A Texas Judge has rejected a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue a temporary order barring Tylenol’s maker, Kenvue, from claiming amid litigation that the pain and fever medication is safe for pregnant women and children, according to court documents.

In records filed Friday, District Judge LeAnn Rafferty, in Panola County, also rejected Paxton’s unusual request to block Kenvue from distributing $400 million in dividends to shareholders later this month.

The denials are early losses for Paxton in a politically charged case that hinges on the unproven claim that Tylenol causes autism and other disorders—a claim first introduced by President Trump and his anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In a bizarre press conference in September, Trump implored Americans repeatedly not to take the drug. But, scientific studies have not shown that Tylenol (acetaminophen) causes autism or other neurologic disorders. Some studies have claimed to find an association between Tylenol use and autism, but the studies have significant flaws, and others have found no link. Moreover, Tylenol is considered the safest pain and fever drug for use during pregnancy, and untreated pain and fevers in pregnancy are known to cause harms, including an increased risk of autism.

Still, Paxton filed the lawsuit October 28, claiming that Kenvue and Tylenol’s former parent company, Johnson & Johnson, deceptively marketed Tylenol as safe while knowing of an increased risk of autism and other disorders. The lawsuit sought to force Kenvue to change the way it markets Tylenol and pay fines, among other requests.

As a first step, the attorney general—who is running to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in next year’s Republican primary—attempted to get the judge to temporarily bar some of Tylenol’s safety claims and stop Kenvue from paying the dividends. He failed on both accounts.

Paxton made the request to stop the dividends under a state law that can keep companies on the brink of financial ruin from giving out funds that could otherwise be reserved for creditors, such as those suing the company over claims that Tylenol caused autism or other harms. Kenvue is facing a number of such lawsuits in the wake of Trump’s announcement. But, even the state’s lawyers acknowledged that Paxton’s request to block dividends was “extraordinary,” according to The Texas Tribune.

According to Reuters, one of Kenvue’s lawyers, Kim Bueno, explained that the problem with the state of Texas making this request is that Kenvue is based in New Jersey and incorporated in Delaware. “There was no jurisdiction to challenge that,” she said.

Rafferty determined that she did not have jurisdiction over the dividend claim. She also denied the marketing claim, which even the Trump administration is not standing by. The day after Paxton filed his lawsuit, Kennedy said that “the causative association… between Tylenol given in pregnancy and the perinatal periods is not sufficient to say it definitely causes autism.” Though, he called some studies “very suggestive.”

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Scientists have found traces of ancient opiates in the residue lining an Egyptian alabaster vase, indicating that opiate use was woven into the fabric of the culture. And the Egyptians didn’t just indulge occasionally: according to a paper published in the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, opiate use may have been a fixture of daily life.

In recent years, archaeologists have been applying the tools of pharmacology to excavated artifacts in collections around the world. As previously reported, there is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.

For instance, in 2023, David Tanasi, of the University of South Florida, posted a preprint on his preliminary analysis of a ceremonial mug decorated with the head of Bes, a popular deity believed to confer protection on households, especially mothers and children. After collecting sample residues from the vessel, Tanasi applied various techniques—including proteomic and genetic analyses and synchrotron radiation-based Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy—to characterize the residues.

Tanasi found traces of Syrian rue, whose seeds are known to have hallucinogenic properties that can induce dream-like visions, per the authors, thanks to its production of the alkaloids harmine and harmaline. There were also traces of blue water lily, which contains a psychoactive alkaloid that acts as a sedative, as well as a fermented alcoholic concoction containing yeasts, wheat, sesame seeds, fruit (possibly grapes), honey, and, um, “human fluids”: possibly breast milk, oral or vaginal mucus, and blood. A follow-up 2024 study confirmed those results and also found traces of pine nuts or Mediterranean pine oil; licorice; tartaric acid salts that were likely part of the aforementioned alcoholic concoction; and traces of spider flowers known to have medicinal properties.

Vessels of alabaster

Now we can add opiates to the list of pharmacological substances used by the ancient Egyptians. The authors of this latest paper focused on one alabaster vase in particular, housed in the Yale Peabody Museum’s Babylonian Collection. The vase is intact—a rare find—and is inscribed in four ancient languages and mentions Xerxes I, who reigned over the Achaemenid Empire from 486 to 465 BCE. The authors were particularly intrigued by the presence of a dark-brown residue inside the vase.

Past scholars had speculated the vases most likely held cosmetics or perfumes, or perhaps hidden messages between the king and his officials. Yet there are also several known pharmacopeia recipes contained in such works as the Anicia Juliana Codex of De materia medica by Dioscorides. The current authors analyzed residue samples with nondestructive techniques, namely portable X-ray fluorescence XRF (pXRF) and passive Fourier Transform Infrared (pFTIR) spectroscopy.

The result: distinct traces of several biomarkers for opium, such as noscapine, hydrocotarnine, morphine, thebaine, and papaverine. That’s consistent with an earlier identification of opiate residues found in several Egyptian alabaster vessels and Cypriot juglets excavated from a merchant’s tomb south of Cairo, dating back to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th century BCE).

The authors think these twin findings warrant a reassessment of prior assumptions about Egyptian alabaster vessels, many of which they believe could also have traces of ancient opiates. A good starting point, they suggest, is a set of vessels excavated from Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter. Many of those vessels have the same sticky dark brown organic residues. There was an early attempt to chemically analyze those residues in 1933 by Albert Lucas, who simply didn’t have the necessary technology to identify the compounds, although he was able to determine that the residues were not unguents or perfumes. Nobody has attempted to analyze the residues since.

Additional evidence of the value of the residues lies in the fact that looters didn’t engage in the usual “smash and grab” practices employed to collect precious metals when it came to the alabaster vessels. Instead, looters transferred the organic stuff into portable bags; there are still finger marks inside many of the vessels, as well as remnants of the leather bags used to collect the organics.

“It remains imminently possible, if not probable, that at least some of the vast remaining bulk of calcite vessels… in fact contained opiates as part of a long-lived Egyptian tradition we are only beginning to understand,” the authors concluded. Looters missed a few of the vessels, which still contain their original organic contents, making them ideal candidates for future analysis.

“We now have found opiate chemical signatures that Egyptian alabaster vessels attached to elite societies in Mesopotamia and embedded in more ordinary cultural circumstances within ancient Egypt,” said co-author Andrew Koh of the Yale Peabody Museum. “It’s possible these vessels were easily recognizable cultural markers for opium use in ancient times, just as hookahs today are attached to shisha tobacco consumption. Analyzing the contents of the jars from King Tut’s tomb would further clarify the role of opium in these ancient societies.”

DOI: Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, 2025. 10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.13.3.0317  (About DOIs).

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Be careful with your marketing stunts around national landmarks. That should be the take-home message from Chery Automobile’s recent attempt to measure itself up against Land Rover, an attempt that went sadly wrong.

In 2018, Land Rover and Chinese racing driver Ho-Pin Tung drove a Range Rover Sport up the 999 steps that make up the “Stairway to Heaven” that climb China’s Tianmen mountain. It was a dazzling stunt, for driving up a staircase that ranges between 45–60 degrees is no simple task, and one that’s certain to have left an impression with any acrophobics out there.

Chery certainly remembered it. The brand—which in fact is a long-time collaborator with Jaguar Land Rover and next year even takes over the Freelander brand from the British marque—has a new electric SUV called the Fulwin X3L and decided that it, too, was made of the right stuff. The SUV, which costs between $16,500–$22,000 in China, features a plug-in hybrid powertrain, boxy looks, and a whole bunch of off-roading features, including the ability to do tank turns.

Like Land Rover, Chery’s attempt was meant to highlight how capable the Fulwin X3L is when the going gets tough. But unfortunately, one of the safety lines to the SUV somehow became detached. This tangled up with a wheel, causing the Fulwin to slide backwards, taking out some of the railing in the process.

Chery said in a statement that there had been “insufficient estimation of potential risks and oversights in detailed control” for the exercise, and expressed deep regret for the damage caused, promising to shoulder the costs to put everything right, according to CarNews China.

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On the occasion of Ken Burns’ new series on the American Revolution, National Security Journal asked me for some thoughts on how things could have gone wrong for the Continentals in the war…

American accounts of the Revolution focus on how scrappy bands of rebels managed to defeat Europe’s most powerful crown, and tend to de-emphasize the extraordinary difficulties of holding onto a vast, lightly populated territory with poor infrastructure.

The inhabited territory of the Thirteen Colonies amounted to more than 400000 square miles, some five times the size of Great Britain. The colonies claimed some 2.5 million inhabitants to eight million Britons, although over half a million of the former were enslaved.

Moreover, although Great Britain was wealthier in aggregate than the Colonies, per capita living standards were almost certainly higher in America, mainly because of the abundance of land.

The British government also faced immense difficulties in maintaining armies in the field and in communication across the breadth of the Atlantic.

This is not to say that the Patriots faced an easy task; the British Army and the Royal Navy were larger, better armed, and more experienced than their Colonial counterparts. The British maintained better relations with the Native American tribes that lived on the frontier, a particularly sore point with the colonists. Nevertheless, conquering the recalcitrant colonies would have been an immensely difficult military task even for a Crown undistracted by other problems.

The post To the Revolution! appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

NFLNFLA few years ago, there were questions about whether JSN could ever be a true no. 1 wideout. Now, the Seahawks star is on pace for one of the greatest receiving seasons of all time.

By Danny Kelly • 7 min

It would almost be insulting to call what Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba is doing this year a breakout. No, he’s blasted off. He’s ascended to a higher football plane. The third-year pro has transformed into one of the best all-around playmakers in the game and built a burgeoning MVP case with absurd pass catching numbers through the season’s first 10 weeks. Smith-Njigba’s doing something that few saw coming heading into this season or even thought possible when he was a first-round pick in 2023. And if you haven’t been paying attention to Seattle’s offense this year, now’s a good time to get caught up on what could go down as one of the all-time best receiver seasons in NFL history. 

Let’s start with just the basic counting stats. With nine games in the books, Smith-Njigba has caught 63 passes and scored five touchdowns while racking up a league-best 1,041 receiving yards—putting him in rare company alongside All-Pro peers like Tyreek Hill, who had 1,076 yards through nine games in 2023, and Justin Jefferson, who had 1,060 yards in 2022. Smith-Njigba’s a full 210 yards ahead of Cincinnati’s Ja'Marr Chase, the no. 2 player on the receiving yards list, which is the largest difference between the top two players in that metric through Week 10 since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. (This is a good visual for the enormity of that delta.) At 115.7 receiving yards per game, Smith-Njigba is on pace for 1,967 yards this season—which would just edge out Calvin Johnson for the NFL’s single-season receiving record of 1,964 yards, set in 2012 (albeit in 16 games). 

In short, Smith-Njigba’s doing historic stuff, and it’s all that much more impressive when you consider he’s doing it on a Seahawks team that ranks dead last in the league in both pass rate (47 percent) and pass attempts per game (25.8). Yeah! It’s wild!

Thanks to what seems to be an immediate mind-meld connection with quarterback Sam Darnold (who’s been incredible in his own right), Smith-Njigba has emerged as a god-level go-to guy in the Seahawks offense this year. No receiver demands the ball at a higher clip than JSN, who leads the league with a 38.8 percent target rate (that’s pacing for second of all time, just shy of Brandon Marshall’s 40.1 percent target rate in 2012). If you really want your mind blown, get a load of his per-pass and per-route efficiency stats. Smith-Njigba is averaging 4.49 yards per team pass attempt. According to Fantasy Points Data, no receiver since at least 1966 has averaged more than 3.48 yards in that metric. And going back to 2013 (the earliest that TruMedia has reliable route tracking data), JSN leads all receivers (with a minimum of 100 routes) in yards per route run, with an average of 4.67. That’s a completely outrageous number. Anything over 2.0 yards per route run is considered good; there have been just 12 receivers who have finished a season with over 3.0 yards per route run in the past 12 years. In Cooper Kupp’s historic 2021 campaign (in which he racked up 1,947 yards, second most in a single season, and won the receiving triple crown), he averaged 3.12 yards per route run. Hill averaged 3.85 yards per route run while totaling 1,710 receiving yards in 2023. JSN’s blowing those numbers out of the water. And he's somehow getting even more efficient as the year goes along.

We saw that in Seattle's 44-22 win over Arizona last weekend. The Seahawks got more big plays from Smith-Njigba in the first quarter—four catches for 82 yards and a touchdown—than many good receivers have in an entire game. The team jumped out to a 35-0 lead in the first half before putting its offense on cruise control. Darnold dropped back to throw just twice over the final two quarters. JSN finished the game averaging a ridiculous 8.5 yards per route. Nice day at the office. 

That’s been the story for the shockingly efficient Seahawks offense for most of the year. That unit has, alongside a top-tier defense, helped carry the Seahawks to a 7-2 record as they head into a massive divisional grudge match against the Rams on Sunday. There are plenty of reasons that Seattle’s offense ranks first in success rate (53.1 percent), third in points per game (30.6), and fourth in offensive DVOA. Darnold has been nails all season long and has proved to be one of the best free agent signings in the league this year. Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has been one of the smartest hires, too—and he’s designed a scheme that maximizes Darnold’s skill set and gives his quarterback opportunities to show off his strong arm and deep-ball accuracy. But Smith-Njigba’s ascension to superstardom, and his emergence as a real, field-tilting no. 1 receiver, has unlocked an entirely new level for this offense.  

The degree of total mastery we’ve seen Smith-Njigba put on tape this year might surprise those who evaluated him coming out of Ohio State in 2023, and it might even surprise the team that drafted him. There were questions in the run-up to the draft about whether he was big enough, strong enough, and fast enough to be a true outside receiver at the next level. Some scouts and evaluators (including me) wondered whether he had the skill set to emerge as a legit no. 1. And in his rookie season, the Seahawks sort of projected those doubts, choosing to ease him into their offense by primarily bringing him in to catch screen passes or quick throws near the line of scrimmage. He finished the 2023 season with 63 catches for 628 yards and four touchdowns but averaged a pathetic 6.1 air yards per target—which ranked 87th out of 92 receivers with 25-plus catches that year, per TruMedia. That bizarre and frustrating deployment was probably a big part of what prompted JSN’s now-infamous response to a question about what Bears fans could expect after Chicago hired Seattle’s former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron in 2024. 

In JSN’s second season, his role definitely expanded under new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, as did his average air yards per target (8.7). He broke out to lead the Hawks with 100 catches for 1,130 yards and six touchdowns. But even then, JSN was primarily lined up in the slot, where he ran 74 percent of his routes. Grubb was fired after one season, so Smith-Njigba faced the specter of playing for his third offensive coordinator in three years, and questions remained over the offseason—especially after the Seahawks traded away DK Metcalf—as to whether the 6-foot, 197-pound Smith-Njigba was big enough or explosive enough to operate as a true no. 1. Was he the type of receiver who could line up anywhere and win his matchups?  

Watching Smith-Njigba run routes this year, it’s clear the answer is “yes.” He’s elevated every part of his game to become an all-around receiver, with very few weaknesses. JSN has been winning on all three levels, on basically every route concept, and from everywhere on the field—whether that’s outside, in the slot, or even from the backfield. Yahoo’s Nate Tice lays all of that out here:

In fact, in offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s new-look scheme this season, Smith-Njigba has run 81 percent of his routes from the outside—as dramatic a role shift as any receiver has seen this year. And he hasn’t just been good from the outside; he’s been incredible. Among the 85 receivers with 150-plus routes run this season, he ranks first in Fantasy Points’ separation score (0.22), first in route win rate (25.1 percent), and first in yards per route run (5.23) when deployed on the outside. Turns out he can route dudes up just fine from anywhere on the field. 

Smith-Njigba’s also been one of the most dangerous deep-ball receivers in the league. JSN leads the NFL in receptions of 20-plus air yards (12), per PFF, and in deep-ball yards (454), with two scores on those plays. He’s won a league-high five of seven contested catch opportunities deep down the field. And Darnold’s NFL passer rating when targeting Smith-Njigba on passes of 20-plus yards is a nearly perfect 156.3. 

Looking past those incredible numbers, it’s also worth pointing out that he is one of the most aesthetically pleasing pass catchers in the NFL. Smith-Njigba doesn’t look or play like some of the archetypal no. 1 receivers. He doesn't dominate with size like Mike Evans, Davante Adams, or DeAndre Hopkins. He doesn’t blow you away with explosive, runaway speed like Hill, Chase, or Metcalf. But he wins with a rare combination of fluidity, balance, and grace on the football field. He’s quick as a hiccup when getting into his route, showing the ability to juke and cut to discard coverage in a way we haven’t seen from a Seahawk since Doug Baldwin. 

He’s silky smooth as a route runner and knows how to separate both early and late in his route. He brings the innate body control and staccato footwork to jump up to catch the ball, pirouette, land, and keep rolling downfield without even breaking stride. He tracks the ball beautifully. He has sticky, nearly automatic hands. 

Smith-Njigba is doing it all. And he’s actively setting a new bar for what seems possible at the wide receiver position.