Month: May 2024

Enlarge / Cleveland doctor Sherri Tenpenny gives false testimony on June 8, 2021, saying COVID-19 vaccines magnetize people. (credit: The Ohio Channel)

An anti-vaccine doctor best known for losing her medical license after falsely claiming that COVID-19 vaccines cause people to become magnetic and "interface" with 5G towers, has had her medical license restored, according to local media reports.

Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopathic doctor in the Cleveland area, beamed into the national spotlight in June 2021 while giving repelling testimony before state lawmakers about COVID-19 vaccine recipients. "I'm sure you've seen the pictures all over the Internet of people who have had these shots and now they're magnetized," Tenpenny said in her viral testimony. "You can put a key on their forehead—it sticks. You can put spoons and forks all over and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that."

Her testimony was in support of a bill that would largely ban vaccine mandates in Ohio. The bill never made it out of committee. But the state's medical board opened an investigation the next month. The board intended to ask Tenpenny a variety of questions, including her statements "regarding COVID-19 vaccines causing people to become magnetized or creating an interface with 5G towers… and regarding some major metropolitan areas liquefying dead bodies and pouring them into the water supply," according to a board report.

Enlarge (credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The federal government has given Tesla quite the homework assignment. The electric automaker has until July 1 to reply to a massive data request from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is investigating the efficacy of Tesla's massive Autopilot recall, following at least 20 crashes post-recall.

Tesla decided to recall more than 2 million cars in the US—almost every vehicle it has ever sold here—in December 2023, following an engineering analysis by NHTSA that found the automaker's Autopilot driver assistance feature had inadequate driver monitoring and that Autopilot was too easily misused.

Last month, we discovered that NHTSA is not happy with the Autopilot recall. Now, the agency has made public the letter it sent Tesla this week, demanding a whole lot of answers by July 1.

• 

  The Pixel 8a. [credit: Google ]

Today is a big event day for Apple, but that doesn't mean Google is going to fade into the background: It's announcing the Pixel 8a today. The big news is that the Pixel a series is still $499 despite some upgrades.

What are those upgrades? How about a 120 Hz display on Google's mid-ranger for the first time? The 6.1-inch, 120 Hz, 2400×1080 display is closer to a flagship than ever, even if it is a smaller phone. You also get flagship-class support with Google's industry-leading seven years of OS updates, so the phone should be good until 2031, if you can hold out that long. Together, these two upgrades make the Pixel 8a an incredible value.

Major news with last year's launch of the Pixel 7a was the older Pixel 6a, which got a big price drop down to $349 when the 7a came out. When asked about a potential Pixel 7a price drop, Google says it "will continue to sell the Pixel 7a" but also that it has "no news to announce today on a pricing change." It did feel like the Pixel 6a's price drop stole some of the 7a's thunder last year, so maybe Google is giving that announcement some breathing room. For now, you'll have to think long and hard at checkout and decide between a $499 Pixel 8a and a $499 Pixel 7a. The base model Pixel 8, at $699 with nearly the same specs, is also a tough sell in the face of the Pixel 8a.

Enlarge / John? Is that you, John? John? Can't we discuss this like civilized men? (credit: Stern Pinball)

If you don’t follow the ins and outs of pinball, you might be surprised to find out there are more active companies making games in 2024 than ever before.

Stern Pinball is the 800-pound gorilla of the industry. It has been around the longest, has the largest factory, sells the most games, and releases more titles per year than anyone else. For years, it was the sole remaining pinball company in the world.

Now—despite the decline of arcades—pinball is seeing a second life. A passionate collector base dedicates entire game rooms in their homes to machines. Pinball and bars go together so well Stern has a whole video series on “brewcade hopping”. There are games in comics shops. One of my more amazing local spots is in the back of a Korean BBQ. All this interest has created a thriving pinball ecosystem of boutique makers, where success is often measured in sales of 1,000 machines or fewer. Other pinball companies might not compete with Stern directly by volume, but they do provide a level of competition for ideas that keeps the hobby strong.