It is following a magazine style. This is partly to elicit an emotional reaction and partly I suspect because the copy writer is bored and wishes they were writing novels instead.

if it's a proper news source they (and every other paper) already reported it who knows how many times. "city is about to ban phones in schools" "city is banning phones in schools" "the phones in schools were banned". everybody who needs to know already knows

This is not intended to be a news piece. It's a story. But whoever is in charge of CMS messed up categories. It should not be labeled news