Shannon Garcia – Page 22

Man eats dubious street food—ends up blowing apart his GI tract

Boerhaave syndrome, esophagus, food, health, medical case report, New England Journal of Medicine, vomiting / Shannon Garcia / June 28, 2025

Bilious blowout

Doctors noted that his breath was fast and shallow, with crackling in his neck. But breathing sounds from the base of his right lung were quiet. A computed tomography (CT) scan revealed the problems. There was air in his chest space and into his neck. Fluid was also building up around his lungs, and his right lung was collapsing. The scan also showed a perforation in the esophagus.

The doctors inserted a chest tube to remove the fluid, which did not include gastric contents, suggesting the fluid build-up was from chest inflammation.

The doctors then did an additional X-ray exam of the esophagus using a water-soluble contrast agent. This clearly revealed a large gash in the man’s esophagus resulting from the robust eruption. The imaging also showed the contrast agent leaking out into the man’s chest.

The doctors quickly sent the man into emergency surgery to repair his esophagus. He spent the next 35 days in the hospital recovering. When he was discharged, he still had a feeding tube that passed through his nose and into his small intestine. It took an additional three months for the perforation to completely heal, at which point doctors could finally remove the feeding tube.

It’s not entirely clear what causes Boerhaave syndrome. Researchers hypothesize that it occurs from a loss of neuromuscular coordination, which, in particular, causes the upper sphincter in the esophagus—the cricopharyngeus—to fail to relax at the onset of vomiting. The rapid rise of internal pressure overwhelms the esophagus, typically causing a lengthwise tear in the lower third of the tube, which is the weakest portion. On average, tears can be up to 8 centimeters (about 3 inches) long.

Though researchers expect that cases are underreported, the estimated incidence based on reports is about three cases per million people globally each year.

Man eats dubious street food—ends up blowing apart his GI tract Read More »

Microsoft is trying to get antivirus software away from the Windows kernel

microsoft, Security, Tech, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2 / Shannon Garcia / June 27, 2025

Working with third-party companies to define these standards and address those companies’ concerns seems to be Microsoft’s way of trying to avoid that kind of controversy this time around.

“We will continue to collaborate deeply with our MVI partners throughout the private preview,” wrote Weston.

Death comes for the Blue Screen

Microsoft is changing the “b” in BSoD, but that’s less interesting than the under-the-hood changes. Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft’s post outlines a handful of other security-related Windows tweaks, including some that take alternate routes to preventing more Crowdstrike-esque outages.

Multiple changes are coming for the “unexpected restart screen,” the less-derogatory official name for what many Windows users know colloquially as the “blue screen of death.” For starters, the screen will now be black instead of blue, a change that Microsoft briefly attempted to make in the early days of Windows 11 but subsequently rolled back.

The unexpected restart screen has been “simplified” in a way that “improves readability and aligns better with Windows 11 design principles, while preserving the technical information on the screen for when it is needed.”

But the more meaningful change is under the hood, in the form of a new feature called “quick machine recovery” (QMR).

If a Windows PC has multiple unexpected restarts or gets into a boot loop—as happened to many systems affected by the Crowdstrike bug—the PC will try to boot into Windows RE, a stripped-down recovery environment that offers a handful of diagnostic options and can be used to enter Safe Mode or open the PC’s UEFI firmware. QMR will allow Microsoft to “broadly deploy targeted remediations to affected devices via Windows RE,” making it possible for some problems to be fixed even if the PCs can’t be booted into standard Windows, “quickly getting users to a productive state without requiring complex manual intervention from IT.”

QMR will be enabled by default on Windows 11 Home, while the Pro and Enterprise versions will be configurable by IT administrators. The QMR functionality and the black version of the blue screen of death will both be added to Windows 11 24H2 later this summer. Microsoft plans to add additional customization options for QMR “later this year.”

Microsoft is trying to get antivirus software away from the Windows kernel Read More »

Rocket Report: SpaceX’s dustup on the border; Northrop has a nozzle problem

launch, NASA, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex / Shannon Garcia / June 27, 2025

NASA has finally test-fired the first of its new $100 million SLS rocket engines.

Backdropped by an offshore thunderstorm, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster stands on its landing pad at Cape Canaveral after returning to Earth from a mission launching four astronauts to the International Space Station early Wednesday. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 7.50 of the Rocket Report! We’re nearly halfway through the year, and it seems like a good time to look back on the past six months. What has been most surprising to me in the world of rockets? First, I didn’t expect SpaceX to have this much trouble with Starship Version 2. Growing pains are normal for new rockets, but I expected the next big hurdles for SpaceX to clear with Starship to be catching the ship from orbit and orbital refueling, not completing a successful launch. The state of Blue Origin’s New Glenn program is a little surprising to me. New Glenn’s first launch in January went remarkably well, beating the odds for a new rocket. Now, production delays are pushing back the next New Glenn flights. The flight of Honda’s reusable rocket hopper also came out of nowhere a few weeks ago.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Isar raises 150 million euros. German space startup Isar Aerospace has obtained 150 million euros ($175 million) in funding from an American investment company, Reuters reports. The company, which specializes in satellite launch services, signed an agreement for a convertible bond with Eldridge Industries, it said. Isar says it will use the funding to expand its launch service offerings. Isar’s main product is the Spectrum rocket, a two-stage vehicle designed to loft up to a metric ton (2,200 pounds) of payload mass to low-Earth orbit. Spectrum flew for the first time in March, but it failed moments after liftoff and fell back to the ground near its launch pad. Still, Isar became the first in a new crop of European launch startups to launch a rocket theoretically capable of reaching orbit.

Flush with cash … Isar is leading in another metric, too. The Munich-based company has now raised more than 550 million euros ($642 million) from venture capital investors and government-backed funds. This far exceeds the fundraising achievements of any other European launch startup. But the money will only go so far before Isar must prove it can successfully launch a rocket into orbit. Company officials have said they aim to launch the second Spectrum rocket before the end of this year. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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Rocket Lab aiming for record turnaround. Rocket Lab demonstrated a notable degree of flexibility this week. Two light-class Electron rockets were nearing launch readiness at the company’s privately owned spaceport in New Zealand, but one of the missions encountered a technical problem, and Rocket Lab scrubbed a launch attempt Tuesday. The spaceport has two launch pads next to one another, so while technicians worked to fix that problem, Rocket Lab slotted in another Electron rocket to lift off from the pad next door. That mission, carrying a quartet of small commercial signals intelligence satellites for HawkEye 360, successfully launched Thursday.

Giving it another go … A couple of hours after that launch, Rocket Lab announced it was ready to try again with the mission it had grounded earlier in the week. “Can’t get enough of Electron missions? How about another one tomorrow? With our 67th mission complete, we’ve scheduled our next launch from LC-1 in less than 48 hours—Electron’s fastest turnaround from the same launch site yet!” Rocket Lab hasn’t disclosed what satellite is flying on this mission, citing the customer’s preference to remain anonymous for now.

You guessed it! Baguette One will launch from France. French rocket builder HyPrSpace will launch its Baguette One demonstrator from a missile testing site in mainland France, after signing an agreement with the country’s defense procurement agency, European Spaceflight reports. HyPrSpace was founded in 2019 to begin designing an orbital-class rocket named Orbital Baguette 1 (OB-1). The Baguette One vehicle is a subscale, single-stage suborbital demonstrator to prove out technologies for the larger satellite launcher, mainly its hybrid propulsion system.

Sovereign launch … HyPrSpace’s Baguette One will stand roughly 10 meters (30 feet) tall and will be capable of carrying payloads of up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) to suborbital space. It is scheduled to launch next year from a French missile testing site in the south of France. “Gaining access to this dual-use launch pad in mainland France is a major achievement after many years of work on our hybrid propulsion technology,” said Sylvain Bataillard, director general of HyPrSpace. “It’s a unique opportunity for HyPrSpace and marks a decisive turning point. We’re eager to launch Baguette One and to play a key role in building a more sovereign, more sustainable, and boldly innovative European dual-use space industry.” (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Firefly moves closer to launching from Sweden. An agreement between the United States and Sweden brings Firefly Aerospace one step closer to launching its Alpha rocket from a Swedish spaceport, Space News reports. The two countries signed a technology safeguards agreement (TSA) at a June 20 ceremony at the Swedish embassy in Washington, DC. The TSA allows the export of American rockets to Sweden for launches there, putting in place measures to protect launch vehicle technology.

A special relationship … The US government has signed launch-related safeguard agreements with only a handful of countries, such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and now Sweden. Rocket exports are subject to strict controls because of the potential military applications of that technology. Firefly currently launches its Alpha rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and is building a launch site at Wallops Island, Virginia. Firefly also has a lease for a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, although the company is prioritizing other sites. Then, last year, Firefly announced an agreement with the Swedish Space Corporation to launch Alpha from Esrange Space Center as soon as 2026. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Amazon is running strong out of the gate. For the second time in two months, United Launch Alliance sent a batch of 27 broadband Internet satellites into orbit for Amazon on Monday morning, Ars reports. This was the second launch of a full load of operational satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a network envisioned to become a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. Just like the last flight on April 28, an Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and delivered Amazon’s satellites into an on-target orbit roughly 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth.

Time to put up or shut up … After lengthy production delays at Amazon’s satellite factory, the retail giant is finally churning out Kuiper satellites at scale. Amazon has already shipped the third batch of Kuiper satellites to Florida to prepare for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next month. ULA won the lion’s share of Amazon’s multibillion-dollar launch contract in 2022, committing to up to 38 Vulcan launches for Kuiper and nine Atlas V flights. Three of those Atlas Vs have now launched. Amazon also reserved 18 launches on Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket, and at least 12 on Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Vulcan, Ariane 6, and New Glenn have only flown one or two times, and Amazon is asking them to quickly ramp up their cadence to deliver 3,232 Kuiper satellites to orbit in the next few years. The handful of Falcon 9s and Atlas Vs that Amazon has on contract are the only rockets in the bunch with a proven track record. With Kuiper satellites now regularly shipping out of the factory, any blame for future delays may shift from Amazon to the relatively unproven rockets it has chosen to launch them.

Falcon 9 launches with four commercial astronauts. Retired astronaut Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced space flier, and three rookie crewmates from India, Poland, and Hungary blasted off on a privately financed flight to the International Space Station early Wednesday, CBS News reports. This is the fourth non-government mission mounted by Houston-based Axiom Space. The four commercial astronauts rocketed into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and their Dragon capsule docked at the space station Thursday to kick off a two-week stay.

A brand-new Dragon … The Crew Dragon spacecraft flown on this mission, serial number C213, is the fifth and final addition to SpaceX’s fleet of astronaut ferry ships built for NASA trips to the space station and for privately funded commercial missions to low-Earth orbit. Moments after reaching orbit Wednesday, Whitson revealed the name of the new spacecraft: Crew Dragon Grace. “We had an incredible ride uphill, and now we’d like to set our course for the International Space Station aboard the newest member of the Dragon fleet, our spacecraft named Grace. … Grace reminds us that spaceflight is not just a feat of engineering, but an act of goodwill to the benefit of every human everywhere.”

How soon until Ariane 6 is flying regularly? It’ll take several years for Arianespace to ramp up the launch cadence of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, Space News reports. David Cavaillolès, chief executive of Arianespace, addressed questions at the Paris Air Show about how quickly Arianespace can reach its target of launching 10 Ariane 6 rockets per year. “We need to go to 10 launches per year for Ariane 6 as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s twice as more as for Ariane 5, so it’s a big industrial change.” Two Ariane 6 rockets have launched so far, and a third mission is on track to lift off in August. Arianespace’s CEO reiterated earlier plans to conduct four more Ariane 6 launches through the end of this year, including the first flight of the more powerful Ariane 64 variant with four solid rocket boosters.

Not a heavy lift … Arianespace’s target flight rate of 10 Ariane 6 rockets per year is modest compared to other established companies with similarly sized launch vehicles. United Launch Alliance is seeking to launch as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is designed to eventually fly often, although the company hasn’t released a target launch cadence. SpaceX, meanwhile, aims to launch up to 170 Falcon 9 rockets this year. But European governments are perhaps more committed than ever to maintaining a sovereign launch capability for the continent, so Ariane 6 isn’t going away. Arianespace has sold more than 30 Ariane 6 launches, primarily to European institutional customers and Amazon.

SLS booster blows its nozzle. NASA and Northrop Grumman test-fired a new solid rocket booster in Utah on Thursday, and it didn’t go exactly according to plan, Ars reports. This booster features a new design that NASA would use to power Space Launch System rockets, beginning with the ninth mission, or Artemis IX. The motor tested on Thursday isn’t flight-worthy. It’s a test unit that engineers will use to learn about the rocket’s performance. It turns out they did learn something, but perhaps not what they wanted. About 1 minute and 40 seconds into the booster’s burn, a fiery plume emerged from the motor’s structure just above its nozzle. Moments later, the nozzle violently disintegrated. The booster kept firing until it ran out of pre-packed solid propellant.

A questionable future … NASA’s Space Launch System appears to have a finite shelf life. The Trump administration wants to cancel it after just three launches, while the preliminary text of a bill making its way through Congress would extend it to five flights. But chances are low the Space Launch System will make it to nine flights, and if it does, it’s questionable if it would reach that point before 2040. The SLS rocket is a core piece of NASA’s plan to return US astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis program, but the White House seeks to cancel the program in favor of cheaper commercial alternatives.

NASA conducts a low-key RS-25 engine test. The booster ground test on Thursday was the second time in less than a week that NASA test-fired new propulsion hardware for the Space Launch System. Last Friday, June 20, NASA ignited a new RS-25 engine on a test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The hydrogen-fueled engine is the first of its kind to be manufactured since the end of the space shuttle program. This particular RS-25 engine is assigned to power the fifth launch of the SLS rocket, a mission known as Artemis V, that may end up never flying. While NASA typically livestreams engine tests at Stennis, the agency didn’t publicize this event ahead of time.

It has been 10 years … The SLS rocket was designed to recycle leftover parts from the space shuttle program, but NASA will run out of RS-25 engines after the rocket’s fourth flight and will exhaust its inventory of solid rocket booster casings after the eighth flight. Recognizing that shuttle-era parts will eventually run out, NASA signed a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne (now L3Harris) to set the stage for the production of new RS-25 engines in 2015. NASA later ordered an initial batch of six RS-25 engines from Aerojet, then added 18 more to the order in 2020, at a price of about $100 million per engine. Finally, a brand-new flight-worthy RS-25 engine has fired up on a test stand. If the Trump administration gets its way, these engines will never fly. Maybe that’s fine, but after so long with so much taxpayer investment, last week’s test milestone is worth publicizing, if not celebrating.

SpaceX finds itself in a dustup on the border. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico is considering taking legal action after one of SpaceX’s giant Starship rockets disintegrated in a giant fireball earlier this month as it was being fueled for a test-firing of its engines, The New York Times reports. No one was injured in the explosion, which rained debris on the beaches of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The conflagration occurred at a test site SpaceX operates a few miles away from the Starship launch pad. This test facility is located next to the Rio Grande River, just a few hundred feet from Mexico. The power of the blast sent wreckage flying across the river into Mexican territory.

Collision course …“We are reviewing everything related to the launching of rockets that are very close to our border,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference Wednesday. If SpaceX violated any international laws, she added, “we will file any necessary claims.” Sheinbaum’s leftist party holds enormous sway around Mexico, and the Times reports she was responding to calls to take action against SpaceX amid a growing outcry among scientists, regional officials, and environmental activists over the impact that the company’s operations are having on Mexican ecosystems. SpaceX, on the other hand, said its efforts to recover debris from the Starship explosion have been “hindered by unauthorized parties trespassing on private property.” SpaceX said it requested assistance from the government of Mexico in the recovery and added that it offered its own resources to help with the cleanup.

Next three launches

June 28: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-34 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 26 UTC

June 28: Electron | “Symphony in the Stars” | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 06: 45 UTC

June 28: H-IIA | GOSAT-GW | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 16: 33 UTC

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: SpaceX’s dustup on the border; Northrop has a nozzle problem Read More »

Changing one gene can restore some tissue regeneration to mice

Biology, Mice, regeneration, retinoic acid, Science / Shannon Garcia / June 27, 2025

Regeneration is a trick many animals, including lizards, starfish, and octopuses, have mastered. Axolotls, a salamander species originating in Mexico, can regrow pretty much everything from severed limbs, to eyes and parts of brain, to the spinal cord. Mammals, though, have mostly lost this ability somewhere along their evolutionary path. Regeneration persisted, in a limited number of tissues, in just a few mammalian species like rabbits or goats.

“We were trying to learn how certain animals lost their regeneration capacity during evolution and then put back the responsible gene or pathway to reactivate the regeneration program,” says Wei Wang, a researcher at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing. Wang’s team has found one of those inactive regeneration genes, activated it, and brought back a limited regeneration ability to mice that did not have it before.

Of mice and bunnies

The idea Wang and his colleagues had was a comparative study of how the wound healing process works in regenerating and non-regenerating mammalian species. They chose rabbits as their regenerating mammals and mice as the non-regenerating species. As the reference organ, the team picked the ear pinna. “We wanted a relatively simple structure that was easy to observe and yet composed of many different cell types,” Wang says. The test involved punching holes in the ear pinna of rabbits and mice and tracking the wound-repairing process.

The healing process began in the same way in rabbits and mice. Within the first few days after the injury, a blastema—a mass of heterogeneous cells—formed at the wound site. “Both rabbits and mice will heal the wounds after a few days,” Wang explains. “But between the 10th and 15th day, you will see the major difference.” In this timeframe, the earhole in rabbits started to become smaller. There were outgrowths above the blastema—the animals were producing more tissue. In mice, on the other hand, the healing process halted completely, leaving a hole in the ear.

Changing one gene can restore some tissue regeneration to mice Read More »

RFK Jr.’s CDC panel ditches some flu shots based on anti-vaccine junk data

ACIP, anti-vaccine, CDC, health / Shannon Garcia / June 27, 2025

Flu shots with thimerosal abandoned, despite decades of data showing they’re safe.

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, during the first meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices on June 25, 2025. Credit: Getty | Bloomberg

The vaccine panel hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to drop federal recommendations for seasonal flu shots that contain the ethyl-mercury containing preservative thimerosal. The panel did so after hearing a misleading and cherry-picked presentation from an anti-vaccine activist.

There is extensive data from the last quarter century proving that the antiseptic preservative is safe, with no harms identified beyond slight soreness at the injection site, but none of that data was presented during today’s meeting.

The significance of the vote is unclear for now. The vast majority of seasonal influenza vaccines currently used in the US—about 96 percent of flu shots in 2024–2025—do not contain thimerosal. The preservative is only included in multi-dose vials of seasonal flu vaccines, where it prevents the growth of bacteria and fungi potentially introduced as doses are withdrawn.

However, thimerosal is more common elsewhere in the world for various multi-dose vaccine vials, which are cheaper than the single-dose vials more commonly used in the US. If other countries follow the US’s lead and abandon thimerosal, it could increase the cost of vaccines in other countries and, in turn, lead to fewer vaccinations.

Broken process

However, it remains unclear what impact today’s vote will have—both in the US and abroad. Normally, before voting on any significant changes to vaccine recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the committee that met today—the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)— would go through an exhaustive process. That includes thoroughly reviewing and discussing the extensive safety and efficacy data of the vaccines, the balance of their benefits and harms, equity considerations, and the feasibility and resource implications of their removal.

But, instead, the committee heard a single presentation given by anti-vaccine activist, Lyn Redwood, who was once the president of the anti-vaccine organization founded by Kennedy, Children’s Health Defense.

Thimerosal has long been a target of anti-vaccine activists like Redwood, who hold fast to the false and thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines—particularly thimerosal-containing vaccines—cause autism and neurological disorders. Her presentation today was a smorgasbord of anti-vaccine talking points against thimerosal, drawing on old and fringe studies she claimed prove that thimerosal is an ineffective preservative, kills cells in petri dishes, and can be found in the brains of baby monkeys after it has been injected into them. The presentation did not appear to have gone through any vetting by the CDC, and an earlier version contained a reference to a study that does not exist.

Yesterday, CBS News reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hiring Redwood to oversee vaccine safety. In response, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called Redwood an “extremist,” and urged the White House to immediately reverse the decision. “We cannot allow a few truly deranged individuals to distort the plain truth and facts around vaccines so badly,” Murray said in a statement.

CDC scientists censored

Prior to the meeting, CDC scientists posted a background briefing document on thimerosal. It contained summaries of around two dozen studies that all support the safety of thimerosal and/or find no association with autism or neurological disorders. It also explained how in 1999, health experts and agencies made plans to remove thimerosal from childhood vaccines out of an abundance of caution for concern that it was adding to cumulative exposures that could hypothetically become toxic—at high doses, thimerosal can be dangerous. By 2001, it was removed from every childhood vaccine in the US and remains so to this day. But, since then, studies have found thimerosal to be perfectly safe in vaccines. All the studies listed by the CDC in support of thimerosal were published after 2001.

The document also contained a list of nearly two dozen studies claiming to find a link to autism, but where described by the CDC as having “significant methodological limitations.” The Institute of Medicine also called them “uninterpretable, and therefore, noncontributory with respect to causality.” Every single one of the studies was authored by the anti-vaccine father and son duo Mark and David Geier.

In March, it came to light that Kennedy had hired David Geier to the US health department to continue trying to prove a link between autism and vaccines. He is now working on the issue.

The CDC’s thimerosal document was removed from the ACIP’s meeting documents prior to the meeting. Robert Malone, one of the new ACIP members who holds anti-vaccine views, said during the meeting that it was taken down because it “was not authorized by the Office of the Secretary [Kennedy].” You can read it here.

Lone voice

In the meeting today, Kennedy’s hand-selected ACIP members did not ask Redwood any questions about the data or arguments she made against thimerosal. Nearly all of them readily accepted that thimerosal should be removed entirely. The only person to push back was Cody Meissner, a pediatric professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine who has served on ACIP in the past—arguably the most qualified and reasonable member of the new lineup.

“I’m not quite sure how to respond to this presentation,” he said after Redwood finished her slides. “This is an old issue that has been addressed in the past. … I guess one of the most important [things] to remember is that thimerosal is metabolized into ethylmercury and thiosalicylate. It’s not metabolized into methylmercury, which is in fish and shellfish. Ethylmercury is excreted much more quickly from the body. It is not associated with the high neurotoxicity that methylmercury is,” he explained.

Meissner scoffed at the committee even spending time on it. “So, of all the issues that I think we, ACIP, needs to focus on, this is not a big issue. … no study has ever indicated any harm from thimerosal. It’s been used in vaccines … since before World War II.

But he did express concern that it could be removed from the vaccine used globally.

“The recommendations the ACIP makes are followed among many countries around the world,” he said. “And removing thimerosal from all vaccines that are used in other countries, for example, is going to reduce access to these vaccines.”

Anti-vaccine agenda

In the end, the seven-member panel voted in favor of recommending only those seasonal flu vaccines that did not contain thimerosal. There were three separate votes for this, making this recommendation for children, pregnant women, and all adults each, but all with the same outcome: five ‘yes’ votes, one ‘no’ vote (Meissner), and one abstention from anti-vaccine activist and nurse Vicky Pebsworth. After the vote, Pebsworth clarified that she did not support the use of thimerosal in vaccines, but had a quibble with how the voting questions were written.

Prior to the vote, ACIP Chair Martin Kulldorff gave a brief presentation on the MMRV vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella/chickenpox). He previewed a proposed recommendation to vote on in a future meeting that would remove the CDC’s recommendation for that vaccine as well.

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

RFK Jr.’s CDC panel ditches some flu shots based on anti-vaccine junk data Read More »

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books

AI, AI training, BItTorrent, copyright, copyright infringement, libgen, LLaMA, Meta, online piracy, Policy, shadow libraries, torrenting / Shannon Garcia / June 27, 2025

It could certainly look worse for Meta if authors manage to present evidence supporting the second way that torrenting could be relevant to the case, Chhabaria suggested.

“Meta downloading copyrighted material from shadow libraries” would also be relevant to the character of the use, “if it benefitted those who created the libraries and thus supported and perpetuated their unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted works,” Chhabria wrote.

Counting potential strikes against Meta, Chhabria pointed out that the “vast majority of cases” involving “this sort of peer-to-peer file-sharing” are found to “constitute copyright infringement.” And it likely doesn’t help Meta’s case that “some of the libraries Meta used have themselves been found liable for infringement.”

However, Meta may overcome this argument, too, since book authors “have not submitted any evidence” that potentially shows how Meta’s downloading may perhaps be “propping up” or financially benefiting pirate libraries.

Finally, Chhabria noted that the “last issue relating to the character of Meta’s use” of books in regards to its torrenting is “the relationship between Meta’s downloading of the plaintiffs’ books and Meta’s use of the books to train Llama.”

Authors had tried to argue that these elements were distinct. But Chhabria said there’s no separating the fact that Meta downloaded the books to serve the “highly transformative” purpose of training Llama.

“Because Meta’s ultimate use of the plaintiffs’ books was transformative, so too was Meta’s downloading of those books,” Chhabria wrote.

AI training rulings may get more authors paid

Authors only learned of Meta’s torrenting through discovery in the lawsuit, and because of that, Chhabria noted that “the record on Meta’s alleged distribution is incomplete.”

It’s possible that authors may be able to show evidence that Meta “contributed to the BitTorrent network” by providing significant computing power that could’ve meaningfully assisted shadow libraries, Chhabria said in a footnote.

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books Read More »

Testing ancient Paleolithic migration with a replica canoe

anthropology, Archaeology, experimental archaeology, paleolithic, Science / Shannon Garcia / June 26, 2025

(Left) GPS tracking and modeling of ocean currents toward the end of the experimental voyage. (Right) The team on the water around the time of the left image. Credit: Kaifu et al., 2025/CC-By-ND

At the 30-hour mark, the captain ordered the entire crew to rest, letting the dugout drift freely for a while, which fortunately brought them closer to Yonaguni Island. At hour 40, the island’s silhouette was visible, and over the next five hours, the crew was able to navigate the strong tidal flow along the coast until they reached their landing site: Nama Beach. So the experimental voyage was a success, augmented by the numerical simulations to demonstrate that the boat could make similar voyages from different departure points across both modern and late-Pleistocene oceans.

Granted, it was not possible to recreate Paleolithic conditions perfectly on a modern ocean. The crew first spotted the island because of its artificial lights, although by that time, they were on track navigationally. They were also accompanied by escort ships to ensure the crew’s safety, supplying fresh water twice during the voyage. But the escort ships did not aid with navigation or the dugout captain’s decision-making, and the authors believe that any effects were likely minimal. The biggest difference was the paddlers’ basic modern knowledge of local geography, which helped them develop a navigation plan—an unavoidable anachronism, although the crew did not rely on compasses, GPS, or watches during the voyage.

“Scientists try to reconstruct the processes of past human migrations, but it is often difficult to examine how challenging they really were,” said Kaifu. “One important message from the whole project was that our Paleolithic ancestors were real challengers. Like us today, they had to undertake strategic challenges to advance. For example, the ancient Polynesian people had no maps, but they could travel almost the entire Pacific. There are a variety of signs on the ocean to know the right direction, such as visible land masses, heavenly bodies, swells and winds. We learned parts of such techniques ourselves along the way.”

DOI: “Traversing the Kuroshio: Paleolithic migration across one of the world’s strongest ocean currents,” Science Advances, 2025. 10.1126/sciadv.adv5508 (About DOIs).

DOI: “Palaeolithic seafaring in East Asia: an experimental test of the dugout canoe hypothesis,” Science Advances, 2025. 10.1126/sciadv.adv5507 (About DOIs).

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During a town hall Wednesday, NASA officials on stage looked like hostages

Donald Trump, janet petro, NASA, nasa budget, Science, Space, space policy, space science / Shannon Garcia / June 26, 2025

A Trump appointee suggests NASA may not have a new administrator until next year.

NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens, acting administrator Janet Petro, chief of staff Brian Hughes, associate administrator Vanessa Wyche, and deputy associate administrator Casey Swails held a town hall with NASA employees Wednesday. Credit: NASA

The four people at the helm of America’s space agency held a town hall meeting with employees Wednesday, fielding questions about downsizing, layoffs, and proposed budget cuts that threaten to undermine NASA’s mission and prestige.

Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, addressed questions from an auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. She was joined by Brian Hughes, the agency’s chief of staff, a political appointee who was formerly a Florida-based consultant active in city politics and in Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Two other senior career managers, Vanessa Wyche and Casey Swails, were also on the stage.

They tried to put a positive spin on the situation at NASA. Petro, Wyche, and Swails are civil servants, not Trump loyalists. None of them looked like they wanted to be there. The town hall was not publicized outside of NASA ahead of time, but live video of the event was available—unadvertised—on an obscure NASA streaming website. The video has since been removed.

8 percent down

NASA’s employees are feeling the pain after the White House proposed a budget cut of nearly 25 percent in fiscal year 2026, which begins October 1. The budget request would slash NASA’s topline budget by nearly 25 percent, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. Adjusted for inflation, this would be the smallest NASA budget since 1961, when the first American launched into space.

“The NASA brand is really strong still, and we have a lot of exciting missions ahead of us,” Petro said. “So, I know it’s a hard time that we’re going to be navigating, but again, you have my commitment that I’m here and I will share all of the information that I have when I get it.”

It’s true that NASA employees, along with industry officials and scientists who regularly work with the agency, are navigating through what would most generously be described as a period of great uncertainty. The perception among NASA’s workforce is far darker. “NASA is f—ed,” one current leader in the agency told Ars a few weeks ago, soon after President Trump rescinded his nomination of billionaire businessman and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman to be the agency’s next administrator.

Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, is seen in 2020 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Before the White House released its detailed budget proposal in May, NASA and other federal agencies were already scrambling to respond to the Trump administration’s directives to shrink the size of the government. While NASA escaped the mass layoffs of probationary employees that affected other departments, the space agency offered buyouts and incentives for civil servants to retire early or voluntarily leave their posts.

About 900 NASA employees signed up for the first round of the government’s “deferred resignation” program. Casey Swails, NASA’s deputy associate administrator, said Wednesday that number is now up to 1,500 after NASA announced another chance for employees to take the government’s deferred resignation offer. This represents about 8 percent of NASA’s workforce, and the window for employees to apply runs until July 25.

One takeaway from Wednesday’s town hall is that at least some NASA leaders want to motivate more employees to resign voluntarily. Hughes said a “major reason” for luring workers to leave the agency is to avoid “being in a spot where we have to do the involuntary options.”

Rumors of these more significant layoffs, or reductions in force, have hung over NASA for several months. If that happens, workers may not get the incentives the government is offering today to those who leave the agency on their own. Swails said NASA isn’t currently planning any such layoff, although she left the door open for the situation to change: “We’re doing everything we can to avoid going down that path.”

Ultimately, it will depend on how many employees NASA can get to resign on their own. If it’s not enough, layoffs may still be an option.

Many questions, few answers

Nearly all of the questions employees addressed to NASA leadership Wednesday were submitted anonymously, and in writing: When might Trump nominate someone for NASA administrator to take Isaacman’s place? Will any of NASA’s 10 field centers be closed? What is NASA going to do about Trump’s budget proposal, particularly its impact on science missions?

Their responses to these questions, in order: Probably not any time soon, maybe, and nothing.

The Trump administration selected Petro, an engineer and former Army helicopter pilot, to become acting head of NASA on Inauguration Day in January. Bill Nelson, who served as a Florida senator until 2019, resigned the NASA administrator job when former President Biden left the White House.

Petro was previously director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center since 2021, and before that, she was deputy director of the Florida spaceport for 14 years. She leapfrogged NASA’s top civil servant, associate administrator Jim Free, to become acting administrator in January. Free retired from the agency in February. Before the presidential election last year, Free advocated for the next administration to stay the course with NASA’s Artemis program.

But that’s not what the Trump administration wants to do. The White House seeks to cancel the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, both core elements of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon after two more flights. Under the new plan, NASA would procure commercial transportation to ferry crews to the Moon and Mars in a similar way to how the agency buys rides for its astronauts to the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit.

NASA’s Curiosity rover captured images to create this selfie mosaic on the surface of Mars in 2015. If implemented as written, the Trump budget proposal would mark the first time in 30 years that NASA does not have a Mars lander in development. The agency would instead turn to commercial companies to demonstrate they can deliver payloads, and eventually humans, to the red planet.

The Trump administration’s statements on space policy have emphasized the longer-term goal of human missions to Mars. The White House’s plans for what NASA will do at the Moon after the Artemis program’s first landing are still undefined.

Petro has kept a low profile since becoming NASA’s temporary chief executive five months ago. If Trump moved forward with Isaacman’s nomination, he would likely be NASA administrator today. The Senate was a few days away from confirming Isaacman when Trump pulled his nomination, apparently for political reasons. The White House withdrew the nomination the day after Elon Musk, who backed Isaacman to take the top job at NASA, left the Trump administration.

Who’s running NASA?

Now, Petro could serve out the year as NASA’s acting administrator. Petro is well-regarded at Kennedy Space Center, where she was a fixture in the center’s headquarters building for nearly 20 years. But she lacks a political constituency in the Trump administration and isn’t empowered to make major policy decisions. The budget cuts proposed for NASA came from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, not from within the agency itself.

President Trump has the reins on the process to select the next NASA administrator. Trump named Isaacman for the office in December, more than a month before his inauguration, and the earliest any incoming president has nominated a NASA administrator. Musk had close ties to Trump then, and a human mission to Mars got a mention in Trump’s inauguration speech.

But space issues seem to have fallen far down Trump’s list of priorities. Hughes, who got his job at NASA in part due to his political connections, suggested it might be a while before Trump gets around to selecting another NASA administrator nominee.

“I think the best guess would tell you that it’s hard to imagine it happening before the next six months, and could perhaps go longer than that into the eight- or nine-month range, but that’s purely speculation,” Hughes said, foreseeing impediments such as the large number of other pending nominations for posts across the federal government and high-priority negotiations with Congress over the federal budget.

Congress is also expected to go on recess in August, so the earliest a NASA nominee might get a confirmation hearing is this fall. Then, the Senate must vote to confirm the nominee before they can take office.

The timeline of Isaacman’s nomination for NASA administrator is instructive. Trump nominated Isaacman in December, and his confirmation hearing was in April. He was on the cusp of a confirmation vote in early June when Trump withdrew his nomination on May 31.

As NASA awaits a leader with political backing, Petro said the agency is undergoing an overhaul to make it “leaner and more agile.” This is likely to result in office closures, and Hughes indicated NASA might end up shuttering entire field centers.

“To the specific question, will they be closed or consolidated? I don’t think we’re there yet to answer that question, but it is actively a part of the conversation we’re having as we go step-by-step through this,” Hughes said.

What can $4 billion buy you?

While Trump’s budget proposal includes robust funding for human space exploration, it’s a different story for most of the rest of NASA. The agency’s science budget would be cut in half to approximately $3.9 billion. NASA’s technology development division would also be reduced by 50 percent.

If the White House gets its way, NASA would scale back research on the International Space Station and cancel numerous robotic missions in development or already in space. The agency would terminate missions currently exploring Jupiter, on the way to study an asteroid, and approaching interstellar space. It would shut down the largest X-ray space telescope ever built and the only one in its class likely to be operating for the next 10 years.

“There’s a lot of science that can still be done with $4 billion,” Petro said. “How we do science, and how we do partnerships, may change in the future to sort of multiply what we’re doing.”

These partnerships might include asking academic institutions or wealthy benefactors to pitch in money to fund science projects at NASA. The agency might also invite commercial companies to play bigger roles in NASA robotic missions, which are typically owned by the government.

This view of Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere from NASA’s Juno spacecraft includes several of the planet’s southern jet streams. Juno is one of the missions currently in space that NASA would shut down under Trump’s budget request. Credit: NASA

One employee asked what NASA could do to secure more funding in the president’s budget request. But that ship has sailed. The options now available to NASA’s leadership are to support the budget proposal, stay silent, or leave. NASA is an executive agency and part of the Trump administration, and the White House’s budget request is NASA’s, too.

“It’s not our job to advocate, but let’s try to look at this in a positive way,” Petro said. “We’ve still got a lot of money. Let’s see how much mission we can do.”

Ultimately, it’s up to Congress to appropriate funding for NASA and other parts of the government. Lawmakers haven’t signaled where they might land on NASA’s budget, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is influential on space-related matters, released the text of a proposed bill a few weeks ago that would restore funding for the International Space Station and forego cancellation of the Space Launch System rocket, among other things. But Cruz did not have much to say about adding more money for NASA’s science programs.

NASA’s senior leaders acknowledged on Wednesday that the pain of the agency’s downsizing will extend far beyond its walls.

“Eighty-five percent of our budget goes out the door to contractors,” Petro said. “So, with a reduced budget, absolutely, our contractors will also be impacted. In fact, they’re probably the bigger driver that will be impacted.”

It’s clearly a turbulent time for America’s space agency, and NASA employees have another month to decide if they want to be part of it.

“I know there’s a lot to consider,” Swails said. “There’s a lot that people are thinking about. I would encourage you to talk it out. Tap into your support systems. Talk to your spouse, your partner, your friend, your financial advisor, whomever you consider those trusted advisors for you.”

This sounds like hollow advice, but it seems like it’s all NASA’s workers can do. The Trump administration isn’t waiting for Congress to finalize the budget for 2026. The downsizing is here.

During a town hall Wednesday, NASA officials on stage looked like hostages Read More »

All childhood vaccines in question after first meeting of RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel

ACIP, anti-vaccine, CDC, COVID-19, health, influenza, measles, Robert F Kenned Jr., vaccination / Shannon Garcia / June 26, 2025

A federal vaccine panel entirely hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gathered for its first meeting Wednesday—and immediately announced that it would re-evaluate the entire childhood vaccination schedule, as well as the one for adults.

The meeting overall was packed with anti-vaccine talking points and arguments from the new panel members, confirming public health experts’ fears that the once-revered panel is now critically corrupted and that Kennedy’s controversial picks will only work to fulfill his long-standing anti-vaccine agenda.

Controversial committee

An hour before the meeting began, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out swinging against the new panel, saying that the panel’s work is “no longer a credible process.” The organization shunned the meeting, refusing to send a liaison to the panel’s meeting, which it has done for decades.

“We won’t lend our name or our expertise to a system that is being politicized at the expense of children’s health,” AAP President Susan Kressly said in a video posted on social media.

The panel in question, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), has for more than 60 years provided rigorous public scientific review, discussion, and trusted recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how vaccines should be used in the US after they’ve earned approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The CDC typically adopts ACIP’s recommendations, and once that happens, insurance providers are required to cover the cost of the recommended shots.

The system is highly regarded globally. But, on June 9, Kennedy unilaterally and summarily fired all 17 esteemed ACIP members and, two days later, replaced them with eight new people. Some have clear anti-vaccine views, others have controversial and contrarian public health views, and several have little to no expertise in the fields relevant to vaccines.

Last night, it came to light that one of the eight new appointees—Michael Ross, an obstetrics and gynecology physician—had withdrawn from the committee during a financial holdings review that ACIP members are required to complete before beginning work on the panel.

All childhood vaccines in question after first meeting of RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel Read More »

Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results

hdd, SSD, Storage, Tech / Shannon Garcia / June 25, 2025

Ars was unable to confirm if UnionSine and Toshiba have any formal business relationship. UnionSine’s website says that its full company name is Shenzhen Union Integrity Technology Co., Ltd., a Shenzhen-based company launched in 2014 with “more than 50 employees.” It doesn’t list Toshiba as a partner. Toshiba also doesn’t mention any collaboration with UnionSine on its website. Neither company responded to requests for comment ahead of publication. Interestingly, there’s at least one account of someone finding a Western Digital drive inside their UnionSine HDD’s enclosure.

Rymko said that Secure Data Recovery couldn’t confirm if the Toshiba drive was refurbished but also emphasized the drive’s nearly 10 years of age:

Our internal data indicates that the average lifespan of a drive is approximately three-to-five years, depending on the brand, capacity, and other factors. Our data found that the average ‘power-on’ hours of failed drives was about two years and 10 months. With the right tools, the ‘power-on hours’ data can be reset. This could mean the drive may last a few years; I can’t say for sure.

There are better storage options

Rymko told me that UnionSine “seem[s] like a legitimate company” and noted that Secure Data Recovery has recovered data from UnionSine drives before. He also said that for $28, “the drive performs well and provides good value;” it also “meets expectations for speed and reliability.” Still, he has some concerns about long-term use:

We haven’t identified any major issues with this device, but as with any budget drive, long-term durability and sustained performance under heavy use are potential concerns to watch for. It’s always a good idea to back up important data regularly.

But there are still reasons to look elsewhere for storage.

For one, UnionSine doesn’t have a clearly posted warranty policy for its HDDs. As Rymko mentioned, the long-term durability of its drive is dubious, making the lack of a clear warranty concerning.

Further, there are bigger and roomier storage options than a 500GB HDD. If you’re opting for an HDD over an SSD to save money, it can be prudent to put at least some of those savings toward more storage space. A roomier HDD will cost more, but the price-per-GB may not differ much, depending on the drive.

When storing valued files, you can rest easier by following the 3-2-1 backup rule and by buying from a reputable brand with a solid warranty. Losing important data is frustrating enough, and that frustration is exacerbated when a company doesn’t take accountability for a potentially faulty device.

Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results Read More »

the-resume-is-dying,-and-ai-is-holding-the-smoking-gun

The résumé is dying, and AI is holding the smoking gun

AI, AI and work, AI assistants, AI development tools, AI ethics, AI law, AI programming, AI regulation, ai search, AI work, Biz & IT, chatbots, chatgpt, chatgtp, generative ai, large language models, machine learning / Shannon Garcia / June 25, 2025

Beyond volume, fraud poses an increasing threat. In January, the Justice Department announced indictments in a scheme to place North Korean nationals in remote IT roles at US companies. Research firm Gartner says that fake identity cases are growing rapidly, with the company estimating that by 2028, about 1 in 4 job applicants could be fraudulent. And as we have previously reported, security researchers have also discovered that AI systems can hide invisible text in applications, potentially allowing candidates to game screening systems using prompt injections in ways human reviewers can’t detect.

Illustration of a robot generating endless text, controlled by a scientist.

And that’s not all. Even when AI screening tools work as intended, they exhibit similar biases to human recruiters, preferring white male names on résumés—raising legal concerns about discrimination. The European Union’s AI Act already classifies hiring under its high-risk category with stringent restrictions. Although no US federal law specifically addresses AI use in hiring, general anti-discrimination laws still apply.

So perhaps résumés as a meaningful signal of candidate interest and qualification are becoming obsolete. And maybe that’s OK. When anyone can generate hundreds of tailored applications with a few prompts, the document that once demonstrated effort and genuine interest in a position has devolved into noise.

Instead, the future of hiring may require abandoning the résumé altogether in favor of methods that AI can’t easily replicate—live problem-solving sessions, portfolio reviews, or trial work periods, just to name a few ideas people sometimes consider (whether they are good ideas or not is beyond the scope of this piece). For now, employers and job seekers remain locked in an escalating technological arms race where machines screen the output of other machines, while the humans they’re meant to serve struggle to make authentic connections in an increasingly inauthentic world.

Perhaps the endgame is robots interviewing other robots for jobs performed by robots, while humans sit on the beach drinking daiquiris and playing vintage video games. Well, one can dream.

The résumé is dying, and AI is holding the smoking gun Read More »

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws

AI, Policy, ted cruz / Shannon Garcia / June 25, 2025

Cruz plan moves ahead but was reportedly watered down amid Republican opposition.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) presides over a subcommittee hearing on June 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla

A Republican proposal to penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence can move forward without requiring approval from 60 senators, the Senate parliamentarian decided on Saturday. But the moratorium on state AI laws did not have unanimous Republican support and has reportedly been watered down in an effort to push it toward passage.

In early June, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proposed enforcing a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation by making states ineligible for broadband funding if they try to impose any limits on development of artificial intelligence. While the House previously approved a version of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” with an outright 10-year ban on state AI regulation, Cruz took a different approach because of the Senate rule that limits inclusion of “extraneous matter” in budget reconciliation legislation.

Under the Senate’s Byrd rule, a senator can object to a potentially extraneous budget provision. A motion to waive the Byrd rule requires a vote of 60 percent of the Senate.

As originally drafted, Cruz’s backdoor ban on state AI laws would have made it impossible for states to receive money from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program if they try to regulate AI. He tied the provision into the budget bill by proposing an extra $500 million for the broadband-deployment grant program and expanding its purpose to also subsidize construction and deployment of infrastructure for artificial intelligence systems.

Punchbowl News reported today that Cruz made changes in order to gain more Republican support and comply with Senate procedural rules. Cruz was quoted as saying that under his current version, states that regulate AI would only be shut out of the $500 million AI fund.

This would seem to protect states’ access to the $42 billion broadband deployment fund that will offer subsidies to ISPs that expand access to Internet service. Losing that funding would be a major blow to states that have spent the last couple of years developing plans to connect more of their residents to modern broadband. The latest Senate bill text was not available today. We contacted Cruz’s office and will update this article if we get a response.

A spokesperson for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told Ars today that Cruz’s latest version could still prevent states from getting broadband funding. The text has “a backdoor to apply new AI requirements to the entire $42.45 billion program, not just the new $500 million,” Cantwell’s representative said.

Plan has opponents from both parties

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that several parts of the Republican budget bill are subject to the Byrd rule and its 60-vote requirement, but Cruz’s AI proposal wasn’t one of them. A press release from Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) noted that “the parliamentarian’s advice is based on whether a provision is appropriate for reconciliation and conforms to the limitations of the Byrd rule; it is not a judgement on the relative merits of a particular policy.”

Surviving the parliamentarian review doesn’t guarantee passage. A Bloomberg article said the parliamentarian’s decision is “a win for tech companies pushing to stall and override dozens of AI safety laws across the country,” but that the “provision will likely still be challenged on the Senate floor, where stripping the provision would need just a simple majority. Some Republicans in both the House and Senate have pushed back on the AI provision.”

Republicans have a 53–47 edge in the Senate. Cantwell and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) teamed up for a press conference last week in which they spoke out against the proposed moratorium on state regulation.

Cantwell said that 24 states last year started “regulating AI in some way, and they have adopted these laws that fill a gap while we are waiting for federal action. Now Congress is threatening these laws, which will leave hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to AI harm by abolishing those state law protections.”

Blackburn said she agreed with Cantwell that the AI regulation proposal “is not the type of thing that we put into reconciliation bills.” Blackburn added that lawmakers “are working to move forward with legislation at the federal level, but we do not need a moratorium that would prohibit our states from stepping up and protecting citizens in their state.”

Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have also criticized the idea of stopping states from regulating AI.

Cruz accused states of “strangling AI”

Cruz argued that his proposal stops states “from strangling AI deployment with EU-style regulation.” Under his first proposal, no BEAD funds were to be given to any state or territory that enforces “any law or regulation… limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.”

The Cantwell/Blackburn press conference also included Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat; and Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican. Brown said that “Washington has a law that prohibits deep fakes being used against political candidates by mimicking their appearance and their speech,” another “that prohibits sharing fabricated sexual images without consent and provides for penalties for those who possess and distribute such images,” and a third “that prohibits the knowing distribution of forged digital likenesses that can be used to harm or defraud people.”

“All of those laws, in my reading, would be invalid if this was to pass through Congress, and each of those laws are prohibiting and protecting people here in our state,” Brown said.

Skrmetti said that if the Senate proposal becomes law “there would be arguments out there for the big tech companies that the moratorium does, in fact, preclude any enforcement of any consumer protection laws if there’s an AI component to the product that we’re looking at.”

Other Republican plans fail Byrd rule test

Senate Democrats said they are pleased that the parliamentarian ruled that several other parts of the bill are subject to the Byrd rule. “We continue to see Republicans’ blatant disregard for the rules of reconciliation when drafting this bill… Democrats plan to challenge every part of this bill that hurts working families and violates this process,” Merkley said.

Merkley’s press release said the provisions that are subject to a 60-vote threshold include one that “limits certain grant funding for ‘sanctuary cities,’ and where the Attorney General disagrees with states’ and localities’ immigration enforcement,” and another that “gives state and local officials the authority to arrest any noncitizen suspected of being in the US unlawfully.”

The Byrd rule also applies to a section that “limits the ability of federal courts to issue preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders against the federal government by requiring litigants to post a potentially enormous bond,” and another that “limits when the federal government can enter into or enforce settlement agreements that provide for payments to third parties to fully compensate victims, remedy harm, and punish and deter future violations,” Merkley’s office said.

The office of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday that the provision requiring litigants to post bonds has been struck from the legislation. “This Senate Republican provision, which was even worse than the similar House-passed version, required a plaintiff seeking an emergency court order, preliminary injunction, or a temporary restraining order against the Trump Administration or the federal government to pay a costly bond up front—essentially making the justice system pay-to-play,” Schumer’s office said.

Schumer said that “if enacted, this would have been one of the most brazen power grabs we’ve seen in American history—an attempt to let a future President Trump ignore court orders with impunity, putting him above the law.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws Read More »

Author name: Shannon Garcia