Meta is adding new safeguards and monitoring tools for teens across its social platforms: parental controls on Messenger, suggestions for teens to step away from Facebook after 20 minutes, and nudges urging young night-owl Instagrammers to stop scrolling.

The features announced Tuesday come as Meta and other social media platforms face heightened pressure from lawmakers over the impact that their platforms have on younger users, who can be just 13 when they sign up for Meta's apps.

Messenger, Meta’s instant-messaging app, is adding parental supervision tools for the first time that are similar to those that exist on Instagram already: Parents and guardians can see how much time their teens spend on the chat tool, view and receive updates on their contacts list, and get notified if their teen reports someone.

Another new feature is the ability for parents and teens to have discussions directly through notifications if their accounts are synced up.

“We heard from parents and teens about the value they’re seeing from how a two-way dialogue can foster and encourage discussions,” Diana Williams, who oversees product changes for youth and families at Meta, told CNN in an interview.

On Facebook, Meta will start to nudge teen users to take time away from the app after 20 minutes.

Instagram will add introduce a new nudge that suggests teens close Instagram if they’re scrolling Reels videos for too long during nighttime hours. The effort builds on existing Instagram features like Quiet Mode, which temporarily holds notifications and lets people know if you’re trying to focus.

In addition, Instagram is testing a feature that limits how people interact with non-followers. Users must now send an invite to connect with someone if they’re not a follower, and they cannot call the recipient or send photos, videos or voice messages or make calls until the user accepts their request. The feature aims to cut down on unwanted content from strangers, particularly for women, the company said.

It’s the latest in a series of new tools and guardrails for teens from Meta, following the release of leaked internal documents that found Instagram can negatively impact the mental health of its young users. Instagram, for example, has since introduced an educational hub for parents with resources, tips and articles from experts on user safety.

The company said it’s also taking a “stricter approach” to the content it recommends to teens and will actively nudge them toward different topics, such as architecture and travel destinations, if they’ve been dwelling on any type of content for too long.

Few changes have been made to Facebook and Messenger until now. Facebook does, however, have a Safety Center that provides supervision tools and resources, such as articles and advice from leading experts.

The U.S. is expanding COVID-19 boosters as it confronts the omicron surge, with the Food and Drug Administration allowing extra Pfizer shots for children as young as 12.

Boosters already are recommended for everyone 16 and older, and federal regulators on Monday decided they’re also warranted for 12- to 15-year-olds once enough time has passed since their last dose.

But the move, coming as classes restart after the holidays, isn’t the final step. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must decide whether to recommend boosters for the younger teens. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, is expected to rule later this week.

The FDA also said everyone 12 and older eligible for a booster can get one as early as five months after their last dose rather than six months.

Vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness from any type of COVID-19. But health authorities are urging everyone who’s eligible to get a booster dose for their best chance at avoiding milder breakthrough infections from the highly contagious omicron mutant.

Children tend to suffer less serious illness from COVID-19 than adults. But child hospitalizations are rising during the omicron wave — most of them unvaccinated.

The vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech is the only U.S. option for children of any age. About 13.5 million 12- to 17-year-olds — just over half that age group — have received two Pfizer shots, according to the CDC.

For families hoping to keep their children as protected as possible, the booster age limit raised questions.

The older teens, 16- and 17-year-olds, became eligible for boosters in early December. But original vaccinations opened for the younger teens, those 12 to 15, back in May. That means those first in line in the spring, potentially millions, are about as many months past their last dose as the slightly older teens.

As for even younger children, kid-size doses for 5- to 11-year-olds rolled out more recently, in November — and experts say healthy youngsters should be protected after their second dose for a while. But the FDA also said Monday that if children that young have severely weakened immune systems, they will be allowed a third dose 28 days after their second. That’s the same third-dose timing already recommended for immune-compromised teens and adults.

Pfizer is studying its vaccine, in even smaller doses, for children younger than 5.

CINCINNATI —

At least two teens were shot in Cincinnati during the weekend.

It's been a record year for Hamilton County Juvenile Court for all the wrong reasons and advocates hope to curb the violence.

Investigators said one of the most recent gun violence victims was set to have surgery on Monday.

They said he is just 15 years old and his mother was on the scene after he was shot.

It's another case of a child touched by gun violence in our city.

"We've just got to get to the bottom of these shootings, man. Everybody be living in a peaceful way, it'd be a wonderful thing," said Mitchell Morris with the Cincinnati Works Phoenix Program.

Community advocates said there are too many shootings with kids caught in the mix.

Morris is saddened to see at least two more cases just this weekend.

"Please put them guns down. It's a better way. Whatever the disagreement is, whatever you're going through, disrespect thing, please let's talk to somebody," he said.

On Saturday at about 9 p.m., Cincinnati police said two people were shooting at each other on Baymiller Street in the West End when a 17-year-old boy was hit.

Investigators said he went to the hospital and is expected to be OK.

Then, on Sunday night at about 10 p.m., Cincinnati police said a 15-year-old boy was shot near Montgomery Road and Rutland Avenue in Evanston.

Police said he was stabilized at UC Medical Center and set to have surgery on Monday.

As we first told you a few months ago, Hamilton County Juvenile Court officials said it's been a record year for the wrong reasons.

They said 77 kids are in The Youth Center, with 80% of them charged with an offense involving a gun.

Twenty-four are charged with felonious assault and 15 are charged with murder, officials told WLWT.

Court officials said some face multiple counts.

They said in total there have been 35 counts of murder and 39 counts of felonious assault filed this year.

This year, Hamilton County Juvenile Court has launched a new assessment center to help get teens on the right track.

Morris hopes more people will drop the guns and help the community instead.

"You had a group of people down in the West End passing out bikes to little kids and same thing in Walnut Hills, Avondale, you got groups of people doing wonderful work, there's lot of wonderful work being done," he said.

Cincinnati police said they have no updates on how the 15-year-old boy is doing.

Police said in that shooting, they are looking for two men wearing all black.

They said they have no information about what led up to the gunfire but said there is surveillance video from the city's Real-Time Crime Camera Network.

A former boyfriend of a woman who says she was paid to give sexual favors to Jeffrey Epstein, starting at age 14, corroborated parts of her account Wednesday at the sex trafficking trial of the millionaire's longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The man, identified only as Shawn to protect the identity of his ex-girlfriend, said on multiple occasions in the early 2000s he drove three girls he knew to Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

He would wait in the car for an hour until the teenagers would emerge with $100 bills.

The girls included a woman who testified on Tuesday only as Carolyn to protect her privacy. She had told the jury she made hundreds of dollars giving sexualized massages to Epstein, and that Maxwell had fondled her and told her she “had a great body."

Shawn said he and Carolyn used some of the cash to support their drug habit.

The testimony came as the government neared the end of its case against Maxwell, who has denied charges she instructed teenagers to give Epstein sexual messages at the millionaire’s residences in Florida, New York and elsewhere.

Maxwell's lawyers have said she's being made a scapegoat for sex crimes committed by Epstein, who briefly went to jail in a child prostitution case in 2008, and then killed himself after he was hit with new charges in 2019.

The last of four key accusers was expected to testify Thursday before the government rests its case. The defense is set to start its case next week.

In his testimony Wednesday, Shawn said he drove the girls to Epstein's posh property from the much less affluent neighborhoods of West Palm Beach, where the teenagers lived, whenever he received a call from one of three women who worked for Epstein.

One of them, he said, had a “proper English" accent. Maxwell was raised in England.

Shawn testified that he never met Maxwell but he once met Epstein in his driveway when Epstein arrived late for a massage. He said Epstein “introduced himself and showed off his car.”

He said the teenagers would exchange their $100 bills at a Palm Beach gas station for smaller bills because no businesses in West Palm Beach would accept the large bills.

Children are watching — and it's not just behaviors like kindness and empathy that can make an impression.

They also see how their parents handle money, for better or worse.

"I wish I was taught how to pay bills, and the importance of paying them on time," said Amiyrah Martin, a mother of three from Columbus, Ohio. "As parents, we miss the opportunity to not only be transparent about the bills that come into our home but show kids how those bills are paid."

Other parents said they wished their parents had taught them the basics of budgeting, savings and credit cards, and more advanced topics such as investing, mortgages, managing taxes, negotiating salaries and calculating retirement savings.

Why are money conversations not happening? Shame is a common reason.

Shame or embarrassment about financial mistakes can prevent parents from having positive money conversations with their children, said Monica Eaton, a certified financial education instructor and founder of Alconbury Press, a media company focused on financial literacy for kids.

Eaton encourages parents to forgive themselves for past mistakes, acknowledging that this can be hard if you are still living with the consequences of your past. "By making peace with past money mistakes, parents can be in a better position to guide their children towards positive financial behaviors."

There is no need to dwell too much on financial struggles, advised Beth Kobliner, author of "Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You're Not)." She recommended being honest but brief. "No need to get into any sordid details, but if, for example, credit card debt kept you from achieving some goals in your past, let them know."

You don't have to go far to start, since there are plenty of everyday teachable moments around money. And it's better to have kids experiment and make mistakes with their small allowances when the stakes are low. Here are five ways to approach money with tweens and teens.

Identify needs versus wants

One cornerstone of money conversations is identifying needs versus wants. Before you head to the store with your kids, Kobliner recommended being clear about what constitutes a need, such as milk, compared to a want, such as chocolate milk.

"It's OK to indulge in small wants once in a while if your family's situation allows, but needs always come first," Kobliner said.

Be straightforward if your kid begs for something like candy at the checkout counter. "Don't lie and say that you don't have enough money on you to sidestep a meltdown," Kobliner said. Instead, she recommended a direct response such as, "No, I don't think we need to spend money on that now. We are here for the basics today."

Kobliner noted that the importance of building this foundation is supported by research. A 2011 Duke University study found that kids whose parents gave in at the checkout line were more likely to develop credit problems as adults.

Consider giving kids agency in identifying needs versus wants. Lauren Schamaun, a Rockville, Maryland, mother of teens ages 13 and 16, said she found herself stressing over balancing her family's eating-out budget with her kids' cash requests as they became teens and got more social with friends.

Schamaun's solution was to increase her teens' allowances but stop giving them money for outings. "If they want to spend $12 on a smoothie bowl they can, and it no longer impacts my budget. I've seen them weigh the pros and cons of such expenditures and learn to manage their own money well."

Talk about big-picture goals

Talking about goals matters. "Lifestyle goals may impact the type of education and line of work students pursue. Those choices will have big implications for their long-term earning potential," Eaton said.

If college is one of those goals, Kobliner recommended that parents establish a dedicated savings plan for college and start talking about college affordability during eighth grade. "Let your kid know that you are saving money for college, ideally in a 529 (college fund)," she said. "Studies show that kids who know are more likely to go — regardless of how much their parents have saved."

Avoid bribes

There is a temptation for parents to use money as a carrot for kids, and some kids may suggest financial incentives based on what they hear from friends. A survey showed that half of parents give their kids money for good grades, an approach Kobliner advised against implementing.

"Research out of Harvard University shows that these bribes don't work because external motivation isn't what will get them to work hard over the long haul. That requires internal motivation, that feeling of authentic accomplishment," Kobliner said.

Teach kids about saving and investing

Conversations about what to do with money, whether it's an allowance or somehow earned, are crucial. Parents need to teach kids to spend less than what they earn, Eaton advised. "This is foundational money management advice, and it is critical."

This important lesson is even on the minds of parents of preschoolers. Liz Callin of Milwaukee is already planning on teaching it to her 4-year-old. "I wish I had been taught how important it is to start saving early and often. Saving 10% from each paycheck will be something I teach my son when he is older."

Kobliner recommended that parents help their kids open a Roth IRA to sock away part of their earnings. "It's an excellent opportunity to teach your teen about the magic of compound interest," she said.

The math speaks for itself. Kobliner shared this simple, powerful scenario to use in conversations with kids: Starting at age 20, if you save $1,000 a year and stop at age 30, you'll have more than $200,000 by retirement.

Explain credit card basics

Credit card conversations are important, especially if your teen will be heading to college, a common recruitment ground for sign-ups.

"When I got to college, I signed up for a credit card because of a free 'gift' and didn't realize what APR meant," said Emily Williams, a Malden, Massachusetts, mom of sons ages 4 and 9. "I couldn't keep up with monthly payments and got myself into a whole lot of debt!"

Kobliner recommended explaining the concept of credit card interest to kids with an example like this: Running up a $1,000 balance on a credit card but only paying the minimum every month would take more than six years to pay off and cost nearly $600 in interest.

Kids will eventually need to learn to manage their money. Keep conversations age appropriate, focused and equitable.

A 2018 study from T. Rowe Price indicated the tides are starting to turn, but Kobliner shared that years of polling prior consistently showed parents are more likely to talk about financial issues with their sons than with their daughters, which leads to boys expressing more confidence about financial matters.

"Many parents believe their sons are smarter about money. This is nonsense, and it must stop," Kobliner said. "Especially when girls face an uphill climb anyway in earning salaries that are on par with those of their male peers. Make sure all kids are prepared equally for a smart financial life."

CINCINNATI —

One Cincinnati woman is working to make a difference for young women who can't afford or have access to feminine products.

Brittani Gray is actually a hair stylist who realized that so many young girls were either leaving school early or skipping it entirely because they got their period.

In fact, Gray said two out of five students are missing school because of it.

It's can be easy to forget that pads are not luxury products, they are needed for every person with a uterus.

And for many - they aren't affordable.

So Gray began bringing pads to schools more than three years ago.

Now, she started Girls Health Period, renting out three storage units and going around to more than 50 schools in the area.

One of the biggest hurdles is the stigma around periods and lack of education.

"We wanted to make sure our high school students, our elementary students, our star players, they start their menstrual cycle and the teams don't have the products, they sit out so how can we keep our star students and our star athletes back into sports," said Gray.

Now, she's starting to give away another tool that will help young folks who are going through puberty as well: sports bras. She also accepts tools that can help folks get through their menstrual cycle as well like heating pads, wipes and tampons.

To donate, go to: girlshealthperiod.org/donate

DALLAS — The U.S. government will use the downtown Dallas convention center to hold up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers as sharply higher numbers of border crossings have severely strained the current capacity to hold youths.

During a White House briefing Monday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the administration is facing a "big problem" on the US-Mexico border. More than 4,000 unaccompanied minors are in Border Patrol custody.

Once in Border Patrol custody, they are supposed to be turned over to Health and Human Services, however because of coronavirus pandemic safety measures, capacity at HHS facilities have been limited.

“We recognize this is a big problem. The last administration left us a dismantled and unworkable system, and like any other problem, we're going to do everything we can to solve it," Psaki told reporters Monday.

The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas will be used for up to 90 days beginning as early as this week.

That's according to written notification sent to members of the Dallas City Council and provided to The Associated Press. The memo says federal agencies will use the facility to house boys ages 15 to 17.

The memo describes the soon-to-open site as a “decompression center.”

The owners of restaurants, amusement parks and retail shops, many of them desperate for workers, are sounding an unusual note of gratitude this summer:

Thank goodness for teenagers.

As the U.S. economy bounds back with unexpected speed from the pandemic recession and customer demand intensifies, high school-age kids are filling jobs that older workers can’t — or won’t.

The result is that teens who are willing to bus restaurant tables or serve as water-park lifeguards are commanding $15, $17 or more an hour, plus bonuses in some instances or money to help pay for school classes. The trend marks a shift from the period after the 2007-2009 Great Recession, when older workers often took such jobs and teens were sometimes squeezed out.

The time, an acute labor shortage, especially at restaurants, tourism and entertainment businesses, has made teenage workers highly popular again.

"We’re very thankful they are here,’" says Akash Kapoor, CEO of Curry Up Now. Fifty teenagers are working this summer at his five San Francisco-area Indian street food restaurants, up from only about a dozen last year. "We may not be open if they weren’t here. We need bodies."

The proportion of Americans ages 16-19 who are working is higher than it's been in years: In May, 33.2% of them had jobs, the highest such percentage since 2008. Though the figure dipped to 31.9% in June, the Labor Department reported Friday, that is still higher than it was before the pandemic devastated the economy last spring.

At the Cattivella Italian restaurant in Denver, for instance, Harry Hittle, 16, is earning up to $22.50 an hour, including tips, from his job clearing restaurant tables. He's used the windfall to buy gas and insurance for his car and has splurged on a road bike and an electric guitar.

"There's never been a better time to apply for a job if you're a teen," says Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of Snagajob, an online job site for hourly work.

Consider the findings of Neeta Fogg, Paul Harrington and Ishwar Khatiwada, researchers at Drexel University's Center for Labor Markets and Policy who issue an annual forecast for the teenage summer job market. This year, they predict, will be the best summer for teenage lifeguards, ice cream scoopers and sales clerks since 2008; 31.5% of 16- to 19-year-olds will have jobs.

Teenage employment had been on a long slide, leading many analysts to lament the end of summertime jobs that gave teens work experience and a chance to mingle with colleagues and customers from varying backgrounds.

In August 1978, 50% of teenagers were working, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Their employment rate hasn’t been that high since. The figure began a long slide in 2000 and fell especially steeply during the Great Recession. The eruption of coronavirus produced a new low: Only 26.3% of teens had jobs last summer, according to the Drexel researchers.

The long-term drop in teen employment has reflected both broad economic shifts and personal choices. The U.S. economy includes fewer low-skill, entry-level jobs — ready-made for teens — than it did in the 1970s and 1980s. And such jobs that do remain have been increasingly likely to be taken by older workers, many of them foreign born.

In addition, teens from affluent families, eager to secure admission to top universities, have for years chosen summer academic programs over jobs or have pursued ambitious volunteer work in hopes of distinguishing their applications for college. Others have spent their summers playing competitive sports.

This summer, things are rather different. After collapsing last spring, the economy has rebounded much faster than expected. Restaurants, bars, retail shops and amusement parks have been overwhelmed by pent-up demand from consumers who had mostly hunkered down for a year or more.

Now, those businesses need employees to handle the influx and are scrambling to find enough. The vaccine rollout was just starting in April and May, when employers typically start hiring for summer. Some of these businesses delayed their hiring decisions, unsure whether or when the economy would fully reopen.

Foreign workers, brought in on J-1 work-and-study visas, typically filled many such summer jobs. But President Donald Trump suspended those visas as a coronavirus precaution, and the number of U.S.-issued J-1 visas tumbled 69% in the fiscal 2020 year — to 108,510, from 353,279 the year before.

In past years, for example, foreigners visiting the U.S. on visas took filled 180 summer jobs at Big Kahuna's water park in Destin, Florida. Last year, there were just three. This year, eight. Desperate to attract local teens, Big Kahuna's, which is owned by Boomers Parks, is now paying $12 an hour, up from less than $10 an hour in past years.

Compounding the labor squeeze, many older Americans have been slow to respond to a record number of job openings. Some have lingering health concerns or trouble arranging or affording child care at a time when schools are transitioning from remote to in-person learning. Other adults may have been discouraged from seeking work because of generous federal unemployment benefits, though many states have dropped these benefits, and they will end nationwide on Sept. 6.

So businesses are offering signing bonuses and whatever else they can to hire teens in a hurry.

Wendy's, which relies on teens to salt fries and ring up orders, added a way for applicants to apply for a job through their smartphones. Applicants are screened using artificial intelligence, which gets them to an interview faster than if they uploaded a resume. The idea is to hire them before another employer can.

"Speed is critical," said Randy Pianin, CEO of JAE Restaurant Group, a franchisee that owns 220 Wendy’s locations. As a perk, JAE is offering workers a way to get hold of some of their pay the day after they earn it, Pianin said, instead of having to wait two weeks for a paycheck.

Boomers Parks has raised pay at the eight amusement parks it owns and is offering bonuses of up to $50 a week for some teen workers who stay through the summer, CEO Tim Murphy said. With fewer people seemingly willing to take the jobs, Murphy said, competition for workers is fierce.

At its Sahara Sam's water park in West Berlin, New Jersey, the company lowered its minimum working age to 15 from 16 to try to recruit a larger pool of candidates.

Johnathon Miller thought he would need to wait until August, when he turned 16, to start working. But when he heard about a lowered age limit at Sahara Sam’s, he applied — and got the job. He will soon be a lifeguard, watching over the lazy river for $15 an hour, a couple of bucks more an hour than Sahara Sam’s used to pay.

"I’m looking forward to working,” said Miller, who lives in Woolwich Township, New Jersey — so much so that he got a friend interested, too: "He was like, 'Whoa, they are hiring at (age) 15?'"

At Curry Up Now, the restaurant pays $2 an hour above the minimum wage, which is $15 or more an hour, depending on the Bay Area location. The chain is also offering a fund for teens to pay for classes or books, as well as free Zoom classes on how to manage money.

Kapoor concedes that young hires require restaurant training and might not stick around for long. But there are advantages to having teens on staff. They are typically inclined to persuade their friends to work or eat there, giving Curry Up Now a stream of future workers and customers. And they have updated the restaurant’s music, adding more songs from the '80s and '90s as well as tunes from India and the Middle East.

All that said, the revival of teen employment might not last. The pre-pandemic trend toward fewer young workers at restaurants and entertainment venues could reassert itself if the economy's labor shortages are eventually resolved.

Still, Harrington, director of Drexel’s labor markets center, notes that "employers have moved down the labor queue as the labor supply of adults has become more constrained."

If the economic recovery continues to reduce unemployment, and if federal policymakers continue to restrict the influx of low-skilled foreign workers, "then the chances for sustained growth in teen employment rates are good," Harrington said.

___

Pisani reported from New York. AP writer Patty Nieberg contributed to this report from Denver.

The news about a potential link between the COVID-19 vaccine and a cardiac ailment in young people may be striking fear in the hearts of some parents.

But pediatric cardiologists have a message for these parents: COVID-19 should scare you more — a whole lot more — than the vaccine.

And these doctors should know. They've treated young patients who've contracted this heart ailment after vaccination — it's called myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle — and they've also treated young patients who've had COVID-19.

There simply is no comparison between the two, they say.

Myocarditis sounds scary, but there are mild versions of it. In almost all cases among vaccinated young people (they were ages 16 to 24), the symptoms have gone away quickly. COVID-19, on the other hand, can be a long illness, or it can kill a young person — it has already killed thousands of them.

CNN spoke with pediatric cardiologists Dr. Kevin Hall at the Yale School of Medicine and Dr. Stuart Berger at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who is also chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics section on cardiology and cardiac surgery, about the cases of myocarditis that have been spotted among young people after vaccination with the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.

Both doctors, as well as the American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for young people.

What causes myocarditis, and how often does it happen to young people?

While myocarditis is relatively uncommon, it does happen to young people (and we mean long before the COVID-19 vaccine ever came along). Usually it's caused by a viral or bacterial infection. A different vaccine, one against smallpox, has previously been linked to myocarditis.

There's a wide spectrum of myocarditis. Some people don't feel anything and they're fine without treatment. For others, myocarditis can be deadly.

Berger estimates that at the emergency room where he works at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, they see approximately one child a week with the condition in the summer, when coxsackie and other viruses that cause myocarditis are in full bloom. Generally speaking, these young people are otherwise healthy.

People from puberty through their early 30s are at higher risk for myocarditis, according to the Myocarditis Foundation. Males are affected twice as often as females.

How many people in the US have developed myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination?

As of May 31, nearly 170 million Americans had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through that time, fewer than 800 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue around the heart), have been reported after receiving the vaccine, according to the CDC, most of them after the second dose. And these are preliminary numbers — they might be lower as further investigation could show that not all of these people actually had myocarditis or pericarditis.

Are these numbers unusual?

As mentioned, people get myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the lining around the heart — even without the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC set out to determine if the numbers of post-vaccination myocarditis and pericarditis are higher than what you'd see without the COVID-19 vaccine.

The answer was "yes" for people ages 16 to 24. The CDC found that among 16-and 17-year-olds, as of May 31, there were 79 reports of the illnesses soon after vaccination, and ordinarily, you'd expect to see around two to 19 cases in this group. Among 18-to-24-year-olds, there were 196 reported cases, and you'd expect to see between 8 and 83 cases. There were also reports of myocarditis and pericarditis in older age groups, but the numbers weren't higher than what you'd normally expect.

Did the myocarditis in these vaccinated young people make them really sick?

It sounds like an inflamed heart would, by definition, always be a huge deal, right? But it isn't.

"Many times, people have myocarditis and don't even know it. It goes away and they're fine," Berger said.

In the vast majority of these post-vaccination cases, patients had a full recovery.

Looking at 270 patients who were admitted and discharged from the hospital as of May 31, the CDC has found that 81% had full recovery of symptoms. The other 19% had ongoing symptoms or their recovery status was unknown.

Hall, the pediatric cardiologist at Yale, said many of the post-vaccination myocarditis patients at his hospital didn't feel very sick, but they were admitted so doctors could do more testing and out of an abundance of caution.

"Some of these young men and boys were rather upset that they had to stay in the hospital," Hall said.

What kinds of symptoms did these young people have?

Hall is co-author of a study published last week looking at seven cases of myocarditis among adolescents after vaccination.

They all had chest pain, and some of them also had fevers or felt weak or tired.

Their symptoms began between two and four days after the second dose of the vaccine. They spent two to six days in the hospital. For all seven patients, their symptoms resolved rapidly with medications such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and steroids.

All seven of the cases were males. In the CDC report, most of the cases were males.

How do young people do when they get COVID-19?

This gets to the heart of the issue. When young people developed myocarditis following vaccination, the numbers were small, and they weren't very sick.

While most young people who develop COVID-19 are fine, some do develop complications and even die from the infection.

As of June 9, 2,637 people under age 30 have had deaths that involved COVID-19, according to the CDC. As of June 5, preliminary data shows 3,110 people under the age of 18 have been hospitalized, a number the CDC says is likely an underestimate.

Berger and Hall have each taken care of dozens of COVID-19 patients.

"Some of them spent weeks in the intensive care unit. They had poor heart function. They had acute infections that were completely preventable by the vaccine," Berger said.

Even if they recovered, some have had long-term illnesses.

"We do remain concerned about these children in the long term," Hall said. "We have seen some with persistent changes in their cardiac testing. This is a very serious disease."

CNN —

Teenage workers are in high demand this summer, especially at Main Street businesses.

And that will come as a relief since working teens were hard hit by pandemic-related layoffs. In May of 2020, their national unemployment rate was just shy of 30%, according to federal jobs data.

But by this May, it had plummeted to 9.6%, a level not seen since the early 1950s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

One reason is that teens are now benefiting from the difficult time many small businesses are having trying to adequately staff their operations as pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Adult job applicants have been hard to come by. Many are unable to return to work just yet because of childcare or health concerns. Some may have opted to leave their industry or simply choose to work at a bigger chain that pays better than its small business competitors. And others may be waiting until the $300 a week federal supplement to unemployment benefits expires.

'When can you start?'

Before the pandemic, Jeff Rogoff would typically only hire teens as delivery drivers for his sit-down pizza restaurant Sazza, located in a suburb south of Denver.

Rogoff always figured it wasn't worth his time and money to train people to work in his restaurant's kitchen if he knew they would leave in a few months when school starts, he said.

Plus, he added, he has to abide by legal restrictions governing how long teens can work in a kitchen and the equipment they can use.

But this summer he has changed his tune.

"If a teenager came in and said, 'I can work for three months,' I would hire them. It would be, 'Yes, when can you start?'" said Rogoff, who noted his 15-year-old restaurant has never been busier.

While three months still isn't ideal, "It would give me three more months to find someone who will work out in the kitchen [longer term]," Rogoff said.

In addition to hiring more teens, Rogoff plans to give mid-year bonuses to current staff at his annual summer party for employees.

Bonuses are an easier way for small businesses to stay competitive, since increasing pay isn't always a feasible option, said Luke Pardue, an economist for the small business payroll service provider Gusto.

Pre-pandemic, Gusto found that 7% of its customers offered new hires signing bonuses. Now 14% do. And the bonuses have risen from an average of $280 in 2019 to $900 today.

Working more flexible hours

Another go-to retention strategy before permanently hiking pay includes allowing for more latitude in scheduling, Pardue said.

In Bowman, North Dakota, it's been hard to find adult applicants willing to work part-time at the local florist, Flowers and Cappuccino by Lasting Visions, said owner Lyn James, who also happens to be Bowman's mayor.

Her shop has been very busy, and she's in need of extra hands this summer, so she is employing a couple more teens than usual. "Some adults [on staff] have opted to spend more time at home with their kids because it was such a rough year," James said.

So while they're still working at her shop, they're putting in fewer hours.

James expects when school starts in September her adult staffers will resume their normal schedules. But until then, she really appreciates her teen employees and lets them set their hours around their other commitments. "We're lucky to have them," James said.

Even though she can't pay top wage, she noted, "We're super flexible here."

Making the move to higher pay

Matt Vizcaino of Tortugas Pizza in Birmingham, Alabama, would be happy to get applications from teenagers to help out his mostly adult staff of 17, who are down from 22 before the pandemic.

In early June, Vizcaino decided his restaurant, which specializes in handmade Chicago-style pizzas that can take 45 minutes to prepare, would only operate four days a week for the time being, because he could see his employees were getting burnt out.

"We were open too many hours for the people we had," he said. "We did just hire a high schooler and are actively telling our regulars if they have a kid to send them our way."

And he is aiming to stay competitive.

In February, Vizcaino raised most of his employees' wages by 15%, even though he said he had always paid his employees above minimum wage. And he expects new hires will come in at the higher base, regardless of age.

COLUMBUS, Ohio —

The numbers of juveniles getting vaccinated in Ohio is climbing. State leaders say excitement over the state's full-ride scholarship drawings is playing a role in that.

Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday that 104,386 Ohioans between ages 12 and 17 registered for the scholarship drawing. Each is eligible and will have five chances to win a full ride scholarship to any Ohio university, books and room and board included.

The initiative aimed at increasing the number of Ohioans getting a COVID-19 vaccine is part of the state's Vax-a-Million vaccination incentive program.

WLWT visited a vaccine clinic at Felicity Franklin High School Monday afternoon. A few dozen people received their first or second dose of the vaccine at the clinic run by the county health department.

Dakota Luther, a 17-year-old high school junior, received his second shot. Preparing to enter his senior year, discussions about college are becoming more frequent.

The scholarship drawing was not his main motivation in getting vaccinated but is excited by the chance of having his college tuition covered.

Luther said some of his friends are hesitant to be vaccinated, but he thinks it is a no-brainer.

"It's awesome knowing that I won't have to be sick, have the chance of being sick and I have the chance of being normal again," he said. " A lot more reward than the risk... We don't know how long it's going to have to be until you get your next vaccination, but if it's six months, then that's six months you can be worry free."

Jackie Lindner is the vaccination clinic coordinators with Clermont County Public Health.

"That's definitely been a big boost to the numbers that we have seen. We have seen a lot more kids in our clinics," she said referencing the last couple weeks. "I think there were lots of things that collided all together, so the Vax-A-Million probably incentivized some folks to come and get vaccinated. Also, dropping the age group that could get the vaccine made it more widely available to more people."

Since the Vax-A-Million announcement, DeWine said there has been a 94% increase in vaccinations among 16 and 17-year-olds.

"If that works and that's what will bring them in, we're happy to serve them," Lindner said.