texas

Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

adult content, adult entertainment, age verification, arkansas, aylo, child safety, idaho, Identity theft, Indiana, kansas, Kentucky, lousiana, mississippi, montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, phishing, Policy, pornhub, texas, Utah, Virginia / Mike M. / June 22, 2024

“Uphill battle” —

The number of states blocked by Pornhub will soon nearly double.

Ashley Belanger – Jun 20, 2024 8: 33 pm UTC

Pornhub will soon be blocked in five more states as the adult site continues to fight what it considers privacy-infringing age-verification laws that require Internet users to provide an ID to access pornography.

On July 1, according to a blog post on the adult site announcing the impending block, Pornhub visitors in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska will be “greeted by a video featuring” adult entertainer Cherie Deville, “who explains why we had to make the difficult decision to block them from accessing Pornhub.”

Pornhub explained that—similar to blocks in Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, and Mississippi—the site refuses to comply with soon-to-be-enforceable age-verification laws in this new batch of states that allegedly put users at “substantial risk” of identity theft, phishing, and other harms.

Age-verification laws requiring adult site visitors to submit “private information many times to adult sites all over the Internet” normalizes the unnecessary disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII), Pornhub argued, warning, “this is not a privacy-by-design approach.”

Pornhub does not outright oppose age verification but advocates for laws that require device-based age verification, which allows users to access adult sites after authenticating their identity on their devices. That’s “the best and most effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike,” Pornhub argued, because the age-verification technology is proven and less PII would be shared.

“Users would only get verified once, through their operating system, not on each age-restricted site,” Pornhub’s blog said, claiming that “this dramatically reduces privacy risks and creates a very simple process for regulators to enforce.”

A spokesperson for Pornhub-owner Aylo told Ars that “unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.”

“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy,” Aylo’s spokesperson told Ars. “Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.

Age-verification laws are harmful, Pornhub says

Pornhub’s big complaint with current age-verification laws is that these laws are hard to enforce and seem to make it riskier than ever to visit an adult site.

“Since age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door for the risk of data breaches,” Pornhub’s blog said. “Whether or not your intentions are good, governments have historically struggled to secure this data. It also creates an opportunity for criminals to exploit and extort people through phishing attempts or fake [age verification] processes, an unfortunate and all too common practice.”

Over the past few years, the risk of identity theft or stolen PII on both widely used and smaller niche adult sites has been well-documented.

Hundreds of millions of people were impacted by major leaks exposing PII shared with popular adult sites like Adult Friend Finder and Brazzers in 2016, while likely tens of thousands of users were targeted on eight poorly secured adult sites in 2018. Niche and free sites have also been vulnerable to attacks, including millions collectively exposed through breaches of fetish porn site Luscious in 2019 and MyFreeCams in 2021.

And those are just the big breaches that make headlines. In 2019, Kaspersky Lab reported that malware targeting online porn account credentials more than doubled in 2018, and researchers analyzing 22,484 pornography websites estimated that 93 percent were leaking user data to a third party.

That’s why Pornhub argues that, as states have passed age-verification laws requiring ID, they’ve “introduced harm” by redirecting visitors to adult sites that have fewer privacy protections and worse security, allegedly exposing users to more threats.

As an example, Pornhub reported, traffic to Pornhub in Louisiana “dropped by approximately 80 percent” after their age-verification law passed. That allegedly showed not just how few users were willing to show an ID to access their popular platform, but also how “very easily” users could simply move to “pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don’t ask visitors to verify their age.”

Pornhub has continued to argue that states passing laws like Louisiana’s cannot effectively enforce the laws and are simply shifting users to make riskier choices when accessing porn.

“The Louisiana law and other copycat state-level laws have no regulator, only civil liability, which results in a flawed enforcement regime, effectively making it an option for platform operators to comply,” Pornhub’s blog said. As one of the world’s most popular adult platforms, Pornhub would surely be targeted for enforcement if found to be non-compliant, while smaller adult sites perhaps plagued by security risks and disincentivized to check IDs would go unregulated, the thinking goes.

Aylo’s spokesperson shared 2023 Similarweb data with Ars, showing that sites complying with age-verification laws in Virginia, including Pornhub and xHamster, lost substantial traffic while seven non-compliant sites saw a sharp uptick in traffic. Similar trends were observed in Google trends data in Utah and Mississippi, while market shares were seemingly largely maintained in California, a state not yet checking IDs to access adult sites.

Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs Read More »

Bird flu virus from Texas human case kills 100% of ferrets in CDC study

animal experiments, bird flu, CDC, dairy cows, Ferrets, H5N1, Infectious disease, respiratory transmission, Science, texas, Transmission / Mike M. / June 10, 2024

Animal study —

H5N1 bird flu viruses have shown to be lethal in ferret model before.

Beth Mole – Jun 10, 2024 5: 19 pm UTC

The strain of H5N1 bird flu isolated from a dairy worker in Texas was 100 percent fatal in ferrets used to model influenza illnesses in humans. However, the virus appeared inefficient at spreading via respiratory droplets, according to newly released study results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data confirms that H5N1 infections are significantly different from seasonal influenza viruses that circulate in humans. Those annual viruses make ferrets sick but are not deadly. They have also shown to be highly efficient at spreading via respiratory droplets, with 100 percent transmission rates in laboratory settings. In contrast, the strain from the Texas man (A/Texas/37/2024) appeared to have only a 33 percent transmission rate via respiratory droplets among ferrets.

“This suggests that A/Texas/37/2024-like viruses would need to undergo changes to spread efficiently by droplets through the air, such as from coughs and sneezes,” the CDC said in its data summary. The agency went on to note that “efficient respiratory droplet spread, like what is seen with seasonal influenza viruses, is needed for sustained person-to-person spread to happen.”

In the CDC’s study, researchers infected six ferrets with A/Texas/37/2024. The CDC’s data summary did not specify how the ferrets were infected in this study, but in other recent ferret H5N1 studies, the animals were infected by putting the virus in their noses. Ars has reached out to the agency for clarity on the inoculation route in the latest study and will update the story with any additional information provided.

All six of the infected ferrets developed severe disease and died. To test how well the virus could spread among the ferrets, the CDC scientists set up experiments to test transmission through direct contact and respiratory droplets. For the direct transmission test, three healthy ferrets were placed in the same enclosures with three experimentally infected ferrets. All three healthy ferrets became infected.

For the respiratory transmission test, three healthy ferrets were placed in enclosures next to enclosures containing the experimentally infected animals. The infected and uninfected ferrets shared air, but did not have direct contact with each other. Of the three healthy ferrets, only one contracted the H5N1 virus (33 percent). Additionally, that one respiratory transmission event seemed to have a one- to two-day delay compared with what’s seen in the same test with seasonal influenza viruses. This suggests further that the virus is inefficient at respiratory transmission.

The CDC called the overall results “not surprising.” Previous ferret experiments with H5N1 isolates—collected prior to the current bird flu outbreak among US dairy cows—have also found that H5N1 is often lethal to ferrets. Likewise, H5N1 isolates collected from Spain and Chile during the current global outbreak also found that the virus was inefficient at spreading via respiratory droplets among ferrets—with rates ranging from 0 percent to 37.5 percent.

For now, the findings don’t affect the CDC’s overall risk assessment for the general public, which is low. However, it does reinforce the risk to those who have contact with infected animals, particularly dairy and poultry farm workers.

To date, there have been four human cases of H5N1 in the US since the current global bird flu outbreak began in 2022—one in a poultry farm worker in 2022 and three in dairy farm workers, all reported between the beginning of April and the end of May this year. So far, the cases have been mild, the CDC noted, but given the results in ferrets, “it is possible that there will be serious illnesses among people,” the agency concluded.

As of June 9, the US Department of Agriculture has confirmed H5N1 in 85 dairy herds and one alpaca farm across 10 states.

Bird flu virus from Texas human case kills 100% of ferrets in CDC study Read More »

SpaceX is about to launch Starship again—the FAA will be more forgiving this time

Commercial space, Federal Aviation Administration, launch, Science, Space, spacex, Starbase, starship, starship ift-4, texas / Ryan Harris / June 5, 2024

The rocket for SpaceX's fourth full-scale Starship test flight awaits liftoff from Starbase, the company's private launch base in South Texas. — Enlarge / The rocket for SpaceX’s fourth full-scale Starship test flight awaits liftoff from Starbase, the company’s private launch base in South Texas.

SpaceX

The Federal Aviation Administration approved the commercial launch license for the fourth test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket Tuesday, with liftoff from South Texas targeted for just after sunrise Thursday.

“The FAA has approved a license authorization for SpaceX Starship Flight 4,” the agency said in a statement. “SpaceX met all safety and other licensing requirements for this test flight.”

Shortly after the FAA announced the launch license, SpaceX confirmed plans to launch the fourth test flight of the world’s largest rocket at 7: 00 am CDT (12: 00 UTC) Thursday. The launch window runs for two hours.

This flight follows three prior demonstration missions, each progressively more successful, of SpaceX’s privately developed mega-rocket. The last time Starship flew—on March 14—it completed an eight-and-a-half minute climb into space, but the ship was unable to maneuver itself as it coasted nearly 150 miles (250 km) above Earth. This controllability problem caused the rocket to break apart during reentry.

On Thursday’s flight, SpaceX officials will expect the ascent portion of the test flight to be similarly successful to the launch in March. The objectives this time will be to demonstrate Starship’s ability to survive the most extreme heating of reentry, when temperatures peak at 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius) as the vehicle plunges into the atmosphere at more than 20 times the speed of sound.

SpaceX officials also hope to see the Super Heavy booster guide itself toward a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico just offshore from the company’s launch site, known as Starbase, in Cameron County, Texas.

“The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX wrote in an overview of the mission.

Last month, SpaceX completed a “wet dress rehearsal” at Starbase, where the launch team fully loaded the rocket with cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen propellants. Before the practice countdown, SpaceX test-fired the booster and ship at the launch site. More recently, technicians installed components of the rocket’s self-destruct system, which would activate to blow up the rocket if it flies off course.

Then, on Tuesday, SpaceX lowered the Starship upper stage from the top of the Super Heavy booster, presumably to perform final touch-ups to the ship’s heat shield, composed of 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles to protect its stainless-steel structure during reentry. Ground teams were expected to raise the ship, or upper stage, back on top of the booster sometime Wednesday, returning the rocket to its full height of 397 feet (121 meters) ahead of Thursday morning’s launch window.

The tick-tock of Starship’s fourth flight

If all goes according to plan, SpaceX’s launch team will start loading 10 million pounds of super-cold propellants into the rocket around 49 minutes before liftoff Thursday. The methane and liquid oxygen will first flow into the smaller tanks on the ship, then into the larger tanks on the booster.

The rocket should be fully loaded about three minutes prior to launch, and, following a sequence of automated checks, the computer controlling the countdown will give the command to light the booster’s 33 Raptor engines. Three seconds later, the rocket will begin its vertical climb off the launch mount, with its engines capable of producing more than 16 million pounds of thrust at full power.

Heading east from the Texas Gulf Coast, the rocket will exceed the speed of sound in about a minute, then begin shutting down its 33 main engines around 2 minutes and 41 seconds after liftoff. Then, just as the Super Heavy booster jettisons to begin a descent back to Earth, Starship’s six Raptor engines will ignite to continue pushing the upper portion of the rocket into space. Starship’s engines are expected to burn until T+ 8 minutes, 23 seconds, accelerating the rocket to near-orbital velocity with enough energy to fly an arcing trajectory halfway around the world to the Indian Ocean.

All of this will be similar to the events of the last Starship launch in March. What differs in the flight plan this time involves the attempts to steer the booster and ship back to Earth. This is important to lay the groundwork for future flights, when SpaceX wants to bring the Super Heavy booster—the size of the fuselage of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet—to a landing back at its launch pad. Eventually, SpaceX also intends to recover reusable Starships back at Starbase or other spaceports.

Enlarge / This infographic released by SpaceX shows the flight profile for SpaceX’s fourth Starship launch.

SpaceX

Based on the results of the March test flight, SpaceX still has a lot to prove in these areas. On that flight, the engines on the Super Heavy booster could not complete all the burns required to guide the rocket toward the splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The booster lost control as it plummeted toward the ocean.

Engineers traced the failure to blockage in a filter where liquid oxygen flows into the Raptor engines. Notably, a similar problem occurred on the second Starship test flight last November. The Super Heavy booster awaiting launch Thursday has additional hardware to improve propellant filtration capabilities, according to SpaceX. The company also implemented “operational changes” on the booster for the upcoming test flight, including to jettison the Super Heavy’s staging ring, which sits between the booster and ship during launch, to reduce the rocket’s mass during descent.

SpaceX has a lot of experience bringing back its fleet of Falcon 9 boosters. The company now boasts a streak of more than 240 successful rocket landings in a row, so it’s reasonable to expect SpaceX will overcome the challenge of recovering the larger Super Heavy booster.

SpaceX is about to launch Starship again—the FAA will be more forgiving this time Read More »

Judge halts Texas probe into Media Matters’ reporting on X

elon musk, First Amendment, free speech, ken paxton, media matters for America, Policy, texas, Twitter, x twitter / Blake Jones / April 15, 2024

Enlarge / Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on February 23, 2024.

A judge has preliminarily blocked what Media Matters for America (MMFA) described as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to “rifle through” confidential documents to prove that MMFA fraudulently manipulated X (formerly Twitter) data to ruin X’s advertising business, as Elon Musk has alleged.

After Musk accused MMFA of publishing reports that Musk claimed were designed to scare advertisers off X, Paxton promptly launched his own investigation into MMFA last November.

Suing MMFA over alleged violations of Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act—which prohibits “disparaging the goods, services, or business of another by false or misleading representation of facts”—Paxton sought a wide range of MMFA documents through a civil investigative demand (CID). Filing a motion to block the CID, MMFA told the court that the CID had violated the media organization’s First Amendment rights, providing evidence that Paxton’s investigation and CID had chilled MMFA speech.

Paxton had requested Media Matters’ financial records—including “direct and indirect sources of funding for all Media Matters operations involving X research or publications”—as well as “internal and external communications” on “Musk’s purchase of X” and X’s current CEO Linda Yaccarino. He also asked for all of Media Matters’ communications with X representatives and X advertisers.

But perhaps most invasive, Paxton wanted to see all the communications about Media Matters’ X reporting that triggered the lawsuits, which, as US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in an opinion published Friday, was a compelled disclosure that “poses a serious threat to the vitality of the newsgathering process.”

Mehta was concerned that MMFA showed that “Media Matters’ editorial leaders have pared back reporting and publishing, particularly on any topics that could be perceived as relating to the Paxton investigation”—including two follow-ups on its X reporting. Because of Paxton’s alleged First Amendment retaliation, MMFA said it did not publish “two pieces concerning X’s placement of advertising alongside antisemitic, pro-Nazi accounts”—”not out of legitimate concerns about fairness or accuracy,” but “out of fear of harassment, threats, and retaliation.”

According to Mehta’s order, Paxton did not contest that Texas’ lawsuit had chilled MMFA’s speech. Further, Paxton had given at least one podcast interview where he called upon other state attorneys general to join him in investigating MMFA.

Because Paxton “projected himself across state lines and asserted a pseudo-national executive authority,” Mehta wrote and repeatedly described MMFA as a “radical anti-free speech” or “radical left-wing organization,” the court had seen sufficient “evidence of retaliatory intent.”

“Notably,” Mehta wrote, Paxton remained “silent” and never “submitted a sworn declaration that explains his reasons for opening the investigation.”

In his press release, Paxton justified the investigation by saying, “We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square.”

Ultimately, Mehta granted MMFA’s request for a preliminary injunction to block Paxton’s CID because the judge found that the investigation and the CID have caused MMFA “to self-censor when making research and publication decisions, adversely affected the relationships between editors and reporters, and restricted communications with sources and journalists.”

“Only injunctive relief will ‘prevent the [ongoing] deprivation of free speech rights,'” Mehta’s opinion said, deeming MMFA’s reporting as “core First Amendment activities.”

Mehta’s order also banned Paxton from taking any steps to further his investigation until the lawsuit is decided.

In a statement Friday, MMFA President and CEO Angelo Carusone celebrated the win as not just against Paxton but also against Musk.

“Elon Musk encouraged Republican state attorneys general to use their power to harass their critics and stifle reporting about X,” Carusone said. “Ken Paxton was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated. Today’s decision is a victory for free speech.”

Paxton has not yet responded to the preliminary injunction and his office did not respond to Ars’ request to comment..

Media Matters’ lawyer, Aria C. Branch, a partner at Elias Law Group, told Ars that “while Attorney General Paxton’s office has not yet responded to Friday’s ruling, the preliminary injunction should certainly put an end to these kind of lawless, politically motivated attempts to muzzle the press.”

Judge halts Texas probe into Media Matters’ reporting on X Read More »

Texas surgeon accused of secretly blocking patients from getting transplants

data manipulation, kidney, liver, Science, texas, transplant / Ari B / April 12, 2024

Bizarre —

The motive for the alleged data manipulation is unknown.

Beth Mole – Apr 12, 2024 7: 41 pm UTC

An accomplished and prominent transplant surgeon in Texas allegedly falsified patient data in a government transplant waiting list, which may have prevented his own patients from receiving lifesaving liver transplants, according to media reports and hospital statements.

Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center halted its liver transplant program on April 3 after finding “irregularities” with donor acceptance criteria, the Houston Chronicle reported based on a statement from the hospital. At the time there were 38 patients on the hospital’s wait list for a liver. Earlier this week, the hospital also halted its kidney transplant program, telling the Chronicle that it was pausing operations to “evaluate a new physician leadership structure.”

Memorial Hermann has not named the surgeon behind the “inappropriate changes,” but The New York Times identified him as Dr. Steve Bynon, a surgeon who has received numerous accolades and, at one point, appears to have been featured on a billboard. Bynon oversaw both the liver and kidney transplant programs at Memorial Hermann.

According to the Times, the hospital said that a doctor in its liver transplant program had admitted to changing patient records, and those changes led to patients being denied transplants. Officials who spoke with the Times identified said physician as Bynon.

Bynon is a surgical transplant director at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), as well as the leader of Memorial Hermann’s abdominal transplant program. Ars was not able to reach Bynon for comment. When reporters for the Times reached Bynon by phone Thursday, he did not confirm that he had admitted to manipulating the data and referred further questions to UTHealth Houston.

On Friday, UTHealth Houston released a statement defending Bynon, saying that he is “an exceptionally talented and caring physician, and a pioneer in abdominal organ transplantation.” The statement continued by saying that the survival rates and outcomes for Dr. Bynon’s transplant patients are among the best in the country. “Our faculty and staff members, including Dr. Bynon, are assisting with the inquiry into Memorial Hermann’s liver transplant program and are committed to addressing and resolving any findings identified by this process,” it said.

Officials at Memorial Hermann told the Times that the data allegedly manipulated involved criteria for organ donors. When doctors place patients on a waiting list for an organ donation, they specify criteria for acceptable donors. This includes factors like a potential donor’s age and weight. But, according to the officials, entries for some of the patients in Bynon’s program had criteria that were set to impossible conditions, such as a patient only accepting organs from a toddler who weighed 300 pounds. This effectively made Bynon’s patients ineligible for a transplant.

The Chronicle notes that Memorial Hermann has seen increasing numbers of liver transplant candidates die or become too sick for a transplant while on the waitlist. According to federal data, in 2021, only four patients died or got too sick for a transplant while on the hospital’s liver transplant waiting list. In 2022, the number increased to 11, and in 2023, it was 14. So far this year, there are five patients who have died or gotten too sick while waiting.

If the allegations are true, it’s unclear what motivated Bynon to alter the data.

It’s also unclear when the hospital’s transplant programs will resume. In a statement Friday, Memorial Hermann said it is working to “make the necessary changes that will allow for the quick reactivation of the kidney transplant program under a different physician leadership structure.” It did not address when the liver transplant program may resume.

Texas surgeon accused of secretly blocking patients from getting transplants Read More »

Elon Musk shares “extremely false” allegation of voting fraud by “illegals”

elon musk, Policy, texas, voter fraud, woke / Ari B / April 4, 2024

Getty Images | Nathan Stirk

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson yesterday issued a statement debunking claims of widespread voter fraud that were amplified by X owner Elon Musk on the social network formerly named Twitter. Election officials in two other states also disputed the “extremely false” information shared by Musk.

Musk is generally a big fan of Texas, but on Tuesday he shared a post by the account “End Wokeness” that claimed, “The number of voters registering without a photo ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states: Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania.” The account claimed there were 1.25 million such registrations in Texas since the beginning of 2024, over 580,000 in Pennsylvania, and over 220,000 in Arizona.

“Extremely concerning,” Musk wrote in a ~~retweet~~ re-X. The End Wokeness post shared by Musk suggested that “illegals” are registering to vote in large numbers by using Social Security numbers that can be obtained for work authorizations. The End Wokeness post has been viewed 63 million times so far, and Musk’s re-post has been viewed 58.2 million times.

Nelson’s statement on the Texas government’s website called the claim “totally inaccurate.” For one thing, the real number of voter registrations is a small fraction of the number claimed in the post shared by Musk, the secretary of state wrote:

It is totally inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas without a photo ID this year. The truth is our voter rolls have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024. This is less than the number of people registered in the same timeframe in 2022 (about 65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).

“Extremely false”

The Texas Secretary of State office reports having 17,948,242 registered voters for the March 2024 elections, a gain of just under 189,000 voters since November 2023. The total gain over the past 24 months is a little over 764,000.

Pennsylvania’s data shows the state has 8.7 million registered voters and 87,440 voter registrations so far in 2024. Most of those were applications for party changes, while the other 39,877 were new-voter registrations.

Arizona’s total number of registered voters has been declining. While Arizona had 4.28 million registered voters in 2020 and 4.14 million in 2022, the state’s tally in March 2024 was 4,096,260.

Musk’s “Extremely concerning” post got a reply from Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who called it “extremely false.”

“We haven’t even had that many new registrants TOTAL in 2024 in Arizona,” stated Richer, an elected official and Republican who has been active in calling out election misinformation on X. “And we have fewer than 35,000 registrants (out of 4.1 million registered voters in Arizona) who haven’t provided documented proof of citizenship.”

Musk’s platform has faced plenty of criticism over its moderation of misinformation on elections and other topics. After reports of deep cuts to X’s election integrity team in September 2023, Musk claimed the ex-X employees were “undermining election integrity.”

Elon Musk shares “extremely false” allegation of voting fraud by “illegals” Read More »

X filing “thermonuclear lawsuit” in Texas should be “fatal,” Media Matters says

elon musk, First Amendment, free speech, hate speech, media matters for America, online hate speech, Policy, texas, Twitter, X / Blake Jones / April 2, 2024

Ever since Elon Musk’s X Corp sued Media Matters for America (MMFA) over a pair of reports that X (formerly Twitter) claims caused an advertiser exodus in 2023, one big question has remained for onlookers: Why is this fight happening in Texas?

In a motion to dismiss filed in Texas’ northern district last month, MMFA argued that X’s lawsuit should be dismissed not just because of a “fatal jurisdictional defect,” but “dismissal is also required for lack of venue.”

Notably, MMFA is based in Washington, DC, while “X is organized under Nevada law and maintains its principal place of business in San Francisco, California, where its own terms of service require users of its platform to litigate any disputes.”

“Texas is not a fair or reasonable forum for this lawsuit,” MMFA argued, suggesting that “the case must be dismissed or transferred” because “neither the parties nor the cause of action has any connection to Texas.”

Last Friday, X responded to the motion to dismiss, claiming that the lawsuit—which Musk has described as “thermonuclear”—was appropriately filed in Texas because MMFA “intentionally” targeted readers and at least two X advertisers located in Texas, Oracle and AT&T. According to X, because MMFA “identified Oracle, a Texas-based corporation, by name in its coverage,” MMFA “cannot claim surprise at being held to answer for its conduct in Texas.” X also claimed that Texas has jurisdiction because Musk resides in Texas and “makes numerous critical business decisions about X while in Texas.”

This so-called targeting of Texans caused a “substantial part” of alleged financial harms that X attributes to MMFA’s reporting, X alleged.

According to X, MMFA specifically targeted X in Texas by sending newsletters sharing its reports with “hundreds or thousands” of Texas readers and by allegedly soliciting donations from Texans to support MMFA’s reporting.

But MMFA pushed back, saying that “Texas subscribers comprise a disproportionately small percentage of Media Matters’ newsletter recipients” and that MMFA did “not solicit Texas donors to fund Media Matters’s journalism concerning X.” Because of this, X’s “efforts to concoct claim-related Texas contacts amount to a series of shots in the dark, uninformed guesses, and irrelevant tangents,” MMFA argued.

On top of that, MMFA argued that X could not attribute any financial harms allegedly caused by MMFA’s reports to either of the two Texas-based advertisers that X named in its court filings. Oracle, MMFA said, “by X’s own admission,… did not withdraw its ads” from X, and AT&T was not named in MMFA’s reporting, and thus, “any investigation AT&T did into its ad placement on X was of its own volition and is not plausibly connected to Media Matters.” MMFA has argued that advertisers, particularly sophisticated Fortune 500 companies, made their own decisions to stop advertising on X, perhaps due to widely reported increases in hate speech on X or even Musk’s own seemingly antisemitic posting.

Ars could not immediately reach X, Oracle, or AT&T for comment.

X’s suit allegedly designed to break MMFA

MMFA President Angelo Carusone, who is a defendant in X’s lawsuit, told Ars that X’s recent filing has continued to “expose” the lawsuit as a “meritless and vexatious effort to inflict maximum damage on critical research and reporting about the platform.”

“It’s solely designed to basically break us or stop us from doing the work that we were doing originally,” Carusone said, confirming that the lawsuit has negatively impacted MMFA’s hate speech research on X.

MMFA argued that Musk could have sued in other jurisdictions, such as Maryland, DC, or California, and MMFA would not have disputed the venue, but Carusone suggested that Musk sued in Texas in hopes that it would be “a more friendly jurisdiction.”

X filing “thermonuclear lawsuit” in Texas should be “fatal,” Media Matters says Read More »

Cows in Texas and Kansas test positive for highly pathogenic bird flu

avian influenza, bird flu, cows, dairy cows, H5N1, health, kansas, milk, Science, texas, USDA / Blake Jones / March 26, 2024

viral spread —

The risk to the public is low, and the milk supply is safe.

Beth Mole – Mar 26, 2024 10: 50 pm UTC

Wild migratory birds likely spread a deadly strain of bird flu to dairy cows in Texas and Kansas, state and federal officials announced this week.

It is believed to be the first time the virus, a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), has been found in cows in the US. Last week, officials in Minnesota confirmed finding an HPAI case in a young goat, marking the first time the virus has been found in a domestic ruminant in the US.

According to the Associated Press, officials with the Texas Animal Health Commission confirmed the flu virus is the Type A H5N1 strain, which has been ravaging bird populations around the globe for several years. The explosive, ongoing spread of the virus has led to many spillover events into mammals, making epidemiologists anxious that the virus could adapt to spread widely in humans.

For now, the risk to the public is low. According to a release from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), genetic testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories indicated that H5N1 strain that spread to the cows doesn’t appear to contain any mutations that would make it more transmissible to humans. Though the flu strain was found in some milk samples from the infected cows, the USDA emphasized that all the milk from affected animals is being diverted and destroyed. Dairy farms are required to send only milk from healthy animals to be processed for human consumption. Still, even if some flu-contaminated milk was processed for human consumption, the standard pasteurization process inactivates viruses, including influenza, as well as bacteria.

So far, officials believe the virus is primarily affecting older cows. The virus was detected in milk from sick cows on two farms in Kansas and one in Texas, as well as in a throat swab from a cow on a second Texas farm. The USDA noted that farmers have found dead birds on their properties, indicating exposure to infected birds. Sick cows have also been reported in New Mexico. Symptoms of the bird flu in cows appear to include decreased milk production and low appetite.

But so far, the USDA believes the spread of H5N1 will not significantly affect milk production or the herds. Milk loss has been limited; only about 10 percent of affected herds have shown signs of the infection, and there has been “little to no associated mortality.” The USDA suggested it will remain vigilant, calling the infections a “rapidly evolving situation.”

While federal and state officials continue to track the virus, Texas officials aim to assure consumers. “There is no threat to the public and there will be no supply shortages,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a statement. “No contaminated milk is known to have entered the food chain; it has all been dumped. In the rare event that some affected milk enters the food chain, the pasteurization process will kill the virus.”

Cows in Texas and Kansas test positive for highly pathogenic bird flu Read More »

Tens of thousands of pregnancies from rape occurring in abortion-ban states

Abortion, abortion ban, health, pregnancy, rape, reproductive health, Science, texas / Ryan Harris / January 26, 2024

Outraging —

States with bans logged 10 or fewer legal abortions per month, despite rape exceptions.

Beth Mole – Jan 26, 2024 7: 02 pm UTC

Pro-choice protesters march in Texas, carrying signs that say — Enlarge / Pro-choice protesters march outside the Texas State Capitol on Sept. 1, 2021, in Austin, Texas.

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Fourteen states have banned abortions at any gestational age since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since the enactment of those abortion bans, an estimated 64,565 people became pregnant as a result of rape in those states. But, while five of the 14 states have exceptions for rape, all of the states logged only 10 or fewer legal abortions per month since their respective bans were enacted.

The finding, published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, is a stark look at the effects of such bans on reproductive health care. The study did not assess how many of the estimated 64,565 pregnancies resulted in births, but it makes clear that tens of thousands of pregnant rape survivors, including children, were forced to turn to illegal procedures, self-managed abortions, or burdensome travel to states where abortion is legal—cost-prohibitive to many—as an alternative to carrying a rape-related pregnancy to term.

It also showed that legal exceptions for rape don’t work. The states with those exceptions apply stringent time limits on the pregnancy and require victims to report their rapes to law enforcement, which likely disqualifies most. The US Department of Justice estimates that only 21 percent of victims report their rape to police, for myriad reasons.

In an editor’s note accompanying the study, a trio of JAMA Internal Medicine editors—who are also medical researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, Harvard, and NYC Health and Hospitals—note the findings “demonstrate the scope of the problem,” as the number of rape-related pregnancies is “exponentially larger” than the number of legal abortions in those states.

“As physicians, we do not see abortion as a political, religious, or legal issue. Rather we see access to safe abortions as a necessary part of reproductive health services to protect the physical and mental well-being of patients. The best solution to this problem is a national law protecting the right of all people to choose to terminate pregnancy,” they write.

Study design

The study, led by a researcher at Planned Parenthood of Montana, is only an estimate because hard, state-level numbers are impossible to come by. The researchers pulled rape data from the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the FBI, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey, a specially designed survey to ascertain reported and unreported rapes.

With national data from various sources, the researchers estimated the proportion of rape survivors that are female individuals ages 15 to 45, and they further adjusted for the number of rapes that are vaginal. To estimate state-level rapes, they proportioned the rapes by states based on the FBI’s 2022 crime data, which includes rapes. They then multiplied each state’s rapes by the fraction of rapes likely to result in pregnancy. And finally, adjusted for the months between July 1, 2022 and January 1, 2024 that an abortion ban was in effect in each of the 14 states. Among the 14 states, the number of months in which a ban was in effect ranged from four to 18 months.

In all, the researchers estimated 519,981 completed vaginal rapes in the 14 abortion ban states which resulted in a collective total of 64,565 pregnancies during the four to 18 months that bans were in effect. Of the rape-related pregnancies, an estimated 5,586 (9 percent) were in states with rape exceptions, and 58,979 (91 percent) were in states with no exception.

Texas, the abortion-ban state with the largest population, had an estimated 26,313 (41 percent) of all rape-related pregnancies under its ban, which was enacted for 16 months during the study time frame. The state’s large number drew outrage from Democratic state lawmakers, particularly in light Gov. Greg Abbott’s vow to “eliminate rape” in Texas after a 2021 six-week abortion ban took effect (the state enacted a total ban in August 2022).

“Women and girls across our state are enduring unwanted pregnancies, suffering from life-endangering complications in desired pregnancies and fleeing the state for medical care,” the 13 Democratic state senators said in a Thursday news release, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. “We cannot allow this to be the new norm.”

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