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Rand Paul Grills Mayorkas on Disinformation: ‘I Don’t Trust Government to Figure out What the Truth Is’
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., challenged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his department’s newly-announced Disinformation Governance Board, asserting that the American people do not need the federal government to tell them what the truth is. Paul specifically pointed to claims that he has made about the COVID-19 pandemic that has not been in line with administration policies.
“I’ve said a million times that cloth masks don’t work. YouTube takes me down. They’re a private company I can have that beef with them. What about you? You’re going to look at that? I often say that natural immunity from having had the infection is equal to the vaccine or better. You’re going to take that down?”
In recent months, experts have said cloth masks were not very effective in combating COVID-19, yet mask mandates continued in many schools, and until recently on public transportation, with cloth masks being acceptable coverings. Other policies that have required vaccination or testing have failed to account for immunity from a previous infection.
Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government,” Paul said.
Kyrie Irving Reflects on Heavy Criticism for Refusing the Vaccine: ‘the Life of a Martyr’
Surprised by a vaccine mandate that left him unable to play for much of last season, Kyrie Irving described himself as a “martyr” for refusing the COVID-19 shot while facing heavy scrutiny.
Irving’s anti-vaccination stance initially prompted the Nets to remove the point guard from all games and practices, claiming it unfeasible to have a part-time player for only away contests. GM Sean Marks quickly backtracked and Irving debuted on Jan. 5 in Indiana.
Still, the New York City mandate kept Irving from playing home games until April, leaving the 30-year-old with just 29 appearances during the regular season. The Nets flamed out in the playoffs and Irving, who struggled in that first-round sweep to the Celtics, acknowledged his absences were a hindrance.
Irving, who still hasn’t explained his reason for rejecting the vaccine beyond “a personal decision,” clearly doesn’t regret his decision.
New York City Could Bring Back COVID Mask Mandate, Vaccine Checks if Hospitals Come Under Pressure
New York City could bring back mask mandates and proof of vaccination status to go to restaurants, bars and other venues if COVID hospitalizations rise to a concerning level, according to the city’s top health official.
The city increased its COVID alert level from low to medium earlier this week as infections surpassed a rate of 200 per 100,000 people, driven by the more contagious Omicron BA.2 subvariant. For now, health officials are asking residents to exercise increased caution by voluntarily masking indoors and getting tested before and after gatherings.
However, Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said New York might reinstate mandatory masking and vaccine checks if the city raises its COVID alert level to high.
Army Officer Convicted in First Known COVID Court-Martial
An officer who formerly served as the Army Public Health Center’s headquarters company commander was convicted by a special court-martial Friday of two specifications of violating lawful orders to comply with COVID-19 mitigation measures at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
1st Lt. Mark Bashaw was found guilty of refusing an order to telework and reporting to his office without submitting to a COVID-19 test or otherwise furnishing a negative test result, according to installation spokesperson Amburr Reese. Those mitigation measures were required of unvaccinated troops at Aberdeen.
Bashaw, a former Air Force NCO and father of three, was also found guilty of failing to wear a mask indoors. The trial concluded Friday. His listed attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via social media.
The military judge who oversaw Bashaw’s trial opted not to punish him. However, the conviction gives Bashaw a criminal record that may impede future employment opportunities.
From Estee Lauder to Apple, Big Companies Say China’s COVID Restrictions Are Hitting Business
Several international corporations warned in the last week the drag from China’s COVID controls will hit their entire business.
Since March, mainland China has battled an outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron variant by using swift lockdowns and travel restrictions. The same strategy had helped the country quickly return to growth in 2020 while the rest of the world struggled to contain the virus.
Now the latest lockdown in Shanghai has lasted for more than a month with only slight progress toward resuming full production, while Beijing has temporarily closed some service businesses to control a recent spike in COVID cases.
Here is a selection of what some of the companies have told investors about China in the last week:
Millions In Beijing Urged to Work From Home to Fight COVID
International Business Times reported:
The streets of Beijing’s business district were deserted on Thursday as the government called for people to return to work remotely, with scores of subway stations shut after a national holiday muted by coronavirus curbs.
Chinese authorities have stuck to their zero-COVID policy of lockdowns and mass testing as they battle the biggest outbreak since the early days of the pandemic, with entire neighborhoods in the capital sealed over handfuls of infections.
SA’s New COVID Rules: Masks Stay on Until the Minister of Health Says Otherwise
Business Insider South Africa reported:
Masks are still required in publicly accessible buildings and on public transport, after a late-night update to COVID-19 rules on Wednesday.
Now it will be up to the minister of health to decree when masks are no longer needed — and to re-impose the mask mandate at any point after that.
Health minister Joe Phaahla published amendments to health regulations on Wednesday night, just hours before a 30-day set of transitional rules — put in place after the end of the national state of disaster on COVID-19 — automatically lapsed.
Nearly a Third of U.S. Adults Are More ‘Scared’ of the Metaverse Than ‘Excited’
If you’re looking forward to a future spent working and playing in the virtual realms of the metaverse, you’re currently in the minority.
According to a recent survey of more than 2,500 U.S. adults, people are currently more likely to fear the metaverse than be excited about it. The survey, which ran from March 23-25 and was conducted by Axios and market research software company Momentive, asked respondents if the idea of the metaverse made them “more excited or scared about the future.”
Only 7% of respondents said the idea of a metaverse — virtual worlds where you can interact with friends and coworkers, play games and watch live events, all with a VR headset — made them “more excited” about the future. Almost one-third of respondents said it made them “more scared.”
Elon Musk Expected to Serve as Temporary Twitter CEO After Deal Closes
Elon Musk is expected to serve as a temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months after he completes his $44 billion takeover of the social media company, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.
An SEC filing on Thursday revealed Musk secured approximately $7.14 billion in equity commitments from friends and other investors to buy Twitter. Faber said Musk handpicked the investors. Commitments range from $1 billion from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison to $5 million from Honeycomb Asset Management, which invested in SpaceX.
Faber added that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey may back it, and Musk is talking to him about the possibility of contributing shares immediately or before the closing of the merger.
Facebook Is Freezing Hiring. Here’s Why, Who It Impacts and When It’s Happening.
Facebook is pausing on hiring and scaling back plans to acquire new talent across the company.
CFO David Wehner said the company, which has rebranded to Meta, is doing so as part of its “reprioritization” as it tackles challenges that caused it to miss revenue targets, according to an internal memo shared on Wednesday seen by Insider. Insider’s Kali Hays and Rob Price were the first to report Facebook’s hiring freeze.
In a separate memo, Facebook’s global head of recruiting, Miranda Kalinowski, said the company’s engineering team would be first to be impacted by these hiring decisions while management continues to adjust hiring targets elsewhere.
It’s rare for Facebook to freeze hiring. The last time they did so was at the start of the pandemic as the company scrambled to put in place processes to onboard new hires, a worker there at the time told Insider.
Meta, TikTok and YouTube May Finally Have to Start Sharing Data With Researchers
On Wednesday, Congress was treated to the unfamiliar spectacle of highly intelligent people, talking with nuance, about platform regulation. The occasion was a hearing, titled “Platform Transparency: Understanding the Impact of Social Media,” and it served as a chance for members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider the necessity of legislation that would require big tech platforms to make themselves available for study by qualified researchers and members of the public.
Brandon Silverman, who left the company now known as Meta in October, is co-founder of the transparency tool CrowdTangle. “YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, and Snapchat represent some of the largest and most influential platforms in the United States, and they provide almost no functional transparency into their systems. And as a result, they avoid nearly all of the scrutiny and criticism that comes with it,” said Silverman.
He continued: “That reality has industry-wide implications, and it frequently led to conversations inside Facebook about whether or not it was better to simply do nothing, since you could easily get away with it.”
Broke: Breaking up Big Tech. Woke: Breaking up Big Ads.
This week, Bloomberg reported that a bipartisan group of lawmakers is inching closer to another big plan to break up big tech. But unlike grandiloquent calls for Meta to divest Instagram or for Google to divest Chrome, this new legislation would force both companies to divest the heart of their money-making machinery: their ads business.
Citing two people familiar with the forthcoming bill, Bloomberg reports that the bill would bar any company with more than $20 billion in digital ad revenue from owning the tech needed to both buy ads and sell ads as well as the online marketplace where those transactions happen — digital vertical integration, in other words.
For a company like Google, which does all three of those things, is valued at $1.6 trillion, and earns more than $20 billion in a single quarter, that would spell trouble. The bill’s impending appearance on the Senate floor was first leaked in January. Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee is reportedly spearheading the legislation.
