A Kansas Department of Revenue spokesperson says the initial online search of a state website that led a central Kansas police chief to raid a local weekly newspaper was legal

Pokémon’s TV series has been delighting animé lovers for more than 26 years, and yet, there’s one episode that even the most diehard of fans may well have missed. The installment, titled Dennō Senshi Porygon (which roughly translates as "Computer Warrior Porygon”) aired in Japan on December 16, 1997. And, after that single, fateful outing, it was never to grace television screens again. The reason for the ban? Reports of a strange health outbreak among children which was linked to a specific scene. The episode follows Ash Ketchum, Pikachu and their pals as they investigate a faulty Poké Ball transfer machine by getting inside it. Once there, the team come under attack, but are saved when Pikachu unleashes one of his high-octane electric outbursts – represented by a barrage of red and blue strobe lights. And that’s where the trouble began. According to scientific paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford and sociologist Robert Bartholomew, who dedicated a study to the event: "At 6:51 PM, the flashing lights of Pikachu's 'attack' appeared on television screens. “By 7:30 PM, according to Japan's Fire-Defense Agency, 618 children had been taken to hospitals complaining of various symptoms." These symptoms included convulsions, nausea and vomiting, with news of the “illness” spreading rapidly throughout the country. Inevitably, it made headlines, with several news broadcasters replaying the offending clip, “whereupon even more children fell ill and sought medical attention,” Radford and Bartholomew wrote. The following day, TV Tokyo issued an apology, suspended the show, and announced an investigation into the cause of the seizures. Meanwhile, video retailers pulled the series from their shelves, and even the then-prime minister Ryuaro Hashimoto expressed concern at the use of rays and lasers in the popular cartoon. Within two days, the number of children reported to have been affected by the flashing sequence increased to around 12,700. And yet, after four months of investigation – with input from health experts and Japanese government officials – no obvious cause could be found for the outbreak and Pokémon returned to the airwaves. Because, although the bright flashes were assumed to be the cause of the health panic, such visual techniques had been used in numerous other animé episodes before, with no reports of any problems. So what was going on here? Well, a tiny fraction of the children who reported being affected were diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy, with experts concluding that the rapid colour changes during the scene caused them to suffer seizures. However, the bulk of “patients” reported symptoms that had no identifiable “organic” cause and were, instead, consistent with a very different type of condition… Mass hysteria. Radford and Bartholomew attribute this “epidemic hysteria”, in large part, to the mass media, which they say fuelled panic and misinformation. "Many of the children's symptoms had no identifiable organic basis; other than the verified cases of seizures, the symptoms reported were minor and short-lived; the victims were nearly exclusively school children in early adolescence; and anxiety from dramatic media reports of the first wave of illness reports was evident,” they wrote. “Media reports and publicity fuel the hysteria as news of the affliction spreads, planting the idea or concern in the community while reinforcing and validating the veracity of the illness for the initial victims,” they continued. “According to news accounts of the time, the number of children said to be affected remained around 700 the evening of the Pokémon episode and the next day. “The next morning, the episode dominated the Japanese news. Japanese children who had not heard about their peers from the news or from their parents learned of it that morning when the seizures ‘were the talk of the schoolyards’,” they continued. “Once the children had a chance to hear panicky accounts of what had happened through the mass media, their friends and their schools, the number of children reported the next day to have been initially affected – 2 days earlier – increased by 12,000.” Radford and Bartholomew ended their paper by noting that this Pokémon drama offers a warning to us all. They pointed out that our continuing reliance on mass communications, especially TV and the internet, places us at risk of more and more hysteria outbreaks. “Technological innovations are occurring at unprecedented rates and have the potential to influence significant numbers of people beyond the typical number in traditional mass hysteria episodes,” they stressed. “Epidemic hysterias that in earlier periods were self-limited by geography now have free and wide access to the globe in seconds.” Concluding on an ominous note, they added: “The Pokémon illness symptoms are without precedence, given the large numbers affected, and may be a harbinger of future technological hysterias that have the capacity to affect unprecedented numbers of people at a phenomenal speed.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Google users say their files have been disappearing as one engineer urged them not to press a button that could make the problem even worse. In recent days, users of Google Drive – which allows people to store their files in the cloud – say that those files appear to have gone missing. Some report that months of files have disappeared, with no obvious way of getting them back. The files appear to have vanished without a trace, without any sign of why they disappeared or even if they are recoverable. The problem appears to be with a recent update to Google Drive for desktop, an app that can be installed on Mac or Windows to get access to files stored on Drive. Hundreds of people are complaining about the problem in recent days, using a Google forum that allows users to request help. The number is likely to be much higher. Google says that it is not clear what the issue is, with an employee saying that the company is “investigating reports of an issue impacting a limited subset of Drive for desktop users “. The statement indicated that the company would “follow up with more updates”, but it is yet to give any information. That representative of the Google Drive team did however urge users not to click the “Disconnect account” button on the Drive for Desktop app. That could cause further problems with lost files, the Google employee going by the name Saitej suggested. Some said however that they had heard that pressing that button could reset the app, and help find the lost files. As such, users voiced fears they had inadvertently contributed to the problem. Users were also told not to delete the app data folder, and advised to back up that folder onto their hard drive if they had space. Read More Bizarre bumps are appearing on Google’s latest smartphone Google issues one-week deadline to Gmail account holders Gmail users receive urgent warning before account purge

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. & WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 21, 2023--

If you're mooching off someone else's Netflix account, the company's password-sharing crackdown may have you

An apparent cyberattack forced the Philadelphia Inquirer to close its office through Tuesday, the newspaper's spokesperson Evan Benn told CNN in an email on Monday.

'Teen Mom' star Jenelle Evans and TikToker Zoe Laverne Day spend a day together with their husbands

It’s the most unexpected food trend of the year so far, and now McDonald’s has broken its silence on the Grimace shake going viral. In case you missed it, TikTok has been completely obsessed over a limited edition purple-coloured milkshake over recent days. Grimace has been a mascot in McDonald’s marketing for decades and the fast food giant honoured the 52nd birthday of the character by introducing the new item to menus in the US. Only, since then, TikTok users have made it the focus of a strange trend – which sees them drink it, then pretend to be dead after consuming it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Typically, the clips see someone sip the drink, before cutting to them in a fake crime scene looking like they’ve been poisoned. Gen Z is always finding new ways to surprise us, and the odd trend has racked up millions of hits. @wheresxander the foot twitch… it’s grimace taking over. #grimaceshake #grimacesbirthday Now, McDonald’s has addressed the trend with a lighthearted Tweet. The official account posted a picture of a Grimace mascot, writing: “meee pretending i don't see the grimace shake trendd.” The milkshake is only set to be on the menu for a limited time, but it looks like the trend isn’t going anywhere just yet - and the memes keep coming thick and fast. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

More than a week after educators first hit the picket line, the Oakland Education Association, which represents public school teachers in Oakland, California, announced Monday morning it has reached a tentative agreement with the Oakland Unified School District, ending the strike and sending some 35,000 students back to class.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to host the United Nations sponsored COP conference in 2028, as he

Australia will need to “substantially” boost financing for sustainable projects if the nation is to decarbonize its economy

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal Maintaining privacy and increasing understanding of blockchain technology are primary issues to solve before