Tag: international alerts

Federal judge blocks Biden administration officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Business

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, handing a win to GOP states in a lawsuit accusing the government of going too far in its effort to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

In a preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty, the judge ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.

The injunction notes that the government can still communicate with the companies as part of efforts to curb illegal activity and address national security threats.

The order applies to agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Justice Department and FBI as well as officials such as US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

The agencies and officials, Doughty said, are prohibited from “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Doughty, a Donald Trump appointee, noted in the lawsuit that social media companies “include Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok,” as well as a number of other online platforms.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

Meta declined to comment. CNN also reached out to Twitter, Google and TikTok for comment.

The lawsuit brought by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in 2022 represents a novel way to pursue “censorship” claims accusing the Biden administration of effectively silencing conservatives by leaning on the private social media companies.

Though Doughty hasn’t yet ruled on the merits of the two states’ claims, his order Tuesday represents their most significant victory yet in the ongoing lawsuit. The judge had previously ordered the administration to produce documents identifying government officials and the nature of their communications with social media platforms.

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April 12, 2021
14 promises Donald Trump has made in his campaign for a second term | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Former President Donald Trump has hit the 2024 campaign trail and is giving voters a preview of what a second Trump presidency could look like if he’s elected. He’s made many campaign promises – many of which are often vague and lacking in details or specifics – including ending the war in Ukraine, building 10 new cities and giving drug smugglers the death penalty.

Here are some of the policies he says he would enact if elected for a second term.

“The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” former President Donald Trump said in a January campaign video.

If elected, Trump said in his November 2022 campaign announcement that he would ask Congress to ensure that drug smugglers and human traffickers can receive the death penalty for their “heinous acts.” The former president also vowed to “take down” drug cartels by imposing naval embargos on cartels, cutting off cartels’ access to global financial systems and using special forces within the Department of Defense to damage the cartels’ leadership.

“When I am president, we will put parents back in charge and give them the final say,” Trump said in a January campaign video, speaking about education

The former president said he would give funding preferences and “favorable treatment” to schools that allow parents to elect principals, abolish teacher tenure for K-12 teachers, use merit pay to incentivize quality teaching and cut the number of school administrators, such as those overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Trump also said in the campaign video that he would cut funding for schools that teach critical race theory and gender ideology. In a later speech, Trump said he would bring back the 1776 Commission, which was launched in his previous administration to “teach our values and promote our history and our traditions to our children.”

Lastly, the former president said he would charge the Department of Justice and the Department of Education with investigating civil rights violations of race-based discrimination in schools while also removing “Marxists” from the Department of Education. A second Trump administration would pursue violations in schools of both the Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, which prohibit the government establishment of religion and protect a citizen’s right to practice their own religion, he said.

“I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our youth and ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states,” Trump said at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference in March.

Trump added in a campaign video that he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to cut programs that promote gender transitions, as well as asking Congress to stop the use of federal dollars to promote and pay for gender-affirming procedures. The former president added that his administration would not allow hospitals and healthcare providers to meet the federal health and safety standards for Medicaid and Medicare if they provide chemical or physical gender-affirming care to youth.

Trump said in two February campaign videos that, if “Marxist” prosecutors refuse to charge crimes and surrender “our cities to violent criminals,” he “will not hesitate to send in federal law enforcement to restore peace and public safety.”

Trump added that he would instruct the Department of Justice to open civil rights investigations into “radical left” prosecutors’ offices that engaged in racial enforcement of the law, encourage Congress to use their legal authority over Washington, DC, to restore “law and order” and overhaul federal standards of disciplining minors to address rising crimes like carjackings.

Addressing policies made in what Trump calls the “Democrats’ war on police,” the former president vowed in a campaign video that he would pass a “record investment” to hire and retrain police, strengthen protections like qualified immunity, increase penalties for assaulting law enforcement officers and deploy the National Guard when local law enforcement “refuses to act.” The former president added that he would require law enforcement agencies that receive money from his funding investment or the Department of Justice to use “proven common sense” measures such as stop-and-frisk.

“Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump said at a New Hampshire campaign event, adding in another speech that it would take him “no longer than one day” to settle the war if elected. Trump offered no details on how he would end the war in Ukraine.

Trump further addressed his strategy of stopping the “never-ending wars” by vowing to remove warmongers, frauds and “failures in the senior ranks of our government,” and replace them with national security officials who would defend America’s interests. The former president added in a campaign video that he would stop lobbyists and government contractors from pushing senior military officials towards war.

Trump said he would restore his “wonderful” travel ban on individuals from several majority-Muslim countries to “keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country” after President Joe Biden overturned the ban in 2021.

Trump said in multiple campaign videos that he would spearhead an effort to build Freedom Cities to “reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and in fact, the American Dream.”

In his plan, the federal government would charter 10 new cities on federal land, awarding them to areas with the best development proposals. The former president said in a campaign video that the Freedom Cities would bring the return of US manufacturing, economic opportunity, new industries and affordable living.

In the March video, Trump added that the US under a second Trump administration would lead in efforts to “develop vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles for families and individuals,” not letting China lead “this revolution in air mobility.” The former president said these airborne vehicles would change commerce and bring wealth into rural communities.

“When I am president, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left,” Trump said in a January video.

To address the “disturbing” relationship between technology platforms and the government, the former president said he would enact a seven-year cooling off period before employees at agencies such as the FBI or CIA can work for platforms that oversee mass user data.

Trump added in multiple campaign releases that he would task the Department of Justice with investigating and prosecuting the online censorship “regime,” ban federal agencies from “colluding” to censor citizens, fire bureaucrats who are believed to engage in federal censorship and suspend federal money to universities participating in “censorship-supporting activities.”

On false information, the president would ban the use of taxpayer dollars to label any domestic speech as mis- or disinformation, as well as stopping federal funding of nonprofits and academic programs that study mis- or disinformation.

Under the proposed Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, the former president said if other countries impose tariffs in the US, “we charge THEM – an eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff, same exact amount.”

Trump vowed in a campaign video to impose the same tariffs that other countries may impose on the US on those countries. The goal, the former president said, is to get other countries to drop their tariffs.

As part of a larger strategy to bring jobs back into the US, Trump said he would also implement his America First trade agenda if elected. Setting universal baseline tariffs on a majority of foreign goods, the former president said Americans would see taxes decrease as tariffs increase. His proposal also includes a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, as well as stopping China from buying up America and stopping the investment of US companies in China.

“With victory, we will again build the greatest economy ever,” Trump said in his November campaign announcement. “It will take place quickly. We will build the greatest economy ever,” though he didn’t provide specific policy proposals or explain how he would improve the economy.

Trump said he would repeal Biden’s tax hikes, “immediately tackle” inflation and end what he called Biden’s “war” on American energy production.

At CPAC, Trump promised to, “fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before…” Trump also said in a campaign video that he would reinstate a 2020 executive order to remove “rogue” bureaucrats and propose a constitutional amendment for term limits on members of Congress.

Trump also pledged to “appoint US Attorneys who will be the polar opposite of the Soros District Attorneys and others that are being appointed throughout the United States.” The former president added on to this message, vowing to end the “reign” of such investigations and district attorneys and overhaul the Department of Justice and the FBI.

“I will take Biden’s executive order directing the federal government to target the firearms industry, and I will rip it up and throw it out on day one,” Trump said at the 2023 National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action leadership forum in April.

The former president also promised in the speech that the government would not infringe on citizens’ Second Amendment rights and that he would push Congress to pass a concealed carry reciprocity.

“I will create a special team to rapidly review every action taken by federal agencies under Biden’s ‘equity’ agenda that will need to be reversed. We will reverse almost all of them,” Trump said in a campaign video.

Trump added in multiple campaign videos that he would revoke Biden’s equity executive order that required federal agencies to deliver equitable outcomes in policy and conduct equity training. If elected, Trump said he would also fire staffers hired to implement Biden’s policy, and then reinstate his 2020 executive order banning racial and sexual stereotyping in the federal government.

“When I’m president, I will ensure that America’s future remains firmly in American hands just as I did when I was president before,” Trump said in a campaign video.

Trump vowed to restrict Chinese ownership of US infrastructure such as energy, technology, telecommunications and natural resources. The former president also said he would force the Chinese to sell current holdings that may put national security at risk. “Economic security is national security,” he said.

Trump vowed in a June campaign video to reinstate his previous executive order that the US government would pay the same price for pharmaceuticals as other developed countries to “end this global freeloading on American consumers for once and for all.”

Some of the former presidents’ pharmaceutical policies were overturned by Biden. Trump said in the video his administration would pay the best prices offered to other countries, who he said often pay lower pharmaceutical prices than Americans. This policy, Trump believes, would cause the pharmaceutical industry to raise prices for other countries while lowering costs for Americans.

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April 12, 2021
EU blesses transatlantic data sharing deal | CNN Business

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CNN
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The European Union on Monday gave final approval to an agreement with the US government that restores the ability for thousands of businesses to easily transfer the personal information of European citizens to servers located in the United States, and vice versa, in the face of surveillance concerns by privacy advocates.

The decision resolves, for now, years of uncertainty about the future of transatlantic data flows that US officials say support more than $1 trillion in annual economic activity. Those data flows had been threatened when a previous EU-US agreement was struck down in 2020 by Europe’s top court over insufficient privacy protections for EU citizens.

With the EU’s approval, the new agreement again allows businesses to transfer European data to the United States as if it were another EU member state, without requirements to implement additional privacy safeguards.

Monday’s so-called “adequacy decision” by the European Commission paves the way for companies to sign up for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which entered into force the same day.

EU officials said the new framework improves upon its predecessor by tying in an executive order signed by President Joe Biden last year limiting how US intelligence agencies may access European citizens’ personal information.

The order also provided for the creation of a new court-like body that can force US companies to delete EU citizens’ data if an investigation determines that EU citizens’ privacy rights were violated. EU citizens will be able to file individual complaints to the Data Protection Review Court.

In a statement, EU President Ursula von der Leyen called the US enhancements “unprecedented.”

“Today we take an important step to provide trust to citizens that their data is safe, to deepen our economic ties between the EU and the US, and at the same time to reaffirm our shared values,” von der Leyen said. “It shows that by working together, we can address the most complex issues.”

But civil liberties advocates on Monday sharply criticized the framework as too similar to “Privacy Shield,” the agreement struck down in 2020, signaling that the new framework is likely to be tested with its own court challenges.

“Guess what: it is largely a copy of the old principles!” tweeted Max Schrems, the privacy activist who led the charge that resulted in Privacy Shield’s nullification.

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April 12, 2021
Shein and Temu’s battle for US bargain shoppers is getting nasty | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
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Temu has sued Shein in the United States, accusing its rival of violating antitrust laws by trying to monopolize suppliers and engaging in other allegedly illegal behavior.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Massachusetts federal court, is a dramatic escalation of a contentious legal battle the two fast fashion upstarts have been embroiled in for months.

It follows another complaint from Shein, which sued Temu in December for allegedly mobilizing social media influencers to disparage Shein online.

In the new suit, Temu claims that Shein has “engaged in a campaign of threats, intimidation, false assertions of infringement, and attempts to impose baseless punitive fines” on apparel makers thought to be working with Temu.

Shein has also “forced” exclusivity deals on clothing manufacturers to prevent them from working with Temu, the complaint states.

Both companies originated in China and made their names as online retailers specializing in a supersonic version of fast fashion, defined as the rapid design and production of cheap goods that respond to fleeting trends.

In some ways, they’re beating industry stalwarts like Zara and H&M

(HNNMY) at their own game, by making items more quickly and being more digitally savvy with customers.

Shein overtook the two giants in US market share during the pandemic, while Temu has clinched a strong position since its launch last year, according to analytics firm Bloomberg Second Measure.

However, the new litigation illustrates how the race is heating up on an emerging industry battlefield.

“This shows how competitive the environment is getting,” said Michael Felice, a partner in Kearney’s communications, media and technology practice.

In its lawsuit filed last week, Temu claimed its recent entry into the United States had rattled Shein.

Temu, which is owned by PDD along with hugely popular Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, launched in September. It operates as an online general store for everything from home goods to apparel to electronics at strikingly low prices.

The company’s platform quickly became the most downloaded app in the United States, where it currently remains in the top two on iOS and Android app stores, according to Sensor Tower.

As a result of its fast growth, “Shein now views itself as being ‘at war’ with Temu and has engaged in an elaborate and anticompetitive scheme aimed at stymieing Temu’s business,” Temu said in a court filing.

“The US market is the primary theater of this war.”

To force the hand of manufacturers, Shein tried to “lock up the supply chain” by forcing them to sign loyalty agreements, vowing not to do business with Temu, the latter alleged.

It also claimed that Shein issued fines and penalty notices to suppliers that did work Temu, in an effort to send a stern warning to businesses that it would “not tolerate any manufacturer’s doing business with Temu.”

Like Shein, most of Temu’s suppliers are based in China and “are not familiar with the US legal system and lack the funds to pursue independent advice,” Temu said.

“The intent and effect of Shein’s anticompetitive conduct is to exclude Temu so that Shein can charge higher prices to consumers while offering a smaller selection and lower quality than Shein would if it faced competition,” Temu argued.

In response, a Shein spokesperson told CNN that “we believe this lawsuit is without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves.”

Shein took off in the United States two years ago, luring young customers to its platform through an addictive mobile shopping experience and wide selection of trendy apparel.

The firm is now “by far” the market leader in ultra-fast fashion, commanding more than 75% of US market share last year, according to Temu.

But there are signs its smaller rival is catching up or even racing ahead: In May, total US spending on Temu eclipsed that of Shein by 20%, according to Second Measure.

In recent months, the two have increasingly turned on one another, with battle lines being drawn on social media.

Shein sued Temu in Illinois federal court in December, alleging that the latter had enlisted online influencers “to make false and deceptive statements” about Shein to promote its own goods.

It claimed that Temu had required them to make statements such as: “Shein is not the only cheap option for clothing! Check Temu.com out, cheaper and way better quality.”

The newcomer provided influencers with guidelines to make those statements, creating false advertising, Shein alleged.

Temu has filed to dismiss the suit, but the case is still pending.

The company has said it “strongly and categorically rejects all allegations, and is vigorously defending its rights.”

“For a long time, we have exercised significant restraint and refrained from pursuing legal actions,” Temu told CNN in a statement Tuesday about the new lawsuit.

“However, Shein’s escalating attacks leave us no choice but to take legal measures to defend our rights and the rights of those merchants doing business on Temu, as well as the consumers’ rights to a wide variety of affordable products.”

Temu also claims that Shein “unilaterally changed its contract” with manufacturers, forcing them to effectively give up their intellectual property rights to Shein, which it then used to go after “the very same merchants” on Temu.

Shein’s onslaught has already hurt Temu’s business, the latter claims.

The company has falsely accused its smaller competitor numerous times of copyright infringement “to disrupt sales of products that are offered for sale on Temu,” the latter said in its complaint.

As a result, more than 10,000 product listings have been pulled from Temu since last October, it added.

The ongoing spats demonstrate how “obviously each [company] is a threat to the other,” said Felice.

“Given this dynamic, the lawsuits are not a surprise, and each seems to be trying to establish legitimacy in the courts by delegitimizing the other.”

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April 12, 2021
A Twitter user found that some airline phone numbers on Google Maps link to scammers | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Google is working to fix false contact information for some major airlines on Google Maps after a Twitter user found a phone number actually connected callers to scammers.

Phone numbers appeared to be altered on Google Maps listings for multiple airlines’ locations at John F Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York. Impacted airlines included Delta, American, Southwest and Qantas, the user claimed in a widely viewed post.

The Twitter user detailed his experience trying to contact Delta after a canceled flight left him googling for a help line to rebook. After calling the listed number, he got a call back from what seemed to be a Delta customer service agent – but from a line with a French country code.

“By providing him with my confirmation number and name, he was able to look up my trip information on Delta. He found [an] alternative flight from Newark, leaving later in the evening. But he needed me to confirm,” Shmuli Evers posted on Sunday.

Sensing something was off, Evers ended the conversation. “He tried to text me after that, and he tried his best for so long to help me get on a flight… He wanted me to pay him 5 times the price of the original ticket cost.”

Scammers looking to trick unsuspecting customers are able to edit phone numbers of major companies’ local business listings on Google results, an issue that the tech giant says it is working to combat.

“We do not tolerate this misleading activity, and are constantly monitoring and evolving our platforms to combat fraud and create a safe environment for users and businesses,” a Google spokesperson told CNN.

“Our teams have already begun reverting the inaccuracies, suspending the malicious accounts involved, and applying additional protections to prevent further abuse.”

Using a combination of human moderators and technology, Google constantly monitors contributed content to spot and remove fraudulent information, enforcing policies that state all contributions must be based on ” real experiences and information.”

Accounts found to be uploading false or misleading data can be suspended or even face litigation, according to the company, such as a lawsuit filed in June against a bad actor posting fake reviews on small businesses.

Impacted businesses like airlines are able to flag concerns to both Google and law enforcement over suspected scammers.

“Whenever we become aware of an alleged scam targeting our customers, including in this situation, we immediately conduct an investigation. Using the facts gained from an investigation, when able, we can then address each unique situation as appropriate with the necessary legal means at our disposal,” a Delta spokesperson told CNN.

Delta also advises customers to contact the airline only through known channels like numbers listed on their website or their online messaging option.

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April 12, 2021
Democratic senator calls Samuel Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ on Supreme Court ethics controversy | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
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Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on Sunday called Justice Samuel Alito “stunningly wrong” in his contention that Congress should stay out of the Supreme Court’s business and stop trying to impose ethics rules.

“It is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn’t have anything to do with the rules guiding the Supreme Court. In fact, from the very beginning, Congress has set those rules,” Murphy told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.”

“But it is even more disturbing that Alito feels the need to insert himself into a congressional debate. And it is just more evidence that these justices on the Supreme Court, these conservative justices, just see themselves as politicians. They just see themselves as a second legislative body that has just as much power and right to impose their political will on the country as Congress does.”

Spurred by a string of stories about alleged ethics violations by justices, Senate Democrats have advanced legislation meant to create a code of ethics for the Supreme Court.

But Alito, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, maintained in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section Friday that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court” and doesn’t have the authority to regulate it.

“I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year,” Alito said in the interview, adding that “the traditional idea about how judges and justices should behave is they should be mute.”

The high court has repeatedly evaded requests in recent months to adopt a binding code of conduct, instead responding to allegations of ethical improprieties by releasing statements outlining and defending its current procedures.

That has failed to satisfy critics in the wake of an array of media reports shining a spotlight on how the justices are leading their lives off the bench, triggering questions about whether they are improperly benefiting from their positions.

“They are going to bend the law in order to impose their right-wing view of how the country should work on the rest of us,” Murphy said Sunday of the court’s conservative justices.

“And it’s why we need to pass this commonsense ethics legislation to at least make sure we know that these guys aren’t in bed having their lifestyles paid for by conservative donors, as we have unfortunately seen in these latest revelations,” Murphy said.

The ethics legislation is not expected to get the 60 votes required to advance on the floor of the Democratic-controlled Senate. And even if it did, the GOP-led House is unlikely to take it up.

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April 12, 2021
Suspended Texas AG Ken Paxton seeks to have most impeachment articles tossed | CNN Politics

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Attorneys for suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have asked that the majority of the articles of impeachment brought against him be dismissed, arguing he can’t be tried for alleged actions that took place before his current term.

In a filing to the state Senate’s impeachment court on Monday, Paxton’s attorneys sought to dismiss 19 of the 20 articles of impeachment, citing a rule known as “prior-term doctrine.” The rule, they argued, would prevent an official from being impeached over alleged conduct that precedes their most recent election.

The move comes after the Texas House of Representatives impeached Paxton in May for alleged misconduct, including allegations that he used his office to favor the interests of a prominent donor. He has denied the allegations. Under the Texas Constitution, Paxton is suspended from office while the matter is pending but would be reinstated if acquitted by the Senate.

CNN has reached out to the Texas Senate about the filings.

In a second motion filed Monday, Paxton’s team also asked that evidence of “any alleged conduct” that occurred prior to January 2023 when Paxton began his third term in office be excluded from the state Senate’s trial.

“The allegations making up the Articles contain unsupported, vague, and irrelevant assertions of non-impeachable conduct,” the motion to exclude evidence stated, adding that the articles “are not based on any alleged conduct that occurred after the election of November 2022, or after [Paxton] began his third term in January 2023.”

Paxton’s attorneys said at the outset of the motion that the state House and its counsel “promised the public that the evidence against the Attorney General is ‘clear, compelling and decisive’ and ‘ten times worse than what has been public.’”

But, they argued, “now that the House Managers have been forced by this Court to turn over their evidence through document production, it is clear that the evidence the House Managers have gathered is 100 times less compelling that what has been proclaimed.”

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has since appointed former Texas Secretary of State John Scott as a temporary replacement, while Paxton awaits his September 5 impeachment trial.

During the Senate impeachment trial, the lieutenant governor will function as the judge and the senators will serve as jurors. A two-thirds vote of those present would be required to convict. Attorneys for Paxton said earlier this month he will not testify during the trial.

Paxton, a conservative firebrand who has closely aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, has brought over two dozen cases against the Biden administration as Texas’s top prosecutor.

CNN previously reported that he is also facing an FBI investigation for abuse of office and that Justice Department prosecutors in Washington, DC, took over a corruption investigation into Paxton. He is also under indictment for securities fraud in a separate, unrelated case. Paxton has denied all charges and allegations.

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April 12, 2021
How Kyrsten Sinema’s decision makes Democrats’ 2024 Senate map tighter | CNN Politics

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Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema decided to shake up the political world on Friday by becoming an independent. The former Democrat is still caucusing with the party in the Senate, so the Democratic caucus still has 51 members. Now, instead of 49 Democrats and two independents within their ranks, the caucus has 48 Democrats and three independents.

But that simple math hides a more clouded picture for Democrats and for Sinema herself. Sinema’s interests are no longer necessarily the Democrats’ best interests in the next Congress, and the 2024 Senate map became even more complicated for Democrats with Sinema’s decision.

To be clear, Sinema has always been a thorn in the Democrats side during her time in Congress. Over the last two years, Democrats have had to almost always make sure that any bill or nomination had Sinema’s support to have any chance of passing. That’s the math when you have only 50 Senate seats in a 100-seat chamber. A lot of bills and nominations were never voted on without Sinema and Manchin’s backing.

From 2013 (Sinema’s first term in Congress) to 2020, Sinema voted against her party more than almost any other member of Congress. She stayed with the party about 69% of the time on votes where at least one half of the Democrats voted differently than half of Republicans. The average Democrat voted with their party about 90% of the time on these votes.

It’s quite possible that Sinema’s percentage of sticking with the party will lower now that she is an independent. Consider the example of former Sen. Joe Lieberman. The longtime Democrat won reelection as a third-party candidate in 2006, after losing the Democratic primary to a left-wing challenger (the now fairly moderate Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont)

Relative to the average Senate Democrat, Lieberman voted with the party 10 points less of the time after becoming an independent than he had in his last term as a Democrat. If that happens with Sinema, she’ll become even more conservative than West Virginia’s Joe Manchin (the most conservative member of the Democratic caucus).

This would make sense because the incentive structure is now very different for Sinema. Ahead of a 2024 reelection campaign, she no longer has to worry about winning a Democratic primary. Sinema has to worry about building a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans. That is far more difficult to do if you’re seen as too liberal.

Indeed, the big reason Sinema became an independent is because it would have been very difficult to win a Democratic primary. Her approval rating among Arizona Democrats in an autumn 2022 CES poll stood at just 25%. A number of Democrats (e.g. Rep. Ruben Gallego and Rep. Greg Stanton) were already lining up to potentially challenge her in a primary.

A question now is whether Sinema’s decision to become an independent will dissuade some of those Democrats from running. The idea being that Sinema still caucuses with the Democrats, and Democrats wouldn’t want to split the Democratic vote in a general election allowing a Republican to win in a purple state like Arizona.

It’s an interesting bet from Sinema. After all, Democrats usually don’t run a candidate against independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in Vermont. The Democrats who run against independent Sen. Angus King in Maine have not gained traction in recent elections. Don’t forget the aforementioned Lieberman won as a third-party candidate.

The electoral math structure was and is totally different in these circumstances, however. Sanders wouldn’t attract a left-wing Democratic challenger because he is already so progressive. Lieberman declared his third-party candidacy after the primary, so Republicans didn’t have time to find a well-known challenger. Republicans also knew that Lieberman, who was an ardent supporter of the Iraq War, was probably the best they could hope for in the deeply Democratic state of Connecticut.

This leaves the King example. King, like Sinema, is a moderate from not a deeply blue or red state. There’s just one problem for Sinema in this analogy: King is popular. He had previously won the governorship twice as an independent and has almost always sported high favorables.

Sinema is not popular at all. The CES poll had her approval rating below her disapproval rating with Democrats, independents and Republicans in Arizona. Sinema’s overall approval stood at 25% to a disapproval rating of 58%. Other polling isn’t nearly as dire for Sinema, but the average of it all has her firmly being more unpopular than popular.

Put another way, Sinema’s current numbers are probably not going to scare off many challengers from either the Democratic or Republican side. Additionally, there’s zero reason for Democrats to cede the ground to Sinema because it would keep a Republican from winning. It isn’t clear at all that Sinema can win as an independent.

What Sinema’s move did accomplish is that it made the electoral math a lot more complicated in Arizona and therefore nationally. Having two people in the race who are going to caucus with the Democratic Party likely makes it more difficult for the Democrats to win.

One potential worrisome example for Democrats in a purple state (at least then) was the 2010 Florida Senate race. Then Republican Gov. Charlie Crist decided to run as an independent after it became clear he wouldn’t beat the more conservative Republican Marco Rubio in a Republican primary. Crist, who said he would caucus with the Democrats, split the Democratic vote with then Rep. Kendrick Meek, and Rubio cruised to a win.

I should point out that Democrats certainly have a chance. The 1968 Alaska Senate race, for example, featured two Democrats (Mike Gravel and then Sen. Ernest Gruening as write-in). Gravel won in the state which Republican Richard Nixon carried, too, by a few points.

In 2024, Arizona Republicans could nominate an extreme candidate that flames out. They just lost every major statewide race in 2022 because of who they nominated.

Don’t dismiss the possibility too that Sinema could win like Harry Byrd did in the 1970 Virginia Senate election when both parties nominated candidates. Maybe voters will like Sinema’s new independent registration.

Sinema also could find herself flaming out when running in the general election without a major party backing her like Gruening did in 1968 or then Sen. Jacob Javits in the 1980 New York Senate race.

We just don’t know.

All that said, the Democrats already have a difficult map heading into 2024. Depending on whether the Democrats win the presidency (and have a Democratic vice president who can break Senate ties), they can afford to lose zero to one Senate seats and maintain a majority.

The vast majority, 23 of the 34, senators up for reelection in 2024 caucus with the Democrats. An abnormally large number (7) represent states Republican Donald Trump won at least once. This includes Arizona.

With Sinema’s break from the Democratic party, the road is, if nothing else, curvier for Democrats.

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December 31, 1969
Hot box detectors didn’t stop the East Palestine derailment. Research shows another technology might have | CNN

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CNN
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A failing, flaming wheel bearing doomed the rail car that derailed and created a catastrophe in East Palestine earlier this month, but researchers have offered a solution to the faulty detectors that experts say could have averted the disaster unfolding in the small Ohio town.

These wayside hot box detectors, stationed on rail tracks every 20 miles or so, use infrared sensors to record the temperatures of railroad bearings as trains pass by. If they sense an overheated bearing, the detectors trigger an alarm, which notifies the train crew they should stop and inspect the rail car for a potential failure.

So why did these detectors miss a bearing failure before the catastrophe?

An investigation into hot box detectors published in 2019 and funded by the Department of Transportation found that one “major shortcoming” of these detectors is that they can’t distinguish between healthy and defective bearings, and temperature alone is not a good indicator of bearing health.

“Temperature is reactive in nature, meaning by the time you’re sensing a high temperature in a bearing, it’s too late, the bearing is already in its final stages of failure,” Constantine Tarawneh, director of the University Transportation Center for Railways Safety (UTCRS) and lead investigator of the study, told CNN.

As part of the investigation, the UTCRS researchers developed a new system to better detect a bearing issue long before a catastrophic failure. The key: measuring the bearing’s vibration in addition to its temperature and load.

The vibration of a failing bearing, Tarawneh says, often begins intensifying thousands of miles before a catastrophic failure. So his team created sensors that can be placed on board each rail car, near the bearing, to continuously monitor its vibration throughout its travels.

“If you put an accelerometer on a bearing and you’re monitoring the vibration levels, the minute a defect happens in the bearing, the accelerometer will sense an increase in vibration, and that could be, in many cases, up to 100,000 miles before the bearing actually fails,” he said.

Tarawneh, who argues the technology should be federally mandated, says had it been on board Norfolk Southern’s line it would have prevented the derailment in East Palestine.

“It would have detected the problem months before this happened,” he said. “There wouldn’t have been a derailment.”

A preliminary report from the East Palestine derailment, released Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board, found hot box sensors detected that a wheel bearing was heating up miles before it eventually failed and caused the train to derail. But the detectors didn’t alert the crew until it was too late.

The bearing, according to the report, was 38 degrees above ambient temperature when it passed through a hot box 30 miles outside East Palestine. No alert went out, the NTSB said.

Ten miles later, the next hot box detected that the bearing had reached 103 degrees above ambient. Video of the train recorded in that area shows sparks and flames around the rail car. Still, no alert went to the crew.

It wasn’t until a further 20 miles down the tracks, as the train reached East Palestine, that a hot box detector recorded the bearing’s temperature at 253 degrees above ambient and sent an alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle, the report said.

The crew slowed the train, the report added, leading to an automatic emergency brake application. After the train stopped, the crew observed the derailment.

The reason those first two hot box readings didn’t trigger an alert, the report said, is because Norfolk Southern’s policy is to only stop and inspect a bearing after it has reached 170 degrees above ambient temperature. The NTSB is planning to review Norfolk Southern’s use of wayside hot box detectors, including spacing and the temperature threshold that determines when crews are alerted.

“Had there been a detector earlier, that derailment may not have occurred,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy at a Thursday press conference.

In a statement responding to the NTSB report, Norfolk Southern stressed that its hot box detectors were operating as designed, and that those detectors trigger an alarm at a temperature threshold that is “among the lowest in the rail industry.” CNN has reached out to Norfolk Southern for comment on vibration sensor technology.

Hot box detectors are unregulated, so companies like Norfolk Southern can turn them on and off at their own discretion and choose the temperature threshold at which crews receive an alert.

There are several causes for overheated roller bearings, including fatigue cracking, water damage, mechanical damaging, a loose bearing or a wheel defect, according to the NTSB, and the agency says they’re investigating what caused the failure in East Palestine.

“Roller bearings fail, but it is absolutely critical for problems to be identified and addressed early so these aren’t run until failure,” Homendy said. “You cannot wait until they’ve failed. Problems need to be identified early, so something catastrophic like this does not occur again.”

Hum Industrial Technology, a rail car telematics company, has licensed the vibration sensor technology created by Tarawneh and his team. And it has launched pilot programs with several rail companies. But at this point, those sensors are on very few trains operating in the United States, which Tarawneh largely blames on the cost of retrofitting and monitoring cars and what he sees as companies prioritizing profit.

It’s not clear exactly what it would cost to retrofit every train car in operation with sensors today, but Hum Industrial Technology stressed that it would cost less to put a sensor on a bearing than to replace a bearing.

“They see it as, well, why should we do it if it’s not mandated?” Tarawneh said. “It’s like a lot of people are saying, ‘well, I’m willing to take the risk. It’s not that many derailments per year.’”

But Steve Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration official, says equipping every rail car with on board sensors may not be financially feasible.

“What they’re proposing will work, but it’s very, very expensive,” Ditmeyer told CNN. “And one does have to take cost into consideration.”

It would take more than 12 million on board sensors, according to Tarawneh, to fully equip the roughly 1.6 million rail cars in service across North America.

Ditmeyer says railroads should invest more heavily in wayside acoustic bearing detectors, which sit along the tracks – much like hot box detectors – and monitor the sound of passing trains. They listen for noise that indicates a bearing failure well before a potential catastrophe.

As of 2019, only 39 acoustic bearing detectors were in use across North America compared to more than 6,000 hot box detectors, according to a 2019 DOT report.

“They are the only way that I can think of that would have prevented the accident by having caught a failing bearing earlier,” Ditmeyer said.

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December 31, 1969