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(March 26, 2026)
The legal decision that could change social media. A second fatal rattlesnake bite on Southern California hiking trail. Army raises enlistment age limit to 42 and eases marijuana rules. Colleges are turning to in-person tests and oral exams to combat AI.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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You're listening to Bill Handel on demand from KFI AM640.
Bill Handel here on a Thursday morning, March 26, and we've got, oh, we've got some cases to
talk about, and a couple of big ones. So, yesterday, here in LA, Jury, deliberated for nine days,
and at one point, and this is telling, at one point telling the judge it was having a very
difficult time reaching a decision. Nine days is a long time for a jury to deliberate,
and then they returned the verdict yesterday. Finding that both meta and Google are liable for
creating addictive products that caused young women's mental health problems. Now, there are two
cases that have come down, and they're very different, and I think this one is far more problematic
to these platforms. So, in this case, the two companies were ordered to pay $3 million in
conspensatory damages to this woman. 70% by meta, 30% by Google, and if you talk about $3 million,
come on, that is not even pocket change for these companies. For example, meta alone brought in
nearly $60 billion over the first quarter of 2025. But here is the problem for these companies.
Is this a bell-weather lawsuit? Well, there are thousands of these are already pending, and sometimes
when you look at which way a jury is going to go, or how many juries have come down in a certain
decision, all of a sudden, you've got defendants that are going, whoops, and we have to settle this.
A couple of big companies already settled. Matthew Bergman, one of the lawyers of the plaintiff,
sent a statement to the reporters. This verdict carries implications far beyond the courtroom,
no kidding. And it establishes a framework for how similar cases the country will be evaluated,
and demonstrates the juries are willing to hold tech companies accountable. And here is the
difference. In one case, it's argued that these platforms are complicit in helping people,
or helping various bad actors from going on and causing harm to kids, primarily, terms of body
dysmorphia. Yeah, you are ugly, or here's how you handle something badly, or just a negative view
of themselves and others. It's easy to bully someone when you're on a platform, and is the
platform liable for that? Generally not. This is a tough one for them, because the argument here
is the very nature of these platforms, the design of these platforms,
tries to addict kids. In other words, we have designed this thing to make it happen,
so kids spend more time on our platform, and check to it, and check on it much more,
and that is completely addictive. And harm comes out of that. Now we know harm comes out of it.
If you're scrolling for 10 hours a day, that ain't good. And there are all kinds of damages.
You've got emotional damages, psychological damages. The argument is that your schoolwork,
that a kid's schoolwork and ability to think have cognitive skills and understand and analyze
is basically all effectively gone. I'm going to do a little story about that a little later on too.
And so the very premise, how these very programs, these platforms are designed
is defective. It's a, it's a design defect. That's the problem.
And that is a core question. Is this, does this program, though, does these platforms,
Midah, Google, do they play a direct role in causing the mental health issues,
that the plaintiff, in fact, experienced? And she argued she had a dangerous dependency on the
platforms, and they contributed to her anxiety, depression, self-harm, and body dysmorphia.
And that, in fact, that was not only a consequence, it was designed to keep them on,
and it really didn't matter. It's like Big Tobacco. This is a kind of Big Tobacco,
where the argument was that the cigarettes were designed to be addictive.
The very design to keep people smoking more. And then ignored, of course, thought like crazy,
that they, that nicotine was dangerous at all. Same argument is here, that these platforms are
designed, well, exactly almost the same thing, designed to keep kids addicted.
To the platform and therefore causing whatever harm, and we're getting more and more
information about the harm. And so very different than kids who are, that, or excuse me,
are bad actors are there. And the platforms aren't doing enough, for example, to stop them,
not doing enough to monitor what's being posted. Here, it's the very design of this product
goes in that direction. It's a big, big decision, for sure. Okay, that is a little complicated,
really earth shattering. So I want to go into something a little bit more fun.
So a little bit about my life. I work every morning, obviously. And so when I am at my home,
which I am today, I go down the stairs and I have my basic 30-foot commute. There you go,
Kono, an hour driving in, I have a 30-foot commute. And I go downstairs in the morning and roll
into the studio and start getting things. I'm in my shorts. I do throw a shirt on. And during
the summer, I don't even wear my shorts. The wind is blowing and it feels very good.
So that's my life. And then once I'm finished and excuse me, I do my workout and I'm starting yoga
and I go to the gym and I walk every day, then I go to my afternoon job. And my afternoon job is
basically either going to Costco. And then I start my afternoon job late. And what is my afternoon
job? It is sitting on the couch and watching television. Now I'll tell you what does not happen
on my afternoon job. What I don't worry about, rattlesnakes, very few rattlesnakes in my house,
very few rattlesnakes down the stairs, very few rattlesnakes on my way to Costco.
Now if you hike and this happened to a 46-year-old more park woman, she was bit by a rattlesnake
in Ventura County. And she died. Usually you don't die of rattlesnake bites because they have
anti-venom. People are there. Incomes the airplane or the ambulance. But if you're in forfein land,
if you're in the far reaches of the forest or in the hiking areas, you know, it may take a while.
Oh, by the way, the sucking the venom out of the bite really doesn't work. It only works if you have
a sore in your mouth. Then it's really pleasant. If you have a kink or sore, that may be problematic.
Also, for some reason, the tourniquet doesn't work very well. The secret is get the battle,
get the rattlesnake victim to a hospital. Then they have anti-venom. And so, okay,
the point is there have been two rattlesnake bites in the last month. And that's compared with
nine bites total in 2025. So we're talking about the first quarter. Now the health authorities,
Ventura County Fire Department responded to a call for a bite on a hiking trail at Wellwood Park.
And then airlifted the patient to a local hospital. The woman identified as a 46-year-old
Gabriela Batista of Moore Park died March 19th as a result of the rattlesnake venom toxicity.
So I didn't know it took that long to die. And I don't know how pleasant a death that is.
I may be excruciating pain. I have no idea. We have to ask Dr. Jim. And then the following day,
the County Fire Department rescued a teenager from Wendy Trail. And she suffered a rattlesnake
bite and firefighters hiked up to access her and bring her down and go to a hospital in stable
condition. So she's okay. But you know what's weird, Bill? The distance between
Wildwood Park and Los Robles Medical Center is less than two miles.
I know the area incredibly well. So I don't understand. Even if she's deep in hiking in the
Wildwood area, you're still less than two miles away from now. I ask you this, there may be two
miles, but what if it is such rough terrain that you cannot get an ambulance there that you have
to hire and bring it down and airlift that's why that's why they airlifted her or one of them.
And then on March 4th, just a little while ago, you know, a couple three weeks ago,
Julie and Hernandez, 25 years old rattlesnake bite, she ended up dying. Now, why do you have so
many rattlesnakes? Well, how about this one? Right? The hottest march on record, they come,
they like the sun, those old rattlesnakes. And US Forest Service in San Bernardino issued a warning
saying you got to be very careful. So here are some safety tips. Number one, we're hiking boots
and long pants, which provide some protection against a rattlesnake. The second one is to hike
on clearly marked paths. So you can see in front of you and to avoid snakes. Don't wander into
areas of tall grass where rattlesnakes could be coiled up. And if you do see a snake, you back
away slowly avoid contact. And then some common safety tips tell someone where you're going,
carry plenty of water, make sure your phone is charged or GPS. And in the event of a rattlesnake bite,
hikers should remain calm and call 911. Obviously, don't use turnickets. Don't try to extract the venom,
try to communicate to anyone nearby and just wait calmly for responders to be on their way.
But the best piece of advice is what the hell are you doing on a trail?
Really, you're hiking in an area that may have rattlesnakes, give me a break. Now, I was a
boy scout many years ago before I was thrown out of the troop. Literally, I was thrown out of the
troop. And I was on a hike, stupid going on a hike. I did not realize what life was about at that
time. And we ran into a rattlesnake. And the scout master took a shovel and literally cut the
snakes head off. So you had this writhing snake with this head over there. And it was, it was
tough to see. So the bottom line is hiking. It'll kill you every time. You know, it will,
you know, you hike, you die. It's not that complicated. Okay, we're done. See, good advice.
Okay, story that just appeared in the New York Times. I want to share with you. And that is that
the United States Army has officially raised the enlistment age limit from 35, which was here to
4 to 42. And East restrictions for people with marijuana conviction, but a single conviction for
either smoking pot, having pot or having a paraphernalia. And this comes years after the army
just struggled to meet the retirement goals or recruitment goals. And so you've got that recruitment
goal issue. And we've got a war going on now with Iran. Now granted, it's only going to be a few
thousand soldiers that are currently in the Middle East. But if the war goes on, it could be thousands.
So these updated requirements, which were published last week, brings the army in line with
the other branches. The Air Force went from 39 to 42 years of age. The Navy went from 39 to 41.
And this is, well, there's some very good reasons for this.
Catherine Kuzminsky, director of studies at the Center for New American Security,
said that most likely the increase in its age cap is matching the other branches.
And to tap into a larger pool of people with needed skills, including experts in cybersecurity,
logistics, transportation. The bottom line is the skill level of soldiers today
is extraordinarily higher than it needed, than it was needed 20 years ago, 30 years ago,
even 10 years ago. And here's what the outcome of this study issued by the RAM Corporation.
The older recruits, much more likely to fail out of basic training, okay, no surprise there.
But if they pass, they were promoted, promoted more quickly and re-enlisted at a higher rate
than recruits under 20. And the argument is that it seems to be panning out mature soldiers
at the beginning of their military career at real value, not only terms of skill sets
when we're talking about cybersecurity and transportation and logistics, but also their mentors.
Here's this old, they are all called pop, for some reason. And pop, it gives you great information.
And here's the other thing going on. The Army struggled for years to meet its recruitment goals.
In 2022, the goal was 60,000 new recruits and missed it by 15,000 people.
In 2023, the Army again missed its target by 15,000 recruits.
In 2024, it lowered its goal to 55,000 and it did reach it by a very thin margin.
However, last year, the best number in years recruiting more than 62,000 recruits,
it surpassed its goal of 61,000. So why is that? Well, I gave you the reasons for it. Now,
Pete Hegseth has given us the reason why recruits are such an increase. And what would you guess
that our Secretary of Defense, Secretary of War, what is the sole reason that recruitment has gone
up because of the tremendous leadership of our president and American young men and women
want to be part of this administration and its goals? Now, that may be true, by the way.
I have no idea. I'd sure like to see some studies. I'd like to see some surveys.
But if you ask the administration, the only reason that they're moving ahead with recruiting more,
I have succeeded in recruiting more is because of the vast honor and simply they want to be part of
it, right? And it is an honor. And we'll die. Now, it used to be that during World, for example,
during World War II, they couldn't get enough recruits. We went from an Army at the beginning of World
II of 200,000 soldiers to having 12 million soldiers by the time the war ended, who had fought
and were part of the military services. But in those days, first of all, there was
conscription, but I don't even think they needed conscription because if you see videos, you can go
on YouTube and see these centers, these recruitment centers, people were lining up by the hundreds,
by the thousands to join the Army because that was America. Now, it's still America, but different
reasons, different reasons. Okay. Now, if you go to school, have gone to school, and even high school,
college, certainly, you take tests. And in most cases, it's an essay test.
And what ends up happening since AI has become a big deal? Of course, AI is used. So you turn
in an AI paper and sometimes get away with it. AI is getting pretty sophisticated. I mean,
there are ways of testing for AI. There are ways of trying to figure out if AI is being used,
but a lot of students slip through the cracks. One of the ways of knowing
if AI is being used is the paper is just too good for a college student.
Then the professor is going, this is just too good. So what they've moved to is oral exams,
oral exams. And when I went to college, and I went to a school in Canada, the school,
Simon Fraser University used theocratic method. It was all oral exams.
And it was the Oxford model. The teacher gave his lecture and then you broke apart in rooms
where the TA, the teacher's assistant, who was a graduate student, would you talk and then
you'd be graded on what you produced and your understanding of the topic. They don't do that.
By the way, I don't remember one minute of it because I was so stoned out of my mind the entire
time I was there. But that was the model. So why oral exams? Well, if you're
defending your topic, if you're defending your position and it's an oral exam, AI is not going
to help you. You have to understand it. You have to have the analytic skills. You have to be able
to voice your opinion and facts and analysis. And students are going, oh, that's the problem.
That's really the way to learn. I mean, there is nothing better to determine how much a student
understands what is going on and cognitive skills. Well, not cognitive skills, just a basic
understanding analysis and the ability to communicate. Now, there are some problems with that.
People are shy. Some people have a hard time talking about their topic and they'd
rather write about it. So there are issues either way. But the bottom line is a lot of schools,
a lot of professors are going to the oral exam. Now, what gets interesting is what do you do
in, for example, an English exam, right? English class. And the teacher has to read every single one
of the papers. Now, and then it has to give an oral exam. How long is the oral exam?
The two people sit on the board. Now, if you look at, for example, becoming a medical examiner,
part of it is oral exams. You're sitting in front of three or four doctors and they're asking you
all kinds of questions and you'd better know your stuff. Law school, there are no oral exams.
You simply take the bar exam, which is a combination of essay as well as as a multiple choice,
but the essay is given to you there and you don't know what the question is.
And by the way, the fact that there are no oral exams that make you defend your position is why
there's so many rotten lawyers out there. I just want to point that out. I think there are a few
rotten medical doctors in comparison to rotten lawyers. Just my view of it, knowing the legal
profession. But is this a good idea? I think it is. It makes cheating a whole lot harder and it
makes students think. And if you have students entering society who don't think, man, tell me that's
not going to put modern society put America yet another step behind other countries.
All right, coming up, American aviation is near collapse, completely collapsing and just ask
the people that are in line for five hours at Chicago, oh, hair airport. And we'll talk about that
coming up. KFI AM 640. You've been listening to the Bill Handel show catch my show Monday through
Friday 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
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The Bill Handel Show
