Day: June 6, 2024

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• Summer camp costs these days start long before little ones leave home, The Wall Street Journal reported. 
• Some families with disposable income are shelling out for pre-camp packing services.
• Others are using laundry services to outsource the post-camp unpacking haul.

The cost of sleep-away camp — like nearly everything else these days — is on the up and up.

But the staggering $15,000 price tag on some elite summer camps doesn’t account for the hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars parents are now paying to prep and pack their kids beforehand, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

Some families are opting to outsource the pre-camp headache of checking off their children’s packing list and the post-camp slog of sorting through laundry, The Journal reported this week.

Camp costs these days start racking up long before the little ones hit the canoes. Many camps send out detailed packing lists, some of which include more than 100 items that parents are encouraged to procure for their campers, the outlet reported.

Last year, a mother of two wrote for Business Insider about the massive summer camp packing list that ran her nearly $5,000 after she secured the recommended 15 pairs of shorts, 15 shirts, 16 pairs of socks and underwear, multiple pairs of shoes, several towels and swimsuits, various jacket options, and two sheet-sets per kid.  

Some camps go even further, suggesting kids come with brand-name camp chairs, decorative pillows, and outfits in multiple color options for end-of-camp “Color Wars,” according to The Journal.

Oh, and everything a child brings to camp in 2024 should be labeled or monogrammed. Duh.

For many families with disposable income, outsourcing is the solution

Beth Leffel, a Boca Raton mother, turned to Denny’s, a children’s boutique with stores in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, the first summer she sent her daughter to camp, she told The Journal.

The boutique boasts personal shoppers who work one-on-one with families, going item by item on each packing list to supply the necessary goods. Spencer Klein, whose family owns the business, told the outlet that the average first-time camper spends anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 at Denny’s.

After dropping about $2,000 at Denny’s and $250 at Party City the first year, Lefell told the outlet she now searches for deals and dupes of more expensive items.

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Natalie Liberman, another Boca Raton-based mom, told The New York Post last year that she spent nearly $5,000 making sure her seven-year-old daughter was set with rainbow merch and monogrammed clothing items ahead of summer camp. 

Personalized camp wares are the new status symbols, and influencers and online retailers have wasted no time capitalizing on the new trend, the outlet reported in June 2023. 

Jody Geller, a Florida mother of two, started an online store in 2018 where she customizes camp gear, including $86 pillows and $38 water bottles. Geller told the Post she often has orders that exceed $1,000. 

The services don’t stop there

Once the required items have been procured, some parents call in professional organizers to finish the packing ordeal.

Dara Grandis, a mother of three in Manhattan, hired Meryl Bash, a professional organizer, to get her kids’ luggage ready for seven weeks away at summer camp, she told The Journal.

Bash offers an array of camp-related services, including making sure everything on the packing list is included, weeding out last year’s clothes that no longer fit, and supplying packing tape, storage cubes, and bags, according to the newspaper. Bash charges $125 per hour for packing days, plus $100 per hour for an extra packer, The Journal reported.

Once the summer is over and young campers make their way back home, some families opt to outsource the post-camp laundry haul, as well, turning to businesses like First Class Laundry Services in West Palm Beach, Florida.

For $225 per trunk, the laundry company will pick up a camper’s luggage, wash and fold everything inside, and return the clean goods to parents’ front door, The Journal reported.

Are you sending your kids to summer camp this year? We’d love to hear from you about the costs and process. Contact reporter Erin Snodgrass at esnodgrass@insider.com to share your stories.

A new sexually transmitted fungal infection has been detected for the first time in the U.S., health experts announced Wednesday.

A study, published in the journal JAMA Dermatology on Wednesday, reported that the first known U.S. case of this new form of ringworm was discovered in a man from New York City in his 30s. The man had gone on a trip to England, Greece, and California, and when he came back to New York City, he developed tinea—a type of skin rash—on his penis, buttocks, and limbs.

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The new form of ringworm is “highly contagious,” according to a New York University’s (NYU) Langone Health press release about the study. The study, which was conducted by experts at the medical center and elsewhere, found that the new fungal infection can take months to clear up, even when the patient receives treatment.

This fungus causes skin rashes, also known as tinea, which can spread on the face, limbs, groin, and feet, according to the press release. But unlike the neat circles typical with other forms of ringworm, the tinea caused by this new fungal infection may be mistaken for lesions caused by eczema, which could cause people not to seek the appropriate treatment right away, the press release said.

After some tests, health experts determined that the New York man had an infection caused by the species Trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII—a sexually transmitted form of ringworm that has spread across Europe, according to the press release. In 2023, France reported 13 cases of the infection, mostly in men who have sex with men. The man in New York City said that he had sex with multiple male partners on his trip, but none of them had reported similar symptoms, the press release said.

This is “the latest in a group of severe skin infections” to reach the U.S., Dr. Avrom Caplan, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of dermatology at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine, said in the press release.

Read More: STIs Are Increasing in Many Regions, New WHO Report Finds

“Since patients are often reluctant to discuss genital problems, physicians need to directly ask about rashes around the groin and buttocks, especially for those who are sexually active, have recently traveled abroad, and report itchy areas elsewhere on the body,” Dr. John Zampella, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor of dermatology at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine, said in the press release.

These infections can be challenging to treat, but so far, they seem to be responding to standard treatments, including terbinafine, according to Zampella. Terbinafine is an oral tablet that treats fungal infections, according to the Mayo Clinic.

At the same time, Caplan warned that another skin infection that causes tinea is less responsive to standard treatments. In a study that was published in JAMA Dermatology in May, Caplan and other researchers examined Trichophyton indotinea, which is widespread in India and has now been reported across the globe. The first two U.S. cases of the infection were reported in 2023, according to the study.

Like Trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII, this infection also causes itchy and contagious rashes. But unlike Trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII, this infection often resists terbinafine.

Researchers advised medical practitioners to look out for symptoms of both infections in their patients, but added that rates are low so far in the U.S.

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Washington — The Supreme Court sided with Native American tribes Thursday in a dispute with the federal government over the cost of health care when tribes run programs in their own communities.

The 5-4 decision means the government will cover millions in overhead costs that two tribes faced when they took over running their health care programs under a law meant to give Native Americans more local control.

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Covering those costs is “necessary to prevent a funding gap,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, joined by the three liberal justices and fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch. Not reimbursing them forces tribes to “pay a penalty for pursuing self-determination.”

The Department of Health and Human Services had argued it isn’t responsible for the overhead costs associated with billing insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.

Paying those costs for all tribes that run their own health care programs could total between $800 million and $2 billion per year, the agency said.

“The extra federal money that the Court today green-lights does not come free,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the dissent, which was joined by other conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett. “In my view, the court should leave those difficult appropriations decisions and tradeoffs to Congress.”

The federal Indian Health Service has provided tribal health care since the 1800s under treaty obligations, but the facilities are often inadequate and understaffed, the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona said in court documents.

Health care spending per person by the IHS is just one-third of federal spending in the rest of the country, the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming said in court documents. Native American tribal populations have an average life expectancy of about 65 years, nearly 11 years less than the U.S. as a whole.

Attorney Adam Unikowsky, who represented the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said the decision puts tribes on equal footing with IHS on health care and will “promote tribal sovereignty and provide resources for health care in under-served communities.”

The tribes contracted with IHS to run their own programs ranging from emergency services to substance-abuse treatment. The agency paid the tribes the money it would have spent to run those services, but the contract didn’t include the overhead costs for billing insurance companies or Medicare and Medicaid, since other agencies handle it when the government is running the program.

The tribes, though, had to do the billing themselves. That cost the San Carlos Apache Tribe nearly $3 million in overhead over three years and the Northern Arapaho Tribe $1.5 million over a two-year period, they said. Two lower courts agreed with the tribes.

The Department of Health and Human Services appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that that tribes do get some money for overhead costs but the government isn’t responsible for costs associated with third-party income.

The majority of federally recognized tribes now contract with IHS to run at least part of their own health care programming.

Three Florida parents sued Florida’s Board of Education on Thursday because they allege the board violates their rights by not having a process to object to the removal of books from school libraries and classrooms.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, the plaintiffs say that Florida law H.B. 1069 violates their First Amendment rights and discriminates against parents who oppose book bans because it does not outline a formal process for individuals to challenge or overturn a decision when their school board removes a book. But the law does require school boards to adopt policies based on parent objections to books or material. 

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“The statute only provides a mechanism for a parent to object to the affirmative use of material; it does not provide a mechanism for a parent to object to the lack of use or discontinued use of material,” the lawsuit says. 

Parents of public school children cited the removal of books including Slaughterhouse-Five, A Stolen Life, Freedom Writers Diary, and others in the complaint. “Neither one of my children had classroom libraries because of the fear of being found out of compliance for a book on the shelf,” says Stephana Ferrell, 41, a parent of two kids in Orange County Public Schools and plaintiff in the case.

H.B. 1069 restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, defines sex an “immutable biological trait,” and prevents public school employees or contractors from sharing their preferred pronouns or titles to students if their identity differed from their sex assigned at birth.

Read More: A Visit to the Banned-Book Bus With a Scholar Who Helped Develop Critical Race Theory

This is not the first lawsuit filed against H.B. 1069. A judge also issued a preliminary injunction in April in favor of a transgender teacher who sued to be able to use their preferred pronouns in the classroom, though the case was appealed and is now heading to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Those involved in the Florida case say it’s part of a larger trend in the U.S. “The nation is facing a concerning uptick in attacks on public education and in attacks on books and ideas throughout the country,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, the organization that is representing plaintiffs in the case. PEN America tracked more than 3,300 instances of book bans in the 2022-23 school year.

Ferrell spoke to TIME by phone on June 6 about why she decided to sue the Board of Education. 

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

TIME: What led you to join the lawsuit? 

Ferrell: I’m a very concerned parent. Over the last few years, with the different legislation that has passed, I’ve seen not only my children but my friends and communities impacted by the rise in censorship. Neither one of my children had classroom libraries because of the fear of being found out of compliance for a book on the shelf. 

I’ve done my best to advocate in as many ways as I can— I attend my school board meetings, I track and follow what I can regarding school censorship, and I’ve spoken out locally, and even at the state level, attending workshops and submitting public comment when possible.

I’ve seen far too many books be labeled as completely unlawful. I know people are hesitant to use the word ban, but once you’re talking about labeling a book as unlawful, there’s no way—no matter how much a student wants to read it, no matter how much a parent supports it—that a district can bring that book back into the community, in our schools. That long term impact on my children’s education and access to what should be protected speech has been a growing concern of mine.

One of the books that was being removed from Florida classrooms and that you were trying to un-ban was Shut Up! by Marilyn Reynolds, correct? 

I wanted my district to review this decision process. We have a very good, thorough review policy in Orange County that is public, and that’s not what took place regarding this particular book. The review that I was asking for wasn’t necessarily, “please return this book now,” but “please go through the process and allow the public to participate, and let’s decide together whether or not this book should be back on our shelves.” That’s what didn’t take place.

Why did this particular book stand out to you? And why did you want this specific review of this book?

The overall reason for my concern was not specifically about the book, but just the process itself. I want a process that allows thoughtful discussion. We have that in our policy in Orange County— it didn’t happen. And if I think if it had happened, the book would have been retained because the initial objection was its use in curriculum, and not actually questioning whether or not it should be in the library. 

This particular book covers sexual assault of a minor, which is a difficult topic, but it’s written from the perspective of the older brother who goes through a lot of grief and anguish over not being able to assist, and realize what was happening, to his brother earlier. 

I think it’s really important that the book presents situations that students might not realize [are bad], and grooming situations with what [students might] think is a trusted adult. Because it’s written from a teenager’s perspective, somebody in that situation would use the language that [the author] used, and probably go through a lot of the feelings and emotions that are in that book. 

While that book might not be appropriate for every child—and I do believe that parents have to set restrictions on their own kids—that could be a very valuable book and tool that could help save lives. 

Read More: The Heavy Cost of Banning Books About Black Children

How involved were you in your child’s school curriculum before these book bans started to happen?

I consider myself an independent voter. I wasn’t the person that showed up to protests and rallies or events. During COVID I became a little bit more vocal about what I felt was necessary for the protection of my children. I was always following along with the curriculum, I would volunteer in the classroom, I was there on field trips. I was my school’s yearbook photographer for big events. 

My husband and I only wanted public schools for our kids. When we selected the house that we now live in, we knew the schools were going to grow up in. 

Attacks that started in ‘21, ‘22 [the legislature passed H.B. 1069 in 2023, but other laws like the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law passed in 2022] have continued ever since. It’s not just books, it’s not just curriculum; it’s discussions in the classrooms, it’s a massive building up of distrust in public education. My teachers have been absolutely wonderful. They have stretched them in every way, shape and form… I have a lot of gratitude for the educators that have invested time and not just my kids, but in truly making my school community something that is exciting for my kids to go to every single morning. It pains me as a parent to see these attacks happen, and not enough fellow citizens standing up for and defending the wonderful system that we have in place here.

Are you at all concerned about the publicity or the blowback you or your children might receive because you are a plaintiff in this lawsuit?

There’s been assumptions about who I am. Those things have led to personal attacks and mischaracterizations of who I am. It is frustrating. I am a very private person. I do my best to shield my kids from this.

I’m not somebody that is going to post photos of my children publicly and leave them open to harassment. My kids are very proud of the advocacy that I do. And I have their support and my husband’s support. My children have the right to an education—it’s in our Florida constitution. They also have a right to privacy and I hope that that’s respected in this process.

What is it like to be a parent of school age children in Florida right now?

I didn’t grow up here, and I would leave tomorrow if possible, honestly. But it’s also hard because I do love this community. It’s why I stay and it’s why I advocate, not just for my own kids, but for everybody because our schools are the hearts of our communities. These book bans, the narrowing of our curriculum and the discussions that we can have in our classroom, the othering of people, that division that’s been sown, is going to impact and it has impacted our communities. My family is a multiracial extended family, and it’s been really difficult. 

Public education is not only the great equalizer, but it helps unite us from state to state, community to community, across the country. If we have certain states teaching certain things, and certain viewpoints, and others teaching something totally different, it will further divide us as a country.

In her famous 2013 interview with professional cyclist and proven drug cheat Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey began by saying, “Everything I’ve seen and everything I’ve written begins with the word …”, and Armstrong finished with her with the word “disgraced.” That word became and remains an integral part of Lance Armstrong’s identity, as surely as if he’d legally changed his name to it. He will deservedly carry that cognomen with him for the remainder of his life.

Though at first he strenuously denied that he used performance enhancing drugs to help him win seven Tours de France, in January of that year Armstrong finally admitted it was true. Even he came to realise how stupid any denial looked in the light of the overwhelming weight of objective evidence. But it makes no difference whether he admits it or not. It’s an objective fact. Lance Armstrong is forever “disgraced.”

In the same spirit and with the same certainty of correctness there is a call to refer to Donald Trump from now on as “convicted felon Donald Trump.” It’s a call I have taken up with enthusiasm, and I have made a point to do so in print every chance I’ve had since that wonderful day at the end of May when a jury of his peers convicted him of 34 felony counts. We always knew Trump was a criminal, we can now call him that without legitimate contradiction until the day he dies.

Of course, Trump’s new identity has enormous political cachet. Now that he’s a convicted felon, Trump must live with it as a reality, a reality that will devastate him politically and quite probably fatally ruin any chance he might otherwise have had to be re-elected. We cannot be gaslighted into any other reality. MAGA desperation to erase that fact, or attempts to pervert it into a kind of martyrdom, avails them nothing.

How is this different from, say, Adam Schiff deserving to be forever introduced as “censured Congressman Adam Schiff”? Because we are not stupid. Because we are not blinded by political bias. Trump was convicted without fear or favour by a jury of 7 men and 5 women, empanelled and approved by his own lawyer, presented with evidence by his own lawyer. Congressman Schiff was censured by a kangaroo court of rightwing fanatics. There is a difference, and we should embrace that difference. We are, objectively speaking, on the side of truth.

I don’t say that because I hate Donald Trump and love Adam Schiff. I say that with the same certain confidence with which I avow that a flat-earther is objectively wrong to say the earth is flat and I am objectively right to say it’s spherical. I say it with the simple confident certainty of knowledge of an indisputable scientific fact.

Facts don’t change merely because stupid people believe otherwise. Reality is not a democracy. It’s not up for a vote where the majority wins. We can’t legislate the law of gravity, it will continue to kill us every time we step off the edge of a fifty storey building, even if the Supreme Court of the United States should suddenly declare it’s suddenly safe to do so.

It’s time for us to admit out loud what and who we are, brothers and sisters. We are on the side of truth. We don’t have to be embarrassed about it or apologetic about it. We don’t have to explain ourselves or attach a list of caveats or philosophical niceties. There really is such a thing as truth, and we are steadfastly on its side.

So say it aloud and say it with confidence. Write it on paper and chisel it into walls. Donald Trump is a convicted felon. He is and always will be “convicted felon Donald Trump.” Convicted felon Donald Trump. Convicted felon Donald Trump. Convicted felon Donald Trump. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

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