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Bill Maher Spars With Seth MacFarlane Over COVID Vax Mandates: ‘Djokovic Didn’t Need It’
Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher got into a bit of a verbal sparring match with “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane over the COVID-19 vaccines and mandates, arguing that the United States had failed to recognize the value of natural immunity.
The discussion came about during the latest episode of Maher’s podcast, “Club Random,” and Maher posited that pushing the vaccine on everyone — even those who had already contracted the virus — was “powerful stupid.”
MacFarlane pushed back, saying that vaccination reduced the risk of hospitalization and death.
“But that’s assuming that all people are alike,” Maher said. “And that is one of the giant fallacies in your way of thinking, we are not all alike.” He went on to argue that it was the wrong decision for the vaccine to be pushed on everyone — even those who were not considered high-risk.
“[Novak] Djokovic didn’t need it. Aaron Rodgers didn’t need it,” Maher continued over MacFarlane’s objections. “You completely want to shut your eyes to the fact that there are repercussions to all medical interventions including a vaccine!”
Google Settles $5 Billion Consumer Privacy Lawsuit
Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of millions of people who thought they were doing their browsing privately.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, put a scheduled Feb. 5, 2024 trial in the proposed class action on hold on Thursday, after lawyers for Google and for consumers said they had reached a preliminary settlement. The lawsuit had sought at least $5 billion. Settlement terms were not disclosed, but the lawyers said they have agreed to a binding term sheet through mediation, and expected to present a formal settlement for court approval by Feb. 24, 2024.
The plaintiffs alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit track their activity even when they set Google’s Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode. In August, Rogers rejected Google’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
Filed in 2020, the lawsuit covered “millions” of Google users since June 1, 2016, and sought at least $5,000 in damages per user for violations of federal wire-tapping and California privacy laws.
COVID Map Shows States With Highest Cases as Hospital Mask Mandates Return
Areas across the U.S. are experiencing a rise in COVID-19 infections, with some hospital authorities recommending mask mandates once again. A map using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows where the worst-affected areas in the country are, with the Midwest and Northeast showing notable case numbers.
The flu season, when respiratory illnesses including COVID-19 rise in the winter, has led to some hospitals in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Washington D.C. bringing in mask mandates.
Major Massachusetts care system Mass General Brigham said masks would be in place for all healthcare staff in direct contact with patients until the COVID-19 rate fell sufficiently.
MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington D.C. staff are required to wear masks at work, The Hill reported, along with NYC Health + Hospitals.
Social Media ‘Absolutely’ Causing Increases in Anxiety and Depression, Utah Governor Says
Rates of loneliness, anxiety and depression have shot up across America, and social media is “absolutely” one of the causes, Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) says.
“I think it’s obvious to anyone who spends any time on social media or has kids — I have four kids. I’ve seen what’s happened to them as they’ve spent time on social media, and their friends, that this is absolutely causing these terrible increases, these hockey stick-like increases that we are seeing in anxiety, depression, and self-harm amongst our youth,” Cox, the chair of National Governors Association, said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that aired Sunday.
Legislation that Utah enacted earlier this year that would require social media users to verify their age in order to access their accounts — putting restrictions on when and how users under 18 could access social media sites — is currently facing legal challenges from a trade group that represents Meta, TikTok and X. First Amendment advocates have also argued the law, which is to go into effect in 2024, infringes on free speech rights.
Cox told NBC’s Kristen Welker he is not impressed by arguments made against Utah’s law. “They know this is harming our kids,” Cox said of big tech companies. “They’re covering it up. They’re doing everything possible to take advantage of our kids for their own gain. And we’re not going to stand for that. And so we’re still pushing forward.”
States Looking to 2024 to Pass Revised Kids’ Online Safety Bills
A group of state legislators and children’s safety advocates are planning a renewed campaign to import British digital safeguards for kids into the United States as they look to ward off legal challenges from the tech industry.
After California passed a landmark online safety law in 2021 — styled after child protection rules in the United Kingdom — lawmakers in several other states, including Maryland and Minnesota, introduced their versions.
The law, known as the California Age-Appropriate Design Code, requires digital services to “prioritize” the well-being of children when developing products and vet those tools for potential risks before rolling them out.
California’s legislature passed the measure unanimously, a sign of the growing political consensus over ways social media platforms and other sites may expose children to harmful content and manipulate them through product features.
But the campaign was dealt a major blow in September when a federal judge temporarily blocked the law and said it probably does “not pass constitutional muster.” That case, which is still pending, could ultimately decide the fate of similar bills nationwide.
Mortgage Company Data Breach Exposes More Than a Million Americans
More than 1 million Americans have been exposed after mortgage company LoanCare suffered a data breach last month. According to a filing from the Maine Attorney General, the breach occurred on November 19 and was discovered on December 13.
In total, 1.3 million consumers across the country had their information exposed because of hacking in the system that targeted names and Social Security numbers. Addresses and loan numbers could have been exposed, as well.
While it’s unclear what caused the data breach, the company confirmed in its filing that an unauthorized party gained access and took data from its systems.
Hackers who now have access to your Social Security number can easily open new credit accounts and loans as well as potentially drain your existing financial accounts or even get medical services under your insurance.
ChatGPT Misdiagnosed Most Pediatric Cases — Older Version of the Chatbot Was Wrong in 83% of Kids’ Clinical Scenarios
A large language model (LLM)-based chatbot gave the wrong diagnosis for the majority of pediatric cases, researchers found.
ChatGPT version 3.5 reached an incorrect diagnosis in 83 out of 100 pediatric case challenges. Among the incorrect diagnoses, 72 were actually incorrect and 11 were clinically related to the correct diagnosis but too broad to be considered correct, reported Joseph Barile, BA, of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, and colleagues in JAMA Pediatrics.
For example, ChatGPT got it wrong in a case of rash and arthralgias in a teenager with autism. The physician diagnosis was “scurvy,” and the chatbot diagnosis was “immune thrombocytopenic purpura.”
An example of an instance in which the chatbot diagnosis was determined to not fully capture the diagnosis was in the case of a draining papule on the lateral neck of an infant. The physician diagnosis was “branchio-oto-renal syndrome,” and the chatbot diagnosis was “branchial cleft cyst.”
Facial Recognition Could Replace Passports at U.K. Airport E-Gates
It has happened to the best of us. The last-minute racking of brains on arrival in the U.K. to try to remember where the passports were packed, followed by the panicked fumbling all the way to the bottom of every compartment of every bag.
That may all be in the past though, should plans reportedly proposed by the government’s borders agency go ahead, with the need to present the document on arrival in the U.K. being replaced by facial recognition technology.
Phil Douglas, the director general of Border Force, said he had been “really impressed” by e-gate schemes in Australia and Dubai.
According to the Times, trials are expected to begin at airports this year, with a procurement process for the hardware needed to introduce the system across the country due to follow if it succeeds.
The Times reported that biometric details of British and Irish travelers were already held after being obtained in the passport application process.
