Facts Matter

The Food and Drug Administration is combining seven of its side-effect reporting systems into one to save money and provide transparency to the public. Meanwhile, a new virus is spreading throughout the United States, masquerading as the flu. Lastly, a new strain of COVID has been detected in the United States, this time with many more mutations on the spike protein. Let's go through it all together.

In another win for parental rights, a school district over in Maryland was ordered to pay $1.5 million dollars to parents who weren’t allowed to pull their kids out of LGBT story time. Let’s go through the details of the case together.

AI Chatbots appear to really be keen on using nuclear weapons in war game simulations—something like 95 percent of the time, according to a report published in late February.Over at King’s College London, researchers had ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini form teams and play simulated war games against each other. Altogether, they played 21 games, and in 20 of the games, the systems reached for the button. During the experiment, none of the models ever chose to surrender—and instead, 95 percent of the time, the AI models chose to use nuclear weapons during the war.Let’s go through the details of this study together.

In the 90s, in California, David Allen Funston would drive around suburban neighborhoods looking for children. He would then use candy, toys, and little gifts to lure kids into his car. Once inside, he would kidnap them, beat them, and sexually assault them before dumping them on the roadside.Funston was convicted in 1999 of sexual abuse of children, including kidnapping and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor.He was sentenced to prison to serve out three life sentences. So far, Funston, now 64, has been sitting in prison for 27 years.The California Parole Board granted him early release under California’s Elderly Parole Program, which allows inmates who are over the age of 50 and have served at least 20 years or more to be released early.The thinking is that he is no longer a danger to society.Let’s go through the details together.

COVID-style lockdowns are slowly making a comeback. This time, though, it’s not because of some virus—but rather, it’s due to the Iran War. Or more specifically, it’s because of the situation currently unfolding with the Strait of Hormuz: Tankers carrying oil and gas are being blocked by the IRGC.Let’s go through which countries are asking (and which countries are mandating) people to work from home.

Researchers in the Northeast have poured 65,000 liters of red-dyed sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine in order to conduct a geoengineering project which, they claim, might combat climate change.This trial—officially called the LOC-NESS project—took place last August 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution poured several tons of the bright red chemical into the water over the course of four days. The thinking is that by making the ocean more alkaline, it will suck in more CO2 from the atmosphere, and turn it into baking soda.Let’s go through the details together.

A man over in Spain tried to hack into his own vacuum cleaner robot, but instead, he accidentally hacked into 7,000 different vacuum robots—giving him direct access to live video feeds within people’s homes. Basically, he discovered a backdoor within these Chinese-made robots that made them extremely insecure.This meant that if you had one of these vacuums in your home, he (and anyone else who knew about this feature) could literally see inside your home through the camera lens at the top of the unit.Let’s go through the details of this case together.

An elite U.S. Air Force pilot was just arrested because he allegedly did the one thing that you shouldn’t do after leaving service ... train your Chinese military counterparts.Let’s go through the details of his case together.

Amidst the Iran-Israel-U.S. war in the Middle East, footage has emerged allegedly showing a new type of weapon being used in battle for the first time. Called the "Iron Beam" laser defense system, it uses electric powered lasers to shoot projectiles and drones out of the sky for a fraction of the price of a traditional Patriot battery.