Deaths in the cold climb to 16 in NYC as frigid temps persist

NEW YORK — At least 16 people have now been found dead outdoors in New York City amid a bitter run of freezing temperatures with the mercury at or below freezing for the 11th day in a row, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday.

Of those, preliminary findings show that in 13 of those deaths, hypothermia played a role, and three of those deaths appeared to be overdoses, the mayor said. Ten had past interactions with the homeless shelter system, officials said.

Five people died in Brooklyn, three died in the Bronx, three died in Queens and four died in Manhattan, including the two most recent victims, who were found on the Q train at the 92nd St. station on Monday and at Port Authority on Sunday, a City Hall spokesperson said. The location of one death was not immediately available.

“My heart is with the family of those mourning their loved ones. We are continuing to do everything in our power to get every New Yorker into a shelter where they will be warm,” Mamdani said from a press conference on the roof of the Dinkins building.

—New York Daily News

Gov. Shapiro wants to ban cellphones from Pa. schools

Gov. Josh Shapiro is backing a proposal to ban cellphones from Pennsylvania classrooms, joining a growing chorus of parents, teachers, and officials seeking to curb school disruptions and detach kids from addictive devices.

“It’s time for us to get distractions out of the classroom and create a healthier environment in our schools,” Shapiro said in a post on X on Thursday.

He called on Pennsylvania lawmakers to pass a bill that would require schools to ban the use of cellphones during the school day, “from the time they start class until the time they leave for home.”

The endorsement from the Democratic governor — who could promote the issue during his budget address Tuesday — comes as school cellphone bans have increasingly become the norm: 31 states have restrictions of some kind on phones, including 23 states with “bell-to-bell” bans barring the use of phones the entire school day, according to Education Week.

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Back to reality: Better TV depictions of CPR may save lives, new Pitt study finds

Physicians have said the HBO Max drama "The Pitt" offers one of the most accurate depictions of medicine on television.

But there are plenty of shows that don't offer such realism — and they may be having real-world consequences when it comes to the public understanding of best practices for bystander CPR.

Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation can double or triple a person's chances of surviving a cardiac arrest, the American Heart Association has found, but many are hesitant to intervene in an emergency situation or may have misconceptions about what bystander CPR involves.

Seeing television as a potential driver of public health attitudes, researchers at Pitt watched hundreds of hours of scripted American TV to add hard numbers to depictions of bystander CPR. The team hopes the findings can clarify common CPR misconceptions, and that these misconceptions can later be corrected. This is the first time a study has analyzed bystander CPR depictions in scripted media.

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Anti-gang hardliner Fernández elected Costa Rican president

Costa Ricans elected ruling party candidate Laura Fernández in a first round landslide as her promise of a draconian crackdown on criminals appealed to voters in a nation roiled by soaring drug violence.

With 94% of ballots tallied, Fernández led with 48% of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff, and trouncing 19 other candidates. Álvaro Ramos, her nearest rival, had 33%, and conceded.

She’ll be sworn in for her four-year term leading the Central American nation on May 8. Her party won a simple majority 31 seats in the 57-member congress, with Ramos’s party winning 17, according to La Nacion.

“My future government will only have one purpose: to strengthen the rule of law,” she said in her victory speech.

—Bloomberg News