(NEW YORK) — Volvo is recalling over 460,000 cars due to an air bag defect that could result in passenger injury.
The recall affects older sedans, including 2001-2009 S60s and 2001-2006 S80s.
According to documents from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the driver’s air bag inflator “may explode during deployment,” which could result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants. There has been at least one death due to the defect, according to the documents.
“Our investigations have identified an issue where driver airbag inflators may under certain circumstances be subjected to excessive pressures during deployment potentially resulting in an inflator rupture,” a Volvo spokesperson said. “The excessive pressure can occur if the inflator has been subjected to elevated levels of moisture and high inflator temperatures frequently during its lifetime.”
To remedy the issue, Volvo will contact owners of cars subject to the recall. Dealerships will replace the driver’s air bag for free.
(LOS ANGELES) — A proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against the companies who run the oil line that dumped hundreds of thousands of crude oil off the coast of California over the weekend.
The federal lawsuit, filed Monday in the Central District of California Western Division, claimed the companies in charge of operating the rig and connected pipelines caused harm to people, wildlife and the local ecosystem by failing to prevent the spill from the platform about 4.5 miles from shore, known as “Elly.”
The lawsuit also accuses the defendants of failing to warn or provide the public with “adequate and timely notice of the hazards and their impacts.”
“At the time of this complaint’s filing, deceased animals were washing up covered in oil on the shorelines of the Affected Area and a large ecological reserve nearby had suffered tremendous damage,” the lawsuit stated, defining the “Affected Area” as the stretch of coast between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach and the defendants as Amplify Energy Corporation its subsidiary, the Beta Operating Company and other affiliates that may also hold responsibility.
A maximum of 144,000 gallons leaked into the Pacific Ocean after a pipe broke Saturday morning, according to officials. By early Sunday morning, the oil had reached the shore, fanning out over an area of about 5.8 nautical miles and entering the Talbert Marshlands and the Santa Ana River Trail, according to the city of Huntington Beach.
As a result, nearby beaches were closed to facilitate the cleanup and prevent residents from inhaling toxic fumes from the crude oil. Dana Point Harbor, about 30 miles south of Huntington Beach, became the latest location to close on Tuesday morning.
Hundreds of people are participating in cleanup efforts, both on land and in the ocean.
The main plaintiff, Peter Moses Gutierrez, is a disc jockey who frequently performs on Huntington Beach, according to the lawsuit. Gutierrez expects to lose a “substantial amount” of business in the foreseeable future as a result of the spill, the complaint alleges.
Gutierrez and other plaintiffs claim they have also been exposed to toxins from the oil, according to the lawsuit.
The nearly 18-mile Elly pipeline and the facilities that operate it were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to the lawsuit.
The pipeline was likely leaking before the damage was discovered Saturday morning, Orange County supervisor Katrina Foley stated over the weekend. Officials from a division of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stated in a report that they were notified of an “observed sheen” off the Huntington Beach coast at 10:22. p.m. on Friday, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
The U.S. Coast Guard was notified of the leak on Saturday morning, Amplify CEO Martyn Willsher told reporters.
Officials are looking into whether a ship anchor struck the underwater pipeline, damaging it, Willsher told reporters at a news conference Monday.
The Beta Operating Company has been cited 125 times for safety and environmental violations since 1980, The Associated Press reported, citing a database from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. It has been fined a total of $85,000 for three incidents.
The plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial to determine whether the defendants violated state laws and whether the defendants breached a duty and caused harm to the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. The jury will also be asked whether restitution and compensatory or consequential damages should be awarded to the plaintiffs.
Representatives for the Amplify Energy Corporation did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Calls to the Beta Operating Company were not answered.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison, Bonnie Mclean and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 703,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 65.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Latest headlines:
-Sandra Lindsay, 1st to get vaccine in US, to get booster shot
-Francis Collins to step down as director of the National Institutes of Health
-J&J submits booster request to FDA
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 05, 3:24 pm
Forecasters predict falling cases, hospitalizations, deaths
Forecasts used by the CDC predict falling cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks in the U.S.
The COVID-19 Forecast Hub’s ensemble forecast predicts 22,686 people in the U.S. will die over the next two weeks. If that happens, it would mark more than 4,400 fewer deaths than in the previous two weeks.
ABC News’ Brian Hartman
Oct 05, 2:44 pm
Sandra Lindsay, 1st to get vaccine in US, to get booster shot
New York nurse Sandra Lindsay, the first person in the U.S. to get a COVID-19 vaccine outside a clinical trial, plans to get her Pfizer booster dose Wednesday at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York.
Other health care workers who also got their first shots in December are planning to join her in getting boosters on Wednesday.
Oct 05, 2:24 pm
Extremists likely to target health care sector as vaccine mandates spread
The Department of Homeland Security this week issued an intel notice warning that extremists, including white supremacists and other would-be domestic terrorists, are likely to “threaten violence or plot against healthcare personnel, facilities, and public officials in response to renewed and expanding COVID-19 mitigation measures.”
The document, distributed Monday to U.S. law enforcement and government agencies and obtained by ABC News, noted that anti-vaccine messaging will likely increase as vaccine mandates spread.
The notice warns that some of the misinformation and disinformation now circulating is being pushed and promoted by Russia, China and Iran as a means of sowing anger and discord in the U.S.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin
Oct 05, 12:32 pm
76% of 12+ population has at least 1 vaccine dose
Seventy-six percent of Americans ages 12 and above have had at least one vaccine dose, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said Tuesday.
Now 65% of the total U.S. population has had at least one dose, he said.
(NEW YORK) — A North Carolina school board voted Monday to make masks optional for students and staff indoors, even as 430 students are under quarantine.
The Harnett County School Board voted 4 to 1 for the optional mask policy Monday and it takes effect Tuesday.
Prior to Tuesday, masks were mandatory in the school district, which has more than 19,600 students.
The board also voted to pass an amended quarantine policy allowing students exposed to COVID-19 who haven’t tested positive to return after seven days instead of 10 days. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that those who are unvaccinated should quarantine at home for 14 days after exposure. However, 10-day or seven-day quarantines are acceptable if combined with testing and a negative test result.
According to the school district’s COVID-19 dashboard, as of Monday there are 53 positive virus cases among students and 13 among staff. Further, seven staff and 430 students are currently under quarantine.
The school district has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Mask mandates in schools have been an ongoing heated debate as more than 48 million children under the age of 12 are still ineligible to be vaccinated.
Pediatrician Dr. Lori Langdon spoke at the boarding meeting, saying: “Your students are my patients. I want you to remember that not all students in Harnett County are healthy … Some of them live in homes with immunocompromised parents and grandparents.”
“Our concern is that if we don’t have a mask mandate, we’re just going to be on the countdown back to virtual school and that’s not what any of us want,” she added. “My mask protects you and your mask protects me from you.”
Local residents shared their opinions both for and against the mask during the virtual meeting Monday night.
Parent Gina Carucci said during the meeting, “Obviously this is very political. Masks and virus has nothing to do with the virus, it has to do with complying with the government.”
“You’re taking away their freedom of speech, their freedom to talk to their friends, their freedom to show their smiles,” she said. “These children … it should be their choice.”
Board member Vivian Bennett was the lone member to vote against making masks optional.
“I think the best interest for the people of this county is for there to be masks,” she said before the vote. “My neighbor died, and her sister is taking care of her daughter. She says that she wears a mask every minute, even sleeps in one … I could never vote to think that I might hurt some of the people that I know and don’t know in this county.”
The move by Harnett County Schools comes as a slew of other school districts have imposed mask requirements for students and staff, at times in defiance of state -level bans on mask mandates.
Vaccinations for students will likely be the next frontier of debates. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday a state requirement for COVID-19 vaccines for all school children between 12 to 17 once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants full approval of the vaccine for that age group.
(NEW YORK) — A request to grant George Floyd a full posthumous pardon is headed to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk after a public defender alleged Floyd was framed in a 2004 drug bust by a former Houston police detective now indicted on murder charges.
In a letter sent Monday to Floyd’s one-time public defender Allison Mathis, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles wrote it has “completed their consideration of your client’s application requesting a Full Pardon and have voted to recommend clemency.”
The board forwarded its recommendation to Abbott for final disposition. Abbott has not said whether he will grant the pardon.
Mathis filed the request in April, writing in the petition that a “pardon is being sought because it is just and right to clear a conviction that is not supported by evidence.”
Floyd was arrested on Feb. 5, 2004, by then-Houston undercover narcotics detective Gerald Goines, who alleged Floyd provided a second suspect .03 grams of crack cocaine to sell, according to the petition. The man Floyd allegedly gave the drugs to turned out to be a police informant who sold the drugs to Goines as part of a sting operation and was not arrested or identified, according to the petition.
Floyd eventually pleaded guilty to a drug charge and was sentenced to 10 months in state jail, authorities said.
In August 2019, Goines was charged with two counts of murder related to a botched narcotics raid at a home in southeast Houston. Goines’ police colleague, Steven Bryant, pleaded guilty in June to federal charges of falsifying records and interfering with a government investigation in an attempt to help Goines cover up an illegally obtained “no-knock” warrant on the Houston home of Rhogena Nicholas and her husband, Dennis Tuttle.
During the Jan. 28, 2019, raid, a shootout erupted in which Nicholas, Tuttle and their dog were killed and four police officers, including Goines, were shot and wounded.
In announcing the indictments of Goines and Bryant, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg alleged that Goines made “numerous false statements” in the affidavit presented to the judge who signed the ‘no-knock” warrant.
The scandal prompted the Harris County District Attorney to review at least 1,400 criminal cases tied to Goines.
Ogg released a statement on Monday supporting the Board of Pardons and Paroles’ recommendation to grant Floyd clemency.
“We lament the loss of former Houstonian George Floyd and hope that his family finds comfort in Monday’s decision by the Texas State Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend clemency for a 2004 conviction,” Ogg’s statement reads.
Mathis also praised the board’s decision.
“A man was set up by a corrupt police officer intent on securing arrests rather than pursuing justice,” Mathis said in a statement. “No matter what your political affiliation is, no matter who that man was in his life or in his death, that is not something we should stand for in the United States or in Texas.”
Ben Crump, an attorney for the Floyd family, urged Abbott to grant the full pardon.
“This drug charge, which led to George Floyd’s conviction based on false evidence, helped to unravel his life,” Crump said in a statement. “Similarly, tens of thousands of Black lives are ruined by a criminal justice system that uses the war on drugs to target Black people, force them into felony pleas, incarcerate them, take away their voting rights, and destroy their families.”
Floyd died on May 25, 2020, as the result of injuries suffered when police in Minneapolis attempted to arrest him on suspicion of using a phony $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Former police officer Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as the 46-year-old Black man lost consciousness after repeatedly claiming of not being able to breathe, was convicted in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. Three other police officers charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter are scheduled to go on trial next year.
(NEW YORK) — Facebook’s safety head was questioned by lawmakers on Thursday over what the company knew about the potential for Instagram to be harmful to young users’ mental health.
The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security convened the hearing in the wake of a Wall Street Journal investigation citing Facebook’s own internal research, allegedly leaked by a whistleblower, which found Instagram adversely impacted mental health issues in teens, especially girls. Among the findings were that Instagram made body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teens.
The Journal’s reporting has sparked a fierce backlash amid accusations the tech giant publicly downplayed what it knew about how potentially harmful Instagram could be while also doing nothing to prevent it.
“We’re here today because Facebook has shown us once again that it is incapable of holding itself accountable,” Committee Chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in his opening remarks. “This month, a whistleblower approached my office to provide information about Facebook and Instagram. Thanks to documents provided by that whistleblower, as well as extensive public reporting by The Wall Street Journal and others, we now have deep insight into Facebook’s relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users.”
“We now know that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids’ online safety,” he added. “We know it chooses the growth of its products over the well-being of our children, and we now know that it is in defensively delinquent in acting to protect them.”
In the wake of the Wall Street Journal expose, Facebook announced earlier this week that it was “pausing” development of an Instagram for Kids platform, but stopped short of scrapping it.
Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, faced bipartisan scrutiny as she defended the company during the hearing that lasted some three hours. She denied Blumenthal’s claims.
“We understand that recent reporting has raised a lot of questions about our internal research, including research we do to better understand young people’s experiences on Instagram,” Davis stated in written testimony. “We strongly disagree with how this reporting characterized our work, so we want to be clear about what that research shows, and what it does not show.”
“We undertook this work to inform internal conversations about teens’ most negative perceptions of Instagram,” she added. “It did not measure causal relationships between Instagram and real-world issues.”
Davis said the reporting “implied that the results were surprising and that we hid this research,” which she said wasn’t true and that the company has discussed the “strengths and weaknesses of social media and well-being publicly for more than a decade.”
She also highlighted aspects of Facebook’s in-house research that she said the Journal didn’t include in recent stories, such as reports that Instagram made “sadness” and “loneliness” better for a majority of teenage girls.
Davis said they have removed some 600,000 accounts on Instagram alone between June and August for not meeting the age requirement of 13 years old. She also said the company has “put in place multiple protections to create safe and age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 17.”
The hearing comes as Big Tech has come under increased scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over myriad issues, from allowing the spread of misinformation to allegations of political censorship. Lawmakers on Thursday compared Instagram’s policies to Big Tobacco’s previous tactics to attract users before there was government intervention.
Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor of communication at Cornell University whose research focuses on the intersection of media, culture and technology, told ABC News via email on Thursday that Big Tech’s self-regulation hasn’t worked.
Remarks from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., referring to “traditional media’s regulation of material for children — including limitations on advertising that have long guided the television industry — attest to a growing recognition that external regulation of the platforms is critical,” Duffy said. “While Big Tech has long flaunted its mechanisms of self-regulation, these have failed — and continue to fail — its users.”
Duffy said another key takeaway from Davis’ testimony was “a refusal to agree to a long-term promise to abandon plans of further developing Instagram for Kids.” She called the initiative “part of a long-term strategy by Big Tech to court younger — and less witting — users who the platforms can inevitably collect data from.”
Lawmakers on Thursday called for the need to update the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
In prepared remarks, Davis defended building an Instagram “for tweens,” noting that other companies such as YouTube and TikTok already have developed versions of their app for those under 13.
“The principle is the same: It’s much better for kids to use a safer, more age-appropriate version of social media apps than the alternative,” Davis said. “That said, we recognize how important it is to get this right.”
“We have heard your concerns, and that is why we announced that we are pausing the project to take more time,” she added. “We’ll keep listening to parents, keep talking with policymakers and regulators, keep taking guidance from experts and researchers, and we’ll revisit this project at a later date.”
(NEW YORK) — A man is in custody after he was removed from a suspicious SUV near the Supreme Court Tuesday morning, Capitol police said.
The suspect, 55-year-old Dale Paul Melvin of Kimball, Michigan, was removed from the car and placed under arrest around 11 a.m. local time, police said.
Earlier in the morning Melvin had allegedly parked illegally and refused to talk to responding officers, authorities said. Police then brought in crisis negotiation officers.
There’s no information on motive and no weapons have been found, police said.
Everyone is safe, police said.
There were no disruptions to operations at the Supreme Court; oral arguments began as planned at 10 a.m.
The Supreme Court building remains closed to the public.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine remains 90% effective at reducing a person’s risk of hospitalization from the virus six months after it is administered, a new study has found. This is true even in the face of the delta variant as well as if the person has not received a booster shot.
Still, when it comes to preventing infections, the vaccine’s effectiveness wanes rapidly as time passes, the study found. After five months, it is just 47% effective at preventing infection.
In the study, funded by Pfizer, researchers assessed data from Kaiser Permanente and calculated the percentages of fully vaccinated patients who contracted COVID-19 on a monthly basis after vaccination. Data from roughly 3.4 million people was analyzed between December 2020 and August 2021.
The results of the study are in line with previously published data from Israel and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that looked at vaccine effectiveness over time, but the Pfizer-funded study is the first to consider how the delta variant may impact Pfizer vaccine effectiveness over time.
“The effectiveness of the vaccine against the delta and non-delta variants remained high during the study, suggesting that the vaccines worked well even when a variant was present,” Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist and ABC News contributor, said.
The delta variant was virtually non-existent in the United States when mass vaccinations began in the winter, but it now comprises more than 99% of all coronavirus cases in the country.
Vaccines might be less effective for older adults and people with underlying medication conditions, the study found.
The new data is particularly timely given that the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC recently authorized Pfizer vaccine booster shots in people who fall into certain risk categories — many of whom are over six months past their first dose.
“Our findings support policymakers who continue to monitor vaccine effectiveness over time,” Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, MPH, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, and a lead author on the study, said. “Given the observed waning, it will be vital for policymakers to assess whether recommendations for booster doses may be warranted … to help control heightened transmission of delta, especially as we enter the upcoming fall/winter viral respiratory season.”
The study followed patients for nearly half a year, but experts still don’t know if Pfizer vaccine effectiveness continues to decrease over time or plateaus. It is also unclear what happens to vaccine effectiveness after the third shot or how factors such as adherence to mask mandates and social distancing measures could impact the data.
(WASHINGTON) — A Senate subcommittee on Tuesday is hearing from a whistleblower who claims Facebook manipulated content it knew was harmful to young users, a day after the social media giant experienced an apparently unrelated massive outage.
Frances Haugen, who revealed her identity during a Sunday interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” has been cooperating with a Senate Commerce subcommittee as part of its ongoing efforts to assess potential regulations for the platform. Haugen is expected to tell lawmakers on Tuesday about evidence she reportedly has showing that the company intentionally ignored proof of its potentially harmful impact on users.
“Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money,” she told “60 Minutes.”
Facebook has publicly refuted Haugen’s claims.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Oct 05, 8:57 am
Whistleblower to testify before Senate panel
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist turned whistleblower, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee at 10 a.m. on Facebook and Instagram’s impacts on young users in a hearing entitled, “Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower. “
Beyond alleging Facebook’s knowledge of its platforms’ negative impact on teenagers and young girls, Haugen has reportedly come forward with documents showing the social media giant has also ignored but is aware of how hate speech and misinformation are emphasized on their sites.
Haugen, who revealed her identity during a Sunday interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” has been cooperating with the offices of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., chair and ranking member of the Senate committee that is assessing potential regulations for the social media giant.
(WASHINGTON) — The Facebook whistleblower who unearthed documents she says shows the company had knowledge of its platforms’ negative impact will appear before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.
Frances Haugen, who revealed her identity during a Sunday interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes has been cooperating with a Senate Commerce subcommittee as part of its ongoing efforts to assess potential regulations for the social media giant.
Documents obtained by Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, led to a series from the Wall Street Journal that reported that Facebook commissioned studies about and knew of potential harm that it was causing from negative or inflammatory content and did not act to stop it. Among the findings cited in the report were that Instagram made body image issues worse for one in three teens.
ABC News has not independently reviewed these documents, but Haugen is expected to tell the Senate subcommittee about the evidence she reportedly has that she says shows that the company intentionally ignored evidence of its potentially harmful impact.
“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Haugen alleged on 60 Minutes on Sunday. “And Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests like making more money.”
Facebook has publicly refuted Haugen’s claims, pointing to investments in security that the company has made in recent years.
“Every day our teams have to balance protecting the ability of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place,” Lena Pietsch, the director of policy communications for Facebook, said in a statement Sunday. “To suggest we encourage bad content or do nothing is just not true.”
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, said in a CNN interview on Sunday those making accusations that the company is commissioning research to “deliberately” brush it aside have it “back to front.”
“If we didn’t want to address those questions, we wouldn’t commission the research in the first place,” Clegg said.
Haugen’s career has included stops at Google, Pinterest and other social media companies, but she claimed what she saw at Facebook was “substantially worse.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who chairs the Senate Commerce subcommittee on Consumer Protections, Product Safety and Data Security, said in a tweet that he’s been speaking with Haugen in the lead-up to her testimony.
“From her first visit with my office, I’ve admired her backbone & bravery in revealing terrible truths about one of the world’s most powerful, implacable corporate giants,” Blumenthal said in a tweet. “Facebook’s actions make clear that we cannot trust it to police itself. We must consider stronger oversight, effective protections for children, & tools for parents, among the needed reforms.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the top Republican on the Senate subcommittee that will hear from Haugen, said it has been “fascinating” to comb over documents that Haugen provided the committee.
“What we want to know is how much data is Facebook capturing and what are they doing with that data, how long do they keep it, are they sharing with third parties, are they getting permission when they are datamining these children,” Blackburn said on Fox Business on Monday.
It is not clear how much information Haugen has shared with the committee in advance of her testimony, but during her interview Sunday, Haugen said she took thousands of pages of documents from Facebook so that “no one can question that this is real.”
Haugen also alleged on CBS that Facebook decided to ease safeguards put in place to stop the spread of disinformation during the 2020 election season, which she says contributed to the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
In an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, Clegg refuted that allegation as well.
“Social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out,” Clegg wrote. “But what evidence there is simply does not support the idea that Facebook, or social media more generally, is the primary cause of polarization.”
Haugen’s appearance before the committee Tuesday comes as part of an ongoing effort by Congress to assess how to regulate massive social media companies such as Facebook.
Last week, in a hearing before the same subcommittee that Haugen will appear before, lawmakers accused Facebook of taking a page from “big tobacco’s playbook” by hiding research about what they consider to be its addictive and harmful nature.
Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, faced bipartisan scrutiny as she defended the company during the hearing that lasted some three hours.
“We understand that recent reporting has raised a lot of questions about our internal research, including research we do to better understand young people’s experiences on Instagram,” Davis stated in written testimony. “We strongly disagree with how this reporting characterized our work, so we want to be clear about what that research shows, and what it does not show.”
