Montana May Start Collecting Immunization Data Again Amid US Measles Outbreak
When epidemiologist Sophia Newcomer tries to evaluate how well Montana might be able to ward off the measles outbreak spreading across the U.S., she doesn’t have much data to work with.
A federal state-by-state survey last year showed that just over 86% of Montana’s 2-year-olds had recently received the measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. That figure has decreased in recent years, according to earlier surveys, and Newcomer, an associate professor at the University of Montana, said the latest rate is “well below” the ideal 95% threshold for community protection against highly contagious diseases.
But beyond that statewide estimate, information about Montana’s local and regional immunization trends is hard to come by. State officials no longer collect aggregated vaccination reports from schools and child care centers, or the included data about medical and religious exemptions. The administration of Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte discontinued the practice after he signed a 2021 bill striking the requirement.
T-Mobile Bug Reveals Names, Images, and Locations of Random Children
T-Mobile sells a little-known GPS service called SyncUP, which allows users who are parents to monitor the locations of their children. This week, an apparent glitch in the service’s system obscured the locations of users’ own children while sending them detailed information and the locations of other, random children.
404 Media first reported on the extremely creepy bug, which appears to have impacted a large number of users. The outlet notes an outpouring of consternation and concern from web users on social platforms like Reddit and X, many of which claimed to have been impacted. 404 also interviewed one specific user, “Jenna,” who explained her ordeal with the bug:
Jenna, a parent who uses SyncUP to keep track of her three-year-old and six-year-old children, logged in Tuesday and instead of seeing if her kids had left school yet, was shown the exact, real-time locations of eight random children around the country, but not the locations of her own kids. 404 Media agreed to use a pseudonym for Jenna to protect the privacy of her kids.
Former Del Mar Lifeguard Sues City for Rejecting His Covid-19 Vaccine Exemption
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported:
A former Del Mar lifeguard filed a lawsuit against the city alleging he was discriminated against during the COVID-19 pandemic when the city imposed a vaccine mandate and then denied his religious exemption request.
Johnny Seiber had been a lifeguard for the city since 2007, according to a complaint filed March 12 in San Diego County Superior Court. In November 2021, shortly after the City Council adopted a mandatory vaccination policy for city employees, he submitted a request for an exemption based on his Catholic faith. Seiber’ request was denied the next month, the complaint alleges, and then he was placed on non-disciplinary paid administrative leave. In January 2022, after turning down a reassignment to a seasonal parking position, the city ended his employment.
Reached for comment, Seiber’s attorney Brennan Hershey referred to the complaint:
“Defendants discriminated against Plaintiff by denying his religious accommodation while granting similar accommodations to others,” his complaint alleges, “failed to engage in good faith interactive process by offering only an unreasonable accommodation that would strip him of his benefits and pay, and ultimately terminated him for exercising his religious beliefs.”
‘Twitter Files’ Journalist Matt Taibbi Spars With Biden’s Disinfo Czar in Censorship Hearing: ‘We Don’t Need a Truth Squad’
“Twitter Files” journalist Matt Taibbi sparred with former President Joe Biden’s onetime “disinformation czar” Nina Jankowicz during an April 1 hearing about government censorship on Capitol Hill, ripping the past administration’s content moderation efforts for having undermined Americans’ free speech.
The House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia Subcommittee heard testimony from both about the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which was set up under former President Barack Obama to counter foreign disinformation and misinformation — but had begun targeting U.S. social media users under Biden.
“GEC officials were largely concerned with domestic, English-language accounts — people with no ties to terror groups or relationships with adversary nations like Iran, China or Russia,” Taibbi said about his extensive review of internal Twitter, now X, records in 2023.
“The American government has no role in protecting citizens from speech,” he went on. “The whole idea of the system that was designed by Jefferson and Madison is that the American people view each other as adults who are capable of sorting out the truth for themselves. “They do not need a nanny state or a guardian or a law enforcement agency to decide for them what’s truth,” he concluded.
23andMe Is Potentially Selling More Than Just Genetic Data — the Personal Survey Info It Collected Is Just as Much a Privacy Problem
As soon as the genetic testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy on March 23, 2025, concerns about what would happen to the personal information contained in its massive genetic and health information database were swift and widespread. A few days after, a U.S. judge ruled that the company could sell its consumer data as part of the bankruptcy.
The attorneys general of several states warned their citizens to delete their genetic data. California urged its citizens to request that 23andMe delete their data and destroy their spit samples. Michigan’s attorney general released a statement warning that “23andMe collects and stores some of the most sensitive personal information, our genetic code.”
When customers originally signed up for 23andMe, they agreed to terms and conditions and a privacy notice that allows the company to use their information for research and development as well as share their data, in aggregate, with third parties. If consumers consented to additional research, which the vast majority did, the company can additionally share their individual information with third parties. 23andMe has also been clear that if it is involved in a bankruptcy or sale of assets, consumer information might be sold or transferred.
