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850 More Unvaxxed NYC Teachers, Aides Fired for Not Complying With Mandate + More
850 More Unvaxxed NYC Teachers, Aides Fired for Not Complying With Mandate
The city Department of Education has axed another 850 teachers and classroom aides — bringing the total to nearly 2,000 school employees fired for failure to comply with a vaccine mandate increasingly struck down in court.
About 1,300 DOE employees who took a year’s unpaid leave — with benefits — agreed to show proof of COVID vaccination by Sept. 5 or be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.”
Of those staffers, 450 got a shot by the deadline and “are returning to their prior schools or work locations,” DOE officials told The Post. They include some 225 teachers and 135 paraprofessionals.
Mayor Adams never lifted the vaccine mandate, while other cities and states are dropping such requirements due to relaxed CDC guidelines.
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Controversial Texas Social Media Law
A federal appeals court dealt social media giants a blow Friday when it upheld a Texas law that seeks to stop platforms from removing posts if the removal can be viewed as discriminating against a “viewpoint.”
Driving the news: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Texas law, HB20, does not violate the First Amendment rights of social media platforms.
Why it matters: If the law goes into effect, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media companies with more than 50 million users will effectively be prevented from enforcing content-related rules on any user postings that can claim to express a political view.
The ruling opens a door for similar laws to be passed by other states unless a future U.S. Supreme Court appeal reverses it.
Parents Win Key Ruling in Michigan Newborn Blood Dispute
A judge has found key parts of Michigan’s newborn blood-testing program unconstitutional in a challenge by four parents who raised concerns about how leftover samples are used long after screening for rare diseases.
The lawsuit is not a class action. But the decision this week is likely to have an impact on how the state maintains millions of dried blood spots and makes them available for outside research. Research with newborn blood spots occurs in other states, too.
At the state’s direction, Michigan hospitals routinely prick the heels of newborns to draw blood to check for more than 50 diseases, a longstanding practice across the U.S. Leftover blood spots are sent to the Michigan Neonatal Biobank in Detroit for safekeeping. Scientists can pay a fee to use them for various research projects.
Since 2010, Michigan must have permission from parents to use spots for outside research. But attorney Phil Ellison argued that the program still violates constitutional protections against searches and seizures, and might not be fully understood by parents who are given a form soon after the rigors of childbirth.
Healthcare — Masks Are Coming off in Head Start Classrooms
In health news, Head Start, the federal education program for preschools and childcare centers, will soon end its mandatory masking policy.
The Office of Head Start (OHS), the federal program within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provides preschool and childcare services to low-income families, announced Friday that it will soon be dropping its universal masking rule for its grant recipients.
In a statement provided to The Hill, an HHS spokesperson said, “Today, OHS notified programs that, in the near future, it intends to publish a final rule that will formally remove the requirement for universal masking in Head Start programs for all individuals ages 2 and older, which will align Head Start program masking requirements more closely with the updated CDC guidance.”
Confronting COVID’s Lost Generation
On a seemingly typical afternoon in 2020 during the first week of classes in her last year of high school, 17-year-old Yasmin Maccio shuffled home after a 30-minute bus ride at the closing of the academic day. Entering her family’s home — which doubles as a kiosco, or local storefront for food and drinks — she set to work finishing her homework and helping four of her younger nieces and nephews to complete theirs.
But for this ambitious student, who dreamed of going to college, learning would effectively end for the foreseeable future. The following day her school closed its doors in the face of a raging COVID-19 outbreak, eventually offering students a chance to connect to a virtual-schooling option. However, like most of their neighbors, Maccio’s household of 11 people didn’t have a computer.
What was a deeply painful, mentally challenging interlude for students in the United States became a permanent end to learning for many students in Latin America and the Caribbean. The joint Latin America/Caribbean region is considered one of the two most severely impacted regions in the world regarding educational issues, along with sub-Saharan Africa, according to a June 2022 UNICEF report.
“Education-wise, this has been a catastrophe,” Mariana Ibanez, a longtime volunteer in Maccio’s neighborhood of Barrio 31, told me in Spanish.
St. Charles Health System to Welcome Back Unvaccinated Workers
Hospital administrators have lifted the requirement that all healthcare professionals at St. Charles Health System must be vaccinated against COVID-19, nearly a year after it had been put in place.
The health system said it would now allow workers who had an approved religious or medical exception to work at the health system even if they are not vaccinated against COVID-19. This follows the state’s rules requiring COVID-19 vaccination updated in April.
The changing nature of the virus that causes COVID-19 prompted the health system to amend its COVID-19 vaccination requirements, said Dr. Cynthia Maree, St. Charles Health System’s medical director of infection prevention services.
Removing the vaccination requirement puts the Central Oregon health system more in line with other Oregon hospitals, said Kevin Mealy, Oregon Nurses Association communication manager.
Did the Censors Succeed?
These days I rarely encounter people who disagree that the pandemic policy was a disaster.
You can usually get a laugh at a cocktail party when making fun of sanitizer madness, 15 days to flatten the curve, ubiquitous plexiglass or 6 feet of distance. The school closures are in disrepute, as is the restriction on hospital visits or the banning of funerals and weddings. Even masking seems ridiculous in retrospect.
And yet, however many people think these things in private, these opinions were nowhere in the mainstream media for the better part of two years. The near-universal opinion was that Fauci was a genius with the best interest of the country at heart. Dissidents were silenced and punished with throttles and bans. The government collaborated with Big Tech to mark all opposition to the extremist lockdowns and mandates as misinformation.
The censors succeeded in keeping these reasonable views out of the mainstream of the public mind, which is to say that their censorship worked. You and I might be pleased to have read the right Substack or encountered a contrarian book or paper. But remember that for every one exposure of a dissenting perspective, tens of millions of others receive the mainstream line.
Bus for COVID Quarantine in China Crashes, Killing 27
A bus reportedly taking 47 people to COVID-19 quarantine in southwest China crashed before dawn Sunday morning, killing 27 and injuring 20 others, media said.
The bus overturned on an expressway in Guizhou province, a brief statement from the Sandu county police said, without mentioning any connection to quarantine. The injured were being treated, it said.
Chinese business news outlet Caixin said Sandu officials confirmed the passengers were “epidemic-related people” being taken from Guiyang, the provincial capital, to Lido county, which is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast.
China Lifts Two-Week COVID Lockdown in Chengdu, City of 21 Million
The Chinese megacity of Chengdu exits lockdown on Monday, with its 21 million people allowed to leave their homes and resume most aspects of normal life for the first time since Sept. 1, provided they’re tested regularly for COVID-19.
Residents will need to be tested at least once a week for the virus, with a negative result from within the previous 72 hours required to enter public venues and take public transport, according to a statement from the local government.
The capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, Chengdu is the biggest city to have been shuttered as part of the country’s COVID zero strategy since Shanghai’s bruising two-month lockdown earlier this year.
Unsealed Docs in Facebook Privacy Suit Offer Glimpse of Missing App Audit
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep a lid on the gory details of a third-party app audit that its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally pledged would be carried out, back in 2018, as he sought to buy time to purge the spreading reputational stain after revelations about data misuse went viral at the peak of the Cambridge Analytica privacy crisis.
But some details are emerging nonetheless — extracted like blood from a stone via a tortuous, multi-year process of litigation-triggered legal discovery.
A couple of documents filed by plaintiffs in privacy user profiling litigation in California, which were unsealed yesterday, offer details on a handful of apps Facebook audited and internal reports on what it found.
The revelations provide a glimpse into the privacy-free zone Facebook was presiding over when a “sketchy” data company helped itself to millions of users’ data, the vast majority of whom did not know their info had been harvested for voter-targeting experiments.
How State Attorneys General Are Leading the Fight Against Big Tech
State attorneys general are leading efforts to crack down on the power of big technology firms, as highlighted by California’s suit filed this week against Amazon and a Texas-led coalition’s measured win in its fight against Google.
The cases are just two in a long line of state-led efforts to rein in the power of tech giants that are showcasing the bipartisan angst at Big Tech and momentum on the state level to take on the industry’s most dominant companies while congressional efforts to do so are stalled.
“Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, people can see what’s going on with these big companies, Big Tech companies and the power and the levers that they exert over everyday Americans, is a little bit scary,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) told The Hill. “I think people are realizing, the attorneys general are realizing, that if we don’t address this soon it may be too late, you may never be able to stop it.”
Nearly every state is suing Google and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, between three cases filed against the companies in the past two years.
Meta Shares Plunged 14% This Week, Falling Close to Their Pandemic Low
Facebook hasn’t been this cheap since the beginning of the pandemic. After plunging 14% for the week to close at $146.29, shares of Facebook parent Meta are at their lowest point since March 2020, and for a period on Friday, they had sunk even lower.
Meta has lost 61% of its value over the past 12 months, by far the biggest slide among Big Tech stocks and more than double the drop in the Nasdaq Composite. In sliding for five straight days, Meta is now trading just 28 cents above its closing price on March 16, 2020, when the early days of COVID-19 sent U.S. stocks reeling.
Since officially changing its name to Meta last October, the news for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company has been almost all bad. Apple’s iOS privacy update made it more difficult for the company to target ads and the increased popularity of social media rival TikTok has drawn users and advertisers away from the app. Meanwhile, an economic slowdown has caused many companies to pull back on their online marketing spending.
Customs Officials Have Copied Americans’ Phone Data at Massive Scale + More
Customs Officials Have Copied Americans’ Phone Data at Massive Scale
U.S. government officials are adding data from as many as 10,000 electronic devices each year to a massive database they’ve compiled from cellphones, iPads and computers seized from travelers at the country’s airports, seaports and border crossings, leaders of Customs and Border Protection told congressional staff in a briefing this summer.
The rapid expansion of the database and the ability of 2,700 CBP officers to access it without a warrant — two details not previously known about the database — have raised alarms in Congress about what use the government has made of the information, much of which is captured from people not suspected of any crime. CBP officials told congressional staff the data is maintained for 15 years.
Details of the database were revealed Thursday in a letter to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who criticized the agency for “allowing indiscriminate rifling through Americans’ private records” and called for stronger privacy protections.
The revelations add new detail to what’s known about the expanding ways that federal investigators use technology that many Americans may not understand or consent to.
My Brother Died Without Loved Ones Amid Strident COVID Restrictions — More Humility From Fauci Would Be Welcome
Dr. Anthony Fauci recently announced he will be stepping down from all government positions, including his position as chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden. As the most notable public health official leading America’s response to COVID for the past two and a half years, Fauci has repeatedly declared, “I represent science.”
My family abided by the severe restrictions Fauci demanded of Americans throughout the pandemic. During that time, my parents lost their son — and I lost my brother — to a non-COVID illness.
The devastating consequences of the government-mandated restrictions made his death that much more awful and, in my opinion, more preventable. A little more humility, along with an honest acknowledgment of the steep downsides of the policies he championed, would be a welcome change before Fauci leaves office.
My family did not get to see him one last time to bid farewell. Washington Hospital in Fremont, where he died, informed me that no visitors were allowed — unless the patient was on their death bed, breathing their last breaths. This meant that patients like my brother, who passed away unexpectedly in the middle of the night, died alone or in the company of medical personnel.
Johnson County Teen’s Fentanyl Death Spurs Bill to Hold Social Media Accountable
The Kansas City Star reported:
The death last year of a Johnson County teenager poisoned by fentanyl has led to a congressional effort to make social media companies report illegal drug activity on their platforms.
The Cooper Davis Act, introduced Thursday by Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, requires communication service providers to work more closely with federal authorities who need data to fight illegal drug sales.
Cooper’s parents had told The Star the pill laced with the synthetic opioid that killed their 16-year-old son was purchased by a friend who used Snapchat to hook up with a dealer in Missouri. Cooper and his friends thought they were taking Percocet pills. He was the only one who died.
Marshall has described his proposal as a way to hold social media companies accountable. Law enforcement officials warn that an alarming rate of fentanyl-laced pills is sold through TikTok, Snapchat and other popular social media sites. Drug cartels trafficking fentanyl in the United States use vast distribution networks on social media, Marshall says.
Star Alliance Wants Half Its Airline Members to Use Biometrics by 2025
Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, wants roughly half its 26 members to use biometrics technology by 2025, as passenger demand grows for contactless travel and less airport congestion after COVID-19.
By increasing the number of airport touchpoints where passengers can use biometrics technology, such as facial comparison which allows someone to use their face as a boarding pass, Star Alliance hopes to reduce processing time through airport security, baggage drop, departure gates and lounges.
The group wants 12 to 15 airlines, or roughly double the current number, to either use its biometrics strategy or ensure compatibility, said Christian Draeger, vice president of customer experience.
In addition to airlines, Star Alliance also hopes the four European airports that are participating in its biometrics program will add additional touchpoints, as well as increase the number of participating airports.
Marine Corps Rescinds Penalties for Service Members Seeking COVID Vax Religious Accommodations
The U.S. Marine Corps is rolling back strict punishments for service members seeking religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine, including ending involuntary terminations and delays of promotions for those refusing the shot.
According to a new “interim guidance,” signed Sept. 14 and posted quietly online, the message “amends actions” directed toward unvaccinated Marines whose religious accommodation requests were denied and who appealed the decision.
The memo states that the amended guidance comes after a U.S. Federal District Court in Florida issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 18 prohibiting the Marines from taking “certain actions” against those seeking religious exemptions.
The guidance says the “Marine Corps will not enforce any order to accept COVID-19 vaccination, administratively separate, or retaliate against Marines in the class for asserting statutory rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”
NYPD Cop Can’t Be Fired for Not Having COVID Vaccine, Judge Rules
An NYPD cop who sued over the city’s COVID vaccine mandate can’t be fired for not having the jab, according to a new “precedent-setting” ruling that could help nearly two dozen police officers who’ve filed similar cases, The Post has learned.
A Manhattan judge said Officer Alexander Deletto, 43, should be allowed to keep his job, noting in a Tuesday ruling that the city gave the Brooklyn cop no explanation for why it rejected his religious exemption application.
This is the first such ruling in an NYPD officer’s case fighting their possible firing over the mandate, according to attorney James Mermigis, who is representing Deletto and has been dubbed “the anti-shutdown” lawyer for taking on a slew of pandemic-related litigation.
As of July, more than 1,750 city workers were fired for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine — including at least 36 from the NYPD.
Adams Should Follow the Science and End the Useless COVID Vaccine Mandate for NYC Workers
Few things feel more senseless and out of touch these days than New York City’s continued vaccine mandate for private sector workers and municipal employees.
After all this time, workers are still required to be vaccinated in order to go to their offices and the city still maniacally looks to fire public employees who refuse the jab. When will the madness end?
New York City has also done away with some of its mandates, including the ludicrous mask mandate for city schoolchildren.
But the worker vaccine mandate remains in place. Whatever happened to following the science? It’s another of those great inconsistencies we’ve seen all throughout the pandemic, inconsistencies that have undermined public trust in the experts.
HHS Debuts Ads for Updated COVID Booster, Focusing on Adults 50 and Older
As part of the White House’s COVID-19 response plan for the fall, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is debuting a video ad to encourage people to get the updated COVID-19 booster shot — especially those who are 50 and older.
In the new video advertisement from the public education campaign, released Thursday and titled “At Risk,” the text reads “9 out of 10 COVID deaths were people over 50” and “vaccines lower the risk of death,” as the music plays in the background. “So get your updated COVID vaccine. Now.”
An English version of the ad begins airing on television Thursday, and a Spanish version will air beginning Monday, according to HHS. These ads, first reported on CNN, also will go live on radio and online, and a print campaign is expected Monday.
As Pima County Vaccine Mandates End, It’s Looking for Ways to Keep Vaccine Rate up
The Pima County Board of Supervisors will vote next week on whether to give its employees who choose to be vaccinated against COVID, two days of leave time and 16 hours off with pay.
“To make sure the employees have that opportunity, that incentive, some extra leave to do the right thing for their families, their colleagues and their own families,” said District 2 Supervisor Matt Heinz. “And make sure they get protected.”
The reason is that the county has an 86% vaccination compliance rate and would like to keep it there. The vaccine mandates the county imposed on its workers last year will go away on Sept. 24 because of a law passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor which prohibits mandatory vaccine requirements. The county feels that’s one reason why the compliance rate is so high.
And whether this works to help incentivize the workers isn’t a sure thing either. It depends on whether it’s a benefit or whether some may say it discriminates against those who don’t want to get vaccinated. That’s yet to be debated.
YouTube’s Updating Its Ad Format to Better Sell You Stuff on Vertical Videos
It’s well established that, if a major tech company sees another platform succeeding based on a (relatively) original idea, it’s going to want to shamelessly copy that idea. And it’s probably also going to want some upgraded ad tech to go with it.
Google is expanding the number of ways that vertical ads can end up on its video platforms. The company is piloting a feature for advertisers that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to take horizontal ads, formatted for standard YouTube videos, and automatically translate them into vertical ads, optimized for YouTube Shorts, the company’s TikTok clone. Google, which owns YouTube, announced the change in a Thursday blog post.
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have already all done their best to rip off TikTok, following the platform’s runaway success (especially with young users.)
And now, to accompany Google’s TikTok transition, we have YouTube ads, auto-chopped and screwed. The AI feature appears to make wide ads narrow by focusing specifically on peoples’ faces as well as logos and text in the original video.
California Lifts COVID Vaccine Mandate for School Staff + More
California Lifts COVID Vaccine Mandate for School Staff
Napa Valley Register reported:
Teachers and other school staff who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer have to be tested weekly to remain on campuses after this week.
On Tuesday, the state’s public health officer, Dr. Tomás Aragón, rescinded a public health order requiring that all school employees show proof of vaccination or be tested at least weekly. The new policy is effective Saturday.
The decision was made to align state and federal health guidelines and because most Californians have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, he said.
The testing requirement was also lifted for employees in healthcare and adult residential settings.
Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter Dodge Questions on Social Media and National Security
Executives from four of the biggest social media companies testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday, defending their platforms and their respective safety, privacy and moderation failures in recent years.
Congress managed to drag in a relatively fresh set of product-focused executives this time around, including TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, who testified for the first time before lawmakers, and longtime Meta executive Chris Cox. The hearing was convened to explore social media’s impact on national security broadly and touched on topics ranging from domestic extremism and misinformation to CSAM and China.
It’s no secret that social media moderation is patchy, reactive and uneven, largely because these companies refuse to invest more deeply in the teams that protect people on their platforms. “We’ve been trying to get this information for a long time,” Committee Chair Sen. Gary Peters said. “This is why we get so frustrated.”
All told this was another round of Congress getting stonewalled by top decision-makers from some of the world’s largest, most powerful and culturally influential companies. For his part as chair, Peters was realistic about the situation, noting that short of regulatory changes to the incentives that drive social media companies, nothing is going to change — including in these sessions.
Oregon Parents Rights Group Files Petition Against Oregon Health Authority Over School Vaccine Mandate
Oregon parents are rising up to challenge the state’s health department to repeal a ban on unvaccinated teachers, staff and parents from schools.
A parents’ rights group called the Oregon Moms Union on Monday filed a petition to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to repeal OAR 333-019-1030. OAR 333-019-1030 mandates a COVID-19 vaccination for teachers and school staff.
The petition was filed by the Oregon Moms Union President and founder MacKensey Pulliam. The petition blasts the OHA’s mandate for contradicting “CDC guidance.”
The petition goes on to say that CDC guidance “no longer differentiates between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals when it comes to testing and isolation, therefore vaccinations should not be a requirement for teachers, staff and volunteers.”
Pentagon in ‘Potential Noncompliance’ With Law in Denying Religious Exemption Requests to Vaccine Mandate: Leaked Memo
The Department of Defense (DoD) has been in “potential noncompliance” with standards for reviewing and communicating denials of religious accommodation requests to the vaccine mandate, the Pentagon’s watchdog wrote to the secretary of defense in a June memo obtained by The Epoch Times.
The June 2 memo by Acting Inspector General (IG) Sean W. O’Donnell stated that after reviewing dozens of complaints from service members who were denied religious accommodation, the IG’s office “found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by Federal law and DoD and Military Service policies.”
The acting IG also noted that the volume and rate of denial decisions were “concerning.” An average of 50 denials per day were processed over a 90-day period, according to the memo.
Boston Handing out $75 Gift Cards to People Who Get COVID Vaccines, Boosters
Looking to get the new Omicron booster or do your kids need another COVID vaccine? The city will give you $75 if you roll up your sleeves for either shot this weekend.
Those who get vaccinated at the Boston Public Health Commission’s back-to-school COVID vaccination event on Saturday will be offered a $75 Visa gift card, regardless of the person’s age.
The new “bivalent” COVID boosters from Pfizer and Moderna, approved by the FDA two weeks ago, will be available during Saturday’s clinic. The new booster provides protection against the original COVID strain and the newer Omicron variants.
Also at Saturday’s vax event, free food, music and games will be available, and BPHC will give away backpacks to students and families for the new school year.
Fran Drescher’s Call to Review Vaccine Mandates Sparks Debate Inside SAG-AFTRA
It has been two years since Hollywood first implemented rules to help limit the spread of COVID-19 on film sets. By most accounts, the industry’s pandemic measures have worked, limiting the spread of the virus from film productions, according to data from the Motion Picture Assn.
But as the pandemic abates, the ongoing requirements — including vaccine mandates and social distancing rules — have triggered intense discussions inside Hollywood’s biggest union over whether and when those rules should be lifted as the film and TV industry looks to return to normal.
Tensions came to a head last weekend after SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called a special meeting to discuss lifting vaccine mandates and other measures.
Prior to the Saturday board meeting, board members were given contrasting video presentations by two experts with opposing views on vaccines. One expert who in the video was interviewed by Drescher and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director — controversial Yale professor Dr. Harvey Risch — questioned the effectiveness of vaccines and boosters against the current COVID-19 variant.
After four hours of discussions, the nearly 80-member board did not make any changes to policies.
Of God and Machines
Miracles can be perplexing at first, and artificial intelligence is a very new miracle. “We’re creating God,” the former Google Chief Business Officer Mo Gawdat recently told an interviewer. “We’re summoning the demon,” Elon Musk said a few years ago, in a talk at MIT. In Silicon Valley, good and evil can look much alike, but on the matter of artificial intelligence, the distinction hardly matters. Either way, an encounter with the superhuman is at hand.
Early artificial intelligence was simple: Computers that played checkers or chess, or that could figure out how to shop for groceries. But over the past few years, machine learning — the practice of teaching computers to adapt without explicit instructions — has made staggering advances in the subfield of Natural Language Processing, once every year or so.
Even so, the full brunt of the technology has not arrived yet. You might hear about chatbots whose speech is indistinguishable from humans’, or about documentary makers re-creating the voice of Anthony Bourdain, or robots that can compose op-eds. But you probably don’t use NLP in your everyday life.
Or rather: If you are using NLP in your everyday life, you might not always know. Unlike search or social media, whose arrivals the general public encountered and discussed and had opinions about, artificial intelligence remains esoteric — every bit as important and transformative as the other great tech disruptions, but more obscure, tucked largely out of view.
Judge Shoots Down Twitter’s Attempt to Access Elon Musk’s Emails
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will not have to surrender his corporate emails amid a legal battle with Twitter, the judge overseeing the case decided on Tuesday.
Twitter is currently battling Musk in court over his attempt to cancel a previous offer to buy the social media platform for $44 billion. Lawyers representing Twitter have been attempting to compel the world’s richest man to provide messages from his Tesla and SpaceX accounts, which he had used to discuss the merger with advisers.
Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick denied the attorneys’ request on the grounds that such an arrangement would violate attorney-client privilege.
Flo Period-Tracking App Releases ‘Anonymous Mode,’ but Users Should Still Be Cautious
Period tracking app Flo is hoping its newly released “Anonymous Mode” will give users the confidence to continue using their product even as state law enforcement authorities around the country appear increasingly interested in soliciting data from apps to prosecute alleged abortion seekers.
Privacy experts speaking with Gizmodo welcomed Flo’s update but warned it still falls short of meeting the definition of fully anonymous. Similarly, the experts said privacy-preserving features like these are fundamental and shouldn’t come as add-on options, particularly given the potentially horrific consequences of that data getting in the wrong hands.
Speaking with Gizmodo, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn applauded Flo’s effort, which he described as a “huge step forward,” but cautioned against overstating its capabilities. Though an improvement, Fox Cahn worried that referring to the mode as “fully anonymous,” misses the mark.
TikTok Won’t Commit to Stopping U.S. Data Flows to China
TikTok repeatedly declined to commit to U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that the short-form video app will cut off flows of U.S. user data to China, instead promising that the outcome of its negotiations with the U.S. government “will satisfy all national security concerns.”
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas first sparred with Sen. Rob Portman over details of TikTok’s corporate structure before being confronted — twice — with a specific request.
“Will TikTok commit to cutting off all data and data flows to China, China-based TikTok employees, ByteDance employees or any other party in China that might have the capability to access information on U.S. users?” Portman asked.
Pappas affirmed in Wednesday’s hearing that the company has said, on record, that its Chinese employees do have access to U.S. user data. She also reiterated that TikTok has said it would “under no circumstances … give that data to China” and denied that TikTok is in any way influenced by China. However, she avoided saying whether ByteDance would keep U.S. user data from the Chinese government or whether ByteDance may be influenced by China.
California Is Suing Amazon, Accusing It of Inflating Prices and Crushing Competition
California filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Wednesday accusing it of strong-arming sellers and driving up prices for consumers.
The lawsuit was filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Bonta argues in the lawsuit that Amazon coerced sellers into signing agreements that they wouldn’t sell their products for cheaper anywhere else. He argues Amazon’s market dominance meant sellers had no realistic alternative option but to comply.
The suit seeks to stop Amazon from enforcing contracts that restrict the prices sellers can set for their products off Amazon. It also seeks damages for sellers and penalties for Amazon but does not stipulate how much money that would equate to.
Senators Call for End of ‘Forcing of Toddlers to Wear Masks’ + More
Senators Call for End of ‘Forcing of Toddlers to Wear Masks’
A group of U.S. senators, including West Virginia’s Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R), have called for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to remove mask mandates for children and volunteers in Head Start programs across the country.
According to a release from Sen. Capito, a group of 17 senators sent a letter to the Biden Administration asking for an “overly rigid, inflexible” mask mandate from November 2021 to be removed.
In the letter, the group called the mandate “unnecessary,” citing that the World Health Organization does not recommend masks for children under five years old, but Head Start still requires them for children over two.
The “forcing of toddlers… to wear masks” sparked a vote for a resolution against the mandate in Congress earlier this year, which was vetoed by President Biden, according to the senators’ letter. The letter cited that Biden’s reason for vetoing the resolution was the lack of child vaccines, but as of June 2022, children over six months can now be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Newsom Signs Controversial Social Media Bill Into California Law
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a social media transparency measure that he says protects residents from hate and disinformation posts spread through social media platforms.
A.B. 587 will require social media companies to publicly post their policies regarding hate speech, disinformation, harassment and extremism on their platforms and report data on their enforcement of the policies.
The newly signed legislation will also require platforms to file semiannual reports to the state’s attorney general’s office that will disclose their policies on hate speech, extremism and disinformation.
The state’s attorney general’s office is also required “to make all terms of service reports submitted pursuant to those provisions available to the public in a searchable repository on its official internet website.”
Navy Quietly Rolled Back Punishments for SEALs Seeking Religious Exemptions to the COVID Vaccine
The U.S. Navy quietly rolled back an order punishing SEALs who remain unvaccinated due to their religious beliefs, according to recent court documents.
The order, “Trident Order #12,” disqualified SEALs seeking religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine from training, traveling for deployment and conducting other standard business. It was first issued on Sept. 24, 2021, by Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William Lescher, and all special warfare forces were initially expected to come into compliance with the vaccine mandate by mid-October 2021.
The order was put on hold due to a preliminary injunction issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in early 2022 as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by First Liberty Institute and Hacker Stephens LLP on behalf of 35 active-duty SEALs and three reservists seeking a religious exemption to the mandate.
However, according to a new filing in the lawsuit, the Navy quietly rolled back Trident Order #12 on May 22, 2022, a few months after the injunction was issued. The lawsuit representing unvaccinated SEALs, first reported by Fox News Digital in November, has since been amended to extend to a class action lawsuit encompassing all Navy service members seeking religious accommodation.
‘Simply Absurd’: NYC Urged to Ease COVID Vaccine Mandates in Public Schools
The new school year is in full swing, and while some coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions were eased for students and staff members in New York City public schools, some vaccine mandates remain in place — a situation that Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) calls “absurd.”
Borelli, who is part of the Common Sense Caucus in the City Council, explained that the group met with Mayor Eric Adams and city Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan last week to discuss easing coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine mandates for public and private employees, which includes teachers and school staff, and allow all vaccinated and unvaccinated students to participate in sports and after-school activities.
The caucus also asked for an end to a vaccine mandate for all visitors — including parents — to school buildings. Borelli added he doesn’t want to see students miss yet another year of a sport or activity, especially one that can be an entrance to college, a potential career or a chance to lift many youths and their families out of poverty.
The Common Sense Caucus said in a statement that there is more work to do, but based on the conversations with the mayor and health commissioner, the group is “optimistic that some positive changes to these policies may be forthcoming.”
‘Conscientious Objection’ Reason Enough to Refuse mRNA Vaccines as Preventive Treatment for COVID: Study
A new Canadian study published in a peer-reviewed international journal proposes that “conscientious objection” is an adequate reason to refuse mRNA vaccines as a preventive treatment against COVID-19.
The study was published on Aug. 23 in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research. Its five co-authors include Dr. Patrick Provost and Dr. Nicolas Derome — two professors who were recently suspended by Quebec’s Laval University for questioning the need to vaccinate children against COVID-19.
The authors said there are several reasons for using conscientious objection — an objection based on moral or religious grounds — to refuse these mRNA vaccines, which they said “make human cells perform a function that they would not normally execute: the production and expression of a foreign viral protein on their surface.”
To begin with, they said that both proponents and opponents of the new mRNA technology agree it is “unnatural,” and in addition, the technology’s long-term effects are “as yet either completely unknown or just beginning to come to light.”
COVID Pandemic Leave Payments to Be Kept as Long as Mandatory Isolation Is Required
COVID-19 pandemic leave payments for people forced to isolate will be continued indefinitely, following a meeting of the national cabinet.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and state and territory leaders agreed to keep the payments as long as people are required to isolate. He said the national cabinet would discuss an end date for mandatory isolation when it meets in a fortnight’s time.
Payment claims will be limited to a maximum of three payments over six months, except in extraordinary cases. The payment will remain at a maximum of $540 for people required to isolate for five days.
Court Rejects Injunction Against Seneca College’s COVID Vaccination Mandate
Ontario’s Superior Court has upheld Seneca College’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate after two unvaccinated students sought an injunction so they could attend classes and complete their programs. Although the students’ request for a temporary injunction against the vaccination requirement was denied, their legal challenge of the policy will still go ahead.
Seneca was believed to be the first post-secondary school in the country to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations last fall for students and staff on campus and said the requirement for full vaccination — two shots — continues this fall.
A statement posted on the center’s website said it “regrets to announce that the injunction application on behalf of two students challenging Seneca College’s mandatory vaccination policy for the fall term was unsuccessful.
“Two students who brought the legal action had hoped to return to school in the fall and complete their education. Seneca College will not permit them to attend classes for the 2022-2023 school year because they have refused to be injected with COVID vaccines.”
Twitter Shareholders Approve Elon Musk’s $44 Billion Takeover Offer
Twitter shareholders on Tuesday voted to approve Elon Musk‘s offer to buy the social media platform for around $44 billion, just weeks before the start of the company’s trial against the billionaire for trying to back out of the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Why it matters: The vote came the same day Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security who released an 84-page whistleblower complaint against the platform last month, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the national security implications of his claims.
Driving the news: Zatko’s allegations included that the platform violated a 2011 consent decree with the U.S. government, that it can’t track and limit employees’ access to its networks, and that it lacks recovery plans if its data centers go down, Axios’ Sam Sabin reports.
He alleged before the Senate committee that the company was informed of agents of the Chinese government working at the social media firm and that some employees had concerns the Chinese government could collect data on the company’s users, Reuters reports.
TikTok Search Results Riddled With Misinformation: Report
TikTok may be the platform of choice for catchy videos, but anyone using it to learn about COVID-19, climate change or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to encounter misleading information, according to a research report published Wednesday.
Researchers at NewsGuard searched for content about prominent news topics on TikTok and say they found that nearly 1 in 5 of the videos automatically suggested by the platform contained misinformation.
The amount of misinformation — and the ease with which it can be found — is especially troubling given TikTok’s popularity with young people, according to Steven Brill, founder of NewsGuard, a firm that monitors misinformation.
TikTok is the second most popular domain in the world, according to online performance and security company Cloudflare, exceeded only by Google.
Google Must Face Most of Texas-Led Antitrust Case, Court Says
Google will have to face most of the Texas-led antitrust case over the tech giant’s ad dominance, a judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel ruled against Google’s motion to dismiss the case filed by 16 states and Puerto Rico, though he did toss one count alleging Google and Facebook colluded on an advertising agreement.
“Here, the court is absolutely right to reject Google’s attempt to throw out our case. We look forward to a jury hearing how this Big Tech giant abused its monopoly power by harming consumers to reap billions in monopoly profits. This is a major step in the right direction to make our free market truly free,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said in a statement.
It is just one antitrust case the tech giant is facing.
Period Tracking App Flo Rolls out ‘Anonymous Mode’ on iOS, Android Launch Coming Next Month
Period tracking app Flo has released a new “Anonymous Mode” setting that gives users the option to access the app without their name, email address and technical identifiers being associated with their health data. Flo promised to release the mode shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The company launched the new Anonymous Mode setting on Wednesday for all iOS users. Android users will get access to the new setting next month, Flo says.
Following the Supreme Court’s reversal, activists and privacy advocates warned users of period tracking apps to be wary of the possibility that their health data could be used against them if they were to seek abortion services. Flo’s new Anonymous Mode setting is a direct response to these fears.
South Korea Hits Google, Meta With Record-Setting Fines Over Privacy Violations
Google and Meta have yet another privacy regulator breathing down their necks and scrutinizing their advertisement business. On Wednesday South Korean regulators fined the two companies more than $70 million collectively for collecting users’ personal information without their consent and then using that information to serve them, you guessed it, targeted ads.
The Personal Information Protection Commission, Korea’s privacy regulator, specifically issued a 69.2 billion KRW (or around $50 million) fine for Google and a lower 30.8 billion KRW (or around $22 million) penalty for Meta.
The commission reportedly takes particular issue with the shadowy ways the two companies collect information on users when they visit non-Google or Meta sites. According to the commission, those collection efforts weren’t clearly articulated and allegedly occurred without first seeking users’ consent.
Now, in addition to coughing up close to $100 million in penalties, the commission wants Google and Meta to provide users with a “clear and easy” process of consenting, according to the Associated Press.