” said Ms. Hultin of Bicycle Colorado. She noted that e-bikes offered children and busy families more transportation options at lower cost. But she worried that the vehicles could lead to an unsafe mix of untrained e-cyclists and unaware car drivers.
That problem, Ms. Hultin said, was exacerbated by “an algae bloom of noncompliant e-bikes.” She was referring to products on the market that call themselves e-bikes but are not, either because they can go faster than allowed by law or because, once purchased, they can be modified to do so.
An e-bike shop in Encinitas.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
An intersection near the site of Brodee’s accident.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
One vehicle that has drawn attention for its speed is made by Sur-Ron, whose products have been involved in several recent deaths. In June in Cardiff, Wales, two boys on a Sur-ron bike died in a crash while being followed by the police; days earlier, a boy riding a Sur-ron in Greater Manchester had died after colliding with an ambulance.
In its marketing materials, Sur-ron describes one model, the Light Bee Electric Bike, as “easy to maneuver like a bicycle, with the torque and power of an off-road motorcycle.” Its operating manual cautions the owner to “please follow the traffic rules and with the safe speed (the top speed for this electric vehicle is 20 km/h).”
But the speed restraint — equivalent to about 12 m.p.h. — can be removed by simply clipping a wire, a procedure that is widely shared in online videos, and which law enforcement officials said appeared to be there by design.
“There are all kinds of videos on how to jailbreak your Sur-ron,” said Capt. Christopher McDonald of the Sheriff’s Department in Orange County, Calif., where e-bike accidents and injuries are rising. With the speed wire clipped, the vehicle can approach 70 miles per hour, he said. Several requests for comment were sent through the Sur-ron website but did not receive a response.
Matt Moore, the general counsel for PeopleForBikes, the main trade group for bicycles and e-bikes, said he worried about products like Sur-ron’s. “Some products are sold as ostensibly compliant but are easily modified by the user with the knowledge and presumably the blessing of the manufacturer,” he said. “Unfortunately, there appears to be a lack of resources at the federal level to investigate and address e-mobility products that may actually be motor vehicles.”
Tragedy in Encinitas
A memorial for Brodee in Ms. Champlain’s kitchen.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
The day after Brodee entered the hospital, his family sat at his bedside. They played his favorite music, including Kendrick Lamar and early Wu-Tang Clan. “I read to him for hours,” his mother said. “We wanted to wake up his brain.”
Three days later, as Brodee clung to life, Niko Sougias, the owner of Charlie’s Electric Bike, a popular e-bike shop in town, was driving in Encinitas on Highway 101 when he saw two teenage boys riding Sur-Rons in the opposite direction.
“They were doing wheelies,” Mr. Sougias said. He has grown concerned about the e-bike industry, he said, and does not sell many models that are popular with teenagers.
His route that Saturday followed the path of the boys on the Sur-rons. Moments later, after a turn, Mr. Sougias saw that one of the Sur-Ron riders had collided with an S.U.V., had been thrown from his bike and was under a BMW.
According to the police, the Sur-ron rider had been seen driving recklessly and was found at fault. “He was lucky to escape with his life,” Mr. Sougias said.
Ms. Champlain was at the hospital with Brodee when the boy who had been riding the Sur-ron was brought in. Paramedics stopped by Brodee’s room to check in. “I can’t believe I’m here again for this,” she said one of them had told her; the same paramedic had brought in Brodee by ambulance.
Hours later, Brodee was pronounced dead. He was a beloved young man with a bright future ahead of him. He was fluent in Spanish and had a college-level knowledge of Japanese; he could dead-lift 300 pounds and, in 2020, was named student of the year at his high school. “I had so many people call me to tell me they’d lost their best friend,” his mother said.
Ms. Champlain said witnesses had told her that her son “did everything right,” including signaling to make a left turn.
“There should be more education for drivers with the change that’s happened,” she said. “I’d never seen an e-bike on the road until three years ago. Now I see hundreds.”
“They’re treated like bicycles when they’re not. They’re not equal.”
Matt Richtelis a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in San Francisco. He joined The Times in 2000, and his work has focused on science, technology, business and narrative-driven storytelling around these issues.More about Matt Richtel"
Ron DeSantis and the State Where History Goes to Die
Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times
"Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was, along with his state’s Board of Education,embroiledin a controversy over a new curriculum for student instruction in African American history.
Most of the coverage, and much of the outrage, focused on a quote from the state’s guidelines for the history of slavery, in which studentsare expected to learn that“Slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
DeSantis defended the curriculum language,telling reportersthat teachers are “probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” In a statement, two members of Florida’s African American history standards work group defended the language in question, citing 16 individuals who, they say, developed valuable skills while in bondage.
Unfortunately for the Florida Department of Education,several of the people cited weren’t ever enslaved, and there’s little evidence that those who were learned any relevant skills for their “personal benefit” in slavery.
The good-faith explanation for this language, if you’re inclined to be generous, is that the authors wanted to emphasize the agency and skill of the enslaved, whose labor fueled large parts of the American economy in the decades before Emancipation. It’s an important point that you can also find in the College Board’s Advanced Placement class in African American studies. “In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians and healers in the North and South,”the A.P. guidelinesstate. “Once free, African Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others.”
Similar points, yes, but the language isn’t quite the same. In addition to using the term “enslaved” rather than “slave” — a linguistic shift that continues to be a subject ofreal debate— the language for the A.P. curriculum emphasizes that Black Americans could use these skills only after Emancipation.
This is key. Slaves were owned as chattel by other human beings who stole their freedom, labor and bodily autonomy. To say that any more than a fortunate few could “parlay” their skills into anything that might improve their lives is to spin a fiction. Just as important is the fact that a large majority of the Africans enslaved in North America, whether under the British Crown for the better part of two centuries or under the American Constitution for eight decades after the revolution, died in bondage. For them, there was no point after slavery where they could use their skills.
You might say that these are minor, semantic differences. But in history the same ideas can be used to very different effect. And it is exactly these questions of wording and emphasis that mark one of the differences between a modern, more truthful depiction of American slavery and an older, tendentious approach that either de-emphasized or ignored outright the basic injustice of human bondage in favor of a gloss that placed a more pleasant sheen on an otherwise horrific institution.
“Until the mid-1960s,” the historian Donald Yacovone writes in “Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity,” “American history instruction from grammar school to the university relentlessly characterized slavery as a benevolent institution, an enjoyable time and a gift to those Africans who had been lucky enough to be brought to the United States.”
As Yacovone notes, an American student in 1903, reading a textbook written for pupils enrolled in secondary school, might learn of antebellum slavery, for example, that the “systematic training bestowed upon him during his period of servitude and his contact with higher intelligence have given to the Negro an impulse to civilization that neither his inherent inclinations nor his native environment would of themselves bestowed.”
A different student, flipping through his grammar school textbook in 1923, might read in a section on slavery that the typical plantation was a “self-supporting community” where “the great majority of Negroes remained quietly and faithfully at work” as laborers and artisans.
A student in 1943, reading a similar textbook, might learn that “the slaves loved the people of the plantation and stood by them even after slavery was ended.” And a student in 1963 would have read in his history book that slavery “made it possible for Negroes to come to America and to make contacts with civilized life.” Other authors emphasized, in Yacovone’s words, that “slaves learned valuable trades such as sewing, weaving, carpentry and nursing.”
This wasn’t just bad history and false information. It also served an ideological purpose. “As the history of textbooks reveal,” Yacovone writes, “Americans came to see a path to national reconciliation through their shared devotion to white supremacy.”
Or, as the historian David Blight observes in “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory”: “A segregated society demanded a segregated historical memory. The many myths and legends fashioned out of the reconciliationist vision provided the superstructure of Civil War memory, but its base was white supremacy in both its moderate and virulent forms.” The point of teaching fictions about slavery was both to inscribe racist ideologies into the nation’s identity and to justify the renewed subjugation of an entire class of Americans.
It is worth mentioning a few other elements of the new Florida history curriculum. Florida wants students to learn how “trading in slaves developed in African lands” and about the “practice of the Barbary pirates in kidnapping Europeans and selling them into slavery in Muslim countries.” And in its guidelines on Black history after the Civil War, the state wants students to study “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”
Read together, these guidelines seem like an exercise in equivocation and blame shifting — an attempt to downplay the enormity of American slavery and its defining feature, hereditary racial bondage. This is bad enough. But then consider, as well, the political context of Florida under DeSantis.
Florida, says the Republican presidential hopeful, is where “woke goes to die.” It’s where state officialsrefusedto offer students a class in African American studies on the grounds that it “significantly lacks educational value.” And it’s where DeSantis, as governor, hasvetoedspending on Black history celebrations,actively worked to reduce the representationof Black voters in the state andpromised, if elected president, to change back the name of an Army base in North Carolina from Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg, as in the Confederate general Braxton Bragg.
It is possible (although, given their response to criticism, unlikely) that the Florida curriculum authors didn’t mean anything by their characterization of American slavery. But when the board that approved the language washandpicked by DeSantis— as part of his crusade against so-called wokeness — it’s hard not to see this new instruction on the history of slavery as yet another part of the Florida governor’s larger ideological project.
This is why the history of textbooks past is particularly relevant. The history we teach to students in the present is as much about the country we hope to be as it is a record of the country we once were. A curriculum that distorts the truth of past injustice is meant, ultimately, for a country that excludes in the present.
Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington.@jbouie"
